بخش 05 - فصل 20

20 Hodges turns his own computer on and tells Jerome what he wants: a list of all public gatherings for the next seven days. “I can do that,” Jerome says, “but you might want to check

this out first.” “What?” “It’s a message. Under the Blue Umbrella.” “Click it.” Hodges’s hands are clenched into fists, but as he reads merckill’s latest communiqué, they slowly open. The message is short, and although it’s of no immediate help, it contains a ray of hope.

So long, SUCKER. PS: Enjoy your Weekend, I know I will. Jerome says, “I think you just got a Dear John, Bill.” Hodges thinks so, too, but he doesn’t care. He’s focused on the PS. He knows it might be a red herring, but if it’s not, they have some time. From the kitchen comes a waft of cigarette smoke and

another hearty cry of shit. “Bill? I just had a bad thought.” “What’s that?” “The concert tonight. That boy band, ‘Round Here. At the Mingo. My sister and my mother are going to be there.” Hodges considers this. Mingo Auditorium seats four thousand, but tonight’s attendees will be eighty

percent female–mommies and their preteen daughters. There will be men in attendance, but almost every one of them will be chaperoning their daughters and their daughters’ friends. Brady Hartsfield is a goodlooking guy of about thirty, and if he tries going to that concert by himself, he’ll stick out like a sore thumb. In twenty-first-century America,

any single man at an event primarily aimed at little girls attracts notice and suspicion. Also: Enjoy your Weekend, I know I will. “Do you think I should call Mom and tell her to keep the girls home?” Jerome looks dismayed at the prospect. “Barb’ll probably never speak to me again. Plus there’s her

friend Hilda and a couple of others . . .” From the kitchen: “Oh, you damn thing! Give it up!” Before Hodges can reply, Jerome says, “On the other hand, it sure sounds like he has something planned for the weekend, and this is only Thursday. Or is that just what he wants us to think?”

Hodges tends to think the taunt is real. “Find that Cyber Patrol picture of Hartsfield again, would you? The one you get when you click on MEET THE EXPERTS.” While Jerome does that, Hodges calls Marlo Everett in Police Records. “Hey, Marlo, Bill Hodges again. I . . . yeah, lot of excitement in Lowtown, I

heard about it from Pete. Half the force is down there, right? . . . uh-huh . . . well, I won’t keep you long. Do you know if Larry Windom is still head of security at the MAC? Yeah, that’s right, RomperStomper. Sure, I’ll hold.” While he does, he tells Jerome that Larry Windom took early retirement because the MAC offered him the job

at twice the salary he was making as a detective. He doesn’t say that wasn’t the only reason Windom pulled the pin after twenty. Then Marlo is back. Yes, Larry’s still at the MAC. She even has the number of the MAC’s security office. Before he can say goodbye, she asks him if there’s a problem. “Because there’s a big concert there

tonight. My niece is going. She’s crazy about those twerps.” “It’s fine, Marls. Just some old business.” “Tell Larry we could use him today,” Marlo says. “The squadroom is dead empty. Nary a detective in sight.” “I’ll do that.” Hodges calls MAC Security, identifies himself as Detective

Bill Hodges, and asks for Windom. While he waits, he stares at Brady Hartsfield. Jerome has enlarged the photo so it fills the whole screen. Hodges is fascinated by the eyes. In the smaller version, and in a line with the two I-T colleagues, those eyes seemed pleasant enough. With the picture filling the screen, however, that changes. The

mouth is smiling; the eyes aren’t. The eyes are flat and distant. Almost dead. Bullshit, Hodges tells himself (scolds himself). This is a classic case of seeing something that’s not there based on recently acquired knowledge–like a bankrobbery witness saying I thought he looked shifty even before he pulled out that gun.

Sounds good, sounds professional, but Hodges doesn’t believe it. He thinks the eyes looking out of the screen are the eyes of a toad hiding under a rock. Or under a cast-off blue umbrella. Then Windom’s on the line. He has the kind of booming voice that makes you want to hold the phone two inches from your ear while you

talk to him, and he’s the same old yapper. He wants to know all about the big bust that afternoon. Hodges tells him it’s a mega-bust, all right, but beyond that he knows from nothing. He reminds Larry that he’s retired. But. “With all that going on,” he says, “Pete Huntley kind of

drafted me to call you. Hope you don’t mind.” “Jesus, no. I’d like to have a drink with you, Billy. Talk over old times now that we’re both out. You know, hash and trash.” “That would be good.” Pure hell is what it would be. “How can I help?” “You’ve got a concert there tonight, Pete says. Some hot

boy band. The kind all the little girls love.” “Iy-yi-yi, do they ever. They’re already lining up. And tuning up. Someone’ll shout out one of those kids’ names, and they all scream. Even if they’re still coming in from the parking lot they scream. It’s like Beatlemania back in the day, only from what I hear, this crew ain’t the Beatles. You

got a bomb threat or something? Tell me you don’t. The chicks’ll tear me apart and the mommies will eat the leftovers.” “What I’ve got is a tip that you may have a child molester on your hands tonight. This is a bad, bad boy, Larry.” “Name and description?” Hard and fast, no bullshit. The guy who left the force because

he was a bit too quick with his fists. Anger issues, in the language of the department shrink. Romper-Stomper, in the language of his colleagues. “His name is Brady Hartsfield. I’ll email you his picture.” Hodges glances at Jerome, who nods and makes a circle with his thumb and forefinger. “He’s approximately thirty years old. If you see him,

call me first, then grab him.

Use caution. If he tries to

resist,

subdue

the

motherfucker.”

“With pleasure, Billy. I’ll

pass this along to my guys.

Any chance he’ll be with a . . .

I don’t know . . . a beard? A

teenage girl or someone even

younger?”

“Unlikely but not

impossible. If you spot him in

a crowd, Lar, you gotta take him by surprise. He could be armed.” “How good are the chances he’s going to be at the show?” He actually sounds hopeful, which is typical Larry Windom. “Not very.” Hodges absolutely believes this, and it’s not just the Blue Umbrella hint Hartsfield dropped about

the weekend. He has to know that in a girls-night-out audience, he’d have no way of being unobtrusive. “In any case, you understand why the department can’t send cops, right? With all that’s going on in Lowtown?” “Don’t need them,” Windom says. “I’ve got thirtyfive guys tonight, most of the

regulars retired po-po. We know what we’re doing.” “I know you do,” Hodges says. “Remember, call me first. Us retired guys don’t get much action, and we have to protect what we do get.” Windom laughs. “I hear you on that. Email me the picture.” He recites an eaddress which Hodges jots down and hands to Jerome. “If

we see him, we grab him. After that, it’s your bust . . . Uncle Bill.” “Fuck you, Uncle Larry,” Hodges says. He hangs up, turns to Jerome. “The pic just went out to him,” Jerome says. “Good.” Then Hodges says something that will haunt him for the rest of his life. “If Hartsfield’s as clever as I think

he is, he won’t be anywhere near the Mingo tonight. I think your mom and sis are good to go. If he does try crashing the concert, Larry’s guys will have him before he gets in the door.” Jerome smiles. “Great.” “See what else you can find. Concentrate on Saturday and Sunday, but don’t neglect next

week. Don’t neglect tomorrow, either, because–” “Because the weekend starts on Friday. Gotcha.” Jerome gets busy. Hodges walks out to the kitchen to check on how Holly’s doing. What he sees stops him cold. Lying next to the borrowed laptop is a red wallet. Deborah Hartsfield’s ID, credit cards, and receipts are scattered across

the table. Holly, already on her third cigarette, is holding up a MasterCard and studying it through a haze of blue smoke. She gives him a look that’s both frightened and defiant. “I’m just trying to find her diddly-dang password! Her purse was hanging over the back of her office chair, and her billfold was right there on top, so I put it in my pocket.

Because sometimes people keep their passwords in their billfolds. Women especially. I didn’t want her money, Mr. Hodges. I have my own money. I get an allowance.” An allowance, Hodges thinks. Oh, Holly. Her eyes are brimming with tears and she’s biting her lips again. “I’d never steal.”

“Okay,” he says. He thinks of patting her hand and decides it might be a bad idea just now. “I understand.” And Jesus-God, what’s the BFD? On top of all the shit he’s pulled since that goddam letter dropped through his mail slot, lifting a dead woman’s wallet is chumpchange. When all this comes

out–as it surely will–Hodges will say he took it himself. Holly, meanwhile, is not finished. “I have my own credit card, and I have money. I even have a checking account. I buy video games and apps for my iPad. I buy clothes. Also earrings, which I like. I have fifty-six pairs. And I buy my own cigarettes, although

they’re very expensive now. It might interest you to know that in New York City, a pack of cigarettes now costs eleven dollars. I try not to be a burden because I can’t work and she says I’m not but I know I am –” “Holly, stop. You need to save that stuff for your shrink, if you have one.”

“Of course I have one.” She flashes a grim grin at the stubborn password screen of Mrs. Hartsfield’s laptop. “I’m fucked up, didn’t you notice?” Hodges chooses to ignore this. “I was looking for a slip of paper with the password on it,” she says, “but there wasn’t one. So I tried her Social Security number, first forwards and

then backwards. Same deal with her credit cards. I even tried the credit card security codes.” “Any other ideas?” “A couple. Leave me alone.” As he leaves the room, she calls: “I’m sorry about the smoke, but it really does help me think.”