The Buck Stops Here Page 19
I set off on foot toward the hotel, weighed down with my laptop case in one hand and my briefcase in the other. I had walked less than a block when suddenly, out of nowhere, a teenager darted toward me and ripped both cases right out of my hands. The force knocked me to the ground, and I landed on my hip with a thud.
“Stop!” I yelled as the kid ran away.
Another man was just getting out of his car right in front of Family HEARTS, and in an instant he seemed to understand what was going on. He started to come to my aid, but I pointed toward the thief, who was just rounding the corner.
“He robbed me!” I said.
The man took off after the fellow, and as soon as I could get to my feet, I kicked off my shoes and ran after both of them. Within two blocks I caught sight of them. I watched, amazed, as my hero reached for a slim pole that was holding up the outside awning of a grocery store. He ripped it out of place and, clutching the end of the pole, swung it forward and somehow swept it across the kid’s legs, knocking him down onto the ground. Then he dove for him, tackling him before he could get up. He pinned the young man to the sidewalk, one hand on each arm, and threatened to call the cops.
“No, please,” the kid was whimpering by the time I reached them. “You gotta let me go. I’m out on parole. This’ll put me back inside for sure.”
Looking into the thief’s face, I realized that he had the hardened gaze of a criminal, even though he couldn’t have been more than 18. The man holding him to the ground looked to be about my age, with broad shoulders and thick, callused hands. I couldn’t see his face, but from the way he moved, I could tell he was quite strong.
“You gonna steal from nice ladies again, punk?”
“No, I promise!” the thief cried. “Please let me go.”
I was digging in my purse for my cell phone to call the police when, much to my surprise, the man on top simply rolled back on his heels, letting go.
“Thanks, dude,” the thief said. Then he stood up and quickly trotted away, leaving my cases on the sidewalk.
I put away the cell phone and picked them up, stunned. I wanted to yell at this guy for letting the fellow go, but if it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t have my things back. With the thief gone and unavailable for questioning, however, I would never know if I had just been the victim of a simple mugging or if he had been hired to rob me specifically.
“Hey now! Hey now!” someone yelled from up the street before the man and I even had a chance to speak.
We both turned to see a woman outside of the grocery store we had passed, red-faced and angry that her awning pole had been ripped from its mounting.
“Oh, I’m in trouble now, me,” my helper said to me, his accent odd.
“I’ll handle it,” I told him.
Together we walked back to the grocery, and I explained what had happened while my rescuer put the pole back in place.
“See?” he said when he was finished. “Good as new. No harm done.”
Grudgingly, the shop owner examined his handiwork and then let us go.
We began walking back the way we had come. I thanked the man profusely for his help, asking him where on earth he had learned a maneuver like that.
“From polin’ gators,” he said, grinning widely. “Not much different, when you get down to it, no.”
I looked him in the face to see gorgeous deep blue eyes framed in black lashes. His skin was weathered from the sun, but his teeth were white and straight, his jaw chiseled, his shoulders broad.
“Excuse me?” I asked, returning his smile.
“Polin’ gators,” he repeated, and then he went on to describe the process of how a man could catch an alligator using two long poles, one with an iron hook on the end. The whole scene felt incongruous to me, but his story was so interesting and his accent so engaging that I let him continue, mentally assessing my physical condition all the while. My hip and elbow were both sore, but otherwise I was okay.
As the man continued his tale of hummocks and claw prints and alligator dens, we walked back to the spot where I had been mugged. My shoes were still there, but now a woman—who looked like a bag lady—was holding them in her hands, examining them closely.
“Oh, cher,” my friend called to the woman, “them sure look like fine shoes. Would you take five dollar for ’em, yeah?”
The woman eyed us suspiciously, one hand on a battered shopping cart that was filled with crushed aluminum cans.
“Ten dollars and you can have them,” she finally rasped.
“Well,” the man said to me, nodding. “Pay the lady then.”
I started to protest but thought better of it. Instead, I retrieved my wallet and pulled out a ten-dollar bill.
“Nice doing business with you,” she said, taking the money and handing me the shoes. She looked down at my bare feet, let out a grunt, and then turned and wheeled her cart away.
“Are you okay?” the man finally thought to ask me. “You look a little shaken.”
I ran my fingers through my hair and exhaled slowly.
“I think I’m fine,” I said. “Though I just got robbed twice.”
“Twice?”
“Yeah, once by that guy, and again just now, when I had to pay ten dollars for my own shoes.”
He laughed, the sound deep and guttural.
“Now, who you think need that ten dollar more—her or you?”
I shrugged.
“Her, I guess.”
“Okay then,” he replied. “Maybe she eat a good lunch today ’cause of your generosity.”
When he put it that way, I felt a bit guilty for begrudging her the money. Smiling, I reached down and slipped the shoes onto my feet.
“Speaking of lunch,” he said, reaching up to smooth the collar of his blue denim work shirt. “Would you be interested in getting a bite to eat? I promise to protec’ you from any and all muggers between here and the nearest restaurant. I’ll be a regular Cajun protection service.”
“Cajun? Is that what your accent is?”
“Yeah, cher. Descended from the Acadians, born and raised in a swamp, I am one hundred percent pure dee Cajun. So how ’bout lunch?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, smoothing out my skirt. “I appreciated your help enormously, but I don’t even know you.”
“Well, then, let me rectify that.” He reached up and tipped an imaginary hat. “How do you do? My name’s Armand Velette.”
Once I recovered from my surprise, I told him my name and accepted his offer to go to lunch, all the while trying to keep my thoughts and emotions from showing on my face. This was Armand Velette, former member of the Cipher Five, and one of the people I had come here to meet and get to know! Though I could have done with a less violent introduction, I knew our meeting this way couldn’t have been more fortuitous.
“I probably should clean up a bit first,” I said.
He suggested we go inside Family HEARTS so that I could use their restroom.
“I was jus’ coming here myself,” he said. “I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.”
I told him I had just come out of Family HEARTS when I got mugged.
“Well, then, you’ll have to tell me your connection over lunch,” he replied, holding the door open for me. “I been here a lot lately, helping ’em get ready for Friday night’s auction.”
We went inside and I made a beeline for the bathroom. As I dabbed at a big dirt stain on my skirt with a damp paper towel, I listened to the conversation going on in the next room. It sounded as though he was a real charmer with the ladies, and you could tell they were familiar with him, because I could hear loud giggles and even a squeal.
I finally gave up on the stain, tossed the paper towel in the trash, and turned my attention to my computer and briefcase. After making sure they were locked up tight, I came out of the bathroom and interrupted the flirt-fest to ask one of the volunteers if there was somewhere I could store both items. She suggested Veronica’s empty office, so I put the cases in there, trusting t
hat they would remain undisturbed until I returned.
“You ready to go, cher?” Armand asked when I came back out.
He opened and held the front door for me as we went, and as he did, I was startled again by his rugged good looks. I realized that I had now met all five members of the Cipher Five: Tom, James Sparks, Beth Sparks, Phillip Wilson, and Armand Velette. Somewhere among the five of them were many of the answers I sought about my husband’s death.
Thirty
Lunch was a very casual affair, a cup of gumbo eaten with a plastic spoon as we strolled through an area called the French Market. Armand was quite funny, and he had a way of saying things just under his breath that made me burst out laughing even as the people around us had no idea what was so funny. Though I was having trouble steering the conversation into any useful direction, we were at least getting along well.
At the far end of the French Market, the roads on either side converged in a “Y,” creating a point. In the middle of the point was a statue of a woman on a horse. I read the sign that said it was a monument to Joan of Arc.
“There’s ‘Joni on a pony,’” Armand said, making me laugh again. “You get a good look at the river yet, cher?”
I said that no, I hadn’t, and he proceeded to walk me up over a levee to a strolling platform built along the Mississippi River. My first sight of the mighty Mississippi was a surprise, and I suddenly understood why the family had laughed at me over lunch the day before. This river was huge, a swirling brown mass of water filled with tankers and tugs and even a few paddle wheel boats. About a half mile away, a pair of beautiful bridges spanned the river to the far shore.
We sat on a bench in the warm May sunshine and simply enjoyed the view. I was eager to steer our easy chatter to more weighty matters, but then Armand beat me to the punch by asking me what my connection was to Family HEARTS. I had expected him to ask and had been framing my reply during our walk. Now it flowed easily off my tongue, that I was doing a program audit for an independent foundation, which was the truth.
“How about you?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m helping out with their big fundraiser this Friday night. I was just double-checking on some of the details while I was in town.”
“You don’t live here in New Orleans?”
“Oh, no, cher,” he said. “I got me a little house down in the bayou. You ever been in a swamp?”
“No, but it must be fascinating.”
“You ought to come down,” he said. “I’ll give you the Armand Velette swamp tour extraordinaire.”
“Really?”
“Sure. You ever paddle a canoe, cher?”
“A bit,” I said, stifling a smile.
“Good then. You should be able to handle a pirogue,” he said, pronouncing it pee-row.
“What’s a pirogue?”
“Kinda like a canoe. You free tomorrow? I gotta go out in the swamp to do some measurements and collect some test samples. You could come wit’ me.”
I couldn’t believe my luck. We set the time, and then he borrowed pen and paper to jot down directions and scribble out a map to his home on the bayou, which he said couldn’t always be located via GPS. Though I had missed my midday opportunity to get over to Fat City Parcel Service, at least I had spent that time getting to know another member of the Cipher Five.
It was nearing two o’clock, so I tucked away the information Armand had written out for me and suggested that we head back to Family HEARTS. We parted once we got there, and Armand gestured toward the spot where I had been mugged.
“When you leave here today,” he said, “you take a taxi, okay? I won’t be around to save you next time.”
“Oh, I’ll be all right,” I said. “I can take care of myself.”
He stepped back and tipped his hat again.
“Now don’t destroy a fellow’s illusions,” he said. “There’s nothin’ I love more than thinkin’ I’m indispensable to a pretty lady.”
Thirty-One
Back inside the Family HEARTS building, I nearly walked into two volunteers who were on their way out. They were the women who had been so giggly with Armand, and as soon as I stepped through the door, they started in on me.
“Did you enjoy lunch with the Bayou Babe?” one of them asked.
“We’re all in love with Armand!” the other one added, rolling her eyes.
I assured them that it was just a friendly meal, that I had other commitments and wasn’t looking to start something up here.
“That’s a shame,” the first one said. “Because the way he was looking at you, I’m sure he had a different idea.”
They said their goodbyes and departed, leaving me to wonder if that was true, if I had somehow led the fellow on. I thought the swamp tour was just a friendly gesture, but if he thought of it as some kind of date, I would need to set him straight right up front.
For now, it was time for my meeting with Beth. I wandered back through the building until I found her in the computer room. Otherwise, the place seemed empty.
We chatted for a few minutes, but she seemed eager to get down to business, so I pulled up a chair and told her I was in her capable hands. She wanted to give me a demonstration of the Family HEARTS computer network, which began with a closer look at their website. It was very impressive, especially the message boards and Listserv archives.
“This is people connecting to people,” she said. “Right here, the heart of our program.”
We scanned some posts on the various loops, and I could see that it was one long ongoing conversation where people asked questions, shared problems, and offered solutions. Much of it was a mix of simple commiseration and encouragement.
“They know they’re not alone,” I said softly, reading one of the notes.
“Which is the point,” Beth replied. “In my own situation, for example, JDMS is so rare that the closest kid I know who has it lives in Mississippi. But with the internet, we can all be right here for each other all the time. It makes a difference, let me tell you.”
She showed me how the network was structured, getting more technical than I would have liked, but I let her keep talking, her excitement building as she went. This was a woman who loved computers. I made notes about all that she showed me, glad that this was yet another area of the Family HEARTS program that seemed well run and effective.
“So what’s your computer background?” I asked finally, putting my notes to one side and hoping to move into the areas of my personal investigation. “Have you always done this sort of thing?”
“Sort of. My training is primarily as a user-interface specialist.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s where you take stuff from techies and make it accessible to normal human beings.”
“Techies aren’t normal?”
“Not the ones I’ve met!” she said, giggling. “You know what I mean. Their heads are off in the clouds somewhere. I used to take the programs they created and add a user-friendly front end.”
“Wow. Did you create any software I would recognize?”
She shrugged.
“Probably not. It was all pretty technical stuff.” She rattled off a few software names, none of which I had heard of.
“My brother and I actually worked together on a program for a while, but it was never released. Not officially, at least.”
Ah. That was where I wanted to go.
“Is that what Phillip was talking about yesterday at lunch? I thought he said there were five of you working together.”
“There were. Tom, me, my husband—well, ex-husband now—Phillip, and Armand, the guy you were just out with. But that was a long time ago, back when the internet was just taking off. We were a bunch of kids, actually, kids who thought they were smarter than they were.”
“What do you mean?”
She exhaled slowly, typing some commands into the computer as she spoke.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter now,” she said finally. “That was eons ago.”
“Tom has told me a little bit about that time in his life,” I said finally. “I know about his skills with cryptography, and I know about the FBI investigation. I’ve just never heard the full story of how everything happened. You know, with your husband and all.”
Beth looked at me skeptically.
“Tom talked about this stuff with you?”
“He trusts me,” I said. “I ran into an article about him that mentioned the FBI investigation, so he had to give me an explanation.”
I didn’t add that I “ran into” that article while digging furiously for information about him! She seemed to digest what I had said.
“I’d love to hear the story from your perspective,” I added.
That seemed to be enough of a request to get her started. She turned in her seat, taking her hands from the keyboard and resting them in her lap.
“You have to understand that Tom is a cryptologic mathematician,” she said softly, echoing what Paul Tyson had told me on the phone. “In the late nineties, he came up with a brilliant theory of secure computer encryption. He didn’t have much money back then, but he took out a business loan and hired the rest of us to take his ideas and implement them into software. His ideas worked, and the program we came up with was great. The problems were in the implications of that program.”
I shifted in my seat, forcing my body language to remain casual.
“How so?”