Ransom X

by a b

  Chapter 34 Carry Out

  The door swung open inappropriately fast, revealing Kelly. He could only focus on her briefly, however, because the door slipped out of his sweaty palm and he nearly fell over chasing the knob with the slapstick air of an old silent movie. The moment stopped with the squeal of the hinges locking and pressing the door into retrograde motion, luckily Tyke’s face was there to stop it. He smiled brightly because he’d long ago determined that weeping was a conversation killer. His eyes however did gleam. What Tyke saw through his eyes made the moment worthwhile, however.

  Kelly truly lived up to Tyke’s billing standing in the hallway in knee-high socks, jet-black hair tied back and held in place with a set of black lacquer chopsticks. An ornately colored tattoo on her pale shoulder dove beneath a form fitting cropped black tank top. Kelly, in fact, was the primary reason that form fitting clothes were designed, with her chest trimming down into a flat muscular stomach that the bottom of the shirt cut across just above the belly button. Kelly had a light complexion and an elitist sneer that might have made her appear hostile if it were not in balance with sly, playful dark brown eyes. Tyke knew that if she was his “first D”, he was a good man indeed.

  Tyke steadied himself in the doorway. “Just a second.”

  He darted out of the room back to the phone.

  “What do I do next?” Tyke’s voice poured out pure liquid insecurity; Legacy spoke in a logical, steadying fashion.

  “Describe the background of your relationship.” Legacy said.

  “I’ve seen her fifteen times a month for the last two years.”

  “Are you stalking her?”

  “She’s the delivery girl for the Chinese restaurant downstairs, she’s completing her master’s degree in sociology at U. Penn and she graduates in three days, I’ve read all of her papers- she’s got the cutest disenchantment with the collective character of modern suburban communities-”

  “Focus, do you still live spread out across that ugly, unfinished warehouse floor?”

  Tyke was about to defend the visible substructure steel; open wire conduits and lack of drywall divisions that served as his open plan décor, when Legacy reminded him of the immediate objective.

  “When you answered the door.” He continued, “and immediately turned your back on her you didn’t give a very good excuse so you’re going to have to speak. Tell her your wallet is in the kitchen.”

  Tyke’s speech sputtered out.

  “I’m near – kitchen.” The battle between cool and speed made his motions jerky and robotic. “My wallet.” He reminded Kelly in an overly loud voice.

  Legacy poured exact instructions into Tyke’s ear. Tyke was used to programming where probability is replaced with binary certainty. He didn’t want to hear that one piece of input could lead to a thousand different streams of output depending on how Kelly was feeling standing in the hallway with his lunch in one hand and a receipt in the other.

  “The instant you get off the phone, tell her you were on a call with your family and they always drive you crazy.”

  Legacy continued, “You need to explain yourself as a natural progression – when you walk up to her, say this: “It’s funny”. Just that, “it’s funny”.

  “What’s funny?” Tyke shot back.

  Tyke perceived a slight a romantic streak buried in Legacy because his voice punctuated the speeches for Kelly with an involving emotional tone -”That’s the point, you’re preoccupied by the call and you haven’t filled in all the blanks. Now if she wants to simply get out of there, she’ll say yes, not ask for an explanation and reach for the money. If there’s even a spark of interest she’ll ask you what’s funny. Brush it off with your most charming, least serial killer smile and say: “this place, I know it must look strange,” Legacy corrected himself “no check that, “odd”, don’t use the word strange. Then continue: “I inherited it and I just don’t know what to do with it yet.”

  Tyke spoke the words under his breath like a mantra.

  Legacy burst in to his religious moment “Now I assume you tip her well so she remembers you.”

  Tyke was totally thrown off. “The tip isn’t included in the price of delivery food?”

  There was silence on the line, Tyke imagined Legacy pouring over the variables, looking for some way to salvage this situation. There was no way to predict the human heart, but there must be a way to find out if there was a heartbeat for this relationship. Legacy said, “Get an envelope.”

  In the twenty steps from his desk to the entryway, Tyke had to be transformed from a cheapskate oddball into a thoughtful imperfect soul. “Remember, first name only on the envelope. It’s important.” Tyke hung up the phone knowing that the moment he disconnected Legacy had brushed most of the contents of the conversation aside, remembering only Tyke’s promise of continued help on the case.

  Now, Tyke’s mind was fully immersed in the rise and flow of the tide that was Kelly breathing in and out waiting for him. The hallway seemed unnaturally long as he walked up to her with an envelope in one hand and a carefully counted out zip lock bag filled with the exact change. When Kelly saw the bag she smiled like she knew what to expect from Tyke, or so she thought.

  “It’s really quite funny.” He tried to sound nonchalant – except people who are nonchalant are not trying.

  “Yeah.” She said distractedly taking the bag of money and handing over the cartons of food. She was about to leave when her eye caught the sight of the envelope in his hand. “What’s that? Do you want me to drop it in the mailbox for you on the way out?”

  She flashed him a glimpse of bright white teeth through the veneered doors of a deep plum color, opened and shut along the curve of her lips. Tyke was impressed by the kind gesture. Kelly was incapable of not offering help, even to the exact change guy.

  “I heard you’re graduating soon, and so I saved up all your tips and put them in here.” He handed over the envelope, and she pulled out a check for 200 dollars. The amount was just adequate to be heartfelt without seeming unearned. She’d been to the door almost two hundred times after all.

  Tyke saw her doing the math in her mind and decided to emphasize one of Legacy’s important points. “I just put Kelly on the check, I didn’t know your last name.” It diverted her attention for the amount of the check. “I didn’t know if you were like me – I spend all of my cash. I thought you might appreciate having it in a lump sum.”

  The smile from her lips had spread up into her eyes and bloomed, Tyke could have cried right there and then, if he were able to blink. He stood in tableau waiting for the breath bringing Kelly’s thoughts into perfect lyrical accompaniment to the music of his soul.

  “You’re a nut.” She said leaning down and tucking it into her sock. She looked him up and down “What were you saying earlier about something being funny.”

  The conversation started, and to Tyke’s great delight it continued well past the point of being thankful. At one point she laughed and brushed back her hair tucking it around her ear and Tyke was almost certain that she found him interesting. As it turned out, part of her interest in sociology centered around the human interface with computers and how group personality could be traced online through chat sessions and messages. It was one of her research projects. Tyke swooned thinking that he could be of any use at all to Kelly.

  After she left, and for many hours into the future, the smell of Chinese food was like perfume to Tyke.

  Chapter 35 His Call

  It was time for the second call, although Legacy didn’t know it yet. Wagner entered the office. A telltale sweat ring on the outer curve of her ear told Legacy that she’d been on the phone most of the afternoon. “Never mind” he thought, as he shifted his eyes back toward the desk, where written transcripts of all of the videos were laid out haphazardly. He scanned several threads at once, but he kept coming back to one place in the tape.

  Legacy’s proximity alert went off. He looked up and was face to face with Wagner. />
  Inches away from him, a frown came to her lips.

  Wagner leaned over to his desk phone, picked it up and put it to his ear. “I had the call transferred to your line.”

  Agent Tanner was on the line. “Hello, Tanner here.”

  Legacy replied, “This is Legacy.”

  “Agent Wagner contacted me.”

  “Good.”

  An inevitable war of male declaratives was cut short when Wagner joined the conversation and guided them to a topic, to the topic. Tanner had received an email through an alumni website purporting to have a prom queen from his high school class on video at Camp Sex. The “camp” was described as a two-week military style course in which young ladies learn basic sex training. The men all wore uniforms and ski masks.

  “It was almost six months ago, I deleted the email, but I recognized the girl, she sat next to me in history.” Tanner thought for a moment, “Her name was Darci.”

  Wagner cut in, “As soon as you have a contact number for her or her family call my cell.”

  Tanner replied, “Will do, agent.”

  Wagner put down the receiver then held up one finger for a moment of silent appreciation, then began. “That fits the profile. This could be our girl. But wait there’s more. I got into thinking about Blue and his faulty equipment.”

  She paced in front of the desk, almost strutting.

  “Little boy Blue has got a personal problem. But, if our boy were as thorough as you say he is, he wouldn’t leave a paper trail. Where does that lead us? I found three ED clinics that have had fires that destroyed records in the last four years.”

  Legacy replied, “That’s a lot less calls.”

  Wagner said “We’ve got a lead on Darci, now we might be able to pin down an area that Blue considers home territory. Good day.”

  Wagner pushed her fingers together in an interlocking pose, it was like she’d just finished a virtuoso performance at Lincoln Center and awaited the appreciation of the gallery.

  “And?” Legacy had obviously thought that it was just the first movement.

  “What do you mean and? That’s it.”

  “We haven’t gotten into Blue’s head, and for that matter Laura’s head – what you did is good, but trails have a habit of going cold around this group, I won’t feel comfortable until we’re a step in front of them. I keep coming back to the fact that Laura’s trying to tell us something.” Legacy responded.

  “I’m yours all night long-”

  Legacy looked up, and in the deeply uncomfortable pause that followed, he wondered if Tyke was right and he really was completely irresistible to women. Wagner’s cheeks went red, then her blood ran from her exterior like the tide sweeping back leaving an impression on the sand, and then her face went suddenly pale. “I meant- “ She stumbled “that we should start with dinner first, early, I’ll cook.” Legacy raised an eyebrow as she backed into the corner. “I don’t want you to get the wrong impression.”

  “You’re asking me to dinner, then you’re mine all night long? How could I get the wrong impression?” Wagner couldn’t hide her amusement nor could she easily suppress a laugh. Luckily for anyone in earshot a laugh rang out. The quality was so pure and so genuine that Legacy wished for a moment he had it on tape, the tone was no less inspiring nor less rare than those beautiful oases of music in his collection.

  Wagner looked at his towering frame, his short cropped hair that tucked down around his temples, giving his face an angular symmetric feel. “I am not attracted to you whatsoever.” She added like it was part of a punch line of another hilarious joke. Her laughter was infectious; it brought a smile to Legacy’s face.

  “Your smile needs practice.” Legacy met her eyes for a few uncomfortable moments, then she searched for something to say and found only name that could kill the mood.

  “I have to drop my temporary assignment papers by Bailey’s office.”

  Legacy watched Wagner move for the door, stumbling halfway there and sending a rolling chair scuttling along the floor in her search for balance. “First time walking.” She explained, re-tucking her shirt, smoothing it around her hips, and backing toward the door.

  Wagner was deceiving him, that much was obvious.

  Legacy could tell something was wrong, but fortunately for Wagner, the earlier conversation with Tyke had brought a series of emotional connections into his mind that threw off his normal ability to peel off the layers and understand the real meaning behind off-hand remarks. Because of Tyke, he thought the display of nervousness could be a discomfort due to the proximity of his overpowering, newly reported charisma.

  The thought made him shake his head in an effort to clear the image from his mind, like an etch-a-sketch. It didn’t work, he was going to have to try not to look her in the eyes and analyze her anymore. He wasn’t sure exactly why, but perhaps it was out of respect, or perhaps he knew, even then, that he didn’t want to know. There were only a few people that he gave that kind of privacy to, his deceased wife, his daughter, his tax preparer, and anyone who he counted as a friend, a vastly under-populated category, he admitted internally. That must be where Wagner fit in.

  He reached across his desk to the phone. He had to call Chess and let her know that there’d be company for dinner. Legacy dialed knowing that three calls in one day was a personal record, but he also couldn’t contain a little excitement, he knew the trail was getting warm.

  Legacy remembered once explaining to Wilkes the kind of logic his mind formulated to figure out what would happen next with a given criminal fixed to a certain crime. He explained that reading behavior is like doing one of those thousand piece puzzles without the benefit of knowing what the picture looks like when complete. That was why Legacy liked the cold cases where he could coax the pieces into place by geometry alone, over time. With the crisis of holding the worlds most powerful law enforcement division up for some kind of perverse, naked ransom – he knew that taking the case called him far from his operational comfort. He couldn’t wait for the connections, striving for perfection was something he’d have to put aside. He was going to have to force some of the pieces together and make them stick.

  Chapter 36 Arranging Flowers

  Blade watched thirty television screens at once. His hands were busy in his lap, stringing a line of smooth colorful beads ranging in size from pebble to Mac’s feminine sized testicle. He had Stones, Mac, Feely, and Sean lined up behind him, but when he talked to them, his eyes almost never left the screens in front of him.

  “Warm them, grease them, and insert them with your tongue during your next session” the beads dangled from his outstretched fist like an invitation, none of the men stepped forward to claim them. Feely shifted in discomfort sealing his fate. “Feely” He froze. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to put them in. Sean will, but you will take them out using your teeth.”

  Sean grabbed the string and went over to a table where he carefully dripped oil down the beads’ surfaces, coating the string with an oily sheen. One got the impression that he liked the task, as it was more mechanical, belonging more in his world. He almost certainly would have preferred working on a bike, but at least this gave him a task with kinetic outcomes.

  Blade looked at the group. Sean, or any of the men for that matter, would have done anything that Blade asked, even without the promise of money, women or power, he simply liked the consistency of his authority. They liked being on a bike and knowing every moving part was working together regardless of the destination. They didn’t really even think about it. Like Sean prepared the beads, making them shine for their next ride, he never even considered where they were going.

  Feely wasn’t about to take any shit from Blade today and he let him know it in the strongest of terms. “Aw man, I just brushed my teeth! Couldn’t Mac do it?”

  “Mac and I have something to talk about.” It was an ominous portent – like being told that one would have to stay after class to talk to the teacher, except the teacher is a raving murde
rous sociopath.

  The room cleared, each man finding some reasonable excuse to walk faster than normal for the exit. Feely used a made up hunger, Stones and Sean headed toward the garage with the intent to tinker, and Mac was left with Blade. Blue and Brown whenever their video images went out, Mac waited for Blade to speak.

  “They think they’ve found the first girl we took for our little pretty Barbie fuck dress-up party. Calls herself Sofia Slut or something. They got the wrong girl.” He kept a playful lilt in his murderous voice.

  “Yeah, they’re pretty stupid.” Blade suddenly scowled. Bile rose in his throat, giving the decay, receding gums and nicotine painted teeth an unpleasant marinade. The spittle that crept into his words was toxic.

  “But they’re looking for a first girl, and next time – they might find her” he bit the F and swung his face toward Mac.