Mortal Fear (21 page)

It was bad, Doctor. I wanted to help him, but I knew if I tried theyd just throw me in there with him. I was hoping theyd get bored and go away when I heard a sound that froze my blood. There
was
a snake in that pit, but it wasnt any moccasin. Moccasins dont make noise; they just bite you. This was a rattlesnake. Two seconds after it rattled, those assholes jumped on their bikes and hauled tail.

I screamed at Miles to get out of there, but he didnt come up. Then I heard a tiny little voice whimper, I cant. I jumped down beside the entrance hole and started whispering at him to back slowly toward my voice, but he just kept whimpering. I couldnt see a goddamn thing. After about a minute, I got up my nerve and reached my hand into that hole. I mean
slow
. My whole arm was tingling. Even at eleven years old, I knew a rattlesnake was a pit viper, and they see
heat,
not objects. And I knew my hand was a lot warmer than the wall of that wet hole. I edged my hand along the dirt for what seemed like an hour. Then my fingers felt cotton. I grabbed Miless arm and yanked him up out of there. His face was covered with tears and his jeans were soaked with piss. He was shaking like an epileptic.

I wipe stinging sweat out of my eyes. After he calmed down, he told me very quietly that one day those bastards would regret what theyd done to him.

Are you all right, Cole?

Orderly rows of soft yellow lights passing my window finally break through, telling me were in a residential area. Sure.

Is there more to the story?

I consider holding back, but for whatever reason, I dont. Several years later, the ringleader of that little gang had a strange accident. He was bitten four times by a cottonmouth water moccasin. Or twice each by two cottonmouths. Anyway, he ended up losing a foot.

Lenz catches his breath. How did that happen?

The guy was going to college at Delta State, about a hundred miles north of Rain. He got into his car late one afternoon and these snakes just started hitting him around the ankles. Somehow theyd got into his car. They were lying under the drivers seat, baking in the hot shade. The guy had left his window open. I guess they just dropped in from a tree limb. They do that, you know.

Lenz stops the Mercedes at a turn and looks at me. Are you saying Turner put those snakes in that mans car?

I choose my words carefully. Im telling you that if cops could trace snakes, they would have traced them right back to that little fort on the Indian mound.

My God. How many years after the initial incident was this?

Six or seven, at least. Thats one thing about Miles. He follows through. Im not saying hes a killer. After all, those guys had terrorized him. He was just giving back some of what theyd given him. Sort of a Southern tradition.

I crush my Tab can flat and drop it on the floor. Look, are we there or what? I want to get this over with in time to make that SWAT plane.

Lenz turns onto still another residential street. The houses here are large, not as large as Bob Andersons, but undoubtedly more expensive. At last he swings the Mercedes into a bricked drive and parks.

Cole, he says in the sudden silence. You reported the missing women because you knew something was terribly wrong. Are you ready to help me make it right?

Isnt that clear by now?

He just sits, letting the engine tick. Even if the trail leads to Miles Turner?

Yes. But it wont. Miles could kill, maybe. But not like that. I dont think its in him. Do you?

Im afraid I havent ruled it out.

Lenz gets out of the car, and I do the same. But as I follow him around to a side door I see nothing of the house or grounds. I merely track his shoes, using the same trancelike vision that keeps my car on the road when my mind is a million miles from reality.
Can
Lenz count on me if the trail leads to Miles? I answered yes, but it was a
reflex response. Because what I was thinking at that moment was how, after that Delta State guy was bitten by the cottonmouths, the state police showed up in Rain to question Annie Turner about her son. Theyd heard some strange things about the kid and wanted to know his whereabouts on the day the guy was bitten.

Annie Turner didnt know. But I did. And I did what any friend would do under the circumstances.

I lied.

When Lenz opens the door to the FBI safe house, what I see in the glow of the porch light bears little resemblance to the mental picture I had. But then I suppose that picture was generated by trash fiction and bad films.

Pretty swank, I comment. This is the safe house?

No, no, he says in a strangely soft voice. This is my home. I need some files from my desk, some clothes. I intended to have an agent pick them up, but I left it until too late. My wifes probably sleeping.

I can wait out here, no problem.

No... no. You shouldnt be out here alone.

Afraid Ill call a cab from your car phone?

Nonsense. Come along.

Lenz creeps through his own house with the stealth of a burglar. I realize Im doing the same as we pass through a laundry room and into a dark kitchen with copper pots and utensils hanging like ancient weapons above our heads. At the far end of the kitchen stands a wide arch that leads into a breakfast area. A dim bulb in the stove hood throws a yellow pool of light on the floor.

Lenz points to a chair. Ill only be a minute. Make yourself at home. Then he disappears through the arch.

A low beating sound tells me he is going upstairs.

Yes,
please
do, says a womans voice, sending a cold shock up between my shoulder blades.

All my senses on full power, I focus on the table beyond the arch. Against a wall-high curtain, I see the silhouette of a woman sitting in a straight-backed chair. A bar glass glints on the table in front of her. Lenz must have walked right past her.

Janet? he calls, and I hear his feet coming back down the stairs. Janet? Are you awake?

No, Im sleepwalking. Thank God I can still taste my drink. Where the hell have you been for three days?

I can see the stairwell now. Lenzs face drops below the level of the ceiling. Im working a case for Daniel. An important case.

He comes down two more steps and looks at his wife. He seems caught between not wanting to invite me up to his office and not wanting to leave me down here with her. Why the hell didnt he just leave me in the car?

Ill be right down, he says finally. Please take care of Mr. Cole. And then he scurries back up the stairwell.

Oh, I
will,
says the woman in a slurred voice.

As she stands up and moves toward me, light from the stove falls across her. The light is not flattering. Several years older than her husband, Janet Lenz is wearing some kind of sheer wrap over a filmy undergarment. I suppose its meant to be sexy, but with the smudged mascara and the smell of stale gin and cigarettes wafting across the kitchen, the effect is pathos. She is a thin, waspish woman with a fading dye job and a spiderwork of wrinkles around her mouth that marks her as a lifelong smoker. Yet her eyes hold a gimlet glow of cleverness, as if her mind retains just enough clarity to be momentarily observant, or cruel. Her voice has an edge reminiscent of schoolteachers who enjoy dispensing discipline a little too much.

Your accent, she says. It reminds me of North Carolina. My people are from Philadelphia, but I attended Greensboro, an all-female institution. They used to bus in boys from Duke, though. The most
charming
boys.

Thats nice.

Oh, it
was,
she says in a lilting drawl about as authentic as Vivien Leighs Blanche DuBois. They knew how to be gentlemen, those boys. But they also knew when to
stop
being gentlemen. You know what I mean? Mister Cole?

My noncommittal Mmmm trails off into an averted gaze. Mrs. Lenz demands my attention by tinkling the ice in her glass and clucking her tongue.

Thats something Arthur never learned, she goes on. Hes always
such
a gentleman. But the New England version can be so dull.

Dr. Lenz doesnt seem like the dull type to me, maam.

Give him time, darling. He makes a terrific first impression. Hes
blindingly
analytical. But hes also numbingly predictable.

The uncomfortable silence grows more so as she moves closer and smiles with the yellow brilliance of a cheap diamond. I have the feeling she is circling me, like a scavenger.

Youd think a man who knows Freud like the back of his hand would know his way around a bedroom, wouldnt you?

Uh... I dont think thats any of my business.

Still closer. I must have gotten to know a hundred psychiatrists over the past twenty years, she says. The coldest bunch of jellyfish you ever shared pt with. Half of them impotent, the other half queer.

Deliverance arrives at last in the form of Dr. Lenz, who bounds into the kitchen carrying a suit bag and a briefcase. Hes probably well aware of what Ive been enduring down here. I nearly stumble over my shoes making my escape.

Janet Lenz trails us to the laundry room. As her husband opens the door, she says, Go play your little mind games. We cant let any of those wicked boys out there have any fun, can we?

I turn back in time to see Lenz slam the door.

As the Mercedes swallows the driveway with a low-throated growl, Lenz says, As you can see, we all have our problems. Did she make a nuisance of herself?

Not at all. Just idle chitchat.

He makes a curious sound in his throat. She didnt bring up the relative sizes of Caucasian versus Negroid sex organs?

I dont recall it coming up.

Youre lucky.

Whats her problem?

Depression. Alcohol. An emotionally distant husband who is frequently an asshole. Not necessarily in that order.

None of my business.

Sorry to put you through it, nonetheless.

Lenz is driving well over the speed limit now, fast enough that I grip the seat between my thighs. Were only a short distance from the safe house, he says. Makes it easy for me to commute. You can see why I need to be close.

I nod as if I agree, but if I were in his place Id have chosen a safe house in Los Angeles.

The trip takes less than ten minutes including stops for traffic lights. The safe house is more modest than Lenzs home but easily worth over a hundred thousand in the Mississippi market. God knows what it appraised at here. As the automatic garage door whirs down behind the Mercedes, I decide the FBI chose well. A woman who could afford the fees for EROS wouldnt live in a house less expensive than this.

Inside, I am surprised again. I expected stern FBI agents pacing around drinking coffee, but all I find is pristine cream carpeting, functional furniture, and framed watercolors that look like they were bought from a hotel chain. The place feels like a model home in a tract development.

Doctor Lenz? calls a womans voice.

From a hallway that must lead to the first-floor bedrooms steps a woman in her late twenties. She has auburn hair a little coarser than Drewes, green eyes, fair skin, and a slim but athletic figure. All in all, shes a slightly harder version of my wife. She takes three steps into the room before I notice the holster and pistol slung tight under her left arm.

Sherrys in the back, she tells Lenz. And the guy from Engineering Research is in the spare bedroom upstairs. Her eyes move to me. Whos this?

Special Agent Margie Ressler, meet Harper Cole. Hes one of the sysops for EROS. Hes going to help me get started tonight. Hows trade so far?

All Ive done so far is send out for pizza. I ordered
enough for everybody. Agent Ressler cannot conceal the excitement in her eyes. I figured since you havent gone on-line yet, nobody could be surveiling the house, right?

When Lenz merely sighs, she adds, I got supremes. Told them to leave off the anchovies, just in case. You want me to nuke a few slices for you?

Not hungry, Lenz says distractedly. Cole?

Ill take some.

Diet Coke okay?

Great.

Bring it upstairs, Lenz instructs her.

At the bottom of the carpeted staircase, he stops and calls back over his shoulder, I didnt see a car in the garage!

Margie Ressler hurries back into the living room. Theyre delivering it tonight. Should be here anytime. Its an Acura Legend, ninety-two model confiscated in a drug raid. Is that okay?

Fine. Make sure Sherry shows you everything you need to know.

Yes, sir.

At the top of the stairs Lenz steps into what must have been designed as a bedroom. Now it sports a wall-size computer cabinet, a Dell desktop PC, a Toshiba subnote-book computer with PCMCIA modem slotted in and connected, a bank of wire telephones, a fax machine, a cellular phone, and a Sony television. Near the bathroom stands a refrigerator-freezer with a microwave oven on top, and against the far wall a twin bed.

Planning to stay awhile? I ask as Lenz deposits his suit bag in a closet half filled with mens clothing.

He turns to face me, his gaze eerily intense. This is where I live until Hostage Rescue carries Mr. Strobekker out in chains.

He stares at me until I break eye contact. What do you want me to do? I ask.

Show me the highways and byways of EROS. I want you to establish my bona fides. He motions to one of two swivel chairs. You take the Toshiba.

Have you logged on yet?

I didnt want to risk doing anything stupid.

Lurked any on other services?

Lurked?

Lurking is logging on but not interacting with anyone. Watching the conversations of other people.

No.

But youve installed the EROS software.

The kid in the spare bedroom did.

Okay, sit.

Lenz obeys without demur, taking the chair before the Dell.

Got EROSs eight hundred number entered into both systems?

Ready to go.

Password chosen?

Done.

What is it?

You dont need to know that.

Touchy. Okay, press ENTER and let the system make the connection. Its all automatic, just like CompuServe or AOL.

After checking the Toshiba for a keystroke-recording program (which would allow FBI technicians to replay everything I type on this computer)and disabling the one I findI log on and enter my password. What does your status line say, Doctor?

Checking password... logging onto EROS at 14,400 bps. Welcome, Lilith.

Lilith? Thats your great alias?

Just wait. Where am I?

The main page.

Now it says Downloading Image. Thats... the bust of Nefertiti. My God, the color and resolution are wonderful.

Shell start spinning 3-D in a second. See? Okay, hit ENTER and shell go away. Look at the right side of the main page. See those little icons? Thats how you decide where you want to go. Into a live-chat area or forum, maybe the EROS library. You just move your mouse onto the icon you want and click.

I know how to use a mouse, Cole.

Congratulations. Look at the top line over the page.
Thats your menu bar. See the choices? Thats where you decide what you want to do in those different locationsagain, with your mouse. You can post messages to forums, compose and send e-mail, download files from the library, access the Internet, anything you want. You can even query the system to ask whos in a given room at a given time. Of course, it will only give you their user names in answer.

You mean we can query the system to ask whether or not Strobekker is on-line?

Not exactly. First of all, youre not supposed to know his legal nameif Strobekker
is
his name. Miles or I can search using the account name, but I cant guarantee Strobekker wouldnt see us looking for him. God only knows what kind of setup he has, wherever he is.

But I can search using his on-line aliases?

Yes.

Lets query for Shiva and Kali right now.

You can only search for one alias at a time. The system will tell you whether the person using that name is on-line, but not where he or she is. Then you can send the person a message, but theres no guarantee hell answer. The other way is to enter various chat rooms and ask Whos Here?

Will the other people in the room see you ask that?

The minute you enter a room, they see your name pop up on a list in a little window on their screen.

How many rooms are there in the system?

Theoretically, an infinite number.

Lenz groans. I need Strobekker to find me as if by accident. How can we search an infinite number of rooms?

Its not as bad as it sounds. The number of active rooms fluctuates anywhere from a couple of dozen on a Monday morning to eight or nine hundred on a Friday night. That includes so-called private rooms that hold only two people at a given time.

Nine
hundred
? You said you or Turner could do a search by the account name. Can you do that from here?

Yes, but Im sure Miles would already have told
the FBI agents at EROS if the Strobekker account was active.

Lenz gives me a look that makes plain how little faith he has in Miless motives.

From the Toshiba I log in as SYSOP TWO, give my password, and run an account search for STROBEKKER, DAVID M.