Do You Believe in Magic

chapter TWENTY



Clay’s doorbell rang at eight, only fifteen minutes after he had levered himself from his bed. He ushered in Bill Childress and the police team who would install the cameras and recording equipment. Bill introduced Stan Hardy, the West University Place officer who accompanied them.

“We thought it best to involve the West U police to keep the lines of communication clear and in case we need their help,” Bill explained.

After showing the technical team his office setup, Clay left them to it and took Bill and Hardy to the kitchen for coffee.

Over cups of the life-giving brew, Bill eyed Clay and asked, “You okay?”

Just what he needed, an observant cop, Clay grimaced to himself, but hid the feeling behind his cup as he took a swallow. “Yeah, I’m okay. Hard night.”

“Anticipating Brenner? I don’t think you’ll have any problem with him.”

“Neither do I.” He definitely didn’t want to get into his problems with Francie, so he answered simply, “It’s a personal problem, but it won’t mess with what we’re doing here.”

“Fine.”

“How are things at the cop shop?”

“Pretty good. Did you see where we caught that ring of carjackers?”

“Yeah.” Clay asked some questions about the capture, and they went on to discuss local politics and sports.

Before long, the leader of the tech team, Joe Ramirez, walked in. “We’re just about set up,” he said.

“You’re welcome to coffee,” Clay said, pointing at the pot and cups he’d put out.

“Thanks.” Ramirez poured himself some and sat down. “Tonight we’re going to park the van around the corner,” he said. “In a few minutes, we’ll run a test. First, Benny and Phil will impersonate you and Brenner, and you’ll watch from the van. Then you and Bill play the parts. We’ll tape you and look at it to make sure all the angles are covered. That’s a nice setup you have up there, by the way.”

“Thanks,” Clay said.

They discussed computers until Benny stuck his head through the door. “We’re ready.”

Clay, Bill, Stan, and Joe watched and listened from the van while Phil and Benny played their parts. Clay and Bill noted camera angles and mike sensitivity. Then Clay and Bill rehearsed the scenario. Everything went smoothly, and they reviewed the tape on Clay’s TV set.

“It looks to me like the only thing you have to remember is to keep Brenner on your left side,” Bill remarked as Clay shut off the set and handed the tape to Joe.

“That won’t be hard,” Clay said. “Brenner’s due at seven. What time will you get here?”

“Around five,” Bill answered. “Just in case he’s early.”

Brenner did show up early, about fifteen minutes. Fine with him, Clay thought as he opened the door. He wanted to get it over with. “Come on in,” he told the hacker. “Up here.” He led the way up the stairs.

Brenner looked nervous, but he followed Clay with no hesitation. When they reached the office, Brenner’s eyes grew wide as he looked around. “Wow! You have some great equipment here.”

“Yeah,” Clay said. “Sit down there and don’t touch anything.” He pointed at the chair they had carefully positioned for maximum camera exposure. Brenner sat and Clay took his seat at the keyboard and large monitor.

“Do you still want me to hack into Brazos Chemical?” he asked. He knew he sounded surly, but Brenner didn’t seem to mind.

“Absolutely,” Brenner answered, but he had to swallow before he spoke.

“You’re sure Francie Stevens doesn’t know about any of this?”

Kevin smirked. “Still after her, are you? No,” he said quickly when Clay glared at him, “Francie doesn’t know a thing. Do you think I’m crazy? She’s not part of this at all.”

“What about Tamara?”

“Her neither. Especially Tamara. She turned into a real bitch, let me tell you.”

Good, Clay thought. Those statements should negate any future attempt by Brenner to implicate Francie or Tamara in this mess. “Did you bring the money?”

“Oh, yeah,” Kevin said and pulled an envelope out of his jacket pocket. He handed it over. “It’s all there, all five thousand.”

Clay took the bills out of the envelope and riffled through them, making certain the camera got a good shot. “Fine.” He returned the money to the envelope and placed it on the desk to the side.

He turned to the wide screen, which displayed a number of both large and small overlapping windows, some with graphics, some with text only. Two contained scrolling code in a bilious green type on black backgrounds. Clay was rather proud of his display, a combination of spreadsheet, word-processing, and graphics programs that looked complicated and would certainly be confusing to someone like Brenner.

“I’ve routed us around through several Web servers already.” He pointed to a couple of screens as if they belonged to the servers. “If, by some fluke, they detect us, they won’t be able to tell where we are.”

“Sounds good,” Brenner offered, nodding in agreement.

Clay hit some keys, clicked the mouse, and set off a little spell at the same time. A new window appeared with the Brazos Chemical Company logo and password fields for logging in. He filled in the fields with gibberish and a menu came up. “You want sales information, right?” He clicked around the menu, typed in some “code” into another three entry fields, and called up the fake database Herb had created. A table displayed with client names and addresses.

He snuck a glance at Brenner. The a*shole’s attention was riveted on the screen.

“Holy shit. You’re good,” Brenner said, an awed expression on his face.

“Yeah, I am.” Clay flipped through another couple of windows until a panel asked for the range of customer names and other query information.

“What time period?” Clay asked.

Brenner looked confused. “What do you mean?”

“How far back in time do you want to go in the records?”

“Oh. How about six months?”

A spreadsheet-like window displayed a table entitled “Outstanding Orders” with each customer’s information. “Is this what you meant?”

“Oh, man, yeah,” Brenner whispered as if he were afraid the display would disappear with a poof. He reached a hand toward the screen and pointed down. “Can you come down the list a little lower to Middle-field Manufacturing?”

Clay scrolled the table and found the company. He glanced at Brenner.

The salesman leaned forward, eyes gleaming with greed. “Come over to the right.”

Clay followed the instructions. The products Middle-field had ordered and the prices they had paid appeared.

“Where’s the delivery charges and conditions? I need those, too. And the payment terms. Can you print any of this? This is great.” Brenner practically jumped up and down in the chair as Clay manipulated the code, and windows with the requested information came on the screen.

“Do you want the whole damn customer list? We could be here all night,” Clay grumbled.

“No,” Brenner answered and scrabbled in his jacket pocket. “Here’s who I need.” He handed a piece of paper to Clay. Twenty company names were written on it.

“Okay. Pull the sheets as they come off the printer and tell me if you’re getting what you want.” He incorporated the names into his search spell, and the screen displayed only those companies Brenner wanted. He hit two keys, and the laser printer started spitting out paper.

“Don’t forget the delivery instructions,” Brenner said as he scanned the first pages. “Damn. This is just what I wanted.” He read another page. “Shit, we can beat these prices. They must be making the sales on the delivery terms.”

Clay finished printing the delivery and payment data. “Anything else? Say so now.”

Brenner gathered up the pages and flipped through them. “No, no, this is great. Just right. With this info, we’ll be able to steal Brazos’s customers right out from under them. Man, I can’t thank you enough.”

“You already did,” Clay said, waving the envelope with the money and putting it in his pocket. “Remember, this was a one-shot deal. I never want to see you again. And keep your mouth shut about the origin of this shit.” He shut down the windows, then the computer, and rose.

“Right.” Brenner stood, then followed Clay down the stairs. “Thanks, Morgan,” he held out his hand as he stood in the open doorway.

With disgust, Clay looked at the offered hand, but shook it anyway to play out his role. He watched the salesman climb into his car and drive away.

Within seconds the police van stopped in the spot Brenner’s car had occupied. Bill and the team came into the house. Phil and Benny went upstairs to retrieve their equipment.

“How’d we do?” Clay asked.

“Just fine,” Bill answered. “What do you think, Joe?”

“The volume and pictures came through loud and clear,” Ramirez answered. “The man incriminated himself, no question about it. I’ll have extra copies for you tomorrow.”

“Good. We’re planning on arresting him tomorrow,” Bill said.

Clay handed him the envelope. “Here’s your additional proof.”

“Thanks for your help, Clay,” the detective said. “I’ll keep you and Brazos apprised of what happens.”

After Phil and Benny came down with the cameras and microphones, Clay shook hands with the cops and watched them drive off. Thank God that was over, he thought as he closed the door. Now he could get back to his more pressing problem. He went into the house, picked up the kitchen phone, and dialed.

“Hello?” Daria sounded disgruntled.

“Hey, it’s me. What’s the matter?”

“Oh, I’m just paying bills. You know how I hate to do that. What’s up?”

“Will you be home tomorrow? I need to ask a favor.” He tried to keep his voice utterly flat.

“Sure. I don’t start my next job for two weeks. What can I do?”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow.” He wasn’t going to get into it over the phone.

“Okay, Mr. Mysterious. Say, how are things with Francie?”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

“That bad, huh?”

Sometimes he swore Daria could read his mind, but he still wasn’t going to tell her anything now. “Ten o’clock all right?”

“Fine. Come tell me everything.”

They exchanged good-byes. Clay hung up the phone and stared at it for a long moment. Should he call Francie to let her know Brenner had taken the bait and would be arrested tomorrow? No, better not. He’d given his word.

Instead he called Herb and told him what had happened. “Great work,” Greenwood said. “I wish I could be there when they arrest the bastard. I’ll alert Legal.”

“Thank your computer operators for me. The fake database they created worked fine.”

“Will do. I hope Francie comes in tomorrow so we can celebrate.”

“You hope she comes in?”

“Yeah. She called in sick today. Left me a message in the middle of the night. She sounded awful, but she looked like she was coming down with a cold on Monday.”

An interesting bit of news, Clay thought. Either the game or the SMI had done her in, and he knew which one he’d put his money on.

“Anyway,” Herb continued, “why don’t you come by next week and we’ll talk about increasing protection on the system. If a jerk like Brenner can get through, our defenses aren’t worth squat.”

Clay discussed the Brazos system with Herb for a while, then said good-bye.

After hanging up the phone, Clay looked around his kitchen. It was only nine o’clock, too early for bed, even if he had had only four or five hours of sleep the night before. Not to mention he was still keyed up from playing crook with Brenner. So he went back to the computer, started up a complicated sword and sorcery game, and took some pleasure in chopping off the heads of goblins, ogres, vampires, and other assorted monsters.

He pretended they were all Walt.