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We met in the parking lot about half an hour early. When I joined him in his car, he was intently listening to a radio scanner. I didn’t have to ask what he was listening to: the scanner was programmed to pick up all of the frequencies used by the FBI, Secret Service, and U.S. Marshals. And more besides, because when the Feds were dealing with somebody they thought might be wise about technology, they often got tricky and decided to use the frequency of some other agency, like the Bureau of Prisons, or the Drug Enforcement Agency, or even the Postal Inspection Service, among others. So Lewis had those frequencies programmed as well.

The scanner wouldn’t pick up distant signals, only those strong enough to be coming from someplace close. In that era, almost all Federal law enforcement agencies were already sophisticated enough to encrypt their traffic. But we wouldn’t need to know what they were saying, just whether they were saying it nearby. If the law enforcement frequencies started buzzing, we’d get the hell out of there in a hurry.

For now, all was quiet, but just in case, Lewis slipped a couple of interesting electronic devices into his pocket as we got out of the car.

We had agreed on this restaurant because the location was convenient. The Hamburger Hamlet turned out to have a passé decor of mirrors, brass, and tile, which had the side effect of turning conversations in the supercrowded place into a noisy buzz. Perfect, since we wanted to be sure we wouldn’t be overheard by anyone at a neighboring table.

Eric had told us to look for a guy with shoulder-length blond hair and a laptop. Even among all the Hollywood types chomping into thick burgers, we had no trouble spotting him. Thin, wearing a silk shirt left open to show his chest, he looked like a rock musician—or maybe more like a guy decked out to get the standard reaction of “I know that face, but I can’t remember which band he’s with.”

We said hello, introduced ourselves, sat down, and let him know clearly, right up front, that we had no reason to think we could trust him. Lewis and I had each brought along a RadioShack Pro-43 handheld scanner, and we put them on the table in plain sight. Lewis had also brought an Optoelectronics RF Detector—a device designed to detect signals transmitted from a body mike—which he openly waved around over Eric’s body. It picked up nothing.

The whole time we were there, Eric seemed to be intensely preoccupied with scouting the horizon for female companionship, while he told nonstop stories about the fullness of his dating calendar and the details of his sexual escapades. Lewis seemed inclined to put up with and even encourage this braggart litany, but I never have trusted guys who feel the need to paint themselves to other men as ultimate Romeos. It made me wonder if any of the information Eric might give us about the phone companies—our mission’s sole purpose—could be believed, even if we could draw it out of him.

Still, at one point—at last—he dropped a tidbit into the conversation that truly got my attention. He claimed he had a master key that gave him access to every phone company central office, left over from the days when he and Kevin Poulsen were making nighttime visits to COs all over Los Angeles.

I was mostly just listening. Because I wasn’t supposed to have any interaction with other hackers, I had told Lewis to do most of the talking for us. Eric bragged about having been a sound engineer on the road, but he didn’t name any of the bands he’d worked for, which I guessed meant they were ones nobody had ever heard of. Then he tried to impress us with things he had that he was sure we didn’t: besides the master keys or door codes for all the central offices, he claimed he also had a master key for all the “B-boxes”—the phone company boxes scattered along the streets of every city, which field techs go to when they need to wire up phone lines to houses and businesses. It sounded as if he was hoping to tempt us, trying to get us to plead with him, “Could we come