Cutter by Thomas Laird Read Free Book Online Page A

product.
    *
    We cased that same northwest side mall for four hours the next day. Went from shop to shop, asking if anyone had seen this man who Stephanie had described generally, and the shopkeepers were just as fuzzy in their memories as our potential victim was. Who could blame them? They saw thousands of faces a day. A number of whom were male, about six feet tall, and either brown-or blond-haired. With a blank for a face, as well.
    ‘I don’t see the attraction of these places,’ Doc lamented. ‘They’re like rows of warehouses of shit.’
    We — Jack and Doc, four uniforms and I — came up empty. There seemed to be no pattern to the killer’s hunting grounds. There were only the women in common. White, near thirty, at least all of them were somewhat attractive. One was raped; one was not sexually assaulted. The third got lucky because of Longsworth the pooch or whatever.
    ‘Who’s he supplying?’ Doc wondered aloud, inside the Taurus. We were still parked at the mall.
    ‘Hospital. Black-market surgeon. Unwitting hospital?’
    He didn’t like my answer.
    ‘It is too dangerous, Jimmy, going to a legit health-care place. They’d lose their asses. You gotta ask yourself if they’d think it was worth it, jumping over the waiting lists for some murderer’s goods.’
    ‘Then who’s he selling to? And how?’
    *
    ‘You are now surfing the Internet.’ Doc Gibron smiled. ‘Holy Jesus.’
    ‘Yeah. I’ll bet he’s advertizing here, somewhere. Trouble is, these little shits, these cyber motherfuckers, play games with codes. I’m not nearly computer-smart enough to track him through all this. But we’ve got people who are.’
    *
    Matty McGinn was the resident whiz kid for the CPD computer services. He was the guy who caught the hackers who messed with the ATMs and the banks and with anybody else who jacked with machines and man.
    ‘You know anything about computers, Lieutenant?’ Matty grinned.
    ‘I know less than my kids. I know how to turn on and turn off the one my daughter and son use at home. That’s it. So we’re depending on you, Matthew.’
    ‘The FBI has a very fine system, and we work with them and with their people quite often, Lieutenant Parisi.’
    ‘You can call me Jimmy,’ I told him.
    Doc snorted, so I whacked him on the elbow.
    ‘Thank you ... They’ll be using a code on the Internet. The way pornographers and kiddie molesters do. They’ll be aiming at a specialized market, of course, and I think you’re right in assuming that no legitimate area hospital’s involved. But you never know. We’ll try to see if we can find anything strange that’s advertizing some kind of special service or product. This guy might be doing all of his trade outside the city, the state, or even the country.’
    ‘Yeah. The thought had occurred to us,’ Doc snorted.
    ‘He is a geezer. Anti-machines,’ I explained to McGinn.
    ‘I know. My parents are just like that. My dad still corresponds on an IBM Selectric. He has had it for twenty years and won’t give it up even though I bought him a nice Apple PC for his sixtieth birthday.’
    Doc snorted again.
    ‘This was your idea, old man,’ I reminded him.
    ‘I have outlived my usefulness,’ Doc whined.
    ‘No, you haven’t, Detective Gibron. You’re the one who put me onto him, if he’s in here, and you and the Lieutenant will be the ones to arrest him. I just make the machine do our bidding. It really is as simple as that.’ 
    ‘I’m starting to like this kid,’ Doc said as he slapped McGinn’s left shoulder.
    Matty blushed. It accentuated his orange red hair and freckles. He was a dead ringer for Ron Howard as Opie Taylor o n Th e And y Griffit h Sho w .
    *
    Nothing came out of computer services for five days. I called Matty McGinn on the fifth day and he told me it took weeks and months, sometimes, to dig these cockroaches out of the woodwork. They could be very clever about their codes, he reminded me.
    So I reminded myself that it