The Man of Maybe Half-a-Dozen Faces (5 page)

Prudence stepped up to the washroom and addressed the door. “Hey, I'm here for a progress report.”

“It's only been a day,” Lulu said.

Prudence glanced over her shoulder and frowned, then spoke to the door again. “Randy Casey was killed,” she said. “Now the police are all over me about Pablo. What are you going to do about it? Did you get into GP Ink? What did you find out?”

Sky had nothing to say.

Lulu walked over and sat down behind the desk.

Prudence stormed into the washroom. A moment later she came out again. “I thought you said he was behind the door.”

“I lied,” I said, no longer struggling to be Lulu. I'd get back in character after Prudence had taken her distractions out for a walk.

She picked up on what was happening without even blinking. “Now that I look close,” she said, “no one would believe you're really a woman.”

“No one looks close,” I said. “And if they do, they still just see Lulu, so what's the difference?” She didn't say anything, and I suddenly felt compelled to justify my methods. “In fact, this ability to compartmentalize my mind is a real asset for a detective. I can look at the case from a number of different viewpoints.”

“Haven't I seen you hanging around the mall?”

“I often lunch at the Whisper Café,” Lulu said. “Now sit down and tell me what you know about Randy Casey.”

“Randy wrote documentation, too,” Prudence said.

“What? The police were here earlier. They didn't say anything about documentation. I thought he played games for Challenger Video.”

“That's what he was doing when he was killed,” she said. “I knew Randy. He didn't talk much. I don't see why anyone would want to kill him.”

“How did you know him.”

“The documentation community isn't that big,” she said. “But the truth is I met him when he worked for Gerald and Pablo.”

“He worked for them?”

“Gerald fired him,” she said, “and Pablo let it happen.”

“That doesn't look good.”

“I guess not,” she said. “Randy just wasn't serious enough for GP Ink. Getting fired was the best thing that could have happened to him. He really liked Challenger Video. They make games.”

“I thought I just said that.”

“Well, what you may not know,” she said, “is that Randy had just done the game playing instructions for a new product called Seventeen Worlds. The instructions hadn't been printed yet. In fact they'd only been released on the net to a mail group.”

“So, he was a documentalist, too?”

“Challenger hadn't hired him to write the docs,” she said. “It was pure speculation. He was hoping the company would move him up to the documentation department when they saw what he could do. I guess no one out of the group ever got a chance to see his work.”

“Do you have access to that group?”

“Yes,” she said.

“So what is it?”

“It's secret,” she said.

“I think you're going to have to tell me about it,” I said. “I can't do my job if you're keeping things from me.”

“I suppose you're right,” she said. “It's not a really big secret anyway. The group is the Secret Brotherhood of Documentalists. People call it BOD.”

Did she give in too quickly? I filed that question away for later consideration.

“So, that's where that word comes from,” I said. “I keep running into it.”

“Secret?”

“Documentalist,” I said, “but speaking of the word ‘secret,' shouldn't people call the group SBOD?”

“The S is silent,” she said.

“And invisible?”

“Yes,” she said.

“So how do you know about this secret group?”

She paused for only a moment. “I'm a member,” she said.

“So, if you're a member, shouldn't the group be the Secret Brother and Sisterhood of Documentalists?”

“The Sisterhood is silent, too,” she said. Was she serious? I didn't have a clue. The way she talked, the little mistakes and awkward phrasing, I couldn't get a handle on her. What did that small smile really mean? Did it reach her eyes? Was she putting me on?

“So can you bring up a list of people in the group?” I asked. “Maybe we can spot something.”

“Sure,” she said. “You got a place I can plug in?”

“Why not just use mine?” I twisted the monitor around to face her.

“Too crude,” she said. She dipped into her bag and came out with a tiny computer, a set of datashades already dangling from the side. She put it on the desk and held out the net connection to me.

I plugged her in next to my own connection. The office might be run down, the building might be poorly maintained, but at least it was wired with the latest high bandwidth computer cables and outlets. Wireless or no wireless, no one would do business here at all if that weren't the case.

When I glanced back up at her, I saw that she'd put on the shades. She poked and wiggled just one finger like a cyberwitch in sunglasses making hocus-pocus gestures in the empty air and a moment later my printer started rattling its ancient teeth.

“What is that you're using on your finger?” I asked.

“Like a dataglove,” she said, “but just one finger when you don't need so much.”

“So it's a datafinger?”

“Yes,” she said. “It's one of Pablo's innovations.”

“So Pablo's a hardware guy, too?”

“Pablo has lots of ideas,” she said. Since she was still wearing the shades, I couldn't read anything in her eyes.

“Can you download Randy's book, too?” I asked.

“No problem.”

“Maybe mail it to me,” I said. “So I can look at it later.”

“I'll just route it to your hard drive,” she said.

I opened my mouth to ask her just how the hell she was going to get access to my system, but then I changed my mind. She already
had
access. She'd just routed the BOD list to my printer.

She poked at the air a couple more times with her datafinger. Then she pulled it off and took off her shades and put them on top of her little computer. “All done,” she said. She glanced at me, and then she looked away.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I guess it's just the strangeness of your voice and the way you look. I mean, they don't go together.”

“They don't?” Lulu said in Lulu's voice.

“You're really pretty good.”

I was pleased, but a little embarrassed, too. I got up and walked over to the printer and got the BOD list. I scanned the list as I walked back to my chair and sat down behind my desk again.

It only took me a moment to find [email protected]. “So how come you get these mailings and Pablo doesn't?”

“Gerald gets them,” she said. “Or he got them. You know what I mean. Pablo figured one was enough.”

Yes, there was Gerald, and further down the list [email protected].

“Hmm,” I said. Wouldn't Pablo be on this list even if Gerald was on it? Didn't computer guys grab every opportunity to get e-mail?

I half expected to see Dennis on the list. We tried to make him keep his head down on the net; he was, after all, one of my disguises, and while we let him have an Internet account, we didn't let him spend a lot of time there. What I'm trying to say is, I didn't really think he would be on the list, but if he had been, it wouldn't have totally flabbergasted me. The beauty of my method is just letting go and allowing the process to work. The downside is that sometimes when I get out of my own way, I lose track of where I am.

I didn't see any other familiar addresses, but one thing did catch my eye. There were a bunch of addresses that ended in 4e4.com, the anonymous Russian remailing service. If the killer were on this list, surely he'd be among the anonymous.

Or maybe not. I don't remember who said it (but I think it probably is true)—naked is the best disguise. The killer could be right out in the open here.

And I hadn't crossed Pablo or even Prudence off my own list of suspects yet. It was way too early to go jumping to conclusions. I gave her a suspicious look over the top of the printout.

“Is that a suspicious look?”

“You bet,” I said. “Do you know all these people?”

“More or less.” She reached across the desk for the list “I haven't actually met them all. Everyone was probably from Eugene originally, or they were friends of friends or something like that. Maybe college chums. People move. I'll bet not many are still physically here in town any more.”

“Do you know what four-e-four is?”

I thought I saw something cross her face. Something sudden. Had I surprised her? In any case, it was over in a flash, and she pulled herself together.

“You mean the anonymous remailing service?” she said.

“So is it secret, too?”

“No. Just not widely publicized,” she said. “I'm surprised you picked up on it. Where did you hear about it?”

“I am a detective, you know.”

“You think it might have something to do with the case?”

“Who knows?” I said. “It keeps popping up everywhere I look. Do you know who the people with four-e-four addresses are?”

“Well, that depends on what you mean.” she said. “I've been in touch by e-mail with all of them, but I guess I don't know who any of them really are. The whole idea of anonymous is that no one's supposed to know. I mean all I have are handles.”

I got up and came around the desk and stood looking over her shoulder at the list. I reached down and pointed at [email protected]. “What do you know about this one, for example?”

“Well, she signs her messages ‘Cleo.' Ah … let me see. She's very very picky.”

“You're sure she's a woman?”

“Well, sure,” Prudence said. “Well, maybe not. How could I be sure?”

“Little clues,” I said.

“I guess I'd have to be looking for them at the time,” she said.

“I suppose so.” I pointed at another 4e4.com address. “What about that one?”

“Bob, from Buffalo,” she said.

“You know he's from Buffalo?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Well, I guess I actually don't know that either. That's just what everyone calls him. Maybe he just came from Buffalo or something.”

“Or maybe he used to be on TV.”

“What?”

“Why would documentalists go to the trouble of working through an anonymous remailer? Especially a high-power one like this Russian company?”

“How did you know they were Russian?”

“I told you,” I said, “I'm a detective.”

“I'm impressed.”

“So what about it? Why do almost a third of these guys need to hide?”

“You know how it is.” she said.

“Tell me.”

“For some people,” she said. “It's a matter of principle. It's no one's business who you are and where you live. If you're anonymous, you're free. In a way, that's what the net is all about.”

“Yeah, well one of those guys could be our killer,” I said. “I want you to write down what you know about each of the names on the list. Even the ones not using the remailer.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Handles,” I said, “and names and locations if you know them. Oh, and if you do know anything juicy, like time spent in prison or stuff like that, put it down.”

When she'd finished I glanced over the list again. There were a lot of holes in our information. Prudence didn't know the real names or locations of any of the 4e4.coms, but she did know their handles. Of the others, most were scattered all over the world. Five (aside from the two dead men and Prudence herself) were marked “Eugene.”

Leo Unger from Challenger Video, where Randy Casey, the second dead man, worked—small world.

Sadie Campbell of SplashDown Software. I thought Dennis might have met her once.

Lucas Betty (BOUNCING_BETTY)! Things just kept hooking up. This was the guy who'd hired me to find Dennis! About Lucas, Prudence had written, “Known for keeping the balls of a dozen projects in the air, all at once and fast.” I figured I could string him along for another week or so, and then I would have to get Dennis to call him.

Bernie Watkins (THE_DUNGEONEER). Prudence had written “HS” by his name.

Ramona Simmons who Prudence identified as “mean.”

I made a list of handles of those people using the anonymous remailer.

CLEO

BOB

THE_FLY

NANOVICH

2DIE4

THE_REAL_DOOMSTER

COSMO

ADOLESCENT_BOY

What could I deduce from the handles? Well, NANOVICH sounded at least a little Russian, and the Russians had to have something to do with this case. The Doomster would be an adolescent boy no matter how old he or she was, while ADOLESCENT_BOY would be a yuppy with an imaginary sense of humor. It was easy to see what you were supposed to think when you thought about 2DIE4. Maybe THE_FLY was really a disguised spider in the World Wide Web. Maybe COSMO was Carl Sagan doing the Web from the great beyond. Sure, and BOB would be David Letterman's dog.

So, the anonymous handles didn't help much. I still had the five for-sure locals to run down. It wasn't like I had nothing to try next.

“Okay,” I told her. “I'll chase down the known locals. If nothing else maybe I can fill some of the holes in the list.”

“Seems pretty thin to me,” she said. She put her computer back in her bag.

“It's a place to start.”

“Did you get into GP Ink?” She asked her question and then she looked away.

“Not all the way,” I said. I gave her an edited version of the story ending with what I thought was the key question. “So, who do you think would be tossing the office?”

“I have no idea,” she said. “So you didn't actually get to look around the office at all?”