Hacker For Hire (Ted Higuera Series Book 2) (8 page)

Ted pulled his
battered Mitsubishi Mirage off of Lake City Way into the parking lot of a Seven-Eleven,
a block from the Dirty Bird. He didn’t want anyone to see his car.

Mama would have
a fit if she could see me now.
It wasn’t that Ted was an innocent. When you
visit strip clubs with the football team it's one thing. But when you go by
yourself, you're a pervert.

He shrugged. Oh
well, he had a job to do. When he called ahead to make an appointment with Mr.
Caglione, the girl said that Rico insisted that they meet at the Dirty Bird
that night. Meeting a mob boss would be an experience that he wouldn’t tell his
grandchildren about.

“Hey, taco
bender!” A tough looking dude with a shaved head and muscles bulging out of his
T-shirt shouted at Ted. “You can’t park there.”

“It’s okay.” Ted
didn’t like the look of the guy, or his buddy. “I’m here to meet Mr. Caglione.
I’ll only be a few minutes.”

“I don’t think you
heard me, asswipe.” The tough flipped his cigarette away. “We don’t allow
wetbacks here.”

“What, you work
here?” Ted stalled for time as he looked towards the Seven-Eleven.

“Nah, we just
protect Lake City from illegal greasers like you. Now move your car.”

Ted’s spider sense
tingled, his heart beat off the charts. He ignored his tormentor, turned and
walked towards the club.

The Dirty Bird’s
windows were all sealed off. Black silhouettes of naked women adorned the buff-colored
walls. The large sign read “Girls, Girls, Girls” with a giant arrow pointing to
the building.

Ted walked into
the litter strewn parking lot. It was obvious that the club’s clientele was protective
about their identities. The building was in the front of the lot, the parking
behind the building. The main entrance, in the back of the building, was shielded
from the street. Anyone entering or leaving would be unseen by passersby.

At this time of
day, there was only a scattering of cars in the lot. Pickup trucks mixed with
muscle cars, BMW’s and Mercedes.

It took a moment
for his nerves to settle down and his eyes to adjust to the light.

“Hey, handsome,
can I help you?”

He didn’t need to
adjust to appreciate the gorgeous redhead in a black leather bustier that met
him at the door. She had to be at least six-feet tall. In four inch stilettos,
she towered over Ted. L
ook at the knockers on that lady; they poke clear
into the middle of next week.

His eyes adjusted
as he looked around the room. The walls and ceiling were painted black. A moldy
smell wafted up from the cheap shag carpet under his feet. The aromas of beer,
tobacco and vomit assaulted his nose. Loud techno-rock blared from speakers on
the walls. A stage with four stripper poles dominated the room, circled by a
bar and chairs.

A couple of
patrons sat at the bar, salivating over the skinny blonde in platform stilettos
that strutted naked on the stage to Nine-Inch-Nails. In the harsh glare of the
klieg light, Ted could see that her neatly trimmed pubes didn’t match her hair.

The rest of the
room held tables and chairs. A few men sat at the tables, usually accompanied
by young women in lingerie. A slightly plump woman with enormous breasts
twirled tassels in her customer’s face. Ted stared openmouthed as she held her
hands over her head and flexed her muscles. Her giant breasts bobbled and the
red tassels rotated first to the right, then to the left. Then she got them
going in opposite directions.

“What can I do for
you, honey?” The redhead rubbed her hands over Ted’s shoulders.

Jerked back to
reality by her touch, Ted remembered to his task. “I’m here to see Mr. Caglione.
I have an appointment.”

“Come right this
way.” She turned and walked towards a door at the back of the room. Ted nearly
tripped on his tongue as he followed her perfect round bottom. Somehow, he
managed to notice the other women in the room.

There’s enough
silicone in these chi-chis to fill Malibu beach.

“Mr. Caglione, we
have a young stud here to see you.” The redhead opened the door and stepped
aside.

Ted didn’t know
what he was expecting, but this wasn’t it. Caglione’s office was the height of
good taste. Carpeted, with dark wood paneled walls and walnut furniture, the
walls covered with English hunting pictures like an expensive gentlemen’s club,
someone had spent a lot of money on an interior designer.

“You must be Ted.”
The silver-haired man wearing a diamond pinky ring and a three-thousand-dollar
suit stepped forward and extended his hand. “Nice to meet you. Justin said you
were one of his best.”

“Oh, I don’t know
about that.” Caglione seemed like a nice guy. “I have the reports for you.” Why
wasn’t Ted’s spider sense tingling? This dude was bad, but he came across like
someone’s
abuelo.

“Okay, whatcha got
for me, kid?” Rico settled down into the red leather swivel chair behind his
large desk.

Ted reached into
his backpack and produced two bound copies of his report. “We ran a suite of
eighty tests. You look pretty good in most areas. You’ll see in the summary, on
page seven, that we found vulnerabilities to cross-site scripting on five pages
on your web site and were able to break the password on your SQL Server. You
need to harden all of your passwords. We recommend using password generating
software, but at the minimum, they should be at least eight characters, have at
least one capital letter, one number and one symbol. It’s best if you don’t use
any words that you can look up in a dictionary. You might want to use acronyms
like ‘Ntt1sto#’. That stands for ‘Never take the first offer.’”

Caglione browsed
through the report. “This stuff looks good, kid. You do good work.”

The meeting really
wasn’t that bad. Ted expected seedy body guards with bulges under their jackets
picking their teeth with silver toothpicks. He got total professionalism. He
might as well be meeting with IBM. It ended on a creepy note though.

“I’m impressed and
it’s not easy to impress Rico Caglione.” Caglione put down the report. “You’ve
found some holes we need to plug. That’s good. It’s better to find your own
weaknesses before your enemies do. Let me give you a little bonus. Take one of
my girls for the night.”

Rico stood up and
opened the door.

“Take Elsa. She’s
my favorite.” Caglione smirked. “She can give head like nobody.”

“Ah, thanks, Mr. Caglione.
But I gotta go.” Ted stuffed his papers into his backpack and stood up. “I have
another appointment. Maybe another time.” No sense antagonizing a mafia don.

“Yeah, sure.
Another time. Don’t forget: I owe you. Ricco Caglione never forgets his debts.”

Suddenly Ted felt
like he needed a shower. He couldn’t wait to get out of that dump and dashed
for the door.

Outside, he
breathed in a lungful of fresh air. A weight was lifted off of him. He never
had to do business with Caglione again. He was done.

Ted walked back to
his car and froze. The passenger’s side was bashed in. The door was so mangled
that metal rails poked out through the torn sheet metal. He looked at the dents
on the rear panel. Boot marks. Someone had not only hit his car, but the
baboso
got out and kicked it.

“Son of a bitch.”
Ted’s temperature rose.

“Taco boy. You
didn’t listen to us.”

Ted turned to see
the tough that had tormented him earlier standing in front of seven other
equally bad looking dudes.

“I’m not looking
for any trouble.” Ted remembered Falstaff from his Shakespeare class. Suddenly
discretion seemed the better part of valor. “I just want to get in my car and
get out of here.”

“You hear that,
boys. He’s not looking for trouble. Well, shit face, trouble found
you
.
We told you we didn’t want your kind hanging around here. I think we need to
teach you a little lesson.” The baldheaded man stepped to within inches of
Ted’s face.

His breath,
smelling of decaying teeth and old tobacco, nearly knocked Ted over. For the
first time, Ted noticed that there was something on the man’s eyelids.

“Yeah, that’s
right, you sub-human scum.”

The man closed his
eyes and Ted saw the swastikas tattooed on each lid.
Oh shit, I’m gonna take
such a beating
.

Ted didn’t so much
think as react. His right fist lashed out, meeting the tough’s face squarely on
the chin. The tough went down in a heap. Ted wasn’t a big man, but he was no
pushover. Endless hours in the weight room training and running the track had
him in prime shape. He had to be to survive on a football field where the
linemen outweighed him by a hundred pounds.

Everything seemed
to go into slow motion. He landed a couple of solid blows. It took an hour for
the asshole’s head to snap back. He connected with a left to one guy’s face, he
smashed a nose. The blood hung in the air. He took a step back. “No crowding,
boys, you’ll all get a chance to be slapped silly by Spidey.” He was beginning
to feel like he might get out of this, then someone took his feet out from under
him. He watched the pavement rise to meet him.

He slammed into
the blacktop and felt the blood running down his face. A boot landed in his
gut, then another one on his chest. He heard a loud snapping sound, like a dry
stick breaking. When the kick landed on his chin, he saw a flash of light, then
everything went fuzzy.

Ted curled himself
into a ball and covered his head with his hands. The blows came quick and hard.
He had no idea how long he took the pounding.

“Freeze. Hold it
right there.” A woman’s husky voice cut the air.

The blows stopped.
Ted opened his one eye that was still working. He saw a maze of jeans and boots
and, through a pair of legs, he saw two slim legs in black pants.

“Well, well, what
have we here?” one of Ted’s assailants asked. “The little lady wants us to
stop.”

“I’ve already
called 9-1-1. The police’ll be here any minute. You might as well take off
before they get here.”

Ted could get a
better look at her now. She seemed tall, nearly as tall as some of the men. No
stick girl, she looked solid. Dressed from head to foot in black, there was a
slender black man standing next to her, also dressed in the same outfit.

“Look, she’s
brought her nigger with her too.” A man with tattoos on his bald head moved
towards the woman.

“Freeze. Step
back.” She flicked her wrist and suddenly held what looked like Harry Potter’s
magic wand.

“The little lady
likes to play rough.” The tattooed man reached in his hip pocket and produced a
switch blade. “I think we can accommodate her.” The click of the switch blade
opening was almost deafening in the sudden silence.

In a blur of
motion too fast for Ted to follow, the woman flicked her wrist and her magic
wand expanded into a police baton. She stepped forward and swatted at Tatoo’s
wrist. The switchblade went clattering along the pavement. Before he could
react, she planted her foot deep in his crotch. He doubled up, hands on his
cajones
.

She stepped back
and kicked him again, this time squarely on the chin. He melted into the
pavement.

Two men charged the
black man. He flipped his wrist and produced a police baton too. He smacked the
first across the face, then delicately sidestepped the second charging man like
a matador. As the man passed, he brought the baton down on the back of his
neck. The man went down.

Somewhere in the
distance, Ted heard sirens. The last thing he remembered was looking up into
the woman’s face, ringed by blonde hair and a halo from the street lights.

“Are you an angel?”

****

Chris felt his
heartbeat quicken. He swallowed as the elevator stopped on the sixty-fifth
floor. Chris had been in this lobby a hundred times, but it never felt this
intimidating. The bank of elevators opened to granite, dark wood and brass. A
reception area sat at the end of the lobby. He stepped out of the elevator car
and walked quickly to the restroom. Nerves always made his bladder seem full.

Returning to the
lobby, he took a deep breath and walked up to the reception desk at Hardwick, Bernstein
& Johnson.

“Good morning, Mr.
Hardwick.” The receptionist flashed a pretty smile. “Mr. Hardwick, I mean your
dad, is in a meeting with a client right now. If you’ll take a seat, I’ll let
him know you’re here.”

“That’s okay,
Cheryl. I’m not here to see him.” The tie around his neck suddenly felt like a
noose. “I need to see Kelly Mason from HR.”

“I’ll let her know
you’re here.”

Chris sat in one
of the overstuffed love seats in the reception area and studied the old-time photos
of Seattle and the Puget Sound area.
Architectural Digest, Sunset
and
Conde
Nast Traveler
magazines were carefully arranged on the glass coffee table.
A large ficus plant sat at one end of the loveseat, a banana palm at the other.
Chris leafed through a coffee table book about major league baseball parks.

So this was it.
Dad had finally gotten his way. It really wasn’t so bad, was it? Chris needed a
job. Being a paralegal for a year before he started law school would be good
experience. He just had to be careful not to take advantage of his position as
the boss’ son.

“Mr. Hardwick?
It’s good to meet you.” Kelly Mason stepped into the reception area. “I’m
Kelly.”

Chris eyed the
gorgeous woman with long, curly brown locks. Chocolate eyes glowed above a
perfect smile. She wore a frilly white blouse whose ruffles failed to conceal
the curves underneath and a snug black skirt. His eyes followed down her legs
to the matching black pumps.

She’s as good
looking as all of Dad’s employees.
“Hi. I’m . . . uh . . .” There it was
again. His tongue was tied in knots. “. . . Call me Chris.”