Three portraits popped into existence in front of them, all of them apparently shot on the fly. Each image showed the same grim-looking man, his hair cut so short it looked like a sandy fuzz on his skull. In contrast, Mike Steele’s eyebrows were long and tangled, a solid line of darker hair stretching over his broken nose.
Megan made a raucous sound, somewhere between a buzz and a hoot. “AAAaaaarrrrkkkkk! You lose, monkey-boy. If you were ever hoping for a match with Marcus Kovacs, you definitely didn’t get one!”
13
Megan cut the phone connection and scowled at her computer. Maybe she shouldn’t have mocked Leif Anderson and his idea quite so heartlessly. She hadn’t had a bit of luck in the two days since.
Leif had only shrugged at her laughter and downloaded a facsimile of the scrap of paper Bodie Fuhrman had given him — her name and number, a New York City phone code.
Megan glared at the printed flatcopy printout lying in front of her. The name and numbers were half printed, half cursive, in a round, bold, extremely feminine handwriting. It could be worse. At least Bodie didn’t use a little heart to dot the i in her name.
The number turned out to be a phone in a Columbia dorm. The past few days hadn’t exactly been a game of phone tag. It had been more like phone hide-and-seek. Megan would call and leave a message with one of Bodie’s roommates. But Bodie herself would never call back.
What was the problem with these people? Megan wondered. Did they forget to pass the messages along? Megan had a couple of older brothers who had the same problem. Or was there a black hole in Bodie’s computer memory that ate any trace of call-back records? Maybe the roommates just left a paper note somebody’s dog scarfed up.
Or could it be that Bodie Fuhrman was simply trying to duck her?
Whatever the reason, Megan’s patience was wearing pretty thin by the time she finally caught up with the seemingly shy college girl.
Megan watched the image of a short, round-faced redhead in a tight purple sweater giving her a blank look. “Oh, yeah,” Bodie finally said. “You’re the kid who’s been calling from Washington.”
Kid? Megan thought, bristling at the older girl’s condescending attitude. I’m the same age as Leif. And you certainly didn’t seem to think he was a “kid.”
Of course, she couldn’t say that, not without calling attention to the Anderson connection. Instead, Megan introduced herself as a Net Force Explorer trying to help Captain Winters.
“You mean the guy who killed the gangster? I can’t imagine that anyone named Steve the Bull didn’t get what was coming to him,” Bodie said. “But this country has a little thing called due process. You’ve got to be able to prove the guy guilty in court before you start punishing him. Besides, do-it-yourself executions can be kind of rough on innocent bystanders.”
“My friends and I don’t think the captain killed anybody,” Megan began.
“Oh, please — he’s innocent?” Bodie scoffed. “You sound like the neighbors in any big ax-murder case. ‘He was such a nice, quiet man,’” she said in a quavering falsetto. “‘Always kept the lawn neatly mowed.’”
Bodie sneered. “Right. Until he mowed down half his family — or, in this case—”
“We think your former boss framed him,” Megan interrupted.
Well, at least Bodie wasn’t laughing at her anymore. The girl in the holographic display suddenly looked wary. “What do you mean?”
“Tori Rush has been trying to turn herself into a star attraction, churning out scandal stories for the past few months. The question is, did she order her pit-bull detectives to do a job on someone from Net Force? Or did they come to her, offering Captain Winters’s head on a silver platter? And just how far did I-on Investigations go to set up the story in the first place?”
Bodie Fuhrman’s green eyes flared, but her voice was almost prim as she answered. “It would certainly be inappropriate for me to comment on that. I have no knowledge one way or the other.”
Megan wanted to reach through the holo connection and shake the other girl. A man’s life and freedom were on the line here. And Bodie was treating the whole situation as if she were on some stupid interview show.
Interview…Suddenly Megan understood it all. Why Bodie was so hard to get hold of. Why she’d tried to blow Megan off, feeding her heaping helpings of hot and cold attitude. Why she was playing word games instead of answering Megan’s questions now.
Bodie had obviously had a chat with Professor Arthur Wellman. The college girl was trying to maintain a low profile until her big Tori Rush story broke in The Fifth Estate.
I’ll give her a low profile, a furious Megan thought. In fact, I’ll flatten that fat face for her.
She took off the verbal gloves, mentioned Wellman’s name, pressed hard — and got a raised voice, a rather uninspired collection of curse words, and a quick cutoff for her trouble.
What a bitch! Megan thought. How could Leif stand her?
She was still scowling at her system when the chimes rang, indicating an incoming message. She picked up and got a glimpse of red hair as the image swam into resolution. For an instant she thought it was Bodie Fuhrman calling back for round two.
Instead, it was Leif Anderson.
“I finally got to talk with your girlfriend,” Megan announced ominously. “All I can say is, I hope you’ve been spending your time more constructively than I have.”
Leif shrugged. “Can’t exactly say that. I’m still playing with those pictures you gave me.”
Megan rolled her eyes. “Trying to prove that a pair of guys who could win the Tag-Team Least Lookalike Award are in fact the same person? You’re wasting—”
“Am I?” he asked. “Synch in and come to my place. You have to take a look at this.”
Muttering, Megan sank into her computer-link couch and let her implanted circuits take over. An instant later she opened her eyes in the living room of Leif’s virtual dream house.
Instead of lounging on one of the pieces of furniture, as he usually did, Leif was on his feet and facing her. Everything about him — his expression, his posture — showed his eagerness over what he was about to show her.
Megan hoped he wasn’t about to make a fool of himself — or of her.
Leif gave a command to his computer, and two headings appeared on either side of him in glowing light: “Marcus Kovacs” and “Michael Steele.” Then lists appeared under each name.
Megan dismissed the list with a glance. “Very nice,” she said. “Are you going to do one for the two of us now? We’ve got about as much in common.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Leif said. “Take a closer look. The first four features on the list — the externals — couldn’t be more different. But they’re also easily handled by artificial means. Hair dye, eyebrow clipping, plastic surgery, and contact lenses—”
“Eyebrow clipping?” Megan scoffed.
“Oh, right, as if girls never reshape their own eyebrows,” Leif replied. “I know of at least one male Hollywood star who had to have his eyebrows plucked, or they made him look like the Wolf Man.” He pointed to the lower part of the list. “The things down here — fundamentals — are things you can’t change so easily. And every characteristic matches perfectly.”
Megan stared at Leif. He’d certainly gone off the deep end this time. “How many people are a size forty-four in this country? In the world? And even if AB negative is a comparatively rare blood type, when you look at the blood type as a proportion of the current U.S. population, millions of people have it. That’s not a small number.”