It feels like the computer is taking forever to fire up as Alice continues to scan the newsroom for any abnormal activity.  She spots Candace pacing in the conference room which is good she’s out of the way for a moment.  As soon as the desktop hourglass finishes its thing Alice places the drive in the USB port.  Going to the start button Alice selects my computer to get to the drive immediately.  Clicking on the removable drive (F) on this computer she see there is only one file folder on the drive and its only labeled New Folder.  Hesitantly she takes the mouse and clicks the folder.  What springs to life are a series of pictures all of them with the same label “Barrington” and a number.  All together there are 22 pictures of this Barrington and in all of them this guy is in a different sexual position.

Turning her head as if its on a swivel, “Holy Sister Mary and all that she holds sacred as she counts her rosary beads.” Alice states when she grasps that all the sexual partners are young boys.

“Holy Fucking Shit” Alice says again under her breath looking at the array of pictures across the screen and realizing the magnitude of what they implied.

It was while she was still locked in on the pictures that Alice feels pain to the back of her head.  Someone had just boxed her from behind.  The force of the blow sending Alice forward hard enough for her to almost hit her nose on the screen, Alice turns to yell at the offender but is cut off.

“I’m not going to wait all day while you get your jollies from looking at man on boy porn.  Quit messing around and let’s get on with it.  I thought you were into women anyway.” Candace says beating Alice to the punch as her irritation with Alice for wasting time leaks out into the open newsroom.

*****

Rollo wasn’t the type who usually went on wild goose hunts but there was something to this Helena Peabody woman that tingled his antenna.  Well before Alice came to him and asked for his help he had heard rumors about her.  Most of the stories he had heard concerned the muscle she had hired and how they went about closing business.  These business associates are a real tough group that usually threatened bodily harm to whoever crossed their path.

He still had a few connections with a few Good Fellows in the neighborhood.  When Alice talked to him about her suspicions he put out his feelers to these guys.  They were more than happy to give him the low down.  It seems Peabody’s henchmen have stepped on a few toes in the course of doing their business.  These indiscretions didn’t go unnoticed by the powers who controlled these streets.  In fact Helena’s crew had crossed a few lines that might result in some profitable lines of business having to close their doors if the threats were actually carried out. 

Rollo for his part couldn’t believe the audacity of this woman.  She either didn’t know who she was dealing with or didn’t care.  Either way if she continued on her current course of destruction she better have some very powerful guns when the local powers to be came looking for her.

He’d left Alice some preliminary documentation of Peabody’s involvement with the street crew including pictures of a few of her henchmen in face to face encounters with the local crew.  He was a little surprised he hasn’t heard from Alice yet but he knows it was just a matter of time.  For his part he was beginning to see a story here about an old money heiress and her fall from grace.  It’s a story that’s been done many times before but for him it never gets old.