"Listen, I can probably tell you a couple of things. I never got involved in the photography at all, but Morrie once told me that sometimes he had 'special stuff.' "
"Special stuff."
"That's what he called it. He was, like, being important. He said he'd transfer it directly to a guy in Europe who puts it up on a website there." He twisted his hands around, as though he were playing cat's cradle. "I think… Morrie's a content provider. We got eight zillion websites without content, and Morrie provides it."
"There's not enough porno out there?" Rie asked.
"Yeah, there's a lot of stuff, but people are always looking for fresh stuff."
"Young stuff," Rie said.
"Yeah. Teenagers, anyway."
"I'll make you a deal right now," Lucas said. "Give me something, give me anything, and I'll help you out. I won't help you if I find out you've been dealing kid stuff, but if you're just getting paid by Ware to run his website… we can help."
Carr puffed his cheeks again, rubbed his hair, said, "Maybe I ought to see a lawyer."
Lucas shrugged. "That's absolutely up to you. But I'll tell you what, this offer may expire. If we find a bunch of stuff…"
"Aw, man…" He looked at Rie, then said, "I'm not a freak."
"Nobody said you were," she said.
To Lucas, mumbling, Carr said, "There's a possibility… that he ships stuff to an underground website in Europe-Holland, I think-called donnerblitzen451." He spelled it, then said, "You need some kind of code to get in. Putting in the wrong code too many times may wipe the site. Maybe your guys can do something with it."
"Donnerblitzen like the reindeer," Lucas said.
"Yeah. Four fifty-one like the Ray Bradbury book, Fahrenheit 451," Carr said. "Four fifty-one is supposed to be the burning point of paper, so I think that's Morrie's little joke. If you put the wrong number into the website-more than a couple of times, anyway-it burns."
"Why would he do that?" Lucas asked. "If somebody found it by mistake…"
"How are you gonna find donnerblitzen451 by mistake? It's not a public facility-it's his. It's his warehouse, I think. You put a high-res photo file in there, somebody wants something special, you go to your warehouse, you order it sent, the site sends out the file, the recipient prints it… There's no way to get back to Morrie. He has a photo negative for ten minutes. After he develops it, he scans it, he burns the neg, and the picture is nothing but a bunch of numbers somewhere in Europe."
"That's interesting," Lucas said. "But you don't know the code to get in."
"No, but I've seen the setup before, and I think it's booby-trapped. If you try to get in, you better know what you're doing, or the place is gonna burn." He nodded, as if turning over the problem in his mind. "I've given the whole thing some thought. Tried to figure out what the code was-tried to catch him going out to the site. I even thought about installing a keystroke recorder in his computer, but… I never did."
"All right, this helps," Lucas said. "If you let on to Ware for one minute what you told us, our deal is off. And you still better get a lawyer."
WHEN LUCAS WAS done with Carr, he sent him back to the couch and said to Rie, "We need to get the code for that website before we turn Ware loose. If he gets five minutes with a computer, he can kill the site."
"How're we gonna do that?" she asked.
"Call the feds, I guess. They're supposed to have some big-deal computer forensics operation going on. Maybe they can help."
"You want to do that?"
"Yeah, I'll take care of it," he said. "And…" He turned his head at movement outside. "Hey-I think we've got customers."
A man and a woman had gotten out of an old Chevy and were walking toward the door.
"They'll see the broken door," Rie said.
"I'll get it." Lucas hurried over to the door and pulled it open, as though he were leaving.
The man was just stepping up onto the sidewalk, and stopped when he saw Lucas. "Hey. Is Morrie around?"
"Yeah. He's in the back," Lucas said. "Who're you?"
"We're the talent," the woman said. She was young, but her face was tough, touched with worry lines-a street kid. She looked straight at Lucas, challenging him. Maybe eighteen, Lucas thought. Maybe not.
"Come on in, talk to Carolyn," Lucas said.
The two stepped past Lucas, crowding into the small reception room. Rie, behind the desk, stood up as Lucas stepped back inside and pulled the door shut. The woman said to Rie, "We're the talent. Morrie said we're supposed to meet him here. We're a couple of minutes early."
"That's all right," Rie said. She held up her badge. "We're the police. Morrie's being raided."
The woman said, "Oh, shit," and pivoted, looking at the door.
"I'd just run you down if you got past me," Lucas said, leaning back against it.
"Fuckin'…" The word came out as a harsh grate, then swung up to a whine. "We haven't done anything."
"No, but we're asking people to cooperate. I'd like to see a little ID, a driver's license."
"I think we need a lawyer," the man said. He was in his late twenties, Lucas thought.
"You might," Lucas agreed. "And you'll get one. But first I want to see some ID."
Lucas took the man's license, read the name, and Rie noted it down. The woman said, "I don't drive."
"Oh, horseshit. You drove that car over here," Lucas said. "Give me your goddamn license."
The woman stared at him for a moment, then said, "Fuck this. Fuck this." She dug in her purse, found a license, and handed it over.
Lucas read her name off: "Sylvia Berne." Then: "Tell officer Rie what your birthdate is, Sylvia."
Berne muttered something, Rie said, "What?" and Berne muttered the date again. Rie looked at Lucas. "Is that what the license says?"
"That's what the license says," Lucas said. To Berne: "You gotta remember to call me when you turn eighteen. I'll buy you a malt."
Berne looked puzzled. "A what?"
"A malt… Never mind." To Rie: "We'll need a statement from Ms. Berne. And get a juvie officer down here."
"Absolutely," Rie said.
Lucas asked Berne, "How many times have you done this?"
She shrugged. "A couple. Nobody gets hurt."
"Morrie never gave you a free sample of the pictures, did he?"
"Maybe," Berne said.
"I love you," Lucas said.
The man said, "What about me?"
"You better sit down," Lucas said. "I got a whole bunch of bad news for you."
TEN MINUTES LATER, Lucas arrested Ware on charges of abusing a minor and of creating child pornography, and Henrey for creating child pornography-Berne said he was the shooter at the last session-and the man who arrived with Berne for child sexual abuse. Carr was freed, but was told not to leave Minnesota.
"She's not a child," Ware snarled, gesturing at Berne. "Look at her, for Christ's sake. She's got tits out to here."
"Looks like a kid after you scrape off the abuse," Del said. To Lucas, he said, "I was fooling around behind the desk, and one of those power outlets looked a little strange. I took the cover off, and guess what? It's a little teeny little safe. There's a Baggie full of white powder inside. We gotta get the crime-scene folks down here."
Lucas looked at Ware. "Uh-oh," he said.
THE UNIFORM COPS took Ware downtown to be booked, and Lucas called Washington from his cell phone. He finally tracked down Louis Mallard at his home and said, "We need another favor."
"Jeez, you guys are running up a bill," Mallard said.
"Well, you know we're tracking this guy, the drawing guy."
"Yeah, yeah, quite the artworks."
"So we went out and busted a porno guy, hoping we can squeeze him on the sex scene around here… and we find out that he's probably got a child-sex photo warehouse over in Europe somewhere. Our source gave us the address for the site, but says the thing can probably be burned in about ten seconds. We need some hot-shit feds to track the site down, and then maybe get onto the cops wherever it is-our source thinks maybe Holland-and grab the servers before our man makes bail tomorrow."