10
When she returns with his copy of the letter, he folds it into his inner jacket pocket. “The original should go into a safe, if there’s one here.”
“There’s one at the Sugar Heights house—will that do?”
It probably would, but Hodges doesn’t care for the idea. Too many prospective buyers tromping in and out. Which is probably stupid, but there it is.
“Do you have a safe-deposit box?”
“No, but I could rent one. I use Bank of America, just two blocks over.”
“I’d like that better,” Hodges says, going to the door.
“Thank you for doing this,” she says, and holds out both of her hands. As if he has asked her to dance. “You don’t know what a relief it is.”
He takes the offered hands, squeezes them lightly, then lets go, although he would have been happy to hold them longer.
“Two other things. First, your mother. How often do you visit her?”
“Every other day or so. Sometimes I take her food from the Iranian restaurant she and Ollie liked—the Sunny Acres kitchen staff is happy to warm it up—and sometimes I bring her a DVD or two. She likes the oldies, like with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. I always bring her something, and she’s always happy to see me. On her good days she does see me. On her bad ones, she’s apt to call me Olivia. Or Charlotte. That’s my aunt. I also have an uncle.”
“The next time she has a good day, you ought to call me so I can go see her.”
“All right. I’ll go with you. What’s the other thing?”
“This lawyer you mentioned. Schron. Did he strike you as competent?”
“Sharpest knife in the drawer, that was my impression.”
“If I do find something out, maybe even put a name on the guy, we’re going to need someone like that. We’ll go see him, we’ll turn over the letters—”
“Letters? I only found the one.”
Hodges thinks Ah, shit, then regroups. “The letter and the copy, I mean.”
“Oh, right.”
“If I find the guy, it’s the job of the police to arrest him and charge him. Schron’s job is to make sure we don’t get arrested for going off the reservation and investigating on our own.”
“That would be criminal law, isn’t it? I’m not sure he does that kind.”
“Probably not, but if he’s good, he’ll know somebody who does. Someone who’s just as good as he is. Are we agreed on that? We have to be. I’m willing to poke around, but if this turns into police business, we let the police take over.”
“I’m fine with that,” Janey says. Then she stands on tiptoe, puts her hands on the shoulders of his too-tight coat, and plants a kiss on his cheek. “I think you’re a good guy, Bill. And the right guy for this.”
He feels that kiss all the way down in the elevator. A lovely little warm spot. He’s glad he took pains about shaving before leaving the house.
11
The silver rain falls without end, but the young couple—lovers? friends?—are safe and dry under the blue umbrella that belongs to someone, likely a fictional someone, named Debbie. This time Hodges notices that it’s the boy who appears to be speaking, and the girl’s eyes are slightly widened, as if in surprise. Maybe he’s just proposed to her?
Jerome pops this romantic thought like a balloon. “Looks like a porn site, doesn’t it?”
“Now what would a young pre–Ivy Leaguer like yourself know about porn sites?”
They are seated side by side in Hodges’s study, looking at the Blue Umbrella start-up page. Odell, Jerome’s Irish setter, is lying on his back behind them, rear legs splayed, tongue hanging from one side of his mouth, staring at the ceiling with a look of good-humored contemplation. Jerome brought him on a leash, but only because that’s the law inside the city limits. Odell knows enough to stay out of the street and is about as harmless to passersby as a dog can be.
“I know what you know and what everybody with a computer knows,” Jerome says. In his khaki slacks and button-down Ivy League shirt, his hair a close-cropped cap of curls, he looks to Hodges like a young Barack Obama, only taller. Jerome is six-five. And around him is the faint, pleasantly nostalgic aroma of Old Spice aftershave. “Porn sites are thicker than flies on roadkill. You surf the Net, you can’t help bumping into them. And the ones with the innocent-sounding names are the ones most apt to be loaded.”
“Loaded how?”
“With the kinds of images that can get you arrested.”
“Kiddie porn, you mean.”
“Or torture porn. Ninety-nine percent of the whips-and-chains stuff is faked. The other one percent . . .” Jerome shrugs.
“And you know this how?”
Jerome gives him a look—straight, frank, and open. Not an act, just the way he is, and what Hodges likes most about the kid. His mother and father are the same way. Even his little sis.
“Mr. Hodges, everybody knows. If they’re under thirty, that is.”
“Back in the day, people used to say don’t trust anyone over thirty.”
Jerome smiles. “I trust em, but when it comes to computers, an awful lot of em are clueless. They beat up their machines, then expect em to work. They open bareback email attachments. They go to websites like this, and all at once their computer goes HAL 9000 and starts downloading pictures of teenage escorts or terrorist videos that show people getting their heads chopped off.”
It was on the tip of Hodge’s tongue to ask who Hal 9000 is—it sounds like a gangbanger tag to him—but the thing about terrorist videos diverts him. “That actually happens?”
“It’s been known to. And then . . .” Jerome makes a fist and raps his knuckles against the top of his head. “Knock-knock-knock, Homeland Security at your door.” He unrolls his fist so he can point a finger at the couple under the blue umbrella. “On the other hand, this might be just what it claims to be, a chat site where shy people can be electronic pen-pals. You know, a lonelyhearts deal. Lots of people out there lookin for love, dude. Let’s see.”
He reaches for the mouse but Hodges grabs his wrist. Jerome looks at him inquiringly.
“Don’t see on my computer,” Hodges says. “See on yours.”
“If you’d asked me to bring my laptop—”
“Do it tonight, that’ll be fine. And if you happen to unleash a virus that swallows your cruncher whole, I’ll stand you the price of a new one.”
Jerome shoots him a look of condescending amusement. “Mr. Hodges, I’ve got the best virus detection and prevention program money can buy, and the second best backing it up. Any bug trying to creep into my machines gets swatted pronto.”
“It might not be there to eat,” Hodges says. He’s thinking about Mrs. T.’s sister saying, It’s as if the guy knew her. “It might be there to watch.”
Jerome doesn’t look worried; he looks excited. “How did you get onto this site, Mr. Hodges? Are you coming out of retirement? Are you, like, on the case?”
Hodges has never missed Pete Huntley so bitterly as he does at that moment: a tennis partner to volley with, only with theories and suppositions instead of fuzzy green balls. He has no doubt Jerome could fulfill that function, he has a good mind and a demonstrated talent for making all the right deductive leaps . . . but he’s also a year from voting age, four from being able to buy a legal drink, and this could be dangerous.
“Just peek into the site for me,” Hodges says. “But before you do, hunt around on the Net. See what you can find out about it. What I want to know most of all is—”
“If it has an actual history,” Jerome cuts in, once more demonstrating that admirable deductive ability. “A whatdoyoucallit, backstory. You want to make sure it’s not a straw man set up for you alone.”
“You know,” Hodges says, “you should quit doing chores for me and get a job with one of those computer-doctor companies. You could probably make a lot more dough. Which reminds me, you need to give me a price for this job.”
Jerome is offended, but not by the offer of a fee. “Those companies are for geeks with bad social skills.” He reaches behind him and scratches Odell’s dark red fur. Odell thumps his tail appreciatively, although he would probably prefer a steak sandwich. “In fact there’s one bunch that drives around in VW Beetles. You can’t get much geekier than that. Discount Electronix . . . you know them?”
“Sure,” Hodges says, thinking of the advertising circular he got along with his poison-pen letter.
“They must have liked the idea, because they have the same deal, only they call it the Cyber Patrol, and their VWs are green instead of black. Plus there are mucho independents. Look online, you can find two hundred right here in the city. I thinks I stick to chos, Massa Hodges.”
Jerome clicks away from Under Debbie’s Blue Umbrella and back to Hodges’s screensaver, which happens to be a picture of Allie, back when she was five and still thought her old man was God.
“But since you’re worried, I’ll take precautions. I’ve got an old iMac in my closet with nothing on it but Atari Arcade and a few other moldy oldies. I’ll use that one to check out the site.”
“Good idea.”
“Anything else I can do for you today?”
Hodges starts to say no, but Mrs. T.’s stolen Mercedes is still bugging him. There is something very wrong there. He felt it then and feels it more strongly now—so strongly he almost sees it. But almost never won a kewpie doll at the county fair. The wrongness is a ball he wants to hit, and have someone hit back to him.
“You could listen to a story,” he says. In his mind he’s already making up a piece of fiction that will touch on all the salient points. Who knows, maybe Jerome’s fresh eye will spot something he himself has missed. Unlikely, but not impossible. “Would you be willing to do that?”
“Sure.”
“Then clip Odell on his leash. We’ll walk down to Big Licks. I’ve got my face fixed for a strawberry cone.”
“Maybe we’ll see the Mr. Tastey truck before we get there,” Jerome says. “That guy’s been in the neighborhood all week, and he’s got some awesome goodies.”
“So much the better,” Hodges says, getting up. “Let’s go.”