Читать книгу Top Hook - Gordon Kent, Gordon Kent - Страница 25

Tony Moscowic was wearing a sport coat and a white shirt and an actual goddam tie, because he wanted to look legitimate, and he didn’t want anybody at the hospice to remember him from the last time, when he wore an orange jumpsuit. The last time, he had planted the bug that had allowed Suter to listen in on George Shreed’s confession to his wife; this time, he was going to remove it. He had his legit clothes and a visitor’s badge, and he went right to the room that had been Mrs Shreed’s and jingled his picks in his pocket, ready to pop the lock in four seconds, max, and was surprised and maybe disappointed that the door was unlocked.

Bad omen, he thought. Too easy is a bad omen. He closed the door behind him, turned on the light, and he was heading for the wall switch by the bed when a male voice said, “Who the hell are you?”

The fucking bug was behind the wall plate. He could have had the plate off and the bug in his pocket in one minute. Less. Now here was some guy, asking him who the hell he was. Good question, Homer!

“Who are you, if I might ask, sir? You’re in my aunt’s room!” That was his story—sort of. The story, if he got caught with the wall plate actually off and in plain sight, was he was checking out the structural integrity of the building before he moved his aunt there. Weak, but it would work for a practical nurse. Above that level, he got more inventive.

“You have the wrong room,” the guy said. He was sitting in an armchair where he’d fallen asleep, Tony guessed. No energy. He was thin, blond, wearing a cashmere sweater that was almost purple, and Tony thought he was a fag, meaning he was here to die of AIDS. Swell.

“Jeez, I guess I do. Seventeen?”

“Nineteen,” the guy said. He sounded okay, no longer surprised, maybe kind of amused. He was smiling at Tony. “I just moved in.” He smiled some more. “I won’t be moving out.”

Tony could see now that there were changes in the room. It even smelled different. He was losing his touch; jeez, he could have really put his foot in it here. “You have my greatest sympathy,” he said, moving toward the door.

“Yeah. Mine, too.” The guy smiled. “See you.”

That blew getting the bug. Now he’d have to wait until the guy actually checked out or at least went comatose, and holy shit, the room would probably be filled with grieving fairies holding candlelight vigils and he’d never get that fucking wall plate off. It was really, really unfair. What were they running here, a revolving door, the lady dies one night, the next they’ve got a new guy dying in her room? Fucking Heartbreak Hotel, for Christ’s sake.

He shucked off the sport coat as soon as he was outside the hospice and walked up the street, loosening the tie and tossing the coat over his shoulder. Suter’s car was waiting at the end of the block, and Tony took a moment to get his story straight and then walked right to it and got in.

“Did you get it?”

“Piece a cake. Drive.”

“Let me see it.”

“You nuts or something? It’s gone. Wipe it down, smash it good with your foot, throw it in the nearest dumpster. That’s my routine. Bugs are like guns—use them once, get rid of them. Drive.” So, he’d hung a story on Suter, so what? The important thing was he’d wiped the bug down when he put it in; nobody would ever find it; and if they did, couple years, ten years from now, so what? “You know that doggie is still sick?” he said. “I think it was the pizza. I didn’t feel too good next day, either. My neighbor’s pissed.” Suter said nothing, and Moscowic said, “Some story your boss told! Huh? Huh?” He tapped one palm on his knee. “Treason, you know—Jeez, that’s worse than child-molesting.”

“We have to get into Shreed’s house.” Moscowic missed the emotions that flashed across Suter’s face—fear, then hatred.

“You nuts? What for?”

“Computers. There’s a memorial service for the wife on Thursday. You can do it then.”

“Djou hear what I just said? You’re nuts! You think I’m breaking into some CIA guy’s house, you’re nuts. And another thing, he’ll have a security system, which is no big deal if you don’t care who finds out after, but bypass it and try to make it look like it never happens, trust me, you’re nuts.”

“I want you to go into that house.”

“Not Thursday, I’m not. Why?”

“I need a hacker. You know any hackers?”

“Do I look like Bill Gates or something? No, I don’t know any hackers.” Tony stared out the window at a strip mall. “Vietnamese, they’re all Vietnamese,” he said, meaning the strip mall and not the hackers. “But I can find you one.” Meaning a hacker, not a Vietnamese.

“He’s got to be good.”

“Oh, that should make it easy. What I think, some kid’s been busted and isn’t allowed near a computer for two years or something, somebody like that. Itchy, you know? And not a stranger to fucking with the law, because that’s what he’s already done. Am I right?”

“Then we have to get him into Shreed’s house. Only once.”

“So what’s this Thursday shit? You think I’m going to find the magical mystical hacker by Thursday?”

“Time is of the essence.”

“Oh, yeah? well, caution is of the essence, my friend, so I’m not going in anyplace till I’ve scoped it out but good, plus finding your perfect hacker is going to take more than five minutes. Let me out at the Iwo Jima Memorial; I’m meeting somebody.”

Suter drove without saying anything for several minutes. Then, as they approached Arlington, he said, “You keep your mouth shut about this.”

“What’d I say to you the first time we met? You don’t fucking listen to me. Leave me off on the other side of the circle.”

“If you talk about this, you’re dead.”

Tony laughed. And laughed. He got out of the car, looked around, leaned back in and said, “Don’t try it,” still laughing. He watched Suter’s car roll away and, because he wasn’t really meeting anybody, he walked.

Suter, in the car, was trying to digest what Moscowic had said about treason. It wasn’t treason that was proving indigestible; it was the man’s talking about it. Moscowic, Suter saw, would have to be dealt with.