Another short walk today, a few chance encounters along the way to think about music matters.

Chapter 27.3

“Schwarzwald?” Taggart whispered, but then he looked up at Edith again. “Quantum mechanics? Yeah, I had her for Quantum Mechanics, and I remember she was into QTT – in a big way. She was a weird one, too, but I don’t think I had any idea she was into music.”

“QTT?

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, quantum time travel. She was always coming up with weird stuff about that crap.”

“I see. So you heard the music somewhere else, but even so it’s strange you’d be playing that music in your mind.”

“Strange? How so?”

“The subject matter, I suppose. The work is supposed to be about her experiences in the Theresienstadt ghetto during the war…”

“Ghetto? I thought it was a concentration camp?”

Edith nodded. “I suppose it was, but anyway, her music grates on my nerves. I heard it up at the Hollywood Bowl years ago, right after von Karajan released his retrospective of her works.”

Taggart pulled up the music app on his phone and found the von Karajan set and downloaded it – just as another image popped up in Messages. Anton had moved into one of the Baron’s rear seats, allowing Rolf to sit right seat while Sophie handled the flying chores solo, and Henry watched a short video clip of their takeoff, with Rolf’s hands on the yoke – following through on Sophie’s movements – and Henry could see the interest in the boy’s excited movements and he smiled.

“Sounds like an airplane,” Edith said as she watched him watching Anton’s video.

“Anton and Rolf. They’re leaving Norway now.”

“So…six hours ’til they get back?”

“Thereabouts, yeah. They’re taking a longer route to stay over land, so they’ll need to refuel again. But the plane needs to be back by midnight, one way or another.”

“Oh? Why’s that? Don’t tell me…it turns into a pumpkin…?”

He smiled.“Not quite. Some local air freight operation uses it a few nights a week, something like that. Anton is building up hours with them, too, so I guess he needs to stay on good terms with them.”

That kind of talk bored Edith quickly, and he could tell she was going to change subjects and he grinned. ‘Some things never change,’ he sighed.

“Your skin looks better today, Henry.”

“Yeah, the platelets must’ve kicked in. As a matter of fact I feel pretty good, too.”

“Can I get you something to eat? Some tea, perhaps?”

He looked at his watch and shook his head. “Let’s wait ’til Tracy gets back; maybe we can head out and grab a PBJ somewhere…”

Edith shook her head. “Only you would come to Paris and get worked up over a peanut butter sandwich…”

+++++

They helped him out to the salon and when he saw a little Christmas tree on the chart table he stopped and smiled. “Nice job,” he said as he nodded his approval to Edith. “Looks like we need more presents under there, or Christmas morning could be a bust.”

“You want to hang stockings too, Henry?” Edith said, grinning.

“Sure, why not. Think you could handle that?”

“I bet I could.”

He looked at his watch again, mindful of Rolf and Dina’s arrival, then to Tracy. “Where to?”

“How ‘bout the Irish place again?”

He nodded. “And maybe I can hold down my food tonight. Anyway, it’s worth a try…”

“Maybe,” Edith snarled, “we could talk about something other than flying saucers!”

“That sounds like a plan,” Tracy added.

“Speaking of,” Edith crabbed as she started up the companionway. “Anyone heard from that Navy jackass?”

“Mike? No, I haven’t,” Henry said as he started up behind Edith, and when he got to the cockpit he helped Clyde up the last few steps then leashed him up. “You feel up to this, buddy?”

His tail wagged and he ‘woofed’ once, so that was that.

“You gonna try some snails tonight?” Henry added as they walked off the boat.

That was good for a barely detectable grade-A fart.

“Right. A simple no would have done it.”

It was a little after three in the afternoon and the sky was gray, the clouds low and thick, and  sunset was only about an hour away – yet the little park around the marina looked different now. Almost sinister, and when he saw the hair on Clyde’s neck standing on end a shiver ran down Henry’s spine.

“Does something feel – different – to any of you,” Tracy asked, looking up through the trees at low-scudding clouds and bare limbs dancing on a stiffening breeze, “or is it just me?”

Clyde growled, deep and low, and his chest stiffened as he positioned himself protectively in front of the women. Henry remembered Clyde had the same tape around his arm and immediately understood, but even so Clyde’s reaction was as priceless as it was troubling.

“I feel it too,” Edith whispered. 

“Do you think we should go back to the boat?” Tracy asked, now looking at Clyde.

Henry shook his head. “Come on, y’all…it ain’t Halloween so let’s get a move on.”

A light snow started to fall, then thunder rolled over the city.

And then it hit him. 

“Do you hear any cars out there?” Henry asked Tracy, and then they stopped and looked at one another.

“No, I don’t.”

She took his hand and they walked to the marina gates and all the while the snow started coming down harder and harder, so no one noticed the completely translucent sphere following them up there among the treetops.

And yet there was already enough snow on the old cobbles to deaden the sound, and with traffic not yet fully back to normal it was enough to provide another layer of strangeness to this evening’s elusive feel. Henry hailed a taxi and they rode to the pub in silence, the snow melting on their clothes in the heated Mercedes – yet even that felt odd.

There was something comforting about the old pub, however. Ancient and comforting.

The ceiling really did look as though it had been crafted of heavy timbers hundreds of years ago, and even the stone walls seemed to possess a kind of quiet nobility in their resolute strength. But, he realized, this was a sacred space for reasons far more personal. This was where he and his parents had always come on their first night in Paris, so he halfway expected them to materialize out of the stonework and join them for a pint.

But no, he sighed, that’s not the way the world works.

Then an invisible sphere slipped through the stone and settled near the ceiling between two ancient beams, the translucent eye within focused on Henry’s table.

+++++

They had just finished their first course when Captain Lacy walked in. With two decidedly unfriendly looking types by his side. They went to the bar and ordered beer, leaving Henry to wonder – once again – what Mike really wanted from him.

Yet…a few minutes later Lacy and his entourage walked back out into the snow.

“Now that was odd,” Edith said as she watched the door close behind the men.

“No, not really. He was just sending a little message our way.”

“A message?” Tracy asked.

“Yeah. My guess is he’s on his way to Le Bourget – to intercept Anton and throw a wrench into some of our best laid plans.”

“He wouldn’t dare,” Edith hissed.

“Oh yes, he would. As a matter of fact, Edith, I’m counting on it.”

“What?” Tracy sighed. “Oh no, Henry, what have you done now?”

Henry finished his last snail – Clyde looking his way with barely concealed contempt, which Henry felt odd…considering some of the things the pup did to himself. “Could you hand me the bread please. I want to soak up some of this garlic…”

“Hank?”

“Yeah, babe…”

“They say when you look at someone for the first time, within maybe a second or so you can tell a lot about a person, maybe even everything important. Whether they’re a good person, for instance, or maybe a bad one.”

“Okay? And your point is…?”

“When you looked at that guy, Mike, what went through your mind?”

“Well, things were a little weird that day, Tracy, but he seemed like a decent guy. Competent, and decent.”

“And now?”

“I think he believes in what he’s doing.”

“So…still a decent guy? Interesting.”

“Interesting?”

“Yeah, because…you know…doesn’t that kind of make you the bad guy in this equation?”

“He might think so.”

“But…what about you? You don’t?”

“Me? I’ve been going round and round, Tracy, caught up in something with no way to get off the ride.”

“And did he put you there? Stuck on the ride, I mean?”

“No, not exactly him. But Tracy, there are a lot of Mikes out there, and a lot of ‘em are convinced they know right from wrong.”

“Is that why you left?” Edith said.

“Left? What do you mean?”

“The states, your home, California,” Edith added.

“No, not at all. I wanted to make this trip. Here, to Paris. I always kinda thought that was what dad wanted to do, the two of us, together.”

“So…why not with…someone like me. A wife, someone important to you?”

Henry looked away, then he looked up at the ceiling. At a shimmer hiding within a shadow, and quickly he turned away, tried to compose himself. “What did you say?”

“Why did you head out alone?” Edith repeated.

“Oh, I don’t know really. Maybe somewhere along the way I stopped trusting people, and the more people I met the more people I distrusted.”

“So,” a suddenly very subdued Tracy asked – while still managing to look him in the eye, “what’s changed?”

“Nothing,” Taggart said. “And everything.”

Then Clyde looked up at the ceiling and started to growl.

+++++

There was about a foot of snow out on the sidewalk in front of the pub and the streets were now just about deserted. It was, he know, a long walk back to the marina – too long. And Edith was, of course, wearing her goddam five inch spikes. He looked down the street and saw a taxi pulling away from the George V and brought his fingers to his mouth and let loose an ear shattering whistle…

“Jesus H Christ, Henry!” Edith screeched. “You still do that louder than anyone on earth…”

Seconds later the taxi pulled up to the curb and the driver rolled down his window. “Où veux-tu aller?”

“The marina at the Bastille.”

“Too close. You can walk.”

Henry fished out his wallet, pulled out a banknote and handed it to the driver – who jumped out from behind the wheel and ran around to open the door for Edith. Henry settled in the front seat beside the driver and looked out the window, somewhat ashamed of his fellow man but not at all surprised.

“That reminded me of your father, Henry,” Edith said as she climbed out of the back seat after they reached the marina gates. “He’d have been proud of you.”

Henry smiled as he hooked up Clyde’s leash. “Somehow I doubt that. I think he’d have beat that man senseless.”

“Not your father. He was a gentleman.”

“He could be, but I feel certain you’d have changed your tune had you seen him in action down in Mexico.”

Clyde barked twice and pulled at his leash, so Henry took off after him and they bounded into the little park together…yet about halfway to his favorite bush Clyde shuddered to a stop and began growling again.

And this time Henry had no problem seeing the trouble. A man was standing beyond the gates,  positioned to watch them arrive, and even now he remained in the shadows – watching Henry.

Henry changed directions and started for the Seine; Clyde readily came along, his tail hanging low – yet when Henry and Clyde made it to the part of the marina nearest the entry from the Seine he was shocked to find the man standing beside a tree just ahead.

An Old Man in a Cape stepped into the walkway, blocking the way ahead, and Henry’s eye was drawn to the cane in the man’s hand. Varnished wood with silver filigree running the length of the cane, and Henry thought the glinting silver looked a little like lightning.

“It is a dangerous night to be out,” the Old Man said, his voice gentle, almost kindly. “Why do so many people follow you?”

“Oh? Who’s following me?”

The Old Man shrugged. “I have no idea. Are you saying you don’t either?”

Clyde was following both men now with his eyes, his tail wagging from time to time, then the Old Man stepped close and bent to rub Clyde’s head.

“Hello, old friend,” the Old Man began. “I told you we would see each other again soon.”

Clyde barked once then licked the Old Man’s hand.

Henry felt the universe shift underfoot: “Wait a second…you know this dog?”

“Of course I do, Henry. We decided on Bergen, because, well, you seemed so lonely at the time.”

“What…?”

“You should go below now,” the Old Man added. “The weather is about to get truly awful…”

And with that the Old Man tapped his cane on the pavement and deep thunder rolled over the city, then he pointed his cane at a cloud and lightning arced into the Seine – sending a column of hissing steam high into the air above the river.

But when Henry recovered he turned back to the man and found he was nowhere to be seen; Clyde was, however, looking up at him now, a kind, almost sympathetic look in his eyes.

“So…you were in on this too?” Henry asked. “I have to tell you, I didn’t see that one coming…”

Clyde came over and stood on hind legs and Henry bent over to meet him; when the pup’s hands were on his shoulders Henry lifted him up and Clyde rested his face on Henry’s shoulder, and he carried his old friend back to Time Bandits, rubbing his head all the way…

© 2021 adrian leverkühn | abw | this is a work of fiction, pure and simple; the next element will drop as soon as the muse cooperates. And oh, here’s another little piece to consider.

Short and to the point. Are you sitting comfortably…

Chapter 27.2

Henry felt his phone vibrate on his lap and picked it up; he looked at the text and read through it quickly, then looked up at Tracy. “Take my credit card, see what you can find for him. You know, something he’ll remember twenty years from now. And maybe a scarf from Hermes for your mother.”

“Really? Mom?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, there’s a Bulgari Store over by the Arc, but Hank, are you really sure you want me to do this?”

Henry crossed his arms over his lap and sighed. “Take a taxi, Tracy, and stay off the Metro, for god’s sake. And call me if you have any questions.”

“Okay. I’ll be gone a while, so…”

“And I’ll be here when you get back.”

She smiled and left him looking at his phone again. It was from Rolf; he and Dina were at the airport in Bergen waiting at the general aviation terminal by the heliport. “Do you know when Anton will get here?” read Rolf’s latest and more than nervous text.

“Should be in the next half hour or so,” he replied, then he went into contacts and found the information for the team’s old Beta site and called Dr. Collins again.

“Henry, that you already?”

“Yessir.”

“Had a visitor yet?”

“Come and gone, sir. And thank you. They’ve been hard to reach lately.”

“Yeah, well, they’re pulling out faster than a Texan down in Boy’s Town. Can’t say I blame ‘em, really.”

“Understood, sir.”

“If you’re around Christmas morning, give me a call. If not, I’ll see you when I see you.”

Henry sighed and his eyes watered a little. “Yessir. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Henry.”

He put the phone down just as a new text chirped, so he picked it up and looked at the screen again. Anton had written: “Enter pattern, have 5 Bars, on ground ten minutes.”

“Got it,” he replied, and then he sent the information on to Rolf – who instantly shot back a happy face emoji.

“What a world this has turned into,” he said to himself – just as Edith popped her head in the door to his stateroom. “So, there she is, Miss America,” Henry crooned.

And she smiled this time. “She reminds you of Claire, doesn’t she?”

He shook his head. “No, not really. You’ll always have that market cornered, Edith.”

“But…you love her, don’t you?”

“You could say that.”

“She told me everything, you know. About that company in McLean, all of it.”

Henry nodded. “She told me. Yesterday.”

“So you two cleared the air?”

“Yes, I think so. Well, I hope so, anyway.”

Edith came in and sat on the edge of his bed, then she took a deep breath. “That’s why I came, you know? I wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to do anything that could really hurt you.”

“I figured that might have something to do with it. Your heart was always in the right place, Edith.”

“But, yes, I know, sometimes my head wasn’t.”

“Maybe so,” he sighed.

“If I ask you an important question will you give me a straight answer?”

He grinned. “Don’t take roundings on me, Edith. Just say what you came to say.”

“Okay,” she said as she turned away for a moment. “One thing has bothered me, Henry, but I need to know…”

“Did I ever really love you?”

“Yes.”

“Of course I did, Edith. How could I not? You saved my life – once upon a time – and none of this could have happened without you and me and the time we had.”

“So…why Tracy?”

He’d known this question was coming and he still wasn’t sure how to answer it…so he just dove in and said what he needed to say: “Let’s just call it a gift, Edith, and let it go at that.”

“Let it go,” she whispered. “I never really thought things between us could be so easy.”

“Oh? You know, for a year or so I thought everything came pretty easy between us.”

“There isn’t a day goes by, Henry, when I don’t think of all that.”

“What’s your favorite memory?” he asked.

“You and me and that week up at Snowbird. The Cliff Lodge, skiing Chip’s Run off the gondola.”

“The roast goose in the restaurant. Looking out that wall of glass at the falling snow – and that amazing dinner.”

“That lingonberry sauce?” she added. “You remember that too, don’t you?”

“How could anyone forget?” he smiled. “But…you were perfect.”

“We were perfect, Henry.”

He nodded. “Yes, maybe we were.” While it lasted, he didn’t need to say. “Funny. I wanted it to last forever.”

“I was a fool,” she said, looking away.

“We are what we are, Edith. We can’t fight it – no one can.”

“What? Being manipulative and a scheming backstabber?”

He smiled. “Thanks for not making me say that.”

“Everyone knew that about me, Henry, even then. Everyone but you, that is.”

“Maybe because I put you up on the same pedestal I’d put Claire on.”

“And I loved it up there. You made me feel like…oh, I don’t know, like royalty, like some kind of princess no one but you could have.”

“Me. The dumb jock. The linebacker…”

“I used to love watching you play, Henry. You owned that field.”

“I weighed a hundred and twelve pounds yesterday, Edith.”

“I know. Thank you for letting me stay.”

His phone chirped and an image of Anton and Rolf standing on the wing of a Beech Baron as a light snow fell on the airport in Bergen filled his screen. “Hey, look at you!” he wrote.

“This is SO AWESOME!” Rolf replied. “Thanks!”

“Enjoy the flight!”

“Is that Anton?” Edith asked, looking at Henry as he entered another text.

“Yes, they made it. Only an hour late, too.”

“Tell me about Dina?”

“She was my oncologist in Norway, and she was also a more than competent sailor.”

“Then – a match made in heaven?”

“No, not really. A marriage of inconvenience more than anything else.”

“Really? And are you sure she doesn’t still love you?”

“Dina? She hates my guts, Edith. You’ll see,” he said, then he started humming again…

“Why would you say that?”

“Because I bring out the worst in some people, Edith. And Dina is one of them.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it. And why do you keep humming that dreadful piece of music?”

He shook his head. “Man, I don’t know. I keep hearing the same thing over and over again, and I can’t remember where I’ve heard it.”

“Such a depressing piece. I can’t believe you’d remember that one, of all the music out there.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“Of course I do. You mean…you don’t?”

“No, I have no idea. Tell me, please.”

“It’s called the Theresienstadt Concerto, or Schwarzwald’s Third Piano Concerto. She was a Dane, I think. Imogen Schwarzwald, I seem to recall. She was a physicist and taught at Berkeley about the same time you were there. Funny you haven’t made the connection…”

© 2021 adrian leverkühn | abw | this is a work of fiction, pure and simple; the next element will drop as soon as the muse cooperates.

A few more words to soothe the savage beast.

Chapter 27.1

Henry was sitting up on his berth, resting on a pile of pillows behind his back and neck and trying to ignore his iPhone. New text messages were coming in left and right and he knew he should read them all – but while a few were supportive more than one had been annoying. Friends from high school, a roommate from college, people he’d worked with…somehow word had slipped out that he was on the way out and people he hadn’t heard from in years suddenly had his email and text addresses.

Then an email came in from an address he wasn’t expecting, one he hadn’t seen in years, the ex-head of the team he had consulted for at Boeing: “Henry? Can you give me a call?”

No number, no other identifier, so Dr. Collins must be using the same number he’d always used. He went into Contacts and found the listing, then hit send.

“Henry? That you?”

“Yessir. What can I do for you today?”

“What the hell is S.V. Time Bandits?”

“Sir?”

“That’s what came up on my screen. I mean really, Henry…Time Bandits?”

“The name of my boat, Dr. Collins.”

“So, you steal the name of my favorite movie and use it for your boat? That figures.”

“I thought you’d like it.”

“Didn’t your dad have a boat with a name like that?”

“Yessir. Just Bandit, though.”

“Oh yeah, I remember. He was a stock broker, wasn’t he?”

“No sir. Lawyer.”

“Piffle…that’s almost as bad. Your mother was a physician though, if I recall correctly.”

“Yessir.”

“Well, that must be where you got your brains.”

“You’re probably right about that, sir.”

“Henry, I heard some troubling news last night. You aren’t doing well, I understand.”

“I’ve been better, sir.”

“I can imagine. I’ve also heard some weenie waggers from the Naval War College are after you. That true?”

“Yessir, but they’re pretty harmless, really. At least so far.”

“I just need to know, Henry. You haven’t told anyone, right?”

“No sir. I’ve left all kinds of decoys out there, but nothing substantive.”

“So we don’t have anything to worry about on our end?”

“Just one thing, sir. I had a visitor a couple of nights ago. A sphere, but not from the Hyperion Group.”

“Describe it.”

“About a foot in diameter, translucent and reflective at the same time, and with some kind of electrical activity just visible inside.”

“What about an eye? See anything like that?”

“Sir? You know about this one?”

“I take it that means yes.”

“Yessir. And they seem to have the ability…”

“To index our brains. Access our memories. That was our impression, too.”

“What about Dink? What does he know about them?”

“Vicious. That’s how he described them.”

“Great. Lockheed did that one, right? So, anyone know why they’re picking on me?”

“We’re not sure.”

“Would you like me to call if they show up again?”

“No, we’ve got that covered now. You just take care, Henry. Oh, mine is in the pancreas, so I’ll be seeing you soon enough.”

“Sorry to hear that, sir. And before I forget, and I think they drew blood while they were here.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure, yes. Both me and my dog. The puncture was pretty crude and both are showing signs of infection.” 

He heard the old man breathing hard, then talking to someone in the background, then: “Henry, call me in an hour at the Beta number.”

“Yessir,” Taggart said, but by then the line had already gone dead.

“What was that all about?” Tracy said, coming into his stateroom and carrying a cup of tea.

“Another condolence call.”

“Ah. Have you heard anything from Anton?” she asked as she passed over the cup.

“They had to sit out some weather in Copenhagen. Heavy ice over southern Norway, but they’re up again and due to arrive at Bergen in about an hour.”

“How’s the tea?”

“Is that the cardamom?”

“Yup.”

“Man, I love this stuff.”

She smiled. “You want to try to eat something today?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Mom wants to put up a Christmas tree…”

“Of course she does.”

“On the foredeck.”

“No, that’s not gonna happen. A little one will fit on the chart table, just make sure she doesn’t scratch the wood with some kind of bullshit stand.”

She nodded. “Okay. Now the big question…what do you want for Christmas?”

He chuckled at that. “Oh, right,” he grinned, “well, let me think. Actually, I’ve been a pretty bad boy this year so maybe you ought to bring me a few lumps of coal…”

She laughed. “Ya know, I just knew you were going to ask for a Bulgari chronograph.”

“And my guess is Anton planted that seed, right?”

“How’d you know?”

“Russians have a thing for Bulgari. Maybe you’d better run out and see if there’s one around here. That would blow his mind.”

“Seriously?”

“Why not? I ain’t taking any of it with me, Tracy, and seeing the look in his eyes will be worth the price of admission.”

“You’re a lunatic, Hank.”

“Thanks. I do try.”

“I suppose you have stuff for everyone else?”

He nodded – and a split second later a pink sphere winked into existence over his bed…

Tracy screamed and jumped away from the orb.

“It’s okay, Tracy, I know this one.”

“That’s what you said last time…”

“Would you, uh, close the door on your way out?”

“What?”

“This is going to be personal, kiddo.”

Tracy seemed a little offended, but she backed out of his stateroom, closing the door as she went, and as soon as the latch clicked Pinky materialized on the bed. She reached out and rubbed Clyde’s head, but her eyes never left his.

“Let me see the wound,” she said, and he held out his arm. The area just around the puncture was bright red now and raised a little, and after she felt his skin she produced a little bag and took out some tape and wrapped it around the area. “Where is the one on Clyde?”

Henry felt for it then held it out for her to examine. “Right here,” he added.

She taped that wound, too. “It will take several hours for this to work, but you will feel very good for several days before the effect wears off.”

He nodded. “How’s the doc?”

She shook her head. “Not well, but he is still, what do you call it? Sharp? As a tack?”

“Yup. This other group? Are they going to cause any problems?”

“Not for you, Henry.”

“But the rest of the group?”

“You are the first they have tried to hurt. I doubt you will be the last.”

“What was it?” Henry asked, looking at his arm.

“More than likely a genetic weapon that is, we assume, supposed to bring on rapid onset dementia.”

“How sweet. I wonder why they hit Clyde with that stuff?”

“They have no idea what dogs are capable of, so I would assume they were just being thorough.”

“What do they look like?”

“Like grayish-brown lizard-people, only about a foot tall. And oh yes, and they shit out their mouthes.”

“Say what?”

“Yes, so don’t ever get into a shouting match with one of them.”

Taggart nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Henry, I must warn you. You are going to feel very good for two, maybe three days, but then the bottom will fall out. Do you understand?”

He nodded again.

“Now, one last question. When you first saw them, where was their sphere?”

“Underwater, just off the back of the boat? Like an eye…”

She shook her head and stood semi-erect. “Damn. I must go now, but I will be back tonight, after everyone has gone to sleep” – and then in the blink of an eye she was gone.

He took a sip of tea and called out for Tracy; the door opened instantly – so she had been listening to everything they said.

“Do you think Anton could make me an omelet?” he asked.

“Sure? Anything in it?”

“Gruyere and mushrooms?”

That caused an eyebrow to arch. “You sure?”

“Yup. And when you head out to look for that thing for Anton, see if you can rustle up some Viagra while you’re at it…”

“What?”

“You got wax in your ears, girl?”

© 2021 adrian leverkühn | abw | this is a work of fiction, pure and simple; the next element will drop as soon as the muse cooperates.

And yes, here’s a little something to think about while you read.

Chapter 58.4

When DD and the doc came back to Callahan’s room the next evening they both looked nervous, and once they were in the room and the door was closed behind them she came close and handed Harry a steno pad with some notes already scribbled down:

“Dell and Carl have bugged out,” the first item read. “Didi says the colonel will get in touch as soon as he thinks it’s safe to do so,” stated the second. “There’s something hinky with the a-chief…he’s hiding something,” the third item on the list said.

Callahan mimed ‘pencil’ and DD handed over her usual gold Cross pen.

“What about Lloyd and Todd?” Harry wrote.

DD nodded and started to speak. “That girl from the shop moved out to your house and she’s taking care of Lloyd now. Actually, Harry, she’s been a godsend. Lloyd likes her and she really seems to care about what’s happening to him right now, so that was a good call.”

“And what about Todd?”

“I got him a room up at the inn. Ida lets him into the studio and she doesn’t let Lloyd stay in there with him unless she’s there too.”

Harry nodded. “Above and beyond the call, in other words?”

“I’d sure say so,” the doc said.

“She’s a keeper, Harry,” DD added.

Callahan turned to the notepad and began writing again. “Get Didi in here, maybe dressed as a nurse or something. I need to know what the colonel’s afraid of.”

He passed the pad over and DD read it then nodded. “Can do,” she said.

“You two are the best,” Harry felt he had to say. “Thanks.”

“Anything we can bring you? A burger and fries, or maybe a dominatrix?” the doc smirked.

“No thanks. I’m trying to quit.”

Everyone laughed, even the FBI agents downtown monitoring the bugs in Callahan’s room.

+++++

Todd Bright was slouched on a sofa just outside of the studio’s lone isolation room, barely conscious and with a syringe still halfway in his arm, when Ida and Lloyd came in one afternoon. Lloyd saw him first and ran to him, while Ida had been around musicians long enough to know exactly what to do.

“Do you know where a first aid kit is, Lloyd?”

“Yeah, I’ll get it.”

She removed the syringe from Todd’s arm and put some pressure on the bleed, then she moved his legs up on the sofa and put a couple of cushions under his feet. When Lloyd brought in the medical supplies she took out what she needed and dressed Todd’s arm, then she took the boy back to the house on the cliffs.

“Was that heroin?” he asked.

She shook her head and shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, but yes, probably.”

“Damn.”

“I know. Now, why don’t you work on your homework. I’ve got to call DD and let her know.”

“Do you have to?”

“Yes, Lloyd, I do. The doc will need to come by and check on him this evening.”

Lloyd nodded. “I wonder why he uses that stuff?”

Again the girl shook her head. “Sometimes there is no reason, Lloyd. Sometimes it’s just a mistake that gets out of control, but for some people existence is a very painful thing. Heroin is a kind of painkiller, if I understand the use correctly.”

“You don’t mean pain like a broken bone, do you?”

“No. More like a kind of pain that comes, well, from existential angst.”

“What’s that?”

“I think some people get to where they believe they should have never been born, that their lives are a series of unfolding mistakes that they have no control over, and to escape feelings of hopelessness they retreat into a world such drugs promise. The real problem, Lloyd, is that heroin is a very false promise…because it can never really fix the underlying pain – it only makes life worse.”

“Then why do it?”

“Because some people are desperate, and false promises find a ready home in the hearts of such people.”

“But he’s such a genius, Ida. How can someone like that feel hopeless?”

“I don’t know, Lloyd. I really don’t know.”

+++++

Callahan leaned back and stared at the wires and pulleys supporting his arm. He tried to flex his fingers and though they felt stiff they at least still seemed functional. Yet his arm was probably a total wreck, and that meant two things. First, his time with the department would soon be at an end. His gun arm had to be one hundred percent, period, as anything less than that would simply be suicidal. Second, regaining any kind of real proficiency on the piano would take time.

But…why now? It had been almost ten years since the Escobar-vigilante nonsense wound-down, and after Frank’s passing the team had effectively dropped all pretense of going after them. So…why would they try to take him out now?

“Or did they?”

The Israelis wouldn’t do anything to him, period, so why were the department and the FBI trying to push that idea off on him? A diversion, yeah, sure…but – why?

A knock on the door. A ‘candy-striper’ pushing a cart loaded with magazines came into the room and walked over to his bed.

“This does not look so comfortable, Mr Callahan,” Didi said, grinning. “Could I interest you in a magazine today?” she added, handing him a dog-eared copy of Field and Stream.

Callahan opened the magazine to a typed page of notes – from the colonel.

“First things. Get well. Plan to move to Davos as soon as you are able. You are definitely no longer safe in the United States. Your enemy is in Washington, D.C.”

Harry reread that first paragraph and tried to digest this harsh new reality before he continued.

“We have looked at the possibility that your friends might be behind this, some kind of embezzlement angle, but we have found nothing to support that thesis. Further, your friends in the department are clear.

“When the time for your release from hospital comes, I recommend that we get you out of the country that day. If you choose to stay, I am afraid there is little we can do to protect you now as we dismantled the operation years ago. Let Didi know what you want to do. – G”

“May I borrow your pencil?” he said to Didi.

“Of course.”

He started to write, then he paused and looked out the window – thinking about his life in the city and all that had happened here over the years – then he continued writing:

“Set it up. Look into Swiss citizenship for both Lloyd and myself. See about getting a recording studio set up somewhere in the village, or at the house if possible. Get out to the house on the cliffs and talk to the girl there, name is Ida, and see about having her make the trip with us. Work with DD to handle the logistics. Would appreciate it if you can move back with us.”

He handed the note to Didi and she scanned it quickly then looked him in the eye and nodded. “Good afternoon, sir. I hope you feel better soon,” she said on her way out the door.

“Yes. Goodbye,” he said – long after she had left the room.

© 2021 adrian leverkühn | abw | and as always, thanks for stopping by for a look around the memory warehouse…[but wait, there’s more…how about a last word or two on sources: I typically don’t post all a story’s acknowledgments until I’ve finished, if only because I’m not sure how many I’ll need before work is finalized. Yet with current circumstances (i.e., Covid-19 and me generally growing somewhat old) waiting to list said sources might not be the best way to proceed, and this listing will grow over time – until the story is complete. To begin, the ‘primary source’ material in this case – so far, at least – derives from two seminal Hollywood ‘cop’ films: Dirty Harry and Bullitt. The first Harry film was penned by Harry Julian Fink, R.M. Fink, Dean Riesner, John Milius, Terrence Malick, and Jo Heims. Bullitt came primarily from the author of the screenplay for The Thomas Crown Affair, Alan R Trustman, with help from Harry Kleiner, as well Robert L Fish, whose short story Mute Witness formed the basis of Trustman’s brilliant screenplay. Steve McQueen’s grin was never trade-marked, though perhaps it should have been. John Milius (Red Dawn) penned Magnum Force, and the ‘Briggs’/vigilante storyline derives from characters and plot elements originally found in that rich screenplay, as does the Captain McKay character. The Jennifer Spencer/Threlkis crime family storyline was first introduced in Sudden Impact, screenplay by Joseph Stinson, original story by Earl Smith and Charles Pierce. The Samantha Walker television reporter is found in The Dead Pool, screenplay by Steve Sharon, story by Steve Sharon, Durk Pearson, and Sandy Shaw. I have to credit the Jim Parish, M.D., character first seen in the Vietnam segments to John A. Parrish, M.D., author of the most fascinating account of an American physician’s tour of duty in Vietnam – and as found in his autobiographical 12, 20, and 5: A Doctor’s Year in Vietnam, a book worth noting as one of the most stirring accounts of modern warfare I’ve ever read (think Richard Hooker’s M*A*S*H, only featuring a blazing sense of irony conjoined within a searing non-fiction narrative). Denton Cooley, M.D. founded the Texas Heart Institute, as mentioned. Of course, James Clavell’s Shōgun forms a principle backdrop in later chapters. The teahouse and hotel of spires in Ch. 42 is a product of the imagination; so-sorry. The UH-1Y image used from Pt VI on taken by Jodson Graves. The snippets of lyrics from Lucy in the Sky are publicly available as ‘open-sourced.’ Many of the other figures in this story derive from characters developed within the works cited above, but keep in mind that, as always, the rest of this story is in all other respects a work of fiction woven into a pre-existing cinematic-historical fabric. Using the established characters referenced above, as well as the few new characters I’ve managed to come up with here and there, I hoped to create something new – perhaps a running commentary on the times we’ve shared with these fictional characters? And the standard disclaimer also here applies: the central characters in this tale should not be mistaken for persons living or dead. This was, in other words, just a little walk down a road more or less imagined, and nothing more than that should be inferred. I’d be remiss not to mention Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callahan, and Steve McQueen’s Frank Bullitt. Talk about the roles of a lifetime…and what a gift.]

Searching but not finding…afraid to say…that music matters.

Chapter 26.4

Of course Edith did not get on her flight back to the City of the Angels. Really, how could she?

“I just can’t do it,” she said. “Not without my daughter!”

Mike insisted. Anton pleaded. All to no avail. The ride back into the city was hellish.

So when Henry heard those same five inch spikes clopping across his immaculate teak decks to the companionway ladder he smiled at Tracy. “See. I told you she wouldn’t be that easy to get rid of.”

“Funny. I never thought of my mother in quite those terms.”

“What? You mean…like a tick burrowed-in up to her neck?”

“Thanks so much for planting that image in my mind…”

“Hey. I try,” he managed to get out – just as Edith came marching in. ‘Like Santa Ana into San Antonio,’ Henry smirked, relishing her inevitable defeat.

“Henry Taggart! What are you doing with my daughter down here!?”

“I just finished cornholing her, Edith. You’re next.”

“You’re a goddam filthy beast, Henry! Now, Tra-Tra-cy, ba-ba-back to the bo-boat!”

Clyde raised his head and looked at Edith, then he shook his head and walked to the galley – but not before he raised a leg and dropped another silent-but-deadly fart.

+++++

“That woman like some kind Hell-Bitch,” Anton muttered after Edith and Tracy returned to Karma. “Genry? You fuck this woman? Really?”

“Hey,” Henry sighed, shrugging, “we all make mistakes.”

“Can’t believe she Tracy mothers.”

“That’s Tracy’s mother, Anton.”

“Ah.”

“Where’s Sophie? She afraid to come around anymore?”

“No, no, she work this week. Fly DC-10 Paris-Leipzig-Tehran.”

“Interesting girl. Does she think she has that job lined up for you?”

“Yes, but need DC-10 or MD-11 type rating.”

“Where can you do that?”

“Frankfurt is closest.”

“And what about the Baron? Is that still a go?”

“Yes. For the twenty-first.”

Henry nodded. “Well, see if you can sign up for the next class – unless you’ve decided you want to stay here and cook full time…!”

“Genry? Maybe can do both? As long as boat in Paris, maybe?”

“Fine with me, Anton, but Rolf will be her new owner soon.”

“He too young, Genry. Boy need father.”

Henry looked up from his “homework” at the chart table and sighed. “I know. That’s my biggest regret, Anton.”

“Your father must been good guy, Genry. You good father to boy. He need you.”

“Thanks.”

“Remember Honfleur? Chapel there? Something we suppose see?”

Henry nodded. “Yes. On Christmas Eve.”

“We go still?”

“We go still.”

+++++

“Mike, I know I’ve asked you before, but what are your plans?”

“I haven’t made any, Henry.”

“I can’t believe someone like you would be at such loose ends.”

“It’s been a confusing couple of months.”

“Confusing?”

“Yeah. I for one can’t believe you’re simply going to close your eyes and just die. It doesn’t fit, and the whole thing is keeping me up nights.”

“My death is…keeping you up?”

“That’s just it, Henry. You ain’t gonna die, are you? You and Pinky, you two have got something all worked out.”

Henry smiled. “You really think that?”

“I do. I’ve seen poker players with the same look you got these days, so I’m not buyin’ this whole death thing you got going.”

“So, let me see…death is something to be afraid of, right? So it can’t possibly be happening to me? Is that it? Because somehow I’m not gonna let it happen? Right?”

“You’re goddam right it is. Closing your eyes with nothing ahead? What could be worse?”

“Well, whatever else death might be, Mike, it is certainly a part of life. Human life, in this case. And no, Pinky and I have not planned some scheme to cheat my way out of it.”

“Yeah. Whatever.”

“Which leaves me to ask the question again, Mike. What about you? You mentioned before something about wanting to stay aboard and help Rolf. You still feel that way?”

“You really leaving all this to him?” Mike said, indicating the boat and shaking his head.

“Yup. Really.”

“Seems kind of irresponsible to me, Henry. He’s barely a teenager.”

“Yeah, I get that, yet it kinda seems to me that there are a bunch of fifty year old thieves running around out there, too. And sometimes, Mike, you can just tell who they are.”

“Can you, indeed.”

Henry smiled. “Yeah. Something in the eyes, ya know? Kind of like poker players, if you get my drift…”

“I see.”

“So, Mike, where will you be off to? Back to the states, maybe? I hear San Antonio is pretty nice…”

+++++

Henry crawled out of bed in the middle of the night and went to the head; when he looked in the mirror he could see that his briefs were spotted with blood and he scowled. Then he noticed the whites of his eyes were a little more yellow-orange now, and he nodded at the face in the mirror.

“Well Slim, it looks like liver and kidney failure, so what is it now? December nineteenth?”

He shook his head then changed his underwear, breaking out in a sweat after bending over to get his feet in the holes. 

“Well, ain’t this fun…?”

Holding onto the walls he made it back into bed without waking Tracy or Clyde, or so he thought. He turned and saw Tracy looking at him, then she reached out and took his hand.

“Was that blood I saw?” she whispered.

And he nodded as gently as he could. “My eyes are beginning to look like the Great Pumpkin, too,” he added, his voice trembling a little.

She sighed and squeezed his hand. “Is the weather looking good for Anton’s flight?”

“He thinks so. Anyway, they’re still taking off tomorrow at midnight.”

“Good.”

“So? That bad, huh?”

“You might make it to Christmas, Henry, but it’s going to be close.”

“Might?”

“I think we should go in first thing and see about getting some more platelets.”

“Yippee skippee.”

“Is everything settled with your lawyers?”

“Yes, and Rolf knows where everything is. Now, what about your mother? Is she still giving you grief?”

“No, not really,” she said evasively – which made him grin.

“So, she’s accepted the fact I’m checking out of this masquerade?”

She grinned. “Masquerade? Now that’s not a word I was expecting.”

“Sorry.” ‘But if I’m sorry, why do I feel like smiling?’

“But yeah, I think she’d like to mend a few fences, if you know what I mean?”

“We’ll see.” ‘Oh, this is getting fun now…’

“Okay,” she whispered knowingly.

“Milos is coming with some kind of stretched van early in the morning on Christmas Eve. He’ll take us up to Honfleur and bring us back.”

“So, you decided not to take the train?”

“They aren’t back to running a full schedule yet – and I don’t want to get stuck out there in the boonies. And I’m not sure Clyde could handle a day on the rails.”

“Anton told me what you’re doing for him, and I think it’s great…”

“Yeah. Classes start in early January. He should be rated by April.”

“And what about this kid?”

“Rolf? What about him?”

“He can’t live here on the boat in the middle of Paris by himself.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Henry, you wouldn’t?”

“You’re right, but we’ll see. Things have a way of working out.”

“Is that why Mike left?”

“Probably.”

“I never trusted that guy. He gave me the creeps.”

“Creeps? Is that a technical psychiatric term?”

“Yes. Very much so.”

“I haven’t heard that one in years, Kiddo. Leave it to a shrink…”

“What do you think he’s going to do?”

“Oh, I have a feeling he’s still working for them, one way or another, and I doubt I’ve seen the last of him.”

“Them?”

“Oh, you know, the people who still think I can fly that contraption.”

“Can’t you?”

He sighed, looked away. “It doesn’t matter now, Tracy, does it?”

“Is there some kind of secret to doing it?”

He looked at her again, ready to get this over with. “And…who’s asking this time, Tracy, because it sure isn’t you…”

“What do you mean, Henry?”

“I means I’ve done my homework, Tracy. It means that an almost unheard of private security firm in McLean, Virginia bought your boat four months ago, and that they transported it to LeHavre about a month before all the fun started in Amsterdam. And that means our meeting in Honfleur wasn’t an accident, and that someone did a really deep background check on me to even know you might have a way to turn me and pull me in.”

She sat up and switched on a light, never taking her eyes off him. 

“You see, Tracy, I have people looking after me, too.”

“And our meeting up like that was a little too convenient, right?”

“Yup.”

“I told them it was a bad plan, but they were pretty sure Captain Lacy wasn’t going to come through so they were desperate for a backup.”

“Well, at least they got that one right.”

“So? What do you want me to do? Leave?”

“Leave? Now? Why on earth would I do that to you?”

“Well, I can think of a few reasons.”

His eyes were like lasers now, white-hot and focused: “I think you and I should have a long talk tomorrow. Before you do anything else stupid.”

But she couldn’t meet his eyes now and looked away. “You know, when they contacted me they gave a dossier to read up on, including all the stuff they had on my mom and Aunt Claire. And I thought I had you dialed in, Henry. That I knew where you were coming from…”

“Did you really?”

“Yeah, I did. Then I met you and realized how completely off-base their information was.”

“Kinda makes you wonder, don’t it?”

“No, not really. At least…not anymore. Ya see, Hank, I made up my mind a few weeks go and there’s not a goddam thing anyone can do to change it now.”

© 2021 adrian leverkühn | abw | this is a work of fiction, pure and simple; the next element will drop as soon as the muse cooperates.

Ooh…it really makes me wonder.

If only because music matters.

Chapter 26.3

Henry thought the sphere might be translucent, but no…the surface was almost mirror-like, though he could make out his stateroom – as well as Tracy and himself standing there – inside the fisheye-distortion of the orb. And yet standing there he saw something else inside the orb, flickering pulses of sparkling light that almost looked like a thunderstorm was raging inside the sphere. Just beyond the surface reflection Henry was sure he could see the latent image of an eye, and that also bothered him. Yet the orb remained stationary; he reached out pushed on the surface of the orb and all he felt was immutable force permeating his little stateroom. Tracy, however, was still down on the floor, shaking in absolute terror.

He moved to the edge of the bed and sat next to Clyde, put his hand on the pup’s head and scratched behind his ears – and the sphere seemed to moved just a little, almost like something inside was following Henry’e movements, tracking his motion around the room.

“Are you okay?” he asked Tracy.

“Physically, yeah. Nothing’s happened yet that puking wouldn’t take care of.”

“When did you notice this thing?”

“When you went forward…it just appeared in the doorway out of nowhere.”

He nodded, then laid down next to Clyde, who opened his eyes – fractionally – for a moment before he closed them again, then Henry put his face next to the pup’s – until they were nose-to-nose.

“I love you, good boy,” he whispered. “Just be easy and get warm, okay?”

“Henry? Are you going to sleep?”

“Probably. Yeah, make that definitely. I think I’ve just run out of steam.”

“But…there’s…”

But Henry’s eyes had closed and he felt himself drifting off…

And immediately he felt the same presence in his mind, and even in this drifting state he was aware that whatever was guiding the orb was indexing his memories once again – as if ‘they’ were searching for something…

+++++

Tracy heard her mother coming down the companionway steps and stood. Not knowing what else to do about the orb, she draped her fleece jacket over the shimmering globe and moved to intercept Edith before she made it all the way into Henry’s stateroom. 

But…she was too late.

Edith walked in and saw Henry crashed on the berth, then her eyes went to the jacket hanging in mid-air by the door to the head – yet she apparently didn’t think anything of it as she went and sat down next to the berth and put her feet up on the comforter.

Then she looked at the jacket again.

“You know, is it just me or is there something weird about that jacket?”

“It’s just you, Mom.”

“Oh. Okay. What’s with Henry?”

“Exhausted, I think.”

“I thought I heard some kind of commotion in the water and I find you in here with wet hair and your clothes soaking wet…”

“Clyde fell in the water, Mom. No big deal.”

“Oh. Now…what about all that malarkey at dinner…?”

“Malarkey?”

“Aliens and spaceships, Tracy. Don’t play coy with me right now, either. I’m not in the mood.”

“I really wasn’t paying too much attention, mother.”

“Don’t give me that BS. I saw you, watched how you responded to that navy guy, and it seemed pretty obvious to me that you didn’t think it was just crazy talk.”

“Okay.”

“But the thing is, Tracy, it is nuts, pure and simple. And I don’t want you hanging around all this crap anymore. I’ve made reservations for us to return to LA tomorrow evening, so you need to go over to that floating hovel of yours and pack your duffel, or whatever it is you carry around these days.”

“Why mother…are you annoyed I’m not packing in Gucci saddlebags?” Tracy said, moving over to her jacket.

“Don’t take that tone with me, Tracy. I was prepared to find all kinds of goings on when I got here, but not aliens. I would have thought with you being a mental health professional that you would be trying to get Henry into a mental hospital…”

Tracy reached out and pulled her jacket from the orb, revealing the sphere hovering there.

Edith seemed unimpressed. “And just what the hell is that supposed to be?”

“I’m not sure, mother, but it just might be an alien.”

“Bullshit, Tracy,” Edith said, standing up and walking over to the orb. “What is it?!”

“Henry said he’d never seen this one before.”

Edith put her hand on the sphere and when nothing happened she pushed it once, then a second time – but much harder this time. When it didn’t budge she turned and looked at Tracy, her eyes wide now – as she was beginning to realize that something was seriously wrong with this picture.

“Tracy? What is this thing?”

“Mother? I do not know.”

Edith backed out of the stateroom and Tracy heard her running up the companionway seconds later, followed by Anton and Mike coming down right after Edith jumped to the dock at a dead sprint. Anton was the first to arrive in Henry’s stateroom, and he just about ran into the orb as he shuddered to a halt.

“What in fuck is this?” he screeched. “Not Pinky, I think.”

Then Mike stumbled in and stopped dead in his tracks when he spied the orb. “What’s this? A new one?”

Tracy shrugged and Mike leaned over and shook Henry.

Who didn’t budge.

Tracy went to Henry’s side and opened an eyelid, then she peered first at one pupil and then the other. “Fixed pinpoints,” she sighed. “We need to get him to the hospital.”

And with that the orb moved across the stateroom until it was hovering squarely over Henry’s face – pushing Tracy out of the way as it moved across the room – the meaning of the orb’s shift in position abundantly clear to her.

“Well, excuse the fuck out of me,” she sighed.

Mike leaned in and tried to push the orb away, and when that achieved nothing Anton joined in and they both pushed. Still nothing happened…and Mike shrugged then sat down next to Henry.

But just then Mike felt something inside his head – just before he fell asleep.

Within seconds both Anton and Tracy fluttered down and dropped off into a disturbed sleep, but by that point three more spheres had joined the first, each positioned over the face of a human.

And then a very small humanoid figure appeared on the bed, and the tiny creature walked over to Clyde and stuck a probe into a vein in the pup’s forearm. A moment later the creature walked over to Henry and did the same thing, then it – and the four spheres – simply disappeared.

+++++

Tracy opened her eyes only to find the noon-day sun streaming through the overhead hatch and the room spinning around uncontrollably, and then she realized she was having the worst headache she’d ever had in her life. The deep ache started in her forehead and darted behind her eyes, but then she felt little pinpricks that seemed rooted in her mid-brain and that seemed to be sending little electrical jolts down her spine…

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Mike said, trying to sit up, then rubbing his forehead.

“Who want breakfast?” Anton said, his cast iron aviator’s stomach carrying the day. Mike groaned and ran for the head off the foreword cabin…

…leaving Tracy to turn her attention to Henry.

She rubbed his forehead gently, then with a little more pressure, until he stirred a little before opening an eye. He moved his head a little then rubbed at his eyes. “Cripes, what the hell hit me?”

“Headache?” she asked.

“Bad.”

“Me too.”

“Where’s that thing?”

“It was gone when we woke up, and that was about ten minutes ago.”

He scratched at his forearm and then looked at the spot where the venous probe had entered. “Feels like an insect bite,” he muttered, then he looked at Tracy again. “Did you say ‘we’?”

“Yup. Mike and Anton were here when I woke up, and they’d been out too. My mother was here for a while but she left before all the fun started. Which reminds me, she thinks she’s got me on a plane out of here tonight…”

“Sounds like I missed out on all the fun.”

“Fun? Not really fun, at least not after she realized the sphere was in here with us.”

“See, now that sounds like a lot of fun to me.”

“You need a humor transplant, Henry.”

“Reckon you’re right.”

“Well, I’d better go check on mom. Be back in a flash…”

Henry nodded then turned his attention to Clyde, who was breathing gently but otherwise unresponsive. “Hey buddy? You ready for some fresh salmon?”

One eye opened and his tail beat the bed a couple of times.

Then Clyde bent down and began chewing at a spot on his forearm and Henry leaned over to take a look. He saw the same ‘insect bite’ he’d seen on his own arm, so he went to his first air kit and got some topical antibiotic ointment and applied some to both their arms, then he popped two Tylenol before he walked up to the galley.

Anton was poaching eggs and making a fresh hollandaise for Henry’s favorite smoked salmon eggs Benedict, and as Anton had already diced up a cup of salmon for Clyde, Henry carried the bowl back to his berth while making all his usual breakfast noises. Clyde sat up and ate a little, but then he slowly laid his head down and closed his eyes – leaving Henry feeling more than a little concerned.

Henry watched the pup breathe for a while then sighed; he went to the galley to help with the English muffins and set the table, then he texted Tracy and told her to come over for breakfast.

“Should I bring the fire-breathing dragon-lady?” Tracy replied.

“Sure. We could all use some fun this morning,” he added, then he turned to Anton. “You’re beginning to like cooking a little too much, Anton. You going to sign up for a cooking school?”

“Not bad idea, Genry, but like flying too much.”

“No reason you can’t do both. If you start flying private jets that skill could be a bonus. Something to think about, anyway.”

“I never like before. Now it is new, so kinda fun.”

Edith came clopping down the companionway in five-inch heels and Henry just shook his head because he knew she knew better. So, she was just egging him on, trying to get a rise out of him…which was par for her course. Tracy followed her mom down the steps and when she caught Henry’s eye she saw he was trying his best not to let it bother him. Not too much, anyway.

“So,” Henry began, firing the first salvo of the morning, “I hear you’re headed back to LA tonight. Too chilly here for you?”

“Yes, and I need Tracy at home so she’s coming with me.”

“Is she? Well, how nice for you.”

“How nice? Why on earth would you say that?”

“Don’t you just hate traveling alone?” Henry replied.

“I haven’t given the matter much thought. By the way, Henry, you look like crap this morning.”

“Well, I haven’t had my morning dose of post-menopausal horse shit yet, so cut me some slack.”

Edith’s face turned deep crimson. “My, my, Henry. I had no idea you’d matured into such a misogynist troglodyte. I must say, you wear it very well.”

“Thanks, Edith. I knew you’d appreciate the labor involved.”

“Can I fix plate for you, Miss Edith?” Anton asked.

“Just some toast if you please, young man,” she said – though a little too obsequiously. It was as if, Henry thought, she was trying to highlight her take on the division of labor on board – in order to fill Tracy with doubt.

“Miss Tracy? You?”

“I’ll have two please, Anton. Did you roast potatoes this morning?”

“I know you like, so yes, of course. You want lots?”

She nodded gleefully and Anton smiled as he passed a plate to her.

Soon everyone was gathered at the table busily ignoring what had transpired in the aft cabin overnight. Everyone, that is, except Edith.

“So, what did your aliens want last night, Henry?”

Anton looked at the ceiling and started humming the Russian national anthem.

“You know, I have no idea,” Henry said – but only after slowly cutting some salmon and constructing the perfect bite. “You know, Anton, your Hollandaise is getting better and better.”

“I’ll say!” Tracy added, causing Anton to grin again. “And your potatoes are phenomenal!”

“Tracy!” Edith interrupted. “You really need to pack your duffel. I want to head out to the airport on the early side.”

“Mom, I told you. I’m not going back with you, so let’s just drop it.”

“We are not going to drop it, young lady! You’re flying home with me tonight!”

“Mother? Drop it now, please.”

“Tracy,” Edith wailed, her voice almost a scream now, “how dare you take that tone with me!”

“Edith?” Henry said gently. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like some estrogen to go with that toast?”

Her face turned beet red and she started to stutter: “H-h-hen-hen-ry Tag-tag-gert, if you m-men-mention men-meno-menopause or est-estrogen just one-one more time I’m go-go-going to cut your fu-fu-fucking balls off-off…”

And on hearing that Henry turned to Mike and slapped the table with both hands: “Your Honor,” he concluded sardonically, “the Prosecution rests.”

Two hours later Edith followed Mike and Anton to the taxi stand outside the marina gates and they rode out to de Gaulle with her – to make sure she actually got on the airplane, because Tracy had asked – leaving Henry and Tracy alone on the boat for the first time in days.

“I feel like a teenager again,” she said, smiling at him as he curled up on the bed next to Clyde. “Maybe we should run away now, just for fun.”

“I’m sorry about your mother. I had no idea she’d be so…”

“Deranged?”

“I was thinking unpredictable. But deranged works, too.”

“She didn’t get what she wanted.”

“C’est la vie, darlin’…” Henry sighed. “That’s the same song she’s been playin’ for years, but even so I was kinda surprised she hasn’t moved on yet.”

“She was always like that?”

“Only when she wanted something she knew she couldn’t have.”

Tracy nodded. “It’s the old definition of crazy. Do the same thing over and over and somehow expect different results each time you try.”

“I reckon that’s her.”

“Hank? That thing last night? You really don’t know who or what it was?”

“No clue. My best guess is it has something to do with one of the other groups, and now for some reason they think I’m a threat.”

“Why? Because you might be able to fly one of their ships?”

“I don’t know why they’d think that…”

“Unless someone told them,” Tracy said, smiling innocently. “Maybe to throw them off the scent?”

What a strange thing to say? – he remembered thinking at the time. Strange…as in…Tracy suddenly seemed to understand more than she should have, at least given the limited information he’d passed along to her so far.

“Clyde? You ready to go outside?” he asked gently.

The old boy raised his head and farted.

Henry took one sniff and ran for the leash…

© 2021 adrian leverkühn | abw | this is a work of fiction, pure and simple; the next element will drop as soon as the muse cooperates.

A few twists and turns today on our way to the finish line…and in case you’ve forgotten – every picture tells a story and music paints the memory.

Chapter 58.3

His department pager went off and he looked at the little LED display and noted the number. Central dispatch. He looked up and tried not to smile. 

“What is it, Harry?” the doc said. “Something downtown?”

Harry nodded. “I have to call in. Would you excuse me for a minute?”

The doc and DD had come down to dinner, and Todd had managed to get all the remaining members of Bright to come up for some real studio time, so with Lloyd there too the patio was almost overflowing with people. So far dinner had been okay, but Harry was looking for any excuse to get away from the constantly bickering musicians.

Still, he hated to break up the evening because it looked like Lloyd was having a good time, but there wasn’t much he could do about it now so he walked up to the house and called in.

“Callahan,” he said the disembodied voice somewhere in the city.

“Who?”

“Inspector 71.”

“Oh, right. Callahan, isn’t it?”

Deep growl. Rumbling stomach. “Yes. At least that’s the rumor.”

“Right. Let me see…I got it around here somewhere.”

“Got what?”

“Oh, that’s right…patrol has a DB out by the bridge…”

“The bridge?”

“Oh, right, like the Golden Gate, I think?”

“You say so. What’s this got to do with me?”

“Patrol called for homicide and you’re on the standby call list this weekend.”

“I am?”

“Yeah, and everyone’s out on calls right now. The a-chief told us to call you in, said something about a full moon. He said you’d understand.”

“Did he indeed? You do know that I’m about an hour and a half out, right?”

“Yeah, right. The chief said to tell you the girl’s already dead so she probably won’t mind too much.”

Harry looked at his watch: ten thirty three, and he’d gotten up at five that morning. He groaned, then told the dispatcher to show him ‘en route’ before he went back out to the patio.

“Sorry to do this,” Harry began, “but duty calls.”

“What’s this?” Todd Bright said, clueless about Harry still working for the PD. “Duty? What duty?”

“Yeah – sorry. DD, I’ve to change so if you think you can handle things from here. Doc? You wanna ride in with me?”

“Can I? Yeah, I’d love to do that again!”

A few minutes later Callahan backed the 911 out of his garage, then he retracted the top and fired up the heater; the doc came out wearing a ski jacket and a wool beanie, ready for the ride.

“Man, I hate to do this to DD again,” Harry began…

“Yeah? Well, thanks for inviting me to ride-along again. Fascinating last time out.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe you should apply for the reserves. I’m sure they’d love to have a doc out there running calls…”

The doc laughed. “DD would really love that too.”

Callahan drove up the hill and turned onto the Coast Highway and hammered the accelerator, but he backed off a little as the Porsche passed 110mph.

“It’s amazing how little wind noise there is at this speed,” the doc said, grinning more than was healthy for someone his age.

“It gets really quiet at 130. Well, the engine is kind of growling by that point, but you get the idea.” Callahan squinted as his eyes watered a little, but for some reason he felt anxious and he slowed down a little more. “Might be some deer out tonight,” he said absent-mindedly…

+++++

He turned off Lincoln onto Long and, after showing his badge – twice – to patrolmen blocking the crime scene, he drove out to the little parking lot almost directly under the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge…and it wasn’t too hard to find the actual crime scene once he’d parked.

There above the old fort was an almost circular arch spanning the space directly over the building, and a body was hanging from the center of the span. A half dozen patrolmen were standing on the rooftop, their Mag-lites shining on the girl; Callahan spotted the patrol sergeant standing almost directly under the victim and walked over to her.

“You Callahan?” she asked as he walked up.

“Yup.”

“What took you so long?”

“Long drive. I was on stand-by.”

“Well, obviously we haven’t touched anything. Matter of fact, we haven’t figured out how to get to the body…”

“Have dispatch call the FD and get them to send a ladder out here.”

The sergeant got on her hand unit and called it in, leaving Callahan to roll his eyes at the doc.

“This guy with you?” she asked when she was signed off the radio.

“Yeah. He’s a physician, works with the pathology department out at Stanford.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Has the ME been called yet?” Callahan asked.

“No. I thought we’d let you make the call.”

Callahan blinked several times, not at all sure he’d heard what the sergeant had just said or if this whole thing was really just some kind of prank. “Well, why don’t you go ahead and give them a call. Just in case, ‘cause ya never know, right?”

“Right. Say, I don’t think I’ve ever worked with you before. How long ya been with the department?”

“Oh, not long. Thirty five years, give or take.” He saw she was chewing gum and scowled.

“Oh. Funny I never heard of ya.”

“Yeah. Funny. Say, just for grins what say we call a CSU out here too.”

“Right. Good idea.”

Callahan turned and walked off, the doc about two steps behind.

“Jesus, what’s wrong with her, Harry? Is this a joke, or what?”

“No, Doc, it’s a message – from the assistant chief to yours truly. It reads: ‘time for you to get the fuck outta Dodge.’

“Why do you keep doing this, Harry?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Kind of the last link to all the guys. Frank, Dell, Carl and the Captain. All of ‘em, ya know? If I quit…I don’t know…maybe I’m afraid they’ll all just fade away – and I figured out a while back that I ain’t ready for all that just yet.”

“All that – what?”

“Gettin’ old, Doc – the long fade. So, as long as I can still pass the physical, ya know? Besides, every now and then I feel like I contribute something worthwhile.”

They heard a huge fire truck winding down the hill and turned about the time it came into view, so Callahan started back to the sergeant’s patrol car, the doc still a few steps behind and as usual trying to catch-up.

Once the ladder was set up and the truck anchored, Callahan made his way up the ladder to the body. He pulled out his penlight and looked at the angle of her fractured cervical vertebrae and the amount of skin on her neck abraded by the fall then made a few notes. He gloved-up then spun her body around so her could see her hands: tied behind her back, he saw, by someone who knew what they were doing. Defensive wounds on both wrists and her right forearm was shattered. He shined his light under her fingernails and saw skin, so there was possible DNA evidence to be harvested.

He took one step down and with his face even with her vulva he aimed his light between her legs and saw dried semen and grimaced. Whoever had done this had really gone to town on her, and he decided to call in a profiler and made some more notes. He climbed up again, even with her face and head and he examined her scalp, then around her nostrils. 

“Grayish-white powder around the nose,” he said as he wrote more notes – then a flash caught his eye – just as heavy automatic weapons fire erupted from one of the towers overhead.

He felt a round slam into his right humerus, then another hit his left thigh. Cops on the roof of the fort were returning fire, and he looked down in time to see the sergeant standing down by the fire truck shooting at someone on the bridge – just before another round hit his left knee.

“I’m losing blood, fast…” he said to no one in particular. “So, this is it, eh? This is how I go out…not with a whimper but with a bang?”

He felt the ladder move, thought he was getting closer to the ground, then the doc was by his side – along with a bunch of paramedics. He was looking at the ceiling in the ambulance when he saw June up there, smiling from somewhere beyond the lights in the ceiling, so he closed his eyes and rode into the light.

+++++

‘Isn’t that the girl from the music shop? Ida something? Was that her name?’ 

She had just walked into Callahan’s hospital room and was dropping off some flowers from the team at the shop. He still wasn’t talking but at least Callahan was conscious now, and all the employees at the shop had decided to wait until he was out of the woods before doing the whole flowers thing.

He watched her come in and set a green vase on the deep window sill closest to his bed, and  when she looked at him he smiled a little, and even tried to wave with his good arm. The nurses at the station had told her to avoid talking to him, to just drop off the flowers and leave, but when she saw his smile she couldn’t help it. She walked to his bedside and not really knowing why she took his hand.

“How are you feeling now?”

He tried to say something but his throat was raw; he’d been on a ventilator for almost two weeks and his physician had told him it might take a few days for his throat to heal enough to talk without major pain.

“You don’t have to say anything…”

“Need to talk to you,” Harry whispered. “Before something happens.”

“What? What do you…?”

“About the Third. The concerto. I need to tell you about it,” he said, the burning in his windpipe suddenly excruciating.

“Okay.”

“As soon as I can, we need to sit and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Staring. You are staring at me.”

“Was I? I’m sorry. A memory, sudden, hit me.”

She nodded, then one of Callahan’s nurses came in and ran her out of the room, and Harry watched Ida as she fled in feigned terror, smiling as she turned and looked at him before she disappeared from view.

“Now that’s a pretty girl,” his nurse said. “Where is that accent from?”

“Denmark.”

“Remarkably pretty,” the doc said as he poked his head in the door. “Feel like sitting up and listening to me ramble on for a while?”

They raised the head of his bed and shifted the pulleys and wires supporting his arm, even so he felt nauseated and sweaty by the time they were through moving him. “I think I’m gonna be sick,” he moaned, then his nurse injected something in his IV and he felt an impressive wave of warmth wash over him, and as suddenly he relaxed – completely – like he was drifting away on a cloud.

He laid his head back and closed his eyes as he drifted along, trying his best to listen to the doc as he talked about how Lloyd was getting on while staying at their house, and that Todd was still in the studio working on the new album.

“Is anyone supervising them?” Harry asked.

“No. Todd has the key so I just kind of assumed it was okay if he comes and goes…”

Harry shook his head, then took a deep breath before speaking. “Get DD to see if someone from the shop can stay out there and keep an eye on things.”

“Stay out there? You mean in the house?”

“Too far to drive.”

“You trust them?”

Harry nodded. “If I can’t trust them who can I trust?”

“Okay.”

“Now…tell me about what happened out at the bridge…”

The doc sighed, then he looked away. “It’s complicated, Harry.”

“Complicated?”

“Yeah. I’m not supposed to talk to you about it.”

“What? Why not?”

“I don’t really know, Harry. Your assistant chief laid that on me…”

“The shooter?”

“Gone. No trace. And it was shooters, probably two, maybe three.”

“What about the victim. Did they identify her?”

“Yeah, well, that’s the problem.”

“Doc? What are you not telling me?”

The doc looked around as if he was afraid to talk now, then he moved close to Callahan. “The thing is, Harry, she was FBI, and they think she was bait.”

“Bait?”

“Yeah. A lot of the calls Homicide went out on that night turned out to be bogus, like they were trying to get you called out – at least the a-chief thinks so.”

“That’s a stretch…”

“Yeah, maybe, but the thing is…well…all the evidence points to the shooters, well Harry, ya see…the FBI thinks it was an Israeli team…”

© 2021 adrian leverkühn | abw | and as always, thanks for stopping by for a look around the memory warehouse…[but wait, there’s more…how about a last word or two on sources: I typically don’t post all a story’s acknowledgments until I’ve finished, if only because I’m not sure how many I’ll need before work is finalized. Yet with current circumstances (i.e., Covid-19 and me generally growing somewhat old) waiting to list said sources might not be the best way to proceed, and this listing will grow over time – until the story is complete. To begin, the ‘primary source’ material in this case – so far, at least – derives from two seminal Hollywood ‘cop’ films: Dirty Harry and Bullitt. The first Harry film was penned by Harry Julian Fink, R.M. Fink, Dean Riesner, John Milius, Terrence Malick, and Jo Heims. Bullitt came primarily from the author of the screenplay for The Thomas Crown Affair, Alan R Trustman, with help from Harry Kleiner, as well Robert L Fish, whose short story Mute Witness formed the basis of Trustman’s brilliant screenplay. Steve McQueen’s grin was never trade-marked, though perhaps it should have been. John Milius (Red Dawn) penned Magnum Force, and the ‘Briggs’/vigilante storyline derives from characters and plot elements originally found in that rich screenplay, as does the Captain McKay character. The Jennifer Spencer/Threlkis crime family storyline was first introduced in Sudden Impact, screenplay by Joseph Stinson, original story by Earl Smith and Charles Pierce. The Samantha Walker television reporter is found in The Dead Pool, screenplay by Steve Sharon, story by Steve Sharon, Durk Pearson, and Sandy Shaw. I have to credit the Jim Parish, M.D., character first seen in the Vietnam segments to John A. Parrish, M.D., author of the most fascinating account of an American physician’s tour of duty in Vietnam – and as found in his autobiographical 12, 20, and 5: A Doctor’s Year in Vietnam, a book worth noting as one of the most stirring accounts of modern warfare I’ve ever read (think Richard Hooker’s M*A*S*H, only featuring a blazing sense of irony conjoined within a searing non-fiction narrative). Denton Cooley, M.D. founded the Texas Heart Institute, as mentioned. Of course, James Clavell’s Shōgun forms a principle backdrop in later chapters. The teahouse and hotel of spires in Ch. 42 is a product of the imagination; so-sorry. The UH-1Y image used from Pt VI on taken by Jodson Graves. The snippets of lyrics from Lucy in the Sky are publicly available as ‘open-sourced.’ Many of the other figures in this story derive from characters developed within the works cited above, but keep in mind that, as always, the rest of this story is in all other respects a work of fiction woven into a pre-existing cinematic-historical fabric. Using the established characters referenced above, as well as the few new characters I’ve managed to come up with here and there, I hoped to create something new – perhaps a running commentary on the times we’ve shared with these fictional characters? And the standard disclaimer also here applies: the central characters in this tale should not be mistaken for persons living or dead. This was, in other words, just a little walk down a road more or less imagined, and nothing more than that should be inferred. I’d be remiss not to mention Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callahan, and Steve McQueen’s Frank Bullitt. Talk about the roles of a lifetime…and what a gift.]

Those gentle voices are here, explaining all with a sigh.

Chapter 26.2

He couldn’t tell what he was looking at, not even if it was alive – or even something else, like a machine…

As the first rush of fear subsided, as confusion turned to curiosity and as Tracy’s shock morphed into a desire to run – anywhere – he tried to hold onto his sense of reality as he stared into what appeared to be – an eye. A huge eye, true, but the thing down there in the water looked just like an eye.

“Is that what I think it is,” he whispered.

“If you think it’s your eye you’re right on the money.”

“My eye? What are you talking about?”

“Blink again, would you, but this time with your left eye only…”

He closed his left eye and the eye in the water disappeared, but when he reopened his eye the doppelgänger in the water reappeared.

“Now…try the right,” she whispered.

He slowly closed his right eye and held it shut, and once again the eye in the water disappeared. “Well, that’s not something you see everyday,” he sighed. “Is it real, ya think?”

“At this point, Hank, I have no idea what’s going on…”

He blinked his right eye several times in rapid succession and they watched as the eye in the water disappeared and reappeared as quickly, then Henry stood on the swim platform and stared at the thing, now at a complete loss…

Then, without thinking, he jumped into the water, hoping to land right in the middle of the eye.

+++++

It felt as if he had landed in something like honey, something not as sticky yet thickly viscous even so. Thick, and exerting an inward force that made it difficult to breath – then he realized he was was awash in overwhelmingly bright light. And it was everywhere – not simply coming from a single point source – and that just didn’t make any sense at all. Vertigo hit when he couldn’t tell how he was oriented – because in this sudden shift there simply was no longer any up or down – indeed, no reference to any ‘external world’ at all.

Then upsetting him most of all, he felt some – thing – in his mind. He couldn’t understand the feeling, not when it first began, but soon he saw a rapid succession of memories flashing through his mind’s eye and realized this something was literally going through his mind, apparently searching for something specific.

And he was powerless to resist.

He closed his eyes and drifted, trying to ignore the flood of unwanted memory – until he felt a sudden shift –

And when he opened his eyes he realized he was hundreds of miles above the earth. Above Paris, if he wasn’t mistaken, and now the viscous goo was gone.

He looked around for evidence of some kind of structure – but saw nothing. He reached out – and felt nothing. He tried to walk – but there was nothing underfoot. Yet he was breathing.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back and reached out for Pinky and in his mind he saw the moon beyond the earth, yet his eye had taken the moon’s place – and when he blinked the moon disappeared. He opened his eyes and saw the moon again and he felt a little relieved.

He turned his head again, then he looked down. He could see Paris between a mottled deck of clouds, her lights peeking out between low lying clouds just thick enough to obscure the real contours of the city…

So close. So far away.

He reached out as if he trying to grab hold of the city and pull himself back through the clouds, then he shook his head as the feeling returned…

‘…something is going through my mind, looking for…?’

There!

Inside the mountain. Outside of Seattle. The security gates. Dr. Collins and the rest of the team.

Inside the Boeing Group’s reconstructed vehicle.

Sitting at the panel. Reaching out.

He closed his eyes and relaxed as best he could.

‘Move…up…’

His body accelerated away from the earth and he grinned.

‘Stop.’

Now he was hundreds of thousands of miles beyond the blinking eye of the moon, adrift within fields of dancing asteroids.

‘Go back…to the exact same place in orbit.’

The acceleration and deceleration was almost instantaneous, the distance covered in the time it took to think about it trip.

‘To the marina, just behind the swim platform, a foot above the water.’

Tracy was still sitting there, still looking down into the water, when he reappeared – and she screamed when his body seemed to materialize out of nothingness.

And he was standing there. A foot above the water.

When she realized what she was looking at she stood and moved to the aft deck, shaking through her sidelong gaze while she tried to reconcile the dissonant bile rising in her throat.

“Can you come here, please?” he asked.

“What?”

“I want to see if something works the way I think it might.”

“Henry! You just jumped in the water and a millisecond later you’re naked and just standing there…tell me what the fuck is going on!”

Then Clyde was there beside her and he barked once before he ambled down to the swim platform. He walked over to the edge and looked down, saw that the skinny white guy wasn’t standing on anything and he barked again.

Henry knelt then reached out and scratched Clyde behind the ears. All resistance melted away and the pup stepped out and settled next to Henry, then he looked up expectantly, and a little nervously.

“Tracy. Come on. I need to try something.”

She came down and stood close to the edge of the swim platform and looked past Clyde down into the water.

“Come on. Give me your hand.”

She reached out and took it, then slowly stepped away from Time Bandits.

Then she was by his side, holding on tight, her eyes squeezed shut.

‘Back to the same spot in orbit.’

Instantly the three of them were hundreds of miles above the earth.

Clyde farted…

Tracy sniffed the air, her nose wrinkled in disgust.

“There’s an atmosphere,” Henry said. “But…how can that be…?”

He looked down and around but he still couldn’t see anything that even remotely resembled a structure of any kind.

Then, a leap of faith.

‘Show the instrument panel.’

A panel appeared, and dozens of displays as well. They were of unrecognizable function, and he’d never seen anything like them before.

‘Show the rest of the ship.’

The cockpit took shape, and several corridors leading from the cockpit led, presumably, to other parts of the ship. He could feel Tracy shaking all over now, and Clyde have moved closer and was now sitting on his feet.

He took a deep breath and held it, then…

‘Show the rest of the crew.’

And in the next instant they were in the water behind Time Bandits, thrashing away as their surroundings began to register…

+++++

He carried Clyde down the companionway steps right to the shower in the aft head, then, when the water had warmed up a bit he stepped in and held the old boy under the spray until his shivering stopped. Clyde rested his head on Henry’s shoulder and moaned once, and Henry massaged Clyde’s back, letting the water work its magic…

“Can I get you anything?” Tracy asked when she arrived.

“Lay out some towels on the bed, would you? And hand me a couple to use in here.”

“Where are they?”

“Bottom drawer, just to your left.”

“Got it,” she said. “How many will you need?”

“Call it three.”

“Right.”

He turned off the water and took a towel from her, and he patted Clyde dry then wrapped him in another fresh towel and carried him to the bed. With two more towels wrapped around him he seemed content. A Golden Retriever burrito, Henry called it…then he looked at his watch.

“Ten-thirty-seven?” he said, clearly not believing what he saw on his wrist.

“That’s not right,” Tracy replied. “I have one fifteen on mine, and on my phone, too.”

Taggart went to slip on some clothes then up to the chart table; the old mechanical clock there showed one seventeen in the morning, so there was a nine hour and change discrepancy…

‘Which has to be about the amount of time I was stuck in that goo…’

He walked back to his cabin and found Tracy coiled up on the floor, stark terror in her eyes.

He followed her eyes until he found what she was looking at…

Pinky’s pale pink sphere, hovering in the doorway to the head.

“It’s okay,” he said to Tracy. “She’s a friend.”

“A friend? Henry, are you out of your fucking mind!?”

He turned to the sphere and spoke to it: “Go ahead. There’s plenty of space on the bed…”

Then he looked at the sphere again. This one was different. Not Pinky. Probably not even her people.

He crossed his arms defensively and then waited for it to make the next move…

© 2020 adrian leverkühn | abw | this is a work of fiction, pure and simple; the next element will drop as soon as the muse cooperates.

A short section today – but we’re getting to the point where music really matters…so pay attention…because you never really know where it’s going to take you. Or do you?

Chapter 58.2

The boy stood over the woman as she slept, for a time his eyes lost in the subtle textures of her hair. He thought he saw a pulsing in her neck and his eyes moved there, taking in the smooth, quiet motions of her beating heart, yet he quickly moved on because he realized it hurt too much to think about that heart growing still. ‘Why did my mother leave?’ he wanted to ask, but then again he’d never really gotten to know her. This woman was his mother, but how could that be? She wasn’t, not really. 

‘I wasn’t important enough to my mother. That’s why she left. Nothing else makes sense.’

“What are you doing in here, Spud?” his father said, coming out of the shower now and almost dressed for the day. “It’s kind of early for you to be up.”

But Lloyd had continued staring at Cathy, completely bereft now. Terrified. It was impossible not to see everything coming into focus. Death is. Coming for her. Where would he be without her? Who would understand his darkest moods if not this other mother?

Then he felt his father come close, felt his father’s hand reach out to him – but he pulled away and ran from the room.

+++++

Todd and Harry were scheduled for some serious studio-time in the coming days, with session musicians coming up from LA for most of the scheduled time in the second and third weeks, too. As these musicians represented a fifteen thousand dollar a day outlay, their time simply couldn’t be wasted, and even Todd recognized that.

So Todd started brainstorming, coming up with ideas and then bouncing them off Harry. Ideas Todd had nurtured while still out on the road began to take shape, and while Todd laid out simple guitar riffs – and occasionally the words he had in mind – Harry shaped the ideas on his racks of keyboards.

“Martin quit, Harry,” Todd said unexpectedly at one point their first morning. “Tired of the whole thing. Done.”

Martin Quist had been Bright’s keyboardist from the beginning, and while he had never been a real ‘creative’ he’d been a solid performer, especially out on the road. “Oh? What are you going to do?”

“Got no clue, man. I don’t suppose you’d come out on the road with us…?”

“No, I don’t see that happening.”

“Damn. I was kind of hoping…”

“Stage fright, Todd. Can’t do it.”

“No shit? Now that I isn’t see coming.”

“I had a hard enough time playing when my parents were around…”

“Really? So you never played for anyone?”

“No. There was a girl.”

“Was? What happened?”

“She died. High school.”

“Bummer. Sorry, man.”

“We went everywhere together. Taking pictures. Of everything, I think, and each and every photograph we took was the most important piece of art in the history of the universe.”

“I know that feeling. But don’t you think that just maybe whatever piece of art you happen to be working on is, in that moment, the most important thing ever?”

Callahan sighed. “You know, I haven’t written much on my own. I think I’ve always been content to play other material.”

“Yeah, you do kinda seem to have a thing for Gershwin.”

“So, you noticed, huh?”

Todd laughed a little. “Kinda-sorta. What about the stuff your mom wrote? You ever play that stuff?”

And Callahan shook his head. “No, not often. Not my thing.”

“What is your thing, Callahan? And don’t say Gershwin…”

Callahan sat back and thought for a while, then he kind of shook his head a little before he spoke. “I think maybe Bill Evans was on the right path. A trio. I guess if I could do anything I’d find a good bassist and drummer and just do my thing…”

“No kidding?”

“Yeah.”

“You ever think about doing it?”

“Sometimes.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“Timing, I guess. Besides, I’m just another hack musician. No one would want to sit and listen to me.”

Todd rolled his eyes. “Timing? What do you mean?”

“The time never felt right.”

“What would ‘right’ feel like?”

“No responsibilities, no one to take care of. Then maybe I could just let go.”

Todd’s gaze sharpened and he focused hard on Callahan now, listening to the way he moved, the way he breathed. “Is letting go hard?”

Callahan nodded. “It seems like that’s all I’ve done with my life. Let go. Fall in love and then let go.”

“Tell me about her, Harry. The photographer. What was that like?”

“I taught her how to hear and she taught me how to see…”

“So…you completed each other?”

Callahan nodded. “Completed. Yeah. That’s about the right word.”

“What happened. To her, I mean?”

“Pregnant, and I didn’t know about it, then she went to see my mom – for advice. Mom sent her, well, not really directly but inadvertently, to an abortionist and she died afterwards.”

“Jesus, Harry. Man, I’m sorry…” Todd watched Callahan’s breathing change, then he saw the tears. “Do you, like, ever talk about this stuff with anyone?”

Harry shook his head, roughly wiped his face.

“Well, thanks for trusting me. I mean it, Harry.”

Callahan nodded. “We’d better get to work, Amigo. We’re burning daylight.”

Todd looked over by the entrance and saw Cathy standing there in her bathrobe, and she didn’t look – right. Harry followed Todd’s eyes then he saw her and ran to her side.

“I don’t feel right, Harry.”

“You’re burning up, baby. Come on, let’s get you to bed and let me call the doc…”

+++++

Cathy’s was a post-op infection. Septic shock followed, and death two days later. Once the ambulance picked her up, and when once she left the house on the cliffs, she never returned. Elizabeth did, but she seemed distant the entire time she was home, and she kept to that distance when Lloyd was around. Who knows, Harry thought. Maybe she blames me.

There was no else, were no other heirs, no one to divide the estate with, and Elizabeth didn’t want to sell the house. She’d keep it, she said as she packed to leave, to keep that part of her mother close – if only to remind her of better times. She had DD drive her to the airport.

Harry seemed to dissolve after he brought Cathy’s ashes to the cliffs from the funeral home. He was supposed to scatter her ashes on ocean breezes – but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t handle the idea of losing even what little there was of her left, at least until he saw the look in his son’s eyes – when Lloyd saw the crematory urn and ran from the house. Horror. Revulsion. Despair. Those were the words that came to mind as he watched his son run through the rocks down to the beach.

+++++

Todd had made real progress…or so it seemed to Callahan when he ventured back into the studio a few weeks after Cathy passed. He looked at all the studio musicians huddled together in a group and wondered why Todd chose to use stand-ins instead of his band-mates, then he watched Todd in action. The group gathered around Todd and listened – really listened to him as he explained what he wanted, what he was trying to achieve with a certain sound, and no one argued with him. Not one of them offered an opinion – unless asked – and this freed Todd to let his imagination roam.

“It’s a wonder more groups don’t do it this way,” Harry said as he watched the musicians packing up for the day.

“Brian Wilson started the thing, at least in the LA scene. I think he made Pet Sounds without his brothers, then the whole Surf’s Up Feel Flows thing that followed, but that’s what broke them up, too. He was getting really out there, man. He’s still the best.”

“You mean he used session artists to write those songs?”

“Yeah. And when he got the music where he wanted it he brought in the group and they recorded their version. The problem, at least from what I’ve heard, is their label liked the session versions more.”

“Shit. Yeah, I can see that causing problems.”

“Lloyd came down last night while I was wrapping up and I just wanted to know, Harry…is that gonna be a problem?”

Harry looked at Todd and shrugged. “You know, if you can get him to talk, to open up even just a little, well…that just might be the best thing that could happen right now…”

Todd nodded. “I didn’t want to step on anyones toes, that’s all, Harry. I know it’s a tough time but you’re about the only real friend I got in my life right now, and I really don’t want to fuck that up.”

Harry paused and looked at Todd, then nodded. “Well, thanks for asking. And I don’t know, but he seems to like talking to you, so let’s just go with it. Now…show me what you got…”

That little abdication, Harry’s little surrender, probably didn’t register as such that day, and who knows…maybe it never did…yet the truth of the matter was easy enough to see when looking back on things a few years later. Harry simply stopped trying to talk to Lloyd after that. Maybe he was so used to being rejected by the people who claimed to love him that this turning away seemed almost normal to Callahan, yet both DD and the doc – those two closest to the unfolding implosion – noticed the change and remarked that what was going on out in the house on the cliffs was nothing less than a slow-motion train wreck.

Central to the run-up was Todd Bright and his lingering addictions. Of course heroin was the main attraction, at least in the beginning. Yet the whole house of cards came tumbling down out there on the cliffs when it happened that Todd Bright had fallen in love with Harry Callahan…

© 2021 adrian leverkühn | abw | and as always, thanks for stopping by for a look around the memory warehouse…[but wait, there’s more…how about a last word or two on sources: I typically don’t post all a story’s acknowledgments until I’ve finished, if only because I’m not sure how many I’ll need before work is finalized. Yet with current circumstances (i.e., Covid-19 and me generally growing somewhat old) waiting to list said sources might not be the best way to proceed, and this listing will grow over time – until the story is complete. To begin, the ‘primary source’ material in this case – so far, at least – derives from two seminal Hollywood ‘cop’ films: Dirty Harry and Bullitt. The first Harry film was penned by Harry Julian Fink, R.M. Fink, Dean Riesner, John Milius, Terrence Malick, and Jo Heims. Bullitt came primarily from the author of the screenplay for The Thomas Crown Affair, Alan R Trustman, with help from Harry Kleiner, as well Robert L Fish, whose short story Mute Witness formed the basis of Trustman’s brilliant screenplay. Steve McQueen’s grin was never trade-marked, though perhaps it should have been. John Milius (Red Dawn) penned Magnum Force, and the ‘Briggs’/vigilante storyline derives from characters and plot elements originally found in that rich screenplay, as does the Captain McKay character. The Jennifer Spencer/Threlkis crime family storyline was first introduced in Sudden Impact, screenplay by Joseph Stinson, original story by Earl Smith and Charles Pierce. The Samantha Walker television reporter is found in The Dead Pool, screenplay by Steve Sharon, story by Steve Sharon, Durk Pearson, and Sandy Shaw. I have to credit the Jim Parish, M.D., character first seen in the Vietnam segments to John A. Parrish, M.D., author of the most fascinating account of an American physician’s tour of duty in Vietnam – and as found in his autobiographical 12, 20, and 5: A Doctor’s Year in Vietnam, a book worth noting as one of the most stirring accounts of modern warfare I’ve ever read (think Richard Hooker’s M*A*S*H, only featuring a blazing sense of irony conjoined within a searing non-fiction narrative). Denton Cooley, M.D. founded the Texas Heart Institute, as mentioned. Of course, James Clavell’s Shōgun forms a principle backdrop in later chapters. The teahouse and hotel of spires in Ch. 42 is a product of the imagination; so-sorry. The UH-1Y image used from Pt VI on taken by Jodson Graves. The snippets of lyrics from Lucy in the Sky are publicly available as ‘open-sourced.’ Many of the other figures in this story derive from characters developed within the works cited above, but keep in mind that, as always, the rest of this story is in all other respects a work of fiction woven into a pre-existing cinematic-historical fabric. Using the established characters referenced above, as well as the few new characters I’ve managed to come up with here and there, I hoped to create something new – perhaps a running commentary on the times we’ve shared with these fictional characters? And the standard disclaimer also here applies: the central characters in this tale should not be mistaken for persons living or dead. This was, in other words, just a little walk down a road more or less imagined, and nothing more than that should be inferred. I’d be remiss not to mention Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callahan, and Steve McQueen’s Frank Bullitt. Talk about the roles of a lifetime…and what a gift.]

Don’t let ’em tell you it’s all bullshit. And, oh yes, music matters…

Chapter 26.1

The weather was still unseasonably warm; even the trees seemed to think so, too. The little park surrounding the marina was almost verdant that Tuesday afternoon – and though a few trees had lost their leaves after the storms that had so recently caused so much havoc, the grass was green and most of the shrubbery surrounding the marina was still almost lush with life.

Clyde walked over to a new favorite patch and circled twice before dropping a load, and after waiting a moment for the most pungent waves of stink to drift away, Henry walked over and picked them up with his pooper-scooper. He bagged the still-warm turds – and like always a shiver of absolute revulsion ran up his spine – then he walked over and dumped the little pink bag in a special receptacle placed there just for dogs who had the temerity to shit on this pristine Parisian grass.

“Jesus…who thinks of stuff like this?” he said to Edith as she walked along by his side. “I mean, really, it was someone’s job to come up with this box for dog shit!”

“If you build it, Henry, they will come. Isn’t that the way of the world?” Edith replied, trying not to smile at Henry’s nervousness. “Anyway, having something like this right here is lots better than stepping in a hot fresh one.”

“I’ll give you that,” he replied.

“Speaking from experience, I’m sure.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, “I’ve managed to step in my fair share of shit over the years.”

She smiled, tried not to laugh at that jab. “Was it really so bad? You and I?”

Henry turned and looked at Claire’s echo once again, his eyes still not quite able to reconcile the past and the present, let alone all the discordant pain he felt when he looked into Edith’s eyes. If Claire was alive, he thought, if she hadn’t died forty-something years ago, it was impossible not to think that she’d look almost exactly like Edith did right now. They’d always resembled one another, often strikingly so, but the passage of time had simply blurred the lines between the two so much that his memory no longer worked. Claire was gone, but if this was true then who was he looking at now?

Edith? Yeah, but what then about that DNA? Where did the expression of traits end in one sibling and arise in another? Because looking at Edith now was like a journey into the looking glass – a kaleidoscope of hopes and dreams, memory and doubt that served only to open the way ahead to more questions than answers.

And Tracy had seen into his confusion, too. Because, he knew now, she had seen it coming from far, far away. Because she’d been paying attention during all those little talks between mother and daughter, and who knows, maybe she had because she’d seen this moment unfolding all her life. Maybe Tracy had come to think of herself as a kind of placeholder, holding Henry down until her mother could reach him again…

Or had Claire done it?

“We were never bad together, Edith. We were just never meant to be.”

“I used to believe that, Henry. After you went to Seattle.”

“We should have never been, Edith. It was wrong.”

“Wrong? How could it have been wrong, Henry? I’d wanted you my whole life and suddenly there you were.”

“You know, it took years to move on, Edith. Years to get over the one-two punch. First Claire, then you. Did you really have no idea?”

“Of course I knew, Hank. You didn’t fall off the edge of the earth, we had friends in common. They kept me up to date.”

“So…why are you here?”

Edith stepped close and took his hand. “When Tracy told me about things, about how bad things have gotten, I wanted to see you again. I wanted to touch the skin on the side of your face, look into your eyes.”

He sighed, shook his head. “I wish you’d stayed home.”

“Really? You’d wish for something like that?”

“I’m not sure I can deal with…all those old feelings now.”

“I don’t suppose you realize that what you’re saying is an admission of love…?”

He turned away – from everything about her. “And that’s the problem, Edith. Exactly. When I look at you I feel my love for Claire Come Alive. How could that be a good thing for any of us?”

“Because, Hank, that’s all I ever was – the problem that just wouldn’t go away.”

+++++

“Well, at least they’re talking to each other…” Tracy said to Anton.

“I don’t know. See how Genry hunched over. Defensive, if ask me. Like he afraid he hit.”

“You think I should go get her?”

“Better we both go.”

+++++

Henry walked over to a park bench and sat, feeling light-headed again and wishing he hadn’t left the hospital. Clyde came over and hopped up on the bench and laid down next to him, draping his head over Henry’s lap; Tracy followed a moment later, leaving Anton to to get Edith back down to Time Bandits.

“This was a mistake,” she said as she sat next to Clyde.

Henry crossed his arms over his chest, the reflexive move almost comically protective – at least under present circumstances.

“How long did she say she was going to stay?” he asked, his voice a lifeless monotone now.

“She didn’t book a return flight yet. Want me to work on that?”

He turned and looked at her, not quite knowing how to say what he needed to say, but he dove in feet first: “Nope. I want her to come to terms with herself. I want her to figure this out for herself.”

“What if she decides to stay?”

“Then she stays.”

“Henry, I don’t want her to take away from the time you and I have left…”

“Then don’t let her.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if I just told her to leave?”

“It might be easier, Tracy, but if you do she’ll keep turning up and raining on your parade until the day she dies.”

“Why…why would you say that?”

“Because she enjoys it.”

+++++

He took them out to dinner that night, to one of his father’s old faves. An Irish pub a block away from the George V that served excellent French grub and even better Irish beer, and the old dark brown interior suited his mood just fine. Besides, he’d invited both Anton and Mike to join the fray and he was looking forward to some fireworks as the evening wore on…

And cliché of clichés, Edith ordered French onion soup and a glass of the house red. How very American, he thought as he ordered his habitual escargot and duck. Not really caring anymore, he slipped a Zofran under his tongue and leaned back, rarely taking his eyes off Edith.

“So, Mr Lacy…”

“Call me Mike, please.”

“Okay, Mike. What do you do for a living?”

Mike looked from Edith to Henry and back again, but then he simply shrugged. “I’m a spy.”

“Really?” Edith said, her voice chipper. “How very interesting. And who do you spy for?”

“You, I guess.”

“Me? Whatever do you mean?”

“Well, assuming you pay taxes…I work for the navy.”

“Oh. I see. And who are you spying on?”

“Henry.”

“Really? Now that is interesting. I had no idea Henry was so, oh, what is the word I’m looking for…so important?”

Mike met that with stony silence, but he too kept his eyes focused on Edith’s.

“So, what were you off doing today? Spy-wise, that is?” she asked.

“I was at the embassy speaking to our naval attaché.”

“Indeed?”

“Indeed.”

“And what were you talking about?”

“That Henry is the only human being alive that can fly the ARV the Seattle Working Group was working on.”

Henry blinked once, slowly, then turned his head ever so slightly and looked at Captain Lacy with sudden curiosity.

“What?” Tracy said, her voice tinged with a little hysteria. “What are you talking about, Mike?”

“Yes, Mike,” Henry added. “Just what are you talking about?”

“I found the files on your laptop, Henry. It took some digging, but I finally found them…”

Henry tried not to smile, but it was hard not to. “I see.”

“What files?” Edith screeched.

Mike turned to Tracy and spoke in quick, hushed tones: “When Henry was in Seattle he worked with Boeing for a while. One of the off the books projects he worked on was to use alien technology, stuff recovered from a crashed vehicle, in order to make a working spacecraft. And they did, too. But there was just one problem. No one could fly the damn thing because the aliens fly it using some kind of telekinetic bridge, and for years now everyone kind of left it at that…”

“Henry?” Tracy sighed. “What is he talking about?”

But Taggart just grinned. “Go on, Mike. You’re on a roll now, aren’t you?”

“I sure am, Taggart, you goddamn sonofabitch. You did it, you got it to work – then you didn’t tell anybody. Why? Why’d you do that?”

Henry kept grinning, his eyes never once leaving Lacy’s as he let the silence build.

“The only thing we haven’t figured out, Henry, is did you actually fly the thing…?”

“That’s the only thing, Mike? Really?”

“Well, no. But there are a bunch of people in the inner ring really pissed right now, Taggart. Pissed – at you. So pissed they want to kill you. And do you know what the only thing holding them back is? I finally got my hands on those files. I’ve convinced them that once the new team has the information they’ll be able to get the craft operational.”

“Good for you, Mike. I’m happy for you. Then what?”

“Then we see if it works, Henry. That’s what.”

“I see.”

“Henry?” Edith groaned. “What is this man talking about?”

Taggart turned to her, his face a blank, but he simply shook his head before he turned to face Mike again. “And if it works, Mike, what’s next?”

“Boeing will put the craft into serial production.”

Henry smiled when he heard that, then he laughed – a little. “Do you and that group of clowns you work for actually think they’ll let things slide that far?”

“What makes you think they’ll try to stop us, Henry? They’d have to tip their hand, wouldn’t they? You really think they’re ready to do that?”

“Well, let me ask you a question, Mike. Boeing built one, right? But so did Lockheed. And Northrup-Grumman built another one, did they not? Have you, by any chance, seen all three of them? Like…side by side?”

“No. Why?”

“Well, Mike, because they’re different. Different technologies, and even the basic design parameters are radically different.”

“What do you mean?”

Henry shook his head. “Man, you guys really haven’t thought this thing through, and I’m afraid it’s gonna reach out and bite you on the ass big time now.”

“What are you talking about, Henry?!”

“Well, Mike, the craft the Boeing team was working on was designed around occupants about three meters tall. The ship Lockheed was working on had a cockpit about the size of a three drawer file cabinet, yet there were six seats in there. And the ship out on Long Island? Well, they had to build a special hangar for that one, Mike, because the occupants are fucking huge. I mean, like the size of a house.”

“So?”

“That’s three different races, Mike. Three of them, here. Now. Each with an objective. Maybe even competing objectives, if you get my meaning. And what your friends in the inner ring might not know yet is that these three civilizations aren’t really on speaking terms with one another these days, so if for some reason we happen to show up to the party in a faster than light spacecraft at least two of the groups involved are going to be major-league pissed at the other one.”

“Jesus…”

“So, yeah, you go right ahead and get to work on that. Tell the boys out in Renton to just pour their hearts and souls into it, okay? But here’s the thing, Mike, so be sure to pass it along, willya? We’ve fucked up the planet. Bad. So bad they can’t use it now. And that means they’re pulling out of here now, no harm no foul. But…these guys might have second thoughts if we somehow start showing up in their neighborhood in FTL ships.”

“Oh God…”

“God ain’t gonna help the boys in the inner ring, Mikey. God will more than likely just sit this one out and watch as two civilizations capable of intergalactic travel reduce the earth to rubble.”

“Jesus, Henry…”

“Oh, and Mike, one last thing. Do you really think I’d be stupid enough to leave a file like that on my laptop?”

+++++

He was sitting on the swim platform, his bare feet dangling in the water, listening to the sounds of the city beyond the wall of shrubs as he leaned back just a little, his eyes closed and his mind reaching out deep into the dome of the night.

‘They know,’ he said to Pinky when he reached her.

“I know. And I don’t think I was the only one there.”

“How far away?”

“Within a year, perhaps sooner.”

“Is there anything else we can do?”

“No, not now. All talk of an alliance has broken down.”

“So…this is it. Everything we did…was for naught.”

“I’m sorry. Yours was a good plan and you’ve made many friends, but…”

“I know. C’est la vie.”

“You saw the doctor this morning? Before you left the hospital?”

“I did. Wait – you mean, you weren’t there?”

“I assumed you’d like some privacy.”

“You know, I think I’ll miss you most of all.”

“I would like to have spent this time with you, Henry, but I understand. Do you find yourself thinking about what life might have been like if you’d met her two years ago?”

“Yeah. Constantly.”

“I never liked Dina. Too brittle. Tracy was the better match.”

“Is that why you helped them get back to Bergen?”

“Of course.”

“Brittle. I never would have thought that.”

“The music. You’ve been humming the same music again.”

“I know, I can’t get it out of my mind.”

“Do you know what it is yet?”

“No. I think it’s something I heard a few years ago, but I’m not really sure where.”

“It seems complex. Unusually so.”

“Complex? What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing. Just a thought.”

“I know that tone, Pinky. You think it means something, don’t you?”

“Tracy is coming. I’ll talk with you later…”

+++++

“I brought you some tea,” Tracy said as she passed over a mug and sat next to Taggart.

“Thanks.”

“Ginger, honey, and lemon. And I brought a Zofran, just in case.”

“Perfect.”

“How are you feeling now?”

“Better. Humiliated and I don’t get along together.”

“Humiliated?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever barfed on a sidewalk before. Especially not after a meal like that.”

She put her arm around him and pulled him close, shocked at how frail he’d grown over just a couple of days. “I thought you handled it as well as anyone might.”

He leaned over a bit and rested his head on her shoulder. “I love you, kid.”

“I love you, Hank.”

“Sorry I’ve got to put you through this.”

“I’m glad I’m here, Henry. I feel like I was born for this.”

“You’re not going to ask me about all that spaceship crap?”

“No, why? Did you want me to?”

“God, no. I just thought…”

“Try not to think too much, Hank. All that stuff just gets in the way, if you get my drift.” She leaned forward a little and he heard her gasp a little, then point down into the water. “What’s that?”

He leaned over and looked down into the water, then he grew very still…and quite afraid.

© 2020 adrian leverkühn | abw | this is a work of fiction, pure and simple; the next element will drop as soon as the muse cooperates.