?Can I have it after??
?The gun??
?I?ll be discreet,? Mick promised. ?I?ll never use it. And I?ll drill out the barrel so it can?t be matched to any of the rounds you kill him with. I don?t want it for a gun, see, it?ll just be like a sacred object to [440] me. Part of my private memorial wall to Janelle, on the shelves where I keep all her films.?
?All right,? Corky said, ?It?s yours when I?ve done him.?
?You?re a champ, Cork.? Indicating the computer and the data on it, the keeper of Janelle?s flame said, ?This was a nut-buster job.?
As a hacker of exceptional achievement, Mick customarily implied or boldly stated that for him, self-named Ultimate Master of Digital Data and Ruler of the Virtual Universe, all came as easily as bees to a flower; therefore, this admission that the Manheim job had taxed his talents must mean that it had been a formidable task, indeed.
?At precisely eight-thirty this evening,? Mick continued, ?the telephone company?s computer will shut down all twenty-four of the lines serving the Manheim estate.?
?Won?t that alert Paladin Patrol, the off-site security company? One dedicated line maintains a twenty-four-hour link between Paladin and the estate, for alarm transmissions.?
?Yeah. If the line goes dead, Paladin treats the interruption in service the same as an alarm signal. But they won?t know a thing.?
?It?s an armed-response company,? Corky worried. ?Their guards aren?t Barney Fifes with pepper spray. They respond fast, with guns.?
?Part of the package I?ve worked up for you is a breach of the Paladin computer immediately before the Manheim phones go down. It pulls the plug on their whole system.?
?They?ll have redundancy.?
?I know their redundancy like I know my own crotch,? Mick said with impatience. ?I?m pulling the plug on the redundancy, too.?
?Impressive.?
?You won?t have to worry about the off-site security company. But what about the private guards on the estate, Manheim?s own boys??
?Two on the evening shift,? Corky said. ?I know their routine. I?ve got that covered. What about cell phones??
?That?s part of the package you?re buying from me. I checked out [441] the information you got from Ned Hokenberry, and Manheim still uses the same cell-service provider as before Hokenberry was fired.?
Corky said, ?Two cellular units are used by the on-duty guards. A third goes everywhere with the security chief, Ethan Truman.?
Mick nodded. ?They?ll be shut down at eight-thirty along with the hard-wired phones. The couple that runs the estate also receive cell phones as part of their job-?
?The McBees.?
?Yeah,? Mick said. ?And Hachette, the chef, and also William Yorn ?
?The groundskeeper. None of them will be there tonight,? Corky noted. ?It?s just Truman and the kid.?
?You don?t want to take any chances, do you, that somebody might decide to work late or maybe come back early from vacation? If I shut them all down, there?s no chance anyone on that estate can dial nine-one-one. At the same time, service will be discontinued to those members of the staff who carry personal pagers.?
Previously they had talked about the Internet and ways in which it could be used to issue a call for help.
Anticipating Corky, Mick said, ?Cable-direct Internet access from the Manheim estate will also be terminated at eight-thirty.?
?And the on-duty guards won?t know any of this has happened??
?Not unless they try to use a phone or go on the Internet.?
?There won?t be a system-interrupt warning on their computers??
?Got that covered. But like I warned you, I can?t shut down the cameras, the perimeter heat sensors, or the motion detectors in the house itself. If I did any of that, they?d see their system going blind, and they?d know something was up.?
Corky shrugged. ?When I get in the house, I want the motion detectors operative, anyway. I might need them. As for the cameras and the perimeter heat sensors, Trotter will get me past all that.?
?And then you?ll kill him,? Mick said.
?Not right then. Later. So what do you have left to do??
[442] Raising his right hand high in ceremonial fashion, Mick said, ?Just this.? Slowly, with a goofy sense of drama, he brought his index finger straight down to the keyboard and tapped ENTER.
The data on the computer vanished. The screen clicked to a soft, unblemished field of blue.
Corky clenched. ?What went wrong??
?Nothing. I?ve initiated the delivery of the package.?
?How long?s it take??
Mick pointed at three words that had appeared in the center of the screen: GETTING IT ON. ?When that changes, the job is done. You want a Coke or something??
?No thanks,? Corky said.
He never ate or drank anything in the Sachatone house, and he tried not to touch anything, either. You had to figure that Mick had touched everything in the place, at one time or another, and you never knew where Mick?s hands had recently been. Actually, you pretty much did know where Mick?s hands had recently been, which was the problem.
Most of Mick?s friends would have avoided shaking his hand if he had offered it; but he seemed to understand their concern, if only subconsciously, and never suggested hand-to-hand contact.
Bart Simpson ran across a field of wrinkles, jumped in and out of folds of fabric, and made numerous faces as Mick got a Coke from an office refrigerator and returned to his chair at the computer.
They talked about a rare adult video, supposedly produced in Japan, which was legendary among aficionados of sleaze; the film involved two men, two women, and one hermaphrodite, all costumed as Hitler. Mick had been chasing after this item for twelve years.
The video didn?t sound all that interesting to Corky, but he didn?t have a chance to be bored by the conversation because in less than four minutes, the words on the computer screen changed from GETTING IT ON to the succinct SATISFACTION.
?Package delivered,? Mick said.
[443] ?That?s it??
?Yeah. The seeds have been planted in the phone-company, cable-company, and security-company computers. Later today, just when you want it to happen, everything will go down.?
?Without any more attention from you??
Mick grinned. ?Slick, huh??
?Amazing,? Corky said.
Mick tipped his head back to take a long swallow of Coke, and Corky drew the Glock, and when Mick lowered his head again, Corky blew him away.
CHAPTER 67
THE PROFESSOR WHO HAD ORGANIZED THE one-day seminar on publicity and self-promotion was Dr. Robert Vebbler. He preferred to be called Dr. Bob, as he was known on the motivational-speaking circuit, where he promised to turn ordinary, self-doubting men and women into doubt-free dynamos of self-interest and superhuman achievement.
Ethan and Hazard found the professor on the mostly deserted campus, in his office, preparing for a January speaking tour. The walls of the two-room space were papered with portrait posters of Dr. Bob in a size popularized by Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung.
He had a shaved head, a handlebar mustache, a red-bronze tan that established his contempt for melanoma, and laser-whitened teeth brighter than irradiated piano keys. With the exception of his red snakeskin boots, everything he wore-as in the posters-was white, including his watch, which had a white band and a plain white face without any numbers or checks to indicate the hours.
Dr. Bob managed so successfully to turn the answer to every question into a mini-lecture on self-esteem and positive thinking that Ethan wanted Hazard to arrest him on charges of felony cliché and practicing philosophy without an idea.
[445] He was just as quacky as Donald Duck, but he was no more a murderer than was that excitable mallard. He hungered to be famous, not infamous. Donald had on occasion attempted to kill Chip and Dale, that pair of pesky chipmunks, but Dr. Bob would instead motivate them to give up their rodent ways and become successful entrepreneurs.
He signed for Ethan and Hazard two paperback copies of his latest collection of motivational speeches and declared that he would be the first ever to pyramid a series of self-help books into a Nobel prize for literature.
By the time they escaped Dr. Bob?s office, located a trash can in which to ditch the paperbacks, and returned to the Expedition, the instrument-panel clock and Ethan?s watch showed a synchronized 3:41.
At five o?clock, the last of the household staff would leave for the day. Fric would be alone in Palazzo Rospo.
Ethan considered calling the guards in the security office at the back of the estate. One of them could go to the house and stay with the boy.
That would leave one man to monitor cameras and other detection systems, with no one to conduct the scheduled foot patrols. Ethan was reluctant to spread his resources thin in the current circumstances.
He continued to believe that Reynerd?s unknown partner, if still determined to act, would not do so until Thursday afternoon at the earliest, when the Face returned from the location shoot in Florida. Manheim?s whereabouts were public knowledge and much written about. Anyone sufficiently obsessed with the star to want to kill him would most likely know when he was expected to return to Bel Air.
Most likely but not absolutely.
The element of doubt, and Hazard?s intuitive sense that they didn?t have until Thursday, troubled Ethan. He worried that someone would discover a way to penetrate the estate?s defenses, regardless of how tightly the grounds were sealed, and lie in wait undetected until Manheim?s return.
[446] Even the most drum-tight security plan was a human enterprise, after all, and every human enterprise, due to the nature of the beast, was imperfect. A clever enough lunatic, driven by obsession and by a vicious homicidal impulse, could find a crack even in the wall of protection around a President of the United States.
From what Ethan knew of Reynerd, the man hadn?t been clever, but the person who had inspired the character of the professor in the screenplay might be a higher-caliber crackpot.
?You go home,? Hazard insisted as they drove off the university campus. ?Drop me back at Our Lady of Angels so I can get my car, and I?ll check out the last two names myself.?
?That doesn?t seem right.?
?You?re not a real cop, anyway,? Hazard said. ?You gave that all up for fortune and the chance to kiss celebrity ass. Remember??
?You?re only in this on account of me.?
?Wrong. I?m in this because of these,? Hazard said, and rang the set of three silvery bells.
The sound resonated in the fluid of Ethan?s spine.
?Damn if I?m gonna have spooky shit like this in my life,? said Hazard, ?or guys walking into mirrors. I?m gonna explain it somehow, blow all these hoodoo thoughts out of my head, and get back to being who I was, such as I was.?
The remaining two names were those of professors of American literature at yet another university. They had been put at the bottom of the list because Reynerd?s partial screenplay suggested that his co-conspirator would prove to be an acting teacher or an academic associated in some other way with the entertainment business. Stuffy professors of literature, lounging about in tweed coats with leather patches on the elbows, smoking pipes and discussing participles, did not seem likely to be celebrity stalkers or murderers.
?Anyway,? Hazard said, ?I think maybe these two won?t pan out any better than the others.?
[447] He read from notes made during phone calls that he had placed en route between Professor Fitzmartin at Cedars-Sinai and Dr. Bob.
The storm had somewhat relented. The wind that had cracked trees now merely worried them and made them shudder in expectation of a sudden resumption of the tempest.
Rain fell with a brisk measured efficiency but no longer with destructive force, as though a revolution in the heavens had turned out the ruling warriors in favor of businessmen.
?Maxwell Dalton,? Hazard continued after a moment. ?Evidently he?s on leave or sabbatical from the university. The woman I spoke to was some holiday temp, not too clear, so I?m supposed to see Dalton?s wife. And the other is Vladimir Laputa.?