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about 250 miles from Elwood. Then he manipulated the phone box's LEN to make it a residential number; and finally he rerouted the calls to the phone box to one of the three numbers on his desk. That was a bit of extra security: if anything was ever traced, he wanted the authorities to think the whole operation was run from Paducah.

And that itself was a private joke. Fry Guy had picked Paducah precisely because it was not the sort of town that was home to many hackers: technology in Paducah, Fry Guy sniggered, had stopped at the turn of the century.

Now he had to move quickly. He had rerouted all of Michael B.'s incoming calls to his own phone, but he didn't want to have to deal with the guy's personal messages. He rang Western Union and instructed the company to wire $687 to its office in Paducah, to be picked up by – and here he quoted the alias of a friend who lived in the Kentucky town. Charge it to his Choice Visa in the name of Michael B., he said.

Then he waited. A minute or so later Western Union rang the number of Michael B. to confirm the transaction – or so the company thought. In reality, the call was intercepted by the reprogrammed switch and was rerouted to Paducah and from there to a phone on Fry Guy's desk.

Fry Guy answered, his voice deeper and, he hoped, the sort that would belong to a man with a decent credit line. Yes, he was Michael B. Yes, he could confirm the transaction.

Seconds after he had spoken to Western Union, Fry Guy went back into the switches, quickly reprogramming them. The pay phone in Paducah became a pay phone again. And Michael B., though he was unaware that anything had ever been amiss, could once again receive incoming calls. The whole transaction had taken less than ten minutes.

The next day, after Fry Guy's friend in Kentucky picked up the $687, Fry Guy carried out a second successful transaction. This time he netted $432. He would perform the trick again and again that summer.

The money went on computer equipment and chemicals. The summer passed in a haze.

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