'This girl does.'
'What girl?'
'Girl I know. Not like the Kongs, she ain't no hacker, don't know how to do anything tricky, sneakin'
into networks an' data bases and all of that. She just use it to do her homework and balance her checkbook an' shit.'
'So you asked her computer about peach pits and cyanide and it spat out all that information?'
'You don't ask the computer nothin'. Computer just a machine.'
'Oh.'
'She got this on-line service, see, and you hook up to that and browse these different message boards.
An' when you find somebody might know the answer to your question, you send him an E-mail. An' he E-mails you back. Like talkin',
'cept it on the screen.'
'Oh.'
'An' what else you can do, you can post a question on the message board, an' people post their answers an' you can pick 'em up later on. Or they'll E-mail it straight to you. Anything you want to know, somebody out there got the answer.'
'Oh.'
'Course, sometimes what you get gonna be the wrong answer,
'cause people who don't know be just as apt to answer as people who do.
So all of that about the apricot kernels ain't exactly somethin' you can take to the bank, Frank. Might be he got the details wrong.'
'I see.'
'Anyway,' he said, 'I learned all of that, so I thought I'd pass it on.
I be at Elaine's shop later, case you need me.'
* * *
I finished my coffee, and I was on my way out the door when the phone rang.
It was Joe Durkin. 'We have to talk,' he said.
'I was on my way over.'
'Don't come here. There's that coffee shop I met you once, Greek place, Eighth between Forty-fourth and Forty-fifth. I forget the name, they changed it when they redecorated, but it's the same place.'
'I know the one you mean. The east side of Eighth.'
'Right. Ten minutes?'
'Fine. I'll buy the coffee.'
'All I want is straight answers,' he said. 'I don't give a shit who buys the coffee.'
* * *
He was in a booth when I got there. He had a cup of coffee in front of him and an expression on his face that I couldn't read. He said, 'I want to know what you know about Will.'
'What brought this on?'
'What brought it on? I made a phone call this morning, just thought I'd ask if the Allen Johnson name turned up on any lists they might have got from Poison Control.'
'I gather it rang a bell.'
'The name? It couldn't, because I didn't get that far. Before I knew it I was right in the middle of a Chinese fire drill. What did I know about Will? What did I have and where did it come from?'
'What did you tell them?'
'That I'd heard something from a source during an investigation of another matter. I don't remember exactly what I said. I didn't mention your name, if that's what you were wondering.'
'Good.'
'The only reason I kept you out of it,' he said, 'is before I give you to them I want to know what I'm giving. How did this Allen Johnson get to be Will, and how did you get onto him, and who the hell is he anyway?' When I hesitated he added, 'And don't hold out on me, Matt.
If you're blowing smoke, blow it someplace else, will you? And if you've got something, well, the son of a bitch already murdered four people. Don't sit there with your thumb up your ass while he goes and kills somebody else.'
'He's not going to kill anybody else.'
'Why, because he gave us his word? He kills people but he draws the line at lying?'
'His killing days are over.'
