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

The Persistence of Memory

Oh, all right. Call me a sentimental old fool. I’ll cop to the charge. I was rummaging in my archives the other day and I re-discovered Betsy – as she was in the summer of 1966, that is. That’s her on your left. Cute, eh? You betcha. I spent that summer more or less in the warm sunshine of her company – under the watchful eyes of her parents, mind you – while I was in Seattle working for my uncle. But even the watchfullest of parents can’t maintain 24-hour surveillance seven days a week. We had our moments, so we did. Let it go at that. Anyhow, I was way younger then (almost by a factor of three), just turned 21, gainfully employed, and life was boundless. I was 3,000 miles away from the watchful eyes of my own parents, drunk with freedom, love and a springtime torrent of hormones. Betsy and I had some big plans to get together after that summer, but somehow it just never happened. All that persists is the memory. Ah, yes, the memory persists, in the mind of a sentimental old fool retracing his steps and marveling at where they’ve brought him. (By the way, the title of this piece has nothing to do with Salvador Dali’s melting pocket watches).

A Blair Mountain Memoir

Shenandoah measured her life from week to week – from Saturday afternoon to Saturday afternoon, really. That was when she walked down the unpaved street to her father’s shack beside the railroad, made sure his icebox and larder were full, and changed the dressing on his draining gut wound. Granny Synnestvedt, the village midwife, took care of the latter chore during the week, while Shenandoah was away in Clarksburg. This Saturday afternoon ritual went on for a good part of the last year of Gash Farnham’s life, but to Shen it had begun to feel like a life sentence after the second week. Human beings – what the hell are they? Bags of shit, that’s what, Shen thought as she wrinkled her nose at the smell. And why did she have to walk down to Kielbasa Row every week? A veterans’ hospital: that’s where the poor old guy should have been, with nurses to look after him, doctors to give him a shot of morphine when the pain got so bad he started shrieking and cussing. The white-lightning moonshine he kept in a dirty Mason jar beside the bed dulled his pain, all right. At worst, it’s only greasing the wheels to the end of the line for him, she thought. But still ... Clean sheets and proper nursing. Why was old Farnham such a stubborn old son of a bitch? Not that there were any veterans’ hospitals in West Virginia. Not in 1921. Not even after federal troops skirmished with their own countrymen at Blair Mountain over the rights of coal miners. “You take that old Winchester 74 down off the kitchen wall and blow my head off before you put me in any god-damn Army hospital,” Gash had said to Shen when she first brought up the subject. “It wouldn’t be an Army hospital, Pap,” she’d said. “It’d be one of them new hospitals. Government runs ‘em. Veterans’ Administration. You’re a veteran, ain’t you? You fought over in France.” “Like hell. It’s a federal bullet opened me up in the first place. Up Blair Mountain last month. I ain’t having no federal bandages and medicine. Them bastards was shootin’ at United States citizens.” And that was the end of it. Shenandoah measured her life, week by week, Saturday to Saturday, and watched her father slip away over what seemed an eternity. Actually, it was twenty-seven weeks.

Remembering Jim Bell

“A woman’s hair is her crowning glory,” my late partner Jim Bell told me once. I forget how the subject came up, but Jim was quite an admirer of women. I got to know him fairly well between 1977 and his death in 1988, when we both practiced in the same south-central Pennsylvania law firm. In the old-fashioned sense of courtliness, chivalry and manners, he may well be one of the few true gentlemen I’ve ever known. Jim himself had a pretty good head of hair on him. By the time I knew him, it had gone mostly gray, but, by George, there was plenty of it. He had one of those pencil-line moustaches, too – the kind that the cinematic leading men of the Thirties and the villains of the Forties always wore. If he wanted to, he could look quite evil at times, which only goes to show you that things are not always what they seem. Vincent Price comes to mind. Jim made a nice living dealing in arcane matters of estates, trusts, taxes and all that stuff that requires you to parse sentences at least 3,500 words long. He’d roll into the office at a gentlemanly hour of 10:30 or 11:00 and take up station in front of his daily pile of paperwork. Sherry, his secretary, knew the drill: she’d bring him his lunch promptly at noon – six Ritz crackers with peanut butter and a cup of hot tea – and he’d do his voodoo until six o’clock. Polio had cut Jim’s legs out from under him when he was eighteen, a Wesleyan College athlete with the world spread out before him. He and Franklin Delano Roosevelt both sought healing at Warm Springs, Georgia; I believe they actually met there once – maybe more than once. For Jim and for FDR, polio meant life in a wheelchair, wearing leg braces and relying on the kindness of others to help make his way in the world. In that wheelchair, Jim went through Yale Law School, passed the Bar and came home to practice his chosen profession. I spent several years wheeling Jim at the end of the day from the office out to his car – always an Oldsmobile Toronado – and getting him seated at the hand controls, while little old Danny Kehoe, the strong-smelling local Colorful Leprechaun, stowed the wheelchair in the trunk. Jim had some pretty hairy (mis)adventures in those Toronados of his. Take, for example, the winter night when he skidded on a patch of ice on a dark stretch of road on his way home from the office. The car went up an embankment, flipped completely over and landed on all four wheels. The engine was running, the headlights were on, and Jim was still securely strapped in place. Just one little problem: the windshield had popped out. Well, home wasn’t all that far from there, so he just drove on, pulled into his garage, and announced his arrival as usual, but perhaps through chattering teeth. There are other stories in the same vein, one involving an unfortunate collision with an elderly pedestrian who shortly afterward died as a result; but suffice it to say he himself survived his driving years. What got him in the end was something else altogether, and he was too young when it happened. But I digress. As I was saying, Jim was an inveterate admirer of women. According to the legend as it was passed down to me, when it appeared he’d be unable to sire an heir of his own body, he and his wife adopted a son. I must tell you that Mrs. Bell is the distaff version of Jim, an elegant lady, a worthy consort and helpmate to her husband while he was alive. One year later, she gave birth to a baby boy. Needless to say, Jim received a bit of good-natured heckling from his colleagues. “A dead bird never fell out of its cage,” was his only rejoinder.

Kent Cigarettes and Chanel No. 5

It was a combination of smells, a not necessarily harmonious duet of cigarette smoke and perfume. Every Sunday that year, so it seemed, Danny’s mother would dab on Chanel No. 5 and smoke Kents (with the micronite (asbestos) filter), with the veil on her hat pulled up so it wouldn’t catch fire. She drove Danny and his two brothers to Sunday school, as usual with her left foot on the brake and her right foot on the accelerator of the ‘56 Ford station wagon. As she drove, she smoked and emitted Chanel No. 5 rays until both smells imprinted themselves indelibly on Danny’s brain. Danny’s mother couldn’t understand why the brakes on the Ford had to be re-lined so often. Every time the car came back from the shop, she and Danny’s father would bicker for what seemed like hours over who was putting all the wear and tear on the brakes. These scenes always blew over after Danny’s mother had had her evening cocktail – the Sweet Evening Breeze, she called it. The Sunday morning ritual played itself out when Danny’s mother parked the Ford down by the cemetery and initiated the Sunday Facial Scrub. It never failed. On Sundays Danny and his brothers always left home so clean they squeaked, but they mysteriously turned into disgusting little urchins by the time they got to church. So Danny’s mother would pull a lipstick-stained tissue out of her purse, spit on it, and scrub the boys’ faces as if she were cleaning toilets, all the while muttering about the injustice of having male children.