I Was Here(38)
Author: Gayle Forman

Then I hear a burst of commotion as the ambient background noise clangs through the phone. Electronic bleeping and the clatter of change. It’s the sound of slot machines, lots of them. A sound I recognize from the Indian casinos.

“The door was locked,” I hear him bark, his own voice different now.

“Sorry, Smith. Lock’s been busted for weeks.”

There’s the sound of a door slamming, and the noise goes quiet again.

“We should wrap this up,” he says in a formal tone. “Best of luck to you.”

“Wait,” I say. I want him to send me the stuff I found in Meg’s trash: the encrypted documents, the checklist, more evidence, more proof to hang him with.

But he’s gone.

29

That night I call Harry Kang.

“Harry? It’s Cody.”

“Cody . . . Hey . . . .” A car horn blares, and there’s a loud cacophony of people talking.

“Where are you?” I ask.

“In Korea, visiting my grandmother. Hold on.” I hear his phone shuffle and then the electric ping of a doorbell, and then it’s quieter. “There. I’m in a tea shop now. Seoul is nuts. What’s up?”

“I might have enough information. Or I’ve gotten all I’m going to get.” All_BS’s last words echo in my ears. Best of luck. Like it was my high school graduation we were discussing. Or like he knew it was the last time we’d ever speak.

“What do you have?”

“This is what I know for sure. Actually, I don’t know anything for sure. Here’s what I have. I’m pretty sure he’s on the West Coast somewhere. He always seems to be having dinner when I am or things like that.”

“That narrows it down to a few hundred million people.”

“I have more. I think he might work at a casino. So, casino on the West Coast. Las Vegas?”

“Which has a population of, what, a million people? If he’s even there. He could work anywhere in Nevada,” Harry says. “Gambling is legal statewide.”

“Or he could work at an Indian casino anywhere,” I add.

“Exactly. What else you got?”

“His last name might be Smith. Someone called him that.”

“It’s helpful to have a name, even if it’s the least helpful name in existence.” He pauses. “You have anything else?”

“No. Our call got cut short.”

“Call? He called you?”

“Yeah.”

“Landline or cell?”

“I don’t know. It came up as blocked. But he was at work, so I’d guess cell.”

“On your cell or landline?”

“Cell. I was at work, and we gave up our landline.”

“When?”

“Did we give up our landline?”

“No, Cody. When did he call you?”

“Earlier today.”

“Seriously?” Harry’s voice perks up.

“Yeah. Why, is that bad?”

“Careless.”

“So, bad for him, but good for us?”

“Could be.” I can tell, even through the phone, that Harry is smiling. “You’ll have to give me complete access to your mobile account.”

“Fine.”

“And send everything you have on this Smith guy. Usernames. Any accounts you used to communicate. Anything you have on him. Any electronic trail. Email it all to me.”

If I have to go stand outside Mrs. Chandler’s driveway to pick up a Wi-Fi signal, I’ll do it. Though Mrs. Banks said the library is reopening any day. “Done.”

“And understand I’ll be doing some quasi-legal things.”

“For a good cause,” I remind him.

“I’ll say. I’m going a little crazy at my grandmother’s, so it’ll be good to have a project. I’ll be in touch when I find something.”

x x x

That afternoon I stand outside the Chandlers’ empty house, pirating their Wi-Fi signal, and I send Harry everything. The next day, the library reopens. I go in with the laptop and check the anonymous messaging service All_BS and I used, but there’s nothing. I check the Final Solution boards, but there’s nothing from him there, either. I am pretty certain there will be no more communication from him. But maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe I’ve gone from being the mouse to being the snake.

x x x

After three days Harry calls.

“That wasn’t easy,” he says. He sounds utterly thrilled.

“Did you find him?”

Harry doesn’t answer. Instead, he tells me a long and complicated tale about how All_BS used Skype to make some kind of VoIP call, not through a phone, but through a tablet. It’s hard to trace a telephone number, but not as hard to track an application’s user. “This is how even the best criminals get caught,” he tells me. “They are so careful—until they’re not.”

“So you did find him?”

“Like I said. It wasn’t easy. The tablet was registered to this guy Allen DeForrest.”

“So that’s him?”

“I don’t think so,” Harry says. “When I dug a bit deeper, this DeForrest had a huge online profile. He’s all over Facebook and Instagram, lots of pictures and status updates. I figured our guy would be more secretive. But I had this feeling. So I dug up more on DeForrest and discovered where he worked. He’s a pit boss at the Continental Casino.”

“What’s a pit boss?”

“It’s like a manager, but you’re missing the point, Cody. It’s at a casino. Your hunch was right! It’s not in Las Vegas, but Laughlin, Nevada, which is like a poor man’s Vegas.”

“But you said you didn’t think it was the DeForrest guy.”

“Right. I still don’t. For one, I thought that your guy, with all his fancy encryption methods, would be more careful than to use his own device. And second, we’re looking for a Smith, right? So I hacked into the employee records at the Continental Casino and looked for people with the last name Smith. As you might’ve guessed, there were a lot of them. But only a couple of B. Smiths.”

“B?”

“All_BS.”

“I thought that meant all bullshit.”

“I did too. And it might. But guys like this, who are doing bad things and keeping it secret, sometimes they still want to brag about it somehow. So I wondered if BS weren’t his initials, especially since we already know his last name is Smith.” He pauses. “So I checked. There are only three B. Smiths employed by the casino. Bernadette. Becky.” He stops. “And Bradford.”