The Plan-B Bust: 1 / 5

An Altered Fates Story
by Iolanthe Portmanteaux

The music in the bar was loud, and that’s why the three men were there: they didn’t want to be overheard. They didn’t count on those rare moments when the volume of the music and the conversations take a sudden drop. In that brief silence one of the three men shouted, “Fuck the rules! We have to break the rules on this one!”

Everyone in the bar turned and looked at him for a second, a second that was frozen in time. Then the loud music and shouted conversations picked up again. The noise washed over his bellowed indiscretion, and it was forgotten.

“Joseph, you have to be careful!” William cautioned.

“This isn’t working,” hollered the third man, Andy. “It’s impossible to talk here. Let’s go to my place. I’m 1000% sure that it isn’t bugged.” Why was Andy so sure? He was an expert in electronic surveillance. For Andy, sweeping for bugs was as natural as housekeeping.

Joseph hesitated. “Your place is too complicated,” he complained. What he really meant was that he didn’t want to deal with Andy’s wheelchair, Andy’s van, and Andy's handicap-accessible apartment. Andy understood and resented it, but he bit his tongue. “Fine,” he said. “But I’m tired of shouting myself hoarse and none of us hearing each other. I’m going. If you two want to come, you’re welcome.” He unlocked the wheels of his chair, dropped a twenty on the table, and gave a mock salute. He popped a wheelie, did a 180, and propelled himself out of the bar.

He had just lowered the ramp from his van when Joseph and William walked up. All three men looked like hell, and for good reason. None of them had eaten a decent meal or slept for more than a couple of hours in the past three days. Before either of his colleagues spoke, Andy preempted them, saying, “I need to eat some real food. I’ve got some steaks and salad fixings at home. AND, I’ve got plenty of booze.”

“Salad sounds good, after three days of fast food,” William said.

“I don’t understand why we have to eat that shit, every goddamn stakeout,” Joseph added. “It plugs me up.”

“Thanks for sharing that,” Andy commented drily. He rolled his chair onto his ramp and activated the motor to lift him inside. Before he shut the door and worked his way into the driver seat, he called, “See y’all there!”

It didn’t take long to cook the steaks, to throw together the salad, and to uncork two bottles of wine, and the three fell to. Normally William and Joseph wouldn’t touch a salad, but they all felt the need to change things up, and change them for the better. After the failed stakeout, none of them would be working tomorrow, so once the wine was gone, Andy set three glasses and a bottle of bourbon on the table. The hard alcohol had the paradoxical effect of sobering them up, and they began to talk through the recent failure.

“There’s only one explanation,” Joseph said. “And we all know it’s true: somebody’s dirty. Somebody’s tipping off Handsome Dan.” Andy and William nodded. “Somebody on the task force is in his pocket. They’re on the take. It’s the only explanation.”

“It’s likely there’s more than one mole,” Andy observed. “Plice is pretty damn careful. He’s got at least two informants, and I’ll bet you they each think they’re the only one. That way, Plice can compare what they tell him, and know right away if one of them turns.”

William swore in agreement.

Joseph Balisk, William Marazion, and Andy Niskin were members of a large special task force whose mission was to put “Handsome Dan” Plice behind bars. Plice was a notorious, vicious criminal with a long reach. He was suspected -- no, he was known -- to be behind 27 murders. It was known; it was very well known, but it couldn’t be proven. He was also known to have his hand in drug and sex trafficking, as well as illegal gambling, arms sales, “protection,” and money laundering. If it was wrong, if it was bad, Handsome Dan had a hand in it.

“We can’t even get him on tax evasion, the way they did with Capone,” William said.

Joseph swirled the liquid in his glass, and his face took on a very dark aspect. “I don’t trust anybody on that damn task force, except for you two,” Joseph declared. The task force was composed of members from every law enforcement agency with an interest in Plice’s activities: including (but not limited to): FBI, ATF, HSA, state, county, and local police, and some powerful but little-known law-enforcement entities. Supposedly the task force was making the work against Plice more effective: eliminating jurisdictional battles, sharing resources, focusing efforts… In reality, it seemed to sandbag every worthwhile effort, and to waste man-hours by creating reports and defining processes. William, Andy, and Joseph came from the county’s Major Crimes Division, and they’d been after Handsome Dan long before the task force was created.

“This task force is holding us back,” Andy said. “We could have moved last week on the information we had. When we finally DID move, it was obviously too late. We didn’t need to waste three days on that stupid stakeout. We’d already given Plice all the time he needed to scuttle our plans.”

“We should have stayed by ourselves, at Major Crimes,” Joseph said. “We should have kept our own council and laid our own traps. Loose lips sink ships, and boys, the ships are sinking.”

William tapped the table pensively. Then he spoke in a low voice. “Listen, boys. I got a tip late today, and I know what I’m supposed do with it, but it’s not what I want to do with it. I’ve got some information that could be a treasure trove of intel on Handsome Dan and associates. I ought to turn it over to the task force, but after today’s shit show, I’d rather not. I’d rather we keep it to ourselves, and run with it ourselves. What do you say? Are you with me?”

“What do I say? I say hell to the fuckin’ yeah! That’s what I say.” Joseph replied.

“I’m in,” Andy agreed. “What is it?”

“It’s about Plice’s girlfriend,” William began.

“Caresse Desmesne,” Andy said, with a smile.

“Jesus, what a hottie!” Joseph declared, and he made the curves of an hourglass with his hands, followed by some vulgar thrusting motions with his hips.

“Right. I see you know who I mean. This is the deal: the day after tomorrow, Plice is going to close on a condo he bought for his girl. It’s in the Innovaer Tower.”

“How can that happen? Isn’t the building still under construction?”

“It is. This is presale. I've got a guy who works security for the building, and he can get us in there. My idea is this: as soon as the place is drywalled and painted, we swoop in and wire that place up the wazoo. We’ll use Andy’s latest cameras and mikes -- the undetectable ones -- and we will watch and listen to everything that happens there. I’m betting that once the place is set, and he starts visiting, we’re bound to hear something useful.”

“It’s kind of a long-term, long-shot effort,” Andy commented. “We might not get anything out of it.”

“But it’s doable. And we can keep it quiet, keep it ours,” Joseph said. “We check the tapes once or twice a day, and if nothing happens, nothing happens.”

And so it began: William got the floor plan. Andy marked it up. William and Joseph installed the hardware and wired it to the phone lines. They used the copper lines, the land lines. See, the thing that made Andy’s surveillance equipment “undetectable” was exactly that: rather than broadcasting on detectable radio frequencies, Andy’s equipment silently dialed out on old-fashioned phone lines.

When Andy turned on his computer and brought up the cameras, he said, “Hey, whoa -- this is a no-no: You guys put four cameras in the bathroom. We can’t do that. Aside from the privacy issue, you know how hard it is to get anything useful over the sound of water.”

Joseph laughed. “Loosen up, boy wonder! You’re forgetting that this whole thing is strictly illegal! Whatever we get here, whatever we learn, we can’t use any of it as evidence. It has zero legal value; it’s all intelligence, background. Unless we can attribute it to an anonymous tip, we keep it all to ourselves.”

William added, “We can delete the bathroom videos every day, after we’ve seen them. Unless of course, there’s something we’ll want to see again and again. Seriously, though, you never know: something might go down in that bathroom.” William and Joseph laughed, and Joseph shouted, ”Ooolala! Zut allors! Comment allez-vous, suckers!” which was all the French he could say. Although he had no idea what any of it meant, he felt sure it was dirty, or at least suggestive. The two men laughed uproariously and made coarse gestures. Andy only shook his head.

Now that the equipment was active and online, William brought his tip about the condo to the task force. He only did it for cover, but it turned out to be a clever move. Knowing it would never fly, William said to the team, “We ought to bug the hell out of that place. I’m going to apply for a surveillance warrant.” Naturally, a judge turned it down. And just as naturally, Handsome Dan was informed about it by his task-force moles.

The unexpectedly happy result was that -- since the task force refused to bug the place -- it convinced Handsome Dan that the condo was a safe place to talk business. Right away -- even before Caresse was able to move in -- Dan and his lieutenants began holding all of their meetings there. The meetings were a gold mine of information for Joseph, William, and Andy. None of it was actionable, but it allowed them to create lists of associates, map out connections, track conspiracies, and record confessions of crimes, including murders. It was exciting but frustrating at the same time.

Speaking of exciting and frustrating, and in spite of Andy’s original misgivings, the three gave a LOT of attention to Caresse’s shower videos, and in fact, to anything she did in the bathroom. “Oh my God,” Joseph said each time, “Look at her! Even the way she sits on the toilet is sexy! That goddamn woman is a sex bomb! If the atom bomb could be a woman, it would be Caresse Desmesne.”

“That makes no sense whatsoever,” William would reply, “but I know what you mean, brother!”

Caresse had a tiny face with high cheek bones, great big eyes, a wide, smiling, mouth, and a small chin. Honestly, it was an odd combination of features, but it was incredibly attractive. Her hair was long, straight, platinum blonde. She stood about five-five, so she always wore skyscraper heels, which gave even more shape to her already shapely legs, and made her lovely round ass stand out even more. Her waist was tiny, and her breasts were huge. In a word, she had a perfect hourglass figure. Although her breasts, hips, and derriere were large, they weren’t gigantic. The three Major Crime detectives all agreed: Her proportions were perfectly pleasing. There wasn’t a moment of the day when she didn’t look good.

The detectives were greatly surprised to discover that Caresse was having an affair with one of Plice’s henchmen: a leg-breaker named DeRay Reagan, better known as “the Gipper.” The Gipper was surprisingly well-endowed: his tool was far larger and longer lasting than any the team had even seen (apart from porn), though none of them confessed to their own shortcomings. The three detectives watched in dry-mouthed silence whenever the Gipper and Caresse made love.

Then, after weeks of watching, listening, and cataloging facts, it was finally time to act. At last, the chance arrived:

Plice decided to firebomb a certain store on a certain night at a certain time. It was clearly an idea that was known outside of Plice’s tight little group, so Joseph used a voice scrambler and called in an anonymous tip. He timed it so closely that Plice’s moles weren’t able to send out a warning. The would-be arsonists were caught. The building (which was historic) and its businesses (which were many) were saved. Several insurance firms were spared a major outlay. As small a victory as it was, it was still a victory. It was, in fact, the first time in several years that anyone associated with Handsome Dan was ever arrested and successfully charged.

And so it began: Andy, Joseph, and William would choose a bit of intelligence. If it could be attributed to anyone outside of the group that met in Caresse’s condo, Joseph would make an anonymous tip, timed as close to the crime as possible. Arrests were made; guilty verdicts were handed down. Sure it was small stuff: It was nothing like a round-up. They couldn’t pretend they were bringing down Plice’s criminal empire, but they were whittling away at the edges of his activities. After more than three years of inaction and failure, it was nice to put some ticks in the winning column.

The arrests began to irritate Handsome Dan, and he wanted them to stop. No one had any idea that Andy, Joseph, and William had anything to do with the new information and consequent arrests. Everyone -- whether task force or mob -- assumed that somebody in Plice’s gang, or somebody close to somebody in Plice’s gang, was talking. Whoever that “somebody” was, that somebody needed to shut up.

Plice began selectively spreading disinformation. He chose a couple of stories, a couple of fake leads, things that were likely to leak. He told one story here, another story there, and waited to see which lead the task force jumped on. It turned out that they didn’t jump on either one. Plice thought some more, and realized that he hadn’t considered his lieutenants as possible leakers. So he gave some stories to them as well, and waited to see which one ended up at the task force. Again, nothing happened. So, Plice thought some more, and found that he was left with only one possibility: Caresse had to be the leak. Caresse must be talking to the task force.

As much as Handsome Dan loved Caresse Demesne, he also knew that it was easier to find another girlfriend than to find another criminal empire, so he sent the Gipper to kill Caresse. He was completely unaware of the irony: he had no idea that the two were seeing each other behind his back; he simply trusted Reagan to “do the right thing.”

And so Reagan did. Andy, Joseph, and William happened to all be present at Andy’s house when Caresse got a call from DeRay, telling her that he was on his way up. Joseph called to Andy and William, “Get ready, boys, the porn is about to start rolling.” In fact, Caresse slipped out of her clothes, put the door ajar, and knelt on her couch, looking like the most adorable, cute, innocent, big-eyed, sex-charged kitten in the universe. The Gipper walked in and closed the door, but instead of pulling down his pants, he put his hands on Caresse’s neck and held on until she was dead.

“Oh my God!” William shouted. “I’ve got to get over there! Andy, do you have a duffel bag?”

“Are you out of your mind?” Joseph said. “What the hell are you smoking? A duffel bag? What are you going to do? Kill him, and stuff him in a duffel bag? You can’t confront that guy! He’s a fucking killer, for Christ’s sake, and for another, how are you going to explain that you knew about this?”

“I’m not going to confront him,” William said. “It’s too late to stop him, anyway. I need the duffel bag because I have an unbelievable Plan B. Wait for me here. This will blow your minds.” And clutching the duffel bag, he ran out the door.

On the little screen, Andy and Joseph watched as the Gipper, crying, wheeled a recycling bin into the apartment, and dropped Caresse in, head-first. Then he went through the apartment, picking up anything that could tie him to her, even going through the trash to pick out an old gum wrapper. He tossed her toothbrush in the bin, because he’d used it once. Then he left, and Caresse was gone. The apartment was sadly empty.

“It’s like a fucking light went out on the Earth,” Joseph observed philosophically. “I will never be the same.”

Fifteen minutes later, Andy and Joseph saw William enter the apartment and go into the bedroom. There, he began taking clothes out of Caresse’s closet: dresses, shoes, a jacket: all of them sexy, all of them her favorites. Then, from her bureau, he chose underwear and pieces of lingerie.

“What the hell?” Joseph said.

“Don’t ask me,” Andy said. “Maybe he wants souvenirs?”

William, on the screen, took one last look around, then threw some of her perfume and cosmetics into a plastic bag. The bag went into the duffel, and William, with a mock salute to the camera, left the apartment.

“I think he’s lost his mind,” Joseph announced.

Fifteen minutes later, Joseph’s phone rang. It was William, so Joseph put him on speaker. “Listen, guys,” William said. “I’ve lined something up that will blow your minds. It’s my amazing Plan B. Wait till you see.” He gave an address and asked Andy and Joseph to meet him there in two hours.

The address turned out to be an empty office building. The place was run-down and not very clean. Joseph and Andy entered through the loading bay. The floor was broken in places, so Joseph (to his great irritation) had to help push Andy’s wheelchair. They found William in an otherwise empty, windowless room. William had spread a tarp on the floor. Andy’s duffel sat on the tarp, next to a wooden table. William was busy spreading a clean white sheet over the table. There was another man in the room, a strange-looking fellow. He was rail-thin, had a droopy brown moustache, and straight dark-brown hair that needed washing. He was wearing a limp white shirt, a bolo tie, and a pin-stripe suit that looked as though he bought it at a second-hand shop several years ago. He glanced at Andy and Joseph, cleared his throat, and said, “I don’t have a lot of time, William.”

“Right, right,” William assured him. “Just let me finish setting up, and then I’ll have two words with my colleagues.” He straightened the tablecloth, and began digging in Andy’s duffel bag: he pulled out one of Caresse’s favorite outfits and set it on the table. It consisted of a coral-colored lace bra and panties, silver pumps, a pale blue skirt, and a blush top. Then he scurried over to Andy and Joseph and spoke in a very low voice.

“Listen, boys, this guy is from WITSEC -- but not from regular Witness Protection -- he’s from a special classified branch. Do not ask him his name or title or anything about him or his job. He’s going to do his thing and leave, and we will not see him again until it’s time to to undo it.”

“What the hell--” growled Joseph, but William stopped him. “We don’t have a lot of time. What this guy does is miles beyond ordinary witness protection. He doesn’t just give you a new name and new documents. What he does is turn you -- physically change you -- into another person. He can make a black man white, or an old man young. He could turn a child into a old Chinese guy. He could turn you into a younger or older version of yourself, or make you into your own mother.”

Andy began to object: “Have you lost your--” William cut him off. “Look: what’s important is that right here, right now, he can turn one of us into Caresse Demesne, and as Caresse Demesne one of us can testify to everything that the three of us saw and heard happen in her condo -- except, of course, her murder. No, no -- let me finish. I know you won’t believe me until you see it happen, so right here, right now, one of us is going to become Caresse Demesne. Obviously, it’s going to be Andy.”

“What? Why me?” Andy asked. “Apart from the imposs--”

“Why you? Why you, because you’ll get the most out of it: as Caresse, you’ll be able to walk. Also, you have the best memory of the three of us, so you have the best chance of pulling it off...”

“Plus, you already know how to cook and clean,” Joseph quipped.

Andy scoffed in disbelief.

“Okay,” William said, wheeling Andy closer to the table. “Let’s just do this. Don’t anyone argue, don’t anybody say anything. Let’s just do it. Once you change, once you see it, then we can talk about it. If nothing happens, you can kick my ass and I’ll buy everybody dinner. Okay?”

The unnamed man asked William and Joseph to take “three giant steps” away from Andy and the clothes on the table, and he instructed Andy to sit on his hands. “Just in case.” Then he opened his briefcase and took out a medallion, which he carefully lowered around Andy’s neck. It looked like a cheap piece of costume jewelry, and Andy opened his mouth to comment on it. An impatient glance from the strange man, and Andy closed his mouth. Then the man picked up Caresse’s underwear from the table, and after carefully making sure that his fingers were covered by the shiny cloth, he pressed it onto the medallion on Andy’s chest.

Andy gasped, and his back arched. Joseph instinctively took a step forward to help his colleague, but William held him back. A wave of warmth rolled through Andy’s body. He gasped in amazed pleasure as the warm surge flowed from his head to his toes. His toes! Andy hadn’t felt his toes in decades, not since he was hit by a drunk driver on the night of his high-school graduation. He could feel his toes now, though! He could wiggle them now. He could move his feet and lift his legs. His body felt good -- oh, God, it felt so good, like it was budding and opening and ripening and maturing.

“You might want to open your pants,” the strange man suggested, and as odd as it sounded, it was good advice. Although Andy’s waist was shrinking visibly, his hips were widening and his derriere were getting larger and rounder and softer. Andy felt the buttons of his shirt strain, then pop open as his bust expanded. A pair of luscious globes grew and swelled on his chest. Andy’s legs were moving -- moving! -- and he shifted forward in his chair because his feet no longer touched the wheelchair's footpads.

“Don’t get up yet,” the man cautioned. He glanced at his watch. “Wait until the transformation is complete.” The warm waves continued to wash over Andy, warming him, caressing him, molding him, healing him, charging him, changing him. Hair cascaded down from his head, touching his forehead, his face, his cheeks, his neck, his shoulders.

His shoulders shrank, no longer the widest part of his body. His arms thinned, and his hands grew dainty.

The transformation took an entire thirty minutes. At last, the changes stopped. Only a pleasant tingling sensation remained. The strange man continued to hold the lace underwear against Andy’s chest for a few seconds more. He checked his watch and nodded. “Mmm,” the man grunted, and Andy could see an erection tenting the man’s pants. He set the underwear back on the table, and gingerly took the medallion off Andy’s neck. Mesmerized by Andy’s new-found cleavage, the man fumbled with the medallion, and dropped it on the floor. Embarrassed, he hastily picked it up, babbled something incoherent, and -- eyes still locked on Andy’s chest -- he dropped the medallion again. On his third try, he managed to put the medallion back into his briefcase, and muttering some sort of goodbye to William, he closed the briefcase on his hand. Ignoring the pain, he closed it again -- this time, correctly -- and stumbled toward the exit, to the last with his eyes on the transformed Andy. He very nearly walked into the door on his way out.

“Holy crap!” Joseph shouted.

“Yeah, holy crap indeed,” Andy echoed, and was startled to hear the voice of Caresse come out of his mouth.

“Right,” William said. “What did I tell you? Amazing, huh?” Andy stood up, for the first time in 20-odd years, and started crying.

“Oh, no -- oh, no,” Joseph said. “No crying, come on now, no fucking crying! You’re a woman all of two minutes, and already you're crying!”

“It’s not that,” Andy/Caresse snuffled, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. ”I can walk again!”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s great,” William said impatiently, pressing his handkerchief into her hand. “Look, now: you have to get out of those clothes so we can get a good look at you.” And the two detectives started pulling at her clothes, practically ripping them off her body, until she was standing completely naked on that tarp, in the middle of that filthy room. Andy/Caresse was still in a state of shock, so she stood there, not knowing what to do or how to react.

“Dear God, will you feel that skin!” Joseph marveled, as he passed his hand over her stomach and thighs. William let out a deep, groaned ohhhh as he lifted and released her buttocks, watching them bounce back into place. He prodded and kneaded her butt, and then placed a hot hand over her breast. Joseph, his face inflamed with desire, bent to put his mouth on her breast, but ---

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” the new Caresse shouted, waving her hands, and pushing the detectives off her. “Hit the brakes on the grope-fest, you -- you -- just stop! Stop! STOP! What the hell!”

The two detectives, embarrassed and confused, watched her as she quickly struggled into the unfamiliar garments. “Fucking bra,” Caresse growled, but then remembering how the real Caresse used to do it (bending forward and gathering her breasts into the cups), she got it done and fastened. She straightened up, her face flushed.

“Sorry,” William said. “Didn’t mean, uh--”

“We just figured that since you’re a guy you’d be alright with that,” Joseph blurted out.

“Well I’m not!” Caresse declared, as she secured her skirt button and zipped up the zipper.

“You are Andy in there, though, aren’t you?” William asked, tip-toeing into the minefield.

“Yes, I’m Andy in here,” Caresse growled. “But that doesn’t mean you can grope me. I’m not some kind of sex doll, for fuck’s sake.”

“Okay, okay, got it,” the two detectives stammered in chastened tones.

“Alright. So what is the plan?” Caresse asked.

“It’s pretty simple,” William replied, and in two minutes he explained the whole thing. When he was done, he asked, “What do you think?”

“I think it’s fine,” Caresse replied, still feeling testy. “And when it’s done, your friend will change me back?”

“Yes, of course, yes,” William assured her. Then, watching her face closely, he ventured, “That is, if you want to change back.”

Caresse replied with a tight-lipped look of flaming indignation. William quailed. Joseph congratulated himself on being out of the line of fire.

“Now can I get something to eat?” Caresse asked.

“Yes, yes, of course,” the two men said at once, picking up and setting down the duffel bag together, then reaching for the empty wheelchair at the same time. They walked into each other, bumping heads. They apologized together, and both reached for the duffel at the same time again.

“I’ll meet you at the van,” Caresse told them, and walked out of the room. When she reached the exit, she heard Joseph’s voice echo down the hallway. He asked, “Could she possibly be on her period already?” William nervously shushed him.

Caresse set her jaw and clenched her fists, and then she left the building.