Signwave (8 page)

|>Connect 2?<|

I didn't know who the cyber-ghost was, much less what time zone he'd be sending from, so I never expected a message at any particular time, unless I asked for a reply ASAP. This time, I did.

—

T
he response was waiting an hour later, the info all loaded onto the little screen.

I copied it off as quickly as I could, knowing that I couldn't leave the line “live” for long. And that as soon as I touched a single key,
any
key, the message would disappear.

||

Then came a long list of names. A couple I recognized, most not. I tapped three keys:

|>Thx<|

…and watched the screen go blank before I took it apart.

Then I sat down and looked over the notes I'd taken. I knew that “verified” connections meant Benton had contacted all the names on that long list using some “anonymizer” program. That didn't mean they were connected to each other, just to him. Not encrypted, just not easily traceable to any specific ISP.

I took my list upstairs and showed it to Dolly.

“This is a ‘Who's Who' of political power in the whole county,” she told me. “I can tell you that much without even going online. Some of the names I don't know, but I'm guessing they're heavyweights—not the kind of people who run for office, the kind who finance those runs.”

“Could you…?”

But Dolly was already banging keys on her laptop before I could finish asking her.

—

“E
verything from dentists to architects,” Dolly said, pointing at the screen of her tablet.

“Some small fleet owners, a café—the big one, where they do those readings by local writers—even a bed-and-breakfast.”

“But they all have money?”

“I…guess so. I mean, to get on
this
list, it's like joining a club. And the membership requirement would be either money or power.”

“Not the same?”

“I don't think so, Dell. Not necessarily, anyway. Like, say, somebody could run for Town Council, that's some power, sure. But if he was just a tool of people who put up the money to get him elected, and he had to do what they told him to…”

“How much?”

“How much?” she repeated my question, making it her own, to me.

“Money.”

“Oh. I guess that depends. This place, it's like, I don't know, in a permanent state of détente. There's hard-core right-wingers, and there's some just as committed to peace-and-love, even if they have to wage war to bring understanding to the unenlightened.”

“Fringes, then?”

“Fringes with overlap, Dell. If the liberals who write those ‘ban all guns' letters to the paper don't actually try and make that a
law
, the right-wingers content themselves with writing letters calling the liberals a bunch of wimps. Ignorant wimps. See?”

“No. I really don't, Dolly. You're saying…what? It's like some argument in a bar where people call each other names but never throw a punch?”

“Sort of. The
really
rich people have more than one home—they only live here for part of the year. And the
really
poor people don't vote. There's some businesses that make money, but there's just as many, maybe more, that are really just…hobbies, like. You know, those stores that sell used books, or the artist studios that don't sell enough to pay the rent.”

“But even those, they depend on tourists?”

“Sure. That's why they brought Mack out here. In fact, he's a perfect example: The liberals say ‘homeless' like it's some
sacred status, and the conservatives say it like they're all a bunch of bums too lazy to work. Mack keeps track of them. The homeless. So he's helping them
and
keeping them from making a scene outside any of the businesses at the same time. That pretty much sums up this place.”

“So you don't need money to get into politics?”

“You need
some
money. Not much. Not unless you have an opponent, and most of the time, you don't. That's where the money comes in—making sure everyone knows who
their
candidate is. No point putting your own money against much bigger money.”

“So why would he say you shouldn't be running around half cocked?”

“Who?”

“Benton, Dolly,” I said, very patiently. I was calm and soft-voiced, but my wife knows me better than anyone.

“Oh! I don't know, actually. I mean, it was no secret that some corporation was buying up that whole strip of worthless land. Like I said, it was in—”

“Right. And you wanted to know—?”

“Those are
public
records, Dell. It isn't like this corporation was trying to cover its tracks, anyway. The only thing people are wondering about it is
why
. And that's just gossip, not some…investigation.”

“Not like whatever you and those girls have tacked up all over the place, then?”

“Dell, it's nothing.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You don't believe me!” she said, putting that little pout on her face that she knew always worked with me.

I pulled her onto my lap, put my arm around her, said words I know she loves to hear.

But I
didn't
believe her, not for a second.

—

R
ascal made a little growling sound.

Dolly hopped off my lap, just in time to open the back door for three girls. I knew there would be more of them on their way, so I went downstairs.

Buying up a tract of worthless land didn't make sense. It couldn't be what was underneath it, like that patch of dirt calling itself the Central African Republic where Hutu
génocidaires
might find more hospitality than in the Congo—provided they picked the winning side.

But I knew the Darkville Rules: When it comes to land, there's no such thing as “worthless,” it's only a question of what it's worth to take it. Or keep it.

And whoever was buying up all the land knew that not hiding himself was a good way to hide his objective. A Judas goat never gets to make up his
own
mind, so you couldn't call him a traitor. But the trick worked just the same.

I spent a lot of time thinking about that.

I knew there were ways for any Web site to collect information about anyone who clicked on it. Not a lot of information, probably. But maybe enough to finger Dolly as the instigator, working backward to the source. Maybe this was how Benton had known Dolly and her crew were poking around. Only I couldn't see why
Undercurrents
would be cooperating with anyone seeking
their
sources.

Was he just guessing? Or carpet bombing, covering all the possibilities? Dolly said he hadn't really warned her off. He was just being friendly, asking her to get all the facts before she made up her mind.

I didn't believe that, either.

—

“T
here's a way to tell if a hedge fund is open to the public?”

“Sure,” the lawyer answered. “Take me a minute.”

Ever since he'd won an acquittal for MaryLou in a trial that had all the elements for national news coverage—“Star Softball Pitcher in School Shooting!”—Bradley L. Swift occupied the top spot on the statewide criminal defense pyramid.

It had been an unwinnable case: MaryLou walked up to the high school's heartthrob, shot him in the head, put down the pistol, and sat there waiting for the cops. But Swift had proved the “victim” had been the leader of a rape-initiation gang, targeting the school's low-hanging fruit by sniffing out absence of self-esteem like predatory bloodhounds. And MaryLou had believed her little sister was next in line.

Dolly had used her local network to dig up some ugly truth; I'd used my past to put some heads up on stakes. The town had changed, and so had Swift.

“I'd appreciate that,” I said.

It didn't even take that minute.

“No. In fact, it even says that the fund is currently oversubscribed—they won't be open to new shareholders for at least another year
after
it declares earnings. And, so far, they show nothing but some minor expenses. Not exactly an encouragement.

“You could put yourself on an e-mail list, and they'll notify you when they're ready to sell more shares.
If
they ever are. I figured you wouldn't want me doing that.”

“You were right. Thanks.”

“You…heard something?”

“No,” I told the lawyer. “Neither did you.”

—

J
ust one more set of questions for the ghost.

You can put all kinds of security on a Web site, but if anyone with higher skills than yours was looking, your security would be about as effective as trying to dam a river with barbed wire. So I opened up my little machine.

|>HF capital? Share ownership?<|

I didn't expect an instant answer, so I disassembled the machine and went back to work on something I was building. I could feel Luc nodding his approval of my design…and that old man's approval never came easy.

It looked just like a golf bag. But I could unsnap the top and pull another bag out from inside it. The outside bag was gaudy, red and white, with some big logo on it. The inside one was black and gray, in a blotchy pattern. In darkness it had the trick-the-eye quality of the best
trompe l'oeil
.

One pattern for transporting to and from the job, the other for actually doing it.

The bottom of the workbag was a spongy foam that would safely cushion even a piece of fragile glassware dropped into it. The inside walls were a series of Velcro flaps, set so I could cover the first thing I dropped in with another flap, and close it as firmly as I needed each time. The top of that first flap would be ready to silence the next thing dropped into the bag, and so on, all the way to the top.

I could carry a thirty-kilo load of loot with the shoulder strap, and the contents wouldn't make a sound.

That would leave one arm free. And both hands.

—

“H
e followed her here. He says he'll follow her no matter where she goes.”

“And she doesn't want that?”

“Dell! Sometimes I don't know what's going on in your mind. Laura's my friend. I was just telling you what she told me.”

“Why tell you in the first place?”

Dolly spun and walked away from me. I expected her usual three steps before she whirled and started in again, but I was wrong—it took four this time.

“I said she's my
friend
. Friends tell each other things.”

“If she's your friend, she knows you.”

“I just
said
—”

“I don't mean know you like to say hello to, Dolly. I mean, if she's a real friend, she knows
you
. Knows how you are inside.”

“You think Laura wants me to do something—is that what you're saying?”

“I don't know,” I said, throwing up my hands, palms out, to ward off whatever she was going to say next. “All I'm saying is, I don't know how
well
she knows you.”

“And…”

“And that's why I asked.”

“Asked
what
?”

“Dolly…Dolly, just sit down and listen for a minute. I know you really like Cordelia. I'm not saying anything against her.
Or
Laura. I'm just asking, how does this guy always manage to find Cordelia, every time?”

“You think she…No! She's a beautician. Or a hair stylist. Or whatever it's called. But, to do what she does, she has to have a
license
, okay? She has to register with the state. That's public information. He doesn't exactly need CIA connections to look it up.”

“How quick does he find her?”

“How quick?”

“Yeah. She's been here, what, three, four years?”

“So?”

“So he's been looking all this time, and now he's found her?”

“Oh. Yes. That's what happened. That's why she only just told Laura about it.”

“There's a law against that, right? Stalking, or something.”

“That's only if he
does
something. He can
watch
her all he wants.”

“She has a Facebook page?”

“So—you
do
listen once in a while, huh?”

“Dolly…”

“No, she
doesn't
have a Facebook page” was my wife's tart response. “She isn't in the phone book. She doesn't even have a landline, just her cell. And she's changed her e-mail address, too. More than once. But now that he's found the place where she works, all he has to do is follow her home one night.”

“Sure. But what makes you think…?”

“He walked right into the place—they do men and women both, so it didn't seem strange. The girl at the front pointed him to her station. Probably figured she was doing Cordy a favor—her chair was empty. He sat down and told her he wanted a haircut. She said she wasn't cutting his hair. Ever. And you know what he did? He complained to the manager!”

“She shouldn't have to—”

“Oh, she didn't. I mean, the manager, Liz, she told the guy he wasn't welcome in her place. She's tough, Liz. We all went down to Legal Aid, but they said there was nothing we could do unless he had a record. A record of assaulting her, I mean. Or if she had some kind of Order of Protection.”

“Couldn't she get one?”

“She tried. But the court they sent her to, they said she needed proof that she was in immediate danger.”

“Wasn't she?”

“Not as far as
they
were concerned. When he beat her up the last time, that's when she took off. All the times before that, she never reported him to the police.
Now
she would, but he's not going to do that again.”