Cobra and the delinquents 3

 

Chapter 3 shakedowns and showdowns

 

Tarquin dropped in to see the girls after he had dropped off the boys, to the horror of Hermione, and the cheerful greeting of the other girls. Hana had learned not to bow, but did not hug him with the ecumenical enthusiasm of Ruth and Olivia who were used to him. Marie and Hana were contented to have their hair ruffled, but greeted him as ‘Uncle Tarquin,’ happily enough.

“Settling in, Miss Obama? I hope so,” he said. Hermione swallowed.

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Smith,” she said. “Really, your name is Tarquin?”

“Yes, and it is my own,” said Tarquin. “Having a name like ‘Smith,’ it pleases me to be different. Do you dislike being ‘Hermione,’ then?”

“Sometimes,” said Hermione. “A lot of people mangle it, rather.”

“None of us ever have,” said Ruth.

“Marie did at first,” said Hermione.

Marie went red.

“I thought it was ‘Hermi-own,’ she admitted. “But I didn’t know then that it was Greek, like ‘Penelope’ and you pronounce the ‘e’ on the end. I haven’t been confused since you set me right, Hermione.”

“No, you do learn fast,” admitted Hermione.

“Could be worse; you might have been ‘Siobhan,’” said Olivia, flushing to put herself forward. “I was at school with a girl named Siobhan, and even the teachers tried to call her ‘Siy-o-barn’. I mean, how hard is ‘Shevaan’ to say? She told me, Irish Gaelic was such that any collection of consonants is usually ‘v’ and ‘i’ after S makes it ‘Sh’ which is common to a lot of languages.”

“That is worse than ‘Hermione,’” agreed Hermione.

“Especially as one boy would insist on calling her ‘Autobahn,’” said Olivia. “She stabbed him with a pair of scissors, and if you ask me, he deserved it.”

“You’ll get no argument from any of us,” said Ruth. “But the authorities get knacky about doing that sort of thing. She’d have done better to wait until he was in the school pool and go into the boys’ changing rooms and rub hot chilli juice into his underpants. Claim it as skidmarks on the Autobahn.”

Tarquin winced.

“I don’t really want to know,” he said. “One of the boys here has previous in molesting girls; you need to be warned, but I don’t want to know how you take steps to cure it.”

“Are we allowed to?” asked Hermione, all eyes.

“Rick is a believer in rough justice,” said Tarquin.  “I’m inclined to say that it usually works but I’m not allowed to say so officially. And it goes both ways, Miss Obama; if you get jostled for being a busybody, you have to take it as well as give it.”

“I didn’t realise it would cause them trouble,” said Hermione.

“Ascertain facts, make a list of pros and cons, and only then step in to act,” said Tarquin. “And for goodness sake, ask Rick or Willow, or Auntie Fee if you want to do anything drastic.”

“Yes, sir,” said Hermione. She had firmly been dressed in the current fashion for girls, known as the ‘Biker Geisha’ look, or ‘Street Geisha.’ This tended to be a onepiece jump suit – or separates that could pass as a onepiece – in black leather, red leather, or denim, with a very short kimono, no longer than waist length, over it, highly patterened or embroidered at the high end. Versions of it included embroidered synthleather jumpsuits where the upper part wrapped over, rather than a separate kimono. Some young girls wore headbands with cat ears on as well. It’s something to do with a trope in anime films.  I’d seen the style – the embroidered wrappover jumpsuit version – on a catrobat^TM and her real ears did not look silly. Ears on headbands did look silly, and my girls did not wear them.  Out here, their off-duty wear was a denim top with their jeans and their disparate kimonettes, as I believe they were known, over them.

They’d be back in flannelette shirts for the morning chores, but educating Hermione, Olivia, Marie and Hana on modern fashion was also important, as a matter of self-worth. And it boosted Ruth’s sense of self worth to be able to help them make the most of themselves within the current styles.

Willow, of course, looks fantastic whatever she wears, but there’s something about skintight black leather that makes one want to peel it off.

 

I did not want Willow to have to put up with Jamie McNeal attempting to pull off her black leather – or, indeed, anything else. His first chore was washing up, which he undertook without complaint. I joined him to dry the dishes.

“So,” I said, “What is it with you that you felt a need to rufi three women working for your father?” The term was a generic one, ‘to rufi,’ though according to the records, the drug used was one called Excite^TM, a legal drug on prescription, but used as a date-rape drug and in illegal brothels. The interesting part was that the first woman had been given the male version.  It had been speculated that he had found this easier to obtain, and though nobody said anything, it was assumed by the cops that his father was using it on himself as a performance enhancer.  It acted simultaneously as an aphrodisiac with the calming effect of Valium, and the illegal uses often added something to confuse as well.

He scrubbed viciously at the plates.

“You won’t believe me,” he said. “I told my lawyer and he told me I’d have to come up with a better story than that, and laughed at me when I insisted it was the truth.”

“Try me,” I said. “I despise men who rape, but there’s something telling me that there’s more to it than that. You aren’t bad looking, and I am sure you could pull if you wanted to, without resorting to drugs. I have a feeling I’m looking at a victim of something, and something potentially nasty in the family.  Can you tell me if I’m wrong?”

He dropped the plate he was holding and it shattered on the floor, and he cowered.

“I’m right,” I said, putting down the plate I had dried, and getting the brush and dustpan to clear up the broken china. No, I didn’t bother to wait for the bot. The human hand and tools designed for it are more efficient for broken glass or china.

“It was Sylvia,” he said. “My stepmother. She… she asked me to drink a glass of wine with me because she was lonely when dad was on a business trip.  I’m not that keen on wine, but dad impressed on me, I was to treat her with courtesy.  So, I sipped it and tried not to grimace, and she was talking to me, and then I started feeling heavy and… and my head was floating, and I was as horny as a goat; and she stripped, and undressed me, and… well, I’d not had sex before but it was like a dream, and absolutely fantastic. But part of me knew it was wrong.  And I felt myself drifting off.  But I struggled to stay awake, and she phoned someone, and… and she was discussing that I was now hers to command, and that I would never realise that she was setting me up to take the blame for stealing all of dad’s money by electronic transfers. I think I passed out then, but I remembered. I woke up in my own bed with a sore dick and a headache.”

“And you went to her and confronted her about it?” I asked.

“How did you know?” he asked.

“Because I can feel the anger in you, and I suspect you’re a straightforward sort of lad, never known to tell a lie, George Washington looks shifty next to you,” I said.

He flushed, angrily.

“I knew you wouldn’t believe it,” he said. “Go on, mock me.”

“Actually, I was being up front,” I said. “I was imagining your father slapping you on the shoulder and booming that his son is as straight as a die, with integrity.”

“You know my father?” he gasped.

“I’ve seen him on the trid,” I said. “And I know fine well that if you’d gone to him and said that you had suspicions that Sylvia had been doing something suspicious with the finances, he would probably have checked for himself even if he blew you off.”

“I should have gone to dad,” he said. “But I didn’t want to upset him. He is in love with Sylvia. And I wanted to confront her and tell her to stop, and not to hurt my dad.”

“Sometimes, nobility of the spirit is a bar to common sense,” I said. “So, she laughed at you?”

He nodded.

“She laughed at me, and I said that I knew she was plotting with a guy called Cliff, and that was when she slapped me. I told her I’d tell dad if she didn’t cut her losses and clear out. She told me that if I did, she’d tell him I raped her. I was scared. I’d have to admit I had fucked her, you know? And I was scared dad might not believe she’d drugged me. Anyway, I was considering what to do, when I realised I had that same swimmy feeling, but this time, I think I blacked out at some point, and I came to in bed with one of the secretaries.  And dad and Sylvia burst in on us.  I remember him shaking me and demanding to know what on earth I thought I was doing.  And Sylvia was smirking. Dad beat me, but he bought the secretary off. She had no recollection of how she came to be in bed with me.”

“And you were just thinking that things were back to normal when it happened again?” I said.

“Yes; and this time, Sylvia ‘discovered’ me, and had the woman involved write an affidavit, but bought her off, as again, I had not actually… you know.”

“No penetration,” I said.

“Yes, that,” he agreed.

“And the third time was with a minor.”

“Yes, one of the managers brought his daughter into the office, as her school had closed for a couple of days for some reason. And that was when the shit hit the fan. Sorry, sir.”

“I have no problem with you swearing,” I said. “Yes, that would be one violation too far.”

“And Sylvia smirking like a Cheshire cat.  Why a Cheshire cat? Is that a special breed?”

“It’s a literary reference to a magical cat in a children’s story,” I said.  “And having destroyed your reputation for integrity, your father would never believe you again.”

“Exactly,” said Jamie. “Sylvia told me that I’d ruined her plan to blame it on me, but she would just cover her trail more carefully. Or wait until I came out of Juvenile Hall and make it look like me committing some kind of revenge.”

“And your dad would find out too late,” I said.

“Yes, he’d be ruined, and blaming me, and it would all be terrible,” said Jamie. He was crying.

“Well, Jamie, I have resources that Sylvia and Cliff could only dream of,” I said. “Actually, I have the sort of resources they couldn’t dream about, because I know more about black ops than the wildest science fiction writers could even invent.”

“You… you could manage to follow the trail of what she’s been up to?” he asked. “I… if you can’t clear me, that’s ok, if you can only stop her ruining dad.”

“I’ll have her and Cliff stitched up so tight, she won’t have a clue how it happened,” I said.

“I don’t want my dad hurt,” he said.

“Son, he’s going to be hurt to some extent, in finding out what she’s been up to,” I told him. “But I’m going to tell him that there’s more to what you’ve been through than he knows, so at least he has some inkling that you are innocent.”

He burst into real sobbing tears.

I sat him down and made him a cup of hot chocolate; he was too old for a cuddle, but I gave him one anyway, and he leaned against me.

“Please don’t tell the others anything,” he begged.

“I won’t,” I promised. “I’m old enough to realise that sometimes, real men can cry, but I know some people don’t understand that.”

He nodded in gratitude.

 

I phoned his father. In retrospect, it may not have been the wisest thing to do, but I wanted the kid to know that someone was on his side, and that his father had a heads-up that something was going on.

I had his private number; Tarquin made sure of that.

“Who the hell is this?” he yapped.

“I’m the one in charge of your son,” I said.

There was a heavy silence.

“What’s he done?” he asked.

“Told me a few things that his lawyer ignored, which should have been followed up when this started,” I said. “I believe your boy was under the influence of something nasty when the incidents occurred.”

“You mean, he’s a user as well as a sexual predator?” he said, in disgust.

“No, Mr. McNeal, I think he was set up by someone, and was also under a date rape drug,” I said.

“Well, why didn’t he say so?”

“I understand he was still confused when you beat him,” I said. “And he did not then think you would be ready to listen.”

There was a long silence.

“He… that may be true,” admitted McNeal.

“I’ll be taking hair samples,” I said. “Drugs can leave markers in hair.”

“If you can show him to be innocent, I’ll be delighted,” said McNeal. “But who would do such a thing, and why?”

“Ah, now that’s a good question,” I said.

I rang off. And I did take hair samples, and had Willow fly them to a lab via drone. I did not want anything to interrupt their passage.

And she would be into the McNeal system like an eel.