The Monster

We talked a few minutes longer, and then parted. I wasn't angry at Dan—it was clear he'd done what he thought best at the time. But his stories had certainly deepened my sense that my wife was right in the middle of whatever plot had been hatched against me and my company.

***************

My phone conversation with Alan Newman was short and sweet—as soon as he was on the line I got right to the point.

"Mr. Newman, I'm in need of a topnotch security firm to help me with a confidential problem. As highly as Dan speaks of you, I'd rather it not be anyone connected with me or any of my friends. So I'm wondering who else in this area is really good. Who would you yourself hire for what might be a very serious, very confidential matter, one requiring financial and computer expertise?"

Newman thought about it for a minute, and said, "my first call would be to Barry Asimove in San Diego. His firm and mine have worked together on some things. He's incredibly smart, he hires good people and pays them well, and I've always been able to trust him."

At my request, Newman put me on hold, got Asimove on the phone and arranged a meeting for me the next morning at 10am—again without my name being mentioned.

On my way back to the hotel, I called Dan Camorin again. I asked him to rent a car with Hertz, on his credit card, and arrange that "his friend Elliot" would come to pick up the car at the airport the next morning. That way I could have a car without it being traceable to me.

Back at the Beverly Wilshire, I had a quick dinner, went upstairs and had my usual nightly call with Gina, and went to bed. The next morning, after a room-service breakfast, I dressed in some slightly bedraggled-looking sweats, sunglasses, and a San Francisco Giants baseball cap and left the hotel by the side entrance before grabbing a cab down to the Hertz office at LAX. By 9:45 I was in San Diego, parking in the lot next to Asimove's office.

Barry Asimove was a short, fat man in his early 40s. He had a bad combover, and his brown suit didn't fit him very well. In short, he was a thoroughly unimpressive figure. But within ten minutes I realized that he was one of the smartest people I'd met in a long time.

I knew I had to trust someone, and I decided it would be Asimove. I got right to the point.

"Mr. Asimove, I need a security firm who can handle a substantial job for me. It's out of this area, it will call for a lot of high-tech computer work, and it's extremely confidential. I'm prepared to pay very well for what I need, in addition to covering all of your people's expenses. The job might take the next few weeks, and I wouldn't be surprised if your fee ran into seven figures."

He looked at me steadily for a few moments. "What made you decide to come to us, and why do you think we're up to the job?"

"Someone recommended me to Alan Newman, and Newman spoke highly of you."

"Why not just use Newman? He's very good."

"Because I'm trying to cover my tracks. When we get into this, you'll see why I have good reason to be wary. Newman called you for me, but he never learned my name, so it would be pretty hard for anyone to trace me to you. Not impossible, but difficult."

We talked a bit more about preliminaries, and then Asimove said, "let's hear the story. If it sounds like something we can handle, we're in."

I told him all of it: who I was, what Apex did and what it was worth, and the recent attempt on my life. I told him that I suspected Gina and Denham of being involved, and why. And I repeated Dan Camorin's story about Gina's behavior and her possible affair with Josh Daniels, though I never mentioned Camorin's name.

When I was done, Asimove asked me several probing questions—he clearly knew his business. Then he sat back in his chair.

"I know Jeff Denham, at least by reputation. He's supposed to be very sharp—a lot of the Silicon Valley places swear by his work. So if he IS doing something shady, we'll have to be very delicate in how we go after him."

We talked some more, and finally Asimove said, "here's what I recommend. You essentially need two things: somebody has to go over your books and internal documents and memos very carefully, and somebody else has to look into Denham, your wife, and the other top people at Apex. David Carlyss is my best computer guy—I'll put him on the first job. He's got 2-3 financial people who work for him; they can analyze what they find. And I'll get Vera Anderson to put together a surveillance team for the second part of it."

Within 30 minutes, the four of us were sitting in a conference room, eating take-out sandwiches and going over my situation. Asimove mostly stayed out of it, letting Carlyss and Anderson ask the questions. But every now and then he put in his own two cents, and I never failed to be impressed with his savvy. I couldn't help feeling I was in good hands.

By mid-afternoon I was driving back to Los Angeles. To my relief, Asimove had understood why I couldn't immediately give him a large retainer, and he was willing to trust me on the basis of a promissory note prepared by the notary in his office.

Carlyss was going to do all his digging around in Apex via my computer, which was networked to the other important computers at the firm. His method was simplicity itself: he had me memorize the URL of a web site at Asimove's firm. Whenever I was alone in my office for two hours or more, I'd log on to that web address and download and install a piece of software from the site onto my computer. The software would enable Carlyss and his team to upload and copy whatever files they wanted to look at from my computer and those it was networked to.

Whenever I had to leave the office I would close the connection, log off the web site, delete the software from the computer, and cover my tracks in the usual fashion by deleting the browser history and so on. It was not an utterly untraceable method—but only an expert who was already suspicious and carefully searching my computer would be able to see what had been going on.

Carlyss estimated that within 20 hours of searching through the network he'd be able to find and download everything he needed to see whether something was amiss within Apex.

Anderson's part of the job would include the usual surveillance on Gina and the top people at Apex. We'd agreed not to put surveillance on Denham, since as a security guy he would be much more likely to notice the attention no matter how good Asimove's people were. But she'd have people digging into phone and credit-card records, making sure it was done at a safe remove so that Denham would not be aware of it.

I stressed to them at Denham was no fool. "Tailing him or trying to bug his phone, or his home or office, would be a really bad idea. I'm willing to bet he'd be onto us within a day or so."

"Understood," Vera replied. "But I'd like to put audio and video into your house, along with a bug in Gina's purse and a tap on her cell phone."

We worked out that I'd tip them off when the house would be empty—she promised that her team could do its work in no more than three hours. The first thing they would do is sweep the house to make sure that Denham hadn't already put surveillance equipment in himself.

As for Gina's purse and phone, I gave them the address of her tennis club. Vera assured me it would be no problem to pick the lock of her locker, quickly check her bag and phone for bugs, and plant bugs of her own.

My part of the business was simple: to go home and pretend everything was fine. Go on with my normal life at work and at home, while watching my back. Asimove was sure that whoever tried to kill me would wait a bit before considering another attempt. "At the very least they'll have to make damn sure your Lexus is destroyed, so there's no evidence of the first try. And within a few days we should have enough to know what's going on.

"So don't do anything stupid, Alex—no hiking in forests or venturing to unfamiliar places. You might even make an effort not to drive alone. Find excuses to have Gina take you in to work, that sort of thing. But I don't think you'll have anything to worry about right away."

I smiled ironically at him. "Easy enough for you to say, Barry! But I'll be as careful as I can."

Before I left them we worked out a system of communication. All of it would be one-way: from me to Asimove. I'd keep using throw-away cell phones. When I was free to call, I'd dial and ask for "Larry Asimove". The receptionist would be instructed to correct my "mistake", and then put my call through directly to Barry. We agreed I'd try to call at least every other day.

Back at the Beverly Wilshire, I had some dinner, then called Gina to let her know I'd be home a day early. She was lively over the phone, teasing me about how lonely and cold she'd been in our big bed, and I promised to warm her up Thursday night. As I got off the phone I realized how totally crazy it seemed that my wife was conspiring to have me killed.

Before all this started I would have said I had no illusions about Gina. She was beautiful and sexy, adventurous and high-spirited; but she was also self-absorbed and a little bit cold. She was no bleeding-heart who took in stray cats! Her number one interest was Gina, and you didn't have to know her long to be aware of that fact.

Yet I would have said she loved me, in her way. She was not a warm, nurturing kind of wife; but then I wasn't an especially touchy-feely kind of husband. We didn't snuggle by the fire much, or take leisurely walks along beautiful beaches (except on the occasional Caribbean vacation, between making love in the afternoon and heading to dinner and the casino in the evening). We were both ambitious, driven people.

And even though Gina didn't work any more, she energetically pursued the things that interested her: tennis, shopping, time spent with her friends, and sex with me. I would have said that, in her way, Gina loved me. In fact, I would have said that Gina loved me as much as she could love anyone, given her basic nature. And given my own basic nature, that was good enough for me. I liked our life together; I was content.

But, needless to say, all those assumptions were now up for grabs. While it was shocking to think that she might be trying to kill me, the preliminary evidence certainly pointed that way. It was not hard to come up with a motive—it's the money, stupid! And if what Dan Camorin told me was true, she may have been involved with at least two of my associates: Josh Daniels at Apex, and my friend Jeff Denham.

In other words, if all my worst suspicions turned out to be accurate, she was a monster—a cold-blooded, heartless, evil bitch. If she'd really slept with Daniels, tried to seduce Dan Camorin, and was involved in some way with Denham, it strongly suggested that she was the motivating force behind whatever was going on.

Most of the way back to San Jose on the plane I thought about how it all might play out. I was convinced I could be a good enough actor to deceive Gina for the time being. If she'd really been deceiving me, it would be a challenge to see if I could do as well! And if by some miracle it turned out my suspicions were wrong, I'd be more than happy to open my heart again to her love.

But if she HAD been behind the attempt on my life....let's just say I already had some ideas for how I wanted the endgame to go, and a part of me was looking forward to it.

****************

My reunion with Gina on Thursday night was great, in a couple of ways. First of all the sex was terrific. It almost always is when we've been apart; whether it's love for me or pure horniness on Gina's part I don't know, but either way I have no complaints.

She had ordered in some Chinese food because she knows I like it, but she also met me wearing a short robe with nothing on underneath (as I quickly discovered), and I decided I'd rather have some bedroom time before we ate. We had a quick, energetic romp that left us both panting, and then we showered together and headed back downstairs to have some dinner.

The second reason Thursday pleased me is that there was nothing special about it. As you can imagine I was observing Gina very carefully, to see any sign of guilt or worry or watchfulness—and there was nothing at all. She was her usual self, with the usual stories of beating Sharon Combs 6-4 in the third set, how she found just the shoes she wanted but unfortunately in the wrong color, and so on. I was convinced that she had no idea of my suspicions.

When I got to the office on Friday, Jeff Denham had already called to say he was on his way over—no surprise there. Presumably he wanted to report on the audit I'd requested. Moreover, though, I was sure he'd probe to find out why I'd asked for it; he would want to make sure that I didn't have any suspicions about what he was up to.

Jeff came in with a smile on his face, shook my hand and said, "hey man—how was Los Angeles?"

I instantly wondered how he knew about my impromptu trip; had he been talking to Gina? But I wasn't going to make him wary by asking, and in any case he might have called the office and heard about it from Meredith.

"Hey Dowdle," I replied with a matching smile. "LA was fine—Dan Camorin thought he might have a lead for me on a new account, but I'm not sure it's going to pan out. It was nice to see him, though. Are you here to tell me about what your guys found out?"

He settled into a chair across from my desk. "Yeah—it was routine. They actually turned up a couple of accounting errors–just small stuff, I passed them on to Pogrebin downstairs.

"But there was no sign of anything suspicious, no siphoning off of funds or new payees or any evidence of tampering from the outside. What made you ask me to do the audit, Alex?"

I watched Denham, and he seemed to be going out of his way to make his question sound as casual as possible. It was a good thing I'd anticipated it, and was ready with my lie.

"I was pretty sure it was nothing. But I heard from Bert Williamson at 2K2 on Monday. One of his VPs was at a meeting in New York, and a guy there talked about hearing that one of the Silicon valley software firms was under attack. It was all very vague, something about false subsidiaries to which money was being sent.

"It sounded like bullshit, but it had been a while since I asked you to sweep our accounts so I thought 'what the hell'. Sorry I put your guys through it for nothing, but it's always better to know."

He grinned at me, and I thought I saw him relax just a fraction. "No problem, man—that's what you keep us on retainer for."

We chatted for a few more minutes about nothing much, and as soon as he was gone I logged onto Carlyss's URL, downloaded and installed his software, and let his guys begin checking Apex's finances and communications. I wanted to give them as much time as possible, so I asked Meredith to order in lunch, telling her I'd eat at my desk today.

She also brought me the San Jose Mercury News, which I hadn't had time to read that morning, and as I ate my lunch I was brought up short by a story on the Metro page. "Fire at Auto Body Shop destroys Twelve Cars". I read the story carefully.

A fire had broken out in the back parking lot at Marshall Motors. Police didn't know yet what started it, but it totally consumed a dozen cars and damaged another six or eight. I wasn't all that shocked—I had guessed someone would steal my Lexus, but burning it to a crisp worked just as well, perhaps even better because it concealed which car was the target.

I got Dominic on the phone, reminding myself to be very careful what I said—Barry and I both figured that Dowdle had probably bugged my office. "Hey Dominic, I just saw the story in the Mercury News. First of all, is everyone okay?"

"Yeah, Alex, thanks. It was after 10 last night, and nobody was around. But if you're calling to find out about your Lexus, I'm afraid I've got bad news. It's a total loss."

"That's all right, Dominic—that's what insurance is for. Okay if I stop in for a few minutes after work today?"

We agreed he'd hang around until I could get there at 6pm, and we got off the phone.

I was doubtful that the surveillance tapes at Marshall Motors would have caught anything suspicious, but I intended to have Asimove's people check them to make sure. Thank God Dominic had written up a report about the brake line, and taken some pictures.

****************

Whoever had lit up my car knew his business. Dominic showed me around the lot, now that the police and the arson squad had packed up and left.

"They think it's suspicious," he said, "but they doubt they're going to be able to prove it. It looks like this old Ford truck parked next to your Lexus"—he pointed to a twisted, blackened hunk of metal—"had a gasoline leak, and somehow a spark ignited it. The explosion set all these other cars on fire," he continued, waving his arm vaguely in the direction of the destruction.

We were standing out in the lot, unlikely to be near a bug, so I asked him quietly, "are there surveillance tapes from last night?"

"Yeah, from two different cameras, and the police took them. But I thought you might want to see them, so I made a copy of them for you. They're in my office at the back of the drawer where we keep the coffee filters."

"Bless you, Dom! Now I'm going to ask you one more favor—a big one."

I asked Dominic to wait until Monday, then FedEx the surveillance tapes and his initial report on the car, with the photos, to Barry Asimove's office. I told him the address and made him memorize it, repeating it back to me several times.

I also left my rented clunker with Dominic, thinking that I'd use taxis for a few days. If I picked them up in different places, acting spontaneously, it was very unlikely that any of them would be a trap.

As I walked over to the nearest taxi-stand I put in a quick call to "Larry", and was on the phone with Barry Asimove within two minutes. Nothing much was going on. Carlyss had gotten a lot of stuff off my computer but would need several more hours to complete his downloading—I promised to try to get into the office over the weekend. Vera Anderson's team had swept my house for bugs, found none, and installed their own. They'd also cracked Gina's computer password and copied her files, though they hadn't read them yet, and they were all set to tackle Gina's purse the next time she played tennis.

I told him about the fire at Marshall Motors, and that he would be receiving the tapes and report within a few days. We agreed I'd call back early the next week.

****************

The next two days were so normal, it was almost weird. Gina and I did all our usual weekend things. Saturday we slept in, made love in the morning, then Gina cooked bacon and eggs (breakfast was the only meal she enjoyed cooking, so we usually ate dinners out, or had Carmelita cook for us). We clowned around at the table, feeding each other and giggling. (Also a good way for me to be sure she hadn't poisoned the food!)

In the afternoon we went over to our club, where I played golf with my regular foursome and Gina hung out with her friends at the pool. She had on a typically revealing bikini, and with her bombshell figure she got more attention than all the other women there—which was fine with Gina!

We stayed at the club for dinner on the terrace with our friends Sam and Ashley, and then headed home where we made love again. I wanted it my favorite way, from behind. I knew Gina didn't particularly like it that way, but after I ate her to a couple of intense orgasms she was happy enough to oblige me.

I arranged her comfortably on some pillows, so she didn't have to hold herself up on her knees. Then I smoothly slid in behind her, going deeper with each of my first few strokes until I was buried to the hilt. She relaxed and let me take her, sighing gently but otherwise being more passive than usual.