The Scribblers Writing Group

September/October 2013 Issue of The Scribblers Newsletter

Welcome to the September/October issue of the Scribblers.  September and October are combined this month because I was unable to write the September issue due to surgery.  

This month we have writing prompts, a look at Joe Hill, Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling, 10 Techniques for more precise writing, writing contests, grants and awards, and the 10th Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival .  I hope you enjoy it.

 Writing Prompts

Each month we try to come up with a couple of prompts for you to use. Pick one or more and write 750 to 1,000 words
using the prompt/s as the basis of your story.  Most of all, have fun with it.

1.  His feet were already numb. He should have listened.

2.  She woke, shivering, in the dark of the night.

3.  They came back every year to lay flowers at the spot.

Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling as Image Macros 

 from Twisted Sifter

To see these rules as images, which are very entertaining in themselves, click here

These 22 rules, in plain text follow:

 #1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.

#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.

#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.

#8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.

#9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.

#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.

#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.

#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

#13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.

#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.

#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.

#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.

#17: No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.

#18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.

#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.

#20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?

#21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?

#22: What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

A Look at Joe Hill

 Joe Hillstrom King or Joe Hill is an American writer born on June 4, 1972 in Hermon, Maine. He is the son of writers, Stephen King and Tabitha King.

Joe published his first book,  a collection of horror stories called '20th Century Ghosts', in 2005. It won the Bram Stoker Award and the British Fantasy Award for Best Collection. He has since published the best selling novels 'Heart Shaped Box' (2008) and 'Horns' (2010). He is also the author of the comic book series Locke & Key. He collaborated with his father for the novella, 'Throttle', for the Richard Matheson tribute anthology 'He Is Legend'.

'Horns', and Indie production starring former Harry Potter star, Daniel Radcliffe, is due out sometime in 2014.

Joe appeared in the Stephen King - George A. Romero - and - Tom Savini cult classic film Creepshow (1982), in which he played Billy, the son of

overbearing father Tom Atkins, in the film's wraparound segment.

To learn more aobut Joe Hill's work, click here

The Husband's Secret by Laine Moriarty

a Kirkus Book Review 

 The Husband's Secret, written by Austrailian author Laine Moriarty, tracks the intertwining relationship between three women, their families and their

connection to one Catholic school.

There are more than enough secrets to go around in the intertwining lives of three women connected to a Catholic elementary school in Sidney.

Australian Moriarty (The Hypnotist’s Love Story, 2012, etc.) experiments with the intersection of comedy and tragedy in her slyly ambitious

consideration of secrecy, temptation, guilt and human beings’ general imperfection.

Superorganized, always-on-the-go Cecilia is a devoted mother who constantly volunteers at her daughters’ school while running a thriving Tupperware

business. Not quite as perkily perfect as she seems, 40-year-old Cecilia yearns for some drama in her life. Then, she finds a sealed envelope from her

husband that is to be opened only in the event of his death. John-Paul is very much alive, but the temptation to read the contents is understandably

strong. Once she does, she can’t erase the secrets revealed.

Meanwhile, in Melbourne, 30-something Tess’ husband breaks the news that he’s fallen in love with Tess’ first cousin/best friend/business partner.

Furious, Tess moves to her mother’s house in Sydney. Enrolling her 6-year-old son at St. Angela's, Tess runs into former lover Connor, and sparks re-

ignite.

Formerly an accountant, Connor is now the school’s hunky gym coach and is crushed on by students, teachers and parents like Cecilia. One holdout from

the general adoration is widowed school secretary Rachel. Connor was the last person to see her 17-year-old daughter Janie before Janie was strangled in

1984. Still grief-stricken and haunted by a belief that she could have prevented Janie’s death if she hadn’t been 15 minutes late to pick her up, Rachel

is increasingly convinced Connor is the murderer. As the women confront the past and make hard decisions about their futures (the novel’s men are pale

and passive), their fates collide in unexpected ways.

There is real darkness here, but it is offset by the author’s natural wit—she weaves in the Pandora myth and a history of the Berlin Wall—and

irrepressible goodwill toward her characters.

Poets & Writers

Writing Contests, Grants and Awards and the 10th Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival

We're all interested in contests and Poets & Writers has a nice database with all the info you need about current contests, grants and awards.  You can find it here

10th Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival

January 20-25, 2014, Delray Beach, Florida. Faculty: Nick Flynn, Carolyn Forché, Linda Gregg, Thomas Lux, Campbell McGrath, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Mary

Ruefle, Tim Seibles. Special guest, Natasha Trethewey. A full week of events celebrating poetry and our tenth anniversary in Delray Beach. Workshops,

readings, craft talks, interviews, one-on-one conferences, annual gala celebration, late night coffee house, and more. Deadline: November 11, 2013.

To apply online, click here 

Gotham Writers Classes in New York or Online

Gotham’s Fall term is underway, and we have a whole bunch of classes beginning in early October, both in New York and Online.

For online information, click here

For information on New York classes, click here

10 Techniques for more precise writing from 'Daily Writing Tips' 

 Daily Writing Tips sends daily writing info each day to your inbox.  The other day they sent the 10 techniques and I thought I'd share.  You can see this article by clicking here

 

August 2013 Issue of The Scribblers Newsletter

Welcome to the August issue of the Scribblers.  This month we have an original short story by Jamie Baker, writing prompts and a look at David Baldacci.  I hope you enjoy it.

Should I Buy Curtains?

A metaphysical look at window dressing.

 by 

Jamie Baker

A couple of weeks ago, far into the late shift at work, I was standing in an empty office waiting for a co-worker.  On one of the desks I noticed a small paperback book, Focusing, by Eugene T. Gendlin PH.D. 

Over the next couple of nights I read the first 40 pages or so of the book.  Gendlin, through years of study and teaching, believes that the physical body has knowledge that can be imparted to the conscious mind through what Gendlin calls the felt sense.    By quietly and intently, but in a friendly way, focusing on our physical sensations we can gain self-knowledge.  The felt sense is what your body is trying to tell you about your emotional, mental and spiritual self.  The felt sense can help you understand what you are truly feeling and wanting, surmount obstacles, make decisions, solve problems, find relief from tension and chronic pain, and refine your personal belief system.

 

Wow!  Really?  All that?  Ok, I was hooked so I looked the guy up on the internet.  The Focusing Institute has been around for more than 30 years and the website invited me to explore all kinds of ways to spend my money.  After window shopping, no pun intended, for a few minutes, I got the felt sense that I could not afford to do much more than browse. 

 

However, I did find a side bar about another focusing practitioner, Ann Weiser Cornell, PH.D.  She wrote a book called The Power of Focusing and she has a website where I was able to read the first chapter of her book.   The language is clear and her writing style is smooth and engaging.  One section was about getting over procrastination and letting go of addictive behavior.  That’s for me, I thought.  The website invited me to listen to a 45-minute pre-recorded seminar called “I want to get that done…why don’t I?”  Hmm, I’ve been asking myself that for years.  So I listened in.

It was a lot of metaphysical jaw-jacking, with the typical feel good phrases about listening kindly but in a detached way to our inner self, yada yada, but the most interesting parts were the exchanges that Dr. Cornell had with several of her students.

  

After several minutes of guided session focused on the question “I want to …. but I don’t”, Dr. Cornell invited others to describe what they wanted to do and what they had learned in the focusing session.  

Here’s the exchange between JoAnn, from LA, and Dr. Cornell, almost word for word (I listened a second time, just to be sure my ears and I were hearing the same thing, and wrote it down as fast I could):

“Hi, my name is JoAnn and I’m from LA.’  JoAnn sounds like she is middle aged and speaks with the precise enunciation of the perennially uptight.

  

“Hello Joann, welcome.” 

“What I want to do is buy curtains, but I don’t.”

“Ah, and were you able to discover what is blocking you from buying curtains, what part of you doesn’t want to get curtains?”

“Yes, I realized that if I don’t get curtains then others can see what my mother is doing to me.”

“Oh my goodness,” says Dr. Cornell, “isn’t that wild.”  She sounds like she’s reading from a grocery list.

“If others can see what my mother is doing,” JoAnn continues, “then maybe she won’t kill me.”

“What a wonderful insight, how lovely.   Now that you understand your true feelings maybe you can go ahead and get those curtains.”

Huh?  Or maybe you should call 911, or maybe you should move, or maybe you should have your mother committed.   Anyway, I bought the book, I’ll let you know how it is. 

 

 August Writing Prompts

1. I opened my front door and saw my neighbor, Barry, chasing a man out of his house with a double barrelled shotgun.

2. John and Shirley checked out of their motel and drove down Pacific Coast Highway.  Going around a sharp turn, a blue van with 2 men inside came up behind them, ramming their car. 

 

A Look at David Baldacci

David Baldacci was born August 5, 1960 and was raised in Richmond, Virginia. A graduate of Henrico High School, he received a B.A. from Virginia

Commonwealth University and a law degree from the University of Virginia, after which he practiced law for nine years in Washington, D.C.

Baldacci began writing stories as a child, when his mother gave him a notebook in which to record them. He wrote for more than two decades, penning short stories and later screenplays without much success. While practicing law, he turned to novel writing, taking three years to write Absolute Power. Published in 1996, it was an international best seller. He has since written 25 additional bestselling novels for adults as well as three novels for children.

Baldacci and his wife, Michelle, are the co-founders of the Wish You Well Foundation, which works to combat illiteracy in the United States.


Baldacci became involved with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society after his sister, author Sharon Baldacci, was diagnosed with MS.

He made a big splash on the literary scene with the publication of his first novel, ABSOLUTE POWER. A major motion picture adaptation followed, with Clint Eastwood as its director and star. In total, David has published 26 novels, all of which have been national and international bestsellers; several have been adapted for film and television. His novels have been translated into more than 45 languages and sold in more than 80 countries; over 110 million copies are in print worldwide. David has also published three novels for children. 

He has received numerous accolades for his writing: most recently, he was inducted into the 2011 International Crime Writing Hall of Fame and received the 2012 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award.

Absolute Power tells the story of a fictional American President and his Secret Service agents who are willing to commit murder in order to cover up the accidental death of a woman with whom the President was having an affair. It was made into a film, Absolute Power (1997), starring Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman.

Baldacci has published more than 20 novels and most of his novels have ended up in New York’s bestselling list. He has also written two young adult novels which are Freddy and the French Fries: Fries Alive! and Freddy and the French Fries: The Adventures of Silas Finklebean. He also published a novella “Office Hours” for Holland’s year 2000 “Month of the Thriller”. Besides this, in 2002 he published a short story as part of a mystery anthology, which was called “The Mighty Jones”.

In addition to writing novels, Baldacci wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of his novel Wish You Well; the movie was shot on location in southwest Virginia in the fall of 2012 with Academy Award winner Ellen Burstyn, Josh Lucas, and Mackenzie Foy in the lead roles. Baldacci is a consulting producer on King & Maxwell, a TNT television series based on his characters Sean King and Michelle Maxwell.

While David is involved with several philanthropic organizations, his greatest efforts are dedicated to his family's Wish You Well Foundation®. Established by David and his wife, Michelle, the Wish You Well Foundation supports family and adult literacy in the United States by fostering and promoting the development and expansion of literacy and educational programs. 

In 2008 the Foundation partnered with Feeding America to launch Feeding Body & Mind, a program to address the connection between literacy, poverty and hunger. Through Feeding Body & Mind, nearly 1 million new and used books have been collected and distributed via area food banks.

Baldacci's novels have been translated into over 45 languages and sold in more than 80 countries. Over 110 million copies of his books are in print worldwide.

Some of his most bestselling novels include: Absolute Power, Total Control, The Winner, The Simple Truth, Saving Faith, Wish You Well, Last Man Standing, The Christmas Train, Split Second, Hour Game, The Camel Club, The Collectors, Simple Genius, Stone Cold, The Whole Truth, The Sixth Man.

David lives with his wife and their two teenagers in Virginia.

 

July 2013 Issue of The Scribblers Newsletter

Welcome to the July issue of the Scribblers.  This month we have a review of Robert Penn Warren's book All the King’s Men from Jamie Baker, an original story written by John Matthews, writing prompts and the next installment of our progressive story, In the Line of Duty.  I hope you enjoy them.

 

Come Write WithUs

Having read previous newsletters, you probably know that we love to write and we love to write progressive stories.  We are about to start a new one and we'd love to have you help write it.  

Here's how it works:  Someone writes approximately 750 to 1,000 words to start, then emails it to the next person who adds another 750 to 1,000 words and emails the whole thing to the next person.  No one sees the story until it's their turn to write their part.

If you would like to participate, please email me here

Book Review 

All The King's Men

 by Jamie Baker

The opening line is “To get there you follow Highway 58, going northeast out of the city, and it is a good highway and new.” And it is a good opening line.  The ‘you’ fosters intimacy with the reader, it pulls the reader into the story.  The opening line suggests movement and transition; a destination, one unknown as yet.   The highway suggests speed, and the ‘new’ highways suggests modernization.  But if the opening line isn’t enough, read what follows.

You look up the highway and it is straight for miles, coming at you, with the black line down the center coming at and at you, black and slick and tarry-shining against the white of the slab, and heat dazzles up from the white slab so that only the black line is clear, coming at you with the whine of the tires, and if you don’t quit staring at that line and don’t take a few deep breaths and slap yourself hard on the back of the head you’ll hypnotize yourself and you’ll come to just at the moment when the right front wheel hooks over into the black dirty shoulder off the slab, and you’ll try to jerk her back on but you can’t because the slab is high like a curb, and maybe you’ll try to reach to turn off the ignition just as she starts the dive.  But you won’t make it, of course.  Then a nigger chopping cotton a mile away, he’ll look up and see the little column of black smoke standing up above the vitriolic, arsenical green of the cotton rows, and up against the violent, metallic, throbbing blue of the sky, and he’ll say, “Lawd, God, hit’s a-nudder one done done hit!”

This is the beginning of the novel All the King’s Men written by Robert Penn Warren.  Warren (1905-1989), was one of the 20th century’s outstanding men of letters.  Among other accomplishments, he was awarded 3 Pulitzer Prizes and the Congressional Medal of Freedom, founded the Southern Review, and was named the country’s first poet laureate.  

Modern Library listed the novel as the 36^th greatest novel of the 20^th century and it was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 best novels since 1923.  In 1949, the book was adapted for film; the movie won the Academy Award for Best Picture.  The novel was produced as a movie again in 2006.  

The novel tells the story of political tough guy, Willie Stark, who rises from

poverty to become the powerful governor of an unnamed southern state during the 1930s.  The story is often described as a fictionalized account of Louisiana’s colorful and notorious governor, Huey Long, who served from 1928 to 1935.   There are a number of important parallels between Stark and Long.   Like Long, Stark is an uneducated farm boy who passes the state bar exams and wins election to a minor local office.  They both rise to political power by campaigning for, and then instituting, a series of radical liberal reforms designed to tax the rich and ease the lives of the state’s poor farmers.   They manipulate their opponents through the clever use of political favors, bribery and blackmail.  Like Long, Stark is assassinated by a doctor—Dr. Adam Stanton in Stark’s case, Dr. Carl A. Weiss in Long’s.  

The novel is a multi-layered plot told through the eyes of the narrator, Jack Burden, son of one of the state’s aristocratic families.  He eschews his genteel upbringing to become Stark’s right hand man, using his skill as a historical researcher to uncover the unsavory secrets of Stark’s enemies.   Through Jack Burden, the novel explores racism, greed, hate; and also delusion, morality, and love, with an intensity and empathy that is compelling and visceral.  

Warren’s use of language in describing his characters is just as compelling as his expose of political chicanery.  For instance, this description of Stark’s chauffeur and body guard, Sugar Boy:  

His name was O’Sheean, but they called him Sugar-Boy because he ate sugar.  Every time he went to a restaurant he took all the cube sugar there was in the bowl.  He went around with his pockets stuffed with sugar cubes, and when he took one out to pop into his mouth you saw little pieces of gray lint sticking to it, the kind of lint there always is loose in your pocket, and shreds of tobacco from cigarettes.  He’d pop the cube in over the barricade of his twisted black little teeth, and then you’d see the thin little mystic Irish cheeks cave in as he sucked the sugar, so that he looked like an undernourished leprechaun.

The book is a long one, over 600 pages in the Harcourt Books hard cover edition.  Jack Burden rambles into philosophical territory on several occasions, arguing the existence of God, for instance, or the complexity of human love.   Some of this navel gazing can be lengthy and not entirely clear or satisfying, but it does light on some thought provokers, as when Burden observes “It is a human defect—to try to know one’s self by the self of another.” 

Later in the book he expands on this idea:

You meet somebody at the seashore on a vacation and have a wonderful time together.  Or in a corner at a party, while the glasses clink and somebody beats on a piano, you talk with a stranger whose mind seems to whet and sharpen your own and with whom a wonderful new vista of ideas is spied.  Or you share some intense or painful experience with somebody, and discover a deep communion.  Then afterward you are sure that when you meet again, the gay companion will give you the old gaiety, the brilliant stranger will stir your mind from its torpor, the sympathetic friend will solace you with the communion of spirit.  But something happens, or almost always happens, to the gaiety, the brilliance, the communion.  You remember the individual words from the old language you spoke together, but you have forgotten the grammar.  You remember the steps of the dance, but the music isn’t playing anymore.  So there you are.

It’s a good book.  I recommend it with 5 stars.  So there you are.  

 Writing Prompts

Each month we try to provide a writing prompt or two to give you a jump start on a story.  Try to write 750 to 1,000 using one or both of these.  Have fun with it.

 

1.   Bill is broke.  His rent is past due, his car won't start and he just received a notice from the electric company that his power will be shut off if he doesn't pay.  Fortunately, after 8 months of unemployment, he's starting a new job.  

 

On the evening of the first day of his job at an upscale men's clothing store, Bill finds a wallet filled with cash under the fitting room seat.  What does Bill do?

 

2.   Janet, a mother of 2, is on her way to the garage to have her aging Chevy repaired.  At an intersection she sees a scruffy looking man placing a little girl into the trunk of an old Toyota.  Janet picks up her cell phone to call the police, but she battery is dead.  She feels compelled to save that little girl and follows the old Toyota.  How does Janet rescue the child?

New York, A Love Story

An Original Story by'
John Matthews

     I’m sitting on the ledge around the fountain at Conservatory Garden.  It’s a warm spring Saturday and a slight breeze is spraying a pleasant mist from the fountain across my back.   My Peugeot leans on its kickstand in front of me waiting patiently for me to catch my breath.  It should have been a leisurely ride, but for a weekend biker it was more exercise than I was used to.  In New York a girl doesn’t really need a car and my Peugeot is my concession to luxury. My baby.  A bicycle with a fancy name and a price to go with it.  But what else do I have to waste money on?

     Did I think it was a boy magnet?  Did it work?  Well , Darren wasn’t that much of a catch and he didn’t hang around that long, but he was okay for a while. We went on rides together.  He did some work on my bike before we split up.    He tried to be helpful, but the truth is, the Peugeot hasn’t worked quite right since he worked on it.

     No, that didn’t have anything to do with our breakup, but that’s another story.

     So here I sit,  wondering if I should take my bike to the shop.

     “Hi, there, you look lost in thought.”

     Hmm. Maybe the magnet is working.  I look up and there is a VERY nice looking guy.  Tall, dark, dressed in something between blue collar work and casual clothes.  And I’ve heard worse pickup lines.

     “Just wondering if there’s something wrong with my bike,”  I say.

     “Nice looking Peugeot, what seems to be wrong?”

     Okay, he recognizes the lion.  Nice touch.   “I don’t know.  Just seems…sluggish.”

     He reaches for the handlebars.  Then hesitates.  “Oops, may I?”

     When I don’t object, he squeezes the front brake.  “This could be it.  Somebody has shortened the brake cable.  Your pads are touching the rim.”

     “That would be my boyfriend,…I mean my former boyfriend.  I think he tried to tighten it or something,”   Former boyfriend, why did I say that?  He’s smiling like he knows I said it for a reason.  Nice smile.

 

     “It’s Saturday.   Might not be able to find a place open for parts.  Do you ride here every Saturday?”

     Very clever twist on the “Do you come here often?”  line.  But he sounds so, well, nice.  No other way to describe him. So I tell him yes.

     “Tell you what.  I could pick up a new cable for you.  You could probably use new brake pads too.  And bring them here next week.”

    “Oh, I couldn’t ask you to do that.  I have a shop I go to. They’ll fix it.”

     “But they’ll charge you labor, and it’s only a five minute job.  Let’s do this.  You buy the parts.  Meet me here next week and I’ll put them on.  I’ll bring tools.”

     If that was an invitation to a date, it was the smoothest one I’ve heard in a while.  But he’s definitely interested.  “Okay, same time, same place.”

    “It’s a date.”  How could he be more definite than that?

     “Gotta run now.  Hey, my name’s Bill.”  He holds out his hand.  Nice. Strong, clean, dry.  Good all-American name, like that guy on Ally McBeal.  Or Clinton. Or Mazeroski, the scourge of the Yankees. 

     “I’m Kathy.”

     “Nice to meet you, Kathy.  See you in a week.”

     I don’t believe in love at first sight.  But this couldn’t start out much better.

                                                                 * * *

     I spend the week alternating between walking on a cloud, and telling myself  I’m just getting my bike fixed.  Why does work seem so much more pleasant? Why am I cleaning my apartment as though I’m expecting a visit from Martha Stewart?  Why am I buying wine?  Gotta think rationally here.

 

     I stop in at the bike shop.  Using the closest thing I have to an expert tone, I ask for a front brake cable and a set of shoes for a Peugeot  Mixte. 

  

     “We can install and adjust those for ya,” says the greasy clerk.  “No extra charge.” 

     “No thanks.  My boyfriend can do it.”  Boyfriend.  Getting ahead of myself  here. 

 

     I spend an afternoon at work polishing my script for Saturday.  It can’t fail.  Bill will fix the bike.  As a thank you I’ll offer to treat him to lunch.  Perfect first date.  He will either accept or if he’s busy he will make a date with me for later.  I know he’s interested.  He’s got to do one or the other. 

      Is it over the top to buy a new cycling outfit, get my hair done, and have a manicure just to have my Peugeot fixed?  Of course not.

                                                          * * *

    Saturday dawns as sunny and perfect as last week.  I’m sitting by the fountain again watching the puffy clouds drift through the robin’s egg sky.  

   

     Here comes Bill.  Right on time.  Plain white T-shirt, jeans.  Does it look like he got a haircut?  I think so.  Clean shave.  None of that pseudo-stylish two day growth that just signals lazy.  He has a compact tool kit wrapped in a canvas envelope that he can slip in his pocket.

     Wow, he looks even better than I remember.  He compliments me on buying the exact parts that are required for the fix.  He sets to work, and true to his promise, he’s finished in five minutes. 

 

     “Want to take it for a test spin?” he asks.

     “Why don’t you do it?  You know what to check for.”

     He hops on and rides up the sidewalk then rides back a little faster.  Right in front of me he squeezes the front brake and the Peugeot stops on a dime.   The rear wheel actually jumps an inch off the ground. 

     “Seems great.  Hey, you have a camera on that cell phone?  Why don’t you let me take your picture with your bike in front of the fountain?”

     Here’s my chance to really make my move.  “I just wish there was a way I could get a picture of both of us.”

     He looks around.  “Hey, Buddy,” he calls to a passerby.  Bill’s so pleasant it’s hard to imagine how anyone can resist him.  He gives the guy my cell phone and tells him what he wants.  We go stand together with the Peugeot in front of the fountain.

     “Don’t you feel nervous giving the phone to a stranger?”  I whisper.

     He just smiles again. “If he takes off I think I can catch him.”

    The guy doesn’t take off, of course.  He hands my phone back to me.  The picture is beautiful.  I hadn’t even noticed that Bill had put his arm around my waist.  We’re a cute couple. 

 

     “What are you doing?”  he asks.

     “I’m sending the picture to my home computer, so I can make a print.”

     “Let me take one of just you,”  he says.   “Will you make me a print of that, too?”

     He wants my picture!  This could be the real thing.  For some reason I’m feeling very possessive of Bill.  I hope I’m not moving too fast but I plunge ahead with a request.

    “When you stopped the Peugeot,  I saw the back wheel jump up.  Are you sure it’s okay?”

     “Pretty sure.  I was just using the front brake.  But how about if I take it on a longer test?  Around the block?  I’ll give it a good workout just to be sure.”

     He pulls carefully out into traffic  on 5^th Avenue.   He lets a couple of cars pass then gives a polite hand signal to turn onto 102^nd Street.  As he turns he gives me a thumbs up signal.  Okay so far. 

     I have never been so happy in my life.  I sit down by the fountain and wait for Bill to come into view returning down 106^th Street.

     I don’t know how long it was before I realized that Bill had stolen my Peugeot.  

     And my cellphone.

 

     Sometimes I still tell myself that it must have been a misunderstanding, or an accident, heaven forbid.  Or a kidnapping.  But how would I report such a thing?  The cops might just write Bill off as a common thief.

    

     But I still have the print of  Bill, me, and the Peugeot framed above my TV.  A remembrance of a nearly perfect relationship.

                                                       THE END 

 In The Line of Duty

Parts 7 thru 12

John Matthews

     Jack stood at his apartment door, fishing in his pocket for his key.  Before he found it, Wilson nosed through the unlocked door. 

     Wilson bounded over to Kelly, who was sitting in Jack’s easy chair, and hopped into her lap. 

     Kelly gave Wilson a big kiss and a hug.  Jack just stared.  He’d have liked the same treatment from Kelly, but not right after Petraeus and Wilson had both had a turn. 

     “How did you get in?” he asked.

     “First of all, I’m in the Secret Service, so it’s secret.  Second, you gave me a key, remember?”

      She was rubbing Wilson’s belly.   Wilson didn’t care whose belly she had rubbed before.

     “Sit down and listen,” said Kelly.  “You have something I need, but first I have to tell you why.”

     Jack pulled out his notebook.  A private investigator, he was always prepared.

     “No, just listen.  This is secret.  We don’t want notes lying around.  Besides, I don’t think you can write and listen at the same time.”

     “Holly Petraeus and Paula Broadwell dragged me into the Clintons’ powder room at the party.  They need our help, but it’s complicated.

     “Pea…, I mean the general, isn’t having an affair with Broadwell.  It’s all a sham.  It’s a trick to lure some terrorist organization into a trap.  The terrorists could create some doctored, compromising photos of Petraeus and Broadwell, then use them to blackmail the general, in order to get him to turn over some secret information.

     “When this happens, it would give the U.S. a perfect chance to pass along phony information, information that will cause the terrorists to make a mistake that will destroy them.  They’d never know what hit ‘em.”

     Kelly paused.  “Jack, you look tired.  Are you following any of this?”

     “Sure.  Phony affair, phony intelligence, blow up terrorists.  Check.    And you say Holly Petraeus knows about all this?”

     “Sure, she’s playing along and having a great time playing spy.”

     “But does she know about you and the general?”

     “Of course not.  That’s why she and Broadwell collared me to help them.”

     “But I didn’t see you talking to them.”

     “The powder room, idiot!  Your friend Dewey Lubuck  didn’t see anything either. Tell him to get a better disguise.  The caterers the Clintons hire don’t usually eat snacks from their own serving trays.  And if you’re going to watch me from the top of a building, don’t stand with the moon behind you.”

     “Okay, but this whole thing sounds pretty simple,” said Jack.

     “I haven’t gotten to the complicated part yet.  Turns out the terrorists didn’t need the secret info as much as they need money to fund their operations.  The quickest way to get money in Washington is from rich diplomats, like the Thai ambassador.  They decided to kidnap the ambassador’s son and hold him for ransom.   They figured they could lure the son into a trap by stealing his cello and dangling it in front of him.

     “In order to get the cello, they contacted Broadwell, and threatened to expose her affair with Petraeus, unless she began an affair, a real affair this time, with the Thai ambassador as a way to find out where they hide the cello.”

     “A cello’s a big fiddle, right?  It shouldn’t be hard to find.”

     “Harder than you think.  But Paula’s pretty smart.  She likes playing this spy game too.”

     “How’s she going to do it?”

     “She’s already done it.  The big fiddle, as you call it, is in a secret compartment in the ambassador’s son’s Escalade.  Paula has stolen it and is headed for some place the terrorists have directed her to.”

      Jack’s eyes started to light up.  “What they should have done is got the FBI to keep on her tail, pardon the expression.”

      “Now you’re catching on.  That’s just what they did.  But the FBI, with their usual razor sharp precision, lost her when she went through the Fort McHenry Tunnel.  The incompetent bastards asked for private help to track her down.”

      “Who did they ask?  Anybody we know?”

     “Your friend and boss, Dewey Lubuck.”

     “So you need me to find Dewey, so you and the FBI can find Paula and the Escalade and the fiddle before the terrorists do something bad to her.”

      “You’re catching on quicker than I thought.”  Kelly got up, dumping Wilson to the floor.  

Part 8                                                                                                                    Colleen Weikel

“I’m on it, Kel.” Jack said, stuffing his phone into his jacket pocket and heading for the door.  Looking back, he saw Kelly on her knees looking under the antique coffee table that had been his grandmother’s; the only nod to the Victorian Era in his ultra-modern apartment.  “Lose something?” Jack asked.

            Holding up a button from her jacket, she said, “Found it!  Lost a button.”

            Jack knelt beside the marble topped coffee table and picked off a button of another kind.  Grinning and holding the bug out to her, he laughed, “You lost more than that.  Here, keep it.  I’ll tell you what I find out; you don’t have to bug my place.”  He tossed the little silver disc into her handbag, watched it fall to the bottom among the used tissues and gum wrappers, and strode down the dimly lit hallway and out of the door into the parking lot.

            In his old beater car, Jack dialed Dewey Lubuck.  He was cruising along the I95 trying to catch up to Dewey.  Kelly had said he had about an hour’ head start.  Dewey answered the phone on the third ring.  “Yeah?”

            “It’s me and you still owe me one, Dewey,” Jack said gruffly,  hoping Dewey wouldn’t think about that statement too hard. 

            “Nice try, Moron.  I think you got it turned around, dontcha?”  Dewey laughed.  “So what do ya want?”

            The cellular signal was fading in and out as he drove through the tunnel.  Don’t shut off, he pleaded to the powers that be while he talked to Dewey.  “Ok, ok, ya got me.  But look, I know what you’re working on and I’m on the same case.  The cello thing.”

            Dewey drew a loud breath and swallowed hard, “How in hell do you know that?  I just found out about it 10 minutes ago.”

            “The SS,” Jack said, relieved that he was finally out of the tunnel and cruising at top speed.  His old beater car, a candy apple red ’55 Chevy with a rusted looking body had the engine of a race car.  One of the local motor heads rebuilt it for him a year ago and although it wasn’t a thing of beauty, it could win an amateur race hands down.

            “The SS?  The Secret Service?  Are you shittin’ me, Jack?”

            Swerving to avoid a collision with a Yellow cab, Jack swore, then told Dewey what he figured he already knew. 

            Unimpressed, Dewey said, “Yeah, so?  Tell me something I don’t already know.”

            “I know who’s driving the car.  The gray Escalade.  The one with the cello in the secret compartment.  And I’m pretty sure I know where it’s going.” 

What he didn’t tell Dewey was that he had a receiver that tracked not the Escalade, but the driver.  Kel had slipped it into her purse during the party at the Clintons last night right after the powder room conference.

            “Aw, fuck!” Dewey fumed.  “Must be nice having all the info fed to you by the top feds.  Gotta start sleeping with the right chicks.”

            Jack laughed and snapped his phone off as he put the pedal to the metal and blew around a string of cars.  The device monitoring the whereabouts of Paula Broadwell showed she had exited 95 and was moving in the direction of the Holland tunnel and the lower west side of Manhattan.  Traffic was moving at 85 – 90 miles per hour and he sped up, passing another line of cars in his way.  He saw Dewey staring at him as he passed his BMW.  Dewey did not look happy.  Jack was probably 5 miles behind Paula and gaining fast.

            Paula drove the speed limit.  She knew that a cop delaying her to give her a speeding ticket would put the genius cello child in more danger than he already was.  She wished she knew her way around the west side better.  The damn car’s GPS worked, but the automated voice spoke Thai, not English.  That was no help at all.  Her only choice was to watch closely and pray she’d find Ann and William streets in time.

            Maybe she was selfish, but she cared more about the public learning of her supposed affair with Petraeus than she was about the kid with the million dollar cello.  He was nothing to her.  Petraeus wasn’t either, for that matter, but the publicity could damage her credibility as an author and put an end to a lucrative career.  Not to mention her husband’s reaction to the unwanted attention that could damage his career as well.

            Jack pulled in behind the pearl gray Escalade and wished he could somehow direct Broadwell to her destination.  His patience was wearing thin.  He knew they didn’t have much time.

            The Escalade hung a left onto Ann, a right onto William and crept down the block until it came to a stop in front of an abandoned three story tenement building with boarded-up windows and graffiti on the painted and peeling brick walls.

Part 9, Jamie Baker

Dewey, peering over the mahogany steering wheel of his BMW, watching the tail lights of Jack’s rust bucket disappear into the distance.   He let the cruise control maintain 85 mph, while his mind rushed over what he knew of this current case.    

Walter White, his FBI contact, hired him to find the Thai ambassador’s son’s car.   White says that the ambassador intimates that the cello and the sheet music stashed in a secret compartment are even more important than the car.   White tells Dewey that the car is on I95, probably heading for NYC.

Jack tells Dewey about a complicated plot, a plot that he learns about from Kelly.  According to Jack, Kelly tells him about a conversation she has with Paula Broadwell and Holly Petraeus.    The two women are supposed to play along with a story about an affair between the general and Broadwell, who are pretending to have an affair, so that the general  can be blackmailed by terrorists.    The terrorists will blackmail the general  for information, but  they’ll be fed misinformation.   But, according to Jack, according to Kelly, according to Broadwell and Mrs. Petraeus, what the terrorists really want is money to finance their terrorist operations, so  the terrorists have blackmailed Broadwell into stealing the Thai ambassador’s kid’s car, with the cello and the sheet music, as bait to lure the kid, who they will hold for ransom.  And, according to Jack, Kelly has put a bug into Broadwell’s purse, so Jack can use it to follow her to the meet with the terrorists.  

Dewey  rubs the back of his neck and then pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut for a few seconds.   When he opens them again, he realizes that daybreak is over, it’s now full day light and the I95 traffic is thick with morning commuters.  

Something, he tells himself, is seriously wrong with the facts of this case.   He knows that the government is ridiculously compartmentalized, with each level of bureaucracy and every department engaged in turf warfare.  He knows that not only does the left hand not know what the right hand is doing, but the fingers of the left hand don’t even know when they’re not on the left hand any more.    But even given that this is the government’s standard operating procedure, it still doesn’t make sense.  

For one thing, why is Kelly learning about this in a powder room from two women who are not SS agents?  Why didn’t her boss brief her on these terrorist-kidnapper-blackmailers?    

And with all the surveillance resources the government has, why is his company involved?  Shit, Dewey thinks, looking for a million dollar cello or missing sheet music or a stolen car or an author posing as a bimbo or whatever the hell his firm has been hired to find  is one thing,  or maybe 4 things, but why would the FBI hire a small, local, 3-operative security firm to foil international terrorists?  Even the FBI wasn’t that inept.  It just doesn’t make sense.  

And then there‘s Jack Porter.  He doesn’t make sense either.   Take his so-called surveillance vehicle.  Who tails suspects in a car that looks like it came thru a time warp?  Jack used to drive a grey Chevy Tahoe, so common that half the time even jack wasn’t sure which vehicle was his.    But this new ride?  Hell, Jack may as well try sneaking up in an Abrams tank.  

 And what private eye travels with a dog?  How secretive is that?   On a stake out, an operator can hide out in a car with dark windows for hours.   When nature calls, he can pee in a bottle.  But you can’t make a dog pee in a bottle.  Dogs have to be walked.  Kind of blows your cover, yeah?

But it was more than the car and the dog.   Jack himself was, well, different in an unsettling kind of way.  Take his relationship with Kelly.    It’s one thing to have a girl who sleeps around a little.  Hey, this is Kelly Cranston we’re talking about, she sleeps around a lot.  But still, if you know about it and it bothers you, break it off.  But follow her?  Get your partner to keep an eye on her at a party?  Spy on her from a roof top?  That’s masochism defined.  It’s crazy.  

If he had it to do over, Dewey thinks he’d never have gotten involved in this case.  In fact, if he had it to do over, he’d never have brought Jack in as a partner.  The guy is getting hinky, maybe even leaning toward the unstable.  If he wasn’t a partner, Dewey could just fire him, but now, well now, it will be hard to get rid of him.  Hard, but not impossible.

Dewey speed dials Natasha.

“Hello, Dewey.  You’re on the road?”

“Good morning , sweetheart, yes I am on the road.  Would you make a few calls for me, set up a little thing?”

“Of course.  What do you need?”

When Dewey finishes the call, he reaches over to the glove box and pulls out a small black box.  A green light pulses rhythmically in sync with a low beep.  Counting the beeps in 10 seconds, Dewey calculates that Jack’s red Chevy is less than 10 miles away.  Dropping the box into the console, Dewey punches the accelerator and the speedometer needle jumps to 100.  Dewey slides the vehicle between and past slower traffic, following the car that is following the car that is supposedly on its way to meet up with terrorists. 

Part 10                                                                                                            John Matthews

     Meanwhile, back in Washington, Kelly and Peaches weren’t letting a little bit of international terrorism, blackmail and kidnapping get in the way of a good, once in a lifetime, affair. 

     The general loved making dramatic entrances and Kelly enjoyed meeting him the same way.  She was under her sheets, wearing the same outfit he had admired in their meeting a few nights ago. 

     He opened her door, still wearing the formal uniform from the Clintons’ party.  It was now midmorning and the sunshine through her bedroom window on the stars and gold braid made him sparkle like a Christmas tree.

      Kelly pulled the sheet up and tucked it under her arms.  She sat up, hugged her knees, and watched the general undress.

     Getting rid of a class A service dress blue (formal) uniform was not as simple  as dropping her bathrobe.   There was the honors sash, the medals, the epaulettes, the satin cummerbund, the bow tie, the shirt studs, the cufflinks, the shoes spit shined to  patent leather luster, the gold striped trousers, all before it even started to get interesting.   Even a four star general only had one set of formal evening clothes, and Petraeus, as the current darling of Washington, had to use his more than any other military brass.  Yes, there was brass to be polished also, but he had people to do that.  He hung the garments carefully on shaped wooden hangers and placed them in the space in Kelly’s closet that she had cleared for him. 

     Kelly just smiled and shook her head.   Men.  It didn’t matter if they were generals or admirals, NFL quarterbacks, scoutmasters, Roman Catholic cardinals, dictators in banana republics, or Imperial Wizards of the Ku Klux Klan.  They loved their uniforms. 

     Of course Paula Broadwell or Blackwell, or whatever her name was, was no different.  At the Clintons’ party, she would have been appearing as an author, not as a major in the Army reserve, so she was in elegant mufti, but when she and the general appeared together on maneuvers, inspections, and field trips, their camo fatigues were always carefully coordinated.  It would be a catastrophe if one showed up in jungle green while the other was in desert sand, even if it was for a book signing in Topeka, Kansas.  They were both good at making public appearances, just as they were good at carrying on the deception of their supposed affair. 

     But Kelly and Peaches were good at their activities also, and even though their lovemaking was both tender and athletic, they didn’t waste time, and soon they were lying next to each other, both trying to seem like they weren’t breathing hard, and talking about spy stuff, their second favorite subject.

Side note:  I couldn’t find a good way to write a sex scene so if either of you want to write your own here, be my guest.   John

     “So how come you know about this Thai ambassador, musical prodigy son, valuable cello thing, and I don’t?”  asked Peaches.

     “It’s a girl thing.  Why do you guys get to have all the fun?   Bill Clinton doesn’t know about it.  You should have seen him trying to put the moves on me at that party.”

     “I saw.  I’m not head of the CIA for nothing.”

     “But Hilary Clinton knows.  So we have women from the Army, the Secret Service, the State Department, the CIA, and a dog who may be a woman, I’m not sure.  But we weren’t able to find a competent woman in the FBI to help tail Paula to the terrorist hideout.”

     “You call her Hilary?”

     “Not in public, but girlfriends get chummy pretty quick.”

     “So with all this woman power, why couldn’t you find a woman in the FBI?”

     “Probably because no competent woman would join the FBI.  Hilary had to arrange for an FBI contact.   It’s a guy named Walter White.  He promptly lost Paula when she went through the Fort McHenry Tunnel so he contacted a private eye named Dewey Lubuck.  Lubuck didn’t even know enough to ask about the tracking device we put in the ambassador’s Escalade, or at least with Paula, who’s in the Escalade.  But my friend Jack works for Lubuck, so I gave Jack the tracking receiver to go after Paula and the Escalade.  He has an amazingly hot car and he may even have caught up with her by now”

     “Jack?  What kind of a friend is Jack?”

     “Boy, Sir, you sure know how to hone in on the important stuff.  Just a friend.  Anyway, all we have to do is wait for him to call.  He can get it under control.  After all, he has Lubuck on his tail to help, Lubuck has an assistant named Natasha or Natalia, I’m not sure, maybe it’s two assistants, and they all have FBI contacts to call after they do the difficult stuff.”

     “I really can’t believe the FBI is as inept as you describe them,” said the general.

     “You probably know a lot about government successes, but at Secret Service School they teach us about the screw-ups, so we don’t make the same ones.  I’ll bet you don’t even know about the Sandusky mess.”

      “Sure I know, but that’s taken care of.”

     “I didn’t think you knew.  Sit back, General, and I’ll tell you a little story.”

     Kelly related the following to the disbelieving general.

     Probably the best example of FBI incompetence was an attempt the FBI (which the Secret Service referred to as Fuckedup Beyond Imagining)  had set up to try to gain some control over the epidemic of child molestation.

     The public only knew it as the Sandusky affair.   But the real story was too horrible to even hint at to the public.  The FBI had recruited Jerry Sandusky, an assistant coach at Penn State, another assistant coach Mike McQueary, and several former students who had benefited from Sandusky’s Second Mile Organization.  Sandusky was,  in reality, as nice a guy as his longtime reputation held him to be.  His love for kids was strictly on the up-and-up and the idea of anyone molesting any of the beneficiaries of his charity was so horrifying to him that he agreed to be the bad guy in the FBI’s charade.  He would pose as a serial molester, with the help of McQueary and the former students who agreed to pose as victims.  He would actually agree to be discovered, convicted, and go to prison, for a short time, in order to gather and pass information to the FBI about networks of child molesters.  It was a very unselfish thing to do.  But Sandusky felt he’d had a very lucky life and this was his chance to help, and eventually be seen as a hero for his actions.  

     The FBI’s mistake was their belief that there was a sort of child molestation mafia, that it was a highly organized crime that could be infiltrated and conquered from within. Secrecy was paramount.  The university president, vice presidents, and chief of security were all kept in the dark.  It was especially decided that head coach Joe Paterno could have no part in the operation.  A suggestion that Paterno was even peripherally involved was considered to be too damaging to the reputation of Penn State.  And if the operation came off as planned, Penn State and Paterno would, in the end, be showered with the heroism and praise that they deserved.  

     But almost from the start, things began to go wrong.  McQueary was supposed to tell Paterno of the fictitious assault by Sandusky.  As the story worked its way up the chain, someone would report it to the police, Sandusky would be arrested, convicted, and begin his service as an undercover agent of the FBI while a prisoner.  

     But McQueary hadn’t been rehearsed well enough by the FBI.  His report to Paterno was too watered down.  Paterno’s report to his superiors was watered down a little more, until University President Spanier received a report so ambiguous that he felt it was within his right to deal with it on his own.  Sandusky was simply told to stay away from the locker rooms and showers.

      The FBI, not wanting to waste the effort it had already expended, arranged its own carefully placed leaks which eventually got the case before a grand jury.   The jury, the attorney general, and other officials  who weren’t in on the secret operation decided to indict President Spanier and two other officials in addition to Sandusky. This was never intended by the FBI.  In addition, Paterno, who was also completely outside the loop, hung his head and said he “Should have done more”.

  

     To the FBI’s credit, they secretly used their influence to try to mitigate the damage to the President, the two officials, and Paterno but were only successful in keeping Paterno out of legal trouble.  But things had spiraled out of control. The press tore into Paterno.  Student protests erupted and turned ugly.  The reputation of the university sunk, and college football in general stood in disrepute.  The FBI considered just abandoning the operation, admitting its errors, hanging its head in shame, and letting everyone go free.

     But everyone knows what happened instead. Joe Paterno got sick and died.   The FBI decided they could no longer admit what they had done.  Even though Joe’s death was not the FBI’s fault, the fact that he had died under this cloud left the public feeling the scandal was responsible.  To discover there was really no scandal at all would just transfer the blame for Joe’s death to the FBI.  They might as well have been accused of killing Mother Teresa.

     So the whole thing was swept under the rug.  Sandusky understandably claimed his innocence, but, good soldier that he was, did not accuse the FBI, and quietly agreed, for a while at least, to keep doing his undercover prison work as planned. Then when Louis Free, the FBI’s former director, got into the act and conducted his investigation with absolutely no knowledge of what his former agency had done, it sealed the deal.  How could the FBI admit that its former director had not known what was going on? 

For the good of the country the FBI had to retain its reputation in order to be an effective crime prevention force.   The FBI continues today to try to gain the acquittal of the other officials without admitting the agency’s own guilt.    The problem of how to get the innocent Sandusky out of jail has not been solved.  Certain people at high levels in the FBI are shrugging their shoulders and labeling Sandusky as collateral damage, a victim of friendly fire in the battle against child abuse.

     So Kelly Cranston knew she was part of a house of cards that could easily topple and hurt a lot of people.  But her youthful optimism left her feeling she could have her fun, and slip out before things got nasty.

     By the time she finished her story, Peaches was sitting on the floor in his skivvies polishing his shoes.  Kelly recognized this as his signal that, even though she was ready for some more fun, for now, he was worn out.  Maybe Holly Petraeus was making demands on him also, thought Kelly.

                                                        * * * * *

     Jack had been maintaining a safe distance behind Paula and the Escalade.  When he saw her stop at the old tenement building on William Street, he hit the brakes hard.  Wilson tumbled to the floor.  This was actually a relief for Wilson. He had to pee badly and stopping meant he would finally get his chance.  A second later another jolt snapped Jack’s head back. 

     Dewey was steaming and the BMW was steaming. Vapor from his broken radiator was seeping out around his crumpled hood. His front bumper was entangled with the rear bumper on Jack’s Chevy.    Dewey almost forgot that he still had the cell phone to his ear.  It was ringing.  He answered without even checking who was calling.

     “Hi, Sweetie,” said Natalia.  “I got the info you wanted. Ya ready for it?”

     “Listen, Natasha. I’ve been in an accident.  I’m okay but you have to get up here quick.  I need help and the Beemer’s out of commission.  Things look like they’re going to heat up in a hurry.”

     “First, Sweetie, who the hell’s Natasha? Ya foolin’ around or somethin’?”        

  

Part 11                                                                                                                 Colleen Weikel

“Natasha?  I didn’t say Natasha!  I don’t know any Natasha,” Dewey said.  He needed Natalia to help him and couldn’t afford for her to leave him sit right now.  But she was in D.C. and he was here. 

Dewey waited for Jack to get out of his rust bucket.   He didn’t have to wait long.  Jack slammed his door shut, went around the other side, let the dog out and let him pee on Dewey’s tires, then knocked on the drivers’ side window.

“Yeah?” Dewey grumbled.

“What the hell are ya doin’, Dew?  You slammed right into me.  Saw you following me all the way from outside D.C. after I passed you.  Thought I lost you at first.  Where’s the bug?”  Wilson put his paws on his car door and licked the window.

“Get your dog off my car.  He’s going to scratch my paint.”

Jack barked a laugh, “Ya think you need to worry about scratched paint?  The front end is buried in my trunk.   I don’t see how a couple scratches are gonna hurt it now.”

Dewey repositioned his hat, stifling the urge to slam his fist into Porter’s face.  “Goddamn it, Jack!   You are the biggest pain in the ass I’ve ever known!  Get the goddamn dog off my car and get the hell out of my way.  Got it?”

Jack raised his hands in surrender, spun on his heel and backed away.  Wilson wanted to explore the grounds and mark his territory anyway.

Outside the room with boarded up windows on the third floor of the old tenement building, Paula Broadwell listened at the door.  There was no sound.  She dropped to one knee on the filthy, broken, urine-smelling floor and peered through the keyhole.  The Thai ambassador’s son was tied to a straight backed wooden chair in the center of the room.  Most people would be sweating bullets, but the kid was cool as a cucumber.  He either expected to be rescued or he just didn’t understand the situation.  She could see the kid, but no one else. 

The sound of footsteps coming from a lower floor caught her attention.  She had to get out of sight.  She climbed inside a rickety old wooden wardrobe dresser that sat against the far wall.  If anyone were to see her, she’d stand out like a sore thumb in her designer clothing and styled hair.  She hoped the smell of soap from her shower wouldn’t give her away in this filthy, godforsaken place.  Holding her breath, she waited for the footsteps to come closer.  Whoever it was, he was on the stairs.  They creaked under his weight.  Must be a big guy.  The old wardrobe was cracked along one side panel.  She peeked through it. She could see a gun and dark shoes.  Shiny shoes.  Expensive shoes.  Shoes that were out of place in this dump.  Like a hippo in a flower pot.    So was the scent of Bulgari Green.  Expensive shower gel.  Who was this guy?  She heard a key click in the locked door.  Whoever this was meant business.

Part 12  (Ending)                                                                                               John Matthews

  Paula just sat and held her head in her hands.  What was going on?  Krit Xuto wasn’t supposed to be here.  She was supposed to deliver the cello as the trap to lure him in.  Why did they want the cello if they already had the kid?

   The key turned in the lock and the door swung open.  A huge guy in an expensive suit and shoes to match pointed a gun at her.  The gun wasn't as intimidating as the overpowering smell of Bvlgari Green which drowned out the smell of her Jean Nate.  They stared at each other. The battle of smells was not pleasant, especially when mingled with the urine soaked floor.

   “Good, you’re here,” said the guy.  “You better have the fiddle.”

  “Who are you?” asked Paula.

  “You don’t gotta know.  Besides there are too many characters in this story already.  That Lubuck guy can’t even remember his girlfriend’s name.”

  “I know,” said Paula, shaking her head.  “Sometimes I can’t even remember my own name.   But what do you need the cello for if you already have Krit?”

  “Why don’t I just let him tell you?  He’s a pretty smart kid.  At least he thinks he is.”

  Krit Xuto was just taking it all in.  “You have my cello?  How did you get it out of the Escalade?”

  “It’s still in the Escalade,” said Paula.  “How did they get you?”

 

  “I got a phone call saying my cello was here in New York.  The Escalade was gone so I figured they had stolen it.  They told me I had to come here to get it because they couldn’t figure out how to get it out.  They said they’d give it back and just keep the Escalade if I’d get it out for them.  My dad has a private jet.  I took it and got up here quick.  But I was careless.  That’s why I’m tied up.”

   “When I heard the Escalade was gone,” said the big guy, “I knew you were on the way.  So I called the kid and lured him in.”

   “You heard,” said Paula.  “How did you hear?”

 

  “You can hear a lot if you infiltrate the FBI’s communication system.  It’s very easy to do.  I understand the Secret Service refers to the FBI as…”

   “Yea, Yea, I know,” said Paula.  “So what are you going to do now?”

   “First, I’ve got a buyer for the fiddle, if I can get it out of the Escalade.  I was just goin’ to start workin’ the kid over to get him to tell me how to do it.  But I just heard on the phone intercept that Lubuck’s girlfriend, Natalia or Natasha or whatever her name is, called him with the secret code.  By the way, Lubuck’s downstairs along with some private eye.  I gotta get down there before they figure out how to get into the Escalade.”

                                    __________________________________

   Meanwhile, downstairs.

  “Natalia just called me with the code to get into the Escalade’s secret compartment to get the fiddle,” said Dewey to Jack.   “If we can get it, put it into your car, which looks like it’s still drivable, we can get it back to DC before they lure the ambassador’s son to come up here.”

  The secret code was surprisingly simple. The first four notes of Saint Saen’s most famous cello composition played on any cell phone opened the secret hatch. In a few minutes they had the cello out of the Escalade and were strapping it to the top of Jack’s Chevy.  But they still had to untangle the Chevy from the bumper of the BMW.

   “You jump up and down on the bumper while I try to back the Chevy away from it,” said Jack.  “Wilson, you stay clear.  I don’t want to hit you.”

  Dewey bounced on the bumper as Jack floored the accelerator.  The wheels spun, but the bumpers stayed locked.  Finally the power of the Chevy actually started to pull the BMW.  Dewey gave one mighty bounce and the bumpers released.  The Chevy rocketed ahead, but Jack quickly slammed on the brakes.  The cello, which hadn’t been tied very securely, shot off the car and the heavy scroll at the end of its neck caught the big kidnapper squarely on the jaw.  The kidnapper  had come downstairs to stop Jack and Dewey but he was so surprised by the mess they were making of things he was caught off guard.  But he reacted quickly.  He held onto his gun  and pointed it at Dewey who was still standing on the BMW bumper.

  But Wilson was also alert.  Even in the dark, the kidnapper’s shiny shoes were a treat he couldn’t resist.  He clamped onto one and the kidnapper’s shot went wide.  Before he could recover, The Escalade backed up and pinned the kidnapper against the Chevy.

                                        ____________________________

  Meanwhile, back upstairs.

  “Krit, if I can bounce my chair over to you, so we’re sitting back to back, do you think you can reach the knots he’s tied me up with?” asked Paula.

    “I think so,” said Krit, “When you play cello, you learn to do things with your fingers without looking at them.” 

    The kid was good.  In seconds both he and Paula were free.  Paula ran over and knocked one of the boards out of a window.  The mess she saw below would have panicked  a lesser person.  There wasn’t time to go down and help.  But she still had the keys to the Escalade.  They included not only a remote starter, but the ability to put the car in gear remotely.  She fired it up and started it back toward the kidnapper who was getting ready for another shot. 

   The second shot was badly aimed also but unfortunately, it went through the cello, which was now lying in the street.  Wilson had released the kidnapper’s shoe and now eyed the cello as an interesting place to have another pee. 

  “Sorry about your cello,” said Paula as she and Krit stared out the window.

   “It’s pretty tough,” said Krit.  “I’m sure it can be patched.  And a bullet hole from a kidnapping attempt might make it even more valuable.”

                                       ____________________________________

   Back downstairs again.

  A black government sedan pulled up to the ugly mess of the wrecked BMW, The Chevy and Escalade with the kidnapper pinned between them and a bulldog sniffing at a beautiful cello. 

  Two FBI agents jumped out of the sedan, guns drawn. 

   Dewey thought he recognized the agents.  One was an older white haired guy who looked vaguely like Walter White but for some reason seemed slightly different.  But the other was definitely Carlotta Page.  The Donut Hole job must have been a cover.  No wonder her donuts were so terrible.     

    The old white haired guy was laughing.  He put his gun away.  “Looks like you guys have things under control,” he said.  No, it definitely was NOT Walter White.  But why was he so familiar?

                                       _________________________________

   A few days later, Kelly Cranston, Hillary Clinton, Holly Petraeus, and Paula Broadwell sat around a glass table on the terrace of the Thai embassy, a pitcher of Margaritas on the table in front of them.  Nearby the gentle strains of Saint Saens’  “The Swan” were coming from the recently patched cello being played for them by Krit Xuto.

   “I’m so glad we can all end up friends, after this affair.” Said Kelly.

  “Please don’t use the term ‘affair’ “  said Paula.  She smiled as she sipped her drink.

  “I’m still not clear on one thing,” said Holly Petraeus.  “Paula has explained how the kidnapper was caught, but how did the FBI get there so quickly, and who were those agents?”

   “You have your husband Peaches to thank for that,” said Kelly.  “After I told him how screwed up the FBI was and told him that story about the Sandusky mess, he was really upset.  He pulled some strings, and he pulled them quick.  He arranged for the FBI to grab that incompetent Walter White and make a quick switch.  They placed White in prison in place of Jerry Sandusky, who was innocent all along.  They swore Sandusky in as an agent and paired him up with Carlotta Page, who used to be White’s partner and sent the two of them to New York to settle things.  But when they got there Paula, Krit, and Wilson, with a little help from Jack and Dewey, had taken care of things.”

   “Sandusky will be cleared and given the respect he deserves,” said Hillary.  “I pulled some strings to help with that.”

   “Peaches and I are on the way to reconciling,” said Holly Petraeus.  “He’s really a good guy, just got too caught up in all this hero stuff.   Kelly, I want you to know I hold nothing against you.”

   “Thank you, Holly.  It was over between Peaches and me.  But don’t worry about me.  I’m afraid I’m not ready to become a ‘good girl’ just yet.  I might look around for some other political type to have a fling with.”

    For some reason she could not force herself to make eye contact with Hillary.   

                                                            THE END

 

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