The Mormon Candidate - a Novel (35 page)

Halfway down the warehouse, two salesmen were busy with a shipping crate. One of them noticed Ben
, who smiled and said, “Just looking around.”

Without waiting for a response, he made like he was examining one of the motorcycles. When the two salesmen refocused on what they were doing, he headed back to Zachariah’s Harley. Shoving his hand
back
in
to
the gas tank, he pressed downward through the puddle of gasoline and the layer of goo.
T
he bottom felt soft.

Sliding his hand f
a
rther in, he managed to get his fingers to the edge of what felt like a loose floor inside the tank. Digging under it blindly, h
e
forced the flat piece to rise until it stood up inside the tank. Feeling under it, Ben touched
plastic-type mat
erial
that was
wet and gooey. He worked to separate it from the real bottom of the gas tank, digging his nails through
years’ worth of accumulation.

Finally loose inside the tank, i
t felt l
ike a small package, padded with multiple layers, the outer of which was disintegrating.

“Hey there!” One of the salesm
e
n approached. “Can I help you?”

“I’m good.”
Struggling to maintain a grip on the
small package, he bent it while pulling his hand out through the hole. He half-turned to hide his hand and the item he had just pulled out of Zachariah’s gas tank. “What a
tragedy—such a beautiful machine! What happened to this Harley
?”

“Heard it was fatal,” the salesman said. “Are you in the market for a Harley? Winter is the best time to buy a bike, you know.”

“I was thinking about it.” Slipping his soiled hand and the gooey
package
into the pocket of his new jacket, Ben
grinned
. “
M
y girlfriend’s busting my balls
to buy
a car, not a second bike.
”

“
U
h oh!”
The salesman laughed. “Time for a new girlfriend!”

When Ben
arrived at
Ray
’s
place
, the vehicle gate
swung open
,
the
steel door
unlocked
, and
the
wooden front door opened for him as if by magic. He went downstairs to the basement, where all the plasma screens on the wall showed the same photo:
Candidate Joe
Morgan in a set of white Mormon undergarments.

“You like?”
Ray
waved her arms grandly
. “I’m thinking of adopting it as our
corporate screen saver
.”

“Very attractive,” Ben said.
“Did the Latvian do it for you?”

“For free? Are you kidding? I found it on Google Image—could be
authentic, you know? Snapped through Morgan’s bedroom window or a hotel room.”

“Photoshop.” Ben pointed at the neck. “See the line here? It’s a headshot of Morgan combined with
a
stock photo o
f
a Mormon man in sacred undergarments.”

“Too bad.”
Ray
reset the monitors.
“How’s the witch hunt going?”

“Ha.”

“You look like hell,” she said.
“Are you back to playing football?”

“
How did you guess?
”

She
pointed at
his forehead.
“What’s
this
?”

“
New makeup I’m trying
.”

One of the monitors showed the view from the surveillance camera outside, focusing on the
black-and-
yellow GS upfront. “
And y
our
beast
looks like road kill.
What’s going on?
”

Ben told her what had happened yesterday at the
overlook
—the meeting with Palmyra and the psychiatrist, the empty floppy
disk pack on the cliff side, the kick that almost sent him plummeting to his death, and the abortive chase.

“Gee,”
Ray
said, “if you were James Bond, the series would
be
over after the first installment.”

“Thanks for your sympathy and support.”

“Did you get any photos?”

“Of the Ducati?” Ben shook his head. “A useless side-view, out of focus. He was real fast. But I might have something
else
. It’s from the dead guy’s Harley. Haven’t opened it yet.”

Pulling the flat package from his pocket, he walked over to an ancient laundry basin, which
Ray
now used
to stock up on
dirty dishes
. He
rinsed some of the goo off the package, exposing soft, gray material that had already dissolved into tatters.
He removed the outer layer, exposing another, then another,
seven or eight layers in all.

Inside was a floppy disk—a black plastic disk resembling a small turntable
record, encased in a flexible plastic sleeve. The
Radio Shack
paper sticker on the sleeve had deteriorated, flaking off when Ben touched it. He couldn’t see any handwriting on it, but it might have disappeared over
time.

“Five-and-a-qua
rter inch.
”
Ray
held it between a finger and a thumb
. “L
ate eighties
, early nineties
. Big institutions and government agencies used it
well into the
nineties. The smaller diskettes with the hard plastic shells came next. Remember those?”

“Vaguely.
What can we do with it
?”

“
Upload
it!”
Ray
drove her power wheelchair
around the line of computer servers.

Ben followed h
er.
“You have a floppy drive?”

“
I can
handle
punch cards
too
.”
She
turned on the lights over a
wooden
counter piled with electronic odds and ends. “Please, step into my office.”

He watched her
boot up an old desktop computer
and slip the
floppy disk into a drive
. T
he machine made grinding sounds. On
the screen
,
a
n
icon
appeared.
Ray
clicked twice, and
the document
opened.

User ID
: Zachiboy

Password:
DC
MT
DBS

File: B
FD11
1995

“Wait a minute,” Ben said. “There must be more. Look for another file—lists of names, personal information, service records.”

Ray
clicked back
to the directory. “Th
is is the
only file on this floppy.”

“Can’t be
.
Maybe it’
s encry
pted?”

Trying two other methods of searching for data,
Ray
shook her head. “There’s nothing else. Sorry.” She reopened the document. “He’s giving us
a
u
ser
n
ame and
p
assword
—
the keys to open a file. But where is that file?”

“Another floppy disk?” Ben groaned. “That would be number four.”

“Four?”

“The first
disk
I saw
was the one
Porter remove
d
from the body. He showed me a porn DVD the next day, but I bet he switch
ed
them,
though
what he
had found wa
s a decoy. The second one
was found by
Palmyra
Hinckley at home. She
tried to open it,
but the computer froze. She
destroyed it.
Probably
another decoy
. Now
we have the third.
”
Ben
snapped a photo of the screen an
d glanced at the rear of the Ca
non to make sure it was legible.
“
This is a clue
to
the location of the
fourth
floppy disk
.”

“Good luck.”
Ray
ejected the floppy disk.
“This dead guy is screwing with you. And for what? The Mormons’ baptism for the dead? It’s old news.” Tossing the disk into a garbage can,
Ray
rolled
b
ack to her desk. “Stop wasting
y
our time.”

“
Then why
did
they sen
d
the
Ghost
after him? And after me?”

“I don’t know.
It may be unrelated—his accident and your kick in the head. There’re some very upset dudes out there from
your previous investigations.”

Ben looked at her. “Come on!”

“Okay,” she said. “
E
ven if
the Mormons are
trying to intimidate you
to
make
you drop the investigation
,
I think they’re overreacting.
Even if you managed to find that floppy disk with Morgan’s hand
scribbling, t
his
s
tory
will
die in forty-eight hours
.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve
released thousands of news items and watched them rise and fall on the charts of Internet hits
. T
his
one
is
n’t going to catch fire
.
Every religion has its quirky rituals. Americans are tolerant, especially with something that’s been known a long time like the Mormon posthumous baptisms. Old news, no news.
”

“And the cover-
up? The Ducati attacks? Isn’t that hot news?”

“Only if they
manage to
kill you.”
Ray
laughed. “
If that happens, m
ake sure to send me
a
photo
of you gasping for your last whiff of air
.”

“I’ll put it on my to-do list.”
He headed upstairs.

“
Make sure it’s a
good photo
,” she yelled. “
D
on’t
blur
your face
!”

Chapter 41

They shook hands, and
the lawyer
beckoned
Ben
to a sitting area. The
corner
office was larger than
the average
living room
. T
he floor-to-ceiling glass walls overlooked Capitol
Hill
on one side and the White
H
ouse on the other.

A secretary brought in fresh coffee and sugar cubes—white and brown.

Lawrence
Ginsburg
was an elegant man in
his seventies. He wore
a blue buttoned-down shirt,
a
red-striped tie, and matching suspenders. He
poured a cup for Ben
.
“
Sugar
?”

“Thanks.”
Ben popped a white cube into his mouth
and broke it up with his teeth, sucking on it
.

“Isn’t it
getting
too cold to ride?”

“I use a heated jacket.” Ben showed him the
loose
wire and connecto
r.
“Why did you agree to meet with me?”

Ginsburg
chuckled. “Not because I expected you to pay my usual fee.”