The Undertaker

I leaned back in the seat and relaxed. After all the stressful things that had happened to me that day, we weren't on the road for five more minutes before I fell asleep in the corner, slumped against the door. As I faded into that floating world of half-sleep and half-dreams, I saw Terri's face hanging in front of me, all hazy and ephemeral. I wanted to reach out and touch her, but my arms wouldn't quite reach that far. Finally, I dropped into a deep, black well of sleep and I felt her wrap herself around me like a thin, protective haze. Terri. It was strangely comforting to know she was there with me like that. I only wished she would learn how to talk. It would make figuring her out a whole lot easier.

I felt the truck stop and awoke with a start. We were in another big parking lot with dozens of other trucks. “Where are we?” I asked.

“A truck stop near Portage, maybe a half hour south of the turnoff to Chicago. I'm getting’ some coffee. You want some, George?”

I reached in my pocket and handed him one of Dannmeyer's twenty-dollar bills. “Here, my treat. The coffee's all I need, but if you're going, bring us back a box of donuts. And would you mind if I use your computer for a few minutes?” I asked as I pulled the three flash drives from inside my pants pocket.

“No problem. Looks like you know what you're doing with that thing, so as they say, mi casa, es su casa, amigo.”

A computer. I beamed as if I had run into and old, dear friend. The laptop was already booted-up, so I slipped Louie's drive #1 into the USB port. Immediately, “ACCESS DENIED” popped up on the screen. I let my fingers do the walking and tried the obvious things to open the disk's directory. Same result, “ACCESS DENIED.” I tried “Run.” I tried “Setup.” I tried “Browse.” I tried getting in through DOS and all the other little tricks I knew, but nothing worked. Same thing for the other two disks. Each one had a file encryption program in place.

Wanna play games, eh, Louie? I muttered to myself. Not to worry. You can run, but you can't hide, not from me, anyway, because I know just the kind of can opener that will pop these babies open.

The blue icon on the laptop showed that a Wi-Fi system was in range, so I clicked on it and quickly found myself out on line. I went to Google and typed in “Data Encryption Satan.” I had used “Satan” many times before and it would open almost any data lock this side of the CIA or the National Security Agency, some more quickly than others, but it would find all the little back doors and wormholes. To download the program, I needed $299, and I couldn't think of a better use for Louie Panozzo's “George Deevers” MasterCard. In less than a minute, I had Satan downloading to the laptop. I figured the credit card linked to some secret bank account that neither Tinkerton, the FBI, nor the mafia knew anything about it. Even if I was wrong, even if they had an alert out on the card, they would have a hell of a time tracing it to this truck and finding it before I got off in Chicago.

The download was finished when Marty opened the door and handed me four big chocolate covered donuts and a cup of hot coffee. “You all set, sport?” he asked.

“Good to go, “I smiled at him. “If you don't mind, I'm going to keep playing with this thing for a few minutes.”

“That's okay by me. Like I said, it looks like you ain't no stranger to a computer, so knock yourself out.”

He put the big White in gear and drove off as I opened the “Satan” program and turned my attention to the first flash drive. From the program's start-up menu, I clicked the box for “Permanently De-Crypt All Files,” and hit “Enter.” Ten minutes later, the Directory opened in English and all the files were decrypted. I smiled again. Louie must have been using some simple, off-the-shelf encryption program. That would probably be good enough for a New Jersey bean counter who wanted to keep the Gumbahs from snooping, but if Louie had been a real pro, it could have taken hours.

In the directory, I saw a list of thirty Excel spreadsheets. They included names like, “Bayonne Solid Waster Management,” “Atlantic Tire and Recapping,” “Villa Palazzo Restaurant,” “Santucci Chevrolet,” and the “Ramada Inn, Bayside” in the titles. I'll bet. The file dates on the directory were from 2002 through 2006. Below them were seven other directories. I saw, “Financial Statements,” “Payables,” “Receivables,” and “Account Ledgers.” Below that was, “Pay-Offs ’01-06.” In that happy instant, I knew exactly what I had. I was staring at the financial records of the Santorini Mob's business activities, right up to the point the Gumbas got busted. Some of those companies were undoubtedly illegal, but I could see their tentacles would reach out into dozens and dozens of otherwise legitimate ‘front’ businesses where they invested and laundered the money from their drugs, gambling, prostitution, and protection rackets. And “Payoffs.” This was dynamite.