Thirty-Nine

In the 1880s Henry Whitney, owner of all the land along Beacon Street, had a dream: a dream of a day when trollies would carry commuters to his land and jack up his property values.

He also owned a trolley company.

The West End Railway ran tracks and horse-drawn trolleys out to Cleveland Circle, making Beacon Street one of the nineteenth century’s hottest properties.

Today, Henry Whitney’s goldmine is named the C branch of the Green Line. I sat in an electric trolley, watching workers put up barricades in preparation for the Boston Marathon. For the most part, the Marathon runs down Commonwealth Ave, but at Cleveland Circle it shifts to Beacon Street, bisecting the city into those who are on this side of the Marathon and those who are on that side of the Marathon. Bostonians choose their side carefully, because they’re stuck there for several hours.

The trolley stopped, let some people on, started again. I thought back to last night when I had completely doxed PwnSec through a combination of Twitter programming, Googling, and a little social engineering (trickery) on the IRC.

There had been four people in PwnSec: Peter Olinsky (Runway), Russell Nguyen (Eliza), Earl Clary (Tron), and Dorothy Flores (NotAGirl). So NotAGirl was, in fact, a girl, a counterexample to the Internet adage “There are no girls on the Internet.” And I was on my way to visit her.

The trolley rattled its way to the end of the line, Cleveland Circle. I hopped off the train and looked around for Dorothy’s house. There is, in fact, no circle at Cleveland Circle. There are ball fields, a trolley depot, a CVS, and a strip mall consisting of a series of single-story restaurants, hair salons, banks, and hardware stores, but no circle.

The single-story nature of the strip mall ended at the corner where somebody had built a convenience store in front of a three-story brownstone. The now-entombed brownstone loomed over the convenience store’s shoulder like an older brother ready to take on a bully. My doxing efforts told me that Dorothy “NotAGirl” Flores lived in the looming brownstone.

I ducked down in a gap next to the convenience store, ran up the steps, and tried the door. Locked. I rang the first-floor bell, and got a buzzing in return. The hallway had the utilitarian, painted-over look of housing for young people—kids who have yet to be convinced that a tastefully appointed entryway is the essence of happiness. I headed up the steps. Dorothy lived on the third floor. Someone opened their apartment to see who had buzzed.

“Sorry,” I called down. “Wrong button.”

Dorothy’s apartment door stood at the top of the steps. I knocked. Waited. No answer. Knocked again. Heard a woman: “Just a minute!”

The door opened and a petite girl wearing jeans and an apparently ironic Styx T-shirt stood before me: straight black hair, olive skin, almond eyes, and a silver septum ring whose barbells stuck out of her nostrils like two mercury snots. The sparkling nostrils caught my eye.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Are you Dorothy Flores?”

“Yes.”

I took a step in, stuck out my hand. “Hi. I’m Aloysius Tucker.”

Dorothy screamed an ear-shattering scream, reached down next to the door, grabbed a wooden baseball bat and took a swing at me. She had excellent form. The bat smacked into my ribs, shooting pain through my side and dropping me to one knee.

“Stay away from me!” she yelled, and raised the bat over her head in what would definitely be the coup de grâce.

I decided to reason with her. “What the fuck?” I said, raising my hand to block the bat if it came down.

“You stay away from me!” Dorothy repeated.

“Stay away from me, you psycho!” I said, the pain in my ribs destroying any shreds of diplomacy.

Dorothy lowered the bat, kept it ready. “I’m not a psycho.”

I pressed my hand into my side, winced. “My ribs say you are.”

“You killed Peter! Now you’ve come for me!”

A frail voice called out from the back room. “Dorothy? Dorothy, what’s the matter?”

Dorothy said nothing.

“Should I call the police?”

Dorothy looked at me. I said, “I don’t care. Call them. You’re the one with the bat.”

“You’re the killer.”

“Dorothy?” the voice called. “I want to get into my chair.”

I made an it’s your call gesture. “I was going to warn you, but now I’m not so interested.”

Dorothy looked from me to the voice in the back and back. “I’ll help you in a minute, Auntie,” she called. Then to me she said, “You need to leave.”

I got to my feet. “Fine. Don’t blame me when the FBI surprises you and I’m not there to help.”

Dorothy said, “After today, you’re not going to be helping anybody.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just get out.”

I got out. Reached the street, gingerly touched my ribs. Just a bruise. Still hurt. Went across the street to the CVS next to Mary Ann’s Bar, bought some Advil, and stood in the street.

I had kept my PwnSec doxing to myself in hopes that I could use its secrecy as leverage with Dorothy. That didn’t work out. Dorothy had drunk all the Internet Kool-Aid when it came to me. So the next step was to share what I knew and see where that got me.

I called Mel. Told her what I had.

“Meet me for coffee,” said Mel.

“Sure. Where?”

“The 7 Pond Coffee Bar.”

“Where is that?”

“Um … 7 Pond Street?”

“Smart-ass.”

“Smarter, anyway.”

I closed the call and put in a request for an Uber. It was time to stop messing around with PwnSec and get some help. Dorothy said that something was supposed to happen today. I didn’t like the sound of that.