"I'm very sorry, sir," said Slingsby in his most professional voice, "but your tour of Stewart Manor is over. You'll have to leave the premises now."
"No!", I shouted defiantly. "I can't go yet!"
"If you wish to visit us a second time, you have to (*grunt*) wait in line. Please, there's another (*oof*) tour group waiting to come through."
"Just give me ten more minutes, please! That's all I need!!"
"Rules are rules, sir, and, (*ugh*) .... WILL YOU PLEASE LET GO OF THE BLOODY BANISTER!!"
"You let go of my ankles first!!"
Slingsby took a long, deep breath. "Very well," he said, dropping me unceremoniously to the foyer floor. I got up slowly and dusted myself off, attempting to salvage whatever small amount of dignity I had left.
"Sir, look," said the curator as patiently as he could. "It is quite clear that you have been searching the house for something or other. Why not tell me what it is, and perhaps I can be of assistance."
I bit my lip and looked him straight in the eye. "OK, Slingsby, I'll level with you. I'm looking for, um, numbers."
"Numbers?"
"Yeah. Hidden around the house. Have you seen any?"
"I'm afraid I don't quite understand. What sort of numbers? One million or two thousand or...."
"No, no. Really small ones -- in fact, some of the numbers are a lot smaller than they deserve to be."
"Sir," replied Slingsby through clenched teeth, "you have just described my paycheck for the afternoon."
I closed my eyes and ran my fingers through my hair in frustration. "Believe me, it's impossible to explain. I found a few here and there, but I overlooked the most important ones. Have you seen any numbers written around the house where they don't belong?"
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Come to think of it, I have. There's an odd set of numbers written on the porch, just to the right of the hanging flower basket, and..."
"Really?!" I cried excitedly, grabbing him by the lapels. "We never went there! Let's go!" I dashed across the foyer and flew out the front door. "Where? Here?? Slingsby, this isn't what I'm looking for. This is just the house...."
(*SLAM!*)
"...address."
That scoundrel had tricked me! I hammered on the door, but he had already bolted it shut. I vaulted over the porch rail and raced to the living room window, but Slingsby beat me there by a split second and locked it. He beat me to all of the other first-floor windows too, him having the inside track and the interceptor's advantage and all that, and when I tried climbing up the trellis to the master bedroom window, he kicked it down. I wound up flat on my back in the azaleas, battered and bruised and terribly embarrassed...and, worst of all, lacking the two most important Best Of Al Poll results of all.
I staggered down the driveway to the entrance gate and stared gloomily at the line of people stretching clear around the block. With a heavy sigh, I turned and trudged down the long, twisty road leading back to the rest of Stewartland.
I'm not quite sure what I did next. I vaguely recall buying a ticket for Alistair's Kingdom and walking aimlessly through the park. With my long face and dull, vacant, beaten expression, I certainly didn't remind anyone in the crowd of Peter Lorre. Peter McNeely, maybe.
Half in desperation and half as a way to kill time, I stopped in at The Gypsy And The Rose fortune-telling booth in HistoryLand. The ancient Romany woman behind the table deftly punched my debit card and proceeded to look deeply into her crystal ball. "I see that you will take a long journey soon," she said in a faraway voice.
"Swell. I'm going home to Philadelphia. Cripes, just about *everyone* in the park is going to take a long journey soon. See anything useful in there?"
"I also see romance in your future."
"As opposed to what? Never having another date as long as I live?"
"Look, Mac, do you want a reading or did you just come here to bitch?" she said testily.
"Sorry. I've had a bad day. Please go on."
The old woman grunted in disgust and rubbed the crystal ball again. "This is strange....I see a cat carrying a torch along a snowy road. And colors -- lots of colors, running and blending into one."
"Sounds like a bad Garfield Christmas Special," I said.
"You will meet someone on a train, who bears important news. And a man carrying a wine bottle and two glasses. Does this mean anything to you?"
I shook my head.
She leaned back in her chair, a little smile crossing her face. "Ah, but they will shortly. Never do the Fates lie, but never do they speak plainly either. You must live by their rules, but not allow them to rule your life."
" 'Like a black hole in space or philosophy...'," I muttered under my breath. What a waste of time. I mumbled thanks, pushed aside the curtain of beads at the door, and stumbled out, blinking in the sunlight at the door of the new world. I swear I heard the gypsy woman cackling as I walked away.
About an hour later I found myself sitting at the far end of the bar of the Old Compton Street Cafe, trying to sink as deep as I could into that dark abyss and doing a pretty fair job of it. I didn't even hear her walk up behind me.
"Hello, old friend!"
I spun the stool around quickly. It was the girl from Dallas!
"Haven't seen you for fifteen years," she said with a smile. "Or at least a couple hours. How's it going?"
"Put it this way," I replied weakly. "You know how the Great Master once said he felt like a big yellow tractor going mowing through a field of hay?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I feel like the hay."
She sat down on the barstool next to me. "Care to talk about it?"
"I suppose. See, the problem is,....well....I still haven't found what I'm looking for."
"Wrong mailing list."
"Oops! Sorry. Um, I'm searching for something, but the more I call it, the more it seems to be lost."
"That's better. Looks like you need a refill."
She called the barman over and bought me a drink, and then I bought her one, and soon we were engaged in a pleasant conversation about life and goals and the Great Master's role in shaping 22nd-century society. Turns out she was a fascinating woman, a teleportation engineer whose hobby was traveling all over the world visiting venues in the Great Master's songs -- Morocco, Paris, Soho, Portland, Saturn, you name it. I was having such a good time that I nearly forgot about the two missing poll results.
"I'm sorry, but I don't even know your name," I said at one point.
"It's Lucia," she replied.
"Tsk. Almost!!"
Later we went to the Sinistro Restaurant for a wonderful dinner, except the waitress screwed up and brought me exactly what I ordered, and I hate grapefruit. Then we went for a stroll around the harbor and found a nice, quiet, secluded bench where we watched the eight o'clock sunset show. Just like Slingsby promised, it was better than the matinee. The best part was when the silvery ship reached down from the skies and plucked up a Great Master impersonator. The worst part was when it brought him back.
"Feeling any better?" she asked as the sun sank below the horizon.
"A little," I replied. "Um, Lucia, I suppose I owe you an explanation about how I was acting this afternoon. See, I came to Stewartland because...."
"Oh, there's the monorail to EACOY!" she interrupted. "Let's hurry and catch it!!"
We ran to the station, leaped into the upbound pneumatic tube, and made it onto the monorail just before the doors closed.
We found a pair of empty seats in the last car. As it happened, in the row behind us was the elderly woman from the tour group and her little red-haired granddaughter, who was enjoying yet another ice cream cone. They were sitting next to another blue-haired lady they had apparently just met on the train.
"Why, she's a darling child" squealed the second woman. "What's your name, sweetie-pie?"
"Delia, and I'm seven years old. My Grandma says I'm very mature for my age."
"I bet you're a smart one, too. Can you name the ten planets?"
The little girl began counting on her fingers. "Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Urectum -- Grandma, why'd they change the name again?"
"Never mind dear. Just finish the list."
"OK....Neptune, Pluto, and Alastair. I know the corporate sponsors too!"
"I'm sure you do!" exclaimed the second woman. "How about your history -- who discovered the tenth planet?"
"McIntyre."
"What's the moral of the book 'The Purloined Letter' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?"
"Not everything that's missing is really hidden," answered the little girl proudly.
"What's the name of Earth's southernmost continent?"
"Antarctica 6.58"
Lucia said later that my eyeballs bulged out of their sockets like Roger Rabbit's. It took me a few seconds to regain the power of speech, but when I did I managed to turn around and gurgle, "What did you say???"
"Antarctica 6.58. Say, aren't you that really strange man from the tour today?"
I didn't answer. In a flash, I commanded my neurocomputer to retrieve the Best Modern Song poll results I found on the deck. Antarctica's rating really was 6.58! How in the world did the little girl know it?!
"Delia," I said, trying as hard as I could not to appear frightening to her, "I have to ask you a question. Where did you see or hear the number '6.58' today?"
"On the map, of course."
"What map?"
"The big map of the Earth in the Great Master's office," she said slowly and with great patience, as if it was me who was the child. Her grandmother, meanwhile, was eyeing me suspiciously. I saw her reach into her handbag for her keychain phaser, just in case.
"Was there a number after the word Antarctica?" I gasped.
"Of course: 6.58. There were numbers after lots of the place names. Didn't you see them?"
"No!" said her grandmother and Lucia and me simultaneously.
The little girl shook her head at us. "Sheesh. Adults are so clueless. I hope I die before I get old."
"Wrong mailing list aga...," began Lucia, but before she could finish I grabbed her by the shoulders. "What time does Stewart Manor close?" I barked.
"Eight-thirty, I think. It's already too late. What's so important about numbers on a map?"
"I'll tell you later. What time does it open tomorrow? Eight o'clock? Nine?"
"It doesn't," she replied calmly. "Didn't you hear Slingsby say it was closing for three weeks?"
"WHAT?!"
"He said they're going to renovate it from top to bottom. We were in the library at the time. I think you were off shining your little flashlight on some books."
"They can't touch that map!" I screamed, my voice cracking. "It contains priceless information that can't be duplicated." I turned back to the little girl. "Delia do you remember anything else about...."
But she and her grandmother had disappeared. I spotted them a few seconds later across the platform at the EACOY station, talking to a security guard. The elderly lady spun a finger around her ear and pointed in my direction, and the guard began pushing his way through the crowd towards me.
I grabbed Lucia gently by the wrist. "Come on!" I said, pulling her onto an outbound train.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"Stewart Manor. Maybe Slingsby's still there."
"How could I have missed it?" I said dejectedly as I watched the shadows flicker past the monorail window.
Lucia patted me on the shoulder. "Don't blame yourself," she said softly. "From what you just told me, it seems nobody noticed those numbers for 200 years. Kids are just more observant than adults, that's all."
"I suppose so. Still, I don't know how I'll explain it all to Slingsby."
The train rounded the curve by Alistair's Kingdom. I saw the big old house in the distance. "No lights on," I mumbled. "I guess he's gone home for the night and....hey, where are we going?"
The train glided straight through the Stewart Manor station. "Guess they don't stop here late at night," observed Lucia. "The house is gated off, too. I'm afraid you'll have to wait until tomorrow."
Swell, I thought. What else could go wrong?
An old, mechanized voice rang out from the overhead audio panel: "Passengers, our next stop is the Stewartland Transportation and Teleportation Center. If this is your final destination, thank you for visiting our resort and have a safe ride, flight, or beam home."
"...a safe beam home," I mumbled. Then I sat bolt upright and blinked a few times. "That's it! A safe beam home!"
"I thought you were taking the train home," said Lucia.
"Tomorrow. Lucia, um, I have a question. Do you happen to have your teleport engineer's key with you?"
"I never go anywhere without it."
"Good. I, uh, need to take a quick little trip...."
"I don't think this is such a good idea," said Lucia as she fiddled with the controls on the public teleport panel.
"Trust me," I replied as I loaded a fresh photodisc into my camera. "I'll be in and out in sixty seconds. We'll be long gone by the time they trace the beam."
"What if Slingsby is still there?"
"He's not. All the house lights were out, remember?"
"Those were only the front windows. He might be in one of the back rooms, working late."
"C'mon, you're worrying too much."
She shrugged her shoulders. "Telebreaking and Entering is a federal crime, you know."
"Big deal. This is California. If they arrest us, we'll just demand a jury trial."
A few seconds later, the lights above the teleportation booth clicked on. "OK, all set," announced Lucia. "I can put you onto the first floor of Stewart Manor, but I can't predict which room. Just make sure you return to the same spot in exactly sixty seconds so I can pull you out."
"Gotcha, boss." She gave me a peck on the cheek for luck as I stepped into the booth. "Whenever you're ready," I said with a see you again, and a smile.
Lucia pushed the big red button on the console....
I hate teleporting for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the way my head throbs and the room spins when I rematerialize. Lucky for me this was a short trip so I was able to regain my bearings within a few seconds.
I found myself in an alcove just off the family room, not far from the door to the garage. The Great Master's den was perhaps thirty feet away. No time to dawdle, I thought -- my body heat had surely set off the silent burglar alarm. Stewart Manor would be crawling with security guards within a couple of minutes. I needed to photograph the map and get myself out of there, tout de suite.
In my back pocket I found my Stewart Manor tour map from that afternoon. I dropped it onto the floor to mark the spot where Lucia would beam me out. Then I ran around the corner into the dimness of the family room....
"More Thunderbird, my dear?" came a man's voice in a cultured British accent.
Yow!! I wasn't alone! Instinctively, I dove behind the sofa.
"Why thank you, Slingsby," replied a soft, female voice. "It's wonderful! Is it from the Great Master's private collection?"
"Heavens, no! That would be desecrating history. I keep my own private stock in the kitchen, but only for my very special guests."
Oh, brother. Slingsby was working late, all right. I peeked around the sofa and saw the curator and his companion cuddled in front of the flickering light of the fireplace.
"Well, it's wonderful just the same," she cooed. "But I do believe this bottle is empty."
"Leave that to me," he said, taking her glass. "Hold that thought, will you?"
"I'll be waiting."
I watched Slingsby stride off down the hallway to the kitchen. Now was my chance. If I hurried, I could make it to and from the office before he returned.
Quietly, I crawled out from behind the sofa. I was halfway across the room when Slingsby's companion, for no good reason, decided to get up and admire the photographs on the walls. I ducked behind the Great Master's easy chair and held my breath. A pair of fishnet tights passed within a few feet of my nose, then moved slowly towards the alcove.
I glanced over the top of the chair. To my horror, I saw that she was bending over to pick up the tour map I left on the floor. In a panic, I checked my wristwatch....fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty!
WHOOSH! In a dull flash of light, she was gone.
"Oh, no!!" I cried out, slapping my forehead.
"Did you same something, my sweet?" called Slingsby from the kitchen. I heard the distinctive snapping sound of a freshly opened twist-top.
Gulp! "Um, nothing, dear," I replied in my best falsetto.
"OK. I'll be there in just a second. Did you notice the beautiful Web page lithograph by the stereo?"
I didn't respond. First things first -- I dashed into the office and took a quick infrared photograph of the map. No matter what else happened, I damn well wasn't leaving here without those poll results.
As I ran back into the family room , I crashed hard into Slingsby. He held on to the wine bottle, but the two glasses he was carrying flew across the room and shattered against the mantle.
He was dazed, but luckily it all happened so fast that he hadn't seen me. Thinking quickly, I lunged at the easy chair and pushed the button on the armrest that turned off the fireplace. The family room was now pitch black, save for a dim beam of sympathetic moonlight shining through the patio door.
"Urrrrgggh," groaned Slingsby weakly. "Are you OK, Carol?"
What now? "Uh, yes," I whispered. "I'm so sorry."
"Quite all right. I...whew...I'll get us some more glasses. Say, what happened to the fire?"
"I, er, thought it would be more romantic this way."
"Why are you whispering? Is something wrong?"
Enough small talk, I thought to myself. Feeling my way along the furniture, I tried to make my way back towards the alcove.
Just my luck -- I walked right into Slingsby. He slid his arms gently around my waist. "Ah, there you are. I hope I didn't hurt you in my clumsiness. You know, I believe you are holding my thoughts in the palm of my hand, and..."
WHOOSH! There was another dull flash of light in the alcove. "Slingsby!" cried a frightened female voice. "Slingsby, it was horrible!!"
"Carol?" gasped the curator. Even in the near-total darkness, I could see his eyes widen in horror.
"Some crazy woman just beamed me to the Ticketing center!!" she wailed. "She said she was expecting a friend of hers!"
"Well then who in blazes is...." Slingsby fumbled his way to an end table and switched on one of the antique incandescent lamps.
I smiled as cheerily as I could and waved to him.
"YOU!!!" he bellowed.
"Slingsby, I can explain!"
He whipped out his phaser. "Sir, I have had all I can take from you for one day. Explain it to the police when you rematerialize." He fired at me, but I dove out of the way and the shot hit Carol instead. I heard him cry out in dismay.
"Slingsby, please!" I called. "It's just a terrible misunderstanding, really. I..."
In a fury, he took aim at me again and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The phaser was probably out of juice. Heck, he had used it enough times today.
"Sir," he growled, tossing the gun aside, "While I am normally a non-violent person, I believe I am entitled, just this once, to throttle the living daylights out of an intruder before I call Security."
I backed up slowly. "I'm leaving now! I swear! All I needed was a picture of the Great Master's wall map!"
"To select a burial site?"
"No, I...AIEEEEE!"
With a perfectly timed leap, Slingsby vaulted over the couch and sprang headlong at my chest. I threw up my hands and dove backwards, knocking over a flower vase and falling hard to the floor. I rolled across the carpet, into the alcove, WHOOSH!, out of the booth, down the stairs, and across the tiled floor until I struck the base of the teleportation console. Lucia stood over me with her face buried in her hands.
"I told you this wasn't a good idea," she groaned.
"Where am I?" I gurgled, my palms pressed against my temples. "Toto? Auntie Em? Wait, I remember...where's Slingsby?"
"He's not here. You were the only one to come through. What happened? Who was that girl that I...."
"Never mind," I said quickly. "The police will be here any second. Let's go!"
"Where to?"
"Back to your hotel room!"
She crossed her arms in front of her. "A bit forward, aren't you?" she snapped.
"No, no, it's not like that at all. For heaven's sake, come on! I'll explain on the way."
Lucia was staying at the Cole Porter Suites on the other side of Stewartland. I had the photo of the Great Master's map developed, enlarged, and printed at the on-site data center. Then we went up to Lucia's room and laid it out on her bed. The map, I mean.
The little red-haired girl was right -- there were numbers all over the place! We counted 150 in all. Fifteen had little A's next to them, which we surmised stood for 'Album'. That left the 135 unmarked numbers to represent individual songs.
"The smallest number is 1.99, next to Kentucky," observed Lucia. "What do you suppose that means?"
"Well, 1.99 was 'Lover Man's' rating," I replied. "That was the least-liked song according to the results I found in the storeroom."
"Oh, I get it now!" she said brightly. "'Lover Man' has that silly chicken sound. Wasn't there a popular restaurant back then called Kentucky Fried Chicken?"
I grinned from ear to ear. So *that's* how the black-shirts hid the results! Right under everyone's nose, too.
Lucia pointed halfway across the map. "Glasgow, 6.48. Let's see, that's the one, two, three...eleventh highest song."
"Easy," I replied. " 'Post World War II Blues'. The Great Master was born in Glasgow."
"Well, what about the 5.50 next to Gloucester, England. Isn't that where he grew up?"
"'Timeless Skies'," I said with a confident smile. "You know -- 'I came across the village where first I grew.' "
She blinked a few times, then let out a sigh. "This is going to take a while. I'll dial us some coffee. What kind do you prefer?"
"See if they have Mocha Hot Dog."
"Oooh, good idea. I love those gourmet flavors too!"
And the girl from Dallas and I read ratings on a mattress, with the new moon looking....
"St. Louis, 5.32," I said groggily. We'd been at it for hours. The sun was peeking through the curtains and shining through Lucia's hair, but at least there were only a couple of songs to go. "Did he do any songs that mentioned St. Louis?"
Lucia yawned. "I don't think so. Which ones are we missing?"
"Let's see....'Red Toupee' and 'Lindy Comes To Town'"
"Oh, it's 'Lindy' then -- the Spirit Of St. Louis."
"Gotcha," I said, scratching it off the list. "That leaves San Antonio 4.15 as 'Red Toupee'. Wonder what that stands for?"
Lucia shrugged. "Maybe that Henry Cisneros guy was born there or something. So we've got them all?"
"We've got them all," I repeated with as much energy as I could dredge up. I wasn't excited so much as I was relieved. "I'd better call a news conference quick, before Slingsby and the cops track me down."
"What's the rush? They won't find you here. Let's get showered and have some breakfast first." She strolled over to the bathroom, pausing only to turn on the holovision to 'Good Morning Earth'.
I leaned back into the pillow and stared at the congealed coffee cup on the end table. This wouldn't do. I dialed up a fresh cup of tea and took a sip, which was an unfortunate bit of timing as I wound up spraying it all over the far wall when Slingsby's face appeared on the HV.
"So these ratings were lost to the world for 200 years, Dr. Stewart?" asked Kathie Lee Gifford. Good Lord, that woman never seemed to age.
"Indeed," replied Slingsby, looking dapper in his dark brown corduroy jacket. "I found them inscribed faintly on a wall map in the office of Stewart Manor in Greater Los Angeles. Carbon dating show them to be from the year 1995."
"LUCIA!!!" I screamed. She came running out of the bathroom wrapped only in a towel. Before she could say anything, I pointed to the HV with a trembling hand. To my horror, the Best Album poll results had just appeared as a 3-D graphic:
1995 ASML BOAP: Top 10 Albums
# Album Rating ---------------------------------------- 1 A-Year Of The Cat 7.00 2 A-Past, Present And Future 6.79 3 A-Modern Times 6.11 4 A-Between The Wars 5.97 5 A-Famous Last Words 5.42 6 A-Time Passages 5.38 7 A-Last Days Of The Century 5.29 8 A-Rhymes In Rooms 4.82 9 A-24 P/Carrots 4.71 10 A-Zero She Flies 4.33
"How did Slingsby get that?" gasped Lucia.
I slumped deep into the pillows. "I told him last night I came for a picture of the map," I said weakly. "After you beamed me out of there, he probably went into the office and looked at it closely for the first time."
"But...but...how did he figure it out so quickly??"
"I'm sure it wasn't hard. He had every resource of Stewartland at his disposal. Plus, he seems to be a pretty bright guy."
Kathie Lee had asked another question: "Why did the Great Master write them on the map?"
Slingsby folded his hands politely. "It's not clear that he was the author. Our initial analysis indicates at least 15 separate handwritings. However, it is certain that the numbers correspond one-to-one with songs and albums by the Great Master. The location of each rating indicates the song. For example, a 5.29 by St. Petersburg, Russia, is no doubt for 'Manuscript', which references the city in its lyrics...."
"That was the easiest one on the map," I groused.
Lucia rubbed her chin. "Hmm...no, Moscow was easier. So were Munich, and Los Angeles, and Georgia, and..."
"Sh-h-h-h!!"
We heard only Slingsby's reply to the next question. "I'm fairly certain these were not the Great Master's own opinions. 'Hipposong' earned only a 4.69 on what appears to be a scale of one to ten. He would have given it at least an 8.5. No, I believe they were the collective opinions of a small group of ardent fans."
"Remarkable," said Kathie Lee. "Let's roll the list of the top songs:"
1995 ASML BOAP: Top 25 Songs
# Song Rating Album ------------------------------------------------ 1 Roads To Moscow 7.89 PPF 2 Year Of The Cat 7.81 YOTC 3 On The Border 7.58 YOTC 4 Nostradamus 6.67 PPF 5 Modern Times 6.61 MT 6 Antarctica 6.58 LDOTC 7 Flying Sorcery 6.55 YOTC 8 Old Admirals 6.54 PPF 9 Apple Cider Reconstitution 6.53 MT 10 Fields Of France 6.48 LDOTC 11 Post World War II Blues 6.48 PPF 12 A League Of Notions 6.47 BTW 13 The Dark And The Rolling Sea 6.41 MT 14 Trains 6.39 FLW 15 Laughing Into 1939 6.35 BTW 16 Soho (Needless To Say) 6.35 PPF 17 Last Days Of The Century 6.26 LDOTC 18 Night Train To Munich 6.21 BTW 19 The Last Day Of June, 1934 6.20 PPF 20 Time Passages 6.18 TP 21 Clifton In The Rain 6.14 BI 22 Merlin's Time 6.13 24C 23 Running Man 6.13 24C 24 Carol 5.95 MT 25 Electric Los Angeles Sunset 5.87 ZSF
"He got every one correct," I said sadly.
"This is certainly a tremendous archaeological discovery," chirped Kathie Lee. "What comes next, Dr. Stewart?"
"Well, we've discovered there are similar data tables hidden throughout Stewart Manor. Our search team uncovered several in the wine cellar, the kitchen, and the office, and they're searching the rest of house even as we speak. We should have the full set within a few hours."
"Turn it off," I groaned to Lucia. "I just want to go back to Philadelphia. Buy me a ticket on the first train home this morning."
"Of course," continued Slingsby with just a hint of a smile, "we desperately need the help of a certain mystery person to interpret the data and put it in the proper historical perspective. He visited Stewart Manor yesterday, and he's the one who deserves the credit for this marvelous find."
I sprang up in the bed.
"Who might that be?" asked Kathie Lee.
"I'm afraid I don't know his name, but, ah, his face is quite familiar to me. I owe him a deep debt of gratitude. In fact, I believe I owe him a bit more than that," I might have been the only person in the solar system who noticed Slingsby's hand curl up into a fist.
"Apparently, he learned of the data's existence through outside means. I hope he will accompany me later today at a noontime press conference outside Stewart Manor to explain how these ratings came into being and...."
I didn't hear the rest of Slingsby's comments because Lucia had let out a whoop and a holler like only a Texan could.
The press conference went as well as could be expected, and the doctor who set my nose says it ought to heal as good as new within a few weeks. Lucia dropped me off at the train station afterwards, and we made a date for next weekend in Carvajal. She gave me a kiss and a hug on the platform just as the conductor yelled 'All Aboard!'.
"By the way, Happy New Year," she whispered in my ear.
"Huh?"
"I said, Happy New Year. Today. It's January 1st."
"But it can't be! I came to Stewartland in August!!"
"Well, you know how it is. Time slips through your fingers and all that."
I closed my eyes and shook my head in wonder. "Wow. Five months just disappeared. What a long strange trip it's been."
"Wrong mailing list again."
"Ah, let it go. They'll forgive me."
I dashed onto the train, and as it made its way across the desert, eastbound, homeward bound (yeah, yeah, I know), I reached into my canvas sack for my dog-eared copy of On The Road. I couldn't help but reflect on how the 1995 Best Of Al Poll had led me on a much longer, much stranger, much more exhausting journey then I had ever anticipated. Here at the denouement, however, it all seemed worth it. I was the victim of a series of accidents, but as the Great Master himself sang, I always believed I would win in the end.
Still, as I watched the Rocky Mountains zip past my coach window, there was one recurring thought I couldn't squelch as it rattled through my tired brain:
I wonder if my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather conducted any more polls?....