Chapter 39 - Final Performance I
It was actually fun to be in custody, once I switched over to the federal holding facility. I honestly picked my menu and never once heard any complaints. Once out, though? What now. Right off the top, there's initial time spent with my girlfriend. I'm going to have to make the rounds of visiting with a small group of insiders, then what.
Really, can't wait to visit my lawyer and maybe get to visit my investigator friend. But my girlfriend, comes first. Still feels weird to say it, girlfriend. Didn't think I would ever... I can't really say I fell in love, exactly, but... I definitely fell into something.
The medication. I'm a hollowed out shell, kept going like an addict with a much needed needle. I don't truly feel love. Nor a bunch of other things.
Naturally, time spent with my girlfriend for a couple days after I got out, followed by the long weekend she appropriated days for, well... calling it quite fun doesn't begin to cover it. Just because I can't feel most emotions, doesn't mean my sexual machinery doesn't function.
I know underneath what I can't truly feel? That I would like or even love her. In my medicated logical existence? She's prettier than what I had, and has less issues and difficulties dealing with her on a daily basis. This makes me feel guilt, one of the few emotions I can feel. But I can top up with a tiny extra shot and make that go away temporarily, too.
I'm out with my girlfriend, invited out for the weekend. My lawyer asked if I preferred the weekend with her girlfriend, or without. I sighed, and before I answered she giggled. She knew without would be less stress for me.
Without asking, she automatically suggested getting what I thought of as my investigator out for dinner. Without her girlfriend present, she'll just lightly pretend her coworker is her date for dinner and drinks. They've worked together long enough its okay for them. He's married with kids, and she has a girlfriend when she has anything. There's no tension.
My girlfriend got over her mild awe of staying out here a previous time. She's comfortable now with my lawyer, and there's nothing bad with my investigator present. Just my lawyer and her friend or date, to her.
She went with linguine and clam sauce, but more of an oversize side dish. She made several other large side dishes, to make her meal plan up. I like her garlic bread and garlic sticks she makes in bulk for some meals. My girlfriend asked me a weird question before we came out, and it became its own weird question.
"How do you want me to dress."
"I honestly don't care."
"Am I dressing up, to show how much I missed my boyfriend for six months? Am I dressing down, I can't compete anyways, I shouldn't try. You want, plain on the outside? I take naughty in my bag with me, for late night fun?"
"You're nervous about this?"
She wagged her head around a little. Trying to figure out how to explain it.
"I dressed down, for lack of a better word? For years. I can dress up now. With you. For you. I'm not used to it, though. I'm not nervous? I don't care how I dress. But, I'm not used to having options, and... if there's a best effect you want, well? You can dress me."
"I'm way more interested in undressing you."
She winked at me
"Technically? I usually undress you. But thank you, its nice of you to say. So, how do you want me. Slutty. Preppy. Tomboy."
"I'm not used to picking, really. I mean, I know you dressed down, all tomboy as you put it? Just because of what happened. I also know you were excited to get some, I'll say therapy about dressing up, it ain't the right word. But you know what I mean. Do what you want, though."
"I'm not the same as I was, when I was 18. Like I said. What effect am I even going for."
"Well. You know I have suits. I only take one suit out and wear my cowboy boots? In case I have to go to a nice dinner. You saw me there, before they left when we went out to do house sitting. Pretty sure we're just staying in for dinner two nights, though. Not like I'd dress up to walk to a few shops I hit when I'm out there. Its a novelty to me to get this one magazine I like, or to eat at the sushi place."
"You're not helping me, here. Do I dress up, or tomboy it."
"Are you perfectly comfortable, going tomboy? I know I like it, just fine. And don't ever think you need to, look a certain way, to get some... effect out of me. If you feel more comfortable going to a new years party, in jeans and T shirts? Just tell me, I'll do it too. If the function doesn't call for it, and you want me in a suit? You pretty much have to tell me."
The linguine and clam sauce big side dish led everything, but I'm a sucker for that big pile of garlic bread and bread sticks she can make. My lawyer played the wine game with her, like she had me. She gave her some extra sweet Jewish table wine, followed by some light fruity blush. She established then what Merlot even was, and went with the sweetest Merlot she had.
What in generic terms would be considered sweet, is in the world of Merlot only sort of sweet. I liked it. I'm in an uncharacteristically good mood, I guess I would call it. I'm happy everything is finally over. After my host went to bed early, I mentioned a few times that this guest had a wife and kids he was giving up to see me, and that I needed some private time to talk with him.
She understood, and I hinted that talking about my ex and her murder case? Wasn't very pleasant talk anyways. She wasn't missing out on anything good. I couldn't help going back again and again, and raiding the bread-sticks and the garlic bread stash. She knows I like it, and smiles and I swear she makes more every time. I know the truth. She has a high end income, and actually ran out of status items to buy with it. She now treasures cooking and seeing joy on someone's face that way, and if its cheaper than furniture then so be it.
I had to promise to wake her up when I came to bed. She's playing the part of the horny girlfriend up for all its worth socially. I like it. She's really putting her mark or stamp or brand on me. Whatever marketing people would call it. Not my field. I waited until I heard the TV on in the host's room, but she does that quick. Whether she's watching it, or sleeping to it? You have to guess. Mine did it about twenty minutes after she left us alone.
My investigator grinned at me. He lifted his half a glass of sweet Merlot to me. I jumped at the chance.
"Allow me."
I refilled us both, and sat down quite contentedly. We both sipped, and waited.
"Well? Just between me and you, you just know something happened."
He nodded.
"When we saw it on the news? We were both at the office, but not working together. First thing I thought of?"
I shrugged.
"What."
He smiled some.
"The mad lad went and did it. When there was no... nobody got shot, no manhunt... wow."
"Did my lawyer hint at what I was doing?"
"No. Confidentiality rules. She didn't do any more, than... smile and tell me it was a weird one."
"Well. Should I just describe it? You want to assume things, just ask other things."
He chuckled.
"I like it, from an operational standpoint. Looks like you pulled a plum operation off, without a hitch. When I was still operational? I'd have bragged. Something like that, you can only brag at work."
"Okay. I went with a whole... magic act performance, for a theme. Visually. Watch any big magic show. You see a series of puffs of smoke and sparks. I wanted my own."
"Performance art, hmm?"
"It was personal. You interested in the explosions?"
"The ATF was there. They really didn't say much in the press conferences they gave. No comment, investigation ongoing. In federal three letter speak? They have less than nothing. That's the word on the street."
I nodded. A tiny sip.
"Not much to find. If they concentrate on finding the body structure of the bombs? There really isn't any."
"Explosions with no bombs. Interesting."
"Someone installed a cement tunnel a long time ago, for something. Its sectioned off, and has those cement altars every so far apart, up and down that road. They don't do anything, nobody even knows what it was going to be for. When you call a sign that says, rent this stretch of highway for this much? You pay it, they're quick to allow you to sponsor and put a sign up. Dedicating the highway to a politician? Made it easy to get the statue, and allowed to put it on a new cement pad, abandoned."
"I get the bait. That was nice. But the explosions..."
"I put explosive gas, actually a mix of gases? Under the right pressure, and... only takes a spark."
"No, pipe bomb body to find..."
I grinned and nodded.
"No detonator or fuse. You can spark chemically. I sealed the sections up, and... just had to control sparks."
He nodded and lifted his glass to me.
"Nice. Operationally? You have them looking for, what. Explosives, that really don't exist."
"And? Detonators, that burn up like newspaper. I like to think of that? As part of the whole... magic act performance."
"Instead of dancing showgirls, you had the cameras and the people there. A little media circus."
"I did."
"Now. About the arrow."
"What about it."
"You, are on camera. Its hard to imagine someone could get into bow range, or even crossbow range and they don't fan out and drag nets for him. I can't picture you being trusting enough to subcontract this one out, so."
"Another... magic act."
"I'm dying to hear this."
"I was originally going with a high end crossbow. I bought one for cash somewhere, in an expensive kit. Then, I started fooling around with compressed air."
"Compressed air. Really."
"Yes. If you have a barrel, and a certain weight thing... you need a certain amount of air, at a certain pressure, over a certain period of time. I tested it thoroughly, trust me. I had groups better than I needed, at slightly further range. In fact, dressed in dark clothing at night? I aimed and shot at a mannequin, and hit it five times in a row. In the middle of the night? No one notices a thing. But, I have the magical ability to know exactly where that statue is going to end up, reusing one of these abandoned but new looking cement pads, that are stationed along the sectioned off cement tunnel lines."
"So, compressed air delivered an arrow shot, from fairly far away."
"Not as far away as you might think. If they were looking for a person shooting a bow and arrow, or a crossbow? That's all they can imagine went on. A blast of compressed air shot an arrow out of a tube. The tube was buried and aimed? Meticulously. The measured speed of that arrow? In the crossbow world, it was downright profane. Not quite 600 feet per second. Fairly close by, really. Allowed me to use a really heavy tip and bolt weight. One of the explosions? There's not much left behind. I had things I cast out of plastic and caught on fire. By the time they put that fire out, its just melted goo burning. And there's definitely no bow or crossbow parts around."
He raised me another quiet toast with a giggle.
"You're like a magician."
"Eh. I'm just a try hard amateur."
He waited a while. It really is a mark of our friendship? That we can sit quietly, and its not awkward.
"Do you, get some sense of, what. Better, might not be the right word."
I sighed, and thought about it. Looking up and off, musing, gesticulating at nothing with my wine glass.
"I'm liking the sense of... over."
He nodded.
"And if I disrupted that sense of, all over."
"Do you have something."
"I do. Everyone's favorite coin operated criminals?"
I know them well. I maintain a now genuine friendship with little Sogger and his mommy. I take a certain pride, in regularly taking the dog to piss on their property. You can't say anything, to the old lady that's lived across the street her whole life.
"I did enough searches, and reverse searches, where I trim off what I definitely ain't looking for... and you get down to certain donors, trying to lobby to keep things going in Pennsylvania, like they had been working it. With illegal gambling machines everywhere, in plain sight and it was normal to everyone."
"Sounds like your own magic act."
"Its a giant text file. You can find anything you want, inside it. I can trace the push, from back in the day."
"To where."
"What looked like several different companies, but. They all pitched in, and kind of took over a small organization. That was dedicated to representing the small club owners of America. This, was the small games of chance rule. Private clubs were the original gambling havens, before the machines went over the table across the state over time. You can trace ownership of... an abandoned and failed small lobbying company? Guess who acquired it, through several other companies pitching in, was how it looked on paper at a quick glance."
"Coin operated con men."
"Yes. The... patriarch, in that family? Late fifties. Thinks he's the... unofficial family crime boss, or whatever he thinks he is now. Remember. He's small time again now, not big time."
I contemplated it.
"His companies, in his youth? Perpetuated the illegal gambling, all across my state. For years."
"For decades. Only legalized gambling put a dent in it, and then the state had to take over the video gambling industry, basically. Or they kept losing all that revenue. That lobbying? You can trace that too. Other players, but yeah. His companies, in that mix too."
"With his ass gone, the family would be what, legit?"
"They're small time. Take him out? Even smaller time."
I sipped my wine.
"And that. That, would be done."
"Yeah. Did you want me to hide it? Protect you, make it easier on you, no. You always wanted the truth."
"Got any rough intelligence, maybe..."
"Not far away from your favorite coin operated clubhouse. Big house on the outskirts of around there."
"So, he has a social circle."
"Everyone does. I was thinking in terms of strike points, though."
"Which are?"
He giggled.
"Surveillance should produce something. I'm just saying, to think in terms of a good strike point. Want me to remind you of the basics."
I shrugged.
"Just make it totally different than all the others. Creativity here, means more than how. Watch the basics."
I nodded.
"If you want advice?"
"Always."
"An accident would be very convenient here."
I went off to bed. My girlfriend was in a sort of short in and out nap. She had decided to treat me to a little late night bedtime show. Can't really complain, that my little tomboy wallflower I showered with my care and attention so carefully, pulled an ugly duckling on what I already thought of as a cute, pretty girl.