“I t’s too easy.” Nothing came together like that.
“Some things are easy, Skip.”
“So this Feng guy has been following Carol Conroy and you and me?”
“No guarantee that it’s the same guy. And if it is, maybe he’s just checking up, pally. Could be a logical explanation.”
“Maybe.”
“But,” he hesitated, “if you’re up for it, we can turn the tables.”
“What do you mean?”
“We can follow him.”
“James, we have a job to do. Neither you nor I have the time to follow someone.”
“Yeah. What is your job, exactly? I mean, the installers are installing, J.J. and I are, as you so effectively put it, we’re running. What do you do?”
“I make sure everything gets handled.” Actually, I had the easiest job of the bunch. But I’d sold the project. The hard part was done. Unless of course there was a problem. There was always that possibility.
“How?”
“How what?”
“How do you take care of your end? What exactly do you do?”
“Look. My title is-”
“You’ve got a title?”
Never should have mentioned it. “It’s not important.”
“Skip, pal, come on. What is it?”
“Michael said that I was Person in Charge of the Project.”
James laughed out loud. “Did you major in that?”
“Shut up.”
He did.
“Look, as to what I do? I’ll have the laptop with me at all times and coordinate the-”
“The laptop? What laptop?”
“Jaystone Security has a-”
“We’ve got that slow piece of crap at the apartment, that piece of junk from another century, and now I find out you’ve got a laptop?”
“Settle down, James.” I checked over my shoulder as he raised his voice. I was hoping for a quiet conversation. “It’s a company laptop.” We did have a couple laptops that the sales staff shared. “I can only use it when we’re on a job.”
“Hooked to the Internet?”
“Of course. We’ve got one of those plug-ins with an antenna. You just plug it in and you’re online. From anywhere.”
James put his index finger on my breastbone, pushing. “You never told me, Pancho. But, if you’ve got a laptop with mobile Internet, I’ve got it all figured out.”
“Yeah?”
“I got the GPS back from Em last night. It’s in the car. Battery should be good for two days.”
“And what are you suggesting?”
“Simple, Skip. We put the GPS on Feng’s car.”
It was simple. Simple and brilliant. Simple but illegal. Of course I didn’t expect James to recall that part of the deal. “Do you remember what Jody said before we left his office?”
“Refresh my memory.” James’s eyes shifted as he watched the other installers walking into the room.
I put my arm on his shoulder, and we walked farther from the group, across the clean white tiled ceramic floor. In a hushed tone I said, “Jody told us that unless the vehicle had the user’s name on the registration, it was against the law.” A wife could track her husband, as long as her name was on the vehicle he was driving. But if it was someone else’s vehicle, she is out of luck.
“Jody said a lot of things that he had to say. And what I heard, Skip, was blah blah blah blah blah.”
“Listen, man-”
“Skip, we’re not hurting anyone. We’re just trying to see what he’s up to. This guy may have been following you, Mrs. Conroy, and now both of us.”
“Maybe it’s a coincidence.”
“Maybe it’s not.”
“Man, it’s illegal to attach one of those things.”
“Dude, we’ll need another unit.”
“What?”
“I told you. They only last for a short time. Battery has to be changed out. We’ll switch ’em back and forth.”
“Are you listening to anything I’m saying?”
“I believe you started this conversation by asking me to do a little detective work. You wanted me to follow this guy into the parking lot and see what kind of car he drove.”
“And?”
“I’m taking it to the next level.”
The morning was taken up with organization. Andy and his crew met with J.J. and James, and we all met with Feng and his eight Gestapo agents.
“We work on very sensitive projects.” He addressed our small group as he paced back and forth. “It is a priority that we have a very tight security system, but we cannot let you folks wander around the premises. Whatever station you’re working on, you will need to have one of our security persons with you at all times. Is that completely understood?” He always seemed to finish by looking straight into my eyes.
No one said a word. Around us about fifty men and women in white lab coats were sitting at their tables, oblivious of our little conclave. Quietly they worked their computer magic. Most of them just stared at their screens as we stood in a huddled mass.
James leaned in and whispered in my ear. “I’d like to be paid to sit on my ass and watch TV.” I nodded. A quote from the movie Clerks, 1994. People who saw the movie claimed James and I were much like the lead characters. As if that were a compliment. As if.
“We will ask anyone who breaks this rule to leave.” The short, little guy squinted and eyed each one of us, again finishing with me. Then he turned sharply and walked back into the office at door number two.
“I think we’ll get along with this group quite well,” said Andy.
I rolled my eyes, more for my own benefit than his. James and I walked with Andy and an attractive uniformed female out to the lobby where we’d left hardware for the main door system.
“Door contacts, motion detector, window contacts, smoke detector, and camera mount.” Andy checked them all off on a sheet of paper. He turned to one of the installers and James. “We’ll be working most of the morning on the entrance.”
The young lady with soft auburn hair, a gray uniform, and the thick leather belt stared intently at the equipment. Her authoritative tone didn’t fit with the look. “Everyone associated with this installation will stay inside this building until this specific project, the main entranceway, is complete. Is this understood?”
Andy had stationed the other installers around the building, and each one had his own security guard. We had installers for the office doors, for the outside windows, and for three other camera mounts.
Our security guard was about five two, young, with flashing eyes, that dark auburn hair, and a name tag that simply read Callahan. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her belt. She had a gun and a holster, what appeared to be a Taser, a tear-gas container, a cell phone, pager, and two-way radio. There were at least two tools I didn’t recognize and about two inches of just belt. I’m sure they were going to find something to add to those two inches.
“Skip, need to talk.” James grabbed my arm and pulled me aside.
“James, this is a piece of cake. Just do the job and-”
“That’s the point.” He spoke in a soft voice. “Feng and the Nazi storm troopers aren’t going to let us out of here. Meals are being delivered for lunch.”
I thought the security was a little much. We’d licensed and bonded our installers, but I guess if you work for the United States government-“So? You get the bonus of a free meal. And I doubt if it will be crab.”
James gave me a wry smile. When he worked at Cap’n Crab, he got free food. He brought home crab from work. Lots of crab. Sometimes crab every night. We ate more crab than anyone I know, and we both were sick of crab.
“Are we going to follow our Honda Accord, Skip?”
“I like the idea. It scares me, but I’d like to know if this guy is working against us.”
“Now think about this, pard. So what if he is? Is it worth taking this chance?”
James was getting cold feet? This wasn’t like him at all. “Is it worth the chance? If this guy is messing with us, he’s messing with my income. Come on, James, I finally get the chance to make some serious money and I’m not going to let some two-bit tin-horn security geek try to mess up my good thing.”
“Glad to hear you say that, amigo.” James stared out the glass door and floor-to-ceiling windows in the lobby. The parking lot was about two hundred feet away, and we could see the employee cars spread out on the asphalt. “His car is about ten rows back that way.” He pointed to the right.
“So when you put the-”
“Hold on.” James put his finger to his lips, a sign of silence. “I’m not allowed to leave till after we’re finished.”
“And?”
In a whisper he answered. “You are not involved in the actual installation. You can leave anytime you want.”
“We had to set it up that way.” I was whispering too.
“So, you’re the point man.”
“The what?”
“I can’t leave, amigo. You have to put the GPS on Feng’s gas tank.”