The Victims Game
Part One - the Offer
By Scott J. Welles
scottjwelles@yahoo.com

DISCLAIMERS:  Hi. We've got some legal stuff to wade through before we can jump into things. Mostly the usual prerequisite jazz: ER and all related characters are the property of Warner Bros., ConstantC Productions, and Amblin Entertainment Television, a bunch of really swell, understanding guys who won't sue me if I mention that the aforementioned characters and institutions are being used without their permission, but only for entertainment purposes, and that no form of profit is being made on this work. For the benefit of the content-conscious amongst you, I'll assure you that there's nothing here that you couldn't see on the show, anyway. Except maybe some language, I'm not sure yet. Depends what kind of day I'm having as I write. Beyond that, I make no promises about what's in store. Could be silly, could be scary, could be sexy, could be sad. I'm not telling. Come on, live dangerously...

I glared, steely-eyed, at the smiling face of the Councilman and drawled, "Awright, you low-down, yella-bellied, hornswogglin', cattle-rustlin', snake-eatin', two-timin', horse-thievin', bushwhackin', side-windin', backstabbin' varmint..." Yosemite Sam's got nothing on me. "This here town ain't big enough fer the two of us. Despite bein' a major West Coast metropolis of several million people."

The Councilman didn't change expression.

"Now, ah told yew yesterday to git outta town a'fore sundown, an' now it's goin' on high noon." I sneaked a glance at my watch. "Give or take two hours an' forty-three minutes. So ah'm gonna count to three, an' then you better draw, or ah'm a-gonna drill you good."

The Councilman's face, pinned to my dartboard in the form of an autographed 8" x 10" color glossy photograph, kept smiling.

I flexed my fingers and said, "One...two..."

The phone rang.

"Son of a-!!" Startled, I drew the plastic pistol - $1.98 at the toy aisle of the local Safeway's - reflexively firing the rubber-tipped dart straight down to bounce comically off the floor.

Was it my imagination, or was the Councilman's grin turning a little smug?

"Ahh, shuddup," I snarled at him, crossing to my desk and snatching up the phone. "Wintergreen Investigations. What can I do you for?"

"Oh! Ah, is this Danny Fox, the dee-tec-tive?" The voice was equal parts Marilyn Monroe and Betty Boop. I immediately began suspecting some sort of crank caller.

"This is Daniel Fox, I'm a private investigator," I replied, all business. If she said she needed her privates investigated, I was hanging up.

"Oh!" she said again, "Ah, I need you to find a price-less fam-i-ly heir-loom?" She pronounced the 'H' in 'heirloom', and enunciated any polysyllabic words like a child sounding them out for the first time. "It was part of my in-her-i-tance from my great grand-father, the famous af-ri-can ex-plor-er?" She also gave every sentence the inflection of a question. This was going to get old real fast.

I rubbed at my temples and said, "Ma'am, I should tell you that real-life private investigators don't actually do that sort of - "

"It's a gol-den i-dol, a foot high? With three eyes, made out of price-less jew-els? And it's sup-posed to have, like, a curse on it?"

Earthquakes are not uncommon here in Los Angeles, but if one had occurred right then, I'd have bet money that it was Dashiell Hammett turning over in his grave.

"My father was killed under mys-ter-ious cir-cum-stan-ces, shortly after he re-fused to give the i-dol to a tall, dark stran-ger? With a duel-ling scar, and a hook?"

Don't ask me why, but all of a sudden, that's when I recognized the voice and realized who I was talking to. I leaned my hip against the desk and said, "Really? Was this guy about six-foot-eight, with bad breath, jailhouse tattoos, and a habitual look of homicidal rage in his eyes?"

"Ah...yeah, uh-huh?"

"Oh, that's just Riley," I said, casually, "I wouldn't worry about him, he's perfectly harmless...except sometimes when he's around short redheads who limp. They remind him of his mother, and, y'know, he's got issues..."

"Okay, it's no fun baiting you if you're just going to play along," she said, dropping the act, "How did you know it was me?"

I sat back in my chair and put up my feet on the desk. "Elementary, my dear lady," I said, "I figured, ditsy, airheaded, scatterbrained...who else could it be but Dr. Kerry Weaver, of County General Hospital, Chicago? Just a simple process of elimination."

"All right, I was asking for that one, wasn't I?"

I smiled. "You do a pretty good Dumb Blonde, for someone who's neither."

Her voice cooled. "Now, why would you assume the speaker was a blonde?"

"You're right, point taken." Political Correctness is no friend to the Natural Born Smart-ass. "It's great to hear from you, Kerry. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Actually, it was Carter's idea. You remember John Carter, I trust?"

"Oh, sure. Bright young guy, looks like he used to play Al Pacino's seeing-eye guide?"

She laughed. "Come on, he's not that baby-faced."

"Are you kidding? Guy like that, he'll be carded in bars when he's forty. I wish I looked that good when I was his age."

"Well, I can't speak for your looks," she said, "but if you're very good and eat all your vegetables, maybe one day you'll grow up to be as mature as he is now."

"Oh, ouch!"

"Let me put Carter on. It's good to hear your voice, Daniel."

"Hey, Kerry, before you go...?"

"Yes?"

"If Carter's the one who wanted to call me, why am I talking to you? I mean, I'm not complaining..."

Her voice softened, turning coy. "Well, Daniel, if you really want to know the truth..."

"Yeah...?"

"I lost a bet."

"Double ouch!"

You could hear the smile in her voice, clear through half a continent of phone lines. "Here's John."

Who's she calling immature, I thought. I grabbed my six-foot inflatable Godzilla by his dorsal ridge, leaned him over so his rubber jaws were pressed against the Councilman's picture, and made devouring noises. "Rraarrr-rraarrrr!"

"What was that?" said a male voice on the phone. "Hello?"

"Sorry, bad connection," I said, quickly. "Hey, Carter, how you doing?"

"Oh, you know, Danny. Heart transplant at two, brain surgery at four, the usual. How about yourself?"

"Ahh, can't complain. Bullets all day, babes all night, same old same old."

"You poor guy," he said, "stuck in a rut like that. Sounds to me like you need a vacation in the worst way."

"No kidding? So where would a guy from sunny LA go for a vacation? In the worst way?"

"Interesting question," Carter said. I think we were both determined to out-banter each other. "Have you considered a few days spent relaxing in the rustic splendor of, say, Chic-"

I heard some kind of scuffle on the other side.

"-me that!" Kerry snapped, "Honestly, you two are like a demented sitcom gone berserk."

Hey, you started it, I thought, but I didn't say so. There's a limit.

"All right, all right, I'll be serious," Carter said, reclaiming the phone with, I hoped, a minimal struggle. "Listen, Danny, I was calling because I've got a proposition for you. I was talking to this attorney I know, named Walter Montgomery, and your name came up, somehow."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Walter was saying that he needed some legwork done. So, I mentioned what you did for us a while back, and he kinda showed some interest in hiring you."

"No kidding?" I sat forward. This was interesting. "Did you tell him to try the phone book? There's gotta be a number of PI's in the Chicago area. Be a lot cheaper to hire someone local, who won't charge him expenses for hotels and car rentals, and such."

"Believe me, Danny, cost won't be an issue with this guy. Walter said to tell you he's already taken the liberty of making a first-class reservation for you, round-trip, just to fly out here and talk to him. Even if you don't want to take the job, at least you've gotten a free ride with a lousy meal and a rotten movie. What more could anyone ask?"

I chewed on the idea for a moment. It actually sounded pretty tempting to me. I had no cases to work on, at the moment, having just finished a job which, while profitable, had been as sordid as a season of Soaps. Remind me to tell you about it sometime.

That job had paid quite well, so I wasn't hurting financially, but when another job drops itself in your lap, you'd be dumb to pass it up. A hazard of being effectively self-employed, as I am, is that you never know how long it will be before more work comes your way.

Still, just to mess with Carter's head, I shuffled some leftover papers on my desk, making busy-busy-busy noises, and said, "I don't know, Carter, I'm up to my eyes in cases as it is..." This is called 'fishing for compliments'.

"Oh. Okay, I understand. I'll tell Walter to forget it." This is called 'not biting'.

"BUT, I could probably find the time somehow," I added, hurriedly, "You know, as a favor to a former client, and all that." This is called 'snatching victory from the jaws of disinterest'. At least, that's what I'm calling it.

"Great, I'll let him know."

Carter told me which airline had my reservation, then we did a little more nonsensical long-distance male bonding, and then we hung up.

I sat back for a while and pondered this latest turn of events. Well, well, well.

John Carter and Kerry Weaver are a couple of doctors who work in the emergency room at Cook County General Hospital, in Chicago. I don't follow the medical hierarchy very well, but I gather she's one of the mid-range authority figures, and he's a bright young up-and-comer. They also happen to live together, or at least she's renting out her basement apartment to him. I met them about six or seven months ago, when Kerry hired me to locate an old friend who she believed was here, in Los Angeles. I did the best I could, but the results weren't really very satisfying to either of us.

Even so, she made an impression on me, and when I heard she was in a jam, a while later, I felt compelled to fly to Chicago and try to help her out of it. That's when I met Carter, along with various other employees of County's ER. Things got pretty intense, for a while, but most of us came out of it alive. Some days, that's the best you can say.

Since then, we'd had almost no contact with each other, which was understandable. We didn't really operate in the same circles. Still, it was a pleasant surprise to hear from them now, and the thought of seeing them again was actually pretty encouraging.

The only thing that bothered me a little - and I'll admit this is a minor quibble - was the question of why a lawyer from Chicago, however wealthy or influential, would want to go to the trouble and expense of importing a detective all the way from California? My ego wasn't so swollen as to believe that I was legendary from coast to coast. Yet.

I looked at the stone gargoyle-with-laptop statuette perched on the corner of my desk and said, "What do you think, Murgatroyd? Sound like maybe someone's been putting in an extra-good word for me?"

He didn't answer me. Engrossed in fossilized contemplation, debugging medieval scripture, or something, no doubt.

"But who would do such a thing?"

As if in answer, the phone rang again. "Wintergreen Inves-?"

"I don't want you talking to Carter anymore," Kerry said, a mocking smile in her voice, "You're a bad influence on him." She hung up before I could respond.

I'd have been a lot more inclined to take that seriously if she hadn't opened the conversation by impersonating a bimbo ingenue. Kerry Weaver is very much an acquired taste.

I paid a few bills, left a note on Richard Wintergreen's antique desk and a message on his answering machine - no telling when he'd get either - and went home to pack, leaving Murgatroyd and the inflatable Godzilla to mind the store. The last thing I did before locking the office door was to fire the plastic pistol across the office, the rubber dart striking the Councilman squarely between the eyes.

Fast-Draw Fox rides again. Yippee-yi-yo-ki-yay.



"I don't know how to thank you guys!"
--- Fozzie Bear, 'The Muppet Movie'
"I don't know WHY to thank you guys..."
--- Kermit the Frog, Ibid