Free Dead Cat Bounce by Norman Green Page B

said, his voice unnaturally flat and calm.
    â€œFirst of all, I got nothing on your wife. It’s too soon to say anything for sure, but up to now I got squat.”
    Stoney wanted to be relieved, but he wasn’t. Just because the kid didn’t find it, didn’t mean it wasn’t there. “So what’s the problem?”
    â€œLet me get out of here first,” the kid said. He looked around, nervous, then stepped on the gas and headed for the entrance for the Jersey Turnpike. He watched his rearview mirror as they hit the ramp. “Anybody behind us?”
    Stoney glanced over his shoulder. “Half of New Jersey is behind us.”
    â€œWell, keep your eyes open,” the kid said. He got onto the turnpike, but took the next exit, followed it through the tollbooths and out onto local streets.
    â€œWhere we going?”
    â€œI don’t know. This is Secaucus. I’m not going anywhere in particular, I just want to keep moving. Look, here’s what happened. Something told me I needed to be extra careful with this job, and it’s a damned good thing, too. For me, at least. You know anything about computers?”
    â€œNot a lot.”
    â€œAll right. Basically, a computer leaves tracks, just like your feet. When I go digging through somebody’s dirty laundry, okay, I don’t want the tracks going there to be mine, you get me? So what I do, I piggyback on a server at a bank in Jersey City. There’s a back door on the server…well, anyway, from the server I access a computer in a law office in Newark, and I run my shit from there. You get me?”
    â€œYeah,” Stoney said, irritated.
    â€œThey had a break-in at the law office. The place got trashed, but the only thing missing was a couple of hard drives.”
    â€œYou musta hit a trip wire of some kind. What were you doing, you were running searches on Prior, am I right? Were you doing anything else?”
    â€œNo. Just Prior.” They passed a truck dealership, turned into an industrial park behind it. In the distance, the turnpikesoared on green legs high up and over the marsh. The kid drove past the last of the warehouses, down to where the road ended in a small parking lot. Beyond the end of the parking lot, the waters of the Jersey Meadowlands lay turgid and motionless. A few men stood fishing from a ledge at the water’s edge, right past a sign that warned anglers not to eat any fish they pulled out of the marsh due to the toxic nature of the environment the fish lived in. The kid parked, sat there watching the fishermen. “There was a security guard at the office building in Newark. Someone grabbed him from behind, and they stuck a knife up under his rib cage. Right through his heart.”
    â€œShit.”
    The kid didn’t look at him. “I can’t think of a reason to kill the guard, other than to send a message.”
    â€œSo I guess you got the message.”
    â€œI’m not taking any chances.”
    â€œWhat did you find on Prior?”
    â€œSome of the standard info. I mean, I got the same shit you can get on anyone in about two hours. Couldn’t get his Social Security number, though, which is, like, unheard of. The guy is supposed to be some kind of businessman, but I never found out what he does. There was no evidence of any business-type activity on his part anywhere. There’s no credit history on the guy past the last three years, either, and the college he supposedly graduated from up in Massachusetts never heard of him. No kids, no wives, no ex-girlfriends. I couldn’t find a thing that made me think that Charles David Prior is the name this cat’s mother gave him.”
    â€œSo you’re telling me he’s a rich guy, but you don’t know how he got the money, and you don’t know who he really is.”
    The kid swallowed. “Yeah. He owns that house in Alpine,bought it outright three years ago. Keeps some money in an