A HAWK AND A HANDSAW: PART DEUX!

This riveting story is a follow-up to what is, arguably, the finest non-Victoria-contaminated Due South episode in existence: "A Hawk and A Handsaw"! It is set just after ack oop "Body Language," [gag] which is arguably the worst Due South episode in existence.

We were all appalled as we watched "Body Language," and blame that episode entirely on CBS and their search for a Young, Male Demographic. Apparently the Young, Male Demographic is a very desirable demographic to advertisers, despite the fact that Young Males almost never have any money and most of America's purchases are made by people like me--Middle-aged Females--who do not generally get their jollies watching a show's main characters drooling in a creepy manner over dim-witted strippers of the female persuasion. Now, if the episode had been set in Chippendale's, and Our Favourite Mountie had to, for some reason, go undercover at said male strip joint... that would have been an episode to watch! I feel almost certain that you, Dear Reader, will agree. If you do, feel free to e-mail me a drooly-post at: vecchio@trickster.org

AH&AH: Part Deux! is dedicated to Seah and my fellow BFPers and the ITS, who encourage me to do this sort of thing for some evil reason.

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A HAWK AND A HANDSAW: PART DEUX!

by Celeste Hotaling-Lyons

Part the First! A Sparrow and a Screwdriver or "A Couple of Bricks Shy A Load"

Outside the Canadian Consulate Chicago, 1998

Fraser hadn't the foggiest what he'd done this time. Whatever it was, it must have been, you should pardon the expression, a doozie; because there he was yet again, stuck with door-duty, standing sentry in front of the Canadian Consulate for a double-shift.

"Oh, now, cease your complaints immediately!" he chastised himself--mentally, not verbally, mind you, for he was forbidden to speak as he stood there guarding that vitally important entryway. To speak or move would cause the most dire dishonour to besmirch the dapper, unbesmirched escutcheon of The Honour of the R.C.M.P., and that would never do. Not to mention what it would do to his image.

"Come along, be of good cheer, it's a privilege to be given sentry duty," he tried to convince himself. But it was no good--he was a terrible liar, even to himself. Besides, the Inspector had made it as clear as a particularly clear piece of glass that she was ticked off at him again and that sentry duty was meant to be a punishment, though he honestly hadn't the merest clue as to what he'd done! He sighed minutely, staring straight ahead. Slowly but surely, he willed himself into that Special Royal Canadian Mounted Police Yoga-like State of Mind that all Mounties were taught in Door-guarding 101 in the first year of Royal Canadian Mountie School, along with other useful bits of knowledge, like how to concentrate on your nose's melanin to keep from tanning, freckling or burning; how to blink but once every 60 seconds; and how to stifle a sneeze. "Ommmmm," he intoned inside his head. "Ommmmm...."

And now, we present for your enjoyment and/or irritation a story sequence about a mouse. This is for the purpose of annoying people who only want to read about the main characters and not about any new secondary characters that I, the author, might be so clever as to invent....

Meanwhile--across town in the basement of an institution recently re-christened "The Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic" after a scandalous occurrence during a drug testing for the FDA that had caused the original name of the place to be splashed across the headlines by the yellow press and several day-time chat show hosts--a pregnant mouse, cozy in her nest, studiously washed her face as she contemplated her life. This particular mouse had decided that she was tired, tired, tired of her babies being killed by several of her male relations. Over and over, she would go through the trouble of conceiving and carrying her mouse puppies through gestation, then give birth inside the dark, warm walls of the Chicago DMV, only to have them offed time and time again by those stupid, posturing males who seemed to think that all a mouse needed was a strong-smelling urine and he could do just as he pleased, and damn the consequences--how dare they?! So she'd struck out on her own, and hit paydirt--a new, quiet place within the brick-and-plaster walls of this structure. Her chosen place was behind the wall of a room floored by linoleum, with many tables and chairs, plentiful food, dripping faucets and a large, but fortunately somewhat unfocused, human population. If you liked creamed corn and Spam, it was a great place to be.

The mouse investigated her new home. She crawled from her nest, down a hall, and into a large, cold, brightly-lit place with smooth, gray walls. She shivered, her nose twitching at the odd-smelling breeze that flowed over her whiskers. Sniffling around a bit, she found something interesting--one of the gray walls seemed to have a crack in it! It was difficult, but she managed to drag her plump form through the crack. The place smelled of cold metal and plastic--but to her surprise, the walls were lined with some soft, fluffy gray material that would line the walls of her nest quite nicely, if she could only manage to pull it away from where it was attached.

She grabbed hold of the fluff with her two pink fore-paws and tugged... and tugged! Finally, a large piece of it came free, and she fell over backwards into some bits of metal and plastic--zzzzt! zzzzt! To her astonishment, there were sparks and burny smells around her, and, terrified, she scurried from that place, through the crack and down the hall, back to the safety of her nest! The gray fluffy material was not worth the trouble. She'd line her nest with the paper napkins she found on the linoleum, under the many tables and chairs in the great, wide room.

Whirrrrr! Click! Sputter, sputter!

Somewhere, somehow, deep in the archiving computers of The Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic, an old file containing information about one Benton Fraser, clicked over from "Defunct" into "Current" status....

The computer clicked and clucked over this new, current file. It concerned a mentally-challenged person who thought he was a Mountie from the Yukon who had uncovered a plot involving drowning caribou on a mountainside, and who furthermore believed that men dressed in white had then come after him with homicidal intentions. He claimed he had only a deaf wolf to vouch for him. Oh, yeah. Riiiiiight.

The computer was appalled--appalled!--to find that this poor unfortunate had somehow been released from the custody of The Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic without proper authorization, and was apparently wandering the streets of Chicago posing a distinct danger to himself and to the unsuspecting population of Chicago in general even now. It told another computer about this sad state of affairs, and that computer issued a warrant for the safe capture of the poor unfortunate lunatic.

Meanwhile, back at the Canadian Consulate, we rejoin our main character deep in thought:

"Ommmmm," Our Favourite Mountie intoned inside his head. "Ommmmm...."

It began to work, and the statuesque statue of a Mountie attained First Level of the Oblate Spheroidal Door-standing Sentroid Consciousness. His Thetas, were anyone to come by and attach electrodes to his head in order to monitor his brain, would be nice and gently curvy at this point. Fraser's eyes slowly unfocused as his senses became fine-tuned and sharper than a whippet's. He became aware of the sound of a clump of crabgrass growing out of the cracks in the pavement in front of the Consulate. He became aware that a man standing on a street corner two blocks away had had Dewar's, neat, and a spicy Genoa salami sandwich on crusty Italian bread for lunch. He became aware of the brand of starch in the linen dress of the lady typing on a Smith-Corona in the second-floor window across the street.

Most importantly, he became aware that a white van had pulled up in front of the Consulate, and two men in clean, white coats who were so big, they made him (Fraser) look like a 98-lb. weakling, were getting out. One man checked a piece of paper that seemed to disappear in his ham-sized fist, peering at it myopically.

"Yeah, dis here is da guy, I tink," the man said in a deep baritone.

"Let's get the poor galoot outa here before someone in this here office building calls the cops on him," spoke the other in a pleasing tenor.

And much to the Mountie's surprise, he was picked up as easily as if he were a loveseat on moving day, one man grasping his ankles, the other his shoulders, and expertly bundled into the back of the white van. Naturally he could not fight to break free from the two kidnappers, or move in any way, because his double-shift was over at four of the o'clock, P.M., and it was but Noon. He was stuck. The unbesmirched escutcheon of The Honour of the R.C.M.P. was far more important than his tatty, unimportant self. He lay in the back of the van at attention, "ommmming" for all he was worth, and managed to obtain the Second Level of the Angular Rhomboidal Door-standing Sentroid Consciousness just as the van pulled up to the loading dock of The Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic. The practitioner who had attained the Second Level could sense his position in space with regard to the stars and the magnetic fields of the earth, which is how Fraser knew exactly where it was the men had taken him. Well, that, and the fact that he recognized this particular make of straight jacket with which they were fitting him. Oh, dear.

By the time the end of his shift rolled around, he found himself in The Room With The Rubber Walls and it was too late to do anything about it. Darn. He hadn't even had time to sharpen his buckle.

Ring Ring Ring....

'Ovitz', who had been so dubbed in a fit of ill temper by Inspector Thatcher, picked up his phone. "Mushi, mushi!" said the secretary cheerfully.

The Large Man In White Who Spoke In A Baritone stared at the phone handset that all but disappeared in his ham-sized fist, twin lines of concentration furrowing his brow. For someone who worked in a loonie bin, he did not handle the out-of-the-ordinary very well. "Uh... yeah? What?" he finally got out.

"Sore-y," said Ovitz, "We have a delegation of Japanese businessmen coming in next week seeking to expand their trade rights to Canada, I've been listening to some language tapes. Expanding the mind, you know!"

The Large Man In White/Baritone knew all about expanding the mind. He did not approve of it, however. "Yeah. In dat place, dere's a Margaret Tatcha?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," said the secretary with as much of a can-do, chipper attitude as possible. It was Be Nice To Dull-Witted Americans Week, apparently--but then, every week at the Canadian Consulate was Be Nice To Dull-Witted Americans Week.

"I wanna talk to Margaret Tatcha," spoke the size-enhanced baritone-voiced gentleman in white. "Yeah. Didn't she used to be, like, da Queen or somethin'?"

"Nah, she just thinks she is," Ovitz couldn't resist the jibe, and was immediately seized with the fear that she might find out what he'd said. "May I ask to what this is in reference?" he added, hyper-grammatically, hoping it would be about something fiddling-small-changed, so he could deny access to the Inspector.

"Da guy what was in front of dat place, over dere? You know?" spoke Baritone Man. "We got him here, you know."

"Didn't!" expostulated Ovitz, with reference to 'knowing'. Ooh. Getting Fraser in trouble with Thatcher would be worth any minor hassle that might befall the secretary should that 'Queen' crack get back to his boss. "Is he really? A.W.O.L.? Well, I'm so sure. I think I'll just put you through to the Inspector...."

"Don't wanna talk to da Inspector, wanna talk to Margaret Tatcha," said the confused white-wearing loonie-collector of size, but Ovitz had efficiently segued him over to Meg T's line already.

"What now?!" was Meggy's inelegant opening line. The conversation would go downhill from here.

"FER CRIMINY'S SAKE, I JUST WANNA TALK TO MARGARET TATCHA!" yelled the guy who I will now name as I am tired of coming up with descriptive phrases to describe him. His name was Burke, as in the British expression, "You berk!" (Hint ... it's an insult.)

"THIS IS HER, YOU BLITHERING IDIOT!" she yelled back, somewhat less impressively than he as she was a mezzo-soprano, not a baritone.

"...oh," said Burke. "Howdy. I just wanted to tell ya we got dat guy who was in front, okay?"

"Okay?" echoed Thatcher. "What? You what? Who are you?" Her razor-sharp intelligence raced, willy-nilly, and she handily slid Tab A into Slot B in short order. "...in the front? You've 'got' Fraser?"

"Yeah, his name is Fraser ...he says." Burke didn't sound convinced of it, however. "We got him here."

Thatcher tried to keep it simple. "Where's 'here'?"

She was rewarded. "Da Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic, yeah," spoke Burke proudly. "So youse don't gotta worry about him no more."

"...but what if, say, we didn't want him to be in the Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic?" hypothesized Thatcher warily. "What if we wanted him released? What exact steps would one take to achieve that end?"

"Oh! You want him outa here? No problem. Ya just sign a paper sayin' he wasn't doin' nothin' bad in front of yer place. We spring him for ya."

Thatcher didn't get exactly why this would retrieve Fraser from the loonie-bin, but it seemed as sane a rule as anything else these Americans came up with. Their odd rules and archane laws oftentimes threw her for a loop. She was about to say, "Well for heaven's sake, you ass, draw up the papers and I'll be right over to retrieve my, uh..., retrieve my...," but she didn't come out and say it because she was groping for the proper word to describe exactly what her relationship with Fraser was that would work in that last sentence but not embarrass her, when she realized there was no actual word that would work in that sentence without embarrassing her. And why was there no actual word that would work in that sentence that wouldn't make her want to die, just drop right through the floor and die? Because she wasn't quite sure what her relationship with Fraser was, dammit.

What was she doing, wasting her time on this big galoot who had taken eight months just to work himself up to asking her out for coffee and would undoubtedly take another leisurely eight months to perhaps take her hand or some other equally small-town gesture of pious appreciation? Her biological clock was ticking, she had been asked to be a bridesmaid at her younger cousin's wedding. Worst of all, her fifteen-year school reunion loomed on the horizon, and she didn't have any adorable baby pictures to hand 'round to her envious ex-classmates. She didn't even have a big galoot to drag with her to the reunion; gee, if she could walk through that door on Fraser's arm, that nasty Patsy-Jane Milligan, who had bullied and teased her all through those four hellish years at the Toronto Intermediate School for Young Girls of Good Upbringing, would commit suicide in a fit of jealousy right there on the gym room floor, what with her geeky accountant husband who looked like the 'before' picture in a Charles Atlas muscle-builder's advertisement. To waltz in on Benton Fraser's arm, the 'after' picture in a Charles Atlas muscle-builder's advertisement if ever there was one, looking chic in the designer silk halter-dress she bought at Saks 5th Avenue in Manhattan and a pair of strappy sandals--ooo, what an entrance that would have been! And she'd been thisclose to asking Fraser to accompany her to the reunion, where she would have asked him to accompany her to her cousin Sally-Ann's wedding, and it would have been perfect, just perfect. Instead she'd come in to work to find that blonde ditz stripper talking chummily to him as he stood there doing the sentry-duty thing, sticking her hand in his coat, flirting, making plans.... RIGHT!

All the above thoughts took place in the space of one-half of one nano-second.

"Keep 'im," growled Thatcher, and she slammed down the phone so hard, Ovitz, who had been listening in on a secret extension, had tintinnitus in his left ear for a good three hours. That is why it was a good three hours before Ovitz got around to phoning Detective Ray Vecchio to tell him what had happened and would he do something about it, as Ovitz had to leave early for a class in pottery-making tomorrow and wouldn't be able to if Fraser weren't there to cover for him.

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Part the Second! A Robin and a Ratchet or "Mental Wellness" Can Be A Relative Term

The Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic Chicago, 1998

"I hate this place like poison," said Ray Vecchio to Diefenbaker, staring up at the brick edifice before him. "The Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic makes Arkham Asylum look like a freakin' McDonald's."

Diefenbaker shrugged. One human-made pile of bricks looked like any other human-made pile of bricks to him. It was only odors that made a difference to the wolf. This place actually smelled pretty okay to him--like creamed corn and spam. Except he didn't like that mousy undernote.

His best friend's trusty, if sometimes recalcitrant, dog-wolf canine-combo at his side, Ray wobbled up to the front reception desk of The Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic. He wobbled because he'd broken into the Mountie's apartment (Fraser was getting a lot of practice in the art of lock-re-installation) and borrowed the wig, blue dress and high-heels his friend had used to successfully infiltrate that girls' school several weeks earlier, tarrying but a moment to ponder the question "why is Fraser hangin' on to this stuff?"

The outfit did not look as good on the tall, skinny Italian-American as it had on the also-tall, but not at all skinny, indeed, rather nicely-built-up, Canadian. Perhaps if Ray hadn't stolen his sister Frannie's makeup kit and troweled the stuff he'd found in it on his face, he might have gotten away with the 'natural' look; but he had stolen her makeup kit and caked it on thick, and he looked awful. I would have paid cash money not to have had to have seen this sight. I mean, gimme a break, for one thing, Frannie has a much different skin tone than Ray does, she's a 'Summer' and he's an 'Autumn'--duh!

I don't know about you, but I'm still wondering who did Fraser's makeup. Do you think it was Fraser himself? Okay, maybe there was a book on How To Do Your Own Makeup in his grandparent's library, but even if there were, it probably dated from some time around the '50s, and he sure didn't look like June Allison when he was finished. Can you imagine the Mountie at the Clinique counter in the cosmetics department in Jordan Marsh, shopping for blusher and fishing for makeup tips from the women in the lab coats behind the counter? He'd be asking pointed questions about cheek-contouring and they'd be dropping hints, trying to figure out whether he was gay or not, and praying for the latter; oh, please, if there's a god in heaven, let him be going to a masquerade party or doing this for one of those stupid frat-boy-type jokes men play on one another, they'd probably whispered behind their hands, giggling. He'd make his purchases and thank them kindly for the free gift you get when you drop more than $15 at Clinique. I think Fraser is a Winter. But I digress....

Ray, when last seen, was stumping up to the reception desk in the lobby of The Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic in a pair of classic patent-leather pumps, a wig and an only slightly-matronly-looking blue dress, wolf close by his (high) heel. The attractive brunette (an Autumn) who sat Reception looked up from her romance novel with a disinterested stare, delicately nibbling at her Filet-O-Fish(tm), fries on the side. She was not a professional receptionist, she was actually a college student working part-time and had the 'tude that this job was, like, totally beneath her, only one step above ringing up groceries at a Piggly-Wiggly's. "Whoa, dude!" she said. "I'm, like, assuming you aren't here to, like, visit one of the inmates?"

Ray bristled, but was still game. "Lissen, I'm having an identity crisis and I wanna be committed."

"Kewl," muttered the receptionist, "I finally meet a guy who isn't, like, afraid of commitment, and he looks totally like Corporal Klinger."

Ray smiled insincerely, then leaned on the desk, staring her down. "I'm confused, I'm scared and I need help; 'nuff said?" he asked sweetly.

She stared right back. Apparently, despite the Comic Vally Girl Accent, this chick had a lot on the ball. "Get out of my facial, dude! Cross-dressing doesn't mean you're, like, nuts; it's merely an interesting Life Choice. I suggest you take a makeup course at the Barbizon School of Modeling and go on to celebrate the joy of the diversity of your life. I am so shure." She went back to reading her bodice-ripper.

He reached over the desk and closed the paperback. "Gimme the papers to sign an' nobody gets hurt," he growled. Dief growled with him, at her.

She tossed her Filet-O-Fish(tm), or half of it anyway, to the wolf, who gobbled it down. You see, the receptionist's dad raised Samoyeds, so she knew exactly how to handle Diefenbaker. Then she snapped her fingers and a Large Man In A White Coat suddenly materialized as if out of nowhere. It would appear she knew how to handle Ray, as well. The large white-coated man was Burke's partner, the guy who had spoken in a pleasing tenor in the previous chapter. "What can I do ya for, Tiffany," he asked, stars in his eyes. His name was Mookie and he was rather smitten with her. "This, uh, guy--yer a guy, right, fella? This guy botherin' ya, Tiffany?"

"Fer shure, Mookie! Escort Princess Margaret here, like, right off the premises, will you?" she waved in Ray's general direction, then flipped through her book, trying to find the page Ray had lost for her.

Without another word, Mookie rounded on the much smaller, dress-clad man and grabbed him by the nape of the neck and the seat of where his pants would have been if he'd been wearing pants. "Hey! Hey, waitaminute," yelped Ray, "is this any way to treat a lady???" The white-jacketed tenor hustled him towards the front doors, Diefenbaker trotting amiably behind.

The receptionist's last words followed them out the doors. "Listen, dude! You bring that dress to a tailor to have it taken in and the hem taken up!" she called to him in an adding-insult-to-injury manner. "...bad taste is, like, bad taste--no matter what your Life Choice is!"

An hour later, once he was sure the night shift had come on and that pesky day receptionist had gone home, Ray, back in his usual Aramani-clad mode, re-entered the lobby of The Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic. This time he did not wobble, but took each step with the utmost care, his spine as straight and stiff as a board. The reason for his careful tread was that Diefenbaker was perched most precariously upon the top of this head. When you got right down to it, it was an interesting way to accessorize Armani.

The receptionist who sat at the desk was an entirely different kettle of fish than the previous one. She was a horse of a different colour, to use another metaphor. She wasn't as bright as Tiffany, is what I'm trying to tell you here. She looked up from her crossword puzzle, her eyes going round at the sight before her. "Um, can I help you, sir?" she gulped at the living-fur-headed detective, totally devoid of any Comic Accent whatsoever. "I mean, you sure look like you really could use some help there, uh, sir?"

"Yeah," replied Diefenbaker. "How do I get this guy off my butt?"

The receptionist whomped her hand on the Emergency button hidden by the phone, and a loud clanging filled the lobby. She grabbed up a hidden microphone and yelled, "Red Alert! Shaggy dog story! VENTRILOQUISM!" into it at top decibel. Then she dove under the desk.

Flashing lights in a multitude of colours strobed the walls, sirens screamed, nurses and orderlies ran hither & thither; somewhere, somehow in the maelstrom, someone threw a straightjacket on Ray and he found himself propelled towards the doors--the entrance-to-the-inner-sanctum doors, not the exit doors, this time. Ray had infiltrated The Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic using his wits and a guilt-trip on the wolf for selling out for half a Filet-O-Fish sandwich.

And as they dragged the straight-jacketed straight man off, Diefenbaker looked up at the camera that had been set up in the corner by Alliance, dropping the fourth wall as it were, and said, "I really don't think I'm all that shaggy."

The receptionist peeked out over her desk, checking to see if the coast was clear. She stood, brushing at her wrinkled skirt, and joined Diefenbaker. "You oughta see what we do to people who tell puns!" she said brightly, mugging for the camera.

Part the Third! A Loon and a Lozenge or ...Also Known As "The Waldorf Hysteria"

District 23 Chicago, 1998

Welsh sat in his office at District 23, idly toying with a slice of baloney. He'd been having a bit of a hard time remembering things lately; simple things like whether or not his first name was Harding, or in fact 'Lou'; whether his last name was Welsh, or in fact 'Walsh'; whether he held the rank of Lieutenant or Captain... and most especially, whether that stupid-looking car owned by one of his men was a Buick Riviera '71 or '72. What to do, what to do? Maybe he should cut down on his coffee consumption. Or maybe he should increase his coffee consumption...?

Ring Ring Ring....

Welsh (or was it 'Walsh'?) hated picking up his phone. It invariably had something to do with Vecchio or... that other guy... the one who just kept on showing up--why, oh, why did he keep on just showing up??!!!--and it was almost never good news. With the saddest sigh imaginable, Welsh (or Walsh) picked up his phone.

"Hello?" he mumbled, running his fingers through the salami.

"Hello," spoke a pleasing tenor. "Dis here is Mookie an' I'm wit Da Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic. I'm callin' to ask ya what ya want us to do with dis here guy's car who says he's one of your men. It's a big sucker, an' it's double-parked in front of da ambulence driveway."

"Car?" asked Walsh, fearing the total loss of all self-control, his hand clenching a half-pound of pastrami so tightly, he almost melded it back into the solid form it had originally been in before it was thin-sliced. "...is it? Can it be? No, it isn't a sickly-greenish-colored Buick Riviera, is it?"

"Uh...," there was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone while Mookie either checked out the window or racked his brains. "Yeah. Dat's green, I guess. It has a pointy butt, sort of. It's nice, if you like dat sort of ting."

Welsh lost his appetite. Suddenly, he just had to know. "Is it... is it a nineteen-seventy-one Buick Riveria? Or is it a nineteen-seventy-two?" He fought the urge to throw down the phone. There were Some Things Man Was Not Meant To Cognize, and this might well be one of them. But no, he held the receiver tightly to his ear, to get the answer he craved, though it might drive him utterly insane.

The only answer forth-coming seemed to be a puzzled silence. "Hey," said Mookie, suspicious-like. "Who is dis here, anyways?"

Welsh sighed, shuddering. The answers to his questions always seemed to be yet more questions. It was a conundrum wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a slice of bacon. "I'm Lieutenant Harding Welsh. Although I could also be Captain Lou Walsh. Or I might be Captain Lou Welsh. Or Lieutanant Harding Walsh. Oh, God! Truly, this way lies madness, madness...." And he collapsed into a sodden pile on top of his delicatessen fixin's, heaving great, wracking sobs, the pickle jar making a crease in his forehead.

Not ten minutes later, the Big White Van screeched to a halt in front of District 23, come to haul Lieutenant/Captain Welsh/Walsh off to the Waldorf Hysteria, otherwise known as The Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic. And you wanna know something? I think he was very glad to go.

Elaine Besbriss, Civilian Aide, surveyed the kingdom that was District 23, and saw that it was good. It was hers. Without the duck brothers, one of whom was on vacation and the other of whom was pushing up the daisies, it was just her and a bunch of extras who sat around at desks trying to look busy, with no lines. She was secretly glad she'd plucked her eyebrows that morning because this time, she would get all the closeups. She would get all the funny lines. She would get all the screen time she deserved. She sat back in Lieutenant Welsh's chair with an air of command that made her look a lot like Captain Kirk even though she was taller, slimmer, darker-skinned, and had a lot more hair than him, and opened her mouth to deliver her first line....

Meanwhile, back at The Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic....

"HEY! WAITAMINUTE THERE, MISSY!" yelled Elaine at the top of her lungs, her hands on her hips. "Ahem. I mean--excuse me? I was just about to say something witty and pithy and terribly revealing about my character that would have gone down in the books as a wonderfully sig-fileable Duesie and wav. file, and you were just about to segue off of me, back to the clinic? I'm sorry? Can we get a reality-check here?"

Sorry, Elaine. You're the one who needs the reality-check. I'm the author and I decided that my readers would rather hear about Ray and what's his name, the terminably adorable guy, at the clinic than about you. You're just a secondary character, after all.

"What?!" cried Elaine, shocked to the core. "I am a secondary character? Are you insane? Who's in virtually every scene here in the precinct with the Mountie and that obnoxious loudmouth in those fancy suits? Who has had scenes in the Riv and in the Police File Storage Room? How would those two you're so fond of solve cases without me?!"

Well, that's the point, Elaine. You exist only in a relationship with them. Without you, they'd simply go to some other secondary character for the information they need. Capeesh?

Elaine's eyes narrowed and her lips thinned, and her voice became a chilling hiss of rage. "Mrs. Besbriss didn't raise no 'secondary characters.' All this? If it cannot be mine... it will be... NOBODY'S."

Uh... yeah. Good goin', Elaine. Keep up the good work. As a secondary character, you're doing a bang-up job.

"Bang up!" Elaine cried, as if she'd been sitting in a tub and suddenly discerned the concept of A Solid Object And The Displacement of Water in that moment. "That's the ticket... 'bang-up'! I like it!"

And, laughing madly, she went off to the Evidence Room where they were storing some very large quantities of TNT left over from off of that train carrying all those sleeping Mounties....

Meanwhile, back at The Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic....

"C'mon, Benny! Let's get outa here!" cried Ray, balancing on a windowsill on the second floor of the clinic. He'd found the Mountie helping an elderly lunatic put together a jig-saw puzzle that didn't have all of its pieces in the Patients' Lounge--that hat was rather hard to miss, even in a crowd. ("Hey ... what's wrong with your hat, Fraser?" "They took away my buckle this time, Ray.") Together, they'd found and jimmied open the clinic dietician's office door across the hall from the clinic's dining room. Now all that was needed was for Fraser to make the jump--a mere two floors wasn't gonna phase the Mountie, who'd done jumps off cliffs in his time--and Ray figured he'd just drop gracefully, landing on Fraser to break his fall. For once, it would all be so simple.

Of course, it could never be that simple.

"Good God, man! We can't leave just yet!" cried his best friend, whom he suddenly wanted to kill horribly.

"And why not?" asked Ray, fearing the answer was going to be the sort of thing one wished one had recorded, so as to prove to others that it had actually been said.

"Just look at that mouse, Ray!" spoke the upright Mountie urgently, pointing at the pregnant mouse from previous chapters who had staggered out from under the dietician's desk, breathing in tiny, laboured puffs. "She's in difficulty! It's obviously a breech birth... get me some hot water, Ray. Stat!" He bent to the task of delivering the pregnant mouse's mouse-puppies right there on the clinic dietician's office floor, a gleam of deep concern in his beautiful blue eyes. It was truly a moment of high drama.

"We're scheduled for Group Therapy and Thorazine and you're deliverin' vermin!" cried Ray in disbelief. But he went and got Fraser a cup of hot water from the clinic's dining hall none-the-less, because that's what good, true friends do for each other. Of course, there was a tea-bag in it, but you can't have everything.

Hi, it's me, the author again... aren't you all pleased that your favourite character, the mouse, managed to get back into the story? Well, that's what 'OFM' means, right? "Our Favourite Mouse"? Well, anyways, let's get on with the story....

Meanwhile, back at the Canadian Consolate, still in Chicago, still 1998; Inspector Thatcher sat in her beautiful office, behind her beautiful desk, in her beautiful seat, on her beautiful seat, in her beautiful, expensive short-short business suit, with her beautifully made-up (I think she's an Autumn) face marred by a muscle-exercising, wrinkle-causing frown, wracked by guilt like you wouldn't believe.

"Good enough for her," you say--you typical Thatcher-hating, Mountie-loving Due South fan, you! "Bitch!" you snort, tossing your curls in curt dismissal of the Irate Inspector and her guilt-trip. But I say, "Hold on there, reader! Judge not, lest ye be judged!" True, Thatcher may seem a prime candidate for incarceration in a Home for the Terminally PMSy, but give her a break, and I don't mean her femur; she gets the job done a heck of a lot better than her paranoid predecessor! This, in the face of loony subordinates, snippy Chicagoans, and a whole lot of continual, unrelenting, mouth-watering, itching-under-the-skin temptation dangling juuuuust out of her reach all the time (metaphorically speaking). And then there was that ghastly scene with that annoying blonde stripper feeling up that metaphorical temptation mentioned in the previous sentence, as he stood on duty outside Thatcher's very own Consulate (the nerve!)--the Inspector may not have had to sit through the entire ghastly episode like you and me, but those forty-five seconds were among the most cringy in the entire series, let alone in the horrible second-season Due South episode "Body Language." So it's no wonder Thatcher's got something of that burr-under-the-saddle thing going on. And she's really, really, really sorry this time, too. Honest.

"Oh, my God," Thatcher blew her nose delicately into a Kleenex(tm), "I am such a bitch!" ("Told you so!" snarks the reader. "Hush up," admonishes the author in saintly tones.) "How could I have let them keep him in the Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic one second longer than that annoying but sweet and extremely well-built man had to be!? How? How? What kind of a monster am I? And he's a fellow Mountie, too--what would Toronto say?" She began to sob into a tissue.

No, the inspector isn't talking to herself here. Diefenbaker was curled up under her desk, keeping her Maude Frisson-clad tootsies nice and warm in the face of the efficient Arctic-like airconditioning the Canadian Consulate offices were prone to (all those men in heavy red-wool tunics smell a lot better if you keep the temperature of their environs below the sweat-zone.) The wolf nuzzled her ankles in commiseration, which he knew for a fact his erstwhile master had always secretly wanted to do.

"Your makeup is running," said the red-coated, Stetson-wearing ghost of Fraser, Sr. grudgingly, holding an ectoplasmic Mountie-issue handkerchief (it had been issued to him along with the paper bag and the stick.)

Naturally, Thatcher paid not a moment's attention to him/it/the ghost/whatever. Ignoring the hankie-that-wasn't-there, she reached down and patted the wolf on the crewcut. "Good doggie," she sniffled miserably.

Dief toyed momentarily with the thought of biting her a deep one on the calf just to show her who was a doggie, let alone a good doggie, but dismissed the thought as unproductive, then whined up at Fraser, Sr., whom he could see perfectly well.

"Don't like to see a Mountie cry," Fraser Sr. confided stiffly to the wolf. "Not regulation!"

The Inspector blew her nose again, but not one of those soundless, lady-like ones this time. If you closed your eyes, you'd have sworn W.C.Fields had come back to life, but with a very bad cold. "Well... enough of this emotional drivel," said Thatcher wearily, all the fight just cried right out of her. "...must get Fraser back." She picked up her phone with a little sigh, and said, weakly....

"Ovitz? Oh, it's not Ovitz; it's you, Turnbull. No, I don't want Ovitz. Why did I ask for him, then? Well, this is his line. No. No. That's okay. No, Turnbull, I don't want Ovitz. That's fine, your filling in for him while he's at his pottery class. Yes. Yes. What I want is an outside line. I said I want an outside line; I need to talk to... what? You don't know how to do that? What do you mean you don't know how to do that? It's a phone, Turnbull, not the space shuttle. Well, yes; Ovitz' phone has six more buttons than your phone does, and a liquid light-crystal time-date-and-extension display. Why? Because Ovitz is my secretary, that's why. Now, don't take that tone of reproach with me, constable. I know you went to the academy, but he went to Katherine Gibbs. Yes, Katherine Gibbs. I am not commenting on your lack of feminine companionship; he wasn't dating her--Katherine Gibbs is a secretarial school. While you were learning how to gut a salmon, he was taking steno courses. No, I'm not devaluing your salmon-gutting skills. No, Turnbull, I had no idea you had a low self-esteem problem, how good of you to share that with me. Your psychologist said what? He thinks I have a what complex? Are you sure that's what he said? Doesn't a Napoleanic complex refer to a sensitivity about one's height, or lack thereof? Turnbull, next time you're in Dr. Hartley's office(1), you might want to check the diploma he has hanging on his wall. I'm not saying anything derogatory about Dr. Hartley, Turnbull. If he's properly board-certified, he won't be offended. Well, if you're going to take on so, forget I made the suggestion, constable. And I think it would behoove you to discuss your own problems with Dr. Hartley in future, rather than dragging me into it. Well, I'm not the one paying one-hundred-and-twenty-five dollars an hour to talk to some clueless American about my problems, you are. We all have our role to play in life, Turnbull, even you--you may tell Dr. Hartley I said that next time you see him. And I swear, should I ever be faced with a live salmon wriggling on my desk, I shall certainly know to rely upon you, and not Ovitz, to deal with the situation. But as it happens, I do not have a live salmon wriggling on my desk, I have a deep and distinct need for you to get me an outside line, which, unless I am very much mistaken, Ovitz learned how to do at Katherine Gibbs...."

About mid-way through the above one-sided dialogue (which would make it a monologue now that I think about it), Fraser Sr. had unholstered his gun and marched out of the room. Dief looked up, ears erect, at the sound of imaginary gunfire on the other side of the door. Naturally the two Mounties engaging in comic banter over the inter-office phone line didn't notice Fraser Sr. attempting to shoot Turnbull in the head twenty-seven times, nor did they notice anything untoward when the ex-Mountie pulled his non-existent salmon-gutting blade from his equally non-existent boot and attempted to cut Turnbull's throat for him.

Of course, if Thatcher hadn't been so emotionally drained from guilt, she'd have cut Turnbull's throat for him herself, and for-real.

The wolf sighed. If Tall-Talks-To-Me was going to be saved, let alone Big-Nosed-Won't-Give-Me-The-Doughnut, it would appear that he, Diefenbaker, was going to have to be the one to do it. He trotted off in the direction of the Canadian Consulate's armoury. He was a tax-paying citizen of Canada, and he was about to get some return on his investment.

* * * * * *

Part the Fourth! A Crane and a Cookiecutter or "One Froot-Loop Shy A Full Bowl"

Meanwhile, back at The Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic.... in Chicago... in 1998....

Just in case you were wondering, the mouse came through like a trooper. She had seven mouse-puppies. Their names were Eddy, Patsy, Bart, Louise, Dexter, Morty, and lastly, Mickey, in honour of the R.C.M.P. hiring Disney to do their Mountie-marketing for them.

So, anyways. Having tarried, Our Favourite Mountie and Our Favorite Cop naturally got caught by The Men in the White Coats in the dietician's office, and were swiftly escorted by Mookie and Burke directly to Group Therapy, where they would be forced to share their inner-most, personal, deep, dark secrets with a bunch of loopy strangers who were really just sitting around waiting for their own turn to talk.

As Fraser was one of those natural leaders who are born, not made, he started the session.

"I... I must confess," he confessed. "I do seem to have this problem with living in large cities like Chicago and Moose Jaw; with using the modern conveniences that the rest of you seem to take for granted... Mr. Alverez excepted, of course," he nodded politely to the gentleman in question. Mr. Alverez had been inducted into The Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic in the first place for going into a Krazee Karl's Diskount Elektroniks franchise and shooting out fifty-three television sets with an Uzi one afternoon because he was sure they were all controlling him with their channel-changers.

"That's wonderful, Mr. Fraser! Go on!" their caring therapist, Dr. Kip 'Kippy' Morgenstern, said enthusiastically. It was his first week on the job and he was rarin' to Get Down and Get Sane with his new charges.

"I shall endeavour to do so, Doctor Kippy." The stalwart Mountie steeled himself to go on, licking his lucious lower lip as he was wont to do before tackling a ticklish situation verbally. "Well... I've been attempting, as best as I can, to work through my problem with what you might call 'Aversion Therapy.' I go into markets and smell the plastic-wrapped meats. I take the elevated train--not during rush hour; alas, I do not quite have the emotional where-with-all for that ordeal; but at 3:00 PM, which is almost as hellish because that's when the children get out of school. And I actually went into a crowded Jordan Marsh department store a few weeks ago and made several cosmetic purchases at a counter on the first floor manned by heavily-made up young women in daunting white lab coats." Ray rolled his eyes at this and propped his feet up on an empty folding chair, but Fraser never looked at him, so intent was he on his confession. "...I feel I'm verging on a breakthrough, doctor; in fact--I plan on getting my very own phone sometime in the next six months or so... a green one." Drained, the Mountie slumped back in his chair, exhausted by the emotional turmoil he'd just undergone.

Before the doctor or anyone else could comment, Ray sat forward, bent upon getting this ghastly ritual over with so he could be given his over-dose of Thorazine for the day and sleep 'till the following morning. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," he said dismissively. "We all feel for ya. But you don't have problems like I got problems, lemmee tell ya. My problem is that I'm beginning to think I'm afraid of living alone! You have no idea what pains my relatives are. If I had half a brain, I'd collect rent from all of 'em; okay, not Ma, but the rest of that motley crew of moochers; and I'd take the cash and put a down-payment on a nice little chick-magnet of a pied-a-terre, if ya know what I mean, in some fancy high-rise somewhere. Why I don't do this, I don't know. I must be crazy--"

Suddenly, from a dark corner of the room where he'd been lurking, Lieutenant Welsh's voice spoke up, causing everyone to jump. "There's... there's this guy, see? He keeps showing up in my squadroom. He doesn't collect a paycheck or have a desk, nooooo... but he's solved 99% of the crimes in the precinct since he first started... showing up."

"Come into the Sharing Circle, Mr.Walsh; or may I call you 'Lou'?" invited Dr. Kippy in a warm and caring tone of voice. "We're all your friends here, join us! Now, this fellow solving these crimes for you, that's a good thing, wouldn't you say?"

Welsh staggered over and took a folding chair, gingerly sitting on the edge of it. He had the look around the eyes of a gazelle prior to leaping for safety from a pack of ravening dogs... into a bottomless pit. "A good thing?" he repeated, shell-shocked. "A good thing? Oh, I suppose it would be a good thing, except that... I'm terrified of asking this guy why he just keeps on showing up. Why? I'm afraid... that it'll... break the run of luck!"

"The luck of having a string of crimes that have been solved, you mean? You're afraid if you ask him why he's doing it, he'll stop?" asked Dr. Kippy gently, soothingly, warmly.

Suddenly tears began to stream down Lt. Welsh's face, and he stared down at the floor, refusing to make eye-contact as he broke through the wall of his denial. "No, that's a lie," he confessed, "I'm really afraid of this guy, period. Why does he do it? Why does this guy JUST KEEP ON SHOWING UP?" Welsh burst into terrible wails of relief that it was all out in the open now and he didn't have to keep the secret anymore.

Fraser pulled his buckle-less hat down over his eyes and tried to look inconspicuous, which isn't easy for a six foot-two-inch paragon of manliness wearing a Stetson.

"Hey!" said Ray sharply, shifting uneasily on his best asset, at least according to several women on the DS on-line chat list who often make 'peach' references in their sigs, "do you mind, Lieutenant? I wasn't finished talkin' about my annoying relatives. First and worst, we got my sister, Frannie. I asked her once, I said, 'Frannie? How come you always walkin' around in these short skirts; you tryin' to look easy or somethin'? Cause you're succeeding', and she gets mad at me! Here I am, expressing honest brotherly concern, and she up and hits me with one of Uncle Nunzio's bocci balls! Those bocci balls are hard, man! She coulda done permanent damage if she didn't throw like a girl--"

Ray would have undoubtedly started in on one of his brothers-in-law next, but for the fact that Diefenbaker suddenly crashed through the skylight at this point. Leaping down through a rain of broken glass, the deaf wolf had an AK-47 strapped to his chest, and he pointed it at the two Men In White who stood guarding the door. Never having seen a wolf brandishing an AK-47--or any other semi-domesticated quadruped even holding any sort of firearm whatsoever for that matter--they backed off, hands in the air.

Ray and Fraser jumped to their feet and raced for the door, stopping to look back when they realized Welsh was not following after them. But the Lieutenant simply waved them on--he had no intention of leaving The Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic. This was the best he'd felt in years.

Our Favourite Mountie and Our Favorite Cop made good their escape, Diefenbaker covering them from the rear. They hopped into the Riv, which was still double-parked outside, and went directly to District 23.

District 23 was... well, District 23 was not really there anymore. Alas, dear, sweet Civilian Aide Elaine Besbriss had taken my suggestion that she continue doing a 'bang up' job, and had blown the police precinct house to kingdom come.

"My office!" cried Ray, sifting amongst the gently-steaming rubble. "My desk! My chair! My files!"

"Well, look on the bright side, Ray. Your files aren't in any worse confusion now than they were before the explosion." The Mountie actually began sniggering, a highly usual sight-and-sound that Ray could easily have done without seeing-and-hearing.

"Yuck it up, Yukon-boy," said Ray. "Did I tell you that The Dragon Lady coulda sprung you from The Chicago Mental Wellness Clinic right off, no problem-o, and she purposely didn't? What is it with you an' your girlfriends, they all wanna see you incarcerated?"

Fraser stopped his hilarity straightaway, and looked reproachfully at Ray. "She didn't! ...did she really, Ray?"

"Yup." Ray nodded in confirmation.

"Why, I do believe that is the sipping implement that collapsed the dromendary's vertebrae," said Fraser, crestfallen.

"What is it exactly that you're trying to say, Benny?" asked Ray.

"I'm resigning my commission. I have had it with this entire unpleasant situation. She's been trying to get me to resign since first I came under her command. I thought, I'd hoped we'd recently come to some sort of modus vivendi, but now, this...." The Mountie, soon to be ex-Mountie, sputtered, momentarily at a loss for words.

Ray supplied the words. "...this really hacks you off big-time, am I right?"

"...? Uh, I think so, Ray; if I ascertain your meaning correctly."

"Benny, have I ever got the deal of the century for you."

"...but I thought you said that bridge you tried to sell me when we first met was 'the deal of the century,' Ray?"

"Uh, yeah, nevermind that. Come with me."

* * * * * *

Part the Fifth! Two fingers of Smirnoff's and a Titmouse or "A New Business Venture"

The offices were spacious, well-situated, and empty. The view from the wide windows was top-notch and, according to Ray, the rent was fairly reasonable.

"I'm tellin' ya, The Remington Steele Detective Agency(2) is a patented, gold-plated money-maker," Ray said. "With my connections and your investigating savvy, we'll set this town on its ear! And get paid a heck of a lot better than we did in our old jobs!"

"Indeed, I do not doubt your word, Ray," said the ex-Mountie, doubting Ray's word, "but if this was such a great prospect, what happened to the original owners?"

"The woman just dropped off the face of the earth, I'm told. The other woman, who was a minority owner, is retired and is now busily annoying her sportswriter son and his wife and kids(3)" Ray shrugged. "The guy? Well, it's been rumored he up and joined Her Majesty's Secret Service. MI6, I heard tell(4)." Ray laid a finger aside his nose and nodded knowingly. "What with having to get new furniture, we really don't have the cash for a new sign just yet, so we'll continue calling ourselves the Remington Steele agency for a bit. If you want, you can even be Remington Steele, for laughs, until we get a new sign."

"Well, Ray, as it happens we are both out of a job, and detection is our strong suit...."

"I knew I could con you! I mean, I knew I could con-vince you! Frannie's out of a job, too, since the explosion took out her sandwich stand, so she's gonna be our receptionist. Hey, I know she's a pain, but she's family, right, Benny?" After dropping that little bomb, Ray swiftly exited the premises to look for the landlord, to sign the lease.

"Uh, Ray, do you think that's wise? I mean, what are her office skills? Ray? Ray?!"

And so, The Remington Steele Detective Agency II was launched, and did very well for itself, indeed....

But that's another story entirely... you write it, not me. Thank you kindly.(5)

FINIS

Television and Movie References for the Untutored:
1. See "The Bob Newhart Show"... or was it "Newhart"? You know, the one where Bob's a funny psycologist named "Dr. Hartley" who lives in Chicago and is married to Emily; Jerry and Carol are at his office; Mr. Carlin is one of his funny patients. It's on Nick-at-Nite.
2. See "Remington Steele" currently rerun on daytime A&E and local stations.
3. See "Everybody Loves Raymond" on CBS.
4. See any of the recent James Bond flicks.
5. If you have made it this far, you obviously like this story--you may be interested to know it formed the beginning of a vastly expanded cross-universe novel called "My Parental Units Invaded The Earth, And All I Got Was This Lousy Tee-Shirt!"--which can be purchased at: http://www.fanzines.com under the "New Zines" link. Just select the "cross-universe" option in the search form and the How To Order info should pop up on your screen.