For Blood or Money
9. A Partner Calls
MAIZIE AND I WERE A BIT LATE getting started this morning and rolled into the office about 9:00. It was good to get out and walk again, though I found that I needed to take it a bit slower in the light rain this morning, but the cup of coffee at Tovoni’s left me with a pleasant buzz. Riley grabbed a towel and rubbed Maizie down quickly as I put my hat and coat in the closet. She cooed over the dog, rubbing her and talking about how she shouldn’t have to walk in this nasty weather. By the time she was done, I was getting a little bit jealous. It was going to be a long dreary day. Maizie settled down on her bed after she’d dragged it halfway across the room to put it behind the sofa next to the heat vent. Smart dog. I almost joined her.
“Riley,” I started, “what are the results from the file recovery on Simon’s computer?”
“Not good,” she answered. “The computer was definitely altered the day before we got it. But whoever did it used a blanking program. The disc was optimized and all unoccupied sectors were written over with zeros. I’ve been poking around, but it was a professional job.”
“That puts it out of Brenda’s league,” I muttered. “She must have taken it somewhere after she deleted the files she didn’t want me to see. There was nothing on the computer about Simon owning a private jet.”
I gave Riley the hard drive from Mr. Oksamma and told her to have a go at it while I tried to make sense of the twenty-one names and numbers from Simon’s computer.
Riley came in about 11:00 and plopped herself down on the edge of my desk. I looked up at her and she leaned back on one elbow like a lounge singer on a piano bar—her favorite vamp pose.
“I know who hit you Saturday night.” I looked up at her. What was she playing at?
“I already knew who hit me,” I said cautiously.
“Not the kind of guy who takes kindly to older men messing around with his girlfriend, is he?” Riley asked. I nodded. “I wonder what he’d do if he found out his girlfriend was planning to run away with one of those older men—say an older man who set her up with her own business.”
I leaned back in my chair appreciating the view of Riley sprawled out across the edge of my desk.
“Okay,” I said, “spill it. What were you investigating yesterday?”
“Angel Woodward,” she answered. That was progress. I didn’t know what her last name was. “Dag, there’s more going on up there than meets the eye. When you go up there you just see girls catering to men who can pay them well.”
“Ah, I see,” I smiled. “You’ve become an expert on the ‘hostess’ industry, eh? So, how’s tricks?”
“You want to know what’s going on?” she scowled at me.
“What did you find out, Riley? You know I’m all ears.”
“All except the part that’s eyes.” She grinned, but she didn’t shift her provocative pose. “These girls are smart cookies. I’ve learned about several of them over the past few days talking to Cinnamon and then with Angel. Did you know that Cinnamon is a marketing director at a local pharmaceutical corporation? Sierra is a field sales rep for a medical products firm. Allison is an insurance claims adjuster. Portia owns a string of independent coffee stands and employs over twenty people. Diva is a software developer. The girls Cinnamon named who work up at the condo are all are college-educated, several have master’s degrees, and one is a PhD doing cancer research. And you know what? They all got jobs or businesses through men who are clients at the condo.”
“Nice work,” I said. “But you missed Angel, who is a travel agent and makes all Simon’s travel arrangements for him.”
“Hey! You didn’t even know her last name yesterday,” she said.
“I didn’t know her last name until you just mentioned it,” I fessed up. “So are you suggesting that the condo is a front for a secret society of college educated women who are using their contacts there to take over the economic structure of Seattle?” I asked. “That’s very Hollywood.”
“No,” Riley said, “I’m not suggesting that. I’m just saying that there are an awful lot of really smart women who are using more than their brains to break through the glass ceiling. Whether they ever use last names in the condo or not, they know who their clients are. They could do a lot of damage if they got upset. For insurance against ladies being upset, their clients are very nice to them.”
“What about Angel?”
“Yes, then there is Angel,” Riley continued. “Based on mathematic extrapolation of a limited sample-set, I believe that we could safely assume that Angel does a business of about $15 million a year and pulls down about $1.5 million in commissions and fees.”
“As a hooker?” I exclaimed.
“No, as a travel agent,” Riley said. “She’s not a hooker, at least not in the way that she defines it. She books travel, escorts businessmen on their business dates, and sells ATM travel cash cards. It is a very, very lucrative business.”
“Why on earth would she be working up at the condo in addition to that kind of a business?” I could not put this together.
“Well, it’s probably not for the extra thousand or so a week in unreported cash that it brings in,” Riley quipped. “That might motivate some of them, but most figure they could make six figures on their day-jobs. They figure that the condo puts them in the presence of very powerful men being very powerful. And if a powerful man likes you, he makes the way easier for you outside the condo, in the real world. He puts in a good word for you with a friend who knows someone who happens to be looking for a marketing executive.”
“So Angel goes there to make contacts for her executive travel agency.”
“No, I don’t think so. The contacts get made for her. Simon Barnett set up her business and makes sure she has an unending supply of clients. She’s there for Simon.”
“The ladies sure didn’t impress me like that when I was up there,” I said shaking my head. If Riley was right, most of the women I met in the condo pull down more money each year than I do.
“Oh, they impressed you all right,” Riley said sweeping her hair back off one side of her face as she turned to look at me with a sleepy-eyed grin that reminded me of Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night. But it was Riley, and she was continuing.
“You never notice us for what we are. Here we are in all our beauty and brilliance, and you say ‘Here, recover the data off this laptop,’ or ‘Pick up dogfood on your way to chauffeur me tonight.’ We practically throw ourselves at you and you never realize the treasure you have right here in your hands.”
Did I mention Riley can be a regular drama queen? Well, she wasn’t exactly in my hands. More like lounging on my desk. But I have to admit, she gave me an idea, and even if it was an evil one, I couldn’t help myself. I’d just found out yesterday that I was going to die before Christmas if I didn’t get a heart transplant. And frankly, on a day to day basis, the chances of a transplant seemed slim.
“All right Riley,” I said standing up from my desk. “I’ve wondered what you were really made of ever since I met you. It’s time to put your money where your mouth is.” She looked shocked, but then she recovered and went back on the attack.
“Whatever do you mean?” she asked.
I said, “Maizie, guard the office while Riley and I go out for lunch.” Then I turned to Riley again as I slipped into my own coat, “I know just the place. It’s not far from here.” As we left the pier, I put up my umbrella and used one arm to pull Riley close to me so she wouldn’t get wet. I could feel her tense a little. Oh, I do know a little about women… at least this one.
We walked down the Waterfront past the Aquarium in silence. Riley was tense, and she was surprised when we turned in at Pier 57—The Bay Pavilion. I unfurled the umbrella and led her to the end of the pier where there’s a huge game arcade and a merry-go-round.
I bought two $10 rolls of quarters and handed one to her.
“All right, Riley. Let’s see how hot you really are. Most tickets at the end of his roll of quarters gets lunch from the loser. And I’d like fish & chips if you please.” I could see her visibly relax at last as a smile broke out across her face.
“Well, plan on buying your own when you pick up my calamari,” she laughed. Then we hit the games. It was a riot. We did a side-by-side Skee-ball challenge, but soon discovered that even though I beat her by 10,000 points, the machines paid the same number of tickets. It was on to various coin drops, car racing, gator-beating, and even a dance contest. I about dropped on that one and conceded the tickets to her. When we were done, I had only 175 tickets to her 310. Well, she’d be just insufferable now. We bought various candy lollipops with the won tickets and headed toward the exit.
“Wait, Dag,” Riley said. “I want a picture. Let’s take it in the picture booth.”
“Go ahead,” I laughed. “I think I can dig up another dollar.”
“No, together. I want a picture of the two of us together.” I was surprised.
“I don’t think the two of us will fit in that little booth.”
“Oh, come on. People do it all the time.”
“Aren’t they little people?” Nonetheless she shoehorned me into the photo booth and climbed in with me. I think it is the closest I’ve ever held Riley. There was a fresh clean scent about her. She knew I was sensitive to perfumes, so was always careful not to use any floral scents. I was lost in thought, experiencing the sheer joy of being with her when the camera flashed four times and took me by surprise. Well, so much for that picture.
Riley collected the film strip and we left the building. We hit Ivar’s Acres of Clams for fish & chips and calamari and sat laughing about the contest in the Bay Pavilion. I confessed that she played a good game and had fairly beaten me. I told her that I was probably going to have to bring her into full partnership in the firm now. The weather had broken briefly as we went back to the office, so I didn’t need to put the umbrella up. Riley wrapped her arm around my waist anyway as we walked, and I placed mine carefully around her shoulders.
Damn the doctors. Life was too good to give up now.
We unlocked the outer door to the office and discovered my door open. That was unusual. I always close that door. I stepped through and caught the surprise of my life. A guy was stretched out on his stomach on the floor with Maizie perched in the middle of his back growling just loud enough that I’m sure he could hear. His arms and hands covered his ears and neck. I could see he was breathing, but he wasn’t desperate enough to challenge the little pit bull perched in the middle of his back. Her pink bow lay in the middle of her bed and she looked every bit the vicious guard dog.
“Good girl, Maizie,” I said. “Kennel up.” I tossed her a ginger snap from the jar on my desk and Maizie leaped into the air off the stranger’s back to catch it, then trotted off to her bed behind the sofa to munch it down. I stepped behind my desk and ordered the visitor up as I picked up the phone to call the police. I noticed that Riley had dropped her coat in the doorway and had stepped out of her shoes.
“Suppose you tell me why you’d be inside a locked office with a guard dog on your back,” I said. “I need to tell the police something.”
He yelled “No!” and lunged for the telephone. For all his efforts, he ended up sprawled back on the floor, this time with Riley standing over him. I hadn’t even seen how she’d moved to intercept him, but he looked dazed as he got to his knees.
“Bitch!” he spat. She looked like she was ready to drop him again, but I held up a hand and she backed off a step. “I came for what’s mine,” he yelled. “That bitch had no right to give you his laptop.”
“You’d better have a seat and talk before you try any more heroics, friend,” I said calmly. Frankly my confidence picked up a lot when I saw Riley lay him out. I was impressed and winked at her. She smiled, but didn’t take her eyes off the guy until he was firmly seated in the chair facing me. Then she moved quietly to stand behind him. “What laptop is it that you think I have?”
“Simon Barnett’s. It’s company property. His wife had no right to bring it to you. I came to get it back.” He nodded toward the laptop lying on the floor next to where Maizie had first taken him down—my laptop.
“Can you describe this laptop to me,” I said picking up my device and returning to my desk.
“You’re holding it in your hand. What do you mean describe it?” he asked.
“Surely if you are with BKL you must be able to tell me where the asset tag is. You wouldn’t leave company property lying around without an asset tag; your insurance company would insist,” I said turning the laptop over in my hands. “Who are you?”
“Bradley Keane,” he said automatically.
Simon Barnett’s junior partner. According to Angel, the partner was doing work for some branch of organized crime. He must be afraid of what was on Simon’s computer, but I can’t imagine why. Apparently Bradley Keane didn’t even know what Simon’s computer looked like. He must be really spooked to dare a mission like this.
“Mr. Keane, there are a few things that you need to know,” I said. “First off, this isn’t Simon’s computer; I don’t leave valuable client property lying around where it can be walked off with. Secondly, Simon’s laptop has no company asset tag, so I doubt very much that it is company property. If you can bring a police officer in with a subpoena, I’ll be happy to take the laptop in question to court and testify, but unless you want what’s on his laptop brought in as evidence, I’d suggest that you think that option over carefully.”
“Look, Hamar, I know that Simon kept records of our business on his personal laptop. He has been laundering money for a syndicate and is planning to cut and run and leave me holding the bag. The only hope I’ve got is to go state’s evidence with that computer beside me. I’ve got to have that computer.” He was still eyeing my laptop, evidently unpersuaded that it wasn’t Simon’s.
“Breaking and entering won’t look very good on your record when we go to the authorities,” I said calmly. Was he the villain or the victim? He’d come up with good answers, but I certainly didn’t trust him. “Why don’t we leave it this way, Mr. Keane? I’ll let you know if I find any incriminating evidence on the computer—which, by the way, I haven’t yet. I’ll even let you know before I let FinCEN know.” He glared at me. “I’ll assume that is an agreement on your part and I don’t really need to call the police in right now. Fair enough?”
Simon’s partner took my offered card, gave one last look at my computer, glared at Riley, and left. He carefully stepped directly on her coat in the doorway.
“That bastard!” Riley declared as she picked up her coat and brushed it off. She turned to me. “Why did you let him go without calling the police?”
“A couple of reasons Riley. First, I have a pit bull in my office.”
“She’s half dachshund and loveable as can be.”
“She took down a six foot, 200-pound man and made him wet his pants,” I said. “I don’t know how she did it, but I don’t want any kind of claim brought against us that would endanger Maizie.”
“I understand that, but why else,” Riley asked.
“A hunch,” I answered. “Let’s see if I’m right.” I reached for the remote control. I’d never done this in front of Riley but I’d told her at lunch I was going to make her a partner. It was time she knew how this operation really ran. “Close the door for me, would you Riley?”
“You want me to leave?” she pouted.
“No,” I answered. “If you are going to be my partner, you’re going to have to learn a little more about the business.” I’d never seen Riley quite so at a loss for words. She opened her mouth a couple of times, then quietly closed the door and turned toward me. I turned on the TV.
“We’re going to watch TV?” she asked, then went silent as I keyed in the password and the wall behind my desk slid aside to reveal the vault. I heard her gasp a little as I turned and entered it. She was behind me like a magnet on steel. “How many servers do we have in here?” she asked in a hushed tone. I noticed that it didn’t take her long to adopt the “we” pronoun.
“We have ten servers that run our little operation. As you know, we use cellular modems to open our virtual private network. That is more secure than WiFi, even though the connection is a little slower. There is an eight terabyte disk array that keeps our files backed up and an environmental system that keeps the room cooled to sixty-two degrees. This is where I hook the disks we recover into the system, then give you a copy of the drives to work on. It’s also where I keep valuable things locked up. Like Simon’s computer,” I pointed it out. But that wasn’t what I was in here for right now. I reached up and took the monster laptop that Mr. Oksamma brought in the day before off the shelf.
“Any luck on that disk I gave you this morning?” I asked.
“Not much to it,” Riley answered. “It’s got an ancient operating system on it—Win97, I think, probably hasn’t been upgraded since it was new ten years ago. Data’s all intact. No problem restoring the whole drive even to boot capability. The file formats are all pretty old, too.”
“Have you checked dates on any of the information?”
“Not really.”
“I have a feeling this computer hasn’t been used in years,” I said turning it over. “I didn’t pay much attention to it when Mr. Oksamma brought it in.” I hadn’t really bothered to examine it when I backed up the disk. Sure enough, an asset tag had been ripped off the device. Thing is, asset tags leave a tag in the residue as well and I grabbed an ultraviolet light and scanned the back. “BKL Ltd. Asset #7124” popped out clearly. I remembered Mr. Oksamma following me into my office when I thought he was leaving. The Refrigerator had actually been casing the place for Bradley Keane.
“Okay, lady. You showed me how good you are at arcade games this morning. Now I want you to show me how well you can break security on an old computer. It shouldn’t really be that hard. Security wasn’t as tight when this baby was in use. I’m betting that passwords for BKL’s network are on here someplace. Find them.”
Comments
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
