Forty-Six
E disappeared later as mysteriously as she had arrived, giving me a peck on the cheek and promising to call. I sat at my kitchenette counter as the door snicked shut and the silence closed in. Clack ate from his sponge, his carapace scratching the sand, creating a racket in my quiet apartment. I breathed in, breathed out, relaxed in my solitude.
The relaxation fled as the hamster wheel in my head started up, revolving around thoughts of Twitter. I reviewed the things that had already been said about me online, and wondered what was being said right now. I glanced at my closed laptop, battling the need to know how I was being maligned.
After a brief struggle, I lost the battle. I flipped open my laptop, started to click on my browser icon and stopped, looking at the little camera lens at the top of the screen. The light next to the lens was off, but it got me wondering. What had Earl’s computer shown? What had Peter’s?
Taking over Peter’s computer was genius, and using the lens to see when it was safe to type commands was double genius. Whoever had done that had almost unlimited ways to dox Peter Olinsky. It hadn’t been my fault. Peter would have been killed regardless of whether I got into a shouting match with him on the IRC.
At least that’s what I chose to believe.
It was possible that the hacking and the murder weren’t connected, that the hacker and killer were separate people. The hacker had inhabited Peter’s computer only to use it as a front for phishing the senator and the killer had gotten Peter’s information from my infantile flaming. That was the worst of all worlds: no connection, no way to pull on one thread to find the other.
Of course, this brought up the question of Earl. Peter’s computer had been taken over so the hacker could phish the senator and get Peter blamed for it. If Earl had been hacked the same way, one had to wonder what plan the hacker had for his computer. For Earl’s sake, I hoped that there was no connection between the hacking and—
My phone dinged with a message, a photo of a Guy Fawkes mask that had been modified to create a meme. Text in Impact font shouted from the bottom center of the photo:
Fuck you Tucker.
An unpleasant jolt of violation rippled through my stomach. The doxing was complete. Someone had my cell phone number. I grabbed the phone, opened the message app, and swiped to delete the pic—
Another ding.
Another Guy Fawkes:
Fuck you Tucker.
You missed a comma there, Meme Master.
This was not good. I waited a moment before trying to delete this picture. Sure enough, another ding, another picture.
Fuck you Tucker.
Someone was running a program sending the same message to my phone over and over. This could go on forever.
Another ding.
I silenced the message app on my phone. I wouldn’t be getting any text messages until I got a new phone number. Someone had initiated a denial-of-service attack on my texting.
The phone rang, an unknown caller. I silenced it.
Phone rang again, unknown caller.
Silenced it.
Rang again.
I opened the call and listened. Cesar Romero as the 1960s Joker laughed at me.
Hung up.
It rang again.
My phone was useless. I silenced it. Left it to fend for itself.
Rage tickled my gut. These fuckers would pay.
Time to go to the mall. I grabbed my coat, ran down the stairs, out the front door, and almost into the arms of the senator’s hook-nosed lackey, Pat Turner, who had been about to ring the bell.
“Hey! Whoa!” said Pat.
I stepped around Pat.
“Where are you going in such a hurry?” he asked.
I turned. “How is that any of your business?”
“Look, we got off on the wrong foot.”
“You think?”
“I’m sorry I scared you.”
“You didn’t scare me.”
“And that’s why you ran?”
Touché.
Pat continued, “I’m just here to get a status report on the video.”
“No status.”
“What about Dorothy Flores?”
I started walking. “I need to go buy a new phone.”
Pat followed. “Why?”
“Anonymous.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“What about Dorothy Flores?”
“How do you know about Dorothy Flores?”
“The FBI told us.”
“Great.”
“You going to get some information out of her?”
“There is no information to be got out of her.”
“Yeah. Sure. You fucking her?”
“Jesus! What?”
“I mean, that’s the only reason I could see for you protecting her.”
We had reached Huntington Avenue. There was a Sox game today, and the traffic showed it. Overcome by a fit of common sense, I pushed the walk button and waited.
“I’m not protecting her,” I told Pat. “I don’t think she knows where the video is.”
“She was friends with that Peter guy.”
“Yeah.”
“The guy who got his head cut off.”
“Yeah.”
“Could happen again.”
The walk signal lit up. I walked. Pat didn’t. Just as well. I didn’t need him screwing up an already screwed-up situation. The entrance to the Prudential Mall stood before me like a portal to shopping nirvana, but next to it was the entrance to the Cheesecake Factory, a portal to cheesecake nirvana. Cheesecake would be good.
Soon, my Precious.