Ch. 45 – Pots and Pans, Cameraman

There was an art to hiding a camera. Sometimes you could get away with hiding it without decoration, just in places that people wouldn’t normally look. While other times, it was necessary to blend the camera in with its surroundings, or give it camouflage.

Derrick chose the second option, as there was a very nicely placed potted plant right across from the door. Derrick grabbed the plant by the bottom of its heavy ceramic pot, and tugged it to the side, so that the camera would have a clear view of the lock’s keypad when Charlene came back to enter it. The round, fat leaves on the plant rustled as Derrick slid the camera inside, keeping it protected in his enclosed fist. The leaves were thick enough to conceal the camera, and the branches, which were stiff enough to prick Derrick’s hand through his glove, could bear the device’s weight.

“Can you see the video feed?” Derrick whispered into his earpiece.

“No, the feed’s all dark. Readjust it some.”

Derrick replaced the camera a few times before the lens poked out just the right amount to be able to see through the leaves. The glint of the lens was only just barely visible if you squatted down and were inspecting the plant at eye level. Sweat rolled down his neck and back. When was Charlene going to come back to her apartment? The hallway, illuminated by yellowing fluorescent lights, was empty on both its ends; but that didn’t mean he could take his time.

“Okay, the camera’s in place. I think that’s all I can do here.”

“Say, D,” Maxine said. “If I had enough time, I could whip up a lockpicking tool that would work on this lock, and we could try and break it open by ourselves, without waiting for the resident to come back. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“Speak for yourself. I earned my money, so I’m getting out of here.”

“Oh come on. At least consider it!”

“Maybe some other time, then.”

Derrick gave the concealed camera one last look, and then headed for the staircase. They hadn’t trusted Xavier with an earpiece—if he was caught by the Dixies, it’d be easy for him to give away Derrick and Maxine as his accomplices—so Derrick would have to make contact with him manually. Derrick made a note to give his client a separate signaling device in the future, if he ever got into the same situation; meeting a client in person while they were in unfamiliar territory was a risk in itself.

Derrick rounded the corner towards the little indent in the hallway with the ice machine. It was exactly where he had told Xavier to stay, but the bench was empty.

Could he have already left with Bettie to go on a tour of the building? Derrick walked towards the apartment where Bettie had been watching over Tommie and Zach. Before long, her exasperated voice boomed through the door. “Tommie! Put that down! I can’t afford to pay for the table if you break it!”

If Bettie was still here, then Xavier had obviously wandered off on his own.

“Hey M. Have you seen X?” Derrick whispered to Maxine.

“Oh yeah, the security cameras show that he left this hallway a while ago. I thought he had told you about that or something? I didn’t hear everything you were saying.”

“No, he hadn’t. Any idea where he is?”

“These cameras don’t have one hundred percent coverage, but I last saw him near the maintenance room on this floor. Make a right and keep going, I’ll direct you.”

“Wait, the maintenance room? It’s going to look suspicious if I start poking around there.”

“It’s fine! You’re up for the challenge, right? I can feed the security cameras a still loop. You just focus on not looking weird to any passersby.”

“Okay, I’m all ears.”

The hallway leading to the maintenance room was only a few turns away. Derrick sneezed into his sleeve and held his nose; the scent of cleaning chemicals grew stronger and sharper as he approached the bend near the end of the hallway.

“I don’t have any vision back here, so open them eyes up wide,” Maxine said.

“Has anyone else come into this hallway besides X?” Derrick whispered.

“Not that I saw, but maybe there’s a secret entrance? Wouldn’t that be exciting?”

The double doors to the maintenance room were ajar, and the lights were on inside.

“Someone’s been here. I’m taking a peek,” Derrick whispered, crouching down. The gap between the doors was large enough to look through with one eye. The harsh fluorescent lighting cast shadows from the room’s main fixtures: a ladder, leaning against one of the few shelves, and an electrical cabinet that read “Danger: High Voltage.” There wasn’t anyone in sight, but over the hum of the building’s air conditioning, there was the sound of scraping.

Derrick eased the door open, and stepped into the room. The chemical smell was almost overwhelming, and motes of some sort of powder hovered in the air near the light fixtures farther into the room. There was Xavier, scraping fiery orange powder into a large sealable plastic bag.

Xavier looked up and wiped his sweaty forehead, smearing powder over it. “Shit man, you’re back already! Did you get the tablet?” he asked, dusting off his hands. The powder shot into the air and settled over Xavier’s clothes. His wig already had a fine dusting all over it.

“Shhh! Shh shh shh.” Derrick said, motioning for Xavier to come closer. The smaller man complied, until Derrick stopped him by holding up a hand. It wouldn’t be good to get that powder on himself, or inhale it by accident. Derrick closed the double doors to the maintenance room behind him, and held a finger up toward Xavier. “First of all,” Derrick said, “what are you doing here in the maintenance room? And don’t tell me that’s . . .”

“Afterburner, yeah,” Xavier said, a manic grin on his face. He started tapping his foot, in the hyper-fast way that Afterburner users did. Shit, he had better not go crazy on me now.

“Why are you stuffing Afterburner into a plastic bag while we’re trying to get your account back?

“Man, I finally realized after walking around the place that that’s what the smell was! Instead of waiting near that ice machine like a chump, I decided to follow my nose and see if I could score some of the good shit instead. Found a huge box of this on one of the shelves, and decided to help myself to a little.”

“And what are you going to do if they find out you took some!” Derrick hissed. “And by they, I mean the Dixies, because who else would be keeping this much Afterburner in one place? This was supposed to be an in-and-out job—”

“Yeah, and I’m about to be in-and-out of this joint with the powder.”

“No. Put it back. And clean the powder off yourself! You’ve got that orange shit all over you.”

Xavier gave Derrick a withering stare, and held the plastic bag to his chest. “No, man. I worked hard finding this score; I’m not about to just throw it all away.”

“Well at least clean the place up! If someone walks in here, they’re going to know that the room was raided for Afterburner.”

“Okay, fine. Jeez. Where they keep the brooms at?”

“And hurry it up, because we should be getting out of here soon,” Derrick whispered. “I didn’t have a good way to get past the lock on Charlene’s room, so we’re going to have to leave for now, and come back later when I’ve gotten the pass code.”

“What? I paid you to get me the tablet!”

“We agreed that I would get it if I could. But I was able to put a camera up, so we can get the pass code to her apartment remotely, and then you can sneak in there later at your own leisure. I’ll charge you accordingly, but I feel like that’s still a job well done.”

“I need my dick working by tonight,” Xavier hissed. “What the fuck, man? I thought you were a professional!”

“We’ve already been here too long. Let’s just wait for Bettie to come back. That way we can get a quick tour of the building, and then leave and keep our cover story intact, and not get shot by Dixies.”

“I don’t care if I get shot, but I need to get my dick wet tonight, I already got things all ready with a girl, man. I even bought a fucking candle. I never buy candles!”

“Look, I’m sorry, sir, but I’ve already done more than enough for this investigation. You paid us to figure out how to fix your mod. We’ve figured out the solution for you, and now you just have to carry it out on your own.”

“What if she doesn’t come back today? You gotta figure out how to get. me. inside there! I’ve got a hot date tonight, and she’s—”

“Sorry, but I can’t help you any further than I have already,” Derrick whispered to Xavier.

Xavier zipped up the plastic bag, and held it out to Derrick. “I get it. You want more, huh?”

Derrick raised an eyebrow. Orange powder was drifting off the outside of the bag and falling towards the floor. “More what?”

“More pay. This Afterburner is top grade, man. You could probably sell it for a fortune. You get me that tablet today, and the bag’s all yours.”

“What? No! I don’t trade drugs, or use them. That’s a good way to step on the gang’s toes.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll pay you in cash then. Another two thousand dollars.”

Derrick gulped. That would put a big dent in Hack Alley’s owed rent. But what good would it be if it just attracted more trouble?

“I told you, I’m not—”

“Fine. Another four thousand dollars!” Xavier hissed.

“Ehhhh—“

“Another eight thousand dollars!”

Eight thousand dollars, on top of the ten thousand that they had already agreed on. Did Xavier steal that much from the Hermanos? “That’s going to be eighteen thousand dollars total. Do you even have that much cash?” Derrick asked.

“You fucking know it. When we get out of here with that tablet, I’ll get the cash for you. I promise!”

“Why don’t you just get it yourself? Why pay me this much money?”

Xavier shuddered. “I just don’t wanna get caught by that girl again. She’s one scary-ass bitch.”

“Can’t you hire some muscle?”

“They can’t get into Dixieland, man.”

It was a chance to almost double the earnings from the job, so Derrick had to at least consider it. “Okay, hold on, I don’t even know how I would do this. Let me ask M what she thinks.” Derrick spoke into his earpiece. “M, are you there?” he whispered.

“Yes sir, mister mod-doc, sir,” Maxine said.

“Did you hear what we were talking about?”

“Why yes I did. You’re in a pickle, muchacho.”

“Do you have any way to get Charlene’s location?”

There was a brief pause on the line, as Maxine sighed and chortled in the background. “No, I wish I could, but I can’t.”

“Any way to get into the lock electronically, then?” Derrick asked.

“Hmm . . . I can’t see it from any of the routers I have control over, so it might not be networked at all, or at least not on the same network,” Maxine said.

“Does the building administration have a list of phone numbers for residents?” Derrick asked. “Maybe you could try triangulating her cell phone.”

“Already thought of that. I’ve got her cell phone number, but no access to location data,” Maxine said.

“Oh wait. I just had a thought,” Derrick said. “Our plan was to have her come back to her apartment so we could record her unlocking the door. If we can’t count on her coming, what if we made her come?”

“Aw, hell yeah! I did that all the time.” Xavier said.

Derrick blushed as Maxine sniggered over the line at the unintentional raunchy wordplay. “Okay, okay,” Maxine said. “What do you mean by that?”

“Despite the lock being a retrofit onto an old mechanical lock, it definitely seemed to be networked into the building’s security. Even if we just can’t control the lock ourselves, electronic locks like this should inform their owner if the wrong code is entered too many times.”

“So you could lure her back to the building with that notification, huh? . . . Good point,” Maxine said. “You could try it out. But you might be waiting there for hours.”

“Hopefully not,” Derrick said.

Derrick jumped as Xavier prodded him in the arm. “What are you guys talking about? I can’t hear shit without that earpiece.”

“We were just talking about a way to get the pass code, and I think . . . we can do it.” Derrick grit his teeth. “Okay, fine. I’ll try my best, but no guarantees that we can pull it off. I’m charging you this money merely for assuming the risk, got it?

Xavier nodded. “Okay, okay. I got it. So how you gonna break into her place if she might not come back today? Drill the lock? Ram the door down?”

“No. We’ll try and be a bit cleaner than that; if we bust the door down the whole floor will hear it, and then we’re dead meat. Instead . . . we’ll try to social engineer the pass code out of her. The locks in this building are the type that send a message to their owner if the wrong code gets inputted too many times. I’ll trigger the alarm, and then Maxine will use a voice-changer and call Charlene, posing as the building’s security, and saying they need her pass code to enter the room to investigate an attempted break in.”

“Damn, son! That’s some sneaky shit, I like it.”

“Yeah, we’ll see if it works. If not, we’ll have to improvise. Let’s get back to the apartment where Bettie is. We’ll need a new cover story to explain why I’m going off by myself. Let’s just say . . . I’ve got an upset stomach.”

“Alright, you’re the one with the plan.” Xavier shrugged, shedding more powder. He sealed the plastic bag up and stuffed it into his dress. Impressively, the bag stayed in place, and didn’t immediately drop to the ground.

They grabbed brooms swept up the powder as best they could, until there were only small bits of orange on the furniture, and then Derrick pinched his nose.

“Hold still, you’ve still got some of that orange shit on you.” Taking a small brush he had taken off the tool rack, Derrick smacked it across Xavier’s dress, dispersing more powder into the air. On a surface level, it was the sort of thing that might’ve been kind of romantic: smacking some dirt off his girlfriend to clean her up. If only he had a girlfriend. But here he was, smacking a kleptomaniacal man in a wig and a dress instead.

#

After they had cleaned up, Derrick turned out the lights and closed the door to the maintenance room. “Alright, we’re about to start heading out into the hallway,” Derrick whispered into his earpiece.

“I’m feeding some looped footage to the security cameras right now. Go knock em dead, boys,” Maxine said.

They thankfully didn’t run into any residents on their way back to the ice machine. Bettie was still wrangling the two children, so Derrick and Xavier sat down in front of the ice machine. Despite their efforts, Xavier still sent the smell of cleaning chemicals into the air, but hopefully he would blend in with the faint traces of that chemical scent present throughout the whole building.

Five minutes passed, with no sign that Bettie was coming out any time soon. “Should I just go and knock on their door?” Derrick whispered to Xavier.

Just then, the elevator dinged, and a couple soon came into sight. The plastic shopping bags in their hands swayed and bumped into each other as they came down the hall, towards the apartment where Bettie was baby sitting.

The man knocked on the door, and there was muffled stomping towards it from inside the room, before Bettie threw the door open. “Oh, thank god you two are back. It’s been really tough handling these two boys for the last half an hour.”

“Bettie you are such a sweetheart,” the woman said. The couple and Bettie began chattering, ignoring the two kids who rushed out of the front door and starting bouncing around the hallways.

The man from the couple broke off from the conversation, and then glanced over at Derrick and Xavier, who were still pretending to stare at the ice machine. Derrick focused on the labeled buttons that were used to select crushed or cubed ice. The buttons were in good condition, although one of them wasn’t lit like the rest.

But the man never came over. The couple kept talking with Bettie, oblivious to the fact that the ‘couple’ sitting by the ice machine were conning their friend.

“You ready for this?” Derrick asked. The break-in could be easy or almost impossible, all depending on Charlene. If she fell for the social engineering, then it was easy enough. But if she were a bit smarter, she might want to check on her apartment herself. Then, it would depend on her movements: when she came back to her apartment, and how long she stuck around there.

“Yeah, man. I’m counting on you,” Xavier whispered.

Bettie and the couple had finally finished talking, and cajoled the two boys back into apartment, before bidding their farewells.

Bettie called out into the hall. “Yoohoo! Where are you two?”

Xavier and Derrick nodded at each other, and they both stepped out from the little nook with the ice machine.

“Oh, there you are! Are you two ready for the tour?” Bettie asked.

“Yeah, go ahead and take me around, girl,” Xavier said.

“I’m sorry,” Derrick said, making a pained face. It was acting, but the sweat coming down his forehead wasn’t. His back was damp with sweat, and his palms were slick, just from the pressure of the situation. The make up that Maxine had applied to make his unique-looking face less recognizable had better hold. “I’m really having trouble with my stomach today.”

“Diarrhea? Oh, you poor soul. Go ahead and get back to the bathroom, then. I’ll start the tour on this floor and work my way down, so if you can’t find us, you can wait in the lobby for us to come down.”

Derrick clutched his stomach and nodded, closing his eyes as if he was in pain. “Thank you, Bettie. That’s very kind of you.”

As soon as they left, Derrick took off for the opposite stairwell. Closing the door behind him, he faced the corner and spoke into his earpiece.

“M, are you there?” Derrick whispered.

“I serve at your pleasure. Not really, but yes. I’m here.”

“Any luck reaching Charlene?”

“She hasn’t picked up yet. I’ll keep trying at around five minute intervals. But keep moving, I’ll keep the apartment’s security cameras on loop until you give the signal. Get to it, hacker-man.” Derrick could hear Maxine’s smirk from across the voice comms.

The call cut out, and Derrick descended the rest of the stairs. The handle of the door to the fourth floor was loose. Derrick peered through the door’s tiny little window. The coast was clear. He eased the door open and set it closed again, before releasing the handle, to avoid jiggling it.

The door to Charlene’s apartment was right there.

It was time to get to work.