بخش 04 - فصل 06

6

Unlike Frederica Linklatter, Anthony Frobisher is listed, both as himself and as Your Computer Guru. Both numbers are the same—his cell, Hodges assumes. He evicts Jerome from his office chair and settles there himself, doing it slowly and carefully. The explosion of pain he felt while sitting on the toilet is still fresh in his mind.

The phone is answered on the first ring. “Computer Guru, Tony Frobisher speaking. How can I help you?”

“Mr. Frobisher, this is Bill Hodges. You probably don’t remember me, but—”

“Oh, I remember you, all right.” Frobisher sounds wary. “What do you want? If it’s about Hartsfield—”

“It’s about Frederica Linklatter. Do you have a current address for her?”

“Freddi? Why would I have any address for her? I haven’t seen her since DE closed.”

“Really? According to her Facebook page, you and she are friends.”

Frobisher laughs incredulously. “Who else has she got listed? Kim Jong-un? Charles Manson? Listen, Mr. Hodges, that smartmouth bitch has no friends. The closest thing to one was Hartsfield, and I just got a news push on my phone saying he’s dead.”

Hodges has no idea what a news push is, and no desire to learn. He thanks Frobisher and hangs up. He’s guessing that none of Freddi Linklatter’s half dozen Facebook friends are real friends, that she just added them to keep from feeling like a total outcast. Holly might have done that same thing, once upon a time, but now she actually has friends. Lucky for her, and lucky for them. Which begs the question: how does he locate Freddi Linklatter?

The outfit he and Holly runs isn’t called Finders Keepers for nothing, but most of their specialized search engines are constructed to locate bad people with bad friends, long police records, and colorful want sheets. He can find her, in this computerized age few people are able to drop entirely off the grid, but he needs it to happen fast. Every time some kid turns on one of those free Zappits, it’s loading up pink fish, blue flashes, and—based on Jerome’s experience—a subliminal message suggesting that a visit to zeetheend would be in order.

You’re a detective. One with cancer, granted, but still a detective. So let go of the extraneous shit and detect.

It’s hard, though. The thought of all those kids—the ones Brady tried and failed to kill at the ’Round Here concert—keeps getting in the way. Jerome’s sister was one of them, and if not for Dereece Neville, Barbara might be dead now instead of just in a leg cast. Maybe hers was a test model. Maybe the Ellerton woman’s was, too. That makes a degree of sense. But now there are all those other Zappits, a flood of them, and they must have gone somewhere, goddammit.

That finally turns on a lightbulb.

“Holly! I need a phone number!”