Declaring Independents

Archives
Categories

Chronicles of the Shade – Episode 8 – “Delivering the Goods”

by Editors

Chronicles of the Shade©*

Episode 8 –

Delivering the Goods

July 2007

Lance Carter waited in the inner office of his detective agency for the arrival of Wilby Goode. He had given Lucienne the day off because he wanted to play the tapes privately for Wilby. Lance arrived early for their appointment because he wanted to think about what he should recommend that Wilby do with the tapes. Clearly, they showed malfeasance in office by President Liar, Vice-President Chancey, and Secretary of State Spice. There was solid evidence for impeaching the first two and sacking the third.

As Lance waited for Wilby, his thoughts wandered back to his long and slow recovery from being buried in the ice. Except for minor frostbite, there were no physical signs of his ordeal. Yet he had suffered mental anguish. He knew that he loved Lara. But he also knew that two commandments had been given to him in the ice—two commandments that he felt had saved his life and that he must somehow honor. Those commandments were to preserve the union and to renounce the world. How could he fulfill both these commands? They seemed clearly contradictory. They were the thesis and antithesis of his being, and yet he could discover no synthesis to resolve their conflict in his mind.

It also took him a long time to puzzle out the rationale of his newly acquired powers. He found that simply by thinking about it, he could lower his heart rate so that his heart was barely beating and his blood pressure was nearly nonexistent. During such times as he practiced doing this, he became aware that people around him ignored his presence. It was as if they were living in a different world from his. It was only after reading the latest theories of an obscure professor of physics named Carl Shoenfeld that he hit upon the most rational explanation of his powers. According to Shoenfeld, in order to make sense of quantum mechanics, we had to postulate infinite parallel universes, each with its own time frame. When physical tests seemed to show that a sub-atomic particle was in two places at once, it was explicable on the basis of that particle’s having jumped briefly into a parallel universe and then back again. Lance reasoned that when he slowed his own bodily functions, he transported himself into another universe parallel to the normal one, and his bodily clock then operated differently from the bodily clocks of others. That was why no one noticed him when he was The Shade. It also explained why he could observe the inner workings of the minds of others; because, being in another universe, he was not affected by what was physical in the normal universe. The minds of others were transparent to him because there was nothing physical that blocked the pure energy emanating from their minds and flowing into his own.

There was a knock on his office door, and Lance welcomed Wilby Goode inside. “I’ve got your evidence on tape for you, Wilby,” he said. “The special box I had made prevented their being erased. It’s too bad that my first tape was destroyed, because that one was the most damning of them all.”

“I’m afraid we have to go with what we’ve got,” answered Wilby. “I told you how close we are to bombing Iroon.”

“I think there is still plenty of evidence,” said Lance, gesturing for Wilby to sit down. Lance then put the first tape in his machine and played it. When it was finished, Lance inserted the second tape and played that. During the playing of the tapes Wilby said nothing, but his mouth was set in a firm line. After the last tape had been played, Lance hit the rewind button and looked at Wilby questioningly. “Well,” said Lance, “what do you think?”

“I think,” said Wilby in a grim and determined voice, “that these people should be locked away and the key thrown in the Delaware River. Toward that end, I think that we should give these tapes to the D. C. Post and let them run the transcripts on the front page.”

Lance eased back in his swivel chair and looked at Wilby for a long moment. “They’re your tapes, Wilby,” he said, “and you may do with them what you wish; but I have another idea that you might consider.”

Wilby was silent, so Lance continued. “You want these people removed from office, yet if you go public with the tapes, they’ll have their lawyers fighting you and

The Post every step of the way. You might not be able to prove that the tapes are genuine. In the meantime they might simply go ahead and bomb Iroon, claim we’re at war, and assert executive privilege.

Wilby sagged in his chair. “What do you suggest, then?” he said.

“Do you think you can get an interview with Fancy Bugliosi?”

“You want me to get an appointment with the Speaker of the House?”

“Yes,” said Lance. “Think about it. She’s the third-ranking Federal officer. She controls any impeachment proceedings. She can get her legal team to figure out how best to use this evidence.”

Wilby rose from his chair. “I know her deputy, Hank Stroyer,” he said. “If I tell him what it’s about, I think I might be able to get in to see her.”

“Good,” said Lance, as Wilby turned towards the door. “Play the tapes for her and see what she says.” Lance put his hand on Wilby’s shoulder, and as they walked towards the outer office he gave Wilby the personal card containing his home telephone number. “Please telephone me at home, any time, and let me know what happened,” he said, as Wilby strode with a determined gait down the hall and out into the bright and warming summer afternoon.

Lance sat in his office for nearly an hour after Wilby had left. He hoped that he had given him good advice. He hoped that Fancy Bugliosi would do the right thing. Anyway, he thought, it was out of his hands now. He would just have to wait to see what the fates had in store. The Shade had done his part. Now it was up to players on a larger stage to move the action along. As he mused about the role he had played in trying to add some weight to the scales of justice, he remembered how far removed he had been from taking any such action a few short months ago.

After returning from Katmandu, he had waited a month before writing to Lara. His first impulse was to renounce the world. Having been left an enormous fortune from the estates of his mother and grandmother, he set about to renounce it all. He sold Viva’s Château. He sold his mother’s mansion. He sold his Cessna, his BMW convertible, and his Mercedes 500 SL. He cashed in all his stocks, bonds, and money market accounts. He put all the proceeds into a checking account and began writing checks. He wrote large checks to the World Wildlife Fund, to the Southern Poverty Law Center, to the Nature Conservancy, to Oxfam, and to countless other charities. He wrote checks until all the money was gone. He kept the 2001 Honda. He also kept his townhouse in Reagan, D.C. He thought about selling the condominium on Treasure Island, but he never got around to it. He kept it rented, instead. His father had set him up with a generous irrevocable trust, so he could easily live on that.

Finally, he wrote to Lara. They arranged to meet at “Liberties” in Philadelphia. Lance was nervous. How could he tell her that he had given his fortune away? Would she think he was crazy? That was not the real issue. She had never cared for excess wealth. How could he tell her that he had undergone the experience under the ice that he, at the time, could only think of as a mystical experience? Then she was sure to think he was insane.

Their first meeting in months did not go well. He kissed her warmly, but then he retreated into a shell. She was puzzled. She tried to draw him out. She tried to coax him to talk about his ordeal. He was reticent. He ordered champagne, their favorite, Dom Perignon. They toasted one another. She smiled her most charming, guileless smile and tried to get him to open his heart to her. He retreated. They talked pleasantries. He kept drinking. Finally, staggering slightly as he escorted her to the door, he called a cab, gave her a kiss that missed her mouth, and bade her goodnight. They would meet only twice more, the last being after his drunken ravings outside her home.

Lance couldn’t blame her for having left him. He was a mess. He had managed to drive the only one he had ever loved out of his life. He agonized over what he should do. Finally, he concluded that renouncing the world meant that he had to give up all thoughts of love and that he had to concentrate on preserving the union. That was when he decided to use his strange powers to serve the interests of justice. That was when he became The Shade. If he could do that, then maybe he would once again find himself worthy of Lara’s love and respect.

Lance turned off the light in his office and left the building. He didn’t know how well he would sleep that night. Thoughts of Lara and of Wilby crowded his mind. Perhaps he could trust himself to have two martinis before dinner.

TO BE CONTINUED….

Next Week: Episode 9: