That was four days ago. As he recalled that day, Jack shuddered. Arthur had a saying that he sometimes used, one of his homespun homilies that made Jack's right eyelid twitch, "Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you." Well, that day the bear had not only gotten him, but had eaten him and crapped him out. He reached down and scratched a hot spot absently. A sound of hands clapping two or three times, accompanied by a high pitched feminine squeal, caught his attention. He got up and went to his doorway and looked beyond, into Serena's cubicle. Serena was at her computer and was busily doing something with it. This was very interesting to Jack, who had never actually seen her use her computer. She always had it on, but the only thing Jack had ever seen on the screen was the Marquee screen saver which proclaimed, "HI! I'M SERENA'S COMPUTER. I KNOW THE SECRET PASSWORD AND YOU DON'T! SO THERE!" Jack actually did know the password (it was "password") and had told Serena long ago she should change it. "You can change the password?" she had responded incredulously. Jack had just shaken his head. Serena could be eaten alive by wild dogs and she wouldn't notice. He hoped that she didn't have anything sensitive stored in her computer, but he seriously doubted it. She only seemed to keep it on so that she could sit and watch the screen saver.
Another squeal, followed by "Hooray! Six down, one to go!!" delivered in a jubilant voice. What was she doing? Jack watched for a minute, from his doorway. She was paying absolutely no attention to her surroundings. Jack quietly sidled around the perimeter of the room until he was just behind her and could see her computer screen. It was a computer game. Serena did not notice him. She was totally engrossed. Jack studied the screen intently.
The graphics were excellent and very clear. The setting appeared to be a torchlit dungeon. In the foreground was a sort of table, similar to an operating table but bigger. A naked man was lying on his back, spreadeagled, arms and legs chained to the four corners. Astride his midsection was a woman, equally naked, her large, slightly inhuman breasts bobbling but pointing generally upward, in defiance of gravity and the laws of physics, riding him for all she was worth. Her hair was black and fell not quite to her shoulders, was worn in a an old-fashioned cut, with an incongruous white ribbon. The woman had a lot to say, but the vocabulary was almost entirely restricted to porno movie-ese. The man, for his part, just gasped and moaned and generally appeared to be in extremis. His face was bluish and getting bluer. In the background was a cell, separated from the foreground by forbidding looking bars. A sign on the wall next to the door said, "You Need A Blue Dildo-Key To Open This Door." Inside the cell, chained to the wall, was another man, also naked, squirming in a futile attempt to escape. In the upper left were seven little cookie-cutter man figures. Five were black, with big red X's across them. The sixth was dark grey, with a red number superimposed on him which was rapidly counting down. The seventh was white. Jack guessed these last two figures represented the man on the table who appeared to rapidly expiring and the still unharmed man in the cell beyond. Just below this was Serena's score. It seemed to be very high.
Jack stood watching in disbelief for a couple of minutes and then cleared his throat. No reaction. After a couple of seconds, he cleared his throat again, more loudly. Serena turned her head slightly, her eyes not leaving the screen. She was grinning, wolfishly. "Hi, Jack!" she said in a gleeful voice, "Say, have you tried this Snow White game? It's kinda neat."
Jack shuddered again. He'd sooner pucker up and smooch Arthur's big white butt. He simply had to get her out of there for awhile, so that he could have some peace and quiet. "I have an assignment for you," he said, "I need you to canvass Wee Willie's apartment building. Maybe you'll find someone there who heard something or saw something that we could use to protect our case." Jack had no intention of calling any witnesses from that building. He was sending Serena on a good, old fashioned snipe hunt. This would keep her out of the office for maybe as much as two days, if he was lucky. "We need this to counter any alternate theories of the crime that the defense may come up with," he said. Jack figured that Serena had forgotten the motion hearing four days ago where the defense had said that Wee Willie had done it, but was suffering from a mental defect due to uncontrollable rage. Or maybe Serena had not known that there was a motion hearing to begin with. Jack had figured right.
"Sure, Jack. Just give me a second here," she said, as she carefully saved her game, "Gotta good score; don't want to lose it." She shut down her computer with a contented sigh.
Serena left about ten minutes later. Jack sighed in relief. Two days of quiet time, a rare commodity with Serena. He settled in to work. The rest of his afternoon stretched out before him like a bleak desert panorama. The maddening itch was getting worse. He thought he might knock off a little early and swing by that pharmacy sooner rather than later. Arthur had also said something about leaving early, to attend a Sons of the Confederacy meeting. Jack wondered just where in the five boroughs there could possible be a chapter of such an organization, and did they wear uniforms? Jack shook his head. He returned to Wee Willie's file and began writing notes. Relief was still hours away.