Washington D.C.
December 5, 1953
12:18 a.m.

Dales stared up at his living room ceiling, trying to imagine the sales pitch
he'd need to convince his landlady to buy a television set. A job in sales
just had to be better than this, or at least easier on the ribs. It wasn't
hard to picture Mrs. Murphy in the store, probably not in the housedress and
curlers she usually had on when he dropped off the month's rent, but for the
life of him, he couldn't picture himself in a suit and tie and smarmy smile in
front of a cash register, ready to wait on her.

'That's no job for a man.' He could hear his father's deep voice and feel the
smack on the back of his head that would have accompanied that statement,
though that may have had more to do with the swollen lump rising there. Dales
shifted on the sofa where he'd collapsed once he'd made it home. There was no
comfortable position. The doorbell saved him from having to concoct a sales
pitch for Mrs. Murphy, one that would convince her that a new television would
make her life brighter, her teeth whiter, or whatever happy horseshit it would
take to get her to buy the damned set.

Whoever was at the door was impatient, leaning on the buzzer as Dales tried to
shuffle his body toward the door.

"Dorothy?" He propped himself between the door and the frame, urging his brain
to make sense of her standing in his hallway. He hadn't realized she knew
where he lived. "What are you doing here?"

"Are you going to invite me in?" She sounded a little annoyed. Her eyes
widened and she froze in the act of unknotting the sheer scarf tied over her
hair when she got a good look at him in the light that spilled from the
hallway. "Arthur! What happened?"

She pushed in and he dropped back against the wall. "Sure, don't mind me. Come
on in." He shut the door. "Dorothy, what are you doing here?"

"You said you'd call after you checked out the warehouse."

He did have a hazy memory of promising something like that.

"I've been wanting to talk to you.  When you didn't call, I got worried. For
good reason, I see."

"Sorry." He waved a hand at the living room and helped her off with her coat.
Turning from the coat rack, about to ask why she hadn't just called, he
startled when she reached a hand up to his face.

"Oh my God," she was saying over and over, so quietly he didn't think she knew
she was doing it. His head jerked away from her hand, and the sudden motion
made him see stars. Her hand settled instead on his shoulder while she peered
at the bruises on his face. "Arthur, are you okay? I should get a doctor! Who
did this to you?"

"No doctors. Just let me sit down." She headed straight for the kitchen while
he turned a lamp on in the living room and sat heavily on the edge of the sofa
with his throbbing head in his hands, his bad leg, the one they'd kicked,
stretched out in front of him. He could hear the bang of the freezer and then
water running.

His eyes opened to her bearing down on him with a dishcloth full of ice that
he took with a grateful smile as she stepped over his outstretched leg. In her
other hand she held a wet towel that she used to gingerly wipe at his face.
Dales could feel the warmth of her body all down his side where she sat close.
His eyes closed. His whole body ached. It was a relief not to be alone, he had
to admit. He resisted the urge to curl up on the sofa and rest his head in her
lap. All night he'd been trying not to twitch when a car went by or he heard a
noise in the hallway. It had been a long time since he'd been beaten this
badly, since he was a kid, really, and he'd forgotten how the worst part
afterwards wasn't the blood or the pain but the fear that didn't go away, the
inescapable knowledge that you were always vulnerable.

He winced as her fingers probed his hairline. When he leaned away, she dropped
the moistened towel into his hand and shifted over on the couch. He missed her
warmth immediately. He wiped once at his neck before tossing the towel on top
the coffee table. Angling his body to face her, he propped an arm on the back
of the sofa to keep the ice pressed to the lump on the back of his head,
wincing at the pressure.

Her fingers flexed and an odd look -- disappointment? -- flashed across her
face as he settled firmly away from her, but before he could interpret it, she
hit him with a volley of questions. He explained what had happened from the
beginning, describing the strange burns and the beds that had no business
being there, how the three men had ambushed him, leaving out only the
nonessential stuff he was embarrassed about, like not being able to hang on to
his dinner.

"Did you recognize them?"

"One of them." He watched her process this, her intelligent face turning dark.
"Hensler."

Dorothy exhaled like a boxer taking a punch. "The agent you talked to last
night? But... I can't believe... He wouldn't... Oh my God. Arthur. He did this
to you?" She slid back towards him on the couch to lay her hand on his knee.
"Who else was with him?"

Dales shrugged and then winced.

She waited, but he didn't elaborate. "They followed you," she stated.

"Had to have. The strange thing is that there were no police there, as if they
were clearing everyone out in order to invite me in. I think someone is trying
to send me a message."

"Not these three?"

"Not directly. Whoever's behind this wouldn't want to dirty his hands," he
said bitterly.

"You think you know who it is." She stated this flatly, as if she knew what
was coming and then decided to beat him to it. "Cohn."

He nodded slowly and this time the motion didn't hurt so much. He leaned
forward and shook a cigarette out of the pack on his coffee table, struck a
match to it, then dropped the match into the ashtray, thinking all the while.

"Why not Hensler? Sometimes agents do go bad you know."

"He's involved, but he doesn't have enough power to pull the D.C. police off
the site. They should have been there, guarding the crime scene. No, it had to
have been Cohn."

"But that means that Cohn is controlling people in the Bureau."  Dales just
looked at her. She sat back on the couch, trembling and pale. "Arthur. What
are you going to do?"

Wasn't that the question of the day? "If it weren't for the gun they took off
me, I could just say someone's dim-bulb cousin beat me up."

"This isn't funny."

"I wasn't trying to be funny." He leaned forward to put the ice pack on the
coffee table, and stayed that way, cradling his head in his hands. He thought
he felt her touch his back, fleetingly, and once more resisted the urge to
curl into her. "But it doesn’t matter. I couldn't find the gun.  I'll have to
report it missing and they'll want to know why."

The two of them sat quietly on his couch. He could hear her soft breathing,
the rustle of her hosiery when she shifted her legs. He was just so goddamn
happy not to be alone. Gary Cooper he most certainly was not. He got up to get
a glass of water, returning with one for her, which she accepted with a quick
thanks. He made himself walk over to the armchair next to the couch, though he
wanted to join her so badly he could almost see a ghost of himself abandoning
his body to go rest beside her.

"Arthur...," she said, angling her body to face him as she slipped off her
shoes and tucked her feet underneath her on the sofa. She smoothed her skirt
over her knees and fidgeted with the hem, watching her fingers.  Luckily for
him, she avoided his gaze, because his surprise at her apparent comfort in his
house would have embarrassed her; he knew he'd never get a chance to explain
that some part of him liked seeing her there, or would, under different
circumstances.  She wove her fingers together and sat up straight to meet his
eyes.  "I talked to someone at the D.C.P.D. about unsolved missing persons
reports, though I only asked about the last six weeks or so."  She sounded
uncertain.

"That sounds about right," he assured her.  "It's already a long shot that our
bodies were from D.C.  What did they tell you?"

"Three men have disappeared, but it looks like they just up and left.  The
police interviewed the wives and I guess it was hard to miss the too many kids
and not enough money.  Five women have also disappeared.  One might have left
with a boyfriend her family didn't approve of, but the others..."

"The others?"

"The other four were colored women in their twenties and thirties.  None of
them had a history of trouble with family or friends, none of them had a
record.  They just disappeared, within three days of each other about five
weeks ago."

"No one noticed they were missing?"

"They lived alone.  Eventually someone noticed -- a landlord, an employer, a
neighbor in one case.  I'm wondering if maybe they've been at that warehouse
all this time."  Her arms wrapped around her stomach.  She looked very small
on the couch, small and tense.

Dales stared at her through narrowed eyes, not really seeing her, hearing
Hensler in the warehouse.  Those women, he'd said.  'Shut up, Dales. Forget
about those women.  I'm trying to help you.'  "I think... I think maybe you're
right.  Hensler slipped; he told me to 'forget about those women.'  It's
entirely possible he meant those missing women."

She rubbed her hands together hard, like she was trying to rub a stain off.
"That's not all.  I did some more research on the camps. The internment order
was signed by the Attorney General at the time, Earl Warren."

"The Supreme Court Justice?"

Her head twitched and if anything, she looked even unhappier. "The very one
presiding over your Thurgood Marshall's case. Are you so sure your
surveillance order was an attempt to keep you out of things?'

"Earl Warren?" He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "This from a woman who
just yesterday refused to believe that Hoover and Cohn were out to defraud the
American public?"

"I know.  Arthur..." She hesitated, and glanced out the window, before turning
back to him.  "I'm not convinced, I'm just throwing ideas out. But... in both
cases, we have burned bodies, plural, of people who were vulnerable to
authority -- Japanese internees, isolated colored women. And in both cases,
the Army and the F.B.I. are popping up. It can't be a coincidence."

"No, probably not."  Dales crushed his cigarette in the ashtray, thinking
about what she'd said.  He leaned back in his chair.  Too quickly for his
ribs, and he couldn't suppress his grimace.  "But Earl Warren?  I can't
picture Warren and Cohn in the same room, never mind conspiring.  If we're
looking for a California connection, I'd go with Nixon."

"Nixon? Richard Nixon?"

"Sure.  He's the Republican attack dog. Remember what he did to Alger Hiss?
Nixon's mixed up with McCarthy and Cohn, no doubt about it."

"Goodness, Arthur, he's the Vice President. There's no way--"

"Why not?  We already know there's something shady about him. What about that
$18,000 slush fund they caught him with during the campaign? There were some
pretty shady characters involved in setting that up.  Unnamed California
businessmen.  Rich businessmen.  Who knows?  Maybe one of them owns the
warehouse."

"There has to be a simpler explanation."

"How is Earl Warren simpler than Richard Nixon?"

"I'm not saying he is." She swung her legs back down to the floor and banged
her fist on her knee. "I don’t know, Arthur. But if Nixon is involved, then
Eisenhower has to be involved, and that is ridiculous. It strains credibility
to think that the President would lead our country during the war and then
betray her like this. I refuse to believe that's true."

Dales knew from long experience that his window for convincing her had closed
with a bang.  He could only push so hard before she shut him down entirely.
He put his glass down next to the phone on the side table. "Look, this is
silly. We don’t even know what happened in the warehouse, never mind what
happened ten years ago in what amounted to a prison. Let's not leap to any
conclusions."

She stared at him, and then sank back into the couch like a deflated balloon.
"You're right. I'm just nervous. I've been wondering all day who could have
done such a horrible thing, and then to come over here and find you like
this...." Her eyes filled, and he hastened to reassure her.

"I'm fine, Dorothy. Really."

"But what's to stop them from--"

He cut her off before she could verbalize the fear he'd been harboring all
night. "It's okay. We'll think of something. We always do."

She rewarded him with a weary smile. "Fair enough. So what's next?"

"I'm not sure. I didn't learn anything more about the women at the warehouse."

"What about the warehouse itself? Who owns it? Maybe we should follow the
money.  I don’t think we'll find your California businessmen, but we might
find something interesting."

"I'm sure to be tied up all day tomorrow when I show up looking like this. I
don’t suppose you can sweet-talk someone in Records to look it up without
telling him why?"

She snorted. "Are you kidding? Shirley Barnes may be just a file clerk, but
she runs that place and she's a friend of mine. I'll ask her tomorrow."

"Swell." He suddenly felt better than he had all night. "Hey, I'm sorry, I'm
not used to having someone here. Do you want something other than water to
drink?" He thought maybe he still had some club soda left, and whiskey if she
wanted, though he doubted she would.

"No, but thanks. I should get going. It's late." She leaned forward and
slipped on her shoes.

"What time is it?"

"After midnight, I should think. My carriage is probably a pumpkin by now."

"I doubt it," he said without thinking. "You still look like the beautiful
princess to me."

They both froze, staring at each other for what felt like an hour but must
have been about thirty seconds, just looking, until her mouth quirked. "Does
that make you the Gallant Prince?"

He looked around at his dingy furniture. "More like the troll under the
bridge."

Her laughter cleared the charged air. She stood, and by the door, he helped
her on with her coat, his hands falling to his sides as she tied her scarf
over her hair. When she turned back to him, he smiled weakly at her.

She studied the bruises on his face. "Take some aspirin. I'll see you
tomorrow, right?"

"Right," he agreed and before he knew what he was doing, Dales leaned in and
kissed her, a soft slow kiss. He was too tired and too hurt and frankly, too
surprised at himself to deepen the kiss, but the feeling of her soft lips
against his own somewhat swollen ones eased the ache in his bones. The knot in
his chest that had been there since he stumbled out of the warehouse loosened
a bit, pushed the fear just that much further back. He pulled away and her
eyes slowly opened. They stared at each other, her hand resting on his
shoulder, neither pushing him away nor pulling him close. Then very gently,
considering his bruises, and with a small smile, she smoothed her fingertips
across his cheek and stepped back.

"Let me call you a cab," he said, feeling oddly peaceful.

"No, you rest. I'll be fine. Even this late, I can get a cab out on the corner
in no time. Rest." She smiled again, a mischievous smile, not the quiet one of
a moment ago. "I'll see you tomorrow, Prince Charming."

She closed the door behind her. He stared at it, listening to the fading clack
of her heels down the hallway, not sure if his life had just gotten more or
less complicated. He tried to ignore the sneaking suspicion that she'd
confused her fairy tales and that there'd be hell to pay when she figured out
that the plain old frog she'd kissed was nothing but a plain old frog.

* * *

Los Angeles Men's Central Jail
441 Bauchet Street
Downtown
February 28, 1999
11:25 a.m.

"Mulder, F.B.I."

"Jesus, the F.B.I. finally show up. Well, F.B.I., we tell you same thing we
tell everybody. We didn't kill those women. You got the wrong guys."

Mulder let the two men across the table from him stew for a while. He stared
down at the papers in front of him, using the time to conjure up a picture of
Scully, eyes glittering, lips rimmed white with tension, leaning back into the
car when he'd dropped her at the coroner's. Now, as then, his mental focus
contracted to the cross swinging gently from her neck, flashing like a
hypnotist's coin. You can do this, he thought. Ask these assholes the
questions, listen to the bullshit answers, pull the truth out from between the
lies. And the next time you try your stellar interview technique on your
partner, for God's sake, remember to duck.

Both men were sporting bright orange jail-issue jump suits. That was where the
similarity ended. The younger of the pair, one Kwan Sik Park, was also
smaller, twitchier, and obviously no fan of the F.B.I.. The older man's views
were less easily discerned. Anatoly Sergeivitch Tarasov wouldn't be filling
him in any time soon, Mulder observed, focusing on the arrest sheet he'd
obtained from the front desk officer. English translation services required
for prisoner Tarasov, the sheet informed him. He considered the oddity of a
Korean and a Russian running a business staffed, according to records they
hadn't managed to shred before the cops caught up to them, entirely by
Latinos. The vigorous, occasionally messy mix of cultures out here made for
some strange bedfellows, he decided. And he should know.

"You from out of town, F.B.I.? We got a new library downtown, big building,
can't miss it. Why don't you go down there, read there?"

Park's rapid, heavily accented words caught Mulder's attention. He let the man
twist in his seat for a few moments more, then looked up from the arrest
sheet. "Do you speak Russian, Mr. Park?"

Park blinked. "Sure, do you?"

Mulder flicked a glance at Tarasov, who was gazing in a disinterested way at
something over Mulder's shoulder.

"Look, F.B.I., I'm a businessman. I'm speaking English, I'm speaking Russian,
I'm speaking Spanish and a little Armenian. I just here like everyone else,
make some money, do the American dream thing. What you want from us?"

"You two are the owners of record of Sew-Quick, Limited, correct?"

"Yeah, we own the business, so what? You going to arrest us for going
bankrupt? What's wrong with you guys? It was an accident, we lose our
building, lose our business, and then the cops arrest us. For what?"

"Murder, Mr. Park," Mulder replied mildly. "Twenty-eight murders to be exact.
Does that mean anything to you? Or are you so concerned with the building and
the business you've forgotten the women who worked for you?"

"Look, sorry about the women, they were good workers. But how can you say we
killed them? We work across town, not even in the factory. We got alibis."

"If you worked across town, who oversaw the workers in the factory?"

"Goddamn Felix Ortega, that's who. We told Detective Hernandez. He disappeared
the day of the fire, skipped town. You look for him on the beach in Cancun.
He's probably drinking margaritas, laughing his ass off."

"Is the locked office on the third floor of the warehouse Ortega's?"

Park seemed caught off guard for a moment, then replied, "Yeah, that's his.
Lazy bastard. Spend all his time in there with his feet up, playing solitaire
on the computer."

"Do you have the keys?"

"Ask Hernandez. He confiscated everything. Or why don't you find Ortega, you
got so many questions? He run the day-to-day operation."

"Be that as it may, Mr. Park, if you're responsible for any unsafe conditions
that led the building--"

"Unsafe? You check the records with the city. We pass every inspection.
Sprinklers, fire extinguishers, we spend a lot of money, protected our
inventory. I don't know how that fire got started, don't know how it spread so
fast. I don't know!"

Watching the man's face, Mulder was inclined to believe him. He was hiding
something, but still seemed genuinely puzzled by the effects of the fire.
Trying another tack, Mulder asked, "So you admit you have a compatriot still
at large, this Mr. Ortega?"

"What at large? He's living large, yeah. In Cancun."

"Are you sure he wasn't in Los Angeles last night? More specifically, breaking
and entering at the LA County Coroner's office?"

The Russian suddenly shifted in his seat. Mulder's eyes snapped toward him,
but the man was simply moving his hands from his lap to the table, where he
began softly tapping his fingers. His expression was one of supreme
disinterest.

"Now you try to stick us with B&E? This a joke? We're in jail!"

"I can check your visitor list, Mr. Park. You wouldn't be the first criminal
to run his organization while still in jail."

"Sure, go ahead and check. We seen our lawyer, that's all."

In fact, Mulder had already checked, and the Korean's statement was true.
Perhaps it was time to visit Mr. John Van Tournot, attorney for Sew-Quick,
Limited. The sign-in sheet had listed a Century City address.

Park was still grumbling. "Running an organization. Sure, right. Who do you
think we are, some gangster guys?" His laugh was drowned out by a loud bell.

The guard who had been standing outside the door opened it and said, "It's
almost noon and we've got a schedule we have to stick with, Agent Mulder.
Sorry." He motioned to the prisoners. "You almost through here?"

"Yeah." Mulder pushed away from the table. Then in a last-ditch effort to
shock something out of the suspects, he asked, "So, Mr. Park, you're telling
me that the fact that someone stole the remains of your dead workers from the
morgue last night is news to you?"

"Stole the remains? Stole dead bodies? Hell yes, it's news to me. Bad news!"
Tarasov looked up, apparently distracted by the vehemence of Park's protest,
then bent back over the elaborate pattern he was scratching in the built-up
grime on the table.

"Why did someone do that?" Park continued.

"To hide evidence of murder would be my guess."

"You're crazy, F.B.I.. First, no one murdered anybody. Second, we don't have
anything to do with dead bodies. And three, if we could be invisible, get out
of here at night, we wouldn't go to the goddamn morgue. We'd go to Cancun,
find Ortega, take his margarita and kick his ass."

Mulder turned toward the door to hide his smile. He'd met more than one
charming bullshit artist in his day, but that wasn't all that Park had to
offer, he was sure. The man was covering up something, and Mulder had a
feeling it was more than murder.

* * *

Law Offices of Groffen, Bogenmann, Van Tournot, and Blagg
8800 Olympic Blvd.
Century City
1:16 p.m.

"Is that your parents' car, too?"

Mulder turned from contemplating the ticket he'd just pulled off the Mustang's
windshield. He observed the man approaching him, sauntering down the broad
steps of the large office building. "I didn't see you inside, Hernandez."

"You haven't seen me a lot of places today, Agent Mulder. But I've seen you."

"Don't you have a case to solve? Why are you wasting time following me?"

"I asked myself the same question, since I thought you and your partner were
on your way out of town. And if it comes to that, I'd sure as hell rather
follow her, but I picked up your trail instead. The funny thing is, while I
thought I was wasting my time, I not only cracked the case, I got some
interesting evidence that concerns you."

"You cracked the case," Mulder sneered.

"Near as, dammit. You can read about the arrest in tomorrow's headlines."

"Mr. Van Tournot must have been a lot more cooperative with you than he was
with me. Or maybe you and he worked out a deal."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Gee, I don't know, Hernandez. Let's do the math. You make fifty-seven
thousand dollars a year. You drive a car that retails close to that same
figure, and trust me when I say I know that suit didn't come off the rack. Now
here you are, strolling out of some white-shoe lawyer's office, the same
lawyer who represents the suspects in this case, like you own the place. Or
maybe it's the other way around."

Hernandez took a step closer to Mulder, backing him toward the Mustang. "Oh,
so you think I'm on the take?" He directed a menacing scowl up at an impassive
Mulder, then suddenly broke into a laugh. "You know, I'm just in too good a
mood to let an idiotic accusation like that bother me, Mulder." Hernandez
plucked the parking ticket from Mulder's grasp and waved it between them.
"Should have kept your mouth shut, bud. You just lost your best chance at
getting this fixed."

Looking down his nose at the detective, Mulder slowly pulled the ticket from
Hernandez's hand. "Bribery of a federal agent on top of everything else? You
might want to watch it yourself, Hernandez. I'm sure your department would
want to hear all about that. Now if you have a legitimate lead on the case,
why don't you share?"

"You know, I haven't met an F.B.I. agent yet who wasn't a sore loser. Thanks
for not disappointing me."

"Hernandez, I'm here to find out who killed twenty-eight innocent victims. I
don't know why you're here." He glanced up at the sky as a drop of rain
splashed across his cheek.

"If that's what you're here for, Agent, then you might as well do what I told
you to do on the phone this morning. Go home to D.C. I've got things under
control."

Shaking his head in disgust, Mulder pushed past the detective and pulled out
his keys.

"Oh, but I'm not through with you, Agent Mulder."

Mulder turned, blinking as the drops of rain began falling closer together. "I
thought you couldn't wait to get rid of me, Hernandez."

"Just one more thing, since we're here together discussing the case and all.
Then I've got a few more pieces to put together before I go downtown and find
a judge who'll issue me a warrant." He pulled a small tape recorder from his
pocket and held it toward Mulder. "That was an interesting conversation you
had with our two stooges at the jail this morning."

Mulder stared down at the recorder, then back at Hernandez. "Glad to see
everyone's rights are being so well protected here in your little town,
Hernandez."

"Oh, this has nothing to do with the case. At least, I don't think so. This
has to do with you."

Mulder did his best to seem indifferent while edging closer to the detective.

"See, you missed the best part of the conversation. The part that took place
after you left. Why don't you tell me what this means?"

Hernandez pressed the play button and dialed up the volume. Mulder had to move
closer to hear the tape over the noisy traffic on the boulevard and the patter
of rain on the sidewalk. He and Hernandez huddled like conspirators, under the
shelter of a jacaranda tree.

"...take his margarita and kick his ass." Park's voice, tinny and hollow, came
up out of the recorder.

For twenty seconds, all Mulder could hear was the sound of the door closing as
the guard escorted him out, followed by the scratchy sound of the scrolling
tape. Then, an unfamiliar voice, in a light Russian accent, said, "Laying it
on a little thick, weren't you?"

"Give Mulder a song and dance, that's what they told me. And that's all I was
doing." Unlike Tarasov's voice, Park's now carried no trace of an accent at
all.

"Why point him toward Cancun? You're just asking for trouble."

"'Cause I've been eating prison food and sleeping in the same cell with you
for a week, Tarasov. If I'm going down like this, then Ortega and whoever the
hell his boss is are going with me."

"You're an idiot, Park. And that fact is going to get us both killed."

"Jesus." The sound of a chair scraping across the floor covered the first part
of Park's next statement. "...really screwed up down at the coroner's. What
the fuck do we do now?"

There was a short silence, and then Tarasov grunted, "Call Krycek."

* * *
End Chapter 9
* * *
to Chapter 10