bout de papier, Vol. 30, No. 2 (2017), pp. 49–52
I am passing the morning by working through a stack of paperbacks. The one Iam reading is The President’s Tweet is Missing. It is clear the President is missing more than his tweet. The author writes like English is a language he learns as a child and quickly forgets. Also, I am not in the mood for non-fiction. So I peg the book hard at the trashcan on the curb.
It knocks the can over. A basketball bounces out and rolls down the sidewalk to where a hot dog guy is serving a wiener to a woman in a muumuu. The ball bumps him behind the knees and he drops the frank. A guy in a leather coat covered in rhinestones slips on the sausage and staggers into the street, directly in front of a speeding calliope. He drops into an open manhole, but the calliope Swerves across the street and into a street-light. The pole falls across a passing truck with a sign saying “Caution — Nitro”. The truck goes up in a fireball and the sign goes zooming up the City Hall clocktower. It knocks the ladder from under a woman cleaning the clock face, leaving her hanging from the minute hand six storeys up. The ladder rolls on its dolly down the street, past a building where it catches a stock-broker type who is just jumping out a window and then flips over a railing where it deposits the guy in the fountain with the statue of a hippo in a tutu. The sponge from the cleaner’s bucket ricochets off the hippo and smacks into the face of a mover carrying a heavy box along the edge of a playground. He drops the box onto one end of a teeter-totter. The other end held down by a small boy with a big ice-cream cone. The kid goes flying but is caught by his mommy. The ice cream cone is caught by a man coming around the corner. Who writes this puzzle, Rube Goldberg?
The man is fat, wears a trench coat and sports a dark sombrero. He takes a lick from the cone and speaks to the dark woman in black leather beside him. She pulls out what looks like a cross between a toaster oven and a lead butterfly. She flips a switch and the pair walk down the cul-de-sac toward me, an electric pink aura radiating from the machine. As the aura sweeps past the damage in the street, everything moves back like it was before. The nitro truck drives off, the ladder goes back under the cleaner, the woman gets her hot dog. The man in the rhinestone coat sticks his head up from the manhole just in time to get boffed by the basketball.
The man with the ice-cream and the woman in leather walk up to my table. I greet them. “Don Gordo, Bugbyte, it is good to see you.” Don Gordo replies, “Thank you for meeting us. Caramba!
We are in a big mess. Mi amigo Manitoba Jones is missing.” I say, “Tam sorry for your trouble, so what can do? And what was all that weirdness?”
Bugbyte says, “The two are connected. From working together for so long, Manitoba and Don Gordo have generated a symbiotic structure for chaotic synergy.” Good with words as always, I say, “Huh?” Don Gordo says, “She means we are both loco but when we are loco together, we make good things happen.” Bugbyte adds, “When they are apart for too long, crazy things still happen, but bad things, people can get hurt.” “Like what just happens here, OK, understand. I go to a mob expo once in J ersey, where it is like that the whole time.” Bugbyte goes on, “I built this gadget to reverse the local effects, but it weakens reality.” “Which is weak enough these days as it is. So where is Manitoba?”
Don Gordo sets off. “He has been kidnapped. By people who want us to find” — dramatic pause — “the Jade Jalapeno!” “What is a” — pause — “Jade Jalapeno?” I ask. Bugbyte says, “You know Games Week is currently on?” “Sure,” I say, “but my own favourite game involves a dozen horses and a betting window.” She goes on, “The city has built a series of life-size inter-active game boards and other events. One of those events was an exhibition of rare and valuable game pieces, at the Museum.” “Which is robbed last week, yes. And this stony green pepper is part of the haul?” “Correct,” says Bugbyte. “It is a playing piece from an ancient Indian game the West calls Snakes and Ladders. But it is more than that. Snakes and Ladders was originally a religious rite connected with karma. This piece has a lot of power in the right hands. Or the wrong ones.”
A brassy-haired woman in a business suit suddenly appears at the table. “Harry, Don Gordo, medium-cool to see you. Bugbyte, not so much.” Bugbyte retorts, “Berta de Kuhl. Long time no see, although not long enough. But I do have to admire your clothes. The fashionistas tell me retro-frumpy is coming back.” “My compliments back, Bugbyte. Are the colours on your cheeks those new facial stripes, or did you come here direct from a food fight?” A duck falls out of the sky, spills my cognac and knocks Don Gordo’s cigar into the pool, igniting the tablecloth. Bugbyte flicks her device briefly and the fire vanishes, along with the duck.
I cough. “Always happy to see you Bertha, but we are in the middle of business here. Can we meet later?” “But Harry,” she replies, “I’m here about the same business. I mean, you are discussing the Jade Jalapeno, aren’t you?” Don Gordo and Bugbyte exchange an alarmed look. “I’m looking for it too. And I believe dear Harry has seen it.”
Bertha turns to the Don. “My people tell me Manitoba Jones is being held until you find the jade. Well, the kidnapper brought me into the game too, on a straight cash basis. He’s a billionaire games collector named Morton Incunabula. Yes, the man who put the “cheesy” in Parcheesi. He’s brought in both of us to increase his chances.”
Don Gordo asks me, “What do you know about this?” I say, “I do not have the jade, but Getaway Moses offers to it me along with the rest of the Museum heist. I turn him down — I know nothing from jewels or games. But I hear he sells the whole bag to Chancy Regalia. All Chancy wants is the platinum Monopoly set, so I am not surprised when I hear he is willing to offload the jade. But he is the kind of guy who will make you play a game to get it.”
Bertha nods. “Yes, Regalia has been in touch with me.” Bugbyte asks suspiciously, “Us too. But why are you telling us, if we’re both after the jade?” “Because Regalia only gave us each half the information we need to reach him. If we bring the jade to Incunabula together, he should give us both what we want. If we don’t cooperate, neither of us will win.”
Don Gordo nods. “Bueno, we’ll take a chance. We both know this hombre Regalia is hiding at the end of the full-size snakes and ladders game the city has erected in the University’s holodeck. We have the instructions we need to get us through that board, by giving us the number of squares to move each turn. But we haven’t been able to decipher them.” Bertha replies, “And I have instructions about the special conditions to be met at the beginning and end of the game.”
Don Gordo and Bertha pull out identical envelopes. After hesitation on both sides, they open them and put two sheets of paper on the table.
Bertha says, “On your paper each clue gives you a phrase that contains a number from I to 10. Those numbers give you your moves, in order.” Bugbyte replies, “And on your page, each clue gives you the
DON GORDO’S INSTUCTIONS
What a cat has (4, 5)
Moses or Cecil B DeMille (3, 12)
Between the golden rings and the French hens (4,7,5)
What Drake calls Toronto (3,3)
Last drink for Sinatra, after “one for my baby”
Athos, Porthos and Aramis (3, 5, 10)
Kurosawa masterpiece (3, 5, 7)
Nestlé’s mint patty (5,5)
A hand greeting, Columbus business district and Israeli boy band (4,4)
Blue Suede intro, after “for the money”
name of a piece of music relating to trains. Why trains?” The women glare at each other, but soon have the two sheets deciphered. We all leave for the University. The minute-hand falls off the City Hall clock as we go past, so we hurry.
Don Gordo’s pass gets us into the holodeck. We enter what looks like the waiting room at Union Station. Ten tracks lead to arches in the far wall, each with a miniature locomotive pulling a single carriage. Each arch has a letter above it, from A to J. The departure board flashes the number 1939. “Right,” says Bertha, consulting her paper “That relates to one of my clues.” We board one of the carriages and gather round a touch-pad on the wall at the front. The letters 1-10 show on the screen. Bugbyte takes out her paper and presses one of the numbers.
The train moves off smoothly through a featureless tunnel for a short while, then stops. A giant human head with a walrus moustache and a monocle lunges out of the floor. The spike on its helmet carries the train up through the ceiling and onto another track. Bugbyte enters another number. A duck flies through the tunnel and perches on the locomotive. Two more numbers and the train gets blown through the ceiling by a spindly looking bush that explodes as the locomotive passes over. “That was completely different,’ says Bugbyte. Another number. The train is plucked from the track by a bevy of tuxedo-clad men and tap-danced up a sweeping staircase. A seventh number. The train moves along a dim narrow passage. A snake’s head lunges out of the wall and eats the duck. Everyone relaxes since it isn’t them. A much bigger snake appears and swallows the whole train. A short blackout and we are back on track. Another number. A huge boot drops from the ceiling, pushing us through the floor. Tumbling darkness, screams, psychedelic lights, the smell of a wet mammoth. We are back on the track. A ninth number and we are grabbed by a huge hand at the end of giant white sleeve with cufflinks. It flings us over a deep chasm to land on a narrow ledge. The train teeters. More screams; it stabilises. Bugbyte enters the last number. The screen flashes “1989” and a panel slides back to show 10 flash
BERTHA’S INSTRUCTIONS
It don’t carry no gamblers, traditional (4, 5)
“Shine your light on me”, Lead Belly 1934 (8,7)
It goes to Harlem, Duke Ellington 1939 (4, 3, 1, 5)
It’s on Track 29, Glenn Miller 1941 (11, 4-4)
“There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run’, Lightfoot 1967 (8, 8, 7)
“Take the train from Casablanca going south”, Crosbie Stills & Nash 1969 (9,7)
“Illinois Central Monday morning rail”, Arlo Guthrie 1972 (4, 2, 3, 7)
“Bought a one-way ticket back to the life he once knew” Gladys Knight 1973 (8, 5, 2, 7)
“Goodnight train is gonna carry me home”, Gerry Rafferty 1978 (4, 2, 4)
Right to the last station, Travelling Wilburys 1989, (3-2-3-4)
drives. Bertha checks her list, selects a drive and slots it in. Music swells. The train moves briefly, gets lifted by a chorus of neon cherubs playing electric kazoos and exits through swinging doors.
We are met by a small man who announces himself as Chancy Regalia, congratulates us and pulls a small glittering green object from his waistcoat. Don Gordo and Bertha step forward to claim it. He hesitates and hands it to me, saying, “Perhaps in view of the contested victory, I should give it to a neutral third party.” He gestures us out the holodeck’s back door and into the deserted street.
A long limo with tinted windows is waiting for us. Out of it stumbles a figure in a loud purple checked suit, a striped green shirt, a red plaid tie and two-tone shoes. “Blinding as always, Morton,” Bertha says. Don Gordo snarls, “OK, we have the jade, you have Manitoba Jones. Let’s get this over with.” Incunabula replies, “Well, it’s true that I have Jones in the car, and your money too, Bertha. But now were at the denouement, maybe it’s time for a re-write.” He pulls out a gun. “Jones knows too much, and why spend money when there is no need. I can just kill you, take the jade and no-one will be the wiser. Now who has it?”
Don Gordo hands his coat to Bugbyte. “You are perhaps forgetting something, cabron. Harry?” So I pull the jade from my pocket and toss it to Incunabula, toss it high so his eyes follow it. An athletic figure barrels out of the car and slams into him, hurtling him into Don Gordo’s vast stomach, from which he ricochets into Manitoba’s fist. Looking up from the ground into Bertha’s and Bugbyte’s pistols, he shakes his head and moans, “I could have been a player”.
An hour later, I am back at my table, picking up another book. It starts, “Call me Shamus. I’m a gumshoe. I live in Los Angeles. I carry a duck.” It is looking like a long afternoon.
Can you duplicate Bugbyte’s and Bertha’s feat by providing (a) the ten numbers (each used only once) in order; and (b) the music for the first and last moves? bout de papier will decide the winner by drawing from a hat containing all correct submissions received by February 28, 2018..
The winner will receive a book autographed by A Aalto. You can follow the group’s path through the holodeck by means of the board above, which has the same pattern.
Free-lance prestidigitator A Aalto continues his work in the nation’s capital. This puzzle is for all those who are interested in the history and design of games, and even occasionally in playing them. The Indian background of Snakes and Laddders is roughly historical. Did you know that Monopoly was originally intended as an anti-capitalist satire? Aalto would like to thank Monty Python and Harold Lloyd for inspiration, and Mrs Aalto as always.
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 30, No. 2 (2017), pp. 49–52. Read the rest of this issue →
