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CRANKYBLANCA
CHAPTER FIVE: THE PLOT SICKENS.
RBB [voiceover]: Cranky's Cafe Americain has a basement. In theory, anybody can go down there, but usually it's only the veterans who venture down the narrow winding staircase. When you get downstairs, you find yourself in a hushed, elegant setting something like a gentleman's club. You've seen places like this a hundred times in old movies -- walnut paneling; plush chairs; elegant tables; row after row of bookshelves groaning with a well-stocked library, every volume bound in leather; alcoves where guests can dine; deep pile carpeting; the works. Sometimes a newcomer to Cranky's stumbles down the stairs, finds a group of people he's never seen before, and starts shouting and pointing fingers. Sometimes he's ignored and stumbles off, his face bright red with embarrassment and baffled rage. Sometimes one or two of the veterans take turns batting him around till he's so dizzy and confused he can't tell the difference between Karl Marx and Groucho Marx. Most newcomers, however, don't even bother, and the few who do are usually referred by a veteran and are greeted with open arms. It's a comfortable place, a reassuring place. I've spent lots of time down there.
That time was not one of them. Before Princess and I could get downstairs, the deferential evening maitre d'hotel intercepted me.
EAMON J DOYLE: Professor Bernstein, you are wanted on the house phone. Would you and the lady please step this way?
RBB [voiceover]: He led us to an alcove, punched a button on the blinking phone console, and gestured to me to help myself. I picked up the receiver. It was Jason Cranky -- and he was not in a good mood.
JASON CRANKY: A fifth killing, I understand. CFL.
RBB: Yes, Cranky, a fifth killing. And it was CFL. And I didn't do it.
JASON CRANKY: Spare me your flummery, Professor. When I asked you to take a hand in this sorry business, I expected results.
RBB: You'll have to be patient, Cranky. I can't do miracles.
JASON CRANKY: There is a difference between being unable to do miracles and whiling away the hours with an attractive woman.
RBB [voiceover]: I kept my face composed and bit back the retorts and questions that were clamoring to be voiced.
JASON CRANKY: I will take that silence for confirmation. You are to make this investigation your highest priority, do you understand me? Word of the killings is leaking out into Crankyland and around the Internet.
RBB: Keep your shirt on and your blood pressure within measurable levels, Cranky. I'll do what I can, when I can.
JASON CRANKY: See that you do. [click]
RBB [voiceover]: He hung up on me, and I stared at the phone, struggling to keep my temper. Princess could tell that something bad was going on, and she laid a hand on my arm. I handed the house phone back to the waiter, and it immediately began ringing again. I turned to face Princess.
PRINCESS OF PMS: Richard? Are you all right? Is it the case?
RBB: Yes, Princess, it's the goddamned case. And, no, I'm not really all right.
EAMON J DOYLE: Professor, it is for you again. It is the police.
RBB [voiceover]: The maitre d' handed me the phone again, and I took it as if it was a snake waiting to bite me. It was JYD, and he was impatient and annoyed.
JYD: Bernstein, get your butt down here.
RBB: Why?
JYD: The computers nearly went whacky down here, and it almost screwed up half a dozen autopsy tests, as well as the freezer gauges. We've got everything back the way it should be, but you have to see CFL's body as soon as possible.
RBB: OK, damn it, I'll be right down.
RBB [voiceover]: I hung up again, thanked the maitre d' -- who seemed way too young to be holding down that job. He thanked me with grave courtesy, and turned back to his extensive card files. He had every Crankizen fill in a questionnaire -- though he refused to explain its purpose, which made me nervous. I don't like data banks, especially in the hands of people too young to shave or see R-rated movies on their own.
RBB: Princess --
PRINCESS OF PMS: You have to leave?
RBB: Yes, but would you mind going with me?
PRINCESS OF PMS: Where?
RBB: Er ... a morgue.
PRINCESS OF PMS: It's not as if I haven't seen dead bodies before.
RBB [voiceover]: She smiled and hooked her arm in mine, and we started out of Cranky's together. Outside, at a rickety card table, grundle was sitting there, with X-MAN sitting devotedly at his feet. grundle was trying to hand out libertarian literature and preaching his message, and people were crumpling the leaflets and dropping them right back in his lap. I felt sorry for the guy, but he was bringing all this on himself. I shrugged, and kept going, but I could feel his measuring, deprived eyes boring holes into the back of my head. I stopped, and turned around slowly.
PRINCESS OF PMS: Richard, what is it? Is it that pathetic little man?
RBB: Yes.
PRINCESS OF PMS: Let me go talk to him.
RBB [voiceover]: Before I could stop her, she walked up to the table, beamed down at grundle, and began an animated conversation with him. He was flustered, off balance, and could not meet her gaze. She kept dropping such names as C. Wright Mills and Claude Levi-Strauss and Herbert Marcuse; he couldn't keep up, and every time she looked him squarely in the face, he blushed and dropped more folders. She smiled one last, brilliant, heart-melting smile and turned away.
RBB: The poor guy never knew what hit him, did he?
PRINCESS OF PMS: He just has to get used to talking to women who are attractive and who have a functioning cerebral cortex, Richard.
X-MAN: Slut! A pair of sluts!
PRINCESS OF PMS: WHAT did you say?
RBB [voiceover]: Oh, boy, I thought to myself. I figured I'd back Princess up in whatever play she was going to make, while keeping a sharp eye out for any cops who might come by. She stalked up to X-MAN, grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket, and hauled him up so that they were eye to eye, his little feet dangling six inches over the sidewalk.
PRINCESS OF PMS: What did you call me?
X-MAN: You're a slut! You're with Richard B. Bernstein, the notorious sex fiend and degenerate.
PRINCESS OF PMS: So I am. Do you have a problem with that?
X-MAN: You're going to do evil sexual things. All women are sluts just like you!
PRINCESS OF PMS: Maybe so. Would you like to watch?
X-MAN: Wha...
PRINCESS OF PMS: Yes, you heard me. Would you like to watch?
X-MAN: Watch?
PRINCESS OF PMS: Or maybe join us? It would excite me.
RBB [voiceover]: I was trying to keep a straight face. X-MAN's features were writhing in terror, his eyes bulging out and his lips quivering. He tried not looking at Princess's face, but his gaze fell lower, and then he jerked his eyes away in alarm, and finally he shut them tight and prepared to scream bloody murder.
X-MAN: You're bad! MOMMY! I WANNA GO HOME!
RBB [voiceover]: Before X-MAN could wet his pants in terror, Princess dropped him. He hit the ground and curled around the leg of grundle's card table, whimpering. She came back to me and took my arm again.
PRINCESS OF PMS: Let's go, Richard. [to X-MAN] Little boy, I'm *glad* he's a sex fiend and degenerate. So am I.
RBB: Er -- that was telling him.
PRINCESS OF PMS: He's like all the immature Crankizens, Richard. They claim to know about sex and women, but if you call their bluff, and especially if you make them think that they'll have to grow up in a hurry, they all wet their pants and scream for their mommies. Let's go to the morgue.
RBB [voiceover]: We got to the morgue, and Doc Rochelle was looking sour as she stared down at the body. Off to the side, JYD and zeppo were poking at something I couldn't quite see.
DOC ROCHELLE: It's about time you got here. The girls are waiting for me at home, and I don't want to stay with Number Five here any longer than I have to. Hello again, Princess -- good to see you.
PRINCESS: Doc, you're looking great.
DOC ROCHELLE: The boys in blue have something. Our killer may have gotten careless. CFL was dictating into a tape recorder when he was whacked
JYD: Yeah. But I don't think that the killer was careless. I think he knew exactly what he was doing.
zeppo: Listen for yourself if you don't believe us.
RBB [voiceover]: He hit the PLAY button, and we heard CFL's precise, cultured voice dictating yet another of his massive Crankyland posts. Then he was interrupted, and the sounds we heard weren't pretty. We heard a struggle, a faint sound almost like hissing gas, followed by CFL's gurgles and moans of pain. After they faded out, we heard breathing -- the killer's breathing, of course, for CFL was beyond worrying about air by that point -- and sounds of physical struggle. Then we heard an odd clunk or thunk, and a relay closed somewhere in my brain. Squeaking noises followed -- the sound of wheels needing oil, wheels mounted on a cart. As we heard that, we heard that familiar voice again, pure Tom Hanks:
"Professor Bernstein, Doc Rochelle, and my friends in the police department: Here is my fifth installment of my masterpiece of crime. I hope you find my work of interest; it is such a pleasure to have an audience at last. I am indeed grateful to this poor soul for having brought a tape recorder with him. But you know, it is not merely an exercise in surrealistic murder that I have undertaken to perform for you. No, it is that, and something greater, nobler, more sweeping and daring. You will see, my friends; you will see."
The tape clicked off.
PRINCESS OF PMS: There's something weird about that tape. May I play it again?
RBB [voiceover]: The cops glared at her, but JYD hit REWIND and then PLAY. She listened intently. I already had my idea, and I wanted to see if she'd get there too. She never let me down.
PRINCESS OF PMS: That was a cart pushed by a maintenance worker -- the kind of cart that usually holds refuse from wastebaskets.
RBB: That's how the killer is getting into Crankyland with the bodies. He masquerades as a maintenance worker from the company that Cranky hired to clean the cafe and he wheels the cart in with a coating of waste paper atop the corpse. Then he dumps the corpse into the chair in Cranky's office and leaves.
RBB [voiceover]: But another question suddenly hit me -- and everybody else all at once.
DOC ROCHELLE: Richard, how is he choosing his victims?
zeppo: Every victim has announced his decision to leave Crankyland.
PRINCESS: But is he killed after the announcement, or before?
RBB: Before? You mean ... he's killed, and then the killer plants the phony announcement to mislead people about the guy's death till he can get the body into Jason's office?
DOC ROCHELLE: It's more likely that the killer knows who is leaving Crankyland and kills based on that.
RBB: But how does he know?
PRINCESS: Beats me.
RBB: There's one guy who might be able to shed some light on this mess.
JYD: Who's that?
RBB: We have to talk to Hans.
zeppo: No way. We were told from high up, as high up as it gets -- nobody talks to Hans.
RBB: He has to talk to us about this. The future of Cranky's depends on it.
RBB [voiceover]: Princess lent me her cell phone, and I called Cranky. He was grumpy -- he was in the midst of a heavy tete-a-tete with Sharon Stone, and he did not want to be disturbed -- but when we explained the situation he agreed to call Hans and order him to talk to us.
RBB: Princess -- we have to head back to Cranky's. This is going to be rough.
[...to be continued...]
[stay tuned for CHAPTER SIX: THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN]
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