بخش 02 - فصل 05

5

Hodges has no more than settled in his seat at the back of the Number 5 when glass breaks in his coat pocket and the boys cheer the home run that just broke Mrs. O’Leary’s living room window. A man in a business suit lowers his Wall Street Journal and looks disapprovingly at Hodges over the top of it.

“Sorry, sorry,” Hodges says. “Keep meaning to change it.”

“You should make it a priority,” the businessman says, and raises his paper again.

The text is from his old partner. Again. Feeling a strong sense of déjà vu, Hodges calls him.

“Pete,” he says, “what’s with all the texts? It isn’t as if you don’t have my number on speed dial.”

“Figured Holly probably programmed your phone for you and put on some crazy ringtone,” Pete says. “That’d be her idea of a real knee-slapper. Also figured you’d have it turned up to max volume, you deaf sonofabitch.”

“The text alert’s the one on max,” Hodges says. “When I get a call, the phone just has a mini-orgasm against my leg.”

“Change the alert, then.”

Hours ago he found out he has only months to live. Now he’s discussing the volume of his cell phone.

“I’ll absolutely do that. Now tell me why you called.”

“Got a guy in computer forensics who landed on that game gadget like a fly on shit. He loved it, called it retro. Can you believe that? Gadget was probably manufactured all of five years ago and now it’s retro.”

“The world is speeding up.”

“It’s sure doing something. Anyway, the Zappit is zapped. When our guy plugged in fresh batteries, it popped half a dozen bright blue flashes, then died.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Some kind of virus is technically possible, the thing supposedly has WiFi and that’s mostly how those bugs get downloaded, but he says it’s more likely a bad chip or a fried circuit. The point is, it means nothing. Ellerton couldn’t have used it.”

“Then why did she keep the charger cord for it plugged in right there in her daughter’s bathroom?”

That silences Pete for a moment. Then he says, “Okay, so maybe it worked for awhile and then the chip died. Or whatever they do.”

It worked, all right, Hodges thinks. She played solitaire on it at the kitchen table. Lots of different kinds, like Klondike and Pyramid and Picture. Which you would know, Peter my dear, if you’d talked to Nancy Alderson. That must still be on your bucket list.

“All right,” Hodges says. “Thanks for the update.”

“It’s your final update, Kermit. I have a partner I’ve worked with quite successfully since you pulled the pin, and I’d like her to be at my retirement party instead of sitting at her desk and sulking over how I preferred you to her right to the bitter end.”

Hodges could pursue this, but the hospital is only two stops away now. Also, he discovers, he wants to separate himself from Pete and Izzy and go his own way on this thing. Pete plods, and Izzy actually drags her feet. Hodges wants to run with it, bad pancreas and all.

“I hear you,” he says. “Again, thanks.”

“Case closed?”

“Finito.”

His eyes flick up and to the left.