I talked with Jason for a few more minutes and asked if there was anything else he thought might help me.
He said, “Do you know what a MAC address is?”
I recalled Eddie telling me about a computer’s unique address, the string of two-digit numbers and characters. All I said to Jason was “Of course I do.”
He brought up a different screen on his computer. He said, “I found her ID on the Wi-Fi in Butler Library. I even checked security video to make sure it was her. Anyway, when she signed on, this is the address that came up.”
I looked at the screen and copied down the twelve digits. I didn’t know how to use it myself, but I thought I could find someone who did.
I also didn’t know how to thank Jason. He was stepping outside the normal protocol for Columbia employees to speak to the police. I dug in my sport coat pocket and found a challenge coin from Manhattan North Homicide. Most police units make their own coins, mementos that some people collect. This one showed a crime scene on one side and our unit’s logo on the other side.
Jason stared at it in his hand for a moment and said, “I’m honored that you would entrust me with a symbol of your quest.”
I said, “Thanks for the help.” It seemed shallow in the face of his sincerity, but I didn’t have time for a big show of emotion. I had to check Jennifer Chang’s apartment.
CHAPTER 29
ALICE GROFF AND Janos Titon had followed the directions from the kid outside Jennifer Chang’s old apartment. His directions had been right on the money, and his description had been fairly precise. The apartment was on the floors above a warehouse that dealt with caskets and funeral accessories.
They’d waited until the warehouse closed and it was dusk. Now they marched up two flights of wooden stairs, their footsteps echoing in the warehouse below them. They could hear the echo through the vents and a couple of windows that looked down into the warehouse.
Alice nudged Janos and nodded toward a series of extremely subtle security cameras. They were all directed at the door.
Janos muttered, “Computer geeks. They’re the same in America as they are in Estonia.”
They were still dressed professionally, so Alice wasn’t worried about what they would look like on security cameras. She knocked on the door.
Clearly whoever was inside had been watching the cameras and waiting. The door opened a crack with two heavy security chains on it. A tall, skinny man, with remarkably thick glasses, peered out at them. He spoke with a Hispanic accent as he said, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
Alice had a little speech prepared about being from Columbia University and looking for Jennifer Chang. She was going to say they had come about a financial aid grant. Vague and non-threatening. The best kind of story.
Before she could say anything, Janos wedged his foot into the open doorway and had the barrel of his Czech pistol under the thin ridge of bone the man thought of as his chin.
Janos said, “It doesn’t matter who we are. You’re going to open this door or I’m going to open your face. Your choice.”
The man was stunned. He stammered, “How, how, can, can I undo the chains with the door open?”
Janos said, “Give me your hand.” He waited while the man stuck his hand between the doorjamb and the open door. Then he took a firm grip of the man’s index finger and put the barrel of the pistol against his hand. He said, “You can close the door as far as your fingers. That should be enough for you to undo the locks.”
A few seconds later, Alice casually followed Janos through the open door.
The man was wearing blue tiger-striped silk boxer shorts and a T-shirt that said i’m a hacker, but i didn’t screw up democracy. He trembled like a frightened Chihuahua.
Alice said, “Are you Oscar?”
He nodded nervously. His long curls swayed in the air. Sweat beaded on his gaunt face.
“Where’s Jennifer?”
He paused for a moment and said, “I don’t know any Jennifer.”
Janos whacked him on the side of the head with his gun. He stood over the fallen computer nerd and looked down at him. “The next time I use the gun, it won’t be to hit you.”
Alice kept a very calm tone. “Tell us where Jennifer is right now and you can go about your business. I promise we’re not going to hurt her.”
Oscar rubbed the side of his head, then looked at the blood on his fingers. “I haven’t seen her in a couple of days. We’re just roommates. She lives her life and I live mine.”
Janos said, “It’s going to be a lot tougher to live your life if we don’t find out where Jennifer Chang is right now.” He carefully placed the barrel of the gun on Oscar’s forehead. He let that sink in for a moment.
Oscar’s eyes looked up at the gun and Janos standing behind it.
Alice truly didn’t know what Janos was going to do. From a professional cost-benefit analysis, it didn’t matter. If Oscar wouldn’t tell them where Jennifer was, his death meant little to her.
Oscar still didn’t say a word.
Janos pulled the hammer of the pistol back.
Oscar swallowed hard and his whole body started to shake.
CHAPTER 30
ALICE WATCHED SILENTLY as Janos kept the gun to the computer geek’s head. Frankly, she’d seen her partner do something similar so many times it barely rated her interest. Once, while collecting a debt for a Marseille loan shark, she had watched Janos torture a man until he revealed the target’s location. If she could sit through fingers being severed, watching this thin man beg for his life wasn’t a big deal.
Janos very calmly said, “Tell us where we can find Jennifer. Then we’ll be out of your hair. She won’t even be upset you told us. We have a job offer for her.”
Oscar continued to tremble. But Alice saw something else. He was making a calculation. He was justifying telling them where the girl was.
Alice gestured to catch Janos’s attention. She motioned for him to wait.
He just stood there with the pistol in his hand.
After more than thirty seconds, Oscar blubbered, “Okay, okay. I’ll talk to you. Just please, please take the gun away.”
Janos looked at Alice. She nodded and he lowered the gun. They both had to help the terrified man off the floor. They hefted him from under his arms, and she was surprised a skinny computer nerd could feel so heavy.
They tossed him into his rolling chair in front of a gigantic computer monitor. The screen was broken up into eight squares. Each square corresponded to a camera. She recognized the one at the front door and a second one in the hallway.
One of them showed a shower. She caught a glimpse of someone walking past the camera.
Alice said to Oscar, “Where are all your cameras located?”
He gave her a sly smile. The kind only computer-literate people give to people with less experience.
She cut her eyes to Janos. He immediately placed the barrel of the gun to Oscar’s temple. That straightened out his attitude.
He spoke quickly. “They cover all sorts of places. Security here in the building. I have one in the warehouse and at the front door just so I know what’s going on. The one in the shower is for my boyfriend, Hector.”