Chapter Seven-
The speakers of the old VW's radio buzzed an anonymous Classic Rock tune as Death waited outside the house of the prisoner Meg last talked to.
He hit the car horn, beeping for a few insistent seconds while he tapped his bony foot to Led Zeppelin.
"Hey, Meg!" he called out from the car. "C'mon! Get the lead out, will ya? You wanna me to take ya home or not?"
It was quiet in the bedroom. The clock ticked away and the woman softly snored, contentedly, under the rumpled sheets.
Beside her, sitting up and quiet, also, was Meg. Her reddish toque was on the floor, her glasses were askew, and her hair was a tousled mess. She breathed evenly as she stared ahead in guilty shock of what transpired hours earlier.
She wondered if that was what it would have been like had she allowed Sarah, a lesbian classmate of hers, to have sex with her. Well, Sarah or no, she slept, with great reluctance, with the prisoner, even if technically sleep hadn't occurred then.
While Meg chanted the mantra in her head that she "wasn't a lesbian" and that she "did it for Jennifer", the woman stirred slowly in bed and turned around to face Meg. The girl just continued to stare ahead uncomfortably.
Her discomfort, however, jumped another three notches when Meg felt the woman wrap her arm around hers and give it an affectionate squeeze.
"Mmmm, morning, baby," the woman said sleepily as she pulled herself closer to Meg and snuggled against her. "Would you like to have breakfast in bed, or do you just want to cuddle?"
For an incredulous reply, Meg simply muttered a stunned, "Huh?"
Death turned off his car radio and was about to get out of the car to knock on the door, when the door finally opened slowly.
Meg left the house, staring out as blankly as a zombie, and Death thought that her clothes looked a little loose on her for some reason, as she stumbled guiltily into the morning light.
As she shambled mutely in front of the car, this time to get in the back seat, Death asked, "What happened? How come you took so long to call? I thought you were getting some info on that Ragg guy."
"Can we just go, please," Meg asked in weary shame.
The stricken look on her face made it clear to him not to press the issue.
"Okay. Okay, just wondering, that's all," Death said as he put the VW in gear.
As the car began to pull out of the curb, Death noticed movement in the doorway of the house. The woman, wearing nothing more than a sleeping robe, a monitor anklet, and a smile, stood in the threshold, sporting a glow that rivaled the sunrise.
As a force of habit, Meg self-consciously glanced her way and saw that this time she actually displayed a numbered button on her clothes. When Meg saw that the number was 69, she quickly hid her face.
Number 69 waved at Meg and smiled coyly. Then she brought up a hand and mimed a telephone receiver while mouthing the words, "Call me." Then she slinked sexily back into the house.
A few moments into the silent drive, Death couldn't figure out the scene that played out in the woman's doorway. Why did she wave at Meg in a robe? Why were Meg's clothes so disheveled? And why did Meg stay all night in her house just to get some information she could have easily gotten much sooner?
The answer that came from his watching Meg squirm from his rearview mirror was both humorously and deliciously ribald.
"Oh, I get it," he said amusedly. "You were just handling the situation, huh?"
The look Meg gave back to him through the rear view was satisfyingly morose. "What? Nothing happened!" she lied brusquely.
"Pumping her for info, were we?"
"Ugh! Will you just shut up and drive? Look, she wouldn't give me anything unless I did something for her, okay?" she finally confessed.
"Hey, I understand," he said. "You girls have to stick together."
Meg ignored the off-color jibe and sighed despondently. "I don't want to talk about it. I just want to go home and forget about the whole night."
"Well, don't you worry, Meg," Death consoled her. "Your secret's safe with me."
"Thank you."
Death turned a corner and drove off into the morning, humming to himself as Meg sat still and fretted.
"The fundamental things apply," he sung to himself, then loud enough for Meg to hear. "As time goes…bi."
"Will you shut up?" she yelled as she grew a little redder and sank a little deeper in her seat.
The building that housed the offices of the Ragg Publishing Company was an architectural beacon of commerce. A tall, imposing tower of aged brick and concrete, it was created in the 1920's to illustrate to the unwashed and soon-to-be unemployed masses of the 1930's that Corporate America would and could get by just fine without the presence of those who worked for it, if not those who ran it.
Nowadays, the building had gotten with the times. The façade had sported more glass now, and satellite dishes crowned its distant roof. Its surroundings also had changed. Gone were the cigar shops, bars and haberdasheries that stood across the street and catered to the affluent clientele who worked in the building. Today, the lobby windows reflected the rich foliage of a park that the employees would eat and relax in.
Inside, the interior was in stark contrast to the building's surviving ivy and old money exterior. Here, the décor was blasted into the late Twentieth Century with an explosion of green Italian marble, strategically placed plants, feng shui planning, and computerized directory assistance.
Meg only marginally noticed any of that as she followed the executive assigned to give her the ten-cent tour of the offices that ran the operations of Pro-Teen Magazine.
She was thinking more about what Number 69 had told her concerning Mr. Ragg, when she wasn't trying to think about what she did to acquire that knowledge.
Ragg, she reasoned, could be a serious threat to her if she didn't play everything close to the breast. And what about his silent partner in crime? What could she possibly hope to do against the Lord of Darkness himself? How could she, a neophyte lawyer, hope to best the very king of them?
Meg put it out of her mind for the time being. Better to focus on other things. So she focused on the exec that lead her from the editors' offices and down a corridor to a small chamber that was dominated by a central security kiosk, a door on either side of the room, and an elevator.
The exec had been talking to Meg in a very strange, halting manner on their way there, like he was trying desperately not to cough. Coupled with the way the man briskly walked, as though he were trying to crush a walnut between his gluteus muscles, Meg realized right off the bat that the man needed to go to the bathroom urgently.
"Okay, Meg," he struggled as they reached the kiosk and he began fidgeting in place. "All letters…are emailed to the company, which screens them…prior to sending them off to you. You get ten a…month, sent to your home via your computer's email account. You…answer them; we screen and post them in the next month's issue. Do you understand? Please say yes!"
"Yes, I understand," Meg said, wondering why the man just didn't relieve himself first, and then continue with the tour.
"Thank you!"he gasped as he bolted to one of the doors to the side marked, "Men's.""
Meg leaned against the side of the curved kiosk to wait, sparing a glance at the old security guard inside that sat placidly under the stylish fluorescent lights.
"Did you know I once married cream cheese?" he said to her out of the blue.
"What?" Meg asked, startled.
"Huh?"
Meg sighed at the obviously senile man. "Whatever."
The guard must have liked the company, because he leaned over to Meg, attempting to check her out with his good, non-glaucoma eye.
"So, you're the new girl working here, eh?"
"Yeah, I guess so," she said. "It's my first time here."
The guard smiled happily, a wistful expression growing on his lined face. "Yeah, I remember my first time back in '32. English girl. She used to call the Nazis, "Jerries."" He then paused and said in a sad non-sequitor, "I miss Jerry Lewis."
Meg started to wonder how she become a magnet for crazies of late. "Uh-huh," she said flatly.
"Anyway, don't forget to take a look at the old haunted spotlight when ya get a chance, little missy," the guard told her without missing a beat. "A prime attraction around here, y'know."
"What spotlight?" Meg asked, a little intrigued.
The old guard pointed at the ceiling by way of illustration. "The old spotlight on the roof of the building. Old man Ragg put it up there in '48."
"To help planes navigate when they fly over the city?" she asked.
"Naw. To keep the aliens from landing on the building. Ragg hated those aliens. I do, too. Always up to no good with their Universal Brotherhood and all."
Meg gave the old man a deeply condescending look after that. She started to learn that if she were going to listen to anything he was going to say, for lack of anything better to do, she would have to take it with a ton of salt.
"Okay...So it's a haunted spotlight, you say?" she said. "How come?"
The guard pursed his dry lips together and thought. "Well, around '55 or '56, lightning struck that old spotlight. Electricians come and go, but they never could get that blasted thing fixed, so they disconnected it from the building's power. But nowadays, people leaving to go home sometimes look up and see a kind of glow coming from the roof."
"Have you seen it?"
"Yes, ma'am, I've seen it." he said, straightening his posture and then looking wistfully away. "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion…"
There was a most awkward silence following that, but before Meg could respond to it, the Men's bathroom door opened and a much-relieved executive strolled out to greet her.
"Whew! Sorry to keep you waiting like that. Drink a 2 liter bottle of Sprite by yourself and you live to regret it," he said as he pressed the up button for the elevator. "Anyway, moving on…"
Meg stepped in after the man entered the car, and then the door closed on the guard and his station.
As the car ascended, the guard sat still for a moment or two while the ambient sounds of business continued to float around him. Then without preamble, he lifted his hoary head and yelled to no one in particular, "Wake up, Maggie! I think I've got something to say to you!"
Despite how nice the CEO's office was, Meg reminded herself, he was still the enemy.
The tour ended with her sitting in a plush, leather chair in front of Mr. Ragg's aircraft carrier-sized Mahogany desk while she innocently looked around at the various odds and ends that made up the office life of Z.P. Ragg.
Two rapiers hung on the far wall, crossed in display. Small shelves of dark wood held trophies and business plaques, but some also showed off figurines and object d'art. Art Deco light fixtures shared space with degrees and diplomas from business universities and college.
Closer to Ragg were the objects that he placed on his desk and on the low shelving behind him. Things like pictures of relatives and friends in photo cubes and metallic frames, Sharper Image Catalogue stationary, and his flat-screen computer monitor.
There were hanging folders on racks, and in and outbox trays here and there, and the whole of the office, which was immense, was framed with a brace of windows that almost surrounded the room and gave Meg a vista of Downtown Quahog she had never seen before.
But she couldn't find what she was dead-set on looking for, the Mortality Report, whatever it looked like, and the Soulflame. In fact, she was probably risking getting fired by closing her mind off to Ragg's own two-cent speech on how happy he was that she was working here, and how thrilled she would be doing this assignment.
"Meg?"
"Hmm?"
"I'm not boring you, I hope."
"Huh?" Meg said as she recovered from her thoughts and focused on him once again. "Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Ragg. I had my head in the clouds for a minute."
"That's okay," he said. "I was asking if you had any questions that you wanted to ask me."
Honestly, Meg didn't really. The exec who gave her the tour had already given her the nuts and bolts on what her job would entail. But she quickly came up with a way to use this Q&A to her information gathering advantage.
Giving the man her best coy look, Meg asked Ragg, "Well, I seemed to have everything I need job-wise, but I just love the knick-knacks in your office. Where did you get them?"
Ragg straightened proudly. "You like them, do you?"
"Oh, yeah. See, I'm planning on being an art major and study sculpture when I go to college, and I just think your taste in art so cool."
Ragg chuckled self-consciously, "Well, thank you, Meg. Well, to answer your question, I gathered them from all over the world, really. Had a friend come by sometimes to give me some trinkets from here and there."
Meg felt a pang of remorse for the slain Number 69 just then. He didn't seem the least bit upset in the disposing of her when her services were concluded. She reminded herself not to think too unkindly of her when this was over.
Meg put on her best phony smile. It was time to put the pressure on, so to speak. "Really? That's so cool, Mr. Ragg. Tell me, did your friend ever get any stuff from Egypt or the Middle East? They say you can get the coolest stuff from there."
When Ragg didn't catch on to her questioning, Meg cheered inwardly. He said breezily, "I agree. There's something I find…spiritual…in art like that. Actually, I do have more pieces from that part of the world in a private collection at home."
'Yes,' she thought gleefully.
"Really?" Meg poured it on as she scratched her head in a semblance of nervousness. "I know it sounds like a lot to ask, Mr. Ragg, but I was kinda wondering if I could ever get a chance to check out your collection sometime? I mean, I know that you're really busy, so, y'know, it doesn't have to be now, or anything."
Ragg looked at Meg as though it was his first time. He had had his reservations about her at first, but with this revelation, he began to consider that maybe he might have been wrong about her.
He thought for a second and then told her, "Well, you're right. I will be pretty busy for a few days, but I'd still love to show my art. Tell you what, Meg. I'll set something up this weekend. A private tour of my whole collection. How's that sound?"
Inwardly, Meg was troubled. Time was of the essence and she couldn't possibly wait until the weekend to see if it was there or not. Chances were that it probably was at his home. Taking a page from the illustrious Number 2, she was going to have to get to it very soon. By hook or by crook.
Outwardly, Meg smiled as she accepted the offer graciously.
"That would be great, Mr. Ragg,"
It was well after sundown when the limo pulled out of the executive parking lot. It eased into the somewhat tame downtown traffic, never noticing the parked red station wagon that waited a short distance down the street.
Meg merged smoothly into the limo's lane and cruised sedately, about four car lengths behind. She'd come up with an excuse for not coming home at a decent hour later, but right now, any chance to learn where Ragg lived rested on her successful tailing of him this early evening.
She turned on the radio to ease her nerves. She had never done this before and the thrill had clearly caught her. Luckily, it wasn't too hard to follow quite possibly the only limousine on the streets tonight, so she kept her safe distance with no trouble.
Meg thought about what she'd have to do were she able to get a chance to get inside the house. The temptation to back out was understandable, if not logical. She ran afoul of the law far too often for her liking, and she didn't need a B and E charge for her troubles.
She reasoned that when the opportunity presented itself, she would slip in, hopefully, through an unlocked window, or maybe she could wait outside for Ragg, his chauffeur, or maybe another servant, to open the door and exit the house, where upon she could, again, slip in, this time to hide in a closet or basement until they all fell asleep. Then she'd prowl the interior.
As the limo flew across the expressway, it followed the silvery ribbon of streetlights that lead it out of the city proper and into the distant and moneyed suburbs. Meg stayed dutifully with it and kept her mind occupied with scenarios on how to break into a mansion that, quite frankly, probably had state-of-the-art security even in its mailbox.
In truth, she knew that there was probably no way to get in without being discovered, but she resigned herself to the knowledge that whatever obstacle impeded her, she would have to find a way around it. In the long run, with what she knew, she didn't have much choice.
Meg noticed that the setting was different when they exited the expressway. Tree-line boulevards were becoming the norm here, and specialty shops and mini-malls that served the local populace dotted the scenery.
She trailed her target to a dark path that turned away from the wider street they cruised. A worry hit her just then. What if the driver of the limo had been occasionally seeing her from his rear view mirror? The traffic in this part of town was very light, and if he bothered to notice her since downtown, her cover was as good as blown.
Hoping that there was nothing in front of her but empty space and her quarry, and throwing everything she knew about driver safety out the window, Meg turned off her headlights, dropped her speed to widen the distance more, and focused intently on the rear lights of the limousine up ahead on the dark, curving road.
After about twenty minutes of driving through quieter private roads and small residential streets, Meg could see the limo's rear turn signal flash in the direction of a smooth, paved driveway. She pulled over to the side of the road that offered her the most concealment in the darkness, and cut her engine.
She got out of the car and walked ahead of it. When she reached the front of the car, she turned to see a veritable menagerie of road kill stuck to the grill.
Meg reached down and gingerly pulled free a rabbit, a cat, a duck, and, impossibly, a Face Hugger and a horse. Once done with the grisly chore, she quietly ran up the road to where the black car entered and hid near a large shrub that bordered the property from the wilder flora outside.
Meg could see the limo parked on the curving driveway in front of a huge, well-lit mansion overlooking a green sea of manicured lawn. Up ahead was a decorative mailbox with a sloping series of filigreed numbers on its side.
Meg reached behind her and produced a pad and pencil, jotting down the house number and, after remembering what the name of this particular road was, the rest of the address. Soon afterwards, she snuck back to the car, quietly pulled out of the dark of the road, made a u-turn, and drove discreetly away.
On the way home, Meg smiled in dark triumph at her cleverness. She had an address and she had something of a game plan. But she couldn't execute that game plan just yet, because, as she looked at the car radio's clock, Meg realized that, come the next day, she finally had to go to court.