The Hanged Man's Song

don’t know. He used to be a teacher up to Adams and then he moved to Washington, D.C., and I only saw him when he said he came back to visit his momma. He told me to call him if I got the computer. I called him when I got it and he came over.”
    “Came over right away?”
    “Next day.”
    “White man or black man?” John asked.
    “White man. Really white.”
    “You know his phone number?”
    “I got it on my machine. You gonna do something to Jimmy James?”
    “Talk to him. We’re trying to find Bobby.”
    She went to the machine and her fingers danced across it. She was a hack, all right; the best way to tell is to watch the hands. Hacks are so deep into it that they essentially will a computer to act, their thoughts appearing on the screen as if by magic, the fingers working by reflex and so quickly it’s like watching a spider’s spinners as it weaves a web. In a few seconds, she’d closed down her online connection so we wouldn’t see it, dumped whatever program she was using, called up the Address Book from the Windows accessories program, and located Carp’s number.
    As she did it, I said, “If you call this Carp guy and tell him we’re coming over, he’s gonna hide out, and we’re not gonna find out what happened to Bobby. The only reason he got you the computer was so he could find Bobby. Carp might pretend, but he’s no friend of yours.”
    “I know,” she said grudgingly. She poked one of the laptop keys and the address program vanished. She looked back up at me; her face was thin, hungry. “He’s a creep. I wondered why he helped me. He didn’t even know me when he worked at Adams and then I see him and he’s all, ‘Hey, Rachel, how are you doin’?’ I thought he wanted to fuck me or something and then he goes on about computing, you know?”
    “He’s a hack?”
    “He knows some shit,” she admitted.
    “Jimmy James is a strange name,” LuEllen ventured. “Is that his real name?”
    “That’s what everybody called him,” she said. “I think it’s real.”
    >>> “I’LL tell you what,” I said. “If you don’t call Carp and tell him that we’ve been looking for him, then I’ll give you three phone numbers.”
    “To what?” She was interested. Good phone numbers, to hacks, are like little diamonds.
    “Won’t tell you. And I won’t give them to you until after we talk to Carp. But if you’re any good on that laptop, you’ve been looking for them.”
    She considered that for a moment and then said, “What do you know about Wal-Mart?”
    “What do you need?”
    “I’d like to get good access into their computer system. Just to see how it works.”
    “What do you have now?”
    “Can’t get further than the front end.”
    She had a friend who worked at a Wal-Mart somewhere, I thought. “One of the ways hacks get caught is when they try to use a computer system to deliver inventory to people who’ll steal it. Inventory systems are pretty carefully protected from beginners.”
    “I just want to look at the system,” she said sullenly.
    “I don’t know about Wal-Mart, but I can suggest a piece of social engineering that’ll get you in.”
    “Like what?”
    “If I tell you, you’re on your own,” I said. “And you can’t call Carp.”
    “Let’s have it,” she said. “And I’ll want those three numbers, too.”
    “When I know you can’t hurt us. Do you have a chat name?”
    “Yes. You can get me anytime.” I got her AIM name and told her I’d call back.
    “So tell me how to get into Wal-Mart.”
    I told her. John was watching while we talked, and finally he asked, “Where’s your mother?”
    “She took off with Leon—her boyfriend. She told me to go over to my aunt’s, but my aunt said she didn’t know nothin’ about it, so I come back here and I been waitin’ ever since.”
    “You don’t know where they went?”
    “Said it was to Hollywood, to dance, but she’s dreamin.’ She’s gonna go out there and whore around, just like here. Nobody’s gonna pay her to dance. Or Leon neither.”
    “The lady next door said they’re gonna rent the apartment to somebody else,” John said.
    “I’ll figure that out when I get there,” Rachel said, but she was worried.
    John shook his head, looked at the girl, then at me, then said, “Shit.”
    >>> BACK in the car, with all the windows down and the air conditioner running full blast, John said, “This isn’t gonna work. I gotta do something about the kid.”
    “Like