Further Adventures (3 page)

FLATFOOT: You said a mouthful there Captain.
(Off)
In here Tremayne!

PETER: Captain! This palooka ruined the best night’s sleep I’d had all week. He just dragged me out into the rain and well if you’re accusing me of anything I want my attorney here. This is America! In fact it’s Washington D.C.!

O’SHAUGHNESSY: Calm down Mr. Tremayne. I just want to ask you a few questions is all. Routine.

PETER: Routine for you maybe.

FLATFOOT: You want me to stay Captain?

O’SHAUGHNESSY: I think I can handle this by myself.

FLATFOOT: O.K. I’ll wait outside.

And the Flatfoot left so the room was quiet. Peter Tremayne’s voice was quiet too & it was O’Shaughnessy’s turn to be in the dark.

O’SHAUGHNESSY: Mighty fine piece of acting.

PETER: Thanks.

O’SHAUGHNESSY: I’ve been meaning to thank you for your help with the alphabet. I never would’ve caught on it was the initials of those poor girls’ last names.

PETER: I wasn’t quick enough to save Rosalind.

And right on Cue the door burst open and Senator Bentley barged in and when he saw Peter Tremayne his anger went off like a Time Bomb.

SEN. BENTLEY: Tremayne! Where is she? What did you do with her? Where’s Rosalind?

O’SHAUGHNESSY: Please Senator! This is police work!

FLATFOOT: Senator if you don’t mind.

SEN. BENTLEY: It so happens I
do
mind! Get your paws off me. Grill him! Give him the 3rd degree! He’ll crack. Sure I know his type—all talk, fancy cars and foreign cocktails.

O’SHAUGHNESSY: Tremayne will talk all right—to me! By the book.

SEN. BENTLEY: Arrest him! Look at Rosalind’s diary. The last thing she wrote in it—

The Flatfoot had to wrestle Senator Bentley out of the Captain’s office so he had a problem of Loyalty but Mr. Argyll explained that while he was in Uniform on Duty the Flatfoot took his orders from O’Shaughnessy & as soon as he slammed the office door (Leon) Peter & O’Shaughnessy could talk free again no one listening.

O’SHAUGHNESSY: You can’t blame him Peter.

PETER: No. He’s right.

O’SHAUGHNESSY: What?

PETER: Arrest me.

O’SHAUGHNESSY: Are you crazy? On what charge?

PETER: Use your brains! Anything. How about—kidnapping?

O’SHAUGHNESSY: So that’s your plan is it?

PETER: Yes. It’s the perfect camouflage. Now I’m free to operate as—The Green Ray!

That was all I had to say & The Green Ray summoned all his strength from the Theme Music which came up like a volcano all drums & trumpets it held the Nation spellbound especially Moms for them to hear the Important Message concerning the digestive wonders of Spiller’s High Energy Buckwheat Breakfast Flakes.

Then the adventure continued as promised & I landed very sly in the lap of a gang of foreign Anarchists by the names of Britzky & Zoharin—

BRITZKY: It’s all very simple Mr. Tremayne. One by one we kidnap the precious daughters of your V.I.P.s Your Senators & Congressmen. Your captains of industry…

ZOHARIN: You Americans are so sentimental. A father will do
anything
to get his little princess home. Blood is thicker than…oil!

PETER: So that’s why you kidnapped Stanford Fitzholcomb’s daughter Olivia. Why he owns the biggest—

BRITZKY: Correct. Empire Oil Company. Even a society playboy like you can see that with the means of industrial power under our control it’s only a matter of time before your feeble democracy crumbles like a sand castle!

PETER: Yes. Quite. Even I can see that. But why?

ZOHARIN: To strip this world of the lie of freedom! To rid your country of its masters!

BRITZKY: The people will thank us.

ZOHARIN: The masses will rise up!

PETER: I wouldn’t bet on it old man.

BRITZKY: It’s a shame you won’t be alive to witness the glorious dawn of a new age Mr. Tremayne. A different fate awaits you here—in the Vault of Time.

PETER: Vault of Time?

BRITZKY: A bizarre name yes but it means this tunnel under the Potomac just 100 yards from the place your so-called president docks his yacht. Where the past ends and the future begins.

ZOHARIN: Come on. We don’t have time to waste. Good-bye Peter Tremayne.

The door is chained and locked but Peter Tremayne is not downhearted.

PETER: And hello Green Ray!

Another door unlocks & opens up. In this other dank cell elsewhere in the Vault of Time the young rosebuds on the thorny stem of American High Society suffer at the filthy hands & filthy mouths of these cruel Foreigners. Unlucky for Britzky & Zoharin they forgot to frisk the namby-pamby playboy who they mocked—

PETER: Good thing those fiends never found my 2-way Communicator! Green Ray to base! Green Ray to base! Come in base!

The worried Voice of Captain O’Shaughnessy pushes through the crackling Ether (a ball of cellophane).

O’SHAUGHNESSY: Yer comin’ in loud & clear! Now where th’ Dickens are ye?

PETER: In a tunnel under the Potomac. The entrance or exit is 100 yards down from the President’s yacht. Hurry Captain! And alert all F.B.I. units!

O’SHAUGHNESSY: F.B.I.? What’s that you’re saying? Can’t hear you—your voice is fading away!

Now the Sound of trickling water starts to climb into a Flood.

PETER: Hold on…What’s that? Water. The room it’s…being flooded!

Meanwhile the kidnapped Debutantes try & act brave they Defy the will of their captors. This is not a easy task for them since they are worn down by days & nights in a room like a deep freeze but without the frozen food or even the little light that goes on when you open the door. They were finding out just how girls with nice Manners would be treated under a Anarchy form of Government.

OLIVIA: This is horrible! Horrible! They’ll never let us go—never!

JANE: What do they want us for? Why are we here? Don’t they know who we are? Don’t they know who our fathers are?

ROSALIND: That’s it! That’s why! All of our fathers are important men!

SADELBIA: What do they want to do? Keep us locked in here until they run the world?

OLIVIA: It would be horrible if they took over! They’d outlaw cotillions and catered receptions and…and…
everything
!

ROSALIND: I won’t
live
in a world without joy.

BRITZKY: Be quiet! No talking or I take away your privileges!

JANE: What privileges?

BRITZKY: Staying alive! Ha ha haha (etc.).

But in a second Britzky is laughing out of the other side of his face. At first all he sees is the glow of a Green Light like a green fireball rolling toward him from the other end of the tunnel portrayed by a roll of kettle drums & strange flute fluttering. Then right in front of him Britzky sees the fat figure of Zoharin stumble & fall down paralyzed by the glow of the Green Light. When he fell he croaked out one word—

ZOHARIN: Run!

—but Britzky did not need any Advice to blow but fast nor he did not need a score card to tell him who he was up against.

BRITZKY: The Green Ray!

He squealed all right true to his weak Character & he ran away down the tunnel like a cockroach down a drain. I had to tackle him down because in the tunnel under the Sound of his cowardly pounding footsteps I heard a steady tick-tick-tick. I took a chance & tried that old trick to make him turn around—

GREEN RAY: Britzky!

And he fell for it!

BRITZKY: Huh?

He just gasped & glanced back over his shoulder & I let loose with a Blast from my Green Ray Hand Beam I shot my green light right into his eyes with perfect aim…Britzky tripped over his big fat Anarchist feet like he had 3 of them! Then I threw my Gladiator Net around him so he was whimpering

BRITZKY: Let me go!

& flopping around like a Doomed fish on a boat. Sure I was going to let him go! Right into the friendly arms of the Law! Tick-tick-tick there it was in my ears still going on. The bundle of dynamite was somewhere in the shadows so I Acted fast I dived into the dark & got a grip on it and I threw it for a Touchdown to the other end of the tunnel. KA-BOOM! The explosion Leon made from the echo machine & a 5 Gal. Water bottle he dropped off the top of a filing cabinet sounded as big as the Atom Bomb in there i.e. if we knew in those days what the Atom Bomb made a sound like. It blew the door off the entrance to the Vault of Time & when Captain O’Shaughnessy showed up with his squad of flatfeet The Green Ray had the whole ball of wax under his Control.

BRITZKY: Ach! Mein head!

O’SHAUGHNESSY: Get him out of my sight…I guess this is another one I owe you Green Ray.

GREEN RAY: Forget it Captain…And remember Britzky—America isn’t just a pretty face on the map. It’s people—people of many races and colors and creeds all with one thing in common: the chance
to better their lives and bring their children into a happier world. It’s a government of the people—by the people—and for the people. It’s a fire that burns inside every citizen in every walk of life and no matter how much cold water you try to pour on it you’ll never extinguish it Britzky not you or anybody like you.

The sound here was the roll of drums again and the blast of trumpets like a volcano. Time for the Theme Music of Episode 1 of The Green Ray. I could not stand up. All I saw was Annie LaSalle’s face glancing backward over her shoulder with a smile aimed at everybody it flickered on & then off only once like a neon light going out. I closed my eyes. She was the last thing I wanted to remember of that day. Her tight gold curls around her healthy milky cheeks. But I did not wish to stand up mainly because my dingle still was all stiff but I could not tell you from which form of Excitement. I sat in my chair & they all left the Studio Bernhardt Grym then David Arcash then Mr. Burrows & Mr. Argyll and last Leon Kern. A long time later Leon said to me how he thought it was very moving when he saw me sitting there half paralyzed after Episode 1. Such a success so choked up with emotion about it I did not want to exit nor I did not want the day to end and how he felt similar. I nodded yes I agreed with him. I told Leon it was a nice feeling to hear how somebody was getting to know me & my personal Thoughts. That was a lie of course but I want to tell the truth about it now to get the Record straight before my Voice is no longer heard in the Land.

Now I am reminded of those past times and I know how they were not perfect & golden nor I was not 100% happy then but I did not know then what I know now about how people act lower than the lowest beasts.

I have read reports & articles of what dying is from people who died & came back in the National Enquirer. They die completely and then come back into the World into their body and they all say how they take a look at their own body underneath from a place beyond Pain beyond any Emotion. And in that State they drift down a long tunnel where they find a bright Light pulling them along. But their body will not let them go or the will of the world will not let them go and they float back down heavy into the Pain & Emotion of their last predicament. People get pulled back for some Purpose maybe just to tell others about how Death is so do not worry about it. It will be O.K. So concentrate on Life. This is a medical fact.

I concentrated on the sound of Voices of the men in the front seat of the Caddy. They talked very free because I believe they figured that I was unconscious from the smack they gave my neck. So I got a picture of their Characters which gave me a good idea of my predicament. I had the power to observe & look at their Characters so I could guess their plans and get a jump ahead.

What I had to do was go on & lie still a easy thing since they had me pinned to the floor under the backseat with a fainted woman on top of me doing 50 M.P.H. First I learned their names—Nilo (doing the driving the fat slob with a Voice on him like a girl) and Perry (who fiddled with the radio & sang along with the Country & Western & static).

“Aw shut that off Perry. It’s making my head hurt,” Nilo growled at him. “Kids tore off the damn antenna.”

“What kids?” Perry said.

“My kids. Nilo Junior and Kyle.” He said to himself, “Nilo and Kyle-o.” Perry kept on squeezing noise from the dial going back & forth he just ignored whatever Nilo said to him. “Perry! Come on now. Show some mercy.”

“I’m tryin’ to find out something on the blackout. If they fixed it yet.”

“Look outside boy and tell me what you see.” Nilo even slowed the car down a little. A empty beer can rolled out from under the front seat & hit my nose & leaked.

“Nothing,” Perry noted very frustrated. “It’s too damn dark.”

“No streetlights?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“No house lights on?”

“Right, don’t make a big song & dance out of it. It ain’t been fixed yet. What’s that make you? Some kind of electrical genius?” Perry twisted the Radio knob and shut off the static and pushed himself back in his seat.

Nilo tried to make things right. “Means there’s no electricity at the place.”

“Guess that’s right.”

“Guess that ice cream I bought’ll be all melted.”

“You got ice cream?” Perry brightened up. “What kind?”

“Fudge Ripple.”

“I hate Fudge Ripple and you know it.”

“Back off Perry. I got other stuff I hafta think about.”

Ditto I had some things on my mind too. I will say between the 2 of them Perry was crueler. Nilo treated him like a baby brother but by my Observations I did not see affections only some partnership of convenience. It looked like it was going to End someday & not with a weeny whimper either I mean with a bang. The way it turned out it ended with both.

I got out of worse messes before in earlier Episodes of my Life. Those cheap gunsels Nilo & Perry did not scare me per say it was the dogs I heard barking and snorting inside the house who made me nervous. “You’re makin’ too much noise!” Nilo scolded their jumping against the door. “Quiet Princess! Shut up Harley! Here I am goddamnit your automatic kibble machine!”