“And you’re not a patient. You can go out the front through the waiting room.”
He ushered me to the office door and opened it, saying,
“I’m sorry I couldn’t have been more help.”
“I’m used to it,” I said. “I’m patient. Time is one thing I have too much of. Too much time and so little to do.”
“Spoken like a true depressive,” he said. “I don’t expect to be talking to or seeing Mrs. Sebastian, but if I do I’ll give her your message. I don’t think she’ll talk to you.”
“I’ll be in touch,” I said.
“Take one of my cards on the way out,” he said, and then, looking past me, addressed the nervous young woman with “Come right in, Dorothy.”
Dorothy waited till I was clear of the door, pressed her lips together and entered the inner sanctum. The door closed.
I stood for a few seconds watching the fountain in the small courtyard.
With two hours till I had to pick up Beryl Tree for our appointment with Sally Porovsky, I headed for the legal offices of Tycinker, Oliver and Schwartz. I had served papers for all three of the partners in the past and had gotten to know Harvey. Harvey did the computer work for the trio and was well paid for his expert services. He had a small, well-equipped room down a corridor near the washrooms where the secretaries could watch him. Harvey had a drinking problem. The secretaries were under orders to report all of his arrivals and departures. Harvey knew this, agreed to it and wanted it. It seemed to help him cut back on his drinking. Harvey did not want to lose this job. The question was whether he needed computers or alcohol more.
Harvey’s drinking, which had slowed considerably since I first met him, was tolerated because Harvey was a genius. I was on a straight retainer with the firm of T, O amp; S. I served papers at no fee. My retainer came in the form of access to Harvey whenever I needed him, provided I didn’t abuse the privilege.
Some of what Harvey did bordered on the illegal. Part of his unwritten and unspoken agreement with T, O amp; S was that he would solemnly swear that all the information he obtained on the Net was legally obtained.
Harvey could access information from the police- any police with a computer-credit agencies, banks, hotels, almost every major corporation, the Pentagon, the FBI and probably even the shopping lists of the wives of every member of the Israeli intelligence community.
I found Harvey in his windowless office drinking club soda and studying something on the computer screen in front of him.
Harvey looks more like an ex-movie star than a computer hacker. Harvey is tall, dark, wears a suit and tie, and sports short hair of gold. He’s MTT but you wouldn’t know it from his looks.
“Harvey,” I said.
He grunted something and then made an effort to pull his attention from the screen.
“Lewis Fonesca,” he said. “Looking as happy as ever. Here for work or a sports tip for the week? If it’s a sports tip, go with Duke over North Carolina if you can get three-two or an even bet with a six-point spread. The screen tells me.”
“Work,” I said, handing him the folder on Melanie Sebastian. He opened it and went through the documents slowly.
“Who prepared this?”
“Her husband.”
“Good job. You want the Tuesday special or…”
“She left, pulled the money out of their joint accounts. You have the numbers of the accounts, the list of credit cards and numbers, GTE calling card, whatever else you can turn up. He wants her found.”
“Take me about ten minutes if I don’t hit any problems. You want to wait?”
I said I did and took a seat while Harvey hit keys, moved a mouse, moved to another computer, hummed something that sounded like a busy signal and said things to himself like “Uh-uh-uh-uh” and “Here I come. Here I come.” Fifteen minutes after he started, Harvey turned to me and said.
“She hasn’t used any of her credit cards for the last week. She hasn’t rented a car or taken a plane out of Sarasota, Tampa, Fort Myers, Orlando, St. Pete, Miami in the last four days, at least not under her own name. She did come into Sarasota from Raleigh-Durham Airport last Monday. Early morning arrival. Can’t do much if she’s using cash and a different name, but I can run all kinds of variations on her name or any others she might use. People tend to stay with something they can remember.”
“Middle name is Lennell,” I said.
“Yep, see it right here. Mother’s maiden name was Fallmont. Let’s see… plenty to go on. Take some time. Bank accounts are cleared out. She doesn’t have any others in her own name.”
“How much did she pull out?”
He turned to the screen, moved the mouse, pressed a button and said: “Forty-three thousand, six hundred and fifty. Took cash. Left three dollars in that one. Another twenty-eight-two in cash from this one. Left fifty dollars and nine cents.”
“See the description of that jewelry?” I asked.
“Nice list.”
“Can you see if she sold any of it?”
“I can play a would-be buyer, go on-line offering more than market, but jewelry… It’s hard to market price. Still, the descriptions are good. I’ve got her Social Security number. I’ll get the numbers of her relatives, friends-if you can give me names and…”
“Can you see if Geoffrey Green, the shrink, has rented a car, bought an airline ticket. The works.”
“Yep,” said Harvey. “I saw Green three or four times when I came here and was, let’s say, recuperating.”
“And…?”
Harvey shrugged. “Didn’t hurt. Didn’t help.”
“Why’d you stop seeing him? Big fees? No help?”
“Sometimes a shrink who charges a lot of money is good. Green is good, but I think he started to come on to me,” said Harvey. “Hard to tell. I know what computers are thinking but I have a problem with people. He was careful. I wasn’t interested. Got uneasy. You know. Rapport between shrink and neurotic was deleted.”
“Any way you can talk to your computer to find out if…?”
Harvey nodded.
“Credit-card use. Organizations. Magazines he subscribes to. I can look. I’ll be a little curious myself.”
He took a drink of club soda. The bubbles were long gone. What I was asking him to do was illegal, not just on the border. I was more interested in what was right than what was legal. If I got caught, I would take what came. Ann Horowitz, who charged considerably less than Geoff Green, said I wanted to be punished, to be righteous and punished. A short, tarnished Lancelot in recycled Levi’s jeans.
“I’ll call you,” Harvey said. “I’ve got something else to finish, take me an hour and then I’ll go back on the trail of the missing Melanie. I’ll check every day to see if I can find anything till you tell me to stop.”
“Thanks, Harvey,” I said.
“My pleasure,” he said. “My meditation. My therapy. My answer to AA. My work. Anything else?”
“Are all the computers going to crash and the world to face disaster when the millennium begins?”
“You hoping yes or no? I get the feeling that, if you don’t mind my saying, you’re a little suicidal.”
“I don’t know.”
“A few minor glitches,” he said. “No planes falling out of the sky, blackouts, nothing like that. If you have friends thinking of loading up on gas, water and automatic weapons and heading for cabins back up in the Georgia hills, don’t try to talk them out of it. The Net tells me that they won’t listen.”
“I’m reassured,” I said. “And I’m late.”
Harvey had already returned to his screen.
I was back at the Texas Bar and Grill ten minutes later.
The windows of the Texas are painted black with only a neon Budweiser sign to serve as a beacon. The name of the bar is printed in big white letters on the blackened window. Inside, the Texas, which had all the comforts of Judge Roy Bean’s Jersey Lily, was lit with ceiling bulbs and muted yellow spotlights in the corners. The yellow walls were decorated with steer horns and old firearms. The tables were heavy, round, solid oak and surrounded by hard-hatted construction workers, garbage disposal men, cops, firemen, people on the edge of coming back from oblivion or sinking into it, and a handful of longtime Sarasota businessmen and women who know that the best chili and burgers in town were in the semidarkness of the Texas.