Stephen King - End of Watch

‘Are you still there?’ Norma sounds irritated.

‘Yeah, but I have to go.’

‘Didn’t you say there’d be some extra money if—’

‘Yeah. I’ll take care of you, Norma.’ He ends the call.

The pills are doing their work, and he’s able to manage a medium-fast walk back to the office. Holly and Jerome are at the window overlooking Lower Marlborough Street, and he can tell by their expressions when they turn to the sound of the opening door that they’ve been talking about him, but he has no time to think about that. Or brood on it. What he’s thinking about are those rigged Zappits. The question ever since they started to put things together was how Brady could have had anything to do with modifying them when he was stuck in a hospital room and barely able to walk. But he knew somebody who almost certainly had the skills to do it for him, didn’t he? Someone he used to work with. Somebody who came to visit him in the Bucket, with Babineau’s written approval. A punky chick with a lot of tats and a yard of attitude.

‘Brady’s visitor – his only visitor – was a woman named Frederica Linklatter. She—’

‘Cyber Patrol!’ Holly nearly screams. ‘He worked with her!’

‘Right. There was also a third guy – the boss, I think. Do either of you remember his name?’

Holly and Jerome look at each other, then shake their heads.

‘That was a long time ago, Bill,’ Jerome says. ‘And we were concentrating on Hartsfield by then.’

‘Yeah. I only remember Linklatter because she was sort of unforgettable.’

‘Can I use your computer?’ Jerome asks. ‘Maybe I can find the guy while Holly looks for the girl’s addy.’

‘Sure, go for it.’

Holly is at hers already, sitting bolt upright and clicking away. She’s also talking out loud as she often does when she’s deeply involved in something. ‘Frack. Whitepages doesn’t have a number or address. Long shot, anyway, a lot of single women don’t… wait, hold the fracking phone… here’s her Facebook page…’

‘I’m not really interested in her summer vacation snaps or how many friends she’s got,’ Hodges says.

‘Are you sure about that? Because she’s only got six friends, and one of them is Anthony Frobisher. I’m pretty sure that was the name of the—’

‘ Frobisher !’ Jerome yells from Hodges’s office. ‘ Anthony Frobisher was the third Cyber Patrol guy !’

‘Beat you, Jerome,’ Holly says. She looks smug. ‘Again.’

Unlike Frederica Linklatter, Anthony Frobisher is listed, both as himself and as Your Computer Guru. Both numbers are the same – his cell, Hodges assumes. He evicts Jerome from his office chair and settles there himself, doing it slowly and carefully. The explosion of pain he felt while sitting on the toilet is still fresh in his mind.

The phone is answered on the first ring. ‘Computer Guru, Tony Frobisher speaking. How can I help you?’

‘Mr Frobisher, this is Bill Hodges. You probably don’t remember me, but—’

‘Oh, I remember you, all right.’ Frobisher sounds wary. ‘What do you want? If it’s about Hartsfield—’

‘It’s about Frederica Linklatter. Do you have a current address for her?’

‘Freddi? Why would I have any address for her? I haven’t seen her since DE closed.’

‘Really? According to her Facebook page, you and she are friends.’

Frobisher laughs incredulously. ‘Who else has she got listed? Kim Jong-un? Charles Manson? Listen, Mr Hodges, that smartmouth bitch has no friends. The closest thing to one was Hartsfield, and I just got a news push on my phone saying he’s dead.’

Hodges has no idea what a news push is, and no desire to learn. He thanks Frobisher and hangs up. He’s guessing that none of Freddi Linklatter’s half dozen Facebook friends are real friends, that she just added them to keep from feeling like a total outcast. Holly might have done that same thing, once upon a time, but now she actually has friends. Lucky for her, and lucky for them. Which begs the question: how does he locate Freddi Linklatter?

The outfit he and Holly runs isn’t called Finders Keepers for nothing, but most of their specialized search engines are constructed to locate bad people with bad friends, long police records, and colorful want sheets. He can find her, in this computerized age few people are able to drop entirely off the grid, but he needs it to happen fast. Every time some kid turns on one of those free Zappits, it’s loading up pink fish, blue flashes, and – based on Jerome’s experience – a subliminal message suggesting that a visit to zeetheend would be in order.

You’re a detective. One with cancer, granted, but still a detective. So let go of the extraneous shit and detect.

It’s hard, though. The thought of all those kids – the ones Brady tried and failed to kill at the ’Round Here concert – keeps getting in the way. Jerome’s sister was one of them, and if not for Dereece Neville, Barbara might be dead now instead of just in a leg cast. Maybe hers was a test model. Maybe the Ellerton woman’s was, too. That makes a degree of sense. But now there are all those other Zappits, a flood of them, and they must have gone somewhere , goddammit.

That finally turns on a lightbulb.

‘Holly! I need a phone number!’

Todd Schneider is in, and affable. ‘I understand you folks are in for quite a storm, Mr Hodges.’

‘So they say.’

‘Having any luck tracking down those defective consoles?’

‘That’s actually why I’m calling. Do you happen to have the address that consignment of Zappit Commanders was sent to?’

‘Of course. Can I call you back with it?’

‘How about if I hang on? It’s rather urgent.’

‘An urgent consumer advocacy issue?’ Schneider sounds bemused. ‘That sounds almost un-American. Let me see what I can do.’

A click and Hodges is on hold, complete with soothing strings that fail to soothe. Holly and Jerome are both in the office now, crowding the desk. Hodges makes an effort not to put his hand to his side. The seconds stretch out and form a minute. Then two. Hodges thinks, Either he’s on another call and forgotten me, or he can’t find it.

The hold music disappears. ‘Mr Hodges? Still there?’

‘Still here.’

‘I have that address. It’s Gamez Unlimited – Gamez with a Z, if you remember – at 442 Maritime Drive. Care of Ms Frederica Linklatter. Does that help?’

‘It sure does. Thank you, Mr Schneider.’ He hangs up and looks at his two associates, one slender and winter-pale, the other bulked up from his house-building stint in Arizona. Along with his daughter Allie, now living on the other side of the country, they are the people he loves most at this end of his life.

He says, ‘Let’s take a ride, kids.’

Brady turns off SR-79 and onto Vale Road at Thurston’s Garage, where a number of local plow-for-pay boys are gassing their trucks, loading up with salted sand, or just standing around, drinking coffee and jabbering. It crosses Brady’s mind to pull in and see if he can get some studded snow tires on Library Al’s Malibu, but given the crowd the storm has brought to the garage, it would probably take all afternoon. He’s close to his destination now, and decides to go for it. If he gets snowed in once he’s there, who gives a shit? Not him. He’s been out to the camp twice already, mostly to scope the place out, but the second time he also laid in some supplies.

There’s a good three inches of snow on Vale Road, and the going is greasy. The Malibu slides several times, once almost all the way to the ditch. He’s sweating heavily, and Babineau’s arthritic fingers are throbbing from Brady’s deathgrip on the steering wheel.