WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

customs.”

“He means I’m no greaseball guinea,” Samantha said sourly.

Johnny slapped her so hard that he nearly knocked her off the chaise longue.

“You watch your mouth, bitch.”

She put a hand to her face, and tears shimmered in her eyes, and in a

little-girl voice, she said, “I’m sorry, Johnny.”

“Stupid bitch,” he muttered.

“I don’t know what gets into me,” she said. “You’re good to me, Johnny, and I

hate myself when I act like that.”

To Vince, it appeared to be a rehearsed scene, but he supposed that was just

because they’d been through it so many times before, both privately and

publicly. From the shine in Samantha’s eyes, Vince could tell she enjoyed being

slapped around; she smart-mouthed Johnny just so he’d hit her. Johnny clearly

liked slapping her, too.

Vince was disgusted.

Johnny The Wire called her a “bitch” again, then led Vince out of the living

room and into the big study, closing the door behind them. He winked and said,

“She’s a little uppity, that one, but she can just about suck your brains out

through your cock.”

Half-sickened by Johnny Santini’s sleaziness, Vince refused to be drawn into

such a conversation. Instead, he withdrew an envelope from his jacket pocket. “I

need information.”

Johnny took the envelope, looked inside, thumbed casually through the wad of

hundred-dollar bills, and said, “What you want, you got.”

The study was the only room in the house untouched by Art Deco. It was strictly

high-tech. Sturdy metal tables were lined up along three walls, and eight

computers stood on them, different makes and models. Every computer had its own

phone line and modem, and every display screen was aglow. On some screens,

programs were running; data flickered across them or scrolled from top to

bottom. Drapes were drawn over the windows, and the two flexible-neck work lamps

were hooded to prevent glare on the monitors, so the predominant light was

electronic-green, which gave Vince a peculiar feeling of being under the surface

of the sea. Three laser printers were producing hard copies with only vague

whispering sounds that for some reason brought to mind images of fish swimming

through ocean-floor vegetation.

Johnny The Wire had killed half a dozen men, had managed bookie and numbers

operations, had planned and executed bank robberies and jewelry heists. He had

been involved in the Fustino Family’s drug operations, extortion rackets,

kidnapping, labor-union corruption, record and videotape counterfeiting,

interstate truck hijacking, political bribery, and child pornography. He had

done it all, seen it all, and although he had never exactly been bored by any

criminal undertaking, no matter how long or often he had been involved in it, he

had grown somewhat jaded. During the past decade, as the Computer opened

exciting new areas of criminal activity, Johnny had seized the opportunity to

move where no mafia wiseguy had gone before, into challenging frontiers of

electronic thievery and mayhem. He had a gift for it, and he soon became the

mob’s premier hacker.

Given time and motivation, he could break any computer security system and pry

through a corporation’s or a government agency’s most sensitive information. If

you wanted to run a major credit-card scam, charging a million bucks worth of

purchases to other people’s American Express accounts, Johnny The Wire could

suck some suitable names and credit histories out of TRW’s files and matching

card numbers from American Express’s data banks, and you were in business. If

you were a don under indictment and about to go to trial on heavy charges, and

if you were afraid of the testimony to be given by one of your cronies who had

turned state’s evidence, Johnny could invade the Department of Justice’s most

well-guarded data banks, discover the new identity that had been given the stool

pigeon through the Federal Witness Relocation Program, and tell you where to

send the hit men. Johnny rather grandly called himself the ‘Silicon Sorcerer,”

though everyone else still called him The Wire.

As the mob’s hacker, he was more valuable than ever to all the Families

nationwide, so valuable that they didn’t even mind if he moved to a comparative

backwater like San Clemente, where he could live the good beach life while he

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