Revenant in Death
Chapter 07
by Technomad
Mame Burnside was hosting a large outdoor party in Central Park, in honor of one of her friends who was retiring from the political world. She was in her element, moving effortlessly through the crowd, talking with everybody, a martini in her hand. Not far away, her best pal, Vera Charles, was talking with event security. The Great Lawn had been fenced off, and event-crashers had to be kept at a distance, since some of them were quite unstable and tended to stalk celebrities. Many of the attendees were well-known in the world of stage, screen and music.
Beside Mame, Rayleen Straffo, in her cover identity of "Jane Mollenbeek," was assiduously recording everything. Mame was using the occasion to network with her wealthy friends, and she didn't want to forget any details, so her loyal assistant was making sure that all went on the record.
Behind her impassive, diligent façade, Rayleen was actually rather enjoying the occasion. The music was top-notch, the food was first-rate, the weather was wonderful, and she loved the feeling of the free air and sunshine on her skin. One thing she had never liked about her decades of confinement was that for much of it, she never saw the outdoors, and she had gone years without seeing the sun other than in videos.
That was yet another part of the score she intended to pay off against Eve Dallas. The snooping, nosing bitch had sent her to that place, fully intending to lock her away for the rest of her natural life. And if she'd been the sort of ordinary idiot that Dallas normally dealt with, that would be where she would still be.
She had met many fellow victims of her nemesis on the "IH8LTDallas" online forum, in the depths of the Web. Some of them she respected, as people who had been tripped up by the unforeseeable. But most of them, she looked down upon. To be sure, her own mistakes had landed her in the predicament she was then in, but she had only been ten years old. These were adults, and she expected better from adults. To judge from some of their postings, many of them may have been chronologically adult, but mentally, younger than she had been when she had fallen foul of Eve Dallas.
One in particular, who called himself "Reaper," was one of the most pathetic twerps she had ever run across, in meatspace or cyberspace. She had managed to find out who he was, and she couldn't believe how stupid he had been. He'd been a chronic loser who had snapped one day, killed his parents when they were making noises about kicking him out of their apartment because he wouldn't get a job and had been fired repeatedly, and then gone on a rampage of revenge against everybody who'd ever slighted him.
In "Reaper's" shoes, Rayleen would have been over the hills and far away after he had forced his former Comp Science teacher to transfer her unexpectedly-large fortune into accounts he had set up. Instead, the fool had stayed in Manhattan, plotting more revenge against people. Unobtrusively, Rayleen shook her head. Had he wanted to make it easy for Eve Dallas to catch him?
And forcing his ex-teacher to transfer money, as well as forcing her to set him up with a new ID? That was stupid! His former teacher had excellent reasons to want to see him caught, and unlike "Reaper," had real computer skills. She had embedded fraud codes in his false ID, and had left clues to his real identity. And shortly after he had foolishly used his new cards, Eve Dallas had been kicking down the door of the fancy new apartment he had bought. Right there in Manhattan, as though he hadn't wanted Lieutenant Dallas to go to too much trouble or travel too far.
Up on the stage, the first act of the afternoon was just warming up. For a second, Rayleen allowed herself to just enjoy the music, the warm sun, and the ambiance. She could forget the long years in prison, the burning hatred she bore for Lieutenant Eve Dallas, and the hideous revenges she had thought of to inflict on her nemesis, and just be a young woman out to enjoy a party.
Beside her, Mame was also clearly enjoying the music. Mame was one to suck the maximum enjoyment from whatever she was doing, whether entertaining a new lover or listening to music in Central Park on a beautiful day. She liked to say that "life is a banquet, but most poor sons-of-bitches are starving to death!" Agnes Gooch had rolled her eyes, the first time that Rayleen had heard her boss say that, and had muttered something to the effect that if that were so, Mame was the biggest glutton she had ever met.
Rayleen found herself sympathizing with her boss' point of view. For far too long, enjoyable experiences had been few and far between, and were to be savored all the more for their sheer rarity. Rayleen was herself by no means of an ascetic temperament, and did not think that she gained some sort of Heavenly brownie points by denying herself pleasures when they were there to be had. Not unless there was some good reason to do so, like not taking an extra helping of dessert to keep her figure slim and trim.
There were quite a few attractive men about, and if she hadn't been on duty, Rayleen might have considered seeing if any of them would be interested in her. Even with her new look, she knew that she was an attractive woman, and she was by no means averse to the attentions of men. Of course, there were also a good few attractive women in the vicinity, and her years in prison had ensured that she had no particular problems with going to bed with them. However, she and Agnes Gooch had started an affair, and while Agnes did not object to men, she did have a jealous streak where other women were concerned. And in her current situation, Rayleen did not want to get on Agnes' bad side.
"I'm glad to see you enjoying yourself, dear," Mame murmured. "It's quite a contrast to prison life, isn't it?" Rayleen nearly jumped out of her skin at that remark, before remembering that her doppelgänger's record, while officially sealed, was not inaccessible. And Mame had some good e-people working for her. Mame winked. "Don't worry, dear. What you did was minor, and you've paid. I believe that helping people who've made a mistake re-integrate into society makes it less likely that they'll re-offend."
"You're a good person, Mame," Rayleen muttered back. She smothered a grin at how she knew Mame would have reacted, had she known Rayleen's real record. A minor role in an illegals ring at the behest of one's boyfriend was one thing, but Rayleen knew that Mame would recoil at helping a serial killer. She had been surprised, during her years in prison, to find that she qualified as a serial killer, and one of the youngest on record, at that! Down deep, she had taken a good deal of pride in that designation. Serial killers were the élite among murderers, with some of them, like Jack the Ripper, becoming literally legendary.
Of course, they were also among the highest-priority targets the police had. Very few serial killers escaped eventual capture, and as far as Rayleen could determine, she was the only one who had escaped incarceration after exposure, conviction and sentence. She fully intended to stay free, and if staying free meant playing a role, she was well up to it.
All her life, she thought, she had played roles. For the first ten years, she had played the role of "sweet little girl," and had done it well enough to fool nearly everybody she met. Had she not got overconfident, and crossed swords with the accursed Lieutenant Dallas, that façade would have got her through to adulthood. But she had tripped up, and been caught.
Once incarcerated, she had set to work to perfect new masks to hide behind. At first, she had pretended to be utterly in shock, unable to believe what had happened to her, and that had not been entirely an act. Life in prison, even in protective custody as befit one of her age, was a huge contrast to her pampered, cosseted previous life. She had learned quickly to put on a "thousand-yard stare," but behind that, she had been observing, figuring out her new environment and how best to get along in it.
Gradually, she had let herself come out of her faux shock, seeming to adjust to prison life. Her captors had made sure that her education went on, and she had always been a star pupil, so she was soon earning more privileges than had been available to a brand-new prisoner. And she had been exposed, more and more, to other prisoners. While offenders of her age were rare, they were not unknown, and they were housed together to keep them safe from their elders, many of whom would happily take advantage of them if allowed to.
The other prisoners had been from different social strata, but they had all had one thing in common: they had all committed serious enough crimes to be thrown into the adult system long before they would normally have been liable to be. They had welcomed her into their society, and had shown her many things she hadn't known before, things that made prison life more bearable. Under their guidance, she had gradually, since doing so all at once would have sent up red flags, adopted the role of "repentant, rehabilitatable prisoner," and set out to gain herself the good opinions of her captors.
While she regarded the prison, and its rules, with utter contempt, she was careful to never show it in any way, since she knew that she was being monitored through most of the day. She had learned which areas were not monitored, and which guards were more slack than the others. She had become extremely observant, which served her well in many ways. Such as right then, in Central Park.
Out of one corner of her eye, Rayleen could see a bit of a stir in the crowd. At first, she thought it was just a minor spat, such as happened at big public gatherings when someone offended someone else, but she quickly saw that it was shaping up into a big brawl. The security forces saw it, too, and moved in to quell it. Then there was a loud bang.
The next thing Rayleen knew, her feet had been hooked out from under her. "Get down and stay down!" yelled Vera Charles, as she and Mame crouched side-by-side over her. Both women were hefting what looked to be police-issue lasers, and from the way they held them, they were very familiar with the weapon. Screams echoed through the park, as a large squad of masked men tore into the crowd, heading for the stage. They ran up onto the stage, grabbing the startled performers before anybody could stop them, and put them in restraints, shouting "Anybody tries to stop us getting away, and these people will get it!"
From the ground, Rayleen watched, in awe, as Mame Burnside and Vera Charles opened fire, blasting down several of the terrorists before they could react. The terrorists were clearly shocked, not least because they clearly hadn't been expecting to get resistance from a bunch of "sheltered rich people." Three of them went down before the others had the wit to get down low to make themselves smaller targets, and try to return fire. Off in the distance, police sirens were sounding as the NYPSD tore toward the park, but they did not sound close enough to get there in time.
"Cover me," snapped Mame. Vera nodded, keeping up a steady rate of fire as Mame moved off to the left. Rayleen watched as Mame slipped from one bit of cover to the next, as though she'd been a soldier all her life. Inside, she was filled with wonder. Who would have thought that a couple of New York society matrons could do something like this?
When Mame had got herself into position, she began to take shots. Every time she fired, a terrorist went down. After the first couple of shots, the terrorists figured out where she had to be, and began shooting back, but Mame was a devotee, apparently, of the "fire-and-manouvre" school, and had done this dance before. After firing, she would duck back down behind the cover she had spotted, and make a break for the next bit of cover while the terrorists fired on where she had been, always moving in closer.
Meanwhile, Vera Charles was waiting her chance. Once the enemy were focussing on Mame, she knelt down behind a picnic table, steadied her hands on the surface, and began methodically picking off terrorists. By the time the police came in and took over, only a few terrorists were left unscathed, and they looked, to Rayleen, like they were very glad to see the cops coming. In their boots, she'd have been glad, too. They clearly had not expected resistance, and finding it had thrown them off their plans.
As the terrorists were taken into custody, Mame strolled back to Vera, casually holstering her blaster in a side-pocket that Rayleen had not noticed. "Well, that's that," she said, as casually as though they did this every day. "Good thing I've still got my eye, isn't it?"
"You were a little off on a couple of those creeps, dear," Vera remarked, holstering her own blaster. "Maybe a little more time at the range would be in order."
Much to Rayleen's surprise, Mame didn't bristle, although she normally was always up for a friendly, or not-quite-so-friendly, bicker with her longtime best friend. "Maybe we both should put in more range time. Much as I hate to say it, we're neither of us getting any younger. God, would you look at those cops? They look like children to me!"
"Rather yummy children, though," Vera drawled, giving the cop who seemed to be in charge the eye. "I wouldn't mind taking that one off somewhere private and showing him a thing or two, would you, dear?" Both women nodded, staring at the policeman as though he were a piece of meat in a store that they were thinking about buying. Rayleen had to agree; the man was almost heartbreakingly handsome, and could have stepped off a police recruiting poster.
He came over. "Thank you both, ladies. Those swine really could have done some damage, and probably got away with hostages they could have held for ransom, if you hadn't kept them in play long enough for us to get here." His name badge read Detective Trueheart. Rayleen's memory stirred-had she met an Officer Trueheart, so long ago? She would have to be careful, just in case she had. While she'd changed her appearance, something she did or said might trigger a memory, if they'd met while Lieutenant Dallas was closing in on her.
Vera gave him a smoking look. "All in a day's work, Detective. We learned how to do this years ago."
"Well, we're glad you learned!" Detective Trueheart looked at both ladies, and what he saw seemed to make him somewhat uneasy. "You'll have to forgive me, but duty calls!" With that, he turned and headed back to the other police, who were busy cuffing-and-stuffing the last terrorists.
With the distraction gone, Mame and Vera remembered Rayleen. "Oh, my dear, did we frighten you? You poor thing! You didn't know about our background, did you?" From what looked, to Rayleen's inexperienced eyes, like a very experienced soldier, Mame had morphed back into the kindly employer she had known. The transformation was startling.
"She's too young to remember that time, and I envy her that," Vera drawled. "Maybe we should find someplace quiet where we can sit down and explain to your assistant just what happened." The three women headed over to a table that hadn't been disturbed. Vera and Mame's eyes lit up at the pitcher of martinis that was waiting there, as though it had been set out for them, and poured themselves one apiece. As befit her role of teetotaler, Rayleen contented herself with a tube of Pepsi.
"Well, dear," Mame started, "you apparently didn't know that Vera and I met up at first during the Urban Wars. We were in the same faction, and our superiors assigned us to the same squad, under Sergeant Valerie Vane. We called her "The Valkyrie." Mame laughed reminiscently. "She was a holy terror, but she took us and whipped us right into shape! By the time she was done, we were lean, mean fighting machines, and then she led us into combat!"
"We saw quite a bit of action together, Jane," Vera said, her eyes unfocussing as she called up old memories. "You're too young to remember the Urbans, but it was pretty hellish. We were in combat for weeks at a time, sometimes, before they could pull us out for a little R+R. That was when we started drinking." She gave Rayleen a shrewd look. "I know you don't really approve of how much we drink, dear, and I honestly don't blame you, but sometimes that's how we manage to stay sane and functional."
"That was a bad time, a very bad time," Mame murmured. "We saw more friends get killed than I ever want to remember, but I also never want to forget any of them. On Memorial Day, I always make sure to make it to the Urban Wars monument and leave flowers for all of them."
"In any case, we made it through, the last of all our platoon," Vera said. "Sergeant Valerie…I'd have bet long odds that she'd survive the fighting, but she got the way some people got who'd been in for too long. She took more and more chances, and a few weeks before the fighting was over, she showed herself in the wrong place for a little too long. Some dirty little sniper got her right behind the right ear." A tear ran down her face. "She's buried with the others, out in the Urban War plot in Long Island, and her name's on the monument."
"After the war, Vera and I stayed together. We went into theater together, and caught ourselves rich husbands. Vera kept on treading the boards, but my husband was against 'any wife of his' doing any such thing, so I had to retire." Mame swallowed another sip of her drink. "And now here we are, respectable New York society matrons. It's nobody else's business if we've kept up our skills, or if we carry auxiliary NYPSD badges, now is it?" She winked at Rayleen.
As she nodded agreement, Rayleen was reconsidering some plans she'd made. Neither her employer nor her employer's best friend would be the easy target she had imagined them to be at first, and since she had had no chance at all to learn how to use weapons, any direct attacks on them would be suicide. Far better, she thought, once she'd settle scores once and for all with Eve Dallas, to either quietly disappear, or to continue on as Mame's personal assistant. It would depend on whether there was any suspicion about Dallas' death or not.
