Saving Sophie by Ronald H. Balson

Author:Ronald H. Balson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466872868
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

FORTY-FOUR

“I CONTACTED THE WILSON broad this afternoon.”

The cell phone connection was patchy, but the caller’s tough street dialect was clear enough.

“You saw her? Did you go into her house?”

“No, sir. I talked to her on the phone. She wouldn’t open the door for me.”

“And? Did she tell you where her brother was?”

“Nah.”

“What did you say to her?”

“Just like you told me. I said I had a package addressed to John Sommers. It was an oil painting made from a photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Sommers and their kid. I told her that Mrs. Sommers had ordered it over a year ago from our Chicago office, but she never picked it up and we were trying to find Mr. Sommers to deliver it. We were told that she was the sister. Could she give me his address so I could deliver it? It’s all prepaid. Very beautiful.”

“Exactly. What did Wilson say?”

“She said she hadn’t talked to her brother in years. As far as she knew, he lived in Chicago. I told her we went there but it didn’t look like anybody was still living there, and then I talked to the neighbor who gave us her address. So could she give me a forwarding address for her brother so I could send it there? Then she told me she had no idea, don’t bother her no more.”

Silence. Then: “She’s not telling the truth.”

“We can make her talk. She’s got kids. She’ll give up Sommers if I start to talk about her kids. Want me to make the call?”

Silence. Then: “Not yet, Yuri. Maybe later. Right now I have another idea.”

* * *

IN A SHOTGUN BUNGALOW on Chicago’s northwest side, a young man sat in front of a wall of electronic equipment. His tussled hair was omnidirectional, over his ears and badly in need of a scissors. A plaid shirt was buttoned to the neck, and his wide leather belt gathered the waist of his rumpled khakis.

Behind him, in designer casual-wear, a man stood looking over the young man’s shoulder at the computer screen. “Well, Marvin, is it something you can do or not?”

The young man nodded. “Should be,” he answered, though everything he said was qualified with a cautionary negative. “Unless he uses a sophisticated scrambler.”

“He’s not sophisticated; he’s just a paper pusher. I need to know where this man is when he goes online, when he leaves a message. Can you pinpoint his location?”

Marvin tilted back in his chair and shrugged boastfully. “It depends on how you define pinpoint. When he e-mails you, I can get his IP address. If he uses an Internet café, some public source, I can probably give you the location.” Marvin smiled smugly. “I have my ways of getting it from the ISP. Of course, if the man has installed a few security features that I sell … most people don’t know about them.” He shrugged. “He’d have to hire somebody like me.”

“Well, let’s assume he hasn’t hired someone like you, Marvin. How can you

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