Chapter 46

ANA
(Wednesday 12/28)

It was painful. I knew if any of us had been in our bodies, we would have been vomiting within the first thirty minutes. As it was, we were able to keep to our tasks and set aside our feelings and reactions for the time being.

From talking with the rest of the gang over the next couple days, each of us heaved our guts up at least once and most of us many times more. I know Don, Bob, Natalie and I sat and wept together several times. Others did the same.

Yeh, some whiz kid in the FBI tracked down several of the emails, which led directly to the Unpleasantville High School computers. A couple agents replied to several emails, asking for some specific information about some suspects, "If ramontheeye happened to know."

Well, given a name or description, we had a probe in them in a couple minutes and drained them. Off went another email, this time sent from a computer in a back office of the FBI. Let 'em trace it if they wish.

Seems no one was much interested in really finding out who ramontheeye was or in shutting down the Yahoo account. Guess they knew the story of the goose that laid the golden egg.

Yeh, they eventually got around to locating Lucia and Bellana who were willing to give more depositions. They weren't suspects in any of the activities we'd done that night; after all they'd been hundreds of miles away with iron-clad alibis -- and they were "just high-school students."

From a casual monitoring of Unpleasantville over the next several days, over five hundred agents or other law-enforcement officials descended on the town like women to a sale. They had a really sweet time, with exact information, exact names, the whole enchilada. I think the local and federal judges sprained their wrists with the number of search and arrest warrants they signed!

Toro had been right. Revenge was best served very cold.

BOB
(Thursday 12/29)

Yeh, Unpleasantville was sickening. Both Nat and I bounced up and down emotionally the next couple days, ranging from total anger at the fuckers up to joy we were alive.

We did a lot of screwing on Thursday. We're spirits, but we sure had the urge to prove to ourselves we were alive.

We had six gigs on Thursday. Nat and I shared the first one then she went on three on her own (all handled very neatly) and I did the other two. We'd do a gig, meet back at one of our places, drop our drawers and fuck. Quick cleanup then off to the next gig.

We each cleared around $450; not too shabby. With the first fuck-fest, we'd managed to bleed off a lot of the turbulent energy we'd picked up, so we got into screwing (that's sex as fun-and-games, not just for survival) for the next couple times.

After our last gigs we showered together pleasantly. I got to do her wonderful hair again then massaged down some of her sore or stiff body parts. We'd either calmed down enough or come up enough, but this time we made slow, gentle love for a long time, sharing our joy of life with each other.

The gang always had one prober and one transcriber online for the next couple days handling requests. Turned out the meat-packing plant produced animal food, not human food, so it was some relief.

There were fifty agents of one sort or another parked in the plant. We sorted out every employee in there and Louise sent off dossiers on the dirty ones. The clean ones we simply listed as clean.

Jaysus, there was even one body in the processing line! They arrested one guy, showed him the body and named off exactly who she was, how she'd died, who'd brought the body to him, when and how much they'd paid him. He broke.

With a little more scouting around and putting together some information from previous dossiers, we (and the FBI) came up with a relatively-complete list of bodies and when they'd been run through. Seems canned animal food has lot numbers printed on them, so the agents were able to track cans down in stores and analyze the "meat" for human DNA. Within a couple days (however long it took for a DNA analysis) they had a complete physical-evidence chain from the death site to "final disposition."

The plant owners themselves were clean, at least of the body-handling. They'd done some creative accounting on some taxes but nothing really illegal. After they found out what had been going on for over a year, the president and the operations officer each spent time in the toilet vomiting -- several times.

The head of the FBI sent around a memo about ramontheeye. He reminded everyone about the goose and the golden egg, so they were to keep their hands off ramon. He told them the only "wrong" intelligence they'd gotten was one distance to a safe was off by six inches. He told them by now, any request for a warrant or other stuff got a judge's signature within five seconds of learning the tip came from ramontheeye.

Okay, enough of the heavy stuff for now.

NATALIE
(Saturday 12/31)

Only a couple gigs today, seems like people were getting ready to party! I still cleared a couple hundred dollars.

Bob and I bought me a truck! I'd been accumulating or renting equipment and material, and it was a pain to use Mom's car. We found a five-year-old Ford mini-pickup with a shell and carrying racks for $2,000 -- it was really worth more, but the owner was moving out of town and knew Bob!

We spent several hours going over it with the proverbial fine-tooth comb. It was in great shape so Bob and I loaded it up with my stuff, including a couple new-to-me fiberglass ladders on top. Don registered it in his name so the insurance wouldn't be quite so bad.

Nice! My first vehicle! Mom slipped out and got me a cowboy hat; she and Bob told me, "Now you're a real California construction worker!"

Elizabeth and Dave volunteered to host a New Year's party, so about 6:00, we descended en masse and fixed up the dining room and back yard with party lights, tables, banners, all that party-type stuff.

We'd invited all the Inner Circle and parents along with the Reynolds Construction crews and the school faculty. We dragged Nana and Seanathair over to "supervise" and make sure we did it right. Interesting, it seems the entire Inner Circle gang and parents now spoke fluent Irish Gaelic, Italian and Spanish with all the slang. The Sonoras had a distinct Spanish/Italian accent while speaking Gaelic, but nobody cared; it wasn't any worse than Bob, Dave, Elizabeth, Mom and me speaking Spanish or Italian with an Irish accent! Of course they could talk with them, but sometimes Gaelic was lots more fun.

The Inner Circle gang took an hour off around seven o'clock and did a bit more investigative reporting in Unpleasantville. Ramontheeye sent every agent or officer working the cases an individual email with ramon's regrets they had to work on New Year's Eve -- each email had a personalized tidbit of additional data on the case or cases they were working.

Party time! David, Don, Blake, Papa Sonora and Seanathair broke out the Irish whiskey (again) and started quality-control checks. Seems one has to do a lot of sampling to get a good statistic!

The Inner Circle gang traded hugs and kisses. Since there were outsiders with us, we kept it low-profile and private. I traded lots of saliva with all the guys while I ensured they found out how much my ass had tightened up over the last week!

Bob and I sampled the Irish Whisky, looked at each other and shuddered; I suppose it's an acquired taste. It's no wonder the Irish had such reputations for bad tempers. I'd probably have a very bad temper myself if I drank much of that stuff.

By now, it was second nature to slip a quiet probe or quick inspection into everyone new we talked to. Several of the school-age children were pretty good! They got the full inspection treatment to see if they could remember easily. By the end of the night, there were three middle-schoolers mentally chatting away with the rest of us. Hmm. Seems like we'd better look at expanding into the middle school and even into the elementary school.

At 8:45 we watched the Times Square countdown. The ball dropped exactly on time so we cheered and celebrated the New Year in New York. Cheers and celebrations! More Irish Whisky down the throats. Goody, another round of hugs and kisses! I demanded the guys check out how much my boobs had perked up from all the exercise and hard work; need lots of samples for a good statistic, right?