Mortal Fear

“Well … one of Strobekker’s aliases is Shiva. That’s Indian, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” Dr. Lenz says softly. “Shiva the Destroyer. What are his other aliases?”

“Prometheus. Hermes.”

The psychiatrist remains impassive. “What about the victims? Does anything come to mind that links their online code names?”

“Not that I could see.”

“What else stands out in your mind?” asks Baxter.

“Strobekker himself. No matter what alias he uses, his style is unmistakable.”

“How so?”

“He’s very literate, for one thing. Intuitive, as well. One minute he’s writing extemporaneous poetry, the next he cuts right to the bone with some insight into a woman’s character, almost as though he can answer whatever question is in her mind before she asks it. But the strangest thing is this: he must be the best damned typist in the world. Lightning fast, and he never makes a mistake.”

“Never?” Lenz asks, leaning forward.

“Not in the first eighty-five percent of contact.”

“What do you mean?”

“With the sixth victim, and with Karin Wheat, I realized that Strobekker began making typographic errors—just like anyone else—a few days before each woman dropped offline. When I went back and studied my printouts of the killer-victim exchanges, I saw that the typos began at about the eighty-five percent point in each relationship. Of course, I didn’t know anyone was being killed.”

“You sound like you’ve distilled this thing down to a science,” says Baxter.

“I work with numbers.”

“Running this sex thing?” asks Mayeux.

I chuckle bitterly. “No, I got into EROS for fun. You believe that? I earn my living trading futures.”

My audience stares as if I’ve announced that I am an alchemist.

“In a dink farmhouse in the Mississippi Delta?” asks one of the young FBI agents. “Who are your clients? Farmers hedging their crops?”

“I only have one client.”

“Who?” Mayeux asks suspiciously.

“Himself,” says Arthur Lenz.

Dr. Lenz is obviously the alchemist here. “That’s right. I only trade my own account.”

“You some kind of millionaire?” asks Mayeux’s partner. “A goddamn gentleman farmer or something?”

“Keep a civil tongue, Poché,” snaps the chief.

“I do all right.”

“What about the final fifteen percent of contact?” Lenz asks, plainly irritated by the squabbling.

“He makes mistakes. About as many as anyone else. And his typing gets slower. A lot slower.”

“Maybe he starts jacking off with one hand as he gets closer to the time of the hit,” suggests Poché.

The chief frowns but lets that pass.

Dr. Lenz strikes a pose of intense meditation as the door behind me opens swiftly. I turn and see a black woman in her twenties holding a computer printout in her hand. There is handwriting scrawled across it in blue ink.

“What is it, Kiesha?” asks the chief.

“We traced Strobekker, David M.”

A cumulative catching of breath in the conference room. “Rap sheet?” Mayeux asks tentatively.

“No.”

“Minnesota DMV?”

“No citations. Had one car—a Mercedes—but the plate expired last year.”

“So who is the guy?”

“An accountant for a glitzy firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota.”

I realize that Kiesha is trying to communicate something to Chief Tobin through eye contact alone. Despite her telepathic urgency, she is unsuccessful.

“What is it, dear?” asks Arthur Lenz, as though he has known the woman since childhood.

“He’s dead,” she says, almost as if against her will. “David M. Strobekker was beaten to death in an alley in Minneapolis eleven months ago.”

A hot tingle races across my forearms.

“Holy shit,” says Mayeux. “What are we dealing with here?”

Daniel Baxter points a finger as thick as a Colt Python barrel at Kiesha. “Details?”

“Minneapolis homicide says it looked like a mugging gone bad. Strobekker was single, probably homosexual. He was slumming on a bad stretch of Hennepin Avenue. His skull was so pulped his boss couldn’t recognize his face.”

Dr. Lenz emits a small sound of what I can only interpret as pleasure.

“Positive ID?” asks Mayeux.

“Dental records and a thumbprint,” Kiesha replies. “His company kept thumbprint files; don’t ask me why. But it was Strobekker for sure.”

“Not for sure,” I say, surprised to hear my own voice.