A Fistful of Empty Read online

  15

  Reed Carter Lewis V lives in Skyline City, a group of high-rise condominiums with their own mall and office buildings. It’s quite possible to live an entire life within its walls, going from home to work and play through its tunnels and elevators. Reed leaves now and then, but most of the time he’s home, so I didn’t bother to call ahead.

  I rode up to the twenty-fifth floor, got off, and walked down to his place. A couple of raps on the door and I heard someone move inside. I stepped back so he could get a better look through the peephole in his door. The door opened and Reed stood there smiling, arms out in greeting.

  “Leo, nice to see you. What brings you here?”

  “Trouble, Reed. That and your know-how.”

  “Come on in, come on in.”

  I followed Reed into his living-room office. He’s an independent consultant for a number of local computer firms. He writes programs to solve problems or he solves problems in other people’s programs. Either way he gets to work out of his home a lot, the hours that he wants, and like now, in his shorts and Tori Welles T-shirt. He shakes his head when he realizes how much money people pay him to do what he does and how he lives. It’s a far cry from his childhood dreams as the fifth-generation son of the Lewises of Richmond. There had been a Lewis leading troops at Bull Run, and a Lewis on Teddy Roosevelt’s flank. His grandfather was wounded at Châlons-sur-Marne and his father punched holes in the Germans for Patton. Everyone knew he’d come to a bad end when he refused to go to VMI and chose the Air Force Academy. Lewises had always been in the Army. Nothing else was acceptable. Somehow, high in the skies over Vietnam, perhaps it was the thin air, Reed began to question the family tradition of military service. Oh, dropping bombs on water buffalo from twenty-two thousand feet wasn’t “the horror.” It was the two Vietnamese girls he lived with and all the free time and rum with which he had to reflect upon things that eroded the “glorious nobility” of our cause and led him to reconsider pulling a full twenty in the cockpit of a B-52.

  We’d met as neighbors and stayed friends ever since. I followed him through the foyer to the living room. He sat down in a swivel chair and held out his hand.

  “So what do you have for me?”

  I pulled out the disk and handed it to him. He looked at both sides, then handed it back.

  “It’s a computer disk, Leo, stores information.”

  “Heh, heh, Reed. I know I’m low-tech …”

  “Low-tech, Leo? You’re cyberphobic. You react to machinery like Dracula seeing the cross.”

  “Maybe. I’m getting better. I’ve got a car phone now.”

  Reed rocked back in the chair and clutched his chest.

  “Oh no, not that, anything but that …” Then he spun around, reached under his desk, and came up with a black leather case.

  “Okay, Leo, maybe you’re ready for this baby.” He put the case on his lap and popped it open. “New briefcase computer, with modem and fax machine, all in one. An entire office in your lap.”

  I threw my arm up in front of my face, cowered, and begged, “Put that away. It’s killing me.”

  “Okay. What do you want to know about this baby?”

  “Everything. Whose it is. What’s on it. It’s a very hot piece of merchandise, Reed. Two dead, already.”

  Reed flipped it back to me. “Shit, get that thing out of here.”

  “Relax. There’s at least three layers between you and whoever is so hot to get it back. I wouldn’t have come up here if I didn’t think the transfer was clean.” I flipped him the disk.

  “You’re sure?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay. Make yourself comfortable, this could take a while.”

  Reed spun in his chair, loaded the disk into his computer, and started checking it out. I walked around the living room. The long wall was floor-to-ceiling data disks, operating manuals, and texts. The rear wall was devoted to military history and biographies. Photographs of five generations of Lewis men were strategically placed amongst the books. I looked at the picture of the first Reed Lewis, a company commander for Stonewall Jackson. Reed may have rejected the family path for himself, but he still revered it in his family.

  I always thought that a family that couldn’t come up with another name for its eldest sons in one hundred years was a little short on imagination. Looking at number one’s picture, I reconsidered. Genetics may have played a bigger part than I thought. It was the same exact face as his great-great-grandson’s. The features were as thin, precise, and symmetrical as a geometry problem. The old photograph made it hard to judge flesh tones, but my friend couldn’t keep a tan for ten minutes. Straight from pale to peel, like a shrimp. The thick wavy hair was red. I looked up at his son’s picture. The only thing different was the shade of red. I checked the next two generations. Styles changed, shades varied, but the hair was always red. The eyes were always green. They were right. It would have been silly to give them different names.

  I didn’t even bother to look for a novel. In all the time I’d known him, I’d never seen Reed dally with fiction. I’d argued that making everything up might yield a different truth than recreating a life long over, but he wasn’t having any of it.

  “Anything to drink?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I don’t know what. Check the fridge.”

  V-8, grapefruit, and apricot juice were it. I poured a glass of V-8, sat in the dining nook, and turned on the TV. I was stunned by a majestically stupid movie about a cop named Brutus who among other activities of daily living dug bullets out of his body with his bare hands.

  I knew I was in real trouble because the soundtrack was louder than the dialogue. Soundtrack volume is inversely related to the intelligence of the screenplay. At this level the writer must have been a chimpanzee.

  When Brutus, shot in the shoulder, used that arm to pull up a man who was hanging from the roof of the building, I quit.

  I started to dial the office, realized it was closed, and called Kelly at home.

  “Hello?”

  “Kelly, Leo. I’m sorry to call you at home, but I need something done first thing in the morning. It’s important. The locker Clancy opened, get the number and location and call the rental company. Tell them you have a problem with the invoice for the rental charges. Dates, something. Have them confirm how long it was rented and to whom. Call me on my beeper when you get the name.”

  “Sure. Oh, by the way, there were a couple of calls for you before I left the office.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Two policemen. One was named Arbaugh, the other Rhodasson. They wanted to talk to you.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “That you hadn’t been in the office. That I didn’t know where you were, but that if you did call in, I’d pass the message on.”

  “Okay, thanks. They may come by to visit if I don’t get in touch with them soon. Don’t let them bully you. You don’t have to answer any of their questions. Just refer them to Rocky.”

  “Okay. Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  “Nah. Nothing to worry about. Just a big misunderstanding. Couple of days, it’ll be all straightened out. You just keep doing your job, that’s all you need to be concerned with.”

  “Okay. I’ll get on this first thing.”

  “Good. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  I walked across the room and looked over Reed’s shoulder.

  “So what is it?”

  “Well, there’s two types of files here. The first looks like input files. The second is report files. Whoever ran the reports deleted the title which would tell us what the report is all about.

  “Since these files are on the same disk, I would assume the input files were used by some type of program to generate these reports. That still doesn’t tell us what the numbers mean. See there’s one hundred and twenty entries for subjects here. Then they’ve got I.D. numbers. God knows what they are.”

  I looked at the row of numbers. “Social Security numbers. T
hat’s what they are. So the data sources are people. Then what?”

  “Okay. Across the top are all these abbreviations. Then there’s all these numbers entered for each heading. It’s a data pool. The second file is the same subjects, same headings, different entries. I don’t know how they’re related. There are a number of these pairs of files, with different dates on them. Looks like the data gets entered at two different times. The first file is entered on Fridays each week. Then the second pair is entered on the weekend. Same pattern for all the pairs, over a three-week period.”

  “What will you try to figure out first?”

  “First, whether these columns are statistically related. Then I’ll know which columns are means, standard deviations, and so on. Derivatives of the original raw data. It still won’t tell us what the columns refer to, just that they are a coherent treatment of the data and how they’re related. Then I’ll see if one file is related to the other and how. That’s about all I can do for you. You’ve got to find out whose data this is. There’s nothing on the disk that identifies the owner of this stuff.”

  “How long will all this take?”

  “Hard to say. Once I figure out the source codes, it may all unravel pretty quickly, but that could take quite a while.”

  “Can you give this a priority?”

  “Hey, what are friends for. Besides, I like the challenge.”

  “Thanks, Reed. Keep crunching it. Call me as soon as you get anything out of this stuff. Here’s my beeper number. Call me day or night. One other thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t mention this to anyone. Nobody knows you’ve got this disk. Let’s keep it that way.”

  “My sentiments exactly.”

  I waved to him and said, “I’ll let myself out.” He turned back to the black screen and reached for another disk.

  16

  The Bed-a-Bye Motel was just where I left it. I repossessed room Number 14 without fanfare and sat at the Formica desk. I was too damned tired to write my notes on the pad I had left there. I tried to recall dinner but drew a blank. Dial-a-Pizza was an option, but even that felt too difficult. I lay down on the bed, pulled the phone over next to me, and tucked it under my arm like an old friend.

  Sandy Abrams’s machine was on. I waited through the message, then spoke. “Sandy or Sam, this is Leo. I need to talk to you. Please call my beeper. The number is …”

  The line clicked into connection and I heard Sandy’s voice. “Leo?”

  “Yeah, Sandy. Is Sam there?”

  No answer. “Jesus, Sandy, how hard can that be? She’s either there or she’s not.”

  More silence, then, “Yeah, she’s here, Leo. I’m not sure she’ll talk to you, though. Hold on a minute.”

  I leaned back against the pillow, closed my eyes, and kneaded my forehead.

  The phone exploded in my ear. “Where were you? You said you’d be there first thing in the morning. I waited for you, but no, something else was more important than me. So, yes, thank you, I had the D&C. And yes, I’m fine. How kind of you to ask. You bastard.”

  “Sam, I called. I tried to get in touch with you. I couldn’t be there.”

  “Oh really? Why not? Arnie have another goddamn there’s-nobody-else-who-can-help-me-but-you job? And don’t give me any shit about how he was there for you. If anybody’s been there for you, Leo, it’s me. Day in and day out. But that doesn’t seem to rate, does it? What should I have done, Leo, worn a gun to bed? Slept back to back so we could cover each other’s ass?”

  “Arnie’s dead, Sam.”

  That shut her the hell up.

  “What do you mean, he’s dead?”

  “Dead. Murdered. Whoever attacked you went after him first and killed him. I found out about it when I left the hospital. I decided to stay away from anybody close to me. That’s why I had that nurse-bodyguard put in your room. I tried to reach you a bunch of times and tell you all this but you were never in.”

  “Have you called Randi?”

  “Yes. She’s in hiding, too. Until this is over.”

  “What is ‘this,’ Leo?”

  “I don’t know yet. I spent all day trying to figure it out. I know some of what’s going on, but not enough.”

  “Not enough for what?”

  “Enough to go to the police with. Enough to come out of hiding. Enough to identify who attacked you. Take your pick.”

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to lay low and do what I know how to do, be a detective. Try to figure out what’s going on.”

  “And until then? What about us?”

  “I don’t think we should get together. Right now he doesn’t know where I am and he doesn’t know where you are. I want it to stay that way. I don’t want you exposed to any danger until this is over.”

  “And how long is that?”

  “I don’t know, Sam. I wish I did. A few days, probably. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life hiding from this guy. It will end. And soon.”

  “That’s great. You know, this morning I really needed you there. Right now, for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.”

  “Sam, I’m sorry. If there was any way I could have been there, I would have. It’s just too risky right now.”

  “Fine. Whatever.” She was too disgusted even to fight with me.

  “Look, you’re pissed off at me. I let you down. I’m sorry. There’s nothing more I can do about it now. You want to let me have it, fine. Save it up until we get together. Do it in person. Until then, I need to know that you’re safe from this guy. Please don’t go back to the house, or my office, or any of your usual places. I don’t know how much information this guy picked up about you while he was in the house. Will you do that?”

  “Yes. I’ll stay away from those places. Okay?”

  “Thanks. Can I have somebody stay there with you?”

  “What? One of Rocky’s people?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. Absolutely not. I don’t want any part of that world near me. I’m fine. I’m safe. You said so yourself. I’m with a friend. I don’t need anyone else, thank you.”

  “Okay. I’ll call every day. So we can talk.”

  “Leo, don’t promise me anything. Your track record isn’t so hot these days.”

  I held on to the phone, reluctant to say goodbye, to let things end on such a sorry note, but I couldn’t think of any words to turn it around.

  “Well, goodnight,” I said finally.

  “Goodnight, Leo.”

  I held on, waiting for the click.

  “Leo?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry about Arnie.”

  “Yeah. Thanks. Goodnight.”

  I told no one that I loved her and hung up the already dead phone.

  17

  I left a message with my service around midnight and then closed my eyes for just a second. Nine hours later my beeper woke me up. I looked at the number and sat up in bed. A quick check confirmed that I smelled bad, and felt worse. I stripped off my clothes and threw them on a chair. I showered and considered shaving, but decided to keep the beard-in-progress for no good reason.

  Fresh clothes helped enormously. I sat on the side of the bed and dialed the office.

  “Hello.”

  “Good morning, Kelly. You called me a bit ago.”

  “Uh-huh. I followed up on the key to the storage locker. It was taken out last week by a Mr. Terence Onslow, listed at 13013 Newminster Road, apartment number 702.”

  I wrote down the address and phone number as she gave them to me.

  “Detective Rhodasson called again. I told him I’d give you the message.”

  “And so you have. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Are you coming in today?”

  “No, I’m not. Any problems?”

  “No. Mr. Franklin called, that’s all. He wanted to know if I’d heard from you.”

  “I’ll call him. Anything else?”

 
“No.”

  “Okay, thanks. I’ll be in touch.”

  I dialed Rocky Franklin’s home and sent Tawni scurrying to get him.

  “Leo, what’s going on? I heard that Sam fired the minder you wanted to watch her.”

  “Yeah, but it’s okay. She’s laying low too.”

  “Do you have any idea who attacked her?”

  “Yeah, I even have some leads on why. It’s a stolen data disk. I’m having the disk analyzed right now. She was attacked because the guy thought Arnie and I stole this disk from him.”

  “How did you get it?”

  “Long story short, it was planted on us. The guy who attacked Sam ambushed Arnie and killed him, then came looking for me. Sam was just in the way.”

  “You need some help on this?”

  “Yeah. I want somebody to keep an eye on Sam. Nothing close or obvious. Just a shadow. And no connection to me or the office. She doesn’t want it, so they have to be able to watch her without her knowing it.”

  “No problem. I’ll get someone from Dickie Pruitt’s outfit.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not now. Maybe later. Rocky, I don’t know when I’m going to be back in the office. Maybe you should put somebody else in charge. Between this and the Babcock thing I haven’t been much use lately.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m going to put Frank Martell in until you get this cleared up. Then the job is still yours. Babcock could have happened to anyone. I think you handled it just fine. We’ll survive. Our reputation is still good and I think that’s because you didn’t try to cover it up or make excuses. This trouble you’ve got is personal. If I canned people because they had troubles in their lives, what kind of boss would I be? Don’t answer that. Do what you have to do and keep me informed.”

  “Thanks, Rocky. I really appreciate that.”

  I called Rhodasson. He wasn’t in, so I left my name and the office number. I did my part.

  I drove through Vienna toward Tysons Corner and stopped at a local diner for breakfast. I couldn’t remember my last meal. The food there was excellent, the portions huge and the prices prehistoric. That helped get past the exposed pipe and chipped linoleum decor, and the fanged waitress.