"Her," Oz announced, tossing the computer printout of a classic movie scene onto Xander's desk after this cerulean-haired young man had just walked inside the Scottish castle's personal office for the New Council's best troubleshooter without waiting for an invitation.
Grabbing the picture from where it'd landed upon the other paperwork he'd been trying to finish before dinner, Xander began an irked protest, "I haven't even decided where—"
"She's Pack."
Stopping short in his objection at that curt interruption from Oz, Xander actually looked at the picture for the first time. It took him a few moments to identify both the characters shown and the movie they were from. He glanced up at Oz standing impassively in front of the one-eyed man's desk.
"The younger one, right?"
Oz only lifted an eyebrow without even bothering to reply. Suitably chastened, Xander examined the photo again before saying thoughtfully, "Yeah, she's got to be desperate for anything to get her away from that bastard, especially after what happened at the end." He then eyed Oz with some puzzlement.
"How'd you find out about her being a Slayer? I didn't know you even liked the movie."
"Andrew's film noir festival in the dungeons showed it last night," Oz answered. "I dropped in just for Jerry Goldsmith's score, until I saw that girl and knew she needed us."
Xander put down the picture onto his desktop and leaned back in his chair. He rubbed at his chin, giving Oz a wry smile. "Willow's little accidental presents strike again, right?"
A werewolf quirked upwards the left corner of his mouth with quiet mirth in return. It was still true even years afterwards and thousands of miles from Sunnydale, how the stupendous magical spell cast by Willow Rosenberg to activate all potential Slayers worldwide continued to produce surprises for all those people connected in some way to this exceedingly powerful witch. Even if they hadn't actually been there on the Hellmouth at that exact moment.
For Daniel Osbourne, it resulted in him being instinctively trusted by every girl possessing a trace of Sineya's spirit. That still happened when they learned sooner or later this same laconic man could turn into a formidable wolflike creature more than capable of going head-to-head against these superhuman young women.
Indeed, their eager reaction usually consisted of, "C'mon, Oz, let's see, please! Please? Pretty please?"
Oz would more often than not eventually give in and demonstrate. Thankfully, he'd at last gained full control of his bestial nature and bore with good grace numerous awed teenagers' hands stroking his luxurious fur coat after transforming into likely the first ever werewolf those novice Slayers encountered. The only thing he steadfastly refused despite any pouting done by Oz's adoring fans was to let them braid his hair, much less getting gleefully to work with assorted ribbons and bows…
Best of all, Oz himself gained the magical ability to track down Slayers anywhere. Which, as had just been revealed, now included those in other dimensions who appeared as fictional characters in various media for the Scooby Gang's home reality.
That specific detail made Xander's decision easy enough.
"Okay, I'll talk with Wils. She probably won't have any trouble sending me to Los Angeles sometime after that film ended. I find our new Slayer, offer her the chance to come back with me, and hopefully she'll get a way happier life."
"Not on your own," Oz disagreed. "Me, too."
This time, it was Xander's turn to cock an eyebrow at his visitor. "You sure?"
Oz nodded.
Thinking it over, Xander eventually shrugged, "Yeah, fine, not a problem—"
He paused to grin at Oz before beginning again, "—though you'd better wash your hair first. Nobody dyed their head bright navy around then, and you know it. Well, maybe the oldest old ladies with their blue hair rinse, of course." Xander started to snigger loudly after finishing his last statement.
As for Oz, he merely wrinkled his nose with mild haughtiness towards Xander, and patiently waited out his friend's guffaws. The werewolf was rewarded by Xander soon regaining control of himself and directing a honestly curious question at Oz.
"Why exactly do you want to come along, anyway?"
For once, the most self-possessed member of the Scoobies allowed what had to be nothing else but a furious expression to flash over his face. This was accompanied by his eyes turning dark yellow for the same short amount of time, indicating Oz had allowed his animalistic urges to momentarily surface. In a aggressively rumbling voice unlike his normal soft tones, Oz snarled, "Don't you think somebody in that film deserves to be paid a little visit after dark by us?"
Xander stayed still at his desk for a moment, until a very cold smile appeared on this man's lips. He replied, "Couldn't agree more. If it comes to that, all we have to do is wait a couple weeks until the next full moon…"
Oz's own smile was equally cold.
The man sat motionless in his office chair. He'd been doing that for three straight days now.
Sandwiches and coffee were left on a tray carried into the room by a very worried secretary that hadn't been addressed even once since she'd found her boss behind his desk last Thursday morning. Sometimes the meals were gone, but more often the uneaten sandwiches were curled dry and the coffee was cold and stale in the cup without even a mouthful missing. The daily paper on the tray also never got opened any time, either.
He must be sleeping, showering, shaving, and changing in the office annex/bathroom where his spare suits were stored, along with a cot for naps. Not that the secretary knew for sure, since all she'd seen him do was to sit there and stare blankly at the opposite wall. In the meantime, this woman carried out her duties the best she could by cancelling or putting off everything possible and just waited for something to happen to bring him back to his senses.
Because if it didn't, that office had at least one loaded gun in there…
The man breathed through a healing nose, blinked his eyes, and otherwise showed no indication of how his bleak thoughts had ground a deep path throughout his mind as these regrets chased themselves around and around in a hopeless pursuit.
There was a fifth of Scotch in a bottle in the lower desk drawer, a whole city crammed with bars, and many other opportunities for this man to drink himself into a stupor. But what was the whole point? No amount of booze could numb him any more that what he already felt as a total failure.
A woman who'd trusted him had died a completely senseless death, and her…accomplice was in the hands of someone far too powerful to even try to save her from a horrible fate.
The man sat there for hours more, until he lethargically reached out when his stomach's protests became more demanding than usual. The coffee was swallowed without even reacting to its bitterness without any milk or sugar, and the man put the cup back on the tray with only the merest glace at the upturned daily paper of today's edition.
He went back to staring at the far wall, for however long he didn't know. However, something eventually tried to attract his attention through the murky haze of absolute despair clouding his wits.
It was…the newspaper headline? Much bigger than usual, but fairly incomprehensible due to the front page of the paper folded over itself to block out the complete headline.
ROSS KILLED BY WILD DOG, GIRL MISS
The man's face twisted into the first new expression he'd borne for half a week, one of slight confusion. With stiff limbs, he reached out to gather up, unfold, and read the newspaper—
Straightening up in his chair with an abrupt jerk, the man disbelievingly scanned the terse story of another man's incredible death last evening at his Bel-Air mansion's rear garden. The servants had heard from there terrible screams suddenly cut off when their rich employer went out alone for a stroll after dinner. Running to find out what'd happened, these servants found a corpse gorily torn to shreds by sharp teeth and claws, with the soft ground covered with nothing but pawprints from an enormous dog.
No other evidence whatsoever had been found of this killer beast after a quick search throughout the gardens, but just as fantastic had been the second inexplicable discovery at that residence. A teenage girl who'd earlier been involved in a tragic confrontation with an unbalanced woman and the police ending with the then-alive man offering to take responsibility for this young lady had somehow vanished without a trace from the Bel-Air mansion around the same time of the feral dog attack.
The newspaper story concluded with an announcement that a more thorough search involving the entire neighborhood would take place tomorrow. Everyone living there should keep a wary eye out for dangerous animals, and anybody with information concerning the missing girl should speedily contact the authorities.
About to call for his secretary in the anteroom, the man saw by both the wall clock and the fading light from the office windows that it was well past quitting time and she must've already gone home. A quick glance at the newspaper story's byline revealed the fact he knew that reporter. It was quite likely, seeing how big a story this was, this reporter might still be working at the newsroom…
Sure enough, a phone call got the man in touch with that reporter, who was willing enough to confirm his scoop. However, what'd already gone to press was just about it. There simply weren't any more details at present, save for the reporter's gut instinct that something really funny was going on.
"Yeah," the man heard over the phone, "The cops, City Hall, the ME, they're all keeping their lips zipped tighter than a frog's ass. Nothing I've tried to pry any more details outta 'em worked: offers of their favorite booze, tickets for the policemen's ball, reminding 'em the favors they owe me playing down stories which put the force in a bad light, that kinda thing. If I didn't know better, I'd think they were scared."
"Scared? Of what?"
"Beats the hell outta me," the reporter confessed. "I did get a couple tidbits that I couldn't put in the story. One of the older gardeners who found the body, he was in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, and that's the only time he ever saw worse stuff happen to dead stiffs than how his boss looked that night. It's gonna be a closed-casket funeral, you can bet your bottom dollar on that."
"What about the girl?" anxiously asked the man.
A baffled shrug came from over the phone line. "From what I heard, she never said a single word to the inside staff. Seemed to be in a state of total shock, I guess. Anyway, they all swore up and down to the cops that nobody saw her sneak out during the confusion, but that must've been it. She'll probably turn up in a day or two, right?"
"Maybe," the man absently said. He finished the call by thanking the reporter and promising to pass on to him any additional information acquired concerning the story.
Getting up on his feet, the man groaned under his breath at how sore he felt after days of sitting down. Nonetheless, it was urgently necessary for him to check on several places in Los Angeles where he knew the girl might be now. If that was the case, she should be okay…physically, at least. The man wasn't all that sure about anything else. What he'd become involved in was weird enough, more than capable of sending someone around the bend and causing them to react by violently murdering the person they held directly responsible for all the heartbreak in their short life. Just how that was achieved as to cause the law to come up with such a stupid story as a wild animal attack completely beat him, though.
The man sighed, and rubbed at his face. Deal with it when you have to, he thought. Just find her, first.
He couldn't.
She wasn't at his client's mansion, at the other house, or at the butler's. With no other recourse, the man went to the scene of the crime in Bel-Air, driving past to see how a bunch of surly cops were still guarding that sonofabitch's mansion. Prudently deciding not to be noticed by them, the man spent the next couple of hours in his car, cruising the local streets in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of the girl.
Finally, he went home for the first time in days and collapsed into bed. The only good thing to happen to him for the rest of the night was that his sleep was dreamless.
Going to his office the next morning, the man stoically found two cops already there, waiting for him. One of them he knew very well, having served with him back when they were both on the job. What happened then, though, was definitely strange.
The ensuing interrogation by the man's former partner wasn't all that rigorous. No, indeed. As a matter of fact, it could be best described as perfunctory. Perhaps this might be due to the admission right from the start by the lieutenant that they knew the man had an air-tight alibi regarding the death of somebody truly loathed by the person they were questioning. What genuinely confused the man was the lurking impression that the police still knew it was absolutely impossible for him to have done it, anyway.
The topic of the missing girl soon came up. It was grudgingly admitted that no sign of her had been found yet. When the man asked point-blank if she was a suspect, his friend instantly clammed up about the whole thing except for warning that if he ever heard from her, he'd better tell the cops right away, or else risk losing his license. That pretty much ended the interview, with the two flatfeet exiting the office and leaving behind a very puzzled man.
At least his secretary seemed to be much happier now. She bustled in and out giving him approving looks while the man tried to think of something more to do regarding the missing girl. All while catching up on his paperwork, he finally came to the glum conclusion that if there was going to be any break in the case, it would have to come from this unaccounted-for young lady.
This exact break occurred just around noon. After handing over the latest batch of mail, his secretary went off to lunch. Opening the mail one by one, the man finished this task by tearing off the flap of a manila envelope. From out of there, several objects slid onto the man's desktop.
One of these objects instantly gained the man's attention. In an automated photo booth's picture, the serene face of the same girl he'd been anxiously looking for gazed back at him. Held up below her chin, this girl displayed the front page of today's earliest edition of the Los Angeles Times, proving this was when she'd done that all while exhibiting the reality of her being unharmed and otherwise in good health.
For verification, the man glanced at the manila envelope's postmark. Sure enough, it'd been mailed this morning from the local post office.
Regarding again the contents of the envelope, the man picked up what was closest, a sheet of paper covered with feminine handwriting. It went like this:
To whom it may concern:
My first name is Katherine. For good reasons, I'll decide what will be my last name. I am writing this letter to say that I am fine and will be going away without ever coming back to Los Angeles. Please don't bother looking for me. You'll never find me. That's all, except for one more thing.
Mr. Gittes, thank you very much for trying to help us. Don't blame yourself for what happened. It turned out okay after all, and I know wherever she is, she's glad I'll be happy and useful.
Goodbye.
J.J. "Jake" Gittes re-read the letter several times with growing bewilderment. Glancing down at the desktop, he noticed two more things there which had been inside the envelope. One was another sheet of paper, also with handwriting but done in a more masculine manner. Picking that one up, Jake read:
Hey, Jake
Don't worry about Katherine. She's one tough gal, and I'm sure she'll settle in well with us. Like she said, nobody's going to find her, so you might as well as hand over her letter and picture to the cops. There's no reason to waste everyone's time with a totally useless wild goose chase.
As for this letter and the other pictures, I suggest you burn them right away without anybody else ever seeing them. Of course, you might be dumb enough to include these with Katherine's stuff in delivering them to the law, but do you really want to wind up in the local loony bin? I know somebody who got committed there by her mom and dad at only fifteen years old. She didn't like it, and I bet you wouldn't either.
Yeah, you'll probably wonder about this the rest of your life. Too bad, because that's all you're getting even though you got serious balls, dude. Hope your nose gets better soon. I've been cut myself lots of times, knives and all, but not there. Hurts like a bitch, right?
At least you're alive to feel the hurt. Not like that Cross asshole. Can you believe he actually took a swing at my friend? Must've thought his money and other crap could protect him, right up to the point where his head got bitten off in one chomp.
Anyway, what Katherine said, don't do the wallowing in guilt thing. Our whole gang, we've basically screwed up just about every possible way, and all you can do about that is go on and try to be better next time. Best of luck, fella.
Adios,
Xander Harris
P.S.: The Yankees will take the 1937 Series from the Giants in four games to one. Put the money into beachfront property.
At that point, Jake was barely aware of anything else in the office while gaping at the letter held in his hand. He dazedly looked over at where two more photo booth pictures lay face-down on the desktop. Reaching out with his other hand, Jake flipped over the topmost picture.
In this image, a smiling Katherine was horsing around with a complete stranger, some young man in his mid to late twenties. What was really unusual about that cheerful-appearing guy was his leather eyepatch, something you didn't see every day.
Pushing that picture aside, Jake lifted over the last photograph…and he recoiled in his chair in abrupt terror. The letter from that Harris person fell from slack fingers, all while Jake beheld something out of purest nightmare from the lower depths of Hell itself.
An extremely hairy half-man half-wolf monster save for a snarling face, deepset eyes flashing fierce yellow, and a mouth full of fangs glared out from the photograph. Jake had never seen anything like it ever before.
In fact, it'd be another four years before Jake would run across a close imitation of that creature, but thankfully it'd be menacing humanity from nowhere else but the silver screen in Universal Pictures' latest horror movie release titled The Wolf Man.
Though…in that black-and-white movie, nobody acted like Katherine also in this photo booth picture, where she sat there smirking next to a real-life werewolf and surreptitiously put her right hand with the first two forefingers in a 'V' shape behind and just above the monster's head, all to give him bunny ears.
Jake just sat there for a minute or so. Then, this man from the classic detective noir film Chinatown yanked over the desk ashtray, rummaged in a pants pocket for his Zippo lighter, and performed the quickest ever act of pyromania in his life.