Great Hites 71

This week we have Stories by:

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Norval Joe
Marla J. Mercer
And
Jeff Hite <--------- This week's Winner


It's Just a Game.
By: Norval Joe

The spaceport bar was mostly empty. There were no large starships docked at the time, the occupants of the bar were mainly locals from other shops, or spacers waiting to apply for work on the next big ship to come in.
Justin sat at a dice table, alone, which was fine. He didn't really want to gamble, he was really just looking for a mark. Someone smart enough to think that they couldn't be taken, but not so clever that they would see through his pitch. As long as he looked like he was willing to gamble, no one would consider his loitering suspicious.
A creature entered the bar and stood just inside the door way, artificial light from the passage outside made a silhouette of the short stalky being. The bipedal creature scratched its head with a hand that sported many opposable fingers. Eventually, it faced his direction, paused as if looking at him, and headed his way.
Short green fur was illuminated as it passed under ceiling lights, set at random intervals to compete with the darkness of the bar. The creature wore a sleeveless spacer's jumpsuit, cut low at the neck. Justin recognized the mammalian species as a Whooshahb, and as such, a female.
She approached the dice table and struggle to get her small body onto a stool next to Justin. Her jumpsuit was stained with sweat, a pocket zipper was broken, and the collar and cuffs were frayed. She was obviously not worth the time it would take to work a con, so Justin just smiled, as she settled herself on the tall stool.
She rested her elbows on the edge of the table, her chin was not much above her folded hands. Her long snout like face, covered with the same short green fur, jutted out over the gaming table.
With flabby, rubbery lips, she said, "Hello human, I am Showbleph. I have come to see if my luck has turned. Are you ready to roll the dice, or shall I?"
Justin expected such directness from a Whooshahb, and though it was not his nature, in an effort to avoid offending the polite little creature and drawing unwanted attention, he attempted equal directness.
"My name is Justin," he said and nodded his head. " Though my purpose of sitting at this table is to await a friend, if you wish to gamble, you may place the bet and I will roll the dice.
This was courteous of Justin. By placing the bet, Showbleph was able to limit how much she could loose, but could win many times that amount. The dice roller had a much greater chance of winning, but could also be required to pay as much ass 100 times the amount of the bet.
Showbleph opened a small purse and shook the contents into one hand. She placed the single token on the he gaming table. Even in a worst case scenario, Justin had more than enough credits to cover the bet, right in his chest pocket. He spun the dice hopper. A kaleidoscope of color swirled as Justin turned the handle again and again. until three of the twelve sided dice slipped from an opening at the bottom to rest in a small leather cup. He spilled the dice onto the table, turned each of the brightly colored dice over in his hand, checking each side, edge and corner. He placed them one by one, on the table in an order and arrangement that pleased him. Suddenly, with a single fluid motion the dice were swiped up and cast into the square box atop the table.
When the first roll of the three dice tumbled to a stop, the dice were totaled. The next roll would only be two of the dice. If their total was greater than the first roll of the three, for the better would win that round of the game. Therefore if the first roll was greater than 24, the game would already be over.
Payouts were small with a second roll win, usually even, or 2 to 3 times the bet. The biggest wins and losses came with a third roll that was higher than the second.
Calculating the payouts was complicated and based on the odds of the number that was rolled, compared to the odds of the number to be beaten.
Each dice roll was recorded by the table camera, odds were calculated, displayed on the tables backboard, and the payout required of the looser.
The house made its money on secondary betting against the odds of the second and third rolls. The players could also hedge their bets by betting with or against the house on subsequent rolls.
Justin's roll was well above 24 and the game was over. Showbleph excused herself and left the bar.
He had just settled back into the affected contemplation of his drink, when the silhouette reappeared in the doorway. Showbleph didn't hesitate but returned directly to the table where she had lost the previous bet, and struggled to return to the tall stool.
"Good Justin. Please permit me the honor of attempting to recoup my meager loss, by wagering this small family trinket."
Justin picked up the ornately tooled metal box and turned it over in his hands. The craftsmanship was fine and he estimated the item to be worth about what he had just won from the small alien.
"Yes, Showbleph, I will roll once more, but then I must leave, as it appears my friend has been retained elsewhere."
Showbleph nodded, and said, "that is good, and as much as I can ask."
Justin spun three more dice from the hopper, examined them, then placed them superstitiously on the table as he had done previously. He scooped and cast them again.
To his horror, he counted the single mark on each die. "Three," he whispered. It would be impossible for Showbleph to lose the next roll. Justin quickly gathered the two dice, shook and threw them onto the table. Four. "Impossible," he shouted, and many in the room turned to regard the man who had exclaimed.
"Impossible," he said again, took a single die and cast it onto the table.
The last die rolled to stop at a five. The odds were phenomenal. "That's it," Justin said, "I'm done."
"Well, Showbleph, that was incredible. I'm afraid we must get your little trinket appraised, so that I may pay up." Justin said, chagrinned that he had probably just lost 100 times what he had made on the previous bet. He placed the trinket onto the center of the green felt of the gaming table.
The trinket was scanned. Within seconds the computer announced. "The item is a rare, royal signet holder, from the fourth cycle, pre-galactic standardization. The item is valued at 12,500 standard credits. The sum of 1,200,000 standard credits must be paid with in 2 solar cycles or the debtor will be sought for incarceration.
Justin didn't know how the diminutive creature had done it, but he knew that he had just been duped by a con artist. He stood and said to Showbleph. "That is an exorbitant amount. I will have to speak with a benefactor to secure your payment." Without hesitation, he strode from the bar, and made with all haste to the docking port where his small starship waited.
Throughout the galaxy there were warrants against him for welshing on legitimate gambling debts, he was not about to pay a single credit to someone who had obviously taken him for a ride.


MONIQUE OF THE JUNGLE
by
Marla J. Mercer

Harry Hoffman leaned back in his chair and toyed with an unlit cigar. He smiled at the large female African elephant that stood in front of his desk.
“Trust me, Monique,” said Harry. “I didn’t make it to the top of my profession by giving out bad advice. My record speaks for itself.” With both hands, he gestured towards the scores of framed photos that lined the walls of his twelfth-floor office. Each autographed, eight-by-ten glossy bore the image of a famous client. Cheetah, Mister Ed, Babe, Lassie—almost every big-name animal star in show business had been with the Harry Hoffman talent agency at one time or another.
“This Ringling project is one sweet deal,” Harry continued. “I know a hundred elephants who would kill for an offer like this.”
“Well, I am not one of them!” huffed Monique. She shook her ruby-studded ankle bracelet and stared defiantly at her agent. At a towering eleven-foot ten inches in height, Monique was nearly as tall as the ceiling. Her cheeks were heavily rouged. Her turquoise eye shadow glistened with tiny iridescent sparkles. A pink feather boa was wrapped loosely around her wrinkled neck.
“It’s a lot of cash,” said Harry. “You should take the job. When I have ever steered you in the wrong direction?”
“I don’t care how much their offering,” Monique replied. “I refuse to wear some ridiculous tutu skirt and stand atop a giant ball. Monique-of-the-Jungle is not circus material. For crying out loud, Harry. I have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.”
As if deeply offended, Monique dramatically turned her head towards the large window that dominated one wall of Harry’s office. With a tragic, yet regal expression on her face, Monique gazed in perfect profile at the smoggy Los Angeles skyline.
Harry smoothed back a well-oiled strand of his toupee. “Of course you’re a star,” said Harry. “I wasn’t saying otherwise. It’s just that right now there aren’t a lot of pachyderm-related scripts coming across my desk. That’s why I think this Ringling engagement could be a good thing for you at this particular time in your career. It’ll keep you in the public eye until something terrific comes along.”
Monique returned her gaze to Harry and regarded him suspiciously. “Have they offered you a kickback if I sign with them? Is that what this is about? You’re always working some angle or another. The usual ten percent is never enough for the great Harry Hoffman, is it?”
Harry grimaced as if in pain and clutched a hand to his heart. “You’re killing me here. How could you even think such a thing? Haven’t you always been my favorite client?” Harry pointed over his shoulder to a photo of Monique that hung on the wall directly behind his desk. “I’ll I want in the world is to make you happy, sweetheart.”
“Then find me something else,” said Monique. “How about television? Wild Kingdom and I go way back.”
Harry frowned. “I’m afraid that’s not an option at the moment. They still have some bad feelings about that little incident that occurred the last time you were on the show.”
“Well, what did they expect?” snapped Monique. “The director was inexperienced and completely clueless. In my big tranquilizer-dart scene, he kept insisting that I fall on my left side.” She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Everyone in the business knows I always fall on my right side.”
“Of course, you do,” said Harry. “I totally sympathize. I just wish you hadn’t hurled the camera into the wildebeest dressing room. That little stunt cost you, sweetheart. You know how word travels in this town. You get a reputation for being difficult, and people get nervous.”
“Well, just forgot Wild Kingdom,” Monique replied haughtily. She lifted a front leg and admired the red polish on her toenails. “Who needs them? Surely you can book me on a decent nature documentary. They run them day and night on the cable channels. You’re holding out on me, Harry. I can tell.”
Harry brushed a piece of lint from the sleeve of his gold sports coat. “All right. All right. Maybe a little bird told me that there’s new National Geographic special in the works. But, I didn’t mention it, because it’s not you. From what I’ve heard, all they want is a little bark stripping, and then a few dead acacias get knocked over. Air time would be thirty seconds tops.”
“I want it, Harry! I want it so badly I can taste it.” Monique reached across the desk and grasped his lapel with the two fingerlike protuberances at the tip of her trunk. “Just get me an audition. I’ll show those bozos what it means to bring down a tree.”
Harry took the cigar from his mouth and rolled the wet stogie between his fingers. “I hate to do this to you, Mo baby, but I have to be honest. The truth is, they’re looking for a slightly younger elephant.”
“Younger!” Monique trumpeted loudly, shaking the windows and sending a photograph of Simba crashing to the floor. She curled her trunk against her forehead. “Look at these tusks! They’re the real thing—one hundred percent ivory. I’ve never used silicon. These are the tusks that Mother Nature gave me.”
“They’re beautiful,” said Harry. “I’ve always said you have the best pair in the business. But we’re talking Hollywood, and right now the demand is for the girth and wrinkles of a teenage elephant. You know I love you, sweetheart, but I’m not going to lie. You’re getting a little older. You’ve lost some weight, and you’re smoothing out a little bit. You and I both know that your creases aren’t as deep as they used to be ten years ago. Personally, I prefer the look of a more mature elephant, but I’m not the one doing the hiring.”
Tears brimmed on Monique’s long eyelashes. “Is that all they want—raw tonnage? What about talent? Doesn’t that count for anything? You remember my waterhole scene in Tarzan Meets the Leopard Woman? It takes a lot more than fat deposits to deliver a performance like that.”
Monique walked slowly to the window. With a bitter expression on her face, she looked out at the town that had once been hers for the asking. “Thirty years of paying my dues, and I’m left working for peanuts in some three-ring circus.”
“No, no!” protested Harry. “You’ve got it all wrong. They don’t call it the greatest show on earth for nothing. These Ringling people are positively drooling to snag a big name talent of your caliber. They’re on their knees, Monique. You’ll have it all—top billing, catered meals, a private stall. I’m sure I can do a little arm twisting and make sure they give you the best rhinestone head-harness that money can buy. And, you know how good you look in rhinestones.”
Monique coyly swung her trunk from side to side. She continued to gaze out the window.
“Think of the little people,” said Harry, “the millions of fans dying to see in person the most famous, female elephant star of all time. And we’re not talking small-town circuit—no way. We’re talking major venues—New York, Boston, Chicago, Miami. The Grand Tour. It’s the right move, Monique. And I’m not speaking as your agent now, but as your longtime personal friend.”
Monique sighed. She turned from the window and stood facing Harry. “Do you really think it’s a good idea for me to leave Hollywood? If I’m not attending parties, and award ceremonies, and charity events, I’ll drop out of the loop. You know how quickly people can forget about you if you’re not seen.”
“Are you kidding me?” exclaimed Harry. “How could anybody ever forget a big, beautiful, talented star like you? I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. You sign with Ringling for one year, and while you’re out there with your name up in lights, the studio bosses are going to find out soon enough what it’s like to work with this new herd of no-talent upstarts. By the time your contract is up and you come back home, every script that so much as mentions a large mammal of any kind will be piled high on your doorstep.”
Monique swished her tail and fanned her ears majestically. “I’ll need bottled water,” she declared. “You tell them that Monique-of-the-Jungle doesn’t drink whatever sludge that happens to squirt from a hose. I want bottled water written into to the contract, or it’s no deal.”
“Consider it done, sweetheart. Now you run on home and get some beauty rest. I’m going to give those people a call right this minute and make sure you get everything you want and them some. Don’t you worry about a thing.”
“Well, you’d better be right about this,” said Monique. “I don’t care how long we’ve been together. If this turns out to be a bad career move, I’m switching agents. I mean it, Harry.” Head held high, Monique gracefully sashayed from the office.
As soon as the door closed, Harry’s intercom rang.
“Mister Hoffman, Flipper is here for his ten o’clock appointment.”
Harry leaned forward and pressed the TRANSMIT key. “Thank you, Collette. Tell him I’ll be right with him. I just need a few moments to get things ready to accommodate his portable water tank.”
Harry stood and removed the framed photo of Monique from the wall behind his desk. He quickly exchanged it for a photo of Flipper that was hanging near the door. When Flipper’s picture was carefully positioned in the place of honor, Harry sat down and made a phone call.
“Louie! It’s Harry. The deal is good to go. She’ll sign a year’s contract for the price we discussed.” Harry paused. “Now, about those Lakers’ season tickets you promised me. We’re talking courtside, right?”


Monique of the Jungle by Marla J. Mercer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.


Never Con a Conman
By: Jeffrey Hite

"To every plan you need to have a plan b, how many times have I told you that Nellis?"
"I know boss but this seemed so fool proof."
"Son how many times have I told you that there are no such things as fool proof plans?"
"I know I know."
"You blew our cover, you wasted half of our capital, and we don't even know where we are."
"Come on boss, I feel really bad about this. I didn't mean for any of this to happen, I think we need to just work together and find a way out of this mess."
"I know you do, I'm sorry, I just can't get over the fact that we are stuck here."
"Speaking of that, do you have any idea what this place is? I mean you have been down here long than I have right?"
"No I have never seen anything like this before in my life. The walls are too smooth to be dirt, and it does not feel like any kind of rock I have ever felt. Besides, the had a bag over my head when they brought me down here."
"Hey did they say anything to you before they knocked you out?"
"Well boss not that I can remember, hey what's this?"
"What's what?"
"It feels like rungs on a ladder maybe there is a way out of here."
"Keep talking Nellis, so I can find you."
"Ok, I'm over here."
"Why do people always say that when you are trying to find someone in the dark?"
"I don't know boss, but I guess it is not very helpful is it?"
"No it really is owe!"
"What?"
"Something just smashed into my leg."
"Are you alright?"
"I don't know I..."
"Boss? Boss? Joe?"
"Nellis, I'm alright, I tried to stand up and lost my balance and ended up down this small hole."
"Can you get out"?
"Well, I don't know, let me try. No, no I can't reach the top it is just out of my reach. You are going to need to come over here and help me out."
"Alright Boss, I on my way over."
"Nellis?"
"Yeah boss?"
"Be careful whatever tripped me is right near the whole in the ground. The last thing we need is for you to fall down the hole on top of me, or fall down another whole if there is one."
"Right boss, Hey listen boss, I was thinking, how long do you suppose they are going to keep us down here?"
"I don't know Nellis, you did try to swindle them, they might be pretty darn angry with us."
"Alright I think I just found the edge of you hole."
"Good good, lay down on your stomach and try to reach me."
"Ok here is my arm, can you reach it?"
"Wait, I can barely hear you now, you must have found another hole, keep looking Nellis."
"OK gottcha boss, I am going to crawl around up here so I don't fall down another hole."
"Good idea, just be careful there might be something sharp on the floor, I think it cut the sole of my shoe open."
"Hey boss did you have to walk up hill to get to me?"
"No I don't think so why?"
"'cause it feels like I'm going down."
"Turn around Nellis you are going to the wrong way."
"Yeah, Yeah... Ummm."
"What now?"
"Well I can't turn around."
"What? Why? And speak up I can barely hear you."
"There are walls on both sides of me. I'm going to try to stand up and. Owe! And apprently a ceiling over my head. I'm just going to back out. Woah, woah owe!"
"What just happened?"
"Owe, that floor was slippery, I slid right down it until a wall. I think my nose is bleeding."
"Well worry about that later, for now can you get turned around now?"
"well maybe if I flip over on my back and the roll over, and roll over. There we go now I am facing up slope again. Just give me a few seconds I will get out of this mess."
"Well keep talking ok?"
"Yeah, no problem. Hey wow this floor is slick. hey hey I am sliding back down.I can't grip."
"Try the walls, put your hands on the walls."
"Yeah that is better. Alright I think I can make it up now. I must have crawled right down this pit here. Maybe when I get up I should just stand up, and sort of shuffle over to you."
"That sounds like a good idea."
"Alright I seem to be out now, it is level and again, and there are not walls, and yup no ceiling. So keep talking and I will come get you."
"Just take it nice and slow we don't need you falling into another trap, and maybe this one you can't get out of."
"Right, Just keep talking."
"Nellis?"
"Yeah boss?"
"What was it you tried to sell them?"
"Well I told them, Wait, I need you to talk."
"Oh Right, They were down right angry when the came and rousted me out of bed."
"I know you should have seen their faces when they figured it out."
"You are going the wrong way, you are getting quiet on me again."
"Alright, wait, say something again."
"Ok, what do you want me to say?"
"You have got to be right here. Yeah I have found a lip of what feels like a hole. Owe! it is sharp, let me take my shirt off so I don't cut myself further."
"Alright."
"Ok reach up and see if you can grab my hand."
"I gotcha, just hang on to me ok?"
"Alright hang one, 1, 2, 3, pull."
"owe you are right that edge is sharp."
"Ok let me put my shirt back on and we get back to that ladder."
"Where was it?"
"I was just over, oh now I don't know what direction is was."
"It is ok Nellis, all we have to do is find the Wall again and we can work our way around to the ladder."
"Boss?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm Scared, this place is really starting to freak me out."
"Relax Nellis, It is going to be ok, we are going to find the wall. Then we are going to find the Ladder. then we are going to find the way out of here. Just one step at a time."
"Boss, Joe?"
"Yeah?"
"I just remembered something. I told them that if they gave me their money, I would be able to put it in a place no one would ever be able to find it. When they figured me out, they said, turn about is fair play. What do you suppose that means?"
"I don't know for sure but I think it means we are going to have to look harder for that ladder."

Great Hites 69

This week we have stories by:

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Norval Joe
Marla J. Mercer <--------- This week's Winner
and
Jeff Hite





Life in a duplex
By: Philip "Norval Joe" Carroll

The car rattled to a stop in front of their duplex apartment. He knew that Jodi would be standing at the front door, by the time he got there. He could never sneak up on her, not with the car needing a new muffler. He had exciting news for her, and could hardly control his broad grin.
He got out of the car and slammed the door three times to get the lock to catch and hold. He all but ran to the door.
She opened the door as he reached for the knob. He watched his hand grab uselessly in the open air for the door knob that was no longer there, then looked up to see her smiling face reflecting the happiness he felt. Her brown eyes almost sparkled above her freckled nose. She was nearly twenty one, and in the two years they had been married, the freckles had barely faded, and he hoped they never would. They gave her face the youthful appearance he adored.
He stepped through the doorway, kissed and hugged her, and then stepped back to look at her and asked, "What are you smiling so big about?"
"I could ask you the same thing, you've been grinning like a jack o lantern since you got out of the car. But, if you must know. I have a secret." She giggled.
"I know how you are about keeping secrets, so I might never know what it is. Fortunately, I have a secret too, and if you want to hear what it is, you'll have to tell me yours," he said, closed the door and followed her to the small table by the window in the kitchen.
"Sit down Jeff, I made your favorite dinner. Chicken, mashed potatoes, and steamed baby carrots." The meal was already in covered dishes on the table.
"Wow, honey, you've been busy since you got home from work. Are you trying to butter me up for something?" He was feeling suspicious. "I think you had better tell me your secret first."
"Ok," she said. "Let's eat. You can choose first. Breast, leg or thigh. I only cooked half the box. If you want more, we can cook the rest later," she said.
He took the thigh. He always did, but not just because it was his favorite piece. He knew that she really wanted the white meat, and that was ok with him. "I don't know if I will be able to wait until the end of dinner to hear what you are keeping secret. My stomach is all in knots just thinking about the possibilities. It can't be too bad, because you seem happy about it, but I still can't figure out why you are plying me with chicken and potatoes."
Jeff was chewing a mouth full of chicken and potatoes when Jodi declared, "OK. I'll tell you. I'm pregnant. We're going to have a baby."
The food in Jeff's mouth turned to lead. He couldn't swallow it, there was another lump of lead in his stomach as well. He couldn't talk with the food in his mouth, so he just sat dumbly and stared at his wife, who still smiled, but more weakly, now.
Finally, he swallowed and said, "Um, How, no, when, no, never mind." He shook his head, and felt guilty that we wasn't sharing Jodi's enthusiasm.
"I'm sorry." He reached out and took her hand, and she squeezed his back. "That is absolutely not what I expected to hear. I got a pay raise today, and I was hoping to surprise you with the idea of getting a better car. We could have made payments with the extra money I'll be getting. But, this changes that plan."
He put down his fork, frowned and said, "I thought we had talked about waiting a while, maybe moving into a house, before we started a family. I don't know if we're, or rather, I'm ready for this. It sounds like you got ready on your own."
He recognized an unexpected bitterness in his voice. Jodi obviously noticed it as well. She put her own fork down and said, "Well, yes, we talked about it, but you obviously didn't listen. I have been telling you for months that I feel ready to make this change in our lives. You wouldn't discuss it with me, you just made lists, and timelines, and decisions, but none of them included what I wanted, only what you determined would be best for us."
"But the future, we need to plan," he began.
She cut him off. "No. You don't need to plan or prepare fro anything. You'll just have to deal with it."
She stood. Her composure, maintained until that point, appeared on the verge of breaking. She set her jaw.
"No," she said again. "I'll deal with this baby, with or without you."
She turned and left the kitchen. He heard the door to the bedroom close and the knob rattled for a time while she set the lock.
Jeff sat, stunned, and stared sullenly at the chicken cooling on his plate. In the two years of their marriage they had never argued like this, with such anger. What was more; Jeff had never been locked out of the bedroom and was at a complete loss of what to do. Should he stand at the bedroom door and beg for forgiveness, or demand that she let him in so that he can set her straight.
Ultimately he decided it would be best to leave her alone for a while.
He sat in the car and pumped the gas pedal several times before turning the key. It cranked a dozen times before the engine finally turned over. "Now, where do I go at 7:00 on a Thursday night, by myself?"
Jeff considered going to a movie, but he would want Jodi to watch it with him. He didn't have many single friends anymore, and most of their married friends wouldn't really want him showing up unannounced, this time of night.
He ended up at the bookstore, down the street from the movie theater. The store had a coffee shop with its ubiquitous compliment of college students, musicians and pseudo intellectuals. He wandered up and down the aisles half heartedly scanning the titles for something that might distract him for a few minutes, or an hour. Reflexively, he looked up, expecting to see Jodi, each time a stranger approached in his peripheral vision.
"Seven thirty," he said when he looked at his watch, again. "That's way too early to get a good nights sleep on the couch."
He took a book of humorous observations by a second rate comedian, and sat in one of the oversized lounge chairs, arranged, living room-like, in the center of the store.
Instead of reading, he glared morosely at everyone that walked past.
A child with a high squeaky voice was chasing after her mother, holding a book, her arm outstretched to the woman passing Jeff on her way to the cashier. "Mommy, here it is. Mommy, Elmo book."
As she ran after her mother she dropped the book directly in front of him. When she retrieved it, she looked at Jeff. There was a look of such joy and excitement on her little face that he couldn't help smiling as well. Startled, he felt a chill, like ice water poured down his back. He recognized her.
Her short cropped hair, the sparkling brown eyes, and the wash of freckles across her cheeks and button nose were an exact replica, in miniature, of Jodi.
Fear of being considered a child molester was the only thing that kept him from picking the little girl up and hugging her tightly.
He growled and cursed the car as he pumped the gas pedal and turned the ignition key. Jeff had to get home, he didn't want to waste another minute.
The old, beat up car, shook and rattled, as the engine chugged and coughed, even after he removed the key. He slammed the door once and raced to the house, unconcerned that the door creaked back open.
He tapped on the bedroom door and waited for a response. When there was none, he tapped again, and asked, "Jodi? Are you there?"
Finally, faintly, Jeff heard, "What do you want?"
"I'm ready," he said. "I'm ready for our baby."


THE INSIDE STORY
by
Marla J. Mercer

“They say it came in with a shipment of bananas,” said Rae-Anne, “and that Donita is keeping it in a mayo jar and charging fifty cents a look.”

“I bet the only thing Donita Monelli has in that mayo jar is a big old wolf spider,” I scoffed.

“Well, you’re wrong,” said Rae-Anne. “It’s a real live tarantula.”

“No way.” I shook my head. “It’s a wolf spider.”

Rae-Anne and I were sitting in the back seat of our clubhouse. We’d been spending most every Saturday afternoon there for the past month, ever since someone left an old beat up car in the alley behind where my dad works. On the outside, our clubhouse looks like any other junker. On the inside, however, we’ve fixed up the car real nice, with newspaper-curtains on all the windows and bed sheets to cover the ripped upholstery. There are no visitors allowed in our clubhouse. Not even my dad, who is forever coming outside to check on us. The clubhouse is for members only, and that would be Rae-Anne and I.

“It is, too, a tarantula,” insisted Rae-Anne. “My brother says he knows three guys who’ve already seen it, and it’s about six inches long.”

“You’re brother is always making up stories to scare you.”

Rae-Anne and I are best friends. We even look alike, both of us with brown hair and ponytails, but in some ways, we are very different. To name one, I am a tomboy, and she is not. For another, Rae-Anne not only spreads gossip, but she believes everything she hears. I don’t. For instance, last spring, when we were still in fourth grade, a rumor went around our class that there was a dead body in the city water tower and that bits of blood and hair were coming out of people’s faucets. Rae-Anne was so afraid that she wouldn’t even take a drink of Kool-Aid when she came over to play. I had to fill our bathtub ten times to convince her that the story wasn’t true.

“Well, if you’re so sure it’s just a wolf spider,” said Rae-Anne, “then why don’t you go have a look for yourself. The back entrance to Monelli’s Market is right down the alley. That’s where she keeps it: in the storeroom. That’s what my brother says.”

“Maybe I will go down there.” I said defiantly. “I have my allowance money in my pocket.”

Rae-Anne looked suddenly worried. “Oh, Katie, don’t even think about it. I was just kidding. I wouldn’t ask my worst enemy to meet up with Donita Monelli.”

I jutted out my chin. “I’m not afraid of her for a minute.” I was lying, of course. Every kid in town under the age of twelve was terrified of Donita, even though most of us, including myself, had never actually seen her.

“You should be afraid of her,” said Rae-Anne. “You know what they say about her. If even half of it’s true, it’s not safe to go anywhere near her. My brother says that ever since she dropped out of school, she never leaves her dad’s grocery store, except at night, and then she creeps around looking in people’s windows while they’re sleeping.” Rae-Anne paused. “You know what I think? I think she might start bringing the tarantula with her and letting it loose in the bedrooms of people she doesn’t like. One bite from its fangs and her enemies would be dead just like that.” Rae-Anne snapped her fingers.

“Baloney,” I replied. I reached for the door handle. “I’m going to find out the truth about that spider.”

“Katie, no! Don’t do it.”

“I’ll be fine. You just stay here in the clubhouse. If I’m not back in ten minutes, go tell my Dad I where I went.” I opened the back door and stepped into the alley.

“Please don’t go,” begged Rae-Anne.

“Ten minutes,” I repeated, as I shut the car door.

A cool autumn wind was blowing off the river east of town. Scraps of paper and dead leaves swirled around my feet. I flipped up my jacket collar, stuck my hands deep into the pockets of my slacks, and started walking down the wide alleyway. On either side, pressed up against the buildings were dumpsters, wood pallets, and bundles of flattened cardboard boxes.

There were two doors at the back of Monelli’s Market. The first was a big garage-type door that had a metal sign on it that read Ring bell for deliveries. To the right of it, was a regular sized door. It, too, had a sign, but this one was taped on and was made from a piece of brown grocery bag. The message written on it was in thick black ink:

Genuine Deadly Mexican Tarantula
50¢ a look
Enter Here

I cast a quick glance at the clubhouse and saw that Rae-Anne had crawled into the front seat of the car. She had lifted up the newspaper curtains and was looking out the front windshield. I nodded to her and gave a little wave.

Trying to appear brave, I opened the door, and looked inside the storeroom. It was cool and dark, and the air stank sweetly of too-ripe fruit. As my eyes adjusted, I could see boxes of vegetables lined up along the cement floor, and crates of lettuce stacked six high. Dangling from hooks on the ceiling were huge bunches of green bananas that looked liked strange upside down Christmas trees.

“You here to see the spider?” It was the voice of an older girl.

It took me a moment to gather my nerve. “Yes,”

“Well, get in here and close the door.” It was an order not a request.

For a brief second, I hesitated. Then I stepped inside all the way. The heavy door slammed shut behind me.

“I’m around the corner by the pumpkins,” barked the girl. “Hurry up. I ain’t got all day.”

Squinting in the dim light, I saw a mound of pumpkins piled on the floor. Heart pounding, I made my way to them, walked around a partition, and found myself standing in a little alcove. About six feet in front of me was a very overweight teenage girl seated on a folding chair. She had a big bloated face that was red and pitted with acne. Her hair was black and stringy. Her skin was a sickly white color. Even though it was mid way through October and starting to turn cold, she was dressed in a Hawaiian muumuu. She filled it to the seams. At her feet was a bushel basket of red apples. A bare light bulb hung suspended from the ceiling, bathing her in a harsh yellow halo. She was sorting through the apples, tossing the bad ones into a cardboard box to the left of her chair.

She glanced at me. “Who else you got with you?” She had low scratchy voice that sounded angry and mean.

“No one,” I replied. My mouth had grown very dry. It was hard to talk.

“You sure there ain’t no boys hiding in the storeroom? You’d better not be lying. I don’t want nobody sneaking up and trying to get a free look. It’s fifty cents per person.”

“It’s just me,” I said. “Honest.”

“Who are you?” she demanded. “What’s your name?”

“Kathleen,” I managed.

“Kathleen what?”

“McKegan.”

“McKegan?” the girl echoed. She kept staring at me. “Your daddy the one that sells insurance on the next block over?”

“That’s him.”

The girl picked up an apple and examined it. “I suppose you know who I am?” she asked, not looking at me.

“I think so. Are you Donita Monelli?”

She gave a little nod and tossed the apple into the cardboard box. “I wasn’t expecting no little girl to come see a deadly tarantula,” said Donita. She spoke in a mocking way that made me feel bad. “How old are you anyway?”

“Ten and a half . . . next month.”

“Is that all you are?” scoffed Donita. She put the apple back in the basket. “I bet if I showed it to you, you’d start bawling like a baby.”

“I would not!” I declared. “Spiders don’t scare me.”

Donita cocked her head to one side, as if surprised by the way I had spoken to her. “Well, we’ll just see about that, little miss I-ain’t-afraid-of-no-spiders,” she said. “That’ll be fifty cents in advance.” She held out her open palm. It was as white and puffy as bread dough.

I quickly took out my allowance and dropped two quarters into Donita’s outstretched hand. She examined the coins and then slipped them into a pocket of her muumuu. She had a little smile on her face, but it wasn’t the least bit friendly. Reaching behind her chair she brought out a large mayonnaise jar. There was a piece of cheese cloth on the top, secured with a rubber band.

When she held the jar up to the light, my eyes nearly popped from my head. What I was looking at was only the biggest, hairiest, most amazing spider I had ever seen in my entire life. The thing was mostly brown, but it had bands of red, and orange, and yellow on its legs and around its head. I moved in for a closer look. As big as a mouse, Donita`s tarantula stood there on tippy-toes taking up the whole bottom of the jar. I couldn’t stop staring. For what seemed like a good half-minute, I just stood there like I’d been hypnotized.

“Time’s up.” Donita put the jar her behind her back. With her free hand, she gestured for me to leave. “Now, get out of here.”

I couldn’t seem to bring myself to move.

“What does it eat?” I asked. “Flys?”

“None of your business,” she snarled. “I told you to leave.”

I was still glued to the spot. There was something I wanted to say to her, even though I knew it would probably make Donita mad at me, and then I’d be in real trouble. I could almost see her opening my bedroom window while I slept and letting her tarantula inside to bite me. And yet, I just couldn’t leave without telling her what I thought.

Finally I blurted it out in a loud voice. “Donita, your tarantula is about the best thing I ever saw outside of a zoo. You could charge a dollar a look, if you wanted. But you shouldn’t be keeping it in that little jar. It’s not right. It’s a needs a bigger place to move around. Otherwise it won’t live very long, and it’d be awful if it died. It’s too special.”

Donita made a grunting noise. “Who asked you, you little runt? Get lost.” She picked up an apple and hefted it a few times, as if deciding whether to throw it at me.

I quickly turned and hurried into the storeroom. I was halfway to the back door when she called to me.

“Hey, you! Kid! Come back here.”

I stopped walking.

“I got something to show you,” said Donita. “It won’t cost you nothing.”

I was unsure what to do. I knew what Rae-Anne would say. Rae-Anne would say, “Run! Run for you life!” And I probably would have, except there had been something different about Donita’s voice this time. She hadn’t sounded so mean and angry.

“Come on back,” she called. “It’s a surprise. You’ll like it.”

I don’t know where I found the courage, but I turned around and headed for the alcove. When I peeked around the partition, I saw Donita on her chair, holding the mayo jar in plain view. She smiled at me, and this time it was a real smile.

“Watch this,” said Donita. She slipped the cheesecloth from the top of the jar and gently tilted the glass on its side. The tarantula crawled onto Donita’s big belly. It started walking all over her. She never even flinched.

“He ain’t nothing like he looks on the outside,” said Donita. She was speaking in a hushed whisper, as if we were in church. “The truth is, he’s tame as a kitten. I call him Pretty Boy. I looked him up in a book. He’s a Mexican Redknee tarantula.” Donita placed her chubby hand along side the spider. Pretty Boy stepped daintily onto her arm and crawled toward her shoulder. “He likes to be held. I think it’s the warmth he craves.” She looked at him lovingly.

I couldn’t speak a word. I just kept staring at the both of them.

“I keep him in a big box most of the time,” Donita continued, “but I want to make a nice home for him like the one I saw in the book. That’s why I’m charging to see him. I’m saving up for an aquarium.” As Donita talked, Pretty Boy climbed into her hair. “He eats roaches, great big roaches. He jumps on ‘em. I’m going to teach him some tricks, too. He’s real smart.”

And then—just like that—her whole mood changed. Donita was suddenly glaring at me, her thick eyebrows bushing together into a fearsome scowl. “If you ever breathe one word of this to anybody, I’ll kill you. I swear I will. You understand? People got to stay real scared, or I won’t get no business at all. It’d take me forever to buy Pretty Boy a home.”

My knees started shaking. “I won’t tell anyone, Donita, not ever in a million years, not even my best friend Rae-Anne.” I rattled off the words as fast as I could. “I promise.” I kissed my pinky finger, crossed my heart, locked my lips, and tossed the imaginary key into the basket of apples.

“Well, don’t you ever forget,” warned Donita. By this time, Pretty Boy had worked his way to the top of her head and sat perched there like a little hat. “You go on home now,” she said. “I got work to do!”

This time I didn’t linger. I gave a little parting nod and then ran out of the alcove and all the way to the back door. As I grabbed hold of the doorknob, I paused. “Thank you, Donita,” I called over my shoulder. “I’ll never tell. Take good care of him.”

Before she could say anything, I stepped outside and closed the door. Blinking from the sudden brightness, I looked down the alley towards the clubhouse. Rae-Anne was still sitting in the front seat. She waved frantically at me, and I gave her the thumbs-up signal. As I started walking towards that old beat up car, I couldn’t help wondering how long it would be until it got towed away to a junkyard. The workers there would take one look at it, and all they’d see is an old rust bucket with a blown-out engine and a dented hood.

It made me sad to think about it. But at least I know the truth, and so does Rae-Anne. I suppose you have to be a member of the club to understand.


The Inside Story by Marla J. Mercer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.


The Car
By: Jeffrey Hite

The Citroen duck looks a little like a VW Beetle, but without some of the nicer features of the VW. For example the Duck has less horse power and if possible less room inside. But that is what I drive, and it has been since I started this job nearly ten years ago. The car, such that it is, was supposed to be part of my compensation for this job, and was one of the reasons that I was willing to take a low paying job. In the end I was stuck with very little money and an old beat up Citron duck, that I have lovingly named Donald.
This was not the first time Donald had left me stranded. It was not even the first time he had done so while I was on a date, which means quite a bit when you consider that most women walked away from me laughing when they saw him for the first time. However, this was the first time he had stranded me with someone I loved.
To be fair, Marie was my first real love. I had fallen in love with her the first moment I saw her, and I had honestly avoided showing her Donald for a long time. Whenever we went anywhere we took public transit, or if it was close enough we walked. So maybe he knew, maybe he was just getting his revenge, for all the times I had ignored him.
Despite all of that Donald could not have picked a nicer spot to have stalled and died. I had been furious at first, but avoided pounding my fists into the steering wheel in rage because I knew Marie was watching. Instead I counted to one hundred in slowly in my head and tried the engine again. When it would not start I got out of the car and asked Marie to move to the drivers seat while I pushed Donald to the side of the road. I have to add at this point, that one advantage of having such a small car is that it is not too difficult to move it out of traffic when it stalls. Once Donald had been moved safely to the side of the road, I pulled out my mobile and called a towing service and a taxi, Both said they would be there in a bout 40 minutes.
It was only after this that I took a look around us for the first time. We had been traveling along the Rhine river Valley and had made it about 50 kilometers from the university where I taught, but I don't know that I had ever really seen this little town before. Like most areas in this region the valley walls were covered by vineyards. There was a tower for collecting taxes on and island in the middle of the river and a small castle on the crest of the hill, on the other side of the river.
Together Marie and I walked a little way down the road, and got as close as we could the to the mighty river as we did we could hear the voice of the Lorelei. Marie tucked her arm through mine and pulled me close. I loved the way that felt.
As we stood listening to the voice of the Siren, still sounding young and beautiful as the day her father the river had put her there, I knew what I had to do, and I hoped that it was not the song that was drawing me to the rocks of my own life. I knelt down in from of Marie and asked her to marry me.
So in a way it was Donald that led to you. If he had not stranded your mother and I that night I would have never had the courage to have ask your mother to marry me. That it why even though he has not run in many years I still keep in the garage.

Great Hites 68

This week we have stories by:

Download




Marla J. Mercer
Norval Joe
Arlene Radasky
and
Mick Bordet <--------- This week's Winner



Marla J. Mercer

My story is based on a newspaper item that I found in the Business Section of the Los Angeles Times dated 8/19/09. The headline reads, “Coffee Jar Case Isn’t Closed”. It’s about a former male model who is suing Nestle USA for using an image of his face on the Taster’s Choice freeze-dried coffee label without his permission. The piece gave me the idea for the following story entitled . . .


An Unauthorized Likeness
By: Marla J. Mercer


A woman in the dayroom is using my face without permission. I saw her reflection in the window today as I was taking a brief walk around the ward. She was standing next to the television. When I turned to confront her, she quickly darted into the water-therapy room. I immediately reported the infraction to the new nurse. He is a big man with thickets of black hair on his forearms. I believe his name is Nurse Roland, though I may have him confused with one of the characters in the novel I am writing—I’m not sure.

That’s one of the things I like about my stay here at the hospital. The members of the staff understand the subtleties of my craft and make no demands on me to sort out what is real from what is fictional and vice versa. When I lived at home with my husband, Benjamin, it was an unspoken rule that I keep my writing-mind separate from my wife-mind, a task I found extremely difficult and frustrating. Sometimes it took all my concentration to keep the filters working. In retrospect I’m surprised that the screaming didn’t start much earlier.

But, I digress. Getting back to my complaint, using the image of another’s person face without prior approval is a clear violation of hospital policy, and unfortunately, this is not the first time it has happened. On several occasions, I have noted that same forlorn-looking woman using an unauthorized likeness of my hands and upper torso. If appropriate steps are not taken to stop her, I may be forced to sue. I will ask my husband about it the next time he visits. Benjamin is an attorney and knows all about the law.

Take, for instance, the details of my commitment. Benjamin was able to quickly cut through the legal red tape and have me admitted for immediate long-term care, forgoing the usual 72-hour observation period. Everything is spelled out quite clearly in the meticulously prepared documents that he has since filed. Benjamin prides himself on being efficient and well-organized, which is why he considers me to be such a disappointment.

I suppose I can’t blame him for thinking that I have failed him as a wife. For the record, though, I would like to state that I tried very hard to be the kind of competent woman he wanted me to be. Each morning, before Benjamin left for work, we would carefully review the list of daily household chores and errands that he had prepared for me.

“Just work your way down the list, one task at time, and you’ll see how easy it is to get everything done,” he would say.

I would nod in agreement and kiss him goodbye, fully intending to follow his instructions to the letter.
It’s just that . . . I would find myself walking past the computer. And then I would start thinking about a story I was working on, and without even realizing it, I was Alice down the rabbit hole. Before I knew it, Benjamin would be home from work, and I would still be dressed in my pajamas, clicking away at the keyboard, and not a single item crossed off the list.

I have tried to explain the phenomenon of writing-related time warps, but Benjamin thinks I am crazy. To him, time proceeds in an orderly and methodical fashion. His minutes are well-trained soldiers on parade, each equal distance apart and marching in perfect cadence. He keeps a very close eye on them, too, and is forever checking his watch, especially when he comes to visit me.

Luckily, the fluid nature of clocks and calendars is no longer an issue that concerns me. The staff here keeps track of everything on my behalf. Visiting days, appointments, meal times, medication schedules—I need not give them a second thought. For the first time in my life, I am free to write day and night, without any restrictions.

It took my good friend, Doctor Melvin, to figure out that if I am writing, I am not screaming, which is why he has issued orders for the staff never to interrupt me when I am working. Their cooperation and support do not go unnoticed and will be duly acknowledged when my novel is published. I will also be including a special dedication to Doctor Melvin for supplying me with the most amazing computer imaginable. It has increased my productivity a thousand fold.

My old computer at home required me to manually type the words to my stories, a method so pathetically slow that only the tiniest percentage of my ideas ever found their way to my fingertips. Here at the hospital, however, Doctor Melvin has granted me round-the-clock access to a special brainwave computer that eliminates the need for any keyboard input whatsoever. With my new equipment, I am able to transfer each and every thought directly into the central processing unit at the same lightening-fast speed at which my neural synapses are firing. Though Doctor Melvin has yet to reveal the technical specifications of the hardware, I strongly suspect the circuitry involved is similar to the machine used for my shock treatments, for I often experience a tremendous rush of creativity after a session.

I have asked Doctor Melvin and the staff not to mention anything to my husband. If Benjamin were to find out about the brainwave computer, I fear he would have me transferred to another hospital. After what happened the night I was committed, I am convinced he would stop at nothing to keep me from pursuing my writing career.

“I’ve had it with this little hobby of yours” he had declared that evening.

I had just returned from the grocery store and was putting a sack of groceries on the counter. “What are you talking about?” I had asked.

“You weren’t here when I got home, and now it’s six-thirty, and you haven’t even started supper. I’ve tried to be tolerant and indulge you, Lena, but I’ve reached my limit. Look at this place. It’s a mess. Enough is enough. From here on out, you’re going to stop all this writing nonsense and get your priorities back in order.”

His words had slapped my face as surely as an open palm. “But, I can’t stop writing,” I had protested. “My stories are the only things in my life that—”

“Your stories are gone,” Benjamin had interrupted. “While I was here by myself, wondering where you were, I was forced to take matters into my own hands.”

A shiver of fear had run up my spine. “What do you mean?”

“I’m saying that I’ve solved our problem. I deleted all your document files and shredded your paper copies. I cleared everything off the external hard drive, as well.”

“You what!”

“It’s for the best, Lena. I read a few pages. Believe me—it’s no great loss. You’re a housewife, not a writer.”

And that’s when the high-pitched screaming had started. Until then, I hadn’t realized the full range of my vocal chords. At least, I think I was the one doing the screaming. It’s possible that it might actually have been a character in my novel. It’s so hard to keep these things straight. Or perhaps it was that very sad-looking woman who keeps using my body without proper authorization or consent. I have a hunch she is the one I sometimes hear crying when I wake up at night. Maybe I should write a story about her.

Then again . . . maybe I already have.


An Unauthorized Likeness by Marla J. Mercer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.


Crowded Living Space
By: Norval Joe

"Come on, it's over this way," Dean said. He motioned for his cousin to follow, and ran forward, not waiting for a response. When he reached a bend in the passage, he turned to wait for the slower boy.
"Wait, Dean, let me rest a bit. No one is following us anyway." Bent over, his hands on his knees, he gasped for air.
"We don't know that Vance, my little brothers are sneaky and persistent. If you'd stop breathing so loud, I could listen for them, and know for sure." Dean stepped back down the dark hallway and listened. Vance tried to control his breathing. For the few seconds while there was silence, Dean confirmed that they were, in fact, alone.
They held their lanterns in front of themselves. While the light illuminated the ground at their feet for only a few yards, it was picked up by reflected by small sensors on the walls for almost 100 feet. "Three more sensors on the left and then we turn," Dean said.
"How can you be sure. I'm completely lost, and you think you know where you're going?" Vance was skeptical.
"Look, Vance, you just have to pay attention. How far was it from our apartment, to the lowest inhabited floor?"
"Umm. Six, I think. Was it six," he asked Dean?
"No," Dean said, incredulous. "It was eleven. Then how many floors did we descend until got to the long passage? Think about it, four flights of stairs for every floor, you should have been counting." He could see Vance wrinkle his brow and purse his lips in concentration.
"Ten?" Vance guessed.
"You have no idea, do you? Come on, you look rested enough." Dean walked down the hall, his lamp creating an island of light in the vast darkness. "We descended eighty four flights of stairs. That's twenty one more floors. Thirty two in all. At about twenty feet per story we've dropped 640 feet from our apartment and 420 below the last active air pump."
"Air pump. Now I get it," Vance said, and wiped sweat from his forehead. "Is that why it's so stuffy down here?
There aren't any air pumps working."
"Yeah. Where the people live they have to pump the air in to keep it fresh. Once, I tried to get to an opening on our level. I wanted to see the sky and breath outside, in the open air. I walked for almost a day, maybe in circles, but I never found a way out. Here is the next turn. Come on, in here."
They entered another passage. It ran a short distance, maybe 100 yards, and stopped at a heavy door.
"Be careful here," Dean said to Vance. "Here, take this chair leg and jam it in there when I open the door," Dean said and indicated the hinged side of the door. "It worked to hold the door open the last time I came through here, but it was tough doing it by myself."
Dean pulled back a large spring loaded bolt, held it with one hand, and pushed on the manual door release with the other. Years ago the door may have been operated electronically; prismatic sensors on the door and wall were evidence of past technology.
Dean pushed the door open and Vance wedged it like he was told. Wind from outside rushed past them blowing their hair and clothes, and trying to force the door shut again. There was just enough space through the open door for each boy to squeeze through and onto a narrow ledge.
Dean was smiling as he watched the other boy make his way out onto the ledge and look down. The shock and fear on his face was clear and Dean laughed out loud, and shouted at his cousin, "slide sideways over this way. There's a wider place to stand."
They moved along the narrow shelf to a broader landing where they could sit, comfortably, and catch their breath.
The outer wall of the building dropped away into darkness impenetrable to the light of the small lanterns. Only a few feet away, across the infinite drop, was another building. It had a similar landing to the one where they sat, and an open doorway.
"So is this what you wanted to show me? A ledge above a bottomless pit," Vance asked. "I mean, what can you see? All I can see is ways up to the side of the building and that other one over there."
"No, this isn't it. We're almost there, though. It's just through that door and way down at the end of the passage." Dean replied pointing at the rectangular shadow on the building opposite where they rested. He got to his feet, took a few running steps and jumped across the chasm.
"Are you crazy? What are you doing?" Vance cried at Dean.
"Come on, you wimp. You could step across that big a space if you didn't think about it. Let's go. We need to get back home sometime." Dean laid on the pressure.
They walked along the passage without talking for some time, then Vance said, "how many apartments do you think we've passed? And not a person in one of them."
Dean started calculating, "well, there are supposed to be around 8000 apartments on the floor we live on, and that's without crossing to other buildings on our same level. We've dropped 21 floors that are uninhabited, to where we crossed over to this one. If this building is anything like ours, that would be 42 floors total, so about 320,000 apartments. If you put 20 people in each of them, like we have at home, then you could house 6,400,000 people in the space we have walked."
"Huh," was all Vance could say.
"Hey, look ahead of you," Dean said.
"Why? All I can see is five feet in any direction with this cheep lantern," Vance said, then stopped, suddenly. "No, wait your right. What' that?"
Dean didn't answer. Instead he burst into a run, and shouted, "let's go."
They ran the rest of the distance to the open doorway at the far end of the passage where they burst through and fell gasping for breath on a landing similar to that at the opposite end.
Again, Dean watched the other's face as realization dawned on his cousin.
The sun was only slightly smaller in appearance to the great orange planet above them. The sun stood side by side with Jupiter as if pausing for a moment before passing behind the gas giant.
"Perfect," Dean said. "Last time I was here the sun was on the back side of the moon and all I could see was the planet. Let's wait for the full eclipse before we head back."
They ate crackers and protein slices they had brought with them and watched as the sun slipped slowly behind Jupiter. When the sun was completely hidden, Ganymede was cast into an eerie semi darkness, illuminated by the glow from the planet.
Narrow stairs climbed precariously up and down the cliff like exterior of the city building. Other buildings, like mountain peaks, rose from below, built upon the foundations, or even the backs, of other, more ancient structures.
"Come on, let's head back. Our mothers are probably worrying by now," Dean said. He got up and brushed cracker crumbs from his clothes. Vance followed and got to his feet as well.
"Dean, why don't we stay here? It's so crowded back home, with four families crammed into one apartment. Here we have plenty of space to move around, and the air is fresh. It doesn't need to be pumped; we can just leave the door open."
"There are only two problems," Dean said, heading back up the tunnel. "Food and water. We need both to live, and right now the only source of those is Uncle Rob. He's feeding all of our families."
There was a slope to the hallway they hadn't notice coming down. They were soon huffing as they hiked back up.
Between breaths, Dean suddenly said, matter of factly, "I saw one of the slaves."
"You did not, liar." Vance said, out of childish habit.
"I did. That time I was trying to find a way out on our level. It was carrying some packages for an old woman." Dean slowed to allow his companion to catch up.
"Was it ugly? I heard they're blue, I would kill it if I found one. For taking all our jobs. Well, for taking our parents jobs."
Dean shook his head. "It was kind of blue, but kind of grey too. Something to do with how they lived underground on Callista." He paused, then started again, "You're right. It's not fair that they come in here, get all the advantages of modern civilization, live with some rich old woman, and take all our jobs."
"But then we wouldn't get to have all the fun we do, if we weren't squeezed into the one small room together, would we?" Dean asked sarcastically.
They both laughed as they stepped through the door way onto the inner landing, between the two buildings. The laughter ended suddenly and they stood, stunned.
"Well, ok. I guess my brothers will have a little more space in the bedroom from now on," Dean said. "The door to our building is closed, and there's no way to open it from outside."


No karaoke for you! Bad wiring spells tone-deaf
By: Arlene Radasky


"Gracie? Where are we going tonight?" Josh's voice carried over the stunted walls of the warehouse like office.

"Oh no, you didn't invite him, did you Gracie?" Mary's stage whisper didn't carry as far but embarrassed me just a much.

"I couldn't help it, he overheard us talking at lunch. You know how much fun he said he had the last time he came with us," I responded in a muted grimace. "He invited himself."

I stood up, looked toward Josh's voice and saw him standing, no towering, over the half wall that separated us all like mice in a maze. He was at least six foot two and had a body of a tennis player. I always compared a lanky man's body to a tennis player's. I loved watching tennis and dreamed of meeting Andre Agassi and Roger Federer climbing the stairs of my apartment building. But Josh was a not a tennis player, his rangy dishwater blond hair hanging to his ears in disarray; he looked like the geek he was. His shirt pocket sported at least two pens and the black-rimmed glasses were not over his brown eyes, but slipped half way down his nose. And he wasn't coordinated. As a matter of fact, we all had learned to step out of his way when he was up walking. He invariably would catch his feet under a chair or even his own foot as he made his way to or from his cubicle.

"Tony's Bar and Grill," I said.

He disappeared. I shook my head as I again imagined him climbing into one of those little clown cars. How comfortable can he be all day long in the tiny cubicle of our office spaces? It was hard for me to stay put all day in our individual cell-like squares.

I heard Mary getting ready for our departure and reached into the bottom drawer for my sweater and purse.

Mary stood waiting in the entrance to my cubicle while I turned off my computer and straightened up tomorrow's work on my otherwise bare desk. Mary had pictures of all her nieces and nephews spread around the walls of her cubicle, a vase with a plastic rose, an tiny hour glass filled with sand from the Grand Canyon, a six inch Eiffel Tower and more that she arranged and rearranged everyday. She had been to the Grand Canyon last year and said when she held the Tower that she could imagine herself climbing its steps "all the way to the top to look over Paris someday".

"Why don't you at least bring in some pictures of your family?" she asked.

"I see them often enough, I don't need pictures," I said. I didn't want to explain that there was no family to have pictures of. My twin brother and I had been orphaned, farmed out to foster families, after our parents were killed by a drunk driver when we were ten. Then he got sick three years ago, just before I started work here, and died. I remembered him just fine. Anyway, there were no pictures of him that I knew of. The foster families we were with never took pictures.

"Come on, if we don't hurry, all the good seats will be taken," I said. We caught up with Josh at the elevator. "We can take a taxi and share the fare or the train, take an hour and still have to walk a mile," I said.

"Taxi," they both said at the same time.

The three of us squeezed into the backseat, me in the middle because my legs were shorter, and I told the driver where we were going.

Just after we got started, Josh's cell rang. We all had to squirm into yoga-like positions while he dug into his pocket. Finally retrieved, he opened his phone.

"Hello. No, Tamisha, don't do that. I'm sure she'll be fine. Just be sure there is water and food out for her and I'm sure she'll come out when I get home later. Okay. Thanks. I'll see you tomorrow."

What…did he have a wife hiding under the covers at home?

I looked at Mary and she shrugged.

"Do you need to go home?" I asked.

"No."

Brave Mary leaned forward and asked, "Well, who is Tamisha and who the heck is the water and food for?"

We didn't know what his situation was at home, but I knew I remembered him saying he wasn't married the last time he came out with our group. There was no way I would want to be out with him right now if he were.

"Tamisha is a neighbor. She lives in the apartment next to me."

The silence was deafening, even with all the traffic on the streets and the songs on the taxi radio with words I didn't understand.

Mary had not settled back into the seat yet and even found enough room to turn toward Josh. I squirmed as the little room I had between them seemed to grow smaller.

"Okay. Tamisha goes in and feeds Twinkie when I'm late. She loves my dogs, well, now my dog, and I'm hardly ever late so she told me to call her when I needed. I called her before we left."

Now it was my turn to ask. "Twinkie?"

"Yes, Twinkie. She's my miniature Dachshund. I had two but Burger died two weeks ago and Twinkie still misses him. She hides under my bed most of the day."

Oh my God. A rush of memories flooded my brain. My brother had a Dachshund. He said he wanted a pet and a small dog was perfect. His dog's name was Brandy. He said it was because she was the color of his favorite drink. She was five years old when she got cancer and died. He spent a small fortune, money he didn't have to spend on a dog, on her. But she died anyway. It was just months later that he was diagnosed. At that moment, I realized just how much I missed seeing that little dog. All the times I saw them together, before her illness, I remember him smiling.

On my left Mary said, "Oh, I hate those little wiener dogs. They look so weird. I mean, why are they so long? And so low to the ground? I don't like any dogs. I'm allergic."

Now I realized just how little I knew about Mary.

"I love them," I said. "Are you going to get another to keep Twinkie company?"

"I have my bid in with a family who has a litter of pups. They live near my sister. I have the pup picked out and he will be ready to pick up in two weeks, when he is two months old."

"Yuck. Puppy pee all over your carpet and chewed slippers is all you have to look forward to," said Mary.

Josh's arm lying on mine, in this crowded cab, did not seem so much an inconvenience any more. Actually, I kind of liked its pressure on mine.

The taxi pulled up to the curb in front of Tony's and we fell out of the back, one at a time, all reaching for our money. Paid, the driver took off, singing along with the song on his radio.

We found our table in the back, but with a fairly good view of the karaoke stage. Four others from our office were already there so we pulled up some empty chairs and joined them, Josh sitting next to me.

I loved karaoke. I don't know why, but even with my fear of standing in front of any one and talking, to the point of throwing up before any meeting I have to give a presentation at, karaoke did not scare me. I loved to sing. And here was a stage, shared with others like me, who knew we would not get the chance any other time to sing in front of a crowd. Perfect. So I came as often as I could.

The noise was loud enough that I had to lean toward Josh and asked, "Last time you came, you didn't sing. Are you going to tonight?"

He shook his head hair bouncing around his face, "No. I'm tone deaf. I can't sing. I actually can barely tell one song from another." His finger pushed his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose. "I can tell by the words, but if it is instrumental, I can't tell classical from jazz."

I stared at him. "Really?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am a part of a study. I've been to Harvard Medical School three times now. There is a doctor there, who wanted to find out how different our brains were. I get all wired up and then she records what happens when she plays music. And she asks me to sing. Afterwards, we have a good laugh. My singing is really bad."

"But then, why did you come here tonight?"

I think he blushed but it was hard to tell in that light.

"I want to get to know you better. And I thought it would be easier this way. I don't do well asking women out on dates."

"Oh… Me?"

"Yes. You. I like the way you smile and you are so nice to everyone in the office. Even Mary." He smiled and I could see his eyes crinkle. I loved it when men's eyes crinkle.

Suddenly I wanted to tell him everything. Everything that I had never told anyone in the office before. About my parents dying, about being raised by foster parents, about my brother's dog, Brandy dying and then my brother, Terry leaving me. I wanted to get him into a corner of a quiet place and open my heart. Why? Why? Because he loved Dachshunds and his eyes crinkled.

"My brother had a Dachshund, named Brandy, who died of cancer. Was that what Burger died from?"

"No, his kidneys shut down."

We were almost yelling when the crowd got quiet as the first karaoke singer started. It was Country Western night and a lot of teasing and cat-calls were expected at some of the songs that were going to be picked. All in fun. I smiled in anticipation.

It was my turn. I got up to the stage and made my request.

Two measures of music led into Ghost Riders in the Sky and I started singing.

An old cowboy went riding out one dark and windy day

Upon a ridge he rested as he went along his way

When all at once a mighty pack of brown-eyed dogs he saw

A-plowing through the ragged sky and up the cloudy draw



Their tongues hung in greetings and their tails wagged hello

He knew the respect they carried and their hot breath he could feel

A longing of love went through him as they thundered through the sky

And he saw the pups coming hard and he heard their yipping cry



Yippie yi Ohhhhh

Yippie yi yaaaaay

Ghost Dachshunds in the sky

Yippie yi Ohhhhh

Yippie yi Yaaaaay

Ghost Dachshunds in the sky

Yippie yi Ohhhhh

Yippie yi Yaaaaay


I heard laughter I had heard before. Looking over at our table, I saw Josh laughing and wiping his eyes. It was my brother Terry's laughter. The same from the belly laughter that I didn't hear often enough from him. Yes, I told myself. I don't care if he is tone deaf. I love his laughter. I want to get to know Josh much better and meet Twinkie.


The Pit
by: Mick Bordet


It had been a long day for Jim Sykes. Not only had he spent the last five hours with his mother, listening to her planning out the strategy for her entry into the World Cloutie Dumpling Championships, "they're to be held in Lochaber, this year, you know, James," she had told him at least a dozen times, but he had been volunteered to give his crotchety sister a lift back to her home in Auchterarder. If he didn't know her well enough, he might have thought she was so crabbit* because she had spent the last week with their mother, a kind, well-meaning old widow who threw herself into each new venture with a passion rarely seen in the over-eighties. Up until the recent announcement that the dumpling competition was to be held in Lochaber, practically on her doorstep, she had been knitting scarves for "the old folks", as she called everyone in her own generation. Now she had something with a challenge, a deadline and, most importantly, the opportunity to prove, once and for all, that she could out-bake Sadie MacIver and receive a trophy to prove it. Jim and his sister, Brenda, had sat patiently, listening to her admit that some arty-farty chef from one of the posh restaurants would probably win, but as long as she made it into a round higher than Sadie, she'd be happy.
Brenda always spent at least one week every year at her mother's house and had been doing so since their father died. It had started with her feeling she should be there for her mother on the anniversary of his funeral, but as the years went on, she found she enjoyed the company more and more. She was quite happy living alone with her two dogs and a goldfish for company most of the year, avoiding most human contact, but had to admit that she always looked forward to her annual trips North, even if she always came home with a new set of neuroses about her mother's latest infatuations.
"I may love them to bits," said Sykes as he waited at the junction to join the traffic speeding by on the A9 towards Perth, "but thank God I live on my own. If Janice had been that intense, I'd probably have strangled her long before she got the opportunity to leave me."
He was glad to be back on dual-carriageway after the last two and a half hours travelling under fifty around the highland roads. The scenery on the road to Lochaber was certainly more stunning and rugged than that on the East coast, but he was happy to exchange beauty for the chance to put his foot down and get moving again.
"Aw, damn it!" he cursed as he rounded a corner not much more than a mile further on to be confronted by a long tail-back of traffic. He tapped the screen of his satnav to work a way around the jam, which directed him to turn off onto a B road that would return him to the motorway on the other side of Perth. The new route took him back onto twisty country roads, through the village of Forteviot, where a line of cars had parked along his already narrow route. There was a group of people milling around in the middle of what had once been a field, but now looked like a cross between a construction site and a crime scene. His natural curiosity got the better of him and he parked his own car at the end of the line, locked it up and walked up to the gathering to see what was happening.
He was almost disappointed to see a sign announcing an open day for an archaeological dig that was taking place. That was not something he would expect to see drawing crowds like this, nor would it, in the past, have been of any interest to him. However, given his recent brushes with obscure ancient symbolism, he did now have a newly discovered interest in Scotland's distant past, so headed towards the middle of the group of people.
There he found a young man with rosy cheeks and wind-blown hair explaining the latest find to those gathered round him with an infectious enthusiasm.
"... and it is clear from the items found in the tomb here, that this was a man of some standing within the community, most likely a king. The effort required to move a slab as large as this," he said, pointing to a huge rectangular stone sitting to one side of the hole in the ground, "would not be undertaken lightly."
Sykes glanced at the huge rock, impressed with the feat of engineering required to move such a massive object, but more interested in the artefacts the man had mentioned lay within the tomb. Only after a few moments did it occur to him what he had just seen. He moved closer to the rock and adjusted his glasses to look at the detail. There, carved into the stone, were a set of familiar symbols. Now he wished he had known about this earlier and had seen the man's whole presentation.
"Excuse me," he said to the man, interrupting his talk,"but could you tell us about these symbols?"
"Well, they are a bit of a puzzle, I'll admit," the youth answered, "you see, those were carved on the inside of the tomb, but their location is such that they would have been scraped away when the rock was dragged into position. It seems that they were etched there only after the stone had been laid in place, so either these people had some way of raising and then lowering four tonnes of solid stone, or..."
Sykes finished the sentence for him, "... or someone was buried alive."


# # #

Alfrad thought back to the day it had all started, the day the stranger came to the village. His people had shown the man the same courtesy and hospitality that they had shown Alfrad eighty years earlier when it was he who was the stranger, looking for shelter from the biting rain. It was in their nature to welcome any such traveller or visitor on a quest and they saw nothing untoward in the new arrival. Within a day or two of his appearance, though, Alfrad started to notice that the man was constantly questioning people and most of the questions seemed to point back to him. Why was this person, whom he had never even seen before that day, so interested in his life?
Seeds of doubt had been sown amongst the people he considered to be his friends, his adopted family, even. Now they were asking him questions, clearly prompted by the stranger, about where he came from, why he had stayed here, so far from his own kin and, most telling, why it was that everybody knew him to be a visitor from an island far away, yet nobody had any memory of his arrival. He stalled the questions as best he could, but there was no good answer. How could he explain that he had been living amongst them for a dozen years before even the oldest of the elders had been born?
Over all the years he had lived in here, nobody had asked such things, indeed he didn't believe the thoughts had even occurred to them. He had felt like this was his home, had never been more at ease, comfortable and loved, but for the first time ever he had become an outsider.
A group of eight men, guided from the rear by the stranger, had grabbed him from his sleep that morning, binding his wrists and legs and preventing him from reaching any of the tools he owned that he could have used to protect himself.
The shallow pit was of his own devising; he had taught the villagers the stone-working skills necessary to dig and line it, ready for use as a multi-purpose store for the harvest over the winter months and as a water store over the dry summer. He had struggled for his life when they dragged him over and threw him in, then all had gone dark as his head hit the stone floor.
He regained consciousness as the huge slab was being pulled over him, waking in time to see the last inches of daylight being blocked out.
"Help me! Why are you doing this?" he shouted in desperation.
"You have tricked us for too long, daemon. Connor has shown us the truth of it. You never age, your skills in stone craft are unnatural and you talk of strange things, the like of which we have never heard.
Alfrad was stronger than most men, despite his narrow frame, but with his hands tied and the sheer weight of the massive stone slab, he was unable to stop them closing out the daylight forever. He had never cried before, his people rarely did, but now he wept. Not for himself, but for the experiences he would miss, for his friends, misled by some unknown evil or insatiable greed to betray him and for their future, for without his guidance and teaching, they would be subject to the same diseases, famines and hardships as every other un-developed clan in the area. Then at some point, when it was too late, they would realise their mistake and rue the day they had listened to the twisted words of a stranger over their friend and ally.
All that remained was for him to wait for the end, his mind drifting off as the oxygen in his tomb was used up. Productive to the last, he worked with a piece of quartz from beneath him to scratch out a message to his people. He left the symbol for his own clan and alongside that, the symbols that said simply, "Forgive them".



Notes:
*Crabbit - Scots word for grumpy

Great Hites 67

This week we have stories by:

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Eric M.
Marla J. Mercer
Norval Joe
and
Mick Bordet <--------- This week's Winner


Duck Headed Cane
Eric M.

He had come about an hour and a half before, and knocked on my door. He was obviously not rich, but he definitely did not look like he was selling magazines or anything either, so I opened the door. The first thing I noticed was his cane. It was apparently hand made out of a dark wood. It was not just some affectation either, judging from its well-worn appearance. The head was a duck, all shiny and made of brass, but it did not look like it had ever been polished. I would guess he had used it every day since he had gotten it. His clothes looked the same way. His khaki pants were worn but not shoddy, and his loafers were neither in fashion nor out of fashion. He told me his name, which did not ring a bell for me, but somehow he seemed really familiar. He asked politely if we could talk some place private. I did a quick check of him and judged him not to be a threat to me or my family, and suggested Lew's. Lew's is a corner bar about five years away from becoming a dive; just my kind of place. It was never full or loud like a kid's bar, but it had enough people around to prevent a robbery or God knows what.
I sat with the stranger at the bar for maybe half an hour exchanging pleasantries. I was doing my best not to let on that what he had told me at the door was the biggest bombshell to be dropped on me in my life. Well, I guess the second beer loosened my tongue enough, because that's about when I really got to talking. I found the more I talked, the more I had to say. I wanted the stranger to be able to relate to me for my own reasons, so I tried to pick words precisely.
So this is how it went, as much as I can remember, anyway.
I began by saying, "I had half expected the moment to come, but not like it did with you knocking at my door. You see, as an adoptee, much of one's own life is a mystery. It's not that I did not accept what I have always known as my family. My Mom is my Mom; just as she has always been, and Dad is still the same man I have known to be my father my whole life. But I had to expand . . . or, to say it better, augment my vocabulary. There was no epiphany type of moment, but instead I felt a subtle shift. It is like when you see in nature a rare, pure, sublime moment, like a perfect sunrise, or when you witness a hawk swoop in on a rabbit. A person is changed by these moments, whether we realize it or not."
I watched him to see if my words were affecting him, and he sat silently looking me straight in the eye. I continued.
"I had assumed my biological family was dead, or had no interest in me. I do not say this in a self-pitying way, nor did I feel that there was a void that needed to be filled. It was quite the opposite, actually. My life was always a full one, and the only family I had known raised me with love and structure. My folks split when I was a teenager, and while I did not understand it, I accepted it and moved on. I did vow that once I did find a mate, it would stick. And it has so far, and it will so long as we can help it."
He nodded, either approvingly, or maybe just to show he was still with me.
"When my brothers would do something stupid, I would think that I could not possibly be related in blood, but all siblings do that, right? I mean, I did not wish it to be true, though in reality, it was. Maybe there was a difference due to genetics, but I am pretty convinced that most genetic traits given by nature can be drawn over by the brushstrokes of nurture. You can still see them underneath, but only if you really look hard. I don't mean that if you have heart problems in your background that love will overcome them or any such sentimentality. What I mean is that I may be predisposed to something, say addictions. I may be more likely to get addicted to something, because there is the blood of addicts in my blood, but I may be raised in a house of moderation. Aren't I more likely to be a more moderate person because of the way I was raised? That's the question, isn't it? Can I escape my heritage? Or, can I take my heritage; my genetic predispositions if you will, and build upon them or away from them as I choose? Can I use that greatest gift of freewill to create my existence, rather than be bound by blood?"
I paused to gauge his reaction; to make sure I was not offending him, or hitting a nerve or anything. He said simply, "I do understand that. Are we predestined to follow our bloodlines?" When he said that, I knew he was still paying attention. I pressed on.
"At any rate, like I said, I had assumed my biological family was dead. It was not a spiteful assumption, but I suppose it could have been a defensive thing psychologically, you know? The other option was that they wanted nothing to do with me. Even that possibility did not affect me that I have ever been aware of. I did not feel unwanted, anyway, since, as I said, my first . . . uh . . . sorry, second family never left a doubt that I was fully part of it.
I learned that I have two sisters, and a half-brother somewhere. I talked to the woman who gave birth to me. I call her "Mama" now. I still call my Mom, well, Mom. That is all I have ever known her as. I think that she may have been a large part of the reason I never searched for my birth parents. Not because I thought she would object at all. She made sure I always was aware that I was adopted, and never said a bad thing about them. I didn't really ask, because perhaps to ask was to entertain the notion that I was, indeed, different from my family. I just wanted what we all want; to be a member of a loving family."
He looked deep in thought for a bit, and then asked me, "Have you always felt like you were loved?" I wondered if he was a shrink or something, but it seemed an earnest question, so I answered him equally earnestly. "Definitely."
He smiled at this, which I thought was odd. There was not a hint of malice, nor did I get any sense he was putting me on. I related to him how with a little prodding from my wife, we discovered my biological mother,
"I remember the call I made to Mama as if I just hung up. Let me back up a little bit first though. My wife and I had been seriously starting to think about having a family for a while. She started asking more in depth questions about my medical history, but I had no answers. I knew I was adopted in a private adoption, but that was the extent of my knowledge. She asked me if it was ok to put my information in a profile on an adoption website, and since I expected nothing to happen, I humored her and said to go for it. Three years went by, and nothing came of it. Then, the wife was surfing the net and came across my profile. She asked if she could update it, and I said sure. That was a Sunday.
Long story short, by Wednesday evening, a 'search angel' had picked up the trail and sent me an email with a name and phone number. Some time later - my wife said I stared at the screen for a few hours - the gears were turning, you know? Could this be my mother? Was it some kind of scam preying on adoptees? I said that if anyone asked for money, I would cease then and there. But no requests for money ever came. I went to bed that night, figuring that perhaps I would call in a week or two."
The stranger leaned in, literally on the edge of his seat.
"That morning, I woke up like a shot, knowing that I had to call that second. I did not dream of it or any storybook stuff, but I just had to call. Suddenly I needed this like I needed to eat. I called work and without giving too many details, told them what I was doing. Then I took a deep breath and dialed the number. The phone rang a while, and I was about to hang up, when a tired-sounding voice came on and said hello. I can't explain how I felt. It was like I could not breathe as I explained to the southern sounding woman why I was calling, how I got her number, and any other details I could think of. She listened to me without saying anything. When I was done, she said, 'I am sorry dear, I did not have a boy child then. I apologized for bothering her, and as we were hanging up, she said, 'wait a minute. What year did you say you were born?' I told her again, and she said, 'I thought you had said another date. I did have a boy-child then, and I did give him up for adoption.' Thoughts of a scam were creeping back into my mind. Years of living tend to make a bit of a skeptic out of a person, don't they? So my guard was up, but I listened.
This woman's next words were the kicker. They sealed the deal, and I knew then and there that this was not a scam. She spoke with such deep sadness, joy, and sweetness all at once as she softly said, 'I have waited thirty-six years for this call.' You see, she did not have to do the math, or count up from the year I was born. She knew the numbers as if she had spent each moment thinking of it. Actually, that is not truly how it felt to me. It felt as if the waiting was an integral part of her; the same way a person knows how many fingers he has without even looking at them. It was that kind of knowledge. You understand what I am getting at there?"
He looked at his hand - the one that he used on the cane like it was brand new and nodded knowingly. Then there was a long pause as the two of us took in everything. Actually, I was all talked out, pretty much. I would never have thought I would pour everything out to a complete stranger the way I did, and I told him so. We both stood up knowing we would not likely meet again, and we shook grateful hands.
He gave me a last once-over and said, "It has been a pleasure to meet you, and to hear how well you have done for yourself. I now know that I made the right choice. I certainly understand what you said about your mother not having to count years. I never have either. Please know that it was the most torturous decision I have ever made, but now I see it was worth it. Take care, son."
He walked out without his cane, and I am pretty sure he meant to. I am looking at it now as I write.


SITTING DUCK
by
Marla J. Mercer

Delores Hartley was seated on the couch, eating chocolates and reading one of her movie magazines. As she studied a photo of George Clooney, Delores patted her new blonde wig. The woman at the beauty shop had assured Delores that the wig made her look at least twenty years younger. Though it had been an expensive purchase, Delores had not hesitated to buy it. Her 59th birthday loomed on the horizon, and anything that could knock two-decades off her looks, seemed a bargain at any price.

Her husband, of course, had not agreed. “How many wigs does one woman need?” Carl had snapped at her when he saw the bill. “You only have one head. If you can’t stop buying everything you see, we’re going to end up in the poor house.”

Delores continued to study the picture of George Clooney. Hugging a velvet throw pillow to her chest, she slowly drifted into a wonderful daydream in which she had won a free prize to have lunch with Mister Clooney at a fabulous Hollywood restaurant.

Across the room, the doorbell rang, jarring Delores from her reverie. Startled, she struggled to her feet and smoothed the wrinkles from her blouse and slacks. She hurried to the mirror above the bureau and checked her makeup. An article in one of her magazines had mentioned that many leading ladies, including Julia Roberts and Sharon Stone, were once again wearing red lipstick. Delores had naturally followed suit and purchased several tubes of a shade called Very Cherry. Admiring the brightness of the color, she puckered her lips and made little kissing noises at her reflection.

The door bell rang again. Satisfied that her face was in order, Delores took off her reading glasses, placed them on the bureau, and headed for the door.

“Who is it?” she called.

“Gordon Gable. Ducks Unlimited.” The man’s voice sounded deep and resonant.

Delores reached the front door and stood on tiptoes to peer through the security peephole. A tall man in a suit stood on the front porch of her double-unit mobile home. He was holding a suitcase in one hand, and a cane in the other. He had pepper-gray hair and a dapper moustache. Distinguished was the word that came to Delores’s mind. Her heart skipped a beat.

“Who?” she repeated.

“Gordon Gable, regional representative for Ducks Unlimited.” He put down the suitcase and reached into the breast pocket of his jacket. “Here’s my badge.” He held a plastic card in front of the peephole for a brief second and then quickly returned the ID to his pocket.

“If I may have a moment of your time,” Gordon continued. “I’d like to show you our Fall catalog and tell you about some of the incredible specials we are offering this month.”

Delores’ feet were starting to ache from supporting her considerable weight on tiptoes. Her gold slippers, while quite stylish, offered nothing in the way of arch support. Wanting to get a better look at the caller, Delores unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door a few inches. Though it hardly seemed possible, the man on the front porch was even more handsome than she had first surmised through the peephole. She caught a whiff of his cologne and found it mildly intoxicating.

Gordon smiled at the sight of her and gave a little nod. “Good morning, Ma’am. Gordon Gable at your service. And you how are you doing on this beautiful sunny day with nary a cloud in the sky?”

Delores continued to stare. Unlike her husband, Carl, who wore old T-shirts and ratty pants and had no fashion sense whatsoever, Gordon Gable was positively debonair. His suit was neatly pressed. His shoes were shined to a high gloss. His hair was impeccable. And that cane—Delores had never met a man who carried a cane, let alone one whose handle was in the exotic shape of duck’s head. He looks just like a movie star, thought Delores.

“I’m doing just fine, thank you,” she replied in her sweetest voice. “What did you say the name of your company was?”

“Duck’s Unlimited,” Gordon replied. With his free hand, he gave one tip of his moustache a little twirl.

“I’ve never of heard of it,” said Delores. “Is it new?”

“New to your area, ma’am, but we’ve been doing business on the Eastern Seaboard for more than forty years. We specialize in ornamental ducks of all types. By any chance, have you ever summered in the Hamptons?”

Delores was at a loss for words. She nervously patted her wig. “No. I-I can’t say that I have,” she replied. “My husband and I don’t travel all that much.”

“Well, if you ever find yourself invited to the home of one of the big-money families who vacation in the Hamptons,” said Gordon, “you would discover a great many items from our catalog on display both inside and outside their mansion. Our products may be moderately priced, but they’re quite popular with the rich and famous. We count among our clients a long list of celebrities.”

“Celebrities?” Delores felt a rush of excitement. “Like who?”

“I’m not allowed to reveal the actual names of our clients,” said Gordon. “But let me just ask you this. Have you ever heard of Barbra Streisand?”

“Why, yes!” replied Delores. “Who hasn’t?”

“Well, she is but one of many, Missus . . . Missus. . .”

“Hartley. Delores Hartley.” She opened the door a little wider.

Gordon smiled and looked at her approvingly. “Missus Hartley, I can tell by your lovely appearance and pleasant manner that you are a very special woman—a woman of intelligence and refinement—a woman who can not be bamboozled by false compliments and a flashy sales pitch. So, I’m not even going to try. I know you’re too smart for that.”

Delores felt her cheeks flush with color. She looked coyly at her hands. “Well, if you say so.”

“Oh, I do,” said Gordon with conviction. “For example, not ten minutes ago, one of your neighbors here in the mobile home park paid full price for a beautiful yard display of a proud mother mallard with three ducklings in tow. Whereas in your case, I know you would never pay full price. You would force me to bargain—to sweeten the pot, so to speak. So let me just cut right to the chase and make you an offer. Missus Hartley, if you place an order this morning for that exact same item, I will throw in an additional three ducklings at absolutely no extra cost to you. That’s six ducklings for the price of three—a savings of over twenty-dollars.”

“Twenty dollars?” said Delores.

“Yes, ma’am. And I’ll tell you something else. We are currently running a thirty-percent-off sale on our entire line of bathroom ducks, including our winged soap dishes and our popular hollow-backs, which hold a standard box of facial tissue. Now here is an offer, I did not share with your less astute neighbor.” Gordon leaned in a little closer and spoke in a low, conspiratorial voice. “If you were to buy any two bathroom items, I will give you a complimentary duck nightlight, which comes with built-in darkness sensor. The light turns on all by itself. It’s completely automatic.”

Delores deeply inhaled the scent of his cologne. “Oh my,” said Delores. She patted her wig again.

“I have samples in my briefcase, and I’d be more than happy to help you determine the best color scheme for your bathroom” added Gordon. “Teal blue is our most popular shade, though Peking white is a close second.” He paused. “Missus Hartley, may I take the liberty of calling you by your given name? My great-uncle, Clark—Clark Gable— once told me that a gentleman should always ask permission before using a lady’s first name.”

Delores was dumbfounded. “Clark Gable is your uncle?” Even as she asked, she knew it must be true. She could clearly see the resemblance now, and the voice was so similar.

“My great-uncle,” Gordon gently corrected, “on my father’s side. As a child, I had the great pleasure of spending many a long hour with Uncle Clark, and I can tell you that he had a real eye for quality. I have no doubt that if he were alive today, he would be one of Ducks Unlimited’s biggest customers. Wouldn’t you like me to come inside and show you some of the many fabulous items from our Fall catalog?”

Delores hesitated. “I’d love to see them; I really would. It’s just . . . it’s just that I’m not sure if my husband is all that fond of ducks, and Carl tends to be a bit tight with his wallet.”

“I understand.” Gordon nodded sagely. “Which is why I am certain that your husband would be more than pleased with any purchase you made from our catalog. These are hard economic times, Delores. We all want a beautiful home, but who among of us can afford to spend a fortune on new furniture and carpeting? Thanks to Ducks Unlimited, though, you and your husband can completely revitalize your décor for practically nothing.”

Delores cocked her head to one side. “You mean like a makeover?”

“That is exactly what I mean,” Gordon replied. “A complete makeover for mere pennies. It’s all about the little touches—the tasteful accessories. In the same way that a beautiful scarf or a stylish belt can brighten up a tired-looking outfit, our line of duck products can bring a new and exciting look to your mobile home at a modest, affordable price. Let me ask you this? Are you completely happy with your current decorating scheme? Or are you ready for a something new, something chic?”

Delores glanced over her shoulder at the living room. Her furniture looked suddenly old and shabby. She frowned.

“Here’s what I see in your future,” said Gordon. “I see you throwing a party for your friends here at the mobile-home park. You’re wearing a beautiful gown, and basking in the glow as your guests shower you with compliments on your ceramic-duck lamps, your duck coasters, throw pillows, ashtrays, wall decorations—the whole nine yards.” He paused. “Sadly, I do see a friend or two sulking in the corner, too consumed with jealousy to offer praise. But that is their problem, Delores, not yours.”

In her mind’s eye, Delores savored the scene for a few long moments before finally asking, “Do you really sell a lamp that’s shaped like a duck?”

“We must certainly do. In fact, we carry three different styles—sitting, standing, and mid-flight. It’s your choice. You can mix and match. Did I mention that just for allowing me into your home for a short presentation, you will receive a free digital duck-watch that comes with a five-year money-back guarantee?”

Delores chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip. Faded red smudges of Very Cherry rubbed onto her front teeth. She wondered if Gordon had ever gone to Hollywood to visit his uncle. She’d never met anyone who had actually been there.

“Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to have a little peek at the catalog,” said Delores. “I get the digital watch even if I don’t buy anything, right?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am. The watch is absolutely free.”

“Then come on in and make yourself comfortable.” Delores opened the front door all the way and gestured for him to enter.

Gordon picked up his suitcase, tucked his cane beneath his arm and gave a little bow. “After you, young lady.”

With a girlish giggle, Delores patted her wig and headed for the living room.




Sitting Duck by Marla J. Mercer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.


The Odd Job.
By: Norval Joe

The blistering July sun beat down on Austin's head. He took off his old ball cap and rubbed his sweaty hair. He didn't know how long he would have to wait outside the apartment door. As far as he could tell, there was no one inside. Supposedly that wasn't his concern. If he waited lon enough, they would answer.
He looked at his watch for the hundredth time and counted back the minutes. He had been here for almost 15 minutes now.
"Quack quack," he said, tapping the cane's duck head handle on the door again. He turned the cane handle toward himself, its little duck beak on level with his own large nose. "Quack, quack," he said again, this time tapping the duck's beak on his nose.
He had been standing on his street corner swinging the large Pizza Palace sign when a car pulled up to him. A man got out of the passenger side and walked around the front of the car to speak with Austin. He was a small man with a dark complexion, not African , Indian, or Mexican, but dark. He had no hair on his head, but made up for it with eye brows, like giant furry caterpillars crawling across his forehead. He spoke without accent. "You're doing an admirable job, here, young man. You have a skill with that sign, unparalleled by any other sign waver in town. I was just telling my driver this very morning, 'I wouldn't think of eating pizza at any restaurant, other than the Pizza Palace. The sign wavers for Chicago Pub Pizza and Little Nero's are pitifully inept, when compared with the flare and panache displayed by the the Pizza Palace boy,' er, young man, rather."
Austin felt proud, initially, by the praise lavished upon him by this stranger, but soon became uncomfortable and embarrassed by the excessive compliments. He didn't know what panache was, and wasn't sure if the man wasn't belittling him.
However, when he showed Austin the one hundred dollar bill, his only concerns were how to get it and how he would spend it.
"It is a simple task that I ask," the little man said. "I need to pass a message to a friend that I am no longer able to visit. I miss my old companion and wish to return this token of affection that was bestowed on me, so many years ago." He held out a short wooden cane with a brass ducks head for a handle. "When will you be done with you work for the day," he asked Austin.
"Ummm. I'm done now, come to think of it." Austin said. All he could truly think of was getting the hundred dollars for such a simple task. He would have to wave his sign for hours to earn that much. He tried to do the math. $5 per hour for four hours would be twenty. And two days each week would be, 40. He couldn't get past that amount, because he had never been given that much before.
"Ok, what do you want me to do with the cane? Just give it to someone?" Austin asked, somewhat confused.
"That's right, young man. Deliver the cane to this address, written here on this slip of paper. When you have completed such a simple task, I will give you the $100 bill." The little man finished with a single nod, blinked his eyes rapidly and asked, "Is it a deal?"
Austin didn't think long before he said, "Sure. I can do that." He held out his hand for the cane.
The man didn't give him the cane, instead he said, "Come, I will give you a ride. It is quite a distance from here, and I wouldn't think of making you walk on a hot day like this."
Austin rode in the spacious back seat of the luxury car. The windows were tinted completely black, and were almost as difficult to see through from the inside as they were from out.
Austin walked most places; to the grocery store, the post office and to the Pizza Palace. Everything he needed was close by, except for Walmart. If he needed clothes or an item, other than food, he took the bus to Walmart. It was on the other side of town, and took almost two hours to get there by the busses circuitous route. He would make a day of it, starting early on Saturday morning. After he did his shopping, he would walk across the parking lot to Burger King and get a Whopper with cheese and a Dr. Pepper. He would get back home in just enough time to walk to the Pizza Palace and pick up his sign. His boss wasn't terribly concerned about what time Austin got to work as long as he was on the corner with his sign during the dinner rush.
This job was more difficult than he had imagined. It was hot on the porch and he had been waiting so long now. At least on his street corning there was a large tree that shaded him when the afternoon was at its hottest. He looked around for a tree, that was close, so that he could sit in the shade, waiting for the little man's friends to return.
He was at the bottom step from the porch, headed for a neighbors yard, when a car pulled into the driveway. The owner of this car hadn't done nearly as well as the man who had given him the cane. Their car wasn't new and shiny, but old, battered and rusted. Inside the car, sat a couple, older than the first man. They spoke together while they looked in Austin's direction.
He saw the couple look at him, so he raised the cane in the air and waved it at them, smiling. He expected them to get out of the car, come and take the cane and thank him gratefully for returning it to them. Instead, the woman spoke to the man. She shook her head while he yelled at her. He fired up the car, gunned the engine and roared out of the driveway, squealing tires as he rounded the corner at the end of the block.
Austin was distraught. He sat on the bottom step, no longer aware of the sun beating down on him. How was he to get the can to the little mans friends now? He hadn't pondered long when the black luxury car pulled to the curb. The little man stepped out and approached Austin. "You still have the cane, what on earth happened? I saw my old friends driving away down the street. Do you offend them?"
"No, I..." Austin began, but the older man cut him off.
"Never mind. I've lost my opportunity now, nothing can be done about it. You tried, and you failed." he said and took the cane from Austin.
He was nearly back to his car when Austin asked, "where is my money?"
The little man spun around. "Your money? Don't be absurd. The agreement was that you give my cane to my old freiend, and would give you the money. But you failed me. You've wasted my time. Why, I should charge you for the time I've lost. But, no. You did what you could. Here in enough to get home by bus." He pushed some crumpled dollar bills into Austins hands.
Austin stood on the sidewalk, stunned, as the older man got into the car and drove away.
The man turned to his driver and smiled, "That went better than I could have hoped for."

Hide and Seek
by: Mick Bordet

"Excuse me, Sir," said Mrs. Shaw, "the gentleman with the duck-headed cane is at the door asking to see you. He still won't tell me his name, I'm afraid."
"That's all right, Mrs Shaw, I don't think he ever will. Please show him in," said Sir Iain Pleasance.
"Very well, Sir," she said, leaving the office and returning a minute later, leading the un-named guest into the dark, wood-panelled room..
"Thank you, Mrs. Shaw," said Sir Iain, taking a seat behing the large mahogany pedestal desk positioned at the centre of the far wall.
"Good afternoon, Sir Iain," said the man as the elderly housekeeper left the room, closing the heavy oak door behind her. "I see you are still living the life of luxury afforded by your early years."
"You do know that I have retired, don't you?" Sir Iain said, ignoring the comment and folding his arms.
"I had heard as much, though you do know that there is no such thing as retirement in our line of work," the man said, sauntering over to the single window in the room to gaze out across the street outside. He didn't look at his host, as he expected no answer.
"Well now, I don't believe you've ever told me exactly what your line of work is, but my days as a detective are mere memories and newspaper clippings now."
"I was referring to your previous occupation, actually, Sir Iain. The univited guest to many's a society gathering, the steathly redistribution of wealth and the midnight outings dressed in black: in a word, the thief," the man said, turning to face Sir Iain, waiting for the response.
"Must we perfom this dance on every occasion you visit? You accuse me of a number of outrageous burglaries over the years of my youth when, I do admit, I was a man of leisure due to my inheritance. I respond that your claims are both preposterous and insulting, to which you assure me you have ample evidence that could be released to the relevant authorities. You then dangle some investigation in front of me that you know I would take on without any need for threats, veiled or otherwise, and for that you promise me a substantial sum of recompense for its successful completion. You bring the proceedings to an end by flourishing some last veiled threat of violence to back it all up," Sir Ian said.
The man rested his weight with both hands leaning on the head of his cane and smiled, "That is a fairly accurate summary of our normal conversations. Familiarity with the process puts you at your ease; you know what to expect."
"Ah, but you have surely forgotten one key piece of our last little chat: the one that left me stuck in the Amazon jungle for three months? I told you then that it would be the last piece of work I carried out for you."
"No, not forgotten, Sir Iain; far from it, in fact. That is why we have held back from approaching you about this matter for as long as we have. I think you will want to take this case on as a matter of professional pride, both as a detective and as the most successful cat burglar London has known, at least in my lifetime. Indeed, I don't believe threats will even be necessary on this occasion," said the man. He gave a sickly-grin that displayed his broken and bent, nicotine-stained teeth and raised his thick, forest-like eyebrows.
"You almost disappoint me by taking away the stick and leaving only the carrot. What could possibly tempt me back to a life of raiding rubbish bins, all-night surveillance and endless hours of research?"
The man nodded. He had set the bait, now he had only to let Sir Iain take the hook and the rest would sort itself out, he thought.
"Sir Iain," he said, pausing a moment for effect, "we have two problems. The first is an operative we believe to be a spy working directly to the SS in Berlin. We have reports that she has been seen in London and Washington, but the latest come from Glasgow. This gives us reason to believe she may be plotting some action against the shipyards, most likely gathering intelligence to pass back for bombing runs or submarine attacks."
"Okay, so far so very uninspiring. I see nothing significant compared to most other cases you have brought to me," said Sir Iain, "what is the second problem?"
"That's where we think you'll be interested. We don't necessarily want to stop her, capture or even kill her, but we do need to know if she is a threat and if there is any possibility of being able to feed her dummy information to cover our own covert plans in the future. You are the eleventh person we have asked to follow her and find her base of operations and what her mission is."
"It's nice to come at the top of your list," Sir Iain quipped.
"Your feelings were made perfectly clear on your last engagement, Sir Iain, so we have tried to put this meeting off. It was not anticipated that it would even be required, as we do now have an experienced team that are fully trained in covert operations, hidden surveillance and tracking. At least, we did. They are all either dead, missing or have no memory of their mission or its outcome. Ten men, some of the best in the country, all dispatched by a single woman in one way or another. We don't know how or why, but we need to find her and learn her plan," the man said. He had done his part, said his piece. He sat in the chair opposite Sir Iain and waited for the response.
The retired gentleman gave a long sigh and stood up, walked over to his drinks cabinet and poured himself a glass of dark, peaty whisky from an ornately-cut crystal decanter. He returned to his seat without offering a drink to his guest, took a slow, measured sip and held out his free hand to the visitor. The man pulled a beige folder from the inside of his thick, dark-grey coat and handed it to Sir Iain, who lay it on the desk in front of him and opened it out.
"Is this it? Where is the rest of the dossier?" he asked, looking in surprise at the two items within the folder.
"That is all we have, I'm afraid. The photograph is a little blurry, as you can see, but we have had some difficulty in obtaining visual evidence: film becomes overexposed or sections of the picture are missing in most of the surveillance we undertook. The paper lists all recorded sightings of her. As you can see, the majority of them are around the Partick area and of them, in many cases she was seen walking from the Clyde towards the North."
"And you've never tracked her to her destination?"
"Not for lack of trying, Sir Iain. On most occasions she was lost in the crowd or stepped behind cover and was not seen again. It would seem that the men who managed to stay on her trail were the ones who didn't make it back to report their findings," answered the man.
Sir Iain read through each entry in the list, placing them in his mind within the locations he knew in that particular part of Glasgow. He scrutinised the photograph again, but could find nothing unusual about the woman, apart from perhaps being a little taller than most of the other women in the background.
"It will be triple my usual fee," said Sir Iain, "and I will require copies of the full reports and all of the photographs, no matter how blurred they might be."
"Very well, I'll get them sent over to you this afternoon," said the man, rising from the chair and heading towards the door.

# # #

It seemed, from the detailed reports of the surveillance of the woman, that she was an expert. Sir Iain wasn't quite sure whether it was in burglary, hunting, spying or just hiding, but the descriptions given made it sound as though she had almost disappeared into thin air on more than one occasion. Though it appeared that she was a dangerous prey to track, he had developed a solid admiration for her skills and was looking forward to getting started. Until then, he had one more piece of research to undertake in order to build an understanding of this elusive lady.
One thing was certain; Ducky, as he had called the man since he first agreed to their occasional professional relationship almost ten years previously, was hiding something. That was not unusual, for the man with no name, who would not divulge who he worked for or even why he needed certain individuals tracked down. This time, Sir Iain's gut instinct was that there were key facts being twisted to ensure his assistance. He couldn't pin down whether it was the whole undercover spy story, the way she had given ten trained men, experts in surveillance and stealthy tracking, the slip so easily or the strange blurs visible on most of the pictures that had been taken of her.
That last peculiarity was one he could follow-up and so, armed with the pouch containing all the pictures his temporary employer had provided, Sir Iain had made the trip to Liverpool Street Station from his home in Highgate. From there it was a short walk down Broad Street until he arrived at the photographer's studio, located in a narrow alley.. He knew of nobody more skilled in photographic manipulation than the owner, Fred Mains. Several cases he had worked on before his retirement could not have been completed without Fred's eye for detail and ability to enlarge and adjust the content of photographs. He had found an individual face in a picture within a crowded theatre on one occasion and brightened an almost black image to a range of greys that let him pick out a wanted man on another.
"'Allo Squire, how you doing today. I ain't seen you round 'ere for months," said Fred no sooner than Sir Iain had stepped through the door.
"No, I'm a man of leisure now, retired almost a year ago, in fact," he answered.
"Ah, a lucky man, indeed. So, what brings you here today, then? A portrait to celebrate the next stage of your life, perhaps?"
"No, it's nothing like that, Fred. I'm not sure what I'm looking for, to be honest, but I wonder if you could take a look at these for me and tell me what you think?" said Sir Iain, pulling out the photographs and laying them out on the table.
The photographer switched on an adjustable lamp with an intense light that he brought down to the surface of the table and, in conjunction with a magnifying glass, started working his way through the pictures. One by one he scrutinised them, nodding occasionally to himself before moving onto the next.
"Most unusual, squire, I must say. They don't seem to have been over-exposed, though at first glance it looks that way, and the prints haven't been damaged or altered in any way I'm familiar with, yet there are definitely bits with missing detail. I would go so far as to say that I've never seen anything like it before. Except... Hang on just a minute, Squire, if you would," he said, excitement clear in his voice. He sped to the back of the studio and rifled through a set of drawers before pulling out a collection of photographs and setting them down on the table.
"These look rather old," said Sir Iain.
"They're pictures my old dad took, back when he was working in Dundee. His boss in them days did the photos of the Tay Bridge disaster, all the broken tracks and the damage to the structure. I still remember when he came home that night. Drained, he was, from the things he'd seen: a terrible accident, just terrible. Anyway, here's the one I was looking for. See that bit there? There's your blur, your over-exposure, or whatever the Hell it is. I've always put it down to something on the camera, but the exact same thing is on your pictures and not always in the same place. I can't explain it, Squire. What you've got there is the same as this picture, but why it is, I couldn't tell you."
Sir Iain looked at the picture from the previous century. It showed a view of some of the girders that had toppled into the river, sending over seventy train passengers to their deaths, trapped in carriages under the dark waters of the Tay. On close inspection, he recognised the same same blurred markings behind the debris.
"Have you got any more with the same marks?" he asked.
"No, Squire, I don't think so, at least, not as noticable as that one. I never had much call to look that closely, though. Help yourself."
Sir Iain started flicking through the photographs, looking for a repeat of the marks he was familiar with. What he found instead was more unexpected than he could have anticipated. It was a portrait of a woman holding a young child. He let out a gasp and returned to the pile of pictures he had brought with him, looking for the original image Ducky had left him, the one that showed her face, blurred though it was. Placed side-by-side, they appeared to be pictures of the same woman.
"When was this taken?" he asked.
Fred turned the picture over and read a series of numbers stamped on the rear of the photograph.
"1861, according to this," he said.
"Right, well I guess this isn't the same woman, then. Perhaps the old picture is of this one's mother; the resemblance is striking. Hold on. Look at that scar. It's not as clear on the later picture, but it is definitely there in both of them. These must be, what, over seventy years apart and yet it looks like the same woman, with little sign of aging apart from a grey hair or two. Thank you Fred, I have what I needed. Here you go," Sir Ian said, handing the photographer a ten pound note.
"Thank you, Squire, very generous of you. You be sure to come back for that portrait, now."
Sir Iain left the studio and headed home. He was ready to pack his things to make the trip to Glasgow, feeling that he knew more about this woman that he was supposed to, a position he liked to occupy when dealing with anybody as manipulative and devious as the man with the duck-headed cane.

# # #

For the first two weeks of his stay in Glasgow, he found no trace of the woman. Keeping to the area bounded by Crow Road, Byres Road and the Clyde that the previous reports had mentioned, he walked a different meandering route every day, starting to recognise the faces of many of the local people. He stopped to spend time in cafes most afternoons, chatting to women out walking with prams, old men meeting friends on the way to the bowling club and even children returning home from school. If he couldn't find her straight away, in his experience the next best thing was to start to integrate with the local community, to make contacts that could help him locate his target.
When he did eventually spot her, he followed from as far away as he could so that she wouldn't be aware of him, but lost sight of her near the university. In the following week he saw and followed her three times, each time losing her due to the distance between them. On every occasion, he had taken a note of the time and location, but there was no pattern to her appearances; though they were all in the same half square mile of the city, every time she was travelling in a different direction. Either she had an eclectic lifestyle, visiting people all over the city, or she was deliberately using different routes every day and Sir Iain was almost certain that it was the latter.
There followed a week when he didn't see her at all, though he did have a conversation with a newspaper-seller outside the factory on Norval Street who mentioned that she always bought a paper from him at some point during the day when she was around. According to him, she had said that she worked at the university and often travelled abroad, going away for weeks or months at a time. If she truly was a spy, as Ducky had claimed, that wasn't a bad cover story, Sir Iain thought. A day spent visiting every department at the university soon confirmed that she had never worked there in any position, from professor to cleaner.
He decided that the time had come to follow her in earnest. The next time he saw her, he kept much closer, determined not to fall for whatever tricks she had pulled on the men previously sent to follow her. At some point she must have seen him, for after ten minutes of walking she gave him the slip, entering a small shop from which she did not reappear. There was no sign of her inside and, according to the girl serving behind the counter, no way for any customer to leave the shop without going back through the main door or using the back door beside her. She assured him that nobody had even attempted to leave in that manner. The same game of hide and seek was played out over the week on another two occasions. He was becoming frustrated by it, the fact that she had noticed his presence despite all efforts to remain out of sight and that he hadn't even managed to get close enough to ask the questions he had for her. Not that he was supposed to be talking to her at all, but whilst she was, without doubt, covering something up, it didn't feel to him as though it was anything to do with spying.
His next approach was to sit with a map and revisit, on paper, the scenes of her sightings. He covered a street map of the area in markings, but it revealed nothing to him, as had been the case weeks before when he had been planning his routes. A thought struck him, at that point, and he picked out the positions on the map where he had followed her from. To those he marked the routes she took before disappearing in each case, at which point a pattern, albeit a very vague one, began to appear. All three routes radiated out away from a central point. He used a pen to draw lines extending from the routes and they all crossed within about a hundred yards of the subway station at Merkland Street.
"Well, just because she's walking around this area, doesn't mean she actually lives here," he said to himself.
With a central point to focus on, he spent more time around the station over the following days, familiarising himself with every nook and cranny, every side-street, alleyway, manhole and staircase in the area. He planned routes for moving from one place to the next without being seen. It was like preparing a magic show, setting up the sleight of hand, making the most of natural distractions and ensuring he could sink into the shadows at the slightest indication of her detecting him. Now he understood why Ducky needed him, it was his skill as a cat burglar that would make the difference here.
He found a suitable vantage point from which he could watch a substantial portion of the area around the station and settled down to wait. Two days later she appeared, walking from the South towards him, her gait smooth, but precise, flowing from step-to-step like a tiger. He sat, hidden, waiting for a sideways glance or pause in her stride that might indicate she had seen him, ready to slide out of view in the blink of an eye in the same way, he thought, that she had done to him. She walked straight past him, heading directly towards a wall behind the station, moving so quickly that he gripped his hands tight in anticipation that she would collide with it. Instead, a blank space appeared in the wall, seemingly from nowhere, and she stepped into it. A second later and the wall had returned to its former state as though nothing had happened. He jumped up and ran over to the wall, running his hands over it, searching for the hidden doorway, but there was nothing. It didn't matter, he knew her point of entry now to wherever it was she was going. He waited for two days for her to reappear, to try and find out more about her, wandering around the area, always keeping his eye on that wall. Exhaustion drove him to admit defeat in the end and he returned to his temporary lodgings on Great Western Road. Once there he called in what he had discovered.
"Thank you, Sir Iain, that has been a most valuable endeavour. You may return home. I will make arrangements for your account to be credited with your agreed fee. Thank you," the man on the end of the phone said, then hung up.
He would have liked to have asked him about the woman and her ability to defy the onslaught of time, but he knew well enough not to ask questions. The man, Ducky, had a lot of money to throw around, the sort of money that only comes with a degree of power. Sir Iain knew that power of that nature could make people disappear. He was intrigued by the woman, but his taste for adventure did not extend as far as winding up people that could dispose of him without a thought. He never heard from the man again.

# # #

The team of men had been working on breaking through the wall for days with no success. Their tools either broke or simly wore down; whatever the wall was made of, it was no normal brick. Over night, the man with the duck-headed cane would sit outside it and wait, hoping that the woman would appear and reveal her secrets. He knew she had many, probably more that he could even comprehend. After weeks had gone by with no breakthrough and no sign of the woman, the decision had finally been taken. The explosives had been laid, sunk into the ground beside the wall. The crew of men working on the wall kept their distance, waiting behind shelter about twenty yeards away. The man had told one of them to sound the alarm at the appropriate time. He looked at his watch.
"3, 2, 1," he counted down. The alarm sounded, the plaintive wail of the air raid siren, echoing around the tennements. "Give it a minute or two, " he whispered to himself, "this has got to seem real."
He took to cover, about one hundred yards away from the wall and waited, watching the lights go out across the city in front of him and listening to people running for shelter from the planes they thought were approaching.
The explosives expert had assured him that the blast would be small and that the destructive force would be directed towards the wall and the ground below. "It would be safe to stand within ten yards of it when it goes off", he had said, "but we'll leave twenty to be extra safe."
When the explosion was triggered, not one of them was left alive. The radius of the blast was over fifty yards, more than five times what had been expected. The man wandered over to the smoking pit that was left behind and looked in. It looked like a volcano had erupted in the street, with debris lying everywhere and a crater at least thirty yards from one side to the other.
"Idiots," he said, though none were left alive to hear him, "they must have used too much. Whatever was in there is gone now."
He shook his head and sighed.
The man with the duck-headed cane turned and walked away, into the darkness.