Running A.M.U.C.

Running A.M.U.C.

by B. B. Irvine

Copyright 2015 B. B. Irvine

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Chapter 01 - Skid Dervish; Darla and Dale

Skid Dervish twirled the big rig wheel and hummed. He had made good time, and not even the GPS conking out early on had riled him.

What he did need soon was an idea exactly where he was going once he was just about there, a bathroom, and maybe a cup of coffee, if the place looked clean enough.

He was at the far outskirts of Syracuse by now, so although the Fly By Diner had a giant fly (well, maybe a bird?) outlined in neon over it, he pulled in anyway.

Once he got out and made sure the truck was locked tight, he still couldn’t tell whether that was a bird or a fly in skittering neon.

It surely looked like a fly to Skid.

The place looked clean enough inside. The waitron and cook seemed friendly while keeping the reserve that late night dining establishments just off the road maintain through hard experience.

They were in their mid-50’s maybe, and the waitron with the DARLA namebadge gave him a wary smile.

Coffee and directions? asked Skid.

Fraish coffee, and don’t do it! replied Darla, turning for the coffee pot.

Darla! said the chef, wearing a DALE namebadge. Where to, mister?

The uhh… Skid looked at the manifest card. The ‘Arte Museum of Unusual Crafts’?

"Oh, sure, honey," said Darla, putting down the mug of coffee.

"Thank you, Darla!" interjected Dale, trying to cut her off.

"Just don’t ask Dale if he’s ever been there!"

Darla! I’m sure this here fella has a schedule to keep.

Skid nodded. Well, yeah, I’m bringing some work for a show there. What’s the best way to get there?

"Have some talent, I guess!" cracked Darla.

I’m just before my time! protested Dale.

"You should be doing time, in the nut house!" said Darla.

"You just don’t understand the mind of an artist! That Miz Babblington, she understands!"

Darla narrowed her eyes. I wonder what, Dale, what it is she ‘understands’ about you!

Skid shifted in his seat. I just need directions now. Okay?

The wary jolliness on Dale’s face faded to a pouting sulk that looked odd on the face of a large, meaty, balding, middle aged man.

Darla leaned over and said to Skid, He wanted to give them a piece of art but they didn’t want it.

"Even they don’t understand!" Dale complained.

Now, hon, you know they all liked your work, said Darla, placating him. It just violated the county health code, she said to Skid, in an aside that confused him further.

Dale shook his fist. Small minds always hide behind the rules they like!

Dale makes hash brown potato portraits, explained Darla.

Skid Dervish could only nod. He was almost too spooked to use the bathroom there.

The coffee and directions were good, however, and soon enough he was on Museum Road, approaching a modern, hideous looking building.

It was located on a tiny squarelet of landfill named Doublewide Acres, officially just a few feet north of Syracuse, but also still a few feet south of North Syracuse, carved out of supposedly cleaned up past industrial-toxic-waste-fill-land-stuff (it was even more complicated to legislate as safe than fracking), and neither municipality had wanted all that paperwork. It was easier to create East Northeast Syracuse, and stick a nascent hamlet with all that headache.

The man who had developed that project in the 1990’s had been a hustler for sure, but debate still raged whether he had been a charlatan or visionary. His last decision to combine his love of hang gliding and Segway riding along the picturesque cliffs of his Hawaiian estate had led to his demise nearly three years ago, soon after the new landfill was finally cleared for human use, leaving it available for the fabulously wealthy Arte family to buy and then build their museum on.

Skid Dervish was neither a student nor fan of fancy archictecture, but he saw a lot of skylines on his truck routes, and even he knew when something was really ugly.

The museum building was spiky and broken up where it should have been smooth, boxy and thick below where it should have been graceful, and oddly shaped overall despite plenty of land around it, so that was a deliberate choice, not forced by the available space.

Skid had made deliveries to prisons that were more welcoming in design.

The sole advantage: a large entry way into the parking lot, leading to a spacious and well lit loading dock area, one that almost looked comfy, snug, and warm enough to live in.

He drove the truck inside, then with a chortle of delight, Skid put the transmission into neutral. He’d made it!

Thump!

The truck cab rocked from the weight of the wild eyed man who had just jumped onto the driver’s side door step-up. His hair was scraggly, his clothes intact (yet asunder), and he looked as if he could use a tranquillizer and a shave.

In his clenched fist he brandished a squeegee, and he clearly meant business (of some kind or another).

YAAUUGGHH! Don’t make me use it! Don’t make me use it! I will! he screamed. He started pounding on the driver side window with the squeegee, sponge side flat, spattering soap everywhere, leaving streaks of bubbly foam behind. I’m warning you! Don’t make me use it! I’m not afraid to!

Despite all the tough cities he’d driven through making deliveries, Skid Dervish was oddly unnerved here. When the pounding abruptly stopped, he was so relieved that he relaxed.

Seeing this, the man screamed, I warned yuh! I warned yuh! and started a vigorous and sudsy assault on the windshield. Had enough yet, henh? Henh?

With a yelp, Skid lost it. He shifted into reverse and gunned the engine as the man jumped off.

Skid Dervish didn’t like to brag, but he’d trained at a racing school. As soon as he hit the open space of the parking lot, he somehow both gunned the engine and turned the truck completely around, its big wheels screeching as he swapped ends without tipping it over –

And then he was gone!

Chapter 02 - Lothar Fremont; Reginald Caxter; Phoebe Dennis

Lothar Fremont was the Chief Guard at the museum.

As there was no other guard on staff, only his boss the Security Director Wicky, Lothar Fremont told his friends that made him a Cheap Guard. But after retiring from the local police force last year at age fifty five, the salary, benefits plan, untaxing work, and the entertainment value that every day provided him made it a labor he loved.

Mostly the job was watching T.V. The architect had seemingly wired and optical cabled nearly every room in the building, so keeping an eye on the place would be as easy as figuring out the program.

That had proved easier said than done, as Security Director Wicky didn’t know how and was computer inept (as Assistant Director Derain had put it, after Security Director Wicky’s remote commands had dropped the loading dock gate onto Derain’s parked car).

Although it took not only his nephew but his niece as well to teach him, for the price of just two dinners out (and surprise thank you gift certificates), Lothar could now play the video system like a fine church organ if he wanted to. He bet now he could actually cam tour the whole place, from front door to loading dock back door.

He could play that thing like it was a Bach Toccata in video.

Thing was, he would probably never need to, because no one would ever try to steal any of the art here. No one sane, anyway. Someone who was hungry might steal the throne and bed set made of macaroni to cook it, maybe. But they would have to know it was there, and no one seemed to know the Arte Museum of Unusual Crafts had been completed, had opened, had art in it (he had seen wall placards and everything), and had been open for six days a week for months.

That was one of the reasons the museum was reopening tonight. Since the original opening eight months ago, there had been under a hundred actual visitors (of which two dozen were all from the same tour bus that had gotten lost trying to get back on the highway and stopped in to use the bathrooms, really).

Lothar supposed getting busier might make being the only guard on site a drag, but he doubted it. Everyone who had visited had left genuinely stunned (he had overheard a lot of "I didn’t know you could do that with –") by what they had seen and learned.

He had enjoyed that a lot.

No one could tell that, of course. After years as a cop, where enjoying the job was so rarely rewarded, his demeanor was unflappable, his emotions undetectable, and his face had such foreboding taciturnity sculpted into it, no one had ever asked him for directions.

He saw movement on the outside camera.

Although today and tonight were opening night, after eight months there was a rough daily structure, and the day was starting as usual, with the arrival of Reginald Caxter and Phoebe Dennis.

Reginald Caxter gave the head guard a nod as he followed Phoebe past the entry desk area, hoping to hear anything from her but, no.

He had thick, style-cut hair that was slicked flat, making his dark mop look as shiny as an anime cartoon Valentino, and he was going with a Gatsby pencil moustache that was taking a lot more work to maintain than he expected. He was tall, gangly, and suits hung well on him, but he had fancied himself too brainy to be a model, and gone into art by way of art history.

Phoebe Dennis liked to dance and carouse, but no one could tell by looking at her. She was tall and thin, wore glasses, and she knew she looked gawky to others, almost exactly like the archivist/librarian stereotyped in popular drawings and the media. She looked bookish, and even her friends had called her that.

"Bookish"!

She wasn’t that thin, and she wasn’t short like a book.

"Hiding back amongst the books," that’s what they meant…

Thank goodness no one ever said owlish.

That was her inner voice’s contribution. She worried sometimes if she would belt anyone who ever did.

Why would Reg Caxter be interested in her? His past dates at the museum’s special events (she had worked at them) had both been knockouts; the way he looked, and his confidence, he surely had his pick of women.

Was it just a challenge of his own, to bed her as well?

Phoebe wished Reg would stop being so persistent, because she couldn’t decide if it was annoying or endearing, and that worried her. If he’d simply leave her alone, that would solve it for her; but no, he was like a great big cute puppy that kept chewing