The only thing open at 3AM that had any sort of computer equipment was Kinko's. After politely informing the pimple faced Kinko's clerk that he should "fuck off and die," Deck settled down at a station and popped in the CD.
"Password protected my ass!" Deck screamed at the monitor. The soft chuckles of the delinquent clerk could be heard drifting from the back room.
After slamming his hand into the keyboard a few times and getting nowhere, Deck pulled the flask from his hip pocket, unscrewed the cap and took a long, well deserved pull of JTS. He rubbed his temples and tried to think of what the password could possibly be. After trying several and, consequently, slamming his hand into the keyboard several times, it hit him.
"No-o-o-o… It couldn't be THAT easy!" Deck smiled deviously and typed in "utelemper".
The computer paused momentarily and then displayed a familiar little box that said "Password Incorrect."
Decks eyes went dark with anger. "FUCK! Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!" Laughter echoed from the back room as the amused clerk watched Deck on the security cameras. "SHUT UP!" hollered Deck, "unless you think that you can do better… little prick." Deck slammed his head into the keyboard in defeat.
Moments later the clerk marched out with something that resembled a Rolodex. He eyed Deck distainfully, plopped the box down on the counter and began to riffle through the contents. Producing a floppy from the box he stuck it in the drive. The clerk then opened a DOS window, ran whatever it was that was on the floppy and a little progress bar on the DOS application slid slowly toward "%100."
"Done," said the clerk.
Sure enough, when Deck tried to open the CD it no longer prompted him to enter the password. Deck stuttered "How d-did you--", the clerk cocked his head and gave Deck one of those "You really think that you could POSSIBLY understand, old man?" looks, ejected his disk, filed it away and disappeared once again into the back room.
Deck shrugged, mumbled something about the "tragic waste of youth in a delinquent, morally devoid existence; a true failing of collective society, which is certainly harbinger of doom for the 'tribal family' aspect of the community," and then turned to review the files on the CD.
Deck just about had a heart attack reading some of the shit he found on that CD. There was fifty years of Hollywood scandal, dirt and plain as day blackmail material on that thing! It was a veritable who's who of licentious depravity, listing--but not limited to--murders, rapes, drunken orgies, theft, vandalism, hijacking, racketeering, payrolled cops and pocketed politicians, drug running, all manner of sexually deranged fetishes and who had them, and much more than that besides. The book was no more than a preview, almost like a movie trailer, in comparison to what Deck found on that CD.
Everything was certainly beginning to fall into place. Deck had a damn good idea where he could find that little fuck Kim, and he realized that he had been played for the fool all along. Deck was nothing more than a pawn; no, less than that, a fall guy. Shit was going to hit the fan really soon and Deck didn't have much time to find some hipwaders.
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