The naked edge

6

Five minutes later, John gave the phone back to Cavanaugh.

"Now can you supply the subscription list?" Cavanaugh asked.

"As important as this sounds? Give me your email address," Steve said. "I'll send the list in five minutes. Are you looking for anybody in particular? Maybe I can ask around?"

"Carl Duran."

"Your friend?"

"He dropped out of sight. I'm trying hard to find him."

"It's no wonder you can't," Steve said.

"I don't understand."

"Carl died three years ago."

"Died?"

"I'm surprised you didn't know."

"We had an argument. We stayed out of touch."

"Shame about arguments, especially when it's too late to repair them. He stopped going to the Blade Show about the same time you did."

After he was fired from Global Protective Services, Cavanaugh thought. Cavanaugh had stopped going to the Blade Show in order to avoid crossing paths with Carl.

"I asked around, wondering what happened to him," Steve's voice continued. "The word I got was that he'd been killed."

"How?" Cavanaugh pressed the phone harder to his ear.

"A car accident in Thailand. Or maybe the Philippines. I heard two different versions. Carl was a construction worker, right?"

That had been Carl's cover story, the theory being that it paid to pretend to have a white-bread business that no one felt a compulsion to ask many questions about.

"I heard he saved enough money to take a vacation, and that's where he got killed," Steve said. "I checked our subscription list, and sure enough, he didn't renew. Sorry to break the news to you. Even if you had an argument, I'm sure you still thought of him as a friend."

Cavanaugh didn't reply.

"I guess you won't need the list now," Steve said.

"Better send it anyhow. I've got other names to check."