Did she still have the same passion for Tony? To go after the Acid Man, she would probably have to leave L.A. Then Tony might leave her. She felt so confused.

She heard the screams of the women. Screams they had never uttered.

Once more she stared at Matt Connor’s photo. Died on his birthday. His face had started her mind on this bizarre direction. That and the Acid Man’s DVD. She stood and tossed the paper in a garbage can. Her mind was a mess. She probably needed a vacation.

But she had just gotten an idea.

When she got back to the office, she watched the video of the five murders again, the transcript propped up beside her on the table. Just before he killed his fourth victim, the transcript quoted the Acid Man as saying:

“My … my … not happy with the smell. You are like … just wanted to fuck, you stinking whore. You don’t care what it would do to your husband.”

The audio was weak at that point. With victim number four the room was large and the camera was far from the bed. It might have been laziness on her part but Kelly had not stopped to question the accuracy of the transcripts. It was obvious the Acid Man was about to say something about himself—the my—and then had changed his mind. Since he was raving anyway, that was a logical conclusion.

Logical, but not necessarily true. He had brought up smell and had called the woman a “stinking whore.” Granted, the sentences were incomplete because of the quality of the sound. Still, his use of the word “smell” did not fit in the context of even the half-completed sentence. Kelly wondered if what he had said was in fact:

“Mai Mai was not happy with the smell. You are like her, you just wanted to fuck …”

Mai Mai was a character in an ancient Chinese tale. The story was not known outside of China. The only reason Kelly was familiar with it was because she’d tutored a graduate student from China who’d had the story in an untranslated hardcover she had brought from home. A simple fable, it nevertheless carried a disturbing message.

One that was pertinent to the Acid Man’s mission.

Kelly recalled she had tried to convince Karen Min—the graduate student—to translate the myth and post it on the Internet. That way it could receive exposure in the West, even if it was never published in book form. The last time she had talked to Karen, the young woman had been working on the project.

Then she remembered, five years ago, receiving an e-mail with an attachment from Karen. She had filed it away on her home computer without opening it. Her computer at work was able to access her home equipment. A few minutes later she had the file up on her screen. A short story entitled “Mai Mai and the Man” was buried halfway through the attachment. Kelly read it with interest.