15
After picking the lock to Cordova's office, Jack slipped a slim, flexible metal ruler between the door and the hinge-side jamb. He held the ruler against the plunger as he pushed the door open. Without letting the plunger pop, he replaced the ruler with the short length of duct tape he'd stuck to his sweatshirt. He let the outer inch of the tape stick out free in the hallway, then closed the door.
Okay. He was in. First thing he did was pull on a pair of latex gloves. Next he flicked on his penlight and stepped through the reception area into the office where he went directly to Cordova's desk. Neat as could be—even the paper clips were lined up like soldiers in review. A single photo on the desk: a terrier of some kind.
A dog… he kept a photo of a dog on his desk.
Jack knelt and found the computer's mini-tower on the floor at the rear of the kneehole. He noticed a CD drive, probably a burner for backup. One CD could hold a ton of blackmail photos. He pulled out Russ's HYRTBU disk, inserted it into the floppy slot, then pressed the on button.
As the computer whirred to life, Jack began exploring the office. Cordova wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but you didn't need an Oxford degree to know to store a valuable backup off premises. Not just to protect against theft, but fire as well.
Jack started with the file cabinets. Just for the hell of it he checked for a folder labeled backup but didn't find one. So he combed through every drawer, every hanging folder in both cabinets but found no backup disk. Unlike the file cache Jack had found in Cordova's home office last September, these contained no blackmail material. Nothing but PI records. So he did a little floor crawling, looking for something taped to the underside of the furniture. Nope.
He thought he'd struck pay dirt when he found a padded envelope be-hind the radiator, but it contained only cash. Money he d squeezed from his victims, no doubt. Jack was tempted to take it, just for spite, but he couldn't let Cordova know someone had been in his office. The success of this whole fix-it depended on that.
He went back to the computer. The cooling fan was running, but the hard drive was silent. Russ's disk had done its job. Maybe.
Jack removed the disk and pocketed it. He felt weird leaving the place without knowing for sure that he'd accomplished what he'd come for. Of course he could turn on the computer and, if it wasn't password protected, open a few files to check, but he might unknowingly leave some sort of trace that could make Cordova suspect someone had been here.
Better to trust Russ and leave clean.
He returned to the hallway and locked the door behind him. Then he yanked the duct tape free of the jamb. The tape would leave a little adhesive behind, but that couldn't be helped. Unless Cordova got down on his hands and knees and checked the plunger with a magnifying glass, he would never know.
Time to head back to the Ritz. He needed his beauty rest. He was expecting an important call in the morning.