DENVER NURSING HOME
(Draft chapter “State of Control.” Copyright WRBJr Living Trust)
DAY FOUR Denver, 7:50 am MDT
The graveyard shift was ending at the Kipling Avenue convalescent center where Curtis was lodged. The midsummer sun was well above eastern plains when the first day-shift workers drove into the parking lot. Others got off an-almost deserted bus. Then a small procession of tired-looking people with night-shift pallor dispersed toward the car park and bus stop; one unlocked a bike and peddled slowly away.
All unwittingly under grainy-eyed observation of two federal employees in a windowless blue van by the ball field.
At 8:45 an ambulance pulled in. Orderlies freed a gurney bearing an old woman beneath swaying bottles of solution, took her through the front doors. A Fed Ex truck replaced the ambulance. A trim blonde driver in uniform shorts took one small package inside. “Nice legs,” said one watcher. “Things looking up around here.”
“Not unless our relief shows up on time they aren’t,” the other muttered. As if on signal his cell phone chirped. He grabbed it. “Doughnuts?” He brightened. “Sure, a couple chocolate-covered.” He nudged his companion. “You?”
“Glazed as my eyes when I saw the Fed Ex lady’s legs. Fresh black coffee too, please.”
“Uh-oh,” the other keyed the console volume. “Something happening in his room.”
The speaker said: “You expecting a package, Mr. Curtis?”
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John Curtis squinted at his security guard. “A package?” He saw long blonde hair and long tanned legs behind the rent-a-cop. “Hell yes, I’ll take that package! Send her right in. I have to sign for her?”
“Not me, silly, this package.” The blonde laughed and handed him a cardboard envelope. Too light to hold the Glock he expected from Spook. “No signature required. No need to turn on the lights and disturb you.”
“I was disturbed the minute I saw your legs. I bet all the guys say that.”
“Not with an IV drip in their arm!”
“My vital signs improved the minute I saw you. I’m healed! Can I go home with you?”
She was still laughing and the rent-a-cop grinning when they left him alone. Curtis ripped open the zip-strip. They were scheduled to take out the saline-drip this morning. Pain meds controlled discomfort. He’d had real food last night, was famished now. First, the package. A blister of AAA-batteries fell in his lap. Yellow Post-it: Spook’s printing: RECHARGE DILDO. LEAVE TODAY.
“Son of a bitch!” Well he’d made it to the bathroom last night. Used the soft cast they fitted to gimp around the room. Only once breaking into a cold sweat familiar from previous recoveries. More wounds than he liked to dwell on. If he could do the window, he should be ready to go.
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“Curtain in his room moving,” said the watcher with field glasses. “Huh! He peeled the dildo off the window.”
“Too late. Your Fed Ex beauty queen’s gone.
“Oh hah hah. Joke must have worn off when the batteries died.” Before the other could answer his phone chirped. “Relief’s here. You go first.”
His partner slipped to the front, tugged his shirt- tail down over his weapon. “Anybody looking?”
“Nope. Walk away.”
“Gone.”
Five minutes later the first relief man came in, pushing smells of aftershave and soap that clashed with warm bakery-goods. “Anything?”
“He pulled the dildo off his window. Wait. Movement.” He squinted through binoculars. “I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch! He taped the dildo back up.”
The new guy took the glasses. The night guy spun up the console gain. “Now we know what the Fed Ex lady brought him: fresh batteries. White noise again. Flipping us off again. I’m getting damn sick of it. ”
“Your buddy told me more about her legs than the package. You talk to Shaw today?”
“Gone to Kansas chasing a possible sighting of Poindexter. While we sit waiting for dildo batteries to run down — again.”
“I say take this asshole down. We know he knew he was assaulting a law-enforcement officer. We can sweat him for the rest, trust me.”
“Do what you gotta do. Your watch now. I’m outta here.”
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Denver 815 am MDT
The Spook, AKA eWraith, sat cross-legged behind tinted widows of a white Dodge Caravan across the ballpark from the federal stakeout. Watching the watchers. Full stereo headphones since he was invisible. He’d been here to witness his Fed Ex delivery. So much to keep track of, so little time. How did Feldtman’s firm ever operate in the ScReW before adding his skill-set? He pulled a Mountain Dew from crushed ice in his cooler.
But he was out of sorts. Irritated how easily the Herschel Legion cracked Poindexter’s files, her encryption a yawn to the cyber punks. Not worth the effort, stultifying to the max. Returning her decoded files, they snarked he must be losing a step to need help for this. Insulting little twerps.
They might have been intrigued by proprietary program language. Unexpected source-code. Maybe secret enforcement files on East Coast organized crime. Even liquor-purchase protocols offering a hack to divert expensive whiskey shipments for fun. They’d found nothing like that. More to the point, no investigative files. Whole point of the exercise.
Only product of the Hershel children’s contemptuously easy hack were endless text files of cybersex between two people they thought ollld. He believed embarrassment drove their sarcasm about him not cracking the box himself.
In one sense the cybersex bored them out of their skulls. In another they behaved like they’d stumbled on S&M bondage videos in grandma’s bra drawer.
Meantime, Poindexter’s old box had bounced him with no warning. Vanished back into its internet black hole. Had to be on-site intervention. But why? Cops clever enough set a tiger-trap for prowling predators surely would leave it running, once they pinged him. Maybe call in the Carnegie clowns from Pittsburgh who might have an actual shot backtracking a spook. But nobody was on his electronic spoor; he had traps of his own. The irritation was not knowing why.
Feldtman said the client was almost as happy with the cybersex as they would have been with her investigation. Blackmail, of course. In the square ScReW, cybersex would be a career-breaker for Poindexter. But was her dirty little secret enough to call off the hunt? Or did they still need to find her? Unknown, and Jarrett hated uncertainties.
He also hated wasting hours better-spent asleep sifting cybersex exchanges for clues where she had gone. He hated it, but he was good at it. This old Kanorado cowboy-dude was something else, luring the hot city lady to come see him clear from Pennsylvania.
Jarrett would bet anything she was on her way to hook up when she went into the Denver garage. Curtis and Gerner got in her way. Big mistake when she was horny. Bang-bang, out the door. Quick with a gun as fictional Lara Croft.
Locating K Slash S Ranch was cake once he found her travel-plan emails, so he knew where to look if Feldtman said it was a go. He took a sustaining hit of Mountain Dew, listening to two tired federal employees a block from their stakeout site leaning on the roof of their BuCar for a morning fix of sugar and caffeine. One finished quickly and lit a cigarette, whole body relaxing around the nicotine hit. eWraith wondered idly if covert federal watchers had an online manual for frequency allowed for regular smoke-breaks. Something to consider on future counter-surveillance ops.
They exhibited poor trade-craft standing in the open, even muttering face-to-face like convicts on the yard. Loud and clear on his directional mike, discussing his re-activated dildo.
They had guessed his Fed Ex battery delivery after the fact. They weren’t dumb exactly. Just trapped in their world-view. They were the Feds; they owned the world. Who would dare eavesdrop on them? Shipper’s records on the batteries would give them zip.
One told the other solemnly they must never, in official correspondence, identify his “improvised electronic counter-measure” as a big pink dildo. Well, duh. They did comprehend his subliminal message: he was in fact fucking with them. Might as well have fun, forced to labor in the ScReW.
He was nearly drowsing when their desultory talk jolted him harder than the Dew. Feebs and Denver town clowns had somehow tumbled to Poindexter being in Kansas. Were over there this morning, examining gas-station security video.
Why? As if asked they told him: she used one of her VISA cards in Kansas. He called up her financial records, rooted for card usage. Yep, right there: Goodland, Kansas. His smug self-view as superior to denizens of the ScReW was momentarily shaken. Cops were on the ground in Kansas, too damn close to Kanorado and the K Slash S. Working Poindexter’s trail the old-fashioned shoe-leather way. They’d be showing her photo around, getting small-town eyes peeled…
He edited the hack on Poindexter’s maverick VISA. Set a real-time alarm for subsequent purchases. Popped another Dew. Breathed deep, forced himself to relax.
