Webring??

I must confess I'm not enough of a techno-geek to have much of an idea what the foregoing entry means. What I was trying to do was to get this modest enterprise included in a ring of Pennsylvania anthracite coal region websites, mostly for the shameless purpose of promoting my new novel, but also to keep in touch with like-minded authors and readers in this rather arcane (to put it mildly) field. Well, while I'm at it, I wish all my faithful readers the happiest of Christmases (I know the ACLU hates this word, but screw them, this is MY blog) and a tranquil and prosperous new year. Here's a little present, from the heart: SUNSET, WINTER SOLSTICE Slanting sunlight streams through crystal ether Then beams upon my pendant prism From where it touches the smoky ridge In the west. On impact it Fractures! Into all its bits and pieces, as if to replace in part Colors autumn has leached from the landscape. If this sight were sound, I imagine, I would hear the Ting! Of cut glass struck, Or a soprano silver chime. Before the sudden darkness We seize and carry the sky's flame, A million points of light, Flame and fire, candles, incense, Into the back of the cave: Chanting, we come in together from the starlit cold. And so we grasp the darkest time of year And boldly, stubbornly, make it bright. Best wishes to all my friends for a productive and lyrical 2008!

Powered by WebRing.

Punk Rockers on the Town

Tiny and Louie had been painting their faces again, and Louie was sporting a huge rooster-comb coiffure. Both boys looked as if they were trying real, real hard to act nonchalant about it, but you could see their eyes darting about. Nicki figured they were hoping to see little old ladies fainting or having apoplectic strokes or reaching for their smelling salts or something. It pleased her to see people just going about their business and ignoring the boys’ stupid, juvenile attempts at some kind of cheesy ornithological mating display. God, she hated a showoff! Finally, she caught Tiny’s eye, which glared out balefully from behind stripes of orange and blue. Tiny had spent a semester at Syracuse before they kicked him out for flunking elementary freshman English twice, and had got himself a taste for the dear old Orange and Blue, even if not for anything resembling academic discipline. Nicki waved with the back of her hand, in the manner of certain English royalty, and walked out into a gentle spring night all lit with red and purple neon and sodium-vapor orange and a smell of rain and a hint of ozone in the air. It was near the midpoint between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice and time rolled on in that peculiar way it had of seeming insubstantial and unreal in the moment, as if she weren’t really there. Traffic thinned and retail stores began to shut and go dark. Restaurants remained open, but they would be closing soon, too, this being a cultural backwater and hardly the big city. Nicki shrugged and started up the hill toward home. She was there, in the moment, but her steps were hurried and strenuous as there came over her a vague sense she was supposed to be somewhere else and about to get in a peck of trouble because she wasn’t. Life in the computer age, she thought. What bullshit. She heard footsteps behind her, running. “Wait up!” a voice called: Tiny. She stopped and stood aside as all 300 pounds of Tiny rolled up the trail, unstoppable as a locomotive. He throttled down to a walk and breathed heavy through his mouth, a rattling sound coming from his throat. “You didn’t hafta just walk out on me,” he said. “Well, actually, I did. I was getting ready to puke at the sight of you two morons parading around trying to get attention.” “It’s self-expression and we’re allowed,” Tiny whined. “It’s called freedom of speech and we’re allowed. We weren’t hurting nobody.” “Yeah, well. In my case it’s freedom of movement – away from you two posturing jackasses. Yeah, you and Louie have the absolute right to make assholes of yourselves. And I have the absolute right to be somewhere else while you do.” “Okay, Miz Holier-Than-Thou. You go wherever you want and the hell with you. By the way, your nose-ring has a big strand of snot hanging off it. Only a friend would tell you.” ###

A Further Thought

A further thought: I'd be most obliged if anyone who reads my book would take a moment and post a review on the Amazon.com web site. All help gratefully received!

Now available at Amazon.com, etc.

Up Home: Stedman 1903-1909 is now available through Amazon.com or directly from the publisher at www.windstormcreative.com. A copy has been shelved at the Reading Public Library and another at the Ciletti Memorial Library of Penn State's Schuylkill campus. Early sales appear brisk, and I'm quite enthusiastic about this project. Check it out! You won't regret it!

THE EAGLE HAS LANDED!!

Okay, this isn't just some wild-haired (in his imagination) guy's hallucination any longer. Today I received the first shipment of my books (see link and disregard the nonsense about the cover image), and on Saturday they'll receive their public debut at the Wooden Keg Tavern in Saint Clair, Schuylkill County, PA. Those of you who were so kind as to place advance orders should begin to see your copies very soon. Needless to say, this is all very exciting. Excuse me while I go pop a bottle of champagne.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I wish a happy Thanksgiving to all my faithful readers -- both of you. Hi, Mom! Hi, Dad! Look! I'm on international TV!!

Saturday December 1, 2007

6 – 8 pm

Multi-Author

Book Signing

Keg Tavern presented by 1

The Wooden Keg Tavern and the Coal Region Book Nook Authors

Molly Maguire, Mining and Schuylkill County Historical Novels and Documentaries

Authors Thomas Barrett * Loretta Murphy * Clemson Page * Mary Slaby * Stu Richards * Steve Varonka

THE TUNNEL ROOM

The Wooden Keg Tavern

1 W. Caroline Ave.

Saint Clair Pa 17970

570 429 1909

TALBOTT ON THE TRAIL: A Clem MacDougall Adventure, Take IV

IV. TALBOTT ESCAPES -- OR DOES HE? [When Talbott awoke, he had no idea how much time had passed since he'd gagged down the woman's brew and blacked out. He was still tied to the chair, and the room was dark except for a faint glow from embers in the great stone fireplace and a spectral glow of moonlight from the open doorway. He saw movement in the tiny cleared space outside, and he heard muttered syllables in what sounded like a foreign language.] He continued his report in MacDougall’s office: "Did ye hear what she was sayin'?" MacDougall asked. "I heard the name 'MacDougall.' That's all I could make out. Look, I don't know what she was mutterin' out there in the moonlight. I was still tied to a chair in the cabin, remember. But there was these three rocks out there. She kept circlin' around 'em an' pourin' this nasty stuff from the pot on 'em -- first thing she done that made any sense to me, pourin' that mess out on the ground. I could hear it hiss an' crackle when it hit them stones. I bet it musta smelt like a hundred dead mules bakin' in the noonday sun. Then -- damnedest thing ya ever saw -- them stones commenced to glow, like, and make little sparks like when ya strike flint an' steel together, an' the old woman chuckles to herself like ya'd of thought she just baked a extra good pan of fudge brownies or somethin'. "When she come back inside, I made like I was still conked out. I'd been workin' my wrists around and I'd got one of the ropes just loose enough so I could slip my hand out. So I sits there and pretends I'm asleep or out cold, and the woman whispers somethin' like 'Mountain Annie strikes again' -- Mountain Annie -- I guess that's the name she uses when she ain't busy bein' Gladys Weingarten -- and then she lays down on this little bed against the wall an' inside of three minutes she's snorin' and snortin' loud enough to wake the dead. "Soon as I was pretty sure Annie was asleep, I made short work of gettin' myself untied. Did I ever tell ya Harry Houdini was a boyhood hero of mine? I was kinda woozy from hunger and thirst and whatever was in that sludge they poured down my gob. I don't know how long I was out cold. What day is this, anyway?" "Friday." "Friday. Okay. I went up the hill Tuesday noon. So I musta been there Tuesday night, Wednesday night. Woke up Thursday. Yesterday. Late." "What did ye do after ye got loose?" "Took me a few minutes to shake the pins an' needles outta my hands an' feet. Then, quiet as you please, I tiptoes over to the table and picks up the big book and makes my way toward the door. But I forgot somethin'. I forgot all witches have cats. And all cats have tails -- at least this one did. "This cat had a pretty healthy voice, too. At first I thought I'd stepped on a snake. Next thing you know, there's a screech that sets my hairs on end and damn near makes me drop the book, and this big damn cat has all 97 of its claws an' teeth buried in my leg. Scared the hell outta me, I'll tell you. I'm really gonna have to charge ya extra for this job, Mr. Mac." "Damn ye, Talbott, ye're no gettin' paid at all if ye don't get on with your report. Now get on with it afore I lose me temper." "Okay, okay. Relax. So I shakes the cat off my leg and I takes off like a shot out the door, no idea where I'm goin', but runnin' like the devil's after me with a red-hot brandin' iron -- which, as it turns out, ain't too far from the truth. I charge off down this little path, clutchin' this big old book to my chest like it's my last bottle of booze. And I start in askin' myself: where did the gorilla guy get to, anyway? And how the hell do I get myself into these things? I start askin' myself all these questions as low-hangin' branches are tearin' my face to ribbons. Now, all of a sudden, I can hear somebody -- or something -- chasin' me down that path. And gainin' on me from the sound of it. "Bastard must have eyes like a cat, I tells myself -- wait! "Yeah! Eyes like a cat, I says to myself. Damn! Witches have cats, I says to myself. Witches' cats are demons an' shape-shifters, I says to myself! Or demons an' shape-shifters dress up like witches' cats! "So all this is racin' through my mind while I stumbles down the trail, just tryin' to see what's in front of me. And I hears the creature's footsteps just behind me. It's breathin' heavy and growlin', like. Just behind me, just behind me, just behind...." FADE TO BLACK.

TALBOTT ON THE TRAIL: A Clem MacDougall Adventure, Take III

III. THE PURSUIT AND THE CAPTURE.

Except for the flies and beetles trying to crawl up his nose and the dripping brush which had soaked him through every layer of his military-surplus fatigues, Sly Talbott was in his element as he made his way up Hickory Hill in the mist. He moved with surprising stealth, keeping his beady close-set eyes on the large woman who seemed to glide up the path twenty yards to his left, muttering guttural syllables to herself in some strange tongue. His face streaked with daubs of black and green greasepaint, Talbott stayed downwind and slithered through the woods like a reptile stalking its prey.

Tailing Gladys Weingarten from her elegant townhouse in the Millionaires' Village section of Excelsior City had been easy enough. Her hot-pink Cadillac had seemed to waddle through the traffic like a hippopotamus through a flock of ducks. The surprise came when Talbott saw the Cadillac pull into a rundown shed behind a rust-streaked trailer in the old hobo jungle on the edge of town, where freight trains rumbled through every few hours from all points of the compass. Parked in his nondescript Chevy Vega under a scrubby tree about fifty yards away, he watched Gladys Weingarten emerge from a side door in the shed and enter the trailer. Ten minutes later, a large woman stepped out of the trailer, wearing a shapeless muumuu and a spotted linen apron, her straw-gray hair braided into a single long tentacle which crept down her back, knotted with dry-looking sprigs of vegetable matter. She carried a covered wicker basket.

The woman had glanced about quickly, then started up a path which led from the hobo jungle up the side of Hickory Hill. Talbott followed.

Talbott was not a bad stalker, but sometimes he got a little careless. Since the woman was talking, or chanting, or whatever she was doing, so loud she sounded like a steam engine with leaky gaskets, he threw caution more to the wind than was his custom.

Suddenly, the woman stopped muttering and froze in her tracks. A split second later Talbott stepped on a bone-dry dry stick, which snapped through the silence like a rifle shot. He cursed under his breath and went rigid, standing directly in the woman's line of sight. She seemed to be staring straight at him. Her eyes grew bigger and blacker with every passing microsecond, until they gaped before him through the fog like new-dug tombs. He didn't twitch a muscle.

He breathed a bit easier when the woman looked away, as if she hadn't spotted him after all. She took a few more steps up the trail, still seeming to glide as if on silent wheels, and Talbott prepared to follow.

After that, things happened so quickly that Talbott's recollection was hazy when he made his report to MacDougall two days later:

"I thought sure she heard me, and there I stood with my face hangin' out, but she just turns away an' starts back up the hill again. She moved pretty quick and quiet for a fat old broad. But then she just disappeared in the fog, like, so I rushed forward before I lost track of her, and damned if, next thing I know, I'm not hangin' upside down with a rope around my legs, ten foot off the ground. And here's this big ugly ape of a guy -- you remember that gorilla from the bar who kept givin' us the finger the other night? Looked just like him -- with a big machete in his hand, wavin' it at me. Well, he cuts me down an' stuffs me in a big gunnysack an' throws me over his shoulder an' hauls me off to God knows where....

"Mr. Mac, I'm gonna have to charge ya extra for this job. I was so scared I peed myself."

"Never ye mind that." MacDougall tilted back in his desk chair and regarded his henchman through narrowed eyes. "Ye'll get paid, just as ye always do. What happened next?"

"There I am. This guy dumps me out on the stone floor of some cabin up in a hollow, maybe on top of Hickory Hill, but who the hell knows? He grabs me and ties me to a chair. And there's this woman I was followin', stirrin' this big pot of stew or something over the fire. She's cacklin' away as if this is all just about the funniest thing that's happened all year. She stops every coupla minutes to look in a big book on the table -- looked like one of them big dictionaries they keep in the library and nobody ever reads 'em -- and then tosses stuff from a basket into the big kettle over the fire."

MacDougall scribbled a note on the pad before him. "A big book, eh? Did ye get a look at it?"

"Hold on, Mr. Mac. I'm comin' to that."

"Oh, aye. Sorry tae rush ye. I know ye think ye're a master storyteller, and I know ye think ye're bein' paid by the word. Tell it your way, then."

"I'm awful dry, Mr. Mac. Ya still got that bottle behind them books?" He pointed to MacDougall's leather-bound set of the Green County Circuit Court Reports.

"Ah, ye're a bloody extortionist, ye are." MacDougall pulled out the 1963 and 1964 volumes and extracted a bottle of Old Overholt rye whiskey and two glasses. He poured out two fingers in each glass and replaced the bottle and the books with an air of finality which said this would be the full extent of Sly Talbott's whistle-wetting on this particular occasion.

Talbott sipped delicately and smacked his lips. "That's lovely, Mr. Mac. Thanks. Just about washes out the taste of that stuff they poured down my throat up there on the mountain."

"Eh? They made ye drink something?"

"Yeah. The gorilla guy, he grabs me by the throat and pries my mouth open and tilts my head back. Man, I'm gettin' awful tired of that guy grabbin' me."

"Damn it, man! Enough editorializin'! Just tell the blasted story."

"Right. Well, the gorilla guy won't be botherin' us any more, anyway. So, the gorilla guy holds my mouth open and the hag ladles out a big spoonful of this stew she's been cookin' in the big pot and pours it down my throat like she's stuffin' a Christmas goose. I never tasted nothin' like it, an' I hope I never do again. Dead cat, worm guts an' poison ivy boiled up in sewer water -- somethin' like that."

"I'd be interested tae know how ye recognized the ingredients."

"Oh, I'm just guessin', Mr. Mac. . The stuff tasted like my ex-wife's cookin', only it wasn't burned, and she wasn't naggin' me while she poured it down my gullet. I felt the stuff churnin' around inside me for a few minutes. Then I passed out." OH, DEAR. WHAT NEXT?

UP HOME: STEDMAN 1903-1909

I've just finished reviewing galley proofs and making final edits to the novel which prompted the creation of this blog. The book should be out within the next two weeks. It's been a long haul getting to this point, but I have a hunch the real work hasn't even begun yet. If you're interested, the links are posted to your right. So, go ahead; I dare you. Make me a bestseller!

TALBOTT ON THE TRAIL: A Clem MacDougall Adventure, Take II.

II. A HIGH-LEVEL CONFERENCE.

Picking his way like a cat through wet grass, Clem MacDougall led his colleagues to a corner table, as far as he could get from the bar, beneath a giant stuffed moose head. As a bartender and tavernkeeper, Fox Huntzberger espoused discretion and confidentiality above all values, but in truth his gifts for eavesdropping and gossip were legend in and about Excelsior City. Huntz brought a fresh round of drinks, including a beer milkshake for Sly Talbott. MacDougall picked up the tab and added a generous tip.

"Now, Foxy," he said, "ye'll see we're no disturbed, won't ye? We have some delicate...ah...business tae discuss."

MacDougall, Doyle and Talbott followed Huntzberger's eyes to where Gorilla The Bouncer sat, guarding the door at the opposite end of the room. Huntz nodded in his direction and Gorilla responded by displaying the middle finger of his left hand. "There it is, gentlemen," Huntzberger said with a wink at MacDougall. "Your ironclad pledge of privacy from my personal chief of security."

MacDougall rapped the table for attention. "All right, lads, let's get cracking. Three heads are better than one, for sure and certain. Me own brain's just aboot burnt tae a cinder. Soppy, ye were startin' tae say something aboot intuition before we got caught up in the ceremony of Brother Talbott's arrival."

"Right. You were saying something about your grandmother -- how she seemed to know things she couldn't prove. Second sight. That's what you Scotties call it, eh?"

"Aye. Grannie Gordon had the second sight, my folks said. Most o' the time she was right on the mark. She could tell your fortune for the year simply by watchin' the light of the risin' sun strike the standin' stones of Callanish on Midsummer's Day."

"Just so, Mac. Intuition. Imagination is more important than knowledge, Einstein said. Drink up your drink, you old windbag, and tell us about this woman with the body of a whale and a voice like a steam calliope."

Sly Talbott darted a glance at Gorilla The Bouncer, who gestured once again his ironclad pledge of privacy. Talbott drained his beer milkshake and wiped his mouth on the tablecloth. "Will one of you guys tell me what the hell you're talkin' about?"

Three rounds of drinks later, Clem MacDougall again rapped the table. Huntzberger was busily stacking chairs on tables and generally hovering about, waiting for MacDougall & Co. to leave so he could close up for the night. Gorilla The Bouncer sprawled, yawned and scratched his masculine region delicately.

"Very well, gents," MacDougall said. "We have a plan. Let's get to it, then."

More

TALBOTT ON THE TRAIL: A Clem MacDougall Adventure, Take I

I. AT THE FOX & HOUNDS

"Ye know, Auld Sopster, I'm nae the chap tae cry over spilt milk ..." Despite the protest, Clem MacDougall sounded as if he were indeed ready to start weeping.

"... but I've never had sic a time of it in a courtroom. It was as if a witch had put a curse on me, I tell ye."

He and Soppy Doyle sat in their usual places at the polished black marble bar of the Fox & Hounds Tavern. MacDougall took a heroic pull from his pint of MacEwan's Export Ale, and chased it down with a double jigger of Tobermory. The traditional medicine was working, but slowly, slowly . . .

"Ah, Mac, whisky on beer, nothing to fear, eh?" Soppy Doyle's bugged-out blue eyes twinkled as he dug vigorously in his left ear with a swizzle stick, pulling out enough wax to make a year's supply of altar candles for the Cathedral of Saint Brendan the Navigator in Excelsior City . "So Dame Justice finally kicked you out of bed, did she?"

"I'm no seein' the humor in it, Laddie."

"Not yet, you're not. All things in good time. Life goes on."

MacDougall signaled the bartender for another round: whisky and beer, whisky and beer. Tobermory and MacEwan's; Old Bushmill's and Harp. The liquor was beginning to dull the edge of his pain.

"Back in the Auld Countrie, when anyone had a bad run o' luck, me auld grannie Gordon (on me mither's side, ye ken) wad blame it on witches an' warlocks."

"Where my folks came from, it was banshees and fairies and wee people."

"That last session wi' the judge was the worst of it. Tak' a woman wi' bloody hell in her soul, dress her up in a black robe and set her doon on a bench in a courtroom, and ye might as well open the main gate tae Pandemonium. I'm sure the only reason I'm still wearin' me jupe an' me breeks is that damned woman didn't think tae tak' 'em off me."

"A woman in a black robe, Mac? ? Sounds like a witch right out of a black-arts textbook to me. That's what you need, old boy: a black-arts textbook." Soppy Doyle scratched up a blizzard of dandruff and blew his nose into his cocktail napkin. "Now, look here: maybe we should probe your intuition a bit . . ."

There came a thump and a commotion in the darkness at the back of the barroom. MacDougall turned on his stool and saw Gorilla The Bouncer emerge from the shadows, hauling an angry Sly Talbott by the scruff of his neck. Gorilla marched Talbott up to the bartender, who was also the owner, Fox N. Huntzberger.

"This goofball was tryin' to get in here again. He's high as a kite, just like before. I threw his ass outta here last week for runnin' a crooked three-card monte. In the ladies' lounge, for God's sake." The bouncer released his hold on Talbott's collar and Talbott crumpled to the floor like a stringless marionette.

"Well, throw his ass out again." Huntzberger spoke as if he was dismissing a pesky tradesman as he continued polishing a tray of beer mugs.

"Hold on, there, Foxy." MacDougall turned a bleary eye on the proceedings and took another pull at his pint. "This Talbott chap happens tae be a trusted...ah...business associate o' mine. I asked him tae meet me here, tae discuss some...ah...business. In private, if ye please."

Huntzberger nodded and waved off Gorilla The Bouncer. "All right, Mac. But I'm holding you responsible if anything happens."

Sly Talbott looked like a weasel whose business was teaching young weasels adult weasel behavior. His beady little eyes avoided all other eyes, but scanned the landscape like missile radars seeking targets; his long, greasy black hair was combed straight back over a deformed, parsnip-shaped skull. His nose was like a hatchet, and a long upper lip covered yellow rodent teeth. He pulled himself up from the floor, using an empty bar stool for a crutch.

"Here I am, Mr. MacDougall," he whined. "Just like ya said, Mr. MacDougall. Got some dirty tricks for me, have ya, Mr. MacDougall? I'm yer man, Mr. MacDougall. Ya know that, don't ya, Mr. MacDougall?" He rubbed his hands together and half-bowed obsequiously from the waist.

"Wheesht, man. I told ye it was confidential, blast ye. Now hush up an' follow Dr. Doyle an' me. Ye do know Dr. Elwood Doyle, don't ye?" MacDougall gestured by way of introduction. "Dr. Doyle, Mr. Talbott; Mr. Talbott, Dr. Doyle."

"Oh, yeah. Dr. Doyle, the perfesser from the U. Yeah, I know Dr. Doyle, all right. One of yer old girlfriends hired me to tail ya for a coupla weeks back a couple years. But ya shook me off. She fired me." more to come

Technical Difficulties

Dear Readers... Our home computer has been experiencing ominous symptoms for the past week or so. As soon as we emerge from the Valley of The Shadow of Death, the foolishness will resume. Editor.

FAIR IS FOUL; FOUL IS FAIR: A Clem MacDougall Adventure, Take IV

IV. AND NOW THE HURLYBURLY'S DONE.... By the time the hearing had ended, Clem MacDougall’s checkbook was empty and so was his bank account. Marty Goniff had persuaded the court that Doctor Weingarten’s alimony obligation should terminate at once. Somehow he’d found out about a little three-million-dollar inheritance from Gladys’s Uncle Drosselmeyer which Clem MacDougall thought he’d hidden so well even God and the Internal Revenue Service (which is, after all, God’s agency on earth) couldn’t find it. “Mr. MacDougall,” Judge Virago had roared in her dreaded Voice of Thunder before dismissing the litigants, “I find it inexcusable that you and your client have failed to inform this court of the recent changes in your client’s economic position.” She paused to make certain the court stenographer had noted every word. “Accordingly, I am ruling in favor of Doctor Weingarten on his motion.” The gavel fell with the finality of a coffin lid. “And, Mr. MacDougall, I am fining you another one hundred dollars. My law clerk is reporting this matter to the Ethics Committee of the State Bar Association. This court is extremely disappointed in you. That is all, gentlemen. This court is adjourned.” Marty Goniff smirked like a chimpanzee as he ushered his client from the courtroom.

***

Gladys Weingarten’s mouth was not the only oversized thing about her. As Gladys Garfinkel, she’d captained the women’s 1955 state-champion water polo team at Excelsior State University. Alumni from the classes of ‘54, ‘55 and ‘56 still cherished the legend of Gladdy Garf, The Mad Water Buffalo. Only swift action by the referees and first-aid teams had prevented her from drowning her opponents on three separate occasions. “You’re fired, MacDougall, you schmuck!” Gladdy Garf Weingarten seemed to expand like a blowfish as she settled into the rhythm of her anger while they walked from the courtroom. “Please, Mrs. Weingarten . . .” Clem MacDougall put his finger to his lips. “This is a courtroom . . .” “Shut up! Shut up, you worthless Scotch schlemiel! You’re fired, I say! Fired! You’re fired, you’re not getting paid, and I’m suing your worthless ass. How do you like that? You schmuck. You unbelievable schmuck.” She had begun to cry, and torrents of tears had reduced her makeup to something that looked like scrambled bread mold. She snorted and snuffled in a way that reminded Clem MacDougall of a Baldwin steam locomotive pulling fifty loaded hopper cars up a grade in the Excelsior Mountain coal fields. A uniformed sheriff’s deputy tapped Clem MacDougall on the shoulder. “Excuse me, counselor. Judge Virago wants to see you in chambers. Right now, counselor. Something about contempt of court for failure to restrain your client from making unseemly outbursts and offending the dignity of the court. She said to bring your checkbook, counselor.” Clem MacDougall pulled out his checkbook and opened it. No more checks. No more money. He turned back to Gladys Weingarten, but all he saw was the back of her floor-length mink coat as she disappeared around the corner. But he noticed something. . . Wait a moment. That’s her, right enough. Naebody else wad wear a coat like that, but that long white braid doon her back. . . And all those weeds tangled up in it. . . Gladys Weingarten’s hair isnae white. It’s red. Red right out of a bottle, it is . . . . “Uncanny,” Clem MacDougall muttered to himself as he turned to walk the long walk to Judge Virago’s chambers. “Most uncanny. Looked like a witch from behind. A witch in a floor-length mink coat? Uncanny it is. Just a bad dream, eh?” As he studied the huge polished wood doors and the brass plate engraved

HON. PRUNELLA JANE VIRAGO President Judge Green County Circuit Court Family Division

Clem MacDougall thought of the gateway to Dante’s Inferno . . . or at least Jurassic Park. He spoke to the deputy who was accompanying him. “D’ye suppose the guid Judge accepts Master Card?” The deputy shrugged. And to himself: “And now the hurlyburly’s done. Now the battle’s lost and won.”

AND SO MacDOUGALL RETIRES TO LICK HIS WOUNDS AND BILL SOME CLIENTS.

Fair is Foul; Foul is Fair: A Clem MacDougall Adventure, Take III

III. IT ONLY GETS WORSE. The Honorable Prunella Jane Virago, President Judge of the Family Court Division of the Green County Circuit Court, ran her courtroom strictly according to the rules – her rules. Judge Virago seemed to take pleasure in changing her rules on an almost weekly and always arbitrary basis, posting densely-worded change orders in an obscure, poorly-lit corner of the bulletin board in the corridor outside the courtroom. Lawyers who practiced in her courtroom were advised to bring their checkbooks; failure to follow Judge Virago’s rules to the letter brought stiff personal fines for contempt of court. Long before Clem MacDougall had undertaken representation of Gladys Weingarten, Judge Virago had let it be known she was fed to the teeth with the battling Weingartens (“Whine-Gardens,” she called them) and their ever-changing cadre of sniveling, wheedling lawyers. Clem MacDougall’s brand-new BMW sport utility vehicle had chosen this particular morning to refuse to start. His brand-new Lexus SUV ran out of gas and sputtered to a stop in the middle of rush hour on the Excelsior City Freeway. His cell phone battery was dead. When he finally reached a pay phone, it ate his last quarter but declined to deliver a dial tone. Which is to say, Clem MacDougall was late for court – by a good forty-five minutes, according to the big clock on the rear wall of the courtroom. Gladys Weingarten, her head an explosion of red-orange hair under a leopard-skin pillbox hat, sat at the plaintiff’s counsel table and glared at him from under bruised-looking purple-shadowed eyelids. She wore heavy gold necklaces and a shiny mauve dress with a low-cut neckline that showed more wrinkled, mottled cleavage than the gaping maw of Hades. At the defense table, Marty Goniff and his client looked as if they’d just placed first and second, respectively, in the pie-eating contest at the Green County Fair. Clem MacDougall stumbled over a wrinkle in the carpet as he scrambled up the aisle and took his seat. For a full minute by the courtroom clock, Judge Virago ignored him. She looked casually through some papers on the bench, then whispered something to her law clerk, who bustled out a side door with a nervous glance over her shoulder at Clem MacDougall. Marty Goniff stood. “Your Honor, it appears Mr. MacDougall has finally decided to join us. Since my client has taken time away from his duties at the hospital, may I request we begin the hearing?” He bowed in Clem MacDougall’s direction. Uriah Heep, Esquire. “I can explain, your Honor.” Clem MacDougall stood quickly, knocking most of his file to the floor. Papers cascaded from folders and three hours of preparation rapidly dissolved into a chaos of disorganized nonsense. The judge peered over her glasses. “One hundred dollars, Mr. MacDougall. You know my rule about punctuality. And one hundred dollars to Mr. Goniff for wasting his valuable time.” Clem MacDougall retrieved his file and dumped a pile of papers on the table. A phrase from A Flame of Wrath for Squinting Patrick repeated in his mind, but now it had something of the sound of a pig being slaughtered. Fair is foul and foul is fair. Nae blood on me blade yet. COULD IT GET STILL WORSE?

FAIR IS FOUL; FOUL IS FAIR: A Clem MacDougall Adenture, Take II

II. SOMETHING SOUNDETH AMISS... But today something was wrong. The pipes sounded...well, like bagpipes, all right..., but somehow duff, as the pipers say: the blend was off, something was out of balance. The music seemed to be losing in its struggle with Clem MacDougall’s mounting distaste for the task he was preparing to undertake. Damn me, but these pipes are soundin’ as if some witch has put a curse on ‘em, he thought. He recalled the witches’ lines from the opening scene of Macbeth: Fair is foul and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air. He finished playing the tune; with a heavy heart he replaced the instrument in its case and shut the lid. Would there be blood on his blade this day? Or would his own blood stain the edge of the tide? Fair’s foul and foul’s fair.... MAIR TAE COME.

Fair is Foul; Foul is Fair: A Clem MacDougall Adventure, Take I

I. PROLOGUE. It had just gone eight-thirty Thursday morning. Clem MacDougall was preparing himself, as was his custom, to go to court. The case was Weingarten v. Weingarten, which had been churning demons of dread in the recesses of his mind ever since his less-than-pleasant interview with Gladys Weingarten the Friday before. Opposing him was Doctor Weingarten’s lawyer, Marty Goniff, known at the Green County Bar as “The Prince of Darkness.” Marty Goniff’s skill in wielding his briefcase full of unintelligible papers and other dirty tricks (the “Briefcase of Darkness”) sometimes left even the great trickster Clem MacDougall feeling like a raw beginner. Marty Goniff was an acknowledged virtuoso in the business of helping people use the so-called legal system to beat the living excrement out of each other. Clem MacDougall wasn’t sure whom he feared and despised the most – Marty Goniff, Doctor Weingarten, or the fair Gladys, the elephant-voiced battleaxe he himself had the honor to represent. The music of the pipes usually brought comfort and grounding – and a consuming fire – to the soul of Clem MacDougall. He played a set of century-old full silver mounted MacDougall pipes, handed down directly from his great-grandfather, Hamish MacDougall. In the time of Queen Victoria, Greatgaffer MacDougall had fashioned Highland bagpipes in the Old Country that were as treasured today as a Stradivari to a fiddler. Inclining a fond ear to the subtle blending of drones and chanter, Clem MacDougall had parley with old folks of old affairs. In the ecstasy of the moment, he stood by the cairn of kings, knew the color of Fingal’s hair and saw the moon-glint on the hook of the Druids. Then his damned bass drone quit. With an oath, he pulled the offending pipe out of its stock, flicked the reed tongue with his thumb, and stuck the whole works down his throat and blew on it, gagging himself in the process. “Blasted black sticks o’ the Deil,” he muttered. He winced as he pulled a hair off his head and threaded it under the tongue of the reluctant reed. Now, when he blew on it, it sounded like a bull walrus in rutting season. After several more minutes of cursing under his breath and fiddling with bits of wax and hemp, he placed the drone, now chastised and compliant, back into its stock and soon he was lost again in the spell of his music. Clem MacDougall caressed the chanter with knowing fingers; the harsh yet curiously sweet voice of the Scottish Highlands and Western Isles drifted over the manicured fairways and greens of the Excelsior Mews Condominiums and Golf Club outside Excelsior City. As he paused and began to play the third variation of A Flame of Wrath for Squinting Patrick (Lasan Padruig Caogach), Clem MacDougall closed his eyes and waited to feel the good old molten fire in his belly and bowels. In all his years, the music of the piob mhor had never once failed to deliver its promise: there would be a foe’s blood on his blade this day. And so Clem MacDougall prepared to go to court, just as his ancestors back into the mists of time had prepared to go into mortal combat. MORE TO COME.

Lycanthropus: A Clem MacDougall Adventure, Take VI

VI. THE CAPTURE. Twenty minutes later, a white van with Excelsior City insignia pulled alongside the lime-green Chevy Vega in the parking lot. The door of the Vega still hung open. MacDougall and his guests watched as two men and two women in bright orange coveralls emerged from the vehicle, carrying ropes and nets. One of the men carried a muzzle and one of the women carried what looked like a rifle. They surrounded the rhododendron bush on three sides and advanced slowly toward what sounded like a rabid mastiff in the midst of an asthma attack. As they came closer, the sounds of distress grew louder and more insistent. The woman carrying the rifle raised it to her shoulder, sighted carefully and squeezed the trigger. Phut! A tranquilizer dart flew from the gun on a flat trajectory toward an unseen target in the bushes. The snuffling and snorting and yelping subsided. Thirty seconds later, silence reigned once again throughout the grounds of the Excelsior Mews Condominiums.

***

Despite the agony of descending stairs in his delicate condition, Clem MacDougall went down to see what all the commotion had been about. Doyle and Kuznetsov joined him. “In all my twenty years of working with animals,” said the woman with the tranquilizer gun, who appeared to be in charge of the animal-rescue team, “I’ve never seen anything like this.” She shone a beam from her flashlight on the beast, now lying safely sedated in a steel cage. “I don’t know what that thing is. It’s not a canine; it’s not an ape. Kind of like a baboon with that snout and those teeth, but too big and way too ugly. Look at the tongue on that thing! It looks like a giant toadstool. I’m surprised it doesn’t gag the poor creature.” The creature drooled. “What will ye be doing wi’ the puir beastie?” MacDougall stared at the thing with a glimmer of recognition. “It almost looks a bit like one o’ me ... ah ... business associates.” “We’ll keep it in the holding kennel overnight. In the morning, we’ll call the zoology department at the University. I’m sure they’ll want a look.” The two men from the animal shelter picked up the cage, taking care to keep their hands and fingers outside the bars, and slid it into the back of the van. “Looks like somethin’ out of a Grade B science fiction flick,” one of them muttered. As the leader walked toward the van, she slammed the door on the lime-green Vega, which bounced back open. After the van had pulled away, MacDougall, Doyle and Kuznetsov bid each other a good night, shook hands and went their separate ways. On his way toward his car in the parking lot, Doyle called back over his shoulder: “Hey, Mac. Isn’t this Talbott’s car?” He slammed the door and it latched. It was locked. The keys were inside. WHAT NEXT? WHO KNOWS?

Lycanthropus: A Clem MacDougall Adventure, Take V

V. THE CREATURE IN THE SHRUBBERY. Access to the residents’ parking areas at Excelsior Mews Condominiums was supposedly tightly controlled, but the guard on duty after sunset that evening owed Sly Talbott a favor. Besides, he knew Talbott and MacDougall conducted a lot of their most successful business after dark. He recognized the beat-up lime-green Chevy Vega when it cruised unchallenged past his brightly-lit check point. “Hey, man,” he hollered at the open driver’s side window. “You got another dent in that piece o’ junk. Nice neighbors you got, man.” The guard did a double-take when he noticed how heavy the driver’s beard was, and how long his face – it looked almost like a snout. And did he see a reddish glow in the eyes? Nah. Long day. He shook his head and went back to his racing form. The lime-green Vega rolled to a stop in a space marked “Reserved” just below the balcony of Clem MacDougall’s apartment. The door opened slowly and a form on four legs darted into the rhododendron. The door hung open, but there was no dome light.

***

The waning moon had lost two more days’ worth of influence over the creature now hiding in the rhododendron below Clem MacDougall’s balcony. Despite the moon’s weakening pull, however, the creature watched it as it sailed over the treetops and lit the night sky with silver. Feeling the tug of forces beyond its ken, the creature lifted its head and howled. But what came out sounded more like a cry of human frustration than the howl of a wolf on the hunt. The creature snuffled and growled and yelped and uttered what sounded like guttural recitations of ordinary human profanity.

***

Gennady Kuznetsov had stepped outside onto Clem MacDougall’s balcony, the better to admire the moonlight and the sweetness of the night. At the sounds from below, he cocked his head like an attentive poodle and listened. Quietly, he turned and gestured at MacDougall and Doyle to join him. “What is it, Gennady?” MacDougall made tiny mincing steps as he joined Kuznetsov on the balcony, wincing each time gauze or fabric chafed against the raw skin of his buttocks. “Quiet! Please.” Kuznetsov spoke in a whisper and put a finger to his lips. “Listen. I heard something. Just listen.” Doyle wandered out, carrying a ham sandwich and a half-liter mug of Watney’s ale. He opened his mouth to speak, but again Kuznetsov gestured for silence. “Just listen,” he whispered. The three men stood in silence on the balcony, listening to the night and watching the three-quarter moon drift higher and higher in the sky. Then the hairs on the backs of their necks bristled as they heard it, seeming to come from directly below them: AROOOOOOOGLE! ARROOOOOOOOOGLE!! “Why, saints preserve us,” Doyle said. “That sounds like a bitch in heat calling your name, Mac. You didn’t tell me you had a lady friend down there in the bushes – you old dog, you.” He chuckled, took a swallow of ale and burped. Kuznetsov turned pale. "Oborotyen'," he whispered, crossing himself. “Another blasted cur on the premises,” MacDougall said. “I can handle this.” ARRROOOOOOGLE!! MACDOOOOOOOOOOGLE!!! MacDougall went to the telephone and dialed the Excelsior City Humane Society’s Twenty-Four Hour Emergency Hot Line. He spoke briefly into the receiver, then hung up and poured himself a stiff Tobermory and a frozen Stolichnaya for Kuznetsov (Doyle, he knew, could attend to his own refreshments). He joined the other two on the patio and handed Kuznetsov the glass of vodka. “I am technically on duty, Mister MacDougall,” Kuznetsov said. He smiled and accepted the drink with a stiff-waisted imperial bow. “But I am most grateful for a small taste of the Dutch courage. ‘Zdrovie.” He tossed off a gulp, shuddered and sighed happily. MacDougall passed around cigars and the three sat in wicker chairs and smoked and listened to the weird serenade from the rhododendron bush. STAY TUNED FOR THE EXCITING CONCLUSION!

Lycanthropus: A Clem MacDougall Adventure, Take IV

IV. A PRAYER FOR CLEM MacDOUGALL. Inspector Gennady Sidorovich Kuznetsov of the Excelsior City Police Bureau sat at Clem MacDougall’s kitchen table, dressed in starched white cotton shirtsleeves and an Italian designer tie. His double-breasted Armani blazer was folded neatly over an unused chair. He made notes in tidy Cyrillic script in a small black pocket notebook, as Clem MacDougall related the strange happenings at the Fox & Hounds two days earlier. The great man himself sat on a goose-down pillow, wearing a loosely-belted dressing gown under which medicated gauze pads covered his blistered rump. On the floor beside his chair sat a No. 2 galvanized tub two-thirds full of tepid water – a precaution against possible re-ignition. Soppy Doyle listened while he busied himself with a thorough review, inspection and sampling of the contents of Clem MacDougall’s liquor cabinet and refrigerator. “Zo, Meester MacDougall,” Kuznetsov said. “Is getting more complicated every day, your life, yes?” “Knock off the phony accent, Gennady,” MacDougall growled. “You can talk like an American, okay? Your English is as good as anyone’s – save perhaps mine.” “Ah. I see. I am to talk American, as you say. But you will continue to talk like silly music-hall Harry Lauder Scotsman Jock?” “Let’s get to it, then. Stop me if I start to sound silly. I feel silly, right enough. Second-degree burns all over the south end of me anatomy, and no explanation.” “Claudia Aikens remains under suspicion, but we have no substantial evidence yet. And we certainly haven’t been able to link her to the mystery of your fiery...ah...your fiery...ah...south end, as you say. It appears there are persons – and forces – in the world, or outside it, perhaps, who wish you ill. I am getting the sense there is much here that does not meet the eye.” “Aye. True enough. Isn’t that where you come in, Inspector? With all the black arts at your command?” “Ah, Mister MacDougall. Not black arts. Police work is all applied science, but with a touch of good judgment, instinct and, frankly, luck. The latter has not been with us much, since the strange incidents with the threatening postcards and your office files. What we need – what you need – is a bit of luck.” Kuznetsov walked to the French doors leading to the east-facing balcony and glanced out into the clear night sky. It was four hours past sunset and a golden gibbous moon was visible rising through the trees bordering the fourteenth fairway. “Waning moon. My people back in Russia used to sing hymns and make prayers at moonrise,” Kuznetsov said. “Prayers for luck and good fortune. And for deliverance from Vampyr, the vampire, and Oborotyen’, the werewolf as you English call it. Perhaps it is time for you to make some prayers, Mister MacDougall.” “Rubbish. Superstitious balderdash. I’m a cafeterian. I help meself.” “Then I will make a prayer on your behalf, my arrogant Scottish friend: By the light of this waning moon, I invoke all the powers of enlightenment and reason in aid of our quest for knowledge and understanding, that our friend Mister MacDougall may be delivered from his distress. Amin.” “Amen,” echoed Soppy Doyle, through a mouthful of Clem MacDougall’s best smoked Atlantic salmon. He washed it down with a slug of Clem MacDougall’s reserve chardonnay. “Amen.” IT AIN'T OVER YET.

Lycanthropus: A Clem MacDougall Aventure, Take III

III. LIAR, LIAR.... “Damn that bloody blackguard Talbott!” Clem MacDougall said to Soppy Doyle as he signaled for another round of drinks at the Fox & Hounds. “I told the blighter tae meet us here two hours ago. Where d’ye suppose he’s got to this time? I’ll wager it’s somewhere near the inside of a whisky bottle, eh?” Doyle plunked a ten-dollar bill on the bar. Fox Huntzberger set down cocktail napkins and a fresh Martini for Doyle and a snifter of Laphroaig for MacDougall. He scooped up the sawbuck like a lizard snagging a moth on the wing. Then he hovered nearby, his ears almost flapping as he eavesdropped. “Old Slyboots wasn’t looking too chipper last time I saw him,” Doyle said. “Stopped in here for a couple of seconds the other night, but buzzed off before a drop of the devil’s drink could pass his ruby lips, so he did. Looked like he was about to toss his cookies, lose his lunch, blow his beets....” “All right, all right. I get your drift, ye blowhard. He must hae come in here just after he left me office. He was lookin’ a wee bit green aboot the gills, now that ye mention it. He was puttin’ a fair serious dent in me emergency spirit supply. I had tae cut him off.” “Well, Mac, I’d guess he came down with something and he’s sleeping it off. What was he telling you about some old hag making him drink something up there on Hickory Hill?” "Och, aye... That was a tale, right enough ... “Oh, bloody piggin’ hell! Jumpin’ Jaysus bleedin’ Kee-rist!” Doyle flinched as MacDougall launched himself from his barstool with a string of oaths and a shriek of pain. The stool fell with a crash and Gorilla The Bouncer yawned and glanced over from his seat by the bar entrance. MacDougall sprinted to the men’s room and vanished through the door. For just a moment, in the dusky light, Doyle thought he saw smoke billowing from the seat of MacDougall’s trousers. From the men’s room he heard hissing and cries of agony subsiding into sighs of relief. Fifteen seconds later, Doyle stood in the men’s room doorway. There sat MacDougall in an open stall, his bottom completely submerged in the hopper. Steam filled the room -- and a barbecue-pit smell of singed skin and hair. There was also a whiff of brimstone. “What the hell, Mac?” Doyle stayed in the doorway, keeping his distance. “It looked like your pants were on fire. What the hell?” MacDougall glanced up and saw Huntzberger and Gorilla The Bouncer peering over Doyle’s shoulder. He gave a rueful grimace. “What the bloody hell, indeed. I was sittin’ there peacefully drinkin’ me drink an' makin' polite conversation, an’ suddenly it feels like me arse is on fire. What the bloody hell, indeed. What kind o’ den of iniquity are ye runnin’ here, Huntz?” “Well, come on, Mac. Stand up and let’s have a look at you.” Doyle pulled a handful of paper towels from the dispenser and shut the door in the faces of Huntzberger and Gorilla. STILL MORE TO COME.

Lycanthropus -- A Clem MacDougall Adventure, Take II

II. SLY TALBOTT'S MORNING AFTER. Sly Talbott awoke with a thundering headache inside a discarded stove crate between two trash cans in an alley not far from his apartment. He wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing and his mouth tasted like the floor of a meat-packing plant. He belched up bile and realized he was about as hungry as he could remember ever having been. He stood up quickly and nearly fell back down in a heap at the wave of dizziness which passed over him. He had no idea how long he’d slept or how he happened to be lying in the alley buck naked. In a fit of modesty, he wrapped his delicate regions in the remains of a discarded booze carton, and picked his tenderfooted way gingerly back to where he’d parked the Vega. He figured he might find his pants there, for one thing, his wallet and the keys to his apartment for another. He found his pants, all right. His wallet was gone and his keys he saw in the ignition of the Vega. Which was locked. In passing, he noted a big new dent in the hood. This stinkin’ neighborhood, he thought. I gotta move outta this dump. Real low class o’ people livin’ in this stinkin’ neighborhood. Being locked out of his apartment was not a new experience for Sly Talbott. He crept around the side of the building, glanced about him carefully, slipped his pants back on – for some reason the crotch seam was almost completely torn out – and pulled down the fire escape ladder. In ten seconds he was letting himself in at the bathroom window. He flopped across the windowsill onto the floor, struggled to his feet and rummaged in the medicine cabinet until he found a bottle of aspirin among the old razor blades, stiffened corpses of toothpaste tubes and unused bottles of cologne and sticks of deodorant. He gulped four tablets, then ran water from the tap into his mouth to wash them down. His head throbbed. While he waited for the aspirin to kick in, Talbott wandered into the kitchen. He groaned at the sight of clotted Boy-Ar-Dee spaghetti sauce and desiccated strands of pasta caked on top of the gas stove and on the greasy pots and pans in the sink. Fat bluebottle flies made a contented hum as they buzzed lazily over the surfaces and swarmed about the overflowing trash can in the corner by the door. Talbott was hungry as hell; for some reason the stench only made him hungrier. Funny. Joint smells like a garbage dump on a hot day, and I’m lovin’ it. Almost makes me wanna go roll in something stinky. Lookit them flies! Why should they have all the fun? He yanked open a cabinet and found a bottle of whiskey of some kind; it didn’t have a label and he’d forgotten when and where he got it. Ah, what the hell? Hooch is hooch. Any port in a storm. He pulled the cork with his teeth, spat it on the counter and took a long, meditative swallow. Then he took another. And yet another. Now the headache was releasing its grip, and he sighed with something like relief. He found a carton containing the remains of some nondescript Chinese take-out in the refrigerator, scraped off a layer of mold and shoveled it down in four big bites with a spoon he retrieved from the sink. He chased it with another snort from the bottle. Now, with another sigh of satisfaction, he lurched into the next room and flopped down on the straw-tick mattress that served him as a bed. Just before drifting off to sleep, he made a mental note to take a coat-hanger to his car, retrieve the keys and get over to MacDougall’s place. He was asleep before he could think why he wanted so badly to get over to MacDougall’s place. He dreamt of a man dancing about with his pants on fire. The dream was so vivid he could almost smell the burning flesh. As he slept, his mouth opened in a wide grin, the world’s ugliest tongue uncoiled like a serpent, and saliva trickled over the crusty pillowcase. YET MORE TO COME.

Lycanthropus: a Clem MacDougall Adventure

(EXCERPT) The Witch's Curse:

Liar, liar, pants on fire, You have roused an enemy's ire; When next you try to tell a lie, Your pants will smoke, your ass will fry!*

An Old Wives' Tale: You can always tell when a lawyer is lying: just look to see if his lips are moving. THE WEREWOLF'S NIGHT ON THE TOWN.... The first things that struck him were the smells – struck him in the way a flash of sustained lightning at midnight assaults the eyes and leaves a half-remembered field of ghostly afterimages. Things perhaps perceived and perhaps not. Oh, his eyesight was quite keen, too, even in the dark. But the smells! Urine, mostly. Urine and musk – a potpourri of scents and odors and aromas as varied and distinctive as genetic codes. Every surface, every tree trunk, every bush, every signpost and, of course, every fireplug declared its own unique roll call of recent and not-so-recent visitors, each of whom had claimed dominance and ownership and warned away all others. The lone wolf lifted his right rear leg and anointed the left front tire of a lime-green Chevy Vega. A vague synaptic impulse in his lupine brain told him this round black evil-smelling thing somehow belonged to him alone. His tongue lolled out one side of his mouth and a strand of saliva slobbered to the pavement. He performed the same ceremony on the left rear tire of the Vega and then on a nearby tree trunk redolent mostly of rottweiler and pit bull, but with a nuance of shih tzu. The moon was two days past full; the wolf felt its influence waning, but he raised his muzzle to the sky and howled again anyway. His eyes glowed like dying embers as his voice ululated and then faded away in a long melancholy decrescendo, echoing off the empty-faced brick buildings lining the street. “Shaddap, ya stinkin’ mutt!” A brick whizzed over the wolf’s head, bounced off the hood of the Vega and landed with a clunk in the litter-strewn street. The wolf looked up and saw the fat bald-headed figure of some two-legged creature silhouetted in the light of a window above the fire escape. “Shaddup, goddam ya,” it said. “One more squeak outta you and I start shootin’.” The wolf, of course, had no idea what this unfriendly-sounding creature was saying, but he understood the tone and sensed the meaning. The wolf was hunting alone, and the instinct for self-preservation in this instance overshadowed the instinct to leap and attack and rip skin and tear flesh. He tucked his tail between his legs and slunk down a fetid alley between two squalid buildings, pausing now and then to sniff and squirt. As he prowled the streets and alleys, an image filled his mind: A herd of two-legged creatures crossing an arctic tundra, two-legged hairless creatures in all sizes, males and females and young. A pack of wolves in the distance, following, watching, watching, watching.... One of the two-leggers now falling behind, not keeping up. In some kind of distress. Stumbling. Weak? Vulnerable? A man, a human, a big one, with a shock of white hair, falling behind. Farther and farther behind. His hindquarters seem to be smoking. What could this be? The man flails at his smoking britches and dances about as if possessed by demons; his yips and yelps of pain and fear vanish unheeded into the wilderness. Now his hindquarters are in flames. The herd moves on without him. Fearing the fire, the wolves keep their distance. They lick their chops, for food has been scarce this season, but they are cautious creatures and keep their distance. The scent of searing flesh is almost unbearable. The wolf made a low guttural sound in his throat and saliva soaked his fangs. Sensing the approach of dawn, he found shelter and lay down hungry.

*(The author humbly thanks and acknowledges the influence of his good friend and literary heroine Phyllis Pyle, both for the actual lines of verse which appear above, and for the inspiration to chronicle some of the adventures of the legendary Clem MacDougall). (MORE TO COME)

Looks Like It's Going to Happen

Time out from all the silliness of recent weeks for a VERY SERIOUS MESSAGE from your host: The moment of truth is at hand! My publisher in the Pacific Northwest tells me my novel, Up Home: Stedman 1903-1909, is scheduled to go into layout in the first week of October (whatever that means; this is all new territory for me). If all goes smoothly, the book should be out by mid- to late October, and you faithful ones who have pre-ordered should have copies in hand. If you haven’t ordered, but would like to do so, click on the link to your right, and the good folks at Windstorm will be pleased to accommodate you. I’ll keep you posted on progress in the coming weeks, so continue to watch these pages – not only for the continuing (mis)adventures of Clem MacDougall, but also for updates on the book.

Those Canny MacDougalls, Chapter III

The MacDougall Office Building in downtown Excelsior City was dark and as quiet as the grave when the great man let himself in at the side door that late-summer Sunday evening. His being there was not particularly unusual; he often visited the office for an hour or so on a Sunday evening, in much the same manner as a general surveys the terrain and the dispositions and armaments of his troops on the eve of battle. Clem MacDougall looked first into his office. The cleanup crew had done a creditable job of removing the litter of shredded paper. The surfaces were scrubbed clean of fingerprint dust and the ravaged file drawers had been closed. The appointment book, Rolodex, Dictaphone, note pads, billable time slips and sharpened pencils were laid out in their places like a surgeon’s instruments. He sighed with pleasure at the sight. We’ll be back tae normal afore ye know it. Clem MacDougall regarded the subject of computers in general in much the same way a builder regards the subject of power tools, the way a concert pianist regards a Steinway grand. He knew how to use it; he expected it to function properly, to be in tune with his intentions, to respond to his touch. With that in mind, he sat down at Claudia Aikens’s desk, switched on the computer and waited for the familiar desktop display. True, the hands-on computer work in the office was almost exclusively Claudia Aikens’s province. Despite a certain pragmatic tendency to be forward-looking, MacDougall still had a trace or two of the professional’s disdain for people who worked with keyboards. He had not, however, become the most sought-after divorce lawyer in all of Green County and perhaps the state by being indifferent to trends. He’d seen the law-review types at the University tap-tapping away on their notebook computers and researching the newest appellate decisions on the Internet. A tool’s a tool, and this one looks like a beauty. Just the year before, he’d bought a solar-powered, turbocharged Excelsior-Dot-Com 5000 Sports Model GeniusPad laptop computer with all the latest law-office software and eighteen zillion rams of memory and lots of gigabytes and a modem that worked at twice the speed of light – or some such blasted thing, whatever all that gibberish means – couldn’t describe the bloody thing if his life depended on it, but, by God, now he could carry his practice wherever he went. Even to auld Soppy’s cabin – sorry, cottage – in the hills. As Soppy had predicted, the office system was blank. Dead. Defunct, croaked, asleep in Jesus, gone to a better place. But every Sunday evening for the last year, I’ve doonloaded all me office files intae me laptop system and I keep a’ the diskettes, indexed by client and cross-indexed by file number, in me bomb-proof safe at home, with copies in me safe deposit box at the Excelsior National Bank. I’ll manage, thank ye, whoever ye are, ye bloody bugger. I’ll manage. Ye’ve got tae rise fair early in the mornin’ tae steal a march on the Pride o’ the MacDougalls. He didn’t even bother to check the backup tapes. If they were intact, wonderful. If they weren’t, who gave a tinker’s damn? Pretty clear who the culprit is. But why? Is she takin’ kickbacks? Has she got a scunner for me for some reason? How could that be? I’m a decent chap to work for, aren’t I? Clem MacDougall shut down the computer and made himself a note to start re-programming the system the following day – keeping the file disks in his possession or within reach at all times. He joined Soppy Doyle for a nightcap at the Fox & Hounds. MacDougall picked up the tab. Whatever else they might say about him, MacDougall never welshed on a bet. As the two friends began to wax philosophical after their fourth round of boilermakers, Clem MacDougall suddenly spotted Claudia Aikens and a bulky, stupid-looking man in a black motorcycle jacket sitting at the far end of the bar. She wore tight pants. His belly hung over his belt and there was a pallid, hairy gap between where his black Harley-Davidson T-shirt ended and his big ugly skull-shaped brass belt buckle began. They were pretty far gone on hard booze of some kind and seemed quite pleased with themselves. Sly Talbott joined Doyle and MacDougall, bringing another box of bootleg Cuban cigars he’d carried in the false bottom of his suitcase from his last business trip to the Caymans. After the umpteenth toast to the canny MacDougalls, offered by the gentleman of the same name, Talbott asked what all the mirth was all about. MacDougall smiled and hummed “Scotland the Brave.” TAE BE CONTINUED,

Those Canny MacDougalls, Chapter II

After emptying her insides so noisily in the gutter, Claudia Aikens felt both much better and much worse – much better because she’d expelled all the evil humors from her system and much worse because she couldn’t believe she’d played so completely into the hands of this smooth-talking Russian or whatever he was. To say nothing of the fact that she smelled like a biker bar on a Sunday morning and her mouth tasted like the inside of the dumpster behind a seafood restaurant on a hot day. Gennady Kuznetsov pulled a flat tin box from his waistcoat pocket and offered his guest a peppermint. “Now, Miss Aikens. We have had our entertainment and our little charade. Now you will please to tell me your part in this – this incident – at your employer’s office.” Claudia Aikens took two peppermints from the tin. She popped one into her mouth and the other into her purse. She tipped her head back and rested it against the leather seat of the limousine as she gathered her thoughts. Peppermint vapors cleared her head and seemed to refresh her entire being. She remembered her early years working for Clem MacDougall, the fierce pride with which she followed her boss’s early triumphs at the criminal-defense bar. Back before he’d become such an arrogant swine. For some reason, she remembered State v. Politawicz, the appellate case which had cemented Clem MacDougall’s reputation as a lawyer who could get Satan himself sprung on a technicality if the fee was high enough and paid up front in cash. “Miss Aikens? Are you awake? I’m waiting.” “All right, Inspector Captain or Comrade Commissar Kuznetsov or whoever the hell you are.” Claudia Aikens suddenly sat forward and glared at Kuznetsov. “You tell that bullet-headed oaf in the driver’s seat to drive me home right now, and maybe I’ll change my mind about the lawsuit I’m thinking about bringing against you and him and the Police Commissioner and the city, for false arrest, false imprisonment, abduction, kidnapping, arrest without arraignment or bail, entrapment and failure to read me my Miranda rights. And whatever else my lawyer and I can think up. This ain’t the Soviet Union, asshole. By the way, thanks for a lovely evening.” TO BE CONTINUED

Those Canny MacDougalls

“Ah, remarkable, is it not, how our wee problems lose their power tae perplex when we put a few lang Scots miles between us and them?” Clem MacDougall stretched his legs and puffed on a cigar – a black market Cuban Corona-Corona El Ropo Deluxe – which Soppy Doyle had just clipped and lit for him. “What a lovely evening. Thanks for askin’ me up here, Professor. I was goin’ daft back there in the Metrop. Ah, bugger it. The mess’ll be waitin’ for me Monday, for sure and certain. It always is. One way or anither.” “Glad to have you here, Mac.” Soppy Doyle poured a hefty dollop of Fundador brandy into his friend’s Styrofoam cup and another into his own. “Best way to handle it when you get stuck on a problem is to leave it alone and walk away for a spell, eh?” “Oh aye. That’s it, right enough. Solve themsels’, most o’ the time. Bonny cabin ye have here, laddie.” “Damn your eyes, you pettifogging old Scotch Philistine!” MacDougall flinched at the sudden eruption of fluent profanity, dandruff and cigar smoke from Doyle. “Not a cabin, damn it. This is a cottage, not a cabin. And don’t you bloody well forget it.” “Eh? What’s the difference?” “In a cabin, hot and cold running water means you run out and get the water, then you bring it in and heat it. This isn’t a cabin.” “Well, now, I’m sure I meant no offense, ye auld sot. Cabin, shack, cottage, pied-a-terre – I don’t give a fiddler’s fart what ye call the place. Call it Inveraray Castle if ye want. I’m just thankin’ ye for your hospitality, and I’ll thank ye not tae jump doon me craw for havin’ guid manners.” “Well, it’s a cottage.” “All right, all right. It’s a cottage, and a damn fine one at that. Reminds me of the Rabbie Burns cottage in Ayrshire -- except for the hot and cold runnin’ water part. I rather think auld Rabbie had tae do the runnin’ himsel’ back in 1786. And your roof isnae made o’ straw.” Doyle grunted, nodded, sipped brandy, scratched up a cloud of dandruff, blew cigar smoke in MacDougall’s face, belched and settled back into his wicker chair on the sweeping verandah of what had now been conclusively established to be a cottage -- Innisfree, Doyle’s family cottage on the shores of Excelsior Lake in the foothills of the Excelsior Mountains -- the Switzerland of the Midwest, the tourist brochures said. MacDougall waved his hand in front of his face. “Right. Glad that’s settled. Now, help me think this thing through, Professor. I’m feelin’ damned exposed and vulnerable these days. Hermit crab between shells, ye might say. This blighter who’s invadin’ me professional life is startin’ tae fire up the Hielander in me. We’re bonny fighters in a guid cause, ye know, because we’re no afraid tae fight dirty, unlike the bloody Sassenachs wi’ a’ their airs an’ graces; it’s why we mak’ such fierce, canny lawyers.” “Oh, bravo. Lovely speech, Mac. You’ve got the talking part done, eh? About the only thing you blasted lawyers are good for, if you ask me. Talk, talk, talk. Well, now, are you ready to stop talking and start applying some intelligence and wit to this problem?” “Aye. That I am.” For the moment, MacDougall seemed slightly at a loss for words. “Very well. Best leave that job to the Irish – namely, Elwood Doyle, Doctor of Deviant Deviltry. Not that we Micks aren’t decent talkers in our own right, mind you. Now. Tell me about your secretary and the Russian.” “As we speak, they’re supposedly attending some damn fool opera or concert of some kind at the Arts Centre – you know, that over-budget rock pile the do-gooders put up so limp-wristed grown lads of dubious sexual preference could prance around in tights with skinny lassies dressed like dandelion fuzz. A lot of ex-husbands helped me subsidize that place, I can tell ye.” “Old son, you’ve sadly neglected your cultural development. And, as to your political correctness.... Ah well. Old dog, new tricks, eh?” Doyle sipped brandy, puffed his cigar and swatted a mosquito on the back of his neck. In the twilight to the west, the low hills that passed for mountains in that part of the world made undulating silhouettes against the orchid sky. “Go on.” Clem MacDougall jumped to his feet and began to pace the length of the verandah. “Hell’s bells, man. The Russian can’t have anything to do with it. No. It’s an inside job o’ some kind. I thought it was Claudia at first – ye know, the business with the postcards. Thought I had her dead tae rights; now I’m not so sure. Me proof vanished intae thin air. It’s no funny any mair. Ye saw the mess yesterday. Even at the height of your Satanic powers, ye couldnae have been such a rotter.” “Ha! Don’t be so sure, Jocko.” Doyle chuckled, stubbed out his cigar and tossed the butt over the railing into the woods. MacDougall raised his eyebrows, knowing how fussy Soppy Doyle was about protecting the environment. “Not to worry, my friend,” Doyle said. “Don’t ask me why, Mac, but the deer love ‘em. Silly beasts’ll eat anything that won’t eat them first. Look here. You have all your files on computer, eh?” “Not all. Most of the important, recent stuff, aye.” “And you back up your hard drive?” “Aye. Every day. Claudia – Ms. Aikens – backs up the hard drive every day.” “And the backup tapes are kept under lock and key?” “Aye. In the office safe.” “Who has access to the safe?” Doyle’s voice had lost its whimsy. Now he fired questions at MacDougall like a prosecutor with a conviction in view. “Just Ms. Aikens and me.” “Look here, Mac. I’ll bet you the next place our mystery miscreant strikes will be at your computer files – if it hasn’t happened already. I’ll bet you a round of what you like at the Fox & Hounds.” “Bloody hell. The way things have been goin’ in the last two days, naething would surprise me. But, ye know, I’ve got a trick or two up me sleeve, too. Somehow, I’m no too worried aboot the computer.” “You should be, I think.” “Aye weel, it’s Saturday nicht an’ me office is a hundred miles awa’ an’ locked up tight as a tick as far as I know. Rax me anither drappie o’ that braw bonny brandy and let’s talk o’ loftier things. I’ll pop back intae me office tomorrow and see which way the wind is blowin’ wi’ the computer. I may be an auld fool, but I’m no a stupid one.” Doyle leaned across the table and splashed several more fingers of brandy into MacDougall’s cup and then his own. He pulled out his rumpled bandanna handkerchief, blew his nose, wiped his forehead and blew his nose again. Doyle’s voice softened and grew misty with reminiscence. “Mac, do you remember back when we were undergraduates at the University? That night we slipped a pair of old Doc Goodfellow’s prize baboons from the psychology lab through the kitchen window of the Kappa Delt sorority house at three in the morning?” “Aye! Wi’ a bunch o’ rotten bananas! I’ll never forget it!” MacDougall laughed until he gasped for breath. “All those snooty debutantes runnin’ around in their knickers in the middle o’ the night! Goodfellow damn near kicked ye out of the department!” An hour or so later, as the gibbous moon rose all buttery from behind the mountains to the east, in the cool of the evening, a pair of deer – a doe and a mossy-antlered buck – edged through the ground mist to the cottage clearing and began chewing on the litter of cigar butts below the verandah. Torrents of human laughter cascaded from above. And the occasional cigar butt. TO BE CONTINUED

Вечер в Балет, Глава IV

Claudia Aikens sat spellbound as the dancers leapt and pirouetted the tale of Petrouchka to its triumphant apotheosis in the darkened carnival on the banks of the Neva. As echoes of music, visions of dancing, and the fumes of hard booze, Russian vodka and French champagne whirled and eddied inside her skull, Claudia Aikens found to her surprise that Petrouchka’s struggle for immortality had engaged her tender sensibilities in a way she had not experienced since childhood. Themes of cruelty, revenge and redemption blended with her recurring daydream of a rescue from bondage by Buster Bezorkenflatz, the Champion of Tight Pants and Hard Booze, the Hero on the Harley. With that lovely big lance of his. Ha. Lance-a-lot Bezorkenflatz. Well, what the hell? Guinevere was a bimbo, too. Might as well see how the Cossacks do it. Standing up on horseback at full gallop, so I’ve heard. She tried to shake off the thought. So all the world’s a stage and we’re all actors? What we do becomes our truth? What baloney. Or is it? And from someplace deep, deep within, a voice she hadn’t heard before: Why do you hate MacDougall so? He’s just playing his part on the stage of life, isn’t he? Might as well expect a cat not to chase mice. Your hatred says more about you than it does about him. Destroy MacDougall’s files and ... and ... so what? So you’re out of work and he has the world’s sympathy because someone’s done him dirt. He reconstructs his practice from court records and clients’ copies. So what? Maybe he’s nicer to his next secretary; maybe he isn’t. So what? Some devil had got into her head, for sure and certain. As the house lights came up for the last time, she shuddered and excused herself. “I’m going to the ladies’ room. Be right back.” “Are you all right?” “Oh, yes.” She giggled. “All the vodka and champagne and excitement, you know....” “Ah. I understand. I will meet you in the lobby, where your employer’s name graces the wall.” He chuckled. “Then we will go for light supper, yes?” He stood and held the door for her at the rear of the box. He clicked his heels and bowed as she passed. In the ladies’ lounge, Claudia Aikens studied her reflection in the mirror as she touched up her lipstick. Here I am, getting ready to have an intimate supper – and then God knows what? – with the man whose mission in life for the moment is to expose someone as a criminal. Someone? Ha! I’m a mouse in the company of a rattlesnake. Come Monday, who’s going to look like the prime suspect? How guilty do I look? I wonder. I wonder. END OF EPISODE

Вечер в Балет, Глава III

Any resistance which might have lingered in Claudia Aikens’s soul melted like April snow as the tableau unfolded – a brilliant pre-Lenten festival under the glittering Admiralty spire in Saint Petersburg. Music and dancing, folklore and art – all the composer’s genius, love and passion washed over her. Her heart went out to Petrouchka, the pathetic, gangling boy-puppet, tortured by the fickle flirtations of the Ballerina, the murderous assaults of the Moor, the cruelty of the Charlatan. Of all the dancing dolls, Petrouchka alone seemed capable of grieving like a mortal. In the intermission, Gennady Kuznetsov pressed a small button next to his chair; a steward appeared moments later with champagne and caviar on a silver tray. Gennady Kuznetsov served Claudia Aikens with his own hand. “I hope you are enjoying the performance?” Her eyes shone with tears. “Oh, yes. It’s wonderful. So sad.” “A true story, so they say in Saint Petersburg.” “Oh, surely not.” “In Mother Russia, we believe everything that happens on the stage is true. That is how we face the harsh realities of life and death in the steppes of Central Asia. Life is short; art endures.” “How does it end? What happens to poor Petrouchka?” Gennady Kuznetsov smiled and shook his head. “You must follow the story and live in your own soul the outcome. Like a Russian.” “Gennady.” Claudia Aikens sipped champagne and nibbled caviar. “May I ask you something?” “Surely.” His dark eyes seemed to sparkle with some private delight. “This evening is fantastic. In the past two days, so much has happened. Yesterday you seemed like Detective Columbo with a phony Russian accent. Tonight you seem like ... like ... well, like something – someone – quite different. Who are you really?” “Ah. Accent is easy for actor, yes? On stage, everything is true story, yes? Shakespeare says all the world is stage. So everything that happens is true story, yes?” “Well...everything isn’t always what it seems, it seems.” “Now you are talking like Russian. So: you must follow the story and live in your own soul the outcome. Is that not so?” The house lights dimmed for the second scene. Gennady Kuznetsov patted Claudia Aikens’s arm, then took her champagne glass and set it on the silver tray. “The story goes on, my dear Claudia. The story goes on. And on. And on. The Grand Guignol endures so long as there is life. And even beyond.” He chuckled and gestured to the conductor. TO BE CONTINUED

Вечер в Балет, Глава II

The limousine, and its motorcycle escort squadron with sirens shrieking, pulled to the curb under the porte-cochére where a gold-trimmed crimson carpet led up broad stairs to the theatre lobby. Gumph leapt from the driver’s seat, trotted around the car and whisked open the door. Gennady Kuznetsov extended his arm to Claudia Aikens and gave his stiff imperial bow as she alighted from the car with only a slight stumble. She paused and shut her eyes tight against a sudden wave of unsteadiness. Chilled vodka and caviar and a lightning police motorcade across town – on top of all that hard booze – had left her reeling like a sailor coming ashore after several months embarked on stormy seas. The Excelsior City Centre for the Performing Arts was a monument to civic pride and certain prominent citizens’ tax writeoffs. On the brass plaque in the lobby, the name Clement Braveheart Rob Roy MacDougall, Esquire appeared with four others in the lofty Maestro category, signifying a tax-deductible founder’s gift of one hundred thousand dollars or more. Clem MacDougall himself, for sure and certain, has never set foot in this place – unless for some fat-assed client’s black-tie cocktail reception unmarred by anything as unbillable as culture, Claudia Aikens mused. Gennady Kuznetsov took Claudia Aikens’s arm and led her toward the theatre. A liveried usher in a powdered wig intercepted them and shepherded them up a small private staircase to a box seat overlooking the stage. In the orchestra pit below, the lead oboe sounded concert A and all the other instruments replied. Then silence fell. As the house lights dimmed, the conductor emerged from stage right. After the applause subsided, the maestro glanced upward and caught Gennady Kuznetsov’s eye. At a slight nod from Kuznetsov, he raised his baton. And the magic began. TO BE CONTINUED

Вечер в Балет, Глава I

In formal evening dress – white tie and tails with a crimson-enameled Maltese cross on a blue ribbon about his neck – Gennady Kuznetsov looked more like a diplomat at a royal cotillion than the caricature of a police inspector who had bumbled about Clem MacDougall’s office the day before. At the stroke of seven Saturday evening, he rang the bell at the front door of Claudia Aikens’s townhouse in Excelsior Villas. At the sound of the bell, she peered through the peephole, gasped and considered locking the door and hiding under the bed. But, when he rang the bell again, she opened the door despite her misgivings. There he stood, wearing a forty-mile-an-hour pompadour and holding a dozen long-stemmed blood-red roses adrift on a sea-wrack of baby’s breath. She wore tight pants and a black leather jacket. On her head was a squashy little mushroom-shaped black leather hat, emblazoned with a Harley-Davidson emblem and a grinning skull and crossbones in chrome-plate. She reeked of hard booze. “Captain Kuznetsov – Gennady!” She looked over his shoulder at the battleship-gray Daimler-Benz limousine parked at the curb, flanked by four troopers on motorcycles with lights flashing. “Umm. You’re early. Come in, come in.” She saw neighbors gathering around the car; Gumph, the chauffeur, an off-duty vice cop dressed in parade uniform wearing white gloves, harangued and gesticulated and tried to wave them away. “Come in, please. I was just dressing for the opera.” She giggled and patted her hair, which cascaded like Rapunzel’s tresses halfway down her back. “Good evening, Claudia. Not opera. Ballet. Vecher v balyet. Very significant difference.” Gennady Kuznetsov handed her the roses. “Pretty flowers for a pretty lady. Forgive my early arrival.” He pulled on a gold chain from his white satin waistcoat pocket a jeweled gold watch in the shape of a Fabergé egg. He flipped it open, glanced at it and clicked his tongue. “But I did say seven, did I not? Ah. No matter. If you like, I will wait in the car. I have chilled vodka and caviar.” Claudia Aikens tossed the roses on the coffee table and looked wildly about the room, taking in the litter of pizza boxes and empty Rebel Yell bourbon bottles from last night’s Bacchanalia with Buster Bezorkenflatz, the White Knight of the Harley Hog. Her head thumped with the mother of all hangovers. What’s happening to me? Twenty years of riding buses, reading bilge, bound in servitude to an arrogant swine – and now this. Well, to hell with him. Russian ass. Never thought he’d show up. Now that he has, I guess I gotta play out the charade. “No, no, no. I’m sorry. I lost track of time. Come in. I won’t be a minute.” She pointed to a cabinet labeled Hard Booze. “Fix yourself a drink, if you like.” “Thank you, no. I will wait for you here. Curtain is in forty minutes, so we will have a police escort to the theatre – Excelsior City’s finest. On Harley-Davidson most excellent American motorcycles!” He laughed and pointed to her hat. He pointedly looked at everything in the room except the mess. Claudia Aikens darted down the hall to her bedroom and slammed the door. This man is a case of things not being as they seem. She stepped into a closet the size of a small industrial warehouse and rummaged among the hangers – severe tailored business suit after severe tailored business suit; sensible shoes in serried ranks; tight pants and leather jackets; Buster’s engineer boots with swastikas; whips, straps, chains, mesh stockings, daggers, switchblades, brass knuckles. What to wear? What to wear? I’d have to dress like a grand duchess to go anywhere with this guy. At length her eye fell on a gown she’d worn for a New Year’s Eve . . . uh, no. Oh, what the hell does it matter? I’ll never see this man again. Will I? No. What do I know about ballet? Cheap matinee seats in the second balcony. Who cares what the peasants wear? But this guy looks and talks like a cross between Cary Grant and Count Dracula. Where’s that rumpled clown I was flirting with – when? – was it just yesterday? Ten minutes later, Claudia Aikens appeared in the living room. She wore a floor-length batik print wraparound cotton skirt and a silk blouse the color of the roses which Gennady Kutnetsov was arranging in a Waterford crystal pitcher he’d found on the sideboard. She handed him a simple gold chain, which he fastened about her neck. “I’ll put my face on in the car, if you don’t mind. Don’t want to miss a minute of this opera, ballet – whatever. Nice job with the roses, by the way. Sweet of you to bring them.” “It is my pleasure, dear lady.” Gennady Kuznetsov took the faux fox-fur coat she handed him and held it for her. “Shall we go, then?” TO BE CONTINUED