So maybe they tracked my computer and sent the bald bastard to give me a calling card. That told me a little about how, but it didn’t address who or why. The women from jail were from Forrest Point, so I guess I could drive around Forrest Point looking for a child pornography/crack ring. There probably wasn’t a sign over wherever they were doing business that said “Child Porn ‘R’ Us,” and Forrest Point was mostly rural, so I could drive past a lot of forest and farmland and not see anything. I guess I could start knocking on farmhouse doors and if I turned anything up, it would put a particularly perverted spin on the old “farmer’s daughter” jokes.
I could look for Tyrone. Perverted pimps usually weren’t masters of disguise. There probably weren’t a ton of black people in Forrest Point, and I think he might have a tendency to stand out. I could also drive around looking for a bald biker-type guy driving a white pickup truck. That guy might stand out, but there were more than a few white pickup trucks in Crawford and even more out in the country.
I could also try to talk to the people at the Eagle Heights Jewish Unified Services. There was a high probability that someone involved in this horror show was mandated into treatment at some point for addiction, child abuse, neglect, or some other less-than-socially-redeeming lifestyle characteristic. Of course, I was on a five-day disability pass, so showing up at our sister clinic wouldn’t be cool. I thought about my irritable bowel syndrome diagnosis, and thought that maybe if I went there and shit my pants in the waiting room I could get away with it. I decided against that.
I needed a computer to use and my office was out. I figured if I checked out some of what Jerry had to say, it might jog my mind into doing something. Jerry had said that the password for the webcast site changed frequently, but I had to be sure. I couldn’t deal with one of those college “cyber cafes,” so I headed to Crawford Medical Center. They had a medical library on the third floor, and I had gotten a little friendly with the librarian there from my visits with Rudy.
Deborah Speakwell was a little bit of a strange bird. Don’t get me wrong-she was helpful in that librarian way. I always felt like librarians acted like all the books belonged to them and they were constantly wary about your intentions. Debbie had this weird compulsive disorder that had her perpetually grooming herself. She was either behind one of the shelves brushing her thick red hair or she was forever applying moisturizer to her hands from this gigantic container. She must have gotten the moisturizer at some sort of warehouse club because the thing was like an industrial drum. Whenever you entered the library, you’d here these fart noises coming from behind the shelves. I found it disturbing until I realized it was Speakwell depressing the moisturizing container top.
I said hello to Debbie, who was behind the shelves making fart noises, and asked her if I could use the computer. She yelled “okay” from behind the shelves just like a woman who was in the shower would. It was a bit risky checking out porn sites in the hospital library, but I figured I couldn’t get fired from a place where I wasn’t employed. Speakwell would be moisturizing and brushing the whole time so she wouldn’t be on my back.
I went to Yahoo! Briefcase and tried the password Jerry had given me. Unfortunately, Jerry was right about their security measures and the password had expired. I surfed around a bit, went to www.Xcracksterweb.com, didn’t see anything new, checked my e-mail and Fightnews. com, and signed off. I thanked Debbie and started to head out when something dawned on me. I wanted to check out the links Jerry mentioned that were on the site to see if they might tell me something.
I signed back on and headed to the browser window to click on the Xcracksterweb address instead of typing it all in again. The window displayed the history of where the most recent surfers had been. The first four or five addresses were the ones I just looked up. Right underneath those were some strange websites.
There were: www.inthefeetofthenight.com, www.toesrus.com, www.stinkyfeet.com, www.Xcracksterweb.com, www.boobworld.com, www.alfinuu.org, and www.bankofcanary.com.
The position of www.Xcracksterweb.com was such that it looked like someone else had been there before me. Mine was up just below my e-mail site and above Fightnews. com. Unless the computer did something out of order, that had to mean that someone in the library was on www.Xcracksterweb.com in addition to what looked like a bunch of foot-fetish sites.
“Deb, can I ask a question?” I asked while she hit the top of the moisturizer.
“Sure, Duff-that’s why I’m here,” she said.
“The history displayed on the Internet browser goes in chronological order, doesn’t it?”
“It should go according to the order in which sites were downloaded, though sometimes it doesn’t record every site,” she said.
“But it wouldn’t skip out of order, would it?”
“It shouldn’t.”
“Who was on this computer just before me?” I asked.
“You’re the first one to use it today,” she said, brushing her hair.
“Who would have used it last night?”
“There’s only one doctor who generally comes in after hours.”
“Who might that be?” I asked.
“Dr. Gabbibb.”
26
My head was spinning. I kept trying to tell myself that the fact that Gabbibb was on the computer looking at www.Xcracksterweb.com was a coincidence. All it proved, along with his penchant for sexy feet, was that Gabbibb was an even creepier wack-job than I originally guessed. Just because the guy’s idea of a turn-on involved toe punk, it didn’t mean he was a kidnapping rapist. Not necessarily anyway.
A call to my increasingly busy information technologist furnished me with more background. Jerry researched the Alfinuu site and determined it was some sort of radical, anti-American deal based in Pakistan. The Bank of Canary was an offshore bank that Jerry explained would be a good place to launder money or to avoid taxes on money earned illegally.
I thanked Jerry for his help. I had some information that felt like something, but I didn’t know what it was or what to do with it. I also had to find Shony and I didn’t have enough information to know where to start. I wanted to find out as much as I could about this India-Pakistan thing, and I wanted to find out from someone who lived it, not just read about it. I couldn’t very well ask Gabbibb, and though there were a few other Indian doctors and students at Crawford Medical Center, not only did I not know them, I didn’t exactly get a great vibe from them, either.
Every now and then when I didn’t know what to do, I’d give Smitty a call. If he didn’t know the answer to something, he often knew how to find the answer. I called him late at night when I knew he’d be up and I got his usual cheerful greeting.
“Yeah?” he said.
“Man, I can see why you never made a fortune in the telemarketing business,” I said.
“You know, just because your sorry ass got suspended doesn’t mean you can’t workout,” Smitty said.
“Ahh geez, don’t you ever let up?”
“No.”
“Maybe if I didn’t throw a hook like a bitch.”
“Yeah, that’s part of it,” Smitty said. “Look, what are you calling me for?”
“This is goin’ to sound a little weird, Smitty.”
“Comin’ from you-I doubt it.”