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AN HOMAGE TO VINCENT VEGA

 

JUST THE FACTS, MA'AM

 

When Vickie used her key to enter Sarah's apartment, she wasn't quite sure what to expect.  She knew that it would be more than an hour before Sarah got home, but it was possible that Ian and Priscilla would be waiting for her.   It all depended on how the hunt for the diaper thieves was going.

 

The apartment was empty.

 

Deciding that she was hungry as well as thirsty, Vickie began rummaging through Sarah's refrigerator, but she found nothing to her liking.  The apartment felt as empty as it looked, the only sign of life the chair ominously sitting in the center of the living room.  It didn't take a great deal of imagination to realize that this was where Sarah would be administering a spanking, a paddling, or a caning to correct her bad behavior, as well as Ian's.

 

Shrugging her shoulders, Vickie decided to venture upstairs to Ian's apartment.  She knew where Sarah kept the spare key, and she knew that his frig and pantry would be a lot more promising.  Since they would be packing everything up on Friday, there would be no harm done no matter what she chose to eat and drink.

 

Ian's frig was a treasure chest filled with mysterious delights.  She was familiar with prosciutto, and had had her share of Genoa salami, but the man had a love affair with stuffed olives and peppers that clearly did not start in Minnesota.  Not for the first time, she wondered where a guy whose car was buried under a snowbank even found this stuff.

 

And what's this?

 

Vickie took the lid off a container with something called Tzatziki, and sniffed the creamy white contents.  She had no idea what it was, but it smelled good, so she was willing to give it a try.

 

Made in Greece.  Figures …

 

Prowling around in a cupboard, she found a flatbread that looked like it would go well with the gunk.

 

Pita.  Isn't that Lebanese, or something?

 

Diving into the refrigerator a second time, she came away with a nicely chilled bottle of rose.

 

Val Verde Winery … Del Rio, Texas.  Huh?  Who knew they made wine in Texas?

 

Looking around, she spotted a bottle of deep, dark red wine from Jordan squirreled up against the frig, with a lovely set of Waterford wine glasses keeping it company.  She grabbed two, thinking to try both wines after she camped out on the living room floor.

 

Fine food and drink, so long as you don't mind roughing it …

 

Vickie had no way to know that Ian had cultivated the habit of eating and drinking well in the jungles of southeast Asia.

 

Guy's been everywhere …

 

Getting down on the floor, leaning back against the couch, Vickie grabbed the phone and called Sarah.

 

.  .  .  .

 

Sarah reached over to turn off the pump, and disconnected the lead from her left breast.  She had given it fifteen minutes per teat, just as the lady running the infants and maternity wear shop at the mall had instructed.  And there was no getting around the fact that having a machine slurping away at your boobs felt downright weird.  She wondered how a woman was ever expected to feel comfortable with so ridiculous a contraption.

 

Probably invented by a man …

 

Sarah answered the phone on the first ring, her sensuous breasts not yet returned to the prison of her functional but plain bra.  She made a mental note to add maternity bras to the trio's next shopping trip.  Sitting at her desk on the third floor of a busy urban hospital … nude from the waist up …

 

She felt ridiculous.

 

“Hello.”

 

“Mommy, it's me.  I'm at Ian's.  There's no one here, and no one downstairs.  I'm guessing that the diaper thieves showed up, and that he's chasing them down.  Has he called?”

 

“No, baby girl, not yet.  How's your diapee holding up?  Are you wet, poopy, or both?”

 

“I'm a little wet, Mommy, but okay for now.  Will you be home soon?”

 

“As soon as Heidi comes in, I'll be coming straight home.  You have been a very naughty girl, and you deserve a paddling.  If I find you sitting quietly on my living room floor, like a good baby, you will receive ten swats.  If you are anywhere else … twenty.  Do you understand me, baby girl?”

 

“Yeth, Mommy, I unnerstan.  I be good, Mommy, really!  Pwese don't paddle me hard!”

 

Sarah hung up.  Training Vickie was going to be an incredible challenge, and she was eagerly looking forward to it.

 

.  .  .  .

 

Am I overdoing it, Vickie wondered.

 

Nah … Sarah is really lapping this mommy shit up!

 

Choices … choices …

 

Vickie reached for the bottle of rose.  It would go nicely with her Mediterranean hors    d'oeuvres; the Jordanian red, she reflected, was best saved for later: a makeshift anesthetic was preferable to no anesthetic at all.  Besides, she was extremely fond of a well turned out, rich red wine.

 

.  .  .  .

 

All in all, Ian reflected, it had gone quite smoothly.  When it turned out that they were the first to arrive at the sorority house, on the spur of the moment he had asked Priscilla to drop him off in front.  He proposed to stand in the driveway while she parked, lights off, on a nearby side street that offered a clear view of the property.  When Tippi and her friend showed up and their brake lights came on, that would be her cue to charge in with siren blaring and lights flashing.

 

The skeptical look on Priscilla's face told Ian that she didn't think much of his plan, but rather than argue with him, she settled for sensibly suggesting that he find a patch of light on the driveway and stand in it.  He was wearing dark clothing, she pointed out, and might not be spotted before he was run over.  The resulting paperwork would be a nightmare.

 

Ian had grinned, and stolen a quick kiss.  Whatever else they were, Priscilla Canon and Ian Grady were, as they say south of the border, simpatico.

 

Narrowly avoiding a brush with the bumper of Cindy Carlson's car, Ian played the innocent bystander while Priscilla, supported by two other officers, carried out the arrests under the watchful eye of campus police chief Walt Mischof.  Julia's loudly beeping transmitter made it clear to all that the stolen diapers were in the trunk of Cindy's car-- and made it patently clear to Tippi Bjornsen that the jig was well and truly up.  Both girls confessed, and much to the delight of a steadily growing crowd of frat boys from the surrounding houses, were cuffed and hauled off to spend the night in a cold and drafty cell.  Arraignment, and a pleading before a municipal judge, would come in the morning.

 

Unless Ian could shut it all down first. 

 

At the house mother's urging, the Chief set up a temporary command post in her office.  From there, with Bernice Miller's approval, he ordered his officers to fan out and thoroughly search the public areas for the stolen diapers.  These were quickly located in a corner of the basement, most of them still in their unopened Lullaby Diaper Service bags.  Once they were photographed, the substantial hoard of baby and adult diapers were hauled into the dining room, where in due course the sorority would be assembled to confront the stolen fruits of their collective labor.

 

From Ian's point of view, it was fortunate that a time consuming search for accessories to the crime next got under way.  The otherwise bored cadre of campus cops (it was a Wednesday night, after all) were tasked to interview each and every one of the sorority house's fifty odd residents, not all of whom happened to be home at the moment.  For example, Janis Marsden showed up when the proceedings were barely under way, praying that her heavily diapered state would go unnoticed.  In fact, on a night when the campus cops were breaking up a gang of diaper thieves who had been terrorizing the city (tune in to your local news at ten, brought to you by WPPP's very own Lyle Gunderson and Amy Kinkaid), it was Janis' sheer bad luck that a young woman waddling like an overgrown toddler was going to be noticed by everybody.  Cracking under the pressure of a roomful of unforgiving stares, Janis had broken down and confessed. Having been placed under arrest for her daring theft of hospital diapers, she was currently being detained in her room.  No one had got around to removing her diaper and baby pants, but it had to be done: the hardened criminals with whom Janis would soon be sharing a cell could use such deadly weapons to unleash a murderous rampage.  After due consideration, Chief Mischof opted to delegate the task to Officer Canon on the reasonable assumption that she was the only female officer present with a track record of changing wet and possibly poopy adult diapers.

 

This left Bernice, the Chief, Ian and Julia sitting around a coffee table in Bernice's office.   For Ian and Julia, the moment was awkward in the extreme.  Ian had made love to Julia's daughter mere hours earlier, and hoped to make love to her again before the night was out.  What was one supposed to say to the Mom at moments like this?  For her part, Julia had absolutely no idea what to say to an undercover government agent whom she suspected was banging her daughter.

 

Wisely, they decided to ignore one another.

 

I'd like to take Priscilla home, but that might be a tad awkward, given that she lives with her parents …

 

I wonder if he speaks Farsi … shipping him off to Iran would at least buy us some breathing space ...

 

I most definitely do not want to take her to one of those seedy motels up the street.  Probably half the girls in these houses lost their virginity in those dumps.  Wonder if they give a discount to sorority girls scalping members of the faculty …

 

There's got to be something we can arrest him for … is it against the law to change his diapers in a public setting?  Oh, damn it, wait … my daughter is the one changing him!

 

“Sorry about all this, Bernice,” Chief Mischof said sympathetically.  “If the Dean catches it on the news at ten, your visit to his office tomorrow is going to be pretty awkward.  Hope you don't lose your charter.”

 

Bernice shook her head in despair.  “I don't understand any of this,” she lamented; “stealing diapers … what is the matter with these girls?  I swear, Walt, I've been doing this for twenty-five years, and this is the worst it's ever been.  Half these girls shouldn't even be here; they're wasting their time, and their parents money.  And speaking of diapers ...”

 

Bernice shifted in her chair.  “Professor, are you all right?  I mean … do you need your diaper changed?”  She didn't know the source of Ian's incontinence, but the bulge in his pants made it clear what he was wearing in the way of underwear.

 

“I'm fine for the moment, but thank you for asking.”  Ian decided to seize the moment.  “Chief, what comes next?  Priscilla … er … Officer Canon tells me that a fine, a hundred hours of community service, and a term of probation are par for the course in matters like this.”

 

“She's right, Professor.  The DA will shake his head, ask me why I can't keep the lid on over here, and give them the proverbial slap on the wrist.  Gareth has political ambitions, and sending a bunch of sorority girls to the workhouse isn't going to win him any votes in the suburbs.”

 

“Makes sense, but in this case it won't work.  The injured party is Spats Belmondo, and he will see a light sentence as a calculated insult to his dignity.  If he lets this slide, he'll lose face with his crew, and with the other capi.  So, he won't let it slide.”

 

“Professor Grady is right, Chief; when Spats hired me, he made it clear that he wanted to handle this matter without police interference.  These girls are in real danger.”

 

“And yet you took the case.”  The Chief was frowning.  “Why did you do that?”

 

“Professor Grady and I are on the same page here.  If Spats had found these girls on his own, he would have fed them into a wood chipper, feet first.  We collaborated to bring the police in, which buys us some time.  Now, it's up to the DA to come up with a punishment that Spats will be prepared to live with.”

 

“Precisely,” Ian agreed.  “Get the DA on the phone, and tell him to haul his ass over here.  I'll tell him how we're going to play this.”

 

“How about telling me first.”

 

“Sure.  The whole sorority is going to volunteer to work as candy stripers at the hospital, and to keep at it until they graduate.  The fine is going to be stiff enough to cause some real pain, and Spats is going to be generously compensated for his time and trouble.  But the icing on the cake?  Since Zeta Alpha Pi has a hard on for diapers, they can spend the rest of their time here wearing them, and using them.  And Lullaby Diaper Service will be supplying them, which guarantees Spats a tidy little profit going forward.  He's a businessman, and as such won't be inclined to murder his own customers.”

 

“Interesting.  I'll make the call.  Not sure the DA will bite, but I'll give it a try.”

 

“Let me deal with him.  I can be very persuasive.”

 

Oh, this ought to be good, Julia thought.

 

“Drop my name into the conversation, and suggest that he call your counterpart downtown.  What do you think, Julia?  Will that do the trick?”

 

“Professor Grady has friends in very high places,” she admitted in the most neutral tone of voice she could muster.  “Very high.”

 

“Once he's here?”  Ian had a huge grin on his face.  “I'll make him an offer that he can't refuse!”

 

.  .  .  .

 

Pulling into her garage, Rita was on a mission.  The first order of business was the four remaining breast pumps.  One would stay in the trunk to go to the office, and a second would end up in her bedroom.  The most fitting home for the remaining two, she decided, was the empty closet in the third bedroom that they were converting into a nursery for Ian and Vickie.  She liked the idea of hooking Vickie up when she was lounging in her crib, but when it came to finding a way for their baby girl to pump at work, she was completely stumped.  With luck, Sarah would have the answer.

 

Dragging the boxes into the foyer one by one, Rita hung up her coat and kicked off her shoes.  She visited her bedroom first, saving the nursery for last.  But when she opened its door, she nodded in satisfaction.  It was a tight fit, but with the two cribs set back to back in the center of the room, there was just enough space for the changing table on one wall, and the dresser and chest of drawers on the other.  It seemed symbolically fitting, almost a sacred ritual given the solemnity of the moment, that Vickie's two breast pumps ended up on the closet floor.

 

Returning to the kitchen, Rita opened her liquor cabinet, choosing to mark the occasion with a glass of Courvoisier, the expensive cognac being her most cherished indulgence.  Then she strolled into the living room, studying her walls and thinking about Ian's art work, the boldness of its colors.

 

He must like Vermeer …

 

Looking around her living room, Rita sadly shook her head.  The empty walls, the usual furnishings laid out in the usual way-- it was all so dull.

 

As dull as my whole life.  Ian?  The guy's been everywhere.  And me?  One trip out of the country, the old 'If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium' tour … nine countries in eighteen days, and I didn't even have an affair with the tour guide.  But I did fall in love with Vermeer … there's that.

 

“The Alvar is going directly over the couch,” she said out loud.  “All that red ...”

 

She took a sip of her drink.

 

“But on his income, how could he possibly have afforded a Chagall?”

 

She thought that it would look nice in her bedroom.

 

“We definitely are going to need a bigger house!  A much bigger nursery … hell, with four of us and the babies … we're going to need bigger everything!”

 

Rita had started to peruse the real estate listings, concentrating on her dream home-- an honest to goodness mansion on the shores of Lake Minnetonka.  With their four combined incomes, the only limit to what they could afford was her imagination.

 

.  .  .  .

 

When Sarah finally made it home, she was disappointed to discover that Ian was still not there, but relieved to find Vickie sitting in the middle of the living room floor.  She was going to try out her new paddle on Vickie's shapely ass, but with a diaper rash in play, she was afraid that the threatened twenty swats would be way over the top.

 

Ten swats would do nicely.  And seeing that Vickie had already stripped down to her blouse and diaper cover, and was sitting with arms outstretched waiting for a hug, she decided to go a bit easier on her rear end than originally planned.

 

“Did you miss your mommy, baby girl,” Sarah cooed.

 

“Mama,” Vickie answered; “binkie, Mama … binkie!”  She was pouting like an adorable little toddler.

 

Vickie had spent several minutes in Ian's bathroom, comparing pouts and frowns in front of the mirror.  She concluded that pouting, which she had long practiced to good effect with her various boyfriends and one night stands, was her best choice.

 

“Ah, you're so cute,” Sarah oohed and awed as she reached into her pocket; “yes you are, yes you are!  Open wide, baby girl … here comes your binkie!” 

 

Vickie happily accepted the pacifier, and began enthusiatically sucking …

 

Coat this thing with crème de menthe, and it wouldn't be bad at all.  Definitely beats chewing on a pencil …

 

Sarah left the room just long enough to fetch her breast pump, and with it the cane and paddle.  Vickie's eyes went wide when she eyeballed Sarah attacking one of the throw cushions on her couch with the cane.

 

“It feels like all it takes is a flick of the wrist,” she muttered, but loud enough for Vickie to hear.

 

SWISH … CRACK!!

 

SWISH … CRACK!!

 

Sitting down in the chair that she had used to punish Ian the night before, she centered the cushion on her lap, raised her new paddle on high, and repeatedly brought it down on the cushion with a resounding …

 

THWACK …

 

THWACK …

 

THWACK …

 

Satisfied with her choice, Sarah stared hard at Vickie, and stabbed her thigh with her middle finger.  Vickie obediently crawled over and, using Sarah's legs for support, climbed to her feet.  Sarah first unfastened and removed the baby girl's blouse.  Taking the key from her pocket, she then reached out to unlock her diaper cover, which she slid down to her ankles.  Vickie's pink baby pants came next, and finally her heavy diaper, which was only slightly damp and unfortunately poop free.

 

The laxatives in your breast milk will make you go potty in your diapee, baby girl … hmm … should I add a diuretic as well? 

 

Unbidden, Vickie eased herself over Sarah's lap, her legs helplessly pinned by the heavy canvas shackling her ankles.

 

Sarah grasped her baby girl's right hand, and pinned it to the base of her spine, then wrapped her legs tight around Vickie's calves.  With her bottom protruding and her body expertly immobilized, Vickie was finally ready for her paddling.

 

Rubbing lazy circles around Vickie's cheeks and lightly slapping her thighs, Sarah took her time with the preliminaries.  When she was finally ready, she raised the paddle on high, and brought it down, but not with full force.

 

Thwack …

 

Thwack …

 

Each butt cheek received a measured blow, and then Sarah began Vickie's punishment in earnest.

 

THWACK!!

 

THWACK!!

 

THWACK!!

 

THWACK!!

 

Vickie moaned, then screamed into her pacifier, her body contorting with the pain.  Sarah had not spared the skin already red with diaper rash, which was now an ugly, livid crimson shade.

 

Four more strokes, delivered more gently, finished the first part of Vickie's punishment.  Now, it was time for her upper thighs to feel the weight of Sarah's palm.  Nor did she hold back, one heavy blow after another raining down upon the exposed flesh.  Only when she was finished did Sarah release Vickie's imprisoned right arm, so that the wailing toddler could slide off her lap and onto the carpet.

 

Vickie was on the threshold of a massive orgasm, her entire body seemingly on fire.  Struggling to her knees, she turned wide eyed to face Sarah, sucking mindlessly on her pacifier, desperate for relief.

 

“Mommy,” she whispered, “make me come … please make me come.  Your fingers … anything … make me come!!”

 

Sarah looked down at her baby girl in disbelief, then leaned over to run her fingers between her thighs.  Sure enough.  She was wet, and when Sarah grazed her clit, Vickie moaned like a wounded animal, a sound born at once of anguish and pleasure.

 

“Please,” she whispered again.

 

“Baby girl,” she said sternly, “I want you to roll over on your back and stretch out.  Do it now!”

 

When Vickie obeyed, Sarah grabbed the thick hospital diaper, which she knew could not be defeated by the baby's questing fingers, and slid it under her tortured bottom.  Bringing it up between Vickie's legs, she efficiently pinned it back in place before pulling up her baby pants and diaper cover.  Vickie offered no resistance, but her body shuddered when she heard the lock click home.  In the silence of Sarah's living room, it sounded like a thunderclap.

 

“There,” Sarah said in a soothing voice.  “Now, I want you to crawl over to the corner, get up on your knees, and press your nose against the wall.  Naughty babies need time outs as well as spankings.  Stay there, and don't move while I prepare your ba bas.”

 

Sarah retreated to the bathroom, and found her water pills.  Two of these, in bottles already laced with fast acting laxatives, would guarantee Vickie a very wet and very messy night.  But Sarah would not be changing her in the morning.  She was going to send her naughty little girl straight to Rita's office, and let her do the honors.

 

.  .  .  .

 

When the District Attorney walked through the door with his bodyguard, it was safe to say that Gareth Q. Ballstrom was not a happy camper.  He had managed to avoid the local news crews on the way in, but he did not fancy his chances on the way out.  He knew a FUBAR when he saw one, and with the next election less than a year away, bad publicity he did not need.  The bottom line was that he needed something good to feed the press when he walked out the door.

 

It was hard for Ian to keep a straight face.  He put the DA in his late thirties, with a lanky frame and chiseled jaw straight out of central casting.  A three hundred dollar haircut, and enough hair gel to keep things under control in a class five hurricane, would go hand and glove with the practiced insincerity of the professional politician's smile.

 

Ignoring the others, the DA marched up to where Ian was sitting.

 

Ian did not bother to get up.

 

“You must be Grady,” he barked.  “The Chief tells me that I need to listen to what you have to say.  I'm listening.”

 

“Take a seat.”  Ian was smiling graciously as he pointed at the lone empty chair in the room.  “Chief Mischof will bring you up to speed, then we'll figure out what to do next.”

 

The Chief neatly summarized the crime, the arrests to date, and the recovery of the stolen articles in a public area of the house that they had permission to search.  The evidence would be admissible in court, and they had post-Miranda confessions from two of the girls that would also hold up.  His officers were currently interviewing everyone else in the house, and in due course would haul them into the dining room for a heart to heart talk about their immediate futures.  His immediate objectives were to get permission to search all their rooms, and to gauge who else had been actively engaged in the planning and execution of this conspiracy.

 

“Now let me get this straight,” Ballstrom snorted when the Chief finished his report. 

“You dragged me over here in the middle of the night because a bunch of sorority girls have been running around town stealing diapers off of people's front porches?  What am I supposed to do?  Go before the judge in the morning, and urge him to lock up these hard cases and throw away the key?  Puh … lese!”

 

“Spats Belmondo.”  Julia spoke up for the first time.  And I'm ...”

 

“I know who you are, Missus Canon.  Your firm handled my sister's divorce two years ago.  She was pleased with the results.  What's Belmondo got to do with this?”

 

“He owns Lullaby Diaper Service, which is the injured party here.  Spats hired me to find the thieves, and then report back to him so that he could handle the matter privately.  I'll leave that part of it to your imagination … you know what Spats is like.  Anyway, the Professor and I hatched a plan to have the police make the pinch, and it worked.  Now, the trick is to find a punishment that will make both Spats and the judge happy.  Ian has the solution; your job will be getting the judge to go along.  Professor?”

 

Ian took over, but when he got to the part where the girls would be wearing diapers for the rest of their university days, the DA climbed angrily to his feet.

 

“Are you nuts, Grady?  How the hell do you expect me to sell this nonsense to the unlucky bastard who draws this case in the morning?”

 

“Well, you could bring a wood chipper into the courtroom and show him exactly how it works,” Ian scoffed.  “But it would be easier simply to ask the judge to endorse a plea agreement that the girls will be affirming before they go to bed tonight.  The four of us will sell them on the idea, and you sell the judge.  Then you can campaign on a law and order platform, get reelected, and we all live happily ever after.  Oh, and my friends back East will remember you kindly, if and when you choose to run for higher office.”

 

The DA grinned wolfishly, pleased that the professor had got to the point without too much beating around the bush.  “Professor, you've got a deal.  The fine and community service is easy, but you have to sell these girls on the diapers or I won't bring it up.  If they agree to it, the judge will as well.  He's also up for election in the fall.”

 

The two men shook hands, and Ballstrom left to grab some free publicity from the local news hounds.  Ian fully expected him to tap into his well honed sense of righteous indignation, and preach the need to bring a little law and order to the notorious denizens of Fraternity Row.

 

.  .  .  .

 

“So, what's going to happen to me?”

 

Janis Marsden was sitting cross-legged on her bed, head bowed, utterly disconsolate.  But she was no longer wearing the hospital diaper and vinyl pants; these had been set aside with the diapers in her backpack.

 

“Well,” Priscilla began, “you were apprehended in the possession of stolen property.  So, at some point you will be taken downtown and processed.  You'll spend the night in a cell, and in the morning you'll be taken before a judge.  If you plead not guilty, the prosecuting attorney will request that you make bail, which means that your parents will have to come to terms with a bail bondsman.  If you plead guilty and agree to whatever punishment the DA's office seeks, you'll probably avoid a return trip to jail.”

 

“It was all so stupid,” Janis sniffled.  She was wiping away her tears with the back of her hand.

 

“Janis,” Priscilla cautioned, “although I've read you your rights, I want to remind you that anything you say to me can be admitted into evidence if I'm called to testify.  Remember, you don't have to say a word to me, or to anyone else.  Just because Cindy and Tippi have already confessed doesn't mean that you have to as well.”

 

“But I want to because … because it was all so stupid … the usual crap that goes on up and down the Row all year long.”

 

“And yet it was very well organized,” Priscilla countered, hinting at the argument the Assistant District Attorney would surely make before the judge.  “Methodically researching the diaper service van's stops beforehand … using at least two cars to orchestrate the theft across a series of outings … playing Fox and Hounds with a highly experienced private detective, and getting the best of her.”  Priscilla shook her head sorrowfully.  “This was a conspiracy, Janis, and you were a participant.  Even if you weren't physically stealing the diapers, you were an accessory both before and after the fact.  And we haven't even got to the hospital yet … the betrayal of trust.  Did you ever stop and think about how disappointed everyone would be with you if you got caught?”

 

“Tippi … Cindy … Melanie … they said that it was just a few lousy diapers, and that if I got caught, I should just say that it was a sorority stunt.  They all thought that they'd probably help me carry the diapers out to my car!”

 

“Well, they were wrong, and here we are.  So, get a grip on yourself.  We're going downstairs to hear what Chief Mischof has to say.”

 

Priscilla made a mental note to track down Melanie.  She appeared to be another one of the ringleaders.

 

.  .  .  .

 

“We have fifty two girls in residence,” Bernice summarized.  She was looking down at the print out of the roster in her lap.  “We had forty seven at dinner, so making allowance for Cindy, Tippi and Janis, nearly a full house.  Only two are still out and about.”

 

“Probably scalp hunting,” she muttered under her breath.

 

“And you're sure of the breakdown?”  The Chief had asked her to run down the list, and tag the names of those most likely to be involved in the planning and execution of the heist.

 

“Supremely so,” she replied, her eyes flashing.  “Walt, in my job you take the measure of your charges, try to figure out which ones are okay and which ones are trouble.  Right now, this house is top heavy with Legacies, and they're all sitting on the Council.  Cindy is currently the chair, Tippi a mover and shaker, and Janis a go along to get along type.  I'm sorry that she's caught up in this.  Her mother did not want her to join ZAP, and went along with it only when Janis agreed to do volunteer work at the hospital.  Marilyn is going to be furious.”

 

“And you're sure about this Melanie Wilson,” the Chief pressed.

 

“One of Cindy's ladies in waiting?  Yes, I'm sure.”

 

“Janis' mother is Marilyn Marsden?  Recruitment Services International?”  Ian had not been paying much attention to the back and forth between Bernice and the Chief, but his head had snapped up at the mention of Marilyn's name.  He vaguely recalled that Janis' name had come up in a passing exchange between Priscilla and Marilyn earlier in the afternoon in his office, but once again his attention had been elsewhere.  Between the afterglow of making love to Priscilla, and the upcoming calls with Donnie and Irina, his attention had most definitely been elsewhere.

 

“Yes,” Bernice agreed.  “Do you know her?”

 

“She's my agent,” he admitted with an embarrassed grin.  “A nice lady … and she's gonna be pissed, if you'll pardon my French.”

 

“It's quite all right, Professor.”  Bernice quite liked Ian's down to earth demeanor.  “We speak it a lot around here!”

 

“So, you've gone and hired an agent?”  Walt was relieved to hear it.  “Guess this means that you won't be needing Officer Canon to chaperon you around campus anymore.”

 

Ian stole a sideways glance at Julia.  Rapidly running the pros and cons of the opening the Chief had just given him through his mind, he opted to tiptoe through the tulips.

 

“Sorry, Chief, but I'm stealing her from you, at least for a while.  I put the arm on a guy at Langley who owes me a favor or two, and Pris is now Quantico bound-- the embassy security training program.  Don't know if she'll want to stay with your department when she returns, but the prospect of a substantial raise might influence her decision.”

 

“Well, I'll be damned.”  Walt was shaking his head, trying to process what he had just heard.  “Quantico, eh?  That's quite a feather in her cap.  I'll see what I can do.”

 

“Thanks … and sorry, Julia.  She's planning to tell you and your husband tonight or tomorrow morning, depending upon when we all get out of here.  Please don't spoil the surprise.”

 

“I'll try not to.”  Julia nodded her head, thinking it over.

 

She'll be over a thousand miles away, and right now?  Maybe that's not such a bad idea.

 

“Here's what I want to do,” the Chief announced.  “We'll bring the girls down to the dining room in fours, starting with the ones on Bernice's list that seem least likely to be involved.  We'll seat them at the back, and watch their facial reactions when we bring the most likely suspects in.  That'll tell us a lot.”

 

The Chief stood up, and headed out the door, leaving the others to follow.  But Ian lagged behind.  Catching Bernice's eye, he mimicked making a phone call.

 

“Go ahead,” she whispered as she turned to follow Julia to the dining room.

 

.  .  .  .

 

“Getting a lot of calls from this area code, but I don't recognize the number.  That you, Street?”

 

“In the flesh.  Sorry to disturb you at home.”

 

In reality, Donnie Freeman was saying that he was free to talk, and Ian that he was not under duress.  Years earlier, they had devised a series of casual phrases that they could use over the phone, each one of them containing a code word.

 

“Got an interesting one for you.  Vincent Belmondo, otherwise known as Spats Belmondo.  A local Mafia capo.  I'm looking for petals and thorns, not later than tomorrow morning.”

 

“Not a problem.  Do we have any interest?”

 

“It's possible we owe the guy a favor.  Do you remember Antonio?”

 

“Ah, yes!  I thought the name sounded familiar.  A distant relative, perhaps?”

 

“Hard to say.  Vinnie's niece speaks Italian straight out of the streets of Naples, but Antonio sounded Catania born and bred.  But a lot of those families headed north before they came here.”

 

“Interesting.  And I've got one for you.  From the looks of it, your fiancee is following in her mother's footsteps.”

 

“How so?”

 

“She went shopping earlier today … used a credit card in a sex shop in the northern suburbs.  Think she's into edible underwear?”

 

“Donnie, FYI?  She wears granny panties.  I'm hoping that Vickie will rub off on her, so this might be a good omen.”

 

“The Director's offer still stands: honeymoon for you and your various loves in the Greek isles, all expenses paid.  But he wants a blow by blow description of your sex life in return … a morale boost, so to speak, for a joint that's down in the dumps these days.”

 

“Too bad that I don't know any good restaurants in Teheran, but I don't.  Sorry.”

 

“Wouldn't dream of asking you for a recommendation, Street.  It's not in the cards.  Get back to you in the morning.  Ciao.”

 

“Ciao,” Ian replied, hanging up the phone with a heavy sigh.

 

LOVE WITHOUT MEASURE

 

The sorority girls came down the stairs in groups of four, and as the funereal procession to the dining room advanced, each quartet confirmed the shrewdness of Bernice Miller's judgment.

 

The house mom had scribbled a “C” next to the name of each Council member on her roster, and check marks separated those on the list she considered suspect from those she did not.  The most likely suspects had received two checks.

 

The seven members of the governing Council fell in the latter category.

 

While the rest of the officers on duty retreated to the street to restore order and get traffic moving again, Priscilla and three others were charged with getting each quartet seated in the dining room.  It was as obvious to Ian as it was to Bernice, Julia and Chief Mischof that the first four groups didn't have a clue.  The diapers heaped in a pile at the front of the room didn't register on any of their faces, and they were clearly bewildered when Priscilla ordered them to take seats at the back.

 

The fifth quartet was a different matter altogether. The girls eyes went wide when they spotted the bags of Lullaby's finest, and each paused in mid step as she entered the room.  Once seated, they began to talk in conspiratorial whispers, occasionally leaning back to answer a question from one of the girls who had preceded them.

 

The fifth group was the first on Bernice's list to receive check marks.

 

Faltering footsteps and wide-eyed, fearful glances at the bags of diapers betrayed one group after another, making it clear to Ian and the others that fully two-thirds of the sorority seemed to be in the know.  When everyone was seated except for the five members of the Council still upstairs, Ian took Priscilla aside and asked her to bring Janis Marsden down by herself.  He wanted to see how the others responded to her; in particular, he was curious to learn how many of the girls even knew what she had done.  He also advised her to cuff Janis and take her into the office once they had finished making their pitch.  He hoped that one dramatic gesture would sober the entire sorority up in a hurry.

 

When Melanie Wilson, Joyce Wiggins, Kimberly Doyle and Amanda Cunningham

entered the chamber, the jig was well and truly up.  At every turn, they were welcomed with daggers drawn, leaving no doubt in Chief Mischof's mind that he had pierced the heart of the conspiracy.

 

Finally, Priscilla escorted a solitary Janis Marsden to a seat in the front row, which she had all to herself.  Ian thought it curious that, like the other members of the Council, she was treated with scorn, but was not singled out for special treatment.

 

Janis was hanging her head in shame, and it took every ounce of resolve that Ian could muster not to rush to her side, take her in his arms, and console her.  He only steeled himself by thinking about the tricky game that he was about to play with Spats Belmondo, an ace in the hole that he wanted to hide up his sleeve and perhaps play on a later day.

 

.  .  .  .

 

Decisions, decisions, decisions, Sarah sighed.  She was sitting on the couch, arms splayed, occasionally glancing in Vickie's direction to make sure that her baby girl still had her nose pressed to the wall.

 

What do you think, folks?  Should I pump again, or warm up baby girl's yummy bottles of laxatives and diuretics?  Yeah, you're right.  We want her diaper to be wet and messy come the morning.  We want her to think that she's already lost nighttime control, and needs her diapers for real.  And if she should happen to fill her diapers again while driving to work, Rita can take care of it.  Sorry, my little poop monster, but we all know that a steady diet of breast milk will leave you with diminished control of both bladder and bowel.  And breast milk is now a mainstay of your hitherto alcohol soaked diet …

 

Getting up from the couch, Sarah strolled out to the kitchen to warm up Vickie's bottles.  When they were ready and she was comfortably settled on the floor, her back resting against her couch, she ordered the baby girl to crawl over.

 

Still sucking on her pacifier, Vickie readily obeyed, settling into Sarah's lap in anticipation of her feeding.  Gently, Sarah lifted the baby girl's head to cradle it in her arm.  She removed the pacifier, and offered her the bottle.  Vickie accepted it readily, and began to nurse on the warm milk.

 

“Mommy loves you soooo much, baby girl, do you know that?” Sarah was looking down into Vickie's eyes, her feelings warm and real.  “You are going to be Mommy's sweet baby girl forever and ever, and Mommy will always love you.  Always!”

 

“Wuv Mama,” Vickie somehow managed to mumble around the nipple firmly planted in her mouth. 

 

“Wuv Mama,” she repeated.  And it was true.  Deep inside Victoria Robinson, there was a lonely little girl starved for affection.  Her birth mother had been emotionally distant, her feelings genuine only when she was expressing her disappointment in her daughter's behavior.  Her father had always taken her mother's side, the prototypical absentee father.  She knew that, on more than one occasion, he had forgotten her birthday.  An envelope hastily stuffed with cash left bitter memories of the party that he had come home late to attend on her fourteenth.  A few weeks later, she had taken her revenge by sacrificing her virginity to a boy whose face she could no longer summon up from the store of her memories.

 

Unbidden, Vickie reached up to clasp her mommy's arm, and the infantile gesture struck a chord deep in Sarah's psyche.

 

She accepts me as her Mommy!

 

Sarah didn't know how or why this was happening, but she could see it in Vickie's eyes: the measure of acceptance.  And in that moment, Sarah's world changed.

 

I have a daughter … a baby girl for real!  And I love her!  My hopelessly confused, totally mixed up, sweet baby girl.  I love her!

 

The realization stunned her.  In an instant, Vickie had gone from being the friend of whom she was a bit jealous to a responsibility at once in need of discipline and love.

 

For how long have we been deaf to her cries for help?  For how long??  God!  Is Ian the only person ever to say the three magic words to her … to speak them with conviction and feeling?  How could the rest of us have been so blind??

 

Gazing into Vickie's eyes, a baby sucking so contentedly on her ba ba, Sarah impulsively leaned over to kiss her forehead.  “I love you, baby girl,” she whispered; “I really, really love you, and we are going to start over.  All the years that I've known you, and I don't even know your mother's name.   Not once have you ever mentioned her … even referred to her.  Was she ever there for you?  Ever?”

 

In response, Vickie's grip on Sarah's arm tightened.

 

“Wuv Mama.”  It was all that Vickie could get out, but her grip on Sarah's arm never faltered.

 

Is it possible to repair damage that runs this deep?  There is only one way to find out!

 

.  .  .  .

 

Standing at the front of the room, arms folded, Bernice Miller was genuinely angry, and she was letting it show.  “In the morning,” she began, “Chief Mischof and I expect to be summoned to the Dean's office.  After he reads the Chief's report, it would not surprise me if the Dean reaches out to national and gets our charter revoked.  It's happened before, and for reasons far less serious.”

 

Bernice walked over and lightly kicked one of the bags of diapers.  “Twenty-three separate acts,” she continued, “not including Janis' stealing from the hospital.  Twenty-three.  And guess what … you get to meet the last victim because Professor Grady is sitting right here.  Do you know his story?  If not, let me share some of it with you: three tours in Viet Nam … four purple hearts … barely alive when evacuated from his last battlefield.  Then came nine months of surgeries and rehabilitation before he left the hospital-- wearing a diaper and leaning on a cane.  And his is just one story; there are twenty-two others.  It's screamingly obvious that the Council put a lot of time into this, and that more than half the people in this room knew what they were planning.  Did any of you ever think about the people your actions would be hurting?  Anyone?”

 

“No, I didn't think so,” Bernice concluded.  No one was willing to look her in the eye.

 

As Bernice sat down, Chief Mischof stood up to take her place.  “Let me bring you up to date.  Tippi Bjornsen and Cindy Carlson have been taken into custody, transported to jail, and in the morning will go before a judge.  Processing them will take time, because the poor clerk who has to type up the charge sheet has his work cut out for him.  Miss Marsden here is also under arrest, for a separate but related crime, and in due course will be joining them.  I expect others in this room to be taking the trip as well.”

 

The Chief walked over to the untidy cache of diapers, and shook his head.  “You may wonder why we are taking this so seriously, even to the point of reading each of you your Miranda rights, and being prepared to seek warrants to search the rooms of anyone here who does not cooperate.  Well, let's start with the fact that the houses make up less than five percent of the student body population, but are responsible for more than seventy percent of the complaints that we have to investigate.  The judge is going to hand out some hefty fines because someone has to pay for the twenty-three officers dispatched to investigate the thefts and write up reports on each one of them.  Someone has to pay for the processing, housing, transport to the courtroom-- and did I mention the District Attorney's office?   Well, guess what; Mister Ballstrom was here earlier, and is going to present this case to the court personally.  He takes it very seriously.”

 

The Chief began pacing back and forth in front of the assembly.  “Want to plead not guilty, and take your case to trial?  See why that fine is just going to get bigger and bigger?  And the press will have a field day … they just love the term 'criminal conspiracy'.  Right now, we can keep your names out of the press, but once this case is scheduled for trial?  Nope.  You will be splattered all over the newspapers, the TV and the airwaves.  Whether you are found guilty or not, the notoriety will follow you for years to come.  God forbid what it will do to your parents.”

 

“In the ordinary course of things,” the Chief continued, “this would be a slam dunk.  Plead guilty.  Pay the fine.  Do community service.  Mind your P's and Q's while you're on probation.    Your names remain hidden, and in the end your records are expunged.  But the DA is going to handle the matter personally because, this time, the same old, same old will probably get you killed.  Detective Canon will explain.”

 

Julia took over.  “I'm the lady you ran all over town.”  She noted with satisfaction that the shock waves that the Chief's closing remark had triggered were still rippling across the room.  “And sometime tomorrow, I expect to have an ugly meeting with the client who hired me to investigate this matter-- the gentleman who owns Lullaby Diaper Service.  His name is Vincent Belmondo, although he is better known as Spats Belmondo.  Congratulations, ladies; you targeted Minneapolis' Mafia kingpin, and he hired me to find you.  He does not want the police mixed up in this because you have humiliated him, and he wants revenge.  He cannot afford to turn the other cheek because it would be seen as weakness, and rivals would seek to exploit it.  No.  He wants you, and what he's planning to do with you is feed you, feet first, into a wood chipper.  You will, of course, be alive when he turns on the switch.  I should imagine that it's a most unpleasant way to die.”

 

“Oh, God,” one of the girls moaned. 

 

“You stupid cunts,” someone else yelled at the members of the Council.  They were trying to make themselves invisible, and failing miserably.

 

“So the problem,” Julia calmly continued, “is to find a solution that will make Spats happy, and that the DA can sell to the judge.  We think that Professor Grady has come up with the answer, inspired no doubt by his many years of practical experience wearing and using diapers.  I'll let him explain.”

 

Julia nodded at Ian, and sat down.

 

“The DA and I have cut a deal.  A stiff fine, probation, and community service as candy stripers until you graduate.  I can place some of you in the hospital over yonder.”  Ian nodded in the general direction of the river and the complex just beyond.  “But there are two other medical facilities within walking distance of this house, so placement won't be an issue.”

 

Ian looked around the room, seeking and making eye contact.  “This will satisfy the judge,” he went on, “but not Spats Belmondo.  What may satisfy him is if you become his clients-- clients of Lullaby Diaper Service.  So, it comes down to this: everyone in this sorority will have to agree to wear and use diapers 24/7 until you graduate.  Spats can turn a nice profit, revel in your humiliation, and you walk away with your reputations reasonably intact.  Your social life will be ruined, but on the plus side, your grades should go up.  As deals go, it sure beats the wood chipper.”

 

“No!,” a girl at the very back of the room protested.  “I had nothing to do with this, and I'm not about to spend the next year and a half shitting myself to appease a mobster.  Go screw yourself!”

 

“Fine,” Ian mildly rejoined.  “Who would you like to start with?  Come on, you choose the first victim.  Melanie Wilson, perhaps?  She's in this up to her eyeballs, so she'd be a good choice.  But perhaps there's someone else on the Council that you'd like Spats to run through the wood chipper, to become a tasty snack for the pigs that he keeps on a farm down in Iowa.  You decide.”

 

Ian had strolled up to the second row of seats, and he reached out to clamp a hand firmly on Melanie's shoulder.  She looked like she was ready to puke, and he wanted to spare her the indignity.

 

“You de … de … cide,” he stuttered, the room suddenly spinning around him.

 

The rats feasted, initially on the exposed flesh.  But when there was no resistance, they were emboldened.  Some got inside the clothing and burrowed into the intestines, eating their fill.  Others went after the eyes, a tasty morsel. 

 

The photos had come later, when the tropical heat and humidity had taken over where the rats had left off.  Identifying Nguyen had been a challenge, Anh and his parents-in-law more difficult still.  The entire village …

 

“IAN!”  Somebody was screaming his name …

 

“But that's not right.  I'm Street Racer ...”

 

“SMELLING SALTS,” Priscilla yelled; “SMELLING SALTS!!”

 

Bernice dashed into her office to grab the first aid kit.  Standing close by and paying close attention, Priscilla had heard Ian's voice trail off, got to him as he dropped to his knees, passing out as she caught him, his weight carrying both of them to the floor.

 

It had taken hours to reach Minh … or so it felt.  Rationally, Street Racer knew that it couldn't have been more than a minute.

 

“Can't walk,” Minh had grunted, “legs are gone.”

 

“It's a nice day.”  Street Racer grimaced, the transition to Vietnamese seamless but the pain getting worse by the second.  “A good day to die.”

 

“Can you light 'em up?”  He had somehow hoisted Minh onto his shoulders, his brother-in-law still gripping his weapon.  He was vaguely aware that Quy had risen from the rice paddy, closed the distance to protect his right flank.

 

Slowly, staggering under the weight, Street Racer headed in the direction of the LZ, the choppers now landing in a steady stream, evacuating the POW's that they had liberated   from the hellhole southwest of Hanoi.  The raid had been a brilliant success, until the rains had come early, forcing them to head west, into the mountains that separated them from the Laotian frontier.  Everything had conspired to slow them down, to miss the rendezvous at the secondary …

 

A stray round slammed into his chest, the right side of his rib cage on fire.  He was looking to his right, toward the tree line when Quy's chest exploded in a cascade of torn flesh and blood, knocking him off his feet.  Street reached out to get a grip on his fatigues, his mind willing him to drag his brother-in-law to safety even as his body began to give out ...

 

“We need to elevate his legs.”  Janis was struggling to remain calm, fighting to draw upon the knowledge that she had won in the long hours of her rounds in the hospital.  She had found a couple of throw pillows to put under his ankles, but needed more.

 

Chief Mischof removed his jacket, hastily bundled it, and pushed it under Ian's left knee.    Watching her daughter the whole time, Julia did the same, sliding her coat under his right knee.

 

Bernice unceremoniously dropped to the floor, cracked the ampule, and waved it under Ian's nose.

 

Ian was prone on the floor, his head cradled in Priscilla's arms.

 

“Ian, do you hear me?  Do you?”  She was sobbing, willing him to wake up.  “I love you.  Do you hear me, Secret Agent Man, do you?  I love you, and you are not going to die on me!  Not now, not ever!”

 

“Here!”  Kimberly had had the presence of mind to race to the living room, grab two cushions off the couch, and rush them back.  Janis used them to elevate his ankles still higher.

 

“Wha … what happened?”  Ian was returning to consciousness, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs.  He remembered being in Viet Nam, but not how he had got there.  It was all a blur.

 

“Another seizure,” Priscilla cried.  “It happened, just like Vickie said it would happen.”

 

“The pig sty,” he groaned.

 

“The rats,” she guessed.  Someone brought a wet wash cloth, and she used it to mop his brow.  His skin had been pale and lifeless only moments before, and now sweat was pouring off of him.  Priscilla feared that the rats would haunt her dreams for the rest of her life.

 

“I love you.”

 

“I know,” she said with a manufactured smile.  “Your third lady of the week, and fourth of the month.  But that's okay.  I'm lucky to have you, and I'm willing to share.  But there will be no more running off to save the world, do you hear me?  The President can send somebody else to Poland, or Iran, or wherever it is that you're supposed to go next week.  I'm not having it!”

 

Julia started to speak, then shut her mouth with an audible snap.  Now was not the time.

 

“Do you think that you can stand,” Bernice asked as she slowly climbed to her feet.  “Lying on the floor in the middle of the dining room is a bit undignified.”

 

“I'm getting too old for this,” the Chief huffed as he also stood up.  “And we still haven't resolved this mess.”

 

“No,” Ian agreed as he managed to get onto his knees, and then with the Chief's help onto his feet.  “We haven't.”  Staggering, Ian reached out to grab the back of a chair, knowing that there was still work to be done.  And perversely, he badly needed a diaper change.

 

Later.

 

Looking around, Ian could see that the room was in turmoil.  Some of the girls were still seated, while others were up and milling around, talking to their friends and trying to get a handle on the situation.  As he watched, two of the girls tried to leave, but the officers blocking the doorways politely but firmly instructed them to return to their seats.

 

They are all so young …

 

The floodgates opened, and memories began pouring into his conscious mind-- memories of childhood and innocence, and innocence lost.  Lives lost.  Willie Ross swam up once more from the depths, the nineteen year old kid with the perpetual smile, raised by loving parents to treat everyone around him with kindness.  A baby abandoned on the outskirts of a village, lying there helpless, unable to escape the pitiless sun?  Of course Willie picked the child up-- it was in his nature.

 

And the anti personnel mine concealed beneath the infant had detonated, shredding them both.

 

Holding onto the chair for dear life, eyes tightly shut in a hopeless attempt to ward off the pain, Ian shuddered.  From a great distance, he felt a hand reach out to clasp his own.

 

They need to hear the truth.  You cannot let them make the wrong choice.  Open your heart to them … teach them to love without measure …

 

Nguyen?

 

Rapidly blinking, Ian opened his eyes, unaware of the tears that were trickling down his cheeks.

 

“You can do this,” Priscilla whispered, gripping his hand still more tightly to reassure him.  “You are the bravest person I have ever met, and you can do this.  Open your heart, and they will look inside theirs.  Go on.”

 

“Listen up, everybody!”  Priscilla clapped her hands to get the room's attention.  “Ian …Professor Grady has something to say that you need to hear.  I'm not going to sugarcoat this.  When he confided in me this afternoon, parts of it were so bad that I came close to putting my head in the trash can and puking my guts up.  Some of it is going to give me nightmares, so I've asked him to edit it.  But you need to hear it.”

 

The girls looked at one another in confusion, no one quite knowing what to do.

 

“Park it,” Bernice roared.

 

Everyone scrambled to find a seat.

 

“Thank you.”  Ian said, stalling for time while he collected his thoughts.  “What you just saw was a flashback, my third of the week.  My doctor says that, just as a fuse blows to protect an overloaded circuit, my brain hurls me back to Viet Nam … back to the worst moments of my life … to prevent me from making decisions.  And it does so with good reason.”

 

Looking around the room, it was clear that some of the girls were paying attention, but others were just going through the motions for the sake of politeness.  Ian abruptly decided to try a different tack.

 

“I'm curious.  How many of you are twenty-one?”

 

Hands went up throughout the room, but instead of counting, Ian looked over to Bernice.

 

“Fourteen,” she said, “including the two who are still absent.”

 

“I was twenty-one when I landed in Viet Nam, and took command of a platoon.  I was in way over my head, but I was fortunate to have a highly experienced sergeant to lean on.  But I still made mistakes, and one of them killed a goodhearted kid from Alabama.  He was nineteen years old, which I guess would make him a sophomore today … maybe a member of one of the fraternities.  But he came home in a body bag, and yet he still talks to me in my dreams.  That's guilt, and I have a mountain of it eating away at me.  My therapist says that, to get better, I have to bring it out into the open, embrace it, and somehow find the grace to forgive myself, but that's easier said than done.”

 

Ian had their attention now.  Even the cops in the doorways were listening hard.

 

“In February of sixty eight, I was wounded badly enough to end my army career, but not my military service.  My ability to speak Vietnamese, and several other languages, kept me in country, but fighting in the shadows.  I was now outside the chain of command, reporting to a civilian at the Pentagon, the Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities.  The unit I pieced together became the tip of the special operations spear, carrying out one high risk mission after another in the North and South, in Laos and Cambodia.  We had little interaction with the regular military, and in our isolation truly became a band of brothers … a family in the truest sense of the word … and I failed them.”

 

Ian barely registered the sharp intakes of breath that swept across the room.  “We had sworn an oath … our Commandment, really: everyone comes home.  Whole, wounded, in a body bag, we leave no one behind.  And in the last battle, I left two men in the field, two Vietnamese sergeants … my brothers-in-law, Minh and Quy ...”

 

“WHAT,” Julia yelped, her cry echoed by others, a shock wave rolling back and forth in the confined space.

 

“It's a compact,” he whispered, the pain visible now, framing each word, every syllable.   “and I … I … I was wounded, but they … I was carrying Minh over my shoulders, and dragging Quy … already dead, maybe … I'm not sure.  And then another round came in, fragmented in my spine, knocked me down.  I lost my grip just as a chopper swooped in … the last chopper … someone dragged me aboard … I remember him screaming something like 'they're dead, let's go' … and we left them behind.  My family.”

 

“No!  That's not fair!”  Janis had not spoken with her mother, but Marilyn had left a message with the office to let her know that she was now representing Ian and would be shielding him.  The note was still sitting on the desk in her room, asking her to thank all of the sisters that had stood duty outside his office, keeping the headhunters at bay.

 

Her mother could not protect him from a nightmare.   

 

“You can't do this,” she protested, climbing to her feet, “because it's wrong.  You were hurt so bad that you spent months in hospitals.  There was nothing you could do!  Nothing!!”

 

“I'm sorry, Janis, but there's more.”  Ian didn't know why, but it was somehow easier to confess his sins to one person than to a sea of disembodied faces.  “We needed a base of operations, and because it was ideally located and we were welcome, I gravitated to Minh and Quy's village.”

 

Ian took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled.  “I was twenty-two when I met Nguyen, and fell in love with this beautiful, kind and caring woman who loved me in return.  And our marriage was blessed.  I have a daughter, Janis; her name is Linh, which is pronounced 'Ling' in Viet Nam, but 'Lynn' in America.  We were, you see, thinking ahead.”

 

A wistful smile creased Ian's features.  They had batted names around in the dark, his head resting on her belly, the baby kicking out in protest.  She had run her fingers through his hair, always so unruly.

 

Julia gaped, as stunned as everyone else in the room.  She stared at her daughter, watching the play of emotions washing across her features.  Her gaze never wandered, and what Julia saw was pride and pain infusing love so intense that it radiated off of her in waves.  In that moment, she realized that she had lost her little girl.

 

And she knew how this story would end.  There could be only one reason for this man to  tell this story to this audience, to revisit all this pain.  Scanning the room, seeing in their faces that none of the girls sensed how it would go … she pitied them for the choice that he would set before them.  And she understood why her daughter had fallen in love.

 

Julia had been wrong.  Ian had not pulled the wool over her daughter's eyes.  He had told her the truth.

 

And Priscilla had embraced it, granted him the absolution of the confessional.

 

Bernice Miller also knew what was coming.  She had been widowed at twenty-seven, the telegram coming out of the darkness, her husband fallen at Pork Chop Hill.  Eighteen months later, she had moved into the house, sharing it with young women less than a decade her junior.  She had never remarried, and still wore her wedding ring.

 

Bernice did not know what choice her charges would make, but they would choose, and their choices would have lasting consequences.  This was the night, she sadly thought, when they would suffer childhood's end.

 

Walt Mischof turned his head just enough to steal a glance at Bernice.  They had known each other for so long, and had made the short trip together more than once-- to lay flowers on the graves of Bernice's husband and Walt's brother, both laid to rest in the VA cemetery out by the airport.

 

The Chief knew that Bernice was childless, and that for all her bluster, she dearly loved the girls in her care-- an entire generation, and more, that she had taken from …

 

How does the song go?  “From crayons to perfume” …

 

He knew that she was hurting, sadness and regret marring her features.  Although the ground was snow covered, he resolved to ask her to join him in another visit once term came to an end, when almost every student went home for the holidays.

 

Although it won't be much of a holiday for these girls …

 

“I always left a skeleton force behind to secure the village in our absence,” Ian continued, “but not once did I leave Minh and Quy behind … and that was my mistake.  When I was wounded … while I was in the hospital … the unit was disbanded, and my men moved on.  There was no one left to defend the village … and at some point it was attacked.  I knew nothing until I went home … to the village … and found it deserted.  Even then, it took time to piece together what had happened ...”

 

Ian dipped his head and so did not see the looks of horror as the truth began to dawn around the room.

 

“I saw photos,” he went on, still oblivious.  “My wife … my sister in law … her parents … everyone was dead, their bodies left where they had fallen.  Everyone except the babies and small children.  We … we think that someone who knew about my gift for languages also knew that I had a child, who would be incredibly valuable if she inherited my gift.  But whoever did this did not know which child, so they played it safe by taking them all and leaving no one alive to tell the tale.  And it was only by accident that we were able to piece together what had happened.”

 

Ian looked over at Julia, knowing full well that she had unmasked him.  “This was eight years ago, and on that day the search for my daughter began.  I made a deal … some would say with the Devil.  I travel the globe putting my talents to work for the CIA, and in return they have made finding Linh a priority mission.  Others are searching as well, including ...”

 

Looking up, Ian grinned sheepishly.

 

“Including Mafia overlords, with whom I have a somewhat complex relationship.  And that brings me to Spats Belmondo.”

 

Reading the room, Chief Mischof chuckled to himself.  The hammer was about to fall, and every head was upturned, awaiting the blow.

 

“I don't know the man, but I do know the mindset.  Julia is right.  You've humiliated a Mafia don, and he can't ignore the hit.  If he doesn't respond, his enemies will sense weakness and seek to exploit it, and the danger of betrayal within his own ranks is greater still.  We have to make him the proverbial offer that he can't refuse; otherwise he will come for you, and there will be no easy deaths.  An oldie but goodie would be to turn you into addicts, and then put you to work in the streets.  Life expectancy?  Less than three years.”

 

The Chief estimated that more than half the people in the room were terror stricken-- and his officers covering the doorways didn't look so good either.  But it wasn't every day that a CIA agent with the Professor's vast experience showed up so bluntly to talk about the facts of life.

 

“I don't envy you your choices,” Ian concluded, “but I pray that you will prove wiser than me.  There's the family you're born into, and the family you choose.  Look around you, and ask yourself who you see.  Are these mere acquaintances who share your life for a few years, and then depart, never to be seen again?  Or are these what sorority girls have long styled themselves … sisters?  Is this the family you have chosen?”

 

Ian once more rested his hand on Melanie's shoulder.  “I chose a family, and my mistakes cost them their lives.  I'll carry that burden with me to the grave.  If Tippi and Cindy, Janis and Melanie … others here … are your family, don't abandon them.  If you do, the knowledge of what you have done will haunt you forever.”

 

Ian turned to Priscilla, and mouthed one word.  Nodding, she walked over to Janis and got her to her feet.  Ian was gambling that cuffing her would bring home the reality of the situation in a way that mere words couldn't.  Priscilla led her out of the room; she would get one of the officers on duty outside to put her in the back of a patrol car, collect Ian's diaper bag, and then return to change him.  The battle for the sorority's collective soul would either be won or lost before she reentered the dining room.   

 

.  .  .  .

 

“Mommy, I poopy,” Vickie whined.

 

“Let Mommy check,” Sarah replied as she kicked off the covers to roll over and sniff Vickie's butt.  They had gone to bed only minutes before, entwined in each others arms.  Vickie's head was cradled against Sarah's chest, and she was praying that her baby girl would begin to nurse.  Sarah would cheerfully exchange the breast pump for Vickie's hungry mouth any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

 

“Yep, you're poopy, all right.  But don't worry; Mommy will clean you up and get you into a nice, dry diaper.  Then we'll go to sleep, and Mommy will change you again in the morning.”

 

Sarah reached over to the nightstand, grabbed Vickie's pacifier, and held it out to her.  Vickie opened her mouth, accepted the offering, and began eagerly sucking on her binkie.  Sarah had given up on the idea of sending Vickie to work in a dirty, stinky diaper.  In so many ways, Vickie really was a big baby desperately in need of a mother's love, and Sarah was determined to see that she received it.  In the morning, she would let Rita know that there had been a slight change in the plans for their new household, and a massive change in strategies.  The antidote to Vickie's rebelliousness was to be found in diapers and baby pants, bottles and binkies, and above all in the love that a mommy and auntie could lavish upon their baby girl.  A return to infancy would give the lonely little girl inside Victoria Robinson a chance to heel.

 

A NEW DAY

 

“Good morning, baby girl,” Sarah whispered in Vickie's ear as she rubbed her shoulder.  “Time to rise and shine, and drink your ba bas!”

 

Sarah had awakened to find Vickie's head still nestled up against her chest, the rhythmic beating of her heart soothing her baby as once, long ago, the beating of a mother's heart had perhaps comforted her in the womb.  Sarah had taken her time getting out of bed, choosing to let Vickie sleep since there was only room for one in her bathroom.  She had showered and dressed, and fixed her hair and makeup before retreating to the kitchen to warm the last two bottles of breast milk in the frig.  There was still one clean diaper left in Vickie's diaper bag, which would have to do until they got to work.  Sarah wanted Vickie to become functionally incontinent as quickly as possible, which meant a steady diet of breast milk laced with diuretics and laxatives.  Her target was six to eight diaper changes a day, and for all of them to be poopy.  From Sarah's point of view, the diaper pails that she had at home, and in both her office and Rita's, couldn't fill up fast enough.

 

“Did you sleep well, Sweetie?”

 

“Yes, Mommy!  Like a baby,” Vickie cleverly replied.

 

“Aw, you're so cute, and Mommy loves you sooo much!  Now, let me crawl into bed, sit up, and cradle you in my lap.  It's time for breakfast!”

 

Vickie obliged, and a few moments later was sucking on the nipple of her pink baby bottle.  As she nursed, she felt completely at peace.

 

Looking down on her new baby, Sarah was silently cursing herself.  She had known Vickie for almost ten years, and in all that time had paid no attention to the warning signs.  Living life on the high wire was a self-destructive cry for help, and she had ignored it-- she and Rita, both.  No more.

 

We're a family, and it took having Ian come along to drive the point home … drive it into our very thick skulls.  We're a family, and what do families do when one of us is hurting?  We pitch in, and we help.  Vickie needs her mother … needs to experience love at first hand.  That's where Rita and I come in, so that …

 

Please, God, please let Vickie and Ian have children!

 

“Diapee, Mommy!  Diapee!”

    

“Oh, you finished your ba ba already??  Such a good baby girl!  Yes, you are; yes, you are!”

 

Sarah fished the key to Vickie's diaper cover out of her pocket, and unlocked it.  Vickie raised her hips, and Sarah quickly removed the cover and baby pants, setting them aside.  They were clean enough to be reused, but would soon need to be replaced.  On both, the smell from Vickie's poop was unmistakable.

 

Sarah ran her hand over Vickie's diaper, and was delighted to discover that it was soaked.  Her baby girl had wet heavily during the night, and perhaps more than once.  Her control was rapidly slipping away.

 

Leaning down, Sarah took a deep breath, and instantly recoiled.

 

“Baby girl, did you make a poopies in your sleep for your mommy?”  Sarah found it remarkably easy to speak to Vickie as if she were an infant.

 

“Poopy, Mommy … poopy!”

 

“Well, let's get you out of that dirty diaper, get you into the tub, and get that cute, little bottom of yours nice and clean!  Does that sound good, baby girl?”

 

“Yes, Mommy!  Clean!”

 

Taking Vickie by the hand, Sarah led her into the bathroom, but did not attack her diaper until she was safely in the tub.  When she unpinned the heavy, wet fabric, it was full of mushy poop, which was also coating the whole of her nether region.  During the night, the laxatives had done their work.

 

“I'm sorry, Mommy; I'm such a baby.”

 

“Don't be sorry, baby girl.”  Sarah was using a damp washrag to clean off as much of the mess as possible, but suddenly she paused.

 

“I'm sorry, Vickie.  I love you … you and Rita, both … my sisters.  And I am so ashamed that I never saw how much you were hurting.”

 

“She never loved me,” Vickie wailed.  “I was … was such an inconvenience … a … a blemish on her country club standing.  She never loved me!”

 

Vickie broke down completely, holding onto Sarah for dear life, Sarah hugging her close in return.

 

“The past is the past, over and done.”  Sarah was whispering into Vickie's ear, trying to give her hope, trying to connect with whatever vestige of faith in others that Vickie could still muster.

 

“I love you, baby girl, now and forever.  And Ian loves you … God, how that man loves you!  Both of you will always be my babies, long after yours have grown up and run off to make lives of their own.  And you will, you know?  You and Ian?  My crystal ball tells me that you will have at least two daughters, maybe more!”

 

Sarah hugged Vickie, willing her to let go, willing her tears to flow.  For both of them, the morning had brought a new day.

 

.  .  .  .

 

Opening the door just a crack, Bernice peeked into the guest room.  In the last hour before dawn, it was still pitch black outside, and the only light entering the room came from the hallway behind her.  In the darkness, she could not tell if Ian was still asleep.   

 

Entering the room but leaving the door partially open, Bernice approached the bed.  Looking down, she saw that he was still sleeping peacefully, still holding tight to the pacifier that Suzie had offered him the night before.

 

What a contradiction in terms you are.  Truly, an enigma.

 

In the semi darkness, standing beside the bed, Bernice was studying him, trying to get all the disparate pieces of the puzzle that was Professor Ian Grady to come together in a meaningful pattern.

 

I'm glad that Suzie came over, and offered to help get you settled in for the night.  And it was so nice of you to let her feed you the bottles of breast milk that Sarah insists you drink at bedtime, though what that's all about I have absolutely no idea.  And as for the pacifier …

 

Bernice shook her head, still baffled by what she had seen and learned about this young man.

 

Suzie told me how you helped Wendy Stafford, and something about volunteering to help vets at the hospital.  And last night you helped my girls, kept most of them from making a terrible mistake that would tear this house apart and saddle them with lifelong guilt …

 

What you told them about Viet Nam … lifting the veil on all the hurt you carry around inside you … collapsing into Priscilla's arms with another seizure … how can you do this to yourself?  Does retreating into infancy like this somehow balance the scale?  Allow you to function?

 

Bernice set the two bottles of warm breast milk on the nightstand, where they would be within easy reach of the couch.  She would wake him, feed him, change his diaper during the course of his morning routine, and offer him a decent breakfast.  The Chief would swing by to pick them both up, delivering Ian to his morning class and her to a meeting with the Dean that was bound to be awkward and humiliating in the extreme.  Later, the three of them would go downtown, to the courthouse, where Ian and the District Attorney would do their best to sell a settlement to the court that would spare the girls public exposure yet satisfy the wrath of the gangster who owned the diaper service.   

 

Bernice desperately wanted her girls back.  There were only eleven in the house, and it felt as empty as a tomb.  These would be gone by term's end, leaving her with forty-one charges with a criminal record hanging over their heads-- forty-one charges who would be wearing and using diapers 24/7 for the rest of their university careers.

 

If Tippi and Cindy agree to Ian's plan … if the DA doesn't have a change of heart when he gets up this morning … if the judge will go along with this absurd plan to keep Spats Belmondo at bay …

 

Truly, an enigma.

 

.  .  .  .

 

It was a morning ritual that dated back to Priscilla's mid-teens.  Her dad got up first, and headed downstairs to start the percolator.  When the paper landed on the front porch, he went out to collect it.  Then, cup of scalding black coffee in hand, he sat down, took out the sports pages, and settled back to read about the latest misadventure suffered by the Twins or the Vikings, the North Stars or the Gophers.  Forever doomed to be teased but disappointed, only a masochist could love sports in Minnesota.

 

This Thursday morning started out like all the others.

 

In due course, Julia staggered down the stairs-- a person best avoided until she had drowned her displeasure with the world in general and Minnesotans in particular in a cup of joe, no cream or sugar added, thank you very much.

 

Julia hated mornings almost as much as she hated stakeouts.  When she arrived on scene, like Pavlov's dog Herb put down his cup, opened the paper wide, and hid behind the thin but hopefully impenetrable barrier of the Star Tribune.  They both understood that Julia could violate the truce, but only if she was having a particularly bad morning.

 

The twenty ninth of November, in the year known as 1979 in some circles and 2522 in others, was a particularly bad morning.

 

Invariably, Priscilla was the last to put in an appearance.  She had discovered early on that hiding behind a cup of coffee didn't work if you were the third and last to arrive, so she had developed an ongoing love affair with the toaster.  It was so positioned in a corner of the kitchen that anyone bowing down in worship before it would have their back turned to the dining room table.  On good days, Priscilla would have her slice of white bread lightly toasted; on bad days, it would come out burnt to a crisp.

 

This was an especially bad day.

 

Priscilla had given careful thought to the confrontation-- in fact, had been thinking about it for years.  No man would ever be good enough for Herb and Julia Canon's little girl, although it had become glaringly obvious in recent years that her lack of matrimonial prospects was worrying them both.

 

Parents, she thought as she sat down directly opposite her mother and began doling out the butter and the apricot jam; they always want to have their cake and eat it too.

 

She had come to the table this morning prepared for combat.  Parents could be dragons, but she was a dragon slayer.  And she had in her possession the one weapon before which the most fiery of dragons were helpless.

 

Grandchildren.  The ultimate weapon in the eternal war between the generations.

 

She had seen it in Ian's eyes.  When he first spoke of his daughter, his expression had softened, his eyes filled with tenderness and love.  And then had come the moment when he acknowledged her loss, and his eyes had filled with pain, hot and searing.

 

Priscilla did not know whether the search for Linh and Thu would ever bear fruit, but she knew that she wanted to start a family, and for Ian to be the one who gave her children.  If anything could heal a wound cutting this deep into the soul, even diminish its pain, it was to have more children.

 

And time would be on her side.  She might suffer their wrath today, but her parents would never take out their displeasure on her children.  In time, all would be forgiven.

 

“About Quantico,” she decided to begin.  And sure enough …

 

Herb lowered his newspaper, and looked at her quizzically.

 

“Dad, you were right about Ian … well, both right and wrong.  He does work for the CIA, but he's not on the payroll.  It's more like he does them the occasional favor, and in return they search ...” 

 

Priscilla visibly choked on what she had to say next.  She didn't need to see photographs to imagine what rats and the tropical sun had done to Ian's family.  The rats had visited her in her sleep.

 

“Search?”  Herb had set the newspaper aside.

 

“For his daughter, Dad.  The Agency is searching for his daughter.  He married in Viet Nam, but when he was in hospital, someone came to the village.  They slaughtered everyone except the little children.  Ian … the whole intelligence community suspects that someone knew he had a child, and took the children because they didn't know which one was his.  It's his gift for languages, Dad; you don't know how rare it is.  If his daughter has inherited it, her value would be incalculable.”

 

Herb glanced at his wife.  “Did you know about this?”

 

“I found out last night, at the sorority house.  He bared his soul to keep those girls from making a terrible mistake.  It worked, but the cost to him personally was high.  And this morning he and Q-Ball are going into court to try and sell the judge on a plan that they cobbled together on the fly … a plan to buy off Spats Belmondo.”

 

Herb let out a deep sigh.  He was almost afraid to ask the next question.

 

“And what does Quantico have to do with this?”

 

Ian called a friend at Langley … a Deputy Director.  They want me to do the embassy security course so that ...”

 

Priscilla paused, not sure which parent to address.  Neither of them was likely to take what was coming next very well.

 

“The Agency expects Ian to have more children, and they don't want a repeat of what happened in Viet Nam.  So, a security net will be dropped over any woman he sleeps with.  The net will become more visible if someone gets pregnant, and very tight once the baby is born.  Ian wants me to take charge of the inner security ring-- the one inside the house, and on the surrounding grounds.  I'm the logical choice because ...”

 

Priscilla took a deep breath, hoping that her parents could guess what she was about to confess.

 

“... because I'm already inside the net.”

 

“You're sleeping with him.”  Julia made it a statement, not a question.  “Were either of you using protection?”

 

Priscilla shook her head.  “No, and we won't be in the future.”

 

“You want to have a baby … with a man you've known for what … three days?  Priscilla, this is insane!”  Herb wondered whether his daughter had actually taken leave of her senses.

 

“And where,” he pressed, “does this leave Rita … and Vickie … and, and … what's the name of the one he's going to marry?”  Herb was looking at his wife, desperately in need of answers not only to the question he was asking but also to the ones he wasn't.

 

“Sarah,” Julia prompted.

 

“Right,” Herb said, “Sarah.  Where does this leave Sarah?”

 

“On Saturday night, when they hear the truth, the three of them will have to decide whether they want to pay the price that loving Ian demands.  The loss of privacy … the price is high, Dad, so we're going to wait to hear what they have to say.”

 

“And if the three of them want to go ahead with this bizarre plan of theirs?”

 

“Then the three of us will become the four of us,” Priscilla shrugged.  “It's that simple.”

 

“So you propose to have a baby out of wedlock ...”

 

“Oh, Dad, really?  Ozzie and Harriet, Dad?  Donna Reed?  In case you haven't noticed, the nineteen fifties have come and gone.  Welcome to the seventies!  Even Three's Company is passé!  With inflation and all?  Five's company sounds about right!”

 

“Pris, I have never been so proud of you in my whole life as I was last night.”  Julia opted to try a different approach.  “Ian is a remarkable person, and he's hurting in ways that I can't even begin to imagine.  And you were there for him, embracing his pain, giving him the strength to do something that had to be done despite the cost.  You love him, and he loves you.  That's so plain to see that I expect the whole campus to be talking about little else today.  I'm happy for you, but I would like you to tone it down until Saturday night rolls around.  Be gentle.  Give Sarah … give all three of them some time to come to terms with this.”

 

“Julia ...”

 

“No, Herb.  We have to respect our daughter's wishes.  Besides, you're two years away from retirement, and I'm sick of stakeouts.  We can take the money we'd blow on a big wedding and finally take that cruise we've been talking about all these years.  Then I'll be ready to become a grandma, and spoil my grandson or daughter rotten.”

 

“Okay … okay.”  Herb threw his hands in the air in surrender.  “I know when I'm beaten.”

 

“Good,” Priscilla declared.  “Now that that's out of the way, it will be okay for you to tag along tonight.”

 

“Tonight?  Where?”

 

“To the bar, of course.  Ian, Vickie, an orderly named Amos Waring, and yours truly are challenging the reigning champs to a drinking contest, with Hong Kong Rules.  Ian thinks you're too old to hold your own, but I told him you were good for it.  We'll see.”

 

“And what exactly are Hong Kong Rules,” Herb smiled.

 

“Tequila shots until someone pisses their pants.  The loser has to buy the next round for the whole bar.  We play until one team is all pissed out-- and it won't be us because Vickie and I will be wearing the same diaper Ian wears … that big, thick hospital monstrosity.  We'll be able to piss ourselves with merry abandon, and no one will be the wiser!  We win, and become the new champs, much to the delight of the Third, which is strongly of the opinion that Amos will still be standing when everyone else passes out.”

 

“We'll see.”  Herb's smile was getting bigger by the second.  “Starting time?”

 

“Around eight.  I promised Ian a gourmet meal of home made onion rings, a juicy lucy, and house cut fries.  Since I'm the world's worst cook, I need to lower his expectations.”

 

“Now, that sounds more like the daughter I know and love,” Julia laughed.  “I think I'll tag along, if only to pick up the pieces and figure out who's going to be sleeping where!”

 

.  .  .  .

 

Ian picked up the phone on the first ring.

 

“That you, Street?”

 

“In the flesh.”

 

“You'll be happy to know that I've got you on speed dial,” Donnie laughed.  “I gather you made the local news last night; don't let being a celebrity go to your head!”

 

“They mentioned me by name?”  Ian was pretty sure that Donnie was pulling his leg.

 

“Nah … just a global reference to somebody ripping off diapers from a badly wounded war hero.  Anybody say anything in class just now?”

 

“Nary a word.”

 

“Well, then, as you have been known to say: 'no harm done'.  Now about Vincent Belmondo ...”

 

Ian could hear Donnie shuffling papers on his desk.

 

“Street, you have a talent for unearthing interesting people, and this guy is definitely interesting.  Let's start with his father, Tommaso.  Got off the boat from Naples in twenty four, blew a kiss to the Statue of Liberty, and immediately headed west … destination, Chicago.  Grandfather was definitely Neapolitan, so if there's a Sicilian connection, it won't show up on our end.  Capiche?”

 

“Got it.  I'll pursue it from this end.  Maybe Antonio will have a better sense of the family history.”

 

“Going to call him?”

 

“Yeah, but it would help if you could come up with something to add spice to the conversation.”

 

“Consider it done.  Your Libyan pal has let it be known that there's not enough grease on his palms.”

 

“That works.  Antonio is getting on in years, but he still likes to keep his hand in.  Let him run with the ball.”

 

“Don't fancy a desert outing, I take it.”

 

“Camels make me seasick.  I learned my lesson in that Algerian fiasco.  One hundred and forty five degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, only there was no shade.  And the gold embossing on my passport melted!  The immigration officer gave me a really funny look when I landed at LAX.”

 

“Okay, so back to the American branch of clan Belmondo.  Tommaso quickly hooks up with Al Capone, and starts running trucks over to Lake Huron.  With a little help from the Purple Gang, Tommaso is soon making regular runs with Seagram's finest, and he gets rewarded for his loyalty and reliability.  In short, for a Wop fresh off the boat, after a couple of years spent proving his worth, he's living the American dream, complete with wife and child.  Only, he doesn't want his first-born son to get caught up in the family business, so he scrimps and saves to put his boy through private schools with a penchant for sending their prodigies to the Ivies.”

 

“You have got to be kidding me!”  Ian was laughing so hard that he doubled over.        

 

“Nope!”  Donnie was laughing just as loud.  “Brown, class of forty eight … a Phi Beta Kappa, no less!  And then … then … Vincent takes an MBA at Princeton-- my alma mater!  Ian, no matter what … please … I'm begging you … find out if he remembers the fight song!”

 

“It'll be high on my list, Donnie … high on my list!” Ian could feel mushy poop pouring into his diaper, which seemed only fitting given the way this conversation was going.

 

“So, after he gets his degree, he goes back to Chicago, at a moment when Minneapolis is wide open because Humphrey's run the mob out of town.  Seizing the opportunity, Vincent migrates north to fill the void, but he's smart enough to realize that no one is going to take an Ivy League hood seriously, so he comes up with Spats Belmondo, and sells the product with the help of Tony Accardo, who by then is running the Chicago Outfit.”

 

“Oh, this just gets better and better,” Ian guffawed; “no wonder he has a hard on for wood chippers … he was tutored by Joe Batters, no less!”

 

“Yep, the Big Tuna himself!”

 

“Okay,” Ian decided, “here's what we're going to do.  Call our friends at the IRS, and have them send a certified letter to Spats informing him that he's won the grand prize-- a comprehensive audit of the last seven years of his personal and business returns.”

 

“That will certainly get his attention,” Donnie chuckled.

 

“But have our guy add a phone number and extension at the bottom of the letter, and do it by hand.  I'll tell Spats that, if he plays ball, he's one phone call away from getting a reprieve.  And to sweeten the deal, an ironclad guarantee that he can visit the old country without worrying about being denied reentry when he comes home.”

 

“Okay, so after you recruit him, what the hell are you going to do with him?”

 

“Put him to work, of course.  In fact, if they're still juicing the food service industry, I'm going to put the whole, damned Mafia to work!”

 

.  .  .  .

 

“This is gross,” Melanie complained.  “I mean seriously.  What's the point of getting us up at six?  Hello?  We're in jail, already!  It's not like we have to dash off to class or something … and that shower!  The last time anybody cleaned the floor in this dump was when dinosaurs were walking the earth!”

 

“And the food,” Joyce added; “don't forget the food!  A two week old Danish?  And corn flakes?  I didn't know that anyone even made corn flakes anymore!”

 

“And you call this milk?”  Cindy had her own litany of complaints.  “Poor Blofeld would starve to death in here!”

 

“Good riddance,” Janis muttered to herself.

 

“Sweetie, you gonna eat that Danish?”  Ruby was eyeing Tippi's pastry the way a shark eyed its next meal.

 

“Help yourself,” Tippi said.

 

Ruby did just that.

 

The twelve cellmates were having breakfast at a long trestle table in the dining hall.

 

“You count yourself lucky you locked up in Hennepin County,” Ruby smugly declared.

“You know what you get for dinner out in Dakota?  Turkey sandwiches!  Seven days a week, you get turkey sandwiches, with this thimbleful of fruit cocktail.  At least, I think it's fruit cocktail, though it's a bit hard to tell.  Turkey sandwiches!”

 

“Gross,” Melanie reiterated.  “Worse than the house, worse than the dorms … gross!”

 

“I want to go home,” Janis whined.  “My mom's gonna kill me, but so what?  I want to go home!”

 

“She ain't gonna kill you, beeech.  Nope, no way, no how.  She gonna be diapering you, and taking her damned sweet time changing you.  You gonna stink to high heaven.  Even the cops down in the Third ain't gonna touch you, and they got no taste whatsoever!  Yep, I can see it now-- you gonna be dumping your breakfast in the seat of your pants.”

 

“The corn flakes' revenge,” one of the other hookers cackled.  “The corn flakes' revenge!”

 

Janis folded her arms, and lowered her head to the tabletop.  “I want to go home,” she repeated.  “I want to go home ...”

 

“Oh, for God's sake!”  Tippi had had it.  Pounding the table with both palms, she got to her feet, and glared at her sisters.  “Just listen to you!  They got us up too early … the shower's dirty … the food sucks … what the hell did you expect?  For crying out loud, this is a jail!  We'll be out of here in a few hours, so suck it up!  We screwed up a simple heist, but we're getting off easy.  We wear diapers for a few semesters, but so what?  Professor Grady has been wearing diapers for years?  And the fine?  Big deal!  It's our parents who'll be picking up the tab.  And what are they gonna do … spank us?  Yeah, like that's gonna hurt when we're wearing diapers.  Jeesh!!!”

 

“Tip's right,” Kimberly declared as she climbed to her feet.  “No one's locking up these babies ...”

 

Kimberly was running her hands back and forth across her very well endowed chest.

 

“... and my blow jobs are second to none!  I'll survive!”

 

“You go, girl,” Ruby clapped.  “You and me?  Maybe we can show the rest of these pussies how it's done!”  Ruby stuck her thumb in her mouth, wiggled it around a bit, and began moaning as she sucked (or perhaps, Dear Reader, she was sucking as she moaned; we'll leave it up to your imagination).

 

.  .  .  .

 

“Hail, hail, the gang's all here,” Chief Mischof gleefully remarked as he walked into the courtroom behind Bernice and Ian.  With a sincere grin lighting up his features, Walt walked over to shake hands with Herb Canon.  He settled for nodding to Julia and Priscilla, glad to see that both had showed up to testify if it should prove necessary.

 

“You okay?”  Ignoring everyone else, Priscilla had walked straight to Ian, and reached out to clasp both his hands.  Her concern for his well-being was obvious to all.

 

“Bernice gave me the five star treatment,” Ian smiled; “Bernice and Suzie Marshall both.”

 

“Suzie?  What was she doing there?”  Ian could hear the alarm in Priscilla's voice.

 

“Pris, she came over to see if Bernice needed any help.  And she was nice … more than nice.  She was kind.  This morning, Bernice told me that Suzie is going to declare me off limits to the scalp hunters, and apparently she has enough clout to make it stick.  Apparently I said something to Suzie last night that had a real impact, and I don't even know what it was.  Bernice knows, but she refuses to say.”

 

Ian briefly looked her way.

 

Walt stared at the floor, trying hard not to let Julia and Herb see what he was thinking.  He knew, because Bernice had told him.  Barely twenty-four, and yet Ian had been ready to die.  He had lost far more than a wife and daughter in Viet Nam. 

 

“I think … I think it has something to do with her husband, who died at the very end of the Korean War … on hill 255 … what we kill Pork Chop Hill.”  Ian's voice had grown very soft.  “Have you noticed, Pris?  Bernice still wears her wedding ring.”

 

“Oh, Ian,” Priscilla sobbed.  “God, how I love you!”  She reached out to clutch him in her arms, her head resting upon his shoulder.  A part of her, a big part, wanted never to let go. 

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