The Devil's Analyst (35 page)

The towns of Thread and Lattigo seemed a distant memory. He made the right decision to move here and live with Josh. “When we get to the top of the mountain,” Josh promised, “we’ll open the champagne and the world will all be clear. Let’s go.”

They began to walk, crossing the remnants of some old bridge, and then moving upward in a series of switchbacks, each offering new and interesting views. At one point, they passed an oasis of plantings, benches, and tables. There was a water trough, maybe for horses or dogs, and Danny remembered that honeybees were crawling on its edge to get to the water. “They call that Dante’s View. Some old guy comes up every day to water and tend it.” In giving his tour and providing commentary, Josh was happier than Danny had ever seen him.

They rounded another bend, which opened up a view of the other side of the peak and hills. An entirely different cityscape spread before them. “There’s the Valley,” Josh said. “But no champagne yet.”

Danny remembered how he started to tire, but Josh encouraged him to maintain a steady pace. Eventually they neared the top of the mountain where there was a viewing platform. “That’s where we’re headed,” Josh said.

Once there, he removed the champagne bottle and two plastic cups. “We need to keep this hidden,” he said. “No alcohol allowed in public parks.” But he poured them each a glass.

“Look around,” he commanded.

In every direction, the world spread out in its glory. The Hollywood Hills and Santa Monica Mountains marched toward the west. To the east, the San Gabriel Mountains reached high into the sky with snow-peaked tops that defined the distance. The Los Angeles basin, the San Gabriel Valley, the San Fernando Valley, the ribbon of the concrete-controlled Los Angeles River, the distant plains of Orange County, the millions of people, the ships on the Pacific, and the industry of an entire world lay before them. It was awe-inspiring.

Josh smiled. “We don’t need a helicopter to reach the top of a building to see the world. We did it ourselves by using our own two feet. There’s no better view than this from anywhere. Welcome to Los Angeles. Thank you for coming.”

Josh tipped his glass and touched its plastic lip against Danny’s. They took a sip and then Josh leaned forward to kiss Danny’s lips. “I love you,” he said.

Danny held back his tears. This was all that he had ever wanted—to be loved and to belong. The world was indeed a wondrous place, and he would revel in it from this day forward.

Josh made a grand gesture to encompass the 360-degree view. “It’s all ours,” he said. “But it only became complete today. With you.”

Was any of it true? Then or today?

Danny was afraid that he would never know for sure.

Barbara Linsky was not happy
. “Why show me these files?” she asked.

Danny had lured Orleans and her to Josh’s office hidden away on the bottom level of the mansion. He needed other people to know some of what he had discovered. Danny was looking at them both, wondering what they made of the various notes about the business. He was still keeping the recordings his secret.

As always, Orleans seemed fully in control. But Danny had known her a long time. Flickers of emotion passed through her eyes, and she was displaying the nervous flipping of errant strands of hair and the clasping of her hands. She was not happy. He wondered what upset her the most: the hidden projects, the secret room, or the growing awareness that she knew so little about her boss.

“These files could destroy everything that I’ve been working on, and you don’t want that to happen,” Barbara went on. “The sale with the Mexican media firm Actuades is so close. But give them the slightest whiff of scandal and they’ll rush back to Mexico City. No matter how much they want a new media toehold in the United States, they won’t put up with this.”

Danny no longer cared what Barbara Linsky wanted to see or not. The fact was that after Colby’s surprise resignation she had been named Chairman of the Board and the person in that role needed to know about Josh’s secret projects.

Danny had spent a lot of time reviewing these files and trying to make sense of them. They frightened him, not just because they proved how little he knew Josh, but also because they demonstrated Premios’ role in planning an enormous crime.

“We have to do something,” Danny said. He was calm. He accepted the weight of Josh’s transgressions. “It’s all clearly laid out in these flowcharts and planning documents. Josh was acting illegally, the way he commissioned various programming projects that on the surface seemed related to a distinct part of the business model, but were all building blocks for this person or team in Poland to assemble into ‘Project Big Stick.’”

Danny wanted to be clear, concise, and thorough. He had spent too many hours trying to make sense of it all and he needed these two women to understand what seemed so clear.

“Once complete, Big Stick was intended to be an automated way to insert malware into the computers of clients of Premios, suck back data from those clients—things like personal information, credit card data, and even work files—transfer that data into an off-site repository where the algorithms supposedly intended for making recommendations based on personal preferences would instead sift through mountains of information and detect usable data. In other words, they could access details to allow them to use funds, blackmail clients, and manipulate public interest.

“The crazy thing is—even from reading all of this—I can’t tell if Josh even had a clear goal for how to use this stolen material. Sometimes I don’t even think it was all his idea, that maybe somebody else was forcing him to do these horrible things.”

There he had said it. After a week of devouring and cross-referencing every file in the room, Danny had voiced the only explanation he could generate that might make sense of it all and still redeem Josh. The man might have his secrets, but at the same time, he had an inherent goodness, and if their years together were not an entire fiction, then Danny couldn’t let all those memories be transformed into lies. And the only way he could see to forgive Josh’s behavior was if Josh had been coerced or blackmailed.

“You’re grasping at straws,” Orleans said tiredly.

“What do you mean?” he demanded.

Orleans stood up, walked toward the desk, and dropped the folder she had been reviewing. It landed atop a stack of well-thumbed documents. Small colored tags were attached to various pages where Danny had jotted notes or observations.

“You refuse to see your boyfriend for who he really is.”

Linsky didn’t say anything, but she observed both closely. Danny had no idea what the famed financial analyst thought of any of this.

Finally Danny said, “I’ve known Josh longer than either of you.”

Enigmatically Linsky replied, “Time can be its own mask.”

“You love the man. I get that,” said Orleans. “But people wear different masks for different people. When Josh was with you, he always played the thoughtful, kind, and amusing person you wanted him to be. But when he was around other people, he became other things. Maybe he’s not the person you most want him to be.

“When I first met him at the New Loon Town Café, he truly bowled me over . . . the way he read people so easily and always seemed to know what to say to win their attention. I envied that skill and I wanted it. I loved seeing him show me what was possible. In so many ways, Josh pushed me to be better.”

Danny didn’t understand what point she was trying to make. “That’s what I love about him too.”

“But there’s another side. He loves knowing things that other people want hidden. When I first started as the restaurant’s hostess and getting to know the frequent guests, Josh would often ask to have a drink together near the end of service. We would sit at the bar, and he’d order me a glass of champagne and ask about the night. He’d wait to hear whatever little bits of gossip I picked up, especially when it involved a guest with a public persona. Who were they with? What did they order? How did they behave? For the longest time, I was flattered by Josh’s attention. But gradually, I realized he was using me to find out what was going on. Fine, I thought, he’s the boss. That’s his prerogative. But he loved my stories too much, and he never forgot a detail.”

“So why did you go to work for him when we started Premios?” Danny demanded.

“Because he believed in me. He pushed me to get my MBA, and he listened. I knew I was talented and smart, and he saw that in me. Just like he saw your talents. Without him, do you think you would have accomplished nearly half of what you’ve done? He pushed you into writing. Don’t you realize how he fed you the best of his gossip so you could add flavor and scandal to your early blogs? That’s what drew readers, more than your descriptions about food or wine. He wanted you to succeed and he ensured it happened. Josh makes people bloom.”

Linsky interrupted. “We’re running out of time, and while this is all very nice to hear, frankly, I don’t give a damn whether the man was a crook or a saint. He left us a problem and we have to deal with it.

“Nothing more is to be sent to the man in Poland. There’s no reason to debate this, because we simply must sever our relationship with him immediately. And in a very quiet way. I can’t stress that enough. And, Danny, destroy these files. And we will march forward as though they never existed.”

“Why?” Danny asked.

“I really don’t care what motivated Josh to engineer this fiasco, whether someone forced him, or he’s some mad evil genius. It doesn’t matter. Bottom line, this is a crime scene, and Josh was about to break the law, or maybe he already did, but we’re stopping it in its tracks, minimizing the damage and getting out.”

“Maybe we should inform the authorities,” ventured Orleans.

“If you want to kiss Premios and your stock options good-bye, go ahead. And don’t involve an attorney. We need to maximize deniability. At this point, the sale to Actuades is virtually a done deal, as long as we keep the product from getting tainted. Make any of this public and Actuades will walk. Keep quiet, and we all pick up a few million as we let Premios go its own way.”

Orleans was not so easily deterred. Danny suspected she saw Josh’s disappearance as giving her a chance to become the CEO of Premios, but that potential wouldn’t last long with new owners. She argued her case. “Things have turned around. Revenues are up. Premios could survive without a sale. We should stay private.”

Linsky scoffed. “You’re the CFO. You know that’s not true. The company needs to be fed a significantly bigger investment if there’s any chance of growing it into what it wants to be. That was the whole purpose of an early IPO. To get the investment funds you need. The piddling advertising that’s shown up isn’t going to last, and even if it did, it’s insufficient to monetize the site. There are a lot of challenges for long-term viability. Only the kind of cash this Mexican media company offers Premios gives it a chance to weather the storm. As long as this shit’s around, that won’t happen.”

They all looked at the pile of paper on the desk. Danny thought about how much work he had done trying to make sense of it all. In a way the documents were his only remaining link to the still-missing Josh. “So what are you recommending?”

“We end it.” Her tone was no-nonsense. “You said you have the contact information for the overseas programmer. Send him his final payment and say it’s finished. Burn these files. But only Big Stick has to go. There’s nothing at Premios to suggest the various projects are connected, so if we let the legitimate ones go forward, they can benefit Premios; I might even invite one of you to speak about the preference engine at next year’s BLINK. It’s good tactics to deploy the smaller truths to hide larger disasters.”

“What happens when Josh reappears?” Josh asked.

Orleans murmured in response, “If he reappears.”

Danny turned on her. “Why do you say that? Do you think he’s dead?”

Orleans was not cowed. “Seriously, Danny, wouldn’t it be better if he were? Harsh as that sounds. And remember what’s happened to Chip and Oliver. Somehow their deaths have to be connected to this. Maybe you’re right, and maybe Josh is a pawn of something bigger. But we don’t need to know. We don’t want to know. If he was being used, Josh has probably already been killed. On the other hand, if he was the ringleader . . . well, then, we can only hope he’s realized his evil and killed himself, or at least disappeared forever. Look. He knew something was coming. He planned for it by setting up the durable power of attorney and selling that property.”

Danny wouldn’t give up hope, as much as he vacillated between hating Josh and wanting him back. “And maybe he’s just waiting.”

Linsky commented on that. “Maybe. But I hope not.”

But Danny thought otherwise.

He was the only one in the room who had listened to the final recording that Danny phoned in as part of his therapy tapes. The message was simple and direct.

“Danny, I know you found these, and now you know the real me. And you may be calling me the devil, but don’t think it’s over yet. I still have to figure out just who
you
are.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

In Hiding

Josh was bored.
He never planned to spend so much time hiding out at the Wisconsin camp. Before he confronted Oliver, Josh hadn’t even planned out his follow-on steps. But maybe he always knew where he needed to go. After all, he used a fake identity and credit card to rent a van to head toward Oliver’s townhouse. After that messy event, the choice seemed clear. He simply drove north toward Thread, stopping at a grocery warehouse west of Green Bay to fill the van with everything he needed. He told himself the escape north was a short-term solution until he determined his long-term game. While he had solved one problem in protecting Danny’s future, he still grappled with an unquenchable thirst that would only be sated once he tapped into Danny’s true nature.

Once he was in Thread, Josh avoided venturing outside the camp. He didn’t even go near the lake because a fisherman offshore might spot him. For the same reason, he abandoned the main rooms of the house. Their expansive windows of glass were too exposed. Instead, he holed up in the upper floors where heavy drapes could black out any evening lights. He knew it was too early to be discovered.

Determining the next step was unclear. It would be easy to simply flee as a fugitive since a great deal of money awaited him in his hidden accounts. From the money stolen from the Arabs, he used just enough to give Premios and Danny breathing room. After all, Danny had to survive, because Josh wasn’t done with him yet. But the bigger question was whether Josh was done with the life he had always led. Was he willing to go into hiding with an assumed identity, always looking over his shoulder? Or was there still some way out?

For some reason, the conversation held months earlier with Chip and Barbara still obsessed him. It was the talk about the physicist and his damn cat. It irked him that he didn’t understand what they were discussing that day at lunch. It was amazing how they seemed so confident spouting their gibberish. While locked up in this old camp, he found time to read more about the Schrödinger’s cat problem, and he didn’t think Chip or Barbara were so clever. The way he read it was this scientist posed his famous problem only to make clear how absurd the contention was that some element could be both one thing and not that thing at the same time. It certainly didn’t require a viewer to look into the box to force it into being one state or the other. Things were what they were. It was the observer who didn’t understand the true situation.

In some metaphysical way Josh supposed that when he knocked on Oliver’s door and surprised him in Chicago there was some truth to the contention that in that afternoon moment Oliver was both dead and alive. For those few seconds of the confrontation, Oliver thought he was alive and Josh thought of him as dead. But the reverse was probably equally true. No doubt, Oliver, knowing about his hidden gun, also believed that Josh would soon be dead, and that Oliver would survive. So perhaps Josh had also been in that nether state, neither one thing nor the other, but both at the same time. Actually he too should have considered his condition that way. He didn’t control what would happen in Oliver’s home office, and it might have gone the other way. Instead of grabbing the gun away from Oliver and firing, Oliver might have triggered the first shot and left Josh lying dead in a pool of blood on Oliver’s fine Oriental carpet.

And what if that had happened? Would it really have made any difference? Yes, Josh would have been gone. But Josh didn’t believe in gods or devils, so he held no fears of dropping into hell. Life would simply have been over, and he would have known nothing. Truthfully, he was more than a little tired of his games—especially since nothing ever seemed to force Danny into that existential choice between hope and despair.

Maybe some of these scientists were right. Something could exist in two states at the same time. But if so, Josh still felt so impotent because no matter how hard he tried to examine the question, he couldn’t force matters. What was that scientific idea called again? A quantum superposition. Why couldn’t he cause Danny to collapse into one ethical state or another?

No person was needed to catalyze Josh’s entry into his current state of being. It happened early on and the result never bothered him. He didn’t care that his mother didn’t get her raspberry pie or that Clarence ended up hanging lifeless in the woods, that Danny was humiliated in front of all his coworkers, or that his parents suffocated in their beds from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Why should any of those things disturb his sleep? He didn’t actually tie the noose or force bats to dwell in the chimney. He didn’t agree to suck Oliver’s cock. Everyone else made his or her individual fatal choices. Josh simply let people thrive and fall based on their own decisions.

That’s what he told himself
, but there was one time that he had trouble believing his own stories. He still didn’t understand why. What happened with Tony Masters, that good-looking husband of the town nurse in Thread, never sat right with Josh—even though Josh didn’t make the guy stare at him that wintry afternoon of his parents’ burial nor did Josh ask Tony to hang around and laugh with him that afternoon at the meal served by the Ladies’ Aid in the basement of the Lutheran Church. Plenty of people mourned his parents at that reception and few stayed to listen to Josh’s jokes and stories of Los Angeles. Tony made the choice to do that.

From the moment he saw Tony staring across the open grave, Josh knew that the man was infatuated. He also recognized that the man didn’t seem to realize it. Several rounds of drinks later in the evening at the local tavern, even as Tony failed to wake up to his attraction, only made the connection clearer to Josh. It wasn’t the first time Josh had encountered deeply closeted gays, the kind of men who managed to get married, have kids, and think they were living the All-American life, only to discover at some point that they hungered for something different. Tony was one of those lost souls, and after downing all those boilermakers, he was more than willing to head back to Josh’s old farm to fulfill a hunger he usually ignored, and once there, Josh knew full well the moves to make.

And he made every one of them. It wasn’t hard at all. The guy had probably never cheated on his wife, but suddenly he was stretched out naked on the deathbed of two of the town’s upright citizens having his cock sucked by the town fag. Tony didn’t let himself think about any of it, not until after the final climax. Then instead of lighting up a cigarette, he let his mind stew in the details of what he had done.

For Josh, Tony’s moment of self-awareness was the best part of the night. It was better than porn to watch Tony’s realizations bubble through his drunken state. He grew quiet and more flushed. Then he hurried to find his strewn-about clothes, never looking Josh in the eyes, or uttering anything other than an animal-like mumble.

That night turned out pretty amazing. Josh should have headed back to Los Angeles to wait for the payout from Ma and Pa’s life insurance. But instead, hearing about how someone seemed to be buying up the old farms in the area, he decided to hang around and find out more. Every time he ran into Tony at the Piggly Wiggly, or the Wink o’the North Bar, or the Loon Town Café, it was an added little bonus to see the handsome local blush and scurry away. Except for those times Tony compulsively hung back.

Then came the day which no one else in town could explain—except for Josh, who was not willing to share his theories with anyone. Tony left his house to drive north on Highway 17. When he saw a convoy of motorcycles coming south, for some reason that everyone else debated but no one comprehended, he veered straight into the cyclists, killing not only himself but many of them. The enormous accident was the talk of Thread for weeks.

Josh did not go to Tony Masters’ funeral. After it, he avoided even being in the same place as Tony’s widow. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, he felt guilt. There was no basis for his emotion. He never suggested that Tony kill himself. He didn’t ask the guy to drive north, or arrange for others to be riding toward him. Compared to his other crimes, in this case Josh was truly innocent. And yet for the first time, it somehow seemed his fault, which bothered him in ways he couldn’t explain.

No one saw the acts in which Tony and Josh reveled—except for Tony, but that was enough to transform not only Tony but also Josh. That winter in Thread, Josh began to watch Danny with a different set of eyes. He wanted to believe in the boy’s goodness and the possibility that someone might actually be different. Being near someone who was so opposite of Josh might pull him back toward the middle, or so he hoped. In some ways, he wasn’t even aware of what was happening because he just thought he had an itch to test Danny and to fuck up others. But something new had clicked into place.

Danny’s and his lives had become entangled; there was no other word for it. From that moment forward, Josh anticipated that no matter where he might be, Danny’s actions would somehow affect him. The two of them were linked in an inexplicable way. So he needed to understand the boy if only to understand himself.

Josh told himself that he was remaining in Thread merely to sell the farm for the best possible price. But he could have used a realtor for that. Danny was his motivation. Josh fell in love with the possibility that Danny’s presence would make Josh a better person. Even when a moment of clarity rushed over Josh, and he forced himself to move back to the West Coast, the break wasn’t totally successful. Without Danny he felt incomplete. After little more than a year, he fully gave in and convinced Danny Lahti to leave Thread and move in with him. By that point, Josh felt he had become a more moral person, and there would be no more dead Tony Masters on his conscience.

But then maybe Danny wasn’t such a spirit of goodness. His presence didn’t balance out Josh’s own nature. Or perhaps Josh didn’t really have a conscience after all, and he had merely been acting in a different sort of play for a few years, trying on a different role, a part for which he was not suited. He fell back into testing people and seeking their motivating secrets, always hoping that eventually Danny would anchor him from drifting too far.

But there always remained
the old dilemma. How could Danny be a strong anchor if under the right circumstances Danny’s moral certitude could be switched? For Josh, the nagging question of Danny’s true character bloomed again.

When Josh confronted Oliver in Chicago, every element of Josh’s complicated relationship with Danny inhabited that room. Ghosts of past actions and plots rattled about the baseboards and corners. So long ago, Josh influenced Oliver to entice Danny into a sexual trap just for the fun of it. Maybe in the end it wasn’t so different than what Josh did with Tony. Through Oliver, Josh forced Danny to confront his own desires and to see those urges reflected through the mockery of his coworkers. But it didn’t really work to turn Danny bad. His goodness persevered.

Josh should have abandoned Oliver. But he was like a pair of well-worn shoes—always comfortable to slip on when an errand needed doing, like egging Oliver into harassing Pete Peterson in Thread. When he went looking for first stage funders for Premios, there were so many potential sources, yet when Jesus Lopez casually mentioned knowing Oliver and Colby, it was a revelation. Josh had lost track of Oliver and hadn’t known of his present role as a venture capitalist. Rediscovering Oliver was the impetus for Josh creating the most elaborate test yet for Danny.

The plan evolved as time went on, as all good things in life did. It was like drafting a novel and not knowing how it might end. He courted Endicott and Meyers, and delighted in that first meeting when Oliver realized it was Josh who ran this potential investment, at the same time deliberately keeping Oliver’s presence hidden from Danny. Josh thought that someday his subterfuge would pay off. And it might have. He had high hopes for purposely dangling the story of Oliver and Danny in front of Jesus. When the writer bit, just as predicted from the writer’s jaded interests, Josh was once again the master.

But he failed to foresee that Oliver wasn’t his alone. Even as he began to worry about the source of Oliver’s money, Josh never considered the possibility of Arab terrorists. But then there were the danger signs, and that’s when Josh had to improvise, losing control of his usual carefully planned tests. By the time Josh knocked on Oliver’s townhouse door, Josh couldn’t really say exactly what he was thinking or planning to do.

Maybe that’s why the more he read about this Schrödinger’s cat, the more Josh thought it confounding. Because he was beginning to accept that on that day in Chicago, he was in two alternate possibilities at the same time. He wanted to kill Oliver to see how his death would force Danny into yet another test of faith, but he also wanted to kill Oliver to protect Danny and their relationship by ridding them of something rotten. Both hopes were true. Only an observer taking an action—Oliver with his gun—could push Josh from one side to the other.

But which side did he land on? Why did he use Oliver’s own gun to kill him? In one of these readings about quantum superpositions, he ran across the idea of multiple universes—and the concept that at every instant the cosmos split into new alternatives, one in which the cat lived and one in which the cat died. Over the years, Josh had set in motion so many potential realities: One in which Clarence still lived and was beloved by his aged mother. One where Danny was never humiliated and became a totally different personality. Another where Josh could go home to see his parents at Christmas. And still one in which he allowed no information to be hacked on New Year’s Eve. And yet another where Pete continued to inhabit his camp beneath the bridge and still wore his hat to ward off the monsoon rains.