The Fool's Run

through the glass slats. I peered in and could see a guy in a white T-shirt and black slacks dancing to the music, by himself. Practicing moves. I knocked, and Denzer came to the door.
    “You a Witness?”
    “Do I look like a Witness?”
    He thought about it and eventually shook his head. “No. They dress neater. What’d ya want?” He talked past a cigarette and, on his way to the door, had picked up a plastic plate with a half-eaten slice of cherry pie on it, which he was now holding.
    “I’ve got a proposition for you.”
    “Oh yeah? You gonna make me rich?”
    “There might be a few bucks in it.”
    “Tell me in ten words. I gotta get to work.”
    “That’s what I’m interested in. Your work. You work on a computer, right?”
    His mouth actually dropped open.
    “Hey. I bet you’re one of the guys trying to break into our system, right?” He pointed a fork at my chest and I looked for a place to run. “Well, shit, come on in,” he said, holding the door open. He was delighted. “I hoped you’d call me, but I didn’t really think you would.”
    I stepped inside. It was cool and damp and smelled like beer.
    “I’m just having a beer and piece of pie before I take off for work. You want a beer?”
    “Sure.”
    He got one from the refrigerator, popped the top, and handed me the can. “Sit down, sit down,” he said. “How much can you pay me?”
    I sat on a rickety armchair that might have been stolen from a budget motel. “Depends on what you’ve got.”
    “I want some money up front. They told us you were well-heeled. ‘A well-heeled operation,’ is what they said.”
    “How about five hundred?”
    “Fuck, how about five grand?”
    “We’re not that well-heeled. I’ll give you a grand now, and if it’s worth more, I’ll give you another. ”
    He scratched his head. He had long black hair, combed straight back. He must have held it down with grease or wax, because you could see tooth marks from his comb.
    “All right.” I had three thousand in my pocket; I took it out and started counting. He looked at it greedily. I stopped counting for a second.
    “Look, Phil, I know all about your money problems. But don’t think about taking this away from me, okay? I’d just beat the shit out of you.”
    “Hey, man . . .”
    I handed him a thousand and he counted it, folded it, and put it in his front pants pocket and sat back.
    “Okay. So here’s what I know. And this was why I was so happy to hear from you. ’Cause all I can tell you is that you can’t get in. Even if you put a gun to my head, and marched me in there, and made me sign on, and we got in, it wouldn’t do you any good. Things are so tight that almost nothing moves anymore. It’s all voice-backup and it’s all one-way. We dump it into a computer on the other end that’s physically separated from the main data banks. Then they’ve got operators to put all of the data up on the screen from the dump bank, and they scan it for code. Only when they’re sure it’s clean, they call up the main bank on their own internal line and dump it. There’s no way in from the outside.”
    “What if you need to go interactive with something in the main banks?”
    “Well, they’re trying not to let that happen. If it’s really serious, then they’ll download the interactive program to the remote computer; you’ll interact there. They sterilize the input before they ship it back to the main banks. I mean, there’s one way to break it: you have to get to the systems programmers. And that won’t happen. I’ll tell you, man, this is a pretty good company, but they’ve got some rough customers roaming around. You know what I mean?”
    “Yeah. I think so.”
    “Just in case you don’t, let me lay it out in a couple of sentences. Their top systems programmers are taking home maybe a hundred grand a year, plus options and benefits and bonuses. That’s good money. That’s the golden goose. If they get greedy and go for some small change from you, they’d be fired and blackballed and maybe, you know, hurt. The chances of those guys taking your money are slim and fat, and slim is out of town.” He took a gulp of Bud.
    “So why are you talking to me?” I asked.
    “Because you gave me a grand. And because about two seconds after you leave here, I’m going to call them up on the phone and tell them you came to see me. I won’t mention the grand, though. I’ll tell them I told you to take a hike.”
    I stood up to leave.