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Murder at the Folk Festival - II
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Subject: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Peter T. Date: 28 Jul 01 - 09:16 AM Someone's life hangs by a new thread.... |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Peter T. Date: 28 Jul 01 - 10:18 AM We were still 24 hours from Tulsa, or at any rate the Folk Festival main stage, and apart from strolling up and down the street, quaffing some brew with Obannion the cop, pulling knives out of superannuated folkies like Ned Loonbucket, chatting with Arab oil brokers, swapping stock tips with Cosmo Tepperman, and a few other charming characters, I was still looking at my client, refurbished anorexic folk diva Condolezza Schwartz with a big bullseye painted on her fading front. Unless it was all a big scam. Maybe they had set it up so that the press would make something of it -- "Folkie Under Threat of Death Still Plays On" -- I wouldn't put it past Tepperman. Except that the knife was a bit of a sticking point. Anyway, Lucky and I had barely made it out onto the street, with our Hardy Boys detective handbook under our arms, and a bounce in our steps, when a stretch limo pulls up. A different stretch limo. It was not a big town, I began to wonder if there was enough turning room in this burg for all the stretch limos that seemed to be arriving. Maybe they would have to rent another town for the weekend. The tinted window in the back rolls down, and an elegantly coiffed lady in an oh so subdued cream suit and a Lady Rolex on her tanned arm says: "Blake. It is you. I knew it would be." There is a story that a guy went on a round the world sailing trip in a oneman craft so as to get away from a woman, and somewhere in the Timors he stopped for an hour in a dockside bar to buy fruit and he got back into his boat and about three days later he unwrapped a bunch of bananas, and while he was chewing on a banana he happened to look down at the crumpled piece of newspaper that the bananas had been wrapped in, and there staring up at him was a notice that the woman had married someone else in St. George's Chapel, London, etc., etc. His boat was found bobbing around some months later. To tell you the truth, I hadn't gone anywhere, nor was I eating a banana, but you get the idea. "Hi Sherry. Long time. How's Florida?" She smiled wanly. "I figure it was about $20,000 an overseas ballot by the time the dust settled, Blake. It staked me to Paris, and we bid farewell quite amicably." "What brings you to our fair town once more?" She looked at me in the old way. "Who's your lady friend?" Lucky had meanwhile been checking out whether the clouds today were nimbus, cirrus, or cumulonimbus. "Lucky Day, this is an old friend of mine, Sherry Aims." Get the order right, etiquette fans. They shook hands. No conversation ensued. I segued deftly: "So, Sherry, what brings you to our fair town once more?" "Cosmo Tepperman, who has connections to our mutual friend in Florida, suggested that I might come and check out some business, that's all, and take in some music. We brought a picnic lunch and everything!" She waved a bottle of a modest Alsatian Riesling that would have paid off the Uruguyan deficit. "We?" I said. She gestured back towards the other side of the limo. I got a glimpse of a cowboy hat and boots. "This is a companion of mine, kind of a trail boss." There was an appreciative chuckle from beside her. "Blake Madison, Trail Mix." I reached in and shook hands with whoever he was. There was a ring from a cellphone. "Well," said Sherry, "Must go. That's Singapore. See you at the frailing competition or whatever." And she rolled up the window, and the limo purred away. There was a long silent pause. Then I said," You know what is wrong with this town?" "What?" said Lucky. "There aren't enough stray animals. When you want a stray animal to kick, zero." "Oh," she said, "I'm sure you'll find something." |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: katlaughing Date: 28 Jul 01 - 11:03 AM (AH! Sherry rides, again!! Bravo! LOL!) |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Amos Date: 28 Jul 01 - 11:29 AM Part I of this cliff hanger is over here. |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Jack the Sailor Date: 28 Jul 01 - 01:29 PM Prejudiced people are a very bad thing If only they would learn to sing Songs of joy and love their neighbours They wouldn't have to move to the sub urbs!
As I went down town to collect my royalty
Ba ba bop pa
Copyright 2K+1 Pepsi, we're cooler than Coke!!!
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Jack the Sailor Date: 28 Jul 01 - 03:21 PM Union is Good
A working man is proud to say
There's power in a union
Ba ba ba pa Bawly Brigg, From the album "See, I Told Ya We Have a Heart" Pepsi/Folksi Records, Copyright now and forever, even more rights than the first one. |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Amos Date: 28 Jul 01 - 07:45 PM Lucky and I went back to the greasy spoon where Flo worked and they greeted each other like they had survived the Battle of the Bulge together. The coffee shop was quiet, but a guy in one of the booths was pumping nickels into the little table-top Wurlitzer extension box at he end of his booth, and pretty soon, we both flinched over our hamburgers. The voice that came out of the main speakers of the Wurlitzer was unmistakeably that of Condolezza Schwartz. The facade of her music was very much like the facade her plastic surgeon had provided. Not exactly ugly, but a little off-true, with a faintly Cyborgian look to it. She was singing one I hadn't heard before, which made me wonder how lucky I was not to have heard how many others. The men who understand me are so fewwwwww
Lucky and Flo were chatting shop and yukking it up and I needed to find my way to the gent's. I walked down the booths, and as I passed the one with the Schwartz fan in it I almost stopped in my tracks. I had seen the guy before -- shoulders like sugar-cured hams and a hairline on violent retreat, long sideburns and the rest shoulder-length, tied back in a ponytail of gray grease and white protest, thick cheap shades and a cauliflower nose. It was the cheif roady who had been leading the procession the night Lucky and I got claimjumped. He was staring at a photograph of Condolezza Schwartz, on the table in front of him. I saw the snapshot clearly for a second as I strode by his booth. It was recent, maybe the last couple of weeks even. He didn't look up. He was sipping black coffee from one of the cheap Navy-style mugs they use in dives like Flo's. He was holding it in his left hand. |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: CarolC Date: 28 Jul 01 - 11:23 PM The small woman with the dark hair faced the bow of the yacht. Her back was to the cabin and she was gazing off into the vast turquiose horizon. The island of Bermuda sat like a pink and white jewel just on the edge of it. They would be there within a few hours.
She turned to Flim Flam and said, "You know, I spent years extricating myself from my complicated past. I thought I had gotten free of it. I thought I could carve out a little niche for myself where I could just be who I wanted to be and avoid the politics of obligation. Maybe that was a silly notion. I don't know."
Flim Flam looked at her. She could tell that he understood. "So what did you do?" he asked.
"Well, you know about my uncle Philip... the lawyer? I sent him all of the information I gathered and he's keeping it safe for me." she said.
"But what if his office gets ransacked, like what happened to that waitress?" asked Flim Flam.
"He thought of that." she said. "He's not keeping it in his office. He's got it in several secure locations. He knows his stuff."
Flim Flam nodded. He looked off into the distance. "So what's next?" he said.
"I don't know. Just play things by ear, I guess. Oh, look... there's a Tern. We must be getting close. The air feels like velvet, don't you think?" And they watched as the little jewel in the distance glowed in the warm, gentle rays of the setting sun. |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Peter T. Date: 29 Jul 01 - 09:21 AM I had a thought. I turned and went back to the booth. "Excuse me, don't mean to intrude," I said to the Visigoth. "Is that a recent picture of Condolezza Schwartz in concert?" "Oh, " he said in the voice of a lovestruck swain, "Yes, it is a kind of talisman of mine. I take pictures of her at all her concerts. I am tracing the subtle evolution of her music and her earthly form together. I think the one can enrich the other, don't you agree?" "I have always been more of a Cartesian, I must admit, but I can certainly see how the possibility of physical change could influence the mind, for instance the fact that women who get breast enlargements seems to make them even stupider, if such is possible. But the body-mind problem aside, you wouldn't happen to have a picture of Condolezza Playing on the night of the recent attack, would you?" "Wasn't that atrocious? What kind of a monster would do such a thing? If I found him, I would give him a stern talking to. Some people!" And he shook his Visigothic head in despair at our times. "But yes, of course, I do have such a picture. Here --" He reached down into his cycle bag, riffed aside assorted stashes and what looked like release papers from prisons across North America, and pulled out a pink embossed photo album that had "Condolezza: Her Pictures" swathed across the cover in what could only be needlepoint. He flipped through it, and then held it up. "There. That was about 30 seconds before the horrible moment. After that I was too distraught to take any pictures. Goodness what an evening." I took a look at it. It said nothing to me. "Friend," I said, sitting down. "Malcolm," he said gruffly. "Malcolm Dupont III." "Blake Madison. Pleased to make your acquaintance. The fact is that I have been hired as Ms. Schwartz' bodyguard for her concert tomorrow night --" I showed him my detective licence -- "to prevent a replay or, dare I say it, worse" (Malcolm shuddered and put his greasy head in his big hands, studded with carbuncle rings, and skull tattoos on every knuckle). There has already been one murder in this case, and I am trying to avoid another." Malcolm looked up at me, with sad pleading in his eyes. "What can anyone do, it is such a terrible time. No one seems to care any more, we lack what Robert Bellah calls the habits of the heart, the civic fibre that enabled our forebears to stand at Lexington and Concord as one. Have you been out on the roads recently? No manners at all. Common courtesy, even among sojourners travelling together across this great land seems to have fled." "I couldn't agree more, Malcolm, but there is one thing you could do, if you would?" He was very eager. "All I need to do is borrow that photograph for about an hour. I promise to bring it back to you unscathed." He hesitated for a moment, it was obviously a prize; but then he looked at me very seriously and handed it over. He said: "I have only just met you, yet I believe that you are trustworthy." I thanked him, told him I was, told him would be back within the hour, went over to the stack of newspapers to check on whether the Cubbies had won the World Series yet, and finding that it still was not so, went over to Lucky. "Lucky, this is a folk music festival. You must have a bunch of folk music experts or a music store in town where I could go to tap into some basic information, yes?" She looked at me, the junior detective look coming into her eyes: "Damn, Blake, what's up, I have to work, damn it, but you better tell me what's up." "I'll keep you fully informed, Nancy, but I haven't got anything, I am just snooping, getting some background." "O.K. Well there are two stores: Ralph's Music Store, which is a ripoff joint, the man never saw a retail price he didn't like; and there is "Fretloose" which is the real thing. Down three blocks, turn right, beat up store." "Thanks, Lucky, be back soon. Oh, and you see that Neanderthal thug in Booth 4? Send him a beer on me." She looked at me quizzically, and shrugged. I went out. |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Amos Date: 29 Jul 01 - 10:35 AM [Jeeze, this is hard work. Every time I elect a villain, Jen or PT come along and turn him into a human being again!! What's a ham-fisted hack tuh do?!!! Cosmo Grease turns out to be looking for a date and mourning his uncle, and now the cheif roadie is an infatuated intelligentsia misfit!! Oy!!! Tough serves! ] A |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Peter T. Date: 29 Jul 01 - 11:53 AM So I go into Fretloose, and the place is battered, but meticulous, with guitars and banjos and mandolins and who knows what all lining the walls, and a scattered array of noodling nurds plonking away, and one upping each other, as far as I can tell. I wander around for a few moments like I am in the market, and start listening in to a conversation between the owner and some loser who seems to have been screwed, and is now having to be talked off the wall: -- "But it must be worth more than that! It says Martin right here, and we looked at the catalogue on the Net, and it says that one of these babies from the 60s is worth way more." He was a suburban rube, with the complete Eddie Bauer catalogue draped over his fleshy body. "Well, I'm sorry. How much did you give him for it?" "He owed me 1000 bucks, said it was a steal, but he had no cash. He said I could turn it right around. I would have thought you people would know what a Martin is worth." The owner was very quiet, and polite, and laidback. He said: "Here, let me show you." And took the guitar. "It is a Martin, no question, 1963, I guess. But someone not too long ago had the top all refinished to make it all nice and shiny and new. It is about as dead as dead can be. The sound might reemerge in 20 years if you work at it." He flipped it over. "You see these cracks? The same eager beaver took some Crazy Glue and filled in these cracks. If it wasn't already dead, that killed it. You can take it somewhere else, be my guest. They will tell you the same, if they know anything." There was a moment of silence. Mr. Burbs breathed heavily, snatched his guitar, and walked out of the store cursing many relatives. I said: "Another satisfied customer." The owner shrugged, and replied: "He'll probably find some even bigger idiot who'll buy it just because of the name. It's crazy." I said: "Like all those people who bought GM cars in the 1980s." He laughed, and said, "Yeah, people like me." "Well," I continued, "The only thing I know about guitars is that I once had a plastic Roy Roger ukelele when I was 4. So I was wondering if you could help me." I explained who I was, and what I was doing, and when I mentioned Condolezza Schwartz his eyes rolled skyward, and I flipped him the picture. "This was taken about 30 seconds before a big knife went into it, a few inches from the lady in question. Can you tell me anything about it." The guy looked at it for about a tenth of a second, and he went pale. "You are kidding me? Shit, a knife? Where?" I pointed out roughly where I remembered the scar she had showed me on the first day she walked into my office. He looked at it for a second longer, and shook his head. "I would have to look at it, but you remember the guy who was in here a second ago with the bum Martin --" "Yes," I said, "What is this Martin thing anyway?" "Long story. Company name, had its ups and downs, but the gold standard. Anyway, the guitar she has in her hands is partly what it is based on. She has a 39 D-28 in her hands. D for Dreadnought, for big sound, you see the shape, and this little herringbone trim you can just make out, neck a little narrower than the earlier ones. Depending on the condition, it is worth, or I guess was worth, a lot. The Pre-wars are like Microsoft stock in 1993. Do you know if she has had any work done on it since the event?" I didn't know. I would ask her. "It might be partly salvageable. Terrible thing to happen." He shook his head. Customers were begining to pile up. "Thanks for your time," I said. "Two last questions. One, while working through the records of a company I am interested in, international speculator, oil, commodities of various kinds, I was looking for anything that connected to folk music, and I ran across something called Rosewood Musical Forests Inc. Would that mean anything to you? Brazilian company. He looked at me and said: "You sure do make a guy's day. Brazilian Rosewood was the wood for the guitar you are talking about, plus Adirondack spruce. Like elephant ivory, you dig?" I dug. "Last question. Anyone around here know anything about the history of the 60's folk boom, and before. I need a little fast history." "Sure," he said. " I'll be gone but come back around 5. Jeremiah will be here. Jeremiah Thorn. You two will get a kick out of each other." He shook his head, and went on with his morning. When I left, he was happily chatting to a couple of Japanese tourists who were testing their "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" skills on a couple of banjos. Strange world.
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Amos Date: 29 Jul 01 - 12:35 PM [Rosewood Musical Forests!!!??? Japanese playing Foggy Mountain?? PT you crack me up, man!!!! ***Applause****] |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: CarolC Date: 29 Jul 01 - 07:50 PM The pair sat at the edge of the water. Warmed by the sun from behind and cooled by the gentle waves washing over their bare legs, they watched schools of little fish darting about in the shallows.
"Flim Flam," said the woman, "I think I could stay right here for just about ever. Too bad they don't have waiters on this beach, though. I could use a drink."
Flim Flam nodded and smiled. "Yeah. Some tea would be nice, too." He thought for a bit, and then his expression grew pensive. He looked at the woman and said, "I'm worried about Giovanni. What have you done to protect him and your other close family members?
"Giovanni?" she said. She smiled. "You know, he turns eighteen today. He's a good son." She thought about the bright future she could see stretching before him. "He has so much potential. He'll bring good things into this world." Her expression turned serious. "If anything happens to any of my family members or anyone I care about, Uncle Philip or one of his associates will release the information to the authorities." She swirled the water with her toes, and the little fish darted away, a hundred little flashes of silver catching the sun in one synchronized movement. |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: GUEST,Agathafan Date: 29 Jul 01 - 09:49 PM More. We need more about the little dark haired woman and her near-mute friend. Does she jump into the water? Does Flim Flam save her? Does Uncle Phil go to the Feds? Is she on mind expanding drugs? Does she read Kafka? Love these threads people, keep it up. Agathafan |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: JenEllen Date: 30 Jul 01 - 12:14 AM The world is one crazy carousel, boys and girls. And all of the 'ifs' a guy finds are jeweled steeds going up and down and traveling in that endless circle....Shit, what am I saying, you ask? Well, right now, if I laid all of the 'shouldas, wouldas, and couldas' end to end - I could walk on 'em from here to Tuskeegee and never touch the ground. I left the diner without a thought. No thought to why, after Billy had given Lucky the weekend off, she'd be going to 'work'. And no thought as to why I'd left her buying a beer for a guy that had roughed her up and left her hog-tied in a broom closet. The sun was shining, and Blake Madison was on the case. The story I got from Flo was that Lucky had indeed gone and taken a beer over to the smitten neanderthal. He took one look at her, and recognized her as the woman who'd so very recently made an attempt on the life of Condolezza Schwartz by dropping through the roof of the Flatiron building during the scheduling meeting with Afteh Whoom. Flo managed to calm the guy down enough for Lucky to explain, but it was rough going, the guy wasn't buying much of it. Lucky turned on the old charm, and the two of them left together to go somewhere and talk it out privately. And yours truly, taking a break from pounding the sidewalks, entered the Keg'n'Cork that afternoon to a hangman's welcome. Tracy explained to me that Obannion had already come by with the news. A witness on the cross-town 409, one Cosmo Loonbucket, saw the limo ahead of them at the intersection at 9th and Walnut, swerve towards the curb. The busdriver took to the left, just as a figure in a yellow daisy sundress 'jumped' from the rear drivers-side door of the limo, and wound up as ground chuck under a greyhound. Obannion had his witness, and Loonbucket had told him where Lucky worked. Billy had identified what was Lucky's remains by the blood-stained sundress, and this case now had two occupants in the county morgue. |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Amos Date: 30 Jul 01 - 02:57 AM [Oh noooooooooooo Mistress Hands!! Not LUCKY!!!] [I know Im not gonna sleep tonight.] |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Peter T. Date: 30 Jul 01 - 09:39 AM People have been confused about hell for a long time, partly because it is supposed to be all flames, but at the centre of his hell Dante has the worst offenders stuck in a lake of ice, because they are immobile in their resistance to the pull of the divine, and then there all all these last judgments and Rodin's Gates of Hell, and it is all a writhing mass of who knows. But one of today's hells is the corridor in a hospital, bodies in various stages of disarray and tubing and helplessness. It has something to do with hell as technology, hell as bureaucracy and pain together. And there is another hell. You go down into a basement, and it is white and cold, and clammy, and they roll you in and out of cabinets marked DEAD-DEAD. There was no reason for me to go there, except that it was all my fault. I had got her into this one, and it was all a lot of fun, and yet there was always Mr. Grin out there waiting. They left me alone with what there was of her. It was good of them. It was quiet. We had a good talk. I told her how happy I was with her, and just to say how much I liked the way she laughed so openly, like most other people just breathe, something that was hard for me. And then I went on to say how much I loved her, how I guess I had for a long time, and that it was a blessing that we had finally had this chance to talk it out together, so few people get that chance the way life goes, the chance to say to each other what is in their hearts. I was happy that we hadn't left it too late. And I went out, and went into the nearest bathroom, and smashed my hand over and over again in the mirror over the sink until they came and made me stop.
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Amos Date: 30 Jul 01 - 12:24 PM I started to re-contact the physical in a goddamned hospital room, my veins full of Percodan, my broken heart full of endless rue. I went back to the bubble of mind's protection, half opiate and half self-distilled denial, unwilling to return to the window opening on to that bitter world where Lucky's fleshly remnants lay in a cold-storage case five stories below me. I could not have it; I would not have it; I shunned the guilt and the loss and the betrayal of the human soul that was balled up in that crushed carcass that had once housed so much daylight. I wept in my sleep, and half-slept, weeping again, and slept through my own weeping, and sought desperately for another window, something opening onto some other kind of world. But the place I was in was a trashy two-bit kind of place, dark, dank and cheap; and there was only one window, through which I would not look in my madness. The body was too far off like to make any of my thoughts appear in any world you would call real. But where they mattered, they were real enough to drive you insane, and for a very long time, it seemed to me, that was not such a bad option. If it hadn't have been for the tranqs dripping into my blood-flow I cannot say what I would have done. It would have been very, very ugly. |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Amos Date: 30 Jul 01 - 04:17 PM "Losing it all is just another word for freedom, Blake. And it ain't half bad, I can tell ya!" Lucky whispered. I jerked my head from my soppoing pillow and stared around the darkened room as though I were looking for a burglar in the velvet night. "Lucky?? Where are you? What the hell is going on?????" "Relax, big fella. The case must go on. I see it so clearly now. You're gonna do fine. I'd love to come along, andhelp out. You have no idea how ghelpful I can be from here! But it seems I have other fish calling for frying.... Just wanted you to know it's okay, baby!!! I'm okay!! You are, too" "Lucky!! Lucky??? I'm so sorry I took my eye ooff the ball, I don't know what I was thinking -- I really fucked up, babe. I wanted you to know...." "As it happens, old pal. you did just right. I can't explain, exactly, but... well, this piece of the script was what I wrote, honey, and you played it exactly right. Don't worry about a thing...." "But....hey!!! Lucky!!! What the hell kind of a script izzat??? Huh??? I was supposed to protect you!!! And I didn't!!! I was really dumb!!!!">p>"Ya gonna learn what ya gonna learn, babe. 'S okay with me if you want to pay more attention to business in the future. But don't kick yourself around on my account. I'm doing fine, just now, and I think I know why I wrote it going down this way. Oh... and by the way.... I heard that discussion we had dowbn in the cold room. I love you too, Blake. Always have. Always will... I just didn't want to swell your head up, you big baboon. Too late to worry about that now. Gotta go... get back to work, ya bum!!! See ya next time!!! So long, Blake....." I sat up shaking my head, grabbing for eyesight and plunging through the window I had refused to think about, slamming into 'real" time. I looked at my watch, which someone had left on me wrist. Ity was five thirty. I was late for a date at the Fretloose and the concert was only hours away. I grabbed a bell pull on a string next to my bed and started pumping it and an overplump red-facxed woman in a white costume left over from a John Wayne does Iwo Jima flick scuttled through the doorway. She made it clear she was about as interested in releasing me as she was in gettong elected at the next Sons of Arabia Chapter Meeting. I told her I understood and really appreciated the care I was getting. She went back to the National Enquirer at the nurse's station. I slipped my shoes out of the closet and I stepped into the bathroom and slipped the flip-lock into the next room down the hall. They hadn't bothered to steal my clothes. The next room was empty, and it was only a few strides from the door down to the fire escape and I was hospital history. I headed for the Fretloose, wondering what the hell I had just seen, and not caring much whether it was 'real" or not.
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Amos Date: 30 Jul 01 - 11:03 PM By seven, I was on the street again. And I wasn't letting the world blow sunshine down my neck. I had learned a lot from Jeremiah Thorn. He had invited me to his dusty office in back of the luthier's shop in back of the Fretloose showrrom area. He had pulled out a few well-chosen ancient albums from a safe at one end, a chunk of steel whose tumblers were bigger than my head, and probaby older. I pulled up in front of the fairgrounds where the festival was already doing business at a dull roar. I got out and started strolling the perimeter. I had a pretty good idea what I was looking for. Down at one end, out past the signs and the tents, when the trees began and (Focus on what you're doing, jerk! That's gone. Forget Rilke and the stars at the end of the midway, dammit!) the open grass and stars began, was a stretch limo. Next to it, barely visible, was a battered purple pickup. I walked up from behind the two mismatched vehicles, circling around through the dried hummocks of grass and dirt. As expected. Theet Logos sat behind the wheel of the pickup. Next to him sat a long, leather-faced man with a face like a buffalo chip and a string tie, over a fancy Western shirt with little leather pleats where the pockets would ordinarily be and a pointed collar with Navajo silver edging on the points. I hadn't caught his face before, but I knew it had to be the mysterious "trail boss" I had met through the shaded windows of Sherrie's limousine -- Trail Mix. So I figured the faint silhouette alone in the back of the limo was Sherrie. But I got a little closer, and could hear the murmer of conversation in the summer air, and she wasn't alone. She was having an intense conversation with Afteh Whoom. |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Amos Date: 31 Jul 01 - 10:34 AM As I walked quietly up behind the limo, I noticed something I hadn't seen the first time. The car was huge, bloated and shiny white, as long as your average submarine, with little dancing rows of dotted lights along the baseboards making it look something like a mother ship. A single rectangle of day-glo blue letters on a pale green background decorated the right rear bumper --"Ask me about COVAPID!!! And have a Nice Day!" |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Peter T. Date: 31 Jul 01 - 03:01 PM "Hello, campers." I said, pulling out my gun, putting it into my unbroken left hand, and striding forward into the pool of light formed by the cross headlights of the pickup truck and the limo. "I hope you are enjoying the festivities. You know of course that unless you are all completely demented someone is after your little team of co-conspirators. That they will stop at nothing, and that they are either careless or don't give a damn, and I don't think they give a damn, which means they are bigger than all of you. The dumping of Lucky in broad daylight from a stretch limo was not exactly subtle, and Obannion tells me not only that it was a different limo, but that all of you are in the clear. But who cares, right? That doesn't mean anything, one of you could have paid some scum to muddy the waters, but I am betting that you are all real unhappy." I took aim and shot out one of the limo headlights. "You don't even know the meaning of unhappy." The light grew dimmer around us, the darkness began to seep in. I shifted sideways. "Trust me Theets, if you go for that rifle I will hit you through the side window, I am that good tonight. I have a busted hand, but I can still kill you. You see I am indestructible now. So that makes me dangerous." They all sat like ghosts in their silent vehicles, watching. "So here is the thing. If any of you want to find me, to tell me something, I am in my office. 11th and Passiac. I will even leave a light on. You can all come, singly or as a group. Why would you do any such thing? Because I am your salvation, because I will kill the people who killed Lucky. You can help, or get out of the way, because I will kill them. All they can do is kill me first, because I don't care. But I don't intend to be killed first. And who knows? I might kill them before they finish you off too." And I shot the other headlight out. And I walked away into the night. I breathed in the night air. And I breathed it out again. Easy really, when you know how. If I kept on doing that, I might make it through the next forty years. Or not. I didn't care.
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Peter T. Date: 31 Jul 01 - 09:48 PM I don't make much money playing the horses, but I have learned a few truths. Always bet on a sure thing. You won't make a pile right off, and it is no fun, but you will win more often than you will lose. It was as close to a sure thing in my business that she would be the first one in the door. She gave a hesitant knock, uselessly. She knew I was in there waiting, and knew that I knew it was going to be her. "Come in, Sherry, don't be shy." She came in, her beautiful suit a bit battered by the day, but at least there were no blood stains on it. She sat down, and crossed those legs that went on forever. "I --" "I know, you want to say that you're sorry about Lucky. Cut it out, will you." She looked at me appraisingly. "I am sorry, Blake. I can see what she meant to you." "I'll see that you get an invitation to the funeral. Maybe you can read the elegy." "Whoa. Hold it, Blake." "No, you hold it. What the hell, Sherry? You aren't in great company these days. Who are these scum? Where are they? Too scared to come on their own? Did they send you? Well, sure they did." "Blake, I had nothing to do with any of this. I walked into it, a pure business deal, record company in need of supplementary financing, and a French conglomerate I am fronting for, that is it. Three o'clock this afternoon I am being interrogated. Not a good day all round." "Well, at least you aren't under the 3:00 to Denver." She got up, mad. "Do you want my help or don't you? I have sopped up the floor after you before, and I have no interest in it, anymore. I'm sorry she's dead. I'm sorry you are unhappy. What else can I say, for God's sake?" And she started crying. "Sit down, Sherry, please. I'm sorry. I'm just -- ". I waved my bandaged hand. She sat down, and kept crying. "Blake, I am so sorry. She looked so sweet. I was jealous, you looked so good together walking down the street. Till I arrived, I guess. The black fairy comes back to town." "It didn't matter, Sherry." And then she did that woman thing they do that spins you around. "Did you have time to talk about it? Me, you, I mean. Make it all right?" "No, I didn't." She started crying again. I don't know why. I got up and poured us out two drinks, some single malt Scotch I had unknowingly been saving for Lucky's death, in large glasses. We sat quietly for a while, sipping. Then she started telling me the story. You have heard it before. The woman making a life on her own with nothing but her brains and some style and a greyhaired boss who introduces her to an even more powerful whitehaired boss who moves her fast up a not altogether safe ladder, and then she is out there on a wing and a prayer, in with the big boys. And she is scared, and proud, and pushing back a bit. And she likes it. She likes it all, and especially she likes that she starts getting some credit for what she does rather than doing all the work so someone else can get all the credit, and she isn't going to give that up for anyone. Oh, it was a good conversation, and she told it well. Not good enough for me to trust her too far, but pretty good, all things considered.
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Amos Date: 31 Jul 01 - 11:38 PM When Sherry left, it was ten minutes to eight. Showtime. A lot had sorted out, and a lot hadn't. But I did have at least one promise to keep, and maybe several. Maybe even one to Lucky. I pulled up at the fairgrounds and walked up the side of the lot to the stage. The spotlights were sweeping back and forth and a guy in a tux and a white Stetson was holding the mike, holding it up above his chin and grinning and articulating into it as though he were announcing the Second Coming or soemthing, but he wasn't. He was announcing Condolezza Schwartz. She came onto the stage weareing white fringed buckskins, lizard-skin boots and an even bigger Stetson -- not exactly a folkies legend get-up but it seemed to be a crowd pleaser regardless, and I wondered who was doing her PR -- obviously someone who knew a thing or two about the unpredictable heart of crowds. They were eating her up. She carried a huge guitar, looked like the Martin D something that Jeremy's boss had talked about. No knife wound in it. I crept up the side staircase to the wings, one hand in my pocket. There were little knots of performers tucked into the wings, watching the show from the side, putting stuff into instrument cases, sharpening finger picks, and tightening and loosening strings. The band-in-a-box started doing their whining Dobro and abused harmonica thing, and Miss Comeback 2001 leaned back her head, closed her eyes and smiled, and she started to sing. |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: katlaughing Date: 31 Jul 01 - 11:46 PM I've got it all, now, Blake. The glass tower, no glass ceilings, a corner office, top floor penthouse, private gym, massuese, my own bevy of secretaries and assistants. No more mopping fevered brows or emptying bedpans, after all these years and now what has it gotten me? Oh, I'll be alright, as long as they don't put me away, they can't really. I only just found out what was happening, today, when I saw you and...her and then, you shooting at the lights...I was wiping tears away, hoping I could convince Blake to take another chance. I swear, Blakebaby, I didn't know! Remember, Blake, I ran my long red-lacquered fingernails slowly up right my leg, opening the long side split of my skirt to the top of my thigh. remember how good we were? I know, I know it's too soon, but we had something, baby, you know we did. I've got everything you'd ever need. We can leave here, right now, tonight, Blake, baby, say you'll come with me...my car is waiting out back. I've got a private jet fueled and ready to take us wherever you want. Forget this Condelezza dame, she's no good for you...she's the one who got your Lucky killed! |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: katlaughing Date: 31 Jul 01 - 11:50 PM Oh well, I tried. tripping down Blake's office stairs, I turned the corner at the bottom and opened the door. My car pulled up, I got in... Take me to that gawdawful folk thing, now! I slammed the door and as my driver pulled out into traffic, I saw Blake heading the same way. |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Peter T. Date: 01 Aug 01 - 08:59 AM Condolezza stopped, abruptly, and then said, "It is so good of you to be so many of you out there tonight. This is a special event for me, because I am coming out from under the shadow of lost years, and into the twilight, and maybe back into the limelight again, who knows." While she rambled on, I was scanning the crowd, and more importantly the crews hanging on the scaffolding. It could come from anywhere. "Many of us went away, and some of us did not come back, and I want to begin with a new song, a special song tonight, about some of the other people who did come back unfortunately, and what some of the others of us who are coming back are coming back for --
"Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of The Eisenhower Years,
"Glory, Glory, Oilosaurus,
"Those babbling foreigners they always yack and yack,
It was unfolding as not a bad song, as Schwartz songs go. The thing that the big boys didn't realize was that Condolezza, bless her pointy head, lived in her own world. Who knows, maybe they asked her to write a song about how great fossil fuels were, and this is what came out. She was an artiste. Or not. It hardly mattered 3 seconds later. |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: MMario Date: 01 Aug 01 - 10:22 AM I knew I shouldn't have attended - not in the mood I was in. And I should have left the gun at home; but when you work in the public schools you get used to carrying a little protection, you know what I mean? something snapped when I heard her - Condolezza - after all these years. The same voice that had drilled into my ears like a mosquito, shrill, annoying, constant...the voice that had been the background to dozens of humiliating scenes as girls turned me down, laughed at my requsts for dates, taunted me because I couldn't dance... I lost it; I just pulled the gun from my pocket, snapped off the safety and headed for the stage. "Glory, glory!" - I'd send her to glory all right! but as I pulled the trigger some guy jumped in front of her... |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Amos Date: 01 Aug 01 - 10:46 AM I woke up with urgency still running in my veins. I opened my eyes and flinched. Someone had left a bunch of excess sunlight in the room I was in, and it was getting all over everything. I tried again, slowly. No use. The sunlight was there and I wasn't in the mood to clean it up. Get used to it, bud. I saw things I recognized -- the cheap industrial-grade venetian blinds and Motel-8 reject curtains of the Watt Angus And Condolezza Schwartz, a little rumpled and without her makeup. And...Sherry. All three of them were watching me with grave concern and hopeful little smiles, and thier eyes bugged with undelivered I groaned and retreated into blackness, the only mercy available. |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: JenEllen Date: 01 Aug 01 - 12:10 PM I woke up, later that night, back in the hospital and just laid with my eyes shut, feeling the pain of my aching hand and aching shoulder. I felt the bed shift, like someone was there, and I slowly opened my eyes. So this is death? That's what I thought, anyways, for at the foot of my dead, perched like seraphim, sat Lucky Day. "Hey stranger," she spoke, and reached out to pat my leg. I couldn't trust myself to speak, so I sat there, numb from the neck up. She looked at me, worried almost, then took a deep breath and tried to explain. "It's me, really me.... What? Should I start singing Tom Jones or something to prove it to you? It was a joke, Blake, well, not really a joke.... Not so much funny ha-ha as funny strange...and...shit...." she paused and looked out the window. "Okay, I fell for the Nancy Drew gig. This wasn't supposed to happen, Blake. It was supposed to be as easy as pie. Theet was on the inside, you know." she looked at me again, "And the roadie was too. And it was something bigger than you and I could have ever imagined. That roadie was scouting me out from the first night he was in the tavern. Theet tried to explain to me that night on the sidewalk, that's why I looked so scared, and he told me that if I followed the note he gave me, I'd get to see their contact on Condolezza's side of the action. The same roadie. The plan would be to use the bar as a central communication spot, and I could go-between for the two of them." She could see the big "?" floating above my head near the IV pole, but she continued, lit by the streetlamps and the glow from the carnival across the park. "Theet and Condolezza go way back, you know that already." I nodded. "She's just a fruitcake who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Obannion figures the guy who shot you was rum-soaked as well, and he's currently in a cell downtown writing "I will not shoot people anymore" on the wall 500 times..." she smiled, that was nice. "Anyway, Theet is helping the roadie, who isn't exactly a roadie, he's government-proper, to get dirt on AftehWhoom and his shady dealings with COVAPID and PepsiCo. He's been filtering money left and right, and he's been speeding up operations. They had reason to think he was going to make a last grab soon, and take off with Condolezza to set up house in Buenos Aires or something...Condolezza, she has no idea, about anything." "Don't give me that look, Madison. I know what I did. Marshall, that's the roadie, he and I talked it out that afternoon. It would have to work perfectly. Obannion provided us with a body from the morgue, Cosmo agreed to give a statement, and Marshall rented us a limo. Easy as pie. The only one it had to fool was you. And why? Simple. You were on the wrong track, big time. Now you know that, but before, you never would have. And since then, talking with Sheri and Obannion, it's been as plain as day. We just didn't see it." She was right, it all clicked as soon as I'd put my hand through that mirror. "So now what?" I asked "Afteh is history. After your little lightshow last night, he got nervous and tried to get Condolezza to skip town. She wasn't having any of it, the show must go on. He tried to leave without her, and they nailed him at the airport. They've got him for money-laundering, attempted murder, conspiracy, you name it, he's got it tattooed on his ass right about now." "What about Pepsi then?" I asked, groaning as I tired to sit up, growing more curious by the minute. "I dunno, from what I understood from Theets and Marshall, at this point it would be like trying to hunt sharks with a paperclip and a rubberband. You could do it, but the chances of you coming out whole are pretty slim. Theet is willing to take that risk, but I'm not. I got out." "So now what?" "Like I said, I got out. Lucky Lazarus, that's me. I told Billy that I was quitting, and to kiss my ass, well before I bit the big one. I've sub-let the apartment, Tracy's got my plants. I think I'm going somehwere. I've never been anywhere. I just want to see something, prove to myself that there is at least one tiny section of this world that isn't ruled by big money, y'know?" I knew. |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Peter T. Date: 01 Aug 01 - 12:16 PM When I came to again, it was a day or two later. Sitting opposite me, noodling away on her guitar, was Condolezza. It was late at night, as far as I could tell from the darkness. She stopped playing, and said: "Omigoodness, you're back!" "That makes two of us, Condolezza. How's it going?" "Oh, we were worried sick about you, Sherry and I, and Afteh, and Trail, and all. We've been taking turns, turn, turn, turn, you know." "Did they catch anyone?" "They stopped the poor fan at the front with the gun. He just seems to have been crazy, as far as they can tell." "And the other. The real guy?" "Nothing, Blake, nothing. But you did save my life, and I am so grateful. You know that." "Did you get to sing "I Will Always Love You" and everything?" Condolezza shook her head. "Don't joke about that, it was horrible, you bleeding all over me, I was so frightened you were going to die." "Good of you, Condolezza." "It is a sad thing, Blake, but you know that it has been splashed all over the papers everywhere." "Really," I said, and turned sideways. My arm hurt, all the way up my side. "I'd like to see that." "Here", she said, and held up the front page of the New York Times. It read: "Folk Artist Under The Gun: Is The Fossil Fuel Industry on the Run?" "There is lots more where that came from, Blake. You are a hero. I am too, it is very strange. Cosmo says that he has never seen anything like it in 30 years." "That's nice, Condolezza. Couldn't happen to a nicer person." She looked at me consolingly. "Is there anything I can do to help? Would you like me to sing you a song?" "No," I said, hurriedly, "no thanks. You could phone up Sherry, and ask her to come and see me sometime." "Oh, Blake, she is camped out in the hall, she wouldn't go home, though everyone did their utmost to plead with her. She really cares about you, you know. As I do. As we all do." She leaned forward. Then leaned back. "Well, perhaps I should leave you alone." And she got up. "There is one thing I would like to know, Condolezza." She turned back towards me. "Yes?" "If I had guessed wrongly, and not intercepted the bullet, was he under orders to really hit you, or just to miss wildly?" "What do you mean?" "Come on, Condo. You can fool all these other people, but you and I know what is going on. You can't write songs worth shit, but you were going to make the most of this. You weren't going to let it go down a second time. You are an artist, I think you are a crappy artist, but we'll let that pass. All this ditsy folk singer stuff, you even fooled the oil boys, the boys who bought and sold George W., they couldn't figure you out." She stood there, stunned for a second, and then smiled. "How did you figure it out?" "Two things, Condo. One that was just a small hint, and the other jumped out at me. The small hint came after the other. I talked to Jeremiah Thorn, the folk historian, and he told me the whole story, how you were on your way to the top, and how you almost got busted big time, and you were rescued by your knight in Shining Armour, The Husband, the Husband who beat the crap out of you and wouldn't let you out of the house for 15 years, and who ran your career into the ground, and spent it all up his nose, and then died in bed one night from one too many cigarettes and a 4 alarm fire that left you zero. And then you started to crawl back out of the slime." "That f****** bastard, that bastard, that bastard," she yelled, beating her hand against the end of my bed. "He let me rot, the m************ bastard!!!" "Condo, it's late, don't wake up the staff. Anyway, I figured that you were sure as hell going to be a butterfly this time around, that maybe it wasn't too late, but there were a lot of the old farts dragging their butts around, and you weren't going to be one of them, not Condolezza Schwartz. So you got yourself some backers, and Cosmo, and then you decided to outsmart them all, and become invulnerable." "More or less, Blake, more or less." She said, with a dark smile on her face. "But --" "But how did I tumble to it in the end? It turns out that one of your biggest fans is a roadie, and he takes pictures of you all the time, and he happened to have one of you taken just about 30 seconds before the knife attack that stabbed your guitar." "So?" "So, I don't know much about guitars, nothing really, except that the guitar you showed me with the knife hole in it wasn't your pre-war Martin, it was a different guitar, I just happened to notice the difference for no good reason, no, you weren't going to let that one get damaged, were you? So, for some strange reason, somewhere in the last 30 seconds before you were attacked, you switched guitars. Just a bit too greedy, Condolezza." She shrugged. "O.K. He was just going to wing me, or you, or whoever. It was a small price to pay." "It certainly was, we could settle that out between us, but not murdering Lucky. That's a bit too rich for my blood, Condo." She backed up. "You --" "Lucky was smart, and she sat and sweet talked the same dumb roadie I did, and found out that I was really interested in the picture, and she put two and two together, and here it gets a little shadowy, but I figure she went to the guitar store about an hour after I did, and who should be there in the back room but Cosmo Loonbucket or some other of your fall guys, trying out a banjo, listening to Lucky's interested queries, and he gets on the phone to old Condo, and she is hamburger a quarter of an hour later. That's about how I figure it." She shook her head. "I can't tell you how unhappy I am that she is dead. She just got too close. I had to kill her." "And you were really hoping for the old Kevin Costner thing with me, weren't you? This winging and wounding is another lie. I bet you are really unhappy I am still here." "What do you think I am, completely a monster?" "I don't know, what do you think O'Banion?" He had been there a long time, funny how such a big man could slip into a room so quietly. "I'll tell you Blake, I think these new Mini Discs are really great. You folkies may dismiss high technology, but it sure picks up every sound in your average room." He held it up, beaming. "Everyone ought to get one." "Maybe you can endorse it, Condolezza." She looked like a caged animal for a second, and then broke out piteously: "I'm too old to go to prison!!" I looked at her. "Come on, Condo, look at the bright side. There is an emerging market in prison songs. It worked for Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard. Shackles and Chains, that sort of thing. You could try it." "Ohh," she said. And, to give her credit, there was a brief moment there where I am sure she was beginning to write her next song. I was only glad that I wouldn't have to listen to it. A few minutes later Sherry came in. She embraced me, and sat on my bedside, and we chatted about this and that. About Cosmo Tepperman, about COVAPID, and all kinds of things that the DA would be really interested in, not to mention the Securities and Exchange Commission. After a while, I got weak, and she said: "I could camp in here until you are better?" "Don't bother, Sherry. I'll be O.K. Go home and get some sleep." "Am I going to see you again?" "I don't know Sherry. I guess not. Not for awhile, anyway. I have a bruised heart, you know how it is." "Sure," she said. And she got up and kissed me, and went to the door. She turned back at the door,and said: "Well, take care of your heart, I might want it back some day." "And don't let them do anything to those legs, Sherry. They may also come in handy." She laughed, and went out. She had brought me a CD she knew I loved, and I put it into the player and turned it on. It was Bill Evans, from his first album, Everybody Loves Bill Evans, an outtake of his version of "Some Other Time, the one that would eventually be "Peace Piece" I put the CD on repeat, and listened to it until the sun rose, and somewhere in that time I fell asleep again. THE END
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Peter T. Date: 01 Aug 01 - 12:21 PM ALTERNATIVE ENDING NUMBER TWO!! THE FRENCH DETECTIVE'S WOMAN OR WHAT? |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Amos Date: 01 Aug 01 - 12:28 PM Bravo, bravo, huzzzzzzahhhh!!! Masterful, Pieter mio!! Cheeers!!! The villain was right there in front of us all the time. What a reverse engineer!! Incredible. One thing,,, I gotta say I'll take Jen's slice on Lucky's chapter. I couldn't bear it not to be true!! Well.. true....I mean... I have a very sensitive imagination. Besides, Jen bumped her off, so she oughta get to put her back, eh?? Love you guys to the skies. This has been a great lark. Thanks. A (...say...that could be a Condolezza Schwartz song!!! The Great Lark... or maybe "I love you to the skies...."... or.... or..... . A shot rang out. |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: katlaughing Date: 01 Aug 01 - 12:36 PM Bravo/a!!! Can't wait for the next one! Mudcat Serials...stay tuned! |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: JenEllen Date: 01 Aug 01 - 12:59 PM Moral of the story: First person attempts stink in this game... (Why can't I quit laughing?)
Okay, y'all are invited to Tahiti, to a little bar near the beach called "Lucky's". |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Amos Date: 01 Aug 01 - 01:11 PM ....and the bullet severed the power supply in the back of the jukebox as neatly as a surgeon taking out one of those ugly orange growths they show you in the "Don't Smoke" films in hygeine class.... The bar woke up. Someone laughed. Someone kissed someone. A ripple of relief harmonized to the modal sweeping lullaby of moonlit surf. Condolezza's tones ground to a halt. Reality was back, and it was a gas! A |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Jim the Bart Date: 01 Aug 01 - 03:20 PM Bravo - I am in awe of you all. |
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Subject: RE: Murder at the Folk Festival - II From: Geoff the Duck Date: 05 Aug 01 - 09:24 PM Just back from holiday in Brittany (France). Shame to have missd out on an adventure! I'll read both threads when I wake up???! GtD. |
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