The Trade (6 page)

"A thousand a month plus one half a percent
of the stock per month up to a limit of twenty five percent by the
end of 4 years,” Rick said.

"A thousand a month?" Jay erupted. "Holy shit
Rick, MacKenzie Lazarus is offering me two thousand a week for
crying out loud.” Jay saw his friend looking into his coffee. He
stopped his harangue.

"Sorry,” Jay said meekly.

"Twenty five percent by 4 years Jay. That
means I'm an equal partner, I own it. Remember how we both wanted
to be in charge, didn't want to work for anybody? Are you ever
going to own one quarter of MacKenzie Lazarus?" Rick looked at Jay.
The differences in the two men were never more apparent than they
were at that second. Rick was willing to take a fraction of what he
could get in return for building equity in a company and a cause he
believed in. Jay was willing to uproot his whole way of life, leave
all of his friends, for two grand a week and a chance to live in
hell. Jay finished his soda and got up.

He stood easily. After Rick was gone there
would be no roots to bind him here, here or anywhere else. In this
minute, in Rick's apartment, he'd seen what life could be when you
cared about something, when you had a dream, when you had a goal,
and you were willing to sacrifice for it.

"Well... I gotta go,” Jay said.

"See you,” Rick answered. Jay let himself
out. He drove straight to the arcade on campus. After playing
Centipede for an hour he drove home and went right to his desk. The
ML offer sheet was lying on his desk, the lawyer's notes were right
beside it. Over the desk was a picture of Jay and Rick and the rest
of their intramural champion golf team. Jay had his arm around Rick
and both men were smiling. Jay grabbed for his pen, signed the
offer sheet, then flopped down in his bed and cried himself to
sleep.

The next day he called Bill Beck and faxed
him the signed offer. It was two weeks until graduation.

The next day Jay and Rick were civil in the
morning at work. The air hung thick between them. Jay neither able
to nor seemingly willing to try to fix what he had broken. With the
impending graduation and their leaving for the opposite coasts, Jay
was worried that it might just end this way between them. Finally
Rick had enough.

He rolled his chair over to Jay's desk and
sat there quiet and staring like some temple cat until Jay looked
up. The two stared at each other, Jay trying hard to look aloof and
mad at the same time but succeeding in neither. After a minute, the
two were laughing and joking and trading insulting comments about
the exam answers they were grading. It was like nothing had ever
happened.

Hours later they piled out of the computer
science building, all the work done, with only proctoring
responsibilities left until graduation. They laughed at one last
joke and headed for their cars, planning to play golf the next
day.

Across the quadrangle, the man dressed in
alumni clothes snapped two more pictures of Rick and Jay.

Jay, Rick, and C. Daniel stood on the
11
^th
tee at Municipal Golf Links just outside Oxford,
Ohio. At just two dollars per round for a student membership, it
was the best deal any of them could imagine. Luckily it was a nice
course, and one that they had played often through their years at
Miami. The group ahead had slowed down noticeably over the round,
likely the effect of the beer cans Jay kept noticing in the trash
bins at each tee.

“
You know I’ve often
wondered how my membership never ran out here?” Rick asked. “In
fact, I don’t even remember paying for my membership the first
time.”

“
Me neither,” C. Daniel
added. “You think it was some kind of computer glitch?”

Jay’s face reddened. “Those damn computers.
You never know what they’re going to break,” he said.

“
So how hard was it to hack
their system?” Rick asked.

“
What you talkin’ ‘bout
Willis?” Jay said.

“
Riiiiight,” C. Daniel
added.

"It wasn’t hard. Say, did I tell you about
the girl I met in New York City?" Jay asked. Rick's ears pricked up
immediately. C. Daniel slowly shook his head, he’d heard these
tales before. Neither Rick nor Jay had much time for women in the
past several months and therefore any talk of females was instantly
newsworthy.

"You didn't say anything about a girl,” Rick
answered. "No pride weekend?" Rick asked. He knew Jay's infrequent
habit with females pretty well.

"No, no, nothing like that. We didn't do it
or anything,” Jay said.

"I met her at a Reds/Mets game and we had a
couple beers. Sunday morning she stopped by the hotel and we went
for a jog.”

"Sunday morning?" Rick leered.

"I told you we didn't do anything.”

"Riiiiiight,” C. Daniel said again.

"Right. So anyway, we went jogging and she's
in awesome shape. Absolutely dusted me.”

"So that explains the health food and the
extra workouts,” C. Daniel noted.

"You planning on seeing her again soon, is
that it?"

"I wish,” Jay said. "I didn't even get her
number. She told me her name but I couldn't find her in the phone
book. And I'm not about to do one of those wandering around Central
Park looking for the beautiful blonde jogger things,” he added,
although the thought had crossed his mind every Sunday morning
since he'd gotten back from New York City.

"Too bad,” Rick said.

"Yeah it is,” Jay lamented.

“
Your problem really
shouldn’t be a problem,” C. Daniel said.

“
Oh really?” Jay
asked.

“
Do we want to know?” Rick
asked.

“
I don’t know. Do you want
to know?” C. Daniel queried.

“
Okay, school’s done, we’re
all out of here, let me know a little bit,” Jay said.

“
Well. You know her name,
and you know where she lives. Also, you have what sounds like a
comprehensive physical description.”

“
Yeah how does that help?
There’s millions of people in New York, hundreds of millions in the
States, billions in the world.”

“
Yes to all three factual
statements. And, there are three of the best and brightest computer
minds standing right here waiting for some drunks to clear the
fairway on a golf course where those three best and brightest
miraculously get to play for two dollars a round. So, I’ll bet in
about three minutes you can figure out how I could find her in
about three minutes…”

Jay looked at Rick. Rick looked at Jay.

“
You didn’t….”

“
Didn’t say I did. Didn’t
say I didn’t. Just saying that we’re computer geeks with time on
our hands and a certain flair for, how shall I say it, accessing
public and not so public records.”

Jay hesitated. Took a practice swing.

"She was a real babe.”

“
Sounds like you’re in,” C.
Daniel said. He turned and looked at Rick.

“
Me too,” Rick
added.

“
I just want to find out
why she
couldn't
see me.”

"Couldn't or wouldn't?" Rick asked.

"She said ‘couldn’t’, but what's the diff?"
Jay said hollowly. "What's the diff?"

“
I’m in,” C. Daniel
announced.

“
Me too,” Jay
echoed.

“
Where?” Rick
asked.

“
New York City income tax
division,” C. Daniel said.

“
New York State Department
of Motor Vehicles,” Jay said.

“
Let the search
begin…”

Fingers flew over keyboards and databases
quickly yielded their secrets.

“
I’m not finding anything,”
C. Daniel said.

“
Me neither,” Jay
answered.

“
Try someone else, make
sure the data is real, that they’re not showing you some bogus
data, trying to keep you online while they track you down,” Rick
counseled.

“
Ooh, you’re good,” C.
Daniel said.

Jay looked over at Rick with an arched
eyebrow inquiry. Rick said nothing.

“
Try Dan Landford,
L-a-n-d-f-o-r-d. I know he lives right in the city and is currently
employed in the city and must be paying taxes there. And, I’ll try
Bill Beck, I know he has a driver’s license because he gave me a
ride.”

“
There are 17 Dan
Landford’s in New York City,” C. Daniel said. “And here’s one that
works at MacKenzie Lazarus. Wanna know how much he
makes?”

“
Hell yeah,” Jay and Rick
both said.

“
Damn!” C. Daniel said
under his breath. “You gonna be makin’ that kinda’ moolah Jay?” he
asked.

“
Not right away, but
yeah…”

C. Daniel and Rick high-fived each other. “So
I guess when we come to New York City to visit lunch is on you,” C.
Daniel said.

“
I’ve got Beck,” Jay
replied.

“
So you know you’ve got
live data,” Rick said. “Is there any other way we can try to find
her?”

“
Sure,” C. Daniel said.
“Let’s get Jay here to show us a nice photograph of her, and then
we will scan every image we can find on every computer we can find
and see who else has a photo of her.”

“
One problem C. Daniel. I
don’t have a photo of her.”

“
I’ll bet you do,” he
answered.

Rick and Jay looked at each other, looked at
C. Daniel. He smiled. Five minutes later, by using the fine artist
renditioning software and database conveniently stored on the Ohio
State Patrol server in Columbus, C. Daniel had produced a very
passable “photograph” of Tonia Taggert. One that Jay could not tear
his eyes from.

“
Yeah she’s a looker,” C.
Daniel said. “So let’s see who’s been looking!”

The three hackers started numerous queries on
numerous machines, some public, some private, and some very very
private.

“
This could take awhile,”
C. Daniel said.

“
How long?” Rick
asked.

“
A long while. Maybe five
or six hours. Any hits will be dumped onto our backup server. So we
can do something else while we let this run.”

“
Reds game?” Jay
asked.

“
Right on,” Rick
answered.

“
I’ll drive,” C. Daniel
offered. That way you elder statesmen can have an adult beverage if
you so choose.

“
Thanks C.
Daniel.”

Once again, as the computer geeks left the
computer science building, cameras clicked and notes were dictated
into tiny recorders.

“
What do you think they
were doing in there?”

“
Don’t know.”

“
Want to find
out?”

“
Why not?”

“
You tail them, and then
give me a call when they’re more than ten minutes out. And don’t
forget to call me if they head back.”

“
This isn’t my first field
op.”

“
And let’s make sure it’s
not your last.”

“
I’ve got nothing on mine,”
Rick reported.

“
I’ve got two matches. Both
from New York, Long Island to be exact. Both ‘winner’s photos’ from
5k races. That is definitely her.”

“
Cool,” Rick
said.

“
This is odd,” C. Daniel
said.

Both Rick and Jay scooted their chairs over
to look over C. Daniel’s shoulder.

“
What?” they
asked.

“
Well, my searches should
have overlapped Jay’s on the newspaper photographs. And they kinda
did. I mean here I’ve got a ‘winner’s photo’ from a 10k in Central
Park. But then I don’t have any more matches. I mean I should have
had at least the same matches from the Long Island races as
Jay.”

“
Computers...” Jay
said.

“
Can’t trust ‘em, can’t
kill ‘em,” Rick said. “Well, at least you know you can find her if
you stake out the 5ks on Long Island.”

“
Looks like I’ll be doing a
lot of running,” Jay said.

“
Forget the running, just
hang out at the winner’s podium,” Rick answered. “Come on, let’s
hit it.”

Jay stood. “Come on C. Daniel. Let’s
roll.”

“
No. You guys go ahead. I’m
going to hang out, see if I can figure out why we only got a
partial intersection on our queries. It bugs me.

Graduation day broke early and warm. The late
spring sun beat down from its perch in the southern sky. Cool
mornings and warm afternoons and late day thunderstorms are born
from this Midwestern springtime sun. Rick Hewlett and Jay Calloway
walked one behind the other to their first row seats at the head of
the thousands of students who would be graduating that day. The
rest of the doctoral candidates from the other disciplines were
positioned up front with them. Jay could see his parents in the
second row of families. Mom looked proud and Dad looked a little
tight. Maybe he'd had too much to drink the night before or maybe
it was the new suit he'd been coerced into wearing. Jay was the
first in his family to go to college and he'd gone all the way. His
dad had asked him a hundred times why he needed all that college
when he could have been working with him in construction for the
past eight years. "You could have earned $100,000 by now and you
wouldn't have any loans to pay off,” his dad had said several
times.

Jay's job at MacKenzie Lazarus was going to
pay more per week than his dad earned his first year at work in
1944. But then again Wall St. was a long way from the South
Pacific.