Slocum, the bad cop, said, “Why don’t you let us ask the questions.”
“Did you ever see him place a call on a landline?” Yeager asked.
“Actually, no. Just his mobile phone. His BlackBerry.”
“And you’re sure it was a BlackBerry? It didn’t look bulkier or different in any way?”
“I didn’t get that close a look.”
“Do you have his cell number? Of his BlackBerry, I mean.”
Danny nodded. He took out his iPhone, went into his contacts and read off Galvin’s number.
“Did you notice whether he did any texting?”
“I don’t think I could tell the difference between texting and making a call,” Danny said. “Why? What do you need to know all this for?”
“We need to know who he’s talking to and what he’s saying,” said Yeager.
“So tap his phones.”
“Brilliant idea,” said Slocum, getting up. “Why didn’t I think of that?” He shook his head in mordant amusement and walked out of the room.
“What makes you think we haven’t done that?” said Yeager. “The problem is, the cartels have gotten too smart. They never discuss business over phone lines that aren’t encrypted.”
“Did it ever occur to you guys that maybe the reason Galvin doesn’t talk cartel business over the phone is because he’s not doing any cartel business?”
Yeager seemed to be suppressing a smirk. “We’ve picked up an encrypted signal going out over one of his landlines, probably in his home office.”
“So?”
“There’s a reason he’s using encryption.”
Danny shrugged. “You guys can’t break it?”
“Not so simple. You’ve been reading too many spy novels.”
“No such thing as reading too many spy novels.”
They asked for his iPhone and installed a couple of apps on it. One was ChatSecure. It used an encryption protocol called Off-the-Record. It allowed them to send and receive text messages securely.
“We’ve given you a Gmail account to use.”
“I already have one.”
“Don’t use it. Not for messaging us. Use this one.” He wrote on a yellow Post-it: JayGould1836@gmail.com.
“If you want to use Google Talk for messaging, use that account.”
“Jay Gould,” Danny said. “You’ve done your homework.”
“And 1836-”
“Is the year he was born, yes, I know. And what makes you think Galvin’s going to open up to me?”
“We don’t think that,” Yeager said. “Of course he won’t.”
“So what do you need me for?”
“For this.”
Slocum’s voice, triumphant. He’d appeared in the doorway, a white cardboard box in his hand instead of a cup of coffee. He swooped in and put the box on the table in front of Danny. It looked like a bakery box, like it was intended to hold pastries, maybe a half dozen cupcakes. He opened the flaps and pulled out a little sculpture. A cheesy-looking repro of Rodin’s The Thinker, the kind of thing you’d find at a flea market. It even had a fake patina of green over black to make it look like the bronze original in the Musée Rodin, oxidized from decades of Paris rain. It was meant to be used as a bookend. It was a curio. It was a piece of crap.
“What’s this?” Danny said.
“A gift,” Slocum said. “You’re going to give it to Galvin as a token of your gratitude for the generous loan.”
“A… bookend? Is it at least part of a pair?”
“What you see is what you get,” Slocum said. “It’s a room bug. There’s a GSM listening device built in. Transmits over cellular service.”
Yeager said, “Since we can’t decrypt the phone signal, our best hope is to plant a listening device in the room itself. Listen to his end of the conversation at least. We’ll monitor it for thirty days. Then we’re required to report back to the court.”
“A single bookend,” Danny said. “Why would I give him a bookend? That’s weird.”
Yeager shrugged. “It’s a… a thing. A piece of art or whatever. It’s what the technical boys came up with.”
“You guys are serious about this? I’m supposed to give him this garage-sale, flea-market piece of junk as a thank-you gift? You think he’s going to put something like this on his desk? You must think he’s some goombah out of The Sopranos. The guy has sophisticated tastes. He’s not going to put this on his desk. This is an embarrassment. It’s not even a good copy.”
“He won’t want to offend you,” Yeager said. “He’ll keep it on his desk in case you look for it next time you visit.”
“He barely knows me. He’s not afraid of hurting my feelings. He’ll toss it before I pull out of his driveway.”
“Possibly,” conceded Yeager. “Or not.”
“You got a better idea?” said Slocum, a challenge.
Danny shrugged. “At least make it an eagle.”
“An eagle.” Slocum gave a scornful laugh.
“The Boston College mascot.”
“That’s a thought,” Yeager told Slocum. “Not a bad idea.”
“That’ll delay us a couple days at least,” Slocum replied. “The tech boys have to locate an eagle and then fit it.”
“It’s worth the wait,” Yeager replied.
“Forget it,” Danny said. “He isn’t likely to put it on his desk anyway.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” Yeager said. “This is going to take some rethinking in any case.”
“Why do you need me anyway?” Danny asked. “Don’t you have a team that can do some sort of covert entry into the Galvins’ house one night when they’re out and plant listening devices?”
“That option was considered and discarded,” said Yeager. “Galvin’s house is never unoccupied, even when the family’s gone. There are always servants. Plus a state-of-the-art security system.”
“And you guys can’t get around that?”
“It’s not feasible,” Yeager said. “No way to do a B &E without detection in that house. Plus, the moment they suspect an intrusion, they’ll have the place swept and sterilized. Whenever you do an operation like that, you have to be extremely careful about the law of unintended consequences.”
“Meaning what?” said Danny.
“Sometimes things go to shit,” said Slocum.
Danny swallowed hard. “You don’t want me doing this. It’s way too risky. Talk about unintended consequences. You want a professional. I don’t have the right skill set.”
“Actually, you’ve got the single most important qualification,” Yeager said. “Access. The man seems to trust you.”
“My only ‘qualification,’ as you put it, is that my daughter’s a friend of his daughter’s. But frankly, if what you say is true, I don’t like the idea of her spending time over there anymore.”
Yeager leaned over and placed his catcher’s-mitt hand on Danny’s wrist. “Absolutely no changes. This is crucial. It’s extremely important that you don’t alter any patterns. If you suddenly won’t let your daughter go over to the Galvins’, he’ll get suspicious.”
“And what happens if he catches me planting some bug in his office-what then? What if he somehow discovers the transmitter? What happens to me? What happens to my daughter?”
“So don’t get caught,” said Slocum.
Yeager said, “Nothing’s going to happen to your daughter.”
“And what if the word gets out that I’m cooperating with the goddamned DEA? If you guys have a leak? What if someone blabs to someone and Galvin gets wind of it? And he finds out I’ve planted a bug inside his house?”
“Don’t borrow trouble,” said Yeager. “We’ll worry about that if and when it happens. But it won’t. Everything will be fine.”
“What happened to the law of unintended consequences?” Danny said.
Both DEA agents fell silent for a long moment. A smiled played about the corners of Slocum’s mouth.
“There’s absolutely no reason to worry,” Yeager said.
But even he didn’t sound convinced.