CATCH A FALLING STAR is a prequel, taking place before A PERSON IN A POSITION OF TRUST. This story has a science fiction theme to it and it pays homage to some classic science fiction movies in addition to being a thriller and a chiller. Lots of plot twists and turns in the story with some references to the future events of A PERSON IN A POSITION OF TRUST.

Chapter Three
A Series Of Sudden, Unexpected Developments

Beef Matson's trip to the airport was largely uneventful, thanks in large part to his assistant Randy who had made sure there was no problem with his plane ticket and even printed out an itinerary for his boss. The cab ride went smoothly and the private investigator arrived at the terminal with plenty of time to spare. This was good because there was a long wait at the check in counter, mostly it seemed because three counter attendants were spending a lot of time gossiping about a forth employee who was not present. Still, Matson was determined not to get stressed out and patiently waited in line, using the time to go over business matters in his mind. A large video monitor mounted on a nearby wall was reporting a major weather development about hurricanes in the Gulfs of Mexico and California which threatened to combine into a "mega", once-in-five-hundred-years storm which could threaten a large chunk of the western United States. "They sure like to play this stuff up, don't they. The news media's always got to make a big drama out of everything," commented a man standing in line behind Matson. "I bet they'll even try to blame this on that global warming crap." Matson offered a rationed smile and did not return a comment.

After a while, the very slow moving line was beginning to stress Matson and then a little girl, probably around two years old, added to the stress by throwing a terrible tantrum with the unintentional effect of nearly convincing everyone within earshot that she was the daughter of the Anti Christ. The little girl's mother had the patient of a saint as her child explored the meaning of being totally out of control. Matson noticed that the little girl's behavior seemed to have a calming effect on the other small children in line, who acted like they were embarrassed, shocked or scared of the angry little girl. Finally, the line began to move quickly, apparently the clerks losing their interest in gossip, the little girl stopped screaming, and Matson was able to check in his luggage without incident.

"I guess I'm just an old fashioned gal that needs to have strong men in her life."

Out of the corner of his eye, the private investigator noticed a dark figure suddenly standing in aisle next to him. It was a middle aged woman in a dark dress apparently wanting to get to the window seat next to his. Matson smiled politely and pushed himself up in his seat to allow the slightly full figured woman ample room to pass. The woman returned Matson's smile with a disturbingly intense stare, like a morbidly obese person on a diet spying a candy bar. Beef immediately turned away from the alarming glare, noticing the gold necklace bearing a cross and a wedding ring on the woman's ring finger. After the woman had passed, Matson slid back down into his seat, and the woman stood for couple of seconds, as if she was trying to decide either where to put her purse or how she was going to sit down. Matson resumed reading the article about the gay dance TV show, looking at a photo of a hunky male dancer. The magazine was suddenly slammed out of Matson's hands as he found himself engulfed by a mass of chubby flesh wrapped in dark fabric. The woman who had been standing in front of the seat next to him was now somehow falling into his seat, on top of him and the woman was not a lightweight.

"I am so clumsy," squeaked the woman. "And very heavy," added Lynn Gordon Matson with an irritated sigh. It became rapidly apparent that the woman was not falling into the private detective, but was holding on to the armrests and pushing her posterior into Beef's face and he began to seriously wonder if the woman was trying to suffocate him with her polyester clad buttocks. Finally, Matson placed a hand on the offending rear end and pushed it away from his face until the woman was standing straight up, with the woman managing to get a couple of grabs of Beef's crotch until he knocked her arm away. The commotion did not go unnoticed by the other passengers, including the stewardess and man at the front of the cabin, who were all looking in the direction of Matson's seat.

"What a strong man you are," exclaimed the woman as if she were reciting a line from a mediocre drag show. "I guess I'm just an old fashioned gal that needs to have strong men in her life."
"And what a married woman you are," responded Beef making a slight motion towards the woman's wedding ring.
The woman waved her hand in a dismissive little circle, again like behavior cloned from a drag show and replied in a quieter tone of voice, flashing another stare at Matson and fluttering her head slightly from side to side. "Means nothing…if I don't want it to." As the woman spoke, light from an overhead light glittered off a gold cross attached to her necklace. "I imagine your church would take exception to that statement," added Matson.
The woman dismissed his statements, "I think I have the right to pick and choose from what a preacher might teach. Besides, I'm sure the good lord won't mind what I do if it helps a man like you choose the correct path."
Matson rolled his eyes in an annoyed fashion and quietly muttered, "So much for the sanctity of marriage", retrieved the magazine from the floor and tried to find the photo of the hunky dancers. "Wonder what rock she crawled out from," he mused in his thoughts, "but then again, it is getting close to Halloween."
The woman then dropped her posterior down into her seat, the vibration shaking Beef's seat as well. Her purse in her lap, she began arranging things inside of it, flashing hungry glances at the man sitting next to her. She continued, clueless to the fact that her flirtation was being rejected by the object of her affection. "I know who you are. I've seen you on TV. You're that detective man from San Francisco who investigates those movie stars." Matson ignored the woman. My name is Alice Dee." "Alice…Dee?" repeated Matson incredulously who then mumbled, "kind of thought you were trippin'."
"Oh, I don't think I tripped, I simply lost my balance", replied the woman, not catching Beef's play on words. As Matson returned his attention to his magazine, the woman was determined to continue a conversation.
"It's so difficult nowadays for good Christian women like myself to find an acceptable, attractive white male. It seems like overtime I turn around the only men I see are darker then…well, a Democratic presidential candidate."
Matson arched a disapproving eyebrow at the woman. "No, she's not from under a rock," thought the private investigator, "She's from another planet."

Whatever thoughtcicle Beef Matson may have had of dealing with the woman in a gentlemanly fashion rapidly melted away as Alice Dee bumped and gyrated in her seat, attempting to bring her body, or at least her hands in contact with the well built detective's body, attempts which Matson skillfully deflected. At the same time, Alice continued a single minded prattle as to how needy she was of a man, that she wanted an attractive and strong man like the passenger next to her to place in her shopping cart, a financially well off and strong man who was a good worker; indeed, Alice placed a lot of emphasis that the man needed to be a hard worker and that there would be hell to pay, in her own Christian way, if the man proved to be a slacker. She added how women needed men like Matson to help provide them with emotional stability, she apparently lived in a simplistic world where men were providers of a great deal of wealth and women were emotionally needy creatures who tried gallantly to make their lives better by spending whatever money they could get their hands on.

Making her voice sound light and sparkly like a table top water fountain, Alice continued to spatter on, changing the subject slightly to men in the military, how she was convinced that a handsome, strong man like the detective must have been in the military, how wonderful it was that men in the military go off to fight courageous wars, suggesting even that such wars would insure that she would continue to have gasoline to put into her SUV. Then Alice commented how delightful it was that women were presented with a wonderful and sizable cash death benefit when their husbands were killed in some military conflict. Matson, who indeed had been in the military, winced at Mrs. Dee's last statement and uncontrollably shot a dagger like glare at the woman.

Realizing her flirtation was in vain, Alice changed her strategy, coupling her attempts at seduction with stern warnings, a carrot and stick approach. "I was told how charming and nice you were," she reported. "You're not being nice at all. A man should focus his thoughts on how he should please a woman and what sort of nice things he should buy her." Alice ran her very manicured right hand across the glittering bracelets on her left arm suggesting that Matson should return the woman's attentions as any "good Christian normal man" would. Finally Matson responded to her.
"I don't have a problem with other people's religious beliefs, regardless of how different they are from mine," responded the detective. "I do, however, have a problem with hypocrisy and I don't believe any Christian church would condone adultery plus I am not interested in you."
Frustrated by the dark haired man's lack of interest, Alice Dee coiled back in her seat and continued with stern warnings. "All I have to do," she warned, "is make a few phone calls to some very politically correct individuals in your little gay community. The little darlings just so very much like to have a strong, conservative woman of authority tell them what to think and do. When I tell them what a horrible woman hater you are, they will spread the word so that none of your little gay friends will anything to do with you. So I think it would be very wise if you started to play ball with me, like a normal man should."
Matson in monotone, "I'm not worried about my friends. They know who I am and what I stand…"
"I know who you are, too" interrupted Alice. "I've heard all about you in the media." Matson arched an eyebrow in disapproval and proceeded to ignore the woman, turning his attention to the magazine, a grumpy thoughts entering his mind, "Good everlovin' grief," he thought, "This is so very not good…this is going to be a very long trip. I wonder what the odds are that I'd end up sitting next to a looney toon like this?"

Again Alice began to prattle. "If you haven't noticed Mr. Matson, your lifestyle is in decline. Your gay neighborhoods are disappearing, the fags are being priced out and normal people are moving in and taking over. Very soon you'll find that if you want to do anything with your life, you'll have to be married, and I mean to a woman." "Well, well, well," thought Matson, "Welcome to my nightmare," and continued to ignore the woman, who was aggressively poking Matson with her elbow. "Excuse me," said Alice shrilly, "I don't like to be ignored. Progressive women like myself are mavericks, we are standing up and saying we don't have to put up with the homosexual…"
A stream of "Excuse me's" spoken with a higher pitched younger voice suddenly interrupted Alice. Alice glared at a teen aged girl standing in the aisle next to Matson's seat. "You're sitting in my assigned seat," the young woman matter of factly directed to Alice.
"There should be an empty seat up front," dismissed Alice tersely, "Go up there and sit in that one."
"No…" the young woman shook her head in irritation, "Like I specifically reserved a window seat weeks ago, my ticket says that's my seat, that's where I want to sit, so you need to move to your assigned seat."
"No…"
The young woman rolled her eyes and sighed, "Excuse me, I would like to sit in my assigned seat."
"This gentleman wants me to sit next to him," Alice blurted out.
"This gentleman absolutely does not want this woman to sit next them," corrected Beef Matson
"Would you please go to your assigned seat?" asked the teenager in sing song fashion
"No…"
"All right then," sighed the young woman, "I'll get the stewardess." The young woman waited a couple of seconds for Alice to change her mind, Alice did not and the young woman retrieved the stewardess who promptly instructed the older woman to head to her assigned seat at the front of the plane.

"Does that go for my little dog Toto, as well?"

Alice did not take the eviction from her chosen seat lightly and when Matson would not come to her defense, she showered rage upon him. " I should have known, your kind likes to recruit the younger ones don't you?" Alice barked loudly as she moved into the aisle, "Go ahead, cozy up to this young slut…"
"Excuse me…?" protested the young woman.
"But you'd better be careful," continued Alice, "Because you might end up on one of those entrapment programs on TV, trying to lure some teenager for sex." Alice hesitated in the aisle, firing off one last verbal barrage towards Matson. "Yes, you'd both better be careful," a witch's glare coming from her brow at both Matson and the young woman, then she directed her glare towards Matson. "I was told you were really nice, but you haven't been very nice to me and I am very, very not nice to those who aren't nice to me. Mark my words, you haven't heard the last of me."
"Does that go for my little dog Toto, as well?" asked Matson dryly and sarcastically. In a huff and hurried along by the stewardess, Alice then stomped up the aisle to her assigned seat, grumbling all the way.

"Oh my God," reported observed the young woman, "She doesn't realize what a spectacle she's making of herself. People are filming her with their cellphones. She probably end up on YouTube." As Matson looked up towards the front of the cabin, he noticed that the man who had nodded to him earlier was staring at him, trying to get the private investigator's attention. The man nodded his head towards Alice, a questioning expression on his face. Matson communicated back, simply shrugging his shoulders. The man frowned and immediately turned away, walked over to Alice and had a quick and quiet conversation with her. Alice immediately quieted, slinking down into her assigned seat.

Skye looked towards Matson, looking impressed. She spoke excitedly but quietly. "That guy's a Sky Marshall…how cool! You know the Sky Marshall." Beef did not reply, a closed mouth trait he had picked up during his days in military intelligence. "That's OK if you don't want to say anything," added Skye. "I know he's a Sky Marshall because on one of my other trips he escorted a mean drunk off the plane.
I hope I wasn't being rude and obnoxious," continued the young lady, "I was just standing my ground…"
"No, you were not the one being obnoxious," stated a thankful Matson, "and I am so very glad you stood your ground about your assigned seat. I'm not sure what that entire episode was about. The idea of having to spend the entire flight next to that woman is…"
"I guess part of the reason I stood up to that woman is a that she reminds me of my aunt. If you ever met my aunt, she'd probably react the same way to you."
"Remind me to steer clear of your aunt," said Beef.

"By the way…you're Beef Matson, the private detective, aren't you?" asked the young woman.
Smiling, Matson nodded.
"I've also seen you on TV. I think one of those shows like Entertainment Tonight, showed a clip of you, saying you were investigating the Tawny Clover case. Plus I already knew who you were from the gay papers and web sites." The teenager then told Matson she was gay, something he had already surmised from the rainbow straps on her handbag.

"Oh, my name's Skye…Skye Jett. I'm going to Chicago to stay with my dad for awhile. I usually live with my mother in San Francisco, but she's going on another of her prolonged business trips to…gosh, I don't remember. Probably somewhere in Southeast Asia, that's where all her most recent trips have been. I'm one of those rich spoiled teenaged kids, either I'm living in my mom's big townhouse in San Francisco, or my dad's big house just outside of Chicago."

"My mom is an exec for one of those big multinational companies. I'm not exactly sure what she does. Once I made a joking comment that she goes on these trips to find the places that have the cheapest child labor…and she wouldn't talk to me for a week. Anyway, whenever mom heads off on one of her trips, I get sent to live with dad and his trophy wife. Don't get me wrong. My mom and dad are all right. The both treat me really good and they're both really successful but they discovered a few years ago that it was just over for them as a couple." Skye related that she didn't mind the commutes between Chicago and San Francisco, she had acquired a lot of gay friends in both cities.

"This is like really amazing. I guess the universe wanted me to come to your rescue. First, I overheard that woman's cell phone conversation in the waiting area, then it turns outs when she grabbed the seat next to yours, it happened to be the one that was assigned to me. You were being targeted by her, plain and simple. She recognized you right away from either like the TV or the newspapers and then she got on her cell phone immediately to somebody from her church to brag how she was going to work on converting you during the flight and you would get off the plane a straight man. I guess she, and whoever she was talking to on her cell believe that all gay men are rich and have AIDS. So all a woman has to do is marry a gay man, then he will conveniently drop dead from AIDS and leave his widow with a lot of loot. Like she felt she was going to rescue you from your lifestyle, have a romantic adventure and make out like a bandit, to boot."
"What the hell kind of church does she belongs to…the church of the black widow spider?," mocked Matson, "It's hard to believe that anyone with half a mind would think that. Well, I'm not rich and just about all the gay men I know aren't rich either. Funny that. I wonder how rich she thinks homeless gay men are?"
"Yeah, I know," replied Jett, "really pervy and really stupid. I don't get it…why do some straight women think all they have to do is be pushy and that'll turn some gay guy straight? What did that Alice woman think? That she'd fool you into believing that she was a guy in drag?" Skye lifted herself up in her seat to catch a glimpse of Alice sitting up front in the plane. "…Really bad drag?" Skye then sat back in her seat and sighed heavily. "As you must have guessed, she thinks you are hot stuff, and from what I heard, she's been taught by her church that all she had to do to convert a gay man was to grab him in the tender places, and boom…instant straight man. I guess she and folks at her church saw you on TV, read about you in the news and decided that since you're a gay public figure with a good reputation, they had to put you on their must convert to straight list. So that woman thought it was an exciting opportunity when you happened to stroll by her in the airport. Seems she had the idea she was going to be all touchy feely with you, then you would instantly go straight and be held up as a shining example as an exgay so all kinds of gay men would follow your example and and they'd all rush to turn straight."
"Some people have an awful lot of time of their hands," muttered Matson.

"Well, ya know," continued Skye, "Sounds like she and all the good folks at her church are just trippin' on something."
"Hmmm…" added Matson, " She did say her name was Alice Dee."
"What?"
"That's Alice…with an A."
"Really…" chuckled Skye, "That is way too far out."
"Well, anyway…thanks again for standing up to her and insisting on having your assigned seat," remarked Matson, "Otherwise this would have been a very long trip for me."

Skye relates a story about her aunt - that aunt that Alice Dee reminded her of. She related waking up as a little girl to find her aunt and her father's business partner getting it on on a bed in her bedroom where party guests had put their coats. "I was too young to really understand what they were doing, except it looked awfully biological. My aunt told me to get back to sleep. I felt like violated. Like it was my room, I was a little kid and they were doing some sort of adult thing in it.

One of my high school friends is a gay guy who is really cute and my aunt has noticed that. I guess she wants me to hook up with him as sort of proxy for her getting her hands on him. She was really pushing the idea of me doing the nasty thing with him, because, according to my aunt, that would turn me straight. Then, one day she suggested I try to get my friend to make me pregnant, then he would be forced to be my boyfriend and go straight too. Well, I had enough of that whole business and told her I wasn't a slut like her. My aunt got all upset that I accused her of being a slut. I didn't accuse her of being slut, like I thought her being a slut was a well known established fact.

So my aunt went to my mother and complained that I called her a slut. Somewhere in their conversation my aunt revealed that she was trying to get me to have sex with my little gay friend and wanted me to get pregnant with his baby. I guess mom didn't take that too well and she had this big talk with me. Seems like mom and her sister have been at odds over various things over the years. You'd never know, because they're so terribly nice to each other. And they have some big secrets as well. Years ago, my aunt was really Miss Trash, kind of out of control. Mom thinks my aunt was employed by some high priced escort service at the time. Then one day she comes to my mom and tells her she's pregnant and doesn't know what to do. So my mom arranges for an out of the way place for my aunt to stay while her baby is in the oven. Mom also arranged for an adoption by a really nice family. So my mom took care of everything her younger sister, so that no one would ever know that she was pregers, she would have her baby, a loving family would take the baby, and then afterwards my aunt could get on with her life with no one the wiser.

Then one day my aunt suddenly disappears. Weeks later she reappears and after all the work my mom went through for her, my aunt tells my mom that she had an abortion. I guess there are also some other secrets my mom has about my aunt, things she also ran to my mom for help about. However, my aunt seems to have totally forgotten about her past and now she's this very moral neoconservative type. Anyway, my mom told me from then on I was not to listen to any advice that my aunt gives me, even if it's just where to cross the street. That I should go to my mom first."
"Sounds like a plan…" smiled Matson.

Skye continued, "My aunt's a strong advocate for total assimilation of the gay community in the mainstream."
"Really…?"
"Actually she views assimilation as a kind of extermination. She wants gay people spread out and diffused, so there's no gay community, no gay bars, no gay businesses, no gay voting block…until nobody identifies themselves as gay, they see that being hetero is the only way. She believes gay people should be told that their sexual orientation isn't important, they can switch it on dime, that if you're gay and you want to get married, you should immediately switch and get married to a person of the opposite sex. She's a manager at some telemarketing firm. If she finds out one of her employees is gay, she lets them know they need to change or find another job."
"Changing your sexuality is a tough job requirement," commented Matson, "Especially for a two-bit telemarketing job."
"Like she is even a bit of an activist as far as that goes," continued Skye, "I heard her telling my mother that she and latest boyfriend go to gay bars…I guess she just does boyfriends now, she used to get married and divorced a lot, but I guess now she has a hard time finding someone to marry her. She now has this idea that a gay man would make the perfect husband for her. She thinks all gay men are rich, love to shop and do everything she likes to do, wouldn't bug her for sex…sort of like having a girlfriend with a penis. Anyway, she and latest boyfriend go into a gay bar. She comes on to a gay guy and if he doesn't show any interest in her, she tells her boyfriend to beat him up, because the guy didn't respect her."
"Hopefully, your aunt's boyfriends wise up," added Beef, "Your aunt doesn't sound very nice."
"Oh, she's nice all right. Nice and obnoxious."

Skye then thanked Beef for his work on the Tawney Clover case. Skye related to Beef that his involvement in the case was played up pretty well in the online journals and blogs she reads. "Tawny was pretty messed up, but I was still a big fan of her music," stated the young Ms. Jett. Skye related that Matson was regarded as a hero to Tawny Clover fans because the rumor was in the online journals and fan sites that Matson had been instrumental in covering up some bad information about the rock star after her death. Matson did not reveal how close the rumors were to the truth.

The clinking of service cart announced the arrival of a stewardess serving drinks at Matson and Jett's seats. Located at the back of the plane, they are the first to be served. Giggling, the stewardess related that ironically Alice Dee was now accusing the man seated next to her at the front of the plane of being sexually harassing.

********

"Everybody says Beef is too sexy for his clothes."

Randy's arms were full, carrying a hot pot full of his homemade soup and a grocery bag stuffed with a loaf of French bread, crackers, margarine and utensils, as he made his way down the main lobby of the Harvey Milk Professional building towards Mineva's Lotions and Potions. He was making good on a promise to treat Minerva to lunch; Randy had a good rapport with the other occupants of the building, building relationships with other tenants by offering his help with something, socializing with them, or in this case, simply having lunch. Knowing Minerva's business could be marginal at times, Randy knew a free lunch would be appreciated. Randy shuffled past one of the colorful show windows of Tic and Tac's used celebrity clothing store, trying to keep a firm grip on lunch offerings. Music drifted into the lobby from Tic and Tac's shop, a song Randy immediately recognized as "Too Shy" by Kajagoogoo. Randy prided himself on his knowledge of pop music and some people considered him to be a walking encyclopedia of popular music as well.

As Randy entered Minerva's store, he was greeted by a delightful sensory massage of scents, sounds and lights. Beef Matson's assistant liked Minerva's store, it was an oasis of calm, the subdued lighting, air filled with delicate and enticing scents from candles and incense plus the gentle music of wind chimes and bells made it seem more like a temple than a store.

Interesting and intriguing items, including many things of a spiritual nature gave the place a sense of mystery and the overall low keyed mysticism of the shop made it seem that the place was operated by some trendy gypsy rather than a former elementary school teacher. The store was festive with newly added fun items and decorations for Halloween, which was but a few weeks away. Randy spied Minerva in the middle of the store using a pole to string more decorations from the ceiling.

"How's business?" called out Randy.
"It will be getting better," announced Minerva confidently, "I conducted a blessing ritual this morning, blessing each wall and the entrance. That's why that's why there are lit candles on the counters, they're part of the ritual. The blessings will help bring a positive atmosphere to the store and draw customers here."
"OK…" replied Randy with a pause, putting the hot pot and grocery bag on the counter. "Here's our lunch. You got an outlet around here so I can plug in the hot pot to heat up the soup? I was keeping it on low up in my office, so it won't take long to get it nice and hot."

Minerva pointed Randy to an electrical outlet near the floor and abandoned the Halloween decorations to inspect the lunch Randy had brought. "It's my home made hamburger and cabbage soup."
"Hamburger and cabbage?" asked Minerva, with sudden hesitation. She picked up the lid of the hot pot, taking in a careful sniff. "Oh," she announced, "It smells heavenly. Oh my gosh, there's even some bay leaves floating on top. Smells like my grandmother's kitchen."
"Trust me," reassured Randy, "It's very,very good. When I make soup from scratch, it's outstanding." Randy busied himself unpacking the grocery bag, arranging the French bread, margarine, crackers, cans of soda pop, soup bowls and dining utensils on the counter in front of a delighted Minerva.

Minerva pulled up stools for her and Randy to sit on. "So your boss has flown off to some job back east? While the cat's away, is one blond mouse I know is going to play?" Randy arched an eyebrow and shot a steely glare towards Minerva. "Hardly. This blond mouse doesn't have to worry about being caught playing. Beef's not much of a task master, mostly he compliments me on my work, tells me once in a while that I should loosen up. His usual complaint is that he thinks I'm too focused on work, worry too much, that sort of thing…like I'm a den mother or something."

Minerva chuckled. "You know, your boss is an extremely good looking man."
"Yeah, I know," replied Randy, "Everybody says Beef is too sexy for his clothes."
"You know…" continued Minerva, "with a boss who's that good looking, plus the fact that everyone finds you really cute…I don't know why the two of you aren't fucking like little bunnies."
"Minerva," protested Randy indignantly and vigorously, "He's still my boss and I take my job seriously…I don't come to work looking to get laid…"
"Oh, don't get your Calvin Kleins in a twist," calmed Minerva, "I mean, this should be a natural. Beef is movie star good looking, you yourself are so damned cute, so it just seems logical to me that the two of you would make an outstanding couple."
"Fruit Of The Looms," interjected Randy.
"Whatever your brand of underwear is, those are just my thoughts," added Minerva, "just my two cents worth on the matter."
Randy nervously ran his hand through his hair, expressing his discomfort with the subject matter, "Well, you know…it's my job, I really take it seriously and Lynn…he's really good at being a private investigator and takes his job very seriously, that's why he's developed such a good reputation. So when people suggest that it must be some big sexy thing working for Beef…I guess I find that kind of demeaning. I'm just not one of those sexual compulsive types. Guys who act like that really turn me off."
"Oh…" replied Minerva with a dismissing tone, "I didn't mean it that way at all. Just my attempt at a little match making. Oh Randy, you are just too shy. Shouldn't be that difficult for you to find a boyfriend anyway…didn't you tell me about your old boyfriend once?"
Randy told Minerva again about his beloved Brett and related how he lost him to AIDS. Randy suddenly turned wistful, "You know, when you lose someone you're close to, it seems like the world loses a lot of its detail. When you're paired off with someone it's like…you're using both your senses together and you notice more. Alone, you don't seem to notice as much."

There was a nugget of silence and then Minerva abruptly changed the course of the conversation, talking about the difficulties of running her business in a slow economy. "Oh, there's competition from the Internet," replied Minerva, " but I think it's like how people regard books. People can read books online and on those electronic devices, but a lot of people still prefer to sit down in their favorite chair with a real book. In the same way I think people still like to shop in a real store where they can see something in person and touch it. Plus, I like to think I carry items that would be difficult for people to get anywhere else." Minerva related how a gay male friend, now deceased, had always encouraged her to act on her dream of starting a business based on her spiritual interests, that if she did something she was really good at, she would be successful and the money would follow. Minerva also admitted that a slow economy, the rent for her shop space and other expenses nevertheless presented a challenge. Randy added that paying the rent on his tiny, rundown apartment was also a challenge, suggesting that gay people may end up going back into the closet because of high rents, a closet would be all they could afford. "I mean, when people have to spend just about everything they make just to pay their basic expenses, that's not good…and it puts a damper on the rest of the economy. I've read," continued Randy, that the reason civilizations fall is that they become too expensive for their citizens to survive. That when all the wealth becomes concentrated in just a small group, with all the other people only getting a trickle, a country suffers from economic arteriosclerosis with the danger of having an economic equivalent of a stroke or heart attack." Minerva shot a studied look at Randy, "Randy, I didn't realize that you were such a profound thinker."
"Oh," replied Randy, shrugging his shoulders, "I can be surprisingly profound sometimes."

The aroma of the heating soup attracted Minerva's cats, and they made a sudden appearance, the felines hopping on the counter to do a delicate inspection of the hot pot before they were shooed away by their mistress. Affectionately shoving the cats off the counter. "Cotton and Lovechylde, you guys are such picky eaters I can't believe you'd be interested in soup. Go on, head off somewhere and do what cats do best, take naps."
"Is that the name of one of your cats," asked Randy, "Love child?" Explaining the proper spelling of her cat's name Minerva also explained that the reason she had given the cat its name because "I don't know who the father is."

Minerva pulled an embroidered baseball cap out of a drawer, put it into a clear plastic bag and gave it to Randy. The young blond flashed a pleased smile. The front of the cap read, BEEF MATSON INVESTIGATIONS, SAN FRANCISCO. "I suggested to one of my lady friend vendors that she make this one up," revealed Minerva. "You can have this cap. Show it to your boss and maybe he'll have my lady friend make up some customized caps just like this one."

Minerva returned her attention to stringing Halloween decorations from the ceiling and the conversation turned to her interests in spiritualism and she began to relate stories about ghosts and, in particular to a seance in a San Francisco apartment building.

"I always thought seances were kind of phony," opined Randy, "You know, just a lot of theatrics."
"Well," replied Minerva, pushing a stubborn decoration into place, "At least of the women I know who are mediums, they're all quite sincere…".
Randy interrupted, "I've always thought seances are like those TV programs about ghost hunters that prowl around old houses that are supposed to be haunted. You know, they never find anything, they just get all excited about seeing shadows or some creaking sound from a floor board, but they never really come up with anything paranormal."
Minerva continued, "The thing is, it's very rare that something unusual happens at a seance. Mostly seances serve as a cleaning ritual to hopefully remove any annoying spiritual presence in someone's house, just telling the spirit, if any, that their presence is noted, it's time for them to move on and if there is anything the entity wants to communicate, they should do so. Rarely, very rarely, does that happen. Mostly, the seance is for the living, a ritual for people's emotional needs, a way to work out their feelings, maybe a way to deal with grief, for example. It's like when people buy elaborate gravestones, they're something to look at when people visit a cemetery. Gravestones are for the living; they're of no use to the dead.

However…" continued Minerva with a pause reminiscent of a door with rusty hinges being slowly opened, "I was told of a seance in an apartment building in the Castro not too many years ago. It was a smaller building and some of the tenants had the usual complaints of noises, and objects moving by themselves, shadowy figures…".
Randy smiled and rolled his eyes
Minerva chuckled, "the same old stuff. The woman I know who conducted the seance told me she expected it to be the usual thing, the people who wanted to have her come and do the seance, just wanted a little entertainment, to see a real live medium do a seance and she would bless the apartments, conduct the seance, there would probably be no contact from the other side and, at the end, all she would do is tell the tenants of the building about whatever spiritual impressions she got from the building, and that would be it.

Then things really got out of control. Instead of being content in talking through the medium, I guess the spirits decided to take matters into their own hands…or whatever it is they have and literally manifestations began all over the place. The other people at the seance began to hear voices telling them to get out and other voices yelling out the name of a pet. Another voice seemed to be that of a gay man calling his partner's name. All the candles on the table were blown out, items began falling off tables and shelves. All the items on top of a book shelf were completely pushed off. People began to feel as if they were being touched and that their clothes were being tugged at. Finally, the medium began recited a prayer over and over and the activity subsided."
"I bet no one captured this on video," doubted Randy, " did they?"
"No," answered Minerva, "but there was an audio tape made and you can hear some of the disembodied voices on the tape."
Randy shrugged his shoulders.
"Later, some of the tenants did some research on the building to find the names of the previous tenants," added Minerva, "They discovered that names called out during the seance matched names of tenants who lived the building back in the 1970s."
Randy again shrugged his shoulders, "That still doesn't prove a whole lot."
"Well, I do believe that was a haunting," stated Minerva, "The research the tenants did uncovered information that nearly all the gay men that lived in their building died from AIDS. I think that is what the haunting was about. The souls of young men who had died too soon and passed on before they could fulfill their life destiny."

Minerva directed the conversation back to discussing spiritual matters with Randy. She told Randy about her spiritual mentors, wise women - though she preferred to call them sorceresses, because they channel the power of the "source". She explained that the "source" or spiritual energy is good, and warned of the danger of seeking evil for power. Minerva also explained that evil often seeks out those who are moral egocentrics like self righteous religious right wingers. She also mentioned a fortune telling/spiritualist board she was working on.

"I didn't realize you were so religious," said Randy.
"I like to think of myself as spiritual rather than religious," explained Minerva, "Religion, especially organized religion is when people try to make something dirty out of spirituality. Spirituality is the exploration of what God is, while religion is, well…like when people try to use God for their own personal motives."
"Oh…" paused Randy, "So you really believe in all this spiritual stuff, like spirits and angels?"
"Of course, spirits and angels and guardian angels."
"Like everyone is supposed to have a guardian angel?"
"Oh, everyone does. Usually they have more than one. Most people have two, but they can have more than that."
"So these angels hang around people like it's a hobby they have?"
"No, guardian angels are gifts from God, they are around us constantly…their concept of time and space is different from ours."
"If guardian angels are around us constantly, how is it that people have bad things happening to them?"
"Well, that depends on a lot of things. There's our free will which they have to respect, they can only guide us and that depends how much in touch we are with them. There's other things…angels have to deal with our plane of reality, what God has in store for us, quite a number of things."
"Hmmm," muttered Randy skeptically.
"The more you are in touch with your guardians, the easier it is for them to help you."
"Hmmm," Randy again muttered matter of factly.
"There are prayers or invocations you can say to specifically call for help from your guardians and be more receptive to your guardians. I know of Angel Intuitives who are very receptive…"
"Angel what…"
"Intuitives. People who are very receptive to angels and who are very aware of their presence. I had an intuitive tell me once about my guardians, that I had three." Randy arched an eyebrow and commented. "Well, I guess I'm just not much into my spiritual side."
"You don't have to be. Your angels will be beside you regardless. They can't help it. They are made to be hopelessly in love with us, unconditionally."
"Whatever," chuckled Randy. "I didn't realize that. Maybe I should take my guardian angel guys out for a coffee once in awhile."

When the soup had heated up sufficiently to fill the store with delicious aroma, Minerva and Randy set up a make shift dining area out of a store counter. Minerva placed some large pillar candles on the counter and lit them to add a touch of class. As the two quietly dined on the soup and bread, an impish smile came to Randy's face. He asked Minerva if she had sensed any spiritual presence in her store. Chewing on a bit of bread, Minerva shook her head in the negative. Then Randy, speaking loudly announced to the empty store, "If there are any angels, spirits or entities present, please give us a sign." Minerva smiled at Randy's kidding. Then the four large pillar candles on the counter began to go out, one by one. A very pregnant pause followed with Randy finally breaking the silence. "Well, that's a bit disquieting," he observed.

********

"There's something coming this way. Get back!"

In a house in a semi rural area of east central Wisconsin, not far from Appleton, a woman sat up in bed and spoke to her husband, standing at a window in their darkened bedroom. "Hon, if you want to show off your beautiful body to the neighbors, we should probably turn on the lights."
"I'm trying to see what those damned dogs are barking at," was the response.
"Why don't you forget about those dogs and come back to bed."
"How can I get any sleep with those dogs barking the entire night? It's like listening all night to that idiot Christmas song where dogs bark out 'Jingle Bells'. How do you manage to get to sleep?"
"I try not to focus on the barking. It would be helpful if you got back into bed and at least tried to get some sleep. We've both got to get up early tomorrow for our jobs. We're starting to give flu shots for kids at the clinic tomorrow morning and I need to be bright and chipper to be able to stand all the crying and screaming, and that's just the mothers."
"Well, I don't think our neighbor understands that I work two jobs and need my sleep. He says needs those two big mutts of his for watchdogs, yet if they're barking all the time, how on earth would you know if somebody is really prowling about?
"I think the reason a man like our short, potbellied and balding neighbor Claude keeps dogs like that is try to convince other people that he's a studly guy."
"Well, it hasn't convinced me. I think he's short, potbellied, bald jerk. I wonder how he can sleep with his dogs barking all night?"
"Well, his wife or his girl friend or whatever she is…that woman he met on a camping trip near Rhinelander last year and brought home with him, tells me he is a heavy sleeper. Plus, if you look at Claude's ears, maybe he's a bat."
"If this keeps up much longer, I'm going go over there and pound on his door and…"
"Let's not do that again," objected his wife, "That didn't accomplish anything last time and I think he just enjoys confrontation. Why don't you take a sleeping pill and come back to bed."
"Why should I get doped up on pills just to get a good night's sleep in my own house because a neighbor allows his dogs to…become a public nuisance?"
"David," stated the wife calmly, "I'd rather have you take a sleeping pill than have you go next door and get all worked up trying to talk some sense into Claude. Besides, Claude just loves to antagonize people. I f you got yourself all wound up and had a heart attack, Claude would be doing a little happy dance." There was a small pause while her husband continued to gaze from the window and the wife spoke again. "You know Christine Gorzalski from down the block? Claude's dogs got out of their pen again and tried to get at Christine's little girls through their backyard fence. Christine was bloody hell mad and went down to the town hall and told them that if they didn't do something about Claude's dogs, she would come back and dismantle town hall brick by brick. So I guess ol' Claude is going to get a summons regarding his poochies, plus with all of your complaints and the neighbors, something will probably be done about his dogs soon. So come to bed, just try to stick it through one or two more nights."

The wife caught a smile on her husband's face in the dim light. "Do we have some cookies or something in the kitchen?" he asked.
"No," replied the wife, "It'll be a few weeks yet before I start my Christmas baking frenzy. Just come to bed."
The husband paused, turning to look out the window again, this time in the opposite direction. I can see that new train over in train yard. It's just sitting there, there are lights on in some of the cars."
"What new train?"
"That new luxury, streamlined train we saw on the TV news. Remember, some company up around Appleton has been building the passenger cars for it. That train's just sitting there, for some reason it's parked right there."
"I remember now. It kind of looked like jet from the front. There's always trains parked in the train yard, sometimes they're there for days. They might be working on it, or it might be waiting for a clear track or whatever…" The wife yawned and stretched.
"It does kind of look like a jet liner, just sitting there," replied the husband, who finally turned away from the window and began moving towards the bed.

Suddenly, the intermittent dog barking was replaced by violent snarling and screeching. There was also a high pitched unearthly wailing, a cross between baby's cry and a cat's screech. The husband leaped back to the window, the wife lurching forward in bed. "What is it?" she gasped. "I can't see anything from here," answered the husband, who grabbed a pair of jeans and hastily put them on while the loud violent canine confrontation continued outside. "Sounds like those dogs are trying to tear somebody…or something apart," he added. The husband ran out the bedroom door for the stairway to the downstairs. "Dave," screamed his wife, "Don't go outside!" She tumbled out of bed, nearly falling to the floor, untangled a blanket from her ankle, grabbed her nightgown and followed her husband downstairs. As she arrived in the darkened living room downstairs, her husband was standing at the sliding glass doors. "Don't go outside!" she warned again, as loud, violent bestial sounds screamed in from outside, like primeval creatures pitted against each other in some to the death battle. The couple could see lights being turned on in other houses in the neighborhood.
"Don't go outside," the wife warned again.
"I'm not, Sue Anne," replied her husband, "I'm just trying to see what's going on."
"Can you see anything?"
"No, the fence and bushes are in the way. Too dark over there anyway."

The sudden blast of a firearm, most likely a shotgun, split the air. Then it sounded again. "That must have been Claude," said the wife, "He's got a shotgun." There was a sudden silence for perhaps a couple of seconds, then the unearthly wailing began to sound again, like an off key air raid siren. The husband and wife began to hear the sound coming towards their location. The husband cranked his neck against sliding glass door, trying to get a better look at his neighbor's yard. Suddenly, he jolted.

"Oh my God," he blurted out to his wife, "There's something coming this way. Get back!"
"What is it?" she asked "Some person…?"
"I don't know," he replied, "It doesn't look like a person…" The husband suddenly had presence of mind to check the lock on the sliding glass door. "The door is open and unlocked," he gasped in a loud, breathy whisper. The husband tried pushing the stubborn door until it would align properly so he could flip the locking mechanism. The pecs bulged on his shirtless chest as he pushed the door. "This damned door will never close when you want it too…" he mumbled, watching a dark, shadowy mass scrambling closer to back deck and the sliding glass door. Finally, there was a dull click and the door snapped into locking position, with husband quickly setting the lock and jumping back from the door. Immediately, a dark mass flung itself against the glass with thumping sound. The wife uttered a loud gasp and her husband, still moving backwards, grabbed his wife's arm and led her silently backwards, until they both disappeared into the shadows, standing near the stairs in the living room.

"What the hell is that?" gasped the wife very quietly.
"Just don't move…" whispered the husband, "just don't move, don't let it see where we are."

A scraping, scratching exploration of the glass continued with branch like appendages on the creature's head moving forward to tap the window as well. There was also a clicking sound, much like a very large insect rubbing its legs together. Then it began to wail, a loud, demonic wail that drowned out the scratching, scraping and tapping sounds, the wail of some haunted and possessed demon cat that became increasingly louder and echoed off the living room walls.

Then suddenly the wailing stopped. The dark mass stopped moving and tilted to one side. Then, with a jerk, the creature flashed off in the direction it had tilted towards and was gone.

"All the blood's been drained from him!"

Minutes after a shotgun blast killed the serenity of the Wisconsin neighborhood, the area was blossoming with the flashing lights of police cars. The weather also changed and a misty rain turned into a steady downpour. A police detective queried the investigating officers. "So what have we got here?" One of the officers responded. "A guy named Claude who lives in this house over here says somebody got into his yard and attacked his dogs, which is a first because usually we have complaints about his dogs getting out of this yard and attacking someone. It's kind of crazy because he says he could see from his upstairs bedroom window that somebody was lifting up and throwing his dogs around."
"That sounds highly improbable," replied the detective, "that someone would decide to go one on one with a couple of vicious dogs."
"That Claude guy says that the neighbors were out to get his dogs and it might have been one of them."
"I think the neighbors would probably pick a safer route…like maybe some poisoned ground beef."
"What's more is that he says the person was wearing some crazy Halloween costume."
The detective shook his head, "So what happened?"
"Claude says when he got to his back porch, the dogs and the person in the costume were really going at it and the dogs seemed to be on the losing end, so Claude told the person to leave and when said person didn't, he let him have it with a shotgun blast. He said the person screamed and then ran over to the neighbors house. He thinks it was the guy who lives next door."
The detective shrugged his shoulders in a sort of disinterest, "Could be. The guy next door doesn't happen to have suddenly acquired a shotgun wound, does he?"
"No, the guy and his wife called the police too. They said right after they heard the shotgun blast, they ran to back patio door…the sliding glass door over there, and some hideous creature tried getting into their house. Made all kinds of screaming sounds then ran off."
"Some idiot in a costume, probably screaming because he got shot and all bit up by the dogs."
"Another woman across the street says something resembling whatever tried to get into the couple's patio door tried getting into her kitchen door while she was sitting at her kitchen table, probably shortly after the patio incident. We looked at her kitchen door, it was almost smashed in, glass from the door window all over her kitchen."
"Well, it's almost Halloween, some kid acting stupid," surmised the detective. "He'll probably be in a local hospital emergency room."
"Sounds like somebody on meth," added the officer. The detective shrugged, "Well, let's start with that Claude's back yard. Where is the puppy master anyway?"
"He's in his house with one of his dogs. The dog was really beat up bad. All the neighbors are staying in their houses, they are really scared. That must have been one really good Halloween costume."
"You said his dog," stated the detective, "I thought there were two of them."
"One of the dogs is missing."

The detective and three officers looked over the back yard where the dogs were attacked. The officer pointed to a garage wall where numerous shotgun pellets were embedded. "Look at all the fur on the grass here, this is where the fight took place, " one of the officers pointed his flashlight on the ground and then swung over to the garage, "You can tell from the arrangement of pellet holes on the garage wall, that the whoever attacked the dogs must have taken the full blast of the gun. It's amazing that they made it to the neighbors and then disappeared afterward."
"Something's not right here," observed the detective, "there's some blood from the dogs, but nothing where there would be if someone were hit with a shotgun blast and there's no trail of blood either."
"Maybe someone was wearing costume with a bullet proof vest," suggested one of the officers.
"That would mean someone went through an awful lot of trouble," responded the detective, "doesn't sound like somebody crazy on meth. This business of somebody causing all this commotion and then just disappearing without a trace. This attack on the dogs, maybe we are dealing with some kind of animal," mused the detective.
"And then there's that smell," added one of the officers, "right here where the dogs were attacked. We also smelled it on the neighbor's patio and at the other neighbor's kitchen door."
"Yeah," noted the detective, "Acrid, pungent, chemical like smell…or like when you chop up some nasty weed with a lawn mower."

Something caught the detective's eye. He spoke softly to the officers. "See the small wooden bins next to the garage?"
"Probably where the guy stores his garden stuff or something," added an officer.
"Casually shine your flashlight over there. See the lid on the one bin is slightly ajar and even though the entire thing is shiny from the rain, look on the front of the bin."
"Blood," confirmed one of the officers. The detective quietly instructed the officers to have their service revolvers at the ready, that the detective would pull the front of the bin open and whatever was inside would be exposed. The detective walked to the side of the bin, leaned over and quickly pulled up the latched. The police jolted as front of the bin promptly fell to the ground and a large gray furry mass quickly fell after it and remained lifeless on the ground.
The officers quickly gathered around the furry lump. "It's the other dog!," exclaimed an officer.
"Whoever or whatever attacked it stuffed it into the bin before it left the yard," surmised the detective. One of the officers shone his flashlight on the dog. "Doesn't it look kind of shrunken or shriveled?" "My God," added another officer, "It looks like all the blood has been drained from it."

The group then heard splashing footsteps and another detective ran into the backyard. He motioned to the detective with the officers. "On the other block over, there's been a murder. Found a guy lying next to his car. All the blood's been drained from him!"

********

"To me it's just a big, nasty dandelion with some very evil habits."

A day later, similar attacks took place, this time just outside of Oshkosh, then a couple of days later, to the south of Fond du Lac. The attacks were identical to the first ones, always nocturnal and people reported that the figure they saw in the darkness was something like a walking bush or someone dressed up in a costume, perhaps as some ghastly scarecrow. Most of the attacks involved attempted break-ins. In one such incident, something tried breaking in through a living room window to get at a group of young girls having a slumber party. The father of the house reported shooting at the intruder with a rifle and reported getting two direct hits, yet the intruder merely ran off and and there was no blood to be found at the site. Later, a group of graveyard shift employees at an all night supermarket had their break on a loading dock abruptly interrupted, when while chatting on cell phones and smoking, something suddenly charged at them from the darkness, chasing them around the building. One man had to hospitalized when he received a gash that made his arm swell up.

A young woman reported that in the middle of a conversation with her boyfriend, who was standing outside near his car, reported that weirdo was watching him, a short time later he screamed. Later, his body was found drained of blood and still clutching his cell phone. Soon, rumors began to spread that one of the fabled "cupracabra" creatures had somehow found its way to the Wisconsin countryside and the some stories in the media were now suggesting the existence of a Wisconsin cupracabra monster. As the attacks continued to occur, the locations indicated that whatever was causing them was moving southeast, towards the large metropolitan area of Milwaukee.

Soon, not only local law enforcement was investigating the incidents but the FBI was brought in and shadowy figures from some unnamed federal agencies began observing. From one such agency, an older man dressed in a dark suit sat in a dark gray SUV observing officers investigating the site of one of the attacks. There was a thump on the passenger side window of the SUV. The man in the driver's seat turned and saw a younger man also dressed in a dark suit standing beside his vehicle. He pushed open the passenger side door and spoke. "Gary!" The younger man smiled a rationed smile and said nothing. "Well, you made good time. Get in". The younger man got in the vehicle.

"Gary, the research facility staff complained that you were a bit on the nasty side to them."
"You mean that tribe of absent minded professors? They couldn't find their own tallywackers with a team of searchers. The same ones who let a one of a kind life form, at least on this planet, disappear right from under their noses? You can tell them I feel so bad about the way I talked to them that I've sunk into a great depression."
"Well," the other man sighed, "So what have you learned about the creature?"
"What…is this some sort of pop quiz for me?"
"No, it's to fill me in, I actually know very little about this thing."
"Well then," Gary replied, "I'll educate you. By the way, by what name are we supposed to refer to the creature now? The official one of Nemesis, or the informal one of The Reindeer Man, or what?"
"The official word is that we are not to refer to it as anything."
"I think that's a bit unfair to the public, now that our little whatever it is, is rubbing shoulders with the good people of this state. I would think they should have a right to be able to put a name to a thing that is trying to kill them."
"The directive is recover the creature as transparently as possible, the names we have for it are not to make their way to the general public. We'd like to leave this as a mystery with no trail back…"
"Yeah, I've heard the lyrics before, here's the scoop on…our little friend. You must have heard some of this before, so bear with me if I give you some repetitive information. There were two pods retrieved from the alien space craft recovered in the Catch A Falling Star project. Yeah, yeah…don't mention Catch A Falling Star, as if anyone's going to know what that's about. The absent minded professors at the CAFS facility decided to try and grow or hatch one of the pods, whatever you do with one of these pods, and the result was a very unpleasant and difficult to manage creature. The facility decided to terminate the creature after it munched on a couple of their scientists and caused a dreadful panic within the facility. The remaining pod was put into cold storage indefinitely, I guess as a souvenir.

What the sleepy little research professors down at the facility told me about the first creature they grew from a pod is that it is more associated with vegetable life than animal life. However, it does feed on animal life by sucking all the blood out of its prey. Does that rather efficiently. It also injects a toxin into its victim which breaks down the blood and tissue matter, much like spider or snake venom and in some people the venom causes a terrible, sometimes fatal allergic reaction. Since the creature is a vegetable and doesn't have a nervous system like an animal it isn't affected by bullets, sort of like shooting a bush. It doesn't like being shot, but it doesn't seem to be affected at all. Plus, the sap in the creature is sort of starch based and when hit with a sudden impact like a bullet, the molecules in the sap tighten up and the sap becomes momentarily like a kevlar vest. The creature's sap also has very pronounced funky smell.

Now, if that weren't enough, the creature can camouflage itself by changing colors to adapt to its environment like an octopus. It's not as good as an octopus, but good enough to be real annoying. If you were trying to track this thing down in a forest, that could be a real problem, since tends to look like a bush anyway. They showed me some photos of it, I thought it looked like a scarecrow with a pumpkin for a head. It seems to be bipedal with what appears to be arms with some nasty claws attached. And if all that weren't enough, it's surface is covered with twig like spikes like a porcupine.

The creature's eyesight is very primitive, probably only sees basic shapes, however, it tracks its prey by electrical fields, like sharks do, it's especially attacked to the fields generated by items like cell phones. So it's probably not a good idea to chit chat when the creature might be in the vicinity. It's also attracted by scent, especially the scent of blood.

At first it was thought the creature might be the same as the ones who built the alien craft, but its intelligence is not much better than that of an insect's. It's purely instinctive. It's now thought that reason the pods were on the craft is maybe the pods were zoo specimens or a type of cattle, maybe walking asparagus or something.

One of the facility's scientists specializes in the creature's behavior, but he was gone the day I was there, at some prayer retreat. All the other professors could tell me was that the creature has some idiosyncrasies but they didn't have any further information. I guess they could control the creature's movement with some sort of electric shock device they built, at least make it change direction."

"So if this thing is bullet proof, how do you kill it?" asked the other man, "How did they kill the first creature?"

"They finally set fire to it, but gutted a good part of the facility in the process. When they first found out bullets didn't affect it they got the idea of using chain saws to shred it. All that happened was that the creature's sap gummed up the chain saws immediately and there was a very terrified retreat. In addition, if you chop a piece off the damned thing, it'll grow it back…just like a plant does."

"Damned formidable critter, isn't it? So that's why there's been so much pissing and moaning about this, Gary. Not so much the revelation that we have an E.T. but that we have a very predatory and relatively invincible creature on the loose. The powers that be are also concerned about it…ummm, reproducing outside of captivity."

"Well then," Gary continued, "I have some questions as to how this happened. A couple of months ago, the second pod disappears from the facility. Now some of our top secret facilities always seem to lose things, until the lost items turn up under some empty boxes or in someone's foot locker, so there wasn't that much concern until these murders happened here in Wisconsin. Some of the material that turned up at the murders, some little chunks of organic material and fluids, identify it as…one of our little creatures. So, even though the CAFS facility is a long way from here, somehow the second pod grew into a nasty creature that those pods grow into, and somehow it made it's way to Wisconsin. I'm pretty sure that it didn't hitchhike here. Why Wisconsin? Does this thing like cheese as a side dish when its sucking blood?"

"That's where you come in Gary," replied the other man. "It's obvious somebody brought the pod or the creature here. The big problem is we don't know who, or why and we don't know how it's making its way around the Wisconsin countryside. The first thing the government wants is for the creature to be found, captured or killed with as little publicity as possible. Finding out who is responsible and why is secondary.

Give the local law enforcement as little information as possible on a need to know basis. Let them think what they want. The local detective that investigated the first killing was convinced it was the result of a love triangle. Then the other incidents started happening and he changed his mind. More attacks and killings will make it very hard to keep a lid on this. The press have started playing with that cupracubra monster rumor, which kind of helps us because people don't take that sensationalism seriously, unless of course, the creature suddenly turns up in some very public place. Then all hell is going to break loose."
"Well," replied Gary, "It that happens, the government could do what it does best. Work a spin in the media and lie like hell. I guess it might be kind of entertaining to see what sort of positive spin you put on a carnivorous plant running amok."
The other man frowned, "Gary, find this thing as quickly as possible, and get rid of the damned thing."
"You mean, destroy our precious, one of a kind flower power from another planet?"
"To me it's just a big, nasty dandelion with some very evil habits. I'll make sure you have all the resources you need. Do it and get it done quickly."
"I have to admit this is a perfect assignment for Halloween."

As the younger man started to get out of the SUV, the older man made a request. "Gary, could you ease up on the rude behavior a bit with those sensitive top secret type people? The complaints eventually make their way back to me." Gary responded with a tiny smile.

********

As two officers approached, Gary, the government agent was leaning against his car with his arms folded. "Glad you could make it, I've been waiting for here for an half hour. Forget?"
"No," replied one of the officers, "We couldn't forget with you calling in to our dispatch a few times. We know that you're one an important guy, we got the call from way up high to drop everything and meet you. But we had some reports that we had to finish and file."
"Snappy uniforms for file clerks…"
One officer looked at the other with an expression of contempt. You have some ID on you, don't you?" Gary revealed his identification badge.
"We'd like you to tell us more of this agency you're with," instructed the officer.
"I'll give you the slide show later," replied Gary, "The sooner we're finished here, the sooner you can get back to your filing. What I need for you to do now is to give me a tour of the attacks that your department reported. I understand right in this neighborhood here. I need to know the exact locations…"
One of the officer's police radio interrupted and the officer ignored Gary and a voice came from the radio, "Is he there now? Are you talking to him?"
"Yeah, he's here," replied the officer.
Gary began to speak again but was again interrupted by the radio. "What's he look like?" The officer began to speak into his radio but was interrupted by Gary. "You can give her a full description later," he smiled. The officer grudging stopped his reply. "Now," continued Gary, "I'd like to see the exact places where the attacks took place in this neighborhood, in order of progression."
The officer's radio once again buzzed and ignoring the government agent he turned his attention to the voice from the radio, "Tod, John wants to make sure the evidence locker gets inventoried today, so…"
"You don't need to chat with her right now," interrupted Gary.
"The officer protested, "Helen just broke up with her boyfriend and she…"
"Could I see the radio, please? Pretty impressive, who makes it?" Gary took the radio from the officer, dropped it on the ground and to the officers' horror, immediately crushed it with the heel of his shoe, sending bits of plastic scattering every which way.
Gary smiled a tiny smile. "I think that will help your concentration considerably."

********

"…I'm sure that if anyone could solve our little mystery, it would be you."

The rest of Lynn Gordon Matson's trip to Milwaukee went without a hitch. He caught his connecting flight to Milwaukee and arrived at Mitchell Field without a problem. His luggage arrived promptly as well and the rental car agency had a car waiting for him. Matson's heart leaped when the attendant brought the car around. It was a shiny new Jeep. Randy had mentioned that he had the agency would have a vehicle waiting for him that would be perfect to use while exploring old buildings. The attendant suggested to Matson, that if he had never been to Milwaukee before, that he should take the Lake Parkway into downtown and ride the Harbor bridge over a place called Jones Island.

Matson took the attendant's suggestion and minutes later was cruising on the bridge, car stereo blazing, and high above a harbor area, taking in a panoramic view of the approaching downtown buildings with a view of Lake Michigan to the east. There were a scattering of sailboats and a few larger ships. The lake beyond the breakwater was a deep blue green, looking like a calm ocean, with what appeared to be a gray fog lying on the horizon. Matson arrived at the downtown hotel and promptly called his client know that he had arrived. He made arrangements with the client to meet him at his apartment early that evening.

Beef Matson later drove his rental Jeep to an apartment building on north Marshall Street on Milwaukee's east side. It was a well kept brick building on street with lots of leafy trees and well kept small lawns. A scattering of autumn colored leaves littered the lawns and sidewalks, a telltale sign of mid October. In the tiny lobby, Matson found the name he was looking for, Lawrence Schermeister. He rang the apartment, was buzzed in and later knocked on the door of a ground floor apartment. The door opened and his client greeted him, a stocky, though not chubby man in his thirties, clean shaven, well groomed, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt opened to show off his hairy chest. Larry gave the San Francisco private investigator a short tour of his modest, but homey apartment. Mr. Shermeister explained that he was the manager of the building, a position he acquired because the building was owned by his uncle Joe. He explained that with the recent passing of his uncle, he and two of his cousins were now the owners of this building and several others.

Matson took the note, the folder of property listings and information and the rolls of floor plans back to his hotel room. After taking a shower, he sprawled out naked on the bed and looked through the folder and at the floor plans. He could not find a building that would be a likely candidate as the place which held the hidden suite and he decided to call it a day and go to bed.

********

The next day was very gloomy and dark as if morning had decided to sleep in late. About the same time Matson got in his rented jeep to make a tour of the cousins' properties, a big gray cat of fog crawled out of Lake Michigan and laid down on the city of Milwaukee. Beef decided to make the nearest building his first stop, a small manufacturing building on the city's near north side. The building housed only one business, a small metal working company. Matson first talked with the receptionist and then when the owner of the firm, a middle aged African American woman heard he was there as a representative of the cousins who now owned the building, she came out of her office to confront Matson. The woman was very angry and worried that if her building was sold, she might have to relocate and she couldn't afford that. She emphasized that she employed a number of people from the surrounding neighborhoods and they would all lose their jobs as well.

Matson told the woman that he had nothing to do with the real estate sale, all he was trying to do was find a room that might have some property belonging to his clients' uncle, the former owner of the building. With that the woman calmed down considerably. "Oh yeah. Old Joe Komorowski was nice to me. Let me do slow payments on the rent when I was first starting out. He also exchanged a couple of months of rent for some metal work. He was a good guy."

The owner was very cooperative with Matson and got out some floor plans she had drawn up of the building for her business. There was absolutely no way any hidden rooms could be located in the one story building. Then Matson asked her if the uncle had ever told her about any buildings he had bought from someone who might have had connections with organized crime. The woman shook her head no and then moments later her face lit up with a recollection.

"Oh wait…now I remember something. Joe used to stop by every once in awhile and he would tell me these tales about the buildings he owned. Half the time I didn't know whether to believe him or not. You know, those tales old people tell. But he did tell me that he bought some properties years ago, back in the early seventies from some guy who got in trouble for laundering money for the mob. Joe said the guy lived in a real lousy neighborhood, but the inside of the house was like a palace. Yes, now I remember it just like it was yesterday. He told me the guy owned some property but needed to raise some cash real fast so he would let Joe have the properties for a song. Joe said there was one stipulation. That one of the buildings had a secret, something or another, some mob secret. That if Joe found out about it and spilled the beans about that his life would be dirt. So if he did find something, he was just supposed to be very quiet about it." The woman even remembered the streets that Joe told her the buildings were on. Burnham Street, Muskego Avenue, Virginia Street and 2nd Street.

Matson's face now also lit up he was happy for this lucky break in his investigation. While parked in his jeep in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant, he went though the folder with the information of the properties. If the street names matched up with what the woman had told him, then he might just be onto something. Three of the properties had street addresses that matched what the woman had told him, there was no building with a Muskego Avenue address. Matson made a call on his cell to his client, Larry. Larry remembered that there had been a property on Muskego Avenue, what he remembered as a small, nice looking office building, but his uncle had sold it in the early 1980s and it was promptly torn down for a parking lot.

This indicated to Matson that he was on the right track. By now the fog was burning off and he next drove to the building on west Burnham street, a few blocks west of Layton Boulevard. It was a smaller, two-story brick building with a pizza joint and some professional offices on the main floor and apartments on the second floor. Matson ruled this building out, it didn't seem large enough for a hidden suite and with other buildings right up next to it, there was no alley, so there could be no alley entrance as mentioned in the Uncle Joe's notes.

Beef then headed the rented jeep back into the heart of Milwaukee, an old neighborhood called Walker's Point. Matson stopped at the first, largely deserted building on south 2nd street. He used the master keys he had been given to enter the building. The building was mostly empty except for a antique furniture dealer on the first floor. All the floors were nearly the same, brick walls with worn, sometimes sagging wood floors. One floor had some rolls of carpeting left over from a former carpet dealing tenant, but mostly the floors were empty of contents which made the private investigator's work easier. Starting with the top sixth floor, Matson walked across the loft area counting his steps and he did that with every floor including a forbidding basement. Matson ruled out the building as being the one with a hidden suite and drove off to the next property on Virginia Street.

The building on Virginia Street did not look all that bad on the outside, but the inside was a disaster. There were hints that the building might have been a charm when it was first built, but now the bloom was most definitely off this rose. The notes Matson had on the building gave a history that went back to time the uncle had bought it, describing it only as a warehouse. There was an ornate staircase that led to a mezzanine level which was covered with litter and had part of the stair rail missing. No one had bothered to move a smashed ceiling lamp where it had fallen to the floor probably some years before. Matson could see water damage in the ceiling where the lamp had been and probably the reason the ceiling had given way. The formerly classy lobby was also being used as a graveyard for a batch of commercial signs that somehow avoided the junkyard. The building was screaming to make it into a parking lot.

Catch A Falling Star: Beef Matson surveys the ground floor of the old building.

Matson decided to use a side stairwell which was in good shape unlike the front staircase. He did not trust the ancient freight elevator at all. The detective started the same process as he had with the previous building. Starting with the fourth and top floor, he walked across the loft counting his steps. He repeated the procedure on every floor and after he finished on the second floor, he called Larry again and asked his client if he had some tools he could borrow. Matson then drove to Larry's apartment on Milwaukee's east side, picked up the tools he requested, and told Larry to bring his cousins to the building on Virginia Street later that evening. As the weather once again made a turn for the worse, Matson decided to have supper before returning to explore the decaying structure.

********

Returning to the old building, the detective made his way up the stairs to the second floor loft carrying a large cola drink he had just purchased from a convenience store and a sack of tools he had gotten from his client Larry. The sack contained a few handy tools he thought he might need to search for a hidden room, primarily a sledge hammer, crowbar and some saws and a heavy duty flash light. Matson flipped the wall switch and the overhead fluorescent lamps begrudgingly came on. The lights buzzed somewhat like a swarm of small flying insects. The detective put the sack next to a wooden crate, placed the soft drink on top of the crate, took off his jacket and hung that on the crate as well.

It was raining heavily now, Matson could hear it beating against the large glass windows as he surveyed the wall where he thought the hidden room, if any, must be behind. The overhead fluorescent lamps still left the large open area semi dark and creepy as hell, plus the flickering of one of the lamps added to the concern that part of the room might be plunged into darkness at any moment. Matson sucked a bit from the straw of his cola drink and decided to go to work. There was a metal cabinet and sheets of plywood, wood panels, metal frames plus various other bric-a-brac piled against the wall that had to be moved before the private investigator, now turned demolitions expert, could get at the wall. Matson threw some pieces of wood out of the way to make room and then began to push the heavy metal cabinet out of the way. The scraping and squealing sound echoed off the walls making a noise like some ancient creature being forced out of it's den. Matson then made his first discovery, the body of a dead rodent which the detective sent sailing to another part of the room with a whack from a wood board. After moving the cabinet and then a large wood panel, Matson was sweating profusely in the humid old loft. He peeled off his shirt and hung it on top of his jacket on the wooden crate and took another sip of his cola.

Matson continued his work, pushing or carrying the remaining wood panels out of the way until the wall was finally cleared. He paused, mopped his brow and then grabbed the flashlight and began to examine the wall and floor in front of it. One particular area of the floor interested him. He looked at the floor area from different angles, then grabbed the sledge hammer and approached the wall. Pausing again to observe the wall and then gripped the sledge hammer like a baseball bat and swung into the wall. A muffled bang echoed through the loft and a couple of small pieces of debris that had clung to the ceiling for decades fell to the floor, including a long forgotten pair of pliers. Matson briefly examined the damage to the wall and then continued, the shirtless and muscular private investigator looking like a miner at work. More debris and dust fell from the ceiling and the wall. Matson kept watching how the cracks were forming in the wall. He began to see how the cracks in the plaster would stop at a certain point and form a vertical line. The horizontal faults in the plaster would not go beyond a certain point. He had found a doorway.

Beef continued to swing away at the plaster until large chunks were falling away revealing the wood slats beneath. He could now also see part of a varnished wood molding of a door frame beneath the plaster. Matson paused again to examine his discovery. Suddenly the silence of the building was broken from noise from the stairwell. There were voices. Matson recognized one of them as Larry, his client. The detective turned to see a group of people arriving at the doorway to the loft. It was Larry, two women and another man.

Larry looked quite pleased, clad in jeans and a flannel shirt with, as usual, the top three buttons left opened. "Hi Beef," greeted Larry, "These are my two cousins, Jessie O'Connell and her husband Patrick and my other cousin Helen Sokolowski, we call her Totti." Jesse was a woman in her thirties, slender, with well coifed dark blonde hair and dressed in a skirted navy blue business suit, looking like she had come directly from work. Her husband was tall and slender, a bit more casual, dressed in a button down shirt, a new pair of jeans and sneakers. Totie was just the opposite, plumpish, a curly ball of auburn hair, a jovial face and dressed in a sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers.

"Didn't I tell you how great this guy is?" continued Larry enthusiastically, "Didn't take long at all for him to find something."
"Yes, he certainly is magnificent, " agreed Jesse, staring at Matson' s naked upper torso.
"Well, I have found a doorway here that's been covered over," reported Beef.
"Do you think it's the hidden rooms our uncle wrote about?" asked Tottie.
"We'll find that out when I finish knocking down this wall."
"How did you decide that this was the place?" asked Larry.
"With my feet," replied Matson, "After I eliminated the other buildings, I walked through each floor. I found that when I crossed the second floor, it took far fewer footsteps to reach the other side, so this room is smaller than size than the other floors. But with all the debris and junk stored on this floor, outwardly, a person wouldn't notice the difference."
"How'd you decide exactly where to punch a hole in the wall?" again asked Larry, "looks like you hit the location right on the nose."
"After I moved the debris away from the wall, I could see the varnish of the wood floor had traffic wear on it that goes right up to this one spot by the wall. It's kind of hard to see with the dust, but if you look carefully, you can see that the foot traffic path goes right into and under the wall. There wouldn't be any reason for people to walk right up to a blank wall and of course, the wear wouldn't go under it. So I decided there must have been a doorway here."

"If we don't find anything on the other side of that wall and go ahead with the sale," asked Tottie, "you think the buyers are going to complain about the hole in the wall?"
"Look around you," replied Jesse, "I don't think they'd even notice."
"We could say Sophie Snitmueller did it," added Tottie.
"Sophie Snitmueller?" asked Matson.
"When we would play together as kids and something would get broken," explained Jesse, "Sophie Snitmueller is the name of an imaginary person we'd blame it on. Lord knows, we kids were all angels and never did anything wrong."
"Well, we'll soon find out what's behind this wall," added Matson, mopping his brow and walking over to the crate to take another sip of his soft drink. Tottie began exploring around the debris in the rest of the room. "Be careful," advised the detective, "There's vermin in this building. I found a dead rat when I moved the stuff from this wall and I batted the carcass over there." Jesse deliberately shuddered. "Oh, a dead rat can't hurt you," replied Tottie jovially, "and if I find any live ones, I'll just make like a big cat."

"A day with her kids is like a Disney movie directed by Quentin Tarantino."

Matson strolled back to the wall and prepared to reattack it. "My kids would love exploring this place," Tottie called from next to piles of debris on the far side of the room. Jesse yelled back to her, "Make sure your kids have had their tetanus shots first." Then Jesse added matter of factly, "With Tottie's kids, maybe we should check to see if the rats have had their shots. The rats wouldn't stand a chance if Tottie's kids were here," she added. "A day with her kids is like a Disney movie directed by Quentin Tarantino."
"Jesse," Tottie called out, "There's some old wooden chairs over here. You collect antiques. These aren't in bad shape, would only need some refinishing. They're like the ones that my momma had in her tavern. Come over here and take a look." Jesse begrudgingly and cautiously joined Totti amid the darkened debris piles and began examining the old chairs. "Oh look," exclaimed Totti. "What?" asked Jesse. "Right there…" Totti looked at the floor. "Where," asked Jesse. "You ninny," replied Totti, "Down there on the floor, it's almost on your foot. It's the dead rat." Jesse quickly looked down at her left foot, a dark gray furry mass cuddled up next to her shoe. Jesse let out a brief grunt of "Oh gawd!" and quickly evacuated the piles of debris, high stepping back to her husband. She began brushing her legs vigorously to remove any possible contamination. "After we finish here," she instructed her husband, "we are definitely heading to Hank's Happy Time for martinis."

After examining the wall to decide where to land the next blow, Beef Matson took the position of a batter waiting for the next pitch. A dull flash of lightning came through the windows, followed by a weak rumble of thunder. "Oh yes," muttered Jesse cynically, "that is so what we need now. Adds the atmosphere the dead rat didn't quite provide." The large loft was then filled with impacts of the sledge hammer hitting plaster and falling debris. Tottie rejoined the rest of the group to watch Matson's progress. Jesse was enraptured with the flexing muscles of the private investigator's naked back. "It certainly is interesting to watch him work…" commented Jesse.
"Extremely," added Larry.

In an attempt to speed progress, Matson became more vicious in his pounding of the wall. Chunks of plaster and pieces of wood slats sailed across the room. Suddenly, large upper sections of plaster broke away and fell to the floor. Beef stepped back and stopped his attack momentarily. "This wall must have been put up in hurry," reported Matson, "this section is not put together very well."

Matson continued and the opening rapidly expanded. Most of the wooden support structure behind the plaster easily collapsed as there did not seem to be any support beams holding it up. Finally, a wooden door was revealed, it's dark varnish now covered with plaster dust. Beef set aside the sledge hammer and grabbed the crowbar from the tool sack. He efficiently pulled away the remaining sections of plaster and wood to reveal a door knob. The detective was breathing heavily. He smiled and looked back at his clients. "Moment of truth…" Matson brushed dust from his forearms. "I think the door opens in so I won't have to clear away the bottom section of the wall. If the door's unlocked, won't have to go the additional effort of trying…" as he turned the door handle, the door easily swung open revealing a dark beyond. "Well," said Matson as he walked back to the crate and threw the crowbar back into the sack, "time to go exploring." He took long swig from the soft drink and headed back to the just discovered doorway with the flashlight.

"Do you want us to go with you?" asked Larry. Jesse then looked at her cousin as if to ask him what planet he came from. "No," replied Matson, "It's best that I check it out myself, rather than putting any of you at risk, besides, no sense in you guys getting dirty, I'm covered with dust anyway. Jesse breathed a sigh of relief. Matson flicked on the flashlight and stepped over the remaining plaster wall into the doorway. "If you run into any problems just yell out," said Larry. "Will do," replied the detective, "be back in a little bit." Swinging his head around to avoid some hanging wood slats, Matson began to explore. "There's a hallway," he called back, "Hopefully I'll discover something other than discarded beer bottles." His clients could see the light from the private investigator's flashlight highlighting a blank gray wall.

"Oh yeah," said Tottie in her Milwaukee accent, "this is really exciting, hey?" The clients could see the light from the flashlight as Matson made his way down the abandoned hallway. The light gradually disappeared. There were some creaking noises, then perhaps the sound of a door closing, then a slamming noise, some vague pounding noises, then finally silence. The group waited, barely talking to each other in the creepy near silence of the debris filled loft, the sound of rain still beating against the large glass windows. Tottie began to say something but Jesse stopped her. "If you're going to say you think you can hear some rats or something…please do not." Tottie shrugged her shoulders and continued the silent vigil with her cousins.

The cousins waited. Five minutes. Then ten minutes. Finally after fifteen minutes the cousins were beginning to get concerned. The could hear no sound coming from newly uncovered doorway. Larry and Jesse's husband decided they should go into the doorway themselves and look for Matson but, they had no flashlight. The light from the loft only lit up a small section of the area beyond the doorway and all they could see was what appeared to be a hallway. It was now going on twenty minutes since Matson had left them. "You don't suppose he fell into a hole or something?" asked Jesse, "My guess is that this hidden area is not very big. Why is it he is gone this long?"
"Maybe he made some discovery in there." surmised Tottie, "Maybe he found that hidden entrance that goes out to the alley. Maybe he's outside somewhere?"
"In the rain, without his shirt?" replied Larry, "I don't think so."

There was suddenly a short, muffled bang from the darkened hole. The group became silent, looking at each other. "Maybe if we all went in there as a group and looked around, I mean, as far as we could with the light from this room," suggested Tottie. "Not on your life," was Jesse's reply. "Let's give him five more minutes and then if he doesn't come out, we call the police and have them go in there after them. They would be a whole lot better equipped than we would to go exploring in some oversized rat hole. I'm starting to think about those vampire murders now. You know, that cupracabra thing. How the attacks are getting closer to Milwaukee. You don't think that…"
"Oh don't be silly," scolded Jesse's husband.

A couple more bangs and odd noises came from the hole. "That must be him," whispered Tottie. "Go over to the hole and just call his name," said Jesse. Totti shook her head in irritation and walked over to the doorway. "I really can't see much of anything, my eyes are adjusted to the light in this room."
"Just call for him," said Jesse, holding onto her husband.
"Mr. Matson," called Totti in a normal speaking voice. Then she spoke a little louder. "Mr. Matson, are you still in there?" There was no response. Tottie looked back at her cousins. "Yell in there one more time and then we'll call the police," instructed Jesse. Totti shrugged her shoulders and called into the darkness again. "Maybe if I just lean in a bit I might be able to see more…" Tottie, bracing herself on the jagged opening leaned into the forbidding darkness and tried to peer beyond the open door, craning her neck towards the right. Abruptly, to Tottie's left, a figure quickly popped from the shadows. "Sorry I was so long…" Totie screamed and quickly pushed herself back from the opening, wiggling like a walrus on a trampoline. The rest of the group quickly stepped back and screamed as well. The the figure completely emerged from shadow, it was revealed as the shirtless Beef Matson. "Sorry…I guess I got a little preoccupied with my discoveries…" he explained. The tension relieved, the rest of the group began to laugh. "Your uncle's note was valid. It's not a Pharaoh's tomb, but I think you'll be delighted with what I've found. The hidden area is in much better condition than the rest of this building, so it's safe for you to go in. I can give you a guided tour if you would like."

"There's even a mannequin in here wearing vintage clothing."

Matson led the trio of cousins and one associated husband carefully into the darkened cavity, a slightly musty odor lessened as fresher air from the adjoining building flowed in. "Hold on a second," Matson scanned the wall with his flashlight, "Thought I saw a light switch somewhere…yeah, right here. No reason why it shouldn't work, I doubt if anyone bothered to cut off the electricity to this boarded up section since no one would be in here to use any juice." Beef flipped the wall switch and an overhead light came on revealing a short hallway that looked to be in much better shape than the rest of the building. The hallway looked like the group had stepped into the hallway of a 1940s office building, totally incongruous with the shabbiness of the rest of the old factory building. Only a slight coating of dust covering the floor and no cobwebs were to be seen. The private investigator pointed to a door at the other end of the hallway. "That leads to a stairwell that goes directly to the alley with no entries to the other floors. That's the alley entrance mentioned in your uncle's notes. However, the alley doorway been all bricked over, probably at the same time the door to this hallway was plastered over." Matson stretched out his arm, presenting the other doorway in the hallway. "This is what it's all about, the fabled hidden office in your uncle's message. Not something he dreamed up, it actually exists. The door is still three quarters of the way open, just as it was left, decades ago. Not to disappoint you, but I didn't find and gold bullion or bags of money, but you might find it interesting none the less. The one very surprising thing I did find isn't anything of value but I'll explain that to you later. Want to take a look?"

The cousins and associated husband chorused in agreement and carefully followed the shirtless private investigator towards the room. Matson flipped a found wall switch and decades old light bulbs once again blazed. Beef turned off the flashlight and again stretched out his arm, presenting the room and beckoning the foursome in. "I'd suggest it's best to avoid disturbing things until we get some experts in here, but I don't think it would hurt to look around a bit."

The wall switch turned on table lamps in the room which revealed an amazing sight of room which was very much like an upscale cocktail lounge, a delight of 1950s modern style. The room was tidy except for an evenly distributed coating of dust on everything and though the air smelled musty, it was not as bad as an old basement or attic. There were comfortable looking lounge chairs and tables against one wall, a nicely padded sofa graced with a coffee table on top of which sat a small pile of vintage magazines, and a small bar with recessed lighting and padded counter. Round mirrors decorated with etched glass art deco female nudes graced the walls. There was even a vintage jukebox stocked with records. Except for the coating of dust and the style of the furnishings, everything looked brand new, not even the bar stools had any wear. A proud grin on his face, Beef Matson folded his arms and watched as the group began to slowly explore the newly discovered time capsule. The cousins found that the bar was fully stocked, many of the liquor bottles had never been opened. Underneath the bar were cases of beer, brands which were no longer made. Beef related to the amusement of the cousins how his assistant Randy had suggested his attempt to find this room might be titled, "Indiana Jones And The Discarded Beer Bottles", so he was happy to have made a worthwhile discovery, plus the beer bottles were still filled with beer.

The cousins began to make many other curious discoveries, cartons of vintage cigarettes that lay untouched under the bar counter, upscale cocktail glasses with shiny silver trim lined shelves behind the bar along with fancy bar sets for mixing drinks. A plastic 1950's table radio with vacuum tubes. A television set in a wood cabinet. Everything was very upscale and fancy…for the 1950s. Jesse found that the faucet in the wet bar still worked. In a very small closet at one end of the room Larry found a number of small boxes. Opening one box he found many small boxes, which contained items such as bracelets, rings and pens. Matson suggested that these might have gifts that who ever used the room gave to their "clients". Beef also suggested that in all likelihood the suite was used as an office by mobsters decades ago to conduct business in relative luxury and total privacy, noting that the office did not even have windows.

As Matson and the rest of the group began to turn their attention to the boxes in the closet, Jesse quietly made her way down to the other end of the room to another door which was slightly ajar. "What's in this room?" she asked. Matson replied that door led to a smaller office with a desk and chairs, probably a private office for the head mobster, that he would show everyone that room later. Quietly Jesse slipped into the smaller office while Matson looked over the boxes with the rest of the group, like kids discovering a closet full of hidden Christmas presents. After a minute or so she called out to the rest of the group. "There's even a mannequin in here wearing vintage clothing."
Matson stood up abruptly, "Oh Jeesh," he muttered.
"Mannequin?" asked Totie, "What would gangsters be doing with a mannequin? Starting their own line of clothing?"
"Well, this one's wearing a suit right out of the fifties."
Matson rushed to the doorway. He saw Jesse bending over in front of a figure clad in a dark suit and hat sitting in an overstuffed chair, slumped over slightly. Jesse was fingering the lapels of the suit, examining it.
"It's best not to disturb that until the police look it over," he advised.
"Why would the police want to look at an old mannequin?"
"That's not a mannequin…that's the surprising thing I was going to tell you folks about."

"Corpse?" barked out Tottie. She brushed past Matson and her cousin and her husband and rushed into the smaller office. She bent over the figure in the chair and stared into the mummy's face. She let out a short scream and then stood up, looked back at the group and laughed. Then she bent over and looked at the face again, screamed and then stood up and laughed once more, taking in the discovery of the dried up corpse much like a thrill ride.

********

"It's nothing that a carton of cigarettes and a bottle of gin won't cure."

Over an hour later, things had calmed down considerably and Matson, now wearing his shirt and jacket, was lounging in the vintage office suite with his clients plus the company of a small army of Milwaukee police officers. One of the police detectives had some coffee brought in for the group while they waited for the police to finish their investigation and staff from the coroner's office examined and removed the vintage corpse. The people from the coroner's office suggested that it was a case of murder, strongly suggested by a number of holes in the corpse's suit, made by a gun fired at reasonably close range.

Jesse was now composed and sat on one of the bar stools holding onto her husband who stood next to her. Matson asked how she was holding up. "Much better," Jesse replied, "It's nothing that a carton of cigarettes and a bottle of gin won't cure."

The police detective was very enthusiastic about the case, he thought it would probably be the most exciting and interesting one of his career and it couldn't be more perfect, happening just a couple weeks before Halloween, in a spooky old building on a very rainy night. Plus, it would be great publicity for the police department to solve an old mob murder. The Milwaukee police detective began eagerly chatting with Matson, asking him his ideas about when the office was last used which might indicate when the corpse sat down for the last time in the chair in the adjoining office, since there was nothing in the office conclusive regarding a date. While later lab testing would give some precise dates, the detective asked if the private investigator had discovered any clues which might give some immediate help to steer the investigation to a specific time line. Matson related that the magazines in the suite and some coins found behind the bar all had dates from the early and midfifties. However, he suggested that a better way might be to look at the songs on the jukebox and do some quick Internet research to see when those songs were popular. The latest recordings on the jukebox might indicate when the office was last used.

Tottie, on hearing that, sauntered over to the vintage jukebox. "Oh look," she cried, "it takes dimes, imagine that…dimes." Totie retrieved a few dimes from her purse and began dropping them into the coin slot, the machine whirring to life. "Oh gosh," she exclaimed, "A lot of these songs I've never heard of." I've heard of some of these singers though…Rosemary Clo0ney, Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, Sinatra… Oh, Perry Como. Grandma used to just love Perry Como." The machine flipped out the first record that Tottie selected and began to play it, after being silent for decades. Perry Como's voice began coming out of the speakers, "Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket…"

During the next couple of days all the mysteries regarding the rooms were revealed. Local authorities decided that the sealed off rooms was the Milwaukee operating base for a crime family which probably had the rooms built back in the late 1940s in a building it owned. Secreted in a building that was for all intents and purposes a warehouse, the rooms were invisible to the eyes of law enforcement, a place to coordinate racketeering activities in the late forties and through most of the fifties. Visitors quietly entered and left for years via the unremarkable alley door. Records revealed that the police were aware that the building was mob owned, but the thought was that it was merely an attempt to run a legitimate real estate venture to draw attention away from the mob's illegal activities.
It was also decided that the corpse was that of a small time hood who had ticked off his mobster brother-in-law for the very last time and went missing in 1957, which authorities decided was when the rooms were sealed off. The same year was a bad year for the mob family, a couple of main family members were under investigation, a couple of informants had talked to the feds and so, under the intense glare of law enforcement, the room was abruptly and quickly sealed off, along with the irritating brother-in-law, probably with the intent of reopening at a later date. However, for unknown reasons, the sealed off area of the building was left bricked up and plastered over until Lynn Gordon Matson took a sledge hammer to a plaster wall.

The news media lit up with the story about the discovery and also threw a spotlight on the handsome gay detective who discovered the rooms. The discovery of the hidden room and the gangster's corpse even temporarily knocked the Wisconsin vampire murders from the headlines. The media now found Matson even more interesting than when he had worked on the Tawny Clover case. This time, the gay private investigator was connected with a more positive case instead of a gossipy celebrity scandal.

Matson found his clients, the three cousins, to be very pleased with his results. The cousins enjoyed the momentary glare of publicity and were also delighted to learn the contents of the room, since everything was in mint condition, and particularly the jewelry found in the small boxes, was of considerable value. They were even considering developing the old factory building with the secret rooms as a tourist attraction.

The cousins asked Matson to join them for dinner at an Italian restaurant on Milwaukee's east side to celebrate the discovery and there they presented him with a check for his services written for an amount that was more than he had expected. The dinner turned out to be quite an event with media photographers suddenly showing up to take pictures and the other patrons of the restaurant asking for Matson's autograph. The cousins played up Milwaukee's attractions and suggested that San Francisco detective stay awhile in the Beer City and tour some of them. Matson replied that he might just do that. Totie wanted Beef to attend an authentic Milwaukee Friday night fish fry at a tavern in her neighborhood with her family so her kids could meet the private investigator. Later, Larry invited Matson back to his apartment on nearby Marshall Street because he wanted to give the detective a gift of appreciation. Larry presented Matson a big handsome teddy bear from his collection. "His name is Fred," announced Larry. Larry placed Fred in a cardboard box for Matson. Later, as Matson drove back to his hotel room, he looked at Fred sitting in the box. "Hope you like your new home in San Francisco," he wished the stuffed animal. Then looking at the teddy bear again, he asked it, "Fred, do you like to snuggle?"

********

"The goddess of disco must be obeyed!"

Catch A Falling Star: The office suite of Lynn Gordon Matson, Private Investigations (Click for larger view)

Back in San Francisco, in the office of Lynn Gordon Matson Private Investigations, Beef Matson's assistant, Randy Hardwicke leaned back in his chair and let out a heavy sigh. Randy's efficiency was the cause of his current problem, he was absolutely bored out of his mind. With his boss out of the office, Randy concentrated on all of his backlogged tasks and quickly took care of each one of them. Additionally, with his boss out of the office, Beef wasn't around to send him on errands, or suddenly ask him to do something when in conference with a client or involve him in some other intrigue. As a result, Randy found he had nothing to do. Almost no phone calls came in since Matson had left for Milwaukee, which added to the boredom. There was a call from his boss when Beef had called to tell him that he had finished the job in Milwaukee, found the rooms hidden by gangsters years ago, and to tell Randy that there was not one discarded beer bottle to be found in the discovered rooms.

Beef also told Randy, that at his client's suggestion he would be staying a few days longer in Milwaukee to take a few days off and take in the sights. "You should have come along," said Matson, "You would have had fun." Now Randy almost wished he had accompanied his boss to the Beer City. He sighed, the office was as quiet as a museum without Beef Matson there. There were some phone calls from the media about Matson's discovery of the lost gangster rooms after Beef had called; they were looking for his boss but of course, he wasn't there.

Randy got the idea to thoroughly clean the offices, and that he did until his and Matson's office shined and sparkled and smelled as fresh as just washed clothes. Then was bored again. The office would be alive again when his boss returned and Beef would be throwing assignments at him, so thought he probably should make the best of the lull in activity. The only thing was is that Randy did not care for lulls. Randy tried reading, taking long lunches, chatting with people in some of the other businesses in the building and watching some television in Beef's office, but he still ended up being bored with a terrible unaccomplished feeling at the end of the day. Gradually Matson's assistant adjusted to the slower pace, knowing that things would be back to more frenzied activity soon when his boss returned.

Randy also found that listening to dance stations on Internet radio added life to the silent office and took the edge off the boredom. Returning from the mall on the first floor with a fresh cup of coffee and a sweet roll, Randy connected to the Internet and clicked on a station specializing in gay bar dance tracks. As a thumpa-thumpa sound filled the office, the young blond man threw himself back the chair behind his desk and flung open a magazine and began to sway back and forth in his chair. Randy liked this station, it had a great mix of classic disco with newer tracks he danced to in the bars. As the rhythm and beat began to seduce him, he began to dance with the upper part of his body, putting the magazine down, gyrating his shoulders and occasionally clapping his hands. Randy began thinking of the times he saw Ellen Degeneres dancing on her show, and rationalized that if Ellen was dancing on the job, what would be wrong if he boogied down just a little. He also remembered Minerva asking him if one blond mouse was going to play while the cat was away. A track identified as "Love Is The Music, Gospel Mix" by FR, by the Internet radio player began to play, and it most definitely put Randy in a dancing mood. When the next track on the station, a classic disco track, "Keep On Jumpin'" by Musique began to play, Randy decided it was about time for the mouse to do a little dancing. He jolted out of his chair and pirouetted to the front corner of his desk. He then announced with a loud, deep voice to the empty room, "The goddess of disco must be obeyed!"

Given an extra jolt from the caffeine and sugar of the coffee and sweet roll, Randy began to jump and gyrate in front of his desk, twisting and shaking his body to the rhythm, embellishing his movements with finger snaps, claps and various assortment movements. The only sound from his feet on the wood floor were an occasional squeak from his white sneakers. Randy shook the boogie down to the ground. He then spun around a couple of times then becoming more gymnastic, jumped on one of the chairs waiting visitors would use and danced on it momentarily like a go-go boy at a disco. Then he leaped off the chair, spinning around a few more times on the wood floor. Randy was now incorporating every move he had ever used on a dance floor, becoming more frenetic in his moves. Shaking his head, his blond hair bounced around glistening in the light.

As it frequently is during those times when we think we are the most alone we often have unseen company and unseen eyes observing us and such was the case with Randy Hardwicke. He was frequently observed by his devoted and deceased partner, Brett Parker, whose emotional bond to Randy helped him transcend dimensional barriers and concentrate his spiritual presence near his old partner. Attracted by Randy's sudden burst of energy, Brett's spirit impressed itself into the office suite. Brett stood with his arms folded, quite transparent to any human viewer, admiring Randy's dance moves. Occasionally, he'd join Randy in a bump and grind.

Randy then jumped and bounced into Beef's office. The larger space allowed him to display more moves, spins and jumps. Randy grabbed the waist of his white polo shirt and began to lift it up out of his jeans, then over his head. The shirt popped off his head and Randy began to wave it around as a dance accessory. Swinging his shirt around over his head, Randy then began to dance back to his office. As he entered his office, he tossed his shirt towards his chair, making a direct hit, the shirt landing perfectly on the chair back. Feeling the freedom of shirtlessness, he danced back into his boss's office, totally losing himself in the music and adding movements from Hollywood musicals. He did a cartwheel and landed feet first on a chair, then stepped on the chair back using that to jump and propel himself on the floor. He jumped onto the sturdy coffee table, did a little spin on top of it and then jumped on the couch, doing another cartwheel from one end to the other. Jumping off the couch, Randy danced to the open space in front of Beef's desk, dancing as if he were performing for an audience. Just about that time, with Randy facing away in the other direction, the door from the hallway began to open. An older man and younger woman dressed in dark suits stepped into the outer office and stopped in their tracks when they saw the half-naked Randy dancing in Beef's office.

Randy's eyes widened and he uttered a very quick, "Omigod!". He then ran over to grab his shirt from his chair, placing the shirt over his chest and crossing his arms over it. "Can I help you," he asked sheepishly. The young woman had a very disappointed look as the older man ordered her join another agent in the hallway already maintaining a look out. Randy suddenly realized the man was the FBI agent he had described to Beef as Mr. Polyester. "Oh crap,'" thought Randy, as he quickly pulled his shirt over his head. "This is one major faux pas."

"Sorry," Randy gritted his teeth and then managed a weak smile, "Got a little carried away."
"We were all young once," was the man's monotone reply. "Do what you need to do to secure this office, you are coming with us."
"Just who are you, anyway?" asked Randy, "The dance police?"
"You just need to come with us," stated the man dismissively.
"I demand to know what I am being arrested for," asserted Randy, starting to panic.
"You're not being arrested, you're being put into protected custody. You are going to leave San Francisco for awhile."
"Why…what for," stammered the blonde, "does this have something to do with my boss? Did something happen to Lynn?"
"No, no, no, no," reassured the agent. "Your boss allowed us to make it appear that he was the one conducting an investigation of Mr. Harold Benedict , so as to distract attention from our own investigation. I had an agreement with your boss that if there were any ramifications resulting from that strategy, I would make arrangements for your security, especially while he is out of town." Randy remembered that Beef had told him that the FBI was conducting an investigation of the banker Harold Benedict, but had said nothing about this particular arrangement with the agency. Something Beef did not tell him. Lynn Gordon Matson did have a habit of sometimes playing his cards close to his chest.

The agent made sure the door to the hallway was fully closed and he began to speak again a quieter tone of voice, "There was a series of sudden, unexpected developments in the Benedict case. Mr. Benedict was murdered yesterday. About a week ago Mr. Benedict had a minor car accident. A cache of drugs were then found in his vehicle, Mr. Benedict dabbled in recreational drugs, though the amount of drugs found were more than would be needed for his personal use, so it's possible he may have been transporting them. Mr. Benedict had associations with a very unfavorable group from south of the border, that's why we were investigating him, so it's possible he may have been doing a favor for them beyond his regular business connections. Anyway, Mr. Benedict admitted himself into a rehab clinic more than likely in an effort to save his reputation. He also began to make a sudden attempt to sever his business relationships with his unsavory friends, firing several of their people that were working in his business. We believe this is what led to his murder yesterday. His car was forced off the road and he was executed by unknown assailants.

Since Mr. Benedict was a patron of a few right wing political groups, these groups are very upset with his passing and a few radio commentators are blaming your boss for causing the events that led up to his passing. We know that not to be true, your boss was barely knowledgeable of the man, however, since the political rhetoric has been turn up several notches, targeting your boss, I decided it would be best to have you out of harm's way until this situation cools off. The government plans to release its information regarding Mr. Benedict in a couple of weeks, that we were behind the investigations and not your boss and that should do the trick. This situation is a shame, Mr. Benedict leaves a wife and young daughter."

"That is really horrible. I know my boss, you have to believe he would not deliberately cause anybody problems like that, not even a bad guy, he would be devastated to know he would have caused anything like that. Especially, to have some little girl lose her father," stated Randy with great sincerity.

The agent almost smiled at Randy, quickly reinstalling his deadpan expression. "Of course your boss would not do anything like that. Mr. Benedict had a bad habit of picking his friends and business associates based on his overwhelming greed. His wife and daughter are better off without him. During the course of our investigation we also discovered that the publicly upright and very moral Mr. Benedict had some serious financial problems and was planning on raising some extra cash by arranging an accident for his wife and daughter to get the insurance money. Not a nice man."
Randy grimaced in agreement.

While the agent went out in the hallway to confer with his associates, Randy began to shut things down and lock things up and left a vague voice mail for callers to let them know he would be out of the office for awhile. The he began to wonder about where the agents would be taking him. His mind conjured up a vision of himself lying in the sun next to a pool in Palm Springs. He was wearing a very skimpy speedo, a drink with large chunks of fruit was on a table next to him and beautiful men were playing about the pool. Then he thought perhaps the agents would want to take him farther away from San Francisco, his mind formed a vision of a beach in south Florida. He was now walking on the beach, his body shiny and tanned, naked save for a red bikini. Men with beautiful bodies were all over the beach, smiling at him as he passed. Randy began thinking he could really like this protective custody thing. In joy, he began to do a happy dance in his chair, waving his arms to one side and then to the other. The agent came back into the office, pausing a second to watch Randy gyrating in his chair.
"By the way," asked Randy, "Where are you guys taking me?"
"We are taking you to Milwaukee to join your boss."

Randy stopped his chair dance. Suddenly, the image in Randy's mind changed, the sunny beach in Florida changing to a frozen Wisconsin beach on Lake Michigan under a gray, cloudy sky. A portly woman wearing a babushka and dressed in a heavy overcoat walked by, stared at Randy's bikini and gave him a strange look.

Some hours later Randy found himself on a late night flight on a nearly deserted airliner heading east. "How in the hell did this happen?" he asked himself.

Next in "If Pain Persists", Chapter 4 of CATCH A FALLING STAR, our hero Beef Matson is offered a job as security officer on a new streamliner train and is also recruited to be a spy by a secretive government agent. However, other government agents are convinced that Matson has information they want, and they're not above slipping him an overdose of drugs to get it. A hate spewing preacher has an unfortunate encounter with the creature and Beef, Randy and a bar full of gay men are railroaded onto a sleek, new passenger train for a trip west with an unhappy politician and one malevolent passenger that's not on the passenger list.

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