59
Rick Mecklenberg sat
with Jan in the congressman’s office. Peter figured that would be
the safest place to be before flying south. No one was likely to
conduct a hit in the hallowed, marble-floored halls of the Rayburn
Office Building.
Jan and Rick sat in
the corner of his office, where Jamie’s Apple II had been stored
for safekeeping. With Peter out of the country, Jan was the next
most likely person capable of accessing the old operating system.
As director of BioNet, she was computer savvy, though she didn’t
have Tippett’s ultra-high-tech gadgets. Still, she could maneuver
through systems that would make the average PC user’s head
spin.
“Any luck?” asked
Rick after Jan had typed in several commands on Jamie’s yellowing
keyboard.
“None at all,” she
replied. “His password could have been anything. If this kid was a
prodigy, he probably had enough sense to create a random
alphanumeric password.”
“Any
alternatives?”
“Yes, though so far
I’m coming up empty. The only thing to do at this point is to
bypass the password protection altogether. I’m using a simple
interface to allow my laptop to talk with the Apple.”
“Wouldn’t you need
special software to do that?”
“The interface box
is already loaded with software to allow binary systems to speak to
each other. One thing hasn’t changed since the computer revolution
began: computers run on chips that convert all information into a
series of zeroes and ones. The interface would normally be able to
access any PC—even a 286 or a 486 with no Pentium—but this damned
Apple is just too freakin’ old. It’s not even recognizing the
connection.”
Mickey Spangler was
old. Too old, Spangler thought, to be carrying the burdens of a
lifetime. He’d been a petty crook all his life, driving shipments
from the Jersey docks or taking position as wheel-man for the
occasional getaway vehicle, but he always thought he’d kept his
nose relatively clean. He never went near the rough stuff, or at
least never intended to. The on-campus accident at Princeton had
changed his life forever, though. All he’d known was that he was
supposed to wait for a phone call on the corner or Nassau and
Washington Streets. Make a right at the cabstand and then drive
down Washington. He’d figured he was the getaway ride. One minute
he’d been driving along, thinking of his wife Ethel and how they
had two great sons, and the next thing he knew, his truck had
killed a college kid, mangling the kid’s bicycle in the
process.
He could have almost
convinced himself it was an accident if not for the guy in the
rugby shirt. Immediately after the accident, Rugby Shirt had taken
him aside before the police arrived and scared the hell out of him.
Told him about how curious the cops might become about the
whereabouts of a certain truckload of color televisions. In
retrospect, Mickey felt he’d acted like a fool. He should have made
his statement, should have told the truth to the police, but Rugby
Shirt knew so much—too much. Once Mickey told the police the
prearranged cover story, they seemed satisfied. Everything was fine
that night until Rugby Shirt called him from a pay phone, making
sure he was sticking to his story. If he didn’t follow
instructions, the cops would hear a different version of his story
and would start connecting some very unpleasant dots that trailed
back into his past.
Mickey had shut up,
just like he was supposed to. It didn’t help much in the end.
“Three strikes and you’re out” was enough to nail him. A hijacking
gone bad, possession of stolen property, being an accessory to
armed robbery—and here he was now, dying in a prison hospital while
contemplating the true meaning of a life sentence.
The last bust was
the most ironic. He’d been sitting by the curb with the engine
running, waiting his turn for a fifteen-dollar blowjob by the most
talented pair of nineteen-year-old lips he’d ever met. Who knew
that someone was going to rob the 7-Eleven across the street and
that the getaway was going to get spooked, running just before the
cops got there? The would-be desperados spotted Mickey’s car idling
at the curbside and decided to carjack their own getaway car.
Mickey’s rented paramour did a quick exit stage-right as the police
arrived from all directions. All the cops saw was the two armed
robbers trying to enter Mickey’s car. By the time they had their
guns pointed at him, he had his pants back on and looked like any
other getaway driver.
Wouldn’t you just
know it—the two kids were juvies who would say anything the DA
wanted to avoid being tried as adults. With two strikes against
him, Mickey was easy pickings for accessory to armed robbery. And
just to make sure the cell door stayed shut, the authorities tagged
Mickey for corrupting two minors he’d never met.
Twenty-nine years
later, Mickey was dying of lung cancer in a prison hospital ward.
Why couldn’t he die at home with a little dignity?
Home. Ethel had long
since remarried, but his son Tad and his wife would gladly take him
in … wouldn’t they? They hadn’t exactly been regular visitors.
Mickey was no threat to anyone now, so why couldn’t he go home and
turn up his morphine drip in the comfort of a regular bed with a
family member by his side? He’d seen only pictures of his two
granddaughters over the years.
This definitely
wasn’t the glamorous life of crime he’d signed up for.