Текст книги "Measure of Darkness"
Автор книги: Chris Jordan
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Chapter Fifteen
Mrs. Beasley Presents
yves Cuilleron Condrieu, Les Chaillets 2000
Fresh Beet Carpaccio with Shivered Scallions
Shrimp & Shiitake Sausage
Broiled Swordfish with Potato Dauphin Puree
Honeyed Heart of Endive Salad
Vanilla Ice Cream with Ginger Sauce
Teddy, having scanned a folded menu card, sidles up to me and whispers, “‘Beet’ carpaccio? ‘Shivered’ scallions? Are those typos or what?”
I smile and shake my head. “It’s Beasley having fun. But I’m impressed that you even know that carpaccio is usually beef.”
“I know a lot of weird stuff.”
“Indeed. And very useful it proves to be, too.”
This will be our first formal evening meal of the case, therefore a “working dinner” and as is Naomi’s habit—she and our supremely gifted chef always consult over the selections—the food will be light but interesting. Hence the playful but undoubtedly delicious opening course; shivered scallions indeed.
Case dinners are usually seated at 7:00 p.m., to allow plenty of time for informed discussion between courses, and this evening’s meal is no exception. The formal dining room is exactly large enough to accommodate a table for eight, a couple of narrow but highly functional sideboards and a pair of simple but elegant Waterford crystal chandeliers gifted to the residence by a satisfied client. There are three high-set windows that have a view of the sky in the winter months, or a heavily leafed beech tree in season, but which ensure street-view privacy when guests are seated at the table. Near the sideboards, an ancient but still functional dumbwaiter brings goodies up from Mrs. Beasley’s kitchen. On the northern wall hang stunning reproductions of Naomi’s three favorite Sargent watercolors. Stunning not just because of their subject matter—sunlight on dappled walls—but because they look good and true enough to be the originals, although Naomi swears they’re not, the Benefactor’s generosity notwithstanding.
First to arrive is Jack Delancey, accompanied by his special guest, the operative he sometimes refers to as the Invisible Man. Otherwise known as Mr. Milton Bean. Not invisible this evening, but carefully presented in Brooks Brothers gray slacks and a blue blazer with four brass buttons on each sleeve. Purchased for the occasion under Jack’s expert tutelage, if I’m not mistaken. Like bringing a date home to Mother, they both want to make a good impression.
Last in house, our land shark lawyer Dane Porter, who, from the slightly damp look of her scruffed pixie hairdo, barely had time to shower and change after her much delayed flight from Washington.
When we’re all assembled, Naomi appears, regal in a dark crimson silk blouse and ankle-length black silk skirt. Leading us into the formal dining room, where two bottles of the excellent condrieu have already been decanted, she pours generously. When we all have glasses in hand, she proposes a toast:
“To the son of Joseph Keener. May he be recovered alive and well.”
We sip dutifully—oh my God, the wine is fabulous—but boss lady isn’t done raising her glass.
“To Randall Shane,” she intones, with a glance at Jack. “May his innocence be proved, if true, and may he be returned to his exemplary life.”
Another careful sip. Mustn’t rush a condrieu of this quality. Speaking as one who, prior to my association with Naomi Nantz, thought Trader Joe’s wine selection was the height of sophistication, I don’t have anything against Charles Shaw, but really, you can’t keep a girl swilling Two Buck Chuck once she’s tasted the best of Paree. Or Sonoma Valley, for that matter. In matters of the vine I remain a neophyte, easily dazzled, but can’t help noticing that the Invisible Man’s eyes have gotten very round and large.
“Wow,” he says.
“Mr. Bean, welcome.”
The bland gentleman dips his unremarkable head. “Honored, ma’am.”
“‘Ma’am’ is the queen of England. My name is Naomi, and you’re welcome to use it.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to offend. The wine is… I’ve never had anything quite like it. Amazingly, uh, amazing.”
“Great vineyard, great vintage, perfect temperature,” Naomi purrs. “Now, as to our protocol for case dinners. You’re among trusted colleagues who will be sharing privileged information and you are expected to participate, withholding not even the smallest detail. That’s how we do it around here. So please keep that in mind as you enjoy our hospitality. I will call upon you in turn.”
A small rodent might assume an expression something like Mr. Bean’s, having discovered his cheese-seeking paw firmly pinned in a trap. He shoots Jack a look that says “help me, please” and is studiously ignored. Having begged for an invitation, the no-longer-invisible man is on his own and will have to suffer the consequences.
“Alice? You go first. Bring us up to speed on Professor Keener’s neighborhood.”
My description of the encounter with Toni Jo Nadeau concludes as the first course is being served. Paper-thin golden beets garnished with capers, minced chives and the mouth-intriguing “shivered” scallions. Which according to Beasley are briefly soaked in ice-cold seawater before being tossed into hot olive oil. Imagine if popcorn was tiny little onions, only way, way better.
“Keyboard kid?” Jack says, probing the details of my report. “That was the phrase?”
“That’s how Mrs. Nadeau remembers it.”
“And the mother impressed her as being native-born Chinese?”
“Mrs. Nadeau said she spoke very little English, wore what she described as ‘those formal Chinese dresses.’ The silk kind with embroidered patterns. Quite old-fashioned, really. Most of the Chinese-American women I see around town wear designer jeans.”
“The supposition being, someone from Hong Kong or mainland China.”
“That was her impression, yes.”
Jack puts down his salad fork, rubs his hand on his jaw. “I don’t get it. The guy has a baby out of wedlock, so what? Why the big secret? In this day and age? Unless it has to do with the mother.”
“Go on,” Naomi says.
“I’m just riffing here, but what if the big secret is that she was already married to someone else? The professor has a torrid affair with a married woman, she gets pregnant and lets her husband think the kid is his. Along those lines. Wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened.”
“Or the ten millionth,” Dane adds knowingly.
Naomi says, “It’s a theory, based entirely on supposition, but interesting nonetheless. Are you thinking this could be the spouse of a colleague? A visiting professor?”
“That, or maybe a diplomat’s wife…” Jack says. “Stationed at the Boston consulate maybe? That might explain the traditional dress.”
Naomi shakes her head. “There are Chinese consulates in New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Houston, but not Boston.”
Jack grins. “Off the top of your head?”
“Just something I know.”
“Okay, so maybe she takes the Amtrak up from New York. Maybe not. I’m not married to the idea she’s a diplomat’s wife—pun intended, by the way—but my gut tells me the mother is key, and could be connected to someone very powerful and/or dangerous. Hence the need for secrecy, and possibly kidnapping. And maybe hence the need to murder.”
“One of the tongs?” Teddy suggests, his voice barely audible.
“Strictly speaking, tongs are American, not Chinese,” Naomi says. “But I take your point. What if the mystery woman is the gun moll of a gang leader? How would that play out?”
“I never said ‘gun moll,’ whatever that is,” Teddy objects. “And what do you mean tongs are not Chinese?”
Naomi lapses into her dinner lecture mode. “Not, technically, any more than Italian-American crime syndicates are the same as the Italian Mafia. Tongs are a distinctly Western version of the Tiandihui, the original secret criminal societies in China, today known as triads. First established in San Francisco in the nineteenth century, when many Chinese arrived to labor on the railroads, and began to organize themselves for protection. Still very powerful, but quite staid and old-fashioned as modern gangs go. The tong presence here in Boston has a hand in gambling, extortion and loan shark rackets, but only rarely resorts to murder. The Hong Kong–based triads tend to be more deadly than the American tongs, and from what I hear the local Vietnamese gangs, if not more powerful, are certainly younger, more violent and much more dangerous.”
“So maybe she’s Vietnamese,” Teddy insists, a little louder and a lot more stubborn. “Why not? The neighbor is probably not being specific, saying ‘Chinese.’”
Naomi looks pleased. This is the kind of give-and-take that she encourages, and which Teddy hasn’t much engaged in until very recently. “Well argued. Regardless of ethnicity or country of origin, the notion of a criminal or gang connection has to be taken into account,” Naomi assures him. “Jack?”
“I’ll ask around.”
“Excellent. Tell us about Mr. Bing.”
“Quite the character,” Jack says. “I rather like him. Not at all what I expected.”
Jack would be a great storyteller if he didn’t keep reverting to cop speak. Even with the stilted phrases, he paints an intriguing picture of the young venture capitalist luxuriating in splendid isolation on his enormous yacht, explaining his decision to invest in Joseph Keener as a business opportunity, and as a friend of sorts, in hopes that the victim’s understanding of light might one day prove to be immensely profitable.
“My impression is he’s telling the truth, mostly. In the sense that he genuinely liked and admired the professor, and has some interesting insights into what made him tick. But he’s lying about not knowing about the Chinese girlfriend, and the fact they had a kid.”
“Your gut?”
Jack nods.
“Good enough. So why is Mr. Bing lying? What’s his motive?”
“If I had to guess, he may think he’s protecting Keener’s reputation, or the boy, or both. I’m going to give him a day to think about it, then go back at him.”
While we digest Jack’s presentation, Beasley serves the second course, a sliced grilled sausage stuffed with shrimp and mushrooms and various secret ingredients that can’t be pried out of her with any sort of bribe, or even the threat of waterboarding. The merest hint of cardamom, obviously, and at least one of us (me) detects black truffle lurking among the shiitake, but beyond that the chef’s unsmiling lips are sealed.
“Teddy? Your turn. Please bring us all up to date.”
“Um, there’s not really a lot to report yet. With Mr. Bean’s help—he placed a memory stick into one of their computers, uploading this really cool program—ah, we established mirrored access to the QuantaGate office computer system. We’ll just have to wait until something interesting pops.”
Naomi favors him with an indulgent smile. “Explain mirrored access, for those who might not be familiar.”
Teddy shrugs, as if it’s no big deal. “Means we’re limited to what people are actively keyboarding in real time. We can’t explore the system or access files—that would set off alarm bells—all we can do is follow keystrokes and mouse clicks from stations in the network, but at least we get all of them. That means, during normal work hours, anywhere between sixteen and twenty keyboards clacking away. A lot more data than can be followed by any single observer. So we’re feeding all the entries into a developing database, subdivided into categories of interest. Payroll, accounts receivable, inter-staff memos, gossip threads. Like that.”
“And any category or search term we care to add in the future?”
“Right, sure. No problem.”
“Dane? What’s our legal exposure on this?”
Our legal eagle rolls her eyes. “Seriously?”
“Confined to prosecutable infractions.”
“Specifically exposure under the U.S. Criminal Code 1030, ‘Fraud and Related Activity in Connection with Computers’?”
“If you say so.”
Dane looks thoughtful, pursing her pretty, plumped lips like a small, dazzling tropical fish. Say a well-coiffed piranha. “I’d say, very serious exposure. Under subhead 5A, the language concerns harm done by unauthorized access of protected computer. So the key to staying out of jail is to do no harm. On the other hand, subhead 2 makes it illegal to obtain protected information from any department or agency of the United States. A zealous prosecutor might well argue that a private company with a contract from the Department of Defense falls under that umbrella. Basically, criminal liability depends on what you do with information obtained. Pass it on to a foreign agent, you’d be facing charges of espionage and/or treason for sure.”
Naomi nods and turns her head. “Teddy? Do you intend to pass information to a foreign agent?”
“No freakin’ way! Plus, what we’re looking at in the cyber mirror doesn’t include whatever system they have in the actual lab. We’re culling data from cubicle workers, not scientists. It’s strictly look, don’t touch.”
Dane remains mildly skeptical. “Then I suppose cogent arguments could be made in favor of the defendant, should an arrest occur. My humble opinion? If the worst happens, felony conviction remains a real possibility.”
Teddy sits up straight, adding about three inches in height. “You mean I might be a defendant?”
“Always possible, given what we do and who we do it to,” Naomi makes clear.
“Cool.”
“No, not cool. Unless by cool you mean you’ll take every precaution to make sure you won’t get caught.”
“Absolutely, that’s what I mean.”
“This isn’t a cybercafé. There will soon be powerful forces arrayed against us, if they’re not already in place.”
“I get it,” Teddy says, somewhat petulant.
Before he can be further cautioned, the swordfish swims onto our plates, and for a good ten minutes nobody says a word. A few moans of pleasure, but no actual words.
Our first-time guest Milton Bean, gingerly forking slices mouthward, continues to look pleasantly, not to say orgasmically, dumbfounded. Orgasmic in the foodie sense, of course. Dumbfounded in the oh-my-God-never-have-I-tasted-anything-as-divine-as-this sense. Not that he’s forgotten the price that must be paid for his presence at this table, and which Naomi is now poised to extract.
“I see you’re enjoying our little meal,” she observes. “Take my word, it only gets better. Mrs. Beasley’s homemade ice cream with ginger sauce has been known to make fully grown humans weep with pleasure.”
“I, um, can’t wait,” he says. Shrinking a little, aware what comes next.
Boss lady favors our guest with one of her cool, controlling smiles. “Mr. Bean, you have done exemplary work for us in the past, as a freelance operative, and given what you have been able to accomplish with so little muss and fuss, I certainly want the relationship to continue. However, we need to be assured that your particular talents will not put us in legal jeopardy. Your sponsor, Mr. Delancey, would have us believe you somehow melt through security by way of human camouflage. Or by borrowing Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility. Jack has read all the Potter books, by the way, because at heart he’s deeply romantic. Whereas I saw part of one movie and found it tedious, undoubtedly because I don’t believe in magic, and don’t want to, not even a little bit. To the contrary I believe in data, in facts on the ground and in the scientific method. Which made me wonder how you do it, how you manage to evade security wherever you happen to be assigned, even on very short notice. There being no satisfactory explanation, I have concluded that you are not, in fact, evading security.”
Milton flinches, ever so slightly.
“It seems very likely that you have in your possession valid identification that allows unfettered access to a variety of venues,” she continues, not simply a statement but a pronouncement of fact. “The possibilities are actually quite limited. You could be with the state police, FBI or IRS, any of which could get you through security in most places, but none of those agencies have you on any database we can find. So by a process of elimination, if you are not a card-carrying member of a government law enforcement agency, you must be affiliated with one of the major auditing firms. How am I doing, Mr. Bean?”
The Invisible Man couldn’t be more stunned if boss lady had firmly tapped him on the temple with a large rubber mallet. “How did you figure that out?” he finally manages to ask.
Naomi allows herself a small sniff of satisfaction. “Sheer surmise. No other explanation suffices. Publicly traded corporations are required to submit to unscheduled spot checks from auditing firms. That’s especially true of any company with Department of Defense contracts. Ergo.”
“Ergo?”
“Therefore, hence, it follows,” she says, defining the word with a thin, prim smile. “Fret not, Mr. Bean, your secret is safe with us, just as our secrets will be safe with you.”
Naomi doesn’t need to add any threatening qualifiers, like “on pain of death” or “on pain of never again being invited to share Mrs. Beasley’s cooking.” The Invisible Man, with a dip of his head, surrenders to her powers of deduction. Far from the first, unlikely to be the last.
“You got me,” he says, with a sigh that could be relief.
“Details, please.”
“Three years ago I was a forensic CPA with—” and he names one of the major national auditing firms, here redacted. “Your basic Mr. Bland with a calculator, making sure it all added up. That was my life. Checking the numbers, following the money. It was a career I chose, because it fit me. Milton Bean, CPA. Then in the course of my work I stumbled on this, um, let’s call it an elaborate scheme to divert revenue from one financial entity to another, and then another, round the world, for the purposes of avoiding taxes and as well as cheating the shareholders. I’d call it a musical-chairs variation on a Ponzi scheme, but virtually undetectable unless you happened to get lucky, which I did. In more ways than one. Much to my surprise, and very much to my boss’s surprise, I ended up as a whistle-blower, of a sort.”
“Meaning you didn’t blow it very loud.”
Milton Bean smiles, betraying, for the first time in our presence, a slight glow of personal pride. “As whistle-blowers go, I was very discreet. A tiny little tweet, you might say. There were several large financial corporations involved—of the too-big-to-fail variety—as well as long-standing complicity from my own firm at the very highest levels. Also, the likely failure of several highly leveraged institutions, and many innocent victims, if I testified. So we all came to a reasonable accommodation. The corporations agreed to make good on the taxes they had been avoiding, plus pay very substantial fines, and I received a generous cash settlement and also got to keep my job, with all the usual benefits. Except I draw no salary and never have to show up for work.”
“You liked being undercover,” Naomi says, nodding to herself. “Blowing that very discreet whistle.”
He grins. “It’s way more fun than being an accountant.”
At a certain angle, in a certain light, he really does bear the smallest possible resemblance to Brad Pitt, if Brad Pitt was a certified public accountant with a receding hairline and forgettable eyes.
“All my life people tended not to notice me, and I pretended not to be bothered by not being noticed. Milton Milquetoast, the man who blends into the background. Now I get to use that personal camouflage to my advantage. Playing to my strength, you might say.”
“I do say,” Naomi says, impressed. “Bravo, sir! Well told! Now that your special talent has been sorted—the details of which will not leave this room, rest assured—please report on your visit to QuantaGate.”
According to Milton, the employees of the small research and development firm are in a deep state of shock and disbelief, stunned by the sudden death of their legendary founder. Not that anyone on the staff pretends actually to have known Professor Keener other than in passing. According to office chatter, Keener was formally polite but remained very much aloof, spending most of his time in his personal lab. More than one QG employee described him as “impossible to know.”
“It’s as if they all labored in the shadows of his genius, attempting to develop functional equivalents of his theoretical constructs. Which I gather has something to do with a new form of communication between high-speed computers,” Milton adds.
“Functional equivalents? Theoretical constructs?” Naomi asks, probing. “Did they use those terms, exactly?”
He nods. “More than once. Understand, as an auditor I was not permitted access to the secure labs and workshops. My movements were restricted to the general office area and the cafeteria. The support staff.”
“Who restricted your movements?”
“Security.”
“Wackenhut or Gama Guards?” Naomi asks, naming two of the biggest private security providers.
“Gama Guards,” Milton says. “Your basic corporate rent-a-cops, in uniform. Cordial but firm—mere accountants are not allowed into the labs. That requires another level of clearance, plus fingerprint and iris recognition. There’s not that many lab employees—less than thirty, according to the payroll—so presumably they all know each other. No way I could have gotten back there unobserved.”
“Understood. Jack, do you have any contacts with Gama Guards?”
“One or two. Cops who went private.”
“Be nice to check out the lab, or at the very least chat with someone who works in the secure area.”
“I’ll make some calls,” Jack says, making a note of it.
“Okay,” Naomi says. “This is all good. We’re making progress of a sort.” She turns to our guest. “I’m sure you’re eagerly awaiting the dessert course, Mr. Bean. That will follow my brief summation, and it is our habit to enjoy the final course in silence, understood?”
He licks his lips and nods. “Perfectly,” he says, posture attentive.
“First, let me state the obvious,” says Naomi, forming a steeple with her elegant fingers. “Two missing persons are the object of our collective concern, three if you count the mother, whose identity and location remain unknown to us. Our primary focus will be upon finding and recovering Joey, the so-called ‘keyboard kid,’ but it is beginning to look as if we’ll have to find Randall Shane first, before we can develop a productive line of inquiry on the child. As to possible motives for Professor Keener’s murder, indications are that he was suspected of espionage. That the mother of the missing boy might be a Chinese national could be crucial. Bear in mind that the Chinese government, working with various Chinese universities not unlike our own MIT, has launched hundreds of cyber attacks in the U.S., including one that triggered a blackout in a major Florida power grid. These assaults are intended to steal our military and industrial secrets, probe our defenses and evaluate how to shut us down if we ever became involved in an active, forces-on-the-ground war with China. Therefore a great deal of emphasis has recently been put on developing new ways to communicate—methods that cannot be compromised or hacked—and we know that Professor Keener has been involved in developing just such a system. That much is public knowledge, and mentioned prominently in the prospectus for QuantaGate.
“Which brings us to the question of who. Who ordered Professor Keener’s execution? Keener may have been killed by someone on our side—it could even be that Randall Shane is guilty—or at the behest of a foreign power, to ensure his silence. Or it may have been personal, or somehow tong related, or both. We are not yet able to rule out any of these possibilities, but I’m confident we’ll do so over the next few days.”
Jack then does the unthinkable. Something remarkable, in fact. Rather vehemently, he interrupts Naomi in the middle of her summation to argue a point. “No way did Shane do it.”
Naomi gives him a cool look. “We won’t argue the point at this time,” she says. “Unlike you, I’m keeping an open mind on the subject.”
Jack opens his mouth to reply, thinks better of it and makes a sign that boss lady should continue.
“Okay,” she says. “As to who seized the suspect—and he does remain a suspect, however much we all may want him to be proved innocent—possible candidates include Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency, all of which have assumed extraordinary powers under the Patriot Act. It’s rare that a U.S. citizen be detained under the Patriot Act, but it does happen—and quite possibly more frequently than we know, since the secret court orders are sealed.
“We should bear in mind that there are sixteen named U.S. intelligence agencies, and an unknown number that operate beyond public scrutiny. Plus agencies from any number of foreign governments. Any might be culpable. Or none. A grim reminder that we are in murky, dangerous waters. To my regret, I cannot guarantee the personal safety of anyone associated with our enterprise. Given the obvious danger, if any of you want to resign from this particular case, you have only to ask. No opprobrium attached.”
I break the resultant silence—and the tension—by cracking wise. “Opprobrium?” I say. “Is that a fancy perfume?”
Boss lady ignores me. “Are we all in agreement? We do our best to locate and recover the missing child. If in agreement, please say so. Jack?”
“Yes, agreed.”
“Dane?”
“Against my better judgment, yes.”
“Teddy?”
“Way yes.”
“Mr. Bean?”
“Honored to be included. Yes.”
Saving me for last. “Alice?”
“Where you go, I go. Hell, yes.”
“Good. Settled. And now for the dessert course.”
In communal silence we savor Beasley’s homemade vanilla ice cream with ginger sauce. Hot and cold, sweet and tangy, all in one bite. Imagine the best ice cream you ever had as a child, on an occasion when taste was exalted and joy was pure. Say your tenth birthday.
This is way, way better.
