Peeper (16 page)

“The secretary of state?”

“The attorney general. Jesus Christ.”

“The guy on the news said a witness saw you with Vinnie the last time anyone saw him.”

“That was Mrs. Gelatto. She's blind as a boot. Vinnie was already dead then. I was moving him from my place to his.”

“That's two bodies in one week. You in training for the coroner's office?”

Ralph stamped his feet. “Where the hell is Waverly with that key? We're tripping over brass monkey balls out here.”

“You're too hot to be cold. I think you just set a new record for deep shit.”

Chuck Waverly joined them moments later. The young operative's red hair was touseled and the cold had reddened his cheeks. He looked just like Howdy Doody.

“Mr. Poteet! I wasn't sure you'd show up. Did you know the police are looking for you?”

“It was Carpenter.”

“Who's Carpenter?”

Neal said, “Carpenter's the one did the bishop and tried to do the hooker.”

“What hooker?”

“All I know is it's got something to do with Willard Newton.”

“The ambassador to Norway?”

“Jesus Christ,” Ralph said. “Open the fucking door. My ass has got icicles.”

Waverly produced a key and unlocked the glass door, then threw an arm in front of Ralph when he started inside. “I've got to disarm the burglar alarm.”

Ralph watched him press a sequence of buttons on a keypad on the wall inside the door. “I didn't know the place had a burglar alarm.”

“Mrs. Lovechild had it installed right after she fired you.”

“I quit.”

“We can go in now.”

Ralph and Neal accompanied Waverly through the deserted reception area and down one of the pastel corridors. When the young man reached for a wall switch, Ralph stopped him.

“It's all right,” Waverly said. “I have clearance to come in after hours. It isn't like we're breaking in.”

Neal peered at Ralph through the gloom. “Is he putting us on?”

“The only thing Chuck ever put on was his shorts; the kind with little teddy bears on them. Come on, kid.” He put an arm across Waverly's shoulders. “Let's you and me and Neal go shoot some clams.”

The computer room was lined with dials and rows of colored panels, with a lagoonlike space in the center where one person could sit comfortably at a console with a screen and a keyboard. Neal swept past Waverly as the young man was explaining the system, claimed the seat, and began working the keyboard like Lon Chaney at the organ. The rapid clacking of his fingers striking the keys reminded Ralph of the set of battery-operated teeth he had given his wife for their third anniversary.

“Entry code,” Neal demanded.

“Watson.” Bathed in the green glow of the screen, Waverly's face was little-boyish.

Neal tapped out the password. The screen flashed instructions Ralph couldn't read. Neal's fingers hesitated only briefly, then flew over the board.

“Security access.”

“Marple.”

More clacking. The letters on the screen looked like little bugs to Ralph; but then his good eye wasn't much better than the glass one at night.

“Secondary security access. Jesus.”

“Spade,” Waverly said.

Neal paused. “Who programmed this system?”

“Mrs. Lovechild.”

“I'm starting to see why she chose this line of work.”

Ralph said, “She even looks a little like Bulldog Drummond.”

“Speaking of dogs, did one take a dump in here?”

Ralph looked down at his shoes. “Hell, I bet I left a trail of shit all the way.”

“Why should tonight be different from any other time?” Neal entered the code. “Okay, boys and girls, we've got the full power of six miles of electronic pasta behind us. Now we're going to try and break into the Justice Department files. If we're in luck, the security code on their end will have something to do with Willard Newton, the Justice Department, or the attorney general's office. If we're not, some junior clerk programmed the street address of the first girl he ever fucked and we can be sitting here running possibilities from now until the next time the Tigers win the World Series. Start spitballing.”

“We don't have to,” Waverly said. “The system has a decoding system and memory banks full of current events updated to the first of this month. Enter any one of the three headings you mentioned and it will run all the combinations quicker than you could read them.”

Neal whistled. “What'd your boss do, hit the lottery?”

“She's running an account. I figure she'll have it paid off about the time someone donates the system to the Smithsonian.”

“Beats the hell out of my Kaypro.”

“Kaypro's overrated. You can get all of this year's features on last year's Apple and eat for a week at the London Chop House on the difference.”

“Fellas?” Ralph said.

“I had an Apple. That's why I went to Kaypro.”

“You must've got a bad one. I'm coming up on three years on mine without a service call.”

“Fellas?”

“I had nothing but,” Neal said. “One time a cloud passed in front of the sun and I lost thirty pages of actuaries into the stratosphere.”

“You must've done something wrong. I bet you hit the Delete key by accident.”

“I didn't even have my hands on the keyboard.”

Ralph placed two fingers in his mouth and blew. The whistle that resulted wasn't as shrill as he'd hoped, but the other two stopped arguing and looked at him.

“This shit is fascinating, I mean, really,” Ralph said. “Hey, I got a hard-on just listening. But right now some guy in Washington's sitting on his fat butt behind a big desk drawing steaks and chops on my picture, and you can jam your Kaypro up your Apple for all I care whose is bigger. Can we get back to work?”

“There isn't a steak or a chop on you, Ralph. You're all rump roast. Here goes.” Neal entered
WILLARD NEWTON, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL
, and
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
, then sat back and folded his arms.

“The computer in Washington will tell us when we've hit the right code,” Waverly said.

The screen went blank for a moment, then began to fill. Ralph, who still couldn't read the jade-green letters, was transfixed by the little square dot that towed the lines across the screen, left to right, left to right, row after row. Whenever it finished pulling out a line it had to run back and pull out the next. He felt a kinship with that little square dot.

When the screen was full, it went blank again and started over, presumably with fresh code words. It filled sixteen times in the first half hour by Ralph's count. He had no idea how many times it filled within the next, because by the end of it his attention had wandered. Modern detective work, he decided, was as interesting as scratching one's own balls, with none of the satisfaction.

Twenty minutes into the second hour, the little dot stopped as if to rest, flashing on and off.

“Crapped out,” said Neal. “Any other suggestions?”

“Try ‘Federal government,'” Waverly suggested.

“Uh-uh. We'd be here for a month.”

“‘Carpenter,'” said Ralph.

The screen tripped out information for thirty seconds.

Neal said, “Ten Carpenters with the D.C. regional office. Six file clerks, two of them women, two couriers, a field operative, and an assistant regional director.”

“Try the field operative.”

“Carpenter, Howard P.” Neal tapped out the name, waited. “‘Deceased 3/10/87.'”

“Shit. Try the assistant director.”

He did. “‘Carpenter, James A. Born Camden, N.J., 9/22/38, father—'”

“Too old. The couriers.”

One was in his early twenties. The other was black.

“I thought they couldn't put nothing about race in a personnel file.”

“The applicant doesn't have to,” Waverly said. “The interviewer can, for statistical purposes.”

“What's left?” Ralph asked.

“Four male file clerks, from the first names,” said Neal.

“Run 'em.”

Of the four, two were black. The third, Christian name Morgan, was on maternity leave for six months. Alvin Carpenter, the one remaining, matched the Carpenter Ralph knew in race, sex, age, and height, but not in weight.

“He looked like he's been sick. Ask it where he is now.”

The screen changed. “It says he's on temporary reassignment to Anchorage.”

“A blind. Feed in Bishop Philip Steelcase, see do we get a match.”

“Interface,” Waverly corrected.

“In yours, you little pisspot. What'd I do to you?”

“Computer terminology, Mr. Poteet.”

“Oh.”

Neal said, “The machine says it doesn't know Steelcase from Fred's donkey.”

“Cover-up,” said Ralph.

“Who would use a file clerk to commit murder?”

“Who'd send one to Alaska? What's he going to file, polar bears? He's no more a file clerk than I am.”

“Mr. Poteet, you
are
a file clerk.”

“Not since Lucy Loveapples fired me.”

Neal said, “I thought you quit.”

Ralph pointed at the screen. “How do we get this thing to spill its guts?”

“Enter ‘Dismas,'” Waverly said.

Neal looked at him. “What's that?”

“It isn't a what, it's a who. Dismas was the thief who died on the cross with Christ. He's the patron saint of thieves and clandestine activities.”

Neal went on looking at him.

“I mean, since we're talking about the Church.”

“Give it a whirl,” Ralph said.

Waverly spelled the name and Neal entered it. The screen changed again.

“Well, well,” Neal said.

“Wow,” Waverly said.

“What?” Ralph demanded.

Neal sat back. “Don't tell me you can't read
that
.”

Ralph leaned forward and squinted. Neal was right. Glowing greenly and plainly in the center of the screen was the single word:
ABSOLUTION
.

Chapter 21

“How'd you know to try ‘Dismas'?” Neal asked Waverly.

“Just a hunch. The Church was involved, so it was a possibility. There may be more than one security code, depending upon how many people are in on it; if so, that reduced the odds against us finding our way in.”

Ralph asked, “How'd you even hear about Dismas?”

“I had a religious aunt.”

“Yeah? I don't see no marks.”

“Marks? Oh. Heavens, no. Aunt Cora wouldn't swat a mosquito.”

“She wasn't so religious, then. So what's ‘Absolution' mean?”

“In the Catholic faith—”

Ralph grasped Waverly by his necktie. “I been up to my ass in Catholics since Monday. If I hear one more lousy mea culpa from you I'll perform extreme unction on your face. What I want to know is what's ‘Absolution' got to do with two dead priests, one dead landlord, and a Kentucky fried hooker.”

“Okay,” said Waverly in an E.T. voice. He was choking.

Neal said, “You know, this doesn't do much for your claim that you didn't strangle Vinnie.”

Ralph let go. “Sorry, kid. Ain't nobody had a day like mine since Job.”

“No harm done, Mr. Poteet.” He stood sucking in air.

“Feed ‘Absolution' into that thing and see what it shits out,” Ralph told Neal.

“You got a way with words, Ralph.” He tapped out the code. “Uh-oh.”

“What?” Ralph couldn't read the response.

“‘This file Priority One Confidential. Enter secondary access code.'”

“More passwords?”

“I'm going to try ‘Catholic Church.'”

“Stop!” Waverly grasped Neal's wrist before he could begin striking keys. “Ask it if the file has a safeguard.”

“What's a safeguard?” Ralph asked.

Neal said, “It's like an alarm in case someone tries to break into a file.” He entered the question. “Uh-oh.”

“Safeguard?”

“Yeah.”

“Can't you get around it?”

“I won't try.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because I got no way of knowing what kind of safeguard it is. Some of them not only shut you out, they also record your attempt to break in and run an automatic trace. In an hour we could be up to our eyebrows in cops.”

“Shit,” Ralph said. “It's getting so a grifter can't make a dollar. We might as well be living in Russia.”

“Well, we learned something,” Neal said.

“Like what?”

“You're in even deeper shit than I figured. What do you plan to do?”

“Find out what's Absolution, what else?”

Neal laughed. “I can see the headline now: ‘P.I. Found Slain; Sought Absolution.'”

“Funny guy.” He looked at Waverly. “So, kid, you learn anything about the detective business?”

“It can be frustrating, can't it?”

“It's a bitch. Can you say ‘bitch,' kid?”

Waverly lifted his chin. “Mrs. Lovechild discourages profanity. She says it's a sign of a minimal education and low intelligence.”

“Kid, I never knew how to cuss till I met Gus Lovechild. How you going to get in with folks if you don't speak the language?”

“Mrs. Lovechild says a Lovechild operative should stand above the crowd, not bring himself down to its level.”

“Next time she says something like that, tell her to go fuck herself.”

He colored. “She'd fire me.”

Ralph looked at Neal. “What's that on his face?”

“He's blushing. You wouldn't recognize it.”

“Come on, kid. Didn't you ever once want to say or do something that'd make Goosey Lucy's panties ride up?”

“Well.”

“Spit it out. It's good for the gut.”