The man and woman looked two–of–a–kind: same height, same weight, same no–shape. Dressed alike in those brown mail order pants guaranteed to last a lifetime, both wearing white T–shirts with FREE THE BYRDS on the chest. Another woman, a younger one, in a dark blue shirtdress stayed in the background, busying herself with affixing labels to a stack of newsletters piled up on a long folding table.
"We have a mailing list of almost four hundred," the man said. "But our circle of support is much, much wider."
"Do you know them personally?" I asked.
"We have come to know them," the woman said. "We didn't at first—just what we read in the papers. And from the TV. It was Laureen's case first," she told me, pointing at the young woman still working on the labels.
"How do you get your cases?" I asked, ballpoint pen poised over my reporter's pad.
"There are certain things you look for," the man said. I had to look to make sure it was him—his voice was the same as the woman's.
"What things?"
"Media overkill, that's the first sign. Biased reporting. The Byrds were good citizens in every way. Home owners, taxpayers, church–goers…you name it. That is exactly the type of person the media targets, you know. I mean, it's not much of a story if some known degenerate is accused, is it? The feeding frenzy really started a number of years ago. In Jordan, Minnesota. That was the original case for the movement. And after that, it became an epidemic. The media isn't interested in people on welfare committing abuse. The media wants white, middle–class victims for its witch hunt. Look at McMartin, or Marilyn Kelly Michaels. If you work in a day care center, why, you're at risk, it's as simple as that. The list is amazing, just amazing."
"And what they have in common is…?"
"That they are all innocent," the woman said. "But their cases are tried in the newspapers, and the public finds them guilty without any evidence."
"And that's what happened to the Byrds?"
"Exactly!" the man said. "But it's not going to stop there. Appeals are pending. We have a complete fact–sheet on the case. Laureen…" he called over his shoulder. But the young woman was already walking toward me, a stack of paper in her hand.
"You look the same," she said. I knew it wasn't a compliment.
"You too," I told her, ignoring the how the brunette wig didn't sit just right. And the crow's–feet around her eyes.
"Aren't you sweet! But I only work out–call now," she told me, stepping back so I could come inside the studio apartment.
"Just tell me how the trick went," I told her. "Like I said on the phone."
"How'd you know about him?" she asked, eyes narrowing. "It was only that one time."
"You pay money, you get information," I said.
A pathological liar lies—that's what they do. But a professional liar treats truth no different from a lie—you use whatever works. So I told her I'd paid cash for what got me to her door—that kind of thing would make sense to her. No point explaining about the credit card receipts. If people weren't greedy, they'd never get caught. Businessmen have been charging whores to their businesses since forever, billing it as limo service, restaurant tabs…sometimes just "entertainment." If they just paid cash, nobody would ever know—but then they'd have to spend their own money. If you know what you're doing, you can follow the paper trial right into the shadows of their lives. I didn't know where Wolfe got hold of Kite's American Express receipts, but this was the only one that hadn't dead–ended.
"And you're gonna pay me?" she asked, absently rubbing at her coke–ruined nose. Only it wasn't a question.
"You know me, Penny," I said. "I work the same way you do. You're too high class to be grabbing front money, right?"
She sat on the unmade double bed, shifted her too–thin body inside the black silk robe. "I thought he was a trick too, okay? But all he wanted was to talk."
"Sex talk?"
"No. And he didn't want to wear my panties either, okay? Or have me spank him. He wanted to ask me about another trick."
"And you told him you didn't talk about your clients, right?" I asked her, putting it together finally. If Kite had offered her cash over the phone, she would have spooked. So he came in person, like he was a customer.
"Right. But you could see he wasn't a cop. I mean, I never saw nobody ever looked like him. Like he had all the blood drained out or something. And he already knew all about the trick. Just not what we…did, okay?"
"Okay. So you told him…?"
"Yeah," she said, sandpaper in her voice. "I told him, okay? No big deal. It was nice just to…talk, for once. It wasn't like he was paying me to rat the trick out or anything. I mean, he wasn't the heat, right? He was doing…research, like. That's what he said. He was consulting me," she said, her voice loving the sound of the word in her mouth.
"And that was it?"
"That was it, Burke. No big deal. You want to pay me now?"
"Sure," I said, reaching in my pocket. "By the way, did you know that trick was a judge?"
"Oh yes!" she laughed, nasty–edged. "One thing you can always get from tricks, honey—they can't wait to tell you how motherfucking important they are."
I had other things to do besides Kite's job. I'm a professional—I work even when I'm flush, not living from score to score like some rookie. Like most criminals, I learned my trade in prison. On the yard, listening to the Prof preach the gospeclass="underline"
"Every take ices the cake, schoolboy. But you never finish working, see? It's ain't a bunch of jobs, it's all one job. That's your work, got it? So when the time comes you got to cut into the cake, the cash is there, waiting. You don't got to do something stupid. You ain't in a hurry. Keep that cake rich all the time, so when you got to slice, it stays real nice."
All the scores don't pan out, especially when you work the corners the way I do. And the federales have been crimping some of those corners lately. Used to be I could always count on a steady stream of firearms sales to halfass Nazis preparing for the revolution, but their latest psycho fantasy is biological warfare—dump a load of botulism toxin in the water supply of "Nigger Dee–troit" or "Jew York," wait patiently up in the hills in their ramshackle little hate–houses to mow down the fleeing survivors.
The feds even monitor the White Night shortwave radio traffic now, and the FBI has a whole pack of undercovers working the survivalist beat. The feds cruise the Internet too, but that's still safe for me—I make kiddie porn deals but I never deliver, satisfying myself with the up–front cash. I guess I get some of Uncle's buy–money mingled in there once in a while, but they'll never come close enough to make a bust. Besides, it's the product they want—a lousy fraud arrest doesn't race their motors.
I trade with the feds too, but I never took a CI jacket—Confidential Informants never stay all that confidential. I take it out in favors instead. The way that works is so simple I'm surprised they haven't caught on: I sell guns to some Nazi wannabe, then I drop a dime on him and the feds get a good solid bust. They don't pay me for the info, but I get a couple of more cards in the Get Out of Jail Free deck each time.
G–men are pretty neutral characters. They don't go native like some of the NYPD undercovers do. Hoover's dress code went out the window about the time he went into the ground, but you can still spot the Gee at a hundred yards. Even across cyber–space.
That's the latest frontier, the freshest stalking ground for predators. But the Internet's no different from any other piece of technology. It's neutral, like a scalpel. In the hands of a surgeon, it cuts out cancer. In the hands of a freak, it cuts out hearts.