Some girl with a Marine haircut, Hodges thinks. A ratty chick with a bunch of tats.
It rang no bells at the time, but there was that faint vibration, and now he knows why. He met a skinny girl with buzz-cut hair at Discount Electronix back in 2010, when he, Jerome, and Holly were closing in on Brady. Even six years later he can remember what she said about her co-worker on the Cyber Patrol: It’s something with his mom, betcha anything. He’s freaky about her.
“Are you still there?” Norma sounds irritated.
“Yeah, but I have to go.”
“Didn’t you say there’d be some extra money if—”
“Yeah. I’ll take care of you, Norma.” He ends the call.
The pills are doing their work, and he’s able to manage a medium-fast walk back to the office. Holly and Jerome are at the window overlooking Lower Marlborough Street, and he can tell by their expressions when they turn to the sound of the opening door that they’ve been talking about him, but he has no time to think about that. Or brood on it. What he’s thinking about are those rigged Zappits. The question ever since they started to put things together was how Brady could have had anything to do with modifying them when he was stuck in a hospital room and barely able to walk. But he knew somebody who almost certainly had the skills to do it for him, didn’t he? Someone he used to work with. Somebody who came to visit him in the Bucket, with Babineau’s written approval. A punky chick with a lot of tats and a yard of attitude.
“Brady’s visitor—his only visitor—was a woman named Frederica Linklatter. She—”
“Cyber Patrol!” Holly nearly screams. “He worked with her!”
“Right. There was also a third guy—the boss, I think. Do either of you remember his name?”
Holly and Jerome look at each other, then shake their heads.
“That was a long time ago, Bill,” Jerome says. “And we were concentrating on Hartsfield by then.”
“Yeah. I only remember Linklatter because she was sort of unforgettable.”
“Can I use your computer?” Jerome asks. “Maybe I can find the guy while Holly looks for the girl’s addy.”
“Sure, go for it.”
Holly is at hers already, sitting bolt upright and clicking away. She’s also talking out loud as she often does when she’s deeply involved in something. “Frack. Whitepages doesn’t have a number or address. Long shot, anyway, a lot of single women don’t . . . wait, hold the fracking phone . . . here’s her Facebook page . . .”
“I’m not really interested in her summer vacation snaps or how many friends she’s got,” Hodges says.
“Are you sure about that? Because she’s only got six friends, and one of them is Anthony Frobisher. I’m pretty sure that was the name of the—”
“Frobisher!” Jerome yells from Hodges’s office. “Anthony Frobisher was the third Cyber Patrol guy!”
“Beat you, Jerome,” Holly says. She looks smug. “Again.”
6
Unlike Frederica Linklatter, Anthony Frobisher is listed, both as himself and as Your Computer Guru. Both numbers are the same—his cell, Hodges assumes. He evicts Jerome from his office chair and settles there himself, doing it slowly and carefully. The explosion of pain he felt while sitting on the toilet is still fresh in his mind.
The phone is answered on the first ring. “Computer Guru, Tony Frobisher speaking. How can I help you?”
“Mr. Frobisher, this is Bill Hodges. You probably don’t remember me, but—”
“Oh, I remember you, all right.” Frobisher sounds wary. “What do you want? If it’s about Hartsfield—”
“It’s about Frederica Linklatter. Do you have a current address for her?”
“Freddi? Why would I have any address for her? I haven’t seen her since DE closed.”
“Really? According to her Facebook page, you and she are friends.”
Frobisher laughs incredulously. “Who else has she got listed? Kim Jong-un? Charles Manson? Listen, Mr. Hodges, that smartmouth bitch has no friends. The closest thing to one was Hartsfield, and I just got a news push on my phone saying he’s dead.”
Hodges has no idea what a news push is, and no desire to learn. He thanks Frobisher and hangs up. He’s guessing that none of Freddi Linklatter’s half dozen Facebook friends are real friends, that she just added them to keep from feeling like a total outcast. Holly might have done that same thing, once upon a time, but now she actually has friends. Lucky for her, and lucky for them. Which begs the question: how does he locate Freddi Linklatter?