After clocking a new personal best time on the outdoor FBI training course, Nora Phoenix walked nude across the stony locker room, toward the communal showers. She cranked a faucet handle and stood aside the cascading water, waiting for it to warm. She could feel eyes, like overly soft water, leaving a film on her skin.
Two men were showering directly across from Nora.
The first agent, soaping his balls, turned to the second agent. “Is she supposed to be in here?”
“Man, shut the fuck up,” said the second agent.
Nora washed her hair and scrubbed her body using a substance from the same bottle, which smelled of plum and pomegranate. She rinsed herself, shut the water off, and turned around dripping wet.
“You look like two Cub Scouts gaping at a stolen nudie mag,” Nora said. She gathered her hair and squeezed water out, onto her chest.
“How do you run so fast with them things?” asked the first agent.
“Meet me in the weight room at five tomorrow morning. I’ll show you.”
Nora grabbed her towel off a hook and sat on the bench by her locker. She uncoiled an extension cord to plug in her Lady Remington. An echo of footsteps traveled down the hall, turned the corner, and closed in on her. It was the Deputy Director. Nora rose to her feet, buck naked.
“At ease, Agent,” said Franklin. He had transferred from the Army and was acclimating to the Bureau’s laxer customs. “We need you to go to Ohio and interview Pauncy Placido, the world’s most notorious pervert.”
“Why me?” asked Nora. “Wouldn’t you say I’m a little green for this?”
“Pauncy might give you information that’ll help us track down his protege, The Pittsburgh Peeper, a man we believe has graduated from trespassing and kidnapping to murder. The case file and train tickets are on your bed.”
“Why would Pauncy want to help us?” asked Nora, wrapping her hair in a towel.
“He isn’t going to want to help us,” said Franklin. “But he may be compelled to provide you information. If you use your extensive psychological training and your, er—other assets—”
“My minor in Social Work?”
“Your tits,” spouted Franklin. “Your ample, round, unfathomably perky boobs. Your ass and your legs. And your face. You’re a knockout, Agent Phoenix, which is exactly what this case needs.”
“I appreciate the opportunity to be objectified for a greater purpose than providing some random guy on the city bus a half-chub.”
“Fantastic.” Franklin saluted.
Nora pulled a sports bra over her breasts.
“Oh, and one more thing,” Franklin said.
“Yes?”
“Pauncy hasn’t laid eyes on a woman like you in years. It might be beneficial if you wear something… stimulating.”
Nora could turn heads wearing coveralls and a rain slicker.
“Stimulating,” said Nora, trying to keep from rolling her eyes. “I can do that, sir.”
+
Sitting behind his desk, Dr. Harvey flashed every nickel of his thirty dollar smile. “If you stay for the weekend, I could show you all the grand stuff Toledo has to offer.”
“Sounds fun, Doctor. But my orders are to cross-examine Placido and hand in my report. Which means I’ll be poring over my notes all night in my hotel room. And my train leaves first thing in the morning.”
“But a girl has to eat,” said the doctor. “There’s a restaurant downtown with pierogies the size of my fist, slathered in butter. They’re delectable. Frankly, they make me ravenous. The butter and grease have ruined my shirtsleeves. My dry cleaner’s on speed dial, no kidding.”
Nora adjusted her plaid mini skirt and unbuttoned her blazer. She wore a purple brassiere beneath a semi-sheer black leotard. “I’m here on business.”
“Of course,” said Dr. Harvey, snuffing his Doral and hacking into his fist.
They walked across the hospital, traversed several sets of stairs, up and down and sideways, and were buzzed through two gates. “Many find our measures excessive,” said the doctor. “But a few years ago Pauncy told us his tummy hurt. We sent him to our finest nurse. As she put her ear to his stomach, Pauncy’s pecker poked out of his pajamas and popped poor Nurse Tally in the eye.”
“I see,” said Nora.
Dr. Harvey performed a secret knock and when the door swung open, he held it for Nora and touched the small of her back as she went in.
Three men were guarding four high-security cells. One kept an eye on the monitors. Another was practicing handling nunchucks. The third, obviously the chief guard, smiled politely.
“This is Donald Reed, head of security.”
“Thank you, Dr. Harvey,” said Donald. “I’ll take it from here.”
Dr. Harvey left and the man with the nunchucks was swinging them and took a glancing blow to the face.
“Is Harvey being Harvey today?” asked Donald.
“He asked me to dinner,” Nora said. “But I get asked out all the time.”
“If you ask me,” said Donald, “he deserves to be locked up with these degenerates.”
Nora took stock of her surroundings. She saw a spanking new bottle of Jergens on the desk by the security camera monitors. That was enough.
“Excuse me while I go through my spiel,” said Donald, pleased to have company. “While walking down the hall, stay all the way to the right. This will keep you out of jizz-flinging range. When you sit down to talk to Pauncy, cross your legs every half-minute or so, to let us know you’re OK. Pauncy has the ability to put people into a trance—and remaining under his spell can cause problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
“You don’t want to know, Agent Phoenix,” said Donald, unlocking the door to the hallway. “Remember: stay to the right. And keep crossing your legs, the way I told you.”
Nora buttoned her blazer and took a deep breath.
“Oh, shoot,” said Donald. “I forgot to frisk you.”
Nora put her hands flat against the wall and spread her legs. Donald patted her down from wrist to elbow, elbow to shoulder, unbuttoned her blazer, slid his hands up her sides and abdomen. He cupped his hands over her breasts and squeezed gently to feel for guns or knives hidden inside her silk brassiere. He slid his thumbs into the waistband of her skirt, ensuring the perimeter of the garment was free of grenades or chemical weapons. He lifted the skirt to do a visual check of her ass, tapping each cheek lightly with the tips of his fingers to ensure they were real, and they were. He concluded by running his hands up the insides of her thighs.
Donald inhaled her scent from the side of his hand. In a daze, he told Nora to go on ahead.
Fearlessly curious, Nora examined the cells as she passed them. The patient in the first cell was asleep.
Nora stayed to the right, her sleeve skimming the brick wall.
“Whip your dick out, Doll!” said the man in the second cell, who was ballroom dancing with a lanky and invisible partner.
The man in the third cell fashioned his fingers into a Tommy gun and made shooting noises with his mouth. The gun barrel followed Nora as she passed and globules of saliva arced through the dingy air.
The final cell had no bars and was well-lit. Pauncy was lying in bed, reading a paperback novella. “I’ll be with you in a moment,” said Pauncy. He got out of bed still reading. He didn’t take his eyes off the words until he bent the corner of the page and closed the book. Then his full attention was on Nora.
Nora was trying to wrap her head around the lack of bars or glass between her and this criminal.
“Let me guess,” said Pauncy. “They didn’t tell you the details about my cell?”
Nora said they hadn't.
Placido blinked slowly, and faintly bowed his head. “Have a seat.”
Nora didn’t move, except to raise her chin a bit. “What’s to stop you from attacking me?”
“Is having one more second to skitter down that filthy hallway, hollering ‘OH OH The Bad Man is free and is going to get me!’ really make you feel safer?”
Nora sat down, clutching her bag, her feet flat on the floor.
“You’re part of his research,” said Pauncy. “We all are.”
“Whose research?”
“Cross your legs, Agent Phoenix,” said Pauncy, tapping a finger against his temple. “He’s watching.”
“Donald said he would be watching.”
“That’s not the big brother to which I’m referring.”
“Why should I believe anything a pervert tells me?”
“Legs, dear,” said Pauncy. “Mind your legs.”
Nora re-crossed her legs and sat up straight.
“Perverts are the last freedom fighters.” Pauncy caressed his nipples through his asylum onesie and a small amount of drool escaped his mouth.
“Wasn’t your family called The Cherryville Chickens?” asked Nora.
Pauncy’s eyes and nostrils grew large. “Would a chicken separate his shoulder to cram himself inside a single-tier locker, and remain completely motionless while a stampede of ponytails floods a sunlit room, all their tummies giddy with butterflies before the championship volleyball game?”
“If it’s an alternative to going to a singles bar, then yeah.”
Pauncy stared at Nora like she was a work of art he wanted to absorb. She didn’t bat an eye.
“You’re more transparent than the barrier that keeps me from leaping at you,” Pauncy said. “You grew up on bagged bread and whole milk, didn’t you? Got those strong wrists from shaking pom poms and jerking off the star quarterback.”
“Cornerback. And his tongue danced on my bud like Bill Robinson in Stormy Weather.”
Pauncy crossed his arms. “What’s a clever girl like you doing working as a drudge for the Eff Bee Eye?”
“It was my daddy’s dream.”
“And did your daddy’s tongue waggle on your flower like Ginger Rogers in Gold Diggers of 1933?” Pauncy snarled and thrust his hand at Nora, breaking the invisible barrier. A loud pop and a poof of smoke came from his person and he crumpled to the concrete. He held his crotch with both hands and trembled like a person speaking in tongues.
Nora expected the guards to come running down the hall. But they didn’t. She crossed her legs. “Look, if you help me, we both benefit. I’ll prove my competency to the Bureau, and in return they’ll get you out of this dungeon and into a nice facility.”
The chaos slithering through Pauncy’s nerves dissipated. He sighed, regaining his wits. “Your Doe-in-the-headlights manner tells me you’re only a trainee. Volo sexus te, Agent Phoenix. Tell me, what level of influence might a student have over her superiors, to get a man like me out of this hole?”
Nora stood, opened her blazer and jumped up and down three times. She turned around and flipped her skirt up.
“Touche,” said Pauncy, throwing his forearm onto his bed, coddling his genitals. “You have a currency that flows through the ages, forever retaining its value.”
“I need information to help me track down The Pittsburgh Peeper. Anything helps.”
The man in the third cell caught sight of Nora and an eruption of pretend bullets blasted through the air.
“Do me a favor. Act like one of Bedbug’s bullets has hit you,” Pauncy said, “and fall down dead.”
Nora turned toward Bedbug’s cell and imagined a hunk of metal tearing through her chest. She stumbled back against the wall, dropped to the floor, and exhaled one last dying breath. Bedbug stopped firing. He shrieked with amusement, curled up on his bed, and slurped at his thumb.
“You can get up,” said Pauncy. “That will keep him delighted for weeks.”
Nora felt both envious of and sad for Bedbug. What an existence.
“What information do you have for me?” Nora said, dusting off her blazer. “I can’t go back to Virginia with nothing.”
“Of all the birds waltzing into all the asylums in all the world, you had to dance into mine.” Pauncy grabbed his book and flopped onto his bed.
“Is that it?” said Nora.
“I’ve told you more than you need to know, Agent Phoenix. Run along.”
+
Nora’s roommate, Jessica, found Nora at the microfiche reader machine, in the FBI Training Center’s library.
“You have a phone call,” said Jessica. She pecked Nora on the cheek and rubbed her shoulders.
“What are you doing?” Nora giggled.
“You should be nice and loose when you talk to Franklin.”
“Franklin?” Nora said. “He’s on the phone in our room?”
“Go get ’em, Tiger,” said Jessica. She slapped Nora’s ass as she ran off, and turned to glare at a handful of nearby trainees. “What are you little fuckwads gawking at?”
“I’m downloading this into my spankbank,” the most courageous one hooted.
“It’s 1991,” said Jessica. “Download isn’t part of popular verbiage yet. And neither is spankbank. Quit fucking this story up with your anachronisms.”
“Doesn’t anachronism mean old-fashioned?” said one of the fuckwads.
“It works both ways,” said Jessica, fairly sure it did. “Go back to reading your book on bitemark analysis. Some reactionary judge will be counting on your testimony.”
Nora flew into her dorm room and answered the phone.
“Agent Phoenix,” said Franklin. “Bedbug is dead.”
“Oh, no,” Nora said, sitting on her bed. “What happened?”
“He turned his Tommy gun on himself.”
“That,” Nora said, “doesn’t make sense. For many reasons.”
“I know,” said Franklin, clearing his throat. “How’s your research going?”
“An article in The Pittsburgh Post, July 24, 1982, says Pauncy ejaculated from a seventh-story window and all of his scum landed on a Pittsburgh city council member’s lunch.”
“Wow,” said Franklin.
“But get a load of this. I worked it out in my head: Pauncy pounded his pud and plastered a Pittsburgh politician’s plate of potato patch fries. I believe we can use alliteration to follow the tracks of Placido and The Peeper.”
“Seems like a stretch…”
“There’s more,” said Nora. “Pauncy mentioned the movie Gold Diggers of 1933, which stars four women. One of the characters, Polly, is played by Ruby Keeler. The last thing Pauncy did before I left him was bastardize a quote from Casablanca. He called me a bird. Bird. Phoenix. Polly. Polly wanna cracker! I researched all the prominent women in Hollywood named Polly and found Polly Platt, who wrote and produced the movie Pretty Baby.”
"I’m not sure if this theory of yours..."
“Polly Platt penned and produced Pretty Baby! The movie Pretty Baby includes a song called ‘Pretty Baby,’ sung by Al Jolson. This song is featured in several films throughout the thirties and forties. Which totally reeks of coincidence until we find out, from 1928 to 1940, Al Jolson was married to, get this—our original ‘Polly’ from Gold Diggers—Ruby Keeler.”
“I don’t see anything unusual about stars marrying stars,” said Franklin.
“The movie Pretty Baby takes place in the red-light district of New Orleans, Pauncy Placido’s hometown. And if The Peeper is Pauncy Placido’s protege, he’s probably from the same city. I did some digging and found an old brothel, Patty’s Poontang Palace, on Basin Street. The building currently houses a business called Wendell’s Woodworkers. Which might as well be called Harry’s Handjobs. I think it’s a front and I believe The Peeper was born in this building. It's possible someone there knows The Peeper’s history and may have other information we can use to determine his whereabouts.”
