Dead and Gone

Lune filled the time by explaining some of the patterns he’d been tracking. My old partner wasn’t interested in cults, conspiracies, or politics. He didn’t care whether Bigfoot was real or Nessie was in the Loch. He didn’t believe the truth was out there … not in one single place. Patterning was his religion, and he’d stayed true to it all these years, gathering disciples as he moved closer to the Answer.

I told him that Gem had reached out to a bunch of websites, trying to send a message. That pushed one of his switches:

“The Internet? You think there’s no pattern there? That’s what they think—they’re so sure it’s all unregulated anarchy. But every single keystroke is recorded, somewhere. Their sex lives, their financial records, their circle of contacts. It’s the ultimate wiretap.”

“Sure, but there must be gazillions of data-bits out there. Who could possibly go through it all and—?”

“You construct a screening device,” Lune said, patiently. “It only looks for certain words, or phrases, or even numbers. Then you tighten the mesh with combinations, until only what you want to track comes through. It’s not so difficult. All it takes is resources.”

“So the government—?”

“There is no ‘government,’ Burke. There are only institutions. Agencies. The permanent ones.”

Lune tapped a few keys, pointed an immaculate fingernail at his computer screen. “You know what that is?” he asked me, as what looked like a string of auction bids popped into focus.

“A bunch of dope dealers talking in code?”

“No. It’s the IRS.”

“Huh? I don’t get it.”

“It’s a pattern,” he said, spinning on his chair to face me. “You know all this talk about America’s ‘underground cash economy’?”

“It’s not just talk.”

“Exactly! It’s authenticated fact. And that’s where the real money is. Not in cocaine cartels or topless clubs; it’s in flea markets, garage sales, all the ‘hobbyist’ stuff that’s being trafficked back and forth every second.”

“Flea markets? How much could—?”

“You have to watch the patterns,” he said, reciting his mantra. He turned back to the screen, beckoning me to look over his shoulder. “Look! Here’s one, right there on the screen. He’s selling a signed copy of a first-edition book by … Martha Grimes. See it?”

“Sure. The highest bidder is … forty-five bucks so far, right?”

“Right. And what this guy—I mean the seller, okay?—what he did was, he bought maybe twenty copies of that book when it was remaindered. You know, you’ve seen the tables where they sell them in bookstores, haven’t you?”

“Yeah,” I said, knowing that everybody pays, and that the currency I needed to pay Lune’s tolls was patience.

“First, you have to understand that all books get remaindered. It doesn’t matter if they sell a million copies, there’s always some left over. Well, the publisher isn’t going to throw them away, so they sell them, in bulk, very cheaply. A book you spent twenty-five dollars on when it was new, a couple of years later, you’ll see it for a dollar ninety-eight.”

“Yeah …?”

“Now the guy has all these books, so he waits until this Martha Grimes is doing a book-signing someplace. Then he ambushes her, gets her to sign as many copies as he can get away with. Some writers will just do it, some will limit the number of copies. But this … merchant, his story is always what a huge fan he is and how he’s going to give the books away to all his friends as Christmas gifts or for their birthdays or something. See?”

“I … guess so. But …”

“Look at the pattern, Burke. Come on. This guy buys a book for, say, less than two dollars. He gets it signed. Then he sells it for forty-five dollars on this Internet auction site. Do you think, for one single solitary second, that he declares that profit as income?”

“Of course not.”

“Good. Now multiply by … oh, ten million transactions per year.”

“Are you serious?”

Not a brilliant question to ask Lune. “Come closer,” he said, pulling back from the screen so I could do it. “Take a look as I scroll through for you. See how every single seller and every single buyer has to provide information just to participate? Their e-mail, a credit card, a street address … a ton of authentic data. What you see here is the clearest, cleanest audit trail that any IRS agent could ever dream of.”

“Damn!”

“Sure. All they have to do is watch. That is, if they didn’t set up the site themselves—there’s so many of them, now.”

“What a sting that would be. Jesus.”

“Net people aren’t the only ones. But they’re certainly the easiest. You know those scams where they tell you you’ve just ‘won’ something? If you use the mail, the return will be very low. But on the Net … My goodness, Burke, even the best browsers are free. You can get a free e-mail address from too many places to count. And never mind all those free downloads! Do you think those outfits that give away all this ‘free’ Net stuff aren’t turning around and selling your address to all kinds of people compiling their own sucker lists?”