Mad, Mad Marjorie Chapter IX: Chewing the Fat, or Intermezzo di gelato
After a goodly stretch of time alone undergoing sensory deprivation, during which a panel of little red lights on the wall seemed to turn into a hideous arachnid all poised to pounce, Geoffrey Durant-Dupont again caught the sounds of a door opening, then the crackle of fluorescent bulbs, and the perky footsteps of Mrs. Marjorie, like the female of the species come to devour her mate.
But as she came into view, her attentions gimleted on the soft-serve ice cream cone clutched close to her lapping tongue. Depositing herself with a loud and refreshing sigh into the embrace of the easy chair, she gave her cone a bovine lick, then inquired hypocritically, “Hope you haven’t been too bored. If you’re lonely I can always let the rats out.”
“Your version of pet therapy?”
“Pest control.”
Geoffrey asked, “You know, have you ever made ice cream from scratch?”
She slurped, “Too much exercise.”
“Yes, I agree.All that cranking and you’re left with a dead patch in the lawn.Well, perhaps you’d prefer the route of the gourmand?Have you ever ended a fine meal with a bombe Veronique?”
A pregnant moose with a salt lick would not have felt more blissful than Mrs. Marjorie at that moment, but she managed a caustic, “How about a recipe for albatross or old coot?”
“The only odd bird that’s ever been on my plate was a nasty serving of pâté de corbeau on that childhood visit to the Marquise de Lemanceau with mamá and Violet Trefusis.Would you mind if I waxed elegiac?”
“What’s that, a skin disease?”She was now working on the waffle cone like a mantis devouring a cricket.
“Picture, if you will…”
“I’m picturing,” said Mrs. Marjorie, closing her jaws upon the cone in her fingertips and gulping down the sweet-slurry-filled cuplet.
“…a shell of pistachio ice cream filled with a mousse of chocolate…”
“Oh, my dear, mousse.”
“…positively metastasized with candied orange peel macerated in champagne.”At these last decorative festoons, she appeared to Geoffrey to waver, the dark prismatic joy of her face dimming, and he casually offered, “I have the recipe in the kitchen if you would like me to fetch it for you.”
Recognizing a paltry feint at freedom, she snorted and resumed her mopping-up operation, licking finger after finger to let none of the precious milky nectar escape.With her engine refueled, she smacked her lips as if bidding farewell to a paramour, then announced to no one in particular, “Time to see what the kitty-cat dragged in.”
At this, she hauled up from the floor her shoulder bag (after a sigh of relief at having found it) and began to rummage.“What is this junk?” she asked, pulling into the light those trinkets that she had nefariously filched from her captive’s home.
Geoffrey said, “You know that those do not belong to you.”
“They do now.”She was scrutinizing a picture and with a nail scratched one of the frames.She made a noise of disappointment.“Hmm.Silvery, not silver.”
Geoffrey told her placidly, “It’s the picture that matters, not the frame.”
“Where’d you make your money, the fortune-cookie business?”She slid the exhibit back into the bag and fished out another.
“Law, with nice additions from the trust fund.”
“Well, some of us have to make our money.”She flipped toward him the new photograph, of the aristocratic woman, the boy, and his bear.“Tell me who these ghouls are.”
Geoffrey’s expression opened with a sadness that would have touched her had she had any human feeling.“Ah, the Countess.And Andi.And Melanchthon.”(Melanchthon was the teddy bear.)
Like a psychologist testing a new patient, she asked, “And who is Mr. Smiles here and why can’t he write English?”She presented another photo, this one of the thick-haired sailor straddling the yacht—the inscription in one corner was not in the Latin letters familiar to most American schoolchildren.
Geoffrey said, “His Highness.1960, of course.That was his thanks to Andi for doing him a good turn.”
She now held up the picture in the wooden frame, of the stony assemblage beneath the sign reading “Paulinenhof.”“And who’s this glee club?”
“Her Majesty, with some of her fellow detainees.”
“Who?” Mrs. Marjorie asked in a tone suggestive of willful ignorance, although in her case it may have been the genuine article.
“Hermine, the wife of the Kaiser, kept in the camp by the Communists.”
“Well, then, wheel out the guillotine and let’s get this party started.”
Remembering something about pearls and swine, Geoffrey said, “Andi is the little boy to her left.He used to sneak under the fence to visit her.”
This weepy sepia scene of boyhood devotion did not move her and she now offered the picture of the dog.Admittedly leading the witness, she said, “A dog.”
“Axel,” said Geoffrey.
“And what about this chunk of fun?”Here she held up the odd piece of rubble.
“Es ist der Schloßstein.”
Not recognizing this as a diversionary tactic, she said, “If you say so, grandpa,” and somewhat roughly stashed the booty back into her bag.“These’ll be worth something on eBay.Now, time for a little research, while I wait for a very important call.”And with the adaptability of a piranha finding itself in a new goldfish bowl, she hauled out from between the frame of the chair and the seat cushion a slim tome bound in rather suspicious leather.Opening its cover, she cracked its spine for effect and set to skimming.
Geoffrey asked, “And what is that?”With an impatient snort she held the cover towards him: Voodoo Dolls and You.(She had just started the chapter about fish bones vs. antique copper needles for impaling the little dolly.)Geoffrey now unwisely asked, “Forgive me for interrupting your necromancy, but you’ve never told me where I am.”
Standing from her easy chair, she tossed the grimoire down and after quickly steadying her staggering bulk after that downward spiral of her blood pressure, she said, “You know, buddy, I know about a nice the drive-through crematorium.”
Geoffrey was unperturbed.“But I am curious: what was that mask of horror you showed at our first interview with Bogdan or Ogatai or whatever his name was?”
“Milosh.”
“Milosh.A sturdy Serbian name.Like Tomislav or Radovan.I noticed, when we spoke with Milosh...”But his easy conviviality shrank back.“You know, I just remembered something.”
“Should I call Milosh back?”
“Why interrupt him when he’s planning your demise?But you know what truly would put a fresh smile on my face?”
“A chance to get your will up-to-date?”
But at this, Mrs. Marjorie’s iThing let out a beep of notification.(The device seemed to have dried out, although she still wanted to teach Tyler or Taylor a lesson.)After a glance at the screen Mrs. Marjorie smiled, announced to herself, “The shipment’s about to drop,” and collecting her bag, speedily exited the room, snuffing out the lights.
Once more, Geoffrey Durant-Dupont was alone in his bizarre holding tank.And once more, he did not squander this gift of time.
In very little time, Marjorie Mayfield was standing on the roof of her condominium, waving a hand-light skyward as the Van Cauwenberghe Ice Cream helicopter chugged out of the evening air and stopped in a hover above her.To billows and blasts of dusty air, its side door opened and unseen hands chucked down at her a silvery canister not unlike a picnic thermos, before the ’copter like an elephantine hummingbird circled off—and just in time, for a pair of falcon-like crimecopters at once rose through the gleaming metallic towers of the upscale housing project and fired off a couple of warning blasts at its landing gear.
But Marjorie missed all of this international adventuring, because the co-pilot or navigator, whoever it was, had not tossed her Ace-Of-Spades Licorice Lickity Banana Split directly into her welcoming palms.Instead, it had hit the roof some way off, and with horror Marjorie watched as the silvery canister bounced and nearly hurled from the roof.But a speedy lunge by our Marjorie served to save the day and she caught the canister before it swirled down to bonk one of the hipster shoppers coming out of the organic yarn boutique at street level below.Clasping the flask to her breast like a mother robot defending her cylindrical egg (or however robots reproduce), she stroked and kissed it, whispering “Not yet, baby, not yet.”The silvery babe in her arms —maybe she would call him Rupert—had a mission still to fulfill.
