Mitch said nothing.
'Friend of Anson, are you there?'
'Yes.'
'I hope you're taking good care of my Chrysler Windsor. I love that car. See you later.'
Chapter 51
Mitch located the kitchen drawer in which Anson kept two boxes of plastic trash-can liners. He chose the smaller of the sizes, a white thirteen-gallon bag.
He put the blocks of cash and the envelope of bearer bonds in the bag. He twisted the top but didn't tie a knot.
At this hour, in the usual traffic, Rancho Santa Fe was as much as two hours from Corona del Mar. Even if Campbell had associates at work here in Orange County, they wouldn't arrive immediately.
When Mitch returned to the laundry room, Anson said, 'Who called?'
'He was selling something.'
Sea-green and bloodshot, Anson's eyes were oceans murky with shark's work. 'It didn't sound like sales.'
'If you were going to tell me what you do for a living.'
Malicious glee swam into Anson's eyes again. He wanted to share his triumph less out of pride than because somehow it was knowledge that would wound Mitch.
'Imagine you send data to a customer over the Internet, and on receipt it appears to be innocent material — say photos and a text history of Ireland.'
'Appears to be.'
'It's not like encrypted data, which is meaningless if you don't have the code. Instead it appears clear, unremarkable. But when you process it with a special software, the photos and text combine and re-form into completely different material, into the hidden truth.''
'What is the truth?'
'Wait. First…your customer downloads the software and never has a hard copy. If police search his computer and try to copy or analyze the operative software, the program self-destructs beyond reconstitution. Likewise documents stored on the computer in either original or converted form.'
Having striven to keep his computer knowledge to the minimum that the modern world would allow, Mitch wasn't sure that he saw the most useful applications of this, but one occurred to him.
'So terrorists could communicate over the Internet, and anyone sampling their transmissions would find them sharing only a history of Ireland.'
'Or France or Tahiti, or long analyses of John Wayne's films. No sinister material, no obvious encryption to raise suspicion. But terrorists aren't a stable, profitable market.'
'Who is?'
'There are many. But I want you to know especially about the work I did for Julian Campbell.'
'The entertainment entrepreneur,' Mitch said.
'It's true he owns casinos in several countries. Partly he uses them to launder money from other activities.'
Mitch thought he knew the real Anson, a man far different from the one who had ridden south with him to Rancho Santa Fe. No more illusions. No more self-imposed blindness.
Yet in this essential moment, a chilling third iteration of the man revealed itself, almost as much a stranger to Mitch as had been the second Anson who first appeared in Campbell's library.
His face seemed to acquire a new tenant that slouched through the chambers of his skull and brought a darker light to those two familiar green windows.
Something about his body changed, as well. A more primitive hulk seemed to occupy the chair than he who'd sat there a minute previous, still a man but a man in whom the animal was more clearly visible.
This awareness came to Mitch before his brother had begun to reveal the business done with Campbell. He could not pretend that the effect was psychological, that Anson's revelation had transformed him in Mitch's eyes, for the change preceded the disclosure.
'One-half of one percent of men are pedophiles,' Anson said. 'In the U.S. — one and a half million. And millions of others worldwide.'
In this bright white room, Mitch felt on the threshold of a darkness, a terrible gate opening before him, and no turning back.
'Pedophiles are eager consumers of child pornography,'
Anson continued. 'Though they might be buying it through a police sting operation that will destroy them, they risk everything to get it.'
Who did Hitler's work, Stalin's, Mao Tse-tung's? Neighbors did the work, friends, mothers and fathers did the work, and brothers.
'If the stuff comes in the form of dull text about the history of British theater and converts into exciting pictures and even video, if they can get their need filled safely, their appetite becomes insatiable.'
Mitch had left the pistol on the kitchen table. Perhaps he had unconsciously suspected some outrage like this and had not trusted himself with the weapon.
'Campbell has two hundred thousand customers. In two years, he expects a million worldwide, and revenues of five billion dollars.'
Mitch remembered the scrambled eggs and toast he had made in this creature's kitchen, and his stomach curdled at the thought of having eaten off plates, with utensils, that those hands had touched.
'Profit on gross sales is sixty percent. The adult performers do it for the fun. The young stars aren't paid. What do they need with money at their age? And I've got a little piece of Julian's business. I told you I have eight million, but it's three times that much.'
The laundry room was intolerably crowded. Mitch sensed that in addition to him and his brother, unseen legions were attendant.
'Bro, I just wanted you to understand how filthy the money is that's going to buy Holly. The rest of your life, when you kiss her, touch her, you're going to think about the source of all that dirty, dirty money.'
Chained helpless to the chair, sitting in urine, soaked in the fear sweat that earlier the darkness had wrung from him, Anson raised his head defiantly and thrust out his chest, and his eyes shone with triumph, as though having done what he had done, having facilitated Campbell's vile enterprise, was payment enough, that having had the opportunity to serve the appetite of the depraved at the expense of the innocent was all the reward he would need to sustain him through his current humiliation and through the personal ruination to come.
Some might call this madness, but Mitch knew its real name.
'I'm leaving,' he announced, for there was nothing else to be said that would matter.
'Taser me,' Anson demanded, as if to assert that Mitch did not have the power to hurt him in any lasting way.
'The deal we made?' Mitch said. 'Screw it.'
He switched out the lights and pulled shut the door. Because there are forces against which it is wise to take extra — and even irrational — precautions, he wedged the door shut with a chair. He might have nailed it shut, as well, if he'd had time.
He wondered if he would ever feel clean again.
A fit of the shakes took him. He felt as if he would be sick.
At the sink, he splashed cold water in his face.
The doorbell rang.
Chapter 52
