When they finally parked for dinner, Lenny ran the clip of the murder of Faith's cellmate through DDSO, the digital database of known SQUID offenders, which existed largely due to Lenny's diligence and careful cataloging over the years. Each brain had its own fingerprint, its own oscillating frequency of thought patterns, processing each stimuli differently. Lenny gasped when he got a match and a couple of partial matches. The clip had been recorded by the same wearer who had threatened Zander in his dorm room. Other than that, there was no information on the wearer.
"Oh, shit," he murmured, checking the patterns again as he got another hit. "There's another clip here. A second recording. It's encrypted. Look how the patterns match." It was like comparing alleles from a DNA sample taken from the same person.
"Let's work it," Silas breathed, running the patterns of partial matches. Silas paused, so quiet he drew Lenny's gaze away from the screen.
"Damn, you were the man after that New Years Eve, Lenny. The media blackout didn't tarnish your star at all. And you still dress like a pimp."
Lenny snorted affably. "My rolex is real now. And I got the girl."
"Not the one you thought you wanted?"
"The one I needed. If not for Mace, I might have traded the clip of Jeriko's murder to get Faith back. Faith, who was never really mine in the first place. Macey could see what I couldn't; she knew how important that clip was. She saved this city, and she saved me, and both are going down if we don't catch this prick and his crew before they get their hands on that clip or my memory of it, or Macey's."
"She's seen it?"
"Yeah. The only other people who know that are former Deputy Commissioner Strickland, and my Commander, and now you."
"And the Shaman, or whoever is hunting for the clip."
"I don't know that for sure. If I did, the fear for Macey and Zander would paralyze me."
"How good is the security on them?"
"I don't even know where they are. I'm allowed to call once a day."
"For the best. Plausible deniability. She's a badass, right? Trained in combat?"
"Yeah. She saved my ass more than once. Let's be clear here. I'm in this for her. I went back to LAPD for her, to finish what we started that night."
"Who has the most to gain by getting the details of Jeriko's murder?"
"Someone with a grudge against LAPD, maybe."
Silas chortled. "Great, That narrows it down to roughly most of L.A."
"Or someone with political ambitions who wants to use the clip to further their career."
"Also a long list."
"That New Years Eve was just one skirmish in a long war that began a couple hundred years ago. It was Jeriko's message that was the real target. It still is. It won't end with us pinching those trying to get their hands on that clip."
"What are you getting at?"
"Releasing the clip to the public might be the only way this ends. Maybe it's inevitable."
"If you thought the riots were bad then-"
"I know. There may be no way to avoid it this time. We got two, maybe three years before playback is legal. You know it's coming, Silas."
"Yeah. Yeah, it is. There's something else we can't avoid, Lenny. When we corner the wearer whose brain matches these clips, we're gonna have to use hypnosis."
Lenny's gaze wandered, and SIlas saw the grimace he fought to hide. "Wren knows someone discreet. I have the skillset, too, if it comes down to it," Lenny said woodenly.
"Just wanted to make sure we're on the same page. I know you're not down with hypnosis."
"Wearing willingly is one thing, tearing it from someone is another," Lenny replied. "It seems like a form of rape to me. I know it's unavoidable if we're gonna catch this prick and build a case against him."
"Or pricks," added Silas, taking the clip from one drive and sliding it into another to begin the search for the encryption key. "The partial matches are a relative. A close relative. And, behold, here is their sheet. The second clip is decrypting now. Hang on." Silas drummed his fingers anxiously against his thigh, holding his breath until the key was revealed and the clip was unlocked.
"Run it and see if it's the same wearer," said Lenny grimly.
Silas nodded, tapping in the command. A beat passed, then another. Silas shook his head. "Nope. Go watch this while I see what I can find out about the first wearer's relative." Silas drew the clip from the drive and passed it to Lenny. Lenny crawled over the front seat, settling on the passenger side. He reclined the seat slightly and had just slipped the trodes on when a middle-aged couple passed by his window on their way into the restaurant. The man dragged his wife back to eyeball Lenny, his lip curling in disgust.
"Fucking squidhead," he snarled, shaking a fist until Lenny flashed his badge and gave the man his most winning pimp grin, his eyebrows dancing playfully. The man turned away crestfallen, his wife stumbling behind him. Lenny closed his eyes and pressed play and then pressed it again for the second clip.
A party. A really well-appointed party in a place Lenny had been before. The name of the place twirled just out of reach. Luxurious suite. The sun was nearly down, setting fire to the palms visible through the palatial windows.
In the wearer's shoes, Lenny moved with ease. The same rock hard rack he had felt in the clip of Zander's stalker, but not the same person. Expensive, Wren had said. The boobs were fake, but the woman was real. The wearer moved with ease through the crowd, recognized, an invited guest. Through her eyes Lenny saw several actors whose work he admired and one whose work he loathed. The one he hated gave the wearer an appreciative glance, a once-over that left Lenny feeling soiled.
A heavy beaded clutch in his left hand. Her left hand. She moved like a gazelle, long silken thighs twitching with boundless energy like an invisible hand propelling her forward, adrenaline already seeping into every capillary.
The Beverly Hilton. Lenny remembered now when he had been here before, peddling SQUID clips in the lounge before the management had him banned. He had made it up to one of the suites only once; they were far from his usual haunts. A famous producer had wanted a clip of his cheating wife so he could bury her, and Lenny the Magic Man had come through. He still felt bad about it. The wife had ended up in rehab, then in the ground after suicide. He had buried her, all right.
Onerous music drifted in from the next room, dark and tribal, like an erratic heartbeat just before a coronary. Uttered demands vocalized from the cacophonous ether, and Lenny recognized them as Jonah One's.
The man himself was waiting for the wearer in the next room. His multicolored dreads were gathered in a knot on one side of his head, and he was sweating profusely. His entourage circled him, ready to genuflect when cued, anticipating meeting his next need, his next whim, but the only one who could help him now was clearly the wearer.
"He in the bathroom," said Jonah mechanically. "Get me that name, then tell Clyde do what he gotta." The wearer nodded serenely in response, pulse quickening.
The target was in the bathtub, cuffed to the bar above the soap dish. There was blood in the bathtub; it looked the splatters of paint on those tiny canvases in one of those do it yourself painting booths at county fairs. Lenny swallowed hard. The memory that was about to become part of his own memories would be admissible in court, as good as any eyewitness account.
"Fucker won't talk," said the man holding the cuffed vic at gunpoint. He was a heavy-browed thug with strange amber eyes and a heavy dome of afro that he wore like a helmet.
"Have you already injected him?" asked the wearer benignly, though the question was unnecessary; the vic's eyes were so dilated his eye color was indeterminate. The wearer folded a towel to sit on and perched primly on the edge of the bathtub. She drew her fingers over the trapped man's face, peering deeply into the obsidian haze of his eyes, so dark she was reflected there. Lenny tensed, searching for any details of that reflection.
The wearer's fingers continued to leave trails of soft fire over his skin until they became his only link to reality, until they were the vagus nerve between him and God. "Who told you where the Jeriko clip is, baby?"
A dry whisper issued from the vic's lips, but it was enough. Lenny's eyes nearly flew open, and he held them shut so hard his eyelids fluttered, spasming in protest.
"I'll go give Jonah the news," said the wearer smugly. "Take care of this one." She strolled out as though she had just gracefully taken a piss, the faint ping of a round fired through a silencer muffled by the closed door behind her. She stopped only long enough to murmur a few syllables in Jonah's waiting ear, and departed.
Just as she passed through the glass doors of the main entrance and back out into the oppressive heat, her limo rolled up. The driver got out, shapely in her black and white tuxedo-like uniform, and dutifully opened the door for the wearer.
"Macey," Lenny moaned hoarsely.