“I’m doing fine, Karen. It’s all still just a little crazy. Listen, I’m going to need to be out for a few more days, but I want to catch up. Can you meet me in the city tomorrow? I’ll treat you to Lattanzi.” Michael knew Karen loved Italian food, and the restaurant on West Forty-Sixth Street was one they had both enjoyed during a number of business dinners over the past year.
“Just tell me what time, and I’ll be there!”
“Let’s meet early—noon. Karen, just two things before you go. First, if I give you a latitude and longitude coordinate, would you try to figure out where exactly in the world that point is?”
Karen didn’t answer. Michael could picture the expression of bewilderment on her face. Better, he thought to just keep going.
“You may want to write these down. The latitude is 40.76626 and the longitude is minus sign, 73.89695. I vaguely remember this stuff from geography class. There must be some way to find out where the heck this is.”
“O-kay,” she said. Michael recognized the expression. “And what’s the second thing?”
“The second one should be a lot easier. Would you do some research for me on artificial intelligence?” Again, there was a silence. Michael knew Karen would be frustrated until she figured out the point of his questions.
“I can see you’ve had maybe too much time to think.”
“Listen, Karen, I know this might be a bit strange. I’ll explain it all to you tomorrow.” Again, there was just the slightest delay before he heard her response.
“Boss, before we go, while we were speaking, I Google-mapped those coordinates and then I went onto this thing, iTouchMap.com. I have the location you wanted. It’s in Queens, looks like Astoria.”
“Jesus, that was fast. Do you have an address by any chance?”
Karen’s voice was suddenly tentative. “I do. I do …” Michael felt like she was stalling, perhaps thinking. “Hold on.”
“What’s wrong? Did you find it?” he asked.
“Yes, Michael, I did.”
He was becoming impatient. She was hiding something. “So, where is it?”
“It’s Saint Michael’s cemetery. Isn’t that where your brother is buried?”
Chapter 20
New York City
November 18, 2009
W
ednesday was a matinee day on Broadway, so Lattanzi was nearly filled with an unlikely pairing of out-of-towners and the “women who lunch” crowd. Michael led Karen to a table off to the side, away from much of the bustle. The soft lighting and the rich wood paneling provided a serene backdrop for their conversation.
Seeing Karen with her office attire and briefcase full of folders was an unwelcome reminder to Michael of the world he would soon need to reenter with all his energy and attention. Michael was aware that he was, uncharacteristically for a supposed business meeting, attired in a sport shirt and black woolen sweater instead of a suit and tie. He wondered how that would register with Karen. He felt different and was sure it was obvious.
He ordered a bottle of Antinori brunello and a bowl of linguine with
fra diavolo
sauce over fresh lobster, mussels, calamari, and shrimp. Lattanzi was like being in Rome for lunch, he thought to himself. The room was relatively dark, the waiters Italian, and with no windows to the outside world, you could just as easily be on the Via del Corso as Forty-Sixth Street. As he completed ordering, he could see the expression of surprise on Karen’s face.
“Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you order such a full meal at lunch. That’s a change.”
You have no idea,
Michael thought.
While picking at her crisp calamari salad, Karen took Michael through the topics summarized in great detail in each of the manila folders. Michael watched her watching him and knew that Karen would have an uncannily accurate idea of what was going on inside his mind, at least to know when he was bored or unengaged in the subject matter, as he certainly was now. So as Michael’s attention was wavering, he knew Karen would pick up on it in just a few more seconds if she hadn’t already.
“Michael, is it too soon? I know you’re upset about Alex …”
“No, that’s not it. I mean, I’m upset, but that’s not what’s on my mind. The other thing I asked you yesterday to research was artificial intelligence. What have you got?” Michael knew he hadn’t made a smooth transition, but he couldn’t help the curiosity tugging at his mind after his discussion with Skinny Lester at the cemetery.
Karen was clearly surprised, but she appeared to recover quickly. “I can see that you’re not interested in this part of our agenda, so let’s move on before you fall asleep.”
Michael tried to control his amusement.
“Okay, here’s the story.” Karen handed Michael an inch-thick file filled with detailed analyses and studies, most printed from the Internet.
“Now, of course I know you won’t read all this, but take it in case you change your mind. Let me take you through it verbally.”
He opened the “Artificial Intelligence” folder immediately but listened as Karen summarized the reports.
She began, glancing occasionally at her handwritten notes. “You have a lot of very sophisticated research going on all over the world on this—from high-tech companies like Google and GE to major universities. The centers for all this are Silicon Valley and various places in Europe—”
“What the hell is it, exactly?” Michael interrupted.
“Okay, Boss. I can tell I’m missing something here. But here goes. Artificial intelligence is the use of computer technology to simulate the human mind. It’s supposed to eventually be better than the human mind because the computer can store an endless amount of information and can be programmed to make better use of logic than most humans. There is supposedly some very sophisticated software that replicates the human mind and its reasoning and judgment.”
“Does it replicate the human mind in general—or a specific person?” Michael’s mind was overheating as he tried to guess what his brother had been up to.
“Both. The material I’ve read and printed out for you mostly talks about the human mind in general. But you’ll also see some work that’s being done to really emulate a particular person and, in a sense, create a computer model of that individual’s mind.
“They do it by feeding into this software millions of bits of information, the person’s past decisions, and all kinds of data. There is a very complicated questionnaire, with thousands of theoretical situations and questions that the subject person would have to feed into the software. Then it constantly gets updated by new events, and the person keeps interacting with it so that eventually, the computer can pretty much predict or emulate the behavior, actions, or decisions that the person would make in real life. I understand that they are also working on simulating a person’s emotions.”
Michael pressed further. “What do you mean, simulating the emotions?”
“Well, as you know from your own peculiar political tendencies, we don’t always make decisions or have beliefs based upon common sense or logic. Sometimes what we do or what we believe defies logic, or is just plain stupid.” Michael could see that Karen was obviously feeling more comfortable again, poking fun at his left-leaning politics. He just raised his eyebrows ever so slightly and let the remark go.
She glanced at Michael, and he noticed the beginnings of a repressed smirk, but she continued on. “The point is, part of what makes a person unique is the emotion—as opposed to just the abstract logic—that goes into that person’s belief and decision systems. So if you are going to, in a sense, replicate someone’s mind, you have to also build in their emotional state.”
“I guess this could be powerful stuff if you were trying to predict the behavior or decisions of a competitor or an enemy, in business, in the courthouse, or politics or wars.” Michael was grasping the point of it all. What he couldn’t figure out was whether it had any applicability or value to Alex.
“It’s none of my business, but where are we going with all of this? What does this have to do with Gibraltar’s business?”
Michael ignored the question and pressed on. “What about the image of the person? Can the computer show the head or body of the individual?”
“Well, there have also been great advances in computer imaging, sometimes even 3D imaging. There are programs being developed that continually photograph a person using a camera—called a webcam—attached to a computer monitor. Eventually, the computer learns to accurately reproduce at least the facial qualities and expressions of the person in a way that is compatible with the feelings or verbal communications coming out of that person.”
“What else? What about the voice? Can the computer speak?”
“Yes, Boss, with what they call voice replication technology, the computer learns to reproduce the subject’s voice, perfectly. That part is pretty easy.”
“And can this artificial—or re-created—person recognize who he’s talking to?”
“My goodness, you are on a roll today. That part is trickier. You’ll see from the reports, if you read them, that there have been some breakthroughs on this. Through the latest voice and visual recognition technology, this artificial person, in a sense, cannot only recognize who is speaking to him—or her, by the way—but can also visually recognize the other person. All of this technology, the software at least, is pretty exotic and is being created and perfected, separately, in various parts of the world. But what’s interesting is that it’s all done through a computer with a webcam, microphone, and speakers, which are pretty much standard these days.”
Michael nodded, his eyes drifting off. “I see.” He could see from Karen’s expressions that her curiosity was killing her. He was also thankful that she hadn’t asked about the coordinates that turned out to be Saint Michael’s cemetery. After all, he still didn’t know himself what to make of that message from Apple.
“Does this all make sense?” she asked.
“Yeah, it does,” Michael answered, trying to figure out if all this had anything to do with what Alex and Russell were working on. “Has anyone put the computer imaging, voice duplication, and recognition together with the artificial intelligence?”
“Yes, he was called Dr. Frankenstein. Is that what you mean?”
Chapter 21
New York City
November 19, 2009
I
t was time to get acquainted with Sharkey.
Michael chose to meet him at Pete’s Tavern in Manhattan’s Gramercy Park neighborhood. Michael had eaten there many times over the years, starting after college when he lived a block away on Irving Place. It wasn’t exactly his home turf, but it was a place where they at least
used
to know his name.
The tavern was likely to be unfamiliar to Sharkey, the crowd there was too young, the owner Irish, and its legacy was literary, not mobster. Michael appreciated its history: it had been around since 1864 and stayed open, disguised as a flower shop, during Prohibition; and O. Henry wrote one of his famous short stories there, in his favorite booth by the front door.
Michael walked up to the redbrick building and passed under the black canopy reaching out to the end of the sidewalk. Forever etched in his mind was the memory of one particular dinner here, the last one he would ever have with his father, just before he passed away.
The bar was busy with hard-core drinkers from the afternoon and a younger crowd that just arrived as their workday ended. Michael walked past the old zinc bar lined with endless rows of bottles and polished glasses waiting for the thirsty neighborhood dinner crowd. He wished he was still part of it. He longed for the carefree times he enjoyed at Pete’s so many years ago.
Michael sat down at one of the tall private booths just past the bar, ensuring that, even though he was in a public and well-exposed place, he and Sharkey would have reasonable privacy. Fat and Skinny Lester were in a car less than a block away, south on Irving Place. If he needed them, Michael knew two things. First, he was in serious trouble. Second, they would be too late.
As he waited, Michael felt the same nervousness he felt before meeting with an important client. But he knew today’s meeting would be different. He thought about the extensive briefing about Sharkey that the Lesters gave him last night.
Sharkey had been a Mafia “made” man at twenty-six, by which time he had made his mark with several hits. The most notable was the one he did alone, leaving a former wiseguy turned police informer with five bullets in his face from Sharkey’s silenced pistol. It was a brazen murder performed in classic Hollywood-Mafia style, inside an Upper East Side Manhattan beauty salon while his stylish victim was having his hair washed.
Sharkey, dressed in an immaculate black silk suit, white shirt, and black tie, took over the gentle massaging of his victim’s wet head, then just before shooting, whispered for him to open his eyes. As Sharkey was leaving, he turned to the terrorized hairdresser and politely said, “He’s all yours. Sorry about the mess.” Sharkey calmly exited, his white shirt splattered red, smoking gun in hand.
The next day, the
Daily News
had a graphic picture of the scene in its centerfold showing the lifeless body with a bloody towel covering its head still in the salon chair, as though awaiting the final rinse. The
New York Post
dubbed the unidentified killer “the Clairol Gunman” and heralded the murder itself “a hair-raiser.” Sharkey reveled in the notoriety.
Sharkey’s flair for the dramatic, with its resulting publicity, caused him to be shunned by many of his crime family’s leadership, leaving him mostly on his own for his income and survival. Although a blow to his ego, Sharkey had survived. Using his talent for local business shakedowns and his thriving prostitution houses, he prospered. And with the extortion of several of his high-profile prostitution customers whom Sharkey captured in living color on his hidden cameras, Sharkey created lifelong annuities.
Christ, who the hell am I meeting with?
Michael thought.
I need a drink.
Just as he ordered a martini, Joseph Sharkey appeared through the front door.