Unknown - Driving Daisy Crazy

So that these dreams are actually healing dreams, intended, perhaps, to get her juices flowing as a kind of dressing or ointment for whatever it is that is ailing her.

She cannot say.

But she does feel herself ready for action, should the spirit move Randy.

Although, she tells herself, half joking, the way things have been going lately, perhaps she should save her sexual energies for her dreams, where they seem to be so heavily in demand.

She gets up and puts on a sun-backed dress, not bothering with underwear of footgear.

Thinking that Randy finds her sexier this way. She thinks about using the pool, but then decides against it.

Sun and water tire a person, and it has taken her well into the afternoon to get up to snuff as it is, so why push it?

"Tomorrow night," Cynthia says.

"I'm going to force his hand, to panic him into making his move.

"Which is exactly when we're going to make ours."

"We," Nancy echoes.

Vanessa, the good soldier, says nothing.

"How good a friend of yours is our pilot, Vanessa?"

She shrugs.

"Good guy, he is. But friendship's got nothing to do with it.

"The skies are only friendly when the money is there.

"Right now I-we-are making it happen for him.

"He'll do what I tell ‘im, no questions asked, if that's what you mean."

"That's exactly what I mean.

"He won't think it strange when three costumed characters assault a certain mansion upstate by rappelling from his chopper."

"Shades of Vietnam!" Nancy exclaims.

"You never went to Vietnam," Cynthia says.

"I saw the movies, though."

"Whatever."

Turning back to Vanessa, We want to be over the objective at midnight.

"Now, here is the layout of the Estate."

And she spreads the blueprint over the vast expanse of her desk.

"Where did you-"

"Courtesy of the state building commission.

"Nancy, here's the room where they held you, right?"

"Uh, yeah, that's right. But-"

"Figure that's the room he's assigned the girl."

"Why?"

"If at first you don't succeed and like that. One of two relatively indestructible scenes of his humiliations, the other being, as you know, the ballroom of the Fairley Palace.

"Since he can't very well do away with it, the only other logical step is for him to convert it into a scene of triumph;

"Part of the magic, the mystique.

"If I'm wrong, well, tough break, but we go ahead anyway.

"This time, we're going in there armed to the teeth.

"Fed up with this shit, risking my ass on the short end of the stick while Doctor Demento there calls the shots."

"Attagirl!" Nancy says.

Vanessa merely shrugs and smiles faintly.

Her first crack at Randy Buck on an even footing.

Could it be the boss is learning?

"I was thinking," Vanessa says, "We should get ourselves some paratrooper boots, some combat fatigues, ammo belts, and-"

Her voice fades as Cynthia stares at her across the blueprint.

"Sorry," she says, "Lost my head for a minute there, I guess."

"We will wear," Cynthia enunciates,, pausing to take in the two of them with her gaze, "our costumes.

"The mystique, the magic cuts both ways, you know.

"It's not enough merely to defeat Randy Buck.

"He must be beaten at his own game, and by creatures who are a part of his private world.

"We must leave no illusions in his sick head that he is in any way the master of that particular universe.

"We have to enter that world as well as his mansion.

"We must leave no question in his mind but that he has been vanquished, defeated on his own terms, beaten at his own game.

"He doesn't rule that world-never mind."

And Nancy feels a chill.

She almost said it.

He doesn't rule that world, I do.

I knew it, I knew it, I knew it all along! Nancy thinks.

That's what this is all about.

Not Randy's illness, not even Randy's victims, but the game.

Dungeons and Dragons.

King's Quest.

All an adventure game between two rich perverts.

Rich and dangerous perverts, she amends.

And her mission?

To survive.

That is the long and the short of it, Nancy reminds herself.

She does not believe in the mystique, the magic.

She believes that she is in great danger and that she must somehow come through it all, sound in mind and body, while at the same time fulfilling the wishes of her companion and boss.

But then, she reflects, there is nothing new in this.

Wars have always been fought by troops just trying to survive.

And wars have always been started by those who believe in the magic, the mystique.

And now, Nancy is less resolved, less firm in her mind in her determination to destroy Randy. Buck.

Because to destroy Buck is to replace him with what?

And Nancy suspects, but does not really want to know the answer to that one.

Buck is evil and Cynthia opposes him, which makes her-what?

The logic is no longer so simple, so clear-cut.

Good and evil.

Maybe those are merely two faces of the mystique, the magic, in which Nancy doesn't believe.

Still, there is no question but that Buck must be stopped.

Just as, practically speaking, there is no question but that Nancy is aboard for the full ride.

Yes, she sighs to herself, Friday at midnight will see her, hooded and costumed, rappelling from a helicopter, onto a madman's balcony, armed to the teeth.

In the United States of America, at the close of the twentieth century.

So yes, you're damned right it's gonna happen in this day and age.

Maybe, she reflects, maybe Buck and the Baroness aren't the only nuts running around in this situation.

And Nancy is glad that she is not married, has no-children.

At least, she thinks, the nuttiness in my family will end with me.

But hopefully, not for a long time yet.

"… and figure Eric and Cranston'll be there, along with Buck in a fairly close cluster."

"Do we whack ‘em out, or what?" Cynthia shrugs.

"Depends on what we find when we get in there.

"If they're expecting us, if we're in danger, they go, guaranteed.

"We burst in on a tea party and we can't break a cup.

"Something in between, you let me call the shots, okay?"

You love this kind of talk, don't you? Nancy thinks, beaming the question at Cynthia.

And of course, her lunch with Buck tomorrow will accomplish another thing-it will put him on the alert.

So that there is no question but that, during their fun and games, the three villains will have weapons in close proximity.

"You cover us with the law?" Nancy asks.

"I'll be talking to Captain Reynolds tomorrow, telling him as much as I think necessary, unofficially, of course."

"If we waste these guys with automatic weapons fire, there could be repercussions," Vanessa points out.

"And if they waste each other?" Cynthia asks.

And Vanessa grins.

And even Nancy cannot repress a faint smile.

Villain against villain, no question, she thinks. Thank heavens the Baroness and Randy Buck are on opposite sides.

"Why didn't I think of that?" Vanessa asks.

"Buck would have," Cynthia observes.

"Seriously," Nancy begins, only to set the other two, look at her in surprise.

Did she think they've been kidding around thus far?

"Sorry," she says.

"Poor choice of words. What I meant was, getting down to the exact details, exactly how are we going to make our grand entrance?"

"Here and here," Cynthia says, pointing to the corners of the balcony of the room in question, the one in which Buck had held Nancy captive until her rescue by Cynthia, Vanessa, and ultimately the state police, "are two stone vases with flowers growing.