Mad Dog Justice (27 page)

But one thing’s certain: he’s gotta get a handle on this situation. It can’t go on this way.

Danny gets the bleak feeling he’s wasting his time. Roddy’s probably right; Danny’s barking up the wrong tree. When you look at everything that’s happened since they got involved with McLaughlin’s, it all points to either Kenny’s gambling or Grange’s death.

And with Crystal dead, the finger points clearly to the Russians—a ruthless bunch of bastards. They’ll kill anyone who gets in their way or who needs to be killed for them to get what they want.
Jesus, they could come for our families
, Danny thinks. It wouldn’t take much to find out where Angie and the kids are living. And Roddy’s family, too.

Then what happens?

And what’s Danny doing? Going to some computer guru for
advice? Absurd.

When he really thinks about all this, Danny realizes it would be a helluva lot easier to tell the driver to head for South Broadway—police headquarters—where he can find Morgan and tell him exactly what’s going on. He could end all this today by confessing, and Angie and the kids—and Roddy’s family, too—would be safe. It would take only a brief conversation with Morgan, and the game’s over. Their families would be out of danger.

And he and Roddy would go to prison.

Confinement can drive you crazy. Hell, he’s even going out of his mind at the luxurious Doral. Dan tries to imagine a penitentiary existence. How big is a cell? How much room do you have to move around? Do you ever see the light of day? Are you confined to the four walls of your cell—what can it be, maybe eight-by-ten—and the mess hall? He’s seen enough movies to get the sense of how claustrophobic it is, how dangerous prison can be, and how your life is a threadbare shadow of what it once was. And they wouldn’t be doing time in some white-collar country club. It would be a hard-core prison for violent offenders: murderers, rapists—the lowest of the low, the rock-bottom dregs of what passes for humanity. The horror of it can make you want to die.

Die? Danny’s lucky if he’s alive a month from now.

The car stops across the street from Kevin’s building. To his right, across the street from Kevin’s place, Dan sees Fagan’s Ale House, a bar on the ground floor of a two-story building. Above the bar is the Rockin’ Robins Bar and Night Club. It’s been there as long as Dan can remember, through all the years he’s had his office in Yonkers.

Jesus, some things remain constant: bars, booze, and bullshit.

From the rear seat of the town car, Danny gazes at Kevin’s walk-up building with its crisscrossing red fire escapes on the front facade. A storefront Nationwide Insurance office is located
on the ground floor. The building is next door to O’Rourke’s Saloon. An Irish food market flanks the other side of the bar. The place is reminiscent of the old Sheepshead Bay neighborhood back when he and Roddy were kids.

Danny’s thoughts turn to those days and to his long-dead mother. Ma worked her fingers to the bone after Da died, busting her ass as a cleaning woman to put food on the table and keep a decent home. If he tries, he can still smell the Clorox on her hands when she came home from work. His throat thickens. He fights off a feeling of nostalgia and holds back tears.

He’s about to get out of the car when he thinks again of going to police headquarters instead of visiting Kevin Valentine. It’s only five minutes from here.

Five minutes and a few words to Morgan—and all this ends. It would take so little to save his family and end the life he’s known. And right now, what’s his life worth? Danny hesitates, stays in the town car, and ponders his choices. His thoughts stream back and forth and he finally comes to a conclusion:
What do I have to lose by taking this one chance?

“Wait for me here,” Danny instructs the driver as he opens the right rear door. Stepping onto the sidewalk, Danny feels a bracing wind on his cheeks. It feels so good to be out in the fresh air. He inhales deeply and feels his lungs fill with air. He’d love to walk around after seeing Kevin, but he can’t afford to take a chance of being exposed. He could get clipped.

Clipped. Now I’m even thinking like a gangster
.

In the building’s vestibule, Danny looks at the directory with its call buttons and presses the one next to Kevin Valentine’s name. Within seconds, a buzzer sounds and Dan opens the inner door. He makes his way up a musty stairway to the fourth floor. After the climb, he’s surprised: he’s not wheezing like an air bellows.

Kevin waits at the open door of apartment 4-A. He’s a tall,
solidly built man with a well-trimmed Vandyke beard. What little hair he has is shorn close to the scalp. Kevin looks like anything but a computer nerd; in fact, Danny’s often thought the guy looks like he belongs in a mixed martial arts cage—all tattooed up and ready to kick, punch, and grapple. He’s been Danny’s high-tech guru for the last five years. And he’s very good at what he does.

“This is a first—you coming here instead of me going to your office,” Kevin says. “Come in.” They shake hands.

Kevin’s apartment overflows with computer towers, monitors, manuals, and electronic components. A tangle of cables snakes across the bare hardwood floor. A pile of boxes is stacked in one corner of the place. The sunlit apartment is bedecked with discs, pamphlets, and technical paraphernalia.

“Jesus, this is like walking into OfficeMax,” says Danny, looking about the place.

Kevin laughs. “Welcome to my home office.”

“How do you keep track of all this technical stuff?” Dan asks.

“The same way you keep up with the tax codes,” Kevin says with a snicker.

On a desk, Danny spots an open bag of Fritos and a huge, half-empty bottle of Pepsi. It’s, no doubt, Kevin’s idea of a decent lunch. Dan recalls from Kevin’s visits to his office: the guy lives on junk food. And technical manuals. “Here. Sit down,” Kevin says, pointing to a wheeled typing chair. He sits in a similar one.

“I read about what happened in the paper. How’re you doing?”

“Much better. Thanks for asking, Kevin.”

“Hey, you gotta be careful working at night.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

“Want some Pepsi?” Kevin asks, reaching for the bottle. He takes a swig and regards Dan with a caffeinated gaze.

“No, thanks, Kevin.”

Just what I need: more calories to expand my gut. And a shot of caffeine to pop me into an even higher gear
.

“So, Dan, what can I do for you?”

“I need some information and help with a technical matter.”

“So tell me.” Kevin crosses one leg over the other and swivels in his chair.

“If I want to access someone’s computer, how do I do it?”

“Well, it depends on the situation. Is this a personal computer or a corporate situation?”

“Probably personal, though it’s used for business, too. It’s in a guy’s home, not in an office or anything like that.”

“Should I ask why you need to access the computer?”

Shit. Kevin’s been around this block plenty of times
.

“Maybe it’s better you don’t ask.”

Kevin nods.

Dan detects a gleam in his guru’s eyes.

“Do you know if it’s part of an internal network, like you’d see in a bank or any office setup?”

“It isn’t, as far as I know. It’s not connected to any in-house network.”

“Have you seen the computer setup?”

“Yes, a number of times.”

“Does it look like an elaborate arrangement?”

“I don’t know if I’d be able to tell. It’s a Windows 7, if that’s any help.”

“Yeah, that puts me in the ballpark. The reason I ask is that most computers, especially those used for business or personal finance, have encrypted files for sensitive information, so you’d need a decryption key to gain access to them.”

“Encryption? Decryption? I know shit about that stuff.”

“Encryption is the way you encode information on a computer so unauthorized people can’t access it. The encryption process uses an algorithm that turns the information into something unreadable. It’s called ciphertext. It’s done with an encryption key that specifies how the information is encoded. Basically, you’d
need a decryption key to access the files.”

“Not a chance of that happening, Kevin.”

“There’s always the option of hacking into a computer, but that’s not so easy, especially these days, with firewalls and sophisticated encryption software. And it’s illegal.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to do that, Kevin.”

“And I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing it.”

“Okay,” Dan says, “so let’s assume this guy’s computer’s files are encrypted. Or that some files are, and I need the password to get to those. Assuming I’m in the guy’s house and near the computer, is there any way I can get into the thing to copy or extract the files?”

“The only way you can do that is if the computer’s already been opened and the file’s been accessed. In other words, the user’s already typed in the password, which is usually a combination of letters and numbers. Most people are pretty stupid about it: they use a favorite pet’s name, the year of their birth, or their anniversary date coupled with some other name. It’s usually easily accessible, or stuff that can be guessed if you know the person well enough and play with the computer for a while.” Kevin pauses and then says, “Look, Dan. We all use encrypted data. Like when you check your account balances at the bank or your brokerage firm, you have to type in your user name and password, right?”

“Yes. So, Kevin, are you telling me I can get the information if the guy’s already typed in his user name and password? Then I can access the files?”

“Sure. If the user’s already decrypted those files—that is, if he’s typed in his user name and password—all you need to do is slip a flash drive into a USB port on the computer and copy the files onto the flash drive. Then you pocket the drive, take it home, and insert it into a port on your computer … and you’ve got whatever it is you want.”

“How much space would I need on the flash drive?”

“It depends on the kind of files you’re transferring. Would it be mainly text or pictures and videos?”

“I suspect mainly text, with a few pictures.”

“I’d say it’d be safe to use a thirty-two-gigabyte flash drive. That’ll handle any text and probably allow for the transfer of pictures, too.”

Danny waits and then looks out the window at the bright morning light on McLean Avenue.

This could be a pretty complicated operation. But what choices do we have left?

“I assume you’d want to do this without the owner’s knowledge,” Kevin says.

“Absolutely.”

“In that case, you’d want to have the computer open with the files already accessed—meaning the user’s already typed in the user name and password—and he wouldn’t be there when you insert the flash drive.”

“I understand.” Dan pauses. “One question, Kevin. How long would it take to transfer the files?”

“That’s hard to say. If the files are text only, even if they’re extensive, it could take a while. Maybe a few minutes. For instance, a two-hundred-megabyte file—that might be three thousand documents—could be transferred to a flash drive in about ten minutes. If there’re pictures, it would take longer. But it’s doable. Bottom line—you’d want the computer’s owner to be away from the thing for at least ten minutes. Ideally, fifteen minutes or even more, if that’s possible.”

“Okay. I think I’ve got the idea. I just need a thirty-two-gigabyte flash drive and a window of time, let’s say ten or fifteen minutes—long enough to slip the flash drive into a USB port after the file’s been opened, right?”

“Correct. And here,” Kevin says, reaching into a desk drawer. “Here’s a flash drive … thirty-two gigs. It’s still in the box, never
been used.” He hands it to Danny.

Dan slips it into his overcoat pocket.

“Anything else I can tell you?”

“No, that should cover it. Thanks, Kevin. I owe you, big-time.” Dan moves toward the door. As he’s about to grab the doorknob, he stops and turns. “I almost forgot. There’s one other thing, Kevin. If I give you the flash drive—assuming I can get the information I want—would you be able to post it on a public forum, a website or something like that?”

“How about YouTube?”

“That would be perfect. For the whole world to see.”

“It’s tougher to do these days, but I could post it anonymously.”

“You can do that?”

“Sure. I’ll get to a computer hooked up to an anonymous proxy. The file gets sent through a series of random nodes, and it’s very hard to trace.”

Danny nods.

“Sounds like you’re out to embarrass someone, big-time.”

“You could call it that. One other thing, Kevin. If I give you the flash drive, how long would it take to get the information posted once I give you the go-ahead?”

“A few minutes. I can set everything up ahead of time.

“Dan, lemme ask you. Do I need to know what this is about?” Kevin’s head tilts and his eyebrows rise.

Danny hesitates, knowing he’s asking Kevin to act illegally. “Believe me, Kevin, you don’t want to know. The less you know, the smaller the chance anything can come back to you.”

Kevin gets up from his chair.

“You okay with this?”

Kevin nods again. “I am … for you, Danny.”

“Thanks, Kev. Okay. I think I know what to do. You’ll hear from me again.”

About to leave, Dan reaches into his pocket, takes out his
wallet, and extracts a hundred-dollar bill.

“That’s not necessary, Dan.”

“Oh, yes, it is. It’s
absolutely
necessary.”

He drops the bill on the table, opens the door, and heads down the stairway.

I
n the town car, Danny leans back in the rear seat. He closes his eyes and inhales. His thoughts swirl, and before another moment passes, he says to the driver, “Take me to 104 South Broadway.”

L
ooking out the right rear window, Danny realizes the Yonkers Police Department building reminds him of every public school he’d ever seen in Brooklyn. An early 1920s edifice, it’s a three-story, off-white, brick building with elaborate cornice work. A colonnaded portico surrounds the main entrance. It’s a striking contrast from the modern-looking Stein Center across the street, which is part of St. Joe’s, where Danny spent time recuperating from bullet wounds.