The Face of Death

'Man needs a dentist,' Alan mutters.

'So, Mr. You Know Who,' Vargas begins. 'Hello. Buenos dias. It's your old friend, Jose.' Vargas gestures at the girl. 'Some things, I guess, never change.' He spreads his hands to indicate the room. Shrugs. 'Other things, they change a lot. Money is not so good these days. All that time in prison, it left me with not many--what do they say?-- job skills.' Another gap-toothed smile. 'But I have skills, yes? You know this. I remember them, the things you taught me when I was younger, in those times that were better. I'll show you how much I remember. Yes?'

Vargas holds up the switch. Smiles.

'Teach the property. But never leave marks that make the property less valuable. Jose remembers.'

Vargas pulls his arm back. His mouth falls open. It's almost cavernous. An indescribably hungry look comes over him. I doubt he's aware of it. The switch pauses at the top of the arc, trembles in his excited hand, and then comes whistling down. The impact on her feet is barely audible, but the girl's response is extreme. Her eyes bug out, her mouth opens in a wide O. A moment later, silent tears begin to fall. She clenches her teeth, trying to ride the pain.

'Say the words, puta!' Vargas barks.

'Y-you are the God,' the girl stammers. 'So I t-thank you the God.'

'Accent sounds Russian,' James notes.

Vargas comes down with the switch again. His eyes are brighter, his mouth wider. He drools a little. Madness.

This time, the girl arches her whole body, and cries out.

'The words!' Vargas shouts, grinning now.

It goes on like this a few more times. When it's over, Vargas is panting and sweating and his eyes are fluttering. I can see a bulge in his jeans. The girl sobs openly.

Vargas stumbles a little, seems to remember his original purpose. He brushes a lock of greasy hair from his eyes, gives the camera another sly and dirty smile.

'You see? I remember everything.' The girl sobs louder. 'Shut up, fucking puta!' Vargas snarls at her, incensed by the interruption. She puts her hands to her mouth to stifle the noise.

'I think, Mr. You Know Who, that you will give Jose money for what he remembers.' Another grotesque smile. 'You go now, watch this again. I know you will, anyway, yes? Jose remembers that about you. You enjoy these things. You watch this again and you think about what you are going to say to Jose when you talk to him. Adios. '

Vargas glances at the sobbing girl, rubs his crotch, and smiles at the camera.

Blackness.

'Wow,' I say. I feel ill.

'Mr. You Know Who. That's original. So we have Vargas blackmailing someone who's familiar with this whole practice of caning feet,' Alan says.

'Behavior modification,' James opines. 'Torture combined with forced, repetitive usage of a degrading phrase that admits subservience.'

'Beats the feet so as not to mark up other parts of the body and reduce value,' Alan adds.

'It continues to fit,' I say. 'The Stranger has the same marks. That's no coincidence. Vargas's attempt at blackmail confirms the involvement of others and it points toward the sexual abuse, as well.'

'You know,' Alan says, shaking his head, 'if he'd stuck with Vargas and his kind, I might not have much of a problem with our perp.' His face is grim. 'Man that would do that to a child? That's a man that deserves to die.'

No one argues this point.

'I did a thorough search of his hard drive,' Callie says. 'I was hopeful. Vargas encoded the video for some reason, I thought he might have uploaded it to a server somewhere or the like.' She shakes her head. 'No such luck. I suppose he encoded it and then he burned it to disc and sent it to whomever he was blackmailing.'

'This seems to lead back to the human-trafficking angle,' I say.

'Barry says that was handled at our level. Here in California, actually. It's a key point of follow-up.' I rub my face, move back to the front of the office. 'Okay, what else?'

'Key change in his behavior,' James says. 'When he murdered the Langstroms, he took steps to conceal himself. Now he's stepped out into the open. Why?'

'All kinds of reasons that could be,' Alan rumbles. 'Maybe he's sick, dying, running out of time. Maybe it's taken him a while to figure out the identities of the guys he thinks need killing. The interesting confluence is that it's all happening at the same time that Vargas is getting his blackmail scheme going. Looks like some things that were buried dug themselves up.'

'It points to an endgame,' I say. 'He knows that we'll be after him. Hell, he's invited it. He sees things coming to a conclusion.'

'So where do we go from here, honey-love?'

I consider this question. We have many different directions we could go in. Which are the most likely to bear fruit?

'Time to divide and conquer. Alan, I want you to take the Langstroms. Gather up all the information you can get on them, their deaths, their background. No stone unturned. Find out who the grandfather is. If my hunch is right, he's important. Call Barry if you need someone to run local interference.'

'Got it.'

'James, I want you to work on two things. I want a VICAP search on the murders of our poet and philosophy student. Let's see if we can find out who they were.'

VICAP stands for Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. Its purpose is to create a collated database of violent crimes that allows for a nationwide cross-referencing of violent acts.

'Fine. The second thing?'

I fill him in on the computer program found on Michael Kingsley's computer. 'Check the progress with that, see if they need assistance with resources. And I'm going to want to have a talk in my office shortly.'

'Very well.'

He doesn't ask what I mean when I say we need to 'talk.' He knows I want us to have a closer mental look at The Stranger together, the only 'meeting of the minds' he and I are capable of.

'And me?' Callie asks.

'Call Barry and see where things stand on the sketch artist for the tattoo. Also, see if he's made any progress on identifying the Russian girl.'

'Anything else?'

'Not for now. Okay, that's it.'

Everyone gets rolling. I go into my own office and close the door. I need to go see AD Jones, to find out what he knows about Vargas, but in light of everything I read last night, there's something else that needs doing first. I dial Tommy's number. He answers on the second ring.

'Hey.'

'Hey,' I reply, smiling to myself. 'I need a professional favor from you.'

'Name it.'

'I need a bodyguard.'

'For you?'

'No. For the victim I told you about. Sixteen-year-old girl named Sarah Langstrom.'

Tommy is all business. 'Do we know who's after her?'

'Not by sight.'

'Do we know when he's going to do it?'

'No. And there's a twist. She's probably only the target by proxy; it's the people close to her that end up dead.'

He pauses. 'I can't do it myself. You know I would if I could, but I'm in the middle of something.'

'I know.' I don't press him on what his 'middle of something' is. Tommy's use of the understatement is an art form. For all I know, he's talking to me on the phone while his car is surrounded by gunmen.