Dragonfly Bones (8 page)

“What did she mean?” I said with emphasis.

“Who knows? Let's get her in here.”

I watched him stride to the nearest door. Noticed his cowboy boots. Hand-tooled kangaroo uppers, intricate stitching, uppers dyed black, tops lined with an inch-wide strip dyed a soft orange. He pressed a button on the wall, and the door opened quickly. Spider held out her wrists again for the CO to unhook her, never looking at her wrists or the CO, staring
at me. Unhooked, she came directly to our table, snagged another chair, sat down.

“Here's the deal—” she said.

“Not quite yet,” Brittles said. “Take her back inside for five minutes.”

“What!”

She resisted, but the CO took orders only from Law.

Brittles began twirling the envelope, became conscious he was doing it, nodded to himself, slapped the envelope himself this time.

“So. You found one of my tells. She has a tell of her own. She left you waiting in the room, left you alone to stew. If she'd been really good at any of her attitudes, if she'd really played out any of those roles, she'd have demanded to be returned to her cell. Then, when we wanted her, they'd have to call up, release her, all those prison rituals with doors and keys, she'd have been at least ten or fifteen minutes. But she was waiting right on the other side of the door. This woman has an agenda. For now, her emotional need to press the agenda overrides her head.”

“What's the agenda?”

“I have no idea. But. We've got an edge. Let's push it. Usually these visitation rooms are filled with all kinds of vending machines. We need some food in here.”

Calling the CO, Brittles talked a moment and turned to me.

“Sandwiches. Tuna salad, chicken salad, or egg salad?”

“Tuna.”

“Coming up. Look. I've got to make another phone call.”

He left.

Alone in the room again. Nothing to do. So anxious I could hear the linoleum floor expanding as I pressed on it. Heard the walls breathing, my senses so acute for
something
to happen, if there was a lawn nearby I'd be able to hear individual blades of grass grow.

The envelope.

I ripped it open, pulled out a single sheet of paper. A spreadsheet printout dated three days before. Names, Social Security numbers, addresses, gender, age, credit card numbers, all checking and savings account numbers and balances. Old-hat stuff to me, I could get anything like this, I could use it, transfer money, whatever I wanted. But I had ethics about it. Something told me that this list had nothing to do with ethics or morality, it was nothing more than a cookie jar waiting to be emptied.

Flannel-lined jeans, 34 waist, 33 long, 2 pairs. Orbit hiking boots, black, Gore-Tex in uppers, women's European size 36. Every spreadsheet entry involved ordering either clothing or towels and sheets.

There was no 800 number listed, nothing to indicate the company.

Brittles came back with a green plastic tray, two shrink-wrapped sandwiches, two diet Cokes, heavy worry lines in his face, cell phone open on the tray.

“Can we get my daughter back in here now?”

“Eat first.”

“I don't want to eat. I want to see my daughter.”

“Then wait while I eat. Let's see if this time she figured out the game and went back to her cell. If not, we've got a bigger edge.”

“This is no game for me.”

“Law and not-Law is always a game. They're always out to screw us, we're always out to con them. Everybody looks for a tell, an edge, an advantage, leverage. When you're inside here, or when you're the person who's gonna put somebody in here, you bank any leverages you get, whether you use them now or in five years.”

“I can't wait.”

Moving to the door, I pressed the button. When the CO opened the door, I saw Spider sitting on a bench. She came back to the visitors' room, went through the ritual with the
handcuffs. She came to the table as though it hadn't mattered, but I saw her smile to herself. She
knew
she'd made a mistake. Brittles caught my eye, shrugged. Edge. Leverage. I could care less.

10

“O
kay,” Brittles said to Spider. “Your mother will find out how the information is being sent.”

“Now I want my part of the deal.”

“That's what I'm trying to tell you. The deal is to find
every
thing. What's being stolen. Who's doing the dirty work. Where's it going. We don't know where the information is going. Until we know all that, there is no deal.”

Spider's face muscles constricted as though she were either going to spit or shout. I could see her clenching her teeth in an effort to do neither.

“It's not like finding the clues in a video game,” Brittles said. “The first clues are the easiest. Like having a bunch of keys and finding the one that opens a door. But these cases are always more complicated than that. Not like a TV show. Not like a movie or a book. Where everything gets solved in one hour or two or four hundred pages. So we've learned what one of those keys unlocks. There are still lots of keys left, we know nothing about what they open.”

“It's just…just so goddam
frus
trating,” she said.

“Yeah, well, now you know how crime pays. With a prison sentence. For you, eighteen months. This is only month three, and you want out already. Be realistic. It doesn't happen like a movie.”

“Yeah. And you're no Dirty Harry Clint Eastwood, solving the case.”

Brittles turned his face in profile to me.

“Oh, I don't know about that,” he said. “Don't I kinda remind you of Clint? The older Clint?
Unforgiven? Blood Work? True Crime?”

“Here's the deal,” Spider finally said.

“Here's
our
deal,” Brittles said, removing papers from his briefcase but never breaking eye contact with her.

“No,” she insisted. “You did your part, getting her here. Here's
my
deal. I'll give up this identity-theft ring on two conditions. One. Plea bargain. I give you the ring, you get me released. No. Not just released. Pardoned.”

“Not possible.”

“Two. She helps.”

“Help you?” I said.

“I can give you the place,” Spider said to Brittles. “I can't give you the people. With her, we can find them.”

“No deal.”

“Wait,” I said, “wait, wait. Spider—”

“Abbe.”

“You'll always be Spider to me.”

“That's your problem.”

“Why did you ask for me?” I pleaded.

“I don't like being in prison.”

“Why are you in prison?”

She sighed, disgusted, the question not worth answering.

“Federal mail fraud,” Brittles said. “She was sending confidential credit card information to Mexico. Sentenced to two years.”

“Eighteen months,” Spider said, “with good behavior. I've been there only three months. The longer I stay, my behavior is only going to get worse. Then I'll have to serve the full deuce. I don't want to.”

“Can I help her?” I asked Brittles.

“No no no,” Spider said. “The right question, the only question that matters to me, is whether he can cut me loose. If I come through.”

“Can you?” I asked Brittles.

“It's possible.”

“Then it's a deal.”

“Laura. First things first. You don't make deals unless you know details.”

“Laura.” Spider mimicked his voice. “How sweet.”

“No,” I said to Brittles. “It's a deal.”

“You don't even know what you want us to do,” he answered.

“Sure she does, Mister Law. She's a hacker, she's a cracker, she's a down south smacker, and she's better than I am. So far.”

“Which prison?” Brittles asked her.

“Hey. Deal with Laura here means nothing to me. Deal has to be with you. I give you what you want, you give me unconditional release. A pardon.”

“You're assuming this is a major thing,” he said. “It's just stealing another few hundred credit cards. It's minor, it's almost meaningless. Tell me what prison, how many people involved. Then I'll decide what kind of deal to offer.”

“It's not the crime,” Spider said to me. “He's pretending this is just about identity theft. Check it out with him. Whisper in his ear.”

“What is she talking about?” I asked Brittles.

I could visualize him playing poker. Holding cards, holding
good
cards, a winning hand, but Spider still in the pot, maybe an even better hand. He sat even straighter, smiled with a very slight nod, and I knew she'd won the pot.

“Deal,” he said.

“Florence,” she answered immediately.

“How?”

“Don't know.”

“But it's coming from there?”

“The 800 number call center. Some inmate in the center. All I know.”

“Whoa,” he said. “I've been to that call center. All the computers are on a closed network. No access to the Internet.
Credit card and Social Security numbers are hidden from the inmate operators. Show up as asterisks.”

“Five seven two Gates Pass Road,” she said.

“What's that?”

“Where I lived in Tucson.”

“You live in Tucson?”

I was incredulous. I'd searched all over the U.S., I'd tracked her from Pasadena to New York City, and she once lived in Tucson?

“Eleven years ago.”

“And your point is that you remember the address?” Brittles asked.

“No. Memory training.”

“Explain that.”

“When Don Ralph was shot down in Viet Nam, he got rescued. But he knew a guy who spent five years in the Hanoi Hilton. With Senator McCain. This guy, bored out of his mind, cramped in a tiger cage and slowly going crazy with nothing to do, he hung a string across the bamboo bars one day. Went back to his math training, recreated his whole memory of calculus and differential equations, worked out the equation for that hanging string. From there, he trained his memory, sharpened his ability to retain details.”

“And inmates…smart inmates…” I could almost see Brittles's head buzzing as he worked out the implications. “They could remember credit card numbers. I've thought of that. But how does that information get out of prison within twelve hours? Rarely more than twenty-four hours. That's how long it takes for somebody to run up massive debts using those cards.”

“I don't know.”

“And just how were you…how were
we
going to find that out?” I asked.

“Easy,” Brittles said. “You go inside.”

“You can't ask me to do that,” I said to Spider. “No way.”

“Way,” she said with a smirk.

“They'd never trust me. An outsider. A woman.”

“It's good,” Brittles said. “That's good.”

“Ooooeee. You're so smart, Mr. Law,” Spider said.

“Well, I'm not that smart,” I shouted. “I'm not taking any chance of going inside a prison.”

“As a computer expert,” Brittles said. “From the company that installed the call-center computer network. You come in to fix a problem. I like it.”

“So, mom.”

The word still hung in her throat, came out coated with sarcasm, cynicism, and solid anger, as though it were a pill she'd been waiting to fling at me for years.

“You really in?”

“If I say no?”

“You'll never see me again.”

Not a pill. A fishing line, not even baited, just thrown out there with a naked metal hook that she was ready to reel in, she was that confident I'd say yes. I knew she had much more anger.

“When?” I asked.

Brittles pulled two thick envelopes from his briefcase, dropped them on the table. Spider ripped one of them open, shoved it to me after a quick scan, ripped open the other. I sorted through a mass of identity papers, most of them arrest and sentencing papers, including two prison photo cards of my face with the name Susan Elliott McBride.

“You bastard,” I said, flinging all the papers at him. “You planned this all along. You weaseling bastard.”

“What happens now?” Spider asked.

“You go back to your cell and wait. No, no, I'll keep those papers. Tomorrow morning we should be ready. Laura, you come with me.”

“I want to talk with my daughter.”

“Too late, mom.” She stood up, went to ring the bell. “You should have thought of that earlier, to stall me.” The CO came out, hooked her up for the third time, and she left without another word.

11

H
is cell phone jingled again, his face grimmer as he listened.

“What am I supposed to do now?” I demanded, fuming while he made three more calls and then waved at an unmarked Ford Excursion.

“I can have the chopper take you back to Tucson.”

“We need to talk about the deal. About my daughter's pardon.”

He started to get into the Excursion. I piled into the backseat.

“Whoa, whoa,” the driver said. “Get out, lady.”

“We have to talk!” I insisted to Brittles.

“You haven't seen her for twenty years,” he said curtly. “Why are you so dead set on helping her now?”

“She's my
daughter
. Tell me if this deal is possible. A complete pardon, if I go along with what you want.”

“Come with me, we'll talk on the way.”

“Where are we going?”

“Near the Casa Grande ruins. But I don't think I can arrange for the chopper to meet us there. You'll have to find a ride back to Tucson.”

 

He refused all conversation during the fifty minute trip.

We flew at nearly one hundred miles an hour, the Excursion rocking on its springs. Once on the freeway, Brittles took a portable flashing lamp, fed the cord out his window, and clamped the magnet to the roof. Every time I tried to say something to him, I could barely hear myself, wind whistling into his window, and I wondered if he'd put the lamp outside just as an excuse to shut me off. Somewhere past the Chan
dler exit an Arizona DPS cruiser picked us up, tried to pull us over until Brittles got patched through on his radio and the cruiser pulled in front of us, bubblegum lights rotating, clearing traffic all the way to Casa Grande.