The Man of Maybe Half-a-Dozen Faces by Ray Vukcevich Read Free Book Online Page A

thought Dennis might have met her once.
    Lucas Betty (BOUNCING_BETTY)! Things just kept hooking up. This was the guy who’d hired me to find Dennis! About Lucas, Prudence had written, “Known for keeping the balls of a dozen projects in the air, all at once and fast.” I figured I could string him along for another week or so, and then I would have to get Dennis to call him.
    Bernie Watkins (THE_DUNGEONEER). Prudence had written “HS” by his name.
    Ramona Simmons who Prudence identified as “mean.”
    I made a list of handles of those people using the anonymous remailer.
    CLEO
    BOB
    THE_FLY
    NANOVICH
    2DIE4
    THE_REAL_DOOMSTER
    COSMO
    ADOLESCENT_BOY
    What could I deduce from the handles? Well, NANOVICH sounded at least a little Russian, and the Russians had to have something to do with this case. The Doomster would be an adolescent boy no matter how old he or she was, while ADOLESCENT_BOY would be a yuppy with an imaginary sense of humor. It was easy to see what you were supposed to think when you thought about 2DIE4. Maybe THE_FLY was really a disguised spider in the World Wide Web. Maybe COSMO was Carl Sagan doing the Web from the great beyond. Sure, and BOB would be David Letterman’s dog.
    So, the anonymous handles didn’t help much. I still had the five for-sure locals to run down. It wasn’t like I had nothing to try next.
    â€œOkay,” I told her. “I’ll chase down the known locals. If nothing else maybe I can fill some of the holes in the list.”
    â€œSeems pretty thin to me,” she said. She put her computer back in her bag.
    â€œIt’s a place to start.”
    â€œDid you get into GP Ink?” She asked her question and then she looked away.
    â€œNot all the way,” I said. I gave her an edited version of the story ending with what I thought was the key question. “So, who do you think would be tossing the office?”
    â€œI have no idea,” she said. “So you didn’t actually get to look around the office at all?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYou seem to be pretty much lost at sea.” Prudence gathered her bag and got up.
    â€œWho, me?” I scooted to the side so I wouldn’t have to be peeking around my monitor at her. “No way. It’s just these things take time. I’ll get into Pablo’s office. You can bet on that. Hey, as it happens that’s at the top of my list. Relax. You can’t expect instant results.”
    â€œI guess not.” She walked toward the door.
    â€œHey,” I said, “how can I get in touch with you if I need to?”
    She stopped at the door. “I’m on the list,” she said. “Send me e-mail.”
    I watched her leave, and then I settled back in my chair. I fired up my word processor and called up Randy Casey’s game instructions.
    SEVENTEEN WORLDS
    It must have been some game. The manual was as thick as a novel.
    I looked first for chapter 66. No chapter 66. No section 66. I looked at page 66. Something to do with elves on World twelve. No clues. I counted paragraphs from the beginning of the book. Paragraph 66 didn’t shed any light on the case. Ditto with word 66.
    I spent a few minutes thinking about 1966.
    I turned to the index and scanned down the page looking for 66. I found one right away. Devils 66. Strange I didn’t remember reading about devils on page 66. I kept scanning, and near the end found Spiders 66. I turned to page 66 and read it again. Carefully. No devils. No spiders. No devil spiders. The index was wrong.

five
    Lulu finally just tossed the BOD list onto my desk and left the office. Thinking was getting us nowhere.
    We hoped to pick up Frank’s trail downtown at Maxwell’s Lunch Room. Lulu would have to forgo chocolate lime cake at the Whisper Café today. Frank wouldn’t be there. After all these years, Marvin’s mother still didn’t like Frank. I suppose the Whisper was no place for a