Pages in Read Ink: Mysteries of Then and Now

By Jeane Heimberger Candido

Pages In Read Ink: Mysteries ofThen and Nowchallenges mystery lovers to beat the author to the punch! "The Hunt for the Gray Ghost" challenges a theory that is hard to dispute: Was Abraham Lincoln the victim of a Confederate conspiracy or was he the victim of a cabinet member's passion to succeed him as president? Even heroes can be turned to conspiracy,fellows can becomeenemies,and adversaries become comrades. Can a former legacy of Las Vegas divas ("To Be Too Rather than Too") find the killer of a high-powered divorce attorney when so many would pawn their limos and diamonds for a share in a hitman? In "The Problem with the Monsignor"Patricia McGuire, Sister of (Show 'em No) Mercy keeps the police on task as they investigate the assault to commit murder on the Head Master of a school for over-privilged boys. A "Motion to Dismiss?" could be taken from the headlines of the nightly news cable station. Does a departed soul take $30,000 worth of plastic surgery and a martyr's death to heaven in "Is This Don Giovanni or Is It Really Hell?"

Pages In Read Ink touches every period of history and every profession. I have found victims and felons from the best stations of life. But the lives of murderers, extortionists, and homicide police make much better company than saints.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 31, 2009
• ISBN: 9781449095598

Jeane Heimberger Candido

Jeane Heimberger Candido has by turns been a marketing and advertising manager, newspaper reporter, photographer, columnist, freelance writer, Civil War historian, living historian, and commentator. Her first books The Redemption of Corporal Nolan Giles and Shepherd's Song were of the Civil War. She has written for Blue & Gray Magazine, Civil War Historian Magazine and has appeared as an on-air historian for the PBS documentary Call to Care. Jeane has survived eighteen years of Catholic Education and has been married to an engineer for almost thirty-five years. She has two children: Anne Marie is an engineer and married to an engineer. Son Robert is a pilot and also an engineer. She was the only right-brained person in her family and therefore, the only one in her right mind--until recently. Soon she will be blessed with a daughter-in-law who is an ordained minister.

Book preview

Contents

Acknowledgments

THE BLACK GRAIL

A Year of Spades

or

How Do You Post Date a Check to the Devil?

The Hunt for the Gray Ghost

THE SECRET HEART OF BOBBY JOE KEHOE

AIR TIME

THE HOSTAGE

Is This Don Giovanni

or

Is It JUST Really Hell?

A Motion to Dismiss

A Rose by any other name

THE X-RATED ENTEPRPRISE

The Death Of The Janus Man

The Stuart Necklace

To Be Too Rather Than Two

And We Are Well Rid Of Them

Double Kill

THE PROBLEM WITH THE MONSIGNOR

Crunch

THE ECLIPSE OF DOCTOR SCOPES

OR

HOW murder kick-started A NEW LIFE

The Gardener

A Murder In The Family

THE FLIGHT OF THE GHOST PEOPLE

The Arddeliad

(The Conviction)

The Queen of Trumps

Other Books by Jeane Heimberger Candido

The Redemption of Corporal Nolan Giles

A Novel of the Civil War

Shepherd’s Song

A Novel of the Fall of Vicksburg

Levi: The Smartest Boy in the World

A Children’s Mystery

My Bloomin’ Insanity

Humor-Garden-Theology

Dedication

To my Mother Clara Heimberger Foutz

December 23, 1922-May 21, 2004

And

To my Granddaughter Ainsley Marie Westbrook

Born May 21, 2004

Acknowledgments

I am blessed to have had the support, encouragement, the technical knowledge and experience of such people as Howard Popowski, Vietnam veteran, United States Army – Ordnance, Civil War historian, musician, author and novelist; Norman Lambert, U.S. Marine Corps and Korean Veteran, with three tours of Vietnam as well as several missions as a member of the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Green Berets of the United States Army; and Gary (his last name withheld by request), United States Air Force, who was a gunner on an evacuation helicopter (Green Hornet) in Vietnam.

Not the least of which, my husband, Richard F. Candido, U.S. Army, Corps of Engineers—Vietnam, he has given not only insight into his experience but also has graciously (though not always happily) trekked those American battlefields with me which began at 0-Dark Hundred and resembled forced marches with a long time between rations. I thank these gentlemen and understand that sometimes their insights were shared at the painful price of remembering. I feel honored to be given the blessings of such trust. For his technical knowledge of chemistry I would like to thank William Eisenhardt, Ph.D.

I would like to thank Anne Pici, my editor and classmate at the English Department of University of Dayton, who has gone where many fear to tread. She had also tamed the beasts of my last two books. She is a brave woman!

And it would go without saying, my love and gratitude is given to Ainsley’s parents my daughter Anne Marie and her husband Rob Westbrook. I would also like to thank my son Robert and his bride Elizabeth for their generous encouragement always. And in memoriam, I would like to thank my father Walter Heimberger, Jr., for giving me my love for history, and my mother Clara Heimberger Foutz and my stepfather Richard Foutz.

THE BLACK GRAIL

1863: the devil is at the door

The written page is a mirror without a face—

You are my mind, oh diary, guard my secrets well!

Sat/June 27th Afternoon: We hear General Bowan is near death. He will not leave the trenches to recover his health. Win or lose—I do not think he will live the summer. I fear for May and their babies.

Sun/June 28th: Vicksburg is a shattered egg. For forty days and forty nights the city has quaked under the thunder of General Grant’s cannons. His unrighteous brimstone fire from the east into our back door and Admiral Porter’s river gunboats fire through the front door. We have no peace.

Mon/June 29th First Light: Our homes, mercantiles, warehouses glow like jack-o-lanterns. The Testament counsels us to believe and that faith will move mountains. Even so, resolution and prayer rise heavenward like steam from this baking earth, but neither has moved the Yankees from our midst.

Evening: General Steven Lee left his meeting with Toland without paying his compliments to me. The General was much aggrieved. I hastened after him at such a pace that I nearly fainted on the stairs for the unbreathable sulfur the belching cannons leave us. I wanted to appease the bad ending—our fates are so undetermined, I want no visitor to leave our door on bad terms—time may not afford the luxury of later amends. As the matter was between gentlemen, he would not confide in me, even as I pressed as hard as a mere lady is allowed. So, I took a blossom from our climbing rose and set it into his lapel. Some of the gallantry from the good days took hold, for he bowed and pressed his lips to my fingertips. At least he accords me sentiment that my husband, my mother-in-law, and my neighbors do not.

Tues/June 30th: I am haggard from the shelling. There is no sleeping for any of us. My husband keeps to his library. I fear he embroils a scheme—because he has no love for books. How it will deter our fate I cannot foretell, but couriers come and go by the back door without a by-your-leave.

Afternoon: Only now have I been told and only a little—a man of importance is being smuggled through the lines. I do not know how nor whom: Vicksburg is under siege, we are an island. I hope he does not come hungry!

Wed/July 1st: The heat or the bourbon has taken hold of Toland’s mind. He floats on a cloud of euphoria and boasts that in the eleventh hour he will rise to Jefferson Davis’s right hand or depose the president to take the government outright. He does not explain to any degree beyond his own resurrection, but he is most delirious that it’s like will happen. I feel undone if I cannot head him off. The enemy will soon take Vicksburg and what will happen to us—pretender or not—Grant will not quibble over imprisoning this Confederate president or another. He will cover his bets. I fear our next home will be a coop on Johnson’s Island. I have no champion, I have received no letters from my brother in Lancaster since February—a hope yet on intersession an eternity away.

Afternoon: We have been told that the mysterious guest is the Apostolic Delegate and he has found sanctuary with Father Warren—we will receive them both for a late supper. I cannot understand what the papal ambassador would want of my silver-plated prince. Shod has taken the rifle and a pole to find us a main course—I have not seen even a squirrel in weeks. Perhaps he will snare some bottom-feeders, a turtle or a few fat frogs. The cook is polishing the silver, ironing the linen, and sweeping the plaster from the dining room. This afternoon I braved the thunder and hail of bombardment to confess my fears to Father Warren. He has promised to pray his might and intercede for me with the Almighty, but his earthly powers are limited and under seal. I do not think even he knows precisely what is a foot or he would not be a party to it. Cannon fire, not the strike of the clock’s pendulum, wears me now.

*****

He is from your home town, is he not, Rachel—this General Sherman who persecutes us so relentlessly?

I held Mother Aubrey’s gaze like a defendant in the stalks. "He is from the town of Lancaster, but in Ohio, not Pennsylvania as I am."

In Mother Aubrey’s mind it was a difference only between the east and west longitudes of hell. My husband was buttering his third biscuit—oblivious to his mother’s patter or the heroic symphony of cannon fire played by Sherman’s artillery, his entrenchments ran in parallel lines directly to the east. For my husband, they posed no more peril than popguns, yet I was feeling my mortality with every concussion. Toland knows the difference, we had visited both Lancasters on our way South after our wedding.

I told them that on our honeymoon we had traveled to Baton Rouge and the new Louisiana State Military Seminary for the commencement of one of Toland’s cousins. We had met the founder William T. Sherman and his wife Eleanor—though northern bred, their sympathies were southern felt. But with secession, Sherman resigned as commandant of the Seminary and drew a Union commission with his countryman U.S. Grant—a dreadful loss to the South. He impressed us as a gentleman and a scholar. He had no wants of applicants for his faculty and his classrooms were filled with the finest of our young men.

Mother’s fan blew such a wind as to set her ringlets flying like streamers over her ears. I can hardly breathe. The spring is already intense, with the cannons scorching the air…and we are barely into the sickly months. With the inconvenience of those Yankees, I do not see our going to the islands. These invaders are the demon’s own spawn, regardless of which Lancaster that begat them.

By birth I was responsible in her mind for their invasion of the whole South as if I had invited them to dinner. She said by way of indictment, He impressed you, my dear, but you are easily impressed by faux veneers. Sherman is as much a fool as General Grant, digging canals with purposes of changing the course of the River to get by Vicksburg. Such blasphemy! Old Father River flows at the Creator’s own will.

Her confessor and trusted beneficiary of family largesse should have been quicker in support of his patroness, but Father Warren was tearing at his hard bread and mopping up the last dregs of mock turtle soup. The Papal Ambassador, who had not shared our starvation, did not attend his bowl of humble fare as a hungry hound, and waved away his portion to the Franciscan. Father Warren accepted it voraciously. Instead the diplomat had caught the scent of a sacrificial burning and was warming to the inquisition, he regarded me as a harlot loose in his abbey, and bided his time.

Toland set his glass over the frayed table linen to be refilled. His motions were languid and self possessed as if he had blackmailed God and was recast immortal. My dear Mother, my wife I fear speaks the truth. She, like others in her savage North, are pragmatists—rude souls, but making for superior poker players.

A shell detonated close enough to set phantoms of blue phosphorous drifting through the windows. Shod’s wide ebony face glistened patent and he nearly swooned with terror, only Toland’s unholy scowl kept him by his master’s side.

Perhaps we should draw the portieres; our candles must send a beacon for the Yankees to site on. I rose to do so. Outside, the night was a drama of comets ripping the blackness and exploding into the hillsides. A parade of silhouettes—neighbors burdened with pots and silver plate running for refuge like moles into the caves bored into the hillsides; and to no surprise, among the fastest was Harmony, our cook. She must have escaped through the summer kitchen, and exhibited an agility and speed for her heft I had never witnessed in all her days in our service. It was all the more remarkable for her apron bulged with treasures, as if she were nearly to term with twins. She was not thieving, all would be well and sage tea prepared when we joined her in the cave.

But Mother’s control—either drink or terror was weakening. When will General Pemberton do something about these horrible missiles? And still no civilized gentlemen would shell during the supper hour.

Mother, I replied, perhaps Admiral Porter eats early. And then I passed the platter to my left, "Scoiattolo, Your Excellency?" I served him the choicest pieces, but the Ambassador was more intent on pressing the wine bottle’s neck to the rim of his glass until Shod refilled his goblet full.

And you, Father Warren? I offered the larger share of skeletal squirrel.

Thank you, Daughter. As the rest was apportioned around the table according to rank and hospitality, the priest had a spare moment to attend to lady mother who regarded God, and in his human form Friar Warren, as close members of her family to be courted or bullied as pleased her. But God had been negligent recently and she was perplexed at this rudeness: God could never allow Vicksburg to fall and let us be enslaved by the spawn of the Yankee Satan…would He, Father?

Father Warren served comfort as a cold dish. Ah, dear lady, God is never gentle with His chosen people. There was not a stone left upon a stone after the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem. The Old Testament is chapter and verse of enslavement, hardships, defeat, rape and pillage to God’s most favored people. The New Word is written in the blood of redeemers and martyrs, how happy you should be to share their fate. To emphasize his point, a round of hot shot flared from Grandfather’s orchards.

Even though Toland was only at the length of the table I had to nearly shout, Darling, do you think we should join our neighbors in the caves?

No, my dear, that would be most rude to leave before the port is served.

The Ambassador interjected, Signore Aubrey, perhaps the Signora is correct, it would be cautious to be down to purposes. The hour is growing late and circumstances precarious. He dabbed his linen to the edges of the elegantly trimmed imperial goatee, an affected elegance that did not hide a peasant’s chin receding under an arching overbite. His nose was a ruin of facial architecture from a gouty life of extravagance, a Gothic buttress arching from a forehead so angular that his eyes lay too deep in shadows of black brush to be studied. He let the tone of his voice and the authority of his office do what his presence could not—intimidate.

You are ready to discuss the grail then. Toland then went to the cabinet and opened the doors as if he were parting the curtains of the tabernacle itself. He withdrew the relic and presented it. Since the Papal Ambassador was not a priest he could not lawfully take the consecrated object into his bare hands. He shook out his linen, swathed it around the cup, then raised it up to catch the full light of the chandelier. What he saw mesmerized him. I went as cold as a corpse, finishing the wine by a repetition of sips to bide my time, to mask my terror, and to keep from screaming.

The chalice roused Father Warren from the serious business of consumption. If that is what I think it is, although I was never sure it actually existed… The friar wiped his face to give regard to the curiosity, …but, yes, it is magnificent even in its simplicity, worthy of a king’s ransom.

At the very least, the Confederacy’s ransom, Toland corrected him.

So that was the plan! I would not have it. I would not lose any more that was mine for fairytale kingdoms. I do not wish to spoil this exquisite moment, my dear, but you must remember that the chalice is mine, left to me by my father.

His smile stretched serpentine—ruthless even bloodthirsty. Ah, my dear Rachel, but you are wrong. Your father’s will was probated in Pennsylvania; it has no validity in Mississippi. The Constitution and every other ordinance, statute, and contract signed in the cold North is null—perhaps our marriage as well. I have asked the good Ambassador to study the matter and present me an ecclesiastical answer; civilly I have no doubts that the cup and your fortune have been mine since secession and will still be mine without the encumbrance of a marriage, if I so choose.

You cannot do this. You would not. Reason, I need to keep my reason and appear Henry VIII’s Catherine in Pontifical eyes. I must not tempt the Ambassador. If I lose my head I will lose everything. I must play for time—even as the enemy is draining it out by the second, it must be well used.

My first words were feeble and nearly lost in the cannon thunder. The grail’s humility is its glory, you must know its history, your grace? But neither the Ambassador nor my husband did, only its esteemed financial or political value. The friar found such ignorance sacrilegious but instead of saying so he buried his face in his wine cup.

Then an unworthy woman would enlighten them. It was carved by a back-country monk out of the living ore of the Black Forest; the chalice is poor as the Son of the Carpenter was poor. Toland now studied it with new appreciation of its political currency.

Father Warren continued, I thought it legend. What is legend and what is fact is hard to tell after five hundred years. But what was whispered in the haunts of the old abbey at Cologne when I studied there was that it was brought out only for Christmas vigil and then returned to its niche in the altar stone. The metal in the bowl is of very poor quality, but it was all the poor martyred monks of Saint Phonomus had to fulfill the rule that what held the Savior’s blood must be of gold. It celebrates humble faith rather than art. So if there is value, it is to the soul and not to the purse.

It is a relic of the holy Mass! the Ambassador was resolute. His Holiness would be most appreciative to have it in the Vatican Museum.

Except for its curse. It was not a woman’s place to curb the Pope’s man.

The Church forbids such superstition, Signora. She decides who is cursed and who is sanctified—and you can hardly seek favors for being the last of a family to horde a relic for worldly gain. The grail is now being returned to its rightful place and the Holy Mother Church cannot be held indebted for restitution of what is rightfully hers.

It seems confounding that a Mother, as generous and holy as you assert, could be so heartless to extract the eyetooth of her daughter to add to a limitless treasury.

My boldface blasphemy not withstanding the Ambassador’s verdict was a new hand of cards that trumped Toland’s dreams of conquest. Foolishly he had seen himself wagering on even terms, lord to lord, as equal heads of state. Now the Ambassador raised his hand against any objection. But the Church can be benevolent to the soul who delivers it, if not the body—because these are spiritual matters. A plenary indulgence—a cleansing of the soul of all its sins and punishments—is granted you and your family. A comfort to your mother as eminent death spirals through your skies. His smile was dismissive.

Faced with imminent fragmentation from cannon fire, starvation, and capture, the irony of the papal decision was laughable. For Toland, blood burned in his cheeks. But the Ambassador’s mind was still churning and he raised the cup and sealed the pronouncement. You are subject to the Church as your wife is subject to you. Then he bid Toland fill the relic and motioned for a toast. To your annulment, Signore Aubrey, and he raised the chalice.

My smile froze on my lips. Toland was exuberant, but I would not let him have it. Beware of the curse, I hissed again.

The Yankee gunboats were honing their aim. The angel of death was lurking at his elbow and the Ambassador would not wager his soul by overextending the limits of his authority. I am not a cleric; I cannot even touch this holy cup, much less drink from it. He turned to Father Warren. Your hands are blessed.

The curse of being the king’s taster was very much on his face, the Friar took the cup reluctantly.

The Ambassador shouted, To the Confederacy!

Toland raised his glass and ordered us to join in the toast, but I remained seated with my glass empty: I will not drink to my own execution.

Father Warren swirled the wine deep in the amber bowl of the chalice. He did so at length and with heavy concentration. Perhaps he was praying for consecration of Toland’s cheap wine or begging forgiveness for his part in this sacrilege. He closed his eyes and drank it down in a gulp. Then he cleaned his mouth with the shank of bread.

The guests watched the disheveled priest for some minutes and when he did not quiver, roll his eyes, or explode in a fit of apoplexy, the Nuncio proclaimed, We have stepped through the ecclesiastical loopholes. The friar lives and the curse is a fraud.

Death takes it own time. I whispered.

Father Warren nodded soulfully. She is right. The curse goes deep into this relic, and so it should. Such warnings were all that protected what was holy from what was barbaric when barbarity rampaged over the earth. But even this homely chalice does not wield justice, and so on that cold and benighted Christmas Eve when the savages exploded through the doors of his chapel its curse could not protect the innocent. The victims could not even run and save themselves, for the Mass was in the midst of Consecration and could not be stopped. So the Abbot went on with the sacred words and the monks stayed in their rows as if nothing more than the night wind were blowing through them—even as the savages slew them in bloody heaps. At the last, the devil’s own prince raised his sword over the head of the Abbot and brought him down. As his life’s blood poured out, the Abbot evoked the curse, ‘God will not be profaned! Who is unclean and drinks from the chalice will die.’ The Khan was dead in a month, his son in two more. The chalice was lost for a hundred years until the Teutonic Knights rescued it—and they too were gone. Napoleon found it a curios trophy and put it in his camp chest as he marched to Moscow, and his fate is well known and his country’s with him. So…

So, I warn you, my husband, and all of you who will take part in this unholy conspiracy—beware, you are making the devil’s own bargain.

Mother was very near a corpse herself, ashen and faint. Such rude things are never brought to a polite table.

But her son, with the Friar fat and fair standing solid, waved the bodings away as smoke from an offensive cigar. He had won the bet. Only the ignorant believe in curses. Drink up, good Father. He refilled the glass with the last of the port, Tonight the Union sun is in eclipse, and I will have an annulment from a tiresome woman.

On what grounds? I demanded.

You are barren. You entered into our marriage with full knowledge of it.

You are vile! A child cannot be conceived if a man will—or cannot—do his duty.

Toland reached for the Derringer in his vest. He would have killed me there I think, but the cannons were bursting over his head.

The Ambassador removed a roll of foolscap from his coat and straightened it before Toland. I also have the Papal proclamation, which will be announced from the Vatican after my confirmation of the transfer is received.

Confirmation? For Toland, the Church raised a swirling helix of puzzles and disappointments.

The Holy Father will proclaim that your President Lincoln is in violation of the laws of God and humanity. On Lincoln’s authority he lures Irish and German immigrants to New York offering asylum. In truth, Lincoln’s purpose is to put them in the front lines as cannon fodder. With the Papal decree, the Union will be set before the world as whole-sale murderers of their own as well as of defenseless people to the South. Their cause will be heresy by Papal edict. If the troops do not lay down arms, the president and every soldier and citizen of the North will be excommunicated by Christmas. Pius IX will issue a proclamation to your Ambassador Mann that the Holy See will recognize the Confederacy as sovereign.

We have won! Toland howled in euphoria. It is even better than I had planned! Toland went from rapture…to amusement…and then horror! Father Warren!

The priest collapsed into his chair, heaving and choking. His body thrashed and shuddered, then mercifully his soul passed out of him in one long convulsing gasp. We swayed like dancing ghosts from the shock.

My poor Father Warren! Mother sighed.

I turned on them all. You have all murdered a priest. I do not think your sanctimonious President Davis or Pius will want any boons at this price. Their bewilderment was laughable. Oh yes, the curse was real. I know that heavy wine mixed with copper turns to poison. Yes, copper, not gold, gentlemen. That is why the grail was used only once a year and a sip only. Drink heartily and often from it, and even a healthy man will die. Our Friar here with his bad heart and his diabetes had no hope in this deadly charade. And what of your fates? You, Your Excellency—excommunication or exile? Do not resort to my husband’s phantom presidency—he will be hanged soon enough, by the Yankees or the Confederacy—even war does not bank murder.

Cobalt clouds mushroomed from the last impact, the wooly fog seeped through the broken panes of the French doors and stung our eyes. At the next concussion, the house shuddered, dropping baguettes from the chandelier like so much hail. A moment ago, I, who had nothing more to lose, now stood to gain it all. Soon none of this will matter. The gunners are getting their aim. Another salvo toppled the candles into the pool of spilled wine and ignited the alcohol in a low, blue flame.

I took the pitcher from the servant who would have doused it. That candle will make ashes of this wreck of a house, then it will be Porter’s crime, not yours—who and what they find in the ruin will be his sin. That is, if I do not testify at your trial; that is pivotal. I let that settle and then continued. By tomorrow we will be a conquered people, and who do you think Sherman will believe—you or me—if I choose to talk?

Toland stammered, You…you would not testify against me. You cannot.

By what constitutional law am I bound here in the South, to a wife’s loyalty if I am not a wife? It is all null and void, as you said. But, if you wish, tonight can be a time of new beginnings and new bargains. I reached for the grail clenched in the dead Friar’s hand. The feel of it gave me courage—time was endless, nothing could touch me, not even the cannons.

You are mad! Mother hissed.

I did not accord her so much as a glance, she was nothing, my purpose was the son. Listen to me! Your mother is a blithering fool and could not testify. I am your wife, I cannot be made to testify against you, nor you against me if we so unite, and she will be kept safe between us. The Ambassador will be gone as soon as he can escape through the lines…

Speak quick, man! The Ambassador steadied himself against the next blast.

Yes, speak quickly! I said calmly, The chalice, my fortune or what is left of it will be mine and you, when we return to Pennsylvania, will be a compliant, dutiful, attentive husband. Those are the terms.

He spit, I would prefer hell!

Agree now or you will have it—and by the hangman’s route. And your mother along side of you! And there will be no Masses said for either of your souls!

Even in her panic, Mother Aubrey saw the only course. You fool! Do what she says!

Shod, how would you like freedom in Pennsylvania? I asked the servant.

Like it fine, Ma’am, surely. And he inched closer to me.

The next blizzard of glass and plaster decided it. All right, yes, you win! You have my word as a gentleman. It was poor collateral.

I smiled. Well, on those terms…

The front of the house exploded away, hurling us toward the garden doors. Toland and the Ambassador were well ahead of the rest of us running toward the caves. Streaming missiles and rockets lit the way through the midnight.

My husband and mother-in-law pressed into the deepest recesses. Shod displayed great mettle, urging me through and guarding the door. But the theater of doomsday—the death scene of a great society—held me at the lip of the cave. The Ambassador disappeared into the eastern hillsides to plead his Papal credentials for sanctuary within Union lines. In the crimson glow rising from the Aubrey mansion, I saw the resurrected Father Warren turning up the hill, his frame moving quite rapidly for a man recently dead. The old Friar had interceded well. His story of the Abbot’s curse was inspired.

The cup was still tight in my hand. I unscrewed its base, and dropped it in my lap. An emerald signet ring belonging to Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine dropped into my palm. With it was a diamond necklace and two bracelets having been the stars in the regalia of Blanche, the wife of John of Gaunt—the Duke of Lancaster—literally a queen’s ransom. I slipped them back inside and secured the lid.

Tomorrow, the house would be ashes. In due time, I, as a Unionist, would exact restitution from the Washington Congress for destruction of my property as just compensation for my indenture in that family.

A Year of Spades

or

How Do You Post Date a Check to the Devil?

Rejection letters don’t swallow down any better with repeated dosings. To the contrary: their side effects—trembling hands, constricted throat, and fire in the stomach—only get worse. So when Maves slid the manuscript back into the battered envelope and resealed the flap—in effect, she was re-nailing the lid on the coffin of just another murdered spirit. Yea, I’ll have a nice day, who ever you are, as if a mother ever christened her child ‘The Editors’.

Two more SASE’s surfaced among the bills and the bi-monthly issues of Diner Monthly, and Deep-Fried Chef. That was a trifecta of rejections in a single delivery. It would be merciful to just give up. But her soul wouldn’t surrender—the poems kept coming into her brain—spontaneous, spirited, and impatient for a life of their own in the outside world. But each and every one was aborted at birth by some pruny masochistic editor in a swivel chair with an unlimited supply of rejection letters. In fifteen years Maves had a collection of rejection slips pasted to the ceiling of her bathroom—where other shit happened.

Another of your limericks fall on deaf ears, Maves? Joe Belford, construction foreman and group chief in charge of waitress harassment, crackled in tempo to a hammering spoon against his coffee mug.

It signaled a drum-roll of mug banging—demanding the limit of limitless refills and testing the limit of her severely limited patience. Maves grabbed the carafe of morning crude and made the round of cups, splashing fingers and laps as she poured—then returned to the counter without a backward glance at Joe’s empty. She picked up an order of double-fried eggs now vulcanized to synthetic rubber by mega-watt heating lamps, and traipsed far abroad to the other side of the diner to drop it—with its flatware and grimy bottles of condiments—on the pristine outstretched newspaper of her next victim. The customer took one look into his server’s face and knew better than protest.

Twenty years in construction had taught Joe the wisdom of the strategic retreat. He stood up, tallied his bill and reached into his pocket. Could he be the better man? He balanced two bits over his thumb and flipped it into the air. But he caught it before it could land on the table. No, he couldn’t. You lose, Maves. I hope Cal pays you enough to spurn tips or are your novels paying for your summer writer’s retreat with Brazilian gigolos on the Riviera?

The waitress chalked the insults up to another rejection in a downward slide into living hell. That last slipped out in an unrestrained profanity.

But Joe was really made of better dirt, he miscalculated the tally on his tab and walked away from three bills in change left on the counter. And by his example the rest did proportionately the same. Then without a by-your-leave, he picked up the fresh pot, topped off his and the open-mouthed thermoses of his crew, winked at her, and ushered his flock to the door.

To answer your question, Joe, I have job security, a till-death-do-us-part contract. And it’s a poem, you bore! Maves slammed the cash register shut and with the other fist dropped the Washingtons into the pocket of her apron.

Just before the door hit him on his back side, he turned back, Hey, I can stack up a few lines, no sweat. The blue-collar Wordsworth set one hand over his chest and the other in the air—a court house statue just waiting for a pigeon: There once was a waitress named Maves/who couldn’t sell a poem to save us./Cause all editors were crass/and kept knocking her on her ass/and she was so mean to the customers, she got tipped less.

Joe made a sweeping bow, as the audience all indebted to him for their paychecks erupted in stomps, whistles, bravissimos and belches. So moved, Joe clutched his thermos to his chest, and in a spasm of breathless sighs and tears welling over his dusty lashes, I wish to thank my public for this award—all the little proletariats…

We can put that to music and it won’t even sell flat beer to a frat house. Cal slammed another #4 Special on the Pick Up counter. Okay, the soiree is over, get out of here and make room for the next shift.

Maves rolled up the manuscripts and stuffed them up the sleeve of her parka hanging by the register.

It’s tough. A counter customer muttered more to himself than to her. Then he leaned back on his stool and studied his sandwich.

It’s yesterday’s Blue-Plate turkey. So eat it like a good citizen or we’ll swirl the left-overs in drippings for the seniors’ early-bird noodle casserole tomorrow. Maves freshened his cup with the dregs of the old pot.

The man was spare, hollow-cheeked, and pale but not intimidated. His Adam’s apple worked like a siphon to down the first bite—gristle and all.

No, I mean rejection. It’s a hard part of my life too. You know, there are two types of editors: the literati artistes who love your work, print it, and send you a check; and the over-preening bores who send you an upraised index finger on a piece of recycled paper. Obviously, you’ve been receiving a lot of the latter.

For that bit of empathy, Maves reached for a clean cup and the new pot and pushed aside the nondairy for a pitcher of real milk. How do you know, are you a writer or something?

"No, writers are idealists, especially the very talented ones. They think the world craves inspiration and intelligence. They are wrong. The languid populations don’t want inspiration and intelligence; they want the pretense of intelligence and inspiration with no sweat—explains why so many books on gardening, wine pedigree, and cigars go from the remainder shelves to so many coffee tables. Also explains why prime time is stuffed with reality television, game shows, and shopping channels—nothing to stimulate the alpha waves into so much as a quiver. So why isn’t the joy of writing enough?" Fresh or not he added three tablespoons of sugar and three ounces of milk to his coffee to wash down his sandwich.

No, I want paid and I want to be famous.

He rubbed his bald pate and seemed to understand the ache of wanting what couldn’t be had. The first I understand: to be paid is the currency of validation, but what is fame?

My own book with my face on the jacket, book signings, talk shows, and magazine interviews—the whole Danielle Steele route. Fame is love in the bank.

How many Nobel-prize laureates in literature do you see endorsing foreign cars or getting their own line of golf clubs?

Don’t care, I want it.

As if Maves had put a bet on the table, he rose to the challenge. Okay, how badly do you want it? he purred.

I’d give anything for just one year of fame—to make it out of this hell hole and show these losers.

Losers? Interesting interpretation of paying clientele. Well, perhaps a new frame of reference, how about a year of fame for a year in hell? He whispered even though the diner was now empty.

Maves recoiled. What are you talking about?

I’m offering you a year of fame for a year in hell. Or are the stakes specified in the concrete too high for you all of a sudden?

Going for broke should be worth more and she raised the bet, How about respect, can you offer me that?

Ah, the finer virtues—no, that is out of my department. But I can give you adulation—which smells, tastes, and dry-cleans the same, if you don’t look too close.

This was a strange door-to-door salesman. How can you do that? Are you an angel or something?

The little man winced. Hardly, let’s just say I’m an agent of sorts.

How can you arrange it?

You don’t have to worry about that. But rest assured it can be arranged—for the price specified and no bartering on the reckoning when I come to collect.

This isn’t one of those vanity press deals?

The question presented a queer logic that he seemed to appreciate. In a manner of speaking, I guess you could say that. Consider it a life-building experience.

The little man was in dead earnest, and the intensity of it scared her. Hell?

Just a figure of speech? Your figure of speech to describe your current situation in fact, you have said it twice just since I came in. ‘This is hell’ and you called this place a ‘hell hole’. I am making a fair trade—a finite trade. You stay here and your hell by your interpretations could last for an eternity. Mine by my interpretations is only a contracted 365 days—you get the bargain of an extra day of luck because this is leap year. His mouth stretched into a high-gloss smile, but his eyes were as ice blue as the veins in his skeletal hands which he flexed and massaged over his steaming cup. Are you willing to take the risk?

Maves stepped back to give the proposal some perspective. Will I have to die?

Don’t get caught up on technicalities. You’re married to a fry cook who serves up this excuse for food as fair business. The diner pushed the plate away, Is that heaven? Everything you write is bounced back with some anonymous piece of mass-printed toilet paper telling you that what inspires you is flushable. Is that life? Look at your A-list clientele!

She was still posed on the shallow side of the pool, her fingers in her pocket crunching Joe’s generous tip. So you are saying hell is relative?

He nodded to the cook clanging plates in the kitchen. I guess it can be, yes. More to the point, you could say hell is in the eyes of the beholder…like one of your poems.

She backed away. Are you insulting me?

Not at all, my dear, he stood up, ready to go. I must be on my way, so what do you say? I am taking the deal out the door with me; now or never.

You say you can make me and my poetry famous? What poem—poems—how many?

Any one or how many you want to start?

I want estimable venue, I want them in good publications. I won’t compromise respect. Maves pulled the envelopes from her coat.

She would have her way, so he nodded. Respect, okay, I can do that—of a sorts.

Then Maves handed them over. We’ll start with these. They have seen the in-basket of every poetry journal, review, and monograph office and I don’t think anybody ever read any of them.

Well, reversing rejection will be my problem. He took them and began to read the first one handing back the anonymous piece of printed toilet paper.

When their debate began, she had thought him a toady little man, wizened and spavin, but now he seemed taller, lithe and sophisticated…with a waxy shine. Are you an agent? She asked again.

His head jerked up from the page he was reading, he thought about it for a split second, and decided the term applied after all. Yes, in a manner of speaking, I guess I am. He palmed the pages into a roll, By giving me this, can I assume we have a deal?

When will you collect?

The man checked his day-planner, One year from today. How about New Year’s Eve?

How can I contact you, Mr. …?

He thought a moment. Spectre…Nick Spectre, at your service.

Maves reflexively clasped his outstretched palm to conclude the contract. There, we’ve shaken on it. Spectre said. He pulled some singles from a money clip and then shook out some silver from a small change purse and set it all on the counter.