THE BANDIT QUEEN - Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Eden peered through the curtains of yet another motel room and stared at the large office buildings that inhabited downtown Dallas. The term skyscraper was very apt. From her ground floor viewpoint, those buildings looked as if they at least touched the sky with their pointed tops. Now she knew where the idea for Legos came from. She turned back to the room and contemplated her roommate. Deakin sat on the bed playing her laptop computer just like a concert pianist. He even moved to unheard notes and rhythms. Eden enjoyed using her laptop for her college work and to play games and keep in contact with friends and family, but she knew Deakin understood the Internet in ways she never would. To her, she was separate from the sites and computers at the other ends of her transactions. Deakin sat at the keyboard and his fingers grew and lengthened and became beams of energy just like the laser pointer Eden carried in her backpack. Those beams of energy ran from her little laptop off into a world she couldn’t see but Deakin could. His energy bounced from point to point, from server to server, from site to site, gathering in information and bringing it back home after obscuring his trail. He was the modern day version of the Native American running the trails through the forest while he hunted food for his tribe and expected a hero’s welcome on his safe return. Eden was ready to go along for the ride, wherever it led. It was time for some adventure in her life.
Deakin looked up from his communion with the computer and smiled a particularly sweet smile at her. “I’m just about through here and then we can leave. I’ve tracked down my ex-family and we’ll go there next.”
“Are they all still living together?”
“No, they’re not. My ‘mother’ works for a company called Gianni Industries and my ‘father’ works for a security service. I haven’t found the two boys yet but I don’t think they’re very important. Okay, let’s go.”
Deakin packed up the laptop and headed for the door. Eden brought up the rear with all the rest of their belongings. In the car, Deakin directed her to an industrial area out near the airport. She threaded through the maze of warehouses and offices until Deakin pointed to a building no different from any of the others in the vicinity. He reached for the door handle but Eden stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Shouldn’t we scope out the place first? I mean, you can’t just barge into that office and expect this woman to answer all your questions. If what you say is true, then this was some deep cover operation. We don’t know whether it was for the CIA or the FBI or some other group of initials or even somebody totally different. You know, like the mafia or terrorists of some kind.”
Deakin’s eyes turned blank as she spoke but not with shock. He had turned all his attention inward and was considering all the aspects of her speech. Then he nodded his head decisively, and said, “You’re right. We’ll wait out here and follow her home. Then we’ll try to talk to her.”
“Do you know which car is hers? Can you get that information from somewhere?”
Deakin immediately flipped open the computer and popped in her cell phone card. “By the way, Eden, we need to get a cord so we can plug this into your car battery. We should do that next.”
While Deakin’s fingers flew over the keyboard, Eden unzipped her backpack and collected all her money into one pile. She carefully counted it, stuffed it different pockets and hiding places, and set aside a small pile to give to Deakin.
“She drives a two year old Chrysler. Do you see one in the parking lot?”
Eden drove slowly between the rows of parked cars and pointed out each Chrysler including the minivans. Deakin compared license numbers and pointed to a white minivan with the correct plates on it.
“Don’t you imagine she’ll be here until four or five o’clock this afternoon? Did the computer give a home address for that license? Why don’t we check out the address for your ‘father’ and maybe get some food and a cord for the computer?”
“Yeah, but it’s the same address as this place.”
Deakin immediately called up directions for the next address and showed Eden the map on the display of the laptop. He called out the directions one by one and they found themselves in an older, seedier part of town south of downtown. The address they were looking for turned out to be a small office surrounded by a large asphalt parking lot. The roof bristled with antennas and satellite dishes and all the cars had security service signs on their doors and antennas on their roofs. The whole place was enclosed by a ten foot chainlink fence with barbed wire at the top.
Deakin waved her down the road and said, “Put binoculars on that shopping list. We can’t read the plates on any of those cars.”
Eden thankfully drove to a cleaner part of town and stopped in front of a shopping center. She and Deakin quickly shopped for food and drinks plus a small ice chest to keep everything cold. Then they hit the aisles of the large computer store. Deakin worked quickly but Eden just as quickly returned everything to the shelves.
“What are you doing? We need this stuff, Eden. How are we going to get the information we need if we don’t have it?”
“Frankly, we can’t afford all this. Get the cord you want and pick out a pair of decent binoculars and let’s get out of here.”
Back at the car, Deakin sulked in his seat for ten or fifteen minutes until he realized Eden didn’t care. Then he opened the binoculars and twirled all the knobs and adjustments. Soon Eden drove slowly past the security building while Deakin checked the license plates of the cars.
“Not there. Maybe he works at night or maybe he drives a company car home. What now, Eden? Stay here or go back to the other place?”
“Stay here to see if these guys change shifts at three o’clock. If we still don’t see the man or his car, we’ll go back to the other office and watch for the woman. Do you have another address for the man? If we miss on all counts, we could go there this evening.”
Deakin shook his head. “Same address as his place of work. They must not want anyone to know where they live.”
Eden slid the small car into a parking place on the street with a fairly good view of the gate in the fence. They ought to be able to see anyone who drove in or out. She wouldn’t let Deakin plug into the car battery for more than fifteen minutes because she didn’t know how much the computer would drag on the battery. She certainly didn’t want to be stranded in this seedy part of Dallas with a dead battery and a pair of binoculars on the dashboard. At the best, people would think they were police on a stakeout or maybe that would be the worst. Deakin started to sulk again but quickly remembered Eden’s reaction or nonreaction to his bad humor. Instead he rummaged through the ice chest on the small back seat and pulled out a bottle of orange juice in one hand and a banana in the other.
“What happened to the candy bars and the chips and the sodas I put in the basket?”
“I took them out. They’re bad for your health and your complexion.”
Deakin worriedly flipped down the visor and checked his face in the mirror. “There’s nothing wrong with my face.”
“Now there won’t be, okay?”
They both jumped to attention like bird dogs as a couple of cars stopped in the driveway and waited for the gate to open. Deakin fumbled with the binoculars and finally got them to his eyes just as the cars pulled up in front of the building. A man stepped out of each car and cast a quick glance around the parking lot. Then they both walked through the front door of the small building. Deakin dropped the binoculars in his lap and shook his head.
“Not the right man.”
Several times during the next two hours, Eden drove the car around the block and parked it in a different space. With all the traffic on the street, she figured no one would pay much attention to one car. Around the middle of the afternoon, more and more cars drove through the gates of the security service. Deakin recognized none of the men but he wrote down the license numbers of every car that drove in or out of the gate.
After the next shift of security guards had zoomed out the gate and gone on their separate ways, Eden drove back to the office of Gianni Industries. The minivan still sat in the same parking place so Eden parked on the street to wait.
“Wake me when you see some people moving around.”

Eden woke when Deakin punched her in the shoulder. She looked quickly at the parking lot and saw a minivan pulling out of its parking place. She glanced at Deakin and noticed the tension in his face as he stared into the binoculars. She started the car and slowly pulled out of her parking place. The white minivan slid out of the parking lot with the small red convertible close behind. Eden slapped the binoculars down from Deakin’s face and said tersely,
“That looks suspicious. Just help me keep her in sight. I’ll have to drop back and change around so she doesn’t notice us. Do you think she’ll recognize you?”
“It’s only been a couple of years so she should know who I am. Look, she’s turning to the right.” He opened out a large map of Dallas and called out some street names for Eden. “We could be heading for some large highways. I-35 is up ahead just a mile or so. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Look behind us occasionally. It would certainly be ironic if someone was following us and we never noticed. Or maybe someone else could be following the same car as we are.”
Deakin swiveled his head around and catalogued the cars and trucks on the road behind them. After that he divided his time between the minivan in front of them, the map in his lap, and the traffic behind them. Eden moved smoothly from lane to lane and sometimes even pulled up next to the van to give Deakin a look at the driver. By the sudden pallor of his face, Eden knew they’d found the right woman. Deakin gulped a few times and held his face in a stiff blank stare. Finally, he sniffed one time and found his place on the map again.
“It’s her. I mean, she’s the right lady.” Then he surreptitiously wiped his eyes and his nose on his sleeve and regained control of his emotions.
Eden followed the woman for miles and then parked on the street in an older residential area. The two of them watched the minivan drive up a cracked cement driveway and disappear behind a rather small house covered with white siding. The bushes in the front yard hadn’t been trimmed in a few years and the fence sagged with age. Actually, the whole house looked to have an acute case of fatigue. Eden already knew the inside walls were painted “renthouse beige” and matched the cheap carpet on the floor.
“Is this the sort of neighborhood you lived in when you lived here in Dallas?” she asked Deakin.
He looked around and shook his head. “No way, Eden. Our house was a two-story brick with a great yard. There weren’t very many cars parked on the street either. Most of the houses had large garages and wide driveways. We can drive past it later. Maybe I can find out who used to own it and when they sold it.” Deakin reached for the laptop but Eden stopped him. “Later, Deakin, later. Right now we have to decide what to do about this woman. Do we just knock on the front door or do we wait for her to go to work tomorrow and search the house while she’s gone?”
Deakin’s hands twitched in his lap as he looked from the house to Eden’s face and then back to the house. “I don’t know whether I can face her or not. What if her house is wired to the security service? She could just push a button and someone would come to her rescue. What would we do then?”
Eden grasped both his hands and held them prisoner between her own. “We won’t do anything you wouldn’t like but we can’t just sit out here and watch until someone calls the police on us. Fold up that map and grab some of the manuals out of the glove box. We’ll pretend we’re from some church and we have some pamphlets in our hands, okay?”