Surreal continuing story: walking through doors and passageways

[dougie_monty]

…going into the sample pattern, and making the “beep” tones I remember when I used to play Qix in the early eighties; I also played Donkey Kong, Ms. Pac-Man, Q*bert, and Mappy regularly at that time.
I take a close look at the back of the card. It looks vaguely familiar—and I don’t mean like the envelopes Dennis Walsh had been distributing for me.

(Walsh, incidentally, did indeed suffer a beatdown by an angry truck driver. He had been treated at the hospital, and had to use a crutch to walk around. Once he left the hospital he went to Father Abramowitz’ church—and his own family was Presbyterian.)
I’m lost in thought as I mull over this…

I wait for the Qix game to start and—silly me! I forgot to put a quarter in! Duhh! :rolleyes: :o
I don’t have any quarters. I don’t see a change machine in the place, so I’ll pop a dollar bill into the soda-pop machine for a 75c can of Squirt.

As I approach the machine I walk over a short section of terra-cotta floor. As it turns out the floor is wet, and I slip and fall.
Some of the patrons gasp as they see me take a tumble. I roll over a couple of times, but I’m not hurt. Gene hurries over to help me up.

“Are you all right, _______?” he asks.
“Yes, I’m okay,” I say as I shake my head and regain my bearings.

Then I realize my glasses have fallen off. I look around for them and see them. I’ve apparently rolled over them and broken one temple off.
“Great,” I mutter. “That’s all I need right now.”

I happen to notice what looks like a tiny spot of glass on the very front end of the temple, along with a pattern of tiny holes on the side just next to the end. I train my ESP on it and, from what’s inside, suspect it’s a video camera and microphone.
“Who did you have fit the glasses for you?” asks Gene, who I don’t believe noticed the glass or the holes.

“Dr. Lou Feeney,” I say. “He’s been my optometrist since I first enrolled at the college.”
“Lou Feeney?” asks Gene. I’ve known him for years. Well, go to his office and have the frames replaced [I saw no damage to the lenses] and have him send me the bill.”

“Sure, Gene.” I find a phone book, since I don’t know Dr. Feeney’s number offhand. I call the office; it’s open.
The receptionist, Ayda Kolastian, remembers me. She says I can come right over; the office is only a few blocks away.
I go tell Jeanette I broke my glasses and I’ll have new frames made up. I’ll return when I can. I look at the overhead score charts: The kids are doing quite well, including Helen Sharp, Jan Oranjeboom, April Blonda—and little Jack Sharp II.
I don the spare glasses I keep in the glove compartment before I drive over.
As I get to Dr. Feeney’s office, I keep the broken temple inside my tote bag. Ms. Kolastian motions for me to go right into the fitting area.
Just before Dr. Feeney—who resembles Peter Funt—comes into the room, I write on a sheet of paper: “I suspect something was planted in this broken temple.”

Dr. Feeney comes into the room. Since I saw him last he has grown a handlebar mustache, and he wears thick glasses like that strange character in the movie Papillion. I show him the broken glasses and carefully take the broken temple out of my tote bag, and set it on a metal table with the “bug” facing down, just in case. I show him the handwritten message, and tell him what happened in the bowling alley.
“Gene’s an old lodge brother of mine,” he says.

Dr. Feeney looks on the shelves and selects a frame very similar to the one I had. He takes a powerful magnifier—even stronger than my jeweler’s loupe—and scrutinizes both the broken temple and the new frames.
“This looks like a tiny video camera and microphone, all right,” he says. “I was in Army intelligence in the 1980s. I bet these were planted in your glasses before they were fitted for you.”

He hands me back the broken temple and I put it back in the tote bag.
“I’m positive I didn’t prescribe glasses for you with that on them,” he says. “Ms. Kolastian, bring _______’s service record.”

Ayda leaves the room and returns with a manila folder bearing my name. She turns to the last order for frames, which was fitted for me the week before my “Trailer Zone” episode.
The employee’s signature on the order is Quentin York.
I sure remember that name.

“I caught him trying to steal from my patients and had him arrested, just after the first of the year,” Dr. Feeney says. “He later appropriated some of my clothes and passed himself off as an optometrist—but before I could call the cops on him the second time he scooted out. He was on bail then.”
This, of course, is the Quentin York who assaulted Lady Astorbilt at the party (and tied Mando Guzman up in the kitchen) and impersonated a vet when Alice took Buster to Doc Prothro’s office for cat-fever treatment.
Dr. Feeney snaps my lenses into the new frames and fits the glasses on me.

“Do you want us to destroy the broken temple?” Ayda asks me.
“No,” I say, “I think I can find a better way to dispose of it…”

I return temporarily to the Sharps’ mansion. Fred answers the door. We go inside; while I tell Fred what happened I leave the tote bag, with the broken temple inside, in the car. I’ll return to the House of Tracy in a moment.
Fred calls, “Leo.”

The chain-bedecked ghost appears and huddles with Fred for a few minutes to decide what I should do.
“Go back to the bowling alley,” Fred says. “And while you’re there…”

[NDP]

play the Qix machine."

“Why?” I ask.

“We don’t know the exact reason why yet,” Fred explains. “It’s just imperative that you do.”

“Are you sure there’s no danger?”

“Oh, we’re quite sure about that. In fact, we believe we’ll find out something important if you play that video game.”

“What?”

“Again, we don’t know exactly what. Just go back to the bowling alley, and play the Qix game that had the card with your name on it.”

And so, I do. I go back to the House of Tracy, go over to where the arcade games are, drop a quarter in the Qix machine, and press the one-player start button. When I do this…

[dougie_monty]

The game starts up normally. I’m rather rusty after not having played Qix for 20 years, but I guess it’s like riding a bicycle.
After a short while of playing, the “Qix” itself, the strange adversary object on the screen, swirls around and changes into a message. It reads:

“If you are _________, press the one-player button twice and the two-player button once.”
I do so.

Now the message appears: “Game suspended.” The screen goes dark—except for an hourglass such as I’m used to seeing on my PC.
After a moment, the screen shows this message:

“You have complied with Moreland’s instructions.
“When you return this afternoon to meet Ruth Newport in the Sparkle Plenty room, with Alice, stop here 20 minutes before your meeting time. Play the Qix game normally. You should be able to make the high score. But instead of your initials, enter ‘DTT” for dvadtsat tri, the Russian for ‘twenty-three.’ You will receive further instructions then. Call Moreland afterward, to confirm.

“Paul Kleinhart, DXM Liaison Agent.
“My mechty iz kotory delatsya material.”

I don’t know much Russian but I bet that’s a translation of the mangled Shakespeare quote.
The juniors’ tournament is over. April Blonda, scoring 286 (!) is the winner; the runners-up are Claudia, Helen Sharp, and Helen’s little nephew Jack II.

Mary Blonda is present, and she hugs her daughter. Now George Sharp, on a mischievous impulse, strides over to April and, before she can react, he takes her in his arms and kisses her on the lips as if he is the world’s greatest lover. I can almost see the smoke coming out of April’s ears! :eek:
But I think he did that to be funny as well. I know he admires the entire Blonda family and would not do something harmful or offensive to any of them. April, in fact, starts tittering, and the other kids get a laugh too. As usual, Bobby and Katrina, and Georgie and Maria, sit close and cuddle.

---

As for the mixed finals, I didn’t qualify. Alice, Lorna, Louise Brown, Mr. Galloway, Eloise, Jeanette, Dr. Clouse, and Germaine Ray are in the finals.
This part of the tournament won’t start for an hour and a half. I return to the block where Dr. Feeney’s office is, since I’ve been wondering about the supposedly familiar nature of the card I found on the Qix game.

I walk down the block toward Dr. Feeney’s office. Clete’s Barber Shop; Mell-O-Tone (a record store), a Wherehouse… Dr. Feeney’s place, and—the store I was looking for, Rowena’s Gifts, which sells decorations, balloons, picture frames and such. I see a sign “Notary Public” in the window, and a cylinder of helium bearing the name “Fanky Malloon.”

As I window-shop, I notice that the address number is “1234.” The “1” is faded, and the “4” is badly rusted. And in the window display I see a familiar color scheme—crimson on silver.
What puzzles me is that Rowena Hickerson is an old friend of mine, from junior high.

I can’t go in—the store is closed “due to family emergency.” But now I know what’s familiar about the card that was on the Qix game.
I return to the House of Tracy. I meet Alice there, just before the finals start; we embrace. I sit at the scorekeeper’s table for Lane 23 (again!) with Alice. She is paired with Jeanette. Lorna and Louise are on one side; Mr. Galloway and Dr. Clouse are on the other.

---

No surprise; Alice wins the mixed tournament—yet another 300 game. She gets a hunk of cash, a glistening trophy, and a huge bouquet of flowers from Gene. He also gives her a tiara and a fancy robe—and $1.98.
All the others gather for a celebration. In an hour we’ll meet Ms. Newport about Gilbert, and other people as well, I suppose. Right now, however, I tell Alice, still in tiara and robe, about the Qix game.

“I used to play that myself,” she says, one arm around me.
We go over to the Qix game, which someone else is playing at the moment. I tell Alice what happened this morning, during the juniors’ tournament.

[NDP]

“Who is trying to communicate with you?” Alice asks after hearing me tell the story.

“Somebody named Paul Kleinhart,” I tell her. “I have a feeling he’s a mole for the DXM League but I’m not totally sure.”

The man playing the Qix machine finally walks away in disgust. Apparently, he wasn’t too happy with his score. Alice and I walk up to the game and put a quarter in the slot. I then press the one-player start button and begin to play the game. I breeze through all the levels until, in short time, I have the highest score. I can’t believe how easy it is; it’s almost like the game was rigged in my favor. I deliberately waste my remaining free turns and the “Top Score” initial registration comes up. As per instructions, I enter “DTT”. However, instead of the usual Top 10 Qix scores, the following message appears to us:

[dougie_monty]

Incidentally, the Russian word for “of which” should appear as kotorykh, not kotory.—dougie_monty :o
“You have followed instructions correctly again.

“Specifically, you must change your plans, concerning the CDs which you have received for the ‘sub-basement’ and ‘livers’ books. If you have read these already, press the one-player start button. Otherwise, press the two-player button.”
I press the two-player button.

A message reads, “You are not to read the final chapter of either volume, in any medium, until directed to do so by Parker, Breastly, Moreland or [Leo] Jacobs. There is a serious security issue behind this directive. Moreland will explain it fully.”
Now a message in white on a red screen appears:

“If another patron is approaching you as you read this communiqué, push the one-player start button twice and leave the building, then contact Moreland.”
Then a pause.

Then the regular message screen we have been viewing appears.
“You are directed to leave the inscribed silver ingot in the safe at the Morpheus. Moreland has informed us that you have two uninscribed ingots in your possession. Take either of those to Oranjeboom and Merriwether to sell instead. The League will notify you when the inscribed ingot may be sold.

“Moreland has informed the League concerning the surveillance device concealed in your eyeglasses, _______. We note that you have replaced the damaged frames and we find that nobody else has been ‘bugged.’
“Artur Mortimer has been fully suspended from all League activities and has returned all communications media furnished by the League, to the office of James Parker. He has been specifically forbidden to have contact with any of you connected with the Morpheus—including Richard Nicholas.

“Your applications have been fully processed by Joan Breastly’s office. The day after your benefit at the Morpheus, you are to go with Fred Moreland to the Corinthian Room in the Mason Hotel. Pending final review of your applications and interviews with Breastly, you will be fully invested as DXM League agents. Moreland, again, will provide complete details on this.
“Edmond Bartholomew is preparing his case in the matter of Aalto et al. v. Lemoyne [the collapsed medical building]. He formally requests that you contact him or Walter Fields to arrange to give depositions in this case.

“The League wishes you well and thanks you for your attention and loyalty.
“Sincerely, Paul Kleinhart, Liaison Agent, DXM League.”

The screen returns to the Qix sample pattern.
Alice and I pause. “We never got a communiqué like that before,” I comment.

“We never dealt with a league ‘mole’ before, either,” says Alice. We embrace lightly.

I now call Fred. He explains that I was contacted via the Qix game because the League, which has been monitoring Alice and me closely for the last week, did not want to wait until my next routine contact with him (Fred). He says that after we talk to Ruth Newport, we are to return to the Sharps’ mansion for a more thorough briefing with him. And he congratulates Alice for winning—she won two of the League’s four $500 prizes for best League member’s score in divisions of the tournament (women’s and mixed). April Blonda (she of the newly grown wings), a junior member, won the $500 for the junior division. Fred and we ring off.

Alice and I sit together for a few minutes, just cooling our heels. I playfully feel under her clothing (my arm is hidden by the robe she still wears) to feel the underwear I bought for her at Victoria’s Secret. She giggles and says, “Stop that!”

We now go to our meeting with Ruth Newport in the Sparkle Plenty Room. The others who saw the incident are present: Jeanette, Jane Bradley, Mary Blonda, Lorna, and Frannie Sharp, Eloise’s third daughter. Also present are Will Smith, the tall thin fellow, and Jody Hill, his short, black female partner, as the guards who hustled Shane Gilbert away. And I see Rowena Hickerson, the brown-eyed blond woman who owns the store next to Dr. Feeney’s office. She wears a plain tan dress. I wonder, without saying anything, whether she has come about silver envelopes, or notarizing, or selling Fanky Malloon merchandise.

Now Ruth Newport, in a lime-green pantsuit and gray blouse, arrives. She stands near Alice and me and begins the meeting.

[dougie_monty]

Dr. Clouse and Andy Sharp (Eloise’s eldest son) also saw the drunken Gilbert accost Alice.

[NDP]

“First off,” she says, “I’d like to review what happened between Alice Terwilliger and Shane Gilbert.”

“Well, there’s not much else to tell,” Alice states. “Mr. Gilbert–reeking of beer and cheap booze–staggers up to me and mistakes me for an actress he saw on TV. After I unsuccessfully attempt to correct his misunderstanding, he lurches over and tries to French kiss me. Then, remembering my instruction in self-defense, I quickly grab his right arm, pin it behind his back, and force him down on his knees. With Mr. Gilbert effectively neutralized as a threat to my person, I had the bowling alley’s security people take it from there.”

“Does that sound accurate?” Ruth asks of everyone else in the room. We all affirm Alice’s version.

“Well, as you might guess, it’s obvious Mr. Gilbert was doing at least a couple things someone who’s out on probation shouldn’t be doing,” Ruth continues, “Namely, being publicly intoxicated and trying to stick his tongue down the throat of a woman who didn’t want it there. But, of course, if you knew Mr. Gilbert, good sense was not an attribute the Lord blessed him with. Frankly, even when he’s sober, he’s dumber than a bag of hammers.”

“And to think when I first saw him, he struck me as being so sophisticated and astute.” I say with thick sarcasm.

“Anyway, Shane Gilbert is my responsibility now,” Ruth sighs. "But there’s another thing I want to ask all of you about. I want to know…

[dougie_monty]

“Do any of you know these names: Zeke Cree, Dana Yarborough, Frank Donovan, Eric Takade, and Dennis Walsh?”
Several of us react to the names. We’re all ready to talk at once.

Ruth silences us. “Except for the last one, those are the names of the other sots who were loitering near the entrance when Gilbert approached Ms. Terwilliger. Dennis Walsh has been arrested here several times for public drunkenness, most recently inside the building, by Lieutenant Donald Clay.”
“We know Don Clay well,” says Alice.

Frannie Sharp speaks up.
“I remember Zeke Cree,” she says. “Potbellied, snag-toothed, red-eyed, almost bald.” She looks ready to cry. “He tried to grab me and pull my pants down a month ago.”

Eloise sits close to her daughter to comfort her.
“We have that in the record, Ms. Sharp,” Ruth says to Frannie.

Now Jeanette speaks up. “Frank Donovan—a tall bum with a scraggly blond beard and a Karl Malden nose. He saw me in a bar about a year ago, sipping a cocktail and smoking a panatela. He asked me for a light, but then he tried to slip a hand down the front of my dress! I stood up and he was so surprised when he saw that I was as tall as he was, that he almost fainted. I never saw him again.”

I speak up. “Eric Takade was in my Civil Procedure class two years ago. He was a real smart-aleck who never used his brain—”
“Did he have sandy hair and wear a gold ring on his left pinky?” asks Mary Blonda.

“Yes, he did,” I say.
“He used to live across the street from us. He always made a nuisance of himself with our kids, until Bob and I got a restraining order against him.”

I continue. “Anyway, one day in class Takade got real close to the instructor, whom he tried to ‘French kiss.’”
“Who was the instructor?” asks Ruth.

“Professor Herbert Stollwitz,” I say.
This gets some snickers until Ruth asks for silence.

“You probably saw that group of bums back away from me after Gilbert’s approach to Ms. Terwilliger,” Ruth says. “That group is composed of the men, except for Dennis Walsh, I asked you about originally.
“They seem to have metamorphosed from mere skid-row bums to hirelings of some sinister organization—one engaged in intrigue. I’m considering turning their records over to the FBI or the National Security Agency if the evidence merits it.”

Alice and I link arms and subtly contact Fred by telepathy.
Don’t worry—we know about all those men—I’ll tell you about them at the Morpheus later today, Fred “thinks” to us in a reassuring voice.

Ruth gives each of us her card, with postal address, phone number, and so on. The meeting is over and we bid Ruth goodbye, and we drive en masse back to the Morpheus.
Before we talk to Fred, I get the help of Stan Brown and Joe Bradley to trundle one of the other silver ingots, that belongs to Alice and me, out to a point just inside the door to the private parking lot. Later on we’ll take it over to Loora’s office to sell it.

We continue with the extended dress rehearsals. Lorna goes first; after she leaves the stage, she reminds us that her wedding day is almost here and the ceremony will be at Father Abromowitz’ church. Alice and others have already made preparations, including formal clothes; I still have the black suit Eloise allowed me to keep after the Astorbilts’ party.

The DXM League people meet in the lounge. This is about thirty people, and includes Buster, curled up on Jeanette’s lap. April Blonda is present as a junior member. Also present is Dr. Maggie Johnson, so I now know she is a DXM person.
Alice and I sit together. Fred stands up to speak and gives us the information the League has on the bindlestiffs Ms. Newport mentioned by name in the Sparkle Plenty Room.

[NDP]

“The men Ms. Newport mentioned are pretty low-level types,” he states.

“Then why does the League think they’re so important that we have to have a meeting about them?” asks Jeanette. “I mean if this ‘sinister’ organization felt the need to hire those guys, then it must be a really sorry excuse for a ‘sinister’ organization.”

“No kidding,” I comment in agreement. “I wouldn’t even hire any of those drunks and stoners to get me coffee.”

“I’m not disputing incompetence of those dolts,” Fred says, “but you have to keep in mind they represent the bottom-rung of this organization. Whoever hired them was looking for somebody desperate, uninquisitive, … and expendable. I seriously doubt the men have any idea of who they’re really working for and what they’re really doing.”

“By the way, that’s what I want to know,” Alice states, “What is this ‘sinister organization’ and what is it planning?”

Fred reaches into a large black briefcase by his chair and pulls out a dossier that’s the size of the Los Angeles phonebook. “This organization is quite new so we don’t have a lot of information on it,” he comments, "but we do know that…

[dougie_monty]

“It’s composed of people who worked with Henry Sikes-Potter, or Victor Lemoyne, and are still sympathetic to the aims of the former employers.
“Cree and Walsh and the others—who couldn’t draw flies—were assigned to spy, or scout, in a sense. The objective is to get physically close to a DXM person, assuming they can identify one, and train a video camera and microphone—which this organization has hidden on the person of Cree or another such hireling—on the DXM person, to size them up. The equipment has remote connections, like cameras and mikes set up by TV news reporters to relay information from locations away from the studio.”

“So we’d have to watch out for street drunks who might be sent out to gather data on us?” I ask.
“Well, not just street drunks,” says Fred. “It could be any group that might have close contact with you—classmates, co-workers, store employees. The idea is to get close to you so a superior, watching and listening via the hidden camera and mike, can gather data on you.”

“Rather like that camera and mike planted in my glasses,” I say.
“That’s right,” says Fred. “Once they’ve attracted your attention they train the surveillance equipment on you.”

“So anyone we meet could be this kind of spy?” asks Alice.
“That’s possible, but we’ve found a flaw in their operation. The equipment they use was manufactured by a company in Mainz, Germany, named Gelbenfuchs AG. The word means ‘yellow fox’ in German.”

“What’s the flaw?” asks Eloise.
“The equipment, it seems, was put into use before the testing was completed. There are phrases and images that shut the equipment off, and put it into standby mode; and it’s difficult to return it to operating mode again. The standby mode shuts down the remote connection.”

“That doesn’t sound very wise,” comments Frannie.
“Well, remember, Sikes-Potter’s organization lost its financial support when the British government appropriated his $529 million in hidden assets. The organization is pretty much running on a shoestring, along with a large dollop of ingenuity and a sprinkling of chutzpah.”

“So ordinary awareness is about all we need to protect ourselves from this organization’s spies?” asks Alice, clinging to me.
“That’s about it,” says Fred. “And if the mike hears ‘yellow fox,’ or the camera sees a yellow fox, it’ll disable the equipment, as I noted. Certainly those bindlestiffs at the House of Tracy don’t know how to reset it. So I’ve asked George Sharp to pass out these Yellow Fox pins.” George distributes the pins to all of us. “If anyone asks about the pin just say it’s a symbol of a fraternal organization—which in a sense it is.”

“Don’t pin it on me,” says Buster. We all laugh.
We all attach the pins to our clothing. Jeanette pins hers to her flannel dress, right over her bosom—between her big nipples, which poke assertively out from her chest. She explains that any low-budget scout who approaches her, in the fashion Fred described, will certainly stare at her boobs.

Now Bob Long comes in. He tells us that Cree and Takade have been arrested. They were totally soused, and tried to get into someone else’s car. The car’s owner approached and ordered them out of the car. When they attacked him, he picked them up like a couple of rag dolls. They had as much fighting strength as two average kittens.
“Who was the owner of the car?” I ask.

“Sergeant Aaron Yellowfox,” says Bob. [Everyone else chuckles at this.] “I’ve worked with him for years. The sots were given jail clothes in place of their street clothes, and these were put in the property room. I saw the cheap surveillance equipment and stored it in a large opaque bag there.”
I ask Fred, “What’s the name of this low-budget organization?”
“‘Threshold,’” Fred says. Sounds like Napoleon Solo’s adversary.

Now Alice and the other women—except for the older ones such as Grandmother Martin and Betty Galloway—go to the local drugstore; it’s that time of the month. Meanwhile, George Sharp sits at a large table with me as Fred leaves the room for other business. With George are his three oldest brothers Andy, Carl, and Eddie, and his next-younger brother Irwin. (The eight Sharp boys are practically identical to each other, much as their sisters are.) Jan Oranjeboom and Buster are also present. The young Mr. Sharp, not of a mind to cause trouble here, makes some humorous observations.

[NDP]

“You know we’re all clones don’t you?” he says to me after I look at him and his brothers. He has a sly smile on his face when he says this.

“I’ve often wondered about that,” I reply with a chuckle.

“Yeah,” George continues, “Dad’s thinking of franchising.”

Before we continue any further with this subject, Fred returns to the room. “______,” he says. “I just got a fax from Bob Long. It seems as though when Cree was being patted down when he was taken into custody, they found an interesting card in his pocket.”

Fred hands me a faxed sheet of paper with an image of a small business card taped in the center. It reads:

**THRESHOLD**
Affordable Cosmic Disruption
*"Your Practical Choice!"*

In the right corner of the card is a phone number: 555-4623.

“Interesting,” I comment, “but has anybody checked this out yet?”

“Not yet,” Fred answers. "I think we should…

[dougie_monty]

“See if we can locate that phone number—that is, what part of town it’s in.”
I think of something else.

“Granted someone using a computer can produce most any kind of business form or card these days, I think it’s odd that a business card would have its first line in Cooper Black and the other two lines in a Spencerian script. [Cooper Black is the heavy typeface used for the credits in MAS*H.] It’s like printing in Old English in all caps.”
Fred looks at the fax.

“I see what you mean,” he says. “That Spencerian script is really rare. I don’t know much about script fonts, but I haven’t seen that typeface anywhere in years.”
“I think I’ll ask Alice about this when she gets back,” I comment.

George Sharp and his brothers snicker slightly when I mention Alice. I’m tempted to counter with a crack about the women in their lives, but I decide not to say a thing. After all, Andy Sharp’s wife Joanie is a nice lady, and Carl and Eddie have had a good solid relationship with Olivia Short and Thalia Hoffmann, Samantha’s daughter. And so on.
Fred stares at the second and third lines of the card, in the elaborate Spencerian script, again.

“I can’t help but wonder about those initials—ACD and YPC…”
Jan Oranjeboom looks at the lines.

“Mr. Moreland, those initials ring a bell with me.”
“How so?”

“My Mom brought home a flier from two men she and Mr. Merriwether were doing business with. Alfred Cosmo DeMoss and Yancy Percival Chester.”
George and his brothers laugh at these pretentious-sounding names. Even Buster smirks.

“How did you find out about that?” Fred asks Jan.
“Mom came home from the office with the flier a few days ago. She asked Dad and me if we’d ever heard of DeMoss and Chester—they buy artifacts for museums, according to the flier.”

Fred asks, “Do you know if she still has the flier?”
“Well, Mom put it in her desk at home. She has a real old rolltop desk and she keeps business papers in the top drawer.”

We’ll want to see that flier, I know.
Now Jack Sharp comes into the room, holding what looks like another fax.

“This just came from Sergeant Robert Long, Fred,” he says. Fred reads the fax.
“According to this,” Fred says, “When Eric Takade was patted down, they found, among other things, some small booklets with text in both Lithuanian and Japanese.”

The Sharp boys murmur about this.
I figure, “This is something else Alice might know about—how many people speak Lithuanian and Japanese?”

“Let me put it this way,” says Fred. “I’ve lived in this vicinity for 52 years and the only Japanese I know of live on Siddely Street about ten miles north of the Morpheus. Wait and see what other clues Bob has for us. I’m sure he’s considering arranging for a warrant to search Cree’s and Takade’s homes.”
Now Artie Brown brings the mail in.

One item is a letter addressed to me, care of the Morpheus. The return address is “Dennis Walsh, 230 S. Moraga Street, _____, CA.” I check it out with my ESP; no surprises. I open it and read,
“Dear ________: We would like to contact you in person, if feasible, outside the entrance to the local police station—we will be out on bail and Ms. Waterford was just released from the hospital—to give you information about Sikes-Potter’s remaining operatives, who continue to plot discomfiture for you. Please contact me at my postal address, or my phone number -, or my e-mail address dwalsh2346@smithson.com. We are ready to ‘sing.’—Dennis Walsh, Clell O’Houlihan, Rita Waterford, Dawna Korey.” [!!]

I show this to Fred. “It looks quite straightforward,” he says. “I’ll show it to Parker.”
Now all the women return. Alice comes into the room and sits with me; we kiss. George and his brothers kid us slightly, after the manner of Daniel.

The Sharp girls and their mother come in. Eloise slips off with Jack. The seven girls sit with their brothers; another group of “clones.” The three younger Sharp boys, Kenny, Marty, and Owen, join them. All fifteen Sharp kids are facing Alice and me now.
Alice asks me, “Do you want to take the ‘blank’ silver ingot to Loora and Merriwether to sell it now?”

I say, “Yes, and I’d like to ask to see a flier Loora has—and show the flier to Ed Fukushima [Loora’s printing foreman]. Watermarks and such. I’ll call Loora before we go over there.”
Now I face the fifteen “cloned” Sharp kids and make a comment of my own:

[NDP]

“Alice, did you ever see Children of the Damned?”

“A long time ago,” she answers as she calls Loora on her cell phone. “Why?”

“Oh, no reason,” I reply. “Just curious.”

I see George smirk at this exchange. He knows what I’m referring to.

The phone call to Loora is brief. “She says we can come over right now,” Alice informs me. And so, with the silver ingot and a copy of the faxed THRESHOLD business card in our possession, we immediately drive down to Loora’s shop.

I look over the fax and inquire, “What do they mean by ‘Affordable Cosmic Disruption’ anyway?”

“I’m not sure,” Alice answers, “Maybe they figure there’s a market for people who are dissatisfied with the cosmos in some way and want to shake things up.”

“But what’s wrong with the cosmos?”

"Oh, I can think of some things some people might object to. For example, there’s the old ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?’ question. That, in turn, is related to the question of ‘Why do good things happen to good people?’ There’s also the whole maddening issue of whether there’s an underlying meaning or purpose to anything and why, if there is, it has to be so difficult to discover. And then there are the matters of natural disasters and diseases and why-

Our discussion about what anybody can find wrong with the cosmos is suddenly interrupted when Alice swerves to avert hitting a strange large object. We don’t what we just avoided colliding with but we do know it’s something that you normally don’t see in the middle of the road. Alice pulls her car over to the shoulder and we turn around to look out the back window to see…

[dougie_monty]

…a huge reddish-purple glob.
“How did that get in the middle of the street?” I ask.

“I haven’t the foggiest,” says Alice. We remain stopped by the curb, some fifty feet down the street, to look at the strange thing. It looks like a towering scoop of raspberry sherbet. Other vehicles avoid it; a black cat sees it and yowls as he scoots away.
Oddly, people approach and glower at the purplish glob. They say “Scram!” and “Get out of here!” to no avail. The glob—which seems very cold—just sits there.

A little boy walks by on the sidewalk with his mother.
He says, “Mommy, can I have some of that sherbet?”

“No, Timmy,” his mother answers. “We have plenty of vanilla at home.”
They walk away.

Then a young woman dressed like the St. Pauli girl—leather dirndl, low-cut white blouse, etc.—quietly approaches the blob and says in a calm voice, ,Raus!“
The blob gives a disappointed sigh and rolls slightly to one side, so that it is in one lane. Then it moves forward in that lane, as a vehicle would, and at normal vehicle speed.

Alice and I continue to stare at it. As it approaches us, I see it seems to have a mouth.
And it speaks.

,Dreiundzwanzig!
,Wir sind die Träume, wovon werden der Stoff gestalten.“

And in a more cordial voice it says:
,Ich werde Sie wieder begegnen. Auf wiedersehen.“

Then it calmly rolls away, at the same speed as the rest of the traffic.
Alice and I reel from this before we pull back onto the street.

“Now that’s a weird one!” I say. “It said ‘twenty-three,’ ‘We are the dreams stuff is made of,’ and ‘I will contact you again—goodbye for now.’”
“I know,” says Alice. “Considering our wings, my talking cat, the 175-year-old guest in the Morpheus, and the ghost, as day-to-day situations with us, a German-speaking purple blob in the street shouldn’t seem unusual to us.”

,Ganz bestimmt,“ (“Absolutely!”) booms the blob, from out of sight.
“Don’t forget me,” says Alice’s car in the Fran Drescher voice.

Now a slender, bearded man in tan slacks and a loud Hawaiian shirt flags us down.
“I represent Cracked Mazagine,” he says. The misspelling is deliberate.

My magazine owns the rights to the Blob character. Consider wisely your contact with him.”
“Because he’s a proprietary character, like your janitor Sylvester P. Smythe?” I ask.

“That, and the fact that he tends to eat things he shouldn’t—like people. But if you’re affiliated with an organization dealing with counterespionage, he won’t give you any trouble.”
Alice and I nod—this Cracked representative obviously doesn’t know about the DXM League.

We continue toward Loora’s office.
“I wonder why you mentioned ‘Children of the Damned’ in front of the Sharp kids,” Alice asks.

“Well,” I say, “I sense that George is waxing impudent, like Daniel, Buster, or this car sometimes—”
“Do you want me to stall on you?” the car asks.

“No…”
“Well, then, choose your phrases more carefully!” snaps Car.

“Oh, all right,” I say.
And I assure Alice I was not suggesting that Jack and Eloise are “damned.”

We get to Loora’s building. I go inside as Alice parks the car; Loora allows me to wheel a cart outside. Alice and I lift the “blank” thirty-pound silver ingot, again covered with a blanket, onto the cart and we wheel it in.
“I’ll have the day’s silver price, shown online, in a few minutes,” says Loora, setting a large company checkbook on the desk. Roman Merriwether and Ed Fukushima come out to greet us.

Loora now removes a portfolio from her large purse and produces the flier she got from DeMoss and Chester. She unfolds it and hands it to Ed, who examines it closely.
“Interesting watermark,” Mr. Fukushima says as he holds the flier up to the light.

I hand him the fax page with the reproduction of the Threshold card, with the two fonts, Cooper Black and Spencerian, on it. He scrutinizes this too.
Now, Loora has the day’s silver price, and uses her calculator. Ed and Mr. Merriwether speak privately for a moment, then return to us as Loora makes out a check, to effect the purchase of the ingot. The two men proceed to discuss with us their appraisal of the flier and the fax page.

[NDP]

[MISTAKES THAT WERE MADE BY ME IN MY PREVIOUS ENTRY:

1. The movie referred to at the beginning is titled Village of the Damned not Children of the Damned. (And, for the record, if you haven’t seen the movie, it’s about a sinister group of alien-human hybrid children who look very much alike even though they all have different mothers.)

2. In the second to last paragraph when Alice is talking about what people could find wrong with the cosmos, the third sentence should read: That, in turn, is related to the question of ‘Why do good things happen to bad people?’"

And now, back to our story…]

“The printing on the flier and the faxed copy of the THRESHOLD business card do match one another,” states Fukushima. “But what is this ‘Affordable Cosmic Disruption’ business?”

“We’re still trying to figure that out,” I tell him. “Anyway, what about DeMoss and Chester? What were they in the shop for?”

“Buy and sell,” Merriwether says. “They were looking for a particular silver ingot–one that had a strange inscription on it.”

“You mean like the one we brought in earlier?” inquires Alice.

“Sort of,” Merriwether continues, “but not that one. The one they described was different. It was supposed to have an inscription written in Sanskirit on it.”

“Did you have it?” I ask.

“No,” answers Fukushima. “In fact, we were about to ask you if have something like that.”

“We haven’t seen anything like that,” Alice says. “At least, not yet.”

“Anyway, DeMoss and Chester said they were starting a business and needed to raise capital,” Merriwether continues, “so they sold some items to us.”

“Mainly old books, stamps, and gold coins,” Fukushima adds. “Then they gave us their flier and said to call them if we ever came across that silver ingot with the Sanskirit inscription.”

“Oh, there’s one other thing I think you might be interested in knowing about,” Merriwether quickly mentions. "It seems…

[dougie_monty]

“Dawna Korey left some things in her locker the last day she worked here.”
“Do you mean she quit?” Alice asks.

“No,” says Mr. Merriwether, “I fired her. This was after she stole Fukushima’s van and your other silver ingot. Her husband bailed her out; and she came back for severance pay and to finish up paperwork—W-2 forms and such. But she left a box of stuff in her locker and never came back for it. We called her number and kept getting an answering machine message; we even wrote to her home address, and got no reply. Thirty days have passed since she was here last, so we’re about to claim the stuff.”

“Did the police come here after she was arrested?” I ask.
“They did come, but just to get personal information. I guess they had all the physical evidence they needed when they picked up the van at that theater,” says Mr. Merriwether.

“What items did she leave?” asks Alice.
Mr. Fukushima brings a cardboard box out to us.

Is it okay to look through this stuff?” I ask.
“Go ahead,” says Merriwether.

Alice and I quietly turn our ESP on. Nothing strange, including chemicals—although the box does smell of printer’s ink, solvent, and fingertip moistener.
I find a plain maroon portfolio, which I hand right away to Alice; she examines its contents. The contents of the box are fairly mundane: two packs of cigarettes—some exotic foreign brand; three Christina Aguilera CD’s; a Latin-English dictionary; five little round boxes of fingertip moistener; and a small, heavy wooden box.

“What’s in the box?” I ask. [Alice and I already know there’s nothing harmful in it.]
“We don’t know,” says Ed. “We don’t open employees’ lockers—the printers’ union would object. Besides, we didn’t even know about that little box.”

“We may want to speak to the union steward about Ms. Korey,” says Alice.
“Well, he’s off today,” says Merriwether. His name is Gordie Draper; I’ll call him later and ask him to meet you at your theater.”

“All right,” says Alice. “Ask him to talk to Mr. Galloway or Jack or Eloise Sharp.”
“Eloise?” asks Merriwether. “Do you mean a wealthy woman with brown hair and gray eyes, and fifteen kids?”

“That’s her,” I say. “You know her?”
“It’s been quite a few years since I saw her,” Roman says, “But I am fairly certain Eloise Martin is a distant cousin of mine. So she married Jack Sharp… she’s a dear lady.”

“We think so, too,” I say. [acknowledgment to NDP ]
Now we’re finished with the matter of Dawna Korey, for now. Loora fills out the check, and Mr. Merriwether signs it. Fukushima hands me the blanket, and pushes the cart away with the ingot on it. Alice and I bid him goodbye for now.

“We’ll send you a full report, by fax, on what Ed found out about those pages—he’s still examining them. And—oh, do you want to take that box of Ms. Korey’s stuff?”
“Sure,” I say. I don’t tell Mr. Merriwether, but we’ll most likely return the stuff to Dawna as a gesture of good faith.

We leave, and drive to the bank the check is drawn on. We endorse the check, duly present ID’s, and receive the cash from the teller.
After a hearty lunch at Hiram’s Steak House, we return to the Morpheus.

“What about that Sanskrit inscription they mentioned?” Alice asks me as we walk into the theater, arms around each other’s waists.
“Let’s check the ingots in the upper basement vault—platinum and silver. We only marked the sides of the platinum ingots with our names [our own, and others in the group at the Morpheus to whom Nicholas gave the ingots]. We didn’t look at the tops of the platinum ingots—and, just in case we missed an inscription on a silver ingot…”

Meanwhile, we meet Jack and Eloise, coming out of the manager’s office. They look rather disheveled and Alice and I know why. Anyway, they hold a DVD: The Village of the Damned.
They discuss this with Alice and me, although she and I know well that the couple is quite proud of their brood.

[NDP]

“I hope you don’t think the idea the kids are alien hybrids,” Eloise says with a smile. “Or they’re two sets of clones.”

“Oh, no,” I reply. “What gave you that idea?”

“I was also going to tell you that Fred’s looking for both of you,” Eloise notifies.

“Did he say why?” Alice asks.

“He just mentioned he wanted to talk to you about something,” Jack says. “The last place we saw him was in the lounge.”

Curious, we quickly walk back to the lounge. Fred is still there.

“Ah, good to see you,” he says while putting down the newspaper he was reading. "I want to tell you…

[dougie_monty]

“We have two matters to deal with.
“First, we’re willing to have you meet with Dennis Walsh and the others who want to ‘sing,’ at the police station.”

“I figured we’d be getting in touch with them sooner or later,” I say.
“But keep your guard up, both of you,” Fred adds. “Granted if they are sincere, you’d have nothing to lose. We plan to have Professor Fields and one or two others from our group go with you.”

“So you and Mr. Parker took the matter up?” Alice asks. She grips my hand firmly.
“We did, and the fact that Walsh offered to talk to you at the police station is in your favor. Better that, than a rendezvous at a shady, remote location.”

“And they agreed to give us information that we want about the minions of Sikes-Potter?” I ask.
“They did,” says Fred. “That, and why you’ve been receiving those strange envelopes and such. Walsh and O’Houlihan have hired a well-known criminal defense attorney to represent their group. Lester Paulsen. He’s been in practice in San Francisco for years.”

“I’ve heard of him,” I say. “He seems to be to criminal-defense practice what Melvin Belli was to personal-injury practice. I’ve read articles about him in California Lawyer.”
“Well, he’s the one who contacted me,” says Fred. “On their behalf. He’ll be there with Walsh, O’Houlihan, Rita Waterford, Dawna Korey, and a few others.”

“It’s interesting you should mention Ms. Korey,” says Alice. She produces the box and the portfolio we got at Loora’s office.
Fred looks at the items in the cardboard box, including the small wooden box we haven’t opened yet. He also thumbs through the portfolio and nods slightly.

“I’ll contact Parker about this as well.”
“What’s the second matter?” I ask.

“Well, it’s not so serious as the planned meeting with Walsh, Paulsen, and the others, but it’s come up nonetheless. I understand that two men named Alfred DeMoss and Yancy Chester were asking about an ingot with an inscription in Sanskrit.”
“Yes, they were,” I say. I turn to Alice. “I couldn’t identify writing in Sanskrit to save my life…”

“I certainly can,” says Alice, with a modest smile. “It was to the Indo-European languages of the Indian Subcontinent what Latin is to European languages like French, Spanish, and Italian. And, of course, Sanskrit is distantly related to English.”
“What kind of script does Sanskrit use?” I ask.

“It’s usually found written in Devanagari characters. Remember that India-style restaurant across the street from Sam Chu Lin’s?” Alice asks me.
“Oh, yes, I remember,” I say. “I’ve seen that script before. Well, we’ll want to check out those silver and platinum ingots, in the upper-basement vault…”

“I’ll bring my Minolta,” says Alice.
I hear a strange voice say, “Infrared camera too.”

“Who said that?” I ask.
“Who said what?” ask Fred and Alice.

“You didn’t hear someone say ‘infrared camera too’?” I ask, puzzled.
“No, we didn’t,” say Alice and Fred together.

I muse on this. “Well, it may be a good idea to do that. And we’ll want to have Stan and Joe help us lift the ingots off the stack to examine them.”
“That’s not necessary,” says Fred. “Mr. Sharp had a metal frame built in the vault, with trays for each ingot; you can slide one out like a drawer in a dresser.”

“Good,” I say.
“Well,” continues Fred, “Right now I’d like to show you the report we got on Nicholas’ activities, from our League contact in Jubbulpore, India.” Fred shows us a portfolio that contains the fax from Jubbulpore.

As if on cue, some of our group come into the room: Jeanette, Lloyd Werdin (Joanie’s father), Dr. Clouse, Mary Blonda, Samantha, and Pete Oranjeboom. They all sit down. Buster scurries into the room and jumps onto the table. Though the cat can’t read, he wants to participate as well. Fred steps over and closes the door.
Jeanette, lost in thought, leans forward, absently resting her boobs on the table. She is wearing a light blue flannel dress and white pumps and nothing else. Samantha smirks, “Jeanette, would you mind picking your things up off the table?” We all laugh.

Jeanette sits straight up.
Mary Blonda, in much better fitting clothes, picks up the Jubbulpore fax and speaks first.

[NDP]

“The fax from our Jubbulpore contact says he got his information about Nicholas’ Indian activities from reports done by William Astorbilt over 100 years ago,” she informs us.

“Wasn’t Nicholas already imprisoned underneath the Morpheus by that time?” I inquire.

“Yes, but Astorbilt’s reports were, in turn, based on earlier notes he had taken on Nicholas during the time he was still free,” Mary explains.

“You should contact Lord Astorbilt right away about this,” I hear a strange voice say yet again.

“Who said that about Lord Astorbilt?” I ask.

“Who said what about Lord Astorbilt?” Buster says, “I only heard Mary speaking.”

“I thought I heard somebody say something about contacting Lord Astorbilt right away,” I tell the group.

“Well, I didn’t hear anybody say that but,” Mary states, “but that is a good idea. Let’s call him right now and ask him what he remembers about his grandfather.”

“Let me handle that,” Fred volunteers. “I’ve already read the fax so you can go on without me.”

Fred gets up to call Lord Astorbilt and Mary continues. "It seems Red Nicholas, during his trips to India in the 19th century to oversee his opium trade, became obsessed with the Hindu god Brahma, " she says. “He started digging around for anything having to do with the subject.”

“I’m not surprised about that, given what I read in those documents I translated,” Alice comments. “Anything else in the fax?”

“It goes on to mention frequent Nicholas’ trips to India and China up until the late 1880’s or so,” Mary informs. “It also recommends that we read all of William Astorbilt’s reports on Nicholas. However, there are too many pages to fax over so, if we want, we’ll have to tell them to make copies of everything and have them ship it over here.”

“I’d like to see those reports,” Dr. Clouse states.

“So would I,” adds Alice.

“Me too,” Lloyd Werdin says.

“Likewise,” Buster replies.

“By all means, get them right now,” says a strange voice. “Contact Federal Express immediately.”

“Federal Express–good idea,” I say. “Let’s get them now.”

“Who said anything about having them Fed Exed to us now?” asks Jeanette.

“I thought somebody in the room did,” I answer.

“I didn’t hear anybody,” Alice replies.

“Nor I,” adds Samantha. “Not that I wouldn’t want to see Astorbilt’s reports ASAP but do we have to use Fed Ex? Wouldn’t UPS or HDL do?”

“Good point,” Mary comments. “I have to look at the delivery rates between India and here. In any case, I agree we should contact our man in Jubbulpore and have those documents sent to us right now. I’ll get started right after I talk to Fred.”

And, with perfect timing, Fred comes back into the room. He says…

[dougie_monty]

“Lord Astorbilt advised me to send an e-mail to our contact in Jubbulpore, requesting that Federal Express send the pages of the reports to us. He said he has contacts of his own in that part of India, and he’ll pay the shipping costs himself. All we need to do is send the e-mail, which should include the postal address for the Morpheus. His contact’s name is Lal Thakkar and the e-mail address is lalthakkar23@jubbulpore.net. [!!] The voluminous reports on Nicholas will be here 36 hours after that. Thakkar will send the package to me, c/o The Morpheus.”

“I’m curious, Fred,” I say. “What is in the reports? Granted that’s a general question…”
“Well, it’ll include things such as Nicholas’ record of acquisition and use of opium and other drugs; and his research on Hinduism and his efforts to make the religion better known to the Western world. He even prepared a manuscript, which, according to Astorbilt, thoroughly describes Hinduism to ‘outsiders.’ Unfortunately, most of the publishers in England at the time were too bigoted to accept such a work from a literary unknown in India.”

“What became of the manuscript?” asks Alice.
“We don’t know, but the reports will probably mention it.”

Fred continues, “Lord Astorbilt also mentioned Nicholas’ involvement in so-called ‘black magic.’ He researched some of the same material Houdini did, and Red followed the exploits and accomplishments of Ehrich Weiss for years. When he heard Houdini died, in 1926, Red, already living beneath the Morpheus, grieved for weeks and even contemplated suicide.”
“Did Astorbilt say anything about Nicholas and the misquote from The Tempest?” Alice asks.

“No, nothing at all about that,” Fred says.
“Did Red try to grow ingredients for illegal drugs beneath the Morpheus?” says a voice I don’t recognize. It’s the same voice I heard before.

I sigh. “Someone is playing a strange trick on us and I’m getting damn tired of it!”
The others in the room, including Buster, give me a blank stare.

Alice says, “You must be hearing a mysterious voice, again.”
Now Jeanette reacts. I train my ESP on her, but it’s not necessary: I can tell from her thoughtful expression what’s on her mind. Her iridescent green eyes twinkle. I see a similar expression on the face of Dr. Clouse, whose eyes are blue.

Jeanette says “Excuse us.” She and Laura Clouse leave the room. I sense they are on to the source of the disembodied voice.
We continue. I tell Fred, “So far the content of the reports seems rather general.”

“Of course it is,” he answers. “Hey, if I had the specifics we wouldn’t need to have the pages of the reports sent to us. Besides, Lord Astorbilt pointed out that his family pretty much broke with his grandfather William, after William’s first incarceration in India. It seems William, in the course of his own research there, pried into Indian citizens’ private lives.”
“Sounds like he really rocked the boat,” I comment.

“Indeed he did,” says Fred. “And Nicholas had a slightly similar situation with the Luglios. He had a strong friendship with the family, which continued after he went into hiding beneath the Morpheus and Luigi Luglio opened his restaurant. But the Luglios were—and are—solid Catholic, and that made for a disagreement between him and the family. The devoutly Catholic Luglios could not countenance Red’s fascination with Hinduism and mysticism. Red was contrite enough not to press the issue.”

Now Jeanette and Laura return. With them is Jane Bradley, wearing a bright red tube top and white running shorts over a figure as outlandishly shapely as Jeanette’s. Along with them is Jane’s 13-year-old second son Billy, or, as he often refers to himself, William Henderson Bradley. He has the same coloring—and much the same physiognomy—as his mother. Jane seems emotionally torn between being immensely proud of her son, and being annoyed with him for a prank he is pulling.

Alice uses her ESP, as I note, to get an idea of what has happened. She speaks; she quietly tells the boy, “Billy, say ‘Federal Express.’”
“‘Federal Express,’” Billy says. I recognize the voice immediately as the one I had heard but nobody else did! :eek:

Jane, in that near-baritone voice, says, “Billy, I want you to apologize to Mr. ______ for that prank you pulled.” But then she smiles and adds, “And tell us all how you managed to do that!”
I sense we have another junior DXM person present! :o