Free Further Adventures by Jon Stephen Fink

David could punch me so far below the belt. “I know something. The what not the how.”
    “Right. You’re right. What do I know about Annie? Ask Aunt Eunice,” he joked at me.
    “I will.”
    “Don’t waste the stamp. Eunice can’t tell pee from lemonade.”
    “No I’ve heard her get right to the heart of a problem not just lonelyhearts either. She solves all kinds for all kinds of different listeners.”
    “Yeah,” David smirked. “You know who writes her answers? Lamont Carruthers. Also the questions. He writes all of our shows too.”
    “Maybe you can boost me up in front of Annie. Mention I’m dying.”
    “I’m not telling you the news. You got eyes and ears. Annie is a sound effect with tits. She wants the public attention. The star treatment. Just craves it. You say she’s no dumb twist. O.K. I’ll bite. So she’s a smart twist. Now what?”
    “I need to be smarter.”
    I worked on my problem by the Science of the Mind. I worked on it with all my Psychological powers and it all boiled down to 3 Simple Steps:
    Step 1:
    QUESTION: What would The Green Ray do in this situation?
    ANSWER: Let Peter Tremayne investigate.
    Step 2:
    QUESTION: What would Peter Tremayne do in this situation?
    ANSWER: Seek the cunning counsel of Lamont Carruthers.
    Step 3:
    QUESTION: So what was I going to do?
    ANSWER: Go up to the 14th Floor to knock upon Lamont Carruthers’ office door.
     
    So Aunt Eunice owed it all to Lamont Carruthers—so what so did Ray Green in my case Lamont created The Adventures Of The GreenRay for me to create his Heart & Soul. But look how far Heart & Soul got me with Annie: a shiner short of a cup of Java so now I needed some expert guidance to point me where my personal story could go from here. Who was it who knew all the Clues before Peter Tremayne did? LAMONT CARRUTHERS. Who figured all the twists & turns of complicated mysteries? LAMONT CARRUTHERS. Who knew the true motives of Rosalind Bentley that make her tick i.e. all the feelings that Annie had to feel most sincerely to play her part in Episode after Episode? The writer LAMONT CARRUTHERS. By the way the true brains behind the Voice of Aunt Eunice uncomplicater of the complicated troubles of Womankind.
    The elevator door opened before me and before me was the length of the 14th Floor and the echo of that creaking metal was the only thing stirring up there. (A dumb piece of Deception for anybody who could count that high knew it was really the 13th Floor hung with a different number to pamper superstitious mankind.) Down at the end I saw a strange sight—a guy at the drinking fountain he looked like a stork up on one leg. Also cloudy blue eyes looked back at me & his face all white stubble yellow sweat stains on his collar & at his feet i.e. foot was a Fuller Brush sample case.
    “Say bub?” I got his attention. “You haven’t passed by 1421 in your travels by any chance?”
    “It’s easy to get lost up here,” he observed and I observed he had a very polished accent on him for a Fuller Brush salesman. “Are you a messenger boy?”
    Of course I could not let a member of the general public in on my True Identity so I obliged him by this idea of me. “It’s my first day see just trying to find my way around.”
    “You’ve got a message for 1421?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “First door on the left after you hit the corner. I’ve just come from there.”
    “Was Mr. Carruthers in?”
    “Oh. Him.” He picked up his sample case. “Be careful around that bird. In days of yore when a messenger brought bad news”—he swiped his finger across his throat—“cut off the messenger’s head.”
    “Good thing it isn’t bad news.”
    He turned his back on me mumbling, “You can leave whatever it is with his secretary Miss Shapiro.”
    “Dropping or picking up?” Miss Shapiro aimed the guns of her eyes at me in the door.
    “Is Mr. Carruthers in?”
    “About what is this concerning?”
    “It’s personal business.”
    “Personal