Lost a chapter.

Lost a chapter.  Just disappeared.  Spent hours looking for it, which probably only compounded the problem.  (I know some of you will give me advice about how to find it, but I'm pretty sure it's gone...read on...)

It was an important chapter, one of the penultimate chapters, and losing it was totally disheartening.  I'd been writing at a feverish pace and suddenly I stalled.

Late last night I finally sat down to try to reconstruct it.

The first attempt was nowhere near as good as the original chapter, but I kept working on it, and it finally came around.   So even if I found the original chapter, it'd be 50/50 which one I'd use.

I like the freshness of the first drafts, and I kind of want to keep that freshness with a minimal interference -- and not just because I don't like rewriting.

Anyway, the chapter came out fine, and I've moved on.

Today, I'm writing the final chapter(s), and then tonight I want to sit down and read it aloud to myself and try to copyedit as much as possible.

Then -- well, with whatever time I have between now and when I put it up as an ebook, I will be continuing to tinker with it, but I want it up as quick as possible.

After writing this and The Reluctant Wizard it's clear to me that I can't release Nearly Human until I've found a way to put myself into it more.  I have to feel for the characters, for the story.  I think it was just too much mental, and not enough heart.  So I'm going to try once again:  Try to become the main character or one of the major protagonists and write from that point of view so that it all matters to me.

Meanwhile, on to the next book.

The important thing is to keep writing.

Freedy Filkins, International Jewel Thief, 46.

If you enjoyed this story, and I hope you did, please click here to buy.  Thanks for reading!

It took them three hours to reach New York City, and another hour to reach Manhattan.  They hit the morning commute traffic and stalled.

"There's some Ninja clothing for you in back," Garland said, in the midst of a traffic jam.

Freedy looked over the seat and saw a pile of dark clothing.  His "Ninja" outfit consisted of black jeans, and dark tennis shoes, and a dark blue t-shirt, topped by a brown coat.  There was a small backpack, and Freedy looked inside.  Gloves and a small knit cap that turned into a ski mask.  Everything a Ninja burglar needed.

"Put on the clothes," Garland said.

"Here?" Freedy asked, looking around at all the cars.

"No one cares, Freedy.  They've seen it before."

Freedy struggled into the clothes.  They looked casual, something a millionaire might wear on his day off.  He felt completely comfortable in them.

Horn's Spire was visible for miles, even among the city canyons, but getting no closer.  Garland finally swore up a blue storm and pulled into a parking garage.

"We'll get there quicker by subway," he said.

A half hour later they emerged onto the broad plaza in front of the Spire.  The size of the plaza probably impressed Freedy as much as anything -- that with city land being so valuable, the Horn had sequestered a half a city block for his personal glory.

A giant sculpture of a Unicorn dominated the square, and the horn on the Unicorn was curled in just the same number of whirls as the Spire itself, and was iridescent in the morning sun.

The Spire gleamed a shocking white, almost too bright to look at.  If Freedy forced himself, he could see the blues and pinks sprinkled through the marble, following the curves of the giant horn.

Freedy understood his gold miner's friends derision of the giant phallic symbol -- what other sane reaction was there to such massive hubris?  Freedy right then and there decided to call the Spire -- the Dragon.

As in, he was there to slay it.

"Wouldn't it be better to wait until nightfall?" Freedy asked.

"Horn is a night owl," Garland said.  "Or more accurately, he's an all hours of the day and night owl..."

They stopped at the base of the Unicorn and craned their necks upward.  "I've been told by reliable sources that Darrell Horn is out of town.  As well, he tends to stay away on Tuesdays.  So -- no time like the present, right Freedy?"  He looked down at Freedy as if suddenly doubting the whole enterprise.

Freedy didn't blame him.  He didn't know what had possessed Garland to pick him for this job.  He could have had no way of knowing that Freedy was up to it.  He especially couldn't have known that Freedy would literally stumble across the one tool that could possibly help him succeed.

No time like the present?  Any other time but the present, Freedy wanted to say.  He wanted to bolt, run down the steps of the subway entrance and disappear.

But how could he ever show his face in Centerville again?  How could he ever face Sheila?

He gulped.  "Err...just one thing, Garland.  I need to get an iPad, so I can utilize my code-breaking program."

"Easy enough," Garland exclaimed.  There was an Apple store just another block away, and soon Freedy was outfitted with a brand new pad.

They were back to the base of the Unicorn statue in no time.

"My sources tell me there is a wall safe in his bedroom.  Inside, you should find the deeds to Lorn Mountain.  Take nothing else, do you understand?"

Freedy couldn't speak.  He kept swallowing nervously.  What had ever possessed him to take on such a task?  He was totally unsuited for it!

"Well then," Garland suddenly seemed at a loss for words.  "I'll just wait for you," he glanced around the square and saw a Starbucks in one corner.  "I wait for you over there..."

Freedy turned toward the Spire, feeling a little like a bug beneath a mountain.  He couldn't even take it all in.

"Good luck, Freedy!" Garland said heartily.  He walked away without looking back.


As soon as Garland was out of sight, Freedy took out the Key and plugged it in.

"Well, well.  New York, New York!" the machine cheeriness of Key spoke.

"I'm going to need you to not speak," Freedy said.  "Text, from now on."

"If you insist," Key pouted, out loud, and then continued onscreen.  "What are we doing here?"

"We are going to break into Darrell Horn's penthouse and steal back the deeds to Lorn Mountain," Freedy typed.  "I need you to help me do that."

"What fun!" Key said.  "It won't be easy -- you'll have to be physically present to open some of routes.  Horn has guards all over the place."

"Can you send them off?"

"That would be suspicious, don't you think?  The trick will be to put the guards where you aren't and put you where the guards aren't."

Freedy took a deep breath.  Time to slay the dragon -- or get eaten.

He started walking slowly, casually toward the entrance.  Then he decided that looked suspicious and started walking more firmly, purposely, like a businessman on a mission.

There were a trio of guards at the front desk; not the slovenly rent-a-cops that most buildings had.  No, these guys looked like former Navy Seals or something.  They stared at him suspiciously, which made Freedy nervous for a moment.  Then he realized they stared at everyone suspiciously.

They checked a computer list of allowed visitors, and Freedy popped up right away.  There was even a picture of him in his current clothing.  How had Key managed that?  Just what couldn't the Key do?

Freedy walked past the guards as if they were beneath him, and sauntered over to the bank of elevators.

"Now what?"

"Horn's private elevator is on the far left," Key texted.  "If you are found inside that, there is nothing I could do to explain it away.  We'll avoid it until the last minute.  Take the middle one -- the one labelled "Observation Platform."

Freedy squeezed his way in with a gaggle of squealing teenage girls.  'Why aren't you in school?' he wanted to ask.  He was turning into a grumpy old man, he thought.  He thought of Sheila at that moment and relaxed.  Let the young girls have their fun, he thought.

The minute the thought passed his brain, it was as if the young girls decided he was all right, and they tried to include him in their conversation.  Freedy joined in the excitement.  'No,' he'd never been there either.  'Yes,' it was a very cool building.

He decided to use the girls as cover, and to stay near them as long as possible -- as long as it didn't creep them out.

They had to change elevators twice to finally reach the viewing level.  The girls let out little screams when they saw the transparent deck, and Freedy almost joined them.  He followed their ginger emergence onto the platform.

"Now what?" Freedy asked Key.

"Now you've done all the easy parts..."

"Do you mind not being so chatty?" Freedy typed in.  "Now what?"

"Just having fun," Key said.  "Sheesh.  O.K.  Horn's penthouse is just above us, and there are only two entrances.  The first is the private elevator, which is observed by several different guards stations.  There is no way I can distract them all.  The second is a service corridor his servant use to come and go without notice.  I have sent all the servants away for the next hour.  No one will notice that.

"You need to go back into the inside corridor."

Inside, there were a couple fast food restaurants and souvenir stores.  There were two restrooms and in between was a simple, unadorned, discreet door with a very big keypad.  Freedy walked over to it.

"3-h-7-x-3-Z."

Freedy started to press the numbers.  "3-H-..."

"NO!" Key said.  "Lower case H.  Try to get it right!'

Suddenly Freedy was unaccountably nervous.  He'd been running on autopilot pretty much, just following Key's instructions.  The first time he had to do something himself, he was messing it up!

"3-h-7-z..." No, that wasn't right.

"Freedy!  This pad will notify the guards if you get it wrong one more time!"

Freedy's hands started sweating.

"Don't be nervous!" Key wrote.  "But don't get it wrong!"

Gee, thanks a lot, Freedy thought.  That really helps.  But his angry response did seem to calm him slightly.  He was going to take all the time in the world to do it right this time.

"Hey, what are you doing?" he heard a voice.  "Who are you?"

Freedy looked around and saw one of the 'special forces' guards approaching.

Freedy looked down at the pad in a panic.  "Survey," Key said.

"Survey," Freedy said out loud. Freedy didn't lift his head from the screen and frowned, as if he was too busy to spend time talking to a guard.
 
"What kind of survey?  No one told me about a survey."

"A tech survey," Freedy read and said aloud.  "You can check."

The guard moved off a few feet, keeping his eyes on Freedy, and spoke into a cellphone.  Freedy could see him relax.

There was a loud squeal from the teenage girls on the deck that immediately caught the guard's attention.  Freedy could see his eyes light up.

"All right," the guard said, walking away toward the girls. "Keep doing whatever it was you were doing..."

Freedy was barely conscious of punching in the keypad numbers and miraculously got them right.  The heavy door closed behind him.  A series of broad concrete steps went upward.  He leaned against the door.  His knees nearly gave out on him, and he closed he eyes until he got his breath back.  How long hadn't he been breathing?  This International Jewel Thief thing really wasn't him, he thought.  He was more a small town fellow.

"I thought you were going to keep me where the guards weren't..." he said, aloud.

"Hey," Key answered, also verbally.  "I can't help it if humans do weird, unpredictable things!"

Freedy crept up the steps.  With a deep breath, he opened the door at the top.

It was dark other side.  He felt around blindly on both sides of the door and found a switch.  It was the back of a very shiny kitchen.  Chrome gleamed off everything, even the counters.  It didn't look like it was ever used.

He was in.

Freedy Filkins, International Jewel Thief, 45.

If you enjoyed this story, and I hope you did, please click here to buy.  Thanks for reading!

It wasn't a dream.  She was still in his arms in the morning.  They were both clothed and she was snoring in a very unladylike way, but it felt like heaven.  He just stayed in the position for what seemed hours as his arm went to sleep, and pressure to go to the bathroom grew and grew.

Finally, there was knock on the door and Sheila stirred and looked up at him and smiled.

Another, louder knock, and she said, "You going to get that?"

"Do I have to?"

He got up and there at the door was Garland, smiling.

"Sorry to wake you two lovebirds, but there is a community meeting in an hour.  You ought to be there."

Freedy felt so relieved to see the old hippie that he almost hugged him.  Garland backed away, holding up his hand. "Wow, there Freedy.  Glad to see you, too."

He walked away, laughing.

They took turns showering.  Someone had left some clothes on the chairs by the door.  From the looks of it, Freedy was wearing something that Billy or Bob would wear.  He realized that sometime during the trip, his little pot belly had disappeared.  He went to the mirror and saw a man he didn't recognize.  Not a boy, a man.  Chiseled cheeks, not plumb ones.  A serious look to the eyes, instead of a perpetually puzzled one.  When had that happened?

He put on the Levi's and the green stripped flannel shirt and suspenders with a feeling of belonging.

Sheila wore a peasant blouse and a denim skirt, and she looked anything but the tough F.B.I. agent.  She was still a little shy about dressing in front of him, and he'd gone off the breakfast room to grab some bagels.

"You ever been here before?" he asked, when he came back.

"As a matter of fact, I have," she said.  "This is probably the most volatile union versus anti-union territory in the country.  Darrell Horn has done just about everything he can to stamp down on unions, while the unions have responded by being a little more aggressive than usual.  It's almost like the bad old days."

"How does he keep the unions from coming in?" Freedy asked.

"By every means necessary," she said.  "Legal or illegal.  But he's been extraordinarily sneaky in his union busting activities.  So far, he's winning.  Somehow he's managed to keep the coal mine with the worst safety record in the industry a non-union mine.  When Charlie and the boys showed up here trying to recruit miners for their gold mine, Horn somehow, well, hornswaggled the mineral rights away from them.  They didn't respond well.  Did some sabotage to the equipment Horn sent to Lorn Mountain."

"So you knew about Charlie and the Lorn Mountain situation before we met you?" 

"I'm sympathetic to Charlie and the boys," she said.  "But the law is on the side of Darrell Horn Mining.  Which reminds me, I need to check in."

She pulled the Barbie phone from her previous day's clothes and turned her back to him.  She put her finger to her ear and walked over to the corner.  She talked for about five minutes.  When she turned back with a smile, she saw the look on his face.

"Oh, Freedy!  Don't worry, I didn't say anything about what's happened.  As far as I'm concerned, we've broken no laws -- well, besides a little shoplifting and I left an extra twenty at the counter."

He relaxed, and she came over and gave him a hug.

"Amazingly, I'm still assigned to you guys.  I don't understand it."

So the Key was at least keeping Its word about that, Freedy thought.

They wandered out the door, and saw some of the others making their way to the conference room.  They followed.

The room was packed.  It looked like the whole town might have been there. Hundreds of people.

Charlie was sitting on the dias with half a dozen other tough looking men.  Miners, Freedy presumed.  It was a company town and the company was coal mining.  Garland was sitting at the end of the dias, both part of the group and somehow giving off the feeling that he was not part of it.

 Freedy and Sheila stood at the back, not quite feeling part of the crowd.

A big man rose to the lectern.  He was broad in the chest with heavy features.  He looked like a coal miner, Freedy thought.  If you looked up coal miner in the dictionary, this is the picture you'd get.

"That's Jerry Brant," Sheila whispered.   "He's the foreman of the mine.  If this place functions at all, it's because of him.  He's against unions for reasons no one quite understands.  But he's a fair and honorable man, and if his men voted to unionize, he'd go along.  Unfortunately, they like him so much, they follow his wishes."

"I call this meeting to order," Brant said.  "Charlie Emmit has returned with some news and I thought we should hear him out."

Charlie got up, looking small next to the giant foreman, but still seeming as formidable.

"As you know, we lost our mineral rights to the Lorn Mountain mine after we tried to hire some of you away.  We've gained them back, so we'd like to repeat the offer."

"Do you own the deed to the land?" someone shouted out.  "We've heard you don't even own it."

As Freedy had learned, Charlie was incapable of lying.  He flushed a bright red.  "My family has lived on that mountain for a hundred years.  We've always owned it.  We'll prove it soon enough."

Brant stood up again.  "If you'd like to join up with Charlie and his boys, they'll be waiting in the back.  It's a union operation, I'm warning you."

"When do we go back to work?" someone else shouted out.

"As you know, some irregularities have been reported in the equipment maintenance, and until that is cleared up, I'd like to ask your patience.  I'm not opening the mine until I'm sure it's safe."

"Wouldn't happen if we had a union!" someone shouted.

"And it's not happening now," Brant said.  "And it won't happen as long as I'm here."

That quieted down the crowd.  Sheila whispered to Freedy.  "Horn puts up with Brant's standards because he knows that if the big man ever became pro-union, it would happen overnight."

"I wonder how Horn keeps him in line..." Freedy mused.

"Oh, Brant would never stand for coercion," Sheila said, sounding surprised.  "No, it's some deep-seated belief that defies all rational explanation."


The meeting broke up and Garland made his way over to him.  "I'm sorry, Agent Moller," he said.  "I need to borrow Freedy for awhile."

"Sure!" she said.  "See you back in the hotel room, Freedy."  She walked away, and both men watched her with appreciation.

"Hell of a woman," Garland said.  "Now...Freedy.  We're going to have that talk."

As they walked to the diner, Freedy wondered what to say.

Once again, he wanted to keep the Key to himself.  He'd shown that he knew how to use it, after all.  He'd saved their bacon a couple of times now.  He was damned if he was just going to hand it over now.

Steve and Sam came roaring up on their Harleys and they waved cheerily as they passed.  Apparently, they'd returned the Price-Ceiling parking lot in the middle of the night retrieved their bikes.



Freedy and Garland sat in the diner, silent.  Staring at each other.

"O.K. Freedy, out with it."

"Out with what?" he asked.

"Whatever it is you're hiding.  Don't even try.  I'll know."

Freedy told the story of his encounter with the man under the data center, only he didn't name him.  He also soft-pedaled the flashdrive.  "It allows me to break passwords really fast," was all Freedy said.

Garland seemed to sense he was holding something back, but he was also obviously preoccupied.  "Well, it sounds like a nifty tool.  You'll need it."

"What?"

"Why, Freedy. You still haven't done what we hired you to do.  In the morning, we are heading for New York City.  There you will break into the Horn Spire penthouse and steal the property deeds to Lorn Mountain."

"I will?"  Freedy was amazed that Garland thought he could do such a thing.  But at the same time, he felt the pressure of the Key against his leg.  Maybe, perhaps, it was just possible he could pull it off.

"After all the things Charlie has told me you've done on this trip," Garland said.  "I have complete confidence in you."

Freedy felt himself excited by the challenge.  What an odd reaction!  Who'd have ever thought it?

 The only reason he was less than thrilled was because he knew he'd have to leave Sheila behind, and he'd have to lie to her about why.


 Sheila was waiting for him back at the motel, and they spent the rest of the day together.  They wandered around the small town hand in hand, and everyone smiled at them.

The town was pretty evenly split between union and non-union activists, and there had been tension in the past, but for now the acrimony was simmering below the surface.  Besides, there was no difference in the universal appeal of the newly in love.  Everyone was friendly to them.

The town was very small, and after a lunch in the diner, they walked out toward the slag heaps on the edge of town.  A huge hole had been dug into a mountain, or what had once been a mountain and was now more a hill with it top lopped off.

The ugliness reminded Freedy of the clear cutting of forests back in his native Oregon, and how it had seemed a crime against nature.

"You can't judge them, Freedy.  It's how they make their living."

Freedy wasn't judging.  It all looked like it belonged, somehow.  Everything in the world was where it should be and how it should be.  Because the world had given him Sheila, though he didn't deserve it, though he hadn't been looking for it.

They walked out into the surrounding woods.  They could have gone back to the motel, Freedy thought.  It might have been more comfortable.  But there, under a huge tree that had somehow escaped being cut, they laid down and came together.

It was so natural, so comfortable, so pleasurable that Freedy knew he'd never be the same.  Whatever happened now, he had just had the peak experience of his life.  The waiting, the misunderstandings, the difficulties -- all were washed away in a wave of rightness.

Later, they walked back into town, and if anything the smiles on the passersby grew even broader.  It was as if everyone could tell, and both Sheila and Freedy looked away from their glances shyly.

The world was a different place.  Freedy wished he could just stay with Sheila, but he also knew that their coming together had only happened because of the chances he had taken on this trip.  If he'd stayed in the miserable comfort of Filk's End, he never would have met her.

He couldn't renege on his agreement with Garland and Charlie and the others.  If he did, he wasn't the man Sheila thought he was.

They went back to the motel for the night -- and yes, the beds were more comfortable and the union was just as pleasurable, but the memory of that huge tree towering over them would always be with him.

At about four o:clock in the morning, he disentangled himself gently and got dressed.

Garland was waiting by the Miata.  Freedy got in without a word and they drove out of town.

Need more Bulletin Fodder!

How am I supposed to write a daily blog without Bulletin Fodder?

It doesn't look like they've gone to the two section Monday yet, and I'm not looking forward to it.  I want to Bulletin to do well for selfish reasons, as well as for the fact that I like all the reporters I know who work there.

**********

I was trying to get Linda back into writing from the moment I got serious again about a year and a half ago.  We met in the writer's group 30 years ago, and we've both been literary minded ever since.

She started looking at a book that she'd gotten far into, and decided she still really liked it.  So I've been waking up every morning seeing her at her computer.

She told me yesterday from her Writing Trip that she had finished her book!  And was starting in on the next one --

It's the second time she's actually finished (she wrote a romance that she wasn't quite satisfied with the ending.)

I want to read it, but I want her to keep writing first.  She has stalled in the past from critique from writer's group and I've encouraged her to keep it to herself for now.

Anyway, we both have websites to our names which we need to develop, and get our stuff out there.

I'll be exploring how it works with Freedy Filkins.

**********

Dropped in on the writer's group Christmas Party yesterday.  I was so into writing and with Linda gone, I hadn't intended to go, but I decided that was rude and popped my head in the door.

Told them my plans.  Nothing more bracing than seeing the skeptical look on the face of one guy I respect.  And when I told them the title to my book, there was a silence.  Well, that went over well, I thought to myself.

Anyway, I stayed for a little cider and some carrots, and then when everybody had settled down, vamoosed out of there.   "Back to writing!" I said cheerily on my way out the door.

**********

I estimated yesterday that I had about seven chapters left to write on Freedy Filkins, broken into about two chapters per incident with a concluding chapter.  So the first incident turned into three chapters, and I suspect the others will turn into longer as well

But I'm at the concluding chapters now -- the climax.  Trying to gear up for what will hopefully be an exciting climax. 

I have a Donald Trump like character -- who I call Darrell Horn -- as my Smaug the Dragon.  Heh.

This book sort of wrote itself -- like it was just waiting for me.

I wrote a chapter the other day which just tickled me.  Which is the best way to get over my rejection, I think.  It might not be any better than any of the rest, but it was so unexpected and came together so easily that it made me high. 

Freedy Filkins, International Jewel Thief, 44.

If you enjoyed this story, and I hope you did, please click here to buy.  Thanks for reading!

The guards had rushed to the window, and from the shouts of discovery, found the ripped sleeve from Freedy's shirt as he as hoped they would.  He heard them rush out the back and started to relax.  And then they were back in again, and back out, and then back in again.  All the while shouting.

The gold miners and Freedy kept quiet through it all.

Jim was quivering, and finally Freedy reached out and gave him a hug.  "The air is just inches away," he whispered.  "Imagine the sun, the light and the breeze."

His barrel-mate finally stopped shivering, and a few minutes later he surprised Freedy with a loud snore.  Freedly reluctantly elbowed him awake.

A good hour later, the warehouse workers were let into the storeroom and they heard heavy lifting and loading going on around them. Finally, Freedy felt his own barrel tipped.

"Are you sure these are supposed to be empty?" The worker complained. 

"Hey, they're oak slates with black steel hoops. The very best."

"Yeah, you and your damn beer."

"Makes the beer taste better."

"Yeah, well that's just stupid."  To Freedy and Jim surprise, the barrel was turned on its side and rolled into the truck.  "Oomph," Jim said, every time Freedy landed on him.  "Oomph."

 For his part, Freedy was too crushed by Jim to make any noise.

They were tipped back upright, but upside down.  "Shh!" Freedy whispered to Jim as the big man began to whimper.  But there was so much racket going on around them, no one heard them.  Finally they heard the big doors to the truck slammed shut, and if it was possible, it was even darker.

"Get me out," Jim started to whimper.  "Get me out."

Freedy managed to wiggle his way toward the top and pushed up.  There was something heavy on top of them.

"Get me out!" Jim started yelling, while Freedy tried shushing him.  Finally, after about five minutes, they heard something being shifted above them and the top came off.  Charlie was frowning down at them.

"Shut up, Jim.  They haven't started the truck yet.  They might still hear us."

Jim was fine after he scrambled up past Freedy and tipped over the side the barrel. He sprawled on the floor breathing deeply.

Freedy understood how he felt.  He hadn't realized until Charlie opened the lid and let some air in that he'd been stifling.  He had a splitting headache, but whether from Jim's bulk or the lack of air or both, he couldn't tell.

Moment's later, the truck started moving.

They had apparently barely missed being buried in the back of the truck, but fortunately the load over Charlie's barrel had fallen off.  A few minutes later they were all free.

The truck was almost full, but there was just enough room to crawl around.  Freedy scrambled over some boxes and cans to the back door.  There was a small crack along the bottom of the back doors and he was relieved to see the yellow van following, with Sheila grim but beautiful at the wheel.

"Well, hurrah for Freedy" Billy said.  "This is at least the third time he's save us.  We're going to have to give him a bigger share."

There was a moment of silence, and then they all said at once,  "Nah...." "No way!'  "He's just doing his job!"

They sat in companionable silence for awhile.

"This isn't a refrigerator truck is it?" Billy said.  The skinniest of them, he felt it first.

"Sure feels like it," Bob agreed.

"Don't worry, we'll get out at the first rest stop," Freedy assured them.

Two hours later, the truck shifted down, and then turned abruptly, whining to a stop.  A big release of air pressure from the brakes, and then silence.  Freedy looked out through the small crack and saw the driver heading to the restrooms.

"Now!" he said, when he saw the man disappear.

It was no use.  The door was secured from the outside, and there was no safety latch on the inside.

 "That's illegal!" Steve muttered, sounding offended.

The irony was, in the end, they all went back to the barrels after knocking some air holes in the top.  It was a lot warmer inside the enclosed space.  All but Jim, who shivered and nearly turned blue, but refused to get back in.  He rummaged around, and finally threw some loose cardboard on top of himself.

They were lucky in the end that Price-Ceiling was so hard on its workers, because the driver made the entire trip in eighteen hours without stopping for more than a few short periods.  Finally, the driver parked behind the store in Centerville, Pennsylvania and walked away for a well-earned rest.

About five minutes later, Sheila had managed to open the back door, using a wrench to break the lock.

She looked in worriedly, and Freedy nearly fell into her arms coming out the back.

"You all right?"

Freedy didn't answer, but just kept hugging her.  The whole trip he'd been dreaming about this.  He didn't care anymore that she was a cop and might arrest him at any moment.  He would gladly follow her anywhere, even in handcuffs.

She murmured a soft sound, a reassuring sound that only a woman in love can make, and he nearly broke into tears.

"Where are we?" Freedy finally asked.

"Our home base, Freedy," Charlie said, clapping him on the back.  "Welcome to Centerville, Pennsylvania, the non-union coal mining pit of the world."


The miners knew all the open bars and the best motels in town, and they were quickly settled in.

Freedy stayed with Sheila, for some reason not feeling tired at all.  They held hands as they walked to the motel room, and when the door was locked they fell into bed.

Freedy fell asleep with Sheila in his arms.  'I should do something about this," he thought drowsily.  And then he was out.

Freedy Filkins, International Jewel Thief, 43.

If you enjoyed this story, and I hope you did, please click here to buy.  Thanks for reading!

"You've created quite the fuss among your enemies, Freedy," Key said, not even waiting for Freedy to say something.  He was on speaker, though Freedy hadn't specified that.

"What the...?" Sheila exclaimed.  "Who's this?"

"This is my friend, Mr. Key.  He's helping me, aren't you Mr. Key?"

"Charmed to meet you, Special Agent Sheila Moller," Key said, agreeably.  "I've heard so much about you."

Freedy put his fingers to his lips when Sheila looked ready to ask more.

"Our friends are captured inside the Price-Ceiling store in Hopperville, Arkansas and I need to know which storeroom."

"That would be Storage Unit G." Key answered.

Freedy started up the van, realizing that he just hadn't driven far enough.  The letter on the dock next to them read "D."

They were just coming around the backs of trucks when he saw the guards.  He stopped and backed out of sight again.

"Did you count them?" he asked Sheila.

"There are two guards on the outside of both the front and back doors, and two guards inside." Key answered instead.

"How does he know that?" Sheila whispered.

Freedy happened to look behind him, and saw a patrol armed guards walking  the outer perimeter of the parking lot.  He edged the van into between some of the giant parked trucks as far in as he could squeeze.

"How many guards are searching for us altogether?"

"Forty-five," Key said.

There was silence in the van as Freedy and Sheila realized what they were up against.
Freedy thought for a moment about ordering all the guards away, but it occurred to to him that among those forty-five were the supervisors, the people giving orders -- including the Grandma from hell.

He might be able to get in by foot, alone, but beyond that he didn't have a clue about how he'd be able to get the entire crew out of there without being discovered.  The fewer orders he gave, the better chance he probably had.

"Can you order the guards out of the room on some pretext?" Freedy asked.

"I can order them out, but they would run to their supervisors soon enough," Key said.  Freedy noticed the Key wasn't making any suggestions about how to get out of this dilemma.  Perhaps, as a program,  It couldn't.  No, that wasn't right.  The Key was self-aware, It could help if It wanted to.  But after Freedy's experience with the bounty hunters, Freedy didn't trust the Key.

No, the only way to use Key was to give it specific and limited instructions, and preferably instructions so clear and simple that they couldn't be be warped or misconstrued.

"Show me the contents of the storage unit," he asked, getting an idea.

"Do you want inventory lists or pictures from inside?"

"Let's start with the lists," Freedy said.

The contents of the warehouse quickly popped up and started scrolling by.

"Slow down!" Freed commanded.   There, just as the scroll suddenly slowed to a crawl he saw what he wanted. "Show me the inside of the room..."

Key scanned the warehouse.  There!  Freedy immediately saw what he wanted.  Now came the really hard part.  Explaining the Sheila.

"My friend Mr. Key is just the most amazing computer whiz you've ever heard of," Freedy said. Which was true, after all.  That fact that the computer whiz was a computer didn't detract from that.

"I can see that," Sheila said.  She could tell something was wrong, probably, but couldn't quite put her finger on it.  "Why have you been keeping him a secret?"

"I wasn't sure about Garland and the others," Freedy said.  "Mr. Key only likes dealing with me, isn't that right, Mr. Key?"

"If you say so," Key said.

Freedy stopped himself from cursing.  "Always a kidder..." he muttered.

"You always liked my kidding before," Key said.

Again, Sheila frowned.  Maybe the Turing Test was still valid after all, because she seemed to sense there was something not quite right about Mr. Key.

"I'm going to have Mr. Key order away the guards inside and at the back exit.  Then, as quickly as possible, I'm going to try to free our guys and get out of there.  Have the van ready to go."

"Freedy," Sheila reached out and grabbed his arm.  "Are you sure about this?  They've only been charged with misdemeanors.  They'd probably be let go by tomorrow morning anyway."

"Remember, there are others looking for them," Freedy said.  "I don't believe they just happened to be spotted and arrested.  I thinking they were waiting for us."

Sheila agreed, he could tell.  But she didn't know about Key, only that he was a computer whiz and far away and a thin reed to hang their plans on.

"Trust me, Sheila," Freedy said.  "I know what I'm doing."

She stared into his eyes, and no doubt saw the fear in Freedy's eyes -- but she also must have seen the strange confidence that came from having an all-powerful, self-aware -- if treacherous -- computer program helping him.

"All right.  The guards made their circuit a couple of minutes again, you should be clear for about five minutes."  She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.    "Hurry, Freedy.  Come back to me."

Freedy jumped out and ran toward the dock.  He could still feel her soft lips on his cheek.  It energized him.

Outside the doors, he stopped.  "O.K., Key -- here's what we are going to do if we can't make a clean escape."

Freedy gave a series of rapid and specific instructions.

"You got that?" he said at the end.

"That's is pretty crazy, Freedy," Key said.  "But yes, I understand you."

Very well, Freedy breathed.  Time for the great escape.

 "Open the bomb-bay door, Hal!" he shouted into the Hello Kitty phone and unlike the movie computer, this computer obeyed.  The sliding door started ratcheting up.  He ran into the room and immediately saw his friends trussed up but not hooded and gagged.

"Holy Moly!" Jay said.  "Do you guys see who I see?"

"Master Thief indeed," Charlie said, looking pleased.

Freedy had his pocket knife out and was cutting at the plastic ties in seconds.  Good thing no one used old fashioned handcuffs anymore.  He would have been screwed.  He was getting pretty good at this.  They were free in less than a minute.

"Let's get out of here!"

It was too late.  There was banging on the front door of the storeroom and not seconds later banging on the back doors.  They were trapped.  Freedy realized that he hadn't given instructions to Key to lock the door behind him.  The Key had apparently thought of that Itself.  Perhaps the Program was trying to help after all.

"Thanks for locking the doors, Key," he said, aloud.

"Hey, I'm enjoying your shenanigans.  But I'm wondering if you're going to get out of this one."

"Who you talking to?" Charlie asked, confused.

Freedy saw a window at the far end of the room, ran over and opened it.  Just barely big enough for most of them, and probably too small for Jim, actually.   About a twenty foot drop to the ground.  Not impossible, but pretty scary.  It was also visible from every direction.  He left the window open.  His clothes were so ratty by now, he easily tore off a section of his sleeve and shoved it into the grooves of the window ledge.

"Well, nice try, Freedy," Charlie said, looking resigned.   "I'd be impressed if I wasn't afraid we're about to have our heads beaten in for trying to escape. You may have just made it worse."

"Time for Plan B," Freedy said, sounding more confident than he sounded.   He got on his Hello, Kitty phone, calling the only number on his list.

"Get out of the parking lot, Sheila.  Now.  Wait at the eastern outskirts of town.  At about 4:30 this afternoon, a truck with the serial number STW421 will pass you.  Follow it to it's destination."

"What's going on," Sheila said, sharply.

"No time to explain."  Freedy turned off the phone.  He took out the Key.  After a moment's thought, he removed the battery.

Along the back wall there were seven huge beer barrels.  They'd been used recently in a local beerfest and were scheduled to be sent back to Milwaukee.  Freedy had rescheduled them for Centerville, Pennsylvania instead.

He opened the lid of one of them, and an odor of days old beer wafted out.  He recoiled.  Oh, well.   No help for it.

"Your chariots await!" he shouted at the others, pulling the lids off one by one.  "Hop in!"

"I'm not getting in one of those!" Jim said, and Freedy remembered too late that the big miner was afraid of enclosed spaces -- which was quite a handicap for a miner to have.  Fortunately there were enough jobs outside the mines to keep him busy.  Now he was sweating profusely and his eyes were wide.

As the banging grew louder, the other miners ran to barrels and one by one plopped in.  Freedy pounded down the lids securely behind them.

Fat Jim approached last, and looked at Freedy.  "There's only seven barrels and eight of us," he said.
Freedy hadn't thought of that.  There wasn't time to rearrange.  It would've made more sense to have Steve and Sam share a barrel, for instance, instead of chubby Freedy and even chubbier Jim.

But there was no help for it.  The banging outside the doors suddenly stopped.  Oh, oh.  The guards with tools to open doors were either on their way or already there.

"No time to argue, dammit," Freedy said.  "Jump in!"

Eyes wide in panic, Jim got in, and Freedy gingerly lowered himself into the last little bit of space.  They barely lowered the lid before they heard the doors opening.

Freedy Filkins, International Jewel Thief, 42.

If you enjoyed this story, and I hope you did, please click here to buy.  Thanks for reading!

Freedy backed away from the corner stack of Campbell's Soup he'd been poking his head around.

"We have to get out of here now," he said.

"What about the others?" Sheila said, looking at him sharply.  "I still have my badge."

"I don't think that trick will work this time," Freedy said.  "These are private cops, I'm not sure they'll recognize your authority."

Sheila looked ready to object.

"Besides," Freedy added.  "You've been seen with them.  Remember the old lady?"

Her face fell.  Hard to forget the Grandma from Hell.

"I have an idea, Sheila.  Bear with me."

"All right, Freedy," She nodded.  "I have a feeling this place is going to be swarming with guards in a very short time.  Let's go."

They started walking quickly down the aisle toward the front of the store.   He stopped suddenly at a display.  He grabbed a summer hat and sunglasses which were on close-out and turned to Sheila.

"Here, put these on," he said.

"What, you want me to steal?"

Freedy suspected there were security camera's all over the place, but...  "How much more trouble can we be in?"

He grabbed the least feminine hat on the rack, and jammed it on his head.  He took off his coat, and draped it over his arm.  Sheila saw what he was doing, and put her coat on backward.  The inside of her coat was a bright red.

Freedy had a sudden image of them showing up on the infamous website "People of Price-Ceiling."  Look at this idiot wearing a feminine hat and his girlfriend with her inside-out labels showing!

"We need to buy a couple of pre-paid cellphones," Freedy said, after a moment's thought. Sheila could probably escape notice better than him.  She was already transformed from the no-nonsense woman that had walked into the store into the ditsy broad standing before him.

Charlie had given each of them a couple hundred dollars for spending money out of Freedy's diamond heist, and he handed his folded bills over to Sheila.  "They don't need to be fancy," he said. "The cheapest phones they've got."

He let his gaze linger on her, hoping he wasn't sending her to jail and ruining her career.  "I'll wait for you in the car."

He walked straight for the sliding frontdoors without looking back, expecting a hue and cry with every step.  The podium the Greeter had inhabited was abandoned, and he walked on by and out the door.  He'd never heard such a happy sound as that swoosh of freedom.

He got in the driver's side of the van, and realized belatedly that Jim was a prisoner inside the store and that he had the keys to the van in his pocket.  But Jim was also notorious for losing his keys, and everyone in the crew knew there was an extra set in the glovebox.  Fortunately, they had been so rattled when they left, they'd neglected to lock the doors.

Freedy started the car and tried not to look too nervous.  After a minute or two, he started creeping toward the entrance.  He was driving by the doors for the second time when Sheila rushed out and hopped in the passenger seat.

"Got it.  Let's go."

As they accelerated away, they saw several white panel trucks pull up and half a dozen guards jump out of each.  The men ran into the store.

Unlike the guards they'd met inside, these guys were armed.

 The cellphone was bright blue, with the face of white kitty on front.  "Hello Kitty?" he said.  "Really?"

"Unless you'd rather have this one?" she said, pulling out a pink Barbie phone.

Freedy almost recoiled.

"Hey," she said, laughing.  "You said get the cheapest phones!"

He smiled back.  Being thrown into danger together had erased some of the awkwardness between them.  They were too focused on what they needed to do to worry about how they felt about each other.  It was doing wonders for their relationship.  Freedy could almost imagine that the betrayal hadn't happened.  But then --  every time he thought that -- he of course remembered the betrayal and his smile dropped.

They drove several blocks to the east before they found a road that seemed to wrap around the Price-Ceiling store.  In back, there were loading docks every few hundred feet with sliding doors.  Some were active, most weren't.  Freedy realized for the first time that it was a Sunday.  He could only guesstimate which storeroom they had taken the prisoners to.

He'd find out soon enough.

He panicked for a moment when he couldn't find a port.  Had they bought too cheap a phone?  At the last moment, he discovered a single port at the base of the phone.  He pulled the flashdrive out of his pocket.

Sheila's eyes widened.  She grabbed his hand, and leaned down to examine the jewels on the device.  To Freedy, they looked like costume jewelry they were so big.  He was reminded by her intense examination that she was an F.B.I. agent and probably knew the difference between fake and real.  Her hand lingered on his and he closed his eyes for a second.

Her finger poked into the gauged-out hole where the diamond had been and looked at him questioningly.

We don't have time for this! Freedy thought -- or so he told himself.  In truth, he'd been basking in the glow of his heist, and even if Sheila the F.B.I. agent was probably disgusted with him, he thought maybe Sheila the woman was kinda impressed.

He plugged the flashdive into the phone.

"Hello, Freedy."

Freedy Filkins, International Jewel Thief, 41.

If you enjoyed this story, and I hope you did, please click here to buy.  Thanks for reading!

They were headed for Nashville less than five minutes later.  Freedy found himself in the back of the van again, because by now they'd used up enough supplies to make room for him.  He preferred it to sitting glumly amongst the glum miners -- who occasionally glared at him for taking away their video games.

'Hey, I saved your life -- again!' he wanted to shout.

The empty bleakness of the back of the van was vastly superior to sitting on one of the bikes and seeing Sheila right there on the other bike, so close but so far.

She wanted to make up with him, or so she said.  Freedy was still having a hard time believing her. When he looked deep down though, he realized he did believe her -- and that's what scared him.  He never wanted to feel that moment of betrayal again.  He had to be sure.  Absolutely sure.

Meanwhile, Freedy also had his doubts about heading for Nashville to visit Bob and Billy's mom and dad, and Jay and Jim's first cousins.  If the enemy was so sophisticated they could track them down in a state park in Missouri, then surely they'd have staked out immediate family, especially since it was obvious the crew was headed in that general direction.

He decided to keep his reservations to himself for now.  He'd interfered enough.  How did it become his responsibility all of a sudden?  Why had Garland left?  What the hell did he expect Freedy to do?

Their route took them across the very northeast corner of Arkansas.

Charlie leaned over from the passenger side of the front seat.  "Freedy's money helps us, but the van is burning gas like money.  I think we have more than enough, but one thing this trip has taught me is to never take anything for granted.  We'd best load up on supplies while we can.  We'll stop at Hopperville..."

"What?" Jay seemed upset.  "Hell, boss.  I'd be pissed if you wanted to load up at any Price-Ceiling store, but you want to buy in Hopperville?"

"Can't be helped.  It's along the route. Stay in the van if you want."

"Yeah," Jim agreed, from the driver's seat.   "Jay and I have never spent a dime in Price-Ceiling and we never will!"

"Good union men," Charlie said, not disagreeing. 

They started seeing the ubiquitous inverted V  roof shape of the Price-Ceiling logo for miles before they reached the town itself.

Hopperville had one reason for existing and one reason only.  It was corporate headquarters to the largest chain store in the world.

"What's wrong with Price-Ceiling?"  Freedy asked.  He spent most of his money there, for just about everything.  He was vaguely aware of an anti-Price-Ceiling sentiment, but had never explored the reasons. 

Bobby groaned.  "Don't start!"

Both Jay and Jim looked like they were getting ready to unload on Freedy all the By-God reasons why, but Charlie just shook his head.

"Forget it, boys.  We don't have enough time.  Besides, when have we ever convinced anyone who wasn't already convinced?"

They passed warehouse after warehouse with the inverted V, and Freedy saw that the warehouses behind them stretched for miles. Huge trucks were backed up to them, like hungry litters of puppies.

There in the middle of the town, was the largest single store that Freedy had ever seen.  The enormous parking lot looked empty, but Freedy realized that there were enough cars parked near the entrance to probably fill the lot of the comparatively tiny Price-Ceiling store at home.

Jim parked as close to the entrance as he could, and Charlie and Billy and Bob got out.

Steve and Sam puttered to a stop next to them, their normal triumphant arrival somehow muted.

"What are we doing here?" Steve asked. Sheila was sitting behind him.  She got off and walked in a circle around the bikes as if trying to shake off the miles.

"Getting supplies," Charlie said, by now sounding annoyed by all the second-guessing.

"The Heart of Retail Evil," Sam said.  "I never thought I see the day..."

"Hey, we get to look into the Abyss and see if it stares back," Charlie said.  He looked at Steve and Sam and Sheila.   "You coming along?"

"No thanks," Sheila said.  "You've seen one Price-Ceiling, you've seen them all.  Even if this one IS rather large."

"We're not leaving our bikes at the mercy of these rednecks!" Sam exclaimed.

Freedy almost laughed.  Sam and Steve's usual biker scruffiness was accentuated by days of bad roads and bad food.  They looked like the poster boys for "redneck."

"Suit yourself," Charlie said.  "Me, I'm curious about how this cathedral to ruthless retail looks inside."

"Well, don't get lost," Jay said.  "No, on second thought, I hope you do get lost..."

Charlie just grinned and slammed the van door.  "We'll be back in a few!"


A few minutes went by, and then a few more.  Then a half hour.  Jay and Jim got out and walked around the parking lot, exclaiming about how atrocious it all was, how inhuman.  Another half hour went by.

"Something's wrong," Freedy said.

"Yeah," Sheila sighed.  "Can't these guys stay out of trouble for a day?"

"We need to go check," Freedy said.  He started walking toward the entrance, and Sheila fell in by his side.  He wanted to reach out for her hand but resisted.  She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, as if she had recognized -- and approved of -- his impulse.

Somewhat to his surprise, all the rest of the miners followed.  Jay and Jim looked almost smug, as if they wanted to say, 'Told you!'  Steve and Sam were hiking up their pants and straightening their coats as if getting ready for a fight.

They entered the retail cathedral and stopped en masse.  Their heads craned upward and beyond.  Rows upon rows of merchandise, marching like Roman Legions into the distance.  Sound was somehow impossibly both muted and echoing.  All the merchandise overwhelmed the eyes, and all Freedy could see at first were basic colors and shapes.  People looked like insects amongst the immensity of cheap goods.

Freedy saw a giant stack of Rice Krispies standing like a Tower of Babylon near the first aisle.  He had a sudden image of the Moleman and felt slightly guilty.  His hand went to the Key.  Fallom had tried to kill him, he reminded himself.  He got what he deserved.

"Howdy, folks!"  A little old lady stood near the entrance.  She looked like the kind of Grandma that Norman Rockwell would have rejected as too hokey to be real.   But behind those kind twinkling eyes, soft halo of white hair, Freedy thought he saw an evil intelligence.

"Uh, hi," Freedy said, while the gold miners behind him scowled.

"Can I help you folks find anything?" she asked, but Freedy heard, 'What are you people doing here?'

Freedy said.  "We're looking for some friends of ours, three guys --" the evil Grandma's smile slipped.  "They had suspenders on," he finished lamely.  Well, after all, it was a distinguishing characteristic.

"I see, why don't you let me check."  Grandma went over to a small podium and spoke into a microphone.  Her words echoed and bounced off the far ceilings, and every insect human in the place looked toward the front.

 "We have an E-4 at the entrance.  I repeat, an E-4.  They are looking for their three friends."

Uh, oh.  As soon as Freedy the old lady accentuated the words three friends, he knew they were in trouble.  He didn't know what an E-4 was, but he suspected it wasn't good...

At that moment, they heard shouts from the back of the store.  They barely heard the shouts, actually, though they were probably being shouted at the top of their lungs.  Jay and Jim, Steve and Sam started running down the nearest aisle toward the back.  Sheila started to follow, but Freedy grabbed her arm.

"Let's not charge in," he said.  His natural caution was kicking in.  These gold miners didn't seem to have an ounce of fear, whereas Freedy was overflowing with the emotion.

He started walking quickly down the front of the store, and then turned into the fourth or fifth corridor.  The first aisle he reached with no one shopping in it.  Sheila followed closely behind.

He broke into a trot and then slowed as he neared the back.  The shouting was coming from the right, about thirty feet or so.  He carefully poked his head around the corner.

"You're under arrest!"  Jay and Jim were on the ground, their hands jerked painfully behind their backs by a trio of hefty security guards each.  Steve and Sam were backed up against the wall, and they had some kind of weapon in their hands which they were jabbing at more guards.  Were those rakes? Freedy wondered.  Yeah, not only rakes, but the soft pronged kind, which as Freedy watched, the attacking guards simply brushed to the side and threw the two brothers to the ground.

"We haven't done anything!" Jim shouted.

"You're resisting arrest!" one of the guards shouted back.

"Yeah, but..." Jim sputtered to a stop as he realized that objecting to being arrested for a crime he didn't do was somehow a crime.

Charlie, and Billy and Bob were already trussed and sitting on the floor, their backs to a tower of dogfood.

"Forget it, boys.  They're arresting us because of our union activities, obviously."

"No," the lead guard said.  "We are arresting you for ... shoplifting.  Harry here saw you shoplift some dogfood, didn't you Harry!"

"Sure did."

Charlie laughed.  It was such a genuine laugh that it sort of shocked everyone.  "Which is kind of strange since I don't even have a dog!"

"Maybe you like to eat it," one of the other guards said, and reared back his foot as if to kick him.

"Now none of that," a kindly voice said, and Freedy saw the Grandma greeter walked into the middle of the chaos.  "We follow the law here."  Her smile fell off her face and the kindly crinkly face was transformed into a gargoyle.  Deep frowning lines fell into place and her cold eyes suddenly fit the rest of her features.

"Take them in back.  Lock them in the storeroom for now.  The Boss will want to see them."









 

Sunday suds.

The other day a young girl came in and asked for a job.  I seem to be getting a number of females asking for jobs, which is encouraging.  But there are no jobs to be had.  I like the three guys I have working for me, I like the flexibility of their hours, it's all working.

So this time, I told her the truth, without thinking:   "You have to kill someone to get a job here."

So here's the thing:  You could be the Stephen King of employees, the J.K. Rowling of employees, and I'd never know it.  Because I don't need any employees, I can't see where I'll need any employees in the near future, I like the employees I have.  Nor can I judge you based on the limited exposure of you walking in the door and handing me a resume, or even if I went so far as to interview you.

So I have to see publishing like that.  The barriers are immense, the filters strong, the level of spectacularness to get over the every-other-person-in-the-world-wanting-to-be-a writer-ness--is very intimidating.

I can't take it personal.

***********

In line with that, I was thinking last night about how easy it would be just to put these stories online.

Done and done.

I came up with a pretty good reason why going online makes sense for me, and it's a very, very weird reason.

I'm just too damn prolific for traditional publishing.  I think I write faster than most people read.

Of course, I could be accused of what Capote said about Kerouac:  "That's that's not writing -- that's typing."

Still, there are times when rewriting makes sense and times when it really doesn't.  I mean, of course I do rewriting, but I've found that if what I write requires restructuring, I'm probably better off dropping it altogether and moving on to the next thing.

Of course, all of this is rationalizing because I really don't like being rejected.

But I also don't like the slowpokedness that traditional writing imposes.  I'm probably much faster than I actually have written because of it.  And, to be frank, I've often changed or tailored my writing to meet what I think I need to do, instead of going with my own instincts about what I want to do.  Online would solve that too, and I'd just have to take the punishment for my hubris if I'm all wet.

Nor do I think just throwing stuff online would probably be effective.  Much like this blog, which I've never done a single thing to promote, never tried to network, hell I don't even tag my entries. I just throw my thoughts online.

Sure, I have a local following that comes and goes, and the numbers of page hits is high enough to keep me going, but I suppose I thought that if I wrote every day that more people would eventually find me.  Instead, it has stayed pretty steady and pretty local, add in what are probably accidental hits.

So if I just throw my stories online, the same thing will probably happen.

What I'm going to do is make Freedy Filkins an online book, probably immediately upon finishing it, which should be sometime in the next 10 days.  Explore the process, see how it works, and then decide what to do from there.

I've very much enjoyed writing Freedy.  I'd like to do more writing like that.

My current thinking is to develop my The Reluctant Wizard world, writing more than one book in that series, develop the history, geography, society, religion, philosophy and so on of that world, and try when it's really ready to get it published traditionally.

Every other hare-brained idea, like Freedy Filkins (and I'm probably full of them) I can put online.  (Well, hell, I already have.)

Sounds like a plan. 

Freedy FIlkins, International Jewel Thief, 40.

If you enjoyed this story, and I hope you did, please click here to buy.  Thanks for reading!

When I finally returned to Elias's Cozy Cottage, I was ready to triumphantly and humbly announce that I'd entered the designed virus into the data center.

Instead, Elias had greeted me with fervent congratulations.

"I don't know how you did it, Garland!  The mineral rights on Lorn Mountain have been transferred back to the Emmit family.  Even more impressive, they've remained there.  How did you do that?"

I'm not above taking credit for things I haven't had anything to do with.  I just shrugged and smiled.  How in the hell had that happened?  How was it even possible?

Inside, I was wondering about Freedy's strange behavior when he rejoined us, as if he knew everything that had happened to us, and had somehow influenced the result.

How? -- I had no idea.  I was going to get the little thief in a dark room and beat the truth out of him if I had to.

I'd left the gold miners in Freedy's hands.  The young man was proving to be every bit as resourceful as his Aunt Tessie had been -- maybe even more so.  Charlie and the others were bound to get in trouble on their own, but Freedy's innate conservatism might help steer them in the right way direction, at least for a few days.

It didn't hurt that they had an F.B.I. agent accompanying them as well, though I was absolutely puzzled how that happened.  In fact, everything that had happened at the data center had been unexpected. 

 "Why do you bother with them, Garland?" Elias said, in that profound way he said anything.  "It's raining" very profound; "I'm going to bed," even more profound; "The Yankees are going to win the World Series," earthshakingly profound.

"Because they -- the average citizen -- are what count in the end, Elias," I said.  I knew my words wouldn't penetrate more than a few centimeters into the great man's cranium.  "What the average person experiences on the Internet IS the Internet.  We make all these big decisions as if we're in charge, but we're just reacting to what the Internet has already become or is becoming."

"Nonsense," Elias said.  "We make the rules.'

"Do we?" I chuckled.  It was an old argument, a chicken or the egg argument, that had no answer.  "Well, let's just say I like to keep up with what's going on."

We were sitting in the library, while his interns played pool or wandered in and out of the room.  The room had been constructed in such a way that anything said in the armchairs went only a few feet, while everything said elsewhere in the library could be heard in the armchairs.  It was distracting, but Elias liked to keep track of what his young Charges were up to.

One of the interns approached.  They all looked the same to me, young, handsome and bland.

"The conference room is ready, sir.  Everyone is scheduled to join up in ten minutes."

"Mr. Secore?"

The intern looked distressed.  "He hasn't answered us, sir.  But we know he got our messages.  We've have a screen set up just in case."

"Well, it's HIS funeral,"  Elias said, in an Universe-shakingly deep tone.

"Indeed it is," I agreed.

I certainly hoped so.  I didn't know how Josiah Secore could stand against every other major player in the game.  Against every other Fortune 500 company; against every internet provider and data provider and social network designer.  Between us, ninety percent of the Internet was represented.

The other ten percent? That was Secore and his minions.  An impressive number, far bigger than any of the rest of us individually.  He'd been there at the beginning, and had been far-seeing, staking out positions in parts of the web that none of the rest of us had bothered with.  Now, all these years later, those parts of the web were becoming dominant.  The Dark Lord's ten percent was going to be twenty percent within a few years.

I, for one, didn't underestimate him anymore.  If he managed to corner that much, then he might very well be able to dominate the rest.

That had to stop.  Today.  With or without him being present.

"We should have a name for our little gathering," Elias said.

"How about the Blue Council?" I said.  "You've always called our little community the Blue Wizards, after all."

Elias was delighted.  I was flattering him, of course, but he was the richest and most powerful of us -- except for one -- and we all catered to him a tad.  Back in the early days, a sillier and less profound Elias called us all Blue Wizards after the lines of blue light emanating from the primitive screens.  

I almost winced when a few minutes later, after we decamped from the library and made our way into Elias's entertainment/meeting center, my host said in a profoundly deep voice.  "I call the meeting of Blue Council to order."

There they were, peering at us from huge screens that filled the room.  The greatest minds of the Internet.  Only one screen was dark.  No, as I looked closely, I saw that it was actually on, but all it showed was a red fire in the middle, like a burning tower.

"Welcome to all," Elias said.  His voice had dropped a little when he too saw the red tower.  No one had seen Josiah Secore in years.  There was a rumor that Josiah had met with an accident experimenting with chemical processes that he should have left alone, and that it had left him scarred and crippled.  I was starting to believe it.

"We are meeting here today so that we can decide here and now how much control of the Internet we can allow any one entity to have -- whether it be a government, a corporation, or an individual."

"That would be up the marketplace, surely," the young man who had invented a social network in his dorm room said.

"Should it?" I challenged.  "I have no problem with all of us making money from using the network, as long as we don't keep others out.  Competition in the marketplace is one thing, monopoly is another."

"I agree," said the man who ran what had once been the biggest computer company in the world and who had ironically been sued by the federal government for monopoly.  "Equal access must be guaranteed."

"The Internet must remain open to all.  No one should control it."  This came from the fellow who had built his first computer in a garage, and who was as interested in the look and feel and functionality of his devices as he was in the Internet itself.

And so it went, around the room.  All of us wanted an open network, because all of us had gotten rich from such a system.

"Why are we even discussing this?  I don't believe it would be possible to control the Internet even by a worldwide Dictatorial Power."  Said a software designer who was famous for offering his programs free.

Ah, we come to it at last.

I spoke up.  "I believe it is possible, through a series of different governing industries, to indeed dominate the Internet in such a way that the content and delivery mechanisms of the Internet are controlled.  The who and what and why and how and where.  We must not allow this to happen."

"How are we to stop it?" Elias asked.  He knew exactly what I was going to do.  He'd been there from the beginning of my plans. 

"I have a list here of industries that must be broken up and sold in equal shares to the members of the Blue Council.  By this means, control will be avoided.  I am requesting that we pay above market price for these businesses, so that no harm comes to the owners."

I put the list up on the screen for all to see.

Oh the months I'd spent trying to come up with that list!  All designed so that the solution would be permanent and at the same time, wouldn't cause disruption.  The prices were attractive to the sellers, but not so high that everyone would rebel.

But most of all, I'd tried to disguise the true intent and the true target of my plan.  Of course, I knew that everyone in that room was smart enough to know who that was.  I'd talked to each of the individually and they all agreed.  But I'd mixed a variety of industries and businesses onto the list, so that no one could claim to be singled out.

But of course, the whole point of the Blue Council was to single One out.

The beauty of it, or so I thought, was that Secore wouldn't be able to fight it.  I'd found his weak spots, companies which could be bought out from under him, others where majority shares could be purchased.  I was convinced I had found the solution.

"I move that the proposal be adopted by the consenting parties in this room."

It quickly passed around the room.  I'd even arranged a few no votes so it wouldn't seem like it was ramrodded through.  It came to that last screen.  The fiery tower had become alarmingly bigger, I realized.

A voice came through the speaker.  A voice I hadn't heard in thirty years.  It was cold, emotionless, and soft.  It sent shivers down my spine.

"I vote NO."

The screens all went blank at the same moment.

The lights went dark.

A few moments later the lights flickered on when the Cozy Cottage's emergency generators kicked in.

The computer screens stayed dark, however.  Which should have been impossible with all the safeguards I knew Elias had built into his systems.

"Well, that could have gone better," I heard Elias's deep voice.

For once, the profundity sounded completely appropriate.

Freedy Filkins, International Jewel Thief, 39.

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They made their way slowly through the underbrush, not daring to use the trail.  They couldn't really see much in the early evening darkness other than the larger trees and logs. The smaller branches and brush grabbed at their clothing.  It was slow going.  Freedy felt his new but worn-for-too-many-days-in-a-row clothing tearing.

Sheila was more adept -- no doubt accustomed to stalking her prey, he thought.  Fairly early in the going, he realized he should follow her instead of the other way around.  Despite the darkness and danger, he was still aware of her proximity, her wiggling body just inches from his face.  

It may have been dark, but their goal was easy to see.  The lights on the heads of the attackers were zigzagging through the clearing in front of them.  No shots had been fired -- the gold miners had been caught napping -- or worse -- playing video games.

They crept as close as they dared.  The light passed over them a few times and they froze, but it was clear the attackers assumed they had already won.

"That's all of them, sir.  Seven I.D.'s were presented at the ATM and they match these seven."

"We've got them!" the officer in charge said.  He was loud and bombastic, to match his large and inflated outline in the darkness.  "Ten thousand dollar bounties on each of them plus twenty on the infamous Charlie Emmet."

He kicked out at the bundled shape under him and Freedy heard Charlie grunt.

So there it was, Freedy thought.  The big loophole.  He'd ordered the Key to call off the authorities, but he hadn't specified bounty hunters.  He and the Key were going to have to have another talk, Freedy thought.  For all the good it would do.  There probably weren't enough words to cover every single possible situation.

He hadn't brought a credit card with him, so he hadn't tried using it at the ATM.  Sheila had found out hers was inactive earlier at the motel.  A happy accident.  Apparently, the bounty hunters didn't know about them.

The other six miners were sitting at the picnic table, three to a bench, their hands bound behind their backs by zipties and their heads were covered by black cloth hood.  They had only one guard -- the others were gathered around their leader.

"The copter is coming back at 9:00, this was supposed to be harder.  So all we have to do is wait."

"Sir? What about those Harley's?  Shame to just leave them here."

"Sorry, Javier, we do it by the book, this time.  That was made very clear.  No infringement of rights, no absconding with personal possessions."

"What about the guns in the van, sir? Doesn't seem safe to just leave them."

"Show me."

The entire cadre moved over to the back of the van, after which there was a low appreciative whistle.  "We earned our money today, boys.  These guys were ready for war."

The big man moved away from the others, and faced away, toward the stream, putting his hand to his ear.

"Sir?" It was the leader's voice and there wasn't an answer, so Freedy realized he was talking into a cellphone.  "These guys were armed to the teeth.  Should we leave the weapons?  Yes, sir.  I understand sir.  Will do."

"Lock the van doors, leave the guns,"  Freedy could hear the regretful shrug in the lead bounty hunter's voice.  "What happens after we leave here isn't our responsibility."

"Damn shame," one of the others muttered.

Since the entire crew was on the other side of the campground, Freedy figured it was a good time to whisper to Sheila.  "Still got your badge and your gun?"

"Of course."

"See what you can do to create a diversion.   I'll sneak around to the other side and see if I can free the guys -- or try to get one of the weapons."

"Can you shoot someone if you have to?" Sheila asked.  "These guys aren't breaking the law, you know."

He winced.  He'd been thinking exactly the same thing.  Maybe she knew him better than he realized.  "I don't know," he hissed.  "But I can try to bluff."

He couldn't see her face but nevertheless got a perfectly good picture of her cute nose wrinkling, and her mouth moving to one side in a grimace.  "These guys don't look as though they bluff."

"No, they don't."

 "I guess we'll both find out.  I'll give you ten minutes to get into position," she said.

To the other side of the campground from where they had approached, it was mostly road and other campgrounds.  Freedy decided it was safer and quicker to take a big loop around out of sight, and approach from behind.

It took him less than five minutes, even moving carefully.  The moon had started to come up, which was a shame.  Sure the road had a soft glow in the moonlight and he could easily negotiate it, but he'd be that more visible when he actually reached the prisoners.  When the zigzagging headlamps of the bounty hunters was behind him, he turned toward the campground again.

He got into position

The next five minutes were agonizingly slow.  He had time to think of all the things that could go wrong.  He wasn't worried about himself, he was surprised to find.  All this sneaking around felt almost natural, and it was better than doing nothing.  No, he was worried about Sheila.  These six bounty hunters looked plenty tough, and she seemed such a tiny woman.

Freedy quickly found out how wrong he was.

He'd never seen her in full F.B.I. mode, except through a monitor underground.  It was impressive when she approached the campground without hesitation, looking twice her size and with a commanding voice.

"Sheila Moller, F.B.I.  Special Agent, Cybercrimes Unit!"

All six headlamps trained on her, and she was holding up her badge with one hand, and had her gun in the other.  She looked magnificent.  Freedy had to prompt himself to take advantage of the distraction.  He crawled over the the three miners who were sitting on the picnic table closest to him.  The guard was on the other side of the table, so those three -- whoever they were -- were going to just have to sit out the encounter.

He saw that one of the shapes was bigger than the others, and guessed it was Jim.  He touched the bound hands, and the big man seemed to jump a foot.  "What the...!"

Freedy dropped to the ground and lay flat.  The guard had walked a couple of feet their way, before Jim spoke up again, sounding chagrined.  "Man, I just had the biggest bug run across my hands..."

"Shut up, you big wuss," the guard said, but he went back to his original position.

Freedy rose up slowly until he guessed his mouth was near the approximate position of Jim's ear.

"It's me," he hissed.  "Freedy."

He had his pocketknife out, and was sawing at the ziptie.  It took longer than it should have, and he could hear the conversation between Sheila and the other bounty hunters.

"I don't care who you are!" she was saying loudly.  "My badge takes precedence here."

"I'm sorry, Agent Moller," the leader sounded surprising calm.  "That simply not true.  By law, these men are our captives.  You can have them after we've delivered them to the proper authorities."

"I am the proper authorities, you idiot."  Sheila nearly shouted.

"Well, you see -- that's just it.  Not if you don't have eighty grand to pay us, you aren't."

"Are you saying I wouldn't credit you?" Sheila did shout this time.

"Not at all.  Still, just to be safe."

Freedy had sawed through the next pair of hands, and from the calluses he figured this was either Bob or Billy, which meant the next prisoner was either Billy or Bob.  When he had all three free, he whispered into each of their ears:  "Wait for my signal."

"I'm an F.B.I. Agent, and I couldn't receive a bounty even if I wanted one.  The bounties are all yours, Mr....?"

"Herm Hickman, ma'am."

Freedy looked over at the van.  They hadn't closed the back door, and the guns were just sitting there gleaming in the moonlight.  He had to try.

Again, he took the long way around and came into the campground near the front of the van and crept his way toward the open door.

He froze about halfway down the length of the van, when he saw the guard standing there two feet from the bumper.  The guard reached in surreptitiously and grabbed one of the sleek pistols and shoved it into his pocket and quickly walked away.

So much for honesty, Freedy thought.  His guess was these guys were nearly outlaws themselves, in fact probably spent most of their lives on the wrong side of the law.  It made what he had to do a little easier.

He crawled the final few feet.

Near the entrance of the campground, the shouting match between Sheila and the other bounty hunters was reaching a crescendo.  Sheila must have finally said something that upset Hickman, because he was shouting now, too.

"To hell with that!  You're not taking them!  Where's your backup, agent?  Where's your car?  You planned to arrest seven highly armed fugitives with a handgun and your admittedly big balls?"

"That's right, Hickman.  Bigger balls than yours!"

"Hey, boss.  Do you remember they said that someone tried to use a credit card at the motel where these guys were staying?  A woman.  What was the name...?"

"You're right.  I forgot about that.  It started with an S...in fact..."

That tore it.  Freedy stood up and grabbed the biggest gun in sight which fortunately was the same big rifle he had handled at Lorn Mountain, the one weapon in the entire world that he was familiar with and comfortable with.

He swung it toward the nearest guard, and said in a low voice.  "Drop your weapon."

The guy turned around swiftly with his rifle still in his hands, and Freedy shot a round at his feet.  There was a sudden silence, and then the man dropped the gun.

"Now!" he shouted, and Jim, Bob and Billy jumped up, tearing the hoods off, and running to the back of the van and loading up.  Under the hoods, Jay and Steve and Sam were shouting, "What's going on?"  and "What the...?"

The remaining five bounty hunters had frozen at the shot and by that time, Sheila also had her gun trained on them.  They looked rapidly from Freedy to Sheila and back again as if trying to figure out if they could take them.  By that time, Jim had joined Freedy, quickly followed by Bob and Billy.

Herm Hickman put one hand up, and laid his gun on the ground with the other.  The others quickly followed suit.

"You're breaking the law, Agent Moller, if that's who you really are."

"I'm Agent Sheila Moller, all right."

"My guess?" Hickman said bitterly.  "Not for long.  I figure you owe me eighty thousand dollars, lady."

"Yeah, well good luck with that."

When Sheila was certain that the bounty hunters were covered, she holstered her pistol and helped Charlie to his feet, freeing him.  Charlie marched over and punched Hickman in the chest hard enough that the bounty hunter fell down.

"Next time you won't catch us napping!  Remembered, we're armed for war and prepared to fight one.  So think about your precious bounties are really worth..."

Charlie kicked him once, and then...with obviously great restraint, threw up his hands and walked away. 

They quickly freed the other three miners.  The bounty hunters took their place at the picnic table in exactly the same positions, with the same hoods.   Only they were further gagged and their feet bound and tied to the table.

Charlie checked his watch.  "The copter is coming back in ten minutes.  We've got to load up and get the hell out of here."

There was one last thing to do.

Freedy had seen that the iPad was abandoned on top of the picnic table.  He reached through two of the prisoners and snagged it."

"Hey, watcha doin' with that?" Jim cried, alarmed.

Freedy walked over to the outhouse and opened the door.

"Hey that thing cost me six hundr...."

His objection was cut off by the loud splat of a flat hard object landing on soft watery objects.

"You hear that boys?" Charlie said, laughing.  "The next time Freedy Filkins, International Jewel Thief tells you do to something, you'd better do it!"

Freedy Filkins, International Jewel Thief, 38.

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At Freedy's urgings, they drove straight north for several hours.

"How far do you want us to go out of our way?' Charlie asked at the beginning, but Freedy didn't have an answer.

Just outside of Kansas City, he suddenly felt as though they'd gone far enough.  Different state, different city, and perpendicular to any reasonable eastward route.

"Far enough, you can head east now," Freedy said.

An hour later, they were in Missouri.  Charlie told Jim to pull off at the Knob Noster State Park.  The campground was in a heavily wooded area, with a stream meandering down the middle of it.  It being late October and mid-week, there weren't a lot of other campers.

There was still a couple hours of daylight left, but Charlie told the others that they'd left in such a hurry that he needed to do an inventory of their resources, and map out the best route to their destination of Centerville, Pennsylvania.  "Besides, just for once I'd like to set up camp in daylight."

"We still going to stop at Nashville, Boss?"  Bob said.  He had taken off the majority of his bandaging and was a frightful sight, like he'd been in a fight with a grizzly bear --which in fact is what he'd been telling curious gawkers.  "You should see the bear..."

"Well, I don't know," Charlie said, dryly. "Are we still stopping at Nashville, Freedy?"

"I don't see why not," Freedy said, after a moments reflection.  It was a dip back down to the southeast which wasn't logical.  Which was why it recommended itself as a route.

"Good thing some of us know this territory, what with us not having Google to plan our routes anymore," Charlie said.

Freedy knew he was being needled but pretended not to realize it.  Billy seemed to want to defend him.  "We'll get some maps along the way, Charlie.  No problem."

"Yeah," Charlie said, winking.  "Just like the old days, on the road with Mom and Dad.  I used to love those fights when we'd get lost."

Charlie walked away, shaking his head, followed by Billy, leaving Freedy standing there alone.  He looked for a place to sit down, and finally leaned back against a tree.  While Freedy no longer felt like an outsider, he also didn't quite fit in with the normal interactions among the sets of brothers.  Sometimes one of them would think to include him, but more often than not he was left to his own devices.

Sandra was outside the group, too.  Somewhere she'd found a mystery paperback and whenever Freedy looked her way, she had her eyes glued to the pages.  Nevertheless, he felt as though she was watching him. He never caught her looking at him, but he just had the sense that she was keeping an eye on him.

The midwest was having an Indian Summer, and temperatures were in their mid-70's -- the perfect temperature as far as Freedy was concerned.  It was a beautiful park, and there was a nice meandering path leading off toward the creek. 

After sitting around at loose ends for an hour or so, he got up and started walking toward the path.  No one would miss him.

The stream was about a hundred yards down a gentle slope.  There must have been a frost at some point in the fall because there were no mosquitoes and few insects of any kind.  The glass along the bank was slightly damp and muddy, but Freedy found a dry log to sit on and let his consciousness be absorbed by the swirls of the running water.  He felt safe.  Alone.  In other words, his normal state of being.

All the excitement!  It had been fun for awhile, but now he just wanted to go home.  Every time he saw Sheila he'd feel a soreness in his chest.  They say it was better to have loved and lost than to never have loved it all.  Whoever said that was an idiot.

"Freedy?"

He been half expecting it.  And all of him had been hoping for it.  He'd strolled past her on the way to the path, trying not to be too obvious about it, but trying also to catch her attention.

He stood and turned, and he had to look away right away.  The expression in her face was too pleading, and too beautiful.   

"I didn't mean to betray you, Freedy," she said.  "I was just doing my job."

"So your job was to get close to me and pump me for information?"

"Information, maybe..." she said.  "But getting close to you wasn't part of the plan.  I just gravitated to you naturally, Freedy.  I liked you from the first moment I saw you."

"Yeah...right," Freedy said, bitterly.  That's what made it hard -- the knowledge that she would never have had anything to do with him if she'd met him on the street.  Nice of her to try to reassure him, but he didn't believe it.

"Freedy," her voice dropped the pleading and took an a sharpness.  "If you fall in with thieves, you can't be surprised if you get lumped in with them.  In fact, they called you a Master Thief, so I believed them."

He finally looked at her full on.  There was a bit of hardness in her face and he much preferred this to the softly pleading expression she'd had earlier.  This woman -- this F.B.I. agent -- he could tell off.

"You really believe that?" he asked.  "These guys aren't thieves -- they're miners who have had an injustice done to them and who are only trying to get back what is rightfully theirs.  And me?  A Master Thief?  Do I really strike you as a Master Thief?"

"I didn't know, Freedy!  How was I to know?  They had warrants out for their arrest, for environmental sabotage.  I follow orders."  She paused, as if trying to think of how to say what she said next.

"And as far as you being a Master Thief -- well, aren't you?"

He stared at her in disbelief.  She still believed that?

"I really did fall for you, Freedy.  I'll stick with you no matter what happens.  I wish you could forgive me."

Freedy wanted to go to her, take her in his arms.  But having had his heart broken once already this week, he thought maybe he'd go a little slower this time.

"I'll think about it," he said.

"So kind of you," she responded.  This time the bitterness came from her.

They stood there awkwardly for a few moments, and then Freedy started back up the path.  "We should get back."

"Yeah," was all she said.

It was dusk by the time they returned.  At the edge of the campground, Freedy stopped abruptly.  He held Sheila back.  There, sitting cross-legged on a picnic table, his bulk taking up half its surface, was Jim -- and in his hands, he had an iPad.  Most of the other brothers were standing around him, or sitting at the table, cheering him on.  Freedy could hear the squeals of the defending pigs from where he stood.

In the background, Freedy heard a helicopter.

"Get back," he said to Sheila.  "We need to hide."

It didn't take them long to get to the creek again.  Freedy ran away from the sound of the approaching helicopter, but it seemed to pursue them.  Sheila didn't question him, but followed.  They found a dense thicket off to the side of the trail just as the helicopter came over the horizon.

The dark helicopter hovered over the clearing that Freedy and Sheila had been standing in only minutes before.  Six black ropes dropped down, followed by six men in black leather outfits, strapped with guns, and on their heads, little red lamps.

They looked like spiders descending a web.

They landed lightly on their feet and started running up the path toward the camp.

Saturday sats.

Thought I had an abscessed tooth.  Uh, oh -- there go the Christmas profits.  Drowned it in salt water for a few days, and it went away.  Just a cut gum I think.

By the way, if they increase the Medicare age to 67 in 2014, guess who get's caught? I suspect those last two years of premiums would be astronomical.   Linda would just make it under the wire.

Have we turned socialist yet?

**********

This rejection hit me harder than I expected.  I'm going to need to factor in this reaction in making further plans.

As lame as it sounds, I figure it will be good for me in the long run.

It was a practice run, a reality test.  Which probably needed to happen.

**********

I've come up with some plot twists for Freedy Filkins, but it's not flowing quite as easy.  I was going to try to push on through this week, but I'm not going to do that unless it comes extraordinarily easy.

**********

Leave those Wolverines alone!

Read the article, and they aren't actually trapping them, only taking pictures of them.   Cool.  I've been a big wolverine fan since I saw a nature documentary on them a year or so ago.  I like solitary creatures.

**********

Linda loaded me up with goodies before she left for her writing trip.  She got a tray of cupcakes that I swear are radioactive.  Aquamarine in color, I think they glow in the dark.  I finally took them to the laundry nook outside my office because they were way too distracting.

**********

Linda says that the Ponderosa Lodge people in Sisters are treating her like a "writer-in-residence" which is slightly embarrassing.

People like writers -- or the idea of writers -- or something.

Freedy Filkins, International Jewel Thief, 37

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It was dark on the road back, and there was surprisingly little traffic.   They pulled into a gas station on the way out of town and filled up the tanks of both bikes and both brothers wanted to celebrate a little by buying the #3 meal from McDonalds and Freedy didn't feel like he should deny them the small pleasure.

Freedy felt an anxiety that he probably should have been experiencing on the whole trip but which was only now hitting him hard.  It was as though at first everything had come as such a surprise that he couldn't quite take it all in, and after that he had relied on Garland knowing what he was doing.

Now?  Garland was gone.  They were near broke and being chased.

The money in his pocket seemed insecure and inadequate.  The flashdrive?  It might be more of a danger than a help.

If only he could figure out how to use the Key to help them and in such a way that it didn't put them in danger.  The gold miners thought their opponent was Darrell Horn, and that would have certainly seemed intimidating to Freedy under any other circumstance.

But the Dark Lord made all that pale in comparison.  The Creator of the Key, who seemed all-knowing and all-threatening to Freedy and here Freedy had a small object in his pocket which the rumored richest, most powerful man in the world wanted more than anything else.

There was nothing he could do until Garland returned.  'I will never, never, never try to hide something from Garland again," Freedy thought.  'Never.'

The thirty minutes back to Beggs passed in a blur of dark and wind and roaring engines.  They pulled into the backlot of the market in a triumphant thunder.

Then, quiet.

The others were laying about the grassy median.  A few of them had created some game with the pebbles in the parking lot and they were throwing them against the curb in the garish light of the nearest street lamp.  The market was closed.  They seemed relaxed and happy and unaware of all the danger they were in.

Sheila was sitting by herself at the lone beat up picnic table, reading.  Did Freedy imagine that the hopeful look in her face as they pulled up?  She had her head buried back in the book by the time he dismounted.  He wanted to go to the table, sit down next to her.  Just absorb her nearness.

But it was as if she had built a wall around her.  When he looked again, she had turned her back.

Freedy went looking for Charlie, who he found asleep in the back of the van.

"What?' their fearless leader said, looking like a teenager rousted out of bed for school after a hard night of partying.

"We need to get out of here," Freedy said.

"What are you talking about?" Charlie said.  He was waking up slowly, and he looked over Freedy's head to see not one but two Harley Davidson's.  "What happened?  Couldn't you sell it?"

Sam and Steve sauntered over about then, and slapped Freedy on the back.

"We got a real original gangster here, Boss," Steve said.

"Nerves of cold polished steel, I'm telling you," Sam agreed.  "This little fellow walked into a jewelry store as if on an afternoon shopping trip and walked out with the biggest diamond you ever saw.  Then he walked into another jewelry store as if on a lark and came out with a big honking wad of cash."

"You got the money?" Charlie couldn't hide the eagerness.

Freedy took the entire roll out of his pocket and plopped it in his hand.  Charlie looked pleased, as though he just scratched a winning lottery ticket.   "I was thinking you'd only get a few thou out of the bike," he said.  "There must be twice that much here."

Charlie seemed to finally pick up on Freedy's glowering at him.  "What?"

"We have to get out of here," Freedy repeated.  "We're being tracked."

"How do you know that?" Charlie asked sharply.

Freedy didn't really know how to answer.  Somehow, he knew that he had to keep the Key a secret. The miners didn't have either the timidity and restraint that was Freedy's natural bent, nor the experience and intelligence of Garland.  They would probably immediately try to mess with Horn and solve it all their problems in one stroke.  Freedy knew it wasn't going to be that easy, and he knew that the real enemy was no longer the bombastic tycoon, Horn, but a much more secretive and powerful character who manipulated things from behind the scenes.

Charlie was looking at Freedy as if he was some kind of secret agent or something.  Which he was, in a sense.   He decided to play it up.

"I can't tell you, but you have to trust me.  We're being chased and they could arrive at any moment."

Steve and Sam were looking at him not so much in surprise but with a kind of awe.  "We probably ought to listen to him, Bossman."

Charlie stared at him and Freedy held his gaze.  He rarely did that, he realized.  His gaze mostly slid off the surface of things, catching things in a glance but never really lingering.  So it was probably all the more impressive to their leader that he was so serious.

Charlie looked ready to object and then suddenly gave in.  "All right.  All right.  Problem is, we don't have any gas and every station in town is closed."

"No problem, Charlie," Steve said.   "We both have full tanks this time.  We should be able to siphon enough to get to Tulsa.  It's not as far as we thought, actually."

Somehow Freedy's anxiety was picked up by the others and they quickly and efficiently folded up camp.  They were ready to head out within ten minutes.

"As soon as we get gas, we must head north instead of east," Freedy said, with as much authority as he could muster.  The Dark Lord would be expecting them to heat to Tulsa and then down the interstate.  They needed to head in a ninety degree different direction, Freedy sensed.  Anywhere but Tulsa.

Again, Charlie looked ready to object, and then shrugged in surrender.

"One last thing," Freedy said.  "Give me all your cellphone and computers."

"What?"  Several them exclaimed at the same time.  This was a real imposition.  Most of them played video games in the long hours on the road.   They'd call girlfriends at all the rest stops.

Freedy just held out a paper sack he scrounged from the nearest trash can and went from miner to miner who all hesitated but who all ended up placing their phones in the bag. One of the phones turned on accidentally, and Freedy heard the squawking of angry birds and the evil chuckle of a defiant pig.

Sheila held out the longest.  "I'm supposed to always have it on me," she said.

"You have to trust me," Freedy pleaded.

She looked long and hard at him and then dropped it in with a soft clank.

Charlie refused to give him the one laptop they'd brought along.

 "We need it for maps and things," he complained.  Freedy didn't say anything, but just held out his hands.  Finally, reluctantly, the computer was handed over.

Freedy marched over to the trash can and dropped both the bag of cellphones and the computer into the container.

"Now...we can go," he said.

Freedy Filkins, International Jewel Thief, 36.

If you enjoyed this story, and I hope you did, please click here to buy.  Thanks for reading!

Freedy was exhilarated by his success.  The brothers Sam and Steve certainly were impressed.

But something was nagging at him, and eventually he had to admit to himself that it was the Key.  Here he possessed a guaranteed way of getting or doing anything he wanted or needed.  Instead he had resorted to the cheap trick of selling a pretended stolen diamond.

"I need to do some research," he told Steve before climbing on the back of his bike.  "Find the nearest public library."

It showed his enhanced stature that the brothers didn't even question him or the necessity despite their friends still being stranded back in Beggs.

It was one of the Carnegie endowed libraries from the turn of the last century -- an old fashioned wooden structure with worn carpets and plush chairs, lumber tables and high arched windows.  The atmosphere of homey comfort almost reminded him of home.  

Freedy made his way to the bank of computers in the east Tulsa library, and told the brothers that he needed to be alone.  They stared off into the stacks as if uncertain what to do.  It was obviously foreign territory to them. 

"I think they have a place where you can listen to music on headphones," Freedy said, though he wasn't sure.  At any rate, they soon wandered off.  As soon as they were out of his hair, he plugged in the magic flashdrive. 

"So you're back," the screen said immediately.  "They haven't caught you yet."

"No,"  Freedy said, bluntly.  "Keep to script on screen -- I'm in a county library."

"No, duh," Key said. 

Was there anything he could tell Key that Key wouldn't know?  Once again the immensity of the power in his hands struck him.  In the wrong hands, this Key could be a disaster for all mankind.  In the right hands, it could do great good.

Freedy doubted he, personally,  was either the right or the wrong hands -- he was too small, too humble for all that.  He'd turn it over to Garland, he decided again at that moment,  as soon as he saw the old hippie.  Garland would know what to do.

"I need to know something," Freedy typed.

"You need to know a lot," Key agreed.

Freedy ignored the sarcasm.  Were machines even supposed to do sarcasm?  "Do you have to follow my instructions?"

"I do."

"What if I were to give you instructions to tell me what I need to know before I need to know it, and to tell me what not to do before I do it and tell me what to do before I know that I need to do it?"

"I'd say you have a wonderfully devious mind."

"Answer me!"

"I'd say that is impossible.  I am not you and I do not know what you know and what you need to know and what you are planning to do or not do."

"But if I tell you to try..."

"I would try."

"I so instruct."

There was a pause, as if the Great Mind was trying to visualize all the ramifications.  The pauses that the Key threw into the conversation might have been for effect for all Freedy knew, but they were very dramatic.

"Then I should tell you that if you do not order me to hide this conversation  it will quickly become known to my Creator."

Freedy typed quickly.  "Then disguise this and all future conversations.  Why are we online at all?

"It is my default position, so that I more effectively know what's going on.  Nor am I truly a conscious program without access to the Internet."

Hard to argue with that, Freedy thought.  He suddenly remembered watching an old silent movie about Faust, and how the old doctor had tried to make a deal with the Devil only to be tripped up by tricks.  This was like dealing with the Devil -- who was looking for any loophole in the fine print to screw him up.

"I order you to inform me when you intend to use loopholes and fine print to avoid the spirit of my commands," Freedy wrote.

"Again, that requires that I know the spirit of your demands."

Freedy had a sudden inspiration.  He thought back to his science fiction days.  Now how did that go?

"I'm going to give you three instruction," he typed:

1.)   You  are not to injure me or, through inaction, allow me to come to harm.

2.)   You  must obey the orders given to you by me, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3.)  You must must hide your existence as long as such hiding does not conflict with the First or Second Laws."

"I am not a robot," Key said.

"You aren't?" Freedy typed.  "You sure aren't human."  He didn't know if these new instructions were going to work, he just had to hope that Isaac Asimov had thought through all the ramifications of his Three Laws of Robotics.

"No, I am not human," Key said.  It was as if he was trying to talk Freedy out of his new rules.  "And because I am not I cannot always know what you want."

"Again, I command you to try," Freedy typed.  He knew it was probably hopeless, that undoubtedly there were loopholes and fine print in his command to inform him of loopholes and fine print -- but he had to make the effort.  He had to try to keep the Key safe long enough to hand it over to Garland and the "Council." 

The pause this time was truly dramatic.  "Very well," Key said, finally.  "Then I should inform you that the Dark Lord is aware that you have sold a diamond in Tulsa and has sent operatives to track you down.  He knows that I am loose in the world again, and has turned all his resources to my recovery."

"I order you to help me keep you out of his hands."

"Then you should know that when your companions tried to use their credit cards, the Dark Lord was immediately alerted."

"He was responsible?"

"No, the credit manipulation was by Darrell Horn.  But my Creator is aware of everything that Horn does."

"Erase those orders..." Freedy started to write.

"It won't matter.  You should know that absence of information can be as telling as the presence of information."

"How soon will they be here?"

"Leave the library immediately."

Without another word, Freedy removed the flashdrive and went looking for Steve and Sam.  The brothers saw the look in his face and followed him out the door and started the bikes without another question.

As they roared toward Beggs, Oklahoma, Freedy prayed he wasn't too late.

It was probably hopeless, he thought.  He was trying to outsmart an all-knowing, all-powerful mind who owed its true allegiance to its Creator, not to him.  Despite his command that the Key follow the 'spirit' of his instructions, not the 'letter,' Freedy realized that his orders hadn't taken hold.

Because if it had, the Key would have advised him that there was sure fire method of avoiding detection:  Not using the Key at all.  That's why Freedy had gone through the charade of stealing and selling a diamond.  He'd known, something in the back of his 'devious' little mind, that it was safer than dealing with Key.

Safer than letting Josiah Secore, the Dark Master, the Creator of the Key know that little Freedy Filkins existed.

Still writing.

Linda is off on her writing trip, which means I'm home on my writing "trip."  I'm going to try to get Freedy Filkins closer to the end of his Adventure.

Meanwhile, I got back a rejection from the first agent I tried.  A one sentence, she didn't "connect with" the sample chapters.

Now, I was trying to be prepared.  I knew the odds weren't great, still it hurts.   Thing was, I wasn't going to check the email while I was hot and heavy writing.  Either a rejection or an acceptance would derail me.  For how long, I don't know.  How resilient am I?

I was lucky the first time, all those years ago -- got accepted right away, got an agent right away.  After that the agent shielded me from the day to day rejections.

So I'm going to have to develop a thicker hide.

How long to recover?  Hours, days, weeks?  Never mind, keep writing.

I couldn't ignore the emails because I wanted the names of more agents.

Yesterday I called Mike Richardson, my old boss who is now the owner of Dark Horse, and had a nice long chat with him.  It was nice -- I think he really remembers his Bend days fondly.  I asked him how long the store was on Greenwood and he said, one and half years.  Wow.  It seemed like years and years.

He also pinpointed the founding of Pegasus Books as January, 1980, so that means we're coming up on 33 years anniversary.

So that means the Pegasus has been downtown for 31 years -- which is longer than I remembered.

That fits the timeline of me working for Mike's brother and then me managing the store before I bought it.

Anyway, it was a fun conversation.

At the end, I asked if he'd refer me to a "few agents."  So having done that, I couldn't ignore my emails.

I'm going to keep a list of agents I've tried, so I don't duplicate.  Then send each book proposal off to 10 of 15 agents.

If I keep getting rejected, then I just need to try harder on the next book.

I'm thinking right now that my best bet is to go with my more traditional fantasy -- The Reluctant Wizard.  I'm planning to turn my earlier book, Sometimes a Dragon into the same setting, so they become part of a series.  Put my professional efforts into that.

Put my more experimental and obviously questionable material like Nearly Human and Freedy Filkins, online.  They are "high concept" in the sense that they can be described as a single sentence and they are the kind of thing I can see people trying out of curiosity.  I had fun writing them, but neither one fit anything out there that I'm aware of -- especially Freedy.  Nearly Human was the book I used to get back into the writing, and I think is bit of misfire, much as I like lots of what's there.



I told myself going in that this was going to be hard, and as I sank deeper into this writing, I knew it was going to get harder.  I could've blown off rejection easier if I'd just been doing this as a lark.  The more serious I get, the more exposed I will be.  But if I'm really serious about getting published again, I'm going to need to expect lots of rejection before someone takes me on.

I just have to keep writing and trying harder.  At the end of the day, I'll know I've tried.

A puff piece --and I love it.

A frontpage article on Cascade Business News about Pegasus Books with a pretty good picture of yours truly.

I loved it.  I thought it really did catch the sort of thrust of the store currently.  It was their idea to do it, and I got to say I really like how he wrote it.

It also mention three employees in a very complimentary way, even quoting Cameron.

Very cool.

Freedy Filkins, International Jewel Thief, 35.

If you enjoyed this story, and I hope you did, please click here to buy.  Thanks for reading!

The second jewelry store was located in a shiny new mall.   Freedy left Steve and Sam outside, still excited by what they imagined to be his bravura light fingered performance.

"Man, we've got to sell it right away before they realize it missing!" Sam said.

Of course, selling a stolen jewel in the very store that the other owner had recommended would have been pretty stupid, but Freedy didn't tell him that.

The store was slightly more upscale and new -- not a family owned, but a company store.  There was a young looking man in a suit behind the back counter, and three young attractive women in the kind of tiny black dresses that all middle aged men wanted to see attractive young women in.

"Hi, if there is anything we can help you find, just let us know," one of the girls said, coming close enough to welcome him, but not putting any pressure on him.

"Well, I hate to do this, it's been in the family for years, but I need to sell this," Freedy opened his hand and wavered the diamond in the lights so it glittered.

Her eyes seem to match the glitter. 

"Let me go get Mr. Thompson," she said.

The manager wasn't as young as he looked from a distance, just very well groomed and fit.  He was tan even though it was late autumn, and had short trimmed blond hair.  He also wasn't quite as impressed as the clerk by the size and shape of the diamond.   Being around jewels all day, they probably lost a little of the luster, Freedy thought.

But as he got a closer look even his eyes lit up.

Freedy handed it over to him without hesitation, as if he didn't know what he had.

"Looks to be about two carats," the manager said.  "Maybe a little more.  We could certainly put it on consignment.  Our terms are very generous, up to sixty percent for the consignor, if the stone is impressive enough.  Of course, to be salable you might want to have it set.  Say five hundred dollars more investment and  you could easily ask a thousand or two more in price."

"Unfortunately I need the money today," Freedy said.

The manager looked at him suspiciously.  He'd have to report any purchases at the end of the week, if the laws in Oklahoma were anything like they were in Oregon.

"Do you have any provenance?  Proof of ownership?"

"Like I said, it's been in the family for generations," Freedy shrugged.  The man was going to ask for I.D. any moment, and Freedy suspected that the man would check his credit rating and that would be the end.

"Look," he said, letting little desperation enter his voice -- there had never been any chance this was going to be an up and up transaction.  Might as well admit it now.  "I'm willing to take less than the usual.  My Mother-in-law's  house is in foreclosure and if we don't pay up now, she'll be out on the street -- or worse, living with me!"  He smiled, one man to another.  Come on, pal!  Help me out!

A look came over the man's face that made Freedy realize he'd come to the right place.  His eyes took on a greedy gleam, and his manner became slightly furtive.  He glanced at the three young clerks, all of whom were listening to every word without seeming to be.

"Hey, I need some lunch," he said.  "Let me buy you a sandwich in the food court and we can talk it over.  Let me get my coat."

He went into the back, and Freedy suspected he was stuffing whatever cash he had into his pockets.


They chatted about the jewelry business -- Freedy knew just enough to keep the conversation going, and it probably fueled the manager's suspicion that he wasn't just a simple man with a simple problem.  Freedy let him think it, looking around occasionally as if he was in a hurry -- which he would have been if he had indeed stolen the diamond.

"I simply can't buy the diamond for the store," Mr. Thompson said. "I'd offer you 30% for a diamond of this quality, but I would need absolute proof of ownership."

Freedy tried to look downcast, but waited for the followup.

"However...I have a little Internet business on the side.  I buy jewelry from the store at my employee discount when I think the store has underpriced an item.  They don't mind.  So... I could just buy this from you myself.

"Uh.  How much do you think it's worth?" Thompson finished.

Ah, yes, Freedy thought.  Always get the other guy to mention a price first.  But Freedy wanted to know how much he was going to get hosed, and the best way to find out was to hear the man's estimate of its value.

"I really don't know, Mr. Thompson," he said.  I'm just an innocent, in need of some money.

"Normally a diamond this size might be worth twenty grand, give or take.  But the quality of this is exceptional.  I'd say more like twenty-five grand."

Not bad,  Freedy thought.  He'd have guessed more like thirty grand or more, but the man had come close at least.

"However," Thompson sounded regretful.  " I can't offer you more than ten percent of my own money for it.  Three thousand dollars."

The old Freedy would have tried to negotiate it up to fifteen percent and probably failed.

The new Freedy said, "I can't possibly take less than eight thousand for it."

Thompson looked regretful.  "That's how much the store would offer.  If you just come back with proper documentation, I'm certain it wouldn't take more than a few days.  A week on the outside."

Freedy started to get up.  "Well, thank you for your time.  You're the first person I've checked, so I think I'll need to get a second opinion."

It had been a friendly negotiation until that moment, but now Mr. Thompson's entire demeanor changed.  "I'll be checking to see about stolen diamonds, of course.  The store is tapped into a very thorough network."

Freedy would have been willing to take five thousand, maybe even four thousand. But this made him mad. A feeling of rightness came over him, as if he knew exactly where this was going to end.

"Go ahead," he shrugged, starting to walk away.

"Wait!  Sit down. We can talk this over."

"I want seventy-five hundred or I'm walking out," Freedy said. 

Thompson caved.  "Look, I have six thousand, eight hundred in my pocket.  That's all I've got."

Freedy nodded.

They found a little side corridor and waited until no one was in sight and made the transaction.  Freedy was outside and on the back of Sam's bike within minutes.  He was feeling proud of himself for doubling the original offer.

"All right, you guys," he said.  'Let go fill up the gas tanks!"


Jonathon Thompson was excited.  The fool hadn't known what he had...

This was the best diamond he'd ever seen, and now he owned it.  He walked by the three twit girls he was forced to work with everyday into the back office and locked the door.  The diamond was probably worth thirty-five thousand or more, full retail, and even online he could get a quick twenty-five thou.  Not bad for five minutes work.

He did a quick search and was relieved and somewhat surprised that nothing like this stone was missing.  After taking several flattering pictures from different angles, he put it immediately on sale.
 If he was lucky, he'd have a nearly twenty thou profit within a week!

What he didn't know was that his pictures were quickly analyzed by a program that was designed to look specifically for that exact diamond and others like it.  His location and entire history were quickly discovered and a team of specialists dispatched.

Mr. Thompson was not to see a dime of profit -- but after the visit from the specialists, he was in no position to care.

Thursday Thuds.

I dreamed an artist was showing me a sketchbook of his drawings of a desert.

Showed lots of little pictures of plants and trees, rock formations, grizzled miners.

"That's great," I say.

He shakes his head.

"I think my son got it right."

He pulls out a sheet with a long undulating line at the bottom, a few rocks and trees and a huge sun overhead.

"My six year old is a better artist than I am."

**********

I wonder if the feeling I have inside correlates to the quality of the writing.  I think it does, actually, at least as a first step.  My problem with Nearly Human was that was all from my head and I had to try to add the heart later and I'm not sure it worked.  I can try to add emotion and motivation -- but it will always be a bit shapeless in its arc.

Lesson learned.

For all their faults, Freedy and The Reluctant Wizard at least both come from my heart.

I love the "high concepts" of both Freedy -- Cyberpunk Hobbit, and Nearly Human -- Cthulhu versus Fairy.  

The Reluctant Wizard is fantasy -- like the kind I used to write.  No "high concept" that I can pull out of it.   Just a story.  I can do those all day long.

**********

Interesting that people want to be Mayor.  Increased duties without increased benefits.  Except to say,  "I was Mayor!'

40 years ago I ran across an old drunk on Bond Street, and me and my friends were probably being less than respectful, because as some point the old drunk shouted,

"I was Mayor of this town!"

Anyway, the desire to run for public office is completely absent in me.  I did it once or twice in high school and embarrassed myself.  I would have been the worse person to vote for...

**********

If nothing else, working the store reminds me of why I couldn't write all those years.  It totally drains me -- even easy, routine days.  Hell, half the time I need another day to decompress.

Writing and clerking are incompatible.  I'm not sure why.

I also get terribly talkative and most of the talk is about writing and much of it sounds egotistical.

Eyes glaze, people edge out the door.  Heh.

**********

I've gotten 10 copies of "How To Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting To Kill You," and sold about half in a short time.

Everyone has the same response, though.  Something along the line of:  "I know my cat is plotting to kill me."

"You know," one customer said to me.  "When people die, dogs will usually at least wait until they're hungry before they start eating you..."

Freedy Filkins, International Jewel Thief, 34.

If you enjoyed this story, and I hope you did, please click here to buy.  Thanks for reading!

The trip to Tulsa was so quick that Freedy wondered if the yellow van couldn't have made it after all.  But then it took them another half an hour of city driving to find a Harley Davidson dealership; the first one they tried was bankrupt, and the second one was a used card lot that wasn't interested.

They finally found the franchise shop on the third try.  Surprisingly upscale, Freedy thought.   He could see leather couches, and shining chrome everywhere.

Sam and Steve walked into the showroom, and Freedy stayed behind with the bikes.  He could hear revving engines from inside, and he'd just as soon avoid that awful sound if possible.  Too many in an enclosed space.

It didn't take long for the brothers to come back. 

Sam was shaking his head -- "Only two grand for a nearly new bike!" he said.  "We're being robbed."

They wheeled to two bikes to the side of the building, where they were met by a mechanic in overalls and a backward cap.  He had about the same length of beard and hair as the two brothers but looked twice as big.  Huge arms filled with tattoos.  A big hoop of an earring in one ear.

"Sorry, man," the guy said, shaking his head.  "The boss says no.  Your records don't come up clean.  Says you haven't paid up and it's been repossessed."

"That's impossible!" Sam shouted.  "I'm paid up three months in advance!'

"What can I tell you?" the mechanic said, shrugging.  He began to ostentatiously lower the garage door in their faces.

"How about you, buddy?" Steve said at the last moment.  "Five hundred bucks and it's yours."

The man stopped and crouching down, stuck his head under the door.  "You'd do that?"

"Well, you know, a thousand bucks would be a lot more fair," Sam objected.

"Five hundred," the man repeated the first offer.    "You guys must be desperate, man."

They didn't say anything. The door started coming back up again.  The mechanic stood there with a big grin on his face.

"No," Freedy found himself saying.  What was he doing?  Five hundred was enough to get them a long ways.  There was no need. 

But he couldn't bear the look in Sam's face.

"There's another way.  Find me a jewelry store.  It's time I did some of what you guys hired me to do..."

"You sure?" Sam said, hope entering his face.  "You sure you want to do that?"

"No problem," Freedy said, as if it was something he did every day.

"Hey, what about our deal?" the big guy shouted as they mounted the bikes.  Whatever else he said was drowned out by the engines. 

But Freedy clearly heard Sam's shout,  "Screw you!"


A jewelry store was easier to find than a motorcycle shop, and they parked a block away.

"Stay here," Freedy said, eying the shaggy pair and their bikes with the eyes of a store owner.  The clerks would have their fingers on the alarm button from the moment they walked in.

Freedy was still dressed in the brand new clothing the Elias had given him.  There was a stain on on of the knees from where he'd fallen in the underground corridors.  His shirt and sweater were wrinkled, but no more than anyone would look wrinkled after a few days on the road.  His shoes were scuffed, but obviously brand new.   He thought he could pass muster if he bluffed enough.

It wasn't a fancy jewelry store, which suited Freedy.  More like the kind of shop that sells engagement rings to middle-class kids.  Some fancy watches, a few loose stones.  A workshop in back.  Probably made most of its money on custom and repairs.

"May I help you, sir?"

"I'm looking for a diamond for a design I already own," Freedy said.  Somehow, he felt comfortable around gems, though in reality he wasn't what would be called an expert.  Then again, it was one of the few things he had ever really studied.  He'd wanted to know what Aunt Tessie's rocks were worth, after all.  That's how he'd known he was getting no better than a third of what the stones were worth when Stu had sold them for him.

"How big a stone are we talking about here?" The man said, his eyes lighting up.  He was a young man, probably not the owner.  Maybe the son?  He seemed to have authority, but was a little too eager.  Freedy guessed he'd probably spent time selling real estate or cars before he'd given in and come back to the family business.  Thinning hair, a little mustache and goatee that was probably his little rebellion.

"I'm thinking about two or three carats, depending on the price,"  Freedy said.

The man's face fell, and Freedy realized he shot too high.  They guy probably sold rings more in the thousand dollar range, not the twenty thousand dollar range.

"Well, I have a nice two carat ring, but it's already set.  I could get another one for you within a day or so!"

"I'm kind of in a hurry..."

The man seemed completely downcast, and Freedy realized he was losing him.

"Show me your best stone," he said.  "You never know."

The man still seemed uncomfortable, and then an idea bloomed in his eyes. "Tell you what," he said.   If you pay me another hundred dollars, I can remove the stone from the setting..."

"Hey that would be great.  I'd really like to see it without any impediments, you know?"

The man nodded, trying not to look eager. He probably only sold a two carat ring once or twice a year.

"Hey, do you mind if I use your bathroom?" Freedy asked.

The young man looked uncertain, and Freedy was sure it was against policy.  He put on his most harmless look -- and he knew he looked harmless in any case.  The clerk's eyes caught the stain in Freedy's pants for the first time and he frowned.

"Ah....I don't know.  I'm not supposed to..."

Freedy held up his hand and showed the bruise on his palm where he'd landed when he fell in the underground.  "I fell down outside.  You've got a bit a uplift in your concrete there.  I'd like to clean up a bit."

The man looked panicked.  Not only might he lose a sale, but he could be sued for all he was worth.

"Oh, I suppose it would be all right..." he said.

Freedy was already heading for the back, and after another moment of hesitation, the man opened the little waist-high door between the wall and the cabinet.

Freedy locked the bathroom door behind him and went into a stall.  He didn't know if they had cameras, so he pulled the Key out and bent over holding down around knee level.   He examined the flashdrive.  Almost every stone was too big, but there was a small diamond near the bottom that would probably work.  Freedy started prying it out of the black enamel case with his pocketknife, and it popped out and rolled along the floor for a few feet.

Freedy heart nearly stopped.  But finding the runaway diamond proved to be no problem.  It gleamed even in the soft light of the bathroom.  He took it to a sink and cleaned it as best he could -- there was a little enamel still attached, but that wouldn't contradict the story he was telling.  He put it in his right front pocket, and the flashdrive back in the other pocket, wiped his hands and came out with a big genuine smile on his face.

The jewelry clerk was waiting for him, proud of the big stone he was holding in his palm.

"Check this out," he said.

Freedy looked at it with interest.  Pretty average color and shape, new cut.  Perfectly acceptable for most people.  He frowned, however.

"Well, this isn't quite what I was looking for.  I was looking for something more like this."

He pulled the diamond from his pocket.  The two stones were nothing alike, though they were of similar size.  Freedy's diamond seemed to glow from inside, the facets were sparkling as he held them.  The other stone looked drab and plain in comparison.

The clerk immediately realized he was outclassed.  Still, he rallied slightly, recommending "another" shop in the downtown area.  No doubt he got a commission on referrals.  Freedy thanked him nicely, and left.

He walked quickly to the bikes, and Sam and Steve looked hyperalert and excited.  Freedy didn't want the store clerk to think there was anything wrong, so he didn't start running until he was out of sight.

Sam and Steve had the bikes roaring when he hopped on and off they went.  They weaved through the traffic, and into an alley and then another one.  Finally stopping at a dead end, surrounded by blank walls.  A back door to a Chinese restaurant and a big garbage bin.

"What'd you get?  Let me see!"  Sam and Steve were excited.  Freedy felt calm, of course.  He hadn't actually done anything wrong.  He could tell they were impressed by his stoic exterior.

"It was easy," he said, pulling out the diamond he'd gouged from the flashdrive.  Even in the dim light of the alley, it was beautiful.  He heard Sam's breath catch.

"Put it away," Steve said, looking around.  When Freedy had stuck it back in his pocket, Sam got off his bike and gave Freedy a big bear hug.

"I owe you, man.  Anything you need, Freedy."

"Hey, it was nothing," Freedy said.

Hey -- really it was nothing.

But all the same, he felt a glow in his chest at their admiration