“Bad idea?”
“Very bad. Besides, you’ll get sleepy.”
“That wouldn’t be good.”
“No it wouldn’t. Call me every step of the way, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Will you be safe?”
“I’ll be safe.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“There’s something I didn’t tell you about work today,” she said, kissing him one last time. “John Mueller was back in for a few hours. Sue’s putting us together to work on the Brooklyn bank robberies. I talked to him for a while, and do you know what?”
“What?”
“I think he’s an asshole.”
He laughed, gave her a thumbs-up, and opened his door. “Then my work here is done.”
Mark fretted. Why had he agreed to come in off his vacation?
He wasn’t quick enough on his feet or strong enough to stand up for himself-he was always a lapdog for parents, teachers, bosses-always too eager to please, too scared to disappoint. He didn’t want to leave the hotel and burst the delicious bubble he and Kerry were inhabiting.
She was in the bathroom, getting ready. They had a superior night planned: dinner at Rubochon’s at the MGM Mansion, a little blackjack, then drinks back in the Venetian at the Tao Beach Club. He’d have to leave early and go straight to the airport, and he probably wouldn’t feel too brilliant come dawn, but what was he going to do now? If he was a no-show he’d raise all sorts of alarms.
He was already dressed for the night and restless, so he logged onto the Net via the hotel’s high-speed service. He shook his head: another e-mail from Elder. The man was sucking him dry, but a deal was a deal. Maybe he’d priced himself too low at $5 million. Maybe he’d just have to hit him up for another five in a few months. What was the guy going to do? Say no?
As Mark was working through Elder’s new list, Malcolm Frazier’s group was on Alpha Alert: shifts on cots and cold food. Moody sorts to begin with, they were in a despicable state over the prospect of a night away from wives and girlfriends. Frazier had even forced Rebecca Rosenberg to stay overnight, a first. She was beside herself over the whole situation, completely in tatters.
Frazier pointed at his monitor with irritation. “Look. He’s on that encrypted portal again. Why the Christ can’t you break that? I mean how long is it going to take you to break that? We don’t even know who’s on the other end.”
Rosenberg shot daggers at him. She was following the identical traffic on her screen. “He’s one of the best computer security scientists in the country!”
“Well, you’re his boss, so break the goddamned code, will you? How’s it going to look if we have to farm this out to the NSA? You’re supposed to be the best, remember?”
She shrieked with frustration, making the men in the room jump. “Mark Shackleton is the best! I sign his time cards! Just shut up and let me work!”
Mark was almost done with his e-mail when the bathroom door opened a crack and he heard a muffled, “I’ll be ready soon!” in her lilting twang.
“I wish I didn’t have to go back to work tomorrow,” he said over the sound of the TV.
“Me too.”
He hit the mute button; she liked to talk from inside the bathroom. “Maybe we can rebook for next weekend.”
“That would be great.” The faucet ran for a second then stopped. “You know what would also be great?”
He logged off and slipped the computer back in its case. “What would also be great?”
“To go to L.A. next weekend, you and me. I mean, we both want to live there. Now that you’ve come into all this money, you can quit your stupid UFO job and be a movie writer full-time and I can quit my stupid escort job and my stupid vasectomy job and be an actress, maybe a real one. We can go house hunting next weekend. Whaddya say? I think it’d be fun.”
Will Piper’s face was plastered all over the plasma screen. Christ, Mark thought, second time in two days! He unmuted the set.
“Did you hear me? Wouldn’t it be fun?”
“Hang on a second, Kerry, I’ll be right with you!” He watched the news item in horror. It felt like a boa constrictor had wrapped itself around his chest and was squeezing the breath out of him. Yesterday he saw this guy boasting about new leads, and today he was a fugitive? And it was a coincidence he was being called in from vacation? Two hundred IQ points started rowing in the same direction. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck-”
“What’d you say, honey?”
“Be right with you!” His hands were shaking like he had malaria as he reached back into his case for his laptop.
He never wanted to do this; a lot of Area 51 people were tempted-that’s what the watchers were for, that’s what his algorithms were for-but he wasn’t like the others. He was an it-is-what-it-is kind of guy. Now he desperately needed to know. He entered his password and logged onto the pirated U.S. database stored on his hard drive. He had to work fast. If he stopped to think about what he was doing, he was going to balk.
He started entering names.
Kerry came out of the bathroom, dressed to the nines in a slinky red dress with her new watch gleaming on her wrist. “Mark! What’s the matter?” His computer was snapped shut on his lap but he was bawling like an infant, big chest-sucking sobs and torrents of tears. She knelt down and threw her arms around him. “Are you okay, honey?”
He shook his head.
“What happened?”
He had to think fast. “I got an e-mail. My aunt died.”
“Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry!” He stood up, wobbly-no, more than wobbly, in a near faint. She rose with him and gave him a giant hug, which prevented him from falling back down. “Was it unexpected?”
He nodded and tried to wipe his face dry with his hand. She got him a tissue, rushed back to his side and daubed him dry like a mother tending a helpless child. “Look, I’ve got an idea,” he said robotically. “Let’s go to L.A. tonight. Right now. We’ll drive. My car’s overheating. We’ll take yours. We’ll buy a house tomorrow, okay? In the Hollywood Hills. A lot of writers and actors live there. Okay? Can you pack?”
She stared at him, worried and perplexed. “Are you sure you want to go right now, Mark? You’ve just had a shock. Maybe we should wait till the morning.”
He stamped his foot and shouted in a juvenile fit. “No! I don’t want to wait! I want to go now!”
She backed away a step. “Why the big rush, honey?” He was scaring her.
He almost started crying again but was able to stop himself. Sniffing hard through blocked nostrils, he packed up his laptop and turned his cell phone off. “’Cause life’s too short, Kerry. It’s too fucking short.”
JULY 30, 2009
T heir room overlooked Rodeo Drive. Mark stood at the window in a hotel bathrobe and through parted curtains mournfully watched luxury cars take the turn off Wilshire onto Rodeo. The sun wasn’t high enough to burn off the morning haze, but it looked like it was going to be a perfect day. The suite on the fourteenth floor of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel cost $2,500 for the night, paid for in cash to make it a little harder for the watchers. But who was he kidding? He looked into her handbag to check Kerry’s mobile phone. He had switched it off while she was driving and it was still off. She would be on their radar already, but he was playing for time. Precious time.
They arrived late, after a long drive through the desert during which neither of them spoke much. There wasn’t time to plan things but he wanted everything to be perfect. His mind drifted back to when he was seven, waking up before his parents and rushing to make them breakfast for the first time in his life, pouring out cereal, slicing a banana, and carefully balancing the bowls and cutlery and little glasses of OJ on a tray that he proudly presented to them in bed. He’d wanted everything to be perfect that day, and when he succeeded, he solicited their praise for weeks. If he kept his wits, he could succeed today too.