Merlin of the Magnolias

by Gardner Landry

  “And they fit together like this?” asked Angus, motioning with his fingers.

  “Yes,” responded Merlin eagerly, “like Hot Wheels tracks, except the connectors are a conductive metal.”

  “Okay, but what keeps them connected?”

  “Oh! I haven’t really thought about that.”

  “Okay, how about some clamps like you would see on an old-school suitcase or steamer trunk?

  “Uh, okay.”

  “I think if we put two clamps on the edge of each section you will have a more stable platform when you set it up.”

  “Ah, I see! Okay, sounds good!” said Merlin with renewed optimism.

  McQuirkidale called his CAD expert to refine and digitize the design.

  He then pulled up the McMaster-Carr website on his desktop computer, and the two began to look at parts.

  In the flash of an eye, Angus began to search through the materials necessary for the successful construction of the Vortexan Cyclonic Reverser, which they were both now referring to as the VCR. He showed Merlin electromagnets, rubberized pads to which the tracks of the VCR could be attached, and even metal connectors that could work like the plastic Hot Wheels track connectors. Angus then said, “We might be able to use these, but we can certainly fabricate our own back in the shop, if the need arises.” Merlin nodded in rapt agreement to everything McQuirkidale said.

  “How did you learn how to do this?” Merlin queried in amazement.

  “Trial and error, I guess. I studied engineering in college, but there’s no teacher like the university of adversity,” offered Angus.

  “Wow,” said a still amazed Merlin.

  McQuirkidale nodded at what looked like an over-one-hundred-year-old photo of a youngish military officer on horseback. Merlin looked where Angus was nodding, and Angus continued: “That’s my great-grandfather, Colonel Angus McQuirkidale. He was a battlefield engineer in World War I. He went on to have a productive engineering career in the UK and later in this country.”

  “Oh wow! I kind of see a resemblance,” offered Merlin in awe of the proficient lineage from which he was so grateful to benefit.

  “Well,” said Angus with a smile and barely squelched pride, “I like to think so.”

  • Fifty-one

  Near midnight one night in late July an unmarked Houston Police Department vehicle sat in a dark patch of street a half block from the compound on Snuffmeister Road in Northeast Houston. The officer inside took note of a yellow Porsche slowing in front of the address and entering the driveway. He captured the vehicle’s license plate on his exterior camera and scribbled its letters and numbers on a small notepad. The officer pulled his vehicle up to a spot to try to get a look at the goings-on behind the fence. He saw a man exit the Porsche and confer with someone. The two men directed a group of people into a cargo area at the rear of a panel truck parked in the lot behind the fence and facing the driveway as if poised for departure. The officer reversed his blacked-out vehicle to its former, less visible location. In a few minutes, the truck carrying its human cargo departed; the HPD officer followed it at a discreet distance.

  • Fifty-two

  Riding her bike through the neighborhood on a stultifying late July morning, Lindley approached the McNaughton residence. She looked toward Merlin’s observatory and noticed something new. On its surface, near the ground-floor doorway, was a freshly painted design. It looked more like a schematic of something than the depiction of a scene. She stopped and walked her bike back to the gate of the residence. In black paint there was a narrow, vertical ruler-like image with strange markings and what looked like letters at regular intervals. She took out her smart phone, zoomed in, and snapped a picture of the odd painted design.

  When she arrived at her destination, she looked at the photo again. It seemed the markings might have something to do with an ancient writing system. She texted Polly Andry, her friend in the anthropology department at Rice University. Since it was summer, Polly was researching, writing, and enjoying the more pleasant climate of Tuscany. Polly responded immediately, and Lindley sent her the photo and texted, “I have no idea what this is, or what it means, if anything, but I thought if anyone might have a hook for it, it would be you.” Polly responded, “It’s no problem at all. I love puzzles. Will get back to you ASAP.”

  Late that same afternoon, Lindley’s phone rang. It was Polly.

  “Hello?”

  “Lindley?”

  “Yes. Polly? How is Florence?”

  “Work is inspiring, for sure, but I’m finding gli uomini Italiani seem to be vying for a greater share of my attention.”

  “Oh, fun! I guess?!”

  “I think I can handle them—not my first rodeo, so to speak. But on to business. I got a pretty quick answer for you, once I narrowed down the culture.”

  “Oh, great! But what culture?”

  “I thought the markings resembled ancient Norse runes.”

  “Wow! Okay.”

  “So I contacted a colleague with expertise in that field, and he got right back to me.”

  “That’s great! What was it?”

  “The diagram is a depiction of what’s called a runic staff calendar. Usually they were narrow, vertically oriented wooden pieces carved with runes and other etchings to mark seasons and dates.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, here’s the interesting part. The one in the photo you sent me keys in on a date in the future—the very near future.”

  “Uh, okay. Any ideas?”

  “My colleague said he tried to make an accurate translation from the runic to the Julian calendar date, and it looks like a day roughly late in the second week of August—maybe the twelfth, thirteenth, or fourteenth of the month.”

  “Oh, god. Merlin.”

  “Merlin? Who’s Merlin?”

  “That’s who painted it.”

  “Well, if you’ll notice in the photo, Merlin even used red paint for the date. Must be important to him.”

  “Oh, wow. Wow!”

  “Was this helpful?”

  “Yes! Very! Lunch is on me when you’re back in town.”

  “That’s not necessary. I’m glad to help, but it’ll be good to catch up!”

  They said their goodbyes, and Lindley closed the call. She sat looking at her phone like it was a Sith oracle stone from the Star Wars series. She pulled the scrap of paper she had found at Tellicherry from her purse. She opened it and read the date and time again. As she looked at the latitude and longitude coordinates, her phone buzzed. It was a text from the person she was going to meet telling her she would be five minutes late. Lindley searched the coordinates on her phone and was puzzled when she saw that they corresponded to a place just behind the sixteenth green near the bayou on the Bayou Boughs Country Club golf course.

  • Fifty-three

  At Hephaestus Tool and Machining on North Shepherd Drive, Merlin and Angus McQuirkidale watched as two machinists drilled small notches into four quarter-circle arced segments of steel. The notches interlocked the arcs to form a circular whole. When they were done, at Angus’s request, the technicians assembled the pieces into a complete circle, and for the first time, Merlin saw the perfect steel circle of his Vortexan Cyclonic Reverser. He took a step backward when the final piece was in place, so awesome was the sight to him. Angus spoke: “Now we need to add the electromagnets and clamps to keep the circuit together.”

  “Yes,” said Merlin in a near trancelike tone. “The circle must remain unbroken.”

  “And we have another problem to solve,” McQuirkidale continued. “What is it going to sit on?”

  “I have thought about that! I had a train set when I was young, and its rails were affixed to heavy-gauge plywood painted a dark green.”

  “Well, that sounds good. And you can paint the plywood whatever color you like, but there’s another issue.”

  “Oh?” Merlin queried.

  “We probably ought to raise and cushion the steel arcs an inch or so above
the platform sections with some rubberized pieces between the wooden platform and the VCR.”

  “Ooh,” replied Merlin.

  “That way, you’ll be able to ensure nothing on the platform is touching the track. And the pieces I am thinking about are completely nonconductive, so there won’t be anything interfering with the current running through the circuit.”

  “Wow, that sounds right!” enthused Merlin.

  “Plus, it will look really cool,” said Angus with his signature eye twinkle.

  “And, of course, in addition to the clamps for the tracks, you will have a couple of closures on each piece of plywood so the platform stays secure and intact, especially if it needs to sit on uneven ground.”

  “Yes! Of course!” agreed Merlin, amazed at the thoroughness of Angus’s planning.

  “As soon as the electromagnets arrive and we attach them, we can proceed apace with the rest of the plan.”

  “Excellent! Thank you, Angus!”

  “It’s my pleasure,” responded the idiosyncratic engineer.

  They exchanged more pleasantries, and Merlin departed Hephaestus when his Alles car arrived, starry-eyed over the prospect of seeing his idea birthed into the realm of functional, three-dimensional reality. On return to the observatory, he checked the Agglomerator. The data had remained constant, but the colors attached to the energy event had intensified considerably. The approaching cloud had darkened, and the vortex appeared to spin all the more tightly.

  • Fifty-four

  Lindley Acheson was driving a load of potted plants to a client’s garden in the cargo area of her vintage hunter’s green and cream-colored International Harvester Scout. As she passed the McNaughton house, she saw Merlin exiting what looked like an Alles car. He seemed more distracted than usual—even more than he did after the unfortunate collision with the Chihuahua and its owner at the threshold of Tellicherry. She didn’t stop because she needed to get to her client’s house, but she did take note of Merlin stumbling on the baking deep-summer sidewalk while holding a large pizza box. She exhaled in relief when she saw he recovered from the trip-up and shambled on toward his place, the odd satellite of the rarely occupied McNaughton house.

  • Fifty-five

  In a windowless room outfitted with apparatuses including black leather harnesses, chrome chains, and handcuffs suspended from steel beams spanning the breadth of the room’s ceiling, Tite Dûche stood at the center of a group of men wearing black. Two of them were wearing rubber butchers’ aprons and black elbow-length rubber work gloves.

  The tallest man in the group spoke: “We intend to provide you with the premier experience of its kind in the world. What your mind may interpret as pain will certainly be a component of it. If the experience becomes too intense for you, we have a safe phrase for you to say, and we will stop. We encourage you, however, not to use this phrase unless you deem the sensation intolerable. Is that understood?”

  Tite replied with an emotionless yes and a quick nod.

  The tall man continued: “Very well. Our group is quite fond of this place, The Umber Tulip. Our pet name for the hotel is UT.

  “UT?” Tite asked.

  “Yes,” the tall man continued, “UT. And your safe phrase for this session will be ‘I love UT.’ Say it now so you will remember it if you need it.”

  “I love UT?” queried Tite.

  “Yes, but without the intonation of a question. Just ‘I love UT.’”

  Dûche complied: “I love UT.”

  Twenty minutes later the proud former University of Texas fraternity man was suspended spread-eagled with chains attached to hand and ankle cuffs and a wide leather strap around his waist holding him parallel to the floor and ceiling. Covering his head and most of his face was a skintight patent leather piece that looked like a Mexican lucha libre mask without the colorful embellishments. Electric current-bearing clips with wire trailing behind them were attached to his chest and nether regions. Behind him, a man worked him over with various devices, each of an increasing size, the latter ones also electrified while other members of the group pricked his back with hot needles.

  The man performing the extreme mechanical violation from the rear had now donned a set of horns connected by a curved piece of metal that he could wear as a hat. The horns themselves were much larger, longer, and thicker than those on Wagnerian Viking helmets. They seemed to be very much like those of Texas Longhorn cattle but were actually from animals bred to resemble the ancient aurochs that roamed the fields of prehistoric Europe. These horns had even been sanded and stained to match the dark reddish-brownish orange that was the Umber Tulip’s signature color.

  Wearing this menacing headgear seemed to invigorate and empower the man as he administered increasingly larger implements of torture. He seemed to take on the persona of an ancient mating-season bull in its prime as he ratcheted up the intensity of the session. At one point, he was so carried away that he used his right hand to manipulate the instrument at Tite’s posterior while he yelled and raised his left arm and hand in a skyward pointing gesture, holding the middle fingers of his left hand with his thumb in a gesture that everywhere but Texas was considered a celebratory satanic salute or a sign indicating cuckoldry.

  Tite Dûche’s heart rate was already racing, and increasingly frequent drops of sweat were puddling on the floor. Now the rate skyrocketed, and the sweat was profuse—so intense that it became difficult for him to see through his mask’s eyeholes. As he felt he might be on the verge of passing out in agony, and in a tone with which he had never said the phrase, Tite gave two desperate squeals: “I love UT! I love UT!”

  The man wearing the horns started to relent, but Tite continued, moaning and tearfully wailing, “I love UT! I love UT!” The tall leader of the group nodded at the man wearing the aurochs horns, and he desisted. For a good minute and a half after he ended the session with the safe phrase, but before his tormenters unchained him from harness and cuffs, Tite whimpered the safe phrase repeatedly, its volume finally decreasing to a whisper.

  • Fifty-six

  Mickey McNaughton decided to take a stroll as the evening was still quite bright that time of year in Amsterdam. He traversed the Jordaan and the Centrum, and once again found himself walking alongside the Geldersekade canal just above the Red Light District. He was on the same side of the canal he was on the day he saw the man who looked exactly like Tite Dûche emerge from the Umber Tulip in such unusual garb. He was thinking about that strange moment when, as he passed directly across the canal from the infamous hotel, he saw its door open and, once again, and this time he was sure, it was Tite Dûche stepping onto the hotel’s landing in what seemed to be some kind of biker outfit.

  Mickey was so astonished he just watched the diminutive man leave the hotel and begin to walk away. He couldn’t even muster the ability to speak this time, but he did manage to pull his smart phone from his pocket. By the time his camera app was on the screen, Dûche was gone, but the door to the Umber Tulip opened again, and a group of men emerged dressed in black leather trousers and wearing black turtlenecks. A tall man who seemed to be their leader and looked like Dieter on “Sprockets” from the old days of Saturday Night Live directed the group down the street.

  Mickey kept his camera on the screen and took photos of the dour, severely dressed group, even zooming in on the tall guy and a few of his colleagues. Somehow, he had a sense they might not be strangers to N. Teitel Dûche V.

  • Fifty-seven

  Sitting at the dining table of his apartment on Fannius Scholtenstraat, Mickey McNaughton responded to a brief e-mail from Jim Atlas, who used a private, non-official e-mail account.

  Mickey, I think your nephew’s log of the Porsche’s trips around town could be useful. I can’t have this come through official channels right now, so if you would please use this e-mail address to send the data, I would appreciate it.

  Best,

  Jim

  Mickey sent Merlin an equally brief e-mail requesting the da
ta in a zip file and although Merlin was absorbed in the Agglomerator’s prognostications when he received it, he sent the log of the Porsche’s peregrinations to Mickey immediately. He was so absorbed in thoughts of the imminent energy event he didn’t pause to wonder why Mickey wanted the data.

  Mickey sent the file to Jim Atlas. He decided it was beer-thirty and was soon down his building’s narrow staircase and out the door to a neighborhood bar. He led off with his usual bartender banter, and since the bartender was a good-looking young Dutch woman with the unlikely American-sounding name of Linda, the conversation flowed as smoothly as the local ale from the tap at the center of the counter. Mickey allowed that work was going fine but that he had found himself assisting in what seemed to be some kind of criminal investigation in his home city back in the U.S.

  “Is that so?” said Linda in the impeccably accented English all the Dutch seemed to speak with such flawless fluency.

  “Yes!” replied Mickey after taking a quick sip from his glass.

  “Well, you might be interested to know that the gentleman at the other end of the bar is a detective with the Amsterdam Police!”

  She said it loud enough for the man to hear and immediately reassured him. “I don’t think you’ll mind your cover being blown, Piet. This guy doesn’t seem to be one of the characters you’re looking for.”

  The man at the other end of the bar looked up from his newspaper, pushed his eyeglasses up to the bridge of his nose, and shrugged. Mickey was demonstrably surprised to learn this, and seeing the man’s world-weary indifference to Linda’s disclosure of his vocation, he ventured a question. “Hey, I know you’re off work right now, so I really don’t want to bother you, right? Shut me down whenever you feel like it, but would you mind if I asked you a potentially law enforcement–related question that has been nagging at me?”

  “Sure, shoot,” responded the Amsterdam official flatly in pitch-perfect colloquial American English.