I Was Here (14 page)

28

I’m vacuuming at Mrs. Driggs’s the next day when my phone vibrates in my pocket. I
pull it out and recognize the 206 area code, but the call has already gone to voice
mail. A few seconds later it chimes to let me know there’s a message waiting.

I stare at my phone in my palm, the vacuum motor whining. Why did he call back? Does
he even know it was me who called him? Who knows if he even saved my number, and my
outgoing voice mail message is now generic in case All_BS calls.

Whatever he has to say—
who is this?
or something else—I don’t want to hear it. I go to delete the voice mail, but I hesitate,
and in that moment the phone rings again and I’m relieved and ashamed in equal measures.

“Hey,” I say, my heart pounding.

There’s a slight pause on the line. “Repeat?” says the voice. The vacuum cleaner is
still on, and it takes me a minute to understand that it’s not Ben. I flip the phone
over to check the caller ID. It’s not the 206 number this time. It’s blocked. “Repeat,”
the voice says again, and then I understand I’m not being asked to repeat anything.

“Yes.”

“Do you know who this is?”

“I know.”

“What’s that noise?”

“Oh. I’m at work.”

He chuckles. “As am I.”

His voice is not what I expected. It’s jovial, almost comforting. It’s like we already
know each other.

The vacuum is still droning. I turn it off. “There. Is that better?”

“Yes.” He chuckles again. “If only I could turn off the noise at my work so easily.
But I’ve found a quiet corner. Forgive the delay.”

I listen then; in the background, there’s an electric clang of something. Cash registers?

“One must choose the risks one takes and mitigate them.”

“Yes,” I say.

“Speaking of risks and choices, you have chosen?”

“Yes,” I say.

“That’s very brave,” he says.

“I’m scared.” It flies out. This absolute truth. All_BS seems to pull it from me.
Which is an irony, of sorts.

He continues: “You know what George Patton said? ‘All intelligent men are frightened.
The more intelligent they are, the more they are frightened.’ That holds true for
women, too, I’d say.”

I don’t say anything.

“Have you decided on a method?” he asks.

“Yes, I’m going to—”

“Don’t,” he cuts me off. “That’s a personal decision.”

“Oh. Sorry.” I’m not just disappointed. I’m devastated. I want to tell him so badly.

“Are all your affairs in order?”

Affairs in order.
That’s the language one of the sites he referred me to used. It had all the instructions
about writing the note, creating a legally binding will.

“Yes,” I answer. I feel dazed.

“Remember, the opposite of bravery is not cowardice, but conformity. You are bucking
conformity, choosing your own path.”

Somewhere it registers that Meg would’ve loved this sentiment, if he used it on her.
She was all about bucking conformity, right up to the very end.

“Now, like all things, it’s a matter of following through. Screw your courage—”

“To the sticking place,” I finish the sentence without thinking.

There’s a pause on the line. Something is being weighed. I’ve made a mistake.

Then I hear a burst of commotion as the ambient background noise clangs through the
phone. Electronic bleeping and the clatter of change. It’s the sound of slot machines,
lots of them. A sound I recognize from the Indian casinos.

“The door was locked,” I hear him bark, his own voice different now.

“Sorry, Smith. Lock’s been busted for weeks.”

There’s the sound of a door slamming, and the noise goes quiet again.

“We should wrap this up,” he says in a formal tone. “Best of luck to you.”

“Wait,” I say. I want him to send me the stuff I found in Meg’s trash: the encrypted
documents, the checklist, more evidence, more proof to hang him with.

But he’s gone.

29

That night I call Harry Kang.

“Harry? It’s Cody.”

“Cody . . . Hey . . . .” A car horn blares, and there’s a loud cacophony of people
talking.

“Where are you?” I ask.

“In Korea, visiting my grandmother. Hold on.” I hear his phone shuffle and then the
electric ping of a doorbell, and then it’s quieter. “There. I’m in a tea shop now.
Seoul is nuts. What’s up?”

“I might have enough information. Or I’ve gotten all I’m going to get.” All_BS’s last
words echo in my ears.
Best of luck
. Like it was my high school graduation we were discussing. Or like he knew it was
the last time we’d ever speak.

“What do you have?”

“This is what I know for sure. Actually, I don’t know anything
for sure
. Here’s what I have. I’m pretty sure he’s on the West Coast somewhere. He always
seems to be having dinner when I am or things like that.”

“That narrows it down to a few hundred million people.”

“I have more. I think he might work at a casino. So, casino on the West Coast. Las
Vegas?”

“Which has a population of, what, a million people? If he’s even there. He could work
anywhere in Nevada,” Harry says. “Gambling is legal statewide.”

“Or he could work at an Indian casino anywhere,” I add.

“Exactly. What else you got?”

“His last name might be Smith. Someone called him that.”

“It’s helpful to have a name, even if it’s the least helpful name in existence.” He
pauses. “You have anything else?”

“No. Our call got cut short.”

“Call? He called you?”

“Yeah.”

“Landline or cell?”

“I don’t know. It came up as blocked. But he was at work, so I’d guess cell.”

“On your cell or landline?”

“Cell. I was at work, and we gave up our landline.”

“When?”

“Did we give up our landline?”

“No, Cody. When did he call you?”

“Earlier today.”

“Seriously?” Harry’s voice perks up.

“Yeah. Why, is that bad?”

“Careless.”

“So, bad for him, but good for us?”

“Could be.” I can tell, even through the phone, that Harry is smiling. “You’ll have
to give me complete access to your mobile account.”

“Fine.”

“And send everything you have on this Smith guy. Usernames. Any accounts you used
to communicate. Anything you have on him. Any electronic trail. Email it all to me.”

If I have to go stand outside Mrs. Chandler’s driveway to pick up a Wi-Fi signal,
I’ll do it. Though Mrs. Banks said the library is reopening any day. “Done.”

“And understand I’ll be doing some quasi-legal things.”

“For a good cause,” I remind him.

“I’ll say. I’m going a little crazy at my grandmother’s, so it’ll be good to have
a project. I’ll be in touch when I find something.”

x x x

That afternoon I stand outside the Chandlers’ empty house, pirating their Wi-Fi signal,
and I send Harry everything. The next day, the library reopens. I go in with the laptop
and check the anonymous messaging service All_BS and I used, but there’s nothing.
I check the Final Solution boards, but there’s nothing from him there, either. I am
pretty certain there will be no more communication from him. But maybe it doesn’t
matter. Maybe I’ve gone from being the mouse to being the snake.

x x x

After three days Harry calls.

“That wasn’t easy,” he says. He sounds utterly thrilled.

“Did you find him?”

Harry doesn’t answer. Instead, he tells me a long and complicated tale about how All_BS
used Skype to make some kind of VoIP call, not through a phone, but through a tablet.
It’s hard to trace a telephone number, but not as hard to track an application’s user.
“This is how even the best criminals get caught,” he tells me. “They are so careful—until
they’re not.”

“So you
did
find him?”

“Like I said. It wasn’t easy. The tablet was registered to this guy Allen DeForrest.”

“So that’s him?”

“I don’t think so,” Harry says. “When I dug a bit deeper, this DeForrest had a huge
online profile. He’s all over Facebook and Instagram, lots of pictures and status
updates. I figured our guy would be more secretive. But I had this feeling. So I dug
up more on DeForrest and discovered where he worked. He’s a pit boss at the Continental
Casino.”

“What’s a pit boss?”

“It’s like a manager, but you’re missing the point, Cody. It’s at a
casino
. Your hunch was right! It’s not in Las Vegas, but Laughlin, Nevada, which is like
a poor man’s Vegas.”

“But you said you didn’t think it was the DeForrest guy.”

“Right. I still don’t. For one, I thought that your guy, with all his fancy encryption
methods, would be more careful than to use his own device. And second, we’re looking
for a Smith, right? So I hacked into the employee records at the Continental Casino
and looked for people with the last name Smith. As you might’ve guessed, there were
a lot of them. But only a couple of B. Smiths.”

“B?”

“All_
BS
.”

“I thought that meant all bullshit.”

“I did too. And it might. But guys like this, who are doing bad things and keeping
it secret, sometimes they still want to brag about it somehow. So I wondered if BS
weren’t his initials, especially since we already know his last name is Smith.” He
pauses. “So I checked. There are only three B. Smiths employed by the casino. Bernadette.
Becky.” He stops. “And Bradford.”

The hair on the back of my neck stands up. “Bradford?”

“Bradford Smith. Age fifty-two. Works in the Continental Casino. There’s more. I looked
up
his
Internet history and found that he pays for the premium broadband package, but, unlike
the DeForrest guy, he leaves a very light online footprint. Fits the profile.”

“So
that’s
him?”

“Might be.”

“How do we know for sure?”

“Would you recognize his voice?”

Our one and only phone call. Brief, but indelible. “I think so.”

“Good. I got a phone number for his actual cell phone. We can call on a blocked line
and conference you in. If we get voice mail, you listen to his outgoing message. If
he answers, I’ll pose as a telemarketer, and you stay quiet. Either way, you can confirm
his voice.”

“That’s all we have to do?”

“Yep. Hang up, and I’ll call you back and patch you in.”

“Now? Won’t he get suspicious?”

“Who gets suspicious of a telemarketer?”

“Good point.”

“Okay. What should we be selling that no one wants to buy?” Harry asks.

“As it happens, I’ve worked as a telemarketer before. No one wanted supplemental life
insurance, and it seems oddly fitting to try to sell it to him.” I tell Harry the
script.

“Okay. Hang up, and I’ll call you back and we’ll do this.”

When Harry calls back, the line is already ringing. “Shh,” he tells me.

The voice that picks up is gruff. “Hello.”

“Hello. I’m with Good Faith Insurance Agency,” Harry begins in a smooth voice, like
he does this all the time. “The reason I’m calling is to let you know that we have
drastically lowered our insurance rates in Laughlin. We would love to give you a no-obligation
review and quote on your current life insurance policy. If you don’t have one set
up yet, I’d love to discuss this very wise investment in your future.”

“I’ve already told you, I’m not interested,” he says. And hangs up.

We sit there for a moment, in a triangle of silence: Me. Harry Kang. And the disconnected
voice of All_BS.

30

Once again, I’m back at the library for research, but this time, it’s easier. I only
have to figure out how to get to Laughlin. The hard part is over.

I can’t quite believe it. I’ve been looking for All_BS for weeks, and at times, it
has felt like chasing a ghost. But he’s here. I have an address. Last night Harry
called me once more, this time with all of All_BS’s—Bradford Smith’s—contact information.

“You are a fucking genius, Harry Kang!” I told him.

“I don’t know about effing genius, but I’ll take genius,” he said. And I could hear
the smile in his voice once again.

“Thank you, Harry. Thank you so much.”

“No. Thank you,” he said quietly. “It was fun. But it also felt good. Like maybe I
could do something for Meg.” He paused. “Are you going to the police now?”

“I’m not sure. I was thinking I might go there myself first.”

Harry went quiet. “Be careful, Cody,” he said after a bit. “It seems abstract when
you’re dealing with people online, but they are still people, and some of them are
not nice people, not the kind you ever want to be in a room with.”

Sometimes you don’t even need to be in the same room for the damage to be done. “I’ll
be careful,” I promised. “Thank you, again.”

“Like I said, I’m glad to do it. And it’s not that hard to find someone.”

“Really?”

Harry laughed. “Maybe not for me.”

And that’s when I had the other idea. “Do you think you might be able to track down
one more person?”

x x x

The Greyhound to Laughlin takes thirty hours, requires three transfers, and costs
three hundred dollars round trip. I have the money, and I can take off the time if
I need to. But when I start to contemplate sixty hours alone on the bus, I begin to
feel a little sick, the darkness clawing at me. I can’t do this alone, with only Bradford
and Meg keeping me company.

I list the people I might ask to go with me. There’s no one in town. I’d never ask
Tricia, and the Garcias are obviously out. The friends from school, never all that
close, have fallen away. Who else? Sharon Devonne?

Maybe the Cascades people. Except Alice is still working at Mountain Bound. Harry
is in Korea until mid-August. That leaves Stoner Richard. It’s not the worst idea
in the world. He’s home in Boise for the summer, and that’s on the way. I could catch
a Greyhound to Boise, and we could drive from there.

There is one other person. And as soon as I think of him, I understand that there
is no other person. Because he is somehow as linked up in all this as I am.

His voice mail is still on my phone. I never listened to it, but I haven’t deleted
it. I listen to it now. All it says is this: “Cody, what do you need from me?”

Words can have so many meanings. That question could be harboring exasperation, annoyance,
guilt, surrender.

I listen once more. This time I let myself truly hear that familiar growl of fear
and concern and tenderness behind his words.

Cody, what do you need from me?

And so I tell him.