Sharing Afflictions

Ironic

I was at work Friday morning when I got the call from Ripley. Jean and Carmella had not shown up for work. Jean was not answering her phone and it was not showing up on our locator app. Kidnappings becoming a weekly occurrence might seem humorous if they were not so emotionally straining. It was as if I was caught up in a pulp fiction thriller whose unimaginative author could only come up with one plot device and so it keeps repeating. (At least that author didn't try something meta.) Or maybe I was in a time loop like Groundhog's Day only, I wasn't getting any better at it.

Ripley wanted to know if we should meet at Carmella's apartment.

"I need you to make a call for me first," I told Ripley.

"Do you want me to call Agent Lee?"

"Screw the FBI they are the ones who got Jean into this. We're going to handle this ourselves. I want you to call Roger. See what he can find out about the Vietnamese gang that kidnapped Jean the first time. I'll call Agent Lee just so he knows what we are up to."

"Roger might not want to give up his sources if we bring in the police."

"Then we won't bring in the police. Also, ask Roger if he can get me the number of a Percy Sullivan. I may have some strong arm work I'd like to hire him for. I'll meet you at Carmella's. Let's leave the girls out of it until we know more," I suggested. Ripley agreed.

I then called Agent Lee and told him what we thought had happened to Jean. He agreed to put out a BOLO on Jean and Carmella. At this point, there wasn't much else he could do. We really had no evidence of foul play and legally he couldn't even get a search warrant for Carmella's place. I had no such constraints to worry about. I did not fill him in on my plans.

I found Bill Fullerton and told him I needed the rest of the day off. Seeing as how my supervisor was dead, he had no problem with that. He was glad to delay having to figure out what to do with me.

I met Ripley at Carmella's apartment. He also had gotten the day off. We got the same cooperative superintendent who had helped us before. I returned his baseball bat and Taser and paid him for the gas cartridge we'd used. I asked him where I could purchase a Taser. He told me he had gotten his on line. We again explained the dire nature of our circumstance and he again let us into Carmella's apartment. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. Carmella may have taken some of her things and maybe some of Jean's, but it was hard to tell. We left and the superintendent locked it up again.

"What's our next move, Chuck?" Ripley asked.

"I'm not sure. Did you get a hold of Roger?"

"Yeah, he's getting on it right away. He seemed optimistic, about locating our Vietnamese friends. He also thinks Percy will be happy to get the extra work."

"I guess there is not much else we can do until we hear from Roger," I said resigning myself to waiting.

#

I went back to my apartment. Rogue was up and dressed. I filled her in on what was going on.

"We can't just sit around waiting. We have to do something," Rogue complained. "And why didn't you tell me about this as soon as you knew?"

"I didn't want to worry you until we knew for sure." We were both pacing randomly through the apartment as if we were looking for lost car keys. What we were looking for was our next move.

I stood in front of Rogue and took hold of her shoulders to stop our aimless movement and maybe focus her attention on something more productive. "Why don't we keep busy by analyzing the pictures I took at Simon's office, at least for now. Maybe we can find something in his calendar or address book. Anything that might give us a clue who they were working with or where they might have taken Jean."