by Eden Sharp
I never lied to Jeff but my head was full of things I could never unsee or talk about. That was one life, this was another.
'I'm just tired.'
He nodded and turned his attention back to the paperwork on the desk.
'Okay, I appreciate it. I'll set it up, text you the details.'
John Knox
A moment of clarity hit Knox alongside the caffeine and Tylenol. He'd brought home the girl being hassled by the jerk in the bar.
Last night she had seemed like fun, someone with moderately interesting philosophies on life, but he realized now that this appraisal had been mainly fueled by bourbon of a doubtful provenance, and that for him, she was of no real interest.
Killer body he had to admit, but not exactly edifying for the soul. Nothing deeper to connect with. Just like when he saw his first dead body, he'd expected to feel more. But he didn't. He just saw meat. Maybe easier on that occasion because the head had been turned away, the non-person faceless and easier to accept. To him death was like viewing a photograph at the wrong exposure, the image blurred. The light just wasn't there.
Reality seeped in with a nausea not entirely down to the hangover. He wondered why he kept retracing the same old groove. Maybe discovering what he didn't want in order to figure out what he did.
What a difference daytime made. Warmth and satisfaction transformed by a trick of the light into an awkward gulf between strangers. For someone who greatly admired the female form, there seemed irony in the fact there were men he'd loved more, had more intense relationships with, than he felt he ever would with a woman. He wondered what the nuts with placards who hung out at funerals would have to say about that.
He wished she'd collect her stuff from his bedroom floor and ship out. He wasn't intending on going for a personal best, for her to become some kind of record in a history of short relationships. Instead stick with routine strategy: promise nothing and get out fast.
Stirring emanated from an adjoining room and a crinkled blond lurched her way squinting into the space to his side and collapsed on to the couch next to him. Knox nodded a greeting and smiled without any enthusiasm, realizing he couldn't remember her name.
'Bathroom's that way. I'll make coffee and then give you a ride home.'
He went and scanned the kitchen cupboards searching out breakfast, made do with a handful of stale Grahams. Probably the only man who'd been in the military and actually enjoyed rations – Meals, Ready-to-Eat. He re-filled the coffee pot all the way.
She was brushing her hair when he went in to the bathroom and he felt like part of an old married couple. She edged round him in an awkward dance, the rules around physical contact uncertain now, contrasting with the close quarters from the small hours.
With the bathroom to himself, he picked up a razor and foam. He still couldn't get used to a mirror in which he could see all of himself at once.
The phone rang. Knox grabbed a towel and made for the living room.
'It's me.' Kelly said. 'Besson's got another job for you. Set up a meet for you tonight. Something you might find more interesting.'
The blond appeared dressed for a night out at ten in the morning.
'Hang on.'
Knox held the receiver to his chest, was about to ask her to give him a minute but she scribbled her number on a piece of paper and handed it to him before waving a hand over her shoulder and leaving the apartment. He screwed it into a ball and threw it straight into the waste bin.
'Have a good night?' Kelly said.
Knox searched for an answer but Kelly didn't wait for one.
'Meet me at seven,' he said. 'Usual place.'
Angela McGlynn
I rubbed my face trying to shake off the tiredness. Even with the earlier trip out, the eggs, bacon and sausage, the extra shots of coffee and now turning the air con up to max, I still had to fight to concentrate. My eyes felt gritty from the length of time I had been staring at the screen. I shivered and considered getting another layer of clothing but now there was no time. Sleep would also have to wait.
All the hours of research, probing and analysis had paid off. I had managed to induce a buffer overflow on the target system without crashing the program. By engineering a sequence of events with a missing data field, the error I had caused had given me the ability to insert alternate instructions and deploy other programs to gain access to the files on the system including the password files.
As an additional precaution I had taken control of an innocuous, largely unattended machine, sitting in a corner of a warehouse in Copenhagen normally used for inventory purposes, to launch the attack.
Using a custom script had ensured a high number and a variety of attempts at speed. By adjusting the volume of activity generated by the security protection capabilities hosted on the servers I had made sure it wouldn't draw attention via any web log.
Any successful hack was a lot like planning a military operation. Anything that might be encountered must be anticipated and dealt with. I needed to react quickly now I was in.
I scanned through the names, addresses and other data flowing down the screen.
Whoever was behind the site had been thorough with their information requests. Next to each user name was the subscriber's attraction data. On average it was four to six years old. One name stood out above all the others.
Screen Name: slippy66
Attraction: 0-6
Real Name: Gabe Rawlings
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Pic: http://b.bcp.fubar.com/6bsf2419323754.jpg
Location: 105 Twenty-Sixth Street, San Francisco, CA, USA
I began compiling the data into a table and adding in IP addresses. I collated these with the charge card data which had been used to set up the subscriptions.
Subscribers who had used the site for over six months had posted around fifty thousand images or films and had earned about that figure in dollars from sales. Gabe Rawlings had used the site for only nine months and earned himself just over seven hundred and fifty three thousand dollars, fifteen times the usual amount.
I tried for the umpteenth time to relax my muscles but couldn't release any tension. Nausea washed through me and my mouth tasted metallic. I was aware that my jaw ached and realized I was grinding my teeth.
It wasn't just the amount of images posted and the sum of money. Out of more than seven different countries and twelve different states represented, the man lived right here in San Francisco.
I wrapped my arms around myself trying to warm up and got lost in the image on the poster on the wall. It was from a Japanese anime film. It showed a naked torso, half-robot, half-woman suspended by cables. A single line of text read: Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.
I wondered what it was that made people more than just mechanistic robots. What it was that turned human beings into monsters.
I checked my texts. I had around three hours to catch up on sleep before meeting Kelly's friend.
SEVEN
John Knox
O'Donahues was more to Knox's liking. Dark wood and lots of it, sports on the TV if you asked nicely, regular people.
Past the crowd he located Kelly sitting at a table beyond the bar, the chair invisible behind his bulk. The other tables had been pushed away. Kelly occupied an island in the middle of a flotsam of disordered wood. A beer nearly sunk.
Knox waited his turn among those warming up for the night ahead, ordered another and a Coke, paid and took them over. Pulled up a chair.
'So what's the deal?'
'It's babysitting. But not the rich brats like last time. A whole other ball game.'
Kelly started draining the fresh bottle. His leather jacket creaked at the seams as he raised his arm. Looked like it had been custom-tailored for a fridge.
'Like?'
'Besson don't just supply bodyguards. He got a business partner, a private investigator, specializes in finding people. The missing, skip traces tha
t kind of thing. This PI, McGlynn, is looking for a missing girl. Wants some muscle to go cruise round the seedier side of town with.'
Kelly's legs were spread V-shaped, taking up so much acreage he had to use his whole reach to put his bottle back down.
'So what's he like?'
'Tall, dark...'
'And handsome? Something you wanna come clean about?'
'Hey you're the one with the soda. What's with that?'
'Hangover. And it can't help first impressions right?'
The door opened, swung shut again. Knox looked over. A girl walked in. He went for the full appraisal. Shiny dark hair hanging all the way down to her breasts. Leather jacket, skinny jeans, boots, long legs. All in black.
Kelly smirked at the fluid strides heading toward them.
'Tall, dark and brunette.'
'Not...? How old?'
'Twenty-seven,' Kelly said, getting to his feet. 'But don't be fooled by the chassis, she's a dyke.'
The girl reached the table, held out her hand.
'Angela McGlynn,' she said.
He stood and shook it. 'John Knox.'
He was unable to control his eyes from rolling down to her feet then back up to her face and hated himself.
She pulled out a chair and they sat. Gray eyes peered out from under the bangs with a powerful intensity that conveyed self-assurance.
Knox took in the rest of her. Dark brown hair, almost showing black against pale skin. Large pillowy lips fixed in a half-sullen pout. Looked like she was either mildly amused, coldly calculating seduction or hinting at a contemptuous pity. Black eyeliner but little else. Naturally beautiful. She wore no jewelery except for a large black-faced silver watch on a slim wrist. But then in light of Kelly's intel there wasn't likely to be a wedding band.
'Can I get you a drink?' Knox said.
'No. Thank you. I'd just like someone to accompany me to the Tenderloin later tonight.'
'Where crackheads and hookers collide?'
She almost smiled, nodded. 'It's where a lot of missing kids end up. I'm looking for an eighteen-year-old girl who disappeared three weeks ago.'
Knox ran a finger along a scratch in the wood attempting to take in the small detail about the table so he didn't continue to gawk at her.
'What about the cops?'
'They don't get overly interested in missing adults if there's no evidence of abduction.'
'So she may just be staying with friends or something?'
'She left home because her dad freaked when he found out she had a coke problem. She has a habit, no money and she's in an expensive town. She threatened to go pull tricks with a hooker she'd met downtown through a dealer. He wasn't sure whether or not she was bluffing. I need to ask around in the kind of places you take back up. Might take a couple of days. That's where you come in. Jeff said you were bored.'
Knox nodded. 'So we find her and take her home.'
McGlynn shook her head. 'We find her, make sure she's okay and then it's up to her. Some people want to be found, others don't.
'Anything else you need to know, previous experience that kind of thing?'
'No. I already ran a background check on you,' she said.
Knox stared her straight in the eye, not entirely comfortable.
'What do you drive?' she asked.
'Dodge Charger, older model. Classic,' he said.
'Great. Bring it. Meet me outside a Japanese restaurant first called Kumo at ten. It's on Sansome near where it meets Pine.'
'What do you drive?' he asked.
'A Nissan. But you couldn't pay me to leave it in the Loin at night.'
She slid a card with a phone number on it across the table then pushed back the chair, stood up and headed back out.
'To the point,' Knox said.
Kelly took a slug of his beer. 'That is one smart piece of ass.'
'My car's an American classic. What's she drive, a Rogue?'
'Nismo 370Z,' Kelly said. 'Limited slip differential and carbon-fiber drive shaft. A lot more going on under the hood than you'd think.'
'Huh.' Knox drank a mouthful of warm soda. 'She know Besson from training at the dojo too?'
'Yep.'
'She any good?'
Kelly laughed.
'Still Stone Age about the idea of women fighting?'
The big man let out a grunt. 'She made first dan at eleven. Got scouted by Besson at thirteen when he was a coach for the US team. She ended up with gold and silver at the world championships a few years later.'
'So she's good.'
Kelly faced him square on. 'We sparred for real once. Some comment I made which she took a real exception to. I don't hit women, I was just gonna slam her into the mat. But she ain't no dancer. Telegraphed one thing, did another real quick. Sucker-punched me. It was street-fighting, not karate. I went down seeing stars. She's a big fan of Krav Maga.'
'She got a carry permit?'
'SIG 229.'
Knox whistled. 'She makes you look like a girl.'
'She got me doing ballet. Teaching me how to stretch properly. Flexible as hell. Hips like universal joints.'
Kelly stared at the door, as though she might walk back in at any moment and shook his head.
'What a fucking waste.'
Angela McGlynn
None of the others had lived in the state, but Rawlings was local and I guess I had a morbid curiosity.
The house on Twenty-Sixth Street was in darkness. Therefore, in conjunction with its north-facing aspect and empty driveway, it was highly likely no one was at home.
Twenty-two minutes later I got my first look at Gabe Rawlings after he pulled on to the driveway and stepped out of a Mercedes coupe. He was around five ten, regular build, with brown hair, casual pants and a canvas jacket. Totally average, nothing distinctive. He didn't look like a monster. He looked like a regular guy. No wife or kids followed him out of the car. But then I had already determined from the County Appraiser that he lived alone.
He opened the door and went inside. Lights came on in a predictable pattern. Hall, kitchen and living area. Eleven minutes later they went off again in reverse order, all except an outside light above the front door. Rawlings exited the house with a companion. A small brown Labrador puppy skipped around his feet, straining at its leash.
I waited for Rawlings to disappear out of sight in my rearview mirror then started up the engine and headed towards the nearby park at Twenty-Seventh and Douglass Boulevard.
EIGHT
John Knox
Knox was early so sat out front and took in the surroundings. The restaurant was open but empty. What appeared to be office buildings lined either side. Not much passing trade.
A cab pulled up. He saw McGlynn emerge so he got out. She nodded in acknowledgment and met him at the door. Leaned on a buzzer.
He wondered if she had a sense of humor.
'Dinner's a nice touch McGlynn,' he said.
'You haven't eaten already?' she asked.
Her brows were pulled in, serious. Different wavelength he thought. Maybe yank the chain a little more.
'Pepperoni with the works, but I like rice and I'm willing to try something new.'
'It's more of a dessert kind of place,' she said, 'but the menu's creative.'
The door clicked open. The dark and drab interior seemed ethereally quiet. No staff. Knox couldn't smell anything cooking. McGlynn disappeared behind a painted partition. He fell into step behind.
She opened another door and they were in a stairwell to the adjoining office building. A mid-blue industrial quality carpet and white scuffed walls led up two half flights of stairs.
'It's six floors up,' McGlynn said. 'The elevator's broken.'
'I'm guessing we're not here for dinner,' Knox said.
'No. We're here for the massage parlor,' she said.
The tiny mama-san, black hair scraped up into a bun, met them at the top. She bowed to McGlynn and motioned them in to a small cream waiting area then disappeare
d through a locked door into rooms further out back.
'This is an Asian place,' Knox said. 'I got the impression this kid was white'
'They cater for all tastes here, Caucasian too. There's someone I need to speak to. She has shifts in a lot of different places. Times are hard. There's a recession.'
The mama-san returned and beckoned them through into another area.
Rooms opened off the corridor. A jacuzzi and shower stalls at one end. No windows or natural light.
'Your friend wanna make a new friend while you talk?'
She addressed the question to McGlynn as if he wasn't there.
He put his hand up palm out, shaking his head.
The mama-san bowed then disappeared off into another part of the warren. He supposed that if you took down all the partitioning there might just be enough square footage to park a couple of pick-ups.
'Does the restaurant actually serve food to the public?' he asked.
'They tend to discourage that. Friends and family mostly. Ever wondered why some places manage to stay open for business when they always look empty?'
A door opened and a blond girl poked her head round then stood back for them to enter. Knox glanced at her on the way past, couldn't tell if she was twenty or thirty. Everything about her looked artificial and dead. McGlynn gave her a hundred buck note and addressed her as Donna. The girl deposited it straight down inside a sliver of red lace showing above the neckline of a white nurse's outfit. Knox thought she looked like an adult trying to fit into a child's costume.
A bag on a large hook hung from the wall above a small sink. He thought about what it might contain.
McGlynn produced a bunch of folded photocopies and gave him one before handing them over to the girl. It showed a fresh-looking natural blond. Before and after, he thought.
There was no place to sit. He didn't even want to touch the massage table. A mild trace of disinfectant was just discernible underneath the sweetness of jasmine scented candles lit on a bureau to the side, its top covered with massage oils, towels and wipes.
