ENNESS DANIELS ROE
Based upon the novel All Good-byes Ain’t Gone
Richie Hoffman pulled the
bottom of his grubby tee-shirt up to mop the sweat off his face and neck. He
began pacing the living room of his small apartment again, then stopped to
stand at the window. The cool, dank fog
that had blown into
He had to screw up his
courage to make this last phone call. He
had to complete the deal to sell his software to the Russians. It was what he had worked for all these
months, to establish himself as a world-class computer hacker and set the
standard that would be his legacy. There
were plenty of guys, some still in high school, who could pull pranks like an
e-mail virus or who could break into Defense Department war games systems and
give the government digital nightmares. Their work was mere child’s play. No one had ever created a program like his
that could move money between bank accounts belonging to criminal organizations
and permit one gang to wipe out another with the click of a mouse, leaving no
trace of how it had happened. No one had
done it, no one except him. Richie Hoffman. The Phantom of the Internet.
Richie felt a little
braver. He picked his way through the
litter of manuals, newspapers, discarded food cartons and crumpled soft drink
cans that formed an obstacle course across the floor and reached for the
telephone. The receiver felt slick in
his moist palm. He dialed the number
quickly before he could lose his nerve again.
“Yeah.” The monosyllable exploded
in Richie’s ear like a rifle shot.
“I--uh--would like to
speak with Sergei Isarov, please,” he said and winced
at how young and timid he sounded to himself.
He straightened his spine and announced in a more authoritative tone,
“It’s The Phantom.”
The Phantom. Suddenly his moniker sounded silly. Why did he think it gave him some sort of
status in Sergei’s eyes? He remembered how he had introduced himself to a
hacker chatroom as The Phantom of the Internet after
successfully breaking into the banks’ financial systems, a first milestone in
developing his program. He had taken the
name from one of his favorite old movies, since he imagined himself moving
about the bank’s systems unobstructed and undetected just as Claude Rains had
slipped silently and unseen around the Paris Opera House. Serious hackers had always used monikers and
he had been proud of his choice. Now, in
the face of final negotiations to complete a real life crime, it seemed
foolish.
“Yes, Phantom.” Sergei’s
deep baritone startled Richie back to the moment.
“I--I’m calling for your
answer,” Richie said. When Sergei didn’t
reply, he tried again. “As I said
before—-uh--my other clients are very interested in this software and have--uh--made
an offer that is a little higher than yours.
Of course, I--uh--wanted to give you an additional opportunity to bid,
because--that is--out of my respect for what Irina says you are doing to help
democracy in your country. I--uh--I
would like to think my efforts are supporting a worthy cause.”
Richie paused. He could hear his heart thumping. Sergei must be able to see through this
long-rehearsed speech, although it was a kind of game they had been playing, he
and Sergei. Each one spouting patriotic
slogans to hide their real objectives, he to get as much money for his software
as possible and Sergei to have the capability to steal funds from La Cosa Nostra and Sun Ye On. Would Sergei still play?
“You presume too
much.” When Sergei finally did speak,
his voice sounded like a growl. “While
we Russians may be unsophisticated as to the complexities of Western finance
and economy, we are quite familiar with the tactics of blackmail and
extortion.”
Richie shuddered and held
his breath, glad that Sergei couldn’t see him. A pain grew in his gut that seemed
familiar and yet he couldn’t quite tell what it was. Then, as the pain spread throughout his
abdomen and weakened his knees, he knew what it was. Oh, God, he couldn’t throw up now. Not now.
He pushed away the mental images of mob killings from The Godfather
and Scarface that were paralyzing his brain like nerve gas and took a
big gulp of air. Somehow, he had to get
back in control of himself and of the negotiations. He took another deep breath.
“Sergei, my software is my
masterpiece,” he said. “It is far more
important to me what it is used for than how much is paid for it. I--only want to help a fellow patriot. I’m an artist, not a financial speculator.”
“I think perhaps you are a
con artist, my friend. You tell me just
enough to be convincing. You say that
you have talked with Pieri and Wong. These men are known to me. I consider your dealing with the Mafia and
the Chinese Triad to be an act of disloyalty to me. How do I know you will not sell copies to all
three of us?”
“I showed you. I used my program on their accounts as a
demonstration.”
“Yes, Phantom, but you
moved funds back and forth. Might it not
also have been a demonstration for them?”
Richie’s knees gave way at
the realization that Sergei had understood more about the transactions than he
had expected. He grabbed the edge of the
table to prevent himself from staggering.
His whole body had begun to shake and the perspiration streamed down the
sides of his nose like flood waters racing through a ditch. He grimaced as the stomach cramps returned,
terrible in their intensity. He had to think and think quickly. His mind raced through all of the similar
scenes he had seen in the classic movies he loved second only to hacking. At
last, he seized upon the suave, self-assured demeanor Ray Milland
had used while coercing his former school chum into murdering Grace Kelly in Dial
M for Murder. Of course, Ray Milland had had the upper hand in that scene.
Richie licked his lips and
began to speak. “Well, I—uh--I’m sure my
other clients will be happy to be first place in the bidding.” His voice came as a hollow bleat. So much for suave and self-assured. Surely Sergei knew that he was bluffing. Pieri was
interested in the software, but had not met Sergei’s last bid. Wong had not even made an offer yet. Too late, he told himself, you should have
taken Sergei’s original offer instead of trying to up the ante by advertising
the software to the other underworld organizations.
He tried again. “You can trust me, Sergei. After all, the list of bank accounts you gave
me is just as valuable as my software and I’m not asking anyone to buy that.”
“You are staking your life
that I can trust you!”
Sergei’s scream seemed to
reverberate off the walls of the apartment and made the blood pound in Richie’s
temples like a jackhammer. He felt
light-headed. Images of mob killings
loomed before his eyes. He saw himself
strung up, tortured, shot a thousand times. He had made a mistake by reminding
Sergei that he had two assets, not one: his software and the list of bank
accounts used by the Russian, Italian and Chinese mobs. Not just bank accounts, either, but nest
accounts into which the hundreds of feeders at all levels of the criminal
enterprises ultimately dumped their balances before being shipped offshore.
Then he heard Sergei start
speaking in a voice that had unexpectedly become as syrupy as the khalva custard Irina had taught him to love.
“But wait, Phantom. You are right. I am too suspicious of one so young and
idealistic. I am a reasonable man. I will increase my bid by five percent. But, I assure you, this is my last offer.”
Sergei’s switch between
threats and conciliation made Richie’s head spin. He felt like he had been
keel-hauled, one moment being brought up for a few gasps of air and the next
moment nearly drowned. There was little
reason to believe that Sergei’s sudden docility was sincere, but he grasped it
like a lifeline. He wasn’t getting as
much money as he had wanted for the deal, but he sensed that if he pushed any
farther Sergei would let him go down for the last time.
“Th--that’s
fine, Sergei,” he said. “You’ve bought
yourself the software.
Congratulations!” He shut his
eyes and prayed that he had concluded the deal. He pictured Sergei standing
there at the other end of the line, muscular and menacing, once a kind of hero
in his eyes, now evil incarnate. He felt
a rush of hope and then terror during the silent moment Sergei let pass again
before replying.
“I will send a man to meet
you at the designated place in two hours,” Sergei said. “Be sure that you have made only one copy of
the software and bring the list with you.
I should be very unhappy, my enterprising young friend, if I have to
become--distressed--by any faithless acts on your part.”
When the receiver clicked
in Richie’s ear, relief flooded through his body. He held up a clenched fist of
victory. “Yes!” he said and spun around
and around before collapsing upon the sofa in hysterical laughter. All of the months of work and the dreadful
balancing act with Sergei were finally over.
He had done it. He was the
supreme genius he had always known he was. Everything would be all right now,
it would have to be. He threw his head
back and hooted in happiness, then froze in that position.
Richie’s joy began to fade
as the truculence in Sergei’s words sank in.
Had he got himself in over his head?
After all, he was a computer expert, a hacker, not an expert in the
inner workings of organized crime. This software was his crowning achievement,
was it to be his last? He stood up and began to pace the room again. He had to calm down. He was just letting his imagination run away
with him. Sergei was annoyed, that was
all, but he would have the software soon and that’s all he wanted, wasn’t it?
Richie sat down in the
chair at his workstation. He buried his face in his hands and then ran his
fingers through his stringy, brown hair before sitting upright again. He put his glasses on and stared at his own
image reflected in the monitor. As
usual, the spell worked and he began to relax.
Sitting there, he could visualize himself as the commander of a great
electronic empire. It didn’t matter that
he really reigned over a tiny apartment, so cluttered and untidy that it looked
like the room of a teenager whose parents had given up insisting it be
cleaned. It was his happiest
environment, familiar and safe. In his
hacker’s uniform of tee-shirt and briefs, he had worked on his project for months,
glued to his monitor, sheltered from and oblivious to the world around him. And now, it was time for the final steps in
his great plan.
He placed his hands on the
keyboard and remembered how he had embarked on his Excellent Adventure.
He’d had to be a determined, patient adversary to learn to break into bank
accounts through the Internet without leaving a trail. He’d designed the software to enable his
cyberspace attacks on financial institutions’ databases and bank accounts, but
not trip the systems’ security defenses.
Remote log-ons were usually protected by
firewalls which were relatively easy to break, so he’d only had to wait until
he could intercept a transmission packet and slip his own in along with an
unwary user’s.
Once inside the systems,
he’d built his program to be able to break in at will, move funds anytime and
in any way he wanted and delete the trail.
The best part had been disguising his software as a movie trivia game to
hide its real use. Only someone of his
own caliber–-as if such a person existed–-could discover unaided what his
software was really intended to do and intercept him, thanks to the virus he
had built to wipe out the record of the source micro-seconds after a funds
transfer was accepted.
There was another
surprise, too, something even Sergei didn’t know about. If the user didn’t give the secret password
when prompted for it, the software would uninstall itself and travel along the
Internet to reappear on someone else’s computer. It would happen over and over again and there
was nothing anyone could do to stop it.
He would only give the password to Sergei after he’d received his
payment and gotten safely away.
Watching himself in the
monitor, Richie swept one arm up to partially conceal his face like an opera
cape and broke into a gale of villainous laughter.
He reached for a plastic
cup that sat beside the monitor and took a large gulp of flat diet cola, then
sat still for a moment to admire again the images of ferocious dinosaurs
advertising Jurassic Park III that encircled the cup in splashes of blue
and purple. With a sigh of determination,
he activated his operating system and logged onto the Internet to send Irina a
message.
Irina, his beautiful
Irina. He remembered meeting Irina Grushenka through a chat room not long after he had posted
messages that alluded to his successful break-ins. He’d been able to keep the secrets about the
virus and the uninstall features of his software, but he couldn’t prevent
himself from hinting to her about the rest of his achievement, knowing full
well she couldn’t possibly comprehend the full extent of his brilliance. He’d entertained himself with sending her
messages that contained little clues, teasing her, tempting her to try to guess
his design.
Irina had been very
friendly and complimentary as they developed a regular electronic correspondence. Eventually, Richie had felt comfortable
enough to meet her in person, in a very public place and using only first
names, of course. At one of the Russian
restaurants on
Irina cared about him,
too. He was absolutely sure of
that. It was she who’d warned him
against posting any more messages about his project on the Internet because of
the new tools the FBI was using to identify and locate hackers and
crackers. Richie’s heart began to pound
as he pictured her, sitting there across the table in the restaurant as she had
done so many times. Safe in his role of
hacker extraordinaire, he’d made love to her in his conversations and e-mail
messages even if he didn’t dare risk actual physical contact for fear he
couldn’t live up to the expectations he’d given her or himself.
After several meetings,
Irina had brought Sergei Isarov along with her. She’d
introduced Sergei to him as a relative of an important Russian official. Sergei had told him that he belonged to some
political organization that needed funds to keep democratic-minded people in
power. Sergei joined them frequently
after that and entertained him with tales of outwitting the KGB before the
failure of Communism.
Richie had been dazzled by
both of them. Irina reminded him of Rita
Hayworth in her role in Gilda and even Sergei had a counterpart in
films. Wasn’t Sergei the name of Ava Gardner’s brother-in-law in 55 Days at
But he had seen Sergei
wearing a semi-automatic that one time, when Sergei had carelessly leaned
forward and let his jacket gape. It’d
been a thrilling discovery then to think that Sergei might be a spy. Now, with
full knowledge that Sergei was a member of the Russian mafya,
Richie wasn’t quite so thrilled.
Irina and Sergei had asked
him for more and more details of his work and had actually suggested that
underworld bank accounts become his target.
Sergei had ultimately persuaded him. “After all,” Sergei had said, “if
mobs get robbed they do not go to the police.
They cannot afford to. With no
investigation, who is to know who did it?
It is an added selling point for you, Phantom, that your purchaser will
be safe from retribution.”
Richie had adopted
Sergei’s suggestion as his own. Then
he’d taken the suggestion a step further and advertised his software to the
criminal element at large. Sergei had
been livid, of course, to find himself involved in a bidding war. But Richie had sensed how much Sergei wanted
the software and had felt confident that imagined competition would motivate
Sergei to pay more for it.
Richie had been surprised
that he had so easily made the transition from hacker, breaking into banks to
show off, to cracker, breaking in with the intent to commit a crime. Well, he’d done it and done it
ingeniously. Now, it was time to finish
his project.
Richie opened his e-mail
account to type in the message he and Irina had agreed upon if he were successful
in completing the deal with Sergei.
“Life is like a box of chocolates.
The Phantom,” he typed.
The line from Forrest Gump
symbolized his life’s enigmas. He, of
course, knew he had enormous talent when it came to hacking, but he still
marveled that he should have met Irina and Sergei and become involved in this
criminal scheme that was as intriguing as any movie he had ever seen. As he
clicked on the “Send” button, he closed his mind to the possibility that the
quotation might also apply to his future, but in a far more sinister way.
Richie leaned back in his
chair and looked out of the window. The
fog had begun to lift and he could make out the square ugliness of the
apartment building opposite his. A light
was shining in one of the second-floor apartments. Was Dennis up so early? Maybe before he went to meet Sergei’s man, he
would stop over and tell Dennis that something tremendous was about to happen.
He recalled how he and
Dennis Lee had first met in the neighborhood coffee bar. Dennis had told him that he was a
fourth-generation Chinese-American, who worked for the Postal Service and lived
right across the street from him. He
laughed and shook his head, thinking of how Dennis was so stupid when it came
to computers. Dennis was always complaining
about the technological innovations the Post Office was introducing.
He had tried to teach
Dennis something about automation by showing him his project, only the movie
trivia game aspects, of course. In
return, Dennis had introduced him to the delights of crispy pork and cha shao chao fun at his uncle’s
restaurant in
“Big Chinese dinner like
too expensive college education for ungrateful son,” Dennis would say.
He and Dennis would then
repeat the punch line in unison, “Brain and stomach only process so much.” They would howl with laughter at the
implication of what the unabsorbed knowledge and food turned into.
One of the best things was
that Dennis liked movies, too. He and
Dennis had spent hours exchanging quotations from films as they walked around
Richie looked at the clock
that hung in the kitchen area of his apartment.
Two hours. In two hours, it would
be dawn and he would be paid ten million dollars in diamonds for his
masterpiece. He’d chosen diamonds for
his payment because they were easy to carry and to hide, like in one of the
scenes in Executive Decision.
He’d done considerable research on the Internet to learn about the value
of diamonds and how to judge their quality.
Once paid, he planned to
leave the
Richie had been surprised
that his father had left him anything at all after that last big row they had
had when he dropped out of college. So
what if a college education had been the goal his parents had set for him from
birth? After all, they’d been the ones
to buy him his first computer in one of their infrequent attacks of parental
responsibility. And they were the ones
who had permitted him to stay in his room with his computer games and
programming manuals all those years. The
computer had become the focal point of his whole life. He knew in his soul that the skill he had
developed was awesome. Why, then, should
he have to waste his time taking lessons from people at college who were far
less computer literate than he was? It’d
been demeaning to have to listen to such mere amateurs. The professors had even sent Ph.D. candidates
to him to be tutored.
Richie jutted his chin out
at the memory of that disrespect and gazed defiantly around the room. His glance fell upon one of the many cartons
of Chinese take-out that littered the floor.
Dennis’ gifts of left-overs from the
restaurant had made the difference between him being able to continue working
on his project without interruption and having to take a part-time job. Most days, he’d survived on the Chinese food
and whatever cheap junk food could be quickly bought and readily eaten. This particular carton of take-out had held
something with red sweet and sour sauce and was beginning to add to the garbage
dump odors in the room. But that didn’t
matter. As soon as he delivered the
goods and got his diamonds, he would probably just blow the place. The mess could be someone else’s problem. He
would be rich and could do and buy whatever he liked.
Richie felt his skin
prickle when he slouched against the worn arms of his desk chair. He looked down and pulled at the fibers that
stuck out between the cracks in the plastic cover, which was peeling away in
irregular patches like dead skin after a sunburn. He must buy a new workstation and a more
appropriate chair. The Phantom should
have something like the captain’s chair in the Star Trek movies. And, when he was sure he had not been
followed, he would contact Irina.
Perhaps she would come to him.
With an effort, Richie
pulled himself out of this pleasant daydream and set to work. He copied his software onto a compact disk,
using a compression routine. He pasted
to it the colorful, professional-looking label of his own design and stopped to
admire the result. There, all done. He placed the compact disk in a purple nylon
wallet, tucked the folded list of account numbers behind it and sealed the Velcro
strip. He crossed the room and reached for the worn corduroy jacket that hung
from a hook by the door. He slipped the
wallet into the sagging inside pocket.
He returned to his
workstation and sat down again. He
loaded the virus he had programmed to destroy everything in the computer’s
memory. He set it to activate in three
hours. Next he removed the housing that
protected the motherboard to expose its chips and transistors. He balanced a fresh can of diet cola so that
the string that held it would be lit by a candle burning down and allow the
cola to spill inside. The candle would
take three hours to burn, also. He’d
experimented to be sure.
He was taking these
precautions, but expected to be back home long before the deadline. But if something went wrong, no one else
could get his program. Even if they could make the sealed hard disk work in
another processor, the virus would have destroyed the software. And, if Sergei’s man wanted a demonstration
of good faith, he could bring him back to the apartment to show him the virus
and cola set to destroy the original software and gum up his computer within
minutes.
One hour. Richie only needed twenty minutes to reach
As the minutes ticked
away, Richie began to grow uneasy again.
The cold sweat had returned along with the hint of stomach cramps. He wiped his brow and stared at the ceiling
with his thoughts coming at him a hundred miles an hour as if they were on a
runaway conveyer belt. He’d played the Cosa Nostra, through Pieri, off
against Sergei and the Russians. His
contacts with Wong had been limited, but while the Chinese had never offered
him any money, they had quizzed him repeatedly about how his software
worked. Of course, he hadn’t told Pieri or Sergei that so far there had been no bid from the
Chinese. He’d preferred to let them
think the bidding was three-way, so he could drive the price up. What if he had gone too far? What if the gangs didn’t trust him to turn
the software over to only one of them as Sergei had suggested?
All he really knew about
gangsters was what he had seen in movies. Might they really try to kill him rather than
pay him off? Sergei had been very angry
at him. He didn’t think for a minute
that everything was really smoothed over just because the phone call had ended
amicably. He just hoped that delivering the software and getting his payment
would be the end of it.
Richie’s breath began to
come in short gasps again. He jumped up, pulled on a pair of ragged blue jeans,
slid his bare feet into a worn pair of sneakers and grabbed the jacket off the
hook. There would be no joy in seeing
Dennis just now, he could tell him about his victory later, when it was
assured. The only way to shake his
growing panic was to get moving. He
would leave now for
Out on the street in the
half-light of early dawn, Richie felt more at ease. He walked toward the Victorian revival
neighborhood along
Richie crossed the street
and walked toward the
He passed into the mall
that stretched between the
About a block from
Broadway, Richie noticed a dark-colored car that was moving very slowly behind
him. There was no other traffic and no
reason for the car to be moving so slowly, unless it was actually following
him. Without further thought, he started
to run. He darted across the street and
then turned down Broadway. He bolted
down the steps to the BART station, thankful that he had a partially used
ticket in his pocket and didn’t have to stop to buy one. The station was
already busy with early commuters, who surged up the stairs and escalators in
waves that reminded him of so many lemmings destined for the cliffs. He pushed through the turnstile and dodged
through them down the stairs just in time to catch an eastern-bound train.
The car Richie chose was
dingy and poorly lighted with seats that sagged in their dirty gold
covers. But it was a lucky choice. The car had only two passengers, both
sleeping. It was one of the snub-nosed
cars with an unoccupied driver’s compartment and a small cubicle opposite into
which he dived like a mouse into its hole.
He scrunched himself into the cramped space to keep his head below the
level of the window and to be screened from the main compartment of the car by
the partition and seatbacks.
Richie remained in his hiding
place while the doors closed and the train lurched into motion. If only his pursuers didn’t enter that
particular car or do more than give it a quick survey, he should be safe for
the moment. He needed this time to
decide what to do next. It would be
foolish to stay on the train for very long; the men would discover him
eventually. He would have to get off at
the next stop,
As the train began to slow
for the stop, Richie moved to the center aisle and crouched in readiness to
spring for the doors when they opened.
When they did, he dashed out of them toward the stairs. He leaped up the first steps and paused to
look down the length of the platform.
The man in blue jeans and his companion burst out of the doors of one of
the forward cars and ran towards him.
Richie pushed his chubby legs
as fast as they would go, took the stairs three at a time and flung himself
through the turnstile. He ran up the
escalator and out onto the street. A bus
was just pulling away from the sidewalk.
He ran to it and pounded frantically on the door.
“Please, please let me
in,” he cried and looked over his shoulder for his pursuers.
Finally, the driver
relented and opened the doors. Richie
jumped onto the bus, threw his fare into the box and collapsed into a seat on
the side away from the BART entrance.
The bus began moving down Broadway in the direction he had come on the
train. From the window across the aisle,
he caught a glimpse of the two men who had just come up from the BART
station. They were looking around for
him, but he knew they couldn’t see him on the bus.
Hope returned to him, but
only for a brief second. The men were
accosted by the driver of a white truck on the opposite side of the street, who
yelled at them and pointed at the bus. A
black sedan pulled away from the curb only a few car-lengths away. Was it the one that had seemed to be
following him earlier?
The bus waddled along
Broadway, then turned left at
Near McDonald’s, Richie
left the bus and ran the few blocks into
As Richie turned from
Webster onto
Tears of anger and
recrimination rose in Richie’s eyes, a pang of sadness stung his heart. He turned away and pretended to shop by
wandering slowly down the row of open stalls with their cartons of fruit and
vegetables, rows of neatly stacked bok choy, cabbage and squash clustered among piles of oranges,
lemons and bananas in a palette of greens, yellows and golds.
He walked a little faster past the fish market whose odor of fresh and not so
fresh fish overwhelmed his nostrils and made his already queasy stomach
turn.
When Richie believed he
was out of Dennis’ view, he boarded another bus bound toward
How had Pieri and Dennis known that this was the day, the momentous
day when he was to sell his software to the Russians? He certainly hadn’t told them. He sat back in his seat and hung his
head. It was all so hopeless, so
different from the exultant dreams he’d had earlier in the day. It was no surprise that Sergei wasn’t really
his friend, but Dennis–-he’d liked Dennis, opened up to him, found in him the
affable companion he’d never had before.
A single tear ran down
Richie’s cheek. He felt more alone than
he ever had in his solitary life. There
was no one he could trust now, maybe not even Irina. The memory of her flashed through his mind --
laughing, flirting, tenderly encouraging his work. He wanted to hold on to that picture of her,
at least, to believe against belief that she had been for real.
He wished with all his
heart that he could go back to his apartment and sit at his workstation, to
feel in control again. A huge wave of
nausea swept over him and he had to clap his hand over his mouth to keep from
retching. He tried to think about
something else, anything besides his clammy skin, racing heart and throbbing
head. But it was no use. Somehow everything had gone wrong.
Stripped of his illusions
at last, Richie knew he was in real danger, a target, a pigeon, an innocent
fleeing from three of the biggest criminal organizations in the world. Why had
he ever imagined he could deal with them on his own terms? He’d blown it, big time. More tears welled in his eyes, tears of anger
at himself, tears of self-pity for his circumstances.
At
Richie stumbled into the
restaurant on the corner of
He jumped up and lunged
onward, driven by the sound of footfalls behind him, despite a deep ache in his
left knee and debris clinging to his clothing.
He dodged in and out of cars parked along the alley for two more blocks
until his lungs felt as if they would burst and his knee screamed in pain. He stopped briefly, panting hard, to look
around for a place to hide. He thought
of James Cagney, wounded and staggering down the street to die in front of a
cathedral. What was the name of that
movie? He could not remember.
Then Richie saw what
looked like a narrow passage on one side of the alley that might open out onto
the street. He threw himself into
it. No good. Buildings loomed darkly on either side and in
front of him. They seemed to close in on him like a trap. The passage was a dead-end.
Richie turned around to
face his pursuers. The men had stopped
in the alley and were looking at him.
They began to walk slowly towards him with their guns drawn. He felt a calm descend over him. His skin felt dry again and his breathing was
slower. He was Vivien Leigh in the final
scene from The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, waiting for the
inevitable. Everything went into slow
motion just like in a movie.
The man in blue jeans
reached him first and shoved his gun against his chest. “Give it to me,” the man said in a voice that
filled the narrow passage and echoed from side to side like a gong.
Richie shook his head and
backed up against the wall of one of the buildings. The man stepped forward with him, keeping the
gun barrel pressed hard against his breastbone.
It felt like it would stab right through him and pin him to the
wall. The man smirked and put his face
up close to his. He could smell the
acrid scent of coffee and cigarette smoke that oozed from the man’s pores. It made him feel sick to his stomach
again. He heard the man laughed and say,
“No matter.”
Richie held his breath and
lowered his eyes so he wouldn’t have to endure the smell or look into those
empty eyes. It seemed to him that his
heart had stopped beating, as if his life had been arrested in a single frame
in which he would remain for all time. Then he saw the man pull the trigger. He
heard the report that seemed to bounce off of the walls of the narrow passage,
reverberating like a gong.
“Wait!” He heard someone
say in a voice that sounded like his own. “You can’t--”
The voice trailed off and
he felt his knees begin to buckle. He slid downwards, the rough texture of the
stucco wall tearing at his hands and clothing.
He lay upon the pavement with the two men standing over him. Their
bodies eclipsed the early morning light visible as a slit of blue far away
above the roofs of the buildings.
A gray mist covered
Richie’s eyes and his body became as cold as the pavement upon which he
sprawled. He felt the men search his
clothing, in all of the pockets of his trousers and jacket. The pawing hands
stopped for a moment.
“Nothing!” Richie heard
one of the men say.
The groping hands began
again. Richie heard the men swear in
Italian and felt a kick to his ribs. He heard footfalls moving away. He lay
there alone, the silence flowing over him like the coke on his motherboard.
Richie
stirred and tried to open his eyes. The
white light was blinding. A dark object
blocked part of the light and slowly came into focus. It was Irina’s face.
“Wha’ . . .wha’. . .” was all he
could stammer. He felt Irina’s soft hand
caressing his cheek.
“ Do
not trouble yourself, my darling,” she said.
“But you must try to stand and walk with me. The limousine isn’t far away.”
“Limousine? I’m not dead?”
“No,
no, you are not. You only fainted from
the shock.”
“But
the shot. . .the man in the alley. It
was point blank range. How could he have
missed me?”
“He
did not get a chance to shoot you, my love.
Someone else shot him first.”
Richie
struggled to gain his feet. He leaned wobbily on Irina’s arm.
“Irina, I don’t understand. How
did you get here?”
Irina
smiled her wonderful mysterious smile.
She reached up and kissed him on the cheek.
“Hurry
now, we must get away. The gunshots will
have alerted the police. I will tell you
all about it as we go.”
Richie
allowed himself to be led back into the alley and out into the street. A long, black limousine waited at the
curb. Irina threw open the rear door and
pulled Richie inside after her.
“Vasilii, go to the airport quickly,” she said to the
driver. Then she closed the window
between them. She opened a cabinet fixed
into the front of the compartment and drew out a bottle of brandy. She poured a small amount into a glass and
handed it to Richie.
“Drink
this. You will feel better,” she said.
Richie
felt the burning liquid pass his lips and flow down his throat. It seemed to spread throughout his whole body
and to bring back the life he had thought had ebbed away.
“Tell
me, Irina,” he pleaded. “Tell me what
happened.”
Irina
smiled again. “Surely you did not think
Uncle Sergei. . .”
“Uncle? Sergei is your uncle?”
“Yes,
yes,” Irina gestured impatiently. “ I am his favorite niece. Uncle Sergei would do anything for me. Even pay more than he should for a naďve
young man’s software because I love him.
He had you followed all the time.
He would not leave you to be a victim of the Italians or the Chinese. We
reached you just as the Mafioso had pinned you up against the wall. It was just a matter of shooting them and
letting you escape.” Irina shrugged as
if her tale was an everyday event.
“Who
shot them? Sergei?”
Irina
looked away briefly. Then she turned
toward him and pressed her fingers to his lips.
“Some
things are better not to know,” she said. “Lie back now and rest. We are going
to