Russell Andrews - Hades

"Were you watching him?"

"Bannister? Yeah."

"Did you see his face when we asked him about the travel records and the travel agent?"

"Yes."

"He was lying. He was lying his head off the whole time."

"I agree. So what good does it do to let him get away without giving us any of the information we need?"

"He's never going to give it to us. And it's not going to be easy pressuring them. They'll have lawyers swarming all over us."

"So you just give up?"

"Don't worry about it," he said. "We'll get what we need."

"How?"

"We'll steal it," Justin said.

She began rubbing her eyes and forehead. "You know how hard it is to pull off that kind of computer break-in?" Reggie said. She was practically yelling now. "I bet there's maybe two or three guys in the FBI who could pull it off. And I won't be able to get them to do it now, not on this short notice, if I can ever get them to do it. Plus, we'll never get this without a warrant. And even you think it's going to be impossible to get a warrant."

"I know."

"So what are you talking about?"

"I know a guy," Justin said.

Justin asked Reggie to walk him up to Central Park. It was a twelve-block walk and when they got there, he steered her toward a bench in the shade. Sitting, he pulled out his cell phone and punched in a speed-dial number.

"Mrs. Jenkins?" he asked after a moment. And after another moment: "Yes, this is Chief Westwood. How are you?… Thank you… Yes, I'm sure everything will work out fine on my end… Listen, I'd love to talk to your son if he's around… No, I know Gary's at the station. I meant your other son, Ben. Would you mind getting him?… Thank you."

"Oh god," Reggie said while he was waiting. "This is your little fourteen-year-old, isn't it?"

"Don't be an ageist. And I think he's fifteen now."

"Jay, do you know how crazy this is? This kid can't-"

He held up his hand to stop her. And then he spoke into the phone.

"Ben?… Yeah. Listen, I need you to do something for me and I need it quickly."

He told Ben Jenkins what he wanted.

Reggie groaned aloud about halfway through the request. When Justin was finished talking, she heard something indistinct from the other end of the phone, then she heard Justin say, "That's highway robbery." More words from the teenager, then, "Okay, okay. You got it… Yes, I swear. A flat-screen TV. Yes, I heard you-thirty-two-inch screen. It's a deal. Now shut up and listen."

Justin gave Ben the information he'd gotten at Ascension-the computer system and the various names and e-mail addresses. He also gave Ben a list of the companies they were interested in. He made sure Ben had his cell phone and fax machine numbers back in East End. Then he was about to hang up, but he stopped and said, "Hey, Ben, how old are you now?… Fifteen?… Well, I'm going to make this more interesting for you. I'm sitting here with an FBI agent… yeah, an honest-to-God real FBI agent… and she says no fifteen-year-old kid can do what I'm asking you to do. She says the top FBI computer experts couldn't do it. Got anything to say to that?" He listened for a few seconds, turned to Reggie, and said, "How much?"

"What?"

"Ben wants to know how much you want to bet?"

"I'm not going to bet money with a fifteen-year-old boy," she said. And when Justin raised his eyes, she went, "A hundred bucks."

He repeated the figure to Ben, saying, "I'm going to get in on this action, too. I'll take you for fifty… Right. Get back to me as soon as you can."

Then he hung up and said to Reggie, "Want to get a drink? I've got time to kill before my date."

He gave Reggie her choice-she could drive his car back to East End or she could take the train. She chose to drive, which was fine with him. He liked the idea of a late-night train ride. The quiet appealed to him. So did the idea of actually catching a couple of hours' sleep.

But first he had a woman to wine and dine.

He got to the restaurant a little early, went into the men's room, and cleaned himself up as best he could. He went to the bar, told the bartender to give him a splash of bourbon and a lot of soda, and then he nursed it until Belinda Lambert walked into the restaurant.

Justin smelled her perfume a split second before he turned to see her. It was sickly sweet, and there was too much of it dabbed on. And, he would be willing to bet, dabbed in too many and too intimate locations. The whiff wasn't overwhelming, just enough to be overdone. That's how he would describe the rest of her: nothing too extreme, but the effect was that everything was taken just one step too far.

Belinda was wearing a dress just slightly too dressy for the restaurant. It was red and white-and the red was just a little too red-and shoulderless. Spaghetti straps held the whole thing up. It was cut low-just a bit too low-and she was not wearing a bra, so when she bent forward to kiss him hello, the tops of her nipples were exposed. The skirt was-he couldn't help but note-too short; it didn't quite reach mid-thigh. She wore high-heeled, open-toe shoes with so many straps Justin thought it would have taken him half an hour to put the things on. The overall impact was, he was surprised to find, sexy. She was a big girl, but she was comfortable with her body. In fact, more than comfortable. She knew how to use it and was more than happy to draw attention to it. But there was also something sad about the complete picture. She was trying just a little too hard. And there was a hint of desperation in her eyes, the way she revealed her hunger.

He flashed her his best smile and made a bet with himself that when he asked her what she wanted to drink, she'd say a glass of champagne. Either that or a margarita with salt. He thought she'd really want the 'rita on this hot, humid night but would go with the champagne because she thought it would be classy.

"Our table'll be ready in a minute," he said. "What would you like to drink?"

"A glass of champagne," she said. "Is that all right?"

"For you?" he said. "The sky's the limit."

The dinner went about as he figured it would. He'd pegged her for a drinker and a talker when he'd met her at Rockworth and Williams, and she was definitely both. She liked to talk about herself, too, so he knew he could use her self-absorption to his advantage. He insisted she have a second glass of champagne while he nursed his watered-down bourbon, then he ordered a bottle of red wine with their meal. As they ate and she talked, Justin made sure he poured the wine, much to the waiter's annoyance. By the time they made it to the second bottle, he'd had about a glass and a half of the St. Estephe and she'd gone through the rest. She talked about her college days and what she'd studied and how she never thought she'd wind up working with money because she could never even balance her checkbook. Belinda talked about old boyfriends and moving to New York from Pittsburgh, and as she went on and on he began to like her. She had surprising flashes of insight and she was more self-aware than he'd given her credit for being. So he listened attentively and nodded when he was supposed to and clucked sympathetically to show he was sensitive; and at one point he said, looking embarrassed, "You know, I hope you don't mind my saying this, I know it's not very professional, but you're extremely attractive."

She couldn't hide her pleasure. She came back with, "I'm really glad you think so."

He smiled shyly-or as shyly as he could manage-and gradually he was able to steer the conversation around to Rockworth and Williams and Ellis St. John. Soon she was leaning across the table and putting his hand in hers and, with her other hand, stroking his arm. He asked how people in the office were responding to Ellis's absence, and she said no one seemed too concerned on the trading floor. She didn't know about the big boys. All she knew was that Daniel French had come by to say that she shouldn't worry too much about Ellis, that Mr. Berdon had heard from him and that everything was okay. It was some sort of family emergency, he'd said, and Belinda thought it was strange because Ellis didn't have much to do with his family. Mr. Berdon had instructed Mr. French to tell her that she was doing a good job and that she should refer all of Ellis's clients to Mr. French when they called in if it was something she couldn't handle herself. They said that if the police questioned her any further, she should say that Ellis was away on family matters and say that's all she knew, which was true enough because that's all she did know.