Cafe Underground Presents
PHACKER
Book 3 -- Chapter 7
The Detective Andi Wicksham Series, by RL Bell
Copyright © 1997 RL BELL
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....author RL Bell
Andi Wicksham's INVESTIGATORY SERVICES
Chapter 7
They scoured the office for anything linking them to Francois or the stolen files. Lena took one disk at a time from the janitor’s closet down the hall, going through it and returning it immediately. No telling if Max would make good his threat.
Andi studied Francois' latest bundle. The first group were printed-out computer screens with phone numbers noted in pencil at the top. Most were limited to single pages--welcoming words and requests for passwords, others had short menus. Two had five or six pages--Francois must have felt inspired.
There were eight banks, three savings and loans, four credit unions, two investment houses, and four business with names like "Rosco, Myers, and Rossen" and "Hays & McGonnigal, LTD." The account’s were all drawn down below a hundred dollars.
"ACCOUNT INFORMATION, DEPOSITS, WITHDRAWALS, LOAN PAYMENTS, and OTHER SERVICES" seemed the standard menu choices. A handwritten sticky-note clung to one reading See July 24th--double PW. What the heck was that?
Andi looked through them again and then passed the lot to Lena. "What do you think?" she asked.
"They look like bank teller machines." She tossed the pages back with a flick of her wrist. "Eugene was into something more than hacking."
Andi stuffed the pages into a folder before tossing them aside and calling Ramone Bodega. "It's Andi." she announced over the last-half of his slow helloooow? "We meeting for coffee?"
"Uhh, yeah. What time?"
Bodega smoothed the surface of his voice like a master plasterer whisking a smooth, final trowel. Say two?"
"Why not?" Andi tapped her fingers impatiently. Where?"
"Powell Butte?"
"Too far. No time today."
"Mount Tabor, by the reservoirs?"
"Who's bringing coffee?" Andi asked, smiling.
"I think I owe you for professional advice." Bodega offered easily.
"OK, two o'clock." Andi replaced the receiver, penned the time into her calendar and looked up.
Lena was flipping through screen after screen for anything interesting, sending and occasional page or two to print. "Wanna give this dreck to Max so he can't claim we withheld evidence?" Lena asked without looking up.
"He'll still claim we are." recited Andi vaguely.
"Don't do the crime if you can't do the time?" quipped Lena.
"Full cooperation." chirped Andi.
"A snitch with a dime beats serving time." returned Lena.
"One person's safe is another person's sorry." Andi leaned back in her chair. "You got the file on Eugene?"
"In your pile." Lena pointed without looking up.
Andi dug out the file and skimmed. Eugene had been a decent student in high school, completed two quarters at a community college's computer science department getting B’s--then dropped out. Arrested three times as an adult for various computer crimes, two releases for lack of evidence, one conviction earning him his probation. The rest basically said he was a distracted slob more interested in his chosen avocation than anything else in the world. Lena had circled his probation officer's number and noted the time and date of a call, but nothing else--so she hadn't talked to them directly. Andi decided to call. The phone rang only twice before it was transferred to a voice mail system. Andi left her name and number.
Lena looked up from her work. "You know why me and JC broke up?"
Andi looked across at her.
"He's mad because I made him use a condom."
"Oh?"
Lena had an unhappy look on her face. "Well, he was out on tour--with Martha. Seemed the right thing to do."
"Seems fair." Andi tried to sound supportive. "HIV and all." Luckily, a call came--another prospective employee check for Wiener's Discounts. Andi listened to Lena handle it while looking out the window at a car with hundreds of dolls and toy heads glued onto it.
Lena hung up the phone and pushed her pad of paper to a side. Their eyes met and clung for an ecstatic moment. Andi asked "Lunch?"
Coming back from eating, they found Sonny loitering against a car soaking up sun outside their office, watching people passing by. "So am I going to be a real private eye now?" Sonny mugged, her collar up and a fedora pulled down low.
"Shush, Natasha." Andi looked around in burlesqued alarm before slipping a conspiratorial arm around her shoulder. "We're working undercover." She looked around again. "We don't got to show no badges Natasha. Shushhhh. No one's supposed to know we're spies." She raised her head, looked around suspiciously and hissed, "Anybody see you come?"
Sonny gave a spare, tight-faced shake of her head. Cautiously, they slipped inside and, aping the long tiptoe steps of Keystone Kops, swarmed up the wide stairs.
Andi liberated a chair for Sonny from the file boxes leaking out of the crammed-full closet. Sonny poured herself coffee and helped Lena assemble Francois' computer. Lena was interrupted by a call, but kept a running dialogue with Sonny via finger-pointing and mime.
"That was, Brenda at Goldberg and Hess; a witness trace, sounds standard. You know we could set up accounts for regulars. A percent-and-a-half a month interest would discourage late-payment." Lena turned back to the project.
Andi reached for her notebook for Trafino's number.
"Berg and Trafino." Eileen answered.
"Hi Eileen. It's Andi Wicksham...Mrs. Trafino please."
"One moment." The line went quiet.
"Ms Wicksham." Trafino answered. "What can I do for you?"
"Perhaps coffee?" Andi suggested. She hoped Trafino would know what she meant--Francois' paranoia seemed to have infected her.
"Fellini's?" Trafino asked brightly.
Andi glanced at her watch as she reached for her calendar. "Say, three o'clock?" Subtracting driving time, it would mean only forty minutes with Bodega. She set the receiver down, glanced at her watch and turned to Lena.
"Meeting with Trafino, ‘eh?" Lena asked.
Andi smiled "We'll need copies of the disks and printouts. Can you crank an invoice?"
"Disk's are copied and stashed, her copy’s in the blue box, check your pending file for her file." Lena pointed. "Glance over her account if you would...bill through today?"
Andi already had the file in her hands.
At quarter to two Andi raced to meet Ramone Bodega. He was sitting in the sun looking down at the city from the grassy slope beside the reservoir. "What do you know of computer encryption?" asked Andi as she walked up.
He struggled to his feet and offered a paper cup of coffee and a fresh oatmeal cookie. Andi sipped the coffee and nibbled as they set out down the path.
Bodega wiped crumbs from his lips with his wrist. "Most people use it if they do sensitive business on e-mail."
"You?" Andi was surprised.
"Sure...on occasion." he glanced over and explained. "The web's like a postcard. Usually people could care less about other people's chattering, but anybody who cares enough can get a copies as they zip in and out. So, if you're talking important strategy or don't want people watching, you encode. I got a couple or three programs." He shrugged as if it were nothing. "It stops casual lurkers."
"I didn't know." Andi said, a bit set back. "I thought it was some cloak and dagger thing."
"Used to be. It’s a sign of our time, I guess." Bodega scuffed the sidewalk as if not particularly liking that sign.
"Anybody ever break in to your computer?" She asked.
"Once or twice I know of. There are lots of sleaze-balls out there." He gave her a sad look. "It's a myth that most hacking's done by adolescent boys." He allowed himself an ironic laugh. "They're just the ones clumsy enough to get caught."
Andi paused for another sip of coffee and gestured for him to go on.
Bodega continued. "I keep fax and e-mail limited to a computer that doesn't connect to anything else that’s where I work. Only routine stuff is on the one with a modem. It's cumbersome, but what can you do?" He grinned a wise-cracking smile as if he didn't care.
"Know about advertising?" Andi asked.
"I watch it." Bodega looked down the city, glistening before them between the trees.
"How about the business of advertising?"
"Never enough budget. This a case you're on?"
"Yeah, problem is I don't know much about it. Corporate espionage." She waved her hands in exasperation.
"Espionage?" asked Bodega with a smile.
"Companies spying on each other." Andi kicked at a pine cone down the path.
"It's not just corporations, the government’s been doing it for years." He gave a quick glance her way. "The LAPD bugged a hundred thousand phones. The NCIC's got more stuff on regular citizens than Stalin ever dreamed possible."
"Who?" Andi stopped in her tracks and stared at him.
"Stalin or the NCIC?" Bodega laughed.
Andi gave him a hard look. "NCIC."
"National Crime Information Center, police reports, hotel records, everybody's bank and credit card stuff and unsubstantiated rumors all cross referenced. It's an incredibly huge amount of data." He kicked at a tuft of grass and asked, "That's common knowledge. You didn't know?"
"No." Andi was hit by a wave of inadequacy--she'd just barely scratched her way into the electronic age only to face the inevitable abyss of the cyber-millennium.
Bodega gave a steely look. "But the biggest threat isn't the cops, it's that anybody can find out intimate details--almost anything. Everything that can be known about us is known and sold."
"What a time to live." Andi snorted in disgust.
He paused and turned toward her philosophically. "The way I see it, hackers provide the public the type of access insurance companies, credit bureaus, organized crime and the cops already have." He puffed out his cheeks and sighed. "My view is--if databases are around it's better if all of them were open and above board. Letting knowledge be proprietary impinges on rights. Having hackers about makes it kind-of half-way open." He scratched his chin as if pondering a mystery of the universe.
"It means you got to have money to play or be an expert."
"Not exactly a new concept." he mumbled distractedly.
They walked on a moment in silence. "How's things between you and Lena?" Bodega asked.
"Business as usual." replied Andi a bit more bitterly than she really had reason. "Only business." She kicked a pine cone careening off the edge of the path. "Find your friend from Earth First!?"
His eyes lit up and he broke a shy smile. "Yeah, one might say we've re-connected." He couldn't hide the a little swagger that came at the thought. "We're seeing a lot of each other." He grinned sheepishly.
"Good. Maybe there's hope for us all."
They circled the reservoirs; trekking down one of the wooded canyons and back--he talked obliquely of an ending his last relationship--a physician who talked of home-life, but couldn’t see beyond career.
Andi nodded. Their friendship coursed a safe path. On their last walk she admitted her attraction to Lena.
Back at the reservoirs they hugged and agreed to meet again soon. It was OK.
Fellini's was a surprisingly clean, post-modern cafe inhabiting a corner of a thrash-punk night club known for its angst-ridden graffiti and the tribal smells of mosh-pit sweat and irregular hygiene. Sandi Trafino waited primly, nodding formally as Andi slid into the red upholstered booth.
"I’ll bring you up to date." Andi started without introduction. "We haven't found Eugene, but we've made some headway into his computer stuff. Andi opened her notebook and slid six computer disks across the table. "Most of this is garbage, but it’s what you’ve bought so far. Your nephew had a friend, dark hair parted at the top, tall, thin, black-framed glasses," she touched a finger to her chin, just below her lips. "A blues-patch." she watched Trafino's face. "Know him?"
A young tattooed waitress approached the table, pad in hand. Andi shook her head and the waitress veered away as Andi pushed a folder with photocopies of Eugene’s cards Francois’ print-outs in front of Trafino.
"Probably Ramsey Karenia, a friend of Gene's for years. Ask Eileen."
"Do you know a friend of Eugene's named Jerry who lived downstairs from him?"
Trafino shook her head.
"Did you send Eugene on business trips?"
Trafino chortled. "What for?" She shook her head sarcastically.
"Two people have mentioned he flew on business, maybe Texas or the east coast."
Trafino shook her head again--slowly from side to side.
"He's been calling banks." Andi said bluntly. She pointed to the file folder. “Evidently doing quite bit of bank business.”
"No." Trafino whispered as she paged through the papers. "Our banks?"
"I haven't any idea." assured Andi, "You can check them yourself."
Trafino paged through the stack of papers. "What are these?"
"Lists of the bank’s phone numbers I found in his apartment."
"What would he be doing..." Trafino stopped mid-sentence.
Andi leaned forward on her elbows. "Could you be vulnerable to embezzlement?"
"Gene?" puzzled Trafino with a shocked expression.
"We're not sure what he was doing." admitted Andi. "It might be anything, but twenty-one different banks? Unless he had a lot of car loans, the next best guesses are deposits and withdrawals."
"Have you told them yet?" Trafino asked--alarmed.
"Who?"
"The banks, have you told the banks?"
Andi smiled. "No, I’m working for you. Anyway, they wouldn't give anything of use in return. I make it a policy to begrudge institutions anything unless it does good."
"It's none of their business." Trafino said with decision.
Andi leaned back and stared at Trafino. "Could he be staying with relatives? Friends?"
Trafino shook her head. "I don't know his friends."
"What do you know about his plans?" Andi slid the invoice across to Trafino.
"Plans?" Trafino asked. If she was feigning confusion, she was doing a decent job of it. The waitress silently slipped Trafino's check on the table and turned away.
"He was excited about some big project. He wasn't just indulging a random urge. Did he talk about getting away from it all, scoring big, moving to the mountains or Tahiti?"
"The mountains? You don't know Eugene." Trafino snorted derisively. "Andi if he had plans, he kept them from me." Then her face took a melancholic cast. "But then I've been up to my neck in business and I'm not the touchy-feely type." She shrugged off her moody thoughts. "You think he stole from Berg & Trafino?"
"No." Replied Andi firmly. "Just that he had a lot a account numbers...but unless there was money, they'd be silly to have."
Trafino blinked as she thought that over.
Andi let her think a moment longer, then quietly said. "Here's our account up through today." She placed the invoice on the top of the other papers. "Your box of candy--went to that charity of your choice. Your official costs are Lena’s and my time."
"Is your expert worth the money?"
"Just about everything we know has come through him.".
"I brought more." Trafino said. She opened her purse and pulled out a fat, sealed, brown envelope. There was concern in her face as she placed it before Andi. "The police aren't doing anything. It's up to you. You got the phone numbers from his apartment?" She smiled wanly and held out the package.
Andi took the money and set it before her, then looked across. "Yeah, his computer wasn't there. Do you know if he had luggage?"
"No, why?"
"I didn't see suitcases. Do you know anything of a briefcase he would keep in his closet?"
"A brown briefcase with combination locks?" Trafino asked, surprised. Her eyes were opened wide.
Andi nodded, "What's in it?"
Trafino paused, meeting Andi's eyes with a harder edge than had been there before. She seemed to be choosing her words carefully. "There was a dark brown leather briefcase that belonged to a competitor that disappeared."
"That's not much help." prompted Andi.
"I don't know much about it."
"Would it help if I told you I don't believe you?" confided Andi cynically.
"There was a briefcase with material from a competitor I paid for, but never received, it disappeared two weeks ago."
"About the time Eugene disappeared?" queried Andi.
"I suppose so." Trafino responded grudgingly. "But I had no idea he was involved, I'd set up arrangements with another party."
"How’d you become aware of the briefcase?" Something wasn't lining up.
"I was told of it." Her eyes shifted to the table before coming back to Andi's.
"You knew the color and that it was leather and had combination locks." Andi shook her head slightly.
Trafino sat back with a soured expression. The span of a twelve bar phrase beat by without either of them speaking--then another ticked away.
Finally Andi sighed, "Do you want to continue our contract?" She pushed the envelope back to neutral space and leaned back against the red upholstery.
Trafino pushed the money back to her with an impatient gesture. "I'll send a check to cover your invoice." Her eyes were clear, but ice--her neutral expression a mask. The warmth she’d shown before had cooled. "The police don't seem to have personnel available and you've shown a certain competency."
"There isn't a crime attached to his disappearance." Andi defended the police automatically, then bit her tongue.
"I want that briefcase." Trafino interrupted with tight-lipped intensity.
"It would facilitate things if you told me what's going on." Andi ironically observed. "Who offered you the briefcase? If your nephew has it, there must be a connection."
"I can't tell you."
"What?"
"I’ll have to think about it."
"There have been three murders so far. Eugene might be dead or kidnapped. What is there to think about?" Andi slammed her hand down on the table in exasperation, then looked around, embarrassed. Then she leaned forward and whispered demandingly, "What's in the briefcase?"
Trafino didn't meet her eyes. She stuffed the printouts into their folder, threw a five dollar bill on the table and snapped her purse shut. "I'll be in touch." Then she rose and swept out without a sideways glance.
Andi slumped in her seat and looked up to the ceiling. She took a deep breath. The envelope still lay on the table--she picked it up, smiled wanly at the waitress and drove on back to her office.
"Ramirez called." Lena announced as Andi came in. Sonny smiled and waved.
"Jesus, can't a body have some peace?" Andi muttered irritably. She tossed Trafino's envelope into her bottom drawer, picked up the phone and dialed Ramirez.
"Sergeant Ramirez." he answered.
"It's Andi, what do you want?" she asked sullenly.
"Max is willing to get off your case if you give us what we want...grudgingly willing."
"OK. For the numbers in Eugene’s notebook, you subtract six from each number."
"What do you mean subtract six?"
"Subtract six from each digit in the phone number. And the numbers correspond to notes the next page down."
"Wicksham." he rumbled. "Are you jerking me around?"
"Honest Ramirez, give it to your computer jocks and you'll make Max smile. Just get off my friend's back, OK?"
"It's a start." Ramirez said grudgingly. There was a pause as he made a note to himself. "What other things are you withholding?"
“Nothing.”
"How come I feel there's more than you're telling?" Ramirez reflected lightly.
"Jesus on a stick, Ramirez. What's wrong with this picture?" Andi complained loudly. "You want me to help you and then grill me when I do. What is your problem anyway?"
"So tell me again what this Eugene Trafino has to do with Max's homicides?" Ramirez returned to his long-suffering cop persona.
"The people in the 50th street office broke into his aunt's business. He tracked them down. The pages I gave you are notes he took doing that. He was going to confront them, then he disappeared. He left a briefcase in his closet his aunt wants. You know how that goes."
"I don't know a blessed thing, Wicksham. Now how does this fit into the picture?"
"I've no idea, it probably doesn't.”
Ramirez suddenly burst like a swelling pimple. "Do you expect me to believe this cock and bull story? It makes no sense at all. My question is why do you want the briefcase?"
"Christ Ramirez. It's what I do for a living, lost nephews, poodles and briefcases. If I get real lucky maybe I can chase a witness or catch a cheating spouse. Look, my client feels it’s hers and thinks it’s vital for her business, it's at her nephew's apartment, he's her employee. What do you need, a map?"
"Down-shift a moment Wicksham." Ramirez's voice softened.
Andi felt a cautious wave of relief.
"We're going nowhere on Max’s case and everyone including me is getting testy."
"OK." Andi said resignedly. "I’ve helped you...and now you'll get Max to phone my friend’s probation officer?"
"He wouldn't call, but I will." Ramirez's voice was suddenly tired. "But now you owe me, Wicksham. You owe me. You understand?”
"Yeah, yeah. OK, I owe big time. I'll catch you later. OK?"
"Fine." Ramirez mumbled and the phone went dead.
Andi looked up to find Sonny and Lena watching.
Lena looked over and smiled a sarcastic smile. "Andi Wicksham, are you withholding information from that officer?" She used her grating, school-marm voice.
Andi favored her with a long-suffering head-shake of dismissal and entered Ramirez's phone call in her notebook.
She looked for Ramsey Karenia in the phone book. Nothing. She stared out the window and stewed. It had been a day of frustrations--she might as well chase after the briefcase to cap it off. She certainly wasn't making headway toward Eugene.
"I drafted a letter offering corporate accounts." Lena pointed to Andi's pending box.
"Thanks. I'll get to it." Andi grumbled. Then she reached for the phone and called Trafino.
"Let's go see Mr. and Mrs. Arbuckle and ask them to let you in."
"Now?" asked Trafino eagerly.
"What?"
"Can..we..go..there..now?" Trafino impatiently enunciated each syllable.
Andi paused a moment. "Mr. Arbuckle didn't take it upon himself to let me in. Better to go at six."
"Phone and see if he'll let us in." instructed Trafino impatiently.
"I don't have their number."
"I thought you were a professional." sniped Trafino.
"My focus has been on Eugene--if I get too nosy people don’t cooperate." Andi defended sharply. "When you nose into people's lives they don't help. You want that briefcase or not?"
Trafino took a breath, reining herself in. "Fine, I’ll meet you at quarter to six--in front of his building."
Andi hung up the phone with a uneasy feeling in her stomach. What was in the briefcase anyway? A competitor's ad campaign? Just how much was on the line for Trafino to go to the trouble? And for that matter how did Eugene get the briefcase? She scribbled the questions in her notebook, hoping that seeing them on paper might bring order and lend answers.
It didn't.
She got a cup of coffee, then shuffled through her folders. There must be something that tied it together.
She turned to her keyboard and started listing things. Most of what Eugene saved was obscure bookkeeping and correspondence--the detritus of business too voluminous and dustily mundane to wade through. Most of that they hadn't printed out. Why would he go through the trouble?
Lena and Sonny had reviewed scrolling pages for hours on end; only a fraction was sent to the printer, but that fragment was still too much to muck through and all but meaningless when they did. They’d a ton of material that was worthless. It didn't feel good.
There was a file of Eugene's financial contacts, another on code and encryption. There were two big ones from the hackers and another from the trucking company. There was a file on Eugene himself and one on the 50th street homicide and one on Berg & Trafino.
At five forty-five Andi waited outside Eugene's apartment. A moment later Trafino turned the corner on foot, evidently walking over from her office. They approached the door together and Andi pushed the buzzer.
"Yes?" Mrs. Arbuckle's voice crackled abrasively.
"Mrs. Arbuckle? This is Andi Wicksham. I have Eugene Trafino's aunt here with me--Mrs. Trafino. She'd very much like to look in Eugene's apartment for a briefcase she needs for her business. Is possible for you to let her in? It's very important."
No one responded, but a minute later the door buzzed and they entered. Upstairs, Mrs. Arbuckle waited impatiently at her door.
"You really should have phoned." she snapped.
Trafino shot a glare at Andi.
"I'm sorry. I didn't have your number." She was paid to bow and scrape for results. "Mrs. Arbuckle, this is Mrs. Trafino. Eugene's aunt and boss.
"Thank you so much for helping." Beamed Trafino.
Turning to her, Mrs. Arbuckle switched immediately from patronizing to gushing. "His aunt and his employer?" The charter members of the Matrons With Wedding Rings dropped their wall of exclusivity. She took Mrs. Trafino's elbow solicitously.
Mrs. Arbuckle unlocked Eugene's door and ushered them in. The musty, closed-up smell still clung to the walls, but Andi could see that the plants looked better.
She pushed her way through the bedroom door to the closet and reached--then withdrew her hand. The briefcase wasn't where she'd left it--it had been moved back against the wall. She pulled her hand back and stepped away. "Here it is." she called. If anyone were going to be caught carrying off the briefcase it wasn't going to be her.
"Thank God." Trafino exclaimed. She immediately took possession.
"Well, good." sang Mrs. Arbuckle saccharinely.
"Thank you so much." chimed Mrs. Trafino. "This means a lot to me." She scuttled back to the door without even glancing at Eugene's apartment. Andi murmured a brief thanks and had to hurry to catch up.
The street was in shadows when they emerged. "I'll give you a ride back to your office." offered Andi. She tossed her keys in the air and caught them as she slipped around to the driver's door.
"Fair enough." accepted Trafino. She slid into the passenger seat balancing the briefcase possessively on her lap.
Andi punched up jazz on her radio, pulled from the curb and started turning at the corner when a cacophony of encircling sirens stopped her. A brown van careened toward them at high speed, followed by two blaring police cars with every light flashing. Another patrol car shrieked behind her and two more, side-by-side, wailed up the street just in front.
Across the intersection, the van slammed its brakes and began a high-speed, four-wheeled drift that ended a few short inches from Andi's fender.
"Oh my God." wailed Trafino.
They were surrounded by a dozen uniforms and drawn guns. Andi glanced up to see the muzzles of revolvers in her mirror and could see uniforms taking cover beyond the van. She and Sandra Trafino, huddling best they could considering seat belts and lack of room as vertigo-producing blue and red lights flashed in six different rhythms and the wash of high-intensity spotlights made everything streak and blur.
Muffled police voices, tinny from microphone and adrenalin, blared barely understandable demands. More sirens screamed around them and there was a scraping sound of someone leaning against her fender. It took an agonizing fourteen minutes, but the situation was finally resolved. The driver emerged chalky-faced, staggering out to spread-eagle on the pavement where he was cuffed and led away.
Onlookers were kept on the sidewalks as Andi stood by her car in shock. She was approached by a badge to make a statement, locked the car and was led, with Trafino, to separate cars to give reports.
That procedure took twenty minutes and when she returned to her car, Trafino was gone. A tow truck lifted the van to tow it away, the driver and most of the cops had gone and two officers directed a traffic flow that would have flowed as well without them. Most of the crowd had drifted away.
Andi got back in the car and saw the handle of the brown leather briefcase in the well of shadow before the passenger seat. No sense trying to find Trafino. The air blowing in the window was cool and the city seemed quiet despite the usual traffic and rumble.
There was a chance that the briefcase might hold pertinent evidence. Trafino'd said it was a competitor's, but possession was said to be nine-tenths of the law. At the moment it was a found item--abandoned flotsam. No name tag or initials. She might have to open it to ascertain whom to return it to.
Andi sped up a few miles an hour. She only have this evening to do anything. Judged by the trouble Trafino'd taken to retrieve the briefcase, she’d be anxious already--by tomorrow she'd be worse.
There was a message on her home machine; Trafino insisting Andi return the call when she got in. Andi shrugged it off, pulled the blinds and lay the briefcase on the table.
It was heavy enough to contain a ream or two of paper. She shook it. There was a slight shifting, but nothing gave clues to its contents. Gold-plated combination locks secured its latches--three numbered rollers, stout looking metal, well made, expensive. Andi took a pad of paper and wrote down their settings. Three digits meant a thousand possibilities--double that if the owner was paranoid enough to key each side different.
There was a good chance that it was some easy number though; nine out of ten people did that, even with valuable items. She poured a glass of apple juice and tried moving the first roller up one number. She tried the latch. It didn't budge. She turned it down to one--nothing. She tried two numbers up, then down, then three--tediously recording each attempt as she went until she'd tried each number with each roller, leaving the other two as found.
She tried all zeros, all ones--on up to nine. No luck. She tried, one, two, three, then three, two, one. She stopped and wrote out two, three, four--three, four, five and the similar options through nine. Trafino called again, her voice distraught and insistent through the answering machine. Andi chewed her lip and ignored it.
She was working through the columns on her list when Sonny called asking if she wanted to go out for Mexican. Andi said she'd love to, but what did Paco know about opening luggage?
Sonny chirped “Just a sec” only to return saying they'd be over in fifteen. Andi returned to her combinations, one after the other, one side then the other--determined to outlast her stomach’s churn of impatience.
The door bell rang. Andi looked cautiously out her window, then crept down the staircase. Sonny swept in all a-chatter about some project with puppets and masks, Paco followed silently in her wake with a tool box, checking the lock before following along upstairs.
Paco inspected each lock, lifting latches and probing, recessed catch with a wire, he inspected each edge, examined seams and poked at the hinges. "We’ll go through the hinges.." His hand lay possessively on the briefcase as if willing her to say yes.
The phone rang again; Trafino again, anxiety and alcohol now obvious in her voice. Andi did her best to ignore it. The briefcase showed signs of wear; it’s leather was scuffed, a corner torn, the hinges had flat, metal knuckles that extended to each side serve as feet. "We pop-off or drill the cap." Paco looked up, Sonny perched on a stool watching.
"Do it." Andi’s brows furrowed.
Paco lifted his tool box to the table and took out a small vice-grips, hammer and chisel--laying them on the table like scalpels. He placed the chisel between on the cap and tapped lightly--the cap moved a tiny bit. The room ticked with tension. "A plug of glue, from the look of it." he said, peering into the hole with a flashlight. He pulled an electric drill from the case, untangled the cord and carefully chose a drill-bit.
The sound of the drill shrilled unnaturally through the silence. He set the briefcase on end and poked the pins out with a nail. The case opened two inches from it’s hinge side, stopped by a brown silk lining. "Let's see." Paco mused. "No sweat." He a razor knife appeared in his hand and slit the lining.
Now, the case opened four or five inches, held by the scissored scissor braces at each side. He stuck a screwdriver through the gap in lining and forced the connection inside the box. "Da daa." he proclaimed with a flourish. The case opened fully, hinged on its expensive latches as if inside out.
Tucked within were three thick files, two video tapes and two computer disks. Andi sprinted to her bedroom for her instant camera.
"Fingerprints?" asked Sonny. Paco poked through his tool box and pulled out latex gloves and they laid the contents out on the table. As Paco repaired the forced rivet, Andi pulled the tapes from their boxes.
"BIG APPLE"--ADVERTISING & PROMOTION
Bidding Package DEMONSTRATION #II & II
FLASHPOWDER PRODUCTIONS Abdul Goldberg.
She tossed the computer disks aside and flipped through the folders; bookkeeping, synopsi and technical service menus and lists of options and caveats, three spiral bound presentation booklets and promotional materials. Next came an full inch-and-a-half of reports, marketing analyses, alternate proposals, change orders and correspondence. Andi wondered how much money had changed hands.
She could return everything to Flashpowder Productions and fill the briefcase with newspapers before giving it back, or do what she’d been paid for. It wasn't much of a decision.
Sonny grabbed the video tapes and headed for the living room table only to return ten minutes later saying, “Two short commercials with yellow dots singing a jingle. Money was paid for this?” Lights off, they trooped downstairs, taking the files and disks to their office.
Andi turned the radio to rock and roll while Sonny started the copy machine. They worked through the papers as fast they could, laughing until it hurt.
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