PATTERNS

by Richard A. Lupoff

Art by Allen Davis

It’s been more than ten years since Richard Lupoff gave fans a new entry in his series starring insurance investigator Hobart Lindsey and homicide detective Marvia Plum. But after devoting many years primarily to short fiction, he’s back to Lindsey and Plum and expects to finish soon a book-length adventure for them entitled The Emerald Cat Killer. Mr. Lupoff’s fans also won’t want to miss these Lupoff story collec-tions: Quintet: The Cases of Chase and Delacroix (Crippen & Landru), Visions (Mythos Books), and Killer’s Dozen (Surinam Turtle Press).

KEWEENAW BAY GAZETTE

Keweenaw Bay, Michigan

July 5, 1940

—

Mr. Zachary Grand

Editor-in-Chief

Grand Publications

143 West 43rd Street

New York, 16, New York

—

Dear Zach,

Well, you’ll never guess who turned up here in Keweenaw Bay a couple of days ago. Tony LoPresto! What the heck was Tony doing in this little town? Bet you’ve never heard of it. But there he was.

I was on my lunch break—stopped into Helen’s Cafe for a chicken salad sandwich and an iced coffee, and there he was sitting at the counter. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

Tony LoPresto! Carried me right back to the days of the Three Cheshire Cats. Remember the Three Cheshire Cats? Of course you do! Tony was as surprised to see me as I was to see him, but as soon as we both got over the shock we started exchanging biographies. It’s been what, six, seven years, right, seven years since we said goodbye to North Cheshire Central College. Funny how three fellows who were roommates for four years, formed the best little swing trio that northwestern Massachusetts has seen, chased coeds, shared homework, got into and out of trouble with the local law, and somehow managed to escape with bachelor’s degrees, can disappear out of each other’s lives as if they’d never known each other.

But I guess that’s life.

Would you believe that Tony is police chief of Napoleonville, the flower city of Bayou Richelieu, Louisiana? He still loves bird-watching and he was up here on vacation, field glasses in one hand and notebook in the other, studying the local feathered wildlife. Stopped into Helen’s for his ham and eggs and ran into me.

Two of the Three Cheshire Cats back together! Naturally we reminisced about good old North Cheshire Central College, good old President Lucas Smith, poor old Professor Percival Dunning, and all the great times we had together. And of course, the Three Cheshire Cats. I still play a little piano, although just for fun. Tony says he hasn’t touched his trumpet in years. Do you still keep your old bull fiddle around, Izzy—or should I say Zach?

When your name came up, Tony told me that you went back to your old hometown and got a job in the publishing world. How things change, don’t they? Good old Isaac Goldberg, editor of the North Cheshire Literary Quarterly, is now Zachary Grand, editor of Grand Adventures, Grand Western, Grand Mystery, and Grand Ghost Stories.

Did I leave anything out?

Those pulp magazines are a far cry from the Literary Quarterly, I guess, but everybody has to earn a living. Who would have thought I’d become production manager of the Keweenaw Bay Gazette?

Tony says you’re always looking for new talent, which is how he discovered you’re “Zachary Grand.” I’d like to try my own hand at something like that. Being over on the production side of the Gazette is okay, but I sometimes get an itch to try writing the stuff instead of printing it. Thought maybe the sad end of poor old Dunning might furnish the ingredients for a story. Might even find a place in your Grand Mystery pulp. Just let me know, old roomie.

It’s been fun reminiscing about the old days anyway, please write back when you get a chance.

Meow, Cats, Meow!

Robert “Bobcat” O’Brien

KEWEENAW BAY GAZETTE

Keweenaw Bay, Michigan

July 15, 1940

—

Mr. Zachary Grand

Editor-in-Chief

Grand Publications

143 West 43rd Street

New York, 16, New York

—

Dear Zach,

It was great to hear from you after all these years. I know you must be dreadfully busy there at Grand Publications, running all those magazines, and I’m actually flattered that you remembered me as you did. I’m also flattered that you asked about my job here at the Keweenaw Bay Gazette. A small-town weekly is a far cry from your line of big magazines.

Actually, what I do here at the Gazette is not so different from the work I did on the North Cheshire Literary Quarterly when you were the editor-in-chief. My title here is “production manager” but in fact I’m pretty nearly the whole production department. The owner is a fellow named Jack Miller. Editor-in-chief is Tim Holcomb, although he’s also our chief reporter, feature writer, and advertising salesman. I’ll send along a half-dozen recent issues so you can see what we’re all about.

What passes for hard news in Keweenaw Bay is the opening of hunting season in the fall and fishing season in the summer, weddings, funerals, and births, and graduation at the local high school. Come out here for a visit and you’ll think you’re in an Andy Hardy movie.

My job—well, I set type, pull and read proofs, lay out pages, and even run the press. We set type on a secondhand Mergenthaler Linotype that we got at a bankruptcy sale at the KearsargeRecorder when they went belly-up. Of course, at the Quarterly we hand-set type and ran vellum on a press. Out here, we run newsprint on a small rotary, a Goss Sextuple that’s older than Methuselah but still runs okay. Not nearly as pretty as the Quarterly, but a whole lot cheaper.

You know, I’ve been thinking about the old gang at North Cheshire since Tony LoPresto was here. You and Tony and I were quite the trio, weren’t we, and I mean that in more ways than one. I’ve been thinking about some of the young ladies we chased, too. Remember Carolyn Deering, Annie Mayfield, Jennie Lipton? I’ll admit, I used to dream about Annie. What a girl! What a figure! I wonder what ever became of Annie and the others.

And the professors, oh, weren’t there some characters in the faculty? Shakey Simmons, Henry von Eisen, Percival Dunning. Poor guy. Remember how he used to whisper his lectures? Well, not exactly whisper, but you remember that soft, breathy voice he always used. Remember how he got it?

Oh, you wouldn’t, of course. He didn’t like to talk about it, never mentioned it in class, I only remember him talking about it one time. It was at one of his Friday-night soirees. He used to invite a few students in to his apartment there in Wellington Hall on Friday nights. He’d lay out sandwiches and serve brandy and put on music, and we’d talk about everything from the benzene ring to Schopenhauer to the history of the Hittites. Of course, there was a certain amount of pairing off, too. Normally coeds wouldn’t have been in a men’s dorm but Dunning used to invite them to his parties and nobody complained.

I’m sure he would have invited you, Izzy. He always spoke highly of you. But you were over in Great Cheshire at the synagogue on Friday nights. I had a lot of respect for you. I think you were the only Jew at Central Cheshire, and you didn’t bother to deny it, you took whatever you had to and you stood up for who you were.

That rat von Eisen, Henry von Eisen, I remember he used to rag you every chance he got. I don’t know why he hated Jews but he certainly did, and he never missed an opportunity to slam you, pal. Percival Dunning would never have done that, it just happened that he held his gab-fests on Friday nights and you couldn’t attend.

Anyway, one Friday Percival must have had a little too much brandy. I remember he had his radio on. He used to play records most of the time, he was a big fan of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Frederick Delius and Gustav Holst, but once in a while he’d turn on the radio instead. The news came on and there was something about the election in Germany, this thug who was running against old President von Hindenburg. Dunning got pretty upset about it.

When the news went off somebody asked him why he was so agitated. Dunning said that the Great War was starting up again, that this bum Hitler was worse than the Kaiser and the slaughter was going to happen all over again.

Everybody else said, Look, Hitler lost the election, there’s nothing to worry about, but Dunning just sat there looking unhappy and drinking brandy. Finally a coed, I think it was actually Carolyn Deering, put her hand on Dunning’s hand and asked him why he cared so much about Europe, it was three thousand miles away anyhow.

Dunning was English. Of course you knew that, Izzy, you could tell from the way he talked, right? Everybody knew he was English.

What he told us was that he’d been a tommy in the Royal Fusiliers in the Great War. He’d been in the Battle of the Marne. There were Spads and Fokkers flying over and cannons going off and both sides were using poison gas. I thought they had gas masks but I guess they didn’t work very well, and poor Dunning wound up gassed.

He said he was nearly dead. His comrades to the left and the right in the trench were dead. He was lying in the bottom of the trench, water and mud nearly a foot deep. He had no food. He was so weak he couldn’t move, just lie there with his rifle at his side pointing up in the air, the bayonet fixed.

The Germans tried a charge, and a German soldier must have lost his footing. He fell into the British trench, landed on Percival’s bayonet. It went right through his gut. The German landed on Percival and Percival was too weak even to crawl out from under him. The German was as good as dead, he would have been better off dead but he was alive. He was screaming in pain. Then he just moaned and cried.

Percival said it took the German a day and a night to die. Finally a German graves-registration unit came through and pulled the corpse off Dunning and took it away, and one of the Germans noticed that Dunning was alive. They pulled him out of there and sent him to a field hospital and he spent the rest of the war in a prison camp.

That was why he always whispered, Izzy. It was his lungs. They were ruined by that poison gas. It was a miracle that he didn’t die. Didn’t die then, I mean.

Say, I’m sorry to ramble on like this, Izz. I know you’re a busy man and you have plenty of work to do. I have to get back to setting type myself. You didn’t say anything about my writing for your magazines in your last letter. What do you think? Do write when you get a chance, Izz. We old Cheshire Cats have to stick together!

Meow, Cats, Meow!

Robert “Bobcat” O’Brien

KEWEENAW BAY GAZETTE

Keweenaw Bay, Michigan

July 20, 1940

—

Mr. Zachary Grand

Editor-in-Chief

Grand Publications

143 West 43rd Street

New York, 16, New York

—

Dear Izzy,

I’m glad you got a kick out of those copies of the Keweenaw Bay Gazette I sent you. The owner, Jack Miller, wanted to know if we might get a subscription out of you. When I told him I doubted it he made me pay for the copies and postage. What a cheapskate! Well, I guess he’s a businessman and he has to watch expenses.

I hope you didn’t mind my mentioning your being a Jew and all, and your attending synagogue in Great Cheshire. I wonder what Percival Dunning would think of the war in Europe if he were alive. He predicted it back in ‘31, I think it was, when Hitler ran for president of Germany against old Paul von Hindenburg. Was it ‘31? No, ‘32, I think. Of course Hitler lost but that was only a temporary setback for him, wasn’t it?

And I wonder what Henry von Eisen thinks. He used to talk about Hitler and his theories of Aryan purity. I wonder what he thinks nowadays. Remember how he used to hate That Man in the White House, said he was secretly Jewish, his real name wasn’t Roosevelt at all, it was really Rosenfeld and he was part of the International Zionist Movement and that we needed a Hitler in America to stop Rosenfeld from selling out the country to the Jews? And where is that rat von Eisen now?

Hey, I don’t need to tell you about this, do I? Sorry, Izz.

I had a nice letter from Tony LoPresto this week. He’s back in Louisiana, of course. Who would have thought our fellow Cheshire Cat would turn out to be the Sherlock Holmes of the Bayou Country? Back in our undergrad days it seemed as if Tony’s only interests were the time he spent on the bandstand and the football field. Man, could he play that horn! He could have given lessons to Ziggy Elman or Harry James. And when he put down his trumpet and put on a North Cheshire uniform, those pads and that leather helmet, he was something else! You wouldn’t think a barrel-shaped guy like Tony, North Cheshire’s own Two-Ton Tony, could move the way he did. But…

Remember the big game in ‘32 against Willow Lakes Institute? The way Tony snagged that pass from the Willow Lakes quarterback in our own end zone, and dodged his way the length of the field to win the county championship for us? Beautiful! And then he turned around and batted .380 for our baseball team in the spring of ‘33.

But now he’s running Bayou Richelieu like J. Edgar Hoover. Who would have guessed?

I’ve been thinking about your magazines, Izzy. Somebody like Tony LoPresto could make a great character, don’t you think? I don’t mean to make a pest of myself and I always enjoy hearing from the old gang, but you haven’t responded to my questions about writing for your pulps. I hope I’ll hear from you soon.

Meow, Cats, Meow!

Robert “Bobcat” O’Brien

KEWEENAW BAY GAZETTE

Keweenaw Bay, Michigan

August 2, 1940

—

Mr. Zachary Grand

Editor-in-Chief

Grand Publications

143 West 43rd Street

New York, 16, New York

—

Dear Izz,

You are a prince of a fellow, Izzy! Not a word from you in a week and a half, and suddenly there’s a package on my desk at the Gazette, all the way from New York City. Once Tim Holcomb, the editor-in-chief, saw the return address he couldn’t wait for me to open it, and when he saw what was inside he didn’t know what to make of it. I think he suspects you’re trying to lure me away from the bright lights and fast action of Keweenaw Bay and get me to come to the big town to work for Grand Publications.

And I just might do it, too, if I got the right offer. (That isn’t a hint, old roomie, I’m just pulling your leg.)

Still, copies of Grand Adventures, Grand Western, Grand Mystery, and Grand Ghost Stories all in one heavy bundle made quite a stir around the Gazette office.

I took Grand Adventures over to Helen’s Cafe and spent my lunch hour poring over it. It’s quite a magazine. I know you’ve got your competition, but they’ll have to go a long ways to top Grand Adventures. That was some picture on the cover. That guy Saunders can sure paint up a storm! That native gal was really something. I hope you don’t get into trouble with the censors over it.

And the story was every bit as good as the picture. Splash Shanahan is some hero! I thought the nasty Sea Lynx was going to put a knife between his ribs at any time. Good writing, good storytelling. I’ll bet you never dreamed you’d be publishing yarns like this one when we were working together on the North Cheshire Literary Quarterly.

Some of the other stories were just as good, and of course there are all the other magazines you sent me. Grand Ghost Stories is next up on my nightstand. I don’t mind a good scare every now and then. You are one heck of a pal, Izzy!

You know, thinking about the old days, recalling the times we all had together puts me in a funny mood. Remember the night you rolled that old Cole roadster on your way back to North Cheshire from Great Cheshire? You showed up at our digs in Warren Hall with your clothes ripped up and blood all over, but you were mainly worried about your car.

What a night that was! I didn’t think you ought to make your weekly pilgrimage to your synagogue, but I’m not a very religious person and I can only stand back and respect people who are, like yourself. Still, pitch black out, temperature down around zero, sleet in the air, ice on the roads, and what had to be an out-of-season nor’easter blowing. You were lucky to get home alive, Izzy.

Tony and I got a few of the gang to hike out to the Cheshire Pike in the middle of the night. At least the storm clouds had blown over and the moon was as big as a wagon wheel. Still, there were ice crystals in the air and the roadway as slick as a mirror. Took every muscle in the gang to set that old Cole back on its wheels, but once we did the flivver started up and ran. And you were lucky at that not to crash into the landfill out there, roomie. If you had you’d never have made it back to campus and nobody would ever have found you, most likely. But after all of that, your Cole got you back to the dorm. What a car! They don’t make ‘em like they used to, I’ll tell you that, Izzy.

That was the same night that poor old Percival Dunning disappeared, and Henry von Eisen had apparently had all he could take of small-town, small-college campus life and lit out for parts unknown, deserting his classes in mid semester. What a guy! If I hadn’t disliked him before that, I surely would have then.

Meow, Cats, Meow!

Robert “Bobcat” O’Brien

KEWEENAW BAY GAZETTE

Keweenaw Bay, Michigan

August 12, 1940

—

Mr. Zachary Grand

Editor-in-Chief

Grand Publications

143 West 43rd Street

New York, 16, New York

—

Dear Izz,

Don’t know if I ever mentioned Charlie Potts to you. Nice kid, finished high school last June, always wanted to be a big-time news hound. Used to cover Keweenaw Bay High news for the Gazette. Sports mainly, but class elections, dances, amateur plays, whatever would fill space around the ads. Anyway, Tim Holcomb, our editor-in-chief, took him on as an office boy and cub reporter and he’s working out fine.

Brought a little radio to work and set it up on the desk we let him use, and he turned on a Detroit Tigers ballgame. They were playing the Philadelphia Athletics. Made me think of our old pal Tony and the North Cheshire baseball team, and all the trouble there was over Coach von Eisen.

Young Potts is not just a baseball fan, he’s a real scholar, studies up the old records, can give you every player’s batting average since the game got started. The Tigers had a new pitcher this season, young right-hander named Dickie Conger, and Potts up and says the kid reminded him of Heinie von Eisen.

That made me perk up my ears. “Heinie Who?” I said.

“Von Eisen. Pennsylvania farm kid named Heinrich von Eisen. Lefty. He was supposed to have the wickedest curve anybody ever saw. Was a star in the bush leagues. Came up to the Tigers in ‘twenty-six. No, ‘twenty-five.”

As if anybody in the Gazette office was going to catch him on that!

Well, Charlie Potts told the story to anybody who would listen, which meant Jack Miller, Tim Holcomb, and yours truly, Izzy. Seems like this von Eisen kid was a drinker and a brawler and something of a womanizer. Made it all the way up through the minors, got his first start with the Tigers and beat the St. Louis Browns one to nothing. Threw a three-hitter. Phenomenal.

Went out to a bar that night and a young lady he spotted there caught his eye and he tried to pick her up. Seems she already had an escort who took exception to Heinie’s remarks. They got into a brawl and somebody pulled a knife. There are different versions of the story. One of ‘em, Potts said, is that this all happened in darktown. Anyhow, the knife man swings, Eisen puts up his hand to defend himself, and the knife slices right across the palm of his hand. He wound up in the hospital and got his hand stitched back together, but he could never throw that curve again. Never made it back into the lineup. Before long he was out of baseball and he completely disappeared.

Izzy, do you think Heinie von Eisen is our Henry von Eisen? You know, he was baseball coach when you and Tony and I were at North Cheshire Central College. It makes sense, doesn’t it? He seemed to know so much about baseball, at least Tony said, and yet all the players hated him because they felt as if he hated them.

What do you think, Izzy?

Say, I don’t mean to bother you with this rambling. I’d better close this letter and get some shut-eye, tomorrow it’s back to the old salt mine for yours truly.

Oh, before I close, I do want to thank you again for the magazines. I’m lying here on my bed, my feet propped up, watching the moths bang against the glass and wondering if it’s ever going to cool down again. I’ll tell you something about this part of Michigan, it’s so cold in winter you’d think those New England freezes we used to have were days on the beach in Havana. But then it gets so hot in July and August, you can’t believe that you were ever cold. I swear, even the moths must be sweating on a night like this!

Going through the other magazines you sent, I find that a lot of stories seem to have continuing characters. I guess there’s nothing new about that, Izzy, all the way back to the Three Musketeers and that Poe detective, what was his name, and then of course Sherlock Holmes. For that matter, didn’t Mark Twain bring Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn back for a couple of encores?

You’ve got some good ones. I like that Crimson Wizard fellow that Arl Felton writes about, and the Golden Saint. And of course, you’ve got those cowboys and detectives and that spook-busting crew in Grand Ghost Stories. Tell you what, I’ve scratched a few notes and if you don’t mind, I’ll type ‘em up on the old Blick Ninety down at the Gazette office and mail ‘em off to you soon as I get a chance. I hope you’ll find some ideas you like there. Let me know, hey, old roomie?

Meow, Cats, Meow!

Robert “Bobcat” O’Brien

KEWEENAW BAY GAZETTE

Keweenaw Bay, Michigan

August 19, 1940

—

Mr. Zachary Grand

Editor-in-Chief

Grand Publications

143 West 43rd Street

New York, 16, New York

—

Dear Izzy,

That sure is exciting news, that you’re starting up a comic book line there at Grand Publications. Of course, I won’t breathe a word about it, not that there’s much of anybody to breathe it to here in Keweenaw Bay. But sometimes we stop in at the Tip Top Tavern for a couple of wee ones after we close up shop for the day and people do talk. “We” being Jack and Tim and myself. Charlie Potts keeps trying to invite himself along but Marty O’Hara runs a tight ship down at the Tip Top and he says he can’t have any minors in there or he’d risk losing his liquor license.

Funny, Percival Dunning didn’t worry about people being over twenty-one to join his Friday-night soirees and nobody ever said a word. But then I think the whole campus, from Prexy on down, felt sorry for old Percival and wouldn’t say boo at anything he did, so long as he was quiet about it.

Everybody except Henry von Eisen, that is. I’m not just saying this because I know there was bad blood between von Eisen and you, Izzy. The man was a brass-plated son of a sea cook, if you know what I mean. I think Charlie Potts had the key to von Eisen. If he really was the same Heinie von Eisen who pitched that game against St. Louis and then got his hand sliced open and lost his curveball, that would explain a lot about him and why he was always so sour and so ready to jump down anybody’s throat.

I think he especially hated Percival Dunning because Dunning was English and had been in the King’s Fusiliers during the Great War. Von Eisen was a few years younger than Dunning and he couldn’t have been in the war himself, and besides, we were on the same side as the English, weren’t we? But von Eisen was Pennsylvania Dutch, not really Dutch, you know, Deutsch, German, and there was a lot of pro-Kaiser sentiment out there in western Pennsylvania during the war.

Oh, you know this as well as I do. We used to sit in the same row in Professor Trowbridge’s modern-history class, just Carolyn Deering between us to help us not concentrate on Trowbridge’s lectures. Wasn’t that girl something, with those sweaters of hers and those plaid skirts she used to wear! You’d think she’d freeze herself to death in those Cheshire County winters, but I don’t think she ever did.

Anyway, I never heard von Eisen say a kind word about Percival Dunning. Used to mock the way he walked, hunched over as if his chest was killing him, and talked, in that soft, almost whisper of his. Well, his chest was killing him. He never got over that gas attack in France. And as for the whisper, I just don’t think he had the breath to do any more than that. But von Eisen loved to parade back and forth in his classroom, all hunched over like Dunning, and whispering so you couldn’t make out what he was saying.

One sweet guy despite all his suffering, one brass-plated S.O.B. who brought his trouble on himself. I guess it takes all kinds.

Enough for now, Izzy. I hope you’re well and happy. Take a look at those little ideas that I sent you last week and let me know if you think I could write for one of your magazines. It’s getting a little bit dull here on the production side.

Meow, Cats, Meow!

Robert “Bobcat” O’Brien

KEWEENAW BAY GAZETTE

Keweenaw Bay, Michigan

August 28, 1940

—

Mr. Zachary Grand

Editor-in-Chief

Grand Publications

143 West 43rd Street

New York, 16, New York

—

Dear Izzy,

Well of course I know about comic books. Jumping Jehosophat, old roomie, Keweenaw Bay isn’t exactly New York or Boston but it’s still on this planet. We even heard about that invasion from Mars a couple of years back; we have radios out here and running water and everything.

Hey, just pulling your leg, old friend. But you really don’t need to explain comic books to me. The kids in this town are as addicted to the things as they are anywhere. The schoolteachers are outraged, the town librarian has banned ‘em from her sacred precincts, but Bud Campbell, owner, manager, stock boy, cashier, and chief cook and bottle washer over at Pine Street News and Magazines, loves ‘em. Says they’ve cut into his pulp magazine sales a little but more than made up for it by bringing every six-through twelve-year-old in town through his door day after day. Once school starts again in a few weeks, that may cut down a little, but right now Bud is as happy as a clam.

Favorite scene these days: two kids standing outside Pine Street News and Magazines arguing to beat the band. Resolved: Superman could beat up Captain Marvel in a fair fight. Sometimes the kids get so carried away they decide to knuckle it out themselves. One of those musclemen wears red tights and the other one wears blue tights and I can never remember which is which, but I don’t suppose it matters, I’m a few years too old to get involved. But I’ve even seen young Charlie Potts sneaking a read along with a sandwich when it’s his lunchtime down at the Gazette. Says his favorite is a fellow who can set fire to himself, fly around, throw fireballs at his enemies, and then come home without so much as a blister on his nose. Okay with me.

Seems to me, Izzy, these comic book heroes aren’t much different from the good old pulp heroes we used to read about back in Warren Hall when we didn’t have our noses buried in chemistry or calculus texts or Shakespeare. The rough preliminary for Captain Grand Comics looks good, I didn’t mean to take any shots at it.

Let’s see if I have this one right.

Gary Grant is exploring in Antarctica when he discovers a lost race of wizards from Atlantis. They decide to initiate him into their sacred rites, which include walking through the hot lava of an active volcano right there at the South Pole. They’ve given him a magical cloak that will protect him as long as he exercises total willpower and concentration; otherwise, he’s a toasted marshmallow.

After a couple of years of study and discipline, the chief wizard decides that Gary’s ready to give it a try. So off he goes, he passes the test, and he emerges as Captain Grand, Master of Mysticism.

Okay, pal. I guess the kids will go for it. Not so different from some of the pulp stories we used to read. Or the ones you publish, if you don’t mind my saying so. Tell you what. I know you want to keep Captain Grand Comics under the rose for now, but when you’re ready I’ll bounce this thing off Charlie Potts or maybe some of the town kids if I can pry ‘em away from Superman and Captain Marvel for a few minutes. I’ll let you know what they have to say.

We could have used somebody like Captain Grand, Master of Mysticism, back at Central Cheshire, couldn’t we? Somebody like Captain Grand could have saved poor old Percival Dunning’s life. I’ll never forget the way his disappearance hit the campus. Nobody knew where he’d gone or what had happened to him. Personally, I thought he’d gone back to England or at least up to Canada to try and enlist in the army. Nobody on campus took this fellow Hitler seriously except for Dunning. You have to give him credit for that. Soon as Hitler announced he was going to run for president of Germany, Dunning predicted what was going to happen. And look at Europe now!

Then when his car turned up in Big Star Pond—Izzy, I still can’t get over it. It must have been there since November of ‘32. Dunning must have driven that funny Pullman coupe of his onto the ice and it cracked under the car and the car sank with Dunning in it. Imagine being trapped in that little car, icy water coming in, and you can’t get out.

And then we had our ice-skating parties that winter, the annual Founder’s Day bonfire and all, and all that time poor old Percival Dunning’s body lying there in his car on the bottom of the pond until the spring thaw. There were the Three Graces, Carolyn Deering, Annie Mayfield, and Jennie Lipton, out for a picnic by the pond and they spotted something in the water that scared the bejesus out of them.

Yep, it was poor old Dunning, still trapped in that little car of his.

Did I say that Dunning was the only one who knew what Hitler was up to in the old days? I shouldn’t have left out Henry von Eisen. You’d think von Eisen had a direct line to Berlin, the way he spouted the Hitler line every chance he got. Heck, Izzy, it was really annoying. I know nobody stood up to von Eisen. That was cowardly of us, and I apologize.

Tony LoPresto and Jack Remington and Roland Stephenson and some of the gang used to sit around in one of the Double-U Dorms—Warren or Winston or Watson or Wellington—and talk about it. We could all see what von Eisen was doing to you, Izz, but everybody was afraid of the son of a sea cook. We should have got together and made a petition to Prexy about it. We really should have.

But that’s all past now. Percival Dunning is in his grave and Henry von Eisen is—wherever he is. You have to wonder, don’t you, what ever became of von Eisen?

You know what I regret more than anything else that ever happened at Cheshire Central? It was dedicating our yearbook, the Cheshire Cheese, to von Eisen our senior year. How the heck did that ever happen, Izzy?

No, you don’t have to tell me. That was just a rhetorical question. Von Eisen took over the job of faculty advisor for the yearbook when old what-was-his-name retired. Dr. Standish. That was the old gent’s name, David Donald Standish, Ph.D. Must have been the head of the English Department from the day the college opened its doors. I’ve never seen anybody so old.

Dr. Standish must have been faculty advisor for the Cheshire Cheese as well as the North Cheshire Literary Quarterly since McKinley was shot. When he finally packed his bags and retired to sunny Florida, Hermione Zeller took on the job at the quarterly and von Eisen took it at the yearbook. Nobody was surprised that Miss Zeller got involved with the quarterly. She was already college librarian, she fit right in, and remember the fun we used to have with her? But nobody expected von Eisen to take on the yearbook.

Nobody except his personal toady, Gene Stullmeier.

I’m sorry, Izzy. I’m raking up too many old embers. And I’m going on too long anyway. You still haven’t commented on the ideas I sent you. I could write those stories for Grand Adventures or some of the other pulps, or I suppose I could turn ‘em into stories for some of your new comic books.

Let me know when it’s okay to show the dummy Captain Grand Comics to Charlie Potts and the local urchin brigade and I’ll send you back some comments. And let me know when you want me to start writing for you. I’m starting to get the itch.

Meow, Cats, Meow!

Robert “Bobcat” O’Brien

KEWEENAW BAY GAZETTE

Keweenaw Bay, Michigan

August 31, 1940

—

Mr. Zachary Grand

Editor-in-Chief

Grand Publications

143 West 43rd Street

New York, 16, New York

—

Dear Izzy,

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I got your wedding announcement. You and Carolyn Deering. I still don’t believe it! Well, congratulations, roomie. Carolyn was one of the prettiest gals on campus, but of course you know that. And smart, and sweet. I envy you, Izzy. How the heck did you ever catch her? You must have been studying hypnosis.

Just kidding, Izz. Thinking about you and Carolyn makes me think about the six of us—you and Tony and me in the Three Cheshire Cats and Carolyn Deering and Annie Mayfield and Jennie Lipton, the Three Graces. Didn’t we have great times together! And now Isaac Goldberg and Carolyn Deering are Mr. and Mrs. Zachary Grand.

You know that Tony LoPresto and Jennie Lipton are married, don’t you? Living there in Bayou Richelieu and raising a house full of bambinos, that’s what Tony tells me. I never pictured Tony as a lawman or Jennie as a mater familias but that just goes to show you, doesn’t it?

Where did Annie Mayfield go after graduation? Maybe I ought to look her up, see if the old spark is still smoldering. I’ll tell you, Izz, there isn’t much social life in a town like Keweenaw Bay. Not that I’m knocking this burg. I’m pretty comfortable here. I’ve got a decent job and I make a living. But I think I could use a dose of the bright lights every now and then.

Since you said it was all right to show the dummy Captain Grand Comics to Charlie Potts and some of the local kids, I’ve got some reactions to share with you. Everybody likes Captain Grand but they think he needs a good enemy. A guy who can do all the things Captain Grand can do is wasted on kidnappers and bank robbers. One of the local kids suggested a mad scientist for an enemy. Another kid says he’d like to see a beautiful, evil woman in the strip. Charlie Potts says he’s starting to outgrow some of these wild stories. He’s getting very literary, thinks you should read Steinbeck or Hemingway for inspiration.

Ho, ho, ho.

I was thinking of another character myself. So many of these heroes are musclemen, what about somebody who uses his brains to fight crime? I was thinking of a strip called “The Scholar.” Something like Sherlock Holmes. He tackles crimes that the police can’t solve because they’re just not smart enough.

What would you think of that, Izzy? Do let me know.

I’ve got to turn in now, roomie. Tomorrow’s a school day down at the Gazette and I can’t stay up all night the way I used to back at North Cheshire Central, not if I’m going to be all full of pep and energy in the morning.

Oh, one more thing. Tony LoPresto says that he and Jennie are planning a trip back to Massachusetts for the big homecoming game next month. Going to bring all their youngsters with them, too. The old campus is in for a real treat! I wish I could make it but every time I look my budget in the eye and ask, How about it? the old budget looks right back at me and says, Not this year, old fellow!

So maybe next year, Izzy. I assume that you and Carolyn will attend; it can’t be much of a trip from New York City. Say hello to Tony and Jennie for me, and congratulations again to yourself and Carolyn. You lucky dog—or should I say, Cheshire Cat!

Meow, Cats, Meow!

Robert “Bobcat” O’Brien

*

KEWEENAW BAY GAZETTE

Keweenaw Bay, Michigan

September 20, 1940

—

Mr. Zachary Grand

Editor-in-Chief

Grand Publications

143 West 43rd Street

New York, 16, New York

—

Dear Izzy,

This is a letter I never expected to write, old roomie. You know, Keweenaw Bay may be isolated and all, but we do have radios and we get out-of-town newspapers even if we have to wait a few days to see what’s happening in the rest of the world. But Tony LoPresto telephoned and gave me the lowdown on events during homecoming weekend, and then there were reports in the Boston and New York dailies.

Now we know what happened to Henry von Eisen.

Who would ever have expected an Atlantic hurricane to make it all the way to Massachusetts, and then to sweep inland as far as Cheshire County, setting off that waterspout from Big Star Pond and then turning into a tornado and ripping up the old landfill near the old Cheshire Pike? Mainly, everybody was upset that the big homecoming parade was cancelled, the football game against Billerica Tech was called off, and the gymnasium flooded so the homecoming dance never happened.

At least, that’s what Tony LoPresto said when he phoned me. I don’t know if he paid for the call himself or found some way to get the city fathers in Bayou Richelieu to foot the bill, but one way or another all that gab must have cost plenty.

The kids at North Cheshire were disappointed by the mess the storm made of homecoming weekend, but Tony was more interested in what the storm pulled out of the old landfill. Tony told me that the human remains that turned up were identified as belonging to some old tramp who’d fallen into the landfill years before and died there. The local authorities gave Tony the run of the place. Professional courtesy, they call it.

But Tony knew better. He didn’t say so, but he knew better.

We both knew who that corpse was, or what was left of it after almost eight years lying there in the landfill. There are raccoons and lynxes and even a few wolves in those woods. There wasn’t much left of that fellow. But Tony told me there was one odd thing about the body. You know how freakish Old Ma Nature can be, and somehow, for all the scavengers who’d worked over that body and then the effects of lying in the earth all these years, the flesh was almost perfectly preserved on the left hand.

Isn’t that odd, Izzy?

Tony told me that the left hand of the body showed a big scar running straight across the palm. As if the owner of that hand had got into a fight and his opponent came at him with a really nasty knife, and that fellow put up his hand to try and stop the knife and wound up with a terrible gash running right across the palm of his hand.

Looked as if the cut had healed up all right, Tony said, but the scar was something to behold. And Tony figured that whoever owned that hand would never be able to do very much with it ever again, even after the wound had healed.

Oh, it was Henry von Eisen all right. Tony has some wild theory about von Eisen getting into a scrape with poor old Percival Dunning that icy night back in the winter of ‘32-’33, and maybe beating old Percival into a helpless state and then putting him in his old Pullman coupe and sending it out onto the ice of Big Star Pond.

And then, Tony figures, somebody else comes along, somebody von Eisen doesn’t like to start with, and now this other person has seen von Eisen practically murder poor old Percival Dunning. So von Eisen goes after this other person, too. You’d think von Eisen would win a fight, but who knows, under those conditions, anything could happen. Anything. Right, Izz?

Even though I’m not a religious person, I know a few Bible stories. I know about David and Goliath. Do you think Henry von Eisen might have been a kind of Goliath? And who would be David?

Who, Izzy?

Well, I guess I missed all the excitement of homecoming weekend, the hurricane, the waterspout, the tornado, the body in the landfill. Things are quiet here in Keweenaw Bay. Must be more exciting back East where you are, Izzy.

Congratulations again on your marriage. Give Carolyn my best wishes. You are one lucky son of a gun!

Meow, Cats, Meow!

Robert “Bobcat” O’Brien

Copyright © 2009 Richard A. Lupoff