Chapter #73New Boss, Much Worse Than the Old by: Seuzz   You've just gotten yourself into a comfortable position, playing the role of Lucy Vredenburg, and feel rather disinclined to give it up for a return to England. You are also intrigued by the idea of exploring "magic" a little more in depth. So you tell Professor Hyde-White that you would like to stay.
"Very well," he says. "You will have to do some preparatory work on your end, of course, so that our associate can slip into the life of Professor Blackwell. But after your great recent successes, that should be very easy for you. I will telephone Mr. Kim now, informing him of what he must do on his end. I wish you luck." He hangs up.
There seems nothing else for you to think about, and you go to cheerleading practice, and relax.
* * * * *
Eric calls you around dinnertime. He sounds mournful. "Aw, dude, we were having so much fun," he sighs. "I guess it had to end."
"Are you leaving town," you ask.
"No, and I guess we'll see each other around. But this new guy Fane's sending out, he's gonna be your new boss. He'll be here tomorrow. Can you leave Cindy with me for another night?"
"As far as I'm concerned you can keep her until the new boss says otherwise," you say. That cheers him up. But you are also a little disconcerted to learn that the new arrangement will change your working relations with Eric.
* * * * *
The new guy touches down at seven the next evening, at the private airfield, in a Fane jet. You were expecting someone older and urbane, like Hyde-White. He's quite the opposite. "Oi, you Presc'tt?" he asks as he slides into Eric's front seat. "Oi'm Bob. We gunniv s'm fun." He grins, and you draw your sweater more tightly about your shoulders. "Yeah, lo'ah fun."
You don't like the idea of "fun" coming from a guy half of whose skull is shaved, and whose long black hair--clearly dyed to be even blacker--drapes over the other half of his head. He's ghastly white in color, with an obvious five o'clock shadow that further disfigures a pock-marked countenance. He's puffy, and you have the strong impression that he likes to drink. You can't see his eyes, for he wears oversize sunglasses. There's a big earring stuck in one ear, and he wears leather clothes.
"Did Professor Hyde-White tell you how we'd be working together?" You try to keep Lucy's distaste out of your voice.
"'E said 'oo go' 'ese magic masks. 'As brilliant. So 'oo'm Oi go'na be? Go' a gull f'r me?"
"He's a professor at the local college. He's middle-aged, very fat, and bald."
Bob laughs nastily. "Lurvly. Respec'ability. Be ible t'old moi 'ed up nes'toim Oi see Jamie. 'Ow 'e doin' th' switch? Jamie tells me you're th'exp'rt."
You brief him. In your guise as Lucy you had gone up to see Blackwell's golem at his office, pretending to be his other golem and bringing word that the professor wished them both to meet him at King Kong Komics. The fake professor had evinced a certain amount of skepticism, but agreed to follow you. Once there, you and Eric had gotten him in the back room and overpowered him so you could get the mask off the golem. Meanwhile, "Will Prescott" (still hiding the real professor) had joined you. He is waiting in the back room still, thumbing through a stack of comic books Eric had given him.
Bob laughs when he sees Will. "An' oo's 'is?"
"That's me. When I'm not looking like this." You indicate Lucy's much more attractive figure.
"Cute, both iv'ya. So--"
"So I'm going to take Will's face off him," you explain, "and put it on that lump of mud over there--"
"'At's a golem?"
"You know the term?"
"We bin thumbin' thro' the Libra. Oi know th' spells, f'rst se'en o' 'em anywiy."
"So we'll put my face on the golem. And this is for you." You hand him Blackwell's mask. "We've got two of them, but this one has his most recent memories."
"An' 'ow're we 'handlin' the p'fesser?"
"We're using this one." You hold up one of masks Eric had taken from the Westside loft. "Someone named Emily Shaffer."
"It go' summa 'at golem stuff innit?"
"Not yet. We were waiting for you to get here, so you could check over our plan." You're glad you did, for you have the impression that Bob will be a much more demanding boss than Eric. From the way he holds himself, you wonder if he might hit you when you mess up.
"Roight. We'll pu' s'm in, but we'll use moi 'air. Keep 'im quiet, like 'em boys."
"Frank and Joe?"
"Yeah." He shivers. "Gla' we go' 'em locked up toight. Le's do 'is."
It all goes off quickly and you're able to send your reconstituted double home almost immediately. Blackwell--the real man--is a bit more of a challenge, for you'd had no good clothes on hand for the mask you put on him. Emily Shaffer, it turns out, was the Westside school nurse: a very matronly fifty-year-old. (You've no idea what Patterson was thinking when he copied her, and are pretty sure you don't want to know.) Bob orders Eric to take her to the airfield for the trip back to England. As Bob readies his own transformation, you wait in the outer shop. You've no desire to see him naked; still less to see the professor naked.
* * * * *
You wait almost thirty minutes--time enough for Eric to drop off Nurse Shaffer and get back--before tapping on the door to the interrogation room and looking inside. Blackwell--Bob, of course--is on his feet, but he's fumbling with his clothes. "Uh, having trouble there, Professor?" you ask.
"Uh, just a spot," he says vaguely. "I know how to put these on, but fuck if I can concentrate with all these--" He frowns and glances about.
He must be disoriented from Blackwell's mind. "Just relax and let the mask do the work," you tell him. "It'll come." You're relieved that Bob's accent has at least disappeared.
"Will it? Better. I'm having a hell of a time concentrating."
You leave him to battle it out on his own; fifteen minutes later you go back to find him again. He's slumped against the wall, looking distracted and irritable. "Something I'm forgetting," he says. "Something really important."
"I can drop you off if you don't feel like driving."
He thinks a moment. "No, I can drive myself." He wobbles as he tries to follow you out. "Hard to walk in this fat suit."
His troubles with the mask worry you enough that you suggest he bed down for the night at Eric's. Eric shoots you a dirty glance.
* * * * *
"Ah, Miss Vredenburg," Professor Blackwell says the next morning when you look into his office. It's a spacious thing on the second floor of the Anthropology building; it occupies a corner, so there are two windows looking out over the busy quad, and there's even a little sitting area with a low couch and coffee table. After shutting the door you sit in the chair opposite his desk.
"How are you feeling today, Professor," you ask. You cross your legs--tightly bound in white hose--and pull your skirt over your knee as his eye goes to them.
"Much better. But it takes a lot of concentration to stay in character."
"Does it? I have to concentrate to stay out." Probably you shouldn't dimple at him, but you can't help it.
"Hmm. Jamie said something about you having a 'native talent' for these things." He blinks. "I might have to start drinking to cover up any lapses."
"Well, it's just the two of us now, so you can relax a little. Professor Hyde-White said I'd be studying with you," you prompt.
"You will, Prescott," he says. "Not the girl."
"But if I'm playing her--"
"You're gonna have to change places, get a much younger face."
The statement baffles, even angers you. One of the reasons you chose to stay in Saratoga Falls was so that you could continue to play Lucy. "Why?"
"Don't argue. You can have your pick. But it's gotta be a young 'un. No more than--" He mulls a bit. "Thirteen."
You stare, and his gaze darkens as he stares back. But you've got some tricks you can play to weasel out more information. "If I'm going to pick a new face, I have to know how I'm going to use it. That way I can pick the right one."
Your boss grumbles and sighs. "We're playing a long-term game here. Certain pieces have to be put into position. The payoff might be years away, and we want to be sure those pieces are still here in Saratoga Falls if and when it comes time to collect our payoff. That's why your new face has to be young."
"Am I going to be in Saratoga Falls for five years?"
"No. Maybe not even one. Maybe no more than a few weeks. But I laid it out on the plane trip out here, and university students won't work for us."
"Can they be freshmen?"
"What's that? I don't understand your system over here."
Jesus, he doesn't understand that even inside Blackwell's mask? "Kids in the ninth grade," you explain, but Blackwell still looks blank. "They'd graduate for college in three and a half years."
"No, got to be at least a year younger than that. You know any you can use?"
You try to keep a poker face. You know only one middle-school student: your own brother, Robert.
"Because if you don't," he continues, "I'd have to pick one out for you."
Robert doesn't have to be your victim, you reflect. You could just use him temporarily to get to one of his friends.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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