Even with Orcutt's authorization the unscheduled departure from the penthouse bothered Trapnell. His eye riveted to his monitor studying the descent of the elevator to Portal Five in the garage. Instantly he contacted the guard. "Check the passes on that outgoing traffic and get back to me before they leave," he ordered.
Katia glanced at her watch and smiled back at her brood of dancers chattering in the elevator with excitement. Transformed into their civies and dusters they seemed normal enough, except that the girls exuded a joie-de-vive not encouraged in these times when the elevator doors opened and they swept out onto the platform. She extended her pass to guard and he asked her to wait, collected the other passes and went to the intercom.
The unusual delay irked Katia and she waited impatiently until the guard signaled the van that would take them to Old Town. The 'arrangements' were tedious but necessary she thought wearily settling into the seat behind the driver and they began the drive to the Tram Depot. There they would split up and begin the transfers that would take them by differing routes through Old Town to Ryker Avenue outside The Court.
Though Orcutt was the only one in Bountiful Towers who knew The Court's location, and even with The Patron's protection she reflected, caution was simply expedient. The zealots for the Blue Laws were so tiresomely vigilant, and the stakes so high for The Court, that one couldn't afford the chance of a slip up.
She glanced back at the skyscraper following its towering facade up into the sky where its lights blurred into a single dim glow. A smile of irony touched her lips in considering how they entertained that erotic world up there as the price of exercising their callings. "A nice place to visit," she mused, the interlude with Cliff Murdock vividly fresh in her consciousness,. "but I wouldn't want to live there."
The computer screens glowed harmoniously around Trapnell's work-station. Absently he followed the van's progress through the New City on the screen before him. This traffic, especially at two a.m. from the top five floors when performers were normally booked for the whole night would bear scrutiny; one couldn't be too careful where the Cornucopian market was concerned.
In Trapnell's list of unfinished business Orcutt;s injunction to "Get Her!" had faded with the most recent directive to "Defer" where Sarah Murdock was concerned. Trapnell had reflected upon the change with disappointment. But of course, 'Defer', meant simply 'postpone', not 'Cancel', and he had developed a decided attachment to this case after repeated reviews of Symes' video. That Sarah Murdock was just too good to ignore.
The beep from his computer alerted Trapnell to the van's arrival at the Tram Depot and he switched to 'Live Camera' watching the troop of girls in their dusters alighting from the bus with the handful of men.
One of the girls had allowed her hood to fall back revealing a beribboned cluster of tossing blonde curls. His curiosity peaked and Trapnell stayed with her as the others dispersed save for one who pulled the girl's hood up and accompanied her to the next bus. There were records of who these passes were issued to but he didn't have them, that was Orcutt's province, it was simply his job to confirm the validity of the passes and stay on top of the traffic.
His monitor returned to 'Route' and he followed the bus into Old Town switching back to 'Camera' whenever the bus stopped to discharge passengers. The stops were infrequent and the bus was deep into Old Town when the two women got off and he expected them to disappear into the shadows beyond the camera's range at the bus stop.
Surprisingly they waited for a transfer, and when they had boarded he switched the camera to 'Interior'. They were the sole passengers, nicely within the camera's focus, and they had both shoved back their hoods; attractive women both of them, the one with the ribbons in her hair young and animated, the other older but striking in her Slavic beauty.
Trapnell studied them enviously. No wonder they had been Orcutt's guests, and they must have been special since outsiders were rarely admitted to whatever 'festivities' took place in the Penthouse, and when they were admitted they even more rarely left.
He stayed with them until they signaled the driver and disembarked again. And then his mouth dropped when he saw them board yet another transfer! Switching to 'Route' mode he followed this bus through the very center of Old Town and it was there when they alighted on Ryker Avenue that they disappeared.
His map of the city showed that there was little there except a large park with a swampy wetland behind it bordered by a rundown neighborhood of decayed dwellings. Stunned he mused over what these women, guests of The Patron himself, were doing in such a place and why they took these diversionary transfers as if to throw pursuers off the trail? A trail that led where, to whom, to what? This would bear looking into and he knew just the man for the job.
****
Sarah stared dismally at the luxury of the suite while Vivienne turned down the bed. "What are we going to do for clothes?" she exclaimed. "I don't even have a toothbrush."
"Have you looked in the closets? There's a whole wardrobe in there for us and it fits too. Somebody was expecting us," Vi answered wryly.
"Really? Well the art-studio is to die for but I can't imagine working here."
"All I want is my cottage, my books, and my life back," Vivienne sighed disconsolately unfastening her girdle and pulling her peplos off over her head, "but I'll settle for a douche and a shower to wash all this sticky cum off me," she giggled at last.
"Yeah, me too," Sarah moaned.
The bath was an endless delight of creamy tiles, mirrors, shampoo counters, hair dryers, shower bays, bidets, tubs and a huge Jacuzzi. Glass fronted cupboards held every imaginable cosmetic confection, perfume, and grooming utensil. Awed they strolled and cooed over their finds. Coming at last to the bidet they douched and rinsed before the showers called them into the steamy torrent of cleansing waters.
Lingering under the spray they soaped and stroked one another, discovering again the pleasures of their hands upon each others curvaceous shapes, of the luxury of having their hair washed by their lover's hands, of toweling one another into dryness, of anointing one another with soothing lotions, of drying combing and brushing each other's tresses into long shinning cascades of fragrant hair, of tending nails, and choosing the most subtle and erotic perfumes for ears, neck, bosom, and loins.
