Choice of Evil

exact way. And that I’d been a lot of things in my life, but IRS-informant was never going to be one of them.

He nodded, waiting.

“Let’s say you were approached by someone who fears he might be a. . . target of a police investigation, okay? Let’s say he’s totally innocent. Got nothing to do with whatever the Man is looking at. But, still, he’s worried. Let’s say he knows there has to be a bust soon. The media’s all over the cops, and that means the politicians can’t be far behind. So this guy, he’s worried. He could hire you, right? For a flat fee? And he’d need an investigation too. From your end. Just in case.”

“That hypothetical has a certain structural validity to it,” Davidson acknowledged warily.

“And the new IRS rules, they can make you disclose who paid you any fee in excess of ten grand, right?”

“Yes. That was just ratified by the—”

“Sure. So, maybe, just to protect a client, you wouldn’t want to report a fee. . . immediately. You understand what I’m saying?”

“I do not,” Davidson said, primly.

“Let’s just. . . take a number, okay? Say, a hundred thousand, all right? Now, this client, this hypothetical client, he thinks he may be the target of an investigation, okay? But he also has other legal issues. Maybe real complex ones. . . like he wants to get married and —”

“—he needs a prenuptial agreement?”

“No. And he’s gay. So he needs some kind of highly complex ‘partnership’ agreement. Something that would protect his interests no matter how it turns out. Let’s say he. . . and his partner. . . they want to adopt a child too. After they. . . formalize their relationship. Raises a lot of legal issues, doesn’t it?”

“Certainly. Although I must tell you, I would not myself participate in any premarital agreement concerning custody of children. The courts won’t uphold them. . . and they shouldn’t. Children aren’t property, and their best interests cannot be determined prior to—”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, stopping the flow before he got really wound up and spewed for hours. “Pay attention, okay? So this guy comes in and he plunks down a hundred large. In cash. You report it—report it all, no problem. What it’s for is the partnership stuff. And then you need a partner. For the investigation. That costs you, say, fifty. Half.”

“And that’s for you?”

“Sure. What do you care? You’re declaring it all as income, and you can freely disclose the name of your client. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is that I would be declaring a hundred—and paying tax on it—but I would only be getting half of that.”

“You’d be paying tax on whatever you declare,” I told him. “A hundred large is a pretty big fee for what I described.”

“So is fifty.”

“Sure. But you have to get paid for representing me, right?”

He nodded.

“And there’s no way you’re declaring that,” I told him, not a question.

He didn’t move his head an inch, but I took that for what it was.

“So if a guy calls you, name of Lincoln, then you’ll know what to do?”

This time he nodded, slightly.

“Can you find him?” I asked the delicate-featured young woman. She had taxicab-yellow hair, short and straight, with a black X dyed into the left side. Her face was symmetrical, with just a trace of baby fat. She wore a silver ring in her puggish nose. And her dark eyes looked as sharp as the razor-blade earrings she sported. I didn’t know her, never met her before then.

Lorraine was the only link I had left to Crystal Beth, but it wasn’t a real link until I finally went over to the safehouse and told her I was hunting the humans who’d killed my woman. She didn’t blink, just asked me if I wanted any help.

“I looked everywhere I could think of,” I told her. “And I drew blanks. I need a tracker.”

“I don’t know any—”

“Crystal Beth said you did,” I told her. Then I told her what I meant. And how I knew they’d have what I needed.

“Her name is Xyla,” Lorraine finally said. “She’ll be in touch.”

So now this Xyla was sitting across from me in my booth at Mama’s.

“Can you find him?” I asked again.

“If he’s in Cyberville, I can,” she said. Not bragging, confident. “But I can tell you, people are already looking.”

“Looking?”

“Posting open messages for him. On newsgroups, bulletin boards, like that.”

“What kind of messages?” I asked her.

“The whole range: journalists who want an interview, gays saying ‘Go for it!,’ threats, challenges, target suggestions. . . everything.”

“And they think he’s going to answer them?”

“Netizens are real naive,” she replied. “Most of them are kids. In their minds, anyway. There’s over a thousand profiles with the name ‘Avenger’ in them on AOL alone. That’s what the papers called him. Until he wrote that last letter. So now the geeks will just search under this ‘Homo Erectus’ handle. And there’ll be a ton of matches there too.”

“And they think he’s got an. . . address?”

“Sure. Someplace. And it’s already happening—there’s messages posted that are supposed to be from him. As if the FBI isn’t watching all that traffic,” she said contemptuously.

“So how could you find him?”

“I think he’s on-line. I think he lurks.”

“Lurks?”

“Watches. Hops on the Net and visits these different places. As long as he doesn’t post, he’s pretty safe.”

“Pretty. . .?”

“If he stays on long enough, or hits a website with our software on it, we can finger him.”

I looked a question over at her.

“Locate him. His cyber-addy, anyway. That wouldn’t find him—he could be using any ISP, and the server could even be out of the country.”

“So what good would—?”

“If you found his addy. . . if it was really him, then, if you could hack into the ISP’s own files, you could get his billing info. You know, the credit card he uses—you can’t buy ISP services for cash, you need a credit card just to sign up.”

“But anyone can get a phony credit card. As long as you pay the bills, they won’t care what name you use.”

“Sure. And some of the ISPs give out e-mail addys for free just to build their lists too. That’s where. . . someone else comes in,” she said.

“Okay. You’ll take a shot?”

“I’m with Lorraine and the others,” she answered, like that was all the answer I needed. “But there’s something else too. Another way, maybe. I don’t know if he’s high-cyber or not. But if he is, I could send a message myself. Send it encrypted, so you’d need a program to open it.”

“What happens if you don’t have this program?”

“You just get a bunch of gibberish—numbers and symbols—it wouldn’t mean anything. But if he is lurking, he might be intrigued enough to open it up.”

“And. . .?”