“The rumor is there’s only one person who knows how to breach the security protocols, and he’s very secretive. That’s not uncommon for hackers, probably because a lot of what they do is illegal. But here’s the strange part-the hacker claims to have an elaborate plan to bring Iggie Behrenz down and Igobe with it. The guy is waging some sort of personal vendetta-the blogs are saying he used to be a close friend of Iggie’s but now he’s out for revenge.”
As soon as she said this I thought of Leo, Iggie’s last-nameless computer-savvy Berkeley pal. They had looked pretty cozy in Hilary’s photo, but that picture had been taken years ago. There was plenty of time for Leo and Iggie to have had a falling-out since then, and it wasn’t hard to imagine the Igster alienating someone so thoroughly. “I don’t suppose anybody has a name for the guy, do they?”
“In a way, I guess. I mean, he seems to have an online code name of sorts. But I don’t see how it could be his real name. In fact, it could be a her. That’s sort of what the name implies.” She hesitated again.
“What is it?” I asked, expecting something with a lion theme, a variation of Leo.
“Petite Fleur.”
“Petite Fleur?”
“Petite Fleur.”
“Oh,” I said again, momentarily at a loss. Who knew my Lincoln Memorial keychain would find itself competing for the day’s most random prize so soon?
“It’s French for Little Flower,” added Laura.
“Can it mean anything else?” I’d taken a few years of French in high school, but it had been a long time since Madame Weber’s lessons had occupied any space in my head. Something had to be jettisoned to make room for Madonna lyrics, and French had really only been useful for ensuring I didn’t accidentally order tripe or something equally disturbing in fancy restaurants.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I even double-checked in a French-English dictionary. So that’s when I called you. Since you know Igor Behrenz personally, I thought you might know who this old-friend-turned-enemy could be and what the story is.”
Not only did she have no way of knowing just how strange something had to be for me to consider it strange, she had no way of knowing just how clueless I was when it came to Iggie. I couldn’t even locate him, let alone explain anything about his personal history. And my initial idea about the hacker being Leo now seemed misguided-for the bulky man in the picture with that shaggy mane of hair to call himself Petite Fleur would be an enormous stretch, even online, where people regularly give free rein to their alter egos. It would be like me calling myself Rambo.
But I promised Laura I’d find out what I could and thanked her for the heads-up. It was important for Winslow, Brown to know what it was getting into. If Igobe’s technology was compromised, then so were its business prospects, which meant that underwriting its IPO could leave our firm financially vulnerable and even cause serious damage to its white-shoe reputation.
And it wasn’t just Winslow, Brown’s reputation I was worried about-my own reputation was on the line, as well. I was the one who’d urged the firm to go after the Igobe business, trading on my personal relationship with Iggie. If there were questions about Iggie, I’d be found guilty by association.
I felt a chill pass over me that had nothing to do with the climate. All the glory I’d hoped for could just as easily morph into something far less appealing should I unwittingly lead the firm into disaster.
11
It took us a while to find parking, but eventually Peter squeezed the Prius into a spot on a side street, and we passed on foot through the pagoda-roofed arch marking the official entry to Chinatown. Stores catering to the tourist trade lined Grant Avenue’s sloping sidewalk, offering cheap porcelains and knock-off designer handbags, and there was no shortage of tourists shopping for souvenirs on this June evening. Personally, I’d had enough shopping for one day.
I filled Peter in on my conversation with Laura Taylor as he led me up the street and then down a small alley. “Petite Fleur?” he asked. “Are you making that up?”
“I’m not that creative.”
“Au contraire, mon chère. You are très creative.”
“You sound like Pepé Le Pew.”
“Who’s Pepé Le Pew?”
I froze in place, aghast. “You really don’t know?” I asked. It was one thing not to have watched Party of Five-Peter had never been in its targeted demographic-but classic cartoon characters were the building blocks of cultural literacy. “Didn’t they have Saturday-morning cartoons here when you were growing up?”
“I don’t know. We were always doing stuff on Saturday mornings.”
“Kids aren’t supposed to do stuff on Saturday mornings except watch cartoons and eat sugar cereals while their parents sleep late. What could you possibly have done instead?”
“We’d go hiking or sailing or biking. That sort of thing.”
“I didn’t realize you were abused as a child.”
He laughed and took my arm. “I liked it.”
“Did you at least get to eat Cap’n Crunch before you were dragged off to the wilderness? Or Fruit Loops? Please tell me you got to eat Fruit Loops.”
“Oh, look-we’re here.”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“True. But we’re still here.”
Despite its Chinatown location, the restaurant was an intimate and relatively untouristed establishment the Forrests had been patronizing on a weekly basis for as long as Peter could remember. Based on how he described their usual weekend schedule, I guessed they were all too exhausted even to consider cooking by the time Sunday night rolled around. They probably would have had more stamina if they’d included more sugar and caffeine in their diet.
The elderly hostess greeted Peter as if he were her long-lost grandchild, scolding him for his prolonged absence and seemingly unsatisfied with his explanation that he now lived on the opposite coast. Then her gaze landed on me. “Who is this?”
“This is my fiancée,” Peter said. “May, this is Rachel. Rachel, this is May.”
“Hi,” I said.
She looked at me, and then at Peter, and then at me again. “Fiancée?” she asked, surprised. In fact, she sounded vaguely accusatory. Given that she’d been seeing Peter regularly for more than three decades, I guessed she had expected to be among the first to know when Peter got engaged, but anything else she had to say was cut short by Susan waving us over from where she and Charles were already seated.
We reached the table at the same time as a waiter with a chilled bottle of white wine, which he uncorked and poured as we discussed the menu. After some debate, we placed an order for enough food to feed a professional football team and its entourage and the waiter departed just as Peter’s phone rang. He showed me the caller ID-it was Alex Cutler-and excused himself to take the call outside. I watched as he crossed the restaurant, neatly sidestepping another waiter with a soda-laden tray. Even from a distance, the sight of the tall glasses of bubbling dark liquid nearly brought tears to my eyes. The wine felt smooth and refreshing on my tongue, but Chinese food, like bacon, tastes best with Diet Coke.
Plates of spring rolls and dumplings began arriving almost immediately, and Peter’s parents didn’t feel the need to wait for his return before digging in, which was fortunate because I was hungry and Peter had been waylaid by May on his return. She seemed to be talking his ear off, and from where we sat across the room it looked as if it would be a while before he’d be able to extricate himself.
“Did you have a good time catching up with your friends, dear?” Susan asked me as I took a big bite of scallion pancake. “Your college roommates seem very interesting. You must have been a colorful group when you were all at school.”