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“How could I...?”
Letty noticed that he didn’t blurt out something about not knowing who the Ordinary People were. “My computer genius looked at Vernon Pastek’s phone records about the time he was extorting the Russians, and then did a search of the phone records of Caltech staff, and guess what? Yours matched up. You’re either a member of Ordinary People, or you’re close enough to them that you could act as a contact between Pastek and OP. So. We need names, five hundred thousand dollars’ worth. If we don’t get some from you, I’m going to call the Title IX people.”
“C’mon, goddamnit, Hannah and I... there’s real affection. She’s not in any of my classes anymore...”
“Affection? Anymore? There you go. You’re banging a good-looking chick and when you’re done with her, you’ll throw her away,” Letty said. “You know it, and I know it.”
“How do you know it?” Harp asked.
“Because I’ve been there,” Letty said. “At Gainesville. Getting banged by a postdoc.”
Harp stared at her for a moment, then said, “I’m begging you, don’t call anyone. I don’t know Ordinary People, but I’ve heard of them and I know they’re local. I can ask around without anyone getting suspicious. If you give me a number...”
“The feds have grabbed a bunch of Bitcoin accounts. They’re getting good at it. We need to move fast. You’ve got twelve hours to call me,” Letty said. She took a slip of paper from her hip pocket and pushed it across the table. “I’ve got a burner. Call me at thatnumber. No point in trying to track it, you’ll only get back to Walmart.”
“I’m not sure I can—”
“Twelve hours.” Letty took a last sip of tea, pushed the cup away, walked out the front door—he made no attempt to catch her—and turned left, up the hill, and down California Boulevard, where Baxter was waiting in the shade of a ginkgo tree.
After confronting Harp,Letty and Baxter spent part of the morning at the motel, where Letty worked out on the drums and Baxter remained glued to his laptop; they spent the other part of the morning prowling around Pasadena in Baxter’s truck and walking around the buildings at Caltech.
Baxter slipped into the Caltech computer stream like a long-time native. Letty got curious looks, and with her spaghetti-string blouse, her raven wings got even more.
“How did I get a fake name like Paul Jims?” Baxter asked at one point. “Makes me sound like I should be out shooting woodchucks.”
“Probably picked by a computer program,” Letty said. The ball of tape behind her knee was intensely annoying. “They fed in six hundred desirable fake name characteristics, and it spit out Paul Jims.”
“You think you’re joking, but you’re probably right,” Baxter said.
At one o’clock, they were eating burgers and cherry pie at a place called Pie ’n Burger when Eugene Harp called. “I have an address for you. Not names. Blond man and a redheaded woman. They’ll meet you on the outdoor patio of Balls’ Café on Colorado.”
Letty: “What time?”
“Where are you?” Harp asked.
“A place called Burger ’n Pie.”
“Pie ’n Burger,” Harp corrected. “They’ll be at the café in ten minutes, and they’ll wait for ten minutes after that. If you don’t show up by then, they’re gone. You’ve got twenty minutes to get there.”
“How far away are we?”
“Maybe five minutes, but parking can be a problem,” Harp said. “Look at the mapping app on your phone.”
He clicked off; Letty took a last bite of cherry pie and said, “Let’s go.”
On the way to Balls’, Letty repeated to Baxter what she’d been told by Harp. “You’ll go in by yourself. I’ll hang back with the camera. If we’re not going to get names, maybe we can get some facial recognition material.”
“Ah, boy, this is it. This is it,” Baxter moaned. “You’re supposed to be there with the gun, to cover me.”
“I’ll only be a minute or two behind you,” Letty said.
“How long does it take to shoot somebody?” Baxter asked. “Lot less than a minute, huh?”
The café, asit turned out, was on the left side of the street as they drove east; the outdoor patio was a small alcove with a half-dozen tables, only one of them occupied, and that by an aging hipster with a gray man bun. As they drove past, a blond man and a redheaded woman, both wearing sunglasses, were walking down the sidewalk toward the café.
“Gotta be them. Don’t look, don’t look,” Letty said to Baxter. “Go up a couple of blocks and turn around, cruise by again. If they’re on the patio, I’ll shoot them from the truck, then I can come with you.”
Baxter nodded. They made an illegal U-turn two blocks downColorado, Letty checking for cops as they did it, then Letty rolled down her window, propped the GX8 against her arm, and looked straight ahead as they passed the café. The camera, in burst mode, fired off a series of frames.
