Firewall (15 page)

I must have looked like the local loony to the kids, grinning broadly as I thought about him trying to get himself over a six-foot wall. I wouldn't want Mancini as a wing man.

Sure enough, twenty cold boring minutes later, out he came. Still with no coat on, hands tucked under his armpits, not exactly running but moving quickly. I didn't even have to follow him. He was coming toward me, probably on his way to screw up even more by going straight back to the cafe.

I stepped out in front of him and his look of horror said it all.

"Hello, Tom."

At first he didn't move, he just stood there, rooted to the spot, then he half turned away, screwing up his face and looking down at the sidewalk, like a dog that thinks it's going to get hit. "Please don't hurt me. I didn't say nothing to no one. On my life. Promise."

"It's all right, Tom," I said. "I have nothing to do with those people now. That's not why I'm here."

14

"Tell you what, I said, "let's go back to your apartment, get the kettle on and have a chat." I was trying to sound nice, but he knew I wasn't offering him a choice.

I put an arm around his shoulder and he stiffened. "Come on, mate, let's have some tea and I'll tell you what this is all about. It's too cold out here."

Being only about five foot five, he was easy to get my arm around. I could feel the softness of his body. He hadn't shaved for a few days and the result wasn't bristle but the sort of thing you could fill a comforter with.

I started to make small talk as we walked, trying to make him feel at ease. Also, this meeting needed to look a bit more normal to any third party nosing out of their window. "How long have you been living round here then, Tom?"

He kept his head down, studying the concrete slabs. As we passed the multicolored houses, I noticed he was shaking.

"About a year, I suppose." "Hey, I called your apartment earlier on, and a woman answered. She your girlfriend?"

"Janice? Yeah." There was a gap of a second or two before he stopped walking and looked up at me. "Look, man, I have never, ever said nothing to no one about any of that stuff. Not a word, I swear on my mother's life. I haven't even told them I-"

"Tom, all I want to do is talk. I've got a proposition for you. Let's just sit down, have cup of tea and a chat."

He nodded as I got us both walking again.

"I think you'll like what you hear. Come on, get the kettle on."

We got to the house and walked up the four or five stone steps to the door. Tom fumbled for his key which was tied to an old bit of nylon string, his hand shaking as he tried to get it into the keyhole. He still thought he was going to get hammered. I decided to let him think it; maybe it would lighten him up when he finally realized I wasn't here to put him in hospital.

It was just as cold in the hallway as it was outside. The threadbare, dirty carpet matched the damp, peeling walls. An old-fashioned stroller blocked the hall, and I could hear what sounded like its passenger screaming in the flat to the left, trying to make more noise than the TV talk show sharing his room. Breathing in to pass the stroller and get to the stairs, I felt quite cheerful. Even my house smelled better than this.

Heat rises, but not in this place. Number 4 had its own small landing, with paint peeling off the door and banisters. He managed to get the key straight in the lock and the door opened into what I supposed was the living room. Dirty-gray net curtains made the dirty-gray light from outside even gloomier.

Ikea's flat pack division had done well out of Tom. Shiny waxed pine shone everywhere in the small room; even the two-seater sofa had wooden arms. The rest of the place was in a bad way-more damp walls, worn carpet, and cold. The fireplace was boarded up and a gas fire was stuck in its place, just dying to be turned on. I could still see my breath.

A ten-year-old wood-veneer TV stood on a waxed pine stand in the corner, with a VCR underneath, the timer flashing all the zeros, and a dozen or so videos stacked next to it on the floor. To the right of that was a Sorry Play Station with a stack of games scattered around it, and the world's oldest PC. The buff-colored plastic was dark and dirty and the vents at the back were so black it looked like it ran on diesel. Its keyboard was really worn; I could only just make out the instructions on the keys. Not the best of equipment for such a high-tech guy, but very good news for me. It would have been harder to get him to come along if he was making a fortune and living in a penthouse. The need for money makes people do things they would never normally dream of. I was a bit of an expert on that front.

We both stood there and I could feel his embarrassment. I broke the silence. "Put the kettle on, mate, and I'll get the fire going, eh?"

He walked into a tiny kitchen off the main room and I heard coins getting fed into a meter and the knob turning to give us some gas. I heard the tap filling up the kettle as I threw my money on the sofa and tried to light the fire, clicking the pilot light several times before the gas ignited with a whoomph.

Opposite was another door that was open about six inches. Ikea hadn't got round to the bedroom. A mattress lay on the floor, the comforter pulled aside, dangerously close to a portable kerosene heater. The only other furniture seemed to be a digital alarm clock lying on the floor. It felt just like home.

There was no telling where the bathroom was, but I reckoned it would be on the other side of the kitchen somewhere; in fact, it was probably part of the kitchen. I stayed down with the fire for a while to warm up.

"So what are you doing with yourself now, Tom? Still in the computer business?"

At last there was a spark of life from him. He hadn't been filled in, and I was taking an interest in his subject. He stuck his chubby head into the living room; I'd forgotten how it jutted backward and forward like a cockerel's.

"Yeah, I've got a few irons in the fire, know what I mean? Games, that's where the money is, mate. I've got a few movers and shakers in the business desperate for my ideas. Know what I mean, desperate."

I was still kneeling down, rubbing my hands by the flames. "That's really good to hear, Tom."

"Yeah, things are sweet. This is just temporary, while I decide who to sell my idea to. Then it's party time. Look for a house to buy cash, of course then start my own show. Know what I mean?"

I nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. He had no money, no job, and was still full of bullshit. He was going to like what I was about to tell him.

His head disappeared back into the kitchen and things started to be washed up. Standing up to go over to the sofa, I saw a pile of plain white cards on the mantel. The top two had lipstick kisses and a handwritten message on it: "I hope you like my dirty panties. Love, Juicy Lucy xx." I picked one up. At least the lipstick was genuine.

I raised my voice as I walked over to the sofa. "How long have you been with Janice?"

"She sort of moved in a couple of months ago."

"What does she do?"

"Just part-time at the supermarket; bits and pieces, you know." He stuck his head around the door again. "Sugar?"

"No, just some milk will be fine."

He came in with two mugs and put them on the not-so-new carpet.

Sitting on the floor by the fire, facing toward me on the sofa, he passed mine over. His, I noticed, was without milk.

I saw him clock the open bedroom door and worry whether I'd seen what lay beyond it. We both picked up our tea at the same time.

"Don't worry about it, mate. I spent my childhood living in places like this. Maybe I can help you find somewhere better. Until the game thing kicks in."

He tried to sip his tea as his eyes flicked toward the Mickey Mouse alarm on top of the fire.

Time to get down to business. "By the looks of it, things ain't that good, are they? You on the dole?"

Jack the Lad came back with a grin. "Yeah, who ain't? I mean, free money, madness not to. Am I right or what?"

He went back to concentrating on his tea.

"Tom, I think I can help. I've been offered a job that would earn you enough to buy an apartment and pay any debts outright."

He didn't trust me: understandable, it wasn't as if he knew me as Mr.

Nice Guy. His eyes were still checking Mickey Mouse now and again.

"How much?" He tried to make it sound casual, but didn't quite pull it off.

I avoided burning my lips on my tea and took a sip. It was horrible.

It should have been in a scent bottle, not a mug. "I don't exactly know yet, but I reckon your share would be at least one hundred and thirty thousand cash. That's the minimum. All I need is a week of your time; two weeks at the most."

I didn't have a clue how long the job was going to take, but once I got him to Finland, what could he do if it took longer? Getting him there was priority number one at the moment.

"Is it legal? I ain't doing anything shady, mate. I don't want any more trouble. I'm not getting locked up again, know what I mean?"

My tea went back on the carpet. It was shit anyway. "Look, first of all, my name is Nick. And no, it's not illegal. I don't want to go to prison, either. It's just that I've been given this opportunity and I need someone brilliant with computers. I thought of you. Why not?

I'd rather you had the money than anyone else. You even get a free trip to Finland out of it."

"Finland?" Jack the Lad was returning once again, head jutting. "Hey, everyone is online up there. It's the cold, know what I mean, Nick.

Too cold, like. Nothing else to do." He laughed.

I laughed along with him as his eyes moved over to Mickey again. "Tom, do you need to be somewhere else?"

"Nah, it's just that Janice is home soon and the fact is, well, she don't know nothing-you know, my old work, getting put behind bars, all that stuff. I haven't really got round to telling her. I'm just a bit worried that, you know, if she came in and you said something"

"Hey, no problems. I'll keep quiet. Tell you what, when she comes in I'll just say that I've got a small computer firm and I'm offering you a couple of weeks' work up in Scotland, testing systems. How's that sound?" "Nice one, but what's the form, you know, what are you after in Finland?"

"It's very, very simple. All we need is to access a system and then download some stuff. Until we get there I don't know what, how, and when."

He immediately looked worried. I had to get in there straight away. I needed some lies. "It's not what you're thinking. It is legitimate.

All we're going to do is find out about some new photocopier technology. And we've got to do it in a totally legal way, otherwise the money men don't want to know." I couldn't think of anything more boring and nonthreatening than a photocopier and I waited for a bolt of something to come at me through the window.

God must have been asleep or had all his lightning still in the freezer. I carried on before Tom had a chance to think about it and ask questions.

"I can get us into the place," I went on, "but I need someone who knows what the fuck they're looking at once we're in front of one of those things." I pointed at the heap of crap in the corner that was trying to look like a computer. He didn't say anything but looked at his greasy monitor screen, maybe thinking of the candy colored Power Mac and matching iMac laptop he could buy with his cut.

"Everything will be laid on when we get there, Tom. They know where the place is, all you've got to do is access and download it. Not steal, mind, just copy. Easy money."

I braced myself in case God had stirred in time to hear that last bit.

Tom fidgeted on the carpet, so I kept going for it before God woke up or Janice got home. "You know as much as me now, mate. I am going half on the money with you. One hundred and thirty grand, maybe more if we get the job done quickly. That's a shit load of cash, Tom." I paused to let him visualize a wheelbarrow full of banknotes.

Fifteen seconds was enough. "Chance of a lifetime, Tom." I sounded like a double-glazing salesman. "If you don't take it, someone else will."

I settled back on the sofa to signal that the pitch was over. The next stage would be a shedful of intimidation to make him come with me if the soft-soaping failed.

"You absolutely sure it's safe, Nick? I mean, locked up. I don't want that again. Things are sweet here, know what I mean? I'm gonna be earning big bucks soon."

Explaining to him that I knew he was bullshitting would have to wait until I read him his horoscope. "Look, mate, even if it was illegal, there's no such thing as prison when it comes to these jobs. Think about it, if they discover that you've found out about their dinky photocopier, are they really going to go to the police? Are they fuck.

Think about the shareholders, think about the bad publicity. It doesn't work like that, mate. Trust me. What happened to you before was different. That was government business." I couldn't help my curiosity. "By the way, what was it they caught you doing up at Menwith?"

He started to get edgy. "No, mate, I ain't saying nothing. I've done my time and don't say nothing to nobody. I never want to go back." He was starting to sound like an old record.

He was in a dilemma. I knew he wanted the money, but he was struggling to make a decision. Time for a new tack. "I tell you what, why don't you just come with me anyway, have a look, and if you don't like it, you can come back. I'm not trying to fuck up your life, mate.

I'm just trying to do us both a favor."

He was shifting from one buttock to another. "I dunno. Janice wouldn't like it,"

I moved forward once again on the sofa so my ass was on the edge, and went conspiratorial. "Janice doesn't need to know. Just say you're going to Scotland. Easy." The hiss of the gas fire could be heard clearly above my whisper. I decided I'd give him a bit more incentive.

"Where's your toilet, Tom?"

"Through the kitchen; you'll see the door."

I stood up and took my bag with me. "Nothing personal," I said. "Work stuff, you know."

He nodded and I didn't really know if he understood or not, because I didn't.