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“We were given your name and address by Eugene Harp. We need to talk,” Letty said.
“Are you Sue?”
“No. We met Bob and Sue and they’re not very happy about that. You can call Harp and ask. But: we need to talk,” Letty said. “If you’re Benjamin Able.”
“Who’s we?” Able asked.
“Me and my friend. He’s out front in our truck.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Job possibilities... and Ordinary People, if you know them,” Letty said.
Able peered at her for a moment, then said, “Come around to the front. Give me five minutes.”
Back at the truck, Baxter asked, “We running?”
“No. He wants five minutes. Probably calling Harp. Or Ordinary People. Damnit, we should have called Delores to see if the NSA could pick up the phone call. We should have known he’d make one.”
“Now that we have his name, we should have Delores take a look ateverythinghe does... and they can do that.”
“If they can get the warrants.”
Baxter snorted, amused, but didn’t say anything.
Able didn’t takethe whole five minutes; a light came on outside one of the doors, and it popped open. Able stepped out and waved them in. They walked over, with Baxter leading the way. He nodded at Able and said, “We’re Paul and Charlie.”
“I don’t know what you did to Gene Harp, but you freaked him out, whatever it was. He told me he didn’t want to talk about it, but I should be careful. Especially with Charlie.” He looked at Letty and said, “He said you’re a psycho with a cane.”
“Yeah, and he’s a pervert,” Letty said.
“I assume you’re talking about his harem,” Able said. “You gonna turn him in?”
“Only if he messes with us,” Baxter said. “You know what he did to us, right?”
Able looked both ways up and down the street, then said, “Come inside and tell me.”
They followed him into the building, which had been divided in half lengthwise. The front half, facing the street, was a long rank of metal racks covered with computer and audio gear, some dating back to late ’90s Macintosh and Windows computers, along with an even older Commodore 64 and Amiga 1000.
The back half was a long living quarters, everything jammed together except the bedroom, which was walled off with taped but unpainted Sheetrock, the corner of an unmade bed visible through the doorway.
Computer and TV screens occupied much of the middle of the interior—including on top of the washer and dryer—along with a variety of lounge chairs and several Herman Miller office chairs on casters; the floor was a checkerboard of black and white tiles. One end, outside the bedroom, was occupied by a bodybuilding gym, with racks of free weights on the walls. The other end was dedicated to a collection of guitars and amps.
“Great place, man,” Baxter said, so genuine that Able simply nodded and said, “Thanks.”
And, “So what did Harp do to you?”
“He sent us to Bob and Sue. You know Bob and Sue?”
“No. I’ve never seen them, but I know about them.”
Baxter laid out their story—PhD in computer science fromFlorida, possessed of a half-million-dollar Bitcoin wallet with no way to get to it that would not get the feds on their back.
With the help of research and some friends back East and in LA, they’d determined that a successful hacker combine called Ordinary People might be able help them retrieve the money. Harp had sent them to Bob and Sue. They’d been warned about the two and recognized them when they saw them sitting at a restaurant table. They’d stopped to talk to them, recognized the CI shuffle, and left them with their choice of soft drinks and hamburgers.
Able cross-examined them about the Bitcoin disaster.
“I know everything there is about machine controls, but I fucked up the whole blockchain thing,” Baxter said. “Went into it without thinking about it much because...”
