xp_logs | Cathouse: Dry Spell

Sarah meets Vanessa at her house to discuss what they have come up with in their investigating. After they hit a brick wall, new plans are made.

Keeping the investigation as far from the office as possible meant that Sarah and Vanessa were set up in the metamorph's living room with scattered bits of paper and Vanessa's new wipe board on one wall with notes scrawled all over it. A fresh cup of coffee was set down on the table in front of Sarah before Vanessa collapsed into an arm chair with her own steaming cup of caffeine. Any other time coffee made the woman bounce off the walls, but the stress of the case was hitting Vanessa hard because of Laura's involvement and right now caffeine was what was keeping her stable. "I really hope you've got more than I have. Because I've got nothing, really."

Sarah shook her head. "I've got a bunch of nothing?" She eyed the coffee on the table gratefully and grabbed it. "It's as if our friend Barry has been sleeping the last few days. Nothing of interest coming in or out of his camp."

Vanessa groaned. "Aye, that's about what I've got. Mercenary contacts I've got don't know fuck all about trafficking and from what Laura's gotten me inside it's a lot of the typical thing you would expect from a pimp who could give a fuck about his women. He gives the johns what they want and it's usually not pretty for the girls. He seems to at least protect his livelihood there insofar as giving the most violent of the guys to the girls who can withstand it because of healing factors, denser skin, invulnerability and all that."

"I imagine he thinks he's being considerate." She sipped her coffee, and added, "You would think we would be seeing some money change hands if he was getting ready to ship a handful of them off to the highest bidder somewhere, but the only money transactions we've seen recently has been pay-per-view porn."

The way Vanessa drank her coffee was a lot like the way an alcoholic drank on a bad day. Half the cup was already gone despite its heat. "He's got nothing going on outside the brothel? No transactions elsewhere? He hasn't quit the business to legitimately be a pimp, has he? Assuming, of course, there is such a thing as a 'legitimate pimp' in these circumstances."

"I doubt it. That would make things entirely too easy." Sarah considered for a moment, then added, "He's probably looking for the right buyer. His other clients pay well, but if I were looking to branch out my business, I'd be hoping that I could find clients that could pay even better too."

"He's been in the brothel for a few months. I would think he'd find someone by now. Unless he hasn't found the right girl to sell yet." That was a sickening thought. What if he was just biding his time until he found the girl who fit the parameters of his client? "He's in District X, it doesn't have to be a girl from the brothel that he's looking to snatch and sell."

Sarah shrugged, taking another sip of her coffee. "No, but girls outside of the brothel are more likely to be missed. He would have to really plan it well to not have anything lead back to him. He could potentially draw police attention to himself, and kill business."

"Yeah, but how many homeless mutants are wandering about? How many don't have family or friends? It'd take some watching, but there are easy marks out there for that sort of thing. The sorts people won't miss. And the cops around our district are dicks." There was a little bit of heat in Vanessa's voice when she said that. "They don't raise a hand for the mutants half the time."

Sarah sighed. "Great. So we have no information, and we have no good explanation for why nothing has happened because as far as we can tell there's absolutely nothing to stop this guy from being an asshole to whoever the fuck he wants."

"Don't you love investigating," Vanessa asked in a dry tone. "If we can't track business then maybe we should make business to be tracked. Riley's on shift right now but I can see if she's gotten anything useful from anyone she talks to." Sometimes medical sorts knew things that didn't have to be strictly confidential, and surely they would at least talk to one another about stuff. "I'll check in with her and Jean-Paul to see if they've managed to overhear anything interesting during surveillance. Tonight I'll meet up with Laura again. Hopefully all of that will give us something. Think you can find out who it is you're supposed to talk to in order to buy a nice mutant sex slave these days? Maybe we can follow the chain back to Barry."

That all sounded far more promising than Vanessa thought it really was. She would have been happy with a breadcrumb to follow. Normally she would have been more patient but Laura was in there and she hated it. Jubilee being with her was at least somewhat reassuring, but it did little for that lead weight in her stomach.

"Of course." Sarah finished the last of her coffee, now lukewarm. "They can only sit on their hands for so long."

"Or so we hope anyway." If they refused to move then they had no case, no proof and she either pulled Laura out prematurely or left her in there for weeks, maybe even months. "I'll let you know if there's anything under the rocks I kick over with Laura and Jean-Paul later. Hopefully by then you'll have gotten the first rung to our mutant purchase ladder dug up, aye?"

"You got it." Nodding, Sarah shouldered her jacket back on and pushed herself out of the chair. "Keep me posted."