• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

As he left the car to go into a jazz club on Sunset Boulevard, I thought to myself that this guy seemed to possess a keen intellect and a quick wit. Despite my suspicions, I still believed Lewis and I might be able to trade information with him at some point down the road.

SIXTEEN

Crashing Eric’s Private Party

Kwth qzrva rbq lcq rxw Svtg vxcz zm vzs lbfieerl

nsem rmh dg ac oef’l cwamu?

Ever since the dinner Lewis and I had with Eric, I’d been thinking about that key he claimed to have that would let him into any Pacific Bell central office. I decided to ask him if I could borrow the key. I wasn’t going to tell him what I wanted it for, but my plan was to get into the Calabasas central office, gain access to the COSMOS computer, and try to find out when the wiretaps had been installed on my father’s lines. And whether there was a notation in COSMOS not to give out any information, or to call Security, if anyone inquired about the lines.

Once we were inside the CO, I’d be able to see what boxes were connected to my dad’s lines and verify the numbers the wiretappers were using to dial in to them. When I had those numbers, I could look them up in COSMOS and find the date the numbers were activated, which would tell me when the wiretaps went in.

About 10:00 one night in February, Lewis and I drove over to Eric’s apartment building at the address I had gotten from Pacific Bell after I obtained Eric’s number using the caller ID ploy. The building was impressive, a pretty upscale and buttoned-down apartment complex for a guy like him—a spread-out, two-story stucco building with a locked entrance and a remote-controlled garage gate. We waited until someone drove out of the garage, and walked in. I could have described the place before seeing it. Carpeted lobby, tennis courts, swimming pool with Jacuzzi, palm trees, recreation room with a large TV.

What was this hacker from the nightclub crowd doing at a complex intended for corporate stiffs, people being put up at company expense while in LA on short-term assignments?

Apartment 107B was partway down a long hall. Lewis and I took turns pressing our ears to the door hoping voices from inside might give us some clues about who was in there. But we couldn’t hear anything.

We found our way to the recreational center and rang Eric’s apartment from the pay phone. I smiled as Lewis dialed his number, amused because any good hacker would know the pay phone numbers in his own apartment complex. If he was as good as he claimed, Eric would have added caller ID on his line and would recognize that Lewis and I were calling from his building.

Poor guy. He was angry that I had found out his phone number and way angrier that we were calling from only a few yards away. We told him we wanted to talk. He said, “I never have hackers up.” He finally told us to give him five minutes and then he would come down and meet us in the rec room.

I was struck once more by how much he looked like a rock musician, with his lanky build and blond shoulder-length hair, his boots and jeans, his dress shirt. He stared at us in disbelief. “You need to respect my privacy,” he hissed. “How did you find me?” He sounded nervous, as if he thought we might have come with guns.

My answer was a taunt. “I’m very good at what I do.” I said it with a big in-your-face grin.

He kept returning to his theme of the day about our not respecting his privacy.

I said, “We didn’t come to violate your privacy, we came to get your help. We think a friend’s lines are being wiretapped by Pacific Bell. You said you had keys to the central offices. I’d like your help finding out.”

The “friend,” of course, was me, and there wasn’t any “think” about it.

“Which CO?” he asked.

I didn’t want to give him details. “It’s a satellite ESS office,” I said, identifying it by the type of switch. “Unmanned at night.”

“The key isn’t here now,” he said. “I don’t want to get busted with it.”

“Can you let me borrow it?”

No, he didn’t feel comfortable with