Don Bruns - Stuff to spy for

Silence. I figured they walked out of hearing range. Then Conroy spoke up. “You’ve got it all worked out with Chen and his group?”

“Honey, stay out of the way.”

“Your dad is not going to go down easy.”

“My father isn’t going to know what hit him.”

“Carol, tell me there won’t be anymore like Ralph Walters or Tony Quatman.”

Everything was still, and I wiped my brow again. Em just stood there, bathed in the eerie security lights, and James was chewing on his bottom lip.

“There’s over seventy-five million dollars at stake here, Sandy. I’m not promising anything.”

I saw James whip his head around and stare in my direction. Almost as if he thought I knew about the money. I’d never in my life heard figures like that being tossed around. $75,000,000?

“Babe, I’ve got this feeling that the two kids-” He paused, and I knew he was talking about James and me. “Those two punks are keeping an eye on me.”

“You’re imagining things.” She was quick with the comeback. Almost too quick.

“Am I?”

“They’re not bright enough to keep an eye on anybody. And after what happened to them tonight, I don’t think they’re going to give us any trouble.”

“What happened?”

“There was a little warning.”

“Oh, man. What kind of warning?”

“Trust me, they’re going to go about their business very quietly from this point on. They’ll finish the installation, and we won’t hear from them again. When the entire plan unfolds, they’ll appear to be right in the thick of it. Just drop it, okay? All I want you to worry about is getting those damned codes. I trust you haven’t told anyone anything they didn’t need to know?”

“For your eyes only kind of stuff, yeah. Feng is the only one, and since he’s our main contact-”

“And sweet little Sarah? She’s none the wiser?”

Now the voices were traveling, more and more distant and muffled as if they were headed for the exit.

“She knows there’s a bonus and that I’m taking her away from all of this.”

“You were a fool to ever get involved.”

“We’ve been through this-”

“I know. But I’m not going to forget that it happened. I will never forgive you for that. Never. Regardless, your Sarah will be the easiest one to take a fall. I wish I could-I wish we could be here to see it.”

I was straining to hear their words.

“The damndest part of this is we’re ready to start making the software, and we can have it installed within two weeks. Two weeks, Carol. If it wasn’t for Jason Riley and the government watchdogs, we never would have had to put in this useless security system. By the time they actually activate it, we won’t even need it.”

“We never needed it. But the two boys play right into our strategy. I told you, don’t worry about it.”

Just before we lost their conversation altogether I heard Conroy say, “If Sarah is the easiest one to take down, who’s the second easiest to take a fall?”

Carol Conroy’s harsh laugh rolled down the hallway.

W e waited a good two minutes. If they were still in the building there was no sign of it. “I think we can give the all-clear sign.”

“Jesus.”

“Being the religious man that you are, James, you can say a prayer of thanks that we didn’t get caught.”

“The Lord’s will, Skip. It was the Lord’s will.” This time I think he meant it, and I wasn’t going to argue with him.

“Obviously, you guys know a whole lot more about this than you’ve told me.” Em was miffed. Big time. “Maybe we should share a little bit more.”

She’s a turn-on even when she’s mad. None of us spoke again until we were in the truck and rolling home.

“I’m not sure we know enough to piece it all together.” James kept his eyes straight ahead, staring into the inky blackness as the potholes in the asphalt jolted our truck’s suspension system, shaking us down to our molars.

“Em, we really don’t know what’s going on.”

“Well, I can tell you something about that conversation back there. Carol Conroy is high maintenance and a total control freak. What a bitch.” Em could certainly call them.

We bounced out of a hole or crack and it felt like the bottom had dropped from the truck.

“I don’t want to believe that Carol Conroy orchestrated the death of Walters, but Sandy hinted that-”

“James. There were a lot of things I don’t want to believe about that conversation. They’re going to try to surprise her father-”

“And not in a good way.”

“They’re going to take down Sarah.”

“And somehow implicate us? And we’re still not sure what we’re going to be implicated in.” I needed a beer. Or a deep sleep.

“You keep saying they.” Em rested her hand gently on my thigh. “Skip, it’s not they.”

James gave her a brief look, a frown visible by the dashboard lights. “There were two of them in the building, Em. I was there.”

“There were two of them James, but you and I must have heard two different conversations.”

“Okay,” he gripped the steering wheel, “you tell me your version.”

“Sandy Conroy said ‘those two punks are keeping an eye on me.’”

How were we ever going to forget that statement?

“So far we heard the same conversation.”

“And Carol Conroy responded with ‘You’re imagining things. They’re not bright enough to keep an eye on anyone.’”

“A slam. We heard it, Em.”

“Don’t you get it James? Skip? She’s the one who asked you to spy on him. And then she gives him that answer?”

“And your point is?”

“She’s telling him that you’re not bright enough to pull it off. She jumped right in and said it could never happen. After she knew it had already happened. She has the proof. She has the transcript you took off the computer card.”

“You’re right.” James was shaking his head up and down.

“Why would she say that? Why wouldn’t she tell him that you had put up the bogus smoke detector? I don’t think they are going to take down Sarah. They are not going to surprise her father. They are not going to involve you guys.”

“She said they were. Why would she say that?”

“She lied to him, Skip. Don’t you get it? She’s planning on pulling something off by herself. She’s going to do the dirty work. She’s not going to involve him.”

“Why not? Why not involve Sandler Conroy? The philandering husband? What’s going to happen to him? Is he going to be left out in the cold?”

“When he said ‘please tell me there won’t be anymore like Ralph Walters or Tony Quatman,’ do you remember what she said?”

I did. I’d practically memorized that short conversation. “She said she couldn’t promise that. There was seventy-five million dollars at stake.”

“I definitely remember the seventy-five million dollars.” We had James’s attention. “What could be worth that kind of money?”

“Well, if it was murder, if somebody killed Ralph Walters or maybe Tony Quatman, too, the next person to be murdered isn’t going to be Carol Conroy.”

James braked for the stoplight. At this hour of the morning, there was no one except us on the street, and with our bad brakes he should have just coasted through the intersection. The screech of brakes grinding metal on metal sent shivers through my body.

“The whole reason we’re involved in this spy thing is because Carol Conroy is concerned for her life.” She’d told me that at the Red Derby.

“That’s what she told you. But think about the conversation you just heard.”

Damn. Em was right. After what we’d heard tonight, it all made perfect sense. “It’s going to be Sandy Conroy. That’s what you’re getting at isn’t it? She’s setting him up to be killed. It has to be him. He knows too much.”