“If we call in the FBI and tell them that the dead guy is the Bobby that everybody’s been looking for, they’ll be all over the case. Then, we might be able to track the investigation-half the people in the ring are inside the FBI system. But what if they find the laptop? The worst thing that could happen to us is to have the laptop land at a computer forensics place, and have it turn out that the files aren’t encrypted.”

“Even if they are encrypted, the FBI’s got those big fuckin’ computers. They’ll crack it like a walnut.”

John’s not a computer guy. I said, “No, not really. If Bobby encrypted the files, and kept the keys in his head, they’re safe.”

“Really?” A little skeptical. “What about the CIA and the NSA and the FBI and those other three-letter agencies?”

“Some of the software that Bobby used-that everybody uses, now-can encrypt stuff so deeply that if the entire universe was made of computers, and they did nothing but try to crack the message, there wouldn’t be enough time in the life of the universe to do it.”

He thought about that, then laughed. “You’re bullshitting me.”

“Nope.”

“Why would anybody encrypt something that deep?”

“Because they can. It’s easy. So why not?”

“Okay. But still, the idea of calling in the feds is scary,” he said. “I hate messing with those guys. If we only knew what was on the laptop…”

“That’s the problem,” I agreed.

“Maybe, as a security thing, Bobby kept all the good stuff on the DVDs.”

We bumped across a set of railroad tracks. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I was lost. I did a U-turn and headed back the way we’d come. I picked up on John’s suggestion: “I don’t think so. Access is too slow. No computer guy wants to thumb through a stack of DVDs and then wait for ten seconds for something to load when he can get it in a half-second. That’s just the way it is. He’d keep the good stuff on the laptop.”

“Then maybe he backed up the laptop on the DVDs, so we can figure out what’s on it, without finding it.”

I shook my head. “There are what, seventy DVDs? That’s a huge amount of stuff. You could probably put the Library of Congress on those things. There’s so much stuff that we won’t even have time to read the indexes, if there are indexes.”

“I could take some time off…”

John used to work on a law firm’s computer system, and he was about as far into computers as a typical high school teacher. He didn’t have any notion of what I was talking about, and I struggled around to find an explanation.

“Look,” I said finally. “A few weeks ago, I put the Encyclopaedia Britannica on my laptop, since I had lots of space. Okay? That’s seventy-five thousand articles, thirteen hundred maps, ten thousand photos. That’s what the advertisement says. Something like that. It sucked up about 1.2 gigs. That means you could put about, uh…”-I did some quick calculation-“something like thirteen Encyclopaedia Britannicas on one DVD. And we have seventy DVDs. They might not be full, but if they are, that’ll be like paging through what, sixty-seven million articles and eight million pictures, looking for your name or your picture. You don’t have enough time left in your life to do it.”

“Then what use are they?”

“Bobby didn’t look piece by piece. He knew what he had. I’d bet he’s dumped whole databases to the DVDs and the index is on the laptop. It’s like a hacker’s reference library. When he needs something, he can look it up.”

WE FORDED a couple of low cross streets and came up to a well-lit intersection. I took a left on a major street, no idea what it was. John had been silent for a few minutes, then said, “So we gotta get the laptop.”

“Yup. Or destroy it.”

“But we gotta get the guy who killed Bobby, too. That’s just as important-to me, anyway. The local cops won’t do it. I think we’ve got to call in the feds.”

“Yeah,” I said reluctantly. Then, after a few more minutes, “I wish there was some way to get the feds interested in Bobby, without them knowing that he’s Bobby. Some way to get them chasing the killer. Like seriously on the job.”

More thinking, then John half-laughed, looked at his watch, and said, “Well, I know one way. If we got the time.”

John’s a smart guy. When he told me his idea, it made me laugh, as it had made him laugh, the heartsick sound you make when somebody presents you with an insane proposition that would probably work, and that you’re probably gonna do.

After a little more talk, I said, “Ah, boy.” I couldn’t think of anything nearly as good. I told him so, and added, “Or as fuckin’ nuts.”

WE FOUND an all-night convenience store where I bought some cookies and candy and a couple of cans of motor oil and two gallons of spring water from a sleepy clerk. John dumped the spring water out the window as we drove along, poured in the oil, and, after wiping them clean, threw the oil cans out the window into a roadside ditch. We stopped at an edge-of-town gas station, parked so the filler cap was away from the station, filled the tank with gas, and then added gas to the two water jugs until they were three-quarters full.

Then we went back to Bobby’s, nervous as cats, cruised the neighborhood, saw only two lights-it was past four in the morning now, and working people would be getting up in the next hour or two. Everything around Bobby’s was quiet, though, so we pulled in and went inside.

Tried to ignore the body, though John said, talking to him, “This is for you, Robert.”

We were planning to use clothes-hanger wire if we had to, but Bobby had a long roll of picture-hanging wire that worked just fine. We used the heavy side boards from the bed for the main frame, and the picture-hanging wire to strap a couple of old cotton blankets around the boards.

We’d been working frantically, gloved again, fumbling everything so we had to do everything twice, but we were ready to go by four-thirty. I carried our creation outside and soaked it with the gas, then threw the empty jugs in the backseat of the car.

“I’m going to hell for this,” John said to me across the yard, as he wired it to a front-porch upright.

“Think of it as performance sculpture,” I said. “Don’t light it until I’ve got the car in the street.” I backed the car out of the driveway, got it pointed, pushed open the passenger door, and John struck a match and threw it at the gas-soaked rags.

I can tell you from experience that when you’ve got a lot of gas, it doesn’t just flame up, like paper: it goes with an audible whump. The thing was burning like crazy, even with the rain, and John was running and then he was in the car chanting, “Go, go, go,” and we were out of there.

We planned to stop a mile or so away and call the fire department, but by the time we got to the pay phone, we could hear sirens and they were getting closer. So we kept going. But I’d looked back from the corner as we’d gone slewing around it, and even in the driving rain, the fire looked like a bad dream out of Revelation, or out of Jackson, Mississippi, in 1930.

John had been right. For bringing in an FBI investigation, nothing worked quite as well as a dead black guy and a great big stinking Fiery Cross.