by a b
“You’re authorized to go outside the playbook on this one.”
“What kind of promotion can I offer an agent for her cooperation?”
“What do you think it would take?”
Bailey leaned back in his chair and grinned to himself. He felt as though he was at his best dictating terms. “Unprecedented, meteoric rise in status.”
“That is acceptable.” He disconnected.
Bailey shifted in the chair annoyed that there was nothing sticky or sweet to pass his lips, because it was looking like a long night on the job.
*****
Legacy woke from a dreamless sleep at sunrise. He had so much to do after wasting six hours the day before explaining his work. He was six hours farther away from finding the director’s daughter. He especially liked the midnight call from Wilkes. After hearing the phrase “you need to substantiate,” used in conjunction with every conclusion that Legacy had put onto paper, he reached his flashpoint, and made his own judgment. He would not be submitting any more reports. He told Wilkes as much before an abrupt disconnection.
Legacy had a reputation for icy control in the room, followed by bursts of temper outside. If he had been an operatic tenor, he would have been called a diva. However, as the only man who could perform surgery on the human mind without shedding a drop of blood, he was too unique to fall into a category.
It was not quite every mind, actually. Early in Legacy’s work with the CIA he was presented with a child of twelve, daughter of the ambassador to the Baltic republic of Estonia. She had been delivering her father’s coded messages back to the embassy in the Soviet Union. They were hidden inside her dental work and she was presumed to be the mule.
When they caught her, the state department brought Legacy in to see how far the damage extended. Legacy entered talks with her to determine if she had any knowledge of the information that she had been transporting. By the end of their first session, he was convinced that she was a pawn, and he even protected her from further questioning with his reputation. He found out, years later, that she had been the architect of the smuggling operation, and was her own dentist. She sent him a Christmas card every year from her dental practice in Maryland. She moved back to the US under diplomatic immunity after communism fell.
Legacy remembered the way her face expressed nothing during their conversation. It wasn’t like she was covering anything; it was as if there was no actual thought put into any answer. The neutrality of that face stayed in his mind. It wasn’t innocence, he knew that even back then, it was a void.
Why was he wandering back into those waters? Legacy knew his own mind and had become accustomed to being led by its whim. In his own private philosophy whim was like a breath of air that became substance when in contact with a mystery ingredient that he called “wham.” He was waiting for the wham to hit him.
The wham came suddenly. The camouflage the Vinyl Men wore! Of course, why didn’t he see it before?
The full body vinyl did more than color the perversion, having a complete second skin was somehow important to the safety of the group. Considering all of the complications of getting the materials, and preparation and application before each session – it must have been vital, because the process was far too complicated to be simply fetish. There was something identifying on their bodies or maybe just on one of their bodies of the male participants. Every body part was covered – it had to be important - but what was the catch? How would less than full body covering give something away, what was he looking for?
His breakthrough ran right into a brick wall. Blue had shown himself to be a master of misdirection. He was the kind of person who would go to ridiculous extreme to hide something unfathomably small. He’d start a forest fire to kill one tree. The body suits might be painted onto the entire group to hide a single identifying mole on one of them. There were so many alternatives open that Legacy couldn’t close in on one for fear of letting a wider range of possibility go unnoticed.
Blue knew the angles of incidence - abduction was experimental science for him. He must be pleased with himself, satisfied, smug and ready to kill again to throw spice back into his dreary, unchallenged life.
Legacy pulled out a folder with a familiar name on the tab. Laura Doorner was a better student than almost anyone in her class. Her studies showed an aptitude for languages. Laura’s beauty poured out of her smile like white silk against bronze skin. Men probably looked at her and thought that with a face like that, she didn’t need anything more.
There was more. She graduated from Columbia at seventeen with two majors, ancient literature and pre-law. The picture on the front page of her file was taken at her graduation. The blue polyester mortarboard fitted below the hairline and the royal blue in her eyes presented a rich film-worthy chroma. Looking into her eyes, Legacy saw there was error in anyone who underestimated her. It might not be enough to match Blue on his home turf, but if she saw a weakness, Laura was the kind of person who could exploit it.
Legacy looked at the clock. It was almost time for Laura’s first broadcast. Everyone had been accelerating their efforts knowing that something had to happen soon if they had any hope of avoiding it, but he knew it wouldn’t. He knew exactly what was happening in the lead up to the broadcast, he knew everything he could about the rituals and routines and yet Blue was still winning. He felt like he might never be closer to Laura than in those moments before the world would become intimate with her – Legacy felt like she might be slipping away.
*****
Blue stood over Laura, using a clear-weave baker’s brush to spread a thin, glistening layer of oil on her body. There were silver and gold flecks in the oil that made her body sparkle like it was crafted from some streaked hybrid of precious metal. Her eyes popped open, her pupils rolling back momentarily. She was coming out of sedation. The lids of her eyes felt like shutters, stuck down with a dodgy mechanism for raising them. Then they were open again. A drip of Blue’s sweat rolled off his nose and fell onto her forehead. He watched with delight as it made its way down the slope of her brow and mixed with the saline in the corner of her eye. Laura blinked, it was the only part of her body that moved, she was restrained with a series of criss-crossed thin leather straps against a solid pegboard. It was a process that took Blue hours, and left her in exactly the pose that he wanted. His brush reached Laura’s lips. Blue traded it for a more precise tip.
“It’s the lips that make the first impression. I say that lips are an hour and hair is an afterthought.”
“Let me write that down.”
“Cat’s whiskers you are sassy. How are you feeling?”
“Can I talk to the filthy pervert who runs this place?”
“I’m the janitor.”
“That makes my body the toilet.”
“Your body is pure art. The muscles you have –” his hand hovered over her skin touching nothing, causing anticipation of contact nonetheless, “and their tone, incredible. It’s why I chose the quartz flecks in the oil. It’s hard not to make you beautiful my dear.”
“Compliments are nice, but I’d prefer the key to this place and a map to the mountains around it.”
“You think you saw mountains? Well, we’ve moved you since then, why do you think they sedate you every night?”
“Cut the crap, I smell the pine.”
Blue picked up an air freshener and spurted the air. “Smell anything like this?” He made a spshsh noise pulling his lips behind the bottom row of his teeth and opening his mouth like he was swallowing some kind of gourmet dessert. The next thing that came out her mouth surprised him, like a warm breeze in early spring.
“How do I get out of this alive?” Her eyes evaluated the effect of each word. “Who do I have to make like me?”
Blue was silent. He’d broken through her confidence layer much sooner than he would have expected. She was already prepared to put her life into his hands. It made him suspicious. This was exciting, his first victory and his first challenge comin
g so early in the game. He knew what she wanted to hear, so he didn’t even give her a hint of it.
“Let’s start with me and work our way up.”
Laura squirmed in disappointment, but then something changed. She warmed to Blue visibly.
“You like beauty and form?” Blue nodded. “I can show you something you’ve never seen.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
“Give me the eyebrow pencil and one free hand, and I will impression with them.”
“I can’t do that.”
“The whores of ancient Cyprus used to paint fertility symbols on their bodies, they thought that they would make anyone who looked on their naked form, men and women alike helpless to their sexual spell. Don’t you think you’d like that?”
Blue’s eyes danced under the mask of vinyl, “Show me one, and I’ll put it on your body.”
Blue drew the outline of a body on a piece of paper. He loosened the bonds holding down her right arm and handed her the pencil. She put the pencil to paper and drew an intricate symbol curving up to the edge of her thigh. “Will it make me look special?”
Blue duplicated each stroke on Laura, fixated on her skin; it was a beautiful mixture of art and human form. He wet his lips. “It might. Let’s keep it symmetrical.” He moved the tip of the pencil to the other side of her body.
“Let me do my eyes.” She extended her palm, asking for an eyeliner pencil. “I’m not helpless.”
Blue looked at her, defiant, and utterly immobile pinned against a pegboard. She started to laugh. It was genuine, dripping in irony, a rich tune from a complex soul. Blue wanted to hear it again the moment it stopped. Instead of letting her see how interested he was, he thrust an eyebrow pencil in her hand and turned back toward his artwork. “I wasn’t expecting all this extra decoration. Do your best to make them pop, we’ve only got an hour.”
*****
Legacy burst into the office at nine o’clock, seemingly on a mission. Wagner sulked in the corner, but Legacy barely gave her a glance, he was on to something.
“Hey.” She started the conversation abruptly.
“I’m having the ten of the video frames enlarged –” he spoke to the coat rack, the desk and the walls instead of to his partner. “We need to make a chart the bodies of each of the men, label spatial quadrants for every square inch of each character in the video. There might be something else.”
“Did you get a call from Wilkes?” Wagner replied.
Legacy had no patience for games “He called you right after he talked to me.”
“I-” Wagner said.
“ - Got a call from him at around 1 AM and Wilkes asked you if it was worth it to continue. What did you say?” Legacy spoke like he was reading from a transcript; there was no pause between the words for thought or objection.
“I said it was worth it.”
“Now you’re in the boat too.”
Legacy let that sink in for a moment.
Wagner responded, “Why are you picking out video frames?”
Legacy explained, “The lights are halogen, three paired clusters with 24000 watts bulbs in each, bright enough for bleed through mesh, linen and even a thin membrane.”
“You saw beneath their costumes?”
“I detected uneven shading beneath the colored layer. The same place on every one of them.”
“Scars?” Wagner asked.
“I doubt it. Uniform length and width of the pattern indicates a design -” He lead her along and she followed.
“Tattoos.” She nodded her head. “How did you get there?”
Legacy stopped staring at the pictures on the wall and beamed a proud look at the agent. “That’s the best question you’ve asked since coming here.”
“I’m a prodigy.” She smirked, evidently coming out of her funk.
“There was a fingerprint on the outside of a photo album that was delivered to my door. It belonged to the first victim, Kelly.”
“The first victim we know of.” Wagner corrected.
“Exactly.” Legacy walked over to the wall covered in photos and pressed his own finger on one of the enlarged frames. It left a meaty print. “I noticed the print because it was in smudge of something that looked like motor oil, Kelly was into motorbikes. She practiced with a Harley to ride in the homecoming parade. The abductors were still pretty new to the business when they took her, and they went after a familiar image. They took a girl on a bike. We’re hunting for a group of riders, and they all have tattoos on their forearms that are approximately seven inches of jagged design. They needed to cover it to cover their tracks and so they used fetish as their camouflage.” Wagner looked unimpressed.
“You’re excited about this?” Legacy had thought that she’d have been on the phone immediately. “Do you really think the tattoo is going to include names and addresses?” Legacy shook his head. “Then I’m going to the bathroom.”
The bathroom stall door shut behind Wagner and her phone was in her hand, a spastic series of speed dial beeps and a quick connection.
“Bailey here.”
Chapter 14 Snow Angel
Darci heard the manager rattling the keys outside the restroom door; it was time for the weekly cleaning. She’d been letting the hot water run at a trickle to warm up the frigid stall of the truck stop restroom during the night. It added a few degrees of temperature to the air, but she could still see her breath when she exhaled. She looked up at the window above the tank, judging that there was no time. She knew what he’d “ask for” in return for the night’s lodging. There was something about a man who sat all day in sweaty thick wool pants that categorized any act that led him to remove the garments as cruel and unusual punishment.
She had a headache from the fortified wine, and her bloodshot nineteen-year-old eyes watched through the crack of the stall, waiting for the outer door to open.
A car honked outside the building. It was cold enough for full-service to find popularity at the pumps. Darci privately thanked the driver of the car with an inner dance of devotion to those too lazy to pump their own gas, and vowed to someday repay the man or woman who had saved her from sweaty pants. Footsteps receded outside the door and she snuck out the back window.
She hit the frozen ground and felt a wave of freedom, followed by the sudden need to throw up. There was no one there to hold her hair back as chunks of the past insisted upon being pulled up into the present. They froze to the ground like abstract art, it was a portrait, she thought, representing her life. She didn’t notice the beauty in the sickness that lay at her feet and like most of the people in her life; it pretended not to recognize her.
*****
Wagner felt sick in the pit of her stomach after putting down the phone for the hundredth time in the hour. She had called about half of the erectile dysfunction specialists in the country since her first cup of morning coffee. Her message sounded like the start of a crude joke. “I’m looking for an easy rider with a problem in his pipes.” The bureau had put out an alert to medical offices, but she didn’t want to wait for the data to trickle in. If only one of them could put a name to Blue, the investigation could be over in a matter of hours.
Medical assistants were scouring records, promising to get back to her if anybody fit the profile. The problem with Blue was that he was not the kind of person that made an impression that registered. He was the quiet leader who announced himself through behind-the-scenes actions, not words. In the real world, there would be no temper, no nerves, nothing that would call attention – he was a calm lake with a mirrored surface – with a monster lurking just below. All the people who had broken that surface were dead. What kind of chance did they have of someone recognizing this guy?
“I knew I shouldn’t have told you.” Legacy’s familiar voice came from over her shoulder.
Legacy wasn’t in favor of her wasting her time calling around. “There will be no trail to follow, Agent Wagner. Blue wouldn’t leave any record behind.”
She t
hought about Legacy’s statements, looking for ways to prove him wrong. It was easier to project criticism onto him; he was solid, sitting only feet away. He had a purposeful stare, the kind that she remembered seeing in photographs of billboards of men going to work in the 50’s. It wasn’t optimistic pessimistic or cynical, his dark eyes brooded in thought. What the hell did he know?