Devil's Plaything - Matt Richtel [15]
I stare at the computer screen and the word “Galapagos” I’ve typed. I hit “enter.” It doesn’t work.
I try “Darwin.” It fails. I type “Culpepper,” then “CulpepperIsland.” Nada.
I stand, don my other sock and T-shirt, and walk to the refrigerator. It is covered with magnets collected from various public relations campaigns (e.g., Genentech’s Stick It To Cancer), which hold up take-out menus. In the mostly empty fridge, a bit of manna: a half-drunk two-day-old Starbucks quadruple-shot latte that I heat in the microwave. Simple life rule: never, ever waste a drop of a $5.45 coffee.
I sip it and take in my bachelor palace. I once described it to a skeptical Pauline as “mismatch couture.” Beneath the dining room table is a red area rug that, I concede, wears the scars of Hippocrates’s upchucks insufficiently cleaned. Against the far wall sits the beige couch. Next to it, there’s a green recliner that the Witch and Bullseye gave me when they outgrew their ’70s furniture. It doubles as a shelf for magazines and various remote controls. Above the chair, unframed, I’ve tacked two posters: a picture of Denver Bronco quarterback John Elway hoisting a trophy, and the print of a painting by Edgar Degas. It is called “Cup of Hot Chocolate After Bathing.” I’m an intellectual: I love cocoa after a hot shower.
A doorway on the wall to my left opens into a small hallway leading to bathroom and bedroom large enough for a bed and a TV.
Fueled by espresso and bearing a bowl of instant cinnamon/apple-flavored oatmeal, I return to the table. Into the password spot, I type, “Galapag0s,” substituting a zero for an o, in keeping with some password protocols that call for at least one character to be a number.
On the screen it reads: “Password accepted.”
I pause, a spoonful of oatmeal frozen in my mouth, and barely have time to marvel at my success before a letter materializes.
Dear Mr. Idle,
Please forgive the cryptic nature of this missive. I’d be much obliged if we could meet face-to-face. I’d propose Thursday, Oct. 30, at 3 p.m. at the playground at Hayes and Buchanan. I’ll recognize you. I’d rather not elaborate on the subject matter here other than to say: please keep your grandmother safe.
No police. In this instance, they may not like my kind any more than they like yours.
It goes without saying that email and phones can be easily traced.
- lp
I read it a second time, then a third.
My first observation has less to do with substance than style. The writer has a strong command of language, his or her syntax proper, devoid of slang. The sender’s initials are “lp,” which on its face means nothing to me.
Then I focus on the substance.
Keep your grandmother safe.
“From whom?” I ask aloud. “Or what?”
I have to wonder: Does this confirm that the park shooting was not random? And does it suggest the target was not me, but Grandma Lane? Or is she paying somehow for my sins—a proxy for the venom I apparently invited in the park? How and why could that possibly be? The woman is as harmless as a declawed kitten.
Isn’t she?
She’d said something about having once done “bad things.”
More questions: Why would someone go to such lengths to set up a meeting? Why password protect it, why this password, and how could anyone have been sure I’d guess it?
It is Thursday already. I glance at the computer’s clock, which tells me that it is 6:57 a.m. Half a day away from the appointed meeting time. Do answers come then?
I look back at the message and notice something about it that I missed. There is a digital paper clip at the bottom of the file. I move my cursor over it, and I click twice. Onto the screen pops a message asking me if I’m sure that I would like to download this file onto my