interlude 1

Floyd does some research and confirms that the Blind Man was a big shot in the New York occult scene in the '50s and '60s, but that nobody's seen or heard from him since about 1974. His agents carried umbrellas.

Ray manages to get a copy of the bootleg Out of the Night tape, from a guy in the San Fernando Valley who uses the handle "Captain Video" (or sometimes "Captian Video." It's obviously editted together from different sources, some film and some video, including takes, rehearsals, establishing shots and "behind the scenes" footage, but it's all authentic footage from the days leading up to the accident. The accident itself, the propane tank explosion, ends the tape. He also gets a document that's been circulating on the 'net for some time and purports to be the script for the final episode. Some of it jibes with what's on the tape, and with the scenes that Ray remembers, but a lot of it is clearly fan-written material that tries to link the scenes on the tape into a coherent story. Ray contacts his agent to see if he can get a copy of the script.

In the meantime, work on the webzine continues, with stories about a haunted car, a strange coincidence (a man buys house and learns that someone with the same name lived there 50 years earlier), and so on.

Driving home from the DAE office one night, Arnulf hits a pedestrian who darted out from between two parked cars right in front of him. Cautiously, he approaches the figure lying in the street and sees that the man looks just like him.

Meanwhile, Ray stops in to a neighborhood burger place and happens to see a woman in the next booth who looks exactly like Julia Fawcett, the lead actress from Out of the Night.

 
The Real Monica Lane (part 4, conclusion)

(It's now Friday evening. Kellie is still in the hospital and Arnulf is laid up at home, having overdone it a bit earlier in the day, being shot and all.)

Around five, Ray, Floyd, and George go around to Becker's house and collect him. (He'd been playing Dark Age of Camelot all night.) They all go to Oscar's so Ray can play the jukebox. After the bartender helpfully tells them, "It don't work," they experiment a bit and quickly discover that if they put in a quarter, push a couple of random buttons and ask a question, they'll get a somewhat cryptic response in the form of a snippet of an Elvis Costello song. Some examples:

Q. What is David Temple up to?
A. He thought he was the King of America / Where they pour Coca-Cola just like vintage wine (from "Brilliant Mistake")
Q. Who are the umbrella guys working for?
A. Well, well, well you better make up your mind / Honey are you straight or are you blind? (from "Honey are You Straight or are You Blind?")
Q. What are the umbrella guys doing, exactly?
A. ... taking down names, I hope none of them are mine (from "Green Shirt")
Q. Where can we find the umbrella guys?
A. There's a room with no number / Where the sign says there's no vacancy (from "Room with No Number")
Q. What's Monica Lane's role in all this?
A. My mind is sleepwalking / While I'm putting the world to right (from "Oliver's Army")
Q. Is Alison still in any danger?
A. Alison, I know this world is killing you (from "Alison")
Q. What do you want?
A. I want to vanish / That is my one request / I've given you the awful truth / Now give me my rest" (from "I Want to Vanish")

Thus enlightened, they leave the bar and call Alison, who informs them that she's moving back into her apartment. They head over there and confront a couple of umbrella-toting young men outside the building. Attempts to get any information out of them fail. After they see Alison go into her apartment, the umbrella guys drive away. Ray calls Alison on his cell phone to see if she's okay. She says she is. A minute later she calls back to tell Ray that she's just had another vision: a blonde woman shooting at him on a staircase, with a curtain or drapery in between them.

Bonetti calls to tell the DAE gang that he and Scaggs have a lead on Monica Lane. Neighbors ("They may have had the impression that I was with the gas company") have reported seeing her at her parents' supposedly empty Bel-Air house. Staking the place out, they're convinced that if Monica is there she's alone, and they're going to look around inside. Ray, Floyd, George and Becker meet them nearby and they proceed to the house, which looks like a big sort of fakey Italian villa. Scaggs knocks on the door and then "checks to see if it's unlocked." (i.e. He picks the lock.) Inside, they don't see or hear anyone, so they go upstairs. At the end of the hallway stands a big ornate armchair. When they first see it, they're sure it's empty but when they look again, they see a man sitting in it.
He looks to be about 60, is rather thin, and wears big dark glasses. He greets the intruders and warns them not to wake Monica. He introduces himself as "the Blind Man." (Floyd quotes the jukebox: "are you straight or are you blind?", to which he responds, "My dear boy, I'm both.) Floyd also knows that there was a player in the New York occult scene in the '50s and '60s called "the Blind Man", but that person would be over 80 years old by now, and was rumored to be unable to leave the island of Manhattan. In response to further questions, he tells them that Monica is a "sleepwalker" -- someone who has access to a great deal of what he calls "thaumaturgical energy" in her sleep. When asked why they shouldn't wake Monica, he replies that "everyone knows it's dangerous to wake a sleepwalker." When pressed, he tells them that waking Monica is dangerous because it would make him angry.

Bonetti thinks the Blind Man is bluffing and whispers as much to Ray. They agree that they're not leaving without Monica. George, sensing that there's about to be a fight, uses Timblebelly to transfer his drunkenness to the Blind Man, who seems unaffected. From behind a nearby closed door, everyone hears the sound of someone being suddenly and violently ill, followed by a woman's voice saying, "Johnny? I-I-I don't feel so good . . ."

Several of the group burst into the room to see Monica Lane stepping down from a big four-poster canopy bed. (The bed is so tall that there are three wooden steps built into the frame so that she can get in and out.) Monica is naked and wrapped up in the gauzy bed curtains. Her face is almost completely covered. She has a gun in one hand, and waves it in the general direction of the door. "Johnny? Is that you?" she asks as she fires off a shot, which doesn't hit anything. Becker runs up and hits her with his taser, rendering her unconscious (rather than asleep, which she was before). At that point, Bonetti -- who had stayed outside to confront the Blind Man -- shouts out that he's just disappeared.

Bonetti and Scaggs get Monica into some clothes (and a pair of handcuffs) before she comes to. They carry her out to the car, and presumably on to her "appointment in Seattle." Observing that the Blind Man is gone and that Temple no longer has access to Monica's power, George says, "I'd call that a win."

 
The Real Monica Lane (part 3)
After leaving the Grove, Ray drives around various sites looking for charges. He realizes he's being tailed by those two TNI agents (although they're at least in a different car now -- a Thunderbird), so he gets on the cell phone and arranges for everybody to meet him at the Hollywood sign in an hour. Becker, who's been up since the early hours of the previous day, doesn't pick up his phone, but everybody else arms themselves (even Kellie tosses her archery gear into her trunk) and rushes out to Hollywood. (It's about three in the morning at this point.)

Everything goes more or less according to plan. Ray doesn't manage to bag a significant charge from the sign, but the rest of the DAE crew are there ahead of him and lying in wait for the TNI guys, who drive up a couple of minutes later.

The younger guy gets out of the car, and Arnulf sees a shoulder holster under his leather jacket. He yells out a warning: "They're armed!" Thinking (not without some justification) that they're being ambushed, the younger TNI guy fires a shot in Arnulf's direction, and all hell breaks loose. Kellie pegs the younger TNI goon with an arrow, and then the driver puts a bullet into her leg that knocks her off her feet. Ray uses You Remember Now to make the driver think he's out of bullets. The other TNI guy pegs Arnulf in the side. Floyd shoots out the back window of the car as they try to drive away and George uses Li'l Whammy to spray the glass around the inside of the car. Then Ray uses You Remember Now again, to make the driver "remember" that the road back to the highway is blocked by a police investigation. (As he does this, he has a brief flash of insight: he thinks he should play the jukebox at Oscar's, a nearby dive bar George frequents.) The driver tries to go offroad, but quickly gets the car stuck.

Everybody's had enough shooting at this point, and the TNI guys agree to go along with Ray, George, and Arnulf to see George's drinking buddy "Doc" Westlake. ("Doc" has an office/apartment around the corner from Oscar's. He's a pretty good underground sawbones despite not actually having a medical license anymore.) Floyd takes Kellie, who's lost a lot of blood, to a regular emergency room. They concoct a story (not all that far from the truth) about getting caught in the crossfire of a gunfight at the Hollywood sign.

After Doc patches them up (grumbling all the while about people coming in with arrows in their arm, like they were attacked by Red Indians or something, it'll be tomahawks next), the TNI guys introduce themselves as Jake Bonetti (the older one) and Bryan Scaggs. Ray makes a reference to them working for Alex Abel. Bonetti doesn't deny it, but won't confirm it either, referring only to "our employer." Bonetti's story is that they were tailing "Monica Lane" because their employer wanted to talk to her. Once they saw her go into the DAE office, they were supposed to tail the DAE staff and find out what they knew. They don't know why their employer wants to talk to "Monica," nor do they seem to be aware that they were actually tailing Alison Campbell. They have a computer printout with Alison's picture and address, and the name Monica Lane. Bonetti apologizes again for Scaggs' "impetuousness" and the two groups agree to a truce of sorts. Bonetti gives them a business card with what turns out to be a Seattle phone number. He promises to try and find out which Monica Lane they were supposed to find.

The next day, Ray calls Bonetti, who confirms that they weren't after Alison. The additional information he has is that Monica Lane doesn't have to work for a living and certainly wouldn't live in a neighborhood like Alison's. Also, he's found out that Monica is supposed to be a "sleepwalker," although he has no idea exactly what that means. Neither do any of the DAE staff, unless it just means that she walks in her sleep. They suspect it means she uses some kind of dream magic.

Floyd heads to the library to look through newspapers and such for anybody named Monica Lane. He quickly locates several stories about a local heiress who's been seen lately with film producer David Temple. Aha.

Arnulf dresses up like a tourist and goes out to Temple's house, but doesn't see anybody other than a private security guard who asks him not to look into people's houses with binoculars.