by Ira Nayman
“Be very careful,” Boolie Blitzen warned me as I walked into the apartment. “She’s holding a deadly weapon in her hand – she – it could go off at any second.” Nodding, I went through the front door.
There she was. Marcy was standing in the middle of her blasted out living room. Her hair was swaying in the breeze generated by the wind coming through the blown out wall. She was backlit by lights from the police helicopter hovering outside the apartment. It was a magical movie moment, ruined by only one detail.
“Marcy,” I said.
“Barbara,” she replied.
“You’re holding a Timbit.”
“Am I?”
“You are. I would recognize its doughy, sugary goodness anywhere.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “How do you know this is not a detonator disguised as a Timbit? Maybe, if I apply pressure to the right place, the entire city block in which we are standing will be blown to smithereens! How can you be sure?”
I snatched the Timbit from her hand and took a bite out of it. “I know this isn’t a detonator that could blow up the entire city block,” I told her, “because it doesn’t taste like a detonator that could blow up the entire city block. It tastes more like an apple duchy Timbit.”
Marcy Chicklins-Montmorency is a genius, but, if she has one weakness, it’s that she isn’t very good at planning ahead. Oh, sure, when circumstances dictate, she can improvise brilliantly. But, Marcy Chicklins-Montmorency doesn’t plan. You plan. I plan. The quarterback for the Toronto Argonauts plans. Marcy Chicklins-Montmorency doesn’t plan…anything. I knew better than to fall for one of her improvisations.
It took a couple of seconds for the police to realize that Marcy had been disenTimbitted, but, when they did, she was quickly handcuffed and arrested for the murder of Alfredo Soss-Tiramatsui. That’s right – she was the one who killed him and stole his loaner Dimensional Portal™. We found its remains in her apartment. In fact, the explosion was caused by modifications she had been making to the device – to this day, nobody really knows what she hoped to accomplish. She didn’t deny any of the charges, and she’s been in prison every since.
* * *
Several seconds passed as Barbara finished her tea.
“And?” Noomi impatiently asked.
“And, what, dear?” Barbara patiently responded.
“Why did you just tell me this story?” Noomi, exasperated, asked.
“The parallels are…instructive,” Barbara told her. “Marcy Chicklins-Montmorency had an interest in modifying Transdimensional Technologies™, your current case involves somebody modifying Transdimensional Technologies™. You’ve traced the current suspect to Earth Prime 0-0-0-0-0-1 dash delta – Marcy Chicklins-Montmorency was sent to Earth Prime 0-0-0-0-0-1 dash delta to serve out her sentence. You know what I always say about coincidence…”
“Coincidence is a boil on the backside of a Cycloridean dancing squid?”
“Ah, no. The other thing I always say about coincidence.”
“Coincidence travels around the world while causality is still trying to get its boots on?”
“Noomi, dear, are you being purposefully obtuse?”
“You said a lot of things about coincidence!” Noomi protested.
“And, I’m impressed that you remember them all,” Barbara graciously allowed. “Still, which is the most relevant to our current situation?”
“Coincidence is just a pattern that’s hard to find because it’s in a witness protection programme?”
“That’s it.”
“But, look,” Noomi insisted, relieved but unconvinced. “How could Marcy Chicklins-Montmorency be responsible for what’s been happening in my case if she is in prison?”
“Oh, I’m not saying she is,” Barbara stated. “I just think you should talk to her – I’m sure she’ll have information that will prove invaluable to your investigation.”
Noomi nodded. The waitress came to the table.
“Is the flashback over?” she asked.
“Yes,” Barbara told her. “Yes, it is.”
“Then, here is your bill,” the waitress said, placing a small tray on the table and leaving.
“I’ll get this,” Barbara said, reaching for the bill. “I have a killer expense account!”
When that little unpleasantness was taken care of, Barbara grinned and said, “You know, you remind me of my daughter, Brenda. She’s the Editrix-in-Chief of the Alternate Reality News Service, you know.”
Noomi didn’t know how to take this. From all she had heard, Brenda Brundtland-Govanni was a borderline sociopath with freakish control issues. “Umm…thanks?” she meekly offered.
“I’m proud of both of you,” Barbara beamed, quickly adding: “Of course, if you tell anybody that, I will have to kill you.”
Where most people might have meant that as a mild rebuke, a joking way of asking for cooperation, Noomi knew that Barbara meant it literally. “Don’t worry,” she assured the older woman. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
Chapter Thirteen:
Noomi Closes the Case
The day after she spoke to Barbara Brundtland-Govanni, Noomi explained the situation to Charlemagne (leaving out certain sensitive details about a certain secret feminine organization that she was certain he didn’t need to know). Charlemagne agreed that Marcy Chicklins-Montmorency was their best lead at the moment, so they traveled to the Bloopstein Minimum Security Correctional Facility just outside of Kingston on Earth Prime 0-0-0-0-0-1 dash delta.
The Dimensional Delorean™ pulled up to the gate in front of the prison complex. A skinny kid in red hair and blue prison guard uniform came out of a booth to greet them. Charlemagne explained that they were Transdimensional Authority investigators who needed to talk to one of the prison’s inmates and handed over their credentials. The kid – who looked like he would be a lot more comfortable asking for a price check on packages of genetically modified chickpeas (“Now with 27% more leaky ostrich!”) at a MaxiMultiMegaMart checkout counter – went into the booth and came out a couple of minutes later saying their credentials seemed to be in order and asking who they had come to talk to.
“Marcy Chicklins-Montmorency,” Charlemagne informed him.
“M…M…M…Marcy Chicklins-Montmorency?” the gate guard nervously repeated in a voice that hadn’t broken so much as given up out of boredom.
“Yes?” Charlemagne confirmed.
“E…E...E…Excuse me a minute,” the guard said, and went back into the booth.
“What was that about?” Noomi asked.
Charlemagne shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough,” he answered.
When he returned, the guard informed them: “I…I…I…I’m sorry, but you can’t see Marcy Chicklins-Montmorency. She…she isn’t here any more.”
“Isn’t here any more?” Charlemagne skeptically asked.
“Sh…Sh…Sh…She had to be moved – for her own safety,” the guard explained.
“Where –”
“France.”
“Aah.” Charlemagne took TOM out of his pocket. “This is TOM. He does many things, including connect to the Internet. Say hello to the guard, TOM.”
“Don’t make me connect to the Internet,” TOM bitched. “I always have a headache for three days after!”
“Procedure F27…uhh, A3,” Charlemagne told the sphere. “Log onto the server of Provincial Correctional Services and find out the whereabouts of an inmate named Marcy Chicklins-Montmorency.”
“Working,” TOM said, then made a series of beeping and booping noises that, thanks to superior voice synthesis technology, sounded like a human being trying to sound like a computer making beeping and booping noises. Thirty seconds later, TOM said, “Inquiry complete.”
“And, Marcy Chicklins-Montmorency hasn’t been moved to Paris, has she?” Charlemagne asked. “She’s still in the Bloopstein Minimum Security Correctional Facility, isn’t she?”
“That is correct,” TOM, trying to ma
ke his voice sound more computery, replied.
“So,” Charlemagne told the guard, “we would like to see Marcy Chicklins-Montmorency, please.”
The guard stood with his mouth open. “I…I…I… Let me see what I can do…” he said, and went back into his booth.
“Procedure F27 A3?” Noomi, taking the skeptical stick from Charlemagne and running with it, asked. “What the hell is that?”
“A little something TOM and I worked out,” Charlemagne explained. “He just follows my lead, and I tell him what information we need. It saves us from the time-consuming hassle of actually having to search the Internet.”
They waited until the guard returned. “O…O…O…Okay,” he told them. “When I said the person you’re looking for isn’t here, I meant she is here, but you can’t see her because she’s in the infirmary.”
“The infirmary?”
“Y…Y…Y…Yes, the infirmary.”
“With what?”
“W…W…W…What?”
“Yes. What does she have?”
“D…D…D…Doctors aren’t sure. It’s either H1N1 or a virulent strain of chicken flu…pox. Very contagious.”
“TOM, is that true?”
TOM beeped and booped and, in the interest of variety, blooped for several seconds. “Sorry,” TOM finally stated, “but nobody has stayed in the prison infirmary overnight for the past six months.”
Charlemagne gave the guard an “I have x-ray eyes and I can see right through you, pal, so stop pulling this stuff out of your ass” look. The guard blinked. Then, he said: “H…H…H…Hey, what about Armina Sestertium? She got hit in the sternum by a stray blast from a fingernail gun – had to stay in the infirmary most of last week.”
“Except for – what did you say her name was, again?” TOM recovered.
“Armina Sestertium?” the guard answered.
“Yeah. Except for her,” TOM assured him.
“O…O…O…Okay, then. Excuse me a moment,” the guard said, and returned to the booth.
“Excerpt for her?” Noomi parroted. “Smooth.”
“I can only improvise around what I am given,” TOM defensively replied.
When the guard returned, he unhappily told them that they could enter and, after instructing them on where in the compound to go, he opened the gate for them. Charlemagne drove them past the exercise yard, made a left at the driving range and a right at the petting zoo and parked the Dimensional Delorean™ in front of a squat, featureless building. They were directed to the office of Warden Colt Winchester.
“Come in! Come in!” Warden Winchester greeted them. He was a short, muscular man who was trying to grow a bushy moustache but, being no more than 25, was too young to carry it off. In manner, he was aiming for affable, but nervous energy dragged the effort down faster than the Kraken dragged the Black Pearl down to the bottom of the ocean. “What can I do for you?”
“We would like to talk to Marcy Chicklins-Montmorency,” Charlemagne answered.
“Ah, oh, okay,” Warden Winchester blustered. “We will certainly get to that. But, ahh, have you seen the Bloopstein petting zoo? You know, our petting zoo is the best of all the correctional facilities in southern Ontario!”
“I’m sure it is,” Charlemagne said. “But, we really are short of time, so if we could just talk to the person we came to talk to.”
“Sure, sure,” Warden Winchester agreed. “Only, our petting zoo has a llama and three camels.”
“And, I’m sure they’re fine animals, too,” Charlemagne agreed back at him.
“The Bloopstein petting zoo is famous throughout the 12 townships,” Warden Winchester insisted. “Have I mentioned that it is the best petting zoo of all the correctional facilities in southern Ontario?”
“And, yet, we would really just like to see the person we came to speak to,” Charlemagne saw Warden Winchester’s insistence and added steely-cold determination to the pot.
Warden Winchester folded his hand. “Right, then,” he said, “let’s get that interview started.”
Warden Winchester led Noomi and Charlemagne out the building and across the yard to the much larger building that housed the prisoners. They were stopped at security when the guards wanded them down and found TOM, back in Charlemagne’s pocket.
“What is this?” the guard suspiciously asked.
“A paperweight?” Charlemagne hopefully answered.
“A PAPERWEIGHT?” TOM shrieked.
“A talking paperweight?” Charlemagne tried to explain.
Warden Winchester smiled to himself as they had to leave TOM behind. Small minds cherish small victories.
Noomi, Charlemagne and Warden Winchester made their way to a cell on the third floor. Looking in, it appeared that Marcy Chicklins-Montmorency was sleeping under the covers of her cot.
“Rise and shine,” Warden Winchester shouted. The figure on the cot didn’t stir. “Come on, Marcy,” he insisted, “there are people here who want to talk to you.”
Nothing.
“Open cell 314,” Warden Winchester said into a walkie talkie. The bars to the cell sprang open. “Marcy, I’m sure you’re tired, but…” Warden Winchester put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. Or, at least, where the woman’s shoulder would have been if there had actually been a woman on the cot. The blanket fell to the floor, revealing an intricate series of pillows in the general shape of a woman. Warden Winchester theatrically jumped away from the bed.
“Whoa!” he shouted. “Whoa! I did not see that coming!”
Noomi and Charlemagne looked at each other. His look said, “Oh, why don’t you take over, now – why should I have all the fun?” Her look said, “Fun? Is that what you call this?” His look had an undertone of, “Oh, it may not look like it from the outside, but, once you get into the swing of things, I’m sure you will find it has its own unique charm.” Her look had an undertone of: “I am highly skeptical of that claim, but, what the hell, I’ll give it a shot!”
When you can start reading the undertones in each other’s thoughts, you know you have gelled as a team.
“You…never took an acting class, did you?” Noomi asked.
“By the time I got to the police academy,” Warden Winchester answered, “Acting 101 was full, so I had to take a course on romantic literature instead.”
“How long has she been missing?” Noomi asked.
“I don’t know,” Warden Winchester replied. “We’ll have to have a complete and thorough investigation before we can accurately gauge…” Warden Winchester trailed off as Noomi shook her head. “Okay. Umm…nobody has checked in on her in…16 – maybe 17 years.”
“That long!” Noomi exclaimed.
“We thought she was a heavy sleeper,” Warden Winchester defiantly stated. His tone of voice suggested that he was thinking: Yeah, I know how lame that sounds. Please don’t call me on it. One undertone in that thought suggested that he was thinking: You know, I didn’t even want this job. I was only supposed to work here one summer – I was promoted when the last warden had his nose sawn off by a flying wordfish! A resonant undertone in the original thought suggested that he was thinking: You know, I haven’t gotten laid in six months. I thought one of the benefits of being in a position of power was that it made you more attractive. I guess the women I meet on Facebook think that a dangerous criminal is going to come to my bedroom and cut off both our heads in the middle of the night. Man, this sucks! Beneath the undertones was another undertone, a thumbsucking undertone that said, simply: Mommy!
“Yeah, that’s credible,” Noomi said. Her tone of voice suggested that she was thinking: You have a strange idea of what is fun!
* * *
On the way back to Transdimensional Authority headquarters in their dimension, Noomi fumed, “What the hell was that?”
“I believe,” Charlemagne responded, “that was what is referred to as a ‘McPrison.’”
“Do I even want to know?” Noomi asked.
“You always want to know,�
�� TOM, who was grateful that he had been rescued from the prison’s impoundment box, helpfully answered. “Good lord, woman, you’d still be hitting each other with sticks and existing primarily as dinner for velociraptors if none of you ever wanted to know!”
“Was that a lecture on the evolutionary value of curiosity?” Noomi whispered to Charlemagne.
“Either that or somebody’s a-n-g-e-r parameters need to be t-w-e-a-k-e-d,” Charlemagne quietly responded.
“I can spell, you know!” TOM shouted. “I’m not three nanoseconds old!”
“Okay, so,” Noomi said after an appropriately timed pause for laughter, “McPrison? What is that about?”
“On Earth Prime 0-0-0-0-0-1 dash delta,” Charlemagne explained, “Trans-X Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of MultiNatCorp, was created to run a chain of restaurants. However, when the opportunity arose to expand into private prisons, Trans-X jumped at the chance. Of course, they didn’t know anything about running prisons, so they simply applied the management lessons they had learned in the fast food industry.”
“Are there management lessons from the fast food industry that can be applied to running prisons?” Noomi wondered.
Charlemagne shrugged. “You be the judge.”
They drove on in silence for a couple of minutes.
“They must have known, didn’t they?” Noomi eventually asked.
“Who must have known what?” Charlemagne responded.
“The people working at the prison,” Noomi elaborated. “They must have known that Marcy Chicklins-Montmorency wasn’t in her cell.”
“Of course they knew,” Charlemagne confirmed.
“Then, why go through the charade?”
“I imagine that they found out she had escaped a few hours after it happened. At first, they covered it up to avoid the embarrassing publicity. Then, at some point they must have realized that they could still receive government payment for her even if she wasn’t there – that would be better for their bottom line, because they wouldn’t have to pay for things like feeding and clothing her. The question isn’t why they would keep a prisoner on the books after the prisoner had fled the prison – that just makes financial sense. The real question is: how many prisoners that Trans-X claims to hold are actually in cells?”
