"It's more complicated than that. I'm not a cop anymore, and investigating the City Center thing skates right up to the edge of what's legal. If I find anything out and don't tell my old partner, who's now the lead on the Mercedes Killer case, I'll be over the edge. You have a bright future ahead of you, including just about any college or university you decide to favor with your presence. What would I say to your mother and father if you got dragged into an investigation of my actions, maybe as an accomplice?"
Jerome sits quietly, digesting this. Then he gives the end of his cone to Odell, who accepts it eagerly. "I get it."
"Do you?"
"Yeah."
Jerome stands up and Hodges does the same. "Still friends?"
"Sure. But if you think I can help you, promise me that you'll ask. You know what they say, two heads are better than one."
"That's a deal."
They start back up the hill. At first Odell walks between them as before, then starts to pull ahead because Hodges is slowing down. He's also losing his breath. "I've got to drop some weight," he tells Jerome. "You know what? I tore the seat out of a perfectly good pair of pants the other day."
"You could probably stand to lose ten," Jerome says diplomatically.
"Double that and you'd be a lot closer."
"Want to stop and rest a minute?"
"No." Hodges sounds childish even to himself. He means it about the weight, though; when he gets back to the house, every damn snack in the cupboards and the fridge is going into the trash. Then he thinks, Make it the garbage disposal. Too easy to weaken and fish stuff out of the trash.
"Jerome, it would be best if you kept my little investigation to yourself. Can I trust your discretion?"
Jerome replies without hesitation. "Absolutely. Mum's the word."
"Good."
A block ahead, the Mr. Tastey truck jingles its way across Harper Road and heads down Vinson Lane. Jerome tips a wave. Hodges can't see if the ice cream man waves back.
"Now we see him," Hodges said.
Jerome turns, gives him a grin. "Ice cream man's like a cop."
"Huh?"
"Never around when you need him."
14
Brady rolls along, obeying the speed limit (twenty miles per here on Vinson Lane), hardly hearing the jingle and clang of "Buffalo Gals" from the speakers above him. He's wearing a sweater beneath his white Mr. Tastey jacket, because the load behind him is cold.
Like my mind, he thinks. Only ice cream is just cold. My mind is also analytical. It's a machine. A Mac loaded with gigs to the googolplex.
He turns it to what he has just seen, the fat ex-cop walking up Harper Road Hill with Jerome Robinson and the Irish setter with the nigger name. Jerome gave him a wave and Brady gave it right back, because that's the way you blend in. Like listening to Freddi Linklatter's endless rants about how tough it was to be a gay woman in a straight world.
Kermit William "I wish I was young" Hodges and Jerome "I wish I was white" Robinson. What was the Odd Couple talking about? That's something Brady Hartsfield would like to know. Maybe he'll find out if the cop takes the bait and strikes up a conversation on Debbie's Blue Umbrella. It certainly worked with the rich bitch; once she started talking, nothing could stop her.
The Det-Ret and his darkie houseboy.
Also Odell. Don't forget Odell. Jerome and his little sister love that dog. It would really break them up if something happened to it. Probably nothing will, but maybe he'll research some more poisons on the Net when he gets home tonight.
Such thoughts are always flitting through Brady's mind; they are the bats in his belfry. This morning at DE, as he was inventorying another load of cheap-ass DVDs (why more are coming in at the same time they're trying to dump stock is a mystery that will never be solved), it occurred to him that he could use his suicide vest to assassinate the president, Mr. Barack "I wish I was white" Obama. Go out in a blaze of glory. Barack comes to this state often, because it's important to his re-election strategy. And when he comes to the state, he comes to this city. Has a rally. Talks about hope. Talks about change. Rah-rah-rah, blah-blah-blah. Brady was figuring out how to avoid metal detectors and random checks when Tones Frobisher buzzed him and told him he had a service call. By the time he was on the road in one of the green Cyber Patrol VWs, he was thinking about something else. Brad Pitt, to be exact. Fucking matinee idol.
Sometimes, though, his ideas stick.
A chubby little boy comes running down the sidewalk, waving money. Brady pulls over.
"I want chawww-klit!" the little boy brays. "And I want it with springles!"
You got it, you fatass little creep, Brady thinks, and smiles his widest, most charming smile. Fuck up your cholesterol all you want, I give you until forty, and who knows, maybe you'll survive the first heart attack. That won't stop you, though, nope. Not when the world is full of beer and Whoppers and chocolate ice cream.
"You got it, little buddy. One chocolate with sprinkles coming right up. How was school? Get any As?"
15
That night the TV never goes on at 63 Harper Road, not even for the Evening News. Nor does the computer. Hodges hauls out his trusty legal pad instead. Janelle Patterson called him old school. So he is, and he doesn't apologize for it. This is the way he has always worked, the way he's most comfortable.
Sitting in beautiful no-TV silence, he reads over the letter Mr. Mercedes sent him. Then he reads the one Mrs. T. got. Back and forth he goes for an hour or more, examining the letters line by line. Because Mrs. T.'s letter is a copy, he feels free to jot in the margins and circle certain words.
He finishes this part of his procedure by reading the letters aloud. He uses different voices, because Mr. Mercedes has adopted two different personae. The letter Hodges received is gloating and arrogant. Ha-ha, you broken-down old fool, it says. You have nothing to live for and you know it, so why don't you just kill yourself? The tone of Olivia Trelawney's letter is cringing and melancholy, full of remorse and tales of childhood abuse, but here also is the idea of suicide, this time couched in terms of sympathy: I understand. I totally get it, because I feel the same.
At last he puts the letters in a folder with MERCEDES KILLER printed on the tab. There's nothing else in it, which means it's mighty thin, but if he's still any good at his job, it will thicken with page after page of his own notes.
He sits for fifteen minutes, hands folded on his too-large middle like a meditating Buddha. Then he draws the pad to him and begins writing.
I think I was right about most of the stylistic red herrings. In Mrs. T.'s letter he doesn't use exclamation points, capitalized phrases, or many one-sentence paragraphs (the ones at the end are for dramatic effect). I was wrong about the quotation marks, he likes those. Also fond of underlining things. He may not be young after all, I could have been wrong about that . . .
But he thinks of Jerome, who has already forgotten more about computers and the Internet than Hodges himself will ever learn. And of Janey Patterson, who knew how to make a copy of her sister's letter by scanning, and who uses Skype. Janey Patterson, who's got to be almost twenty years younger than he is.
He picks up his pen again.
. . . but I don't think I am. Probably not a teenager (altho can't rule it out) but let's say in the range 20-35. He's smart. Good vocabulary, able to turn a phrase.
He goes through the letters yet again and jots down some of those turned phrases: scurrying little mouse of a kid, strawberry jam in a sleeping bag, most people are sheep and sheep don't eat meat.
Nothing that would make people forget Philip Roth, but Hodges thinks such lines show a degree of talent. He finds one more and prints it below the others: What have they done for you except hound you and cause you sleepless nights?
He taps the tip of his pen above this, creating a constellation of tiny dark blue dots. He thinks most people would write give you sleepless nights or bring you sleepless nights, but those weren't good enough for Mr. Mercedes, because h
e is a gardener planting seeds of doubt and paranoia. They are out to get you, Mrs. T., and they have a point, don't they? Because you did leave your key. The cops say so; I say so too, and I was there. How can we both be wrong?
He writes these ideas down, boxes them, then turns to a fresh sheet.
Best point of identification is still PERK for PERP, he uses it in both letters, but also note HYPHENS in the Trelawney letter. Beehive instead of beehive. Weekdays instead of weekdays. If I am able to ID this guy and get a writing sample, I can nail him.
Such stylistic fingerprints wouldn't be enough to convince a jury, but Hodges himself? Absolutely.
He sits back again, head tilted, eyes fixed on nothing. He isn't aware of time passing; for Hodges, time, which has hung so heavy since his retirement, has been canceled. Then he lurches forward, office chair squalling an unheard protest, and writes in large capital letters: HAS MR. MERCEDES BEEN WATCHING?
Hodges feels all but positive he has been. That it's his MO.
He followed Mrs. Trelawney's vilification in the newspapers, he watched her two or three appearances on the TV news (curt and unflattering, those appearances drove her already low approval ratings into the basement). He may have done drive-bys on her house as well. Hodges should talk to Radney Peeples again and find out if Peeples or any other Vigilant employees noted certain cars cruising Mrs. Trelawney's Sugar Heights neighborhood in the weeks before she caught the bus. And someone sprayed KILLER CUNT on one of her gateposts. How long before her suicide was that? Maybe Mr. Mercedes did it himself. And of course, he could have gotten to know her better, lots better, if she took him up on his invitation to meet under the Blue Umbrella.
Then there's me, he thinks, and looks at the way his own letter ends: I wouldn't want you to start thinking about your gun followed by But you are thinking of it, aren't you? Is Mr. Mercedes talking about his theoretical service weapon, or has he seen the .38 Hodges sometimes plays with? No way of telling, but . . .
But I think he has. He knows where I live, you can look right into my living room from the street, and I think he's seen it.
The idea that he's been watched fills Hodges with excitement rather than dread or embarrassment. If he could match some vehicle the Vigilant people have noticed with a vehicle spending an inordinate amount of time on Harper Road--
That's when the telephone rings.
16
"Hi, Mr. H."
"S'up, Jerome?"
"I'm under the Umbrella."
Hodges puts his legal pad aside. The first four pages are now full of disjointed notes, the next three with a close-written case summary, just like in the old days. He rocks back in his chair.
"It didn't eat your computer, I take it?"
"Nope. No worms, no viruses. And I've already got four offers to talk with new friends. One's from Abilene, Texas. She says her name is Bernice, but I can call her Berni. With an i. She sounds cute as hell, and I won't say I'm not tempted, but she's probably a cross-dressing shoe salesman from Boston who lives with his mother. The Internet, dude--it's a wonderbox."
Hodges grins.
"First the background, which I partly got from poking around that selfsame Internet and mostly from a couple of Computer Science geeks at the university. You ready?"
Hodges grabs his legal pad again and turns to a fresh page. "Hit me." Which is exactly what he used to say to Pete Huntley when Pete came in with fresh information on a case.
"Okay, but first . . . do you know what the most precious Internet commodity is?"
"Nope." And, thinking of Janey Patterson: "I'm old school."
Jerome laughs. "That you are, Mr. Hodges. It's part of your charm."
Dryly: "Thank you, Jerome."
"The most precious commodity is privacy, and that's what Debbie's Blue Umbrella and sites like it deliver. They make Facebook look like a partyline back in the nineteen-fifties. Hundreds of privacy sites have sprung up since 9/11. That's when the various first-world governments really started to get snoopy. The powers that be fear the Net, dude, and they're right to fear it. Anyway, most of these EP sites--stands for extreme privacy--operate out of Central Europe. They are to Internet chat what Switzerland is to bank accounts. You with me?"
"Yeah."
"The Blue Umbrella servers are in Olovo, a Bosnian ville that was mostly known for bullfights until 2005 or so. Encrypted servers. We're talking NASA quality, okay? Traceback's impossible, unless NSA or the Kang Sheng--that's the Chinese version of the NSA--have got some super-secret software nobody knows about."
And even if they do, Hodges thinks, they'd never put it to use in a case like the Mercedes Killer.
"Here's another feature, especially handy in the age of sexting scandals. Mr. H., have you ever found something on the Net--like a picture or an article in a newspaper--that you wanted to print, and you couldn't?"
"A few times, yeah. You hit print, and the Print Preview shows nothing but a blank page. It's annoying."
"Same thing on Debbie's Blue Umbrella." Jerome doesn't sound annoyed; he sounds admiring. "I had a little back-and-forth with my new friend Berni--you know, how's the weather there, what're your favorite groups, that kind of thing--and when I tried to print our conversation, I got a pair of lips with a finger across them and a message that says SHHH." Jerome spells this out, just to be sure Hodges gets it. "You can make a record of the conversation . . ."
You bet, Hodges thinks, looking fondly down at the jotted notes on his legal pad.
". . . but you'd have to take screen-shots or something, which is a pain in the ass. You see what I mean about the privacy, right? These guys are serious about it."
Hodges does see. He flips back to the first page of his legal pad and circles one of his earliest notes: COMPUTER SAVVY (UNDER 50?).
"When you click in, you get the usual choice--ENTER USERNAME or REGISTER NOW. Since I didn't have a username, I clicked REGISTER NOW and got one. If you want to talk with me under the Blue Umbrella, I'm tyrone40. Next, there's a questionnaire you fill out--age, sex, interests, things like that--and then you have to punch in your credit card number. It's thirty bucks a month. I did it because I have faith in your powers of reimbursement."
"Your faith will be rewarded, my son."
"The computer thinks it over for ninety seconds or so--the Blue Umbrella spins and the screen says SORTING. Then you get a list of people with interests similar to yours. You just bang on a few and pretty soon you're chatting up a storm."
"Could people use this to exchange porn? I know the descriptor says you can't, but--"
"You could use it to exchange fantasies, but no pix. Although I could see how weirdos--child abusers, crush freaks, that kind of thing--could use the Blue Umbrella to direct like-minded friends to sites where outlaw images are available."
Hodges starts to ask what crush freaks are, then decides he doesn't want to know.
"Mostly just innocent chat, then."
"Well . . ."
"Well what?"
"I can see how crazies might use it to exchange badass info. Like how to build bombs and stuff."
"Let's say I already have a username. What happens then?"
"Do you?" The excitement is back in Jerome's voice.
"Let's say I do."
"That would depend on whether you just made it up or if you got it from someone who wants to chat with you. Like he gave it to you on the phone or in an email."
Hodges grins. Jerome, a true child of his times, has never considered the possibility that information could be conveyed by such a nineteenth-century vehicle as a letter.
"Say you got it from someone else," Jerome goes on. "Like from the guy who stole that lady's car. Like maybe he wants to talk to you about what he did."
He waits. Hodges says nothing, but he is all admiration.
After a few seconds of silence, Jerome says, "Can't blame a guy for trying. Anyway, you go on and enter the username."
"When do I pay my thirty bucks?"
"You don't
."
"Why not?"
"Because someone's already paid it for you." Jerome sounds sober now. Dead serious. "Probably don't need to tell you to be careful, but I will, anyway. Because if you already have a username, this guy's waiting for you."
17
Brady stops on his way home to get them supper (subs from Little Chef tonight), but his mother is gorked out on the couch. The TV is showing another of those reality things, a program that pimps a bunch of good-looking young women to a hunky bachelor who looks like he might have the IQ of a floor lamp. Brady sees Ma has already eaten--sort of. On the coffee table is a half-empty bottle of Smirnoff's and two cans of NutraSlim. High tea in hell, he thinks, but at least she's dressed: jeans and a City College sweatshirt.
On the off-chance, he unwraps her sandwich and wafts it back and forth beneath her nose, but she only snorts and turns her head away. He decides to eat that one himself and put the other one in his private fridge. When he comes back from the garage, the hunky bachelor is asking one of his potential fuck-toys (a blonde, of course) if she likes to cook breakfast. The blonde's simpering reply: "Do you like something hot in the morning?"
Holding the plate with his sandwich on it, he regards his mother. He knows it's possible he'll come home some evening and find her dead. He could even help her along, just pick up one of the throw pillows and settle it over her face. It wouldn't be the first time murder was committed in this house. If he did that, would his life be better or worse?
His fear--unarticulated by his conscious mind but swimming around beneath--is that nothing would change.
He goes downstairs, voice-commanding the lights and computers. He sits in front of Number Three and goes on Debbie's Blue Umbrella, sure that by now the fat ex-cop will have taken the bait.
There's nothing.
He smacks his fist into his palm, feeling a dull throb at his temples that is the sure harbinger of a headache, a migraine that's apt to keep him awake half the night. Aspirin doesn't touch those headaches when they come. He calls them the Little Witches, only sometimes the Little Witches are big. He knows there are pills that are supposed to relieve headaches like that--he's researched them on the Net--but you can't get them without a prescription, and Brady is terrified of doctors. What if one of them discovered he was suffering from a brain tumor? A glioblastoma, which Wikipedia says is the worst? What if that's why he killed the people at the job fair?