fictional visual output from the infamous S’cottman

by Richard Oxman

He never brought handkerchiefs along, this Malone. Didn’t own any, this simpler singular fellow, even though his glands were infinitely more active than those of Bad Malone.

Lead Inspector Malone’s specialty was electronic surveillance from early on; it included covert video and audio installations, body recorders and body transmitters used for consensual monitoring, court ordered bugs and wiretaps. He was a participant in many covert surveillance operations against foreign intelligence and terrorist organizations. In addition, he had participated in numerous operations against La Cosa Nostra crime families and other Criminal Organizations in the United States.

He went *on the take* just a few days before the U.S. Government secured his services, for the purposes of tracking down…the Moloch from Eire and/or his ireful colleagues. Terrorized by $$$.

In fact, his employers had no idea who they were looking for, or who they were hiring, for that matter. But dramatic principles and the pressures to be expedient — along with the doling out of the public dole below the radar — are contingent upon certain illusions…delusions. Ah, Movement…the great staller. And money — Big Money — the great mover. Shaker upper.

And so, so much for “clearance”…on more than one count.

Allan Ian Martin Malone had just gotten settled at his new desk when –a week to the day of 07/07/07– all the golf clubhouses –public and private– in eight Mississippi towns blew sky high…at High Noon (EST)

Those in Madison, Magee, Mc Comb, Meadville, Meridian, Meridian Nas, Moselle and West Point.

Ten minutes later the same fate was doled out to counterparts in Malta and Missoula, some of Montana’s finest. Marion Hills in Malta had other buildings go up too, including a school. Molotov cocktails.

And at ten minute intervals for the rest of the day the rest of the country from Maui to Maine got no rest. The *good* unmonogrammed Malone was no exception, but he resolved to tow his heavy lines alone.

He locked himself in his new office, pulled down the blinds…and retreated into a trivial game of solitaire…without the aces, fishing for something with which to wipe his soiled brow.

Very superstitious, this closet cardplayer chewing on M&Ms. And if he was going to have an epiphany, it wasn’t going to be muddled by anything that had given him trouble in the past. No aces.

He knew he was going to have to wrest the “M’s” from the behavioristic mud they were mired in, but for the moment…he had to clear his mind.

No such luck. He fell into the meaningless, sweaty pool provided by the stranger’s draining missive:

“Been playing golf? I thought so. Wonderful game, so fascinating such a challenge, as much intellectual as physical, I understand. I wish I had time for it myself. One feels so much at sea when talk turns to…. Quite an Eleusinian mystery.”

He knew Captain Corelli’s Mandolin well; did the writer know that? Such an odd passage to cite. How could he? She? ‘94 when he was talking about it…what? Who? He also knew much about mysteries and mystery religions…their secret forms of worship, the role of select initiates.

The Feds’ *finest* pulled the blinds back up impulsively, compulsively falling forward to have the door open once again. Kicking the cooler, he was certain he had broken his big toe. “Oh, Modesto, no!” No more radio. No more *help*. No more conferences for awhile, if they could be avoided.

The phone was next: Bang, bang, draaag, bang. Now he was ready to dial. To try a new game.

The 54 innocent cards and the one with the *manipulative* instructions went flying when no one picked up. There was something suspect in everything. Beyond him.

Not just the upside-down clown — one of the Jokers — lying against his favorite photo of the blue sky. His “Cloudland.”

He didn’t want to leave a message. “Was that the right move?” There was something wrong in everything he did.

It didn’t matter by the time he asked himself the question…halfway to his destination ‘cross town.

A “Closed” sign was being turned over in the psychic’s door window at the very moment he instinctively looked over his shoulder. Who was that? *What* was that? He tried to walk up the footpath looking relaxed.

Every day of his adult driving life to date he had unfailingly locked his vehicle after parking.

This was the first day he hadn’t done so. “Damn that toe!”