The Third Twin Page 0,150

if Henry King had been in trouble with the law before. "Maybe nothing. When did you last see him?'

"Today, I mean yesterday, Saturday, he was working the day shift."

"And before that?"

"Lemme see, last Sunday, he worked the four-to-midnight."

"Would you swear to that if necessary, sir?"

"Sure, why not? Whoever got killed, Hank didn't do it."

"Thank you for your cooperation, sir."

"Hey, no problem." The manager seemed relieved that was all she wanted. If I were a real cop, Jeannie thought, I'd guess he had a guilty conscience. "Call me any time." He hung up.

Jeannie said disappointedly: "Alibi stands up."

"Don't be downhearted," Lisa said. "We've done very well to eliminate him so quickly - especially as it's such a common name. Let's try Per Ericson. There won't be so many of them."

The Pentagon list said Per Ericson had been born in Fort Rucker, but twenty-two years later there were no Per Ericsons in Alabama. Lisa tried

P * Erics?on

in case it should be spelled with a double s, then she tried

P*Erics$n

to include the spellings "Ericsen" and "Ericsan," but the computer found nothing.

"Try Philadelphia," Jeannie suggested. "That's where he attacked me."

There were three in Philadelphia. The first turned out to be a Peder, the second was a frail elderly voice on an answering machine, and the third was a woman, Petra. Jeannie and Lisa began to work their way through all the P. Ericsons in the United States, thirty-three listings.

Lisa's second P. Ericson was bad tempered and abusive, and she was white-faced as she hung up the phone, but she drank a cup of coffee then carried on determinedly.

Each call was a small drama. Jeannie had to summon up the nerve to pretend to be a cop. It was agony wondering if the voice answering the phone would be the man who had said, "Now give me a hand job, otherwise I'll beat the shit out of you." Then there was the strain of maintaining her impersonation of a police detective against the skepticism or rudeness of the people who answered the phone. And most calls ended in disappointment.

As Jeannie was hanging up from her sixth fruitless call, she heard Lisa say: "Oh, I'm terribly sorry. Our information must be out-of-date. Please forgive this intrusion, Mrs. Ericson. Good-bye." She hung up, looking crushed. "He's the one all right," she said solemnly. "But he died last winter. That was his mother. She burst into tears when I asked for him."

She wondered momentarily what Per Ericson had been like. Was he a psychopath, like Dennis, or was he like Steve? "How did he die?"

"He was a ski champion, apparently, and he broke his neck trying something risky."

A daredevil, without fear. "That sounds like our man."

It had not occurred to Jeannie that not all eight might be alive. Now she realized that there must have been more than eight implants. Even nowadays, when the technique was well established, many implants failed to "take." And it was also likely that some of the mothers had miscarried. Genetico might have experimented on fifteen or twenty women, or even more.

"It's hard making these calls," Lisa said.

"Do you want to take a break?"

"No." Lisa shook herself. "We're doing well. We've eliminated two of the five and it's not yet three A.M.. Who's next?"

"George Dassault."

Jeannie was beginning to believe they would find the rapist, but they were not so lucky with the next name. There were only seven George Dassaults in the United States, but three of them did not answer their phones. None had any connection with either Baltimore or Philadelphia - one was in Buffalo, one in Sacramento, and one in Houston - but that did not prove anything. There was nothing they could do but move on. Lisa printed the list of phone numbers so they could try again later.

There was another snag. "I guess there's no guarantee that the man we're after is on the CD-ROM," Jeannie said.

"That's true. He might not have a phone. Or his number could be unlisted."

"He could be fisted under a nickname, Spike Dassault or Flip Jones."

Lisa giggled. "He could have become a rap singer and changed his name to Icey Creamo Creamy."

"He could be a wrestler called Iron Billy."

"He could be writing westerns under the name Buck Remington."

"Or pornography as Heidi Whiplash."

"Dick Swiftly."

"Henrietta Pussy."

Their laughter was abruptly cut off by the crash of breaking glass. Jeannie shot off her stool and darted into the stationery cupboard. She closed the door behind her and stood in the dark, listening.

She heard Lisa say nervously: "Who

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