The Burning Wire

father had told him.
    The .45 nudged his back. He dropped like a stone into the greasy dirt.
    “I don’t go to Leni’s anymore, Bernie. You think I’m stupid?”
    Which told him that Galt had been tailing him for a while.
    And I hadn’t even noticed. Oh, some fucking cop I’d be. Jesus.
    “And I don’t use their broadband. I use a prepaid cell connection.”
    “You killed those people, Ray. You—”
    “They’re not dead because of me. They’re dead because Algonquin and Andi Jessen killed them! Why didn’t she listen to me? Why didn’t she do what I asked?”
    “They wanted to, man. There just wasn’t enough time to shut the grid down.”
    “Bullshit.”
    “Ray, listen. Turn yourself in. This is crazy, what you’re doing.”
    A bitter laugh. “Crazy? You think I’m crazy?”
    “I didn’t mean that.”
    “I’ll tell you what’s crazy, Bernie: companies that burn gas and oil and fuck up the planet. And that pump juice through wires that kills our children. Just because we like fucking blenders and hair dryers and TVs and microwaves . . . Don’t you think that’s what’s crazy?”
    “No, you’re right, Ray. You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t know all the shit you’d been through. I feel bad for you.”
    “Do you mean it, Bernie? Do you really mean it or are you just trying to save your ass?”
    A pause. “Little bit of both, Ray.”
    To Bernard Wahl’s surprise, the killer gave a laugh. “That’s an honest answer. Maybe one of the only honest answers that’s ever come out of somebody who works for Algonquin.”
    “Look, Ray, I’m just doing my job.”
    Which was a cowardly thing to say and he hated himself for saying it. But he was thinking of his wife and three children and his mother, who lived in their home on Long Island.
    “I don’t have anything against you personally, Bernie.”
    And with that, Wahl suspected that he was a dead man. He struggled not to cry. In a shaky voice he asked, “What do you want?”
    “I need you to tell me something.”
    The security code for Andi Jessen’s town house? What garage she parked her car in? Wahl didn’t know either of those.
    But the killer’s request was something very different. “I need to know who’s looking for me.”
    Wahl’s voice cracked. “Who’s . . . Well, the police’re, the FBI. Homeland Security . . . I mean, everybody . There’s hundreds of them.”
    “Tell me something I don’t know, Bernie. I’m talking about names . And at Algonquin too. I know employees’re helping them.”
    Wahl was going to cry. “I don’t know, Ray.”
    “Of course you know. I need names. Give me names.”
    “I can’t do that, Ray.”
    “They almost figured out about the attack at the hotel. How did they know that? They almost got me there. Who’s behind this?”
    “I don’t know. They don’t talk to me, Ray. I’m a security guard.”
    “You’re chief of security, Bernie. Of course they talk to you.”
    “No, I really—”
    He felt his wallet coming out of his pocket.
    Oh, not that. . .  .
    A moment later Galt recited Wahl’s home address, tucked the wallet back.
    “What’s the service in your house, Bernie? Two hundred amps?”
    “Oh, come on, Ray. My family never did anything to you.”
    “I never did anything to anybody and I got sick. You’re part of the system that made me sick, and your family benefited from that system. . . . Two hundred amps? Not enough for an arc. But the shower, the bathtub, the kitchen . . . I could just play with the ground fault interrupts and your whole house’d become one big electric chair, Bernie. . . . Now, talk to me.”

Chapter 45
    FRED DELLRAY WAS walking down a street in the East Village, past a row of gardenias, past a gourmet coffee shop, past a clothing store.
    My, my . . . Was that $325 for a shirt ? Without a suit, tie and pair of shoes attached?
    He continued past storefronts in which sat complicatedespresso machines and overpriced art and the sorts of glittery shoes that a girl would lose at 4 a.m. en route from one hazy downtown club to another.
    Thinking how the Village had changed in the years since he’d started being an agent.
    Change . .  .
    Used to be a carnival, used to be crazy, used to be gaudy and loud, laughter and madness, lovers entwined or shrieking or floating sullenly down the busy sidewalks . . . all the time, all the time. Twenty-four hours. Now this portion of the East Village had the formula and sound