by Laurel Dewey
“You fuckin’ leave my mother out of this, Perry!”
“All I’m saying is that it would be easier for her to know she was only forty-five minutes or less away from her youngest son. I can make that happen for you, Alex. But first, you’re going to do what I tell you to do. And you’re going to keep your fucking mouth shut about it.”
He stood there with steam coming out of his nostrils. “I hate it when people put me over a barrel.”
“Well, it beats getting bent over a barrel in Federal prison, which is exactly where you’d still be if it weren’t for me! So, let’s get started.” She crossed to the black velvet curtain and motioned toward Harlan to walk into the room. “This is my friend, Alex.”
Alex’s mouth dropped open. “Holy fuck.” He swallowed hard.
Harlan looked at Jane. “I never had anybody say that before when they met me.”
“Shit, Perry!” Alex yelled, running his dirty fingers through his greasy crown. “What in the fuck are you doin’ with—”
“This is Harlan Kipple—”
“I know who the fuck he is!” Alex screamed, as his Boston accent bled through. “It’s all over the fuckin’ TV!”
Harlan leaned closer to Jane. “He’s real tight with that word, isn’t he?”
Jane shot Harlan a look. “So am I—”
“Fuck yeah, asshole!” Alex bellowed across the room to Harlan. “There’s a bounty on your head! I got a gun and I can shoot your mother fuckin’ ass—” He turned to Jane. “You sure you’re not back on the bottle, Perry? ‘Cause these are the freaks you attract when you fall off the wagon!”
“How much is the bounty?” Jane asked, attempting to halt the intimidation.
“Twenty-five thousand bucks for information leading to the whereabouts of that fuckin’ killer!” Alex proudly stated.
“That’s all?” She turned to Harlan. “Man, I’d be pissed if I were you. Don’t you think you’re worth more than twenty-five grand?” She spun back around to Alex. “Shit, Alex, twenty-five grand is nothing when you consider the priceless cost of being a stone’s throw from your little brother for the next fifteen years. What’s that come out to per year?” She turned to Harlan who looked stumped. Jane worked the numbers out in her head. “It’s around one thousand, six-hundred and seventy. That’s…” She quickly worked the numbers, “That’s a hundred and thirty or so a month.”
“You’re confusing me, Perry!” Alex insisted.
“It’s just basic math, Alex. You are actually willing to take a measly one hundred and thirty bucks a month and turn this man in when you could be putting that cash toward gas in that same month to go see your brother.” Jane moved closer to Alex. “Your mother doesn’t have fifteen good years left, Alex. She doesn’t have five and you know it. So why don’t you get off your fucking high horse and think about your poor mother and how important it would be for her to see her youngest felon more often. Think of the memories she’ll have, talking to him through the glass. Think about what that’ll mean to him when she dies and he can know that your actions made it possible for him to see his sick mother on a regular basis before she left this world. Are you thinking about that right now? Because I am! I’m getting a fucking chill just thinking about it.”
Alex looked completely baffled. He was trying to link point A to point B and then point C and still coming up short. “I have your word on this, Perry?” His voice was shaking for the first time.
“You have my word. The same word I gave you when I told you I’d talk to the judge on your behalf. That worked out pretty good for you. And this will too.”
Alex threw Harlan a harsh glare. “I don’t want to know anything. You hear me? I don’t want to know nothing about why you’re doing this. That way, when the cops question me—”
“Why would they question you, Alex? You’re keeping your mouth shut, remember? You don’t keep your mouth shut and your baby brother gets his ass transferred to Florida.” Jane had no ability to make that happen but she was a better liar than Alex and followed up with a stern expression to lock in her threat. “Just the thought of that happening will kill your mother.”
Alex sent fiery balls of hatred toward Jane. “Fuck you!”
“That’s the spirit!” Jane clapped her hands and followed Alex into the back room while Harlan brought up the rear.
A small television was on in the corner of the room with the sound off. The small space smelled of burning plastic, toxic glue and cigarette smoke. Alex lit up a cigarette and headed over to his computer.
“You mind blowing that smoke in another direction?” Jane asked Alex.
“What are you talking about? You smoke like a fucking chimney!”
“I gave it up for Lent,” Jane replied with an edge.
“Newsflash, Perry. Lent is over and you ain’t Catholic. The day you turn Catholic is the day I grow tits.”
“Hey!” Harlan interrupted. “Can you two catch up another time?” He pointed to the muted television. “I think we got more important things goin’ on here!”
The screen showed Harlan’s booking photo.
“Turn it up,” Jane instructed him.
Harlan grabbed the remote and hit the volume button. The story cut to a woman being interviewed by a reporter.
“Aw, hell, that’s my neighbor, Bonnie,” Harlan said, slack-jawed.
“I’m telling you,” Bonnie said, “none of this makes any sense! I’ve known Harlan Kipple for ten years. He’s a good man with a good heart…”
“You hear that, Jane?” Harlan said, touching his chest. “A good heart.”
“Why do you think Mr. Kipple escaped from custody?” the reporter asked Bonnie.
“I don’t know! All I’m telling you is that Harlan Kipple is not capable of doing what they claim he did!” Bonnie stated with emphasis.
Alex selected the computer file he needed to make the IDs. “Yeah, right. I wish I’d had four more just like her when I got sentenced!”
“The difference is that you were guilty.” Jane said.
Harlan glanced at Jane with a grateful look.
“If I was you, Perry,” Alex said, carefully watching Harlan across the room. “I’d be sleeping with both eyes open. Jeffrey Dahmer didn’t bother anybody either. Except for the people he ate, of course.”
“I didn’t do what they say I did!” Harlan pleaded. “I got set up!”
“Yeah, you and every other sick fuck—”
“Turn off the TV, would you?” Jane asked Harlan, who obliged. Alex grudgingly continued to search the templates on his computer to create the Colorado IDs while Jane studied the walls. There were more illustrations of tattoo designs, including a wall titled “The Top 20.” Among the most popular were the usual doves, roses and barbed wire wraps. But there was one that looked like a vessel, another that appeared to be a long-legged bird, the Eye of Horus and a circle with a single dot in the center. Jane grabbed her leather satchel and retrieved Harlan’s mysterious notebook. Turning the pages, she found the circle with the dot in the center and, in the bottom corner of the second page, a rough sketch that looked like the strange vessel on Alex’s wall.
“What’s this?” Jane asked, pointing to the vessel card on the wall.
Alex looked up from his computer. “Some Egyptian shit. That’s what’s popular right now. Fuckin’ pyramids and the Eye of Horus. I had a guy come in here and ask me to ink the Eye of Horus right here.” He pointed to the middle of his forehead.
“Did you do it?” Harlan asked.
“People are into making statements. I’m into paying my rent! Yeah, of course I did it!”
Harlan grimaced. “That’d be kinda weird, wouldn’t it? When he’s asleep, he’d always have that eye in the middle of his forehead that’s open.”
“It beats the hell outta what you did to that prostitute.”
“Enough!” Jane yelled. “How much longer is this going to take?”
“My compute
r is slow,” Alex replied with venom.
“What’s the point inside the circle mean?” Jane asked.
“Fuck if I know,” Alex mumbled.
“Bullshit!” Jane said. “You’re going to tell me that you never ask these people what the symbols mean? They’re having you permanently imprint them on their flesh. It means something to them and you never once were curious to find out why? How do you know you’re not inking some sort of racist shit on them?” Jane purposely threw out the “r” word to elicit a response.
“The circle with the dot is not racist!” Alex countered, turning his attention away from the computer momentarily.
“So you do know what it means?” Jane stressed.
“Some woman told me it’s a symbol for ‘the focus within,’ whatever the fuck that means. She was one of those Hindu chicks and she rattled on about the dot symbolizing the point of focus within the circle of the sun that blended the male and female forces.” He rolled with eyes with exaggeration. “All I see when I look at that is a fuckin’ eyeball staring back at me.”
Jane looked at the wall again. Now that Alex mentioned it, she realized how much it did look like an eyeball. A delicate flower drawing caught her eye. “What’s that one?” she asked, pointing up to it.
Alex squinted toward the drawing. “Narcissus.”
Jane’s antenna went up. “No shit? So why is that grouped in with the Egyptian-themed designs?”
“Apparently, it has to do with death and the underworld,” he said with a roll of his eyes.
Another puzzle piece clicked into place. The set-up at the Limon motel with Harlan and Jaycee had ritualistic overtones. “And the long-legged bird? What’s that?”
Alex returned to his computer. “It’s got a strange name. Starts with a “B.” Benet. Bennus—”
“Benieu?” Jane asked.
“Yeah. That’s it. B-E-N-N-U. It’s the Egyptian equivalent of the phoenix.”
“Okay.” Jane contemplated. She’d had a case a couple years prior where birds were used as metaphysical symbols.
“Let’s get goin’ on this,” Alex instructed. “I want you outta here sooner rather than later.” He grabbed his camera and looked at Harlan. “What’s the fuckin’ point of him looking like he does right now on a fake ID?”
Jane considered his point. “You’re right. You got a razor and scissors?”
“I’d rather he didn’t touch my shit,” Alex said with a turn of his upper lip.
Jane took a menacing step toward Alex. “And I’d rather not be having this conversation with you right now, but here I am. Get me a fucking razor and a pair of scissors.”
Alex retreated reluctantly to the bathroom, returning with an electric shaver and a scissors. Jane took them and handed them to Harlan. “Shave off your beard and cut your hair really short.”
Harlan swallowed hard and walked into the bathroom. Jane sat down on a lopsided stool in front of a soft blue background screen and Alex took several headshots.
“You know what you’re doing here, Perry?” Alex whispered to her.
“I got it covered,” she stated.
“Am I going to turn on the TV in a couple days and hear that you’re his next victim?”
Jane felt a shudder go down her spine. “He didn’t do it. I have witness testimony to back it up.”
“Then why are you running if you got a witness?” Alex kept his voice muffled.
Jane turned to the bathroom, hearing the buzz of the razor. “Because she’s dead.”
Alex stared at her. “Jesus, Perry. What have you got yourself into?”
Jane turned to the bathroom. “How’s it going in there, Harlan?”
He peeked outside the door. Half his tangled beard was gone from one side of his face and the crown of his head looked like a weed-whacker had chopped off his messy locks. “It’s goin’.”
Five minutes later, he emerged from the bathroom, clean-shaven and with a shockingly different appearance. Jane grabbed the scissors and quickly sheared off more of his hair in order to make it look even. By the time she was finished, Harlan looked like a bowling ball secured on an Easter ham.
Alex took several photos of Harlan and, after importing them into his computer, he went to work creating the fake names and information. “We’ll start with you,” Alex said, pointing to Jane. “What name do you want on this?”
“Anne LeRóy. With an accent over the ‘o.’”
“You came up with that name pretty quick,” Alex said with an arch of his eyebrow as he input the information.
Jane rattled off an old address from the past to use on the ID.
“Weight?”
“Put one twenty,” Jane said.
Alex added the finishing touches on the ID but Jane stopped him before he closed out the window with her photo. “I want another one. But this one is going to have the name of Wanda on it. Wanda LeRóy.”
“You don’t look like a Wanda,” Harlan offered.
“She doesn’t look one twenty either, but we’re still slapping that on the card,” Alex groused.
“Wait a second,” Jane interrupted, “Change the name to Wanda Anne LeRóy.”
“What’s the address on this one, Wanda Anne?”
Jane gave it a thought. “Three eleven Harry Mills Street, Midas, Colorado. Put January 11th, 1972 as the birth date.”
Alex complied. “Why January 11 of ’72?”
“That’s my birthday.”
“Why are you putting your real birthday on a fake ID?” Alex asked.
“Be like Nike and just do it, Alex.”
When it came time to concoct the ID for Harlan, there were a few minutes of discussion as to what fake name they should use. Alex suggested “Charles Manson” and then “Wilbur” in a mocking manner. Jane figured they needed a name Harlan could relate to.
“What was your dad’s name?” she asked.
“Llewellyn Hartley Kipple,” he replied.
Jane looked at Harlan. “Hartley? Are you kidding me?”
“What?” Harlan asked, totally lost. “I didn’t name my dad.”
“Switch it around,” Jane told Alex. “Make it Hartley Llewellyn.”
It took Alex another thirty minutes to transfer the computer images to the printer, layer the security imprints and then laminate them into incredibly realistic Colorado IDs.
Jane examined them with a critical eye. “You do great work, Alex.”
“Thanks. Now get the fuck outta here.”
Jane reached into her wallet and brought out two, one hundred dollar bills. She handed them to Alex who seemed shocked by the gesture. “You think I expected you to do it for nothing?”
Alex softened just a bit. “You still going to make that phone call and get my brother transferred?”
“I told you I would, didn’t I?”
“People say a lot of things.”
“Yeah, well, the difference is when I say something, I actually mean it.” She gathered up the IDs, secured them safely in her satchel and motioned for Harlan to head toward the door. But before they left, Jane turned to Alex. “One more question.” She brought Harlan’s notebook out again and opened it to the first page where the mysterious “R” inside the diamond was located. She pointed to it. “Ever seen that?”
Alex took a long hard look at it. Without commenting, he carried the notebook to the counter and pulled out an enormous binder filled with tabbed sections. Turning to one that was labeled, “Roman Symbols,” he scanned the pages until he found what he was looking for. Turning the large binder toward Jane, he stabbed the picture with his finger. “What about that?”
Jane stared at what looked like an ancient coat of arms. Awash in maroon colors and trimmed with golden yellow, a regal looking “R” filled the crest with a smaller depiction at the base of the letter that looked like a female wolf with her teats descending. The “R” had the same swirls and ornate look that Harlan drew in the notebook. “Ha
rlan, come here,” Jane said, ushering him quickly to the counter. “Does that ring any kind of bells for you?”
Harlan gazed at the page, seemingly being pulled into it like a magnet.
“Hey!” Jane said, punching his shoulder. “Don’t do that. Don’t disappear on me!”
Alex leaned closer to Jane. “I saw this kind of shit with a guy in a prison. They call it dissociation.”
“Thanks, Alex. I got this,” Jane replied in a tense tone.
“Something triggers him,” Alex quietly stressed in a pseudo confidential manner.
“I’m aware of that!” Jane exclaimed. Turning back to Harlan, she forced him to look her in the eye. “Harlan! Does this mean something to you?”
He stared at the drawing. “Yes,” he whispered.
“Where have you seen it before?” Jane asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said, starting to slip away again.
Jane slapped him hard on the arm. “Stay with me, goddammit!”
Harlan snapped out of it. “Hey!”
Alex stepped back. “Fuck, Perry! Don’t get him riled!”
She held the page up to Harlan’s face. “What does this mean? What does the ‘R’ stand for? Think, Harlan.”
Harlan’s breathing became labored and he started licking his lips nervously.
“Jesus, Perry!” Alex cautioned. “He’s gonna fuckin’ blow!”
“Stop it!” Jane said to Alex before putting the drawing back into the binder. “Get him some water and let me use your computer.”
Alex was more than happy to remove himself from the room. Jane dragged over a chair for Harlan and then spun around the counter to Alex’s laptop. Pulling up the search engine, she entered “’R’ maroon and golden yellow she-wolf.” One entry came up and she clicked on it. It was the crest of “Roma,” an Italian football club based in Rome. The colors were identical to the ones on Alex’s drawing and there, at the top, was a more defined depiction of the she-wolf with two human babies beneath the animal, suckling on it. Jane turned to Harlan. “Does Roma ring a bell?”
