Gentle Readers: I would like to thank the dozen cyberentities who sent me
feedback. You know who you are. : ) And for the first time in my literary
career, I wish to present a group Blow Job of the Week Award (the "Blouie")
to the "Gang of Twelve."

I hope to hear from more of you, as we have a long, long away to go. It's
only fair to confess what you are reading tonight is the last of the
"ready-for-the-world" scenes. New scenes will be posted as fast as I can
write, rewrite, get beta feedback, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite and finally
let the so-called "pretty much final" scene out of my grasping, cold, and
most certainly dead fingers. I'm going to need all the encouragement I can
get. Keep the feedback coming.

I am also looking for more beta readers. Please e-mail me if you are interested.
lisby@earthlink.net

X

4:45 P.M., J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington, D. C.
Office of Neil Preftakes, Manager of Psychiatric Services.

Papers. Couldn't shit in the men's room without filling out a form of a
hundred questions--aggravating, boring, redundant, never hard. Until now.
This one was hard.
'DOB: May 27, 1928
Recruitment date: June 20, 1952
Normal retirement date: May 27, 1995
Requested retirement date: '
The poised pen shook a little as he looked toward his desk calendar--to the
square that was the day. December 4, 1995. When he was a little boy, the
1990s seemed as far away as Never, Never Land.
A melancholy ache spread in Preftakes's gut. Soon it would be time to go,
to leave the Bureau and double dip and pretend he'd never heard their
words. Lock away everyone's sins like a priest. Some sins so small--and
others....All he had to do was pick a square.
"Dr. Preftakes? Do you have a moment?"
Moss-green eyes, youthful within wrinkled surrounds, lifted and blinked at
the unexpected voice. "Yes. Can I help you?"
A small woman in the doorway dressed in rumpled tan. She had bright, bright
hair--drooping and disheveled; eyes tired and smudged with old eyeliner.
Preftakes had a good memory for faces, especially those haloed by warm
copper. Yes, he'd noticed this woman--this agent--before, but not like
this. Not run ragged. She'd been looking smooth, professional, arms
embracing files, ID dangling from her lapel. Oh, that was it. He remembered
now. From Skinner's wing. One of his people.
He watched her take a stance before his desk. She was limbo-lost with chin
tipped downward--body stiff but hands held in an attitude akin to prayer.
"Oh, are you my five-fifteen?" Preftakes glanced at a manila folder poking
out beneath the forms. "You're early--" scanned the labeled tab, "--Agent
Moseley. I haven't finished looking at your records."
"That's--no...." She pulled in a long, straightening breath, leaned out
over the desktop, open palm extended. "I'm Special Dana Agent Scully. I
don't have an appointment. Your receptionist told me I could step back here
to see if you could talk."
Preftakes' grip engulfed a cold little hand. "I've seen you in the
building," he said. "Your hair attracts the eye--but you've never needed us
before. Well-adjusted, are you?"
The small woman smiled like the dusk. Thrilling. "Pretty much, sir."
He waved his hand at a red wingback. Rows of brass studs gleamed where
upholstery met wood. "Please, sit down."
"Thanks." Another short-lived smile and beautiful eyes and quiet on the
carpet as she backed the few steps to the chair that faced the desk. She
lowered herself, then sprung up part way with fingers dug into the
wingback's arms, her profile sublime as she glanced down over her shoulder.
"Uh-oh. I think I killed something."
"It's the Kleenex." Preftakes grin was wide as he accepted the flattened
box, tossed it onto a cluttered book shelf behind him. "I just had a
weeper. So, what's troubling you, Agent Scully?"
He watched her hands migrate to her knees, gripping the rounded bones under
trousers, and she took another full breath. "Well, sir, I need your
assistance."
"That's what I've been doing for thirty-five years." The big pads of
Preftakes' fingers picked off wire-rimmed glasses and tossed them on top of
the paper stack, and the soles of loafers held on the non-skid runner as he
pushed back in his seat. "That's what the whole division is here for--to
assist. FBI's a hell of a career and sometimes it just gets overwhelming,
doesn't it? Sometimes, you just need to talk to someone who will listen,
right?" Preftakes felt the jowl beneath his chin shake with the waggle of
his head. Tremors. Made him feel like goddamned Katherine Hepburn.
She tilted her head, noticing. Seemed to push thoughts away to say, "Yes.
Yes--but sir, I need your help--about my partner."
"And your partner is...? Do you want me to know?"
"Special Agent Fox Mulder."
Instant recognition widened his eyes and he caught a glimpse of teeth as
she smirked and let her gaze fall on the desktop. "Fox Mulder," Preftakes
repeated the name. "Good Lord. I used to counsel Patterson's folk and he
was ordered in a few times. Good fencer, that one. Never told me a thing."
Preftakes knotted his hands behind his head and grimaced. "So, what's wrong
with him--er, what's wrong between you two?"
Her lips tightened as she looked up. Preftakes watched her make an effort
to part them. Wet them with the tip of her tongue. "Last night, sir, I
witnessed Agent Mulder's abduction by a pair of unknown men. AD Skinner has
set up a search team, but it's spinning it's wheels. I'm trying not to spin
mine."
"It can't have been a good experience for you--seeing him taken against his
will." He sat forward on arthritic hips, leaned on sweatered
elbows--body-posture welcoming despite the ache--making her the silent
offer, the one he'd made to each and every patient all those years.
The eyes fell away again. "I'm okay."
"Yes, but--"
"I'm fine."
New tactic. "Are you concerned for Mulder? For yourself, if he doesn't come
back? He's had a lot of blows in his life, hasn't he?"
Eyes came up again, voltage blue. "I'm fine, sir. And Mulder's
fine....Normally, Mulder's just...fine."
"So, you're both fine?" He raised a salt-and-pepper eyebrow.
A hint of pink shot her cheeks. Agent Scully turned down her mouth, her
electric eyes, and crossed her arms on her chest. "Dr. Preftakes, I've
discovered what I think may be a clue to Mulder's abduction. That's why I'm
here. That's the only reason."
"Umm. You're really not here for help? Because if you are, you've got the
same attitude problem he did."
"I am here as an investigator, sir. That's all."
"All right," he nodded, head jittering slightly with another tremor. Leaned
back and steepled thick fingers. "I'll suspend my disbelief. Investigate."
Agent Scully still frowned but he saw her arms relax--move to rest on the
arms of the chair. "Sir, in Nineteen-eighty-seven you were part of a team
assisting a group of women liberated from the DiAgosti Estate in Jupiter,
Oregon?"
His eyes closed, served as a screen for the projection of underfed bodies,
of utter obedience and the need to hold them all at once--holding two in
the back of a Bureau car as they'd buried their faces against his chest,
too afraid to look at the ugly lights of Salem's main shopping strip.
"Yes. I was there the night they were freed. The girls had been used as
menials and concubines." Preftakes caught the distancing descriptives. "The
girls were all thin. Scarred from beatings. Ones we'd taken out from other
houses, they'd been cared for. I'd almost wondered why we went there.
But....I heard the wretched little fuck got life."
"Yes, sir. Without parole." Saw the small woman stroke a lock of hair
behind her ear. It slipped forward again--charming him out of revisited
gloom. "I know you interviewed, at least once, a girl called Brandy," Agent
Scully continued. "She was about twenty at the time and had been at the
estate since she was thirteen. Is this sounding familiar, sir?"
Preftakes nodded again as the image of Martha stretched over Agent Scully's
skull shifted to recreate a different face--confused and cautious and
young. Pretty but careworn, with no special flare but a woman's full lips
forming the words of a child. "Yes," he heard hardness. "I actually--"
Paused to clear his throat. "I actually worked with Brandy for several
years after her rescue. She was one of the better-off girls. She had a lot
of spirit."
"Do you have any idea where Brandy is now?"
"Not off hand, but I may be able to find out. I recommended her to a peer
for more therapy. Of course, that was a long time ago and I'm not even sure
where Dr. Abloy is, but I'll try to find him."
"Thank you. sir. I also need to know if she ever talked about a friend of
hers--a fellow slave." Heard Agent Scully's smooth timbre snag. "This--this
girl's name was Sam. Maybe short for Samantha. I need any information I can
get on her."
He looked off past the red-haired woman--heard again the plain words Brandy
used with acceptance. "I...I remember her discussing the women she was
closest to, but don't recall the names. I can review the transcripts and
let you know if I come across anything?"
"Fine." The agent looked as if she'd expected nothing more. "Let me give
you my cell phone number." She reached for Preftakes' pen and jotted the
digits on the top sheet of a yellow sticky pad. "Can you get on this right
away, sir?"
Preftakes nodded. "I'll do everything I can to help you and Agent Mulder.
Of course, I don't suppose you can tell me the connection between Brandy
and your partner's abduction?"
"I'd rather not speculate yet," Agent Scully's voice seemed carefully
managed, but her body wavered as she stood. He half-rose to assist her,
then settled back at the barrier of her vertical, open hand. "I'm okay,
sir."
He nodded. Smiled at her thick wall and recalled a wife who had nothing to
hide. "Thank you again for helping me--thank you in advance," she returned
the nod. "If for any reason you can't reach me, contact ASAC Anderson
Vanderbilt up in Ops two. He's heading the search team. He'll track me
down."
"All right."
She was quick to retreat. Preftakes chewed his lower lip as he slowly
unbent to follow, collecting a last vision of copper as the agent turned
out of the reception area into the corridor. Heard heals click, then
quieter and fading out. "Laura," Dr. Preftakes asked his secretary, gently
patting the edge of her desk, "Would you see if Pat can take my
five-fifteen and my six o'clock. I need to be undisturbed for awhile."
--Lisby
lisby@earthlink.net
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"Mistress of the Dark Unconscious
Mermaid of the Lunar Sea
Daughter of the Great Enchantress
Sister to the boy in me..." Rush, "Animate"
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