Chapter 60
SCI’S APARTMENT WAS on the top floor of a run-down building that had once housed a printing press, back in the days when some people in Los Angeles actually read.
The space was open, with metal columns supporting the high ceilings. Photos were being projected onto white walls in a looping slide show: the Vatican at night, the Tatshenshini River in the wilds of Alaska, the quad at Harvard, an aurora borealis, the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem shot from a high floor at the King David Hotel. Some of Sci’s favorite things to behold.
A twelve-foot-long tiger shark was suspended above the space by chains attached to a framing timber.
Trixie, Sci’s lab monkey rescue, was perched atop her cage, greedily eating banana chips, while Sci, seated in front of his computer, chatted with his beloved Kit-Kat by webcam.
Her pretty face and large body filled the screen.
“You’re very anxious tonight,” she said. “This case has really upset you, hasn’t it?”
“It’s all about sick fantasies that have turned into real murders. Sound about right, Kat?”
“Ja. That’s how these rotten killers operate. Happens all over the world.”
“Only this time, there’s no pattern we can see.”
Sci knew that Kat was a biochemist. He also knew she was married and that she lived in Stockholm, but he didn’t know Kit-Kat’s actual name. They had no plans to meet, because that would ruin everything, wouldn’t it?
“I called because I found something for you, Sci. It’s just a whisper. I can’t confirm it. Rumors of a wireless spy-bot program that originated in the US. It lets the user grab the signal of a particular cell phone and clone it. Undetected.”
Sci felt his heart pumping pure liquid hallelujah. He’d often imagined such a program, and now Kat was telling him that it existed.
“Tell me everything, Kat, my sweet girl.”
Trixie the monkey shrieked, threw down her snack, and ran across her rope line. She leaped to Sci’s shoulder, where she squatted and chattered at Kat’s image on the screen.
“Hello, beautiful Trixie…. Anyway, this program seemed a little familiar, Sci. So I chased down a different program that’s a few years old but with a similar signature. That program was created by a gamer called Morbid. Don’t take this for more than it is, darling, please. It’s an educated guess, built on a rumor. I have been searching everywhere, though.”
“Kat, I can’t thank you enough. This is the closest thing I have to a lead yet.”
“I have to go in a few minutes,” Kat said. “I have just enough time…”
Kat unbuttoned her blouse, and techno music with a complex melody and a pounding beat came over the speakers. Sci’s thoughts about a spy program moved to the back of his mind as he locked Trixie in her cage and turned to Kit-Kat.
The very large, very lovely woman took a clip out of her thick blond hair and began to slip out of her clothes. “Tell me what you like tonight, my lover,” she said. “Then I will do the same.”