to approach the issue in this manner, Julie said, “Don’t let it eat you,
Frank. Most likely, the paper artist who forged your documents took the
names at random from a list of recent deaths. If he’d used another
approach, the Farris and Roman families would never have come to Mr.
Blue’s attention. But it’s not your fault the forger used the quick and
lazy method.”
Frank shook his head, tried to speak, could not.
“You can’t blame yourself,” Hal said from the doorway, where he had
evidently been standing long enough to have gotten the gist of the
photo’s importance. He seemed genuinely distressed to see Frank so
anguished. Like Clint, Hal had been won over by Frank’s gentle voice,
self-effacing manner, and cherubic demeanor.
Frank cleared his throat, and finally the words broke out. “No, no,
it’s on me, my God, all those people dead because of me.”
IN DAKOTA & DAKOTA’S computer center, Bobby and Frank sat in two
spring-backed, typist chairs with rubber wheels, Bobby switched on one
of the three state-of-the-art IBM each of which was outlinked to the
world through its modern and phone line. Though bright enough to work
by, overhead lights it was soft and diffuse to prevent glare on terminal
screens, and the room’s one window was covered with blackout drapes for
the same reason.
Like policemen in the silicon age, modern private detectives and
security consultants relied on the computer to make the work easier and
to compile a breadth and depth of information that could never be
acquired by the old-fashioned gum methods of Sam Spade and Philip
Marlowe. Pounding pavement, interviewing witnesses and potential
suspects, conducting surveillances were still aspects of their job of
course, but without the computer they would be as ineffective as a
blacksmith trying to fix a flat tire with a hammer and nail and other
tools of his trade. As the twentieth century progressed through its
last decade, private investigators who were ignorant of the microchip
revolution existed only in television dramas and the curiously dated
world of most PI novels. Lee Chen, who had designed and now operated
their data-gathering system, would not arrive in the office until around
nine o’clock. Bobby did not want to wait the hour to start putting the
computer to work on “Frank’s case!” He was not a primo hacker, as Lee
was, but he knew all the hardware, had the ability to learn new software
quickly and was almost as comfortable tracking down information in
cyberspace as he was poring through file age-yellowed newspapers.
Using Lee’s code book, which he removed from a locked desk drawer, Bobby
first entered a Social Security Administration data network that
contained files to which broad public access was legal. Other files in
the same system were restricted and supposedly inaccessible behind walls
of security codes required by various right-to-privacy laws.
From the open files, he inquired as to the number of men named Frank
Pollard in the Administration’s records, and within seconds the response
appeared on the screen: counting variations of Frank, such as Franklin
and Frankie and Franco-plus names like Francis, for which Frank might be
a diminutive-there were six hundred and nine Frank Pollards in
possession of Social Security numbers.
“Bobby,” Frank said anxiously,
“does that stuff on the screen make sense to you? Are those words, real
words, or jumbled letters?”
“Huh? Of course they’re words.”
“Not to me. They don’t look like anything to me. Gibberish.” Bobby
picked up a copy of Byte magazine that was lying between two of the
computers, opened it to an article, and said,
“Read that.” Frank accepted the magazine, stared at it, flipped ahead a
couple of pages, then a couple more. His hands began to shake. The
magazine rattled in his grip.
“I can’t. Jesus, I’ve lost that too. Yesterday, I lost the ability to
do math, and now I can’t read any more, and I get more confused, foggy
in the head, and I ache in every joint, every muscle. This
teleporting’s wearing me down, killing me. I’m falling apart, Bobby,
mentally and physically, faster all the time.”
“It’s going to be all right,” Bobby said, though his confidence was