The Schwarzschild Radius (19 page)

She scanned the walls for security cameras. None. Next, the drawers of the end tables. A clean ashtray and matches from the Algonquin Hotel. The study. There was a Dell PC.

She stood by the door motionless and listened to the muffled sound of Sonia moaning. Rachel had to think of an excuse for snooping around in case he walked in on her.

The PC was running and the screen saver created moving star patterns as though one were looking through the portal of a space ship. She might as well be in another world. A push of the mouse and the monitor came alive. The screen lock was on, prompting for a password. Rachel made a few stabs at it: FRANCO, ADMIN, PASSWORD, JETS, YANKEES, METS, NEWYORK, RANGERS. No luck. She made note of the model of the machine. There had to be a way of getting in. It might take five or ten or fifteen minutes for the screen saver to kick in again. If Jack showed up before that, he’d know she was poking around.

She moved quickly to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator to keep herself busy. Rachel’s heart was racing and she wasn’t even doing anything suspicious now. Her eye fell on a vial in the butter compartment. Steroids. Roid heads had explosive tempers. She recalled one incident in school where a boy who had acquired massive muscles in the span of six weeks suddenly exited through the window upon receiving his board scores.

“What are you looking for?” said a voice behind her. Franco stood at the entrance of the kitchen wearing only his boxer shorts. His torso was brutal.

“Just looking for some orange juice. The chicken was salty. Do you mind?”

“You shouldn’t keep the refrigerator open so long. Take out the juice.”

As she opened the container, he said, “What were you doin’ on the computer?”

“I―I just thought you might have some video games, but it asked for a password.” She felt him running his eyes all over her.

“When you’re done with the juice, put it back.” Then he disappeared into the bedroom.

Her pulse raced as she retreated to the living room. He could go from gentle to threatening in a heartbeat. She selected a CD.

There was nothing here to indicate that Jack killed anything besides childhood. Nothing that would give the police the right to break in and investigate. He was committing statutory rape, but that couldn’t be pursued without Sonia’s testimony.

When Sonia and Jack Franco were done, the couple exited the room with a neutral demeanor. Sonia was still adjusting her pants.

“You ready?” she said to Rachel.

“This is for you, Lisa,” he said, handing her two fifty dollar bills. “Remember what I said about being welcome here any time.”

“Thank you, Jack. It was a real pleasure meeting you.”

Outside, Sonia called a cab.

“I thought we might spend the night,” said Sonia. “But he had plans.”

“I didn’t know you were going to sleep with him,” said Rachel.

“You think he’s going to pay four-hundred bucks to watch two girls strip, then jerk off? Stop questioning so much. Look at you. Three-hundred bucks for two hours’ work, not even.” Rachel didn’t ask how much Sonia had earned.

“I have another gig tomorrow.” She looked at her cell phone. “This guy’s a doctor, so if you feel sick like tonight, he can help. You down?”

“I am. But I don’t do sex, Sonia.”

“Did I take care of you tonight? Same deal.”

Franco watched them as they crossed the street, watched the beautiful arch of Rachel’s back, the way her buttocks moved as she hurried to keep up with her friend. He would definitely be seeing her again.

achel figured out a way to get into these perverts’ PCs. She had programmed a flash drive, so that as soon as it was inserted, it would upload a Remote Administration Tool, or RAT, that would enable her to take control of the machine remotely.

She and Joules used to play around with hacking into each other’s computers back in the day, but three years is a long time in that field. Firewalls had become more robust, Internet security software was more aware of attempts to penetrate their host computers. There was no time to start figuring all this out from scratch. The Web offered an abundance of RATs.

Rachel chose SubSeven. It was a Trojan horse, a program that installed a server on the victim’s PC, neutralized the firewall, and opened a port, allowing access from outside. Rachel’s laptop had the client version of the software and could connect with any of the computers she had infected. SubSeven could take full control of the target machine as well as allow her to access files, determine the size of the hard disk, version of Windows running, and cached passwords. Another crucial feature was that it could activate any camera connected to the PC and record video images without the target knowing it. With this, she would be able to see what was going on in a room and possibly the face of the remote user. The program was open source, which meant that it was not only free, but that some of the greatest hackers in the world were constantly perfecting it over the years. The user’s manual was thirty-seven pages long, and Rachel figured she could read it before Chem class.

After returning from class, Rachel went to the computer room in her dorm and inserted the flash drive into the USB port of a machine. She had to find out how long it would take to gather the information―crucial to know when stealing data in someone else’s home. After repeated tries, it appeared that it took two minutes to complete the operation.

Once she had the information on the drive, she pulled it out and went back to her room. After retrieving the target’s IP address from the flash drive, she input that address into the SubSeven client program. Five minutes later, she had control of the remote PC and was accessing all its data. Now she was ready.

When classes were over for the day, Rachel set out for the Pleasure Palace. She recalled that there was a PC in Perlman’s office. How would she get access to it? At Forty-Second Street, she got off the train and walked to the library. She needed to download a death certificate.

Just as Rachel started up the steps to the entrance, her phone rang. It was Sonia.

“Rachel, listen, my client tonight wants a threesome with us―four-hundred each―you down?”

“Oh, God, no.”

“Did you hear me―four bills for doing what you do at home? What’s wrong? I had to bargain hard to get that rate.”

“You said just a show.”

“He changed his mind when he heard I had a new girl. I usually go with Dayna. If you say no, that might blow the whole thing.”

“No. I don’t do that. Sorry.”

“Jeez. What am I going to tell him? If he insists, I may have to find another girl.”

“You’ll definitely have to find another girl.”

“Whoa. Okay. I’ll call you back.”

Rachel was aware that homeless girls don’t refuse four-hundred dollars lightly.

The phone rang again.

“He agreed you would just do a show, no sex. Two-hundred for you.”

“Okay. But that’s all.”

“Mr. Perlman, can I ask you a favor? I need to make a copy. Can I use the machine in your office?”

“There’s a Staples or something not far from here.”

“It’s just one sheet.” She held it up. “It’s a death certificate.”

The side of Perlman’s face twitched.

“Ram, the lady needs to make a copy in the office.” He held up a heavy chain of keys that could have been a jailer’s.

Ram―Perlman’s assistant―led her upstairs. He swung the door open and Rachel’s eyes fell on the USB port of the PC. Ram followed her inside. As she raised the copier lid and positioned her paper with one hand, she pressed the configuration buttons with the other, setting it to seventy copies, legal size. When she pressed the start button, it began to spit out sheets in quick succession.

“Oh no,” she said, hitting the stop button. Guaranteed paper jam. “Ram, can you help me? I really need to make a copy of this. It’s a death certificate.” He couldn’t conceal his annoyance and said something under his breath.

“Put it back on the scanner,” he said, as if not wanting to touch the dead.

“I’ll get rid of these,” said Rachel, removing the printouts from the tray and ripping them up. Ram was now engrossed in reading the LCD instructions. Rachel walked to the waste paper basket. As she passed the PC, she stuck the flash drive into it. Now she needed two minutes.

“I think the jam is in the second tray,” she said.

“I took the paper out, but it still says paper jam,” he said.

“I always power off and power it back on. Then it resets.” That would take two minutes.

Ram did this and they waited as the power-on self-tests completed.

Now she just had to get that drive back out.

“It has to be letter-sized. Just one copy.” Rachel stepped back toward the PC, blocking the flash drive with her body and pulled it out.

“That’s it. That’s what I needed,” she said, holding Ram’s work in her hand. “Thank you, Ram. I just can’t do anything right today.”

She changed into a black teddy and started the evening’s work. After three customers in quick succession, Rachel got a breather. As she was standing in front of her booth, her eye fell on a familiar figure on the other side of the room. It was Detective McKenna.