Private Lives

12

After the Squirt’s bombshell of an announcement — and the realization that it still didn’t help their case — most of the Net Force Explorers began synching out. Some stayed to discuss the news a little, but it was clear their hearts weren’t in it.

Leif Anderson wasn’t one of those. Something that had been said during this get-together was teasing his brain. He felt as though he were on the edge of an idea…just what kind of idea, however, he couldn’t say.

A thought sent him floating through Matt Hunter’s starry sky to where Megan O’Malley hung like a very pretty balloon.

“Well, this went much shorter than I expected,” he said quietly.

She nodded, her expression not a very happy one. Then her eyes went sharp. “You’ve got that I’m hatching something’ look,” she told him.

“I’m not sure what it is,” he admitted. “But I could use your help finding out. You still want to meet?”

She nodded.

“Chez vous or chez moi?”

“Your place, I think,” she replied.

Then it was Leif’s turn to nod. Megan’s workspace was impressive, a virtual amphitheater on one of the moons of Jupiter.

But its vastness wasn’t the greatest place to share confidences.

Leif stretched out a hand, and Megan took it. In the blink of an eye they were in the living room of the Icelandic stave house he’d carved out of cyberspace. Leif dropped onto the sofa, surprisingly comfortable in spite of its angular, modernistic look. Megan joined him.

“Oh!” she said, glancing out the big window. “You run a night and day cycle in here.” She turned from the view to him. “But it’s not a full moon — is it?”

He shrugged. “I like a full moon.”

“Good for romance,” she said cynically.

“Maybe later. We were going to share information, remember?”

Megan gave him a half-smile. “I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.”

He pushed back a wave of annoyance. Megan was acting as if this were some kind of date, playing boy-girl games. Or maybe it was just that he realized he didn’t have much to bargain with.

“You’ve already got most of what I dug up,” he admitted. “Except for the source.”

Megan looked skeptical. “Who is she, and why should I be interested?”

“Her name is Bodie — short for Boadicea — Fuhrman,” Leif said in a resigned tone of voice. “She used to be an intern at HoloNews, working for Tori Rush. I happened to meet her the evening after she quit.”

“And the morning after that, as I recall, you looked like you’d been run over by a truck,” Megan said. “What is she, a female wrestler?”

Leif shook his head. “Just somebody who was determined to party hearty.” He thought for a moment. “Everybody got so interested in what Tori Rush was doing — hiring detec tives to dig up her stories — that they ignored why she was doing it.”

“It’s an old story,” Megan said. “She wants a promotion.”

“She wants her own show,” Leif corrected. “Even has the name picked out—The Rush Hour.”

Megan wrinkled her nose. “Cute, but a bit much,” she said. “I guess Ms. Rush isn’t in the running for the World’s Smallest Ego award.”

“Most people in show business aren’t,” Leif agreed. “And these days that includes network news as well. At least the on-air personalities.”

“And your new friend Bodie — was she a budding personality as well?”

“More of a frustrated idealist,” Leif suggested. “She’s hoping for a job on The Fifth Estate when she gets out of school.”

“So, you were already discussing her hopes and dreams,” Megan said.

Leif could feel his face growing warm. Megan was not making this easy. “I thought you might like to tackle Ms. Fuhrman this time around.”

“Tired of her already?”

“I thought she might react differently to you than to me,” Leif said.

“No doubt,” Megan replied dryly.

“You can use the same approach as you did with Wellman at The Fifth Estate,” Leif pushed grimly onward. “The loyal Net Force Explorer trying to help the captain.”

“And why did I pick the bodacious Bodie?”

“You’re tracking down a list of people who left HoloNews,” Leif suggested. “Specifically, people connected with Once Around the Clock.”

“That might work,” Megan admitted. “It’s certainly worth a try.” She gave Leif a look. “And that’s all you were holding out?”

“A little later in the evening Bodie mentioned Tori Rush’s contact at I-on Investigations. Someone named Kovacs.”

Suddenly Megan was leaning forward on the couch, her eyes excited. “Marcus Kovacs? He’s the big cheese in the company — supposedly a financial guy rather than an investigator.” She frowned. “So why is Tori Rush talking with him instead of the guy digging up the dirt?”

“Customer relations,” Leif suggested. “Maybe he wants to make sure his famous client is happy. Or maybe he wants to keep an eye on someone who could land him in a nasty lawsuit.”

“I don’t think he’d inspire confidence,” Megan said critically. “He doesn’t even look like a detective.”

“And how many detectives have you seen — outside of holo-mysteries?” Leif wanted to know. Then he leaned toward Megan, his glance sharpening. “Wait a minute! You’ve actually seen this Kovacs guy?”

Megan nodded. “When I was talking to Wellman, he was going over flatcopies of images to use in his story about Tori and I-on.” She grinned. “I just happened to capture them onto my system.”

For a second she just sat there on the couch, silently communing with her implant circuitry. When she turned to Leif again, she had a sheaf of papers in her hands.

“Here’s the elusive Mr. Kovacs, in three pictures — two and a half,” she amended, shuffling through the images, “unless you count the palm of his hand. Apparently, he’s very camera-shy.”

Leif took the pages and stared at the pictures. “Looks prosperous,” he muttered, taking in the cut of the man’s expensive suit jacket. An eagle-beak of a nose dominated his face, looking like an aiming device for deep brown eyes that almost looked black. As for the rest of the face…“I guess we should also mention hairy,” he said.

“Very hairy,” Megan agreed, tapping a finger on the graying jet-black mane. “When was the last time business-people wore their hair this long?”

“There was that whole revival of the ponytail thing when we were kids.” Leif frowned, moving on to the next picture. “But that was for supposedly creative types — fashion designers, heads of Hollywood studios, public-relations geniuses.”

“Lawyers, too, I thought,” Megan put in.

“In holos, maybe,” Leif said in disgusted tones. “I remember my father saying he’d never do business with what he called ‘the ponytail boys.’ He told me, ‘Never trust anyone who’s a slave to fashion — it means they can’t think for themselves.’”

“Well then, maybe Mr. Kovacs is an original.” Megan grinned. “Nobody is going around with a big mane of hair right now — unless it’s a European thing.”

“Not that I know of.” Leif looked at the second image, where Kovacs had absently brushed back his hair. Then came the third, with the palm of Kovacs’s hand filling most of the image space.

What in he hiding? Leif wondered.

Then the idea that had been tickling around the back of his brain began to come into focus. Take the stuff he’d been hearing about I-on Investigations. Mix it with what the Squirt had to say earlier this evening…

“Computer,” he suddenly ordered, “Net search, public databases, concentrating on news sources. Images, Michael Steele, former Net Force specialist agent. Time frame—” He turned to Megan. “When was the captain’s wife killed?”

“July 21, 2021,” Megan said, baffled.

“Time frame, third and fourth week of July, 2021,” Leif finished. “Execute.”

“Working,” a silvery female voice replied.

Megan rolled her eyes. “Even your computer has to be sexy.”

“It’s a proven fact,” Leif said stiffly, “that men hear female voices more clearly.”

“Unless they’re saying something the men don’t want to hear,” Megan shot back.

Long minutes ticked by in silence. Leif had expected a bit of a wait — his search engine would probably have to access dead storage to dig up a four-year-old news story. But their prickly exchange made the down time seem interminable.

“All right,” Megan finally said, “I’ll bite. What are you doing?”

“It’s a long shot,” Leif had to admit. “We’ve got the head of a detective agency who creates evidence for a living. Four years ago we had a Net Force operative who got bounced from the agency for false evidence. Do you see a connection?”

“A very hazy one,” Megan replied. “After all, one of those people is dead.”

“Reported dead,” Leif corrected her. “Suspected of having a Viking funeral far out at sea. How much would be left to identify after that?” He frowned. “A lot of Marcus Kovacs’s past can’t be checked, either. So I thought it would be interesting to see what both of our mystery men looked like, side by side.”

“You did, did you?”

Before she could tell him what she thought of that idea, the computer’s silvery voice chimed in. “Search completed. Eighteen matches.”

“Have her say, ‘Oh, baby,” Megan suggested. “Just once.”

Leif studiously ignored her, looking at the first of Megan’s captured portraits of Marcus Kovacs. “Computer, are any of the matched images three-quarter views of the face?”

“Three,” the computer responded.

“Display each. Format, nine inches by twelve inches,” Leif said.

Three portraits popped into existence in front of them, all of them apparently shot on the fly. Each image showed the same grim-looking man, his hair cut so short it looked like a sandy fuzz on his skull. In contrast, Mike Steele’s eyebrows were long and tangled, a solid line of darker hair stretching over his broken nose.

Megan made a raucous sound, somewhere between a buzz and a hoot. “AAAaaaarrrrkkkkk! You lose, monkey-boy. If you were ever hoping for a match with Marcus Kovacs, you definitely didn’t get one!”