A Fly in the Garden: Chapter 14
DISCLAIMER: None of these characters are mine, but they are memorable. Thank you, Mr. Marlowe.
Sunday Night, February 21, 2012 – 7:44 p.m. – At Eddie Baker's Brothel Building in North Beach
"Are you sure about this, pumpkin?" a worried Richard Castle – clearly in dad mode – asks his daughter. He is two blocks away from Eddie Baker's building, and while he is thankful for the earpiece and wire provided by Detective Jennifer Blackard, two blocks is still two blocks. He doesn't like being this far away, but the SFPD detective warned him that too many people loitering around outside Eddie's version of the best little whorehouse in San Francisco will be sniffed out right away. So he has to keep his distance.
Detective Blackard sits next to him in the unmarked rental. She, too, has to keep her distance. There is no way she can show her face near the building. There is a history between the detective and Eddie Baker – not a good one either – and her face is well known to Baker's people. The rental car is in use to make sure that no one can trace a car back to them, arranged through department connections and hiding bushes.
Two blocks down the street, a disguised Kate Beckett plays her damsel in distress role perfectly. She has 'stopped' the car some twenty feet before Eddie's building. They aren't dealing with idiots. Breaking down right in front of the building is too obvious for people who are constantly on the lookout for a police presence. She wears a blonde wig and deep blue contact lenses to complete the disguise. Alexis wears a dark brown wig with blonde roots showing – the hair short above the shoulders – and brown contact lenses. Two things stuck out with Castle forty minutes ago as they set out the North Beach building from Sausalito.
First – the disguise works perfectly as Alexis could pass for the teenage daughter of Kate, just as planned. Check one.
Second – well, he could hardly contain himself – or keep quiet - at the notion of Beckett showing up for bed one night as a blue-eyed blonde. It was a declaration that won him the patented Beckett glare, and he is positive that a certain piece of jewelry he is considering just got larger for his . . . indiscretion.
Alexis' voice brings him back to the present.
"I'm fine, Dad," Alexis answers. "Let me work."
Kate Beckett has played her part, acting somewhat agitated and frantic, going inside and asking to use the phone. She is calling a burner phone that is unlisted, so the phone records of the building won't be able to track them down later. The burner phone is answered by Mike Monroe, thus completing the ruse of a wife calling her husband – just in case calls are monitored or recorded from the building, which Jennifer places as a likely bet. Mike has been coached on how this conversation is supposed to go. He should act a bit put off, wondering what trouble his wife has gotten into now. This allows the call to linger – which gives Alexis and her friends the time they need.
At least that's the plan.
Kate had walked into the building, asking for help, already knowing that the security guard would not leave his post behind the desk. Not without backup. So she was able to draw her pleas for help out for a minute and a half, knowing she would get nowhere with the man before finally asking to use a phone.
Alexis waited the obligatory two minutes as planned, before barging into the lobby as the impatient teenager ready to get going.
"C'mon Mom, tell Dad to hurry. I'm going to be late," she had lamented to Kate as Kate first got on the phone. The ruse works, as Dave at the security desk merely smirks at the misfortune of the poor woman. Her car has broken down and her daughter is none too pleased about the prospect of missing some silly teenage event, and it doesn't sound – from here – like the husband is too sympathetic either.
"I have to pee," Alexis had declared loudly with a slight stomp of the foot. That, too, got Dave's attention. The last thing he needs is any further problems, and right now he wants this woman's husband to show up and get both of them the hell out of here.
"The bathroom is down the hall on your right," he had told Alexis. "And don't mess up in there," he tells her as a parting shot, to which the younger Castle - playing her role to the hilt - had merely offered a turned up nose and a fingerless upward fist motion as she walked away.
Now she sits in the restroom, a single room with one toilet and a sink – unisex – and her laptop on her lap.
"I'm fine, Dad," she repeats with a whisper. "Now let me work. We don't have much time."
"I know, I know – that's what worries me," he tells her.
"Dad, I'm like the wind. I'm just a fly in their garden. I'll be out before they know it."
"Flies get swatted," her dad grumbles, causing a snicker from the detective seated next to him.
"They only get swatted for buzzing and annoying people," Alexis counters. "Which you are doing right now."
Jennifer Blackard cannot hold back the chuckle that escapes, and can only offer a meek expression when she receives a stone gaze from the very nervous father sitting next to her.
"Relax, Castle, she is doing just fine," Jennifer tells him. "She's a girl. She's supposed to take a little time in the restroom. That's what we do."
"Do tell," he grumbles under his breath.
"She has a few minutes before anything looks funny," Jennifer continues. "Let her work, as we discussed."
Castle mumbles something undecipherable under his breath, wishing for the umpteenth time that they could just sit down with Eddie Baker, explain what is happening and have him just tell them who his missing clients are. Of course, that's fantasy thinking as Baker will never give up the names of his clientele. That's the kind of mistake from which a man in his business can never recover.
Back inside the ground floor restroom, Alexis initially powers up the small laptop hidden in her shoulder backpack. A quick glance at available networks brings a wide smile to the young woman's face. She had suspected that the network here would be unsecured. None of the girls are using the network in the building, and browsing the web is the last thing on the minds of the patrons. The signal is weak – intentionally she figures.
"All yours, Randy," she tells her Branson schoolmate, who is in her other ear via her cell phone. Randy is remotely connected to Alexis, and now that she is on the network, he takes over her small laptop.
"Give me two minutes, Red," the fellow senior tells her as he quickly begins issuing commands that flash on Alexis' laptop. First, he pings the network to discover other devices on the network, taking screenshots as he goes along.
"There's quite a few devices here," he tells her as he works, causing her to pause. She passes the information on to her father, in her other ear.
"Randy says there are quite a few devices."
"Really?" Castle says with surprise, before Jennifer interrupts.
"IP video cameras," she says with surprise herself. "Ask how many."
"How many devices are you talking about, pumpkin," Castle asks.
Alexis is able to see everything Randy does as he controls her laptop, and begins counting.
"At least ten, twelve, maybe more."
"He's got the rooms wired!" Castle exclaims. "That's not something his clients would appreciate."
"Leverage," Jennifer whispers as Castle nods excitedly. All of the sudden, this little endeavor may pay off after all.
"Poor signal, though," Alexis tells them. "I barely have two bars."
"They are probably hard-wired then," Jennifer muses aloud. "Flies in the garden, indeed."
Randy continues working, glancing at his watch. He knows that Alexis had precious few seconds left before she draws suspicion. The three adults insisted on secrecy, which Alexis quickly shot down.
"If Randy is going to do this, he's going to want to know what is going on. He deserves to know what he is getting himself into, and I'm not going to lie to him," she had told the adults earlier.
Randy frowns as he pings a few names that he sees before he finally finds the surveillance server.
"Got it," he exults with a fist pump to the air. "Give me twenty more seconds," he tells her as he drops a sniffer onto the network that will download itself on the desktop computer of Dave, the security guard. Within the next hour, Randy will have all of the keystrokes, passwords, and sites visited from Dave's computer. Satisfied that he now can access the network at any time, and can capture the passwords to the servers, he breaks the connection with Alexis.
"Time to fly, Red," he tells the younger Castle. "I'm off."
"Merci beaucoup, monsieur," she tells the young man with a hint of a French accent. "I will see you tomorrow in school."
"With stories to tell?"
"As much as I can," she promises as she cuts the line. "Really appreciate this Randy. I owe you."
"Yeah, promises, promises," he chuckles as he hangs up as well.
Closing her laptop and gathering her belongings, Alexis checks herself in the mirror. Habit if nothing else, and is about to open the door when it hits her. She dashes back to the toilet, pressing the flush bar, and then turns on the sink.
"Have to make this look good, in case he's standing out there monitoring me," she thinks to herself, once again proud of herself that all of this has occurred within whispered voices. Finally she opens the door, her backpack slung over her shoulder, and seeing no one there, immediately falls back into her role. Her shoulders begin to slump and she utters a 'dammit' as she walks back.
Castle, hearing it all from down the street, can only smile.
"Too much time with my mother," he explains as he glances at Jennifer. Her blank expression reminds him that she has no idea who Martha Rodgers is, or the talents the woman has evidently passed on to the younger Castle.
"Mom, let's go!" she all but cries out, waving a hand in disgust. "Dammit, let me talk to Dad."
Kate chooses that moment to end her call with Mike, who is still in the back seat of the rental with Castle and Jennifer. He will wait until Kate and Alexis go back to their car and then give them ten, fifteen minutes tops before he shows up, just to keep appearances up, as planned.
"My husband will be here in ten minutes," Kate tells Dave. "I really appreciate this." She then turns to Alexis, giving the younger woman her final planned line.
"Your father will be here in ten minutes, young lady!"
"Step-father, you mean," Alexis says pointedly, completing the ruse. If Dave looks out and sees Mike Monroe helping, he's going to wonder how the dark, black man produced a lily-white, pale-skinned daughter. Hearing that whoever shows up is the girl's stepfather will ensure such doubts don't creep into Dave's head.
"He loves you like his own and you know that," Kate plays, putting is bit of emotion into her voice.
"I know, Mom," Alexis replies. "Just get me the hell out of here. I'm going to be late."
With that, the two women exit the building, Kate offering a wave and a thank you to Dave while Alexis ignores his very existence. They go to their car, and sit, waiting for the designated time to expire. Ten minutes later, Castle and Jennifer exit the car and walk around the block. They will take the bus to Van Ness Avenue and hop off there, where they will be picked up by Mike.
Mike hops into the front seat as Castle and the detective exit the car, and brings the engine to life, driving the two blocks and making a right turn to pull up behind Kate's broken down car. He exits, exchanges pleasantries with his 'wife and daughter', and pops open the hood to the disabled car. He fumbles around for a few minutes, to make it look good in case they are being watched. After another minute, he tells Kate to start the car. The car purrs to life as he slams the hood shut and offers his 'wife' a quick peck on the cheek and then walks back to his car as Kate and Alexis drive off. Seconds later, he follows in the rental.
Back inside the building, their actions have indeed been monitored.
"Yes sir, they just drove away," Dave speaks into the phone. "No, I don't think it was anything to be concerned about. Broken down car, her husband showed up, fixed it and they drove off . . . No, I'm positive no one went upstairs. I had the restroom in sight the entire time. The younger girl went in, was there a few minutes, and came out. Her mother was in front of me the whole time on the phone with her husband . . . yes sir . . . yes sir, I will," he finishes as he hangs the call up and turns his attention back to Sunday Night Football streaming on his desktop computer.
Three minutes down the road, Mike waits for Castle and Jennifer as they exit the bus one street past Van Ness.
"All clear, boss?" he asks Castle as Castle slides into the back seat, while Jennifer joins Mike in the front seat.
"No problems at all," Castle replies. "My ladies are okay, right?"
"Both fine and headed back to the bridge," Mike replies with a smile. "Alexis seems happy, so I'm guessing she got everything you need."
"Good," Castle says with a smile, exhaling and finally relaxing back into the back seat. "Let's go home. We're going to need my best batch of coffee because we have lots of tape to watch."
Mike puts the car in motion, pulling away from the curb. Unknown to the trio, a black BMW trails a full football field's length behind them.