Ridley Pearson - Cut and Run

“But… then why not contact us directly?”

“Technically speaking? For one, they could have a key-tracker in place that would tell them anything he typed-they’d know what he was working on. Or they might have certain applications blocked. Or they might be watching his screen. It’s hard to say. Why don’t you ask him?”

“Me?” she gasped, thinking immediately of Larson.

“Certainly not me,” Miller said. “You apparently know what this is about. I do not. If you people… if the federal government is interested… the way the world is right now… then that’s enough for me. Do you have an Internet connection? I can give you a URL and a password, and that’s about all there is to it. It’s all handled on this end-on the grid.”

Her heart quickening, Hope glanced around the room, found the hotel directory, and tore it open, the receiver cradled between her shoulder and ear. Flipping through some notebook dividers, she saw that the inn had a business center, but it closed at 5 P.M.

“I’m fifteen minutes late,” she mumbled into the phone. “I could call the manager, plead my case.”

“Any laptop would do.”

She thought of Tomelson, just outside her door. A guy like that would have some way to connect to the Internet. “I’m going to need a minute.”

Then, as she turned toward the door, she noticed the folded advertiser that stood up on its own alongside the withered rose that was trying its best to look fresh. NINTENDO! ON-DEMAND MOVIES! WEB ACCESS FROM YOUR TV!

She practically tore the doors off the armoire. A wireless keyboard sat atop the television, two elaborate joysticks on the shelf to the right, their wires tangled. A duplicate advertiser sat atop the TV.

She switched on the TV. It took too long to warm up. Finally a menu appeared, and, sure enough, INTERNET ACCESS was there on the menu.

“I’m on…” she said less than a minute later. “What’s the URL and password?”

“You understand,” Miller said with great reserve, “that once we do this, a window is going to appear on his screen. We can’t predict how he’ll react.”

“No firewall,” she said, handing him his own earlier argument. “That has to be significant.”

“Of course it is,” he agreed, each building the other’s confidence.

She asked Miller to give her another minute and called Larson using the hotel phone, but the call went straight to voice mail. He either had the phone shut off-doubtful-or he’d moved out of cellular service range. Her maternal fears decided it for her.

“Okay, let’s do it,” she said.

Sounding excited himself, Miller dictated the specifics and she wrote them down. She worked the keyboard and, a moment later, a small window appeared in the center of her browser.

“I’ve got it.”

“Again, there’s no gentle way to do this,” Miller warned. “Once I patch you in, you’re just going to show up on his screen, uninvited. What he does with you at that point is anybody’s guess. Likely he’ll kill that window and log off the grid, and that’s the last we’ll see of him.”

“He’ll talk to me.” She sensed her child’s fate at the end of her fingertips. She felt torn about doing this before contacting Larson. If she succeeded, they both would celebrate. If she failed, he would never forgive her, and she would never forgive herself.

“Are you ready?”

“Ready.”

“If he’s using sniffers-spyware-he already knows I’ve accessed his port. But he hasn’t broken the connection. He may already have both of our IP addresses. Let’s start now and get this done quickly.”

She took one more furtive glance toward the door. “Go ahead,” she said. “Put me on his screen.”

Larson slipped a photograph of Markowitz onto the hotel bar and left it there briefly. Larson returned the photo to his pocket and said, “The Sand Dollar then?”

“The only two I’ve seen from The Sand Dollar,” Montgomery said without missing a beat, “are city types that don’t belong here. They come and go this time of night or later. You don’t see them outside during the day. They order lunch and dinner delivered.”

“From here?”

“We’re the only game in town.”

“Two of them?”

“Yeah, but the meals are for three, so maybe it’s that guy,” he said, pointing to Larson’s jacket.

“Kid food or adult food?”

“Adult, far as I know.”

“Do you happen to cover the residences as well?”

“I’m all there is for island security, if that’s what you’re asking. So, yeah, when residents vacate a premise, they slip me a little something, and I keep an eye on it. That’s all. Vacationing teens are the biggest concern. The closest thing we get to a crime here is what we call a DWI-drunk while intoxicated.” He lifted his glass and sucked down a fair amount. “We go about ninety percent occupancy Christmas to Easter. We’re what you might call inbred. I see the occasional pissed-off spouse armed with a golf club or tennis racquet out for revenge. High crime. In my five years we’ve had a couple broken noses, unlimited in flagrante delicto, and maybe a dozen shattered egos, and that’s about it.”

“Sounds nice… for you.”

“It pays. It’s steady. They got good health care and a pension, though I won’t stay long enough to qualify. Over half the year we go down to a maintenance level of about twenty percent occupancy. It’s a ghost island with an open bar, and that’s fine with me.” He hoisted the gin again and worked to below the quickly melting ice cubes. “To absent friends,” he repeated.

“Is there a dinner order placed for tonight?”

Montgomery blinked his rheumy eyes a couple of times. Larson pushed what remained of the rum away for the bartender to clear. Despite the beauty of the place, this was exactly where he did not want to end up twenty years down the road.

“Standing order. Every lunch, every dinner. They call in to check the specials.”

“Can you check for me?”

Montgomery didn’t look pleased. But he climbed off the bar stool and disappeared through a door to the kitchen. Emerging a few minutes later, he saddled back up. “If you’re fucking around with me,” Montgomery said, “I’d prefer you didn’t.”

“I’m not.”

“The order for three dinners was cut back to two, not ten minutes ago. But I suppose you already knew that. What’s going on here, Deputy?”

Larson had not known anything of the sort but did nothing to correct the man’s opinion. “How exactly do I get to The Sand Dollar?”

“South end of the island.” He pointed. “Eye-talian family owns it, name of Valenti. But mostly it’s their guests that use it. There are a couple homes down there, all of ’em pretty much off by themselves. You didn’t answer my question,” Montgomery said, “about what he’s done. Why a U.S. marshal’s interested?”

“Deputy marshal,” Larson corrected. “And no, I didn’t tell you.”

“Hey, I can keep it to myself.”

“I’m sure you can,” Larson said. “If one of them left the island, would we have any way to know it?”

Montgomery didn’t answer, at least not outright. Instead, he signaled the bartender, who delivered a phone to him. He dialed a three-digit number and waited for an answer on the other end. “Charlie,” he said, not bothering to introduce himself, “is the Valentis’ boat in or out?” He paused and listened into the receiver, nodded his head, and said, “What? Just a couple minutes ago, am I right?” Paused again. “Thought so.” He hung up, pushed the phone away, and worked on his drink. “One of your guys took the boat out not five minutes ago.”

“Hence the changed dinner order.” Larson checked his cell phone. No reception. He made change with the bartender and used the hotel’s only pay phone to call Tommy Tomelson, but got voice mail. He tried Hope’s phone next and got a busy circuit. The recorded voice told him to try later.