Of course. Breathing a sigh of relief, I walked into the kitchen and flipped over the two plastic pieces of the detector. I hadn’t moved them since I walked in and found Carol Conroy in our restroom. I held the loaded side up and looked inside. The card was gone.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
“C arol Conroy. It’s got to be.” James was talking softly, not wanting to bother the neighbors. Although the gunfire, the construction company nailing plywood on our windows, our all-night visitors, and our on-again, off-again plumbing business had probably bothered them already. He puffed on a cigarette and drank an RC Cola from the can. “It just makes sense, Skip. You came in and mentioned the camera. Remember? She walked out and said ‘You had a camera?’ first thing.”
As we sat in the gloom on our cheap lawn chairs, we could hear birds waking in the distance, and I sniffed the air, smelling someone’s rotting garbage in a can down the way. Our back porch. Love it or leave it.
“She’s got the proof.”
“She wasn’t the only one in there tonight, James.” It had been like Grand Central Station. “Think about it. J.J. was there.”
“Point taken. He didn’t want you to put up the smoke alarm. Maybe he knew it was a camera and he lifted the card.”
I glanced down at Jim Jobs’s rear door, hanging by one hinge. “The guy seems to know a lot about what’s apparently going on.”
“He does.”
“And the three cops. Those two guys who interviewed us and the one who checked the parking lot and interviewed the neighbors. All three were in the apartment.”
James shook his head, leaning back and drinking his RC. “And,” he belched quietly, “Em.”
“Em?”
“She’s on the list of visitors tonight, pard.”
“Em didn’t take the card.”
“She knew where it was. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Two guys from Twenty-Four Seven. Both those guys were inside when they boarded up the windows.”
“Man, we had a boatload of company tonight. That makes eight people, Skip.”
We both sat there, listening to the noise of people waking up. A car with a noisy muffler started out front and the squeaking of bedsprings and a frame was playing in rhythm about two apartments to our right through an open window.
“Somebody’s starting the day off with a bang.” James tossed the empty can at our trash container. Of course, he missed.
“So what do we do, James? If Carol Conroy wants to involve us down the road, she’s got the card. If she can prove that we installed the smoke detector, we’re screwed.”
“We’re probably screwed for a lot of other reasons as well,” he said.
“Give me a cigarette.”
“What? You don’t smoke anymore.”
“Give me a damned cigarette.” It had been a rough twenty-four hours.
James pulled the crumpled pack from his pants pocket and shook out a forlorn looking smoke. He handed me his matches.
“I don’t want the matches.” I stuck the cigarette in my mouth and sucked on the filter.
“They’re close, James. Threatening us, stealing the card, all the other stuff going on, I think they’re getting the codes soon. Maybe today.”
“And then what happens?”
“My guess, okay? Synco sends two installers to the Department of Defense. They tell the bigwigs there that they need to get into the computers and get them ready for this new software. The minute they enter the codes, they start downloading. They know exactly what they’re looking for, and by Monday there are no more secrets. It’s all in the hands of Chen or Feng or whoever is paying seventy-five million dollars.”
“You’re crazy. This is the United States Government. They’re a little more sophisticated than that.” My roommate was usually the cynic. This time he was taking the side of the government. My rebellious roommate who hated the cops and any other form of authority. He was backing the Department of Defense. The thought actually depressed me.
In the early gray morning, James stood up and gave me a cold, hard look. “There may be something going on, Skip, but you don’t just walk into a government agency and steal them blind.”
“Have you been listening, man? You’ve heard the same stories I heard tonight, James. J.J. and the briefcases. Chi Mak, who just e-mailed the secrets to his home computer. It was that simple. We’ve read stories about missing uranium, government secrets, the KGB-I mean there must be hundreds of other stories. Security is a joke. Look how easy it’s been for us to walk through Synco. Hell, we opened up Conroy’s computer, James. And we didn’t even know what we were doing. Installed a smoke detector that doubled as a camera. Compromising these agencies, these groups, is just too easy. Think about it. I mean, two complete idiots like us, we’re accidentally able to identify a national security issue. How safe is that?” I’d raised my voice and he raised his eyebrows. “And Synco Systems is a company that has a contract with the federal government. I can’t even get my mind around this. You and I just strolled in and walked out with some very scary information. You know I’m right.”
He walked to the concrete wall and slammed his fist against it. “Ouch.”
“James, we’ve got to go to work.”
“Knowing that Feng tried to kill us last night. Do you think it’s safe to ever go back there?”
“He’s not going to kill us at work.”
“Skip, I wouldn’t be surprised at anything that happened after last night.” He spit on the concrete and opened the door.
“Born in the U.S.A.” blared from my phone. I didn’t even look at the number. Anyone who called was probably trouble.
“Skip, are you there?”
“Yeah, Michael. What’s up.” I felt whatever energy I had start to drain.
“Listen, Skip, we’ve got a bit of a problem.”
I wanted to tell him he had no idea how big our problem was, but I waited for him to tell me his “bit of a problem.”
“Top guy says no-go on the hookup until we get our money.”
I’d seen it coming. I wasn’t totally ready for it, thinking that maybe there would be a last minute save, but I’d seen it coming. “You haven’t gotten the down payment, right? She was supposed to send it, Michael.”
“That’s why you’re my top guy, Skip.” Sarcasm was creeping into his voice. “You’re so good at figuring these things out.”
I wanted to go right through the phone and strangle him. “I’m going in to Sandy Conroy’s office this morning, Michael. I’ll confront him and get at least half the money. Can we turn it on for half the money?”
“You get half and I’ll see what I can do, Skip. I’ll see, okay?” He waited for an answer I never gave him.
I flipped the phone closed. Conroy didn’t know what we knew. He didn’t have a clue. He was still playing it straight up, like everything was okay. Maybe he’d give me the down payment. Maybe he’d give me the entire amount. Sure, this was doable. Sandy Conroy wanted everyone to assume that it was business as usual. He wanted to be the upstanding businessman. Therefore he’d pay the bill. If he paid the bill, then everything would appear to be all right. And right now, just before all hell broke loose, Conroy needed things to appear to be all right. Right? This was going to work out. I was convinced. For that moment.
“I’m going in for the money, James.” James was no longer there. He’d gone inside to take a shower, get dressed for work, take a powder. Whatever it was, he’d left me on the porch by myself. “I’m going to walk into Conroy’s office and walk out with a check,” I yelled through the back door. Damn the neighbors. I was working my ass off, almost getting killed in the process, and somebody was going to pay me for my time.
