The Tobermory Imbroglio

                                              DC & CZ, 3/91-2/92.

               THE TOBERMORY IMBROGLIO

Awright, so you want to know all the facts about that caper that made all the

headlines recently---the one that the press got to calling ''The Hamhock Hot

Line''? There are only two citizens who know everything that didn't get into the

tabloids:  me and a guy who's now held down by a tombstone.

It all started on a typical L.A. morning with traffic backed up on the 405 from

Sunset to Santa Monica. Frankly, I was in no hurry to get to the studio to

discover what atrocities had been perpetrated on my screenplay while I slept.

Still, I reasoned, listening to my favorite Andean music, it could be worse. 

At least I was stuck behind the wheel of a Miata.

The night before Jonathan Ravenswood had called.  ''Things just haven't worked

out the way I'd hoped since your coming to us'', he said.  ''Idleness is the

fool's vacation. You deserve a chance to make yourself useful, right? So I'm

sending you back to the continent, on a mission that may not be to your liking,

but, my boy, I daresay it will make a man of you.''

This pipsqueak Porsche cut in front of me, and, unlike me, the Van Nuys android

driving it wasn't on the phone. My anti-lock brakes worked perfectly, and my

Miata clung to the blacktop like velcro. Those of the El Segundo tractor-trailer

behind me didn't. I spent the next 10 weeks at the UCLA Medical Center, slipping

in and out of consciousness. Unexpectedly, this got me ready for my trip to

Baden-Baden. Looking at the nurse walking out of the room, my mind drifted to

neat places.

                                ***

It was early in the morning and the mists had started drifting towards San

Bernardino. Ginette, Juniper, Berenice, Annie, and their four out-of-town

competitors started stretching and preparing for the race. Nude (except for

their happy Reeboks); flushed; angelic; and excited. Adrenalin whooshing 

thru their youthful veins.

   ''On your marks!'', barks the man with the gun; and the eight sculpted bodies

crouch and stretch and plant their feet and arch their backs in shuddering

anticipation, ripples running up and down their thighs and backs. Silence. They

all look ahead, concentrating on the 100yard mark, their breath condensing in

the morning cool.

     ''Ready!'' commands the gruff voice, as the gun points at the sky. Eight

firm pink asses arch high, thigh backs stretching, golden pubes flashing in the

rising sun ---is this moisture I detect on some vortices of ecstasy on tracks 2

and 7? ''Go!'', and the lasses charge, uncoiled, exuberant, moving fast and

bouncing faster, their legs rhythmically shining in the California sun.

    At the bend, behind my shades and concealed by a palm tree, I am clutching

the flaps of my raincoat over the watermelon. Not much of a raincoat,

admittedly, but it was all I had.  One of the first to come across the Wall the

previous month, I had discarded his dreaded Vopo uniform at the first

opportunity.  I met a bum near the Brandenburg gate; I beat him up, stole his

coat, and left him lying in a pool of stale Maibock.  What a letdown.  The first

person I met in the West was a goddamned tramp and, two weeks later, I'm still

wearing the asshole's soiled coat.

 My real name was Klaus Hennegau Klitortz and I was after a similarly arresting

English equivalent. Perhaps not. Some neurasthenic Caltech secretary confused

the address of Klaus von Klitzing with the fulcrum of self-actualization

advertised in her new-age holistic manual and had sent me an invitation for the

Athenaeum dinner. How the Long Beach Post Office ended up locating my SRO digs

to forward it there is the sort of miracle that I only thought possible where I

came from. Ran from. In fact it was enough to make me paranoid, which they may

well have been trying to. So I didn't take chances. I approached Pasadena

gingerly, and took my time. I slept on the grounds of the Huntington Library

the night before; skinny-dipped in the pool in lieu of my much-needed shower,

and was surprised by the girls' giggles. I leapt out of the water,

barely had time to put on my raincoat, and only grabbed the watermelon sitting

by the pool instead of my clothes as I dashed into the bushes. Lack of fresh

produce was a significant reason for defection, I had declared to US

immigration.

The fillies were clearing the bend, on a collision course with me now,

breathing heavily with the hard-to-explain watermelon under my raincoat instead

of clothes.

                               ***

The nurse came back in with Ravenswood in tow. ''Time for rehabilitation

briefing, Old Sport!'', smiled the great Jonathan behind his slick shades

which made the nurse stroke her hair as she smiled back at its reflection on

them.  ''If Teddy Dostoyevski liked it, you'll love it, Sport. Baden-Baden is

the place, and you've No Idea what gives!''

He wasn't a man of few words, and he was not indifferent to money. In fact,

he was in need for some more, to tickle his divorce lawyers with: his

fourth awesome marriage, fabulously successful like the previous ones, was

fulfilling its term. So he wanted a green heap more. He had information, so

he best deserved to have it. Information that had already cost lives.

I was to fly to Baden-Baden and admire the flowers. I was to take the waters

and lick my eyebrows at the strutting mini-skirts. I was to eventually contact

Ernst Herzog, a.k.a. Ernesto Duchino, get a couple of millions he'd give me,

and bet them against a ''Schinkenhachse'' at the Grand Casino. ''That means

''hamhock'' in Kraut'', leered Jonathan. Keep any and all info Jonathan had on

''the Hock'' to myself, collect the moolah, and fly back to our winsome Pacific

Palisades. Not much in it for me. Presumably, that would take good care of my

writer's block so I could finish that dreary road-kill of a scenario to

Jonathan's satisfaction and collect my measly mil. I could then retire to

Balboa Island and, surrounded by pulchritude, devote my life to writing

nifty chinese-cookie fortunes.

                              ***

I took the train from Frankfurt, and, jet-lagged out of my temples, I was met by

Ernst at the Baden-Baden train station. He was a seriously unsubtle believer in

garlic. We sat under an umbrella at the coffee shop on the embankment, and

started pumping each other for information over espresso and, ah! those

hallucinatory pastries! The stinking Ernesto stank in more than one ways.

I started being distracted by this mysteriously serious lass sitting at the next

table. She was blond, clear-eyed, and was wearing a lab coat -- and nothing

much beneath it, by the sunny looks of it. The stern, self-involved frown

vanished as I smiled at her. ''Hallo'', she beamed, ''I'm Thilde, and you

are....?''. I introduced myself as Calvin, in valley talk. My shades and my

suave and brilliant story established that I own the universe, but that I could

use advice for some re-modelling. ''I work at the experimental farm station

Grolschlitz'', she volunteered.

   It turned out that the government was seriously concerned about the genetic

makeup of its cattle herds, and, in a successful national program on that farm,

exceptional bulls were being manipulated by scientific and teutonic means

to cede genetic material for artificial insemination. Thilde, who was in charge

of the 'harvest', explained that this was big business. The key to her success

was a wooden 'mock-cow', which looked rather like a horse in a gym. This,

somehow, excited the Grolschlitz bulls, who would mount it and ejaculate into

a rubber vagina, operated by a technician.  There was a minor problem clouding

her triumph, however: the other bulls of the neighborhood, who have never seen

a real cow since they left their mother's side, get sympathetically excited as

well, and start mounting each other. ''But no problem is unsolvable'', she

opined with confidence, pursing her lips at me.

    I wondered why I always got the weird ones. I wondered whether she was a

runner, a trampoline artist, or a diver. I wondered what she did after dinner.

''Are you divorced?'', I asked, a bit uninvited, as Ernesto was clearing his

throat for the fifth time.

     ''But I am only married'', she giggled.  ''But Hinz, you know, is no fun.

Not a barrel of monkeys, you know.''  She told me he drove in demolition

derbies. She now looked more like a Danish au-pair girl, and not at all the

person I'd met an hour ago. Ernst, his face dark and tense, started shaking,

thrust his attache case to my hand, snarled ''Count it!'', and walked away in

an irritated limp. ''Where are you staying?'', she asked just as I realized

that Ernst had neglected to recommend any hotels. ''But you must then stay with

us! In our OK flat, yet!'' she smiled,and I was nothing but a bowl of rice

pudding waiting for the cinnamon sprinkle. Feeling like a high school senior, I

grabbed my suitcase and Ernst's Samsonite and started following her big, sure,

healthy footsteps up the hill towards the cathedral. ''Who CARES about San

Bernardino'', I grinned to myself. The sport of life was for real.

   Her green Volkswagen was parked on a small side street behind the cathedral

---almost: one wheel was on the sidewalk. There was a baby-seat in the back.

I pointed to it and asked, ''So, how old is the baby?''.  She smiled and shook

her head. I thought back to the experimental farm station and I began to

wonder just what she had in store for ME. I threw my stuff in the front,

and I watched her climb in behind the wheel. I got the glimpse: I confirmed my

earlier surmise that, yes!, thank you, thank you, thank you grand design of

the cosmos, she was not wearing underwear.  Now I knew how the bulls at the

farm station felt.  We roared off in a clatter of blue smoke, as she reached

for the Blaupunkt on the dashboard. She shimmied to the bounces, as she

lip-synched the rap lyrics in unearthly ebonic-teutonese. Goddamn, we were

flying!

     We pulled up in front of a gray apartment complex after a cascade of

roller coaster turns and roaring straightaways.  I lugged the suitcases

following her breathlessly towards the building. With euphorically frantic

difficulty, the suitcases and our bodies fit into the elevator.  On the

penthouse floor, she somer-saulted out the elevator door, over the baggage

and my nearly apoplectic contemplation of the fleetingly exposed firm aspects

of her. She walked into the dark apartment, and lit a candle that let me

see her few dozen ferns. ''You must take a shower'', she said plainly, and

she flicked her stereo on.

                            ***

By the time the steamy water blast loosened me up, and I started mellowing in

the candlelight reflecting off the black shower tiles, LOUD, AND I MEAN LOUD!,

Turkish plaintive music filled the apartment: she somer-saulted into the shower

with a gleaming smile, and slammed against the tiles splashed by the scalding

streams. I saw that incredible leg, and then the turquoise tape around her

ankle, and I lost it.

 Thilde! Banga-banga-banga-bang, Thilde!, banga standing up, grab-grab-yum,

banga upside down, banga contorted in the bathtub, banga her ankles on my ears,

my hands on her buttocks, gargling, oh-my-Thilde!, thighs, wet hair,

banga-banga, water all over the place, banga-banga-banga, groan, splash,

Thilde!, oh Thilde!, jackhammer-banga-banga-banga-bang!

She ground me, and squeezed me, and stretched me, and I bit, I slammed, I

pinched, I bent her, I poked, I jammed her wet slippery insides, I groaned, I

mooed, I lapped her firm breasts and drank soapy water. She screamed

''Gildirim''!, and howled strange Turkish obscenities, and the wailing Radio

Istanbul singers did not want to keep out of it as I, banga-banga-bang, shook

and  bit her godly waist. Maybe I passed out?

                          ***

Her arms and buttocks covered with hickeys, I carry her to the polished

hardwood floors of the warm living room. Wet and breathing heavily,

we lie gasping as outside car headlight glints throw shapes on the ceiling.

Four angelic Nordic bimbettes wearing nothing but high heels and holding

gleaming french horns walk quietly into the room and squat 4 feet away

from us. They make Elle look like a K-Mart cashier from West Virginia.

They flick their golden hair, smile sweetly, put their fists in the horns,

and start playing ''Hail to the chief'', as we catch our second wind, and we

start humping relentlessly yet again, Thilde now howling even more loudly.

But then I hear the ''Radetzky March'' in my head, and, looking at the poppies

on the empty baseball diamond in the early afternoon, I just know I GOTTA clone

Thilde. Seventeen copies are enough. I give them all baseball caps and gear

and aqua-yellow team jackets and Reeboks. That leaves their sweet firm legs and

buttocks gleaming around the field, as they get to stretching and practicing.

I like the catchers that squat. I hear the march as they swing their bats

around, posing, flexing, breathing their tits full, their beautiful waists

twisting above their buns. I start singing it as some of them tousle their

pretty pubic fuzz. It's time for the game. I whistle and walk into the field,

as ''Good afternoooon Governor Schiedsrichter!'', they all greet me sunnily and

close in.

                             ***

I woke up, my ears hurting; and my body was all bruised; and the day was cloudy;

and Thilde was gone; and all I could find for breakfast was sauerkraut and

four cans of cheap Czech beer in the fridge. My senior-citizen steps painfully

shuffled me back to the Cafe where I 'd met her yesterday, but only Ernst was

there this time, putting spoonful after spoonful of sugar in his Pepsi. He saw

me and sneered: 

''Well, shithead, vat have YOU been up to?''

''Oh, nothing much, nothing much,'' I replied.  My head was still running a

spinning obstacle course. He looked different, somehow, and started eating a

bratwurst. ''Didn't sleep too well last night; jet lag, you know''. I smiled

tiredly and collapsed into a chair. I put my feet up onto the cafe table,

crossed my arms behind my head, and tried to look cool and debonair. Except

the table fell over, spilling the Pepsi onto Ernst's lap.  A large yellow

stain appeared across his white pants.

''Scheisskerl!'' he screamed at me.  ''You are a complete fucking disaster! 

Ravenswood said you were an expendable idiot, but you may be expended sooner

than planned!''

Planned? I thought I saw a gun bulging under his jacket. He grabbed the

Samsonite he had given me the day before, opened it to check the wads of

DeutschMarks arrayed inside, pulled a business card out with a phone number on

it, twitched, popped a pill, and started shaking his head and blurting out

something incoherent about the Hotline. His antics grew to a magnificent

seizure, which propelled him into the road and under the wheels of a flatbed

truck loaded with wrecked cars barrelling down the hill. I was left alone,

clutching the Samsonite and the glossy business card. I ran to the Post Office,

jumped into a phone booth, and dialed the number, which, by the (519) prefix,

looked like it belonged someplace in Ontario.

''SCHEISSKERL!'' screamed the hostile voice out of Canada at me and proceeded to

waste a torrent of German invective. My response must have been more phlegmatic

than expected, as the voice hesitated and asked, ''Errrnschscht?''

''No, not Ernst; Ernst ist kaput! This is Calvin speaking''.

''Calvin? vat Calvin? You von the Schinkenhachse already? Gif me Ernst!''.

''Ernst is dead and mushy-flat as a decal, dammit!'' I started losing my

cool.    ''Gimme the Hamhock winner for Pete's sake! I gotta go!''

''This is Margot O'Toole'', answered a definitely different, guarded voice.

''Have you got the notebooks?''

''Uhhh.  Well, actually no, I was on my way to get them. You see, last night

I was sort of, uhhhhh, worn-out, and I, uhhhhhhhh, went to bed rather early.'' 

Who WAS this pisspot jive mama and her notebooks, anyway?

''I talked to Paul Doty. You Must not let them beat you to  Number 6, Do You

Understand?'' she whined.

I hung up without a word. Writing ''6'' on the back of my hand, I ran to the

Casino, taking a shortcut at the expense of an over-neat tulip flower bed.

Just as the overbite-freak reverend croupier was about to parrot ''Rien ne

va plus!'', I slammed the Samsonite on the green felt, forking out,

whatthehell,

twomillioandup DM's a bit not as coolly as the suave gambler I was to be.

Maybe it was my stubble that phased them, or maybe the fact that I did not

have my tux on, and I probably smelled like New York City on a stifling day;

but they did not look normally at me. There was definitely something wrong with

all of them.

''On Number 6'', I snapped at the dealer, ''Nummer Sechs, Spitzbube!''. An

effete ambassadorial type stared at the back of my sweaty hand, as I quickly

wiped the number off on the side of my pants.  I stared at the chandeliers, and

just listened to the muffled rodent sounds they all made, and the ponderous

clicking of the roulette wheel.

''Nummer Sechs'', hissed the dealer, pale as a Labor day squash. I was seized

by an uncontrollable hiccup, but managed to point to my open Samsonite case to

the croupier and throw him a forced triumphant smile. ''All of it, and I hope

you know arithmetic!'', I hiccoughed, and wondered why there was not a sound in

the room except for the house dicks whispering fast into their walkie-talkies

staring at me sideways. Some of them were yawning hysterically. I caught the

words ''hamhock'', and ''Schinkenhachse'' oozing out of their desperate patter.

I was beginning to think of the quiet studio I was going to open up on Balboa

Island upon my imminent retirement. Relaxed, in the soft light of my studio's

skylights, I'd listen to ''Afro-Pop'' and sculpt the dialog for a great

mini-series pilot. It would have black women golfers dressed in yellow plaid,

see? After a snack of mango and crackers, I'd type on, and write them to tango

around the grand ballroom, cross-eyed and intent.  At last, the gentle Muse was

here! And Success was fanning me with her laurel wreath.

''Sechs, sechs, sechs.  Is that all you think of, you handsome devil?''

It was Thilde in a minimalist leather mini-skirt and a yellow-emerald-and-purple

lace vestigial blouse. Her tanned neck took my breath away again. Her toenails

were turquoise. She walked up next to me, taking my right arm in both of hers,

and pressed that pneumatic chest of hers against me. She would need extra

weights if she were a diver, I guessed. ''You've met Hinz Hachse, the Ham?'',

she winked at me, and swept her hair towards this thing waddling up fast

behind me.

The thing was a five-foot fireplug, wore a dark suit and sunglasses, and

sported a bull neck and a greased scalp. He was waving the cisvestite security

types to rush towards us, shaking his head and patting his hair. He made me

think about how James Bond would clobber them all and make a sleek dash for it,

with Thilde and the money in tow.  I thought about last night and this morning,

but then I remembered breakfast.  That did it. I turned around suddenly, and,

like Mount Pinatubo on a good day, heaved my guts over all five of them. The

move took them by surprise, and I lunged to grab the Samsonite, but Hinz

produced something fast and hard and violent which switched my brain off.

                              ***

''Take us to your leader'', chirp the little green vixens holding their breasts

and pointing at the majestically illuminated picture of colonel Sanders;

''We believe you earthlings call him Schroedinger?'', smiles Nerdulia, the

plump one, shaking her hula skirt and tipping her hat.

At the pulpit of their spaceship, I preach my beatific sermon and they sigh,

they cry, they laugh. I bless them and they speak in tongues, and clap, and

shake, and ''Amen'' every time I yell ''Higgs!'', or ''SSC!''. Symmetry

breaking is no academic marginalia here --- it should sell better than fried

chicken on their planet, I figure. ''Throw away your clothes and come to me,

COME TO ME, oh Daughters of Grandeur'', I leer and extend my holy and sublime

arms to them. They start chanting hysterically holding their arms up, and

cartwheel to my solemn pulpit.

                                 ***

I came to in a reading room of a public library. Very quiet, and woozy-sweet.

The wholesome smell of the floor-wax put me in a good mood. Neat plaster

meanders ran along the wall ten inches from the ceiling. I cased the joint out

of the one eye I could open, and saw this bespectacled lady inspecting me,

poised in her pleated skirt. She appeared uneasy, her ankles bending to get

her soles to touch each other under the table. It was obvious she thought I was

a homeless catching up on his z's in the bright warmth of the library. Then I

noticed the hush-hush talk was in English, and the flag outside the arched

window was Canadian. The trees out there were elms, and a cardinal was giving

us a decent audio.

I pulled my battered self up and ''good day, Madam'''ed my staring neighbor, as

I shuffled out to the light. I thought I saw her taking a picture of me, but,

I'd lost confidence in my vague impressions lately. The brass plaque outside

the door said ''Tobermory Public Library'', which did not mean a thing to me.

My pockets were empty, except for a bunch of ''Two-dives-for-the-price-of-one''

tickets for the ''Georgian Royal Scuba and Shipwreck Amateurs Association'',

whatever that was, wherever the address it gave was meant to be. I drank

some water from the yard pump, only to realize that I now needed coffee and

ice-cream, and baked goods and animal protein. There was a dead cicada on the

grass, and it did not taste bad, except the prim lady was photographing me

again from inside the library. Go figure. I had to blow my nose into my fingers

to make her recoil back to the reading room, at last. I took another look at

the Georgian Association address, and, whistling ''Nabuco'', I set off to find

the place and listen to the bells that should ring.

                              ***

I found the place, walked behind the boat-repair yard, and, staving off a

heat-allergy attack, I collapsed on a chair in the clubhouse dining room. I had

no more than a gallon of iced tea and two pounds of fried gizzards, the way I

like them, gritty and honest, with lots of parsley. Gulping down my rhubarb pie

a la mode, I saw the mystery photographer aiming her camera from outside the

clubhouse window. I turned to the bar to protect my face from the pesky creep.

''Call me Diesel Babushka, if that suits you''. Blonde and tanned, she seated

her lithe 95 lbs on the bar stool, and ordered a Midori daiquiri, all the while

keeping her shades on. She wore minimal shorts, a half-T-shirt, and hiking boots

with fluorescent orange shoelaces. The barman quietly switched the blender on;

oh good! -- she was old enough for it. Nice! Oh, my Vestal Virgin that aren't!

The shades turned in my direction.

''What do we do now, after sailing in, Skipper?'', she poker-faced me; but I

could guess the glint in her eye behind the shades. No way she was older than

22. The photographer maniac outside must have been too much, because Diesel

turned her head a little to face her, when a side-glance behind the shades

should do. ''You are photogenic'', she grinned. ''Or are you an obscure

celebrity?''

''Do you take pictures?'', I asked, ''or do you star in them?'', the demon of

concupiscence taking full possession of me and taking rapid stock of ways

and means.

''I scuba some, and I take underwater videos. Sometimes I star in them. The

audience sometimes likes me to lead the camera'', she said nonchalantly. ''How

are the shipwrecks outside the harbor?''

''You're in the right place''.

''And, like, we are taking the glass-bottom boat tour today, aren't we?''

''We are, Miss Skipper, we are. How about now?''

                              ***

Nora-Faye Moon eased her hallucinatory legs into the spandex body-stocking

with the strategically placed lace windows. ''What Greenhouse effect!'', she

sighed steamily in the freezing loft. Under the skylight, she wiggled her

flesh and firm nipples inside the black lycra, finishing her Martini breakfast.

The phone rang.

''It's Margot. Jagodinka, they are on the lake. On the glass-bottomed boat.

Right as we Speak! I have photographs to prove it. What are we Going to Do

Nora! Nora? They'll sail right Over the notebooks. And there is also someone

Else watching them, nasty and short! This is the End! We are teetering in front

of the eightball, Jagodinka, and we'd better Do something!''.

Nora hung up without saying a word and poured herself another drink.

What an uptight loser crybaby that Margot was! She should know better than to

call a few hours before her snooker tournament engagement in Atlantic City. 

Jonathan would be watching, hungry for talent, and maybe more, with a contract

in his pocket. Her new friend David Weaver promised to come, and they even said

that the Donald himself was going to slum back into the casino tonight. And

Whose idea it was to seal the ''Cell'' notebooks in a weighted bag in the hull

of a 19th century ketch sunk on the bottom of lake Huron? Didn't she KNOW it

was invisible from the surface, glass-bottom boat or not?

                           ***

Diesel hummed in Sanskrit---or just knew the Tantric prayer words by rote, I

guess---like an Orange County banshee, and hopped into the glass-bottomed boat

with me in tow. I had to watch not to step over my tongue, as my eyes were full

of tears looking at the flashes coming off her golden hair. I stood behind

her, taking in the view on the bottom of the lake, the insight into her

half-T-shirt, and, breathing her in, I shook with giddy need. It was hot.

She was smiling mysteriously to herself, as we sailed over the ''Plector'' and

showed me the ribbed frame of the shipwreck. On the bottom, the mainmast lay at

an angle to the hull, like a deletion mark. The water was impossibly clear, cool

, bright gray-blue, and inviting. The boat rolled gently, and the gulls swept

up in the bright sun, as Diesel was saying something about entering graduate

school at UCLA to study philosophy; but I could only bask in my wiggling,

leering gargoyle need. As the boat rolled again, I pushed myself unobtrusively

against her back and put my arms around her.

''Like, you are not being very suave?'' she stiffened up and faced me

censoriously. ''Like, Calvin, we are here to look at the boats? Or what? You

don't like the ship?''  I stiffened in tandem with her.  Damn. I quickly

sat down to hide the unsightly bulge.

''Umm, eh, we, yes, you launched a thousand ships, and we have to get to the

bottom of it, no?''

''Like .....,  you wanna DIVE?''

''Yes, LETSDOIT!'' , I heard myself blurting out in desperate need of some cold

lake water on my frying circuits.

''Scuba gear under the deck!'', muttered the captain of the boat, who had been

watching us sardonically.

We gamboled into the hot cabin and put on the wetsuits, Diesel taking no

self-conscious precautions to obscure her splendor, as she slipped into the

happy rubber. The temperature in my suit was boiling to the flash point.

We jumped into the crystal-clear invigorating waters and I started following

Diesel, who swam a few yards ahead of me, and, for a moment, the cold water

helped. Until she took the bottom of her suit off and smiled mischievously

behind her mask. I was steaming, panting, and blowing bubbles off;

hyperventilating, which makes you light-headed under water, I followed in

tremens with my ears brushing against her undulating ankles.

Yaeeeeeyaeeeeeeee, my godly mermaid and the sunlit view you shone at me, your

underwater pilgrim! Ah, plump-lipped nereid godhead Diesel sliding in Canadian

wetness! Mystical; breathtaking.

                                ***

I watch the brontosaurs jump through the green smoke hoops, and the condors

lay their eggs in flight against the sunset. I know I must have passed out,

as the immediacy of the situation can't be real. I am standing in the pool

chest-deep. Watermelons are bobbing in large numbers around me. I catch a

reflection of myself on the water, and my face is that of an alligator. Four

horn-playing nymphs stretch their heart-stopping thighs on lounge chairs by the

pool. I wonder why I'm wearing a raincoat underwater. I look up at the blue sky

and now they are languidly lying on the fire escapes against the brick walls.

Their sunlit legs are dangling off the steel landings, and they are peacefully

playing Haydn's horn concerto.

Dear reader, I beg you to bear with the effluence of my purpuriparous

electronic pen, for a minute, as gritty sense will ultimately rise out of it,

to avoid stooping to a cliche. The world of Molecular Biology, however,

makes cliches glow with the patrician smugness of a Rockefeller Brahmin.

What appears to be a sloppy or meaningless use of words may well be a

perfectly precise use of words to express sloppy or meaningless ideas. But

consider the Messianic cult of deriving the standard model of particle physics

out of strings, or ''fixing the Higgs'', yet another of their obsessions: Even

though the payoff is not high, its practitioners need not worry about running

out of work. And who comes to the rescue of Science? Don't even think of

asking.

                              ***

I came to in a dark place underwater with Diesel wiggling nervously, giving me

mouth-to-mouth-one-Scuba-regulator resuscitation. As soon as I could use

my scuba valve again, she stroked my hair, pushed my twitching groin back,

and grabbed me by the hand leading me out of the ballast chamber of the ketch.

''Plector, Duluth'', I could read stenciled on the impacted lifeboat ahead of

us. I stroked her dependable behind, and she turned and shook her finger

admonishingly at me. And then she froze.

Staring over my shoulder, she swam into a cranny of the wreck and pulled

out a slick yellow plastic satchel with a thick orange tape-seal and an

enormous number 6 on the side. We could barely see through the semitransparent

label window. Looked like books, or ship's logs, or whatever. But the name on

the label on the one on top said: ''Thereza Imanishi-Kari''.

                             ***

As I reached for the satchel, a dark shadow moved above us through

the water.  It looked like some sort of underwater centaur, and I

clutched the satchel to my chest.  I saw a strange, half-human shape

gliding through the water, and I realized that it was Jonathan

Ravenswood riding an underwater sled.  The bull-neck Hamhock was riding

behind him. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that my buddy and

boss Jonathan had set me up for something.  Time to quit the scene. I hit the

quick-release on my weight-belt and zoomed for the surface like a rocket,

nonetheless.

Through the refractive water I saw Ravenswood unsling something from his back.

No, not a speargun, Jeez, Jonathan, why? And all those hot-tub-and-bimbo parties

we went through? Then, in a flash, I remembered catching Jonathan at the

UCLA library, bespectacled, tweed coated, leafing through old copies of

a citation index in hysterical excitement. That was the only time he never

said a word to me. Good lord of the DOE! He was a SCIENTIST!  That

explained the ''Genome Project'' poster in the cabin of his yacht!

In a millisecond, I  realized he was hot on the trail of the Presidency of

the Rockefeller University, or Los Alamos, or both, and I was the sitting duck

cover-provider who ''discovered'' the notebooks right before having an 

''unfortunate accident''. Diesel was gesturing at him, pointing at me.

At last I remembered all the articles I'd read about Margot O'Toole.

There was a quick movement beside me, and I saw Diesel scooting up next to me. 

There was a shsssssh-Thud!--- and I knew that Jonathan's spear had struck

something.

Blood filled the water, and I saw Diesel's eyes widen in shock.  What a waste. 

I reached the surface and pulled myself into the boat. I was panting like

a livid baby, and the yellow satchel was still strapped on my wrist.

I revved up the ridiculous little engine of the boat and sprinted

back to shore.  Behind me Ravenswood surfaced, charging towards me.

His lips were moving in an uspeakable toothy fury. Diesel's body was still

attached to the harpoon line, bouncing effulgently like a captive porpoise

through the waves, legs akimbo as always. 

The Hamhock slammed his flat forehead and jolted his hand pointing ahead at

something. Turning around, I saw some kind of buoy sticking out of the water. 

And then I felt the impact.  Boat, sled, Diesel, Hamhock, Ravenswood, and

few dozen gallons of spare gas in the boat. Kaboom!  Everything went dark

as bits and morsels shot flying everywhere. Just like the pages of ''Cell''

magazine.

I was the lucky one, I guess.  The initial impact of hitting the shoal

hurled me a good hundred yards, and I reckon the waves brought me ashore. 

They scraped up enough of Jonathan to bury under that classy tombstone at

Forest Lawn, at flirting distance from Jayne Mansfield's. His sidekick,

the Hock (with Diesel's body attached to the red-hot harpoon line)

made the cover of a few mags that keep the solid citizenry informed as

they wallow blankly in supermarket lines---eclipsed Oprah's alien diet,

or the link between JFK's murder and the chastity vows of a presidential

primary candidate.  Now, I've always been a man of taste, so I won't bother

telling you how the Hamhock, the provost-designate for Rockefeller University,

got his name, although some of my ex associates at the Volkspolizei will not

help getting the drift. I managed to stay clear of the scene. For a while, I

used to dream about Thilde, godly in a white toga and glasses, putting laurel

wreaths on the bull's neck, though. But then I met this real foxy Southern

belle who loves pool, and we are now spending lots of time together. The fortune

coming out of the crumbled cookie, you might say.

Anyway, the satchel was blown to bits with the rest of it, and who would

believe me? The celebrated Jonathan Ravenswood part of an international

academic conspiracy targetting a rich East Coast research University? Hollywood

looking up to the hallowed halls of academe? Without even a

post-communist-bogeyman Japan-bashing angle? No way.  Gimme another

midori-and-vodka, Nora-Faye. I'll stick to writing screenplays.

                               THE END