“Right. And?”
“I couldn’t make out the text between 000 and DS, it was just too blurry, so I wrote a little program that takes all the D-S and T-H-S words and does a search using those three zeros. I figure those zeros have to be some common number, otherwise why print it on a poster? My program ran through all word combos and the numbers one thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand, and one million. Manually it would have taken me forever, but my program did it all in a flash. I generated a bunch of image search URLS because that’s what we’re looking for. Am I right, or am I right?”
When Bao said this, he was right.
“What did you get?”
“Well, I limited the words. Based on the poster and font size, I did some calculations and I didn’t think any word was greater than six letters. Also, I used only words that had DS and THS on the end. And I didn’t mix the DS and THS words because there would be too many combinations. So the first search was for one thousand, Alkyds, Poster, then ten thousand, Alkyds, Poster, and so on.”
“That sounds like nonsense to me.”
“It’s total nonsense. I was only looking at the first few rows of images for every number and word combo that got returned. It didn’t take too long. I sifted through a lot of nonsense until I ran a search for ten thousand, AIDS, Poster.”
Bao used his phone to run this exact search query. The results displayed a preview of the images, and he clicked on the first one. The image showed a black and white picture of a bald, middle-aged man. The words on the poster read 10,000 NEW YORK CITY AIDS DEATHS HOW’M I DOIN’?
Angie realized the words they couldn’t make out because they were too small and blurry in the photograph were the most important words of all.
“At first I didn’t know who the guy was,” Bao said, “but I figured it out easy enough. It’s a guy name Ed Koch.”
Angie knew the name. “He was the mayor of New York City.”
“Right on! And there’s a history to this poster. A group called Act Up made it to criticize Koch’s inaction in dealing with the AIDS epidemic. ‘How’m I doin?’ was his catchphrase. He used to ride the subways and greet people with that slogan. I looked that up, too. So the poster was meant to be ironic.”
“But now we know the city. It was New York. Nobody would hang a Mayor Koch poster in another city.”
“We know more than that. We know the exact year this picture was taken. The poster was made in 1988. It could have been plastered to that building for years, but it’s not all torn or faded, so I’m guessing it’s pretty new in this photograph. Who knows, right? But based on the photo paper, we know roughly when the image was taken. So photo paper plus the date the poster was made, and I can tell you with one hundred percent, Bao-certified certainty that this image was taken in New York City and the year was 1988.”
One of Bao’s outstanding talents was his ability to tackle a problem from angles others might ignore. Angie had seen him work his magic on a number of cases, and the police who used to chase him now often thanked him for his efforts. She should not have been surprised at Bao’s findings.
She gave him a big hug. “This must have been a lot of work.”
“You can send my girlfriend some flowers to thank her for letting me vanish for a while.”
“And I can thank you with some thank-you money. How many hours do I owe you?”
“Zero. Put this one on the house, Ange. You’ve done a lot for me. Least I can do this for you.”
“Not happening. I’m writing you a check.”
“When it’s over, how ’bout you buy me a board. Polar Skate came out with a new line that’d be totally gnarly. I’m stoked we got this far, but big questions remain.”
“Right. Like why does my mom have a picture of a little girl from 1988?”
“And why does she need forgiveness? Thinking out loud here. Did your mom and dad ever live in New York City?”
“No,” Angie said.
“Any relatives?”
“My dad grew up in a Michigan orphanage. It’s closed now. He went from foster home to foster home and ended up in California, where he met my mom. They moved from California to Virginia after the big blowout over my mom being unwed and pregnant, with me no less.”
“Like whoa on the guilt.”
“Like whoa, there were no stops made in New York.”
“Maybe a relative you didn’t know?”
“That she kept secret from my dad? I don’t think so. He saw the picture. I think he’d remember a little girl with a deformed ear. Makes no sense that my mom would hide that from him.”
“Well, maybe you should track down the family. Find out for yourself.”
Angie grimaced at the thought. “That would break my mother’s heart.”