​In Crisis   1/4/13
        As the titular (settle down, Ollie, it doesn’t mean what it sounds like) head of the corporate and cultural behemoth known as Page & Spine,  I’m sometimes called upon to deal with issues that can’t be explained in pie charts, or illustrated in professional PowerPoint presentations.  Sometimes, I have to deal with people on a more personal, one-to-one basis.  My employees to be specific.
     Embarking upon this new year, I’m disturbed by the amount of actual barking going on around me. At the risk of demonstrating just how far behind I am in ‘culture speak’ I have to ask:  Who let the dogs out?
     You know what I’m talking about.
     I remember a time when the only controversy looming around the water cooler was ‘Who shot J.R.?’(yes, I know, that’s another cultural anachronism).  But these days all anyone is talking about is the fiscal cliff, gun control, Congressional gridlock, and my-red-State-can-beat-up-your blue State. And I’m not talking about civilized discussions here.   I’m talking red-faced, clenched-fisted bark-fests!  I mean Lassie would be offended by the dogfights that break out during coffee-breaks.  (Okay, I’m a cultural fossil, but Lassie was an uplifting and important show, so get off my back, will you?)
     Frankly, all this unrest scares me, and I don’t know what to do about it.
     “Just sprinkle a little crushed Lorazapam on their jelly doughnuts every morning,” suggested L. Oliver Bright while rooting around in his own rather suspicious pillbox.
     I pinched the bridge of my nose.  “You want me to drug my own employees, is that it?”
     “Well, that’s not my first choice, but the Washington D.C. water supply is guarded night and day.”
     I pinched even harder.  “I shouldn’t ask how you know that, should I?”
     He thought for a moment.  “Nah, water-boarding would wreck your coiffure.”
     “I’m trying to be serious, Ollie.  The world seems to be going to hell in a hand-basket, and it’s taking a toll on my employees.  What can I do about it?”
     “Well, first of all, you could stop with these dire hell-in-a-hand-basket predictions.  What, you think you know more than the ancient Mayans and the guy with the sign who marches in front of the OTB parlor?”
     “You’re not helping, Ollie.”  I pointed toward the hallway outside my office.  “My people seem to be going crazy out there.  Next thing you know, they’ll be turning into those Twilight Zone vampires and werewolves! ”
     He scratched his cheek.  “Vampires and werewolves?  Twilight Zone?”
     I furrowed my brow.  “What?  It’s all rage, right?  Beautiful teenaged monsters growing hair and fangs …”
     “You mean Twilight, Granny.”  Ollie shouted over his shoulder.  “Oh nurse, 20ccs of Twenty-First Century, stat!”
     “Oh, for crying out loud, Ollie.  How am I going to help my people?”
     “And your bottom line?”
     “Well, yeah.  I have to pay you, don’t I?”
     He adjusted his string tie.  “Priority number one.”
     “So how about earning all those ducats?”
     He inflated his cheeks, then blew out the air.
     “Well, I do have a friend …”
     “Not the rodeo clown who doubles as a motivational speaker, right?”
     “No, another friend.”
     “Not the international mercenary who moonlights as a career counselor, I hope.”
     “No, I got other friends, you know?”
     “The Finnish transsexual who performs a one-person version of Porgy and Bess?”
     “Ah, Freida-Rick, I haven’t thought of him/her for years.  But, no.  The fellow I’m thinking of is a crisis counselor trained at the most prestigious clinic in the Midwest.”
    “The Mayo?”
     “Uh, no, the other one … Miracle Whipple Weslyan.”
     Is anyone else expecting another size sixteen wingtip to drop about now?

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I believe ‘i’ always comes before ‘e’--
except when it’s the other way around.
 - L. Oliver Bright
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Zing Went the Strings   1/11/13
  If you recall my entry from last week, I’ve been a bit concerned about the emotional well-being of my employees here at Page & Spine International Headquarters and Gift Shop.  Recent and current events ranging from the tragic to the political seem to have divided, even polarized, my staff along cultural and philosophical lines.  To the point where things are getting ugly.  Morale, if I may speak frankly, is sucking egg through a straw around here.
     So, I did what I always do when I want to jump from thin ice straight into the Bering Strait … I consulted L. Oliver Bright.
     Sure, I should have known better by now, but Twinkies should have been allowed fade gracefully into the sunset, too, right?
     Ollie suggested I hire a Crisis Counselor—a professional mind mine-sweeper.
Well, on the surface of it, it sounded like a good idea.  This country is in crisis, after all, and my employees are a microcosm of the country, right?
     Ollie and I sat in my office preparing ourselves to interview Ollie’s friend, Crisis Counselor  Dr. Herman Zing.
     “Now don’t let his appearance put you off, Nikki,” warned Ollie.  “I assure you Dr. Zing is the real zing.”
     I rolled my eyes.  “The real zing?  You don’t think I’m nervous enough, meeting another one of your eight-ball friends?  This is a crisis counselor we’re talking about here, not a tattoo artist.   And while we’re on the subject, what about his appearance?”  I can feel the arches of my feet start to sweat.  “What about his appearance, Ollie.”  I’m surprised my voice makes it past my clenched teeth.
     “Oh, nothing to be alarmed about, Nikki.  It’s just that Dr. Zing is a bit eccentric.  You know, not a follower of, let’s say, conventional fashion.”
This from a man who used to braid his nose hair.  This from a man once tried to market muskrat musk as a men’s cologne.  This from a man who voted for Michael Dukakis because he looked good driving a tank, for crying out loud!
     I braced myself as if a rhinoceros was charging—I could hope, right?
     “Just how eccentric is this Zing?”
     “Well, I haven’t actually seen him since his O Brother Chain-Gang Period, but …”
     I suddenly tasted the previous evening’s Kung Pao Chicken.  “Chain-Gang Period, Ollie?”
     He made a back-handed wave.  “Ah, relax, Nikki.  That was, what, days ago?  He’s probably moved onto something completely different now.  Can’t wait to see.”
I was about to propel Ollie through the plate-glass window and watch him flutter thirty-seven floors to Hell when the intercom buzzed …
     “Nikki, a Dr. Herman Zing to see you.”
     Maybe I was smiling at Ollie, but probably it was rictus.
     “Thank you, Babs,” I slivered through my clenched jaw.  “Do you hear any hounds baying in the background?”
     Babs had her hand over the phone, and was obviously speaking low so Zing couldn’t hear.  “You want to hear baying, boss, you leave this man-muffin with me for just one more …”
     “Send him in.  Now, Babs.  Send him in right now.”
The door opened, and in walked the most gorgeous, most meticulously dressed and groomed man since Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief. 
     Babs trailed behind him.  Her tongue trailed behind her.  “Nithi,” she said, “this ith Doctor Zing-a-ling-a-ling, can I keep him?” 
     I stood slowly, vaguely aware I was thrusting my bosom, but unable to refrain.
     “Doctor Zing, I’m Nikki Wagner, and I’m so happy to be yours … truly.”
     Ollie nearly burst his bulb laughing.  Babs was melting into the carpet.
     Zing took my hand and held it to his lips.  “Enchanted, porcelain doll.”
     Hell, yeah!  Crisis management here I come!  Uh, here we come.
     Zing went the strings of my heart … and other regions.

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Does anyone else think it’s significant that The Beatles
were already multi-millionaires when they sang
 All You Need Is Love? –L. Oliver Bright
************************************************************

Me Jane   1/18/13
     I was simply not prepared.  The guy is a friend of L. Oliver Bright for crying out loud.  And his name is Dr. Herman Zing, no less.  I mean he could have looked like Jeffrey the Hyena-Faced Boy, and I wouldn’t have given him a second glance.  Or have been half rodeo clown/half dolphin, and I wouldn’t have flinched.   He could have looked like Christopher Walken in drag …  But this … this Adonis … no, Adonis’s handsome brother … no I was not prepared at all.
     Then he kissed my hand.
     Ladies, we’ve all had our knuckles grazed by lubricated Lotharios and delusional Don Juans, but this … this was something different.  He could have held my hand to his lips till the apocalypse and I wouldn’t have been inconvenienced in the least. But after several minutes of hand smooching I became aware of a certain awkwardness in the room.
     “Ah, Dr. Zing, so good to meet you,” I fluttered, holding on to my desk in an effort not to swoon.  “Ollie’s told me so sexy about you.”  Cripes!
Ollie rose and embraced his old friend while I nudged Babs, who had turned into Silly-Putty out of my office.
     “Nikki,” Ollie was saying, “have I ever told you about the time Zing and a bunch of us were up in Montana spiking trees on the East Face …”
     I motioned the dreamy doctor to a seat and arranged myself on the corner of my desk completely unaware of the way my thigh peeked subtly, but provocatively through the slit in my skirt.
     “… well, needlessly to say the loggers had never seen a Sasquatch in a sequined gown before …”
     I couldn’t take my eyes off the man.  While he was impeccably and conservatively dressed for a business meeting, he exuded an unmistakably masculine aura that was downright primitive in its potency.  Tarzan in a grey flannel suit.  I missed the loincloth.  I re-adjusted myself on the desk.  Oh, all right, I squirmed.  Criminy, I’d have swung from vines if he asked me to.
     “… long story short,  Nikki, the Zinger here will never have to buy his own beer in Bozeman if he lives to be a hundred and twenty.”
     His eyes, a shade of green never seen in any botany book …
     “Nikki?  Whatever you’re fantasizing about …”
     “What?  Oh, yes, I’m sorry.  Bozeman.  Montana.  Big eyes, no, no, big sky … yes, big sky, right?  Great story.”  I attempted to tug my skirt down, but might have opened the slit a bit more.  “So, Doctor, I understand you’re a doctor.”  Jiminy Cricket!
     He crossed his legs and leaned over as if to tell me a secret.  I leaned over as low as my cleavage would allow. I wondered if it would be appropriate to sit in his lap.  “Yes, I am a doctor.  What gave me away?  Are my diplomas showing?”
     Oh my god!  An accent!  Continental.  Cary Grant rolled up with Charles Boyer rolled up with me … stop that!   Continental.  Like the breakfast.  Ooh, pastries.  Now cut that out.
     “What I meant to say, Doctor, is that I’ve got a condition … no, I mean I’m looking for someone to help relieve the tension that’s been building up in my… in my employees … building up in my employees, you see?”
     Tears are running down Ollie’s face.  I flash him a look no amount of Kevlar could possibly deflect.
     “I understand, dear lady,” offered the doctor.  “The world is troubling place these days.  How can your co-workers be expected not to bring their concerns and anxieties into the workplace?  You are to be commended for your compassion.  Of course I will offer you and your employees all the assistance I can.  You need not walk down this road alone.  I will commence tomorrow.”
     Did he just say ‘you need not sleep alone’?
     “As for you, dear lady, I proscribe a steamy bath, scented candles, chilled champagne, and a steamy romance … novel.”
     Sure, the soak sounded fine, but all I wanted to do was grab a vine, swing off into space, and howl my lungs out.
     Judging by the look on Ollie’s face, he’s an excellent mind-reader.  With luck, Dr. Zing is, too.

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If you would amount to anything,
add more than you subtract. – L. Oliver Bright
***********************************************

Counseling Made Confusing   1/25/13
       Well, crisis counseling began this week here at Page & Spine International Headquarters and Gift Shop—and not a moment too soon.
     As you are aware, recent world and national events have begun to polarize my employees along political, theological, and philosophical lines.  While the political pundits neatly divide us into Red States and Blue, the same sort of thing was beginning to occur around the water cooler.  While hostility was nudging North, productivity was sliding South.  So, on the advice my erratic advisor, L. Oliver Bright, I hired Dr. Herman Zing, the renowned and hunky Corporate Counselor to help sort things out.
     What?  ‘Renowned and hunky’?  Jealous, sister?
     I assigned him an office on a mid-level floor, and asked him to hang out his shingle on a most auspicious day—January 21, 2013.
     “You are aware of the significance of this particular day, aren’t you Ms. Wagner?”
      “Please call me Nikki, all my boyfr … friends do.”
     “About the date, Nikki?”
     “Oh, this is so sudden, but sure, I’ll go out with you.”  Did I mention the good doctor can make me say, “Ahhhh” whenever he wants to?”
     “No, I was talking about the date you want me to start counseling.”
     “Oh, yes, of course.  It’s Inauguration Day.  What could be more fitting?  The Presidential campaign was very divisive around here, and around the country, too.  What better day to start healing the company’s wounds, right?”
     “It’s also Martin Luther King Day.”
     “All the better!  A perfect day to kick-off our campaign for tolerance, inclusion, diversity and peace!  You do plan to espouse virtues like tolerance and peace, right, Herman … Doctor Herman … Zing?”
     “On the twenty-first?  No, I think I’ll probably do a few crossword puzzles that day.”
     “I don’t get it, Doctor.”
     “January twenty-first is a National Holiday, and your offices will be closed.  I’ll be here all alone.”
     Not if I have anything to say about it.
     “Of course!  How silly of me.  It’s just that I’m so anxious to see you in action … at work, I mean.  What you do is so fascinating.”
     “You flatter me, young lady.”
     I swore he was going to click his heels and kiss my hand again.  Instant hot-flash.  He merely smiled.  Rats. “So we start on the twenty-second?”
     “That will be fine.  But I must emphasize that it is not my place to espouse virtues, or inflict my personal views on your employees.  You see, what’s going on in your workplace has a lot more to do with birth control than gun control.  More to do with meatloaf than the Middle East.  More to do with the Super Bowl than the Dust Bowl.”
     The Dust Bowl?  Who does he think he’s addressing, Ma Joad?”
     “Meatloaf and Super Bowl, I see.  So, Doctor Zing, you’re suggesting that all this corporate hostility is really rooted in domestic … unrest?”
     “You mean Sleep Apnea?  Sure, that can be a cause of hostility in the workplace.”
     Unrest … Sleep Apnea, okay, I can see how he made that leap.  But maybe I should be more careful about choosing my words.  Doctor Luscious may also be a bit literal.  
     “I think I’m reading you, Doctor, but to paraphrase Groucho Marx, “Sometimes an AR-15 is just an assault rifle.”
     “Well spoken, Dear Lady, but sometimes the arguments we have at home, carry over into the workplace.”
     Like I say, I’m pretty sure I following, but that voice, that accent…
     “I’m not following, Doctor.”
     “Sometimes—often—workplace tensions are acted out between surrogates.”
     “So, Jim from Accounting may not really be screaming at Sue from Design?”
     “Exactly—although Jim may hate Sue’s guts, for all I know now. ”
     “But maybe, they’re really screaming at their spouses?”
     “Often, yes.”
     “So I should have hired a marriage counselor?”
     “You’re married?  I am disappointed.  And very sorry you’re having difficulties.”
     Say that again! The ‘disappointed’ part!
     “No, no, I’m definitely not married.    But if my employee problems stem from my employees’ marriages …”
     “But, Nikki, it’s my job to solve your problem, not theirs.  But in the course of helping you, I hope to help them, too.  If I can show them how they are transferring hostilities…”  He shrugged.  “Maybe they’ll find a more appropriate way to deal with their personal issues.”
     I started to figure this guy might have the chops to go along with his hops.
     “But surely, their most be personality and ideological conflicts that actually originate right here, in the office.”
     “Of course, and we have an opportunity to deal some of those issues right away.”
     “Some new whiz-bang therapy technique?”
     “Pigskin.”
     “Would you repeat that?”
     “San Francisco.”
     Really?
     “This is awfully sudden, Hermie, but I suppose I could away for a few…”
     “No.  I say San Francisco, you say Baltimore.”
     Not normally, but if you insist…
     “I think I’m confused.”
     “San Francisco vs. Baltimore.  Super Bowl Sunday is just around the corner, Nikki.  I perfect opportunity to bring your people together … by dividing them.”
     “But that’s just a football game.”
     “Nonsense.  It’s a great therapy tool.  Let’s get Jim to argue with Sue about a silly game, you see?  A game with an outcome.  Or, who knows, they may like the same team, and become allies.”
     Does this guy make sense or what?
     Oh, in case you were wondering, since Hermie and I were both off on Inauguration Day, we decided to do something…
     I’ll never tell.
 
******************************************************
Scientists say we only use a fraction of our brains. 
Scientists are optimists.  – L. Oliver Bright
******************************************************
 copyright 2013 by Lee Allen Hill

PIGSKIN THERAPY   2/1/13
      Can you believe it?  Superbowl XLVII is here already.  Don’t ask me what XLVII means—what, do I look like Spartacus to you?  But I do know it represents a lot of Gatorade, jock itch, and concussions.  And to think I avoided, ignored, boycotted, shunned, eschewed, scorned all XLVI Superbowls that came before.  What was I thinking?
     Oh, did I mention Dr. Herman Zing is a flippin’ genius?
     Wait, you must be confused.  I’ll try to fill in the gaps.
Remember how I hired Dr. Zing, renowned Corporate Crisis Counselor, because my staff was beginning to fracture into political and philosophical factions?  See, things were getting tense in the wake of a very contentious Presidential election, followed by our nation’s teetering on the fiscal cliff, the on-going debate over gun-control, continuing unrest in the Middle East and Northern Africa.  Normal water cooler chatter was quickly turning into dreaded polemic rhetoric, and I was becoming quite concerned.
     So I hired Dr. Zing.  Herman.  Hermie, baby…
     Anyway, Dr. Zing finally hung out his shingle this week, and while his methods may be unorthodox, nobody’s talking about Red States vs. Blue States, or Roe vs. Wade these days.  No siree, Bob.   Thanks to Hermie, it’s all about San Fran vs. Bal’imore, this week.  Super Bowl XLVII!  Guys who couldn’t agree on the color of air last week are chest bumping and high-fiving in the hallways—all because they back the same football team.  The same  football team.
     Some bubble-headed blonde on TV told those Roman hieroglyphics add up to forty-seven.  Where the hell have I been for the past forty-six years?
     On the morning Hermie, Dr. Zing, hung his shingle I stopped by his office to wish him luck ... not to gaze into his sea-foam eyes.
     “Good morning, Dr.,” I said.
     He looked up from his desk where he was working on a very large chart of some kind.  “Ah, Nikki.  Give me five dollars.”
     “I beg your pardon?”
      A gigolo? Hmmm.  I wonder if…
     “Five smackers, simoleons, bucks.  Slip me a fin, baby.”
     Yipes, he is a gigolo!  I have to admit I was disconcerted by his fee.  I’d have paid much more.
     I reluctantly and discreetly dipped into my décolletage.  “Can you change a hundred?”
     He didn’t look up, but kept working on his chart.  “What?  You don’t have anything smaller?  What about lunch?  You going to pay for a Cobb Salad and    an Evian with a C-note?"
     I felt my cheeks burning.  “I happen to own the joint, Doctor.  Lunch is a perk.  The last time I actually paid for something in my own building was never.”
     He continued drawing lines on his mammoth chart.  “Never mind, never mind.  Stick your hand in the fishbowl and pick one out.”
     My jaw dropped, my heart sank, and I swear I could feel my butt sag.  I clutched my chest tried not to faint.
     He glanced up from his chart, alarm registered on his face.  He rushed over and helped to the couch.
     “Nikki what’s wrong?”  He held me.
     “Why do you want me to give you money and pick up a fish?”
     He held tighter.  “Nikki, I’m starting an office Super Bowl pool—it’s part of my therapy plan.”
     I swear I had never in my life swooned before, but the sensation of his arms around me, I was pulling a Full Scarlet.  “But what does that have to do with fish, Ashley?  Are the Dolphins playing?  Because, you know, dolphins aren’t fish at all.”
     He went to his desk and came back with a goldfish bowl filled with folded slips of paper.
     “Reach in and pull out one slip.”
     I did as he instructed.  I unfolded the slip.  It read 7-7.  I showed it to Hermie, Dr. Zing.
     His eyes went wide.  “Hey, great numbers.”  He kissed me on the cheek.  “You are officially in the office Super Bowl Pool.”
     He strode back to his desk, marked something on the chart, put it under his arm, picked up the fishbowl.  “I’m off to provide therapy, and solve all your problems. You owe me five dollars.”  And he was gone.
     He filled one chart, then started another, and another.  People were collecting these little slips of paper with the cryptic numbers and making them leis, or papering their cubicles.  Bill Raincrow in logistics fashioned a war bonnet from his many slips.
     By mid-week color schemes emerged.  Backers of the Ravens dressed in Black and Purple, Forty-Niner fans dressed in Reds and Golds.
     I stopped into Dr. Zing’s office.  “I don’t get it,” I said.
     “What’s that, cher?”
     Ah, cher!  Everybody has her melting point.
     “You’ve divided our people right down the middle, but they’re not angry with each other anymore.  How can that be?”
     He rubbed his fabulous chin.  “I won’t go into the mumbo-jumbo, but in essence, most people would rather have fun than not.”
     “So what happens when the Super Bowl is over?  Will the old animosities resurface?”
     “To a degree.  But people who remember playing together, tend to soften their edges, their rhetoric.  I think you people will be fine.”
     I sat on the edge of his desk wonder exactly what he might have meant by people ‘playing together.’
     “Speaking of fine, Dr. Zing, am I breaking any laws by sponsoring all this gambling?”
     He quickly shoved what looked like tally sheets into a drawer.  “Nikki, would I coax you into doing anything unethical?”
     "Half of me cried, I hope so.  The other half moaned, Oh, no!
 
*********************************************************************************
How long will it be before we have a Hall of Fame Hall of Fame?- L.Oliver Bright
*********************************************************************************

Unsportsmanlike Conduct   2/8/13
  Hey, did y’all catch the Super Bowl?  Hell of a game, right?  You’ve got to hand it to the Baltimore Ravens. But they weren’t the only winners.  No.  Dr. Herman Zing, Corporate Crisis Counselor, might have been the biggest winner.  Yessir, you’ve got to hand it to him, too.  But then, we already had.  To the tune of $MXLVII.  Synchronicity, right?  He took us for all forty-seven grand Page & Spine employees spent to gamble on Super Bowl XLVII. 
     How could I have been such a fool?  How could Ollie be such an ass?
     “I swear, Nikki, I had no idea.”  L. Oliver Bright slouched onto my office couch and fanned through his worthless betting slips.  “I swear, Zing never did anything like this before…”
     “I should hope not.”
     “…since that time in college.”
     I couldn’t believe my ears.  “Do you want to repeat that?”
     Ollie shifted on the couch.  “No, I’d rather not.”
     “You mean he’s done this kind of thing before and you didn’t warn me?”
     “The exact thing, actually, but hey, it was a college prank.  Besides, he paid his debt to society.  Every man is entitled to a second chan…”
     “His debt to society?”  I stared daggers at him.  “You mean he went to prison?”
     He waved his hands as if he could erase the entire episode.   “Where he was totally rehabilitated.  He swore to me.  Showed me a certificate and everything.”
     “And you believed him.”
     Ollie appeared to be pleading.  “Hey, he showed me the certificate.  Certificates don’t lie, you know.”
     “So he pulled exactly the same scam in college, got sent to prison for it, and you didn’t think to warn me?”  I pointed to the betting slips in his hand.  “Worse yet, you let him cheat you, too!”
     He stuffed the slips into his coat pocket.  “In my defense, he just got kicked out of college for the Super Bowl scam.  He went to the joint later.  When he was caught printing up counterfeit diplomas and degrees.”
     I crossed my arms and did a tight little pirouette.  “Counterfeit diplomas and degrees?  And you believed some half-assed certificate he waved under your nose?”
     Ollie looked like he was going to be sick.  “Oh, yeah, huh?”
     “And were any of these degrees PhDs in psychology by any chance?”
    “Hey, how’d you know?  You’d be amazed at how lucrative … oh, I see where you’re going with this. Oops.”
     I plopped down onto my chair and spoke to myself.  “Herman Zing, Doctor of Psychology, Corporate Crisis Counselor.”  My heart was broken, but my self-image was shattered.  “Ollie,” I said, “Do you have any children?”
     He flashed a snarky little smile.  “Well, I don’t get any Father’s Day cards, if that’s what you’re asking, but there are several cities I’ve been advised to avoid.”
     I handed him a pad.  “Make me a list.  I want to avoid those cities, too.  Have you ever considered a vasectomy, Ollie?”
     He perked up.  “You know, you’re the forth woman to ask me that very same question this week.”
     “Do tell.”
     Ollie furrowed his brow and tugged on his lower lip.  Made him look decidedly Neanderthal.  “Yeah, I get that one a lot.  What do you suppose it means?”
     Well, dubious Doctor Herman Zing is in the wind with $MXLVII of my employees’ money.  But I have my very capable operatives combing through society’s mange looking for the slippery rascal.  In the meantime, I’m trying to make it right with my people by honoring the $5 betting stubs at both the company cafeteria and the Page & Spine International Headquarters Gift Shop.   
     Helga, the manager of the Gift Shop, tells me there’s been a run lately on the five-dollar voodoo doll that bears some resemblance to the evil Dr. Zing.  I’ve asked Helga to put some of the remaining dolls aside, and order a gross more.  I have a few betting slips to cash in myself.
     Funny thing, though.  With all my employees focusing their anger on Dr. Zing, they don’t seem to be mad at each other anymore.  You don’t suppose …

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A man who won't bet on a sure thing
never has to wonder what went wrong. 
- L. Oliver Bright
*********************************************

Vacation Blues   2/15/13
 “See what and hee-haw?”
     L. Oliver Bright grimaced out the last of his patience.  “Zihuatenajo.  It’s a great place to vacation.  Haven’t you ever seen The Shawshank Redemption for crying out loud?”
     I held my ground.  “I’ve seen The Wizard of Oz, too, but that doesn’t mean I’ll let you traipse me off to The Emerald City.”
     Ollie swiped his broad hand over his face.  “Apples and emeralds, Nikki.  Zihuatenajo is a real place.”
     “And Dr. Herman Zing was a real doctor, I suppose.”
     Even Atlas couldn’t have bested Ollie’s shrug.  “I didn’t tell you to hire him.”
     “What?  You recommended him!” 
     He rocked his head back and forth.  “I mentioned his name.  Due diligence was up to you, big shot.  Besides, he solved your problem didn’t he?  Your employees aren’t at each other’s throats anymore.”
     “He stole forty-seven thousand dollars from them, Ollie.  And I have to pay them back.”
     “Most of them were losers anyway.”
     I clamped my hands to my hips.  “What?”
     “The betting slips.  Most of them were losers.”
     “But he still got away with forty-seven-thousand-dollars.”
     “Cool, huh?”
     “I beg your pardon?”
     “Super Bowl XLIVII, and he charges you forty-seven grand.  Don’t you think that’s cool?”
     I pounded my desk.  “He stole forty seven-thousand dollars from the same employees I hired him to help.”
     “And he helped them!”
     “How?”
     “They’re not at each other’s throats any more.”
     “Of course not!  They’re all pissed at him now.”
     Ollie leaned back and knitted his fingers behind his head.  “Ain’t that the truth?”
     I flapped my gums and wagged my finger like it was a laser, but eventually slumped into my chair.  “He stole from my employees.”
      “He did his job, took his pay, and now you’re paying your employees back one BLT and one T-shirt at a time.”
     I couldn’t believe what I was listening to.  “But that wasn’t our arrangement.”
     Ollie waggled the flat of his hand at me.  “Did he ever say he wasn’t going to scam your employees in order to cure them?”
     “What?  Are you insane?”
     “Opinions vary wildly.”
     I stared at him across the desk.  “Dr. Zing did solve the problem, didn’t he?”
     “Like salve solves root rot.”
     “But he stole forty-seven thousand dollars!”
     “How much would you have paid?”
     “Good point.”  I drummed my finger on the desk.  “You figure he knew what he was doing?”
     Ollie leaned forward and steepled his fingers.  “Did he know he was stealing forty-seven thousand dollars?”
      I nodded my head.  “Stupid question, huh.”
     “Exceedingly.”
     “But he knew he was doing the job, too?”
     Ollie shrugged and wrung his hands like he was washing them.
     “I’m supposed to know?  You’d have paid fifty-grand to solve the problem, right?”
     What could I say? 
     “Right.”
     Ollie spread his arms over the top of the couch.  “Finally.”
     I wanted to shoot staples down his throat.   Instead, I said, “Tell me more about this Ziggley-Doo place.”
     “Zihautanejo.”
     “Say it slow.”
     “Zi-WHA-ten-A-ho.”
     “Zee-WHA-ten-A-ho.”
     “Not bad.  Just soften up on the ‘E’ in the first syllable.”
     “On the Pacific coast?”
     “It’s beautiful.”
     “But I won’t know anyone?”
     “That’s why I’m going with you.”
     I scowled.  “And this is supposed to be a vacation?”

***********************************************
With the price of gold these days,
no wonder the Golden Rule keeps getting
sold down the river. – L. Oliver Bright
***********************************************
 
Destination Zihua   2/22/13
     Well, Ollie convinced me.  I need a vacation. I deserve it.  I want it.
     Besides, I researched Zihuatanejo online, and it’s a gorgeous resort town.  Beautiful scenery, beautiful hotels, beautiful…uh…did I mention the scenery?  Of course February is still the tourist season, which means pricey prices and crowded crowds, but what the heck!  The weather’s wonderful, and I can use a break after the Dr. Zing disaster. 
     Babs II made the arrangements—but not until I promised her extra paid vacation time after I get back.  Seems one of the forty-seven grand Zing bamboozled us out of was Babs’.  And half her picks won.  I’m not certain, but I think she may be planning on hunting Zing down to collect her winnings. 
     In the meantime, she laid on a flight for two, first class.  Ollie won’t fly any other way.  Not on my dime, anyway.  But we’re not seated together.  I won’t fly any other way—on anyone’s dime, much less my own. I want champagne and strawberries—and quiet—all the way.  Nothing to mar the experience.  
     Except for one teensy little niggle…  
     Ollie arranged our accommodations in Zihuatanejo.  
     Why does that worry me?

******************************************************
The Truth:  Money can’t buy (as much) happiness
as it used to). -L. Oliver Bright
******************************************************
copyright 2013 by Lee Allen Hill

Traveling With Ollie (Steinbeck Had It Easy) 3/1/13
     The flight to Zihua was bumpy insofar as I kept kicking myself in the butt (figuratively) for allowing Ollie to invite himself along on what was supposed to be my vacation.  Does the President take Congress with him on vacation?  Does Captain Kirk bring Klingons to his favorite spa for a weekend of relaxation?  Does Jay Leno travel with a live audience?  So why am I riding into paradise saddled with L. Oliver Bright?
     Zihua International Airport has only two paved strips—one for take-offs, one for landings—sandwiched between a pristine Pacific Ocean beach on one side, and a coconut plantation on the other.  There are no jetways here.  Passengers disembark the old fashioned way—down a rolling metal staircase.  Then tt’s just short shlepp across the runways (making sure to look both ways before crossing) to the airport terminal which is designed to look like a palapa—palm thatched roof and all.  Fact of the matter is, the terminal is a giant open air (for the most part) palapa.  Charming in its simplicity, and so unlike the cheesy malls we build around our American airports.
     Exiting the airliner and climbing down those metal stairs, my senses were instantly overwhelmed with the sights, sounds and smells of this contained little tropical paradise.
     “I can smell the hibiscus already,” I said to Ollie.
     “I can smell my first Pina Colada,” he replied.
     He was right.  Just beneath the fragrance of the flowers was the unmistakable, sweet smell of growing pineapple.  I knew I was going to like this place.
     The sun was strong, but benevolent, as we crossed the tarmac and entered the terminal.
     “Give me your passport,” said Ollie.
      I fumbled with my document wallet as we walked.  “Don’t we have to go through Immigration and Customs?”
     “You a terrorist?” he asked.
     “What?  Ollie, of course not.”  I handed him my passport and other appropriate documents.
     “Are you a smuggler?”
     “Ollie!”
     “Okay, you just passed Customs and Immigrations.”
     “But we need to get our passports stamped.  What about our bags?”
     “No problema, chica.  Ramon will take care of everything.”
     “Is that legal?  This is a foreign country, you know?  Who’s Ramon?”
     At that moment Ollie put a hand on my elbow and we stopped walking.
     “Nikki, say hola to Ramon.”
     Before me stood a very little man with a disproportionally large grin filled with gold framed teeth. He wore a bright white embroidered guyabera shirt and twirled a Panama hat with his fingers of one hand.
     “Hola, Ramon,” I said.
     “Hola, Senorita,” he bowed.
     Ollie handed Ramon all my travel documents as well as his own.  The little man scurried away.
     “Where’s he going?” I asked, watching him disappear through a door marked No Entrar.
     Ollie grabbed my elbow and pulled me along toward a door guarded by a forbidding looking soldier with an automatic weapon strapped across his chest.
     “Don’t worry, Ramon’s just getting our papers processed.   Wouldn’t you know it, I forgot to pack my Zihua Customs and Immigration stamps this trip.
Of course I wanted to ask questions but we were fast approaching the forbidding looking soldier.  I started to drag my feet.  Ollie shot me a disgusted look.
     “Que honda, Felix,” he said to the soldier, “how’s Babs?”
     Babs?
     The forbidding looking soldier broke into a huge boyish grin and pumped Ollie’s hand.  “Ollie, you old son of a gringo!  Who are you running away from this time?  The CIA?  The FBI?  The DAR?”
     Ollie feigned looking over his shoulder.  “All of the above—and the rest of the alphabet, too.  Felix meet Nikki.”
     The big man turned his beaming face to me.  “Nikki?  The real Nikki?  All the way from Page & Spine International Headquarters and Gift Shop?”
     “Uh-huh,” was all I could utter, I was so stunned.
     Felix wrapped me in a bear hug, mashing me up against his Uzi, or AK, or whatever it was.  It didn’t feel good.  “Babs has told me so much about you.  Welcome to Zihua, Nikki.”
     Babs? Here in Zihua?
     As he clenched me to his automatic weapon I couldn’t help but feel the Hawaiians, with their soft, lovely leis, have a leg up in the welcoming department.
     By the time Felix let me go, I was certain I’d have the impression of a trigger guard stamped on my forehead for life.  The NRA would probably have me canonized.  Careful with the spelling on canonized, eh boys?     
     “Ollie,” I said.  “What’s all this about Babs being here in Zihua?”
     “What, I didn’t tell you?”
     “Would I be asking?”
     “Luego, Felix,” he said, grabbed my arm and pulled me through the door.  “I’ll tell you all about it over a few of Polo’s famous Coconuts Margaritas.
 
***********************************************************************
For truly successful travels, unpack before you leave. - L. Oliver Bright
***********************************************************************
 
Margarita Time 3/8/13
     Ollie hurried me out of the airport where we were immediately greeted by another small man with golden teeth who could have been Ramon’s brother.
     “Nikki,” said Ollie, “meet Felipe, Ramon’s brother.”
     Felipe grabbed my hand and pumped my arm like he expected to me to spout water from my mouth.  “Mucho gusto,” he said, “mucho gusto.”
     “Likewise,” I uttered, fighting the urge to repeat it.
     Felipe opened the door of a Mexican-made Volkswagen Bug with a taxi light perched on the top and helped (shoved) me into the back seat.  Ollie followed, squishing me up against the window behind the driver’s seat.  If this was Ollie’s idea of ‘first-class accommodations’ I was expecting to share my bedroom with a burro.
     Felipe got behind the wheel and we were off.
     “Coconuts,” Ollie said to Felipe, “and don’t spare the chipmunks.”
     “Si, Senor Ollie.  Muy rapido.” Felipe probably stepped on the gas pedal, but not much happened.
     I was soon to realize that nothing happens very fast in Mexico.  In fact, saying muy rapido usually slows everything own while those involved decide you must be kidding.
     As the little car fought to keep forward momentum, I suddenly remembered …
     “Ollie, what about our bags?”
     “Taken care of,” he assured me.  “They’re probably already at our hotel.”
     I was soon to realize that probably is interchangeable with unlikely in Mexico.  Ole.
     I put my concerns aside and watched the landscape creep by while Ollie and Felipe engaged in a raucous conversation in Spanglish punctuated by laughter, rude noises, and exaggerated shrugs.  Ollie was clearly in his element, and I found myself settling into my own.
     The terrain was hilly, bordering on mountainous, despite the fact that I knew the Pacific Ocean was just beyond the western horizon.  I was later to learn that the Sierra Madres (of Humphrey Bogart and Walter Houston fame) diminish and surrender dramatically to the sea right here.  Tiny settlements of ramshackle houses straddle the road, announced by a few grazing goats and speed-bumps the VW groaned to climb.
     A short twenty minute ride from the airport we were already approaching the outskirts of Zihuatenajo.  The houses became more numerous, and more stores and businesses lined the thoroughfare.  We pulled off the main road and passed a park full of futbal players, then a modern Volkswagen dealership.  The streets soon narrowed and we entered the center of a thriving and bustling downtown.
     Felipe stopped the car in the middle of a nondescript street just wide enough for two VW bugs to pass each other.  Ollie climbed out of the car, and hauled me out at the price of all my dignity.  If Felipe didn’t get a good look at my butt, he has no business driving a cab—or a bargain, for that matter.
     “How do you like Zihua so far?” Ollie asked.
     “I better like it fine.   After that display,” I said, “I may have to marry it.”
     “You could do worse,” he replied with a sigh.
     He took my hand and led me a few yards down the narrow, broken sidewalk.
     “Welcome to Coconuts,” he said, and pushed open a heavy wooden door.  He pulled me inside and down a short dark corridor that opened onto one of the lushest open-air tropical courtyards I have ever seen.
     The space that was not filled with abundant tropical flora, was occupied by a couple of dozen tables circling an oval bar which dominated the center of the courtyard.  Despite it being mid-afternoon, the twenty-or-so bar stools were occupied by drinkers all staring our way.  I couldn’t tell if we were about to be attacked or feted.
     “Ah, look what the Chubacabra dragged in.”  The voice came from the shadows, and was as sultry and feminine as any voice that ever graced a film noir.
     I scanned the dim courtyard until I spotted her leaning against a wall in the shade of a towering banana tree.  I was sure she couldn’t be Dorothy Lamour, but I wasn’t that sure.  She shimmied toward us wearing a tight yellow sarong with a slit that reached all the way to Paramus, New Jersey.
     She stood in front of me, looking me over like I might taste good, or carry Anthrax, either one.
     “Nikki,” said Ollie, “meet Consuelo.  She owns this dive.”
     Consuelo raised an eyebrow that I swore belonged on Lauren Bacall.
     “The Nikki?” she asked Ollie.
     “In the flesh,” he replied.
     I put out my hand.
     She grabbed my head and planted a good one right on my lips.  When she let me go, I nearly fell.
     “Nestor, Fidel, vamos,” she ordered.  “Make room for Ollie and Nikki.”
     Somehow, Ollie managed to set me on a stool.  He held me upright while he joked with the bartender and ordered two Polo Margaritas.
     I’m not sure, but I think I told him to make mine a double.  That’s when Babs floated into my vision.
 
***************************************************
When travelling in a foreign country,
it’s okay to drink domestic beer. – L. Oliver Bright
***************************************************

Ahead of Our Lime 3/15/13
    The last time I had seen Babs she was newly married, deliriously happy, and tipping the scales at battleship tonnage.   But now she appeared to be back down to her fighting weight—which seemed appropriate for a woman who looked so good she would probably instigate territorial wars in a Trappist Monastery.
     “Nikki,” she shrieked, then grappled me into a slug-hug that was only slightly less awkward than Consuelo’s earlier lip-lock.  Finally, she leaned back.   “Let me look at you.”
     While she looked me over, I returned the favor. 
     Her tan, which was on bounteous display, rivaled only oiled mahogany in its richness and depth.  Her sun-lightened hair achieved the kind of tousled perfection even the finest Hollywood tress-messers have never perfected. She wore one of those gauzy white sundresses certain to make any normal woman look like Boris Karloff’s Mummy, but made her look like every guy’s wet dream waiting only on REM to set in.
     “Nikki,” she said, “you look absolutely terrific!”
     Compared to her, I felt like Norman Bates in his mother’s drag.
     “You, too, Babs,” I grinned.  “You’ve lost some weight, huh?”  I know, I’m going to Hell on the express, but so is my boy Norman.
     She stood back and modeled her disgustingly svelte, yet zoftig self.  Svelte and zoftig?   In the good old days, we female blobs would have entertained her with an unmerciful stoning … or simply had her sacrificed.  C’mon, you think they ever let their men sacrifice ugly virgins?
     “Hubba hubba,” said Ollie.
     While Babs draped herself over Ollie’s twitching form, I made a mental note to find the nearest Aztec Sacrificing Kiosk.  Babs may not pass for virgin, but in Mexico, pesos speak louder than hymens.
      Finally wrestling herself free from Ollie the Octopus, Babs bragged, “I lost the equivalent of the Lesser Antilles in weight, plus one-hundred-and-eighty pounds ex-Creative Director baggage.”
     “Milton?” I offered.
     “Uh, Marvin, I think,” she said.
     “No,” said Ollie, “I’m pretty sure his name was Melvin.”
     Three of us launched into convulsive tequila titters, while Consuela signaled the bartender to keep our Margaritas flowing.  Who says you can’t get good help these days?

     I remember visiting an amusement park.  Or maybe that was the taxi ride to the hotel.  It was very dark, and I was very tequila-lagged so it was hard to tell.
     My first impression of the very expensive hotel was that the beds were very soft.  A good thing, too, because I landed on it rather face first.  I thought that was very funny.  So I laughed.   Ollie thought it was a riot, so he laughed, too.
     Finally, he said, “Shut up, Nikki.”
     I thought that was bees-knees hilarious.
     When I caught my breath, I said, “Ollie, what are you doing in my room?”
     “Your room?” he said.  “I think we got married.”
     We both thought that was funnier than alligators on toast.
     My second impression of the very expensive hotel was that the toilet bowl was very clean.  I continued to inspect it for most of the night, but flush after flush came back clean and clear.
     Ollie thought that was hilarious.
     I wasn’t so sure.  I wondered if I’d remembered to pack my gun.

***************************************************************
I drink my tequila straight.  I’m ahead of my lime. -L. Oliver Bright
***************************************************************

Nothing Bites Like Next Morning  3/22/13
     You’re dying to know, aren’t you?  Did the alpha female of the Page & Spine International Juggernaut really enter into matrimony with L. Oliver Bright on our first night in Zihautanejo?  Well, so far, your guess is as good as mine.
     Ollie insists in the affirmative, Consuelo says no, and Babs is still so far under the influence of a tequila brain-freeze, she wouldn’t know Boliviafrom oblivion.  The last thing she remembers is Elvis riding a pink elephant past the Zihua embarcadero.
     The four of us were gathered for a late breakfast in a little seaside nook named for a fat mermaid inexplicably called Omar. We poured ourselves into a booth and argued about what had or had not happened the night before.
     A cheerful looking man in a clean white apron approached balancing a tray holding four Mexican Bloody Marys.  As he distributed the drinks, he and Ollie exchanged animated bursts of rapid-fire Spanish and an embrace replete with several back slaps.  The aproned man grinned and lustily winked at me as he departed.
     “Ollie,” I said, “what did you tell that man?”
     His grin was dopier than crack.  “He’s the cook, chicken gravy.  I just ordered Huevos Rancheros all around.”
     “Sure,” I said.  I turned to Babs for a second translation, but when I recognized the agave abyss lingering in her eyes, I turned to Consuelo instead.  “What did Ollie really say to that man?”
     Consuelo tapped her nails on the table.  “It is true,” she said.  “Huevos Rancheros, he ordered for everyone.”
     I knew she was holding back.
     “What else?” I said, my eyes squinting daggers at Ollie.
     Consuelo smiled broadly.  “He said you liked the buggy whip in your marriage bed.”
     “What?” I screamed as I shot to my feet.
     Ollie scrubbed a hand over his face.  “Jesus, Consuelo, don’t you even understand your own language?”  He turned to me.  “All I said was ‘you were as supple as a buggy whip’.
     “In our wedding bed?” I shrieked.  “Did you say wedding bed?”
     He shrugged like Atlas.  “I said you were supple, bran muffin, doesn’t that count for something?  This is a machismo country, I had to tell him something about our wedding night.  It’s a matter of pride.”
     Suddenly exhausted, I withered into my chair.  Too enraged to respond, I grabbed the garnish off the Bloody Mary in from of me, and bit into it.  Had I realized the garnish was a jalapeno pepper, I’d probably have bitten into my own jugular instead.
     True, jalapenos are nowhere near the hottest peppers on the face of Hell, but, believe me, it got the job done.  My mouth ignited like a phosphorous flare.  Logically, I grabbed for the Bloody Mary and drank it down to extinguish the flames.  Did I say logically?  I may as well have thrown napalm on a crematorium. I choked and gagged.   My eyes teared, my nose ran, and my ears smoked like a papal conclave.
     The man in the white apron rushed to me with a glass of milk, urging me to drink.  Reluctantly, I did, and the fire slowly smoldered to a simmer.  Eventually, when my eyes stopped tearing, I watched Ollie, Consuelo, and Babs all casually gnawing on their jalapenos, and sipping on their napalm as though they we sitting in a Dairy Queen.
     I had drunk about a half gallon of milk before I dared to test my vocal chords.
     I fixed Ollie with my most severe glare.  “The priest,” I croaked.
     He smiled like a Sunday school teacher.  “Yes, it is a lovely breeze,” he said.
     I reached frantically for my purse, praying I’d packed my gun.  Consuelo wisely pushed me back with her arm.
     “She wants the priest, Ollie, the one who performed the ceremony,” Consuelo insisted.
     “The priest,” I croaked again, nodding my appreciation to Consuelo, and waving my finger at Ollie like I wanted to slit him ear-to-ear.
     “Relax, sugar substitute,” he said, pulling a face sappier than Vermont in March.  “As soon as he gets back fromOaxaca I’ll have him tell you all about the lovely ceremony.”
     I looked to Consuelo.  She shrugged, rolled her eyes.
     I looked to Babs.  Her eyes were still crossed.
     I looked hard at Ollie.
     “Pre-nup?” I managed to hiss.
     He took my hand in his.  “For a match made in heaven, butter bean?”
 
     I pushed my fork aimlessly through my Huevos Rancheros wondering which was worse, having L. Oliver Bright as a partner, or a husband.  Never in my life had I so needed to talk to a priest.
 
*****************************************************
Tequila hangovers are a whole different animal. 
The hair of that dog will choke you. - L. Oliver Bright
*****************************************************

…And Another Zing   3/29/13
     Well, the priest who performed our wedding ceremony, if there ever was one, has yet to return from his mysterious emergency mission to Oaxaca so the jury is still out as to whether or not L. Oliver Bright and I are truly man and wife.
     In the meantime, we do share a room.
     In the meantime, we do share a bed.
     As to whatever else we do or do not share, well, that’s none of your business.
     Let’s just say that Ollie and I have had a long, complicated history sprinkled with a number of encounters which could be described as personal in nature.  Read into that what you will.  But actually being Mrs. L. Oliver Bright is a scary notion.
     I’m a billionaire media mogul, after all, and Ollie, well, Ollie has been known to sit atop flagpoles for months at a time.  He couldn’t expect me to consent to conjugal visits, could he?  And I’ve never even met his parents.  I don’t know if he had parents.  I take it on faith that he isn’t some sort of alien entity in a scruffy man suit.  ‘Alien’ and ‘Ollie’ ring similar chimes in my head.  Oh, what have I gotten myself into?
     Still, I’m having a marvelous time exploring Zihuatenjo and the neighboring resort town of Ixtapa.  Babs has been showing me around while Ollie darts about looking up old friends and making new ones as if he is running for office.  I’m not sure how word has spread so fast, but I’m greeted as Senora Ollie everywhere we go.  Senora Ollie, indeed!  Don’t these people know I’m an international media mogul?
     But there’s something even more troubling:  I seem to be hallucinating.
     “Everybody hallucinates in Zihua, babe,”  Ollie assures me.  “That mescal Isiaias brews in his backyard is guaranteed to corrode anyone’s terminals.”
     We were having dinner in a quaint little open air cantina called Pollos Locos, owned and operated by none other than the notorious mescal-brewing Isiaias himself.
     “I wasn’t hallucinating, Ollie.  I swear I saw him.  Twice.  Once here in Zihua, and once in Ixtapa.  Both times he vanished before I could get close enough to verify it was him.”
     The ‘him’ in question is that rat-fink of a Dr. Herman Zing who ran a Superbowl betting scheme out of the Page & Spine International Headquarters and Gift Shop, then absconded with all my employees’ winnings.
     Ollie gnawed on a leg of succulently grilled chicken.  “As I remember, you had yourself a case of hot-pepper-pants over the shifty doctor.”  He licked his lips and Groucho’d his eyebrows.  “Maybe you’re just having a little buyer’s remorse about settling to marry me, and your subconscious is generating these hallucinations as some sort of internal retribution.”
     “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever hoid.”  I Groucho’d him right back.
     “Then I resort to my initial theory: Mescal-Fueled Misapparitions.  Wait’ll you try the peyote.”
     I threw my pollo-greased napkin at him.
     Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if there might be some truth to what Ollie was saying?  I had been rather taken with Dr. Zing.  Hot-pepper-pants, though crudely stated, is not an altogether inaccurate assessment.  And it was his fraudulent gambling scheme that convinced me I needed this vacation.   Could I be imagining these sightings?  Is he occupying space in my subconscious?  And if he is, what is my motivation?  Do I want to throw myself at him, or do I want to throw him off a cliff for cheating my employees?
     I placed my hand on Ollie’s.  “Humor me.  Isn’t it possible that Zing could have found this place all by himself and come down here to hide and spend all that money?”
     Ollie motioned for Isiaias to refill our mescal glasses.
     “Well, I suppose anything’s possible, sugar pop.  Didn’t I tell you?  This is where I met the good doctor in the first place.”
     “What?”  I shouted, stunned.
     “Hey, Isiaias,” called Ollie.  “You seen Zing lately?”
     “Si, Senor Ollie.  Zing’s been here for a couple of months, maybe.  Said he made a bundle on the SuperBowl.”
 
******************************************************************************************
Life is a series of coincidences that don’t always coincide conveniently.  -L. Oliver Bright
******************************************************************************************
 copyright 2013 by Lee Allen Hill

​Reading Minds, Posing Questions   5/3/13
      I was lying in bed, smelling the rich perfume of morning hibiscus and deciding it was probably about time to blow this paradise.  My skin had a nauseatingly healthy glow, all my twitches and tics had cleared up, and I hadn’t flipped off a taxi driver in weeks.  Besides, too many more days here, and I might just forget how to wear shoes altogether.  
     “So what’s wrong with that?” you say.
     See?  I knew you were going to say that.  I’ll tell you what’s wrong with that.  I am a Captain of Industry, a Media Mogul, a personal friend of both Donald Trump and Pat Sajak, for heaven’s sake.  I’m just not cut out to be some itinerant, bare-footed beachcomber.  I have responsibilities, obligations, executives to berate, lawyers to feed, directors to stare down.
     I glanced at my new husband asleep next to me.  This is certainly going to complicate matters.  It’s one thing to have a loose cannon rolling around on your poop deck, but something else again to bring it into your boardroom.
     Ollie raised himself up on one elbow, leaned over, kissed me, then lay back down—without opening his eyes.   
     “So, you’re ashamed of me?” he said.
     My cheeks flushed.  Ladies, never marry a man who can read your mind.  You lose all deniability.
     “Don’t be silly, Ollie,” I denied with all the credibility of a Bigfoot video.  “But when we get back to the meat grinder, sausage, it’s going to be different.”
     “Yeah, you’ll have a new trophy husband.”
     I grinned.  “So you won’t mind if I mount you in a glass case?”
     Now he grinned, still without opening his eyes.  “Mount me anywhere you want, sweetie, but glass cases aren’t very private.”
     “Oh, Ollie, what am I going to do with you?”
     He rolled on his side and put his arm around me.  “How many times am I going to have to show you.”
 
     Later, we were down near the Zihuatenajo fishing pier enjoying a lunch of exquisitely fresh and piquant ceviche.
     “You’re not coming back with me are you?”  Mind-reading goes both ways.
     He squeezed even more lime on his shocked snapper.  “I thought it might be better—easier on you and your employees—if you went back alone for a while.  Reassure them that being my Love Goddess isn’t going to affect the way you do business.  You’ll still be you’re same old cranky, irascible, insecure self.”
     I slapped his hand.  “Hey, take that back.”  Actually, he’d read my mind again.  I agreed that I should go back alone for a while.
     “What, did I leave out ornery?”
     The odd thing about Ollie is, he knows how to make my life easier.  It’s just that he usually has more fun tying it into macramé.
     “You going to stay here for a while, babe?”
     “Just a few days, maybe.  I have a few irons in the fire.”
     “Uh-oh.  What’re you going to burn down now?”
     He ignored me. “You know Lewis and Clark, right?”
     Oh boy, here it comes.  “Yeah, the old comedy team, right?”
     He rolled his eyes.  “I got a buddy wants to retrace Lewis and Clark’s route, and film it for a documentary.  You know, ask the hard-hitting questions.”
     I sat back, bracing myself.  “Like what?”
     He grinned.  “Like why did they and their men subsist on moldy cheese and centipedes when there’s a Burger King on every corner?”
     Hard-hitting.  “Good question,” I said, while biting my cheeks.
     “And why hasn’t Detroit ever named a car the Sacagawea?”
     I nodded.  “Rolls right off the tongue.  But you’re saving one, aren’t you?”
     He covered my hand with his.  “How come L&C never mentioned the Indian tribe called Gupta?”
     “Ah, a mockumentary.”
     He shrugged.  “You say potato, I say chip.”
     “You’re one of kind, Ollie.  Mind if I leave tomorrow?”
     “I made the arrangements yesterday.”
     Ladies, forget what I said about avoiding men who can read your mind.
 
************************************************************************************************
Of all the jobs in America, I contend Mind-Reader might be the most boring. -L. Oliver Bright
************************************************************************************************

I Know, Sweetie   5/10/13
     Ollie had arranged for me to take the first flight from Zihua into Mexico City, then catch a non-stop to the home of Page & Spine International Headquarters and Gift Shop.  I was up with the first opening hibiscus, having grave second thoughts about leaving paradise and my new husband.  I strolled out to the terrace and watched the waves scratch rhythmically at the shore, I wondered if I was doing the right thing.
     “It’s okay to change your mind,” called Ollie from the bed.
     I walked back toward the room and leaned against the edge of the slider.
     “If I don’t go today, how will you ever get me to leave tomorrow?”
     “Don’t worry,” he said, eyes still closed, “I won’t think of a way.”
     If you think it’s annoying to talk with a man too lazy to open his eyes to look at you, you’re wrong.  I know he is seeing me exactly the way he wants to.  Ollie has special powers.
     “Not exactly what I needed to hear, babe.”
     He grinned.  “Of course it is.”
     “Of course it is.”
     I had planned on dressing in business attire, and heading straight to the office from the airport. But in the end, I just couldn’t manage anything more professional than flimsy shorts and a flimsier tank top.  Leaving paradise is hard enough without covering up your tan and reining in all the parts you’d just trained to appreciate freedom.  My sole concession to civilization was a pair of Adidas.  My toes barked mightily at the injustice.
     I was zipping closed my last piece of luggage when Ollie rolled out of bed, yawned a black hole, threw on a pair a shorts and a white t-shirt the single word, Enough! in bold orange letters.  He spent about forty-five seconds in the bathroom, and emerged finger combing his unruly hair.  He looked like the Pope of Zihuatenajo and my resolve to leave was stretched thinner than a Jack Benny nickel.
     Ollie grabbed my arm and dragged me out the door.  “I know I’m irresistible, sweetheart, but you’re just going to have to get used to it.”
     I tried to slow him down.  “My bags!”
     “Taken care of.”
     “What if I forgot something?”
     He kept dragging me down the hall toward the elevator.
     I tried, in vain, to dig in my heels. “Ollie, I don’t want to go.”
     “I know, sweetie.”
     “But you’re dragging me.”
     “I know.”
     “Ollie, stop dragging me.  Why are you dragging me?”
     Just as we reached the elevators, the doors magically opened.  What is this guy a warlock?  He pushed me into the elevator, stepped in himself, and barred me from the door.
     “Ollie, I don’t want to go.”
     “I know.”
     The elevator doors closed.
     “So why are you making me go?”
     “Because you want to.”
     “I know,” I said.
     When the elevator doors opened at the lobby, a dozen hotel workers crowded around to wish me a safe trip, and a swift return.  Several pressed small gifts into my hands.  I wept openly as Ollie dragged me Ramon’s taxi.
     “Ollie, I don’t want to go,” I sobbed.
     “I know, babe.”  He kissed me sweetly and pushed me into the cab, quickly following to prevent me from popping back out.
     Ollie held my hand all the way to the airport. 
     Ramon took my ticket and travel documents to check me onto my flight while Ollie and I sat down to breakfast. 
     The waitress winked at Ollie, and immediately brought us two platters of scrambled eggs con chirizo, refried beans, and fresh fruit.
     “You think of everything, don’t you?” I said.
     “I’ll miss you,” he replied.
     “Then why are you making me go?”
     He scratched his cheek on the upstroke like Marlon Brando in The Godfather.  “So you’ll stay.”
     I stared into eyes I’d never really seen before.
     “I know,” I said.
     Boarding that plane was both the easiest and hardest thing I’d ever done.

********************************************************************************************
Leaving someone or someplace you love knows no statute of limitations. – L. Oliver Bright
********************************************************************************************

Flight or Flee   5/17/13
      Ollie had arranged for me to take the first flight from Zihua into Mexico City, then catch a non-stop to the home of Page & Spine International Headquarters and Gift Shop.  I was up with the first opening hibiscus, having grave second thoughts about leaving paradise and my new husband.  I strolled out to the terrace and watched the waves scratch rhythmically at the shore, I wondered if I was doing the right thing.
     “It’s okay to change your mind,” called Ollie from the bed.
     I walked back toward the room and leaned against the edge of the slider.
     “If I don’t go today, how will you ever get me to leave tomorrow?”
     “Don’t worry,” he said, eyes still closed, “I won’t think of a way.”
     If you think it’s annoying to talk with a man too lazy to open his eyes to look at you, you’re wrong.  I know he is seeing me exactly the way he wants to.  Ollie has special powers.
     “Not exactly what I needed to hear, babe.”
     He grinned.  “Of course it is.”
     “Of course it is.”
     I had planned on dressing in business attire, and heading straight to the office from the airport. But in the end, I just couldn’t manage anything more professional than flimsy shorts and a flimsier tank top.  Leaving paradise is hard enough without covering up your tan and reining in all the parts you’d just trained to appreciate freedom.  My sole concession to civilization was a pair of Adidas.  My toes barked mightily at the injustice.
     I was zipping closed my last piece of luggage when Ollie rolled out of bed, yawned a black hole, threw on a pair a shorts and a white t-shirt the single word, Enough! in bold orange letters.  He spent about forty-five seconds in the bathroom, and emerged finger combing his unruly hair.  He looked like the Pope of Zihuatenajo and my resolve to leave was stretched thinner than a Jack Benny nickel.
     Ollie grabbed my arm and dragged me out the door.  “I know I’m irresistible, sweetheart, but you’re just going to have to get used to it.”
     I tried to slow him down.  “My bags!”
     “Taken care of.”
     “What if I forgot something?”
     He kept dragging me down the hall toward the elevator.
     I tried, in vain, to dig in my heels. “Ollie, I don’t want to go.”
     “I know, sweetie.”
     “But you’re dragging me.”
     “I know.”
     “Ollie, stop dragging me.  Why are you dragging me?”
     Just as we reached the elevators, the doors magically opened.  What is this guy a warlock?  He pushed me into the elevator, stepped in himself, and barred me from the door.
     “Ollie, I don’t want to go.”
     “I know.”
     The elevator doors closed.
     “So why are you making me go?”
     “Because you want to.”
     “I know,” I said.
     When the elevator doors opened at the lobby, a dozen hotel workers crowded around to wish me a safe trip, and a swift return.  Several pressed small gifts into my hands.  I wept openly as Ollie dragged me Ramon’s taxi.
     “Ollie, I don’t want to go,” I sobbed.
     “I know, babe.”  He kissed me sweetly and pushed me into the cab, quickly following to prevent me from popping back out.
     Ollie held my hand all the way to the airport.
     Ramon took my ticket and travel documents to check me onto my flight while Ollie and I sat down to breakfast.
     The waitress winked at Ollie, and immediately brought us two platters of scrambled eggs con chirizo, refried beans, and fresh fruit.
     “You think of everything, don’t you?” I said.
     “I’ll miss you,” he replied.
     “Then why are you making me go?”
     He scratched his cheek on the upstroke like Marlon Brando in The Godfather.  “So you’ll stay.”
     I stared into eyes I’d never really seen before.
     “I know,” I said.
     Boarding that plane was both the easiest and hardest thing I’d ever done.
 
********************************************************************************************
Leaving someone or someplace you love knows no statute of limitations. – L. Oliver Bright
********************************************************************************************

Home is Where the Hokum Stops   5/24/13
   I don’t know, maybe it was the smell of the City that reinvigorated me.  Or the business challenges that I knew lay ahead.  But somehow, the laid back allure of Zihuatenajo was alluringly replaced by the pounding pulse of a metropolis where everybody wore hard-soled shoes and wanted nothing more than to step on as many toes as possible.  I sat in the backseat of the cab whispering to myself, “Bring it on, big boy.  Bring it on.”
     I stopped off at my brownstone.  I showered off all vestiges of sunscreen, cocoa butter, Ollie’s scent.  I cloistered my tan lines in an armor-plated business suit, and tied my hair up into a bun so tight Houdini would never escape it even with help from a squadron of Navy Seals.  My face was tighter than Joan Rivers’ butt.  Then I called Babs II and instructed her to have my car come pick me up.  I allowed no small talk, no chit-chat.  All I said was, “Send my car.  Now.”
     Momma was coming home, and momma wanted everyone to know she was coming, and she was pissed.
     Did I know why I was pissed?  No.  I didn’t have the foggiest.  But do cows know why they bunch up and lie down when a storm is imminent?  Do coyotes know why they bay at the full moon?  Do baseball players know why they spit and scratch themselves inappropriately? No! It’s just some sort of primal instinct—except in the case of baseball players, who spit and scratch merely because they want to embarrass their parents on national TV.
     Something was wrong at Page & Spine International Headquarters and Gift Shop, and Momma Bear was coming home to find out what it was.
     I no sooner parked my butt on the limousine seat when I pressed the button to lower the glass between me and my driver, Walter.
     “Spill, Walter,” I said.
     Walter stared into the side-view mirror, looking for a space in the traffic long enough to accommodate a super-stretch Lincoln.
     “You’re  lookin’ good, boss,” Walter said.  “All tanned and relaxed.”    
     I caught the unmistakable combined odors of sucking up, and wishful thinking.
     “Walter,” I said, “do you think I could drive this rolling ark if I so choose to?”
     “Sure, boss.”
     “Good.  So spill, or start walking.”
     I would never fire Walter, and he knew it.  He always functions as my eyes and ears when I’m away.  There’s nothing like a little limo time with Walter to help me reassess the current pulse of the company.  Still, it’s important Walter doesn’t feel like he’s fitted with a ‘snitch’ jacket, so we play this game.
     “I’m only a driver,” he says.
     “Walter.”
     “Okay.  Yeah, I hear things.”
     “Like what?”
     “Like Mr. Colbert and Mrs. Rathbone playin’ Pirate and the Lusty Virgin right where you’re sitting.”
     “Walter.”
     “I know, boss, disgusts me, too.”
     “Walter, pull over.  You’re taking the bus home.”
     “Wait, boss, wait.  I think I heard something about a turnover.”
     I pulled myself up to the edge of my seat.
     “You mean a hostile takeover, Walter?”
     “I didn’t hear anybody mention ice cream and cake.”
     “Who, Walter?”  My voice hissed sharper than razor wire.
     “Hmmm, let me think now.”
     “Have I ever shown you my gun, Walter?”
     “Mr. Vuckov, and Mr. D’Nino, and Mrs. Wurst.”
     All heavy hitters on my Board of Directors.
     “Why, Walter?”
     “Because they’re stupid, boss.”
     “Why, Walter?”
     “They’re worried, Nikki.”
     “Why?”
     “Because you married Ollie.”
     I tightened my bun, and dialed Babs II.
     “Babs, dear,” I said into the phone, “call an emergency meeting of the Board Directors.  Yesterday.”      
 
*****************************************************************
Home is where other people wipe their feet before entering
and feel fortunate to leave smiling. – L. Oliver Bright
*****************************************************************

Lacing Up the Gloves   5/31/13
     My office at Page & Spine International Headquarters and Gift Shop seemed to have been undisturbed during my extended absence.  My name was still on the door.  No one had redecorated.  No Duck Stamp prints on the walls.  No photo array of a traitor shaking hands with all the living Presidents.  No lingering aroma of pipe tobacco.  So far, so good.
     I scanned my office looking for likely places to hide listening devices.  You think me paranoid?  Maybe.  But to a corporate CEO, talk of a hostile takeover (is there any other kind?) sounds a lot like palace revolt.  I made a mental note to have my office, conference rooms, and boardrooms swept for bugs as soon as possible.
     Next, I considered the ethics of having a few bugs of my own installed.  If board members are whispering, as Walter suggested, chances are some of my executives are listening to the wind, too.  I had to know who I could trust, and who I couldn’t.  I deferred the nasty business of covert listening for the time being.  I figured I owed my people the chance to come clean before I assumed they were all dirty.
     But part of me was in acute pain. Not so much because a takeover might have been in the works—aided by agents from within my own organization—but because of the underlying reason.  I had married L. Oliver Bright, and now some people were thinking I’d lost my mind.  Heck, I can understand that.  Ollie is certainly one of the more colorful characters of this, or any other, era.  So, I can understand a few raised eyebrows.  A few discreet inquires as to my frame of mind.  A few gentle petitions for reassurance.  But a coup d’etat?  A conspiracy to take away that which I built with my one two hands, without even asking about my intentions?  I was hurt.  I was angry. And I was ashamed, because poor Ollie would instantly read the clues and understand his role in my troubles.  Hell, he had already anticipated something along these lines, which was why he insisted I come back alone.  I realized I loved him more at that moment than I thought possible.
     But I also realized I was getting ahead of myself.     
     I decided my first order of business would be to take inventory.
     I called Babs II into my office.
     “Babs, honey, I’m sorry I was so short with you earlier.”
     Babs shrugged and blew out her lips.  “Geez, no problem, Nikki.  Damn, I’d be pissed, too.”
     I kept my face cloudless.  “About what?”
     She tucked her chin and looked at me sideways.  “Hello, the takeover?”
     I decided I could cross Babs II off my list of possible buggees.  That helped.
     “What do you know?” I asked, trying not to sound conspiratorial.
     “More than I like.”  She leaned forward, looking very conspiratorial.  Welton’s behind it, but I hear some of the Board might be welcoming Welton’s, uh, uninvited intervention.”
     That Welton and his International Word were behind it was not a surprise.  But I wanted to know about my disloyal board members. “Vuchov, D’Nina, and Wurst?”  I said.
     Babs smiled.  “Hey, you’re good.  You got the whole city bugged?”
     “With loyal employees,” I said.  “Give yourself a raise, dear.”
     “As you wish, m’lady,” she grinned as she jotted.  “Walter, too?”
     I chuckled.  “Is there anything you don’t know, Babs?”
     “Only how come it took so long for you and Ollie to get together.”
     I could have kissed her. 
 
     I was feeling a little bit better, but there was still plenty of work to do.  Gene Welton and International Word would prove quite the juggernaut.  Gene had licked his lips over Page & Spine for a long time, but I’d always managed to stare him down.  Still, if three or more of my hand-picked board members had been lured into his camp, this might be a tough battle.
     “Okay,” I thought to myself, but I’m not one to keep all my cards on the table.  “Mr. Welton, prepare to be trumped right where you trumpet.”
 
************************************************************************************
People who theorize about offense and defense have never shed blood. 
Winning isn’t a theory. Winning is action.– L. Oliver Bright (channeling his inner warrior)
************************************************************************************
copyright 2013 by Lee Allen Hill 

Friends and Allies   6/7/13
     Jack Otto, Chief Corporate Counsel, and Randolph (Don’t call me Randy) McKeown, Chief Financial Officer of Page & Spine International Holdings fidgeted in their chairs.  I hadn’t even called the meeting to order yet.  I kept them sweating while I tried to come up with a seven letter Yiddish word for potato.  Latke didn’t even come close.
     I tapped the pencil eraser against my front teeth.  “Either of you goyim speak Yiddish?”
     McKeown shook his head.  “Oy vey and schmuck exhaust my tribal vocabulary.”
     “How about you, Otto?” I said.
     He picked a speck of imaginary lint off the sleeve of his two-thousand dollar suit coat.  “I got bupkis,” he shrugged.  “Can we please get on with this meeting, Nikki?”  He glanced at his gold wristwatch.
     “Very well, Jack.  What do you hear from Gene Welton?” 
     McKeown frowned, fidgeted again.
     Otto stared me straight in the eye, smiled.
     “So you’ve heard the rumors,” he said.
     “Rumors?”  I said.  “Is that your assessment as well, Randolph?”
     Randolph cleared his throat.  “I view Gene Welton and International Word a credible threat, boss.  I think it’s time to circle the wagons.”
     Otto scoffed.  “Oh, come on, McKeown, Welton has been sniffing around Page & Spine for years.  This company would complement International Word perfectly, but--”
      “And vice versa,” I said.
      A small smile curled Randolph McKeown’s lips.  “You’re right.  Do you have a plan, Nikki?”
      “I’m thinking,” I said.
      Jack Otto readjusted himself in his seat and pulled a worried face.  “Now hold on here, folks.  You can’t possibly be thinking what I afraid you’re thinking.”
      I stood and walked to the front corner of my desk.
      “You said it yourself, Jack.  The two companies complement each other … perfectly, I believe is the way you phrased it.”
      “Sure, but we’re in no position to--”
      “Me,” I interrupted, “not we.”  I turned my attention to my Chief Financial Officer.  “How’s our war chest, Randolph?”
      He beamed.  “Brimming.  I’ve been preparing for a pit-bull defense.”
     “You know what they say is the best defense?”
      McKeown nodded.  “Offense.”  I swear the glorified accountant was looking for a high-five.
      Jack Otto recrossed his legs.  “I don’t want to rain on your pep rally, Nikki, but I have it on good authority that Gene Welton has a few aces up his sleeves.”
      “I know, Vuchov, D’Nina, and Wurst,” I said.
      The lawyer’s face lost some color.  “Yes.  You knew?”
      I sat on the corner of my desk.
      “The real issue is that you knew, Jack.  When were you planning on telling me?”
      He froze into one of those ‘skunk in the headlights’ looks.
      “Well, you just got back from you honeymoon, Nikki.  I was giving you some time to settle in.”
      “How thoughtful.  You can go now, Jack, Randolph and I have a few matters to discuss.”  He rose slowly from his chair—dead man rising.  “And Jack, remember that iron-clad non-disclosure agreement you drafted for me so many years ago?”
      He nodded.
      “You signed one, too.  If one word of what was discussed here leaks, you’ll be pawning that watch and greeting shoppers at your local WalMart before Christmas.  And you can pass the implied threat on to the Three Mutineers, too.”
      When the door closed, I asked Randolph, “Think I was too hard on him?”
      The CFO stood, removed his suit coat and draped it over the back of his chair.  He began rolling up his shirt sleeves.  “I’d have delivered him on spit to Vlad the Impaler.”
      I plopped in the chair vacated by my Chief Counsel.  “Vlad shmad,” I said.  “I going to deliver him to L. Oliver Bright.”

********************************************************
 Never confuse your allies with your friends. 
 Friends are flowers.  Allies are just an arrangement.  
- L. Oliver Bright
*********************************************************

The Plot Sickens   6/14/13
    Even in the best of times, tracking L. Oliver Bright is akin to tracking a mosquito in a darkened bedroom.  You can hear a lot of buzz, but you can’t quite get your hands on him.
     Babs II manned the phones for eleven hours straight before getting her first solid lead as to Ollie’s current whereabouts.  During that time she’d reached seven continents and spoken to 176 overseas operators who claimed to speak fluent English but couldn’t get beyond English Muffin, English Leather, and, humorously, English Humour. Finally, she struck potential pay dirt on a crackly connection to the gold fields of rural Greenland.  Rural Greenland?  That’s like saying rural moon.
     Babs:  Hello, is this Roscoe Gint?
     R.G.:  Roger.  But you must use a soft G, as in Roger, deary, Gint.
     Babs:  But isn’t that Jint?
     R.G.:  Roger.  Gint.
     Babs:  Oh damn, Roger, I’m sorry.  I must have another wrong number.  I was looking for Roscoe Gint.
     R.G.:  Roger.  You’ve found him.
     Babs:  No, I’m not Roger.  I’m Babs.  I thought you were Roger.  I was looking for Roscoe.
     R.G.:  Babs?  Well, good heavens, Babs, what the devil are you babbling about?”
     Babs:  I’m looking for a Roscoe Gint.
     R.G.:  Yes, yes, Gint, but it’s soft G, as in Roger, you see?
     Babs:  Roger, is Roscoe there?
     Twenty-three hundred dollars worth of satellite phone charges later, Roscoe Gint, aka Roger Jint informed us that he was indeed sharing the very same primitive base camp with a chap coincidentally named Bright.  And, yes, he would be happy to pass along the message that some ‘babbling page named Babs requests Ollie to ring her up smartly regarding some trouble about his nicked spine.”
      Well, it was something.  But given the circumstances and the parties involved, I wasn’t holding out a lot of hope I’d hear from my globe-traipsing husband any time soon.  But I prepared a Birds-Eye ice bag for Babs’ cauliflower ear, and instructed her to rest it.
      As I half-heartedly awaited Ollie’s call, I busied myself preparing dossiers on each of the three Page & Spine board members who were plotting against me in favor of a hostile takeover soon to be initiated by Gene Welton, Founder and Chairman of the Board, International Word.  A defensive (mostly offensive) corporate strategy was already in the works, but I was certainly not going to forget about my three mutineers -- Vuchov, D’Nina, and Wurst.  Or, as I call them, the Toe-Tag Trio.  Hence these detailed dossiers and my urgent search for L. Oliver Bright, Writer of Wrongs and Inventor of the Deep Dark Wedgie. 

Michael F (for Fink). Vuchov
Vices:
High stakes poker.  Renowned for cheating.  Seeks out ‘traveling games’ and buys himself in under assumed identities while impersonating his favorite Hollywood characters.

Tall, aggressive women of un-wifely pedigree, and ingrained penchants for leather lacies, and imaginative restraints.

Antique and collectible cars.  Once drooled on rap artist’s newly restored Bentley, and was rewarded with a thrice broken nose—curtsey of the rapper’s ‘ho d’jour.

Sylvia S (for Strumpet). D’Nina
Deviances:
Seven marriages, five messy divorces; two messier suicides. 

Favors young men with intellects capable of rattling around in a Brontosaurus’ brain pan, and other parts that would have made said Bronto weep with shame.

Cosmetic medicine. Lifted, plumped, tucked, tweaked, and tightened tauter than a tom-tom drum at an Indian casino.

Wladislaw W (for Weasel).  Wurst
Weakspots:
Reputed to have erected a shrine to Dr. Ruth Westheimer in his bedroom.

Doesn’t understand what’s so funny about Dr. Strangelove … or Henry Kissinger.

Has an unhealthy ‘thing’ for Strumpet D’Nina.

Owns and displays in his home 212 cuckoo clocks, all meticulously synchronized to cuckoo as one.

     And those are merely the (printable) headlines.  As I typed these dossiers, I could not even begin to imagine what havoc my beloved Ollie would be able wreak upon my mortal enemies and their houses.  My husband is singularly loyal and deviously creative. But when it comes to vengeance, even the Guy upstairs takes a backseat. 
      Babs, holding a bag of Bird’s-Eye frozen cauliflower florets to her tender cauliflower ear bounded into my office.
      “L. Oliver Bright on line one.”  She beamed.
      I flushed and removed an earring.
      “You mean Roger Roscoe actually delivered the message?”
      “No, Ollie’s at the airport. Says he had a premonition.  Wants us to send a car.”
      I reached for the phone.
      “Hey, sweetie!  Do I have fun a job for you … huh?  … yeah, that, too.”

****************************************
Premonitions are hard to explain. 
But I have a hunch somebody’s just
ying to set me straight. – L. Oliver Bright
****************************************

Cavorting Toward the Cliff   6/21/13
    Even in the best of times, tracking L. Oliver Bright is akin to tracking a mosquito in a darkened bedroom.  You can hear a lot of buzz, but you can’t quite get your hands on him.
     Babs II manned the phones for eleven hours straight before getting her first solid lead as to Ollie’s current whereabouts.  During that time she’d reached seven continents and spoken to 176 overseas operators who claimed to speak fluent English but couldn’t get beyond English Muffin, English Leather, and, humorously, English Humour. Finally, she struck potential pay dirt on a crackly connection to the gold fields of rural Greenland.  Rural Greenland?  That’s like saying rural moon.
     Babs:  Hello, is this Roscoe Gint?
     R.G.:  Roger.  But you must use a soft G, as in Roger, deary, Gint.
     Babs:  But isn’t that Jint?
     R.G.:  Roger.  Gint.
     Babs:  Oh damn, Roger, I’m sorry.  I must have another wrong number.  I was looking for Roscoe Gint.
     R.G.:  Roger.  You’ve found him.
     Babs:  No, I’m not Roger.  I’m Babs.  I thought you were Roger.  I was looking for Roscoe.
     R.G.:  Babs?  Well, good heavens, Babs, what the devil are you babbling about?”
     Babs:  I’m looking for a Roscoe Gint.
     R.G.:  Yes, yes, Gint, but it’s soft G, as in Roger, you see?
     Babs:  Roger, is Roscoe there?
     Twenty-three hundred dollars worth of satellite phone charges later, Roscoe Gint, aka Roger Jint informed us that he was indeed sharing the very same primitive base camp with a chap coincidentally named Bright.  And, yes, he would be happy to pass along the message that some ‘babbling page named Babs requests Ollie to ring her up smartly regarding some trouble about his nicked spine.”
      Well, it was something.  But given the circumstances and the parties involved, I wasn’t holding out a lot of hope I’d hear from my globe-traipsing husband any time soon.  But I prepared a Birds-Eye ice-bag for Babs’ cauliflower ear, and instructed her to rest it.
      As I half-heartedly awaited Ollie’s call, I busied myself preparing dossiers on each of the three Page & Spine board members who were plotting against me in favor of a hostile takeover soon to be initiated by Gene Welton, Founder and Chairman of the Board, International Word.  A defensive (mostly offensive) corporate strategy was already in the works, but I was certainly not going to forget about my three mutineers -- Vuchov, D’Nina, and Wurst.  Or, as I call them, the Toe-Tag Trio.  Hence these detailed dossiers and my urgent search for L. Oliver Bright, Writer of Wrongs and Inventor of the Deep Dark Wedgie.
 
Michael F (for Fink). Vuchov
Vices:
High stakes poker.  Renowned for cheating.  Seeks out ‘traveling games’ and buys himself in under assumed identities while impersonating his favorite Hollywood characters.
 
Tall, aggressive women of un-wifely pedigree, and ingrained penchants for leather lacies, and imaginative restraints.
 
Antique and collectible cars.  Once drooled on rap artist’s newly restored Bentley, and was rewarded with a thrice broken nose—curtsey of the rapper’s ‘ho d’jour.
 
Sylvia S (for Strumpet). D’Nina
Deviances:
Seven marriages, five messy divorces; two messier suicides.
 
Favors young men with intellects capable of rattling around in a Brontosaurus’ brain pan, and other parts that would have made said Bronto weep with shame.
 
Cosmetic medicine. Lifted, plumped, tucked, tweaked, and tightened tauter than a tom-tom drum at an Indian casino.
 
Wladislaw W (for Weasel).  Wurst
Weakspots:
Reputed to have erected a shrine to Dr. Ruth Westheimer in his bedroom.
 
Doesn’t understand what’s so funny about Dr. Strangelove … or Henry Kissinger.
 
Has an unhealthy ‘thing’ for Strumpet D’Nina.
 
Owns and displays in his home 212 cuckoo clocks, all meticulously synchronized to cuckoo as one.
 
     And those are merely the (printable) headlines.  As I typed these dossiers, I could not even begin to imagine what havoc my beloved Ollie would be able wreak upon my mortal enemies and their houses.  My husband is singularly loyal and deviously creative. But when it comes to vengeance, even the Guy upstairs takes a backseat.
      Babs, holding a bag of Bird’s-Eye frozen cauliflower florets to her tender cauliflower ear bounded into my office.
      “L. Oliver Bright on line one.”  She beamed.
      I flushed and removed an earring.
      “You mean Roger Roscoe actually delivered the message?”
      “No, Ollie’s at the airport. Says he had a premonition.  Wants us to send a car.”
      I reached for the phone.
      “Hey, sweetie!  Do I have fun a job for you … huh?  … yeah, that, too.”
 
********************************************
Premonitions are hard to explain. 
But I have a hunch somebody’s just
dying to set me straight. – L. Oliver Bright
********************************************

Frankly, Ollie   6/28/13
    On the off chance you haven’t been paying sufficient attention, a lot had been happening here at Page & Spine International Headquarters and Gift Shop.  Gene (The Obscene) Welton, Founder and CEO of International Word has undertaken a hostile takeover of P&S.  Three members of my Board of Directors are plotting against me.  And I’m counter-scheming a counter-takeover bid.  Fortunately, my new husband, L. Oliver Bright—yes, that L. Oliver Bright—has just flown in from the Greenland gold fields to handle a very secret, very delicate assignment for me.  As a matter of fact, I’m waiting for him arrive when the phone rings …
     “Nikki,” called my Personal Assistant, Babs II,  “Gene Welton from International Word on your personal line.”     I picked up the phone.
     “So, Gene, that big, nasty cold sore on your upper lip clear up yet?”
     He chuckled into the phone. “Pretty much, Nikki, and thanks for asking.”
     “Man, that thing was really nasty,” I said.  “You ever get around to naming it?”
     “Good one, Nik,” the humor had drained out of his voice.  “Listen, I heard you were back in town, so I thought I’d call and offer my congratulations.  Ollie is a very lucky man.”
     “And well endowed, too,” I said, “… with charm.”
     “Yes, I’ve borne the brunt of Ollie’s charm a time or two.  Somehow, I never saw the two of you coming together.”
     “Then you weren’t in Zihuatenajo, Gene.  We made a pretty good spectacle of ourselves.”
     “Nikki,” he said, “do I sense some emanations of, I don’t know … hostility?”
     I sat up straighter.  “You mean as in hostile takeover?”
     “Nikki, Nikki, Nikki,” his voice reminded me of a viper.  “That’s strictly business.  Let’s let our respective stuffed shirts hash all that out. But you’ve got to admit, Page & Spine folded into International Word would make us both twice as strong.”
     “I don’t need a boss, Gene.”
     “Partners, Nikki,’ he cajoled. “We’ll be partners in the fray.”
     “That’s not the way it works, Gene, and you know it.”
     “So how should it work, Nikki?”  I could almost hear the telltale rattle.
     “Call off your dogs, Welton,” I said.  “Let’s go back to being the most cordial of competitors before one of us wakes up with regrets.”
     “A lovely fairy tale, Niks, but you already married that ne'er-do-well Bright. And you should know I have a few aces up my sleeve.”
     “I do know, Gene.”
     “I think not, damsel.”
     “Vuchov, D’Nina, and Wurst.”  I spat the names like bad tastes.
     I heard his intake of breath.  “My, Nikki, you have been one busy little girl since you’ve gotten back.”
     “I’m not a little girl, Gene.  And you don’t know the half of what I’ve been up to.  My advice to you is drop this hot potato before you get burned.”
     “Nikki, that sounds vaguely like a threat.”
     “Really?  Then I guess you’ve got vaguely good ears, Gene.”
     “Nikki, what have you done?”
     “More than you can undo with all the king’s horses, and all the king’s men, hot shot.”
     “I’m beginning to feel troubled, Nikki.”
     “Beginning being the operative word, Gene.”
     “Is that vagabond of a husband of yours involved in this?”
     “That vagabond is my husband, Gene.  Involved doesn’t begin to describe his involvement.”
     As if on cue, L. Oliver Bright burst into my office, face aglow, strut a-strutting.  He perched on the corner on my desk, gave my chin a playful chuck and coaxed the phone out of my hand.
     “Gene,” he said, “this is Ollie.  I know what you’re up to, and I don’t like it.  Furthermore, if you ever call my wife on her personal line again, I will feed your toupee, while you’re wearing it, to a disgusting giraffe who owes me a rather disgusting favor.”
     Ollie hung up the phone, and smiled at me.
     “So, gumdrop,” he said, “shall I lock the office door, or shall we charge admission?”
     Frankly, I didn’t give a damn.
 
*****************************************************
When you’re dealing with unscrupulous people,
don’t be afraid to break the rules …
right over their thick noggins. – L. Oliver Bright
*****************************************************
copyright 2013 by Lee Allen Hill
 

LUNCH AND A BUNCH   7/5/13
     Ollie and I spent the next several hours discussing personal matters.  We had lunch sent up.  I went right for the pickles.  There’s nothing like a half-sour after a few rigorous hours of discussion
     “So where have you been since Zihua, babe,” I asked.
     He slathered horseradish sauce on rye and began engineering a rare roast-beef sandwich that might have fed Napoleon’s army.  “Well, I decided to follow in the footsteps of those great adventurers Hope and Crosby,” he said.
     “Zanzibar, Bali, Singapore?”
     “Yes, and Rio and Morocco, too.”
     I rolled up a few slices of Black Forest Ham and nibble-gnawed.
     “Didn’t happen to run into Dorothy Lamour, did you?”
     He nodded and bit into his sandwich.
     “No, but somewhere on the road between Morocco and Utopia, I had a very delightful encounter with her spitting image.”
     I raised an eyebrow.
     “Spitting image, huh?  You’d better be talking about a camel, Mr. Bright.”
     He bug-eyed innocent.
      “After all those Olympics-worthy gymnastics,” he said, “you’ve still got the energy to pull jealous on me?  Really, Nikki?”
     I licked mustard off his chin.
     “A woman who isn’t jealous, Ollie, is a woman who isn’t interested.”
     He jumped up, stuck his sandwich in his mouth and began rummaging through the deli tray with both hands, throwing lettuce leaves, tomato slices, and cold cuts into the air.
     “What are you doing, you lunatic?”
     He pulled the sandwich from his mouth.
      “Looking for the energy bars.  I have a feeling I’m going to need them.”
 
     After lunch and a second desert, Ollie and I got down to the other kind of business.
     “So how much do you know about the situation, Ollie?”
     He shrugged. “Gene Welton’s trying to move in on Page & Spine—with the help of Vuchov, D’Nina, and Wurst.”
      I shook my head.  “You’ve been camel-hopping all over the world.  How do you know all this?”
     “I also know you’re planning a counterattack—a move on International Word.”
     “Ollie, you are amazing. How do you know all this?”
     He shot me a great Groucho leer.
     “Dorothy Lamour whispered it in my ear.”
     I threw my pen at him.  He didn’t even flinch, the bastard.
     Gathering my dwindling dignity, I said, “You think I have a shot?”
     He stood, walked to the window and gazed out over the city, just like they always do in bad movies.  He even clasped his hands behind his back.  I threw another pen just to show him I wasn’t falling for it.
     “Welton’s a tough piece of gristle, Nikki, when he’s on the offense.  But I don’t think he’s ever had to defend himself.  No one’s ever had the balls before.”
     “And you think I do?”
     The dramatic ham turned his face to just profile, vintage James Mason to a T.
     “We are speaking figuratively, dahling?”  Damn!  He even sounded like James Mason.
     I laughed.  “Well, if you don’t know, James …”
     He turned, smiling, happy his charade had been successful.  I swear, men are only a Gillette Atra and a pint of surging blood removed from little boys.
     “You can handle Gene,” he said, “and you know that.  You want me to deal with the other three—creatively.”
     I smiled.  “Were you born smart, Ollie?”
     “No, sugar,” he said, “but I plan on dying that way.”
     “Not for a while, I hope.”
     He went back to his James Mason impersonation.  “Sorry, old girl, but that’s classified information.”
     “So,” I said, “what do you have in mind for my three traitors?”
      Still in his James Mason mode, he rested his chin in his hand.
      “I think I’ll toilet paper their houses for starters.
      This time, I refrained from pen-throwing.  “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
      “Need to know, love, need to know.”
      What he was really saying was deniability, sweetheart, deniability.   Despite what your mothers tell you, girls, devious men do have their uses. 
 
******************************************************************
Women who marry boring men in hopes of attaining stability
are often blessed with all they asked for. – L. Oliver Bright
******************************************************************

Kama Sutra Interruptus 7/12/13
     I suppose I’d be jumping the gun if I came right out and told you Micheal Vuchov’s body was dragged out of the Hoggy River this morning?  What the hell, you were bound to find out anyway.
     Ollie and I were at my penthouse apartment, just finishing a lengthy and enlightening discussion about pages 74-75 of the Kama Sutra when the phone call came.    
     According to Caller ID, it was Wade Borden, my Operations Manager.  Among Wade’s duties is the fielding of emergency phone calls in the dead of night when normal hardworking people are busy brushing up on their appreciation … and aptitude for Eastern erotic art.
     I sat up in bed, covered myself, and picked up the phone.  I breathed heavily to register my annoyance.
     “This better be damned good, Wade.”
     “Nikki, Micheal Vuchov’s dead,” said Wade.
     Even better than I thought.  I shot my husband an accusatory sneer. 
     He shrugged something as close to innocent as he is able.
     “Vuchov is dead?” I said into the phone, but mostly for Ollie’s benefit.
     Again the scoundrel shrugged his innocence.
     “Tell me what happened, Wade,” I said.
     I hung up the phone and turned to Ollie who was eagerly leafing through the erotic pages with surprisingly renewed vigor.
     “The police dragged Vuchov’s body out of the Hoggy a couple of hours ago.  They say he was murdered.”
     Ollie ignored me, tilted his head one way, and the Kama Sutra the other.
     “Does that mean I’m one-third out of a job already?” he said, without taking his eyes off the provocative illustrations.
     Snatching the book out of his hands, I said, “You didn’t, Ollie.  Did you?”
     He growled and made a grab for the book.
     “Not yet,” he leered, “but I’m game if you are.”
     He was missing the point.  I stashed the volume under the mattress.
     “You know what I’m talking about, wiseguy.”
     “So is that a no as regards pages 94-95?”
     “Cut it out, Ollie,” I warned.  “You didn’t have anything to do with …”
     “Vuchov’s river ride?  Of course not, sweetie.  And you’re my alibi.  How could you think such a thing?”  
     I laid back down and snuggled against him.
“I’m sorry, Ollie.  It’s just that, well, it seems a coincidence, Vuchov getting murdered, considering what we talked about this afternoon.”
     He wrapped an arm around me.
     “I told you I was going to toilet paper his house, for cryin’ out loud.  Who do you think I am, anyway, Luka Brazzi?”
     “You’re right, babe.  I’m sorry.  But we’d better get dressed, darling, the police will be here in a few minutes.”
     Ollie stood up like a shot, and this time it clearly had nothing to do with the mysteries of Eastern carnal gymnastics.    
     “Coming here?  What?  Why are the police coming here?”  He appeared to be quite agitated.  Some of my initial dreads returned.
     “What’s the matter, Ollie?  I’m sure this is just routine.  They drag a guy out of the river, they just normally interview people who knew him, had business dealings with him, right?”
      He hopped back and forth from one foot to the other.
     “At 3:30 in the morning, Nikki?”
     I glanced at the clock.  “I guess.  It’s a homicide investigation, Sherlock.  They don’t keep office hours, do they?  And anyway, relax, you’ve been with me all night, you have an alibi.”
     Ollie rummaged through the duffle he’d arrived with and pulled on a pair of faded jeans.  Ever notice how some men look their best in frayed, faded jeans?  Pages 94-95 where looking better to me.
     “I’m not sure either one of us has an alibi, Nikki,” he said.
     “What do you mean?  I saw Vuchov, alive and well, just before we left the office.  And we were both here all night.”
     He folded one knee and rested it on the edge of the bed.
     “Remember?  You sent me out for Tandoori around nine o’clock?  Wanted something that ‘tasted Kama Sutra-ish’?”
     “Yeah, but you weren’t gone too long.”
     “How long is too long?  There’s a bridge over the Hoggy River just two blocks from here.”
     I was beginning to see what he meant.  “Are we suspects, Ollie?”
     He threw on a shirt and started buttoning. 
     “Depends on time of death, I guess.  Between nine and ten o’clock last night neither of us has an alibi.”
     That’s when someone began pounding on the door.  
     And that’s when I realized I was naked.

************************************************************************
“In my experience, naked women make the best liars.” – L. Oliver Bright
************************************************************************

Complications at 3:30 am   7/19/13
It was just like a scene out of a movie: 3:30 in the morning, the buxom broad is naked in bed, and the cops are banging on the door.  Only this time, I’m the broad, and I have very definite modesty issues.
            I scrambled out of bed and scurry self-consciously to my walk-in closet.  My husband, Ollie, who’d had the presence of mind to get dressed as soon as he’d heard the police were on their way, watched me with considerable amusement.
            “Just throw on a robe,” he said.  “I’ll let them in.”
Just throw on a robe?  Who’s he kidding?  I can’t be naked under a flimsy robe in front of policemen.  They’re trained to see things, for Pete’s sake.  Isn’t that how Sharon Stone started?  I pulled on jeans, tube socks, and a bra, then threw on a long, flowing, lavender chiffon robe.  Not exactly haute couture, maybe, but policemen aren’t Vera Wang, and, besides, they make me nervous.  Sue me.
            By the time I grandly swished Nora Charles-esque into the living room, Ollie had already escorted our guests into the kitchen and was in the process of firing up our elaborate Musso coffee/espresso/cappuccino machine.
            This secondary swishing entrance had more the desired effect.  The three men in the kitchen turned their heads and greeted me with distinctly different expressions.
            Ollie’s expression was smirky … What the hell are wearing, idiot?
            Detective Number One’s appraisal was lascivious … Hubba-Hubba!
            While gorgeous Detective Number Two peered at me with absolutely no interest … yawn.  I was slightly offended, but also happy to see that the city was finally promoting gay detectives.
“Nikki, sweetheart,” Ollie grinned, affecting a slightly David Niven aire, “let me introduce Detectives Smoltz and Larsen.”
            Smoltz, the elder of the two, was the lecher.  I shook hands with both officials, then joined Ollie at the coffee machine.
            I could feel the older detective undressing me with his eyes, while the cute, younger one silently passed judgment on my outlandish ensemble.  Make that, smartly bohemian, ensemble.
            “It’s 3:30 in the morning, for heaven’s sake,” I noted defensively while trying to pat my bed-head hair into place.
            “And we’re very sorry to have to disturb you folks at this hour,” said Smoltz.  “But when it comes to high-profile homicide investigations, well, time is money.”
            I felt Ollie twitch at the word homicide, but neither of us said anything.
            The older detective went on.
            “Based on personal effects, we were able to determine Mr. Vuchov had connections to Page & Spine, so we were hoping you folks, having known the deceased, might be able to provide us with some information.”
            “Of course,” I said, “but our relationship with Michael was based purely on business.”
            The two detectives exchanged looks.
            Ollie spoke up.  “What makes you call this a homicide, Detective Smoltz?”
            “Because he was murdered,” asserted Larsen, the younger detective, through gritted teeth.
            Remember what I said about Larsen being cute?  Scratch that.
            “Business is all about money,” Larsen continued, “and money makes for a powerful murder motive.  Can you both account for your whereabouts last night?”
            Again I felt Ollie tense.
            I took the lead.  “We were both right here since seven in the evening.”  Okay, I told a white lie, doesn’t make me Charlie Manson.
            Ollie kept his tongue and did the pouring.
            “You don’t consider us suspects,” he finally asked, as he filled Smoltz’s mug, then Larsen’s.
            “Suspects?” asked the older detective.  “Please, we’re only beginning our investigation, gathering background info, that’s all.”
            My husband filled my cup.
            “If that’s the case,” Ollie said calmly, “why is your partner asking about our alibis?”
            Smoltz slurped from his cup.   “Good java, huh, Larsen?”  he said.
            By his tone I deduced he was sending his partner a signal.  Larsen must have received it, because he sipped and smiled, but remained silent.
            “We’re just goin’ by the book, Mr. Bright, Ms Wagner.”  Smoltz’s tone was conciliatory.  “But when we have no suspects, young detectives tend to think everyone is a suspect.  Excellent coffee, by the way.”
            Ollie leaned his elbows on the kitchen island.
            “You know I went out for Indian last night, don’t you?”
            Larsen was about to speak, but Smoltz shot him a look.
            “Tandoori usually repeats on me,” the older detective said.  “The wife ain’t a fan of me eating it.”
            I slid Ollie a questioning look, but he ignored me.
            “And you have a witness saw me run into Michael Vuchov, right?” Ollie guessed.
            Larsen stared into his cup.  “Ran into, Mr. Bright?  Or did you keep a prearranged appointment?”
            This was all new information to me.  Ollie never mentioned meeting Michael Vuchov last night.
            I tried to divert attention from Ollie.
            “Vuchov lived nearby, detectives,” I reasoned.  “I’d run into him on the street all the time.”
            Smoltz gazed at me from under his eyebrows.
            “He ever show up dead a few hours later, Ms Wagner?”
            I looked at Ollie.  He studied the floor.
 
*****************************************************
Sometimes the difference between a fish-story
and a fine meal is high heat and tartar sauce.
– L. Oliver Bright
*****************************************************

Ollie the Obfuscator    7/26/13
   Once the policemen had gone, it was time for the real interrogation to commence.
     “Okay, sweetie,” I said to my husband, “why didn’t you mention that you’d run into Michael Vuchov while you were out picking up our dinner?”
     Ollie gathered the dirty coffee mugs and began rinsing them out in the sink.
     “Because I didn’t want to make my lovely and fetching bride an accessory to murder,” he said with a straight face.
     I sighed.  Ollie is a hard nut.  Interpret that as you will.
     “So you admit to murdering the man?”
     He placed the clean mugs on the drainboard, shut off the water, and turned to face me.  He bugged his eyes.
     “Yes, yes, I confess, Constable,” he cried, with a fiendish laugh.  “It was murder most foul.”  He took a menacing step closer to me.  “First, I stabbed him with my poison-tipped umbrella …”
     “Cut it out, Ollie,” I scolded, as I stepped back.
     “Then, I slit his throat with my razor-honed American Express Card.  Remind me to send for a new one, will you?”
     I held up my hands in surrender.  “Okay, okay, I get it.”
     “Finally, I ran him through with my rapier wit!” He grabbed a wooden spoon out of the utensil crock and thrust and parried around the kitchen like Errol Flynn … or, maybe, Richard Simmons.
     “Now that would definitely be a slow and painful death,” I said.
     He dropped the spoon, and the act, and put his arms around me.
     “I had nothing to do with Vuchov’s death, Nikki.  But that doesn’t mean I’m completely out of the woods.”
     I didn’t completely like the sound of completely.
     “Okay, spill it, Bright.”
     He held me tighter, rubbing my back.  “Why don’t we just go back to bed, sweetie.  It’s awfully early to be this late in the morning.”
     “Nice try, Ollie,” I said, pulling away from him.  “But you can’t expect me to sleep now.”
     My husband’s hips began to Hula.  “Who said anything about sleep?  Who knows if they’ll even allow us conjugal visits?”
    Against my baser judgment, I broke away and maneuvered myself to the other side of the breakfast counter.
     “This isn’t funny, mister,” I reasoned.  “Did something happen between you and Vuchov last night?”
     Ollie picked up the wooden spoon and returned it to its rightful place. 
      “You ever watch those English murder mysteries on Public TV, Nikki?”
     “You know I do.”
     He shrugged.  “Well, in that context, you might say Vuchov and I ‘had words’ last night.”
     I was becoming more nervous.
     “Words?  What kind of words, Ollie?”
     “Nouns, verbs … mostly verbs, I guess.  A few colorful adjectives thrown in for spice.”
     “You argued, then?”
     Ollie tugged thoughtfully on one of his ears.
     “Discussed vociferously,” he conceded.
     I felt my knees weakening.
     “And there were witnesses to this vociferous discussion?”
     “Witnesses?”  He began to pace.  “Nikki, you can’t have a private thought in this city without it being seen, and noted, and probably videotaped by two thousand strangers.”
     I didn’t say anything for a while.  I was afraid to.
     Finally, I screwed up my courage, and said, “Ollie, you didn’t, by any chance, threaten to kill Michael Vuchov in front of two thousand videotaping witnesses, did you?”
     He stopped pacing and stared defiantly into my eyes.
     “I never threatened to kill Michael Vuchov.”
     “Uh huh,” I said.  “So what did you threaten him with?  And tell me about TPing his house again.”
     He wagged his finger at me.  I knew he was stalling, struggling to come up with a plausible obfuscation.  Ollie never lies, but that’s only because he’s so good at obfuscation he doesn’t have to. 
     Finally, his shoulders sagged.  “I said I’d ‘do him in’.”  He brightened.  “But there are dozens of ways a good lawyer could interpret that.”
     I leaned my palms on the breakfast counter and bowed my head.  “You told Vuchov you were planning to ‘do him in’ in front of two thousand witnesses?”
     He didn’t respond right away, but when he did, his voice was soft.  “I probably exaggerated the number, honey.  You know how I like to perform in front of an audience.”
     “One thousand?” I asked, without looking up.
     “Twelve hundred, tops.”

************************************************************************
Someday we’ll realize we traded our legal ‘expectation of privacy’
for a frivolous cellphone camera. We are Big Brother. – L. Oliver Bright
************************************************************************
copyright 2013 by Lee Allen Hill
 

 
Building Cases   8/2/13
     You know those dreams where you’re just about to be mauled by a bear, or tumble off a steep, rocky cliff to your certain demise, but you wake up just before the worst can happen?  Breathless, but alive!  You know that sense of ultimate relief that courses through your body when you realize it was all a just a dream?  It has to be akin to the feeling a severely mortgage-challenged person experiences when he bug-eye witnesses the Clearinghouse Publishers Prize Patrol pull up just ahead of the deputies ready to enforce the eviction notice.  You know that relief, right?  Well, I wasn’t feeling none of that.
     My eyes flicked from one detective to the other.  “Are you insinuating something happened to Diane D’Nina?”
     “The last something happened,” said Detective Larsen as though he was delivering a line in a movie.
     “Death happened,” added Detective Smoltz matter-of-factly.
     “That’s terrible,” I said, meaning it.  But I won’t deny that my deeper concern was not reserved for the newly departed.  The detectives were on a fact-finding mission.
     “We’re very sorry for your loss, Ms. Wagner,” sniffed Larsen, importantly.  He was really getting on my nerves.  “But isn’t it true there was no love lost between you and Diane D’Nina?”
     Not so fast, pretty boy.  I turned, instead, to Smoltz.  My calm, cold, corporate CEO face firmly in place, I addressed the senior man.
     “Just what is your impetuous young friend implying, Detective?”  I shot a sidelong dagger at the offending Larsen.  Learn your place, upstart.
     Smoltz, who was sitting on the edge of his chair, rested his forearms on his knees and rubbed his hands together as if they were cold.
     “Well, you have to admit the uncomfortable coincidences are building up here, Ma’am.”
     I ice-coated my voice.  “I see no coincidences.  We all die, Detective.  I hardly call that a coincidence.  Would you mind telling me the circumstances of Diane’s passing?”
     The older detective shot his antsy partner a warning glance.
     “Well, Ma’am, one school of thought suggests she was a suicide.  Ms D’Nina apparently jumped to her death off the roof of her apartment building.”
     “Suicide, my left nut,” mumbled Larsen.
     I turned to him.  “So, there are other schools of thought, young man?  Please do enlighten me.”
     “Detective Larsen,” he snapped, rewarding my condescension.  “You’re an accomplished woman, Ms Wagner.  You run one of the largest media corporations in the world, and you don’t think it’s funny that two of your Board Members have died under suspicious circumstances in the last twenty-four hours?”
     My stare was intentionally passive. “Do I think it’s funny, Detective Larsen?  No.  I think it’s a tragedy.  What’s more, I resent your insensitivity, as well as your clumsily veiled implications.”
     Smoltz cleared his throat, and used both hands to make a ‘slow down’ gesture.
     “We don’t mean to imply anything, Ms Wagner,” he offered to me, then looked hard at Larsen.  “Isn’t that right, Detective Larsen?”
     “Right,” Larsen admitted with all the dispassion of a rabid raccoon.
     Smoltz leaned back in his chair, expelled an expressive sigh.   “I’ll lay it out for you, Ma’am.  To an old cop like me, Vuchov and D’Nina both turning up dead … one right after the other?  Well, it makes me feel like I got spiders crawling around in my shorts, you know what I mean?”
     Despite myself, I had to smile.  “You ever thought about writing for a living, Detective?”
     He rolled his eyes.  “I write checks so my two ex-wives can live on their bon-bons everyday, does that count?”
     Despite myself … and the murky waters I traversed … I was growing to like this guy.
     “Suppose you tell me about the spiders crawling in your shorts, Detective,” I said.
     Smoltz bowed his blushing face.  “It’s just a manner of speakin’, Ms Wagner.”
     “But very expressive,” I said.  “Why don’t you tell me exactly what’s on your mind?”
     All hint of his blush was gone when he looked into straight and narrow into my eyes.  “Tell me, to the best of your recollection when you last saw your husband, and anything you know about his present whereabouts …”
     I opened my mouth to speak, but Smoltz pressed on.
     “… Any false or misleading statements could lead to accessory and/or abetting charges with very serious penalties.”
     My stomach did a loop, but I showed Smoltz one gleeful finger on my left hand, while I punched in the numbers for my lawyer with my right.

*************************************************
Those who claim to possess lawful authority,
are often the authors of the law.  Beware. 
 –L. Oliver Bright
**************************************************

Under Attack   8/9/13
     You know those dreams where you’re just about to be mauled by a bear, or tumble off a steep, rocky cliff to your certain demise, but you wake up just before the worst can happen?  Breathless, but alive!  You know that sense of ultimate relief that courses through your body when you realize it was all a just a dream?  It has to be akin to the feeling a severely mortgage-challenged person experiences when he bug-eye witnesses the Clearinghouse Publishers Prize Patrol pull up just ahead of the deputies ready to enforce the eviction notice.  You know that relief, right?  Well, I wasn’t feeling none of that.
     My eyes flicked from one detective to the other.  “Are you insinuating something happened to Diane D’Nina?”
     “The last something happened,” said Detective Larsen as though he was delivering a line in a movie.
     “Death happened,” added Detective Smoltz matter-of-factly.
     “That’s terrible,” I said, meaning it.  But I won’t deny that my deeper concern was not reserved for the newly departed.  The detectives were on a fact-finding mission.
     “We’re very sorry for your loss, Ms. Wagner,” sniffed Larsen, importantly.  He was really getting on my nerves.  “But isn’t it true there was no love lost between you and Diane D’Nina?”
     Not so fast, pretty boy.  I turned, instead, to Smoltz.  My calm, cold, corporate CEO face firmly in place, I addressed the senior man.
     “Just what is your impetuous young friend implying, Detective?”  I shot a sidelong dagger at the offending Larsen.  Learn your place, upstart.
     Smoltz, who was sitting on the edge of his chair, rested his forearms on his knees and rubbed his hands together as if they were cold.
     “Well, you have to admit the uncomfortable coincidences are building up here, Ma’am.”
     I ice-coated my voice.  “I see no coincidences.  We all die, Detective.  I hardly call that a coincidence.  Would you mind telling me the circumstances of Diane’s passing?”
     The older detective shot his antsy partner a warning glance.
     “Well, Ma’am, one school of thought suggests she was a suicide.  Ms D’Nina apparently jumped to her death off the roof of her apartment building.”
     “Suicide, my left nut,” mumbled Larsen.
     I turned to him.  “So, there are other schools of thought, young man?  Please do enlighten me.”
     “Detective Larsen,” he snapped, rewarding my condescension.  “You’re an accomplished woman, Ms Wagner.  You run one of the largest media corporations in the world, and you don’t think it’s funny that two of your Board Members have died under suspicious circumstances in the last twenty-four hours?”
     My stare was intentionally passive. “Do I think it’s funny, Detective Larsen?  No.  I think it’s a tragedy.  What’s more, I resent your insensitivity, as well as your clumsily veiled implications.”
     Smoltz cleared his throat, and used both hands to make a ‘slow down’ gesture.
     “We don’t mean to imply anything, Ms Wagner,” he offered to me, then looked hard at Larsen.  “Isn’t that right, Detective Larsen?”
     “Right,” Larsen admitted with all the dispassion of a rabid raccoon.
     Smoltz leaned back in his chair, expelled an expressive sigh.   “I’ll lay it out for you, Ma’am.  To an old cop like me, Vuchov and D’Nina both turning up dead … one right after the other?  Well, it makes me feel like I got spiders crawling around in my shorts, you know what I mean?”
     Despite myself, I had to smile.  “You ever thought about writing for a living, Detective?”
     He rolled his eyes.  “I write checks so my two ex-wives can live on their bon-bons everyday, does that count?”
     Despite myself … and the murky waters I traversed … I was growing to like this guy.
     “Suppose you tell me about the spiders crawling in your shorts, Detective,” I said.
     Smoltz bowed his blushing face.  “It’s just a manner of speakin’, Ms Wagner.”
     “But very expressive,” I said.  “Why don’t you tell me exactly what’s on your mind?”
     All hint of his blush was gone when he looked into straight and narrow into my eyes.  “Tell me, to the best of your recollection when you last saw your husband, and anything you know about his present whereabouts …”
     I opened my mouth to speak, but Smoltz pressed on.
     “… Any false or misleading statements could lead to accessory and/or abetting charges with very serious penalties.”
     My stomach did a loop, but I showed Smoltz one gleeful finger on my left hand, while I punched in the numbers for my lawyer with my right.

*************************************************
Those who claim to possess lawful authority,
are often the authors of the law.  Beware.  
–L. Oliver Bright
**************************************************

Lawyering Up   8/16/13
     Hey, I’m pretty good at juggling.  It’s what we Captains of Industry do.  But keeping a lot of balls in the air doesn’t usually include actual testicles.  And I’m not just talking about Ollie’s either.  A woman doesn’t become a success in the world of international business without growing a pair of her own.  And my own were in jeopardy of hitting the ground as much as my husband’s.
     Gene Welton of International Media, a ruthless and ravenous shark, had already instituted hostile grab for control of Page & Spine long before these more current complications arose.   Alleging ‘management instability’ because of my surprise marriage to L. Oliver Bright, Welton had managed to turn three of my board members against me.  Refusing to play defense, I initiated a counter offensive designed not only to neutralize Gene’s attack, but to leverage my considerable influence to gain a foothold of power within International Media itself. An audacious plan, to be sure, but based on sound strategy—as well as my deep and abiding loathing for Mr. Welton.  Then the bodies started to pile up.  And I’m not being metaphorical, either.  Two of the three traitors on my board suddenly and suspiciously turned up dead.  To make matters worse, law enforcement officials have declared L. Oliver Bright a person of interest in both cases.  Now, with blood in the water, business shark Gene Welton would certainly be circling for the kill.
     I was sitting at my desk contemplating my predicament when Babs II stuck her head around the door jamb.
     “Any word from Ollie?”  she asked.
     I shook my head. 
     “I think he’s laying low.  He knows how it looks.”
     She took a couple of steps into the room.
     “You think the coppers tapped the phones?” she asked conspiratorially.
     Again I shook my head.
     “Not legally,” I said, “but…”  I showed her the cell phone I’d been staring at and willing to ring for the last few hours.
     Babs crept a bit closer.
     “Those aren’t safe, either—at least not on TV,” she whispered.
     Paranoia must be contagious, because I’d been thinking the same thing.
     “Call Walter for me, please,” I said.  “Tell him to get my car ready.  I’ll meet him in the garage in fifteen minutes.”
     She nodded.  “Not the helicopter?”
     “No good where I’m going.”
     Babs considered that.  “You want company?  I took Karate lessons for a couple of weeks.  Pink belt.  Hai!”
     “Not this time, Babs Lee,” I said.  “I need you to stay here in case Ollie calls.”
     She started out the door, then turned back.
     “Where will you be?  If he does call, what do you want me to tell him?”
     “Just tell him, The cheese stands alone.
     My assistant grinned.  “What, you guys got a code, or something?”
     “Did you hear what I said?”
     “Yeah, yeah, the cheese stands alone.  That’s so darn cute.  You guys could be Nick and Nora Charles.”

     Walter was waiting by the car, holding the door open for me.
     “Miz Daisy,” he said.
     “Rastus,” I replied.
    Walter waited until we’d spiraled all but the last of the garage ramps before asking.
     “I forget, this be Mah Jonng Wednesday, or Botox Thursday?”
     “This be Mandingo Monday, buck.  Just drive around for a while, and make plenty of turns.  I need to know if we’re being followed.”
     Walter glanced at me through the rearview mirror, nodded his clear understanding, but he couldn’t resist another jape. 
     “You white womens,” he tutted.  “All y’all gots to have it kinky.”
     After fifteen minutes of seemingly random lefts and rights, Walter spoke up.
     “Looks like they’re going all out on you, Nikki.  At least a three-car rotation.  You rob a Seven Eleven last night, or what?”
     “Yeah, dollface,"  I Bogarted, “and I’ll split my Slim Jims with you if you can lose ‘em.”
     “Temptress,” he accused while taking another turn.  “If it was just the cars, I could probably give ‘em the slip.  But I’m guessing they have a bird in the air.  What we need to do is smuggle you out of the car, then let me take our friends on a wild goose chase out to the country.”
     Who said good help is hard to find?
     “I suppose you have an idea as to the smuggling part?”
     “Yes’m, Miz Daisy.  I calls it the underground railroad.”

******************************************
The only way to be a leader is to stay
several steps ahead of your followers. 
– L. Oliver Bright
******************************************
 
The Cheese Stands Alone   8/23/13
     Hey, I’m pretty good at juggling.  It’s what we Captains of Industry do.  But keeping a lot of balls in the air doesn’t usually include actual testicles.  And I’m not just talking about Ollie’s either.  A woman doesn’t become a success in the world of international business without growing a pair of her own.  And my own were in jeopardy of hitting the ground as much as my husband’s.
     Gene Welton of International Media, a ruthless and ravenous shark, had already instituted hostile grab for control of Page & Spine long before these more current complications arose.   Alleging ‘management instability’ because of my surprise marriage to L. Oliver Bright, Welton had managed to turn three of my board members against me.  Refusing to play defense, I initiated a counter offensive designed not only to neutralize Gene’s attack, but to leverage my considerable influence to gain a foothold of power within International Media itself. An audacious plan, to be sure, but based on sound strategy—as well as my deep and abiding loathing for Mr. Welton.  Then the bodies started to pile up.  And I’m not being metaphorical, either.  Two of the three traitors on my board suddenly and suspiciously turned up dead.  To make matters worse, law enforcement officials have declared L. Oliver Bright a person of interest in both cases.  Now, with blood in the water, business shark Gene Welton would certainly be circling for the kill.
     I was sitting at my desk contemplating my predicament when Babs II stuck her head around the door jamb.
     “Any word from Ollie?”  she asked.
     I shook my head. 
     “I think he’s laying low.  He knows how it looks.”
     She took a couple of steps into the room.
     “You think the coppers tapped the phones?” she asked conspiratorially.
     Again I shook my head.
     “Not legally,” I said, “but…”  I showed her the cell phone I’d been staring at and willing to ring for the last few hours.
     Babs crept a bit closer.
     “Those aren’t safe, either—at least not on TV,” she whispered.
     Paranoia must be contagious, because I’d been thinking the same thing.
     “Call Walter for me, please,” I said.  “Tell him to get my car ready.  I’ll meet him in the garage in fifteen minutes.”
     She nodded.  “Not the helicopter?”
     “No good where I’m going.”
     Babs considered that.  “You want company?  I took Karate lessons for a couple of weeks.  Pink belt.  Hai!”
     “Not this time, Babs Lee,” I said.  “I need you to stay here in case Ollie calls.”
     She started out the door, then turned back.
     “Where will you be?  If he does call, what do you want me to tell him?”
     “Just tell him, The cheese stands alone.
     My assistant grinned.  “What, you guys got a code, or something?”
     “Did you hear what I said?”
     “Yeah, yeah, the cheese stands alone.  That’s so darn cute.  You guys could be Nick and Nora Charles.”

     Walter was waiting by the car, holding the door open for me.
     “Miz Daisy,” he said.
     “Rastus,” I replied.
    Walter waited until we’d spiraled all but the last of the garage ramps before asking.
     “I forget, this be Mah Jonng Wednesday, or Botox Thursday?”
     “This be Mandingo Monday, buck.  Just drive around for a while, and make plenty of turns.  I need to know if we’re being followed.”
     Walter glanced at me through the rearview mirror, nodded his clear understanding, but he couldn’t resist another jape. 
     “You white womens,” he tutted.  “All y’all gots to have it kinky.”
     After fifteen minutes of seemingly random lefts and rights, Walter spoke up.
     “Looks like they’re going all out on you, Nikki.  At least a three-car rotation.  You rob a Seven Eleven last night, or what?”
     “Yeah, dollface,"  I Bogarted, “and I’ll split my Slim Jims with you if you can lose ‘em.”
     “Temptress,” he accused while taking another turn.  “If it was just the cars, I could probably give ‘em the slip.  But I’m guessing they have a bird in the air.  What we need to do is smuggle you out of the car, then let me take our friends on a wild goose chase out to the country.”
     Who said good help is hard to find?
     “I suppose you have an idea as to the smuggling part?”
     “Yes’m, Miz Daisy.  I calls it the underground railroad.”

******************************************
The only way to be a leader is to stay
several steps ahead of your followers. 
– L. Oliver Bright
******************************************

Shakin’ MyTail   8/30/13
     I rode in back of the limousine while Walter, my trusted driver, drove fast, and murmured into his cell phone.
     I had to find Ollie.  Or let him find me.  But I suspected my phones were tapped and Walter had just confirmed we were being tailed.  I needed to shake my followers, and I’d asked Walter to come up with a plan.  He closed his phone, and nodded at me through the rearview mirror.
     “Two blocks up, Miz Daisy, I’m going to take a hard right into The Edison Hotel’s underground garage, I’m going to stop real quick in front of a door, you’re going to scoot your fine ass out the car like it was covered in Vaseline, see?  Then I’m gonna speed out the exit on the other side.  You got that?  Whoever’s pinned the tail on your donkey is going to know I’m trying to shake them, but if you’re quick enough, they won’t know you vamoosed, see?  Once you in the clear, I take a few more evasive measures for good measure, then lead them up to chipmunk country like I think I lost them and we’re on our way to rendezvous with your rascal Ollie.  By the time they realize I’m flying solo, you can be on a plane to Mozambique if that’s where you want to be.  You got all that?”
      I smiled, and made a mental note to get to know Walter better once all this crap got resolved.
     “Well,” I said, “I’m clear as far as my ass covered in Vaseline. So, I get out of the car, then what happens?”
     Walter slapped the steering wheel.  “No, Nikki, you don’t get out of the car, you scoot your ass like it’s on fire, see?  Because I ain’t really coming to a full stop, girl.  You gonna hit the pavement running like one of them tight sisters tears up the Olympics, you know?” 
     I glanced at my designer heels with a dubious headshake.  “Sure, I hit the pavement running, then what?”
     “Then you meet my buddy, Sugar.  He’ll be holding a service door open for you.  You scoot through slick before the tail sees, see?  You don’t stop and shake hands or nothing, see?  You keep scooting your fine ass like you being chased by Bill Clinton, see?”
     I saw, all right.  But I kind of wished he’d say fine ass one more time.
     “Sugar’ll take you through guts of the hotel to another side door where a taxi’ll be waiting.  Then you’ll be as free as a bird, Nikki.”
     “Walter,” I said, “when did I last give you a raise?”
     “Three days ago.”
     “You’re overdue,” I said.
     He caught my eye in the rearview.  “What I was thinking.”
     He scaled me a card with a hand-written number on the back. 
     “Buy a pre-paid disposable phone,” he said.  “Call that number, ask for Rastus.  I’m on it, y’hear?”
      “Walter,” I said, “Ollie didn’t kill anyone,”
     “Uh-huh,” he said.  “I’m making a sharp turn, Nikki.  Get your ass ready to scoot.”
     My ass scooted like it never scooted before.

*****************************************
Exactly when did ‘Person of interest’
come to imply guilt instead of wit?
– L. Oliver Bright
*****************************************
copyright 2013 by Lee Allen Hill

Another Pleasant Getaway   9/6/2013
     Walter wasn’t kidding about not coming to a complete stop.  I exited the limousine at 10 mph, and abruptly slowed to zero.  Luckily, an enormous black man was there to prevent me from smearing mascara on the macadam.  Before I knew what was happening, this giant of a man had me righted, and pulled through a door which he immediately slammed shut.  I vaguely remember hearing squealing tires and my own pitiful squeaks of alarm and confusion.
     The black giant pressed me tightly against a cinderblock wall in an effort to keep me from crumpling to me knees.
     “I’m Walter’s friend,” he explained slowly and calmly.
     His weight against me somehow gave me the strength to speak.  “Any friend of Walters,” I said.
     “Call me Sugar,” he said. “You think you can stand on your own now, Miz Daisy?”
     “Call me Nikki,” I smiled looking up at him, “unless you want me to call you Mandingo.”
      Sugar split a grin like a crescent moon.  “Walter told me about you.  Said you’re the palest black auntie he ever met.”  Sugar eased his weight off me, evidently confidant I could now stand on my own two feet.
     “Really?”  I said, flexing my knees to see if I concurred with the big man’s conclusion.     “Walter thinks of me as his ‘auntie’?”
     Sugar took me by the hand and led down a narrow but well-lit hallway.  “We best be moving, Nikki, just in case we didn’t fool those guys chasing you.”  He guided me through a labyrinth of angular subterranean hallways heavily populated by maids, cooks, bellmen, and all sorts of other hotel scurriers.  “Auntie is a term of respect, you know?”
     I had to smile at the big man.  “Yes, I know.  I’m very fond of Walter, too.”
     He squeezed my hand, then yanked, saving me from being run over by a runaway room service cart.  “Walter said I should ask you for a job,” he said.
     “What?”  I said, “And give up saving aunties in distress?”
      “Walter says saving you might probably work into a fulltime job.”
     We were racing down a long, straight corridor with no other traffic.  I could see a door labeled ‘Fire Exit’ at the end.
     “You real want to save me, Sugar?”
     “Wouldn’t let nothing happen to my auntie, would I?”
     We were approaching the door.
     I smiled at the big man. “How much notice were you planning on giving your present employer?” I asked.
     He tore off his clip-on tie and threw it to the floor.  “They’ll get the idea.”
     “There’s a cab waiting on the other side of that door, right, Sugar?”
     “If not, I’ll carry you on my back, Auntie Nikki.”
     “How far?” I asked.
     “That far,” he said.
     There was a cab waiting … which Sugar and I scrambled into with all the decorum of a pig-pile.
     The turbaned cabbie wasted no time peeling away from the curb.  Smiling into the rearview mirror, he said, “Walter instructed me to corkscrew around until I was sure we are not being followed.  I hope this will not inconvenience you, Auntie Nikki.  I am Jarwal, and I am here to be of service.  Perhaps you will introduce me to your most gigantic friend?”
     Evidently Jarwal took ‘corkscrewing’ seriously, because he never came to a corner he didn’t veer sharply into, tossing Sugar and me around the backseat like the last two Jujubes in the box.  Finally, and just before Sugar and I were forced to exchange gum, Jarwal found a straightaway.
     “I am most certain now, my friends, we are not being followed,” he said, ogling through the rearview.  “You are free, ma’am, to now lower your skirt to a more discreet position.”
     I held his stare in the mirror while I awkwardly complied.  Sugar, I noticed, averted his eyes.  Remind me to give him a raise.
     “Where shall I take you to?” Jarwal asked.
     I leaned forward.  “Does the phrase, ‘The cheese stands alone’ mean anything to you, Jarwal?”
     He adjusted his turban before answering.  “And which cheese is this?”
     “Good,” I said.  I told him where I needed to go.
 
****************************************************
A desperate animal will usually opt for escape. 
A desperate human female is far less predictable . 
– L. Oliver Bright
****************************************************
 
O, Wilderness   9/13/13
     It took just about forty minutes for us to cross the state line and exit the interstate.  Soon after that, we found ourselves navigating narrow, rutted country roads on our way to the tiny hamlet of Belchertown. 
     As I watched curious cows and ineffective scarecrows stream by the window I remember wondering how I could possibly have gotten this far from the big city in forty short minutes. And I thanked God for GPS, because I doubted Lewis & Clarke’s Corps of Discovery could have found the place I was aiming for in a hundred years (with all due apologies to Sacajawea—hey this wasn’t her turf).
     Jarwal studied the GPS screen in contained horror, making several turns and cut-backs down roads that seemed to be leading us straight back to Manifest Destiny, or beyond.
     “Auntie Nikki,” the driver whined, “are you sure you told me the name of the funny-sounding town correctly?  I am most fearing an attack from wild Indians.”
     The irony of his concern was not lost on me, and I was starting to have my own doubts as to the wisdom of my choice of location to set a much needed rendezvous with my semi-fugitive husband, L. Oliver Bright.  I’d been to Belchertown with Ollie only once, and while I remembered it being rural, I didn’t recall frontier.  I wondered if it was possible for a cable TV-challenged geographical region to actually backslide in time.
     “You’re doing fine, Jarwal,” I said with confidence I didn’t feel.  “Just follow the directions on the screen.  We should be there any minute.”  Make that, century.
      Sugar pointed to a cow wandering along the side of the road.  “Better mark this spot on the GPS, Jarwal,” he said, “in case we get lost overnight, at least we won’t have to go all Donner Party on each other.”
     I slapped his thigh, and he grinned.  Then he said, “You think these crackers live up here ever seen a black man before, Auntie Nikki?” I shot him a raised eyebrow.  “If not, there’s a good chance they’ll want to make me king.”
     “Or a tree ornament,” I countered.
     Jarwal, maybe imagining he was helming the Starship Enterprise, reported:  “Captain, I see a curious blinking before my eyes.”
      I looked through the windshield.
     “We’ve made it gentlemen,” I slapped the top of the front seat. “That blinking yellow light represent the end of our journey.  I give you, downtown Belchertown.”
     Jarwal was not relieved. “But the light has only one color, Auntie.  It cannot tell me to stop or to go, but only insists I be cautious.  I’m not sure I want to linger in a place where I’m advised to be cautious all the time,” he said.
     Sugar chimed in.  “For God’s sakes, Jarwal, you drive a cab in the big bad city, don’t you?”
     “The huge, dark man makes an excellent point,” conceded Jarwal, as he pulled the cab over to the side of the road just short of the winking traffic beacon. 
     A half dozen or so one- and two-story buildings clustered around the lonely intersection.  Directly to the right of the cab, dominating the southeast corner of the intersection, sat a barn-red, clapboard building with a wide, awning-shaded front porch festooned with stacks of galvanized washtubs, bins of fresh produce, a pickle barrel, and a few bent-twig rockers, one of which was occupied by a curled-up but suspicious one-eyed calico. The weathered sign above the front door read: 
     The Farmer in the Smell – Cheeses and Less Aromatic Merchandise 
     In smaller letters the sign went on: 
     Hugh Dinkleton –  Proprietor
     And in even smaller letters, beneath Hugh’s name were the familiar words:
     The Cheese Stands Alone – High-Ho, the Dairy-O
     Now the only questions that remained where: Did Ollie get my message? And, if so, did he interpret it correctly?
     At that moment, L. Olive Bright strolled through the store’s front door, and out onto the porch.  His ludicrous disguise included in bib overalls, a crude straw hat perched on his head, and a corncob pipe squeezed between his smirking lips. 
     He didn’t look like a murderer to me.

*******************************************************************
When it comes to the history of human civilization,
no amount of Fabreeze can mask the odors of cheese and beer.
 – L. Oliver Bright 
 *******************************************************************

The Debriefing   9/20/13
    It didn’t matter I had to climb over Sugar’s considerable bulk.  I was out of the cab and in Ollie’s arms in two seconds flat.  He might have been dressed like Mr. Greenjeans, but he smelled gloriously like my husband.  I buried my face in the crook of his neck.
     “Oh, Ollie, I was so afraid you wouldn’t get my message.  Or that even if you did, you wouldn’t figure it out.”
     He held me close.
     “I snuck into Page & Spine International Headquarters and Gift Shop as a bicycle messenger,” he said.  “Babs was very cool.  Pretended not to recognize me in my afro fright-wig—and tried not to laugh—but she did manage to slip me the message.  ‘The cheese stands alone’?  Brilliant, Nikki.  I knew exactly what you meant.  It was five years ago I brought you up here to meet Hugh.  I’m surprised you even remembered.”
     I pinched my nose.  “Who could forget?”
     He squeezed me tight, then said, “You shook your tail, right?”
     I pushed the upper part of my body away from him and scowled.  “We weren’t followed, if that’s what you mean.”
     He grinned.  “That’s what I meant.”  He eased himself a step away.  “Speaking of ‘we’, perhaps you should introduce me to your imposing friends.”
    
     Half an hour later, Hugh Dinkleton was giving Sugar and Jarwal a crash course in the delicacies of cheese-making while doling out samples of his most prized and stinkiest products.  Ollie and I sat in the relative fresh air of the store’s front porch and tried to catch up on what was happening in terms of the murder investigation, and Ollie’s vulnerability.          “Sugar and Jarwal,” Ollie spoke quietly, “where’d you come up with them?”
     “Walter,” I said.  “He arranged for me to give the cops the slip, and put me in the hands of those two.  They’re okay.  Meanwhile Walter figured he’d lead the tail on a wild goose chase.  But I couldn’t tell him where I was really headed, so it was his idea to lead them somewhere upstate, too.”
     Ollie reached over, took my hand and squeezed it.  “That’s absolutely perfect, babe.  Once the cops realize Walter has led them up here, they’re going to assume you went in the opposite direction.  Couldn’t have worked out better,” he laughed.  “They’ll be searching for us way out on Montauk Point.  Or maybe up north in Maine.  They’ll never guess the decoy wasn’t leading them away, but parallel.  Good trick.”
     I turned my chair so I could face him.  “That’s all well and good, Ollie, but there are still two people dead, and you’re still the prime suspect in both murders.  We have to get this resolved. Can you imagine hanging out with stinky Hugh Dinkleton for the rest of our lives?”
     “It won’t come to that, sweet one.  I know who’s behind all this crap.  All I have to do is figure out how to prove it.”
     “Gene Welton,” I said.
     He squeezed my hand again.  “Beautiful, and smart.  Why didn’t I marry you a long time ago?”
     “Because I wasn’t into threesomes, as I recall.”
     “Nikki,” he protested, “that was eons ago.  I’ve grown since then.”
     “Better have,” I said.  But I was distracted.  A large, dark Ford with a whiplash antenna and original equipment hub caps instead of wheel-covers passed through the blinking-eye intersection.
     “I see it,” said Ollie.  “Just rock your chair gently, babe, but otherwise, don’t react.”
     We watched Big Brother disappear over the horizon.
     “I was sure we’d lost them, Ollie,” I said.
     “You did, sweetie.”
     I cocked my head.  “Then how do you explain that?”  I gestured in the direction the cop car had disappeared.
     He patted my hand.  “Sugar or Jarwal,” he said.  “One or both.  Either way, we have at least one enemy in our camp.”
     “Not both,” I said.
     “Maybe neither.”
     “Then how?”
     Ollie looked at me with tired eyes.  “Walter.”
     “No,” I said.
     “I hope not, too.  But it’s time for Plan B.”

********************************************
One of these days I’m going to learn to
rust my instincts and start with Plan B. 
– L. Oliver Bright
********************************************

A Better Mousetrap   9/27/13
     Am I a really an idiot?  The question streaked across my mind like the tail of Halley’s Comet.
     “You’re not an idiot, babe” scoffed Ollie.
     Sometimes I forget about my husband’s knack for reading my thoughts.  It’s a skill I find disconcerting and comforting at the same time. On the one hand, it saves me from having to vocalize troubling thoughts, but on the other hand, his uncanny prescience keeps me from keeping my troubling thoughts secret.  Can a marriage without some secrets hope to survive?  I don’t think so.
     “Why not?” he says.
      Why not?  I had a sudden immutable urge to smash him over the head with a watermelon well past its prime.  At the same time, I realized this was an urge I’d never consider in the big city, but here we were rocking in bentwood chairs on the front porch of The Farmer in the Smell in downtown Belchertown, where watermelons were ripe for the smashing.  The urge persisted.    Isn’t it odd the way one adapts to one’s environment?     
     “Stop it!” I shouted.  “Just because you can read my mind, doesn’t mean you have to.  You know which drawer I keep my panties in, but that doesn’t give you license to rummage around in it whenever you wish, does it?”  An apt analogy, to be sure, even if it wasn’t especially deep.
     Ollie exposed his palms in surrender.  “Whoa there, Nellie …”
     I backhanded his palms and popped up from my chair.
     “Whoa there, Nellie, yourself, L. Oliver Bright.  That was Smoltz and Larsen who just cruised by like a couple of leaf-peepers.  They’re NYPD detectives, you know?  They’ve found you, for heaven’s sake.  Ollie, two people have been murdered, and you’re not only theprime suspect, you’re the only suspect!  Yet you sit here like a rube on a log, chewin’ grass like you’ve got nothing to worry about!”
     He grinned.
     “Three,” he said.
     I searched for the appropriately over-ripe watermelon.
     “Three?  What do you mean three?”
     Ollie pointed to a watermelon sitting upright in the corner of the bin.  “Try that one,” he said.  “I say three, because I’m pretty sure Wladislaw Wurst has passed over by now, too.”
     I hefted a softening watermelon over my head with malicious and malevolent intent, then lowered it.
     “Wurst?” I said.
     “That’s my best guess,” Ollie replied with a glint in his eye.
     I looked down the road and saw the dark Ford sedan returning from the western horizon.
     “And you were here all the time?” I asked.
     He grinned.  “Hugh Dinkleton and the entire population of Belchertown will swear I haven’t left left town for a week.  I’ve made myself somewhat … conspicuous.”
     “Conspicuous?” I said as I lowered the watermelon back into its bin.
     “Okay, obnoxious,” he said, exhibiting way too much pride.
     The dusty Ford pulled up next to the porch.
     “And you’re sure your alibi will hold up?” I asked.
     “Fingerprints, DNA, and fresh-frozen semen samples,” Ollie replied, winking.
     City detectives Smoltz and Larsen emerged from the Ford.
     “Looky here,” said Smoltz.
     “You’re under arrest,” said Larsen.
     “You guys like cheese?” said Ollie.
     I didn’t say anything.  A first.
 
*********************************************************************
Mankind has always been on the search for a better mouse trap. 
I suspect that says something positive about mice.
  - L. Oliver Bright
*********************************************************************
 copyright 2013 by Lee Allen Hill
 

​The Town That Sounds Like a Burp   10/4/13
   Ollie might have miscalculated.  When you’re already a ‘person of interest’ in two homicides, being able to prove you didn’t commit the third doesn’t necessarily get you off the hook.
     But for the moment, at least, we were all still playing it pretty cool on the porch of Sheriff Hugh Dinkleton’s cheese shop and general store in the center Belchertown.  City detectives Smoltz and Larsen leaned on the porch rails while Ollie and I occupied lazy high-backed rockers.  Hugh listened while examining the produce bins that lined the front wall.
     “I was framed for first two murders.” Ollie spoke calmly to Smoltz.  “I warned you Wurst was bound to be next.  Vuchov, D’Nina, and Wurst threw in with Gene Welton from International Words in order to take over Page & Spine.”
     Smoltz shrugged.  “Which still points the finger at somebody within the Page & Spine organization, Mr. Bright.  Somebody with a stake in the business.  Somebody who would go to extreme measures to protect the company.”
     Ollie looked my way.  “I believe he’s talking about me, darling.”
     I tried to keep the nervousness out of my voice.  “I wouldn’t put it past him.  Would you really go to extremes to help me save my company?”
     He patted my hand.  “To the ends of the Earth,” he said.  He nodded toward Larsen.  “What about you, junior, you think I’m guilty?”
     The younger detective responded in his best Dirty Harry.  “I had my way, you’d be the new fish sandwich up at Attica right now.”
     Ollie slapped his thigh.  “C’mon, Smoltz you gottta love this kid.  He talk this way all the time, or just when he misses his nap?”
     “Colorful language aside, Bright,” said Smoltz, “Detective Larsen and I still have three homicides to clear, and for two of them, you’re wearing the trifecta of donkey tails.  Motive, means, opportunity.”
     “But what about the third one,” I broke in, “Wurst.  You know Ollie couldn’t have murdered him.  Doesn’t that mean anything?”
     Smoltz fidgeted against the rail.  “It means he won’t get three lethal injections. On the other hand, he could have paid somebody to make the hit while he was up here in paradise establishing his alibi.  Or you and he might be in on this together.  Where were you, Mrs. Bright, when Wurst hit the skids?”
     “Oh, cut the crap, Smoltz.”  It was Hugh Dinkleton, who kept his back turned to all of us and used one hand to rearrange peaches in one bin, and the other to stack rows of cucumbers in another bin.  “Ollie already put you on Welton’s scent.  Granted, my friend here is a convenient suspect, but I’d say he’s too convenient.”
     Detective Larsen laughed.  “Who the freak is this guy?”
     “Settle down, Larsen,” said Smoltz.
     Larsen stood off the rail.  “Why?  Because Barney Fife the cheese-man says so?”
     Smoltz sighed.  “Not quite.”  He gestured toward Dinkleton who had turned around and was now leaning against the bins with a decidedly smug look on his face. 
     “Barney Fife, the cheeseman,” Hugh began, “is a Professor of Criminology and has consulted on major crime cases with the FBI, the ATF&E, the Secret Service, your own State Police, and several other law enforcement agencies for the last twenty years.  Do like Stilton, Detective Larsen?” 
     “What’s that?”
     “Stilton.  It’s a cheese.  Goes good with crow.”
     Larsen swung around to Smoltz, who struggled to keep a straight face.
     “The truth is,” Smoltz said, “we’re not all idiots.”  He glanced back at Larsen.  “We have another team keeping tabs on Welton.  And, well, we have found more and more reasons to continue our inquiries into his possible involvement.”
     I grabbed and squeezed Ollie’s wrist.
     “But, I’m afraid, Mr. Bright ain’t out of the woods yet.”

************************************************************
I’ve been in the doghouse. I’ve been out on limb.
I’ve been in hot water. And I’ve been in more jams
than any man not named Smucker.  But, so far,
I’ve never been hanged.  
How many rascals can make that claim?”  - L. Oliver Bright 
************************************************************

Just Who is Hugh?   10/11/13
   Ollie might have miscalculated.  When you’re already a ‘person of interest’ in two homicides, being able to prove you didn’t commit the third doesn’t necessarily get you off the hook.
     But for the moment, at least, we were all still playing it pretty cool on the porch of Sheriff Hugh Dinkleton’s cheese shop and general store in the center Belchertown.  City detectives Smoltz and Larsen leaned on the porch rails while Ollie and I occupied lazy high-backed rockers.  Hugh listened while examining the produce bins that lined the front wall.
     “I was framed for first two murders.” Ollie spoke calmly to Smoltz.  “I warned you Wurst was bound to be next.  Vuchov, D’Nina, and Wurst threw in with Gene Welton from International Words in order to take over Page & Spine.”
     Smoltz shrugged.  “Which still points the finger at somebody within the Page & Spine organization, Mr. Bright.  Somebody with a stake in the business.  Somebody who would go to extreme measures to protect the company.”
     Ollie looked my way.  “I believe he’s talking about me, darling.”
     I tried to keep the nervousness out of my voice.  “I wouldn’t put it past him.  Would you really go to extremes to help me save my company?”
     He patted my hand.  “To the ends of the Earth,” he said.  He nodded toward Larsen.  “What about you, junior, you think I’m guilty?”
     The younger detective responded in his best Dirty Harry.  “I had my way, you’d be the new fish sandwich up at Attica right now.”
     Ollie slapped his thigh.  “C’mon, Smoltz you gottta love this kid.  He talk this way all the time, or just when he misses his nap?”
     “Colorful language aside, Bright,” said Smoltz, “Detective Larsen and I still have three homicides to clear, and for two of them, you’re wearing the trifecta of donkey tails.  Motive, means, opportunity.”
     “But what about the third one,” I broke in, “Wurst.  You know Ollie couldn’t have murdered him.  Doesn’t that mean anything?”
     Smoltz fidgeted against the rail.  “It means he won’t get three lethal injections. On the other hand, he could have paid somebody to make the hit while he was up here in paradise establishing his alibi.  Or you and he might be in on this together.  Where were you, Mrs. Bright, when Wurst hit the skids?”
     “Oh, cut the crap, Smoltz.”  It was Hugh Dinkleton, who kept his back turned to all of us and used one hand to rearrange peaches in one bin, and the other to stack rows of cucumbers in another bin.  “Ollie already put you on Welton’s scent.  Granted, my friend here is a convenient suspect, but I’d say he’s too convenient.”
     Detective Larsen laughed.  “Who the freak is this guy?”
     “Settle down, Larsen,” said Smoltz.
     Larsen stood off the rail.  “Why?  Because Barney Fife the cheese-man says so?”
     Smoltz sighed.  “Not quite.”  He gestured toward Dinkleton who had turned around and was now leaning against the bins with a decidedly smug look on his face.
     “Barney Fife, the cheeseman,” Hugh began, “is a Professor of Criminology and has consulted on major crime cases with the FBI, the ATF&E, the Secret Service, your own State Police, and several other law enforcement agencies for the last twenty years.  Do like Stilton, Detective Larsen?”
     “What’s that?”
     “Stilton.  It’s a cheese.  Goes good with crow.”
     Larsen swung around to Smoltz, who struggled to keep a straight face.
     “The truth is,” Smoltz said, “we’re not all idiots.”  He glanced back at Larsen.  “We have another team keeping tabs on Welton.  And, well, we have found more and more reasons to continue our inquiries into his possible involvement.”
     I grabbed and squeezed Ollie’s wrist.
     “But, I’m afraid, Mr. Bright ain’t out of the woods yet.”
 
*********************************************************
I’ve been in the doghouse. I’ve been out on limb.
I’ve been in hot water. And I’ve been in more jams
than any man not named Smucker.  But, so far, I’ve
never been hanged.  How many rascals can make
that claim?”  - L. Oliver Bright
*********************************************************

Vegetable Logic   10/18/13
     I held tight to Ollie’s hand, dreading the detective’s answer.
     We were all still gathered on the porch of Hugh Dinkleton’s Cheese Shop and General Store on the busiest dead corner in Belchertown.  I decided that when this murder investigation was over, I’d do a little research to determine how and why Belchertown was so named.  I figured there had to be an improbable story behind it all.
     Smoltz crossed his arms over his chest.  “You’re coming back to the city with us, Mr. Bright.  Personally, I don’t think you’re guilty.  But my captain is fond of reminding me I ain’t getting paid to think—any more than he is.”
     “If not you, Detective, who?” asked Ollie.  “Junior, here?”
     “Ease up on, Larsen, will you?”  Smoltz indicated his young partner by pointing with his chin.  “The circumstantial evidence against you is pretty damn damning, Bright.  And you pulling a disappearing act in the middle of the investigation doesn’t do a lot to make you look innocent, either. Detective Larsen’s a good cop, doing a tough job.  Based on known facts, I’d say he’s closer to getting to the bottom this case than I am.  He ain’t burdened with unreasonable doubt like I am.”
     Detective Larsen stood a bit taller, but didn’t meet anyone’s eyes.
     Hugh, rearranging the tomato bin spoke softly.  “You know Ollie’s been set up, Smoltz.  You know it.”
     Smoltz shrugged.  “I don’t know the Earth is round, Dinkleton, because I’ve never seen it for myself.  I have beliefs, but don’t tell me what I know, okay?”
     The storekeeper turned, smiled, and underhand-tossed a perfectly ripe tomato to the detective.
     “You’re a good cop, Smoltz,” he said.  “The Earth is round.  Ollie is innocent of these murders.  And that’s best tasting tomato you’ve ever eaten.  One day, you’ll know all three statements to be true.  Take one bite of that tomato, and you’ll be a third of the way there.”
     The cop chuckled, and turned the tomato over in his hand.
     “Organic?”
     “As dirt,” said Hugh.
     “One thing don’t prove the other,” said Smoltz, taking a big, sucking bite out of the tomato.
     Dinkleton shrugged.  “You expect me to shoot you up into space to prove the Earth is round?”
     Smoltz grinned at the tomato, but spoke to Hugh. “Well, you were right certainly right about this tomato.  You grow it?”
     Hugh nodded.  “With a lot of help from Nature.”
     Smoltz bit into the tomato again, and held it up.  “Okay, you’re right about this, Dinkleton.  And maybe I’ll concede the Earth probably isn’t a pancake.  But as for the other, it isn’t up to me to decide.”
     Dinkleton nodded.  “Just asking you to keep an open mind.  The criminal justice system often grows its fruit in a hot house, Detective.  Quick and efficient, but adulterated.  You know this to be true, and you now know the difference.”
     Smoltz’s shoulders began to shake until great gales of laughter nearly doubled him over.  I glanced at Ollie hoping to be let in the joke, but he just shrugged, apparently as bewildered as I. Detective Larsen was equally at sea, and looked alternately to each of us, but mostly concentrated his gaze at his partner who continued to laugh uncontrollably. Hugh, I noticed, beamed serenely while tossing another tomato from one hand to the other.
     Finally, wiping his eyes and collecting himself, Detective Smoltz gasped, “Point taken, Sheriff Andy Taylor, point taken.”
 
**********************************************************
Wisdom can’t be manufactured on an assembly line. 
Only grown from the Earth. – L. Oliver Bright
**********************************************************

Porch Performance   10/25/13
     I was convinced Detective Smoltz didn’t think Ollie had anything to do with the murders of the three traitorous Page & Spine board members.  I was equally convinced Detective Larsen simply didn’t think.  Be that as it may, the city cops were determined to take Ollie ‘downtown’ for an interview, even if they had to arrest him to do it.
     “It’ll go better for you if you come voluntarily, Mr. Bright,” counseled Smoltz.
     Ollie raised an eyebrow.  “So you can beat a ‘voluntary’ confession out of me?”
     Smoltz frowned good-naturedly.  “We almost never do that anymore.  Lost its cachet.  We’re a kinder, gentler Gestapo now.  Besides, your wife is one of the world’s biggest media moguls, and ...”
     “Did you hear him, darling?  That mean policeman just called you fat.   I think you should sue.”
     Catching on, I said, “There’s an idea, Ollie.”  I scratched my head.  “Remind me, dear, is it libel when a slur is spoken, and slander when it’s printed?  Or is it the other way around?”
     “Ah, good question, you’re both clever and beautiful.  Perhaps we could trick the detective into jotting down those bad words he just said?”
     “Excellent!” I said.  “That way we’ll have both bases covered.  Shall I trick him, or should you?”
     Before Ollie could answer, Smoltz—with a semi-straight face—said, “My apologies, ma’am, for my shameful lack of proper articulation. Public college, you know?  Clearly, what I meant was, you are one of the world’s most influential media moguls.  The inference being, The Brass downtown will see to it that all we rubber-hose-wielding underlings treat your husband with kid gloves.  Nothin’ bunches their boxers better than bad ink … or bad shrimp.”
     Larsen spit, hauled himself off the rail and stormed down the porch steps muttering obscenities all the way.  He stalked to the middle of the street and stood there with his head bowed, as if praying to be steamrolled by a runaway hay wagon.
     Ollie turned to me.  “What say you, pookie?  Has the detective’s apology touched your heart with same serum of sincerity I am now experiencing?”
     Serum of sincerity?  I wanted to hoot, but I managed a solemn, “Ditto.”
     “Then I shall voluntarily accompany you, Detective, on the condition that my influential media mogul guardian angel be allowed to accompany me.  No rough stuff at a roadside picnic rest area.”
     Smoltz shrugged.  “That’s no skin off my tomato.”  He looked at me, then pointed at the cab in which I’d arrived in Belchertown.  “But what about your two escape artist friends?”
     “Oh my God,” I cried.  “Sugar and Jarwal.  Oh, no.  I feel terrible. I’d forgotten all about them.”
     Hugh, who’d been quietly tending to the produce bins behind us during this latest dramatic performance, spoke up. “Relax, Nikki.  I put aprons on your friends and turned them loose in my lab.  Right now they’re trying to invent a new kind of cheese.”
     I noticed a significant glance past between Ollie and Hugh.  But for the time being, the significance was lost on me.
     “How long does it take normally take to invent a new cheese?” asked Ollie.
     Hugh turned the corners of his lips down.  “Two, three days, tops.”
     I knew these boys were cooking up something.  And it didn’t smell like cheese to me.  I caught the older detective sniffing the air, too.
     Smoltz checked his watch.
     “If we leave right now, folks we ought to hit rush hour traffic smack dab in the bread basket.  I can use my whirly light!”       
 
**********************************************
Zen and the art of making cheese:
If the best cheeses didn’t smell so bad,
we’d never be able to appreciate how
incredibly good they taste. - L. Oliver Bright
**********************************************
copyright 2013 by Lee Allen Hill