بخش 03 - فصل 15

15

The first thought to cross Hodges’s mind when Jerome walks in is Holy shit, kiddo, you grew up!

When Jerome Robinson came to work for him—first as the kid who cut his grass, then as an all-around handyman, finally as the tech angel who kept his computer up and running—he was a weedy teenager, going about five-eight and a hundred and forty pounds. The young giant in the doorway is six-two if he’s an inch, and at least a hundred and ninety. He was always good-looking, but now he’s movie star good-looking and all muscled out.

The subject in question breaks into a grin, strides quickly across the office, and embraces Hodges. He squeezes, but lets go in a hurry when he sees Hodges wince. “Jesus, sorry.”

“You didn’t hurt me, just happy to see you, my man.” His vision is a little blurry and he wipes at his eyes with the heel of his hand. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

“You too. How you feeling?”

“Right now, good. I’ve got pills for pain, but you’re better medicine.”

Holly is standing in the doorway, sensible winter coat unzipped, small hands linked at her waist. She’s watching them with an unhappy smile. Hodges wouldn’t have believed there was such a thing, but apparently there is.

“Come on over, Holly,” he says. “No group hug, I promise. Have you filled Jerome in on this business?”

“He knows about Barbara’s part, but I thought I’d better let you tell the rest.”

Jerome briefly cups the back of Hodges’s neck with a big warm hand. “Holly says you’re going into the hospital tomorrow for more tests and a treatment plan, and if you try to argue, I’m supposed to tell you to shut up.”

“Not shut up,” Holly says, looking at Jerome severely. “I never used that phrase.”

Jerome grins. “You had be quiet on your lips, but shut up in your eyes.”

“Fool,” she says, but the smile returns. Happy we’re together, Hodges thinks, sad because of the reason why. He breaks up this strangely pleasant sibling rivalry by asking how Barbara is.

“Okay. Fractures of the tibia and fibula, mid-shaft. Could have happened on the soccer field or skiing on a bunny slope. Supposed to heal with no problem. She’s got a cast and is already complaining about how it itches underneath. Mom went out to get her a scratcher thing.”

“Holly, did you show her the six-pack?”

“I did, and she picked out Dr. Babineau. Never even hesitated.”

I have a few questions for you, Doc, Hodges thinks, and I intend to get some answers before my last day is over. If I have to squeeze you to get them, make your eyes pop out a little, that will be just fine.

Jerome settles on one corner of Hodges’s desk, his usual perch. “Run through the whole thing for me, from the beginning. I might see something new.”

Hodges does most of the talking. Holly goes to the window and looks out on Lower Marlborough, arms crossed, hands cupping her shoulders. She adds something from time to time, but mostly she just listens.

When Hodges is done, Jerome asks, “How sure are you about this mind-over-matter thing?”

Hodges considers. “Eighty percent. Maybe more. It’s wild, but there are too many stories to discount it.”

“If he could do it, it’s my fault,” Holly says without turning from the window. “When I hit him with your Happy Slapper, Bill, it could have rearranged his brains somehow. Given him access to the ninety percent of gray matter we never use.”

“Maybe,” Hodges says, “but if you hadn’t clobbered him, you and Jerome would be dead.”

“Along with a lot of other people,” Jerome says. “And the hit might not have had anything to do with it. Whatever Babineau was feeding him could have done more than bring him out of his coma. Experimental drugs sometimes have unexpected effects, you know.”

“Or it could have been a combination of the two,” Hodges says. He can’t believe they’re having this conversation, but not to have it would fly in the face of rule one in the detective biz: you go where the facts lead you.

“He hated you, Bill,” Jerome says. “Instead of killing yourself, which is what he wanted, you came after him.”

“And turned his own weapon against him,” Holly adds, still without turning and still hugging herself. “You used Debbie’s Blue Umbrella to force him into the open. It was him who sent you that message two nights ago, I know it was. Brady Hartsfield, calling himself Z-Boy.” Now she turns. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face. You stopped him at the Mingo—”

“No, I was downstairs having a heart attack. You were the one who stopped him, Holly.”

She shakes her head fiercely. “He doesn’t know that, because he never saw me. Do you think I could forget what happened that night? I’ll never forget it. Barbara was sitting across the aisle a few rows up, and it was her he was looking at, not me. I shouted something at him, and hit him as soon as he started to turn his head. Then I hit him again. Oh God, I hit him so hard.”

Jerome starts toward her, but she motions him back. Eye contact is hard for her, but now she’s looking straight at Hodges, and her eyes are blazing.

“You goaded him out into the open, you were the one who figured out his password so we could crack his computer and find out what he was going to do. You were the one he always blamed. I know that. And then you kept going to his room, sitting there and talking to him.”

“And you think that’s why he did this, whatever this is?”

“No!” She nearly shrieks it. “He did it because he was fracking crazy!” There’s a pause, and then in a meek voice she says she’s sorry for raising her voice.

“Don’t apologize, Hollyberry,” Jerome says. “You thrill me when you’re masterful.”

She makes a face at him. Jerome snorts a laugh and asks Hodges about Dinah Scott’s Zappit. “I’d like a look at it.”

“My coat pocket,” Hodges says, “but watch out for the Fishin’ Hole demo.”

Jerome rummages in Hodges’s coat, rejects a roll of Tums and the ever-present detective’s notebook, and brings out Dinah’s green Zappit. “Holy joe. I thought these things went out with VCRs and dial-up modems.”

“They pretty much did,” Holly says, “and the price didn’t help. I checked. A hundred and eighty-nine dollars, suggested retail, back in 2012. Ridiculous.”

Jerome tosses the Zappit from hand to hand. His face is grim, and he looks tired. Well, sure, Hodges thinks. He was building houses in Arizona yesterday. Had to rush home because his normally cheerful sister tried to kill herself.

Maybe Jerome sees some of this on Hodges’s face. “Barb’s leg will be fine. It’s her mind I’m a little worried about. She talks about blue flashes, and a voice she heard. Coming from the game.”

“She says it’s still in her head,” Holly adds. “Like some piece of music that turns into an earworm. It will probably pass in time, now that her game is broken, but what about the others who got the consoles?”

“With the badconcert website down, is there any way of finding out how many others did?”

Holly and Jerome look at each other, then give identical head shakes.

“Shit,” Hodges says. “I mean I’m not all that surprised, but still . . . shit.”

“Does this one give out blue flashes?” Jerome still hasn’t turned the Zappit on, just keeps playing hot potato with it.

“Nope, and the pink fish don’t turn into numbers. Try it for yourself.”

Instead of doing that, Jerome turns it over and opens the battery compartment. “Plain old double As,” he says. “The rechargeable kind. No magic there. But the Fishin’ Hole demo really makes you sleepy?”

“It did me,” Hodges says. He does not add that he was medicated up the wazoo at the time. “Right now I’m more interested in Babineau. He’s part of this. I don’t understand how that partnership came about, but if he’s still alive, he’s going to tell us. And there’s someone else involved, too.”

“The man the housekeeper saw,” Holly says. “The one who drives an old car with the primer spots. Do you want to know what I think?”

“Hit me.”

“One of them, either Dr. Babineau or the man with the old car, paid a visit to the nurse, Ruth Scapelli. Hartsfield must have had something against her.”

“How could he send anyone anywhere?” Jerome asks, sliding the battery cover back into place with a click. “Mind control? According to you, Bill, the most he could do with his teleki-whatzis was turn on the water in his bathroom, and it’s hard for me to accept even that. It could be just so much talk. A hospital legend instead of an urban one.”

“It has to be the games,” Hodges muses. “He did something to the games. Amped them up, somehow.”

“From his hospital room?” Jerome gives him a look that says be serious.

“I know, it doesn’t make sense, not even if you add in the telekinesis. But it has to be the games. Has to be.”

“Babineau will know,” Holly says.

“She’s a poet and don’t know it,” Jerome says moodily. He’s still tossing the console back and forth. Hodges has a feeling that he’s resisting an impulse to throw it on the floor and stomp on it, and that’s sort of reasonable. After all, one just like it almost got his sister killed.

No, Hodges thinks. Not just like it. The Fishin’ Hole demo on Dinah’s Zappit generates a mild hypnotic effect, but nothing else. And it’s probably . . .

He straightens suddenly, provoking a twinge of pain in his side. “Holly, have you searched for Fishin’ Hole info on the Net?”

“No,” she says. “I never thought of it.”

“Would you do it now? What I want to know—”

“If there’s chatter about the demo screen. I should have thought of that myself. I’ll do it now.” She hurries into the outer office.

“What I don’t understand,” Hodges says, “is why Brady would kill himself before seeing how it all came out.”

“You mean before seeing how many kids he could get to off themselves,” Jerome says. “Kids who were at that fucking concert. Because that’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Hodges says. “There are too many blank spots, Jerome. Far too many. I don’t even know how he killed himself. If he actually did.”

Jerome presses the heels of his hands to his temples as if to keep his brain from swelling. “Please don’t tell me you think he’s still alive.”

“No, he’s dead, all right. Pete wouldn’t make a mistake about that. What I’m saying is maybe somebody murdered him. Based on what we know, Babineau would be the prime suspect.”

“Holy poop!” Holly cries from the other room.

Hodges and Jerome happen to be looking at each other when she says it, and there is a moment of divine harmony as they both struggle against laughter.

“What?” Hodges calls. It’s all he can manage without bursting into mad brays of hilarity, which would hurt his side as well as Holly’s feelings.

“I found a site called Fishin’ Hole Hypnosis! The start-page warns parents not to let their kids look at the demo screen too long! It was first noticed in the arcade game version back in 2005! The Game Boy fixed it, but the Zappit . . . wait a sec . . . they said they did, but they didn’t! There’s a whole big long thread!”

Hodges looks at Jerome.

“She means an online conversation,” Jerome says.

“A kid in Des Moines passed out, hit his head on the edge of his desk, and fractured his skull!” She sounds almost gleeful as she gets up and rushes back to them. Her cheeks are flushed and rosy. “There would have been lawsuits! I bet that’s one of the reasons the Zappit company went out of business! It might even have been one of the reasons why Sunrise Solutions—”

The phone on her desk begins to ring.

“Oh, frack,” she says, turning toward it.

“Tell whoever it is that we’re closed today.”

But after saying Hello, you’ve reached Finders Keepers, Holly just listens. Then she turns, holding out the handset.

“It’s Pete Huntley. He says he has to talk to you right away, and he sounds . . . funny. Like he’s sad or mad or something.”

Hodges goes into the outer office to find out what’s got Pete sounding sad or mad or something.

Behind him, Jerome finally powers up Dinah Scott’s Zappit.

In Freddi Linklatter’s computer nest (Freddi herself has taken four Excedrin and gone to sleep in her bedroom), 44 FOUND changes to 45 FOUND. The repeater flashes LOADING.

Then it flashes TASK COMPLETE.