Just Like Dad

[Jackie Von Tombs]

"Alright, Princess. If you're positive you can do this, then it's yours," Jack had murmured aside to his daughter. She looked fit to explode in her favorite cajole Daddy pose, hands clasped, eyes enormous, hunkered just enough to give a pretty please and not a position of weakness. Daddy was not fond of weakness.

Jackie leapt into the air, shrieking in a tone that only dogs could hear, and then tackled her father, hugging him and smooching all over his face until his skin was faintly pink and glitter shot with her lip gloss. Then she abandoned ship and dashed off to her room to prepare.

There was a lot of preparation. A lot of thought, calculations. A lot of pressure. She had to uphold the good name of VonTombs. First things first, however. She changed clothes. A quick raid into her younger brother's things netted a shapeless oversized green t-shirt and a slovenly overlong gray denim coat.

A quick shower left her carefully coifed black hair hanging and lank, and a few squirts of hair spray made sure it stayed that way. Smudges of dark under her eyes and a careful smear of charcoal gave her a five o'clock shadow.

Soon enough, a scroungy young man skulked out of the back of the cemetery, pushing a battered Huffy moutain bike, a backpack bungee corded down to the rack. He swung aboard and rode off.

Jackie finally dismounted the bike in a back alley. She leaned it to a wall and walked to the back door of a donut shop. An older woman walked out of the shop, lighting a cigarette as she looked up and down the alley. The woman grunted on seeing Jackie, narrowing her eyes.

"Huntin' Pokemon?" she snapped. Jackie pulled out a phone, an old burner that barely managed the app, showing it to her.

"Yeh. Gotta catch 'em all," Jackie responded in a rasp. The woman looked at the phone, then Jackie, nodding. She handed Jackie a cigarette.

"Smokin's bad for your health. By the way. Make it good. Sonnuvabitch stiffed a sweet old granny along with everything else."

"That isn't professional," Jackie pointed out as she turned away, tucking the cigarette behind her ear, her gaze sidelong after the woman.

"If it was professional, we wouldn't be here. You know it's all personal as hell for those overfed bastards."

Jackie scoffed a laugh and went back to her bike.

Somewhere between the downtown donut shop and the Galleria, the harsh young man and his bike erased from existence, and Jackie gaily bounced through a few of her favorite shops. Soon enough, she and a lot of bags caught their Lyft and returned home to the Cemetery house.

Despite all the goodies Jackie had purchased, she left the bags untouched on her bed, and swung to sit at her desk. She removed the cigarette from her purse and inspected it. Smoking was bad for her health.

Nodding, she picked up a scalpel and carefully dissected the cigarette. As she dumped out the tobacco and unwound the paper, she found the information she needed. A web address. She reached under her desk for a nondescript laptop, and quickly entered the address.

A file opened. Gerrold Sattern. Con man who'd become Grifter-In-Cheif of a powerful crime syndicate. But Jerry was greedy, and turned around to con the hand that fed him. Including the crime boss's sainted granny. Jackie scoffed softly, shaking her head. The donut shop lady was on the money. It was all personal.

Jerry wasn't stupid. He'd fled with the money right out of reality. He'd landed in RhyDin, probably believing he was out of reach of the syndicate's fingers. He was, to a certain extent. Pharlen usually made it her business to prevent the big crime bosses from crossing over to the reality, but there was little she could do about people selling information back and forth.

Once she'd finished reading, she trashed the file, then completely re-formatted the laptop. She once more tucked it under her desk and turned to think things over. Meantime, a chime sounded on her desktop computer. She glanced back at it and beamed.

Time to find a few grenades, lay a little groundwork, and then chase down her favorite curmudgeonly pair.

[Jackie Von Tombs]

Jackie could make even an olive drab coverall look cute: Accessories made the difference. Pink belt and pink ribbon in her hair, pink high top shoes, a pink iWatch band, and pink Hello Kitty skull pins on the lapel of the coveralls turned blah to fab.

A bag of grenades were tossed to Salvador and Canaan when she bopped into the Outback. She noticed Riho admiring her pins and tossed one of them to the delinquent after Riho won a match. Mainly, she sat and watched the matches, biding her time.

When the watch's alarm went off, Jackie was off. She stopped in the alley, removing the pink accessories and tossing them into a junkyard rescue, an old Ford Fiesta, its front seat and leg well covered in plastic. She pulled on a pair of heavy leather work boots, then a pair of black cotton gloves, and got into the car.

Looking into the rear view mirror as if she was going to re-do her lipstick, Jackie removed the gloves, then lifted her hands and pressed them to her face. She carefully pulled and pressed, massaging her face, though a faint and eerie greenish illumination limned her fingers.

When she pulled her hands away, her face... Was not her face. It was a crude mash of features, as if she'd been hit in the face with a brick. She beamed at the mess, more or less. It was difficult to tell.

The transformer from an old neon light sat on the seat beside her. She picked it up, looking it over before she tucked it into one of the coverall pockets.

She quickly replaced the gloves and started the car. It coughed and choked a bit, but once it was running, it went smoothly enough. It needed a tune up and new tires, and suited her purposes just fine.

Jerry was living high off the hog, that was for certain. He had a rooftop suite near a park in one of the better parts of town. Jackie pulled up behind the building, and got out to hang out near the service office. She picked up a broom and started sweeping up debris. She paused to glance at her watch once more.

Time to get to work.

It didn't take much to find out Jerry's habits, he annoyed the staff no end with demands and complaints. Six o'clock, he returned home, turning his sterio up as loud as possible to listen to cool jazz. Six thirty o'clock, and he had a bottle of whiskey and an eight ball of cocaine sent up.

Seven o'clock, he got into his hot tub and ordered a female prostitute between the ages of eighteen and twenty five to be sent up by eight o'clock. He'd be complaining about one or all of those things by midnight in an effort to keep from having to pay for them.

There were a few security cameras. Jackie walked past them mildly. She wasn't wearing her face, after all. She stepped out into the small foyer on the seventh floor. The music was loud even out there. She walked to press the doorbell. The intercom lit up, an older styled hard wired unit.

"You're early. Fine. Come on in. I'm in the hot tub. Walk straight through the livingroom to the sliding glass doors and turn right," Jerry snapped, leaning over to reply to the intercom set beside the hot tub, "You better be hot, I'm sick and tired of the Conceirge sending up two buck whores. And keep your hands to yourself, I'll break your neck if you swipe anything."

The door opened with a buzz. Jackie stepped inside and looked around, scoffing quietly. It was decorated in newly rich con man, with plenty of gold plating and purple leopard print. She pulled the transformer out and set it aside as she shimmied out of the coveralls, working them off over her work boots. Picking up the transformer, she strolled for the patio.

Jerry was just saved from good looks by a receding chin and over-wide lips. Hair had been lovingly transplanted onto his scalp rather recently. He looked to be about forty, but was well over fifty. Having a lot of money did much towards making a man look youthful again.

Jackie strolled closer to the hot tub as Jerry snorted up a line, standing with her face in shadow. She struck a pose, young and nubile and delicious. He looked up and stared.

"Oh, hell yes, that's more like it. Come on over here, sweet thing," he finally leered. Jackie giggled and stepped forward. She abruptly stumbled.

"Oops," she called cheerfully, plugging the transformer into a socket. She straightened up with a horrific smile. Jerry stared at her face, appalled.

"What the hell..." he rasped.

"You shouldn't rook people's grannies, Jerry, you just can't escape that," Jackie told him cheerfully, and tossed the transformer into the water. A scream strangled in Jerry's throat as she skipped back.

Jackie waited several moments, then picked up a stick to unplug the transformer. She quickly went to check Jerry's pulse and breathing. After a moment's thought, she gripped fingers over his chest, the greenish light sheening over her fingers once more. She made sure his heart wouldn't randomly start beating again.

Wrapping up the transformer, Jackie returned to squirm back into the coveralls. She stepped out, leaving the door ajar, and stepped onto the elevator. At the basement level, she passed a bored looking woman wearing a micro mini skirt and halter top, tottering on six inch heels.

Jackie hopped back into the Ford and drove away, randomly changing streets. She stopped at an electronics recycling yard. She cut the cord off of the transformer, safety first, of course, and tossed both over the fence into a bin with similar scrap.

Stopping once more at Kabuki Street behind the pachinko parlor, Jackie re-arranged her face. Then she rolled out of the car, replacing the pink accessories. Then she gathered up the plastic sheeting, rolling it all up and stuffing it into another bag.

The keys remained in the little Fiesta. She knew the delinquents would find it, and they were certain to be able to put it to good use. She was pretty sure most cars in RhyDin didn't need much in the way of documentation.

After stopping for a hot bowl of pho, Jackie continued on her tramp. As she passed by the West End, she shoved the plastic sheeting into another recycling bin. Finally, she ended up in front of the old Crystal Inn, and happily hopped into the big Chevy panel van. Her father glanced at her, nodding once before starting the vehicle.

"Good job. But you forgot to tell Brenda at the donut shop where to drop your pay."

Jackie started to preen only to freeze in horror.

Jack snickered a moment later.

"If it's not in the usual place, you can go shake her down for it."