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“What can I say? Thank God for the morning-after pill. Tell me you called because you dumped the girlfriend.”
“Oh baby, oh baby,” I answered and Kim chuckled. I had never known a woman to speak the way she did, but then I’ve never known a woman quite like her, either—young, petite, pretty, a transplanted Vietnamese computer genius with a barroom personality that would make a sailor blush.
“Whaddaya need?” she asked.
“I have a job for you.”
“Hmm, I like the sound of that.”
“Can you track down the owner of an e-mail address?”
“Easy.”
“With just the address?”
“Easy. What is it?”
I recited the long, seemingly meaningless series of letters and numbers in the “from” field on Lindsey’s e-mail.
Kim was using her surfer’s voice, carrying on a conversation with me while simultaneously surfing the web, reading e-mails or trading instant messages, so I wasn’t surprised when she said, “Wait, wait, wait . . .” Seconds later Kim said, “Tell me again.”
I did.
“When did you get the e-mail?”
“Three days ago.”
“Shoulda called then, Mac. We coulda tapped into the ISP’s short-term memory cache before new records replaced the old records, know what I mean?”
I pretended that I did.
“Don’t worry. If your friend’s using a route account with a concrete street address like Eudora or Outlook, it’ll be like looking up a phone number. If he’s using a Web-based account like Yahoo or Hotmail that exists only in cyberland, or even an anonymizer, one of those sites created to mask information about the original sender—and right now I’m thinking that’s what this looks like—it’ll be tougher, but a babe like me, I can handle it.”
“How long will it take?”
“About ten minutes.”
“Really?”
“Ten minutes once I start. Can’t do it now. Some delinquent launched a particularly nasty little virus and my accounts are screaming for me to purge their systems before the entire Western economy collapses around them, so I’m gonna have to get back to you.”
I had often wondered if Kim had ever launched a few viruses of her own in order to drum up business—it would have made for a nifty extortion racket—but I never asked.
“As soon as you can get to it, I’d appreciate it,” I told her.
“So, McKenzie. This e-mail. You got a stalker?”
“No.”
“Would you like one?”
“I’ll let you know if there’s an opening.”
“Here’s the thing,” Kim said. “I can hack an ISP and trace the route back to the original sender, or at least to his computer. No muss, no fuss. Only we’re talking the violation of several federal privacy statutes . . .”
“I figured.”
“For that kind of exposure, I’m gonna have to charge you.”
“You’re on. Just don’t go crazy out there, Kim. Protect yourself, okay?”
“Nothing to it.”
“Send me a bill.”
“What bill? I tell you how much it costs and you pay me in cash. It’s not called the underground economy for nothing. ’Course, I might take the price out in trade, if you know what I mean.”
“You’ve got my number.”
“I wish.”
“Hey, Kimmy?”
“Yeah.”
“Pleasure talking to you.”
“See ya.”
The sky was cloudless and pale; the sun fierce and white and glistening on the snow piled along the streets and sidewalks. Except the prettiness of the afternoon was just bait to lure unsuspecting prey out of doors. The sweat on my forehead froze so quickly in the frigid air when I left the Groveland Tap that the fingertips of my brown leather gloves came away encrusted with frost when I brushed my brow. I began to shiver as the rest of the perspiration on my body chilled, and it took an effort to keep my teeth from chattering.
At five degrees below zero—not to mention the minus twenty-three-degree windchill—Minnesotans understand that Nature gives the body a choice. Either lie down and die or run to some place warm. Me, I was running. I broke into a slow trot when I left the Tap, moving along St. Clair Avenue to my Audi parked half a block up. Not for the first time I marveled at those eccentric men and women who dash out of saunas, roll around in the snow or leap into a nearby frozen pond, then hurry back to the sauna before frostbite settles in.
I had just about reached my car when a man on the other side of the street called, “Excuse me.” He was dressed for business in a gray trench coat over black dress slacks and wingtips. He was carrying an unfolded map in both hands and looked hopelessly lost. It was one of the oldest ploys in the book, but I didn’t see it until he crossed the street and shoved the .38 into my gut. I blamed the weather. After all, how many muggers prowl the streets at five below looking for vics?
“My employer wishes to speak to you,” he said politely, his warm breath rising like mist.