by Stephen King
Brady thinks the answer to both questions is yes, but the more suicides he causes in the meantime, the more Hodges will suffer. When he looks at it in that light, he thinks that Hodges finding his way out here could be a good thing. It could be making lemonade from lemons. In any case, he has time. He’s many miles north of the city, and he’s got winter storm Eugenie on his side.
Brady goes back to the laptop and confirms that zeetheend is still up and running. He checks the visitors’ count. Over nine thousand now, and most of them (but by no means all) will be teenagers interested in suicide. That interest peaks in January and February, when dark comes early and it seems spring will never arrive. Plus, he’s got Zappit Zero, and with that he can work on plenty of kids personally. With Zappit Zero, getting to them is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.
Pink fish, he thinks, and snickers.
Calmer now that he sees a way of dealing with the old Det.-Ret. should he try showing up like the cavalry in the last reel of a John Wayne western, Brady picks up the Zappit and turns it on. As he studies the fish, a fragment of some poem read in high school occurs to him, and he speaks it aloud.
“Oh do not ask what is it, let us go and make our visit.”
He closes his eyes. The zipping pink fish become zipping red dots, each one a bygone concertgoer who is at this very moment studying his or her gift Zappit and hoping to win prizes.
Brady picks one, brings it to a halt, and watches it bloom.
Like a rose.
17
“Sure, there’s a police computer forensics squad,” Hodges says, in answer to Holly’s question. “If you want to call three part-time crunchers a squad, that is. And no, they won’t listen to me. I’m just a civilian these days.” Nor is that the worst of it. He’s a civilian who used to be a cop, and when retired cops try meddling in police business, they are called uncles. It is not a term of respect.
“Then call Pete and have him do it,” Holly says. “Because that fracking suicide site has to come down.”
The two of them are back in Freddi Linklatter’s version of Mission Control. Jerome is in the living room with Freddi. Hodges doesn’t think she’s apt to flee—Freddi’s terrified of the probably fictional men posted outside her building—but stoner behavior is difficult to predict. Other than how they usually want to get more stoned, that is.
“Call Pete and tell him to have one of the computer geeks call me. Any cruncher with half a brain will be able to doss the site and knock it down that way.”
“Doss it?”
“Big D, little o, big S. Stands for Denial of Services. The guy needs to connect to a BOT network and …” She sees Hodges’s mystified expression. “Never mind. The idea is to flood the suicide site with requests for services—thousands, millions. Choke the fracking thing and crash the server.”
“You can do that?”
“I can’t, and Freddi can’t, but a police department geek freak will be able to tap enough computing power. If he can’t do it from the police computers, he’ll get Homeland Security to do it. Because this is a security issue, right? Lives are at stake.”
They are, and Hodges makes the call, but Pete’s cell goes directly to voicemail. Next he tries his old pal Cassie Sheen, but the desk officer who takes his call tells him Cassie’s mother had some sort of diabetic crisis and Cassie took her to the doctor.
Out of other options, he calls Isabelle.
“Izzy, it’s Bill Hodges. I tried to get Pete, but—”
“Pete’s gone. Done. Kaput.”
For one awful moment Hodges thinks she means he’s dead.
“Left a memo on my desk. It said he was going to go home, turn off his cell, pull the plug on the landline, and sleep for the next twenty-four hours. He further shared that today was his last day as working police. He can do it, too, doesn’t even have to touch his vacation time, of which he has piles. He’s got enough personal days to see him through to retirement. And I think you better scratch that retirement party off your calendar. You and your weirdo partner can hit a movie that night, instead.”
“You’re blaming me?”
“You and your Brady Hartsfield fixation. You infected Pete with it.”
“No. He wanted to chase the case. You were the one who wanted to hand it off, then duck down in the nearest foxhole. Gotta say I’m kind of on Pete’s side when it comes to that one.”
“See? See? That’s exactly the attitude I’m talking about. Wake up, Hodges, this is the real world. I’m telling you for the last time to quit sticking your long beak into what isn’t your busi—”
“And I’m telling you that if you want to have any fucking chance of promotion, you need to get your head out of your ass and listen to me.”
The words are out before he can think better of them. He’s afraid she’ll hang up, and if she does, where will he go then? But there’s only shocked silence.
“Suicides. Have any been reported since you got back from Sugar Heights?”
“I don’t kn—”
“Well, look! Right now!”
He can hear the faint tapping of Izzy’s keyboard for five seconds or so. Then: “One just came over the wire. Kid in Lakewood shot himself. Did it in front of his father, who called it in. Hysterical, as you might expect. What’s that got to do with—”
“Tell the cops on the scene to look for a Zappit game console. Just like the one Holly found at the Ellerton house.”
“That again? You’re like a broken rec—”
“They’ll find one. And you may have more Zappit suicides before the day’s over. Possibly a lot more.”
Website! Holly mouths. Tell her about the website!
“Also, there’s a suicide website called zeetheend. Just went up today. It needs to come down.”
She sighs and speaks as though to a child. “There are all kinds of suicide websites. We got a memo about it from Juvenile Services just last year. They pop up on the Net like mushrooms, usually created by kids who wear black tee-shirts and spend all their free time holed up in their bedrooms. There’s a lot of bad poetry and stuff about how to do it painlessly. Along with the usual bitching about how their parents don’t understand them, of course.”
“This one is different. It could start an avalanche. It’s loaded with subliminal messages. Have someone from computer forensics call Holly Gibney ASAP.”
“That would be outside of protocol,” she says coolly. “I’ll have a look, then go through channels.”
“Have one of your rent-a-geeks call Holly in the next five minutes, or when the suicides start cascading—and I’m pretty sure they will—I’ll make it clear to anyone who’ll listen that I went to you and you tied me up in red tape. My listeners will include the daily paper and 8 Alive. The department does not have a lot of friends in either place, especially since those two unis shot an unarmed black kid to death on MLK last summer.”
Silence. Then, in a softer voice—a hurt voice, maybe—she says, “You’re supposed to be on our side, Billy. Why are you acting this way?”
Because Holly was right about you, he thinks.
Out loud he says, “Because there isn’t much time.”
18
In the living room, Freddi is rolling another joint. She looks at Jerome over the top of it as she licks the paper closed. “You’re a big one, aren’t you?”
Jerome makes no reply.
“What do you go? Two-ten? Two-twenty?”
Jerome has nothing to say to this, either.
Undeterred, she sparks the joint, inhales, and holds it out to him. Jerome shakes his head.
“Your loss, big boy. This is pretty good shit. Smells like dog pee, I know, but pretty good shit, just the same.”
Jerome says nothing.
“Cat got your tongue?”
“No. I was thinking about a sociology class I took when I was a high school senior. We did a four-week mod on suicide, and there was one statistic I never forgot. Every teen suicide that makes it onto social media spawns s
even attempts, five that are show and two that are go. Maybe you should think about that instead of running the tough-girl act into the ground.”
Freddi’s lower lip trembles. “I didn’t know. Not really.”
“Sure you did.”
She drops her eyes to the joint. It’s her turn to say nothing.
“My sister heard a voice.”
At that, Freddi looks up. “What kind of voice?”
“One from the Zappit. It told her all sorts of mean things. About how she was trying to live white. About how she was denying her race. About how she was a bad and worthless person.”
“And that reminds you of someone?”
“Yes.” Jerome is thinking of the accusatory shrieks he and Holly heard coming from Olivia Trelawney’s computer long after that unfortunate lady was dead. Shrieks programmed by Brady Hartsfield, and designed to drive Trelawney toward suicide like a cow down a slaughterhouse chute. “Actually, it does.”
“Brady was fascinated by suicide,” Freddi says. “He was always reading about it on the web. He meant to kill himself with the others at that concert, you know.”
Jerome does know. He was there. “Do you really think he got in touch with my sister telepathically? Using the Zappit as … what? A kind of conduit?”
“If he could take over Babineau and the other guy—and he did, whether you believe it or not—then yeah, I think he could do that.”
“And the others with updated Zappits? Those two hundred and forty-something others?”
Freddi only looks at him through her veil of smoke.
“Even if we take down the website … what about them? What about when that voice starts telling them they’re dogshit on the world’s shoe, and the only answer is to take a long walk off a short dock?”
Before she can reply, Hodges does it for her. “We have to stop the voice. Which means stopping him. Come on, Jerome. We’re going back to the office.”
“What about me?” Freddi asks plaintively.
“You’re coming. And Freddi?”
“What?”
“Pot’s good for pain, isn’t it?”
“Opinions on that vary, as you might guess, the establishment in this fucked-up country being what it is, so all I can tell you is that for me, it makes that delicate time of the month a lot less delicate.”
“Bring it along,” Hodges says. “Also the rolling papers.”
19
They go back to Finders Keepers in Jerome’s Jeep. The back is full of Jerome’s junk, meaning Freddi has to sit on someone’s lap, and it’s not going to be Hodges’s. Not in his current condition. So he drives and Jerome gets Freddi.
“Hey, this is sort of like getting a date with John Shaft,” Freddi says with a smirk. “The big private dick who’s a sex machine to all the chicks.”
“Don’t get used to it,” Jerome says.
Holly’s cell rings. It’s a guy named Trevor Jeppson, from the police department’s Computer Forensics Squad. Holly is soon speaking in a jargon Hodges doesn’t understand—something about BOTS and the darknet. Whatever she’s getting back from the guy seems to please her, because when she breaks the connection, she’s smiling.
“He’s never dossed a website before. He’s like a kid on Christmas morning.”
“How long will it take?”
“With the password and the IP address already in hand? Not long.”
Hodges parks in one of the thirty-minute spaces in front of the Turner Building. They won’t be here long—if he gets lucky, that is—and given his recent run of bad luck, he considers the universe owes him a good turn.
He goes into his office, closes the door, then hunts through his ratty old address book for Becky Helmington’s number. Holly has offered to program the address book into his phone, but Hodges has kept putting it off. He likes his old address book. Probably never get around to making the changeover now, he thinks. Trent’s Last Case, and all that.
Becky reminds him she doesn’t work in the Bucket any longer. “Maybe you forgot that?”
“I didn’t forget. You know about Babineau?”
Her voice drops. “God, yes. I heard that Al Brooks—Library Al—killed Babineau’s wife and might have killed him. I can hardly believe it.”
I could tell you lots of stuff you’d hardly believe, Hodges thinks.
“Don’t count Babineau out yet, Becky. I think he might be on the run. He was giving Brady Hartsfield experimental drugs of some kind, and they may have played a part in Hartsfield’s death.”
“Jesus, for real?”
“For real. But he can’t be too far, not with this storm coming in. Can you think of anyplace he might have gone? Does Babineau own a summer cottage, anything like that?”
She doesn’t even need to think about it. “Not a cottage, a hunting camp. It isn’t just him, though. Four or maybe five docs co-own the place.” Her voice drops to that confidential pitch again. “I hear they do more than hunt out there. If you know what I mean.”
“Where is out there?”
“Lake Charles. The camp has some cutesy-horrible name. I can’t remember it offhand, but I bet Violet Tranh would know. She spent a weekend there once. Said it was the drunkest forty-eight hours of her life, and she came back with chlamydia.”
“Will you call her?”
“Sure. But if he’s on the run, he might be on a plane, you know. Maybe to California or even overseas. The flights were still taking off and landing this morning.”
“I don’t think he would have dared to try the airport with the police looking for him. Thanks, Becky. Call me back.”
He goes to the safe and punches in the combination. The sock filled with ball bearings—his Happy Slapper—is back home, but both of his handguns are here. One is the Glock .40 he carried on the job. The other is a .38, the Victory model. It was his father’s. He takes a canvas sack from the top shelf of the safe, puts the guns and four boxes of ammunition into it, then gives the drawstring a hard yank.
No heart attack to stop me this time, Brady, he thinks. This time it’s just cancer, and I can live with that.
The idea surprises him into laughter. It hurts.
From the other room comes the sound of three people applauding. Hodges is pretty sure he knows what it means, and he’s not wrong. The message on Holly’s computer reads ZEETHEEND IS EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. Below is this: CALL 1-800-273-TALK.
“It was that guy Jeppson’s idea,” Holly says, not looking up from what she’s doing. “It’s the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.”
“Good one,” Hodges says. “And those are good, too. You’re a woman with hidden talents.” In front of Holly is a line of joints. The one she adds makes an even dozen.
“She’s fast,” Freddi says admiringly. “And look how neat they are. Like they came out of a machine.”
Holly gives Hodges a defiant look. “My therapist says an occasional marijuana cigarette is perfectly okay. As long as I don’t go overboard, that is. The way some people do.” Her eyes glide to Freddi, then back to Hodges. “Besides, these aren’t for me. They’re for you, Bill. If you need them.”
Hodges thanks her, and has a moment to reflect on how far the two of them have come, and how pleasant, by and large, the trip has been. But too short. Far too short. Then his phone rings. It’s Becky.
“The name of the place is Heads and Skins. I told you it was cutesy-horrible. Vi doesn’t remember how to get there—I’m guessing she had more than a few shots on the ride, just to get her motor running—but she does remember they went north on the turnpike for quite a ways, and stopped for gas at a place called Thurston’s Garage after they got off. Does that help?”
“Yeah, a ton. Thanks, Becky.” He ends the call. “Holly, I need you to find Thurston’s Garage, north of the city. Then I want you to call Hertz at the airport and rent the biggest four-wheel drive they’ve got left. We’re going on a road trip.”
“My Jeep—” Jerome begins.
“Is small, light
, and old,” Hodges says … although these are not the only reasons he wants a different vehicle built to go in the snow. “It’ll be fine to get us out to the airport, though.”
“What about me?” Freddi asks.
“WITSEC,” Hodges says, “as promised. It’ll be like a dream come true.”
20
Jane Ellsbury was a perfectly normal baby—at six pounds, nine ounces, a little underweight, in fact—but by the time she was seven, she weighed ninety pounds and was familiar with the chant that sometimes haunts her dreams to this day: Fatty fatty, two by four, can’t get through the bathroom door, so she does it on the floor. In June of 2010, when her mother took her to the ’Round Here concert as a fifteenth birthday present, she weighed two hundred and ten. She could still get through the bathroom door with no problem, but it had become difficult for her to tie her shoes. Now she’s twenty, her weight has risen to three hundred and twenty, and when the voice begins to speak to her from the free Zappit she got in the mail, everything it says makes perfect sense to her. The voice is low, calm, and reasonable. It tells her that nobody likes her and everybody laughs at her. It points out that she can’t stop eating—even now, with tears running down her face, she’s snarfing her way through a bag of chocolate pinwheel cookies, the kind with lots of gooey marshmallow inside. Like a more kindly version of the ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, who pointed out certain home truths to Ebenezer Scrooge, it sketches in a future which boils down to fat, fatter, fattest. The laughter along Carbine Street in Hillbilly Heaven, where she and her parents live in a walk-up apartment. The looks of disgust. The jibes, like Here comes the Goodyear Blimp and Look out, don’t let her fall on you! The voice explains, logically and reasonably, that she will never have a date, will never be hired for a good job now that political correctness has rendered the circus fat lady extinct, that by the age of forty she will have to sleep sitting up because her enormous breasts will make it impossible for her lungs to do their work, and before she dies of a heart attack at fifty, she’ll be using a DustBuster to get the crumbs out of the deepest creases in her rolls of fat. When she tries to suggest to the voice that she could lose some weight—go to one of those clinics, maybe—it doesn’t laugh. It only asks her, softly and sympathetically, where the money will come from, when the combined incomes of her mother and father are barely enough to satisfy an appetite that is basically insatiable. When the voice suggests they’d be better off without her, she can only agree.
