---

 
I needed help. I sought refuge in food, and in some time with Lucy. We went to Cafe Pamplona on Harvard Square for lunch. Just going there was an act of rebellion: up until 1999 the place was notorious for not ever hiring women, despite being owned by a woman. But it served good food, and I knew, because all our friends were boycotting it, that even right on Harvard Square we could meet and not bump into anyone else we knew.

The ceilings at Cafe Pamplona are very low, so the place lends itself to conspiratorial discussions. After almost exhausting myself again explaining everything that had gone wrong with Pete, with Lucy listening and making supportive statements like "Men are just pricks," it didn't take long for me to change the subject and turn the discussion to what I'd learned about Alice, and how betrayed I felt.

"I don't know why it hurts that she never told me," I said. "But it does. I thought we were friends."

"But she never told you."

"It was different when I thought it was someone else."

Lucy shrugged. "I honestly thought you knew, Alex," Lucy said. "You never noticed the body language between them?"

"No," I admitted. "I think I'm pretty slow on the uptake so far as figuring those things out sometimes. Does that make me defective as a woman? I mean, there's not getting that stuff, and there's the way Pete behaved …"

Lucy had the grace to laugh. "If you're defective, sweetheart, I'm firmly in the reject bin." Lucy, alone among my generation, could get away with saying 'sweetheart'. She said it like Eartha Kitt might have said it. "You might not notice as much about the interpersonal stuff as you might, but you're much sharper at playing, and at most other things, than I am."

Our food arrived and we busied ourselves with flatware and condiments.

"You know she never actually went to Farmington," Lucy said.

"What?"

"Alice. Miss Porter's. That whole prep school thing. When Dan was busted for getting into the records, one of the things he did was dump a bunch of records to look at later. He was kind of embarrassed, but one of them was Alice's. Turns out she went to Farmington, alright. But Farmington High School. Not exactly a prep school."

"Why would she lie about that?"

"Did she?" Lucy said. "All she ever said to me was 'Farmington'. I just assumed, like everyone else at Harvard, she meant Miss Porter's."

"Well, it's not like it matters," I said. "I mean, who gives a fuck about that prep school stuff, anyway? She's smarter than all the rest of us. And I'm pretty sure the high schools in that part of Connecticut are pretty good. They would certainly be better than my half-assed alma mater. Besides, not going to Miss Porter's makes me think better of her, not worse."

"Yeah. It just kind of seems, you know, off."

"She's probably too embarrassed to tell anyone about it now."

"I guess."

"And it's not as though anyone actually cares where anyone we know went to high school."

"True. It's just, you know, now I really don't know how much I trust Alice."

"Between you and me," Lucy said, "I don't trust anyone on the team except you. Everyone's in this for themselves. Ever since that face surgery thing, it's all been too, too weird. At first, before that, it was like belonging to a secret, special club … Now … I don't know. It feels more like a cult, or something."

Those words went straight into some very sensitive part of my brain. I didn't know exactly what they meant, or what they would lead to, but I knew Lucy had just said something very, very true.

 

~o~O~o~
 

We had a team meeting on Wednesday night. It was a gloomy affair. I was still despondent about Pete, and every time I looked at Alice she avoided my gaze. Others on the team seemed unusually subdued, too.

Arun outlined the targets for the weekend. Ceasars Palace, followed by the Bellagio, with the Mirage as a fallback if something didn't feel right at either.

I went through the motions, checking off the things we would need, listening intently as Bob outlined our security plans, and then explaining to everyone the amounts of cash we would need each of them to carry for the weekend. But my mind was elsewhere. It was on the string of oddities and coincidences that had occurred over the previous two years in my relationship with Alice.

There was her odd lack of knowledge about popular culture. She knew some pop music, but only recent stuff. She didn't know anything about most of the things that formed the lingua franca of twenty-something conversation. At first I had found all this charming. Now I was starting to think it was odd.

And then there was the fact that she lied about a lot of things. True, they were mostly lies of omission – Arun, Miss Porter's, a party she had been to – but they were definitely breaches of whatever trust we had had together.

I wondered what other lies there were that I didn't know about yet.

 

~o~O~o~
 

On Friday morning I woke uncharacteristically early for a playing weekend. Usually I slept as late as possible to compensate for the time difference with Vegas. If I started early in Boston I always had to try to catch up on sleep on the flight, or I'd be too tired to play the part of spoiled princess late into the evening.

Pete had been making himself scarce after our debacle sleeping together, so I didn't expect to find him around, but as I stumbled into the kitchen Talia was still eating breakfast before she went to work. "Morning," she said, her mouth half-full of muesli, only half looking up from the Globe. I couldn't work out, lately, whether she hated, or merely tolerated me.

I mumbled and shuffled over to the coffee machine. I made myself a coffee and stood with my back against the kitchen bench sipping at it. Eventually Talia looked up.

"It took me a while, but I worked out what that penetration was all about," she said.

"What?" It took a moment for me to realize what she was talking about — my mind was still so full of despair about Pete that my first thought was that she must know that we had attempted to fool around. "Wait. Sorry. Penetration? I thought it was that Java program of Alice's that I ran?"

"Probably," Talia said. "But that was just the start. It ran a program to download a keylogger onto your machine, then ran for about a week, collecting all your usernames and passwords, and deleted itself. Whoever ran the bot used it to get your credentials on our server, and on Pete's machine as well. And they've used his machine to log into his business, by way of his VPN. Only once, but I guess after the first time they didn't need to do it again."

I suddenly felt sick, and put my coffee down. I had allowed someone to hack Pete's business?

"It deleted itself?"

'Well," she said, finishing her muesli, "it left a backdoor Trojan on our server, and probably on your machine as well, but I've cleaned that up."

"Do you know who it was? Could it have been Alice?" I said.

"I doubt it. But it's a good thing I keep our log backups hashed. I still had them. From what I could see whoever had access tried to cover their traces but didn't do it completely. The IP address the keylogger used resolved to a university in Shanghai. Somehow I don't think MIT or Harvard has any research relationship with Fudan University." She shrugged. "Anyway, whoever did it wasn't all that sophisticated. Despite trying to clean up they left traces of themselves everywhere. I disinfected all our machines, and I told Pete. I think his Russian friend is doing some cleaning at their office."

"Uh. Thanks." I tried to be more enthusiastic. "Thanks, Talia. I really appreciate it. Man, I can't believe I was that stupid." Then I walked back to my room and tried to call Pete on his cell. It went through to voicemail.

Even though I was still angry with Pete about the "I can't do this" episode, I had to talk with him. I still cared about him deeply, even if he couldn't love me. I tried calling again several times that day. Either he was unbelievably furious with me for the incident in my bedroom, or the penetration attempt, or he was insanely busy cleaning up the mess I had made. Or all three.

 

~o~O~o~
 

So it was the Fourth of July.

"What a waste of gunpowder and sky," sang Aimee Mann on the CD player in my Suite at the Grand.

I was still really depressed about Pete. He had been staying away from our place, and I had been staying in. But the Fourth was a big weekend and so, despite the fact that some of us were barely talking to one another, Arun had decreed we must play Vegas. It was easy to lay off a lot of money on the long weekend, which was the busiest time of the year.

We had planned the weekend late, so we actually had to pay for one suite of the three we booked, which Lucy and I agreed to share with Emily. We played on the Friday and Saturday nights,and then it was the actual Fourth on the Sunday, and we were scheduled to play that night, too, but I was emotionally exhausted. Lucy showed up mid afternoon after a shopping expedition, with a DVD of Sleepless in Seattle, a bottle of champagne, and two blocks of good Swiss chocolate. Her hands were full, so I let her into the suite with what must have been an audible sigh, and she took that as a signal that things were more desperate than she had thought. "Today, Miss Jones, we are having a girl's only Fourth of July, and we will leave everything to do with men behind. There are no men!" she cried, as though her decree would make it so. Emily came out of her room as soon as she heard that, and she and Lucy romped around the room going "no men, no men" for a few moments like maniacs.

Lucy tried her best to cheer me up, and after a determined bit of grumpiness from me, that she tolerated patiently, and a glass of champagne, I started to soften up. "Thanks, Lucy," I said. "You too, Emily. You guys are right. Fuck men. Or don't. One of those things is the right way to go."

We watched the movie, and ate the chocolate. "You," I said to Lucy after the Champagne had kicked in, "Are a good friend. Thank you."

"I mean it," I said. "You're a much better friend than Alice ever was."

We watched the movie, ate the two blocks of chocolate, and drank the entire bottle of champagne and a half bottle from the mini-bar, and then it was time to go to work. "Fuck men," we roared as we entered the elevator.

 

~o~O~o~
 

I don't know what made me start losing. I could blame distraction, because I was distracted. There was Alice, and there was Pete, and the fact that he hadn't responded to any of my voicemails. Maybe it was the champagne that made the Fourth different from the three nights beforehand. Whatever it was, all the time I was at the tables that night I was conscious that the chips I was handling represented money laundered for a bunch of thugs. It was a good thing I was a wizard, because there was no way I had the focus to be a smurf any more. Each time I pushed a stack of chips across the felt, I thought of Dan, and Henry. So late on the Sunday night, when Lucy signaled that the deck was cooling, I got the signal, and I processed it somewhere in my head, but something made me stay at the table and push another big stack of chips out. When I lost that hand, I pushed another stack out, and surprisingly actually won, and I could tell that — although she was alarmed — my win was enough to reassure her. But when I went to push yet another pile out, I noticed her struggling with her self control. I looked her in the eyes, smiled, and pushed the table maximum, ten thousand, out.

And I lost.

And I sat there, and pushed another ten thousand out for the next hand. I could tell Lucy was getting frantic. She looked around for Brian, who was working security. I don't know whether she saw him or not. I was too focused on thinking about Dan. I had seventeen, about as bad a hand as I could have. Lucy passed over any betting on her hand, and I lost again.

I pushed out one last pile of ten one-thousand dollar chips for the next hand, and stood up. The dealer looked at me questioningly. "I'm in," I said. "This will be the last one, whatever happens."

The dealer nodded, and dealt the cards. I had sixteen, with ten thousand dollars on it, and a lukewarm deck. There was no way any rational person, counter or not, would risk another card. I pushed another ten thousand out.

And won: I drew a three, and then the dealer busted out trying to beat me. In all the time I had been playing, it was the very strangest hand I had ever played. Oddly, this made me even more upset. The dealer swapped out my chips for $5,000 ones, and I picked them up, flipped one to the dealer, and walked away, over to the entrance. I was vaguely aware of someone following me, but I was suddenly eager to be done, done with everything. I couldn't do this any more.

I strode down the Ceasars colonnade, my high heels clacking on the cement. The night was unusually warm for Vegas – usually the desert nights are cool and pleasant. Around me were scores of drunks, couples in love, and desperate people in search of something that seemed like a good time.

Lucy caught up with me. "Alex!"

I turned to face her. "Hey, Luce."

"What happened?"

"I just … I don't know whether I can do this any more, Lucy."

"But … why did you keep playing after I signaled?"

"Does it matter?"

"But …" She came closer, and could see I was crying. "Alex. What's wrong?" She was upset, too.

"Lucy. It's just, you know …"

"Tell me," she said, hugging me to her. "Tell me."

After sobbing on her shoulder I pulled myself together, and looked around. The people streaming past us were giving us strange looks – two women overdressed for the strip, one crying. But it was Vegas, where everything happens and nobody cares, and they all walked on.

Lucy took my hand and we walked together down the strip toward the Mirage. We settled into the atrium bar, and she order us a couple of drinks. I didn't care what we were having. She handed me a kleenex from her purse. I was carrying a tiny Armani evening clutch, which barely had room for a lipstick, my little flip cellphone, and nine $5,000 chips. No room for anything else. I dabbed at my eyes. "I look like a raccoon, right?"

She nodded, and we both laughed softly. I used the kleenex to wipe the mascara from under my eyes.

"So what's up, Alex? This isn't still about Pete, is it?"

"Yes and no," I said. "I mean, yes, but no, not tonight. I still hate him, but there's more."

I had sworn to Tom that I wouldn't say anything about the investigation to other team members, but I felt like I had to. I felt like I had been betrayed by Alice. I needed a friend. And Lucy had as much to lose as I did, and I was sure now that she was a friend.

"Did Arun ever tell you where he got the money for our stake?"

"No …" She seemed puzzled. "He was playing before I joined. I just assumed he'd built it up, over time."

"But we've lost a few times, right?"

"Yes."

"And he hasn't had to come to any of us to ask us to help rebuild those losses, right?"

"No …"

"And you didn't wonder why?"

"I suppose …"

"I'm sorry, Lucy." I reached across the table and took her hand. "I didn't think about it, either. Have the Feds been to see you?"

"The Feds?" Either she was a very skilled liar, or she didn't know anything about the Treasury operation. If they hadn't spoken to her that could mean that they suspected her of complicity. In that case, what I'd just said was very stupid.

Or it could just be that she didn't know.

"Alex, what are you talking about?"

I took a bigger gamble than I'd ever taken at the tables. "Lucy, how well do you know Arun?"

"I know him – I guess, you know, we've been playing for 3 years now … I don't see him outside work."

"You know Alice does, right?"

"Remember what we discussed the other night? You need to let go of that, Alex." She looked at me sympathetically.

Our drinks arrived. "I guess I learned two things about Arun."

"What else did you learn?"

"That we're laundering money for the Russian mob."

"What?"

"That's where the money comes from."

"But we win."

"Not all the time. And not this much."

She considered this. "How long have you known?"

"Two months."

"And the police know?"

"Not the police, exactly, but yes, Federal agents."

"Are we going to go to jail?"

"I'm more worried about getting killed by our employers."

"Dan …"

"Yes," I said bitterly. "Dan."

"I thought that was Whitwell," she said sadly.

"Whitwell are not exactly nice guys, but they don't need to kill us to put us out of business."

"Why did they – the Russians – kill Dan?"

"I don't know. I don't know for sure it was them, although the Feds think so. I can't think of anyone else who would have a motive, though. All I can think of is he knew something he shouldn't have."

"But he had the face surgery …"

"Yes. Whatever he knew, he learned after that."

I had finished my first drink, and I signaled for some more. I could see two guys near the bar who looked like they were going to take that as a signal to try to buy drinks for Lucy and me, but I shook my head and I guess my look must have been discouraging enough. The last thing I needed was a guy trying to hit me up.

"We should … we should quit the team," Lucy said.

"I can't," I said.

"Why not?"

"I agreed to cooperate with the Government."

"You're going to –"

"I don't know what I'm going to do yet," I said to her. "If I knew, perhaps I'd be behaving more rationally."

"I can't quit the team, either," she said quietly.

I had been looking away at the bartender, but something in her tone made me snap my attention back to her. "Why not?"

"Arun has … he's … let's just say he knows something about my family." There was a terrible sorrow in her eyes.

"Something? He's blackmailing you?"

"Something like that. I think he blackmails everyone on the team."

"Why would he do that?"

She shrugged. "I guess it helps with secrecy. You know there were two MIT teams that blew up, right?"

"Yes? What's that got to do with us?"

"They had some kind of security leak. Whitwell ended up knowing everything about them."

"I still don't follow."

"Because we're all scared of Arun, none of us would ever talk about what we do outside the team."

"I guess that's true. But …"

"But what?"

"Well, I can tell you, it's not exactly a secret in Cambridge," I said. "I know at least four people outside the team that know about us, who's on the team, what we do. Apart from the money laundering bit, I mean."

"Huh." This definitely surprised her. She and I usually ran in different social circles, so maybe hers didn't gossip as much.

"What does Arun have on everyone else?"

"Alice had an abortion … and her parents would kill her if they ever found out."

"I didn't know," I said. I realized there was so much about Alice that I really didn't know.

"Obviously she doesn't talk about it."

"Are her parents that bad?"

"Yes, they are. You've never met them?"

"No."

"Desperate for a grandchild, preferably a son. You know, classic Asian thing. It's good to be a successful child, but if you're a girl it's your duty to breed. My parents aren't so bad, but I feel the pressure too."

"That's crazy. I'm sure they would understand."

Lucy shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. Obviously Alice doesn't think so."

"He's not blackmailing her into sleeping with him."

"I doubt it."

New drinks arrived, and we were both silent for a few moments. I was trying to get my head around the idea that Arun was blackmailing people. In addition to everything else, I mean. I wanted to ask Lucy what Arun had on her family that was so terrible, but I didn't want to pry.

"So, do you know what Arun has on everyone else?" I finally asked.

"Some," Lucy said. "I know he helped fix things when Dan got busted for hacking the administration servers in sophomore year. I don't know how he did it though."

"How Dan did the hack? Or how Arun fixed it?"

"That doesn't matter much any more," she reflected sadly.

"No."

"And there was you," Lucy said. "I feel guilty about that."

"What do you mean?" I said. "Arun hasn't tried to blackmail me … yet."

"Well, you kind of fell into it. I think he was probably looking for an angle … But when Alice and I dressed you up that time, you know he took photos and all. And then he manipulated you into doing … this." She waved her hands at me.

"I don't understand where the blackmail part comes in."

"I think Arun was going to send the photos to your parents."

"Well, that wouldn't work."

"Really?"

"Sure. My parents know everything."

"Everything? I mean, the team and everything? Not just you being a woman?"

"Everything," I said.

Lucy laughed. The sadness from remembering Dan a few moments earlier was gone. "Oh, Alex, I always thought you were the best person I ever met. Arun must have been so pissed to discover that you like being a woman. I can just imagine how much that pisses him off."

I drained my glass. "From where I sit right now, pissing Arun off is a mighty good thing."

"Was you losing tonight part of a plan? To piss Arun off more?"

"No. Yes. No, not like that. I didn't lose enough. I actually won on that fucked-up last hand, so I didn't really lose anything, net. The others will make way more than that. I think I was probably up ten before I melted down, too."

"Yeah. What happened?"

"I don't know. I really don't. I couldn't focus. All I could think about was that we were playing with blood money."

I thought to myself that the Feds had wanted me to lose. The reason I'd told them it was a bad idea had been because I never screwed up, but the better reason was that my losses, on their own, wouldn't be sufficient to guarantee Arun would need to go back to the well for more water. For all I knew he had hundreds of thousands taped behind his own fridge too. The truth was I thought I had a better plan, but despite telling Lucy about the Feds I wasn't sure I wanted to mention that to her just yet.

"You've known about this for two months?" Lucy said.

"Yes."

"How come you didn't 'melt down' before tonight?"

"I don't know. I guess I've had some other stresses."

"Peter?"

"Yes … And Alice. Her and Arun."

"I really thought you knew about that."

"How come she told you, and not me?"

"She didn't tell me."

"Oh."

"I was out one night with Christine – she's a girl I used to work with when I first graduated – and we were at this Thai place, you know, the one near Inman Square?" I shook my head. "Well, it's pretty good. Anyway, we were there, and we saw the two of them, and it was clear they were, you know, an item. They didn't see us, you know, it's a dark place, and busy, but before we left I made a point of going by their table to say hi. And, you know, their reaction was kind of, well, off. You know, Alice was almost embarrassed, or ashamed or something. It was odd." Lucy drained the remainder of her drink. "Then, the next time I saw her, she asked me not to say anything to anyone. Something about her parents, which I didn't believe."

"Weird."

"Yeah. You know there's more, right? I mean, she's lied about a lot of things."

"Yes, but then so do lots of people. Alex, maybe she didn't want you to know about Arun because she thought it would hurt you, and she likes you?"

"Maybe … it definitely didn't work."

"So," Lucy said, taking my hand in hers. "You feel up to going back in? Arun's going to go apeshit … More apeshit than he is already, I mean."

I put my other hand over my face. "Oh, fuck." I wished I had another drink. "Luce, I need him to think everything is okay. If I'm going to get us out of it, I mean."

"Let's just tell him you were feeling ill," Lucy said. "You've never, ever fucked up before, so he'll think there's something wrong anyway."

"You think?"

"I think it will be fine. As long as …"

"As long as what?"

"How good are you at lying?"

"I'm not so good," I admitted. "I'm fine at just not saying something. I'm just terrible at an outright lie."

"And Alex – "

"Yes?"

"When you said 'get us out of it' …"

"Yes?"

"Anything I can do to help, you know I will. Arun can really hurt my family. But if I get arrested, that's all going to come out anyway, so I might as well fight now, while I still can."

"You want to tell me what it is?"

"My father's an illegal immigrant."

"That's it? That's all?"

"That's enough, don't you think?"

"I guess. Wow, Lucy, that's terrible for you."

"Well, it's what it is. I can't do much about it."

"I can't believe Arun would threaten to turn him in."

"He's a prick."

"Obviously."

We went back to Ceasars, and Lucy found Brian, and told him she was taking me back to the MGM Grand, where we were staying. I didn't have to say a word. I went straight to bed, but after she'd taken me to the hotel, Lucy went back to Ceasars and the team played for a few hours before shifting to New York New York.

 

~o~O~o~
 

When I woke, there was a voice message on my phone from Pete. I hadn't heard the phone ring, but it turned out I'd left it on silent from when I was at the table at Ceasars, so that explained that.

It was probably the longest voicemail Pete had ever left in his life: "Alex, thanks for the messages. First off. Sorry. I mean - very sorry. About the other night. Sorry I didn't get back to you, but yeah, Vassily and I have been kind of busy cleaning up. I had to tell Command Dynamics, too, in case our servers were used to get in there. They've been pretty helpful about it, even gave us a security expert to do some forensics. So don't sweat it. It's not really your fault. I think we're going to come out of this much stronger. Not so rich, but definitely okay. And did I say, um, I’m sorry?"
"

I called Pete back and this time he did pick up. It was Saturday in Boston, and he and Vassily were watching the All-Star game at Fenway. It was very difficult to talk with all the noise from the crowd.

"Pete, I'm sorry too," I said.

"No need," he replied. "It's all good. You and me."

"Yes, I think. I don't know. The other night was pretty fucked up. We probably need to talk more."

Pete changed the subject. "We think we know what they got, and it doesn't look like they got anything really valuable."

"You know, getting hit at home is one thing … But Pete, I think I know what went wrong with that algorithm. That patent that you didn't get."

I wasn't sure whether or not he could hear me over the noise at Fenway.

"So this malware that meant they had your credentials."

"What?"

"That's how that other company got your idea."

"I don't understand what you're saying?"

"Can you think of another reason our machines would be infected?"

"Alex, sometimes a trojan is just a trojan. I'm pissed about it, but not as pissed as Talia."

"But I think I know how it got there. I think Alice gave it to me, in a program she gave me."

"Alice Kim?"

"She's in A.I., right?"

"But she's your friend." There was a roar from the crowd. "Isn't she?"

"I'm not sure … Maybe she didn't know. But it would explain how those guys got your stuff for the patent."

"I don't know, Alex," he said. "You know, this is a popular field. The other guys might just have been thinking about the same thing we were thinking of, at the same time. Lots of things were invented in parallel. Edison and Marconi."

"You think? I mean, maybe you're right, and I don't know much about your software, but that seemed pretty specific."

"Yeah, it was a pretty specific implementation of what we did." He was obviously reconsidering. "Alice Kim?"

"Pete, there's something wrong here. Someone knows too much about your business. You've said so yourself. I think this is how they know. And I'm sorry. I'm really, really, sorry."

"Well, I might not give you privileges on my machine again for a while," he said. Then he yelled "Whoaoa!" so loudly in my ear that I had to jerk the phone away. "Wow, sorry about that, Alex. Just an amazing catch then."

"I should let you go."

"Yeah, okay."

"Enjoy the game."

"I am. Hey, Alex."

"Yes."

"We're good. You know that, right?"

"Yeah." I hadn't known it, but I said yes anyway. Hearing him say it rocked me to my core. "I rely on it, Pete. Thanks."

I hung up, and went to get dressed for a flight back to Boston. If Pete and I were good again, I could do anything.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Although he bought the excuse Lucy had given him for the fact that I'd flown home, at the team meeting the following Tuesday, Arun was furious. "This is completely unacceptable, Alex."

The tension in the room was as bad as it had ever been. As bad as it had been before the face surgery. I looked at Arun, who was almost livid. Bob was looking at his feet. Brian, the new guy, looked anxious. Alice and Emily were staring at the floor.

I didn't say anything, but Lucy chimed in: "She didn't actually lose, Arun –"

"It was a breakdown in discipline." Arun was ranting. "We have to be disciplined. You know that. You all know that!"

To my surprise, it was Alice that interceded on my behalf. "Arun, if she wasn't feeling well …"

I looked at her, but she glanced away. Given that she was sticking up for me I was surprised she couldn't meet my eyes.

Arun turned on her. "If he – she wasn't feeling well, she should have said something before we started playing."

"Maybe she wasn't feeling ill before we started playing," Alice said.

"Maybe she could defend herself," Arun snapped back.

I shrugged. That seemed to make Arun even more mad.

"I don't know what you want me to say," I said.

"That it won't happen again," Arun said.

"Okay. It won't happen again." I could make that promise. On the flight home on Sunday I had promised myself I would see my plan through. I owed it to Dan.

Reluctantly, Arun agreed to let me play again, on the basis that it was my first mistake. He wasn't entirely gracious about it. I wondered later that night: if I'd argued with him, would he have tried to kick me off the team? Wouldn't that have been a good thing? Then I realized that kicking me off the team was something he would never do, because he lacked leverage against me.

I felt a small shudder as I realized that the alternative to being kicked off the team was being murdered. Knowing what happened to Dan, it seemed a possibility. I would have to try to keep Arun happy. He didn't need blackmail – he had intimidation. He had a death squad.

I also realized that if I couldn't keep my end of the bargain with the Feds, they would come down on me for all the things I'd done wrong. They couldn't touch my money any more, but I had no doubt they would make life as difficult as they could, and I was sure there were charges for money laundering they could throw at me.

There didn't seem to be a way out, except to keep on with the plan.

 

~o~O~o~
 

After the conversation we had had at Ceasars, Lucy and I had a kind of Prisoner's Dilemma. Now that she knew, she could go to the police, and try to trade what she knew for her father's amnesty. If she went to the police and cut a deal, I would probably lose, because then the IRS wouldn't need me. If I cut the deal, she would likely lose, lacking leverage. Both Lucy and I could come out with nothing if neither of us cooperated, but if both of us cooperated we might get something. But only if both of us acted completely in good faith, and in a way that reinforced to the Feds that we could solve their problems together. That they needed both of us.

How far could I trust Lucy?

 

~o~O~o~
 

Pete and I went out for dinner. It wasn't anything romantic — at least I didn't approach it that way — but neither of us felt like cooking, and Pete had indicated that he wanted to get out of the house.

We caught an early movie, The Sixth Sense, which I might have enjoyed except I figured out the guy was dead about ten minutes into the film, as soon as he comes around after the shooting. After the show we went for Lebanese food at Cafe Barada. It was a bit of a hike, over in Arlington, but Lucy had recommended it to me. On the drive over, Pete explained that his business wasn't doing so well, following the lost patent and the revelation about compromised security. Command Dynamics had used a clause in the Agreement to take more equity from Pete and Vassily, shrinking their entitlements and vastly reducing the overall value of the business. Pete was philosophical, and more optimistic than I imagined. "We can come back from here, Alex. I'm just not going to be buying that Ferrari any time soon. Or a house."

"Those Command Dynamics guys are assholes," I said.

"I signed the contract, Alex. I agreed to certain performance measures in it," Pete replied. He seemed very calm considering the lost patent had cost him millions, and he potentially faced losing control of the business.

Once we were seated at Cafe Barada and armed with dips and bread, Pete got to the other reason he had suggested getting both of us out of the apartment: security. He pulled out his cellphone and made a show of turning it off and taking out the battery. Then he motioned for me to do the same.

"I think we should assume our email is compromised, Alex. And maybe our phones, too."

"Really?" Even in the worst depths of my paranoia that wasn't something I'd contemplated. "So what should we do?"

"I think we can use it to our advantage," Pete said. "If they don't know that we know, they'll trust in our communication."

"Yeah, but I'd kind of like to trust in our communication, too," I said. "Besides, who's 'they'?"

Back at the apartment after dinner, Pete put on a Fugazi CD at high volume, and then showed me the essence of 'least significant bit' steganography. He started up his laptop, and then made sure it was disconnected from our home network. On the laptop he took a photograph — of an advertisement for a Burger King Double Bacon Cheeseburger — and then he wrote a short message in a text editor, and fed both into a program he had running on the laptop called EzStego. The program spat out a copy of the photograph that looked almost identical. I say "almost" because when I enlarged both images I could detect slightly more digital 'noise' in the new image. It no longer looked quite so much like a professionally produced advertisement. But I could only tell because I had the original to compare it with.

"Interesting," I said. I knew the principles of steganography. As a technique for hiding information it's been around since the late 15th century. But I hadn't seen it demonstrated on a computer before.

"How do I get the message back out?" I asked.

"You apply the key — a password — and the program will decrypt it. It's not particularly strong encryption. The main advantage of it is that if you use the right images in context, people don't know to look at the image file as anything except an image. So it doesn't really need to be that secure."

"But I can see the difference. I can tell the second photo," I indicated the transformed image "is grainier. It doesn't look right."

"You have the first image for comparison. Besides, if you start with a noisy image, it's much harder to tell." He fooled around on the laptop and pulled up a directory of the photos I had taken that night in the Alewife parking garage. In the poor light, with the crappy little digital camera, the photos he had of me were exceptionally grainy. There were several I had taken of him, as well, plus some random images of concrete ramps and the children's playground. There was digital noise all through them already.

"We can use these," he said. He turned the CD player off. I hoped he hadn't woken Samantha downstairs or Beverly would give me grief about it.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Something Lucy had said to me at Ceasar's kept going through my mind. "Arun must have been so pissed to discover that you like being a woman." As I lay in bed in Somerville on a Tuesday morning, the phrase kept bouncing around my head. Did I like being a woman? I had told Dr. Kidman my life was easier this way, but that wasn't so much to do with my feelings as to do with the way I looked.

But I supposed Lucy was right. I tried hard to remember my old life, before Louisiana, before cards, before Arun and Alice and everyone else. And oddly enough, when I thought of myself back then, I seemed to put the new me over the old me in those memories. Somehow 'guy' Alex didn't make sense in my head any more. It didn't feel – and even as I thought this I also thought "you're losing your mind" – it didn't feel like I was ever really a guy.

As my father had said to me back in Lincoln, and I had said to Susan and Tom, things could have been worse. I realized that although there were a lot of complications in my life – my relationship with Pete, my fucked up status with the Feds, my imminent danger of being shot by Arun's Russian 'friends' – being a woman was not one of them. I did feel more comfortable being a woman. I was happy. I was enjoying the changes the hormones were making to my body. Since I had done some truly horrible things to myself that meant I could never look like a man again, I figured that being a woman was probably the one good thing that had come out of the last couple of years.

It wasn't nirvana, exactly, but there was some measure of relief in working that out.

 

~o~O~o~
 

"So we have to hire someone," I said to Tom over dinner at Mistral, a very good French restaurant on Columbus Avenue in the South End. It seemed like a safe place to continue our discussion without fear of being bugged. In any case Tom and I were dining alone, so at least the conversation was privileged. I had already explained to Tom that Pete thought our phones might be monitored, and I explained briefly how steganography worked.

Tom was intrigued: I knew the concept appealed to him. "You should get everyone on the team using that. See if you can get a photo of your friend Dan, or something, to use as the common file. They won't question you all sharing that around."

I also explained to Tom that I was going to need access to some money, so I could pay Vassily's friends. Tom explained to me that it wasn't going to be possible. We had given the money to The Children's Chance Charity. I would have to pay for whatever Vassily needed from the funds I had remaining.

"There's this, Alex. Even if you could get back the forfeited money, I don't want to be part of something I shouldn't," Tom said. "I'd think twice about paying anyone money to hack any computers. Hacking them yourself is bad enough, but there are some ways to plead leniency in those cases. Paying someone to hack them — that's very hard to defend in front of a judge. Plus I suspect the Feds would negate any deal they had with you if they knew you were going to go about this with a criminal gang. The FBI and Treasury may work in politically expedient ways from time to time, but that would be stepping over the line."

"There is other cash I can access," I said to Tom, "If Arun hasn't already tapped it. Maybe I should have mentioned this before, but …" I realized I definitely should have mentioned it before.

"But what?"

"I'm actually the treasurer for the team."

"You're the treasurer." He said it without any inflection. It was much worse hearing that than hearing him explode at me. "Alex." He briefly brought his hand to his cheek, like he was trying to brush the idea away from his head. "You didn't think to mention this until now. Until now. You actually have direct access to these funds that are being laundered?"

"Pretty much."

He thought for a moment. "So you could arrange for all the team's money to just disappear?"

"Well, not exactly. I mean, for all I know Arun has already tapped those accounts. There might be some I don't actually know about. He must be suspicious, or worried, at least, now that Dan's dead. If I was still interested in the survival of the team, as a team, I'd be moving the money. Besides, if I do move it, he will know. I mean, he can see the balances in the accounts pretty much any time he wants. But I could access, say, $50k more than usual pretty legitimately the next time we're headed for Vegas."

"Assuming there is a next time," Tom said.

"Well, yeah. If there's not a next time, then I'm guessing Arun won't have much need of me at all any more. And we know what that means."

 

~o~O~o~
 

"We can't hire anyone to hack Whitwell," I explained to Pete as we walked across the Common. It was a beautiful evening, and we were on our way to meet Tom and Susan for Chinese. "Remember my reservations about being Michael Corleone in Tahoe? It turns out that now that I don't have mafia-style money, that's kind of impossible anyway."

"You're too thin for a mafia boss, anyway."

"Ha. Anyway, I get to choose between making some legitimate money, which I need a stake for, or using the stake to hire some hackers, which Tom says is a very bad idea."

"So we have to do it ourselves," Pete said.

"Like we know how."

"We can figure out a way," Pete said. Pete always loved a challenge.

"I still don't know why we have to do this. Can't I distract Arun a different way?"

"This is the way to make him lose. You need to make him lose, right?"

"That's the deal, yeah."

"So we need to hack Whitwell's database," Pete said. "You said Tom thought it was a bad idea to hire someone to do it."

"Maybe I could get the Feds to hack it."

Pete looked at me like I was insane.

"Okay, yes, I was reaching," I said. "You got me. Okay, so we do it ourselves. Somehow."

"We know how to get to the database, right? Once we have DBA privileges, injecting new data is easy," Pete said. "New data goes in all the time. They're not likely to do an audit on those transactions. If we were deleting profiles, yeah, there would be some kind of audit trail, maybe even a script that checks for deletions as a security precaution. But they have to be able to add profiles easily, otherwise the system wouldn't be flexible enough." He sighed, and leaned back with his hands behind his head and elbows akimbo in that way I'd seen guys do after they think they've solved a problem. "That doesn't mean it's not without risk. Unless we're careful, they might notice it in 24 hours. Well, they should. And, you know, it's a Federal fucking felony. But it's a pretty low level of risk."

"You're sure they don't know about your warchalking yet?"

"That account's still active. I can't imagine any universe in which they'd leave it open if they knew."

"So, we need to get Root first."

"I think I have a plan for that."

"Which is? All we have is a user account, no root privileges"

"So, I have a plan. To get us a privileged account. Once we have that, we just need to add some new data."

"Well, I can do it," I said. "I probably know more about database administration than you anyway. You don't have to do it."

"Except that you have to be on the floor while it's being done," Pete said to me. "So you can't do it."

"We must know someone else …"

"Well, I don't trust Vassily's 'friends' to do it." Pete said. "I trust him, but not them."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I thought about it. I actually trust them completely with taking down casino security. What I don't trust them with is stuff like whatever data Whitwell has on you, your bank accounts, or your friends."

"God, neither do I. God knows what else they would do." I was actually touched. Pete cared about me. I mean, I knew he cared about me, even if he couldn't deal with me sexually. He just didn't usually say so, the way he just had.

"Anyway, there's what Tom said."

"There's that," I agreed.

"The only other person I'd trust if I were you would be Susan. And she doesn't know shit about databases."

"I just don't want you to do anything illegal," I said to Pete. "You, and Vassily too, have so much to lose."

"Talia," Pete finally said. "It has to be her."

I wasn't sure about that. From Talia's attitude over the past few months I wasn't completely convinced she was comfortable with the new me. Plus there was the fact that I had compromised our home network, and she was still mad at me for that. And then there was the fact that she knew about Whitwell. I was still puzzling about how she knew about that.

 

~o~O~o~
 

While Pete and I had agreed that I would have to be the one to ask Talia for the favor, he offered to help try to talk her into it. Naturally, this meant he thought we should all go get drunk to try to make it easier. Because of the Whitwell thing I was nervous as all hell.

So we all went to Grendel's. Cameron gave me a smile and a slightly sleazy once over when we walked in. I frowned. Neither Pete nor I had been to the bar together for several months, since Pete had climbed out of bed that horrible night, but despite what Cameron had said then, nothing had been renovated. The place was still the same. I suspect it hasn't changed since around 1970, and it's probably still the same today. I wasn't frowning because I was disappointed — I liked it the way it was. I only frowned because of the way Cameron was looking at me.

After messing around and talking crap for a half hour and a couple of drinks, Pete prompted me to speak up.

"Alex has a favor she wants to ask you." He said to Talia.

Her eyebrows went up a little, but I wasn't sure whether that was because of the use of the pronoun "she" or because I was asking for a favor. I decided to start by apologizing.

"Hey, Talia, I know that maybe I should have talked with you about all the stuff going on with me —" I began, but she cut me off.

"Alex, you don't need to apologize. It's not like we see a lot of one another. I like you. What do you want?"

"I thought maybe you had a problem with my transitioning." There. I'd said that official word out loud. Transitioning. And I'd said it in front of Pete, too.

"Are you fucking joking? Why would I have a problem with you transitioning?" Talia said.

"I don't know. You know," I waved my hands around meaninglessly. "Gender politics, all that crap."

"All that crap, Alex, is important."

"Uh yeah, I mean, I wasn't saying —"

She laughed. "It's okay. I was just making you nervous. Alex, you're okay. I do have a problem with some drag queens. And some guys in female space. I'm kind of a bitch about that, actually. But you — hell, I guess you're going to take this as a compliment, not an insult — you've never seemed much like a guy in any space."

"So you're not mad at me?"

"I'm still pissed off at you for compromising my server," she said, but she was smiling. "But about becoming a woman? Hell no. I always got a femme kind of vibe from you anyway, so it's not like it's a surprise." She raised her glass in a toast. "Welcome!"

"Wow." I was surprised. I had Talia all wrong. There was my reverse Idiot Savant thing, again.

Pete laughed, and clinked glasses with Talia. I lifted my glass and drank with both of them.

"Thanks," I said to Talia.

"So about this favor?" Talia asked.

"Talia, have you ever broken the law before?" I asked.

"Not since I was twenty-four." Talia was twenty-five.

 

~o~O~o~
 

In the meantime Arun's team had to make another trip to Vegas. Lucy and I sat together on the flight, across the aisle in first from Arun and Alice. I had tried to be civil to Alice but I still hadn't forgiven her for lying to me. Lucy did her best to try to distract me, making sure we boarded as late as possible, and then handing me a few magazines before takeoff and a Rio mp3 player and headphones as soon as she was allowed to turn it on. "I made a playlist for you," she said.

I listened to the music with my eyes closed. It was a way of avoiding any contact with Alice or Arun, and while Lucy's tastes certainly weren't my tastes, her choices were a little window into Lucy World that I felt oddly touched to be allowed to glimpse. The player only held 32MB of RAM, so there were only a dozen songs, but I listened to them on endless repeat for almost the entire flight: the battery gave out about thirty minutes before landing.

At McCarran Lucy and I took a cab without waiting for anyone else on the team, and we checked into the appalling Treasure Island together. We were scheduled to play at the newly opened Bellagio, but as usual we stayed elsewhere. The family-friendly Treasure Island would never have been our first choice, but it was a place we hadn't been to for a long time so it seemed safest.

Lucy and I showered and ate and then made our way separately to the Bellagio floor at 11pm, the appointed time. The place was packed. I spotted Bob and Arun at a table at the edge of the high roller's area. Lucy took a table nearer the entry, and I sat and played a few hands without any clear direction, playing up the bored Japanese princess routine. Emily signaled me into a hand at another table after about fifteen minutes, and I stayed long enough to come away $25,000 richer.

The rest of the evening was routine. We played until about 4.30am, then hit the bar for a few nightcaps. Lucy and I actually met up on the strip, just near the escalators that descend outside Ceasars, but we went back in to one of the bars, tens of thousands of dollars in our purses.

After three strong cocktails each, we made our way back to our rooms. We walked together down the Strip. The October night was a little chilly, and I pulled my wrap tighter and wished I was wearing warmer footwear than the 3" heeled sandals I had paired with my cream silk dress. My left sandal was irritating me. I had never worn ankle-straps before, and I suspect with the alcohol I wobbled on my heels more than usual. The buckle on the side of the strap was digging into my flesh uncomfortably.

Almost nobody walks on the strip directly outside Ceasars. At that hour of the morning there were a few stragglers on the other side of the road, outside the Flamingo, but on our side the few pedestrians and cars were closer to the Ceasars entry.

We were just crossing the road at Jay Samo Way when I started to get my old feelings of paranoia again. I looked around but couldn't see anyone following us, and Lucy looked at me with an eyebrow raised. "You okay, Alex?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I get a little, uh, twitchy occasionally. I'm just, you know, a bit paranoid sometimes. Maybe it's the alcohol."

"Bed awaits."

"Amen". Those drinks had hit me harder than usual.

We finally made our way up to our floor at Treasure Island. As we came out of the lift I walked a few steps and the buckle on my sandal parted from the strap. "Shit," I said. "$300 sandals and they don't even last one night."

Lucy looked at me, hobbling. "You okay?"

"Yeah," I said, bending to take the sandal off, and wobbling unsteadily. "You go ahead. I'll be there as soon as I get these off."

So Lucy entered our room first. I was forty or fifty feet behind as she opened the door, and I could see as she turned on the light that she was holding the door ajar for me as I caught up.

And then she wasn't. I heard a muffled thud, and a brief cry, and then the door began to close. And then, amazingly, there was the unmistakable sound of a gun with a silencer. They sound much louder than you would think. Much louder than the sound you usually hear on TV. Maybe it was the confined space.

My first instinct was to save Lucy. My second instinct was to run. I think if the door had stayed open I would have tried to rush to her. But it closed, just as I got there. I heard someone try to open it, and then a muttered "Tvoyu Mat!" as whoever it was realized that Lucy's body was blocking the door from opening.

I ran. In my bare feet. Maybe it was adrenaline, but suddenly I didn't feel even slightly drunk.

I didn't stop at the front lobby, although I could see security looking at me and beginning to move toward me, obviously alarmed. Perhaps, given my slinky dress, they thought I was a hooker trying to make a break from a john, or maybe it was just my general air of panic that triggered their reactions.

Outside I jumped straight into a cab and said "Airport" as calmly as I could. The driver looked at me, clearly startled at the speed at which I'd got in, but he set off without argument.

We were a few hundred yards down the strip when I realized that running wasn't going to do any good. "I'm not going into the Airport," I said to the driver. "Just to the Police Department." In Vegas there's a police station right next to the airport.

I took out my cell and called Tom. I got Susan, bright and chirpy on a Saturday morning. As soon as she heard my voice she knew something was wrong. "Alex!"

"Susan, I need to talk with Tom."

Susan actually handed the phone to Tom while he was in the shower. He listened to my garbled summary of what had just happened and reassured me that I was doing the right thing going to the police. "False name, or not, they'll have your DNA all over that room," he said. "Tell them about Treasury, and get them to call the Feds. They won't like it, but they'll appreciate that you went straight to them. It always plays easier that way. Then, Alex?"

"Yes?" I was still turned around in the seat, looking out the back window to see if we were being followed.

"No matter how they pressure you, try not to say anything about why you were there under a false name. They will pressure you. Tell them to ask for Grieves or Hernandez. I'll be on the next flight I can get. In the meantime I'll see who I can get to help you locally."

 

~o~O~o~
 

I sat waiting in the Police station for about an hour before a policeman tried to interview me properly. I had raced in from the cab, still barefoot and mildly hysterical. "I've just seen a shooting." I said. At the time I had arrived at the station the management of Treasure Island hadn't even called the incident in yet, so I think the sergeant on duty thought I was mildly deranged.

"Someone shot at you in your room at Treasure Island," he said, as though he was reading the results of a football game. "Your name, miss?"

"No, nobody shot at me. Someone shot my friend -" I tried desperately to remember the name Lucy had used on check-in — "Lucy Chin." Then I gave him my ID for Alexandra Leung of Galveston. It was the ID I had registered under at the hotel. I knew I'd eventually have to give them my real name, and probably Lucy's real name, no matter what Tom had said, but I hoped to have Tom or someone else to explain that, and in the meantime I didn't want them thinking I was a crook. I mean, obviously I was a crook, using a fake ID. But I didn't want them to know that yet, and I was hoping that somehow being a witness in a federal case would provide some ameliorating circumstances when the Las Vegas police found out.

Soon enough the call from Treasure Island came through and I noticed two guys who I assumed were detectives running past the room they were holding me in. I could only imagine the scene at the hotel. For all the activity that goes on in Vegas, and its history of links to organized crime, it's almost unheard of for anyone to be shot in a Casino hotel.

Despite myself I kept running over and over in my head an imagined loop of what Lucy must have seen as she entered the room.

Tom had been right: the police were none too friendly toward me when I refused to talk in detail about what had happened without my lawyer present. They were going to arrest me, and at one stage threatened me by telling me they were going to pin everything on me unless I told them everything immediately. I held firm to my mantra. "I'm waiting for my lawyer." Tom had told me to get them to call the Feds, but I remembered the time I'd first met Grieves, and Tom had also been very insistent then that I only ever talk with a lawyer present.

The police reminded me a little of John Mantonelli. I'm sure if I'd given an inch with either my life would have been very different.

About two hours after I arrived at the Police Station a guy entered the room where they were holding me and flashed an FBI badge at me. "Special Agent Jones," he said.

"Snap," I said. He didn't smile. I wasn't going to ask to check the ID. I was in a police Station. I figured someone had already checked his bona fides before letting him in to see me.

"Funny," he said. "So, I understand you have some deal with Treasury?"

I didn't say anything in response. I could tell he was about to get angry.

"You understand that your friend is dead?"

I burst into tears.

I hadn't really expected Lucy to have survived. But having her death confirmed shook me. I think Agent Jones might have tried asking me a bunch more questions, but I'm really not sure. All I could do was cry, sob, until I ached in my chest from the physical effort.

I was beginning to pull myself together when another man entered. He was dressed casually, in a t-shirt and khakis. He was only about three or four years older than me.

He held out his hand to shake it. "Denis Powley, Alex. Wrightson and Powley." He handed me a business card. "Tom O'Donnell sent me. I'm sorry I took so long." He also introduced himself to Agent Jones. Then he turned back to me. "Are you happy for me to represent you?"

"Of course. If Tom sent you."

"Good." He handed me a handkerchief. "It's clean. You look like you need it."

I nodded my thanks and tried to clean my face up.

Now," he turned back to Agent Jones. "I'd like to have a moment with my client, please?"

"I'm just trying to get to the bottom —"

"She won't be saying anything at all until we've had a brief conversation. It's in your own interest."

Agent Jones stepped out.

"Tom briefed me," Denis said. "Have you said anything yet?"

"Only that someone shot Lucy."

"You have anything to do with the shooting?"

"No. Of course not."

"Okay. That's what Tom said. Just wanted to make sure. Now, we'll bring him back in. You should tell him about the Treasury guys."

"You know about all that?"

"Getting the background was why it took me a few moments to get here. I've been on the phone for almost an hour. You have quite the exciting life, Ms. Jones."

"Alex," I said. "don't I have to give you a dollar so you're my lawyer, or something?"

"You watch too many movies, Alex. You already agreed I could represent you. You don't need to pay me upfront. Tom and I clerked together back east. If he says you're good, you're good."

Denis ushered Agent Jones back in. He was accompanied by one of the two detectives I had seen running out of the station earlier.

"Thank you," Agent Jones said. "Alex. I understand you have some kind of deal with Treasury."

"Yes. I'm not allowed to talk about it."

"We can confirm that Miss Jones is involved in an ongoing investigation." Denis said.

"Miss Jones?" The detective looked puzzled. "She was registered as Alexa Leung."

"It's a long story," I said. I think Denis thought I was going to elaborate, because he stiffened, but when I didn't continue he relaxed again.

Agent Jones got a message on his pager, and left the room again, and I was left with Denis and the detective.

"So why did you use a false name to register?" the detective asked.

"Do you have a name, sir?" Denis asked.

"Detective Robinson"

"Detective Robinson, my client is working with the Federal Government on an important criminal investigation. It's necessary for her to use various alias's and forms of identification from time to time to perform her duties in that investigation."

The Detective asked a bunch more questions, specifically about what I'd seen and whether I'd seen the man or men who had shot Lucy.

I gave him as much detail as I could remember. Even two hours later, it seemed like bits of the event were blurring. I remembered the feeling more than the actual event. I remembered the terror. I felt the anxiety. But at that moment I couldn't even remember my room number at Treasure Island.

Every now and then Denis gently pressed on my arm if he thought I was saying too much. Twice he answered before I did, reproving the detective for asking loaded questions.

"I've spoken with Agent Grieves," the FBI guy said as he re-entered the room. "He is on his way out, but won't get here until tomorrow afternoon. In the meantime I have a bunch of questions to ask you if that's okay. You work with Arun Kapoor and Alice Kim?

I was surprised to hear him mention Alice's name in conjunction with Arun, even though I'd suspected Alice knew everything.

"Yes."

"Would you suspect either as the killer in this case?"

"No … I …"

"Yes?"

"I suspect Arun might know people who might be involved. But it doesn't make sense for him to be the one who killed her."

"Why not?"

"It just doesn't make sense," I said to Jones. "Arun had leverage on Lucy. He knew things that could hurt her. There was no way she would turn on him."

"What leverage?" Detective Robinson asked. Agent Jones shot him a kind of 'shut up' look.

"I really, really can't say," I said. "I promised." I wondered whether by even raising the subject I was going to send the FBI off investigating Lucy more thoroughly. Maybe I had put her father in danger. "But believe me," I hastened to add, "there's no way she would have ratted anyone out. She had too much to lose.

"And besides," I continued, suddenly realizing my logic applied to Dan, too. "It doesn't make sense for Arun to spend all this time training all of us to play cards, only to kill us. That seems like a bad return on investment, doesn't it?"

"You are trained to play cards?" Detective Robinson asked.

"It's a long story," I said. "But, yeah. I play on a team of card counters."

"Huh," was all Robinson could say.

"That part is not illegal," I said defensively.

"Maybe there was something else," Agent Jones said ruminatively. "Maybe it was Alice Kim."

"Alice?" I was even more shocked. "I know Alice is involved in the fraud. But she's definitely not a killer. And she and Lucy were friends."

"Maybe they weren't after her," Agent Jones said. "Maybe they were after you."

Everyone was silent for a few moments. I had already wondered that myself. Could Arun or his 'friends' know about me turning traitor? Was I responsible for Lucy's death?

 

~o~O~o~
 

It wasn't until a few days after Lucy's funeral that my emotions caught up with me again. While I was shopping to restock our kitchen in Somerville, I started crying when I was standing staring at yoghurt in the Prospect Street Whole Foods. For no reason I could discern. Suddenly, everything seemed to be catching up with me. I could be smart, but I couldn't be smart enough to stay out of trouble. I could be attractive, but never attractive enough for someone like Pete. I could try to be a good friend, but that wouldn't stop friends like Lucy dying.

It was a monumental bout of self-pity, and it just crushed me. Outside, the street was full of the bad smells of Cambridge in the summer, over-ripe old produce in dumpsters around the corner, other odors that seemed to have come all the way from the rail line, dust and bus fumes from Webster Avenue, the sun strong yet mottled by smog. The day was hot, and I was cold and weary in my soul.

When I pulled myself together my mind felt clearer, somehow. I've come to think since then that a good cry is a good thing from time to time. Maybe not the deep, almost hysterical kind I had that day, but something gentler.

In the wake of my crying jag, I resolved to give up drinking. I didn't need a Daruma for that. I tracked back over my life for the preceding three years and realized that a good deal of it had been spent under the influence of alcohol, and while I had enjoyed many good times with Pete, and Alice, and Lucy, over cocktails or whiskey or wine, I'd made some poor choices along the way, especially with Pete.

And in the back of my mind was the thought that if I hadn't been drinking that night, and hadn't tripped and broken the strap on my shoes, Lucy might still be alive.

That line of thought didn't make a lot of sense, since if I hadn't fallen behind at Treasure Island it's likely we'd both have been killed, but it didn't make me feel any better about my drinking. It was time to stop, even if only so I didn't make more bad choices in my relationships. If I was to survive Arun's goons, and make it through the challenge that Treasury posed for me, I would need my wits about me.

In addition to worrying about Treasury, I had been running something else through my mind ever since I'd come back from Vegas, and in the absence of alcohol a day later I thought I saw it slightly more clearly: there had to be something more to Arun and Alice's relationship. Now that I knew they were a couple, Lucy's analysis of what Arun had over Alice didn't make sense. I didn't think even an unpleasant prick like Arun would actually ruin his relationship with his girlfriend by telling her parents about an abortion.

Plus, the abortion story itself didn't sound like enough, to me, for it to work as blackmail. I knew that Korean families prized children and it would have been a very difficult thing for Alice to have overcome, but I didn't buy that it was sufficient blackmail for her to have plastic surgery and allow herself to be drawn into a criminal conspiracy. Since I had witnessed Alice with Arun and that guy the time they got into the Mercedes, and I knew she was as close to Arun as anyone. I had to assume that she knew about the scope of the enterprise, and about where the money was coming from. She had to be a willing accomplice, not a blackmailed one.

 

~o~O~o~
 

I got back home from dinner at Susan's later that day to find the apartment empty. I wasn't sure where Pete or Talia were. But there was an envelope in the hallway, which clearly had been slid under the door. The envelope was about the size of a legal pad, and had the name of a Boston law firm I had never heard of printed in the top left corner. The address label in the middle was made out to me, but it didn't seem like it had come through the post.

I opened it. Despite the fact that I had never heard of the law firm, I was expecting it to contain something related to my IRS case. Instead, there was a handwritten note from Sunhee Koh, Dan's sister, on some handmade paper, and a black and white photocopy of a security ID card.

The note said:

This is what it's about.
S.

Nothing else.

I flipped to the photocopy. The ID card was from a company called Augmented AI. There was a photograph, and a name, and an employee number with a barcode. Below the barcode was a line that said "Valid March 3 1995 — March 3 1998."

It was expired, but so what? The name on the card said "Alice Lee". But the photograph was of Alice Kim. Our Alice.

Alice had a job? One she hadn't told me about? Since 1995?

 

~o~O~o~