Programmed for Peril

van was found undamaged. The machines were still inside—but badly smashed. It hadn’t been sloppily done. The cases had been removed and the innards crumbled with hammer blows. Replacement with equivalents would be necessary. She wasn’t going to piece any together from parts, even if her technicians could do it. That j meant she would have to put up the cost of replacement and hope for full insurance reimbursement. She’d have Michelle check the policy for her.
    So... it had been calculated vandalism, the sort of thing she imagined was right up Rocco’s alley. She couldn’t let him get away with it. She had to let him know she knew what he was doing and stop him.
    Among the problems with doing that was that she had no idea how to handle the man, with his hungry eyes and: soft-spoken demands to buy her out. She needed advice, maybe that of another small business owner. For a moment she thought of calling Dino Castelli, the baker who had opened up shop a few doors down several months ago. Below his mop of tight curly hair glowed dark brown eyes whose corners were creased from grinning—often at his own bad jokes. The jokes she could skip, but she had become addicted to his bread and sweet cream-filled pastries. He always seemed ready to chat, leaning his six-one frame across the glass cases, his forearms crossed. On one he had a tattoo, a green alligator with a yellow eye and the words “Nam ’75.” She sensed that beneath his charming chatter he was a tough guy. Maybe he would know how to handle someone who might have mob connections. After brief thought she discarded the idea of enlisting him. She simply didn’t know him well enough. She considered asking Foster to help her, but she didn’t want to involve him in her business problems. Nor could she imagine him facing down an aroused Rocco. No, not at all. She would have to handle her menacing competitor herself.
    She phoned Rocco and made an appointment to talk to him late Friday afternoon about his “business offer.” He seemed pleased to hear from her, as though he had expected it. For moral support she took along Samantha Swords, the larger half of her sales department. She was big in the beam, brassy and confident, armed with the large ego a successful salesperson couldn’t be without. On the way to Computer Services, for Sam’s benefit, Trish hit the highlights of her concerns. “There’s only one way to handle a situation like this, Trish,” Samantha said. “Bluff!”
    Rocco ran his business on three of the middle floors of a rundown suburban office building. The elevator clanked its way up. Rocco himself buzzed them in, smiling around his thick cigar.
    When they were in his office with the door closed Trish made the introductions and said, “I know you want to buy my business. But you’re taking foolish risks trying to frighten me into selling it.”
    “Oh?” Rocco wore an open-necked shirt and a thick gold chain. He touched it absently with one hand while the other waved the cigar. “What you think I do?”
    She told him about the virus and the smashed equipment. Before he could reply she continued. “Either you stop or I go to the police and file a complaint.”
    “The police.” He chuckled. “Yeah, you go to the police. Maybe they listen. Maybe they get your story. Maybe they come talk to me... in six months. I tell them what I tell you now: I don’t know nothing about what you’re saying. Then the police go away. And don’t come back because you got no proof.” He jammed the cigar straight into his mustached mouth and raised his hands in a massive shrug. “You thinking like a woman. You see too much TV. You think about police. You’re not important enough for them to help. Forget them and”—his eyes burned into Trish’s— “sell out. Save yourself grief.”
    “You’re saying you did try to hurt my business.”
    “Saying nothing. I’m not a stupid man. You got a witness; I’m asking you to sell out, that’s all. Whadaya say?” His inquisitive ¿anee held her eyes and locked in like a missile* She was dismayed to find she couldn’t read him. To begin with, she couldn’t tell if he was cunning or dull. Nor could she guess whether or not he was using her assumptions against her. Hearing her tale of trouble, maybe he had, by simply refusing to deny responsibility, characterized him. self as a ruthless adversary who threatened to raise the stakes until she consented to sell. She was beginning to feel she had