Ransom X

  Chapter 52 Fall Guy

  Legacy kicked a rolling chair and sent it scuttling into a “wall” which had been framed, but had no drywall to stop or slow any approaching object, such as a rolling chair. It was not the only thing in motion. The morning clouds passed quickly out to sea, the afternoon batted an eye a moment later and the sunlight angled through the shades of Tykes’ apartment. It was almost the next day.

  Legacy thought of the riders moving across the country, a steady march toward their unsuspecting target. They had practiced this six times already and their professionalism at taking someone was daunting. They could have her by now, he thought.

  Seventy glowing faces played on a loop; he hadn’t gotten rid of a single one in almost seven hours. Each was totally different in character, but all matched every single criterion that Legacy could squeeze into his head about Blue. He was getting a headache – without some kind of new criteria, there was no way to match her to Blue’s type. Legacy knew that he had all of the motives of Blue the criminal, but he was lacking some connection into Blue, the man who desires sex because he can’t have it.

  Legacy knew that mimicry could not replace experience any more than his imagination could blunt the real blade that was about to be put to some young girl’s throat. Useless random thoughts popped into his head.

  The beguiling beauty of Helen of Troy had created the first literary reference of a sex crime. Few people viewed her case the way he had, as an abduction and subjugation that led to dependence. Legacy had no problem rewriting literature to suit a more behavioral view of the subject. Anna Karenina was the story of a woman who went mad because of a lack of creativity, unable to think up more than one solution to her failed marriage, not because of a heated indiscretion. Legacy felt like Abelard, after his cutting recommitment to God, the tools to manufacture hysteria over sex had long since dwindled in him. Whenever Legacy could not manage to manufacture a certain way of thinking within himself, he looked to others who had done it for him in literature and the arts. It didn’t seem to be helping today, except that it increased the tempo of the pounding in his head. Maybe his mind was in countdown mode and it wanted the rest of his body to understand the urgency in the form of an aching throb.

  He walked into the kitchen where Tyke was almost swallowing the phone his mouth so close to the receiver. It had to be Kelly. A brief search of the cupboards produced a bottle of Advil sitting among aging condiment bottles and spices. Tyke put down the phone and a thunderbolt struck Legacy at the same time.

  Legacy knew where to get his missing criteria, the answer was staring him in the face.

  “You always want to have sex but you don’t right?”

  “That’s a nice way to talk to a friend.”

  “Right?”

  “Sums up my existence.”

  A glow welled up behind the corneas of Legacy’s eyes as he formed a question and it burst into a bright fireball at Tyke’s answer. “What is it about Kelly that tortures you, and what brings you bliss?”

  “It’s the same thing, dog.” Tyke let down some of his slang and a surprisingly raw young man’s voice spilled out “I never know what’s going to happen next.”

  Legacy thought back, it was exactly what Wagner had said about him. He should have seen this part of Blue’s attraction, his screening process the physical, and but it was all about the mental.

  “Mystery, and defiance.” Blue valued the emotional response to the pictures as much as he did the physical. He rushed back into the room with the screens. “Speed them up Tyke, do it now!” One new filter might get him down to a manageable number. Images flew by, the cycle played twice and he seemed to be lying in wait for a certain picture on the second run through. He walked up to the screens like a man possessed as it paused on a single image. “Is she famous?” He pointed to the beautiful image on the screen. The shadow of his finger brushed a fresh rosy cheek, devious eyes pushed out through the filtered light and color. The response time seemed like it was ages.

  Tyke nodded. “She is the next Britney.”

  ’Where is she, now?” Legacy barked, breaking into a run to the phone.