Apostlyptic

By Steven S. Schneiderman

Louie Leppedimay appears nonthreatening while absorbing salience from swirling chaotic soup. That mask means bad luck for local Chicago felons and derailment for international plotters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503580916

Steven S. Schneiderman

Steven is an associate professor at the Institute of Engineering at Murray State University. He specializes in environmental engineering and regulatory affairs. Steven has nearly forty years of professional engineering experience. His literary endeavors were limited to compositions for friends, including songs, newsletters, greeting cards, and children’s stories. Apostlyptic is the fifth Louie Leppedimay mystery.

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Copyright © 2015 by Steven S. Schneiderman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 06/25/2015

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CONTENTS

Prologue

1. Notification Nesting

2. No Sausage, But Heartburn’s Ok

3. Aarp Antagonism

4. Not Doing What Comes Naturally

5. Can’t Scare Me At Thirty Thousand Feet

6. When The Gaping Gets Tough

7. Rerouted Ruination

8. Cliffs Of More

9. Rusty Justice Wheeling

10. Remaining To Be Seen (Again)

11. Suspensed

12. The Lam

13. Artistically Challenged

14. Can’t Throw Shells On The Floor

15. Overburden

16. Piece Parts

17. Gapee Golly

18. Teeterborough Twaddle

19. Smooth It On Thick

20. Overburden

21. Pegged Ahead

22. That’s Frijoles At Chihuahua

23. A Splash Of Branch Water

24. Fly On By

25. Wet Web Wondering

26. Fish Outta Gefilte

27. Got Your Hip Waders?

28. Overburden

29. Cavalier Pierce

30. Two Pairs Of Socks

31. Ooh On The Uptake

32. Tonic Tune-Up

33. Green Undertowed

34. Overburden

35. Warm Currently

36. Little Light Filters, Not Much

37. Curry On

38. Little Sprinkles

39. Glow On Goodly

40. Tips Tingling

41. Hinterlandia

42. Bay-Line Bungle

43. Just Bohemian Bad

44. Looking Up Gets Dust In Your Eye

45. Gobs Of Gooey Goodies

46. Slipping Lipping

47. Sox Or Lox

48. Divided Cracking

49. A Little Jelly With Your Fish

50. Undulating Gasification

51. Little Boxes In Boxes

52. Around About It

53. Thirteen’s Your Lucky Number

54. Depth Down Under

55. Mud Under Foot

56. Hotsy-Totsy Toddy

57. Overburden

58. Underneathing

59. Bundles Of Joy

60. Not A Refrigerator Magnet

61. Cannes But Not Sardinia

62. Simple Little Conflagration Dowsed

63. Dirty Boots, Muddy Souls

64. Not The Change You Want

65. Roasty Toasty

66. Stroke, No Bail

67. Mud, Toes, And Squish

68. Uncarnival Cruising

69. Overburden

70. Oceania

71. Abaixo

72. Finger In The Socket

73. Ok Already, Plan B

74. Juice On The Rocks

75. Angstulation

76. Hang You Maru

77. No News Is Not That Good

78. Say It Ain’t You

79. No News Is Not That Good

80. Kneeded Knitting

81. Gone By Gum

82. Bounding Mainly

83. Coal Cashed Cams

84. Pie Fingers

85. Vindictive Valium

86. Overburden

87. Looking At Soiled Sports

88. Groping Gearheads

89. Visionary

90. Not Ski Worthy

91. Highly Deductible

92. Nat And Purl

93. Painted Perniciousness

94. Overburden

95. Keel Hauling

96. Looking Out

97. Deduction Darting

98. In The Water Too

99. Small Holes, Loud Noises

100. Overburden

101. Wastelandia

102. Pocketbook Faith

103. A Few Trees, Not Many

104. It’s In The Water Too

105. Art Unofficial

106. It’s A Cigar I Deserve

107. Poisoned Pellets

108. Overburden

109. Not That Good

110. Out Of Town

111. Conking Concrete

112. Know Your Nuts

113. Underneath Relief

114. Glowing Darkly

115. Café Society

116. Adhesive Eerieality

117. Don’t Look; Do Tell

118. Circle Of Rings

119. Spurious Spray

120. Bogeyfied Basement

121. Darkness Glowing

122. Overburden

123. Rubber-Rutted Road

124. Left Atom Right

125. It Is Hashing Outside

126. Sixth Face Forward

127. Adhesive Eerieality

128. White Knuckling Not Under

129. Phantom Forcing

130. Stepping Out

131. Friends And Un-

132. Sudsily

Epilogue

This play is for the players.

Gamberrismo

Hooliganismo

Vandalism

Teppismo

Equal blame for literary hooliganism falls upon Lynn Stevens.

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Hooliganisme

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Rene Shamberger created the bloodthirsty mob mug shot.

No one should three-putt life.

PROLOGUE

S haron Crouch and Michelle Allen were overserved. They endured patting, pinching, provoking, lewd gaping, and propositioning since 4:45 p.m. They had rebuffed more than their fair share of wandering-fingers abuse. Finally, at 1:00 a.m., the manager bellowed, Last call. Besotted lotharios, some lothariettes, and a few bar flying for the gape geriatrics shambled out of Let’s Play Too.

By 1:40 a.m., Michelle and Sharon had divvied tips with bartenders and two other manhandled maids. The saloon was presentable for the upcoming noon. Doors were locked, and employees strewed on to First Street between North and South St. Vrain.

Estes Park, Colorado, public works rebuilt its commercial nest Land between the Vrains to early-twentieth-century retro. Improvements included cobblestones, ten feet of grass, the sidewalk, maybe bike path. Nineteenth-century gas-lamp look-alikes conveyed a pre-WWI ambience, and across First Street, a green area sprouted from an old industrial Brownfield. Wrought-iron lattice fencing surrounded a kids’ park. The same concept but with chicken wiring appended formed a doggie area.

Businesses on the west side were set back twenty feet from the sidewalk. The city council specified bucolic ambience on both sides. Tourist trapism was maintained by loyal and dedicated municipal toilers. Let’s Play Too had gone for poured concrete tiles on its side of the easement. Tables for warm days topped with hoseable surfaces enabled easy cleaning for beer seen twice from brethren overserved.

City workers eternally whining about having to mow around lampposts standing exactly between roads and walks then lashed with Weed eater fury always ate and drank free when landscaping by the bar. An adjacent stable from the good old days had been razed so patrons and employees could park their rides, employees toward the rear farthest from First Street. One low-wattage security light aimed toward the lot. Predawn streetlamps effected elongated shadows, black lumps cascading from autos abandoned for body-clenching immediacy elsewhere. Next-day stragglers retrieved abandoned rides in the naked light of what the hell have I done.

Sharon Crouch was mirthful. We did OK tonight. Not bad for March with skiers bailing and spring break still a week off.

Yeah, I can pay the rent again. I always get a thrill a minute out of hump-day jerks. What is that joker’s name? You know, at the end of the bar every Wednesday? Ernie maybe? I do believe ‘hump me, tootsie’ are the only words he knows.

At least he keeps his hands in his pockets.

Michelle and Sharon walked up to Sharon’s Ford Explorer. Sharon fumbled for keys in the gloom. The automatic door-locking system had expired with the warranty. Two young men stepped at the front of the SUV. One brandished a small handgun. The other assailant fidgeted, hands at his sides.

You girls don’t look like you’ve had enough fun tonight.

Are you bums drunk or just nuts? Michelle fingered her spray Mace, a canister in her right coat pocket.

Just do as you’re told, cutie. See, this little guy could go off anytime. Gimme the keys. You two in the back. My good friend will drive.

There’s a security camera watching you dolts. Cops’ll be here in thirty seconds.

Shut up, and get in.

The handgun waved. Then the assailant yelped, Ow! He raised the pistol skyward. Then he collapsed onto the pavement, gun bounding under the car. The other guy looked at his buddy and received a Mace-ful face. He buckled, fell, cursed, and slithered along the ground, rubbing at his eyes.

Michelle bent over the withering miscreant. Then she realized their situation. Shar… er, Francine, let’s go. You know that the camera hasn’t worked in six months. No way to know we’re involved.

I dunno… er, Linda. That one dude looks bad. He’s not moving.

Michelle reached around the coat of the inert assailant. She felt pockets and finally pulled a cell phone out of his trousers. She activated the cell and pushed 9-1-1. She slipped on a glove from her coat pocket, wiped the cell phone’s face, and then dropped it on to his coat. Let’s go now. Michelle and Sharon jumped into the Ford, turned to First, and then went left to South St. Vrain. Neither woman looked back.

A squad car routed to the distress signal arrived three minutes after the women had gone. The two officers attended the fallen and called in for EMTs. Rachael Mason retrieved the .22 automatic. It’s still on safe. I wonder which of these public enemies thinks he’s Billy the Kid.

The man writhing on the pavement was pleading for eyewash and cursing, Those two bitches.

Irving Neal was helping the squirming miscreant with eyesight renewal. You boys must not have impressed the hell out of them. Looks like stalking gone bad. Just rub easy, bud. That stuff in your face will sting for about ten minutes.

What about Thatch? Something happened to Thatch.

Thatch—that his name?—got himself dead. You, my friend, are under arrest.

1.

NOTIFICATION NESTING

K eith Andresen’s cavernous offices at Universal Crudification, Inc., spread out over half of the twenty-seventh floor of State Plaza Building. The rest belonged to Xavier Eckleston, UCrud CEO and 90-percent-of-the-year resident at Maui. Keith Andresen acted in Mr. Eckleston’s absence.

UCrud’s staff data systems manager, Joyce Pomeraning, met with Keith Andresen weekly. UCrud ostensibly functioned as environmental management consultants. However, they also did other things with other resources that led to other outcomes.

Joyce, what do you have this week? Anything we care about?

Not much, Chief. There was an Interpol raid at Rotterdam. It netted over a kilo of ricin. That’s the poison sometimes sent to politicians through the mail.

And we care why?

Previous poison owners might be connected with one of the terrorist outfits. It’s a stretch, but two of the apprehended suspects were at Limoges, France, during the same week as one of the perpetrators of those Spain train bombings.

Yeah, that’s thin. What about the poison?

It’s not easy to come by, has to be distilled from castor bean wastes.

OK, castor bean factories near Holland?

Two, one in Norway, one in Finland. There are also two in Southern Europe, Barcelona, and Perpignan. I tracked mass balances through each plant’s reporting system. Thankfully, except for our esteemed English brethren, environmental regulations are Eurocentric. One size fits all. I only found one discrepancy. January’s wastes from Kröenek Såpefabrikk, a Norwegian soap company, decreased by five hundred pounds when they weighed in at the disposal facility. The Norwegian and the Barcelonese factories get raw beans from SoupBean, Inc. They live in New Jersey.

Is five hundred pounds enough waste to make a couple of pounds of goods?

Nope.

Then why do we care?

I dunno, Chief. It’s a datum oddity, a one-timer linked to our interest. A little ricin can kill many people. It might be meaningful. Joyce Pomeraning consulted her notepad. "Let’s suppose poison makers scam wastes from Norway. According to Kareem Mustafa, they’d need four times Norway’s mass gone missing to make the poison found in the raid.

Suppose they have a neat system going for them, no one the wiser. Then they make a mistake in January. Now they’re up against the either/or decision process. Either they’re paranoid and shut down their program or they carry on because one anomaly goes unnoticed. If they carry on despite the glitch, then they haven’t synthesized enough ricin to accommodate their ultimate goals."

Keith Andresen frowned skeptically. Might be the factory’s bookkeeping at fault, no harm, no foul.

Might be, but castor beans to make ricin had to come from somewhere. Ricin’s on our scope.

Joyce Pomeraning left him to ponder potentialities. After a cup of joe, Keith buzzed one of his front office beauties. Floe, can you see if Kim Thompson is available for lunch at the Cellar? If that’s doable, ask Ms. Pomeraning to join us. Eleven thirty.

The Cellar, a saloon of questionable grand ambiance, sat substreet level on Madison between La Salle and Wells. UCrud regulars provided a large chunk of Murrey Schneed’s change, consuming cheeseburgers and pitchers of Old Style. The Cellar’s redeeming social values included an ancient upright piano and casement windows that allowed for worm’s eye views of the sidewalk. UCrudians, when klatched, used the windows for playing liars libations. A designated chump picked out shoes or socks scuttling along the pavement and concocted a complementary panoramic yarn. If the tale was tall enough, as judged by the swilling horde, the company bought the next round. If adjudicated lame, costs became personal.

Keith Andresen sipped good coffee. Joyce Pomeraning and Kim Thompson, UCrud’s operations manager, stepped down and sat down.

Kim, has Joyce filled you in?

Yes, Chief. Owing to our interest in easily transportable mayhem, Norway is worth a gander.

Who’s available who likes sardines?

Kim gaped at Murrey, daggers through the air, signifying, I’m dry here. What are you going to do about it?

I’m so glad you asked. It seems our externalized codger is leaving for Budapest Monday. He wants a last gape at his former as she sashays into aristocratic oblivion or something like that. The weirdness of this deal screams for his attention.

Budapest? Mr. Leppedimay is way too cheap to front Budapest.

Joyce tried to stifle a laugh, but she could not. Well, Keith, as luck would have it, he has a couple of million miles in his airline account.

Keith Andresen added toward general chuckling. Ah yes, an electronic miracle. OK fine, I understand. Joyce, you know we do not ever ruffle even one feather there.

Chief, there is no way on cyberspaced earth anyone can trace Ms. Moyer’s shenanigans.

Kim, do you have a pair of babysitters that can rescue Louie and guide him to Norway?

Nick Kaup can go. Lynn Stevens is at Superior, Wisconsin, coaching Iron Alloy engineers about their grand jury testimonies. You know, from that waste recovery runoff suit. I could ask her to wrap up and return.

Make it so.

2.

NO SAUSAGE, BUT HEARTBURN’S OK

L ouie Leppedimay entrenched, sole patio occupant, in front of Café Metropole on Andrassy út across from the Hungarian National Opera House. Louie, a $50-per-hour finder of lost dogs and straying husbands, rarely uprooted himself from Chicago. However, sometimes fate takes a hand.

Louie’s problem-solving acumen evoked curiosity from management at Universal Crudification. He had helped them defuse several situations inconsistent with modern societal peacefulness. UCrud paid much better than $50 per hour, and he had the support from what his buddies at Rudy’s casually described as what in the hell are those Miss America look-alikes doing with a bum like you?

Louie Leppedimay had also become close with Nancy Moyer, director of Grover Guthaus Memorial Library. Nancy had some skill in manipulating electronic systems. She had tracked Louie’s disappeared spouse, who Louie dumped for Hungarian royalty. So Louie was sitting in the freeze as opera patrons left culture, to gape and make sure the former had truly traded up.

Stinging cold reminded Budapest that plenty of winter remained. It raced along Andrassy út. Fur edging on Louie Leppedimay’s hood tilted toward baron and baroness’s egress. Café Metropole vibrated boisterous warmth on the other side of cut glass doors, beyond the arctic gloom.

Louie Leppedimay sat transfixed, sole exterior patron. The former missus, now baroness de la wealthy, paused directly in front of Louie. She looked deeply into his eyes, said something Hungarian to the baron, and then walked away. She did not look back.

Louie studied half a glass of Szalon Barna. The cruel wind, the Hawk in Chicago-ese, created an audible hum; glass of suds shivered. Louie took a sip. A little chewy ice crystals were forming from the pressure drop across the liquid surface. He tabled his diversion. The ringing pitch changed. Louie Leppedimay immobilized until the lucky couple turned to the corner, out of sight, out of his life.

Cheer up, Louie. Now that you’re sure, you have way better prospects.

Huh?

Lynn Stevens plopped into an adjacent chair. Even under a wool cap and immersed in parka, elongated elegance radiates. Louie, having the benefit of Lynn appreciation in Chicago summer wardrobe minimalism, easily appreciated the spectacle. Barflies, previously disdainful toward a solitary curmudgeon, hip-checked for inside positions, prime window gaping. A waiter elbowed through the door throng. He quickly approached. Van valami, amit hozhat, kisasszony? (Is there anything I can bring you, miss?)

Én férfi, és én is kávét benne. (My man and I will have coffee inside.) The waiter ogled Lynn as the driver of a VW Beetle longingly eyes a Porsche.

Lynn, you can understand these guys? And how in the hell did you know where I was?

Let’s get inside, Louie, table for two.

Lynn Stevens towered over Louie Leppedimay. As they walked into Café Metropole, six gents vied to open the door. Lynn shoved Louie in first. The crowd edged an aisle so Lynn and Louie could plunk near the wall farthest from spring not yet sprung. The café was a well-visited house, patrons standing at the bar. Only two barflies were taller than Lynn.

Louie’s teeth stopped chattering. Thick coffees alit. An equally heavy creamer rattled to a halt. Spoons that Louie might need help lifting thudded onto the oak slab. Outside, the wind toppled Louie’s previous libation; third of a glass of suds oozed onto the table, ice congealed, and none dripped downward. Louie surrounded his coffee with both hands. Lynn Stevens removed her cap, auburn radiance flowing around her smile. A pair of ten-thousand-calorie chunks of strudel dropped in front of the shining and the shivering.

Bókokat a menedzser, hiányzik. (Compliments of the manager, miss.)

Lynn dismissed the waiter. He did not look back. Must have been something she said. Nick and I were tasked to make sure you had fun. So are you having fun, big boy? By some bureaucratic oddity, Keith Andresen believes you are a company asset. We had to coach crunch while you lounged up front all the way to Rome. We didn’t figure you could afford that.

By the wildest stroke of infrequent flier luck, my air mileage account is in six figures, jambalaya to a jet-setter. I have no clue how that clerical error could have occurred. I’m sure Amex will eventually send me a bill. Anyway, I found out what happened. We can go home tomorrow.

Louie, the way I heard it, you were told what happened last month. Anyway, now that we are all happily here, going home tomorrow is not an option. You, Nick, and I are on the clock. We are bound for Oslo and then Stavanger, Norway. We are going to help our overseas brethren.

With?

You can get nosy on the plane.

Lynn Stevens peered through the room and the gloom. By the curb, Nick Kaup sat behind the wheel of a Mercedes sedan.

Pincér, kaphatok egy kávét, hogy menjen? (Waiter, can I get one coffee to go?) Choke that down, Louie. Your belongings are transferred to the Ritz.

3.

AARP ANTAGONISM

C heyenne Elizar brooded, facing the screen of a desktop computer. She was entrenched in the office suite at the Houston Oilman’s Club, tediously researching recent newspaper stories. She was on her seventh day of intense computer study. The office was in shambles, as Ms. Elizar verbally castrated all cleaning attendants. Fixit forays were abandoned because of life-threatening exigencies after day 2. About twelve hours per day in the office, about five hours per day in the bar were SOP. Ms. Elizar was living in one of the do dalliance suites one flight up. Some of the regular tryst crowd lacked assignation area availability.

Oilman’s staff loathed her daily ranting. Most of the elite members treated them better than shoe soles. Cheyenne even rebuked the cuisine though it came from five-star restaurants. Á la Cheyenne, the help, though trained to accommodate high-end executives, was scum. The data system, though recently state-of-the-art refurbished by Mike Rucker, was inadequate. The staff was exasperated. Damn, she’s on some kind of mission. There’s more hatred there than tea party Nazis have for universal voter registration.

When not chasing the current windmill, Ms. Elizar lorded over Elizar, Inc. There were no other stockholders since she recently inherited outstanding shares. Elizar, Inc., owned multiple thousand-acre farms and provided dairy products throughout states on the civilized side of the Rockies. There was a subsidiary, Deep-down Plunge, that fracked for fossil fuel. Ms. Elizar was not the sole female CEO embraced by Oilman’s, but she was the meanest by miles.

As Cheyenne worked the mouse, scanned articles, and made notes, Caitlyn Dunnigan, Oilman’s veteran server, provided cold ones. Caitlyn slid in and out of the office silently. Mostly, Cheyenne kept her gaze on the screen, but occasionally, she scowled, visiting killer contempt upon the interruption. You going to bring me food, or do I have to starve in this dump?

Ms. Elizar, our menu is not set for this evening, but I can get you anything you want.

Not likely, missy, not even remotely close to what I want and what I’m going to get. Just run off, and find me a steak sandwich with grilled onions and fries.

By the way, your office has left a hundred messages. Each one begins ‘of critical importance.’

Get out, dammit. Next time I see you, I’d better be smelling fries.

Caitlyn fled. She mouthed to the guard at the elevator, What a bitch. He smiled and nodded as Caitlyn descended to find a greasy spoon. Translated mumble as the elevator tumbled, I wonder if I can get a street dog to piss on it.

At the office as newsworthy notes flicked by, Cheyenne began to feel a sense of events commonality. She tried googling one thought, and several notices appeared. One involved the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She continued to look for specific references and finally tied one name into a good plan sullied. She glanced at the notes she had scribbled on top of the desk. That’s them, the mutha. Cheyenne spit on the tabletop and wiped away her thoughts. It’s gotta be them. You’re toast. She danced a little victory two-step, then grasped a cell from her bag, and dialed Kansas City.

Hello, this is Silverman.

I found it. Goddammit, they’re gonna pay in spades. The corporate terminal 11A tomorrow, be there.

4.

NOT DOING WHAT COMES NATURALLY

T he coroner at Estes Park looked at his assistant, head shaking after decades of mayhem dissection. Joanie, someone stabbed this chump in the eye, clear through to the brain. Cops recover an ice pick or stiletto at the scene? He has no other marks, no entry wounds. This was precise dispatchment. It looks like this guy—the coroner looked at the foot tag—Theodore Wellington, must have pissed someone off big time.

Maybe he just ran into bad luck, Dr. Fenner.

Had to have been incredibly bad luck at that time at that spot. There’s nothing else to report. Let’s close him up.

Doc, you haven’t sliced his head clear through.

Joanie, you’re a perfectionist. You’d have trouble being efficient at LA or NYC. Volume business there.

Dr. Elmo Fenner extracted the handsaw from a drawer under the examination table. He plugged it in and sliced away. See, nothing extra here, Joanie.

Doc, you hear that ping?

Like a Ping putter?

No, like metal on something not natural.

Joan Cohen walked to the morgue door and flipped on all light switches. The room burst into bright white; stainless steel reflections hurt direct eyesight.

Doc, the blade ran into something, probably flung it away. Despite verbal abuse from Fenner, Joan did a Holmesian skittle around the table in widening ellipticals, nose to tile. I know I heard something.

Dr. Fenner impatiently gaped at his slithering minion. After five minutes, he mentioned the bathroom and coffee and fled. Joan Cohen kept expanding her rooting area. She cramped on to an uncomfortable stool when Dr. Fenner returned with the coffee in hand, one black, one with cream and sugar. So, Ms. CSI, you got?

Joan Cohen held up an empty mitt. You’re gonna double my Christmas bonus?

Christmas? Double?

OK fine, how about eight times more for Hanukkah? Joan Cohen snatched the black and deposited a small shard in Dr. Fenner’s hand.

This is part of what went through Mr. Wellington’s right eye. There might be more pieces around on the floor. It probably shattered upon impact with the bone. The saw dislodged and scattered what was left as it went through.

Dr. Fenner fondled remains of a composite needle. The shard was dull gray. He went over to a microscope, set the piece on a slide, changed the scope to ten times, and focused in. Look, Joanie, see the line of what must have been an outside edge? It’s striated.

Joan Cohen gaped. Mobius grooves front to back, I’m guessing. Nice touch, dull gray. It’s probably supposed to pulverize upon impact. Headshots only. Likely, we’d never find pieces without doing MRIs. And that’s not SOP. So what’s with this metallic hair in the center? Seemingly, Mr. Wellington got shot by a needle gun, very close range too. What do you think, Doc, total length no more than three inches? That’d have to be one hell of a self-defense weapon.

Dr. Elmo Fenner looked reflective. I wonder. Joanie, bag and tag that hunk of whatever for ballistics. We know what went through his mind. The detectives can figure out from where and why.

5.

CAN’T SCARE ME AT THIRTY THOUSAND FEET

L ouie Leppedimay sat in the middle. Lynn Stevens sat on the aisle, and Nick Kaup gazed down at lingering European winter.

Lynn scanned the gray patch of ecosystem outside the cabin window. You never know, Louie.

Huh.

Reading your mind is as hard as timing happy hour. Just look over this diagram.

Louie Leppedimay scanned. Nick Kaup held his beer. It’s just a soap plant. Squeezing castor beans separates the oil, which is therapeutic from seeds and husks, which are poisonous. Then they batch cook the oil in electric ovens, introducing hydrogen during heating. Soap spews out in the end. This technology is somewhat archaic. I’m inferring it’s the detective in me that we’re dealing with waste remediation because of bad husks rising.

Something like that, Louie, but the husks and seed mulch has some value. Secondary processing makes serum or poison. It’s called ricin. The plant we are visiting has mass balance issues or curiously one significant mass balance discrepancy. There is no reprocessing plant at Stavanger, so they ship waste husks to a landfill/incinerator at Fredrikstad. That’s a small town south of Oslo. Look at these weight tag summaries.

Louie’s vision blurred whenever he gaped at numerology more complicated than his bar tab. Lynn Stevens procured another cold one and replaced the empty in Louie’s right hand by leaning over. Louie’s left arm tingled. Reawakened, Louie saw easily where weight summaries at the plant and at the disposal facility differed in January, 243 kilograms less received at Fredrikstad than shipped from Stavanger.

Louie surrounded his beer. Lynn, it’s just a dumb mistake, maybe bad bookkeeping. If someone were siphoning off husks and seeds, the discrepancies would be regular. There are other small load differences, not much per shipment. January’s five hundred pounds gone missing is probably an anomaly. If I recall way back chemical engineering class correctly, a pound of castor seeds reduces into a gram of poison. With husks mixed in, maybe only half a gram comes out. Still, one gram of that stuff will kill plenty of rodents.

People?

Yeah, I suppose that too, but I don’t know how noticeable that stuff would be in, say, bratwurst with mustard. I don’t know how much is needed to do in the unsuspecting. Hell, we don’t know if it’s an evil plot. Looks like sloppy records.

That’s what we’re going to find out.

Lynn, this map shows Stavanger truly, truly, truly in the middle of the middle of nowhere. Does this place have any socially redeeming values?

Just wilderness and me, big boy.

Nick Kaup had been gazing out the window. He turned to look at Lynn through Louie. Shaking his head, he gulped the remaining Stella and closed his eyes.

6.

WHEN THE GAPING GETS TOUGH

T he National Quilt Museum (NQM) occupies a half acre on the corner where Jefferson Street and Second Street meet in Paducah, Kentucky. Within are displayed world famous patterns and local artisan mosaics.

Quilting is an art. It is also warmth on frosty nights, patchwork patterns stitched into stories and emotions. There are as many quilting Rembrandts as there are grandmothers.

NQM displays are regional and worldly fancy-needling expertise. The daytime keeper answers the visitor’s eternal query: You can tell quilting greatness if, upon gazing, you want to wrap yourself up on a bleak winter’s night, but you would be afraid to spill your tea.

Quilting is not exact science, but it can be exacting art. Delicate patterns sewn by hand, it is not easy to coordinate hand and eye despite gaping at an immediate photo or drawing. Technology can embellish chutzpah. There are automated looms. A cast or machined working mold can be entrenched beneath plain cloth—twists, turns, heave-ho traced by a stylus. Stories grow from colorful yarn and cloth. Some tales are told repeatedly, some made up along the way. It is therapeutic. Psychological healing, just as baseball playoffs commence, occurs from wrapping up in a quilt, depicting a Cubs triumphant in World Series.

Quilts are universal wall art. At the Viking Museum overlooking the Oslo, Norway, harbor, a large quilt depicting a Viking horde hung opposite an original ninth-century oceangoing canoe. The quilt faithfully reproduced the canoe on a stormy oceanic mission, crew included. Upon the wall were seething, sword-wielding local ancestors and a large red-bearded kingpin amid boat, urging his bloodthirsty horde onward toward glory. The subsidiary marauders sneered menacingly toward unseen victims. Only the aide directly right of the headman scowled without a belligerently waving blade.

Curiously, the background panorama began at the front of the boat in prehistory. Through the vessel, scenes gradually updated. Bleak gnarled shoreline ice rocks melted into bucolic fields; then chimney pot kilns; then railroads, automobiles, planes in the air; and finally modern factories appeared past the craft’s stern.

Lynn Stevens, Nick Kaup, and Louie Leppedimay toured the museum the day before abandoning Oslo for Stavanger. Nick Kaup flexed, á la WWF, standing next to Louie and next to the original canoe. Those guys must have had steel balls to launch out to the sea in that. Looks like a small wave would swamp it quick.

I dunno, Nick. It says here there were up to forty brave lads per boat. Some must have bailed all the time. Do you think they really looked like the marauders quilted into that blanket on the wall?

Nick Kaup and Louie Leppedimay stood, backs to the boat, appraising the large quilt. Afternoon sunshine bisected the blanket.

Looks like the no-mercy mob there.

Yeah, but look at the background, Middle Ages through modern times.

Lynn Stevens, not needing to look up at the quilt, grabbed Louie around the shoulder. Have you seen that before, Louie?

No, this is my first Oslo rodeo. But ya know…

Count ’em, Louie. Twelve Viking belligerents must be Eric the Red commanding. Looks like his wife or a truly ugly supplicant to his right. Bells, Mr. Gumshoe?

I dunno, Lynn, looks like he’s about to Willie Mays a fly ball, and he’s sort of pointing to the future too.

"Louie, ever heard of The Last Supper? It’s a little doodle from a guy named da Vinci."

This is a test about what I’ve forgotten from college liberal arts, right? Still, the story I’m seeing is muddled. What’s modern industry have to do with the ninth century? Lynn, can you take a picture with your cell phone? I’d like to consider this some more.

"Photos er forbudt (forbidden), Louie. I think we can get the image on a postcard in the gift shop."

Postreflecting upon axes, swords, shields, and withered leather apparel, Lynn, Louie, and Nick adjourned to the museum souvenir store. Nick nudged Louie along when he dallied to read every word of the associated English translations. Louie picked out a one-page plastic-wrapped quilt reproduction. He also grabbed a tacky refrigerator magnet, Viking helmet over a sword.

Lynn Stevens was smiling at Louie’s magnet deference. Louie, you don’t need to bring back crap like that anymore. You remember where we found you and why?

Oh yeah, I forgot. Louie put back the magnet and then fished around his pockets, coming up with euros left over from Budapest. Nick Kaup intervened and paid.

Excuse me, miss, my grandfather was wondering where the quilt hanging by the boat came from. Do you know?

Certainly, sir, that quilt was donated through UNESCO. They award grants to local artisans. Our board of directors requested something complementary toward the artifacts of the main hall.

So the quilt hasn’t been here very long.

No, sir, it arrived a few weeks ago. The curator had it displayed just after arrival. That is why we are featuring photocopy reproductions. Our postal card mementos are not yet printed. If you leave an address, even in the United States, we will send you a postal card souvenir when our stock arrives. You are fortunate to see the quilt so clearly today. They are building a permanent display case downstairs in our shop.

Nick stepped back from the register area. The next customer spoke German. So did the attendant. The next Italian, the next something Eastern European. The young woman in the register seemed comfortable babbling in whatever. After the fourth consecutive different language request, Louie Leppedimay asked, Excuse me, er, ah, Mirna, how many languages do you speak?

Oh, sir, we have visitors from everywhere. I can respond in most European languages and Japanese. Our curator also speaks Hebrew, two Chinese dialects, Arabic, and I think some African dialects. We can usually talk to everyone.

Lynn Stevens asked, Alguém fala Português? (Does anyone speak Portuguese?)

No, miss, I do not recognize that, but it is a little like Spanish.

As they were leaving, Louie ogled at the Viking Last Supper substitute. Just seems strange that this art mimics something so Christian. What in the hell is Eric pointing at?

Nick quickly offered his two cents. Maybe it’s the brewery in the background. Looks like a brewery to me, Louie.

I don’t know. It’s just so uncomfortable. And the girl, if that’s a girl, on his right. What’s a girl doing in a depiction of Viking marauders? Do you think they took girls along on murdering raids?

We’ll look up the original on the train, Louie. Might be a surprise there as well.

Say, Lynn, what was that last lingo?

Portuguese, Louie.

OK, so that’s Portuguese, Hungarian, Norwegian, and Spanish I’ve heard you yak in. How many are there, I mean, altogether?

Big boy, you can get a cold one in most of the civilized world if you stick with me.

7.

REROUTED RUINATION

S arah Michel held the green seat at the Belgian Chamber of Representatives. Overwhelmingly elected and spellbindingly eloquent in seven languages, Sarah seemed everyone’s wise grandmother. Whenever Mme Michel spoke at the Palace of the Nation, Brussels’s hotel occupancy eclipsed SRO. Chamber’s gallery became a hot ticket.

Mme Michel’s gift centered upon explaining technical nuances toward greening Belgium and Europe in clear eloquence. She described specific solution opportunities instead of platitudes. The press and public then clamored, That is so obvious. Why isn’t it happening? Sarah Michel softly promulgated uproars made politically divergent delegates cringe. Working together always took money from them and their owner’s pockets.

No one was surprised when King Albert requested Sarah Michel keynote grand opening rededication honors at the newly remodeled palace Representative Hall. And what a grand palace it is—Corinthian columns, domed corridors, gold leaf glistening. Along great hall walls, twenty-by-ten-feet portraits of former royalty and dragon slayers overlooked marble tiles. There was plenty of room for the troops to march through, twenty to a rank with attendants dressed á la nineteenth-century royal cavalry. At the business end beyond a hundred-meter carpeted promenade, a horseshoe staircase diverted visitors upward to the gaping gallery. The chosen played through gilded double airplane hangar doors into the assembly chamber, cushioned armchairs for four hundred.

Six royal boxes, only accessible from inside the chamber, were perched twenty-five feet above the stage right and left. Each box was adorned with sofa lounges, a bar, and facilities for active kidneys. A preparation area circled the elite. Provisions arrived via dumbwaiter from a basement kitchen. Service staff hid behind a curtain backdrop; it took one strong arm to push aside embroidered drapery. That task, primo duty because of munching leftover á la Ritz cuisine, fell to the largest or most politically connected interior ministry cops.

Palace entry was denied to the unknown or the unsanctioned; front door and back made no difference. Royalty sabers were checked, large campaign medals sniffed by front-door hounds, support staff at service entrances scanned and patted. Special police operatives assigned at each dumbwaiter checked repasts for inedible items that might otherwise go boom in the hall. Outside on rooftops, expert shooters, men and women, overlooked the square. Closed circuits monitored surrounding streets, three blocks in all directions to ensure no surprises occurred. Even the underlying sewer scan appeared on security monitors and underwent hands-on scrutiny. Hardly primo duty but old infrastructure includes large-diameter pipes and culverts. Rats scuttled into murk and muck. Their antecedents, disturbed by huddled masses during world wars, hid in the same corners. In the twenty-first century, rats