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  “That was never proven.”

  She waved that off. “Whatever. It made your reputation in this industry. From what I hear, you were running the biggest project in MantaSoft. You should have been the hottest hire on the market.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  “And here it is six months later and you haven’t got a job.”

  “I haven’t looked.”

  “Then why isn’t your phone ringing off the hook? Why aren’t people climbing over each other to hire you? To get you back into the game?”

  I had never thought of that. I said, “I don’t know.”

  Margaret continued. “So you never heard the rumors about your breakdown. How you stormed into Nate’s office, called him a thief, demanded more money, and had to be escorted out?”

  “What?”

  “It’s called a whisper campaign. Someone makes a few calls, drops a few rumors. In a small industry like this it can be done in a day. Perhaps you should give some thought to where it started before you go running back to Nate.”

  “But what about—”

  Margaret looked at her Rolex and said, “I have a meeting, dear. Let’s talk again tomorrow.”

  She slipped through the curtains and was gone, and I was left back at my original question.

  Why did Nate fire me?

  I looked at my watch and pulled Dana’s note from my pocket. Help! It seemed that I had a real, live damsel-in-distress, and I wasn’t going to waste the chance to be a hero.

  twelve

  Like all great American cities, Boston is littered with Starbucks. They sit proudly on corners, squat mischievously under hotels, and tuck themselves into unused nooks and crannies across the landscape. Dana was smart to have specified the Newbury Street Starbucks. That narrowed the choice to two.

  I assumed that Dana meant the Starbucks closest to the convention center, so I wandered down Hereford Street and took a left at Newbury. It was a beautiful day. Small knots of college girls ricocheted around the street, pointing, laughing, and ducking into stores. A guy played a drum solo on a set of overturned buckets. A big black guy in a red shirt and a baseball cap worked the sidewalk, greeting people in a loud happy voice and counting a wad of bills. I couldn’t tell if he was a high-end panhandler, a drug dealer, or a parking valet.

  I peeked through the big Starbucks windows to get a look at Dana before our meeting. She was sitting at one of the tables, sipping from a large green drink and staring at her laptop. She was wearing a T-shirt and jeans and no makeup. A strand of blond hair had come loose from her ponytail. She kept blowing at it as she stared. Her body exuded a lean athleticism and her eyes spoke of intelligence. She didn’t wear a ring.

  It wasn’t clear what Maggie, now Margaret, wanted with me last night. But it was clear that she had awakened a part of me that had gone dormant when I lost Carol. I had been living in an odd, faded world where women had stopped registering on my senses. When I went running on the Charles, I’d notice the fractal nature of trees, the reflected spire of the Museum of Science, and the rigging on the sailboats. It just occurred to me now that I hadn’t noticed the women. They must have been there.

  Yesterday, Margaret Bronte had sat near me in the Thinking Cup on Tremont Street and asked for my help with her computer. I had said, sure, I’d take a look. I found a machine that was riddled with viruses, saddled with a bloated registry, and running more malware than software. I told her that I’d have to re-image her hard drive to fix it, and somehow this turned into her coming over my house and me cooking her dinner. The tequila was her idea. Come to think of it, so was the sex.

  Regardless of Margaret’s motives, she had accomplished one thing. She reminded me that women existed, and that they were good. I was reminded of it again as I looked through the Starbucks window and saw a sexy blond nerd blowing at a strand of hair. I needed a plan.

  I’m not a fan of Starbucks coffee. It’s too burned. But I am a fan of ice cream. A J.P. Licks ice cream store stood next to the Starbucks, so I ducked inside and bought two chocolate ice cream cones. I asked for small, so they were only the size of baseballs. I took the cones and walked into the Starbucks. Dana looked up and cocked her head when she saw the ice cream.

  “I hope you like chocolate,” I said, licking one of the cones.

  Dana smiled and sat back in her chair. I tried to keep my eyes on hers and off the T-shirt that stretched across her chest. I failed. The shirt had the phrase “Math Is Hard” printed across Dana’s breasts. If Dana saw my wandering eyes, she ignored them.

  “I do like chocolate. How did you know?”

  “You seemed like a chocolate kind of person.” I handed her the unlicked cone. “Plus, you said you needed help. I think chocolate ice cream helps most things.”

  “Thank you,” said Dana, catching a melted drop of ice cream on her tongue. She cleaned up the cone and looked at her enormous laptop. It covered the table. Several windows were open, all of them filled with computer code. “I really do need your help.”

  “So why the note? Why not just ask?”

  “I didn’t think Roland would like it. He can be sensitive.”

  “And moronic.” I pulled up a chair and sat. “I’m here to serve. What’s up?”

  “Did you write this source code?” She pointed at the laptop.

  “Maybe. Let me take a look.” I glanced at the code. Despite its complexity, or perhaps because of it, I immediately knew that it was mine.

  Other programmers have trouble when they try to use my code. They don’t see the world the same way as me. Code that looks clear to me looks like rubbish to them. I understood why Dana jumped on the chance to have me help her.

  Computers are simpletons. You tell them what they do, and they do it. The problem is that they can’t figure anything out on their own. You have to tell them what to do in all situations by writing source code, text files full of instructions. For example, if I were teaching a baseball computer to play shortstop, I’d say, “If you get a ground ball, and nobody is on base, throw the ball to first.” Simple.

  Now, what if there is a runner on base? This is where the complexity comes in. You need to handle every possible situation as efficiently as possible. In the case of baseball, when you combine all the ways runners could be on base with the possible number of outs, you get twenty-four combinations. If you don’t want to write separate code for all twenty-four cases, you need to figure out an algorithm for what you want the computer to do. You use that algorithm to create other algorithms. Soon the complexity is beyond what average programmers can understand.

  Great computer programmers are literally ten times more productive than average ones because they can keep all this in their heads. I am a great programmer, thanks to genetics or too many video games. If Dana were average, she’d be in trouble trying to change my software code.

  I got up and looked over Dana’s shoulder while she explained what she had done to my handiwork. She started by showing me how she had modified the code. She smelled faintly of vanilla. I think it was her shampoo.

  I stood behind Dana and put my hand on the back of her chair. I could feel the warmth from her body on my thumb. She was talking about the work she had done, throwing around words like objects and methods. Her commentary formed a pleasant background noise as I looked at the line of her neck and finished eating my ice cream cone.

  Then she said something that caught my attention.

  “What did you just say?” I asked.

  “The bug happens here when they try to use this function,” said Dana, pointing to a piece of code.

  “Well, that’s a simple problem. Nobody should be using that function.”

  “Why not?”

  “I didn’t write it that way. That was just for me to use. Nobody else should even know about it. It’s based on something I wrote in college.”

  Dana
turned and smiled at me. “Do you mean like the Nappy Time virus?”

  “Exactly like the Nappy Time virus, only more powerful.”

  The smile fled. Dana said, “What?”

  “Your cone’s about to drip on you.”

  Dana looked at her ice cream, said, “Damn,” and licked the thing into submission. When she got it cleaned up, she walked over to the trash and threw it away.

  I asked, “Why did you do that?”

  “I need to keep my figure.”

  I thought she was keeping her figure just fine, but I’d learned from experience that mentioning a woman’s figure always ended in pain. So I just nodded.

  Dana sat in front of her computer. She said, “We were talking about the Nappy Time virus. Is that what this code is?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But more powerful. It’s much faster.”

  “You put virus code into Rosetta?” Dana looked alarmed. It was an odd reaction and I became suspicious. This shouldn’t have been a surprise to her.

  I said, “Do you know what Rosetta does?”

  “Of course I know. It decrypts files so employees can’t hide information.”

  “Sure. It does that, but do you know how?” Dana looked at her laptop and poked at the keys randomly. I continued, “Well, do you?”

  “I don’t know cryptography, if that’s what you mean.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean.” I felt bad. She looked miserable. I leaned in close so nobody could overhear. Her vanilla scent distracted me. I composed myself and said, “Rosetta takes over all the machines in a company’s network to do the decryption. While people are home, their computers are still working.”

  She said, “OK, but what’s that got to do with the virus?”

  “It uses the virus code to take over the machines. That way the IT geeks don’t need to run around installing software.” I leaned in closer and whispered in Dana’s ear, “It’s the secret to Rosetta.”

  Dana sat back and rubbed her ear. “That tickles,” she said.

  “Sorry.”

  “Well, even if nobody was supposed to use your routine, we’re using it now. That’s why Roland wants it fixed.”

  “I’ll say it again. Roland’s an idiot. I knew he’d screw up this project.”

  “What do you think I should do?”

  “I don’t think you can do what needs to be done.”

  Dana bristled. “Are you saying I’m not a good programmer?”

  It was pretty obvious that Dana wasn’t a good programmer. But I wasn’t going to say that. Instead, I said, “Someone needs to tell Roland to fuck himself. I’m not certain you can do that and keep your job.” I sat down opposite Dana.

  Dana laughed. “No. You’re right.”

  “So you need to make it work.”

  “Yup.”

  “I’m not certain it can work. It’ll take me a day to think about it. Then I’d need to explain it to you.” I looked into Dana’s eyes and trailed my fingers along the top of her laptop. “How about dinner tomorrow?”

  “You mean you’ll have the answer by dinner tomorrow?”

  “I mean I’d like to take you out to dinner tomorrow.”

  “You mean like a date or meeting?”

  I said, “It’s a meeting that turns itself into a date. Kind of like a Transformer.”

  Dana thought for a moment and pursed her lips. Then she said, “No.”

  I said, “No?”

  “No. Really, no.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve heard you like older women.”

  Dana Parker was definitely not the sweet kid that I took her for. In fact, I didn’t think I liked her very much anymore. How did she know about me at all, let alone hear that I’d had been with Maggie? There’s only one pers—Son of a bitch!

  I asked, “Do you know Agent Kevin Murphy over at the FBI?”

  “I do. He visited today because of Alice. We talked about the project, and your name came up.”

  I was going to kill him.

  thirteen

  “This is a clear violation of Man Law!” I shouted into my cell phone as I walked down Newbury Street. Next to me a street drummer tattooed a rhythm for the shoppers.

  “What?” asked Kevin. “I can’t hear you.”

  “That’s because there’s some asshole banging on a bucket. Hold on.” I ran across Newbury Street to get away from the noise. “You told Dana Parker I liked older women? I don’t appreci—”

  Kevin interrupted. “Wait. Dana Parker? Why are you talking to Dana Parker? You said you were going home.”

  “I was talking to Dana Parker because she wanted help with my code, and I was asking her out because she’s cute, and she turned me down because you told her I was into older women.”

  “How did you wind up helping her with her code?”

  “Roland Baker was yelling at her in the convention center and I went over to give him shit. Don’t change the subject. I would have thought that you’d approve of Dana. She’s my age and everything.” I had stopped stalking around and was standing on Gloucester Street in front of a cigar bar.

  “Roland Baker? You’re talking to Roland Baker? How did you wind up talking to Roland? I wanted you to talk to Nate.”

  “I did talk to Nate. He asked me to look into Bronte, so I went over to the trade show to check out their booth. And you haven’t apologized for talking behind my back.”

  Kevin said, “Look, I’m sorry. It’s a long …” he paused and said, “You went over to the Bronte booth? The Bronte people didn’t see you, did they?”

  “Just Maggie. I mean Margaret.”

  “Oh my Christ! You were talking to Margaret Bronte herself ?”

  “Actually I slept with Margaret Bronte herself. It turns out that Maggie’s last name is Bronte. She was pissed to see me at her booth.”

  “It just keeps getting worse. This is bad, Tucker. It’s really bad.”

  I stared at the giant cigar hanging in front of the bar. “What are you talking about?”

  “This is why I was texting you. This thing is deeper than you getting fired. I think these people killed Carol. Didn’t you get my text?”

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  “Then why didn’t you call me?”

  Because Jeanette had great legs? No, the real reason was that I was having a tantrum. This whole deal with Nate, Roland, and MantaSoft had knocked me off balance. My emotions were getting churned into my gray matter, and that wasn’t a good for logical problem solving.

  I took a deep breath and blew it out.

  Kevin said, “Tucker. Can you hear me?”

  I said, “Yeah.”

  “We’ve got to get together and talk.”

  I was feeling calmer. I said, “I’ll swing by your office.”

  “No. You shouldn’t be seen around my office anymore.”

  “Fine, where do you want to meet?”

  “Halfway to Hell. See you there.”

  Halfway to Hell. Great. I folded my phone and started walking.

  fourteen

  Smoots are a unit of measure. They are defined by the height of one Oliver Smoot, who went to MIT and was essentially dragged across the Harvard Bridge by upperclassmen who used him as a ruler. The Harvard Bridge crosses the Charles River and carries Mass Ave into Cambridge. Harvard lobbied to have the bridge named after Harvard because of Harvard’s long legacy in education. MIT lobbied to have the bridge named after Harvard because the bridge was structurally unsound. It collapsed shortly afterward.

  The bridge is 364.4 smoots long, plus or minus an ear. I was 100 smoots across and making good time. Adrenaline and anger are nature’s steroids. Where did Kevin get the balls to tell me that I had fucked up? How could I have fucked up? I just took a job with Nate. On top of that, he burned me with Dana. I was seriou
sly considering tossing him into the river. Given how well they’ve cleaned it up, I didn’t even think he’d dissolve.

  The bridge carried a four-lane road and two large sidewalks. The Smoot marks are on the upriver sidewalk. I reached the spot, at Smoot 182.2, labeled “Halfway to Hell,” leaned against the railing, and looked downstream toward the Museum of Science. Kevin was nowhere to be seen. Tweeted:

  A prompt man is a lonely man.

  Ten minutes passed. The sun was warm, and the Charles shimmered as sailboats cut across it. A blond girl in a tight black top and small black shorts ran toward Boston. I glanced at her face. It glowed with exercise and health. Wisps of hair were plastered to her cheeks. I was glad to be noticing women again. She passed me and I watched her butt as she ran down the sidewalk.

  Dana’s voice echoed in my head. “Heard you like older women.” What was that supposed to mean? If Maggie—Margaret—wanted to seduce me, what was wrong with that? It was consensual, fun, and, it turns out, healing. I hadn’t had sex in over a year: six months since Carol had died, and at least six before that. I was a faithful husband, even as my marriage spiraled down into a long bout of cold shoulders on hot summer nights.

  I don’t know when Carol and I stopped having sex. For a while, it seemed we didn’t have the time. Then it seemed she didn’t have the energy. Finally, it seemed that every time we felt close, one of us would say something cruel and drive the other away.

  It’s not that I stopped trying. Carol was beautiful and, even when we were fighting, I wanted her. But something had snapped in our relationship, and sex wasn’t an option. It got to the point where she wouldn’t let me touch her.

  Despite our problems, we never had separate bedrooms. This led to a long string of nights where I’d lay in bed and watch her undress. Her blouse would fly into the laundry bag, and her bra into the hamper. She’d take off her pants and walk over to her dresser wearing nothing but panties. She’d pick out a little cotton top, put it on, and come to bed. Then she’d prop a pillow between us, turn her back on me, and start snoring.