Delirious (32 page)

Charlie had nowhere else to go. Nothing was left to hold him back. He had no home, no job, no family to turn to. The police would be looking for him, and ghosts were talking to him. He put the crackers back and carried his basket toward the exit.

Eddie had spoken, and Charlie was ready to obey. The only thing he needed now was money. And if there was one thing Charles Giles was good at, it was getting cash.

S
tepping outside the Whole Foods Market, Charlie scanned the parking lot for Maxim. It didn’t take long for him to spot the same gang of Goths, clustered together in a circle at the far end of the mall parking lot. As Charlie approached, he could see that they had gathered around a fellow Goth, a thin, muscular boy who was demonstrating his talent for gravity-defying stunts on a BMX bike. Sitting on the curb, smoking a cigarette and seemingly disinterested in the exhibition taken place, was Maxim. His lanky frame, jet-black hair, ripped jeans, and thin arms adorned with spiked bracelets, made him a perfect fit for this crowd.

As Charlie approached, Maxim turned, saw him, and then stood. The expression on Maxim’s face was an awkward combination of fear and surprise.

“Dude … what the … dude,” he said, pointing to Charlie. The encounter had understandably caught the boy off guard. It was not surprising that Charlie’s sudden appearance, like a mirage shimmering from desert sands, had left him speechless. His friends now took notice. The agitation in Maxim’s voice was enough to turn their attention away from the stunt rider and toward Charlie.

“Who is that?” a woman said to Maxim. She had a shock of short pink hair, perhaps a dozen piercings in her nose and ears, as well as a snaking barbed-wire tattoo that ran up the length of her neck.

The fact that Maxim could identify Charlie to the authorities didn’t concern him much. This crew didn’t seem the type to embrace any sort of police involvement.

“I don’t know,” Maxim said. “I’ve never seen him before.”

Spotting the opening to make his attack, Charlie’s eyes sparkled.

He didn’t tell them where he spent the night, Charlie thought.
That’s good.

“Well, he’s coming to talk to you,” she said.

Maxim took a step forward. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it,” he said. Maxim stood up and gave Charlie the most menacing look he could muster. “Back away, freak, or you’ll regret it,” he said.

Charlie stopped about five feet away. “Take it easy, buddy,” he said. “It seems that I’ve locked my keys in the car. I can get them without calling a tow or the police, but I could use an extra set of hands.”

“Well, I’m not it. So bug off, prick,” Maxim said.

“My mistake,” Charlie said. “I misjudged. I took you for the honest, helpful type. So tell me, do any of them know?” Charlie kept smiling.

The pink-haired woman was joined by another boy, perhaps Maxim’s age, but even thinner. A few of the other Goths had inched closer to get a better look at the scene unfolding. Before Walderman, Charlie would have dismissed them all as wastes—no-good punks high on drugs and going nowhere fast. His time in Walderman had changed all that. George had changed that thinking forever.
Who knows what lies underneath the surface?
Charlie thought. A Goth dressed in black, tattooed, and adorned with spikes could be a brilliant mathematician, while the businessman who drove the nice car, was clean shaven, and wore a suit might murder his family.

Maxim’s eyes narrowed. “Dude, do you need me to show you the way out?” He stood and took a few steps forward. His words sounded forced, as if he was acting the part of the angry young man.

Charlie knew better. He saw fear, not anger, in Maxim’s eyes. Fear that Charlie might share his secret with his friends.

“Look, I just needed some help, that’s all. No worries if you don’t want to help out,” Charlie said.

“And why should he help you?” the pink-haired woman asked. “What’s in it for him?”

Charlie smiled. “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I guess he just seemed the type to pitch in. Perhaps I misjudged.”

“Well, trust me. He’s not that type,” she said.

“Oh, really?” Charlie asked. “Why doesn’t he answer for himself?” His smile broadened.

“Because I know him, that’s why,” she said. “He doesn’t have to talk, you jerk-off.”

The bait had been taken. It was time to end the hunt. “Is that so? Well, maybe you don’t know everything there is to know about him. Is that possible?” Charlie watched Maxim’s eyes widen and knew that the subtext was not lost on him.

Stepping forward, Maxim got between the pink-haired woman and Charlie.

“It’s all right, Louisa,” Maxim said. “I’ll help this guy. I’ve been reading about karma lately. If anyone could use some, it’s me.”

Louisa shook her bright pink head in disbelief. “You’re right,” she said to Charlie. “I guess I don’t know everything about him.”

Maxim confronted Charlie as soon as the two were a safe distance away. “Dude, what the fuck are you doing here? Are you nuts?” he asked and then laughed. “Oh, forget about that. You are nuts.”

“And what about you? Where did you spend last night? A Holiday Inn?”

“I’m out because I didn’t need to be there,” Maxim said. “I had one bad showdown at home, and my mom called nine-one-one on me. I was a bit out of control, so they sedated me good and took me to lockup. Lucky for me, I got to be roommates with a real wacko. I told my dad about it, and he had me out of there in an hour. But you really shouldn’t be on the street right now, should you?”

“Perhaps.”

“And let me guess. You need my help.”

“You’re getting warmer.”

“I don’t have any money, dude. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to make some money,” Charlie said.

As they walked down rows of cars, Charlie kept an eye out for a vehicle that wasn’t locked. He stopped by a blue ′96 Buick Century. Either the owner was forgetful or the power door lock actuator was broken. Either way, the car doors were unlocked.

Charlie stood by the driver’s side door, pretending to fiddle with
the window. They were still close enough to Maxim’s crew for them to become suspicious.

Maxim, more intrigued than angry, went along. “I could use the money. What do I have to do?”

“How old are you?”

Maxim took a step back. “Dude! I’ve seen guys like you on T V. I ain’t into that shit.”

Charlie shook his head. “No. Are you old enough to drink?”

“Not legally,” Maxim said with a devilish grin.

Charlie had suspected this was the case. He had put Maxim at around nineteen or twenty. He could cruise Harvard Square until he found another partner for this crime, someone who had a bogus ID, but then he would risk exposing himself to a lot more people than he wanted. Maxim would do just fine.

“But you drink?”

“Yeah.”

“Fake ID?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Then that’s all you need. Five hundred dollars sound good to you?”

Maxim’s eyes narrowed. “Dude, you swear you’re not some sort of freak sex fiend? Because I don’t do that shit.”

Charlie laughed aloud. “Sorry, Maxim,” he said. “You’re not my type. No. This is strictly about money. But I can’t promise you it’s entirely on the level. If you want the cash, I can get it for you. Interested?”

“Yeah. I’m interested,” Maxim said.

With that Charlie pulled open the door to the Buick. He looked over at the Goths. At least Louisa had taken notice. Charlie shook Maxim’s hand.

“There is an Internet café on Prospect Street. Do you know it?” Charlie asked.

Maxim nodded.

“Meet me there in an hour.”

Maxim nodded again. “Dude, can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Charlie said. “What is it?”

“Are you still … still … hearing voices and shit?”

Eddie Prescott’s words flooded Charlie’s thoughts, sending shivers of fear through his body.

“No, man. That was just the drugs they gave me. You know how that place is. I’m good. And I’m going to help you get that cash. Deal?”

They shook hands again as Charlie closed the car door.

“They’re going to wonder why you didn’t drive away.”

“Just tell them I had other errands to run. Make up something.”

“I can do that,” Maxim said.

Charlie turned to leave. He got a few steps away and stopped, turning back toward Maxim.

“Oh, and Maxim? Don’t get cute. This is between us. I’m not held to the same confidentiality standards as Walderman. Got it?”

“Don’t worry. I got it.”

It was a fifteen-minute walk to the Internet café on Prospect. Charlie stepped inside. A girl, perhaps still in high school, was working behind the counter. She smiled at him. The place had a few people working on computers and a couple others drinking coffee.

“Welcome to Cyber Café,” the girl said. “Can I get something for you?”

“Not right now. Thank you. I’m just going to work on the computer for a minute.”

“Great!” she said. “Let me know if I can get you anything to eat or drink.”

“I will,” Charlie said, holding back a smile.

Deviousness, if not the mother, was at least a cousin of invention. Charlie had never desired the prestige super hackers sought and few achieved, but he understood the appeal and knew his fair share of “experts” who regularly plied the craft. His motivation now was desperation and not glory. For the first time in his life, Charlie was about to steal. And he wasn’t the least bit scared about transforming the coffee shop into a bank. The only thing that bothered him about it was that he was actually enjoying the rush.

E
ddie Prescott hadn’t spoken to him since leaving the market. In a way, Charlie missed hearing his voice. With Eddie talking to him from the grave, Charlie was a man on a mission. It was impossible for his logical mind to justify what he was doing and why, but he was willing to suspend his disbelief for something far more powerful than skepticism. Hope. Charlie kept Eddie’s voice alive by obsessing on his dead partner’s mantra.

The Seacoast Motel in Revere. All the answers are there.

What awaited him at that motel, he could only speculate. Perhaps it would explain what he had seen in the bathroom of Rudy Gomes’s apartment. Or who Anne Pedersen was, and why she’d followed him to the hospital. Maybe he’d learn the origin of the kill list, and why the voice of his dead partner filled his head. All that he knew was that he was a man on the run from the police and willing to do almost anything to stop running. Even if that meant stealing.

Internet cafés were a dying breed, but enough people without laptops, willing to pay a per minute usage fee, kept a few still in business. There was a total of four computers in the café. That was the right number. More, and it might take him much longer to get what he needed. Two of the four computers at the café were already in use. Charlie took a seat at one of two available terminals. The chair reminded Charlie of the mangy fixtures that masqueraded as furniture at Walderman. The thought of that place made him shiver.

Charlie clicked the Internet Explorer icon, and the café’s home
page loaded. The home page was exactly what he’d expected: a simple Web form with a series of fields for customers to fill out: name, address, credit card number and expiration date, and Card Verification Value Code, the three- or four-digit code on the back of every credit card.

Charlie knew his credit card number as well as the CVV from memory, but he wasn’t about to use them here. If the police were smart, they would flag his accounts.

Charlie feigned entering the information into the log-on screen. The computer station he’d selected faced the café’s service counter. Only people using the bathroom would be able to get a good look at what he was doing. He could keep an eye out for that and could hide his activity if needed.

Step one in his plan was to build a duplicate Web form—identical to the form the café required customers to complete for Internet access. He was thankful they hadn’t converted to free Wi-Fi yet. Charlie saved the graphics in a folder on the C drive on the computer. He then opened a notepad document and started to code.

Thirty minutes later Charlie had re-created the Web form, only he wasn’t going through a Web server to display the Web page. The page, in fact, was local to the computer, and the Web form would be programmed to capture any information customers entered into the fields and to output that data to another file on the same computer. Any user, familiar or not with this particular Internet café, would have a difficult time detecting that the form they were entering their most personal information into was actually a forgery.

He made the credit card information fields encrypted for added authenticity. That way when a user typed in those boxes, they would see asterisks in place of numbers. Those sorts of simple security measures were an industry standard now. When a user saw that type of encryption on a site, they understood it meant that their information was protected. Of course, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Next, Charlie wrote a simple program in less time than it had taken him to create the forged Web page. There were only fifteen lines of code in his program. If he were a more practiced software
engineer, he could probably have done it in five. But his chops had rusted long ago. It was hard enough to dig through his mental archives and remember the basics.

His program was a relatively simple one: take the values that a user entered into the text boxes on his dummy log-on page, and then write that data to a text file stored in a hidden location that Charlie had specified on the café’s computer.

Charlie’s dummy home page was not connected to the Internet. That meant it couldn’t process any credit card information. To keep suspicion of his handiwork to a minimum, Charlie added to his program a simple browser redirect. Right after a user clicked the submit button on his forged log-on page, Charlie’s program would not only write the data to a text file, but it would also redirect the user to the real log-on page. That way users would think their information didn’t process and they’d simply enter it again, but this time on the form that would grant them access to the Internet at three dollars per hour.