MEMP’IS
BOOK
FIVE – “YOGA IS, as YOGA DOES”
(Saturday,
January 6, 2035)
As intimated, Norlin did not
complete his Stimwood incident report... a consequence
of incarceration and other events transpiring after his team's departure from Stimwood Academy.
Had he done so, his initial observations would, no doubt, have commenced
with Henry Hat's rising to address Dr. Miles F. Shore, his twelve savants,
Homer and Norlin, himself, Norlin's
own four invitees and sundry Stimwood personnel also
in attendance. Thanking Norlin and Dr. Shore for
their gracious introductions, the suncop strolled
from the dais, hands in pockets... glancing past the cadaverous Judson Crawford
out the window of Stimwood's Turner Room, then
back... and declaring:
"Crime!
Thievery by gibbous moonlight… a tapework
attached to solar furnace byways and hallways to heat a cup of milk. Cows'
milk! Bodies dumped at the South
Node. Furtive fugitives, lounging in
squalid lozenges, minds floating away on the ecstatic fumes of frying, crackling bacon!
What is the genesis of dark and cowardly recourse to illicit thoughts,
deeds and promontories that lurk beneath the peaceful tides of Jatesian wholesomeness?
Is it envy and hatred for official symbolic curvature? A pox of the brain, nurturing defiant urges
to dispute with God and Triple J? Mere profit-seeking?
Or, worse..."
His invitation to
the savants to reply bringing no coherent response, the man from the Solar
Commission further advised...
"To know the
motive, know the criminal. To detect the
criminal, understand the crime."
Following the
simplest, straightest course that Norlin had
employed, before him, Henry Hat passed between the pulchitrudinous
murderess Dawn Dancingfeather and King Jack Bard who,
insolently miming Judson Crawford's fingerplay, blew
a kiss to the suncop, and wheezed...
"Gotta cigarette?"
"No,"
replied Henry Hat before proceeding around Troosh
towards the axis of Dr. Shore's circle, indifferent to the chorus of rustling,
pivoting rumps atop scraping metal chairs.
"On the last Friday of the last year,
the Third-Fifth bank at Two Fifty One Southwest Seventh became the fourth
fiduciary institution to be relieved of funds over a fortnight, less by force
than by unique and telltale subterfuge - although insinuation of force was
manifest, if only in the criminal's demonic irony. Now... do any of you know about the clientele
of Third-Fifth?"
"Doops!"
scowled Rocky, grimy fingernails picking at a fresh scab over one eye - a
probable souvenir of some recent altercation in the dayroom. "Jus' kebbin' doops!"
"Just so!
Does anyone find it amusing that an institution catering to clones and
certain unfortunate mutants would be assailed by one of its own - a clone, sort
of, but temporary? A creature in
transit," Henry Hat suggested, "...a phantom, and created by a
phantom Creator out of spit, dust and technology. An Incunabula, yes - in this world, but not of it."
"Police officers everywhere must be
made acquainted with my crotch," the whiskery siren replied, pulling up
his housecoat until Dr. Shore, circling the circle counterclockwise, loomed up
behind him and slapped Rocky on the back of his head…
"Owww!… what'd you do that for?"
"Next," the suncop persevered, "…the events transpiring last
Tuesday in Blue City. A crime of political, even, astronomical
intuition, cunningly disguised as conventional burglary. The death of a criminal, resurrected from
prior death, only to fall again..."
"You want to find out who done Igs," King Jack volunteered, "that first time -
down at the South Node? I'm your man," and he tapped his
chest. "Cost ya,
tho'..."
"The question," Henry Hat
clarified, "is, rather, who brought Mr. Topple back to the realms of the
living-dead, if not, exactly, life. And,
to a lesser extent, how was this resurrection accomplished?"
"God Almighty occupies all
Space," the tonsured Pisgah volunteered, standing, "…and His
Opposition is advancement and expansion of the Form…"
Homer Sack waved a cautionary finger
before his long face. "Neo-Plasmacism cons the virtual world…"
"Where it becomes logical that Jatesist form-annihilation demands lifts in its walk-a-day
shoes," Pisgah replied. Still
poised behind Rocky, Dr. Shore extended his finger, crooking it, and, with an underbreath oath, Brother Pisgah sat again, burying his
face in his cowl.
Norlin forced down another bite of the
wretched-tasting JatesCookie as Henry Hat advanced
his explication. Behind Shore, Kid MacBeth had removed his magician's hat and placed it in his
lap, reaching therein to remove some gaily coloured
scarves which, to the Corporal, resembled nothing so much as a strangler's
cords…
"Our criminal's desperation
intensifies - his is a progression from harmless larceny to murder by influence
and, then, at the Tulane Hotel, murder by proxy."
"That's Wilson's specialty," erupted effervescent young Bobby,
"sending other people out to cut up his victims for him…"
"Did
you cut up my husband?" Troosh turned, glaring
at the disgraced surgeon…
"I did not," Wilson
answered. "Nor was anything else
ever proven… the Trouble Factory has no evidence against me and, when the Law
Firm completes its researches, I shall be wholly and litigiously vindicated…"
Kid MacBeth unfolded
a mostly crimson and yellow scarf with an abrupt SNAP! and,
across the circle, Dawn Dancingfeather laughed out
loud. Dr. Shore looked from one to the
other, and then to Henry Hat with apologetic helplessness,
and Homer leaned over towards his superior, whispering…
"Medications
wearing off."
Norlin nodded.
"All of their accusations,"
Wilson scoffed, bending over so that one index finger could tap the side of his
head without activating the traitjacket, "mere
lesions in that common, communal wart-mind that the advanced minds
perceive."
"Finally," the yellow-suited suncop concluded, resolutely, "a culmination at the
Specimen Depository."
"Or,"
suggested Tony Debris, eyes glittering with anticipatory malice, "a
prelude?"