Play To Kill aka Shoot To Thrill

'I'll do one better than that – I'm going to call him right now.'

'Whoa. You found religion in the last half hour? Since when are you into validating drunken sots?'

'Since never. But he saved a life, unwittingly or not.' 'I think the unwittingly part means something, Leo.' 'Whatever.'

'Don't trip over your skirt on the way to bed, buddy.' 'Screw you, Gino. Go to sleep.'

'I hear, and I obey.' Gino hung up instantly, which meant Angela had put her hand on him, and maybe exhaled against his skin, and in that moment, Magozzi hated him.

Judge Jim was sitting in his office, reflecting on the history of technology. Invariably, all the powerful technological tools that were invented for the good of mankind ultimately fell into hands that turned them toward evil. Dr. Richard

Gatling invented his rapid-fire weapon because he thought it would end war. The A-bomb was invented for the same reason, and now every crazy fucker had one. The people behind weapons of destruction should have spent less time in their labs and more time on the streets, observing humanity. And now, the Web…

He jumped when his phone rang and he snatched the receiver when he saw Magozzi's name on the caller ID. 'Tell me you're calling with good news, Detective.'

'I am, Judge. Law enforcement on the scene at the Wisconsin diner wanted me to let you know you saved a life.' He heard the judge take a breath, then blow it out. 'You were dead-on with the location. Thanks to your info, the cops got there before the perp could do serious damage.'

Magozzi rubbed at his tired eyes while he waited for the expected thank-you-for-the-call, but all he got was silence. After five seconds of that, he started to get pissed. Just picking up the phone had been a courtesy; one the judge obviously didn't deserve.

Finally, 'And was the victim a woman, Detective Magozzi?'

'Of course it was a woman. Pink polyester, remember? What did you think? That it was a gay golfer?' Bizarrely, he heard the definitive sound of liquid being poured into a glass, and then the unmistakable noise of gulping. Jeez. What an asshole. Did the old bastard actually think Magozzi was going to stand here and listen to him drink himself to death? 'Listen, Judge…'

'Thank you for calling, Detective.' And then an abrupt disconnect.

Chapter Twenty-one

Tommy Espinoza connected with the world on the Internet. He did his shopping, he watched television programs, he got his news, and occasionally found a date. Nothing he did in his life originated anywhere else. He didn't really understand people who lived any other way, and when Magozzi and Gino stopped in his office, he assumed that they, like he, knew everything that had appeared online.

'You guys are famous,' he said when they crowded into his space.

'Oh yeah?' Gino was rummaging through the offerings on the snack table, all ordered online, delivered right to his door.

'Totally. You saw the morning shows, right?'

'Nah,' Gino said around a rippled potato chip. 'Angela won't let me watch the morning news since my last physical. Anything pops, I gotta go back on the blood-pressure meds, and let me tell you how those things suck.'

'Jeez, Gino, go to the gym, eat lettuce.'

'I'd rather die. So why are we famous?'

'Well, not exactly you guys, but MPD and Monkeewrench. The Wisconsin thing last night. The waitress is doing interviews all over the place from her hospital bed. It's been streaming all morning. Pull up a couple chairs and I'll show you some footage.'

A young field reporter stood next to a satellite van from a Milwaukee TV station, talking earnestly into a microphone while the sun rose over the alfalfa field behind him and a cow lowed in the background. 'This is rural Wisconsin. Farm country.'

Gino rolled his eyes. 'Jeez, buddy, what was your first clue? The cow? The hayfield?'

Tommy stabbed pause and glared at Gino. 'You want to hear this or not?'

'Probably not. It's just another asshole cub reporter trying to hit the anchor desk on the back of somebody else's misfortune. Fifty bucks the kid asks her how she felt when the guy tied her up and came at her with a knife. Duh.'

Magozzi sighed and circled his forefinger at Tommy.

'Forty miles from the closest town of any size,' the newscaster continued, 'over a hundred miles from any of the larger cities that foster crime. According to the locals, nothing bad ever happens here, but all that changed last night.' As he spoke, the camera panned left to show a long shot of the Litde Steer Diner. 'Twenty-year-old Lisa Timmersman was alone in this diner last night, just about to close up when a last customer came in and viciously attacked her. She was beaten, duct tape was placed over her mouth, hands and legs tied to one of the counter stools. 'I'm afraid this is going to be very painful,' her attacker said as he approached her with a large knife.'

The film cut to Lisa in a hospital bed. One side of her face was black and blue, the eye swollen shut, black stitches cutting from her cheek to her lips. Tears welled as she recalled her ordeal.

'He wanted to kill me. I don't know why. I didn't even know him. And then he heard Mr. Goebel's siren. Deputy Goebel, you know? And he ran away. Mr. Goebel saved my life. He's a hero. A real hero.'

Cut to film that was presumably Deputy Goebel, walking away from the camera, holding up a hand to fend them off, saying, 'No comment.'

'Good cop,' Gino muttered.

'But Deputy Goebel wasn't the only hero in this near- tragedy,' the newscaster went on. 'A confidential source has told WKAL Milwaukee News that Monkeewrench, a computer company operating out of Minneapolis, was instrumental in saving Lisa Timmersman's life. They were the ones, along with an agent of the FBI, that notified the local sheriff that there would be a murder attempt at the Litde Steer last night. How did they know this was going to happen? How did they know someone was planning to kill Lisa Timmersman? What is the FBI's involvement? These are questions that have yet to be answered, but WKAL is investigating. In the meantime, the police are asking for your help identifying Lisa's attacker, who is still at large. If you recognize the man in this sketch, please call the tipline number at the bottom of the screen.'

Tommy navigated away from the news report. There's a lot more in this report – interviews with Lisa's family and friends, small-town stuff like that – but it gets worse. By the time the Today show hit the air they had Monkeewrench's history and, amazingly, the whole story about the Internet murders, the FBI connection, and Monkeewrench finding the code that gave them advance warning of murders to come.'

'That sucks,' Gino was shaking his head. 'If we don't already have copycats, we'll probably get some now.'

'Trust me, we already have copycats by the truckload… oh, come on, Gino, shove your eyes back in their sockets. I didn't mean copycat killers - so far we haven't hit on any of those. But thanks to the media, the format of the code is all over the friggin' TV, in every newspaper, and the goddamned Web is on fire. So now we've got a bumper crop of assholes who know to capitalize letters one, three, six, and nine to get a little attention. I just screened over two hundred new pre-posts in the last hour, and that's just Minneapolis. Look at this one. 'CiTy oF laKes, Bob banged Betty in the Boy's Bathroom.' Jesus. It's a nightmare. We didn't know what was real and what was just a prank before, when this story was under wraps, but now we're getting buried. And to give you an indication of how bad it really is, Federal Cyber Crimes already has a new task force set up, just to deal with this, and since when did the government have a twenty-four-hour turn-around time on getting anything done?'

'What are they doing about it?' Magozzi asked. 'What can they do?'

Tommy shrugged. 'Most of them are stupid, like 'Bob banged Betty,' but the locals have busted a few cyber- bully kids who think it's funny to put up pre-posts about murdering whoever stole their milk money in the lunch line. But what are you going to do? Throw a thirteen-year-old kid in the pen for making terroristic threats?'