MARRIOTT HOTEL,
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.
"Still not available," Doggett said as he put down the phone. They had been back at the hotel several hours now and he still hadn't been able to get hold of Woodrow Billings.
"Well, don't worry about it," said Reyes. "You can still report in tomorrow."
"Yeah, you're right. OK, I'm gonna turn in. See you in the morning, Monica."
After Doggett had returned to his own room, Reyes looked at her bed and sighed. There were times when you needed someone to share that bed with you and for her this was one of those times. As these thoughts ran through her mind, there was a knock on the door.
"John?" she said, thinking he must have forgotten something, heart surging at the thought it could be something else. She opened the door, and found herself looking down the barrel of a gun. It wasn't Doggett but a woman, one whose face she recognized immediately. It was the face she saw every time she looked in the mirror.
"Sit down," said the woman, closing the door behind her and pushing Reyes down onto a chair with her gun. "And no shouting for help or I will kill you." One look into the woman's eyes convinced Reyes she wasn't kidding. She quickly and efficiently tied Reyes to the chair, then stood back and gave her an appraising look.
"So I guess you're not really my long lost twin sister?" said Reyes.
The woman snorted in derision.
"You mean you haven't worked out who I am yet?" she said.
"Reiner's secretary, Sylvia."
"Well, obviously - that stunt of yours made me tip my hand there - but that's not what I meant," she said.
That's when the penny dropped for Reyes.
"It was you who shot Vincent Clay!" she said, seeing the woman holding the gun in her left hand, "You who framed Chuck Boudreaux for the killings!"
"Very good, Monica, but who am I really?"
There was something about just how the woman held her gun, her stance and her attitude, that Reyes knew she had seen before, and recently. Then she remembered. It was in a photograph Doggett had shown her.
"You're Kevin Clay!" she gasped in astonishment, knowing she was right, "But how, why...?"
"Very, very good, Monica," said the woman, giving a little mock applause, and as to the how and why, ah there's a story."
Clay settled down on the edge of the bed, a faraway look in her eyes as she recalled the events that had brought her to this point.
"In a way, I suppose it began with that guy who skipped town owing us fifty grand," she said. "This punk had been losing big time at cards but however much he lost he always made good on the debt. Except for the one time he didn't. Turned out he'd been playing with money embezzled from his employers, and they got wise to him. He skipped town with his little girl, vanished without trace for a while, too. But they always turn up again. We got word six months ago he was holed up in L.A. so I flew out to either get our money, with interest, or to whack him. So I get there, I do a lot of asking around, but he and his kid have skipped out on us again. Vinnie was not best pleased, and neither was I. Letting someone get away with it when they're into you for fifty large makes you look like a chump, and word gets round. So two months later, when we heard a rumor they could be in 'Frisco, I flew out to the West Coast again. That one turned out to be a false alarm. Someone had fingered the wrong guy. So the trip wouldn't be a total bust, I hung out for a few days. Some of my, ah, tastes are better catered to there than almost anywhere. Anyway, at one point I'm down by the harbor, idly browsing some trinket stalls, and I see this medallion on sale. I'm still not sure what made me buy it - the thing's fuckin' hideous - but buy it I did. Later, our 'Frisco friends sent this hooker to my hotel room. Not really my thing, as you might have guessed, but you can't show disrespect by spurning hospitality and you sure don't want them thinking you're anything less than a red-blooded male, so I boinked her. She was blonde, big tits, nice face, and still kinda fresh - she couldn't have been more than nineteen - so it coulda been worse. As she left, she stuffed her panties in my jacket pocket. A bit later, as I was getting ready to turn in for the night, I pulled them out of the pocket, along with the medallion, which I'd forgotten I'd dropped in there. I felt this tingling. You can guess what happened next."
Reyes nodded, her eyes studying Clay's face, which was currently her face. Knowing what the Medallion of Zulo could do was a totally different thing to seeing the effects up close.
"I started to change," said Clay, smiling at the memory. "My features softened, my hips began to broaden and my shoulders to narrow; breasts sprouted from my chest, and long, blonde hair from my head. It took maybe thirty minutes in all, but when the changes were finished I was a dead ringer for that teenage hooker. I still remember running my hands, those slender hands with the long nails, over my pretty face, fondling my beautiful breasts, and exploring my pussy for the first time. I couldn't believe it! It was like a dream come true!"
"'A dream come true?'" said Reyes. "So you always wanted to be a girl?"
"For as long as I can remember. I knew it was something I didn't ever dare breathe a word about, though. Not in my family, and not in the business we were in. I sometimes wonder if that's why I grew up as mean as I did. Violence was how we dealt with everything in my family. I had a lot of frustration and I was more than happy to take it out on the world. Since I've been a woman, that frustration's gone. Soon, very soon now, I'll be able to put all that anger and violence behind me for good.
Now, where was I? Oh yes... After several hours of enjoying my new body, I realized I'd have to change back, at least for a while. It was obvious it was touching both the medallion and the hooker's panties at the same time that had changed me, so I tried touching the medallion against my own clothes. Nothing happened. It could be the change was permanent, but I figured there might also be some sort of time delay involved, like maybe it had to recharge or something before it would work again. So I tried it again at half hour intervals throughout the night. Twelve hours after it first changed me, it changed me back. After that, I forgot all about the bum who ripped us off. This was much bigger. As I flew back to Baltimore, I was already planning how I was going to do away with Kevin Clay and start my new life as a woman.
Of course, by the time I got back the feds had launched a serious assault on our business. Both Vinnie and I got taken in for questioning a buncha times, and they either closed down or seriously hindered many of our operations. Still, from my point of view this wasn't a total bust. In the middle of all this I met my current partner. He's now David Reiner, as I'm sure you've already guessed. The Reiner Clinic had been the front for our baby-trafficking business - a surprisingly lucrative racket, that one - and now I had the medallion I soon saw how I could use it to get that operation up and running again and take out our rivals at the same time. The new Reiner, my David, was obsessed with you and he had a keepsake of yours, a green silk scarf you'd left behind at some point. So I used the medallion, showed him how it could turn me into a copy of you, and seduced him. When I explained my plan to him, how to use the medallion to take dangerous criminals out of circulation and make lots of money doing so, well let's just say he didn't take a lot of persuading. They didn't come quietly, of course, which is why I had to shoot a few, but hey they were gangsters, after all. Turned out David was just fine with that, too."
"So why kill your brother, and why frame Chuck Boudreaux for the murder?" asked Reyes.
"Ah, brothers!" said Clay, a steely glint in her eyes, "What a love-hate relationship that can be. Why did I kill Vinnie? For a lifetime's worth of reasons. He was always our father's favorite, the larger, more manly of the two of us, the crown prince, the heir to the throne. It was always taken for granted that I would be subordinate to him, always do his bidding. As for why now, well he found out the Reiner Clinic was back in the baby-trafficking business, without his knowledge or consent and without him getting his cut. David, my David, would have suffered and I couldn't have that. As for why I did him as Chuck Boudreaux, that was the for the same reason I hooked that mark in this hotel as you and tossed the doll down the laundry chute to put you on to the clinic. If I'm going to take your place for good, become David's ideal woman and his wife, I needed to lure you here both to remove you from the picture and to establish an 'on the record' first meeting with David so it doesn't look suspicious when I resign from the FBI soon to marry him."
"Ah yes,'David'", said Reyes. "Don't you mean Woodrow Billings?"
"What?" said Clay, looking puzzled. Then she burst out laughing.
"Oh, that's good," she said. "You really thought David was that asshole?"
"If not him, then who...?"
"David is Chuck Boudreaux."
"That can't be!" said Reyes, stunned, "It just can't be!"
"Oh, but it is," said Clay, "And now, though I've enjoyed our little chat, it's time for you to go."
So saying, she pressed a strip of duck tape over Reyes mouth then pulled the Medallion of Zulo out of her pocket. Taking care only to touch the chain, she dropped it over Reyes head. From her other pocket she took a transparent bag containing a plastic baby identity bracelet.
"Just the one for both you and your partner," she said, removing the bracelet from the plastic bag and touching it to the medallion. "You and he will shortly be twin little boys, baby brothers together. Won't that be nice? Your new mommy and daddy will be here soon to pick you up and to give me lots of lovely money."
Reyes felt a tingle as the bracelet touched the medallion, and could already feel the changes beginning. She watched in impotent fury as Clay carefully removed the medallion and replaced it and the bracelet in her pockets, smiling triumphantly.
"The change takes about half an hour to run its course," she said, "which gives me time to deal with Agent Doggett. You shouldn't worry, though. I'll be back in time to diaper you and give you your first bottle feed."
With that she slipped out of the room, leaving Reyes struggling with her bonds as the transformation progressed.