Zack had the worst luck in exchanging phones with an assassin.

Then having that assassin inadvertently bring a detonator to a meeting over coffee.

Will his luck change with Bulgarian police and civil court records from a half century ago? He shakes his head and suppresses a laugh.

He comes across several references to a gang that recruits children to do their dirty work, because children are treated so mildly by the law. Was this the beginning of Karloff’s life of crime? Is this somehow how and why Karloff arrived here alone? If so, it’s suddenly clear to Zack how early, how deeply, Karloff must have been adopted into the life he leads.

These child criminals must have really been a problem. He reads the recommendations of the prosecutor’s office that are harsh, stern, unforgiving. He reads several rulings from one judge—someone named Litvinov—and sees that they are phrased so similarly that the judge must have been overwhelmed with his case load of these child criminals, or simply couldn’t be bothered to distinguish between them.

And all the time Zack is looking to stumble across the unusual name Demetri Calunius but he never does. Calunius—Greek-sounding—immigrants from neighboring Greece to Bulgaria? No way to know. The child criminals’ names are generally not in the records, Zack notices. They’re referred to as “Offender 134—9” or “Offender 392—12,” and Zack quickly enough realizes that the final digits in the sequence are their ages. The anonymity is presumably to protect them as juveniles. But for Zack, the absence of the name Demetri Calunius adds credence to his theory that Karloff began life as one of these child criminals. Only if, however, Karloff had been one at all.

And he keeps his eyes open for any number that might have been resurrected from Karloff’s past to become a detonation code, six digits or not. He jots down the Offender numbers. He jots down case numbers and file numbers. But he has no way of knowing which ones, if any, refer to Demetri Calunius.

He knows it’s an insane search. But he feels he has to try.

Zack digs in and keeps exploring but in the end, he turns up nothing that will alter Joey’s fate, or the fate of innocent dozens in one of twenty possible courtrooms. Or if he has, he doesn’t know it.

He’s discovered everything he can about Karloff’s past.

Yet he’s found nothing.

Karloff. A ghost right from childhood.

69.

69.

Some of the other GreenGirl employees must have grown suspicious. They must have seen small things pilfered, supplies missing, and reported it to Dennis, who must have put two and two together about his employee who always requested the late shift.

Zack is fired. He’s not allowed into a GreenGirl again. Any GreenGirl.