Internal Chronology and Status of the Kevin Traynor Stories as of April 2021

Gunpowder Tea (Young Kevin Traynor) (fragment, may be abandoned)

Traynor and his future best friend Nick Parker meet during an adventure in Casablanca.

Torch in the Night (available)

Traynor, Parker, and Jennifer Jordan have to stop a conspiracy to destroy the United States.

Phantom Train (available)

Traynor, Parker, and mining engineer Connie Chandler investigate a phantom train depopulating an Arizona mining town.

Mysterious Boat (available):

The Mystery of the Mysterious Boat

Traynor, Jennifer, and Parker investigate a mysterious boat haunting an old house in Malibu.

The Secret of the Lost Tribe

Traynor and Jennifer encounter Indian ghost riders in New Mexico.

Mystic Triangle (writing)

Traynor, Jennifer, and Parker get involved in an Anarcho-Capitalist revolution.

Kevin Traynor, P.I. (working title):

The Phantom of Broadway (fragment, abandoned due to boring)

Traynor's Broadway theater is haunted by a phantom.

The Case of the Kidnapped O'Connors (available)

Jennifer's Frank O'Connor paintings are stolen from a locked room.

Eighty Million Maniacs (rewriting, editing)

Howard is kidnapped to force Traynor and Jennifer to find a hidden treasure in a medieval town in the land of eighty million maniacs.

Chelsea Cinderella (editing)

During a party, the crown jewels of Nassau-Wittgenstein are stolen from that country's embassy in New York City.

The Riddle of the Ratty Rock Star (fragment, may be postponed to a later book or abandoned)

An unsavory punk rocker is killed in a locked room.

Kevin Traynor and Crypto Queenie (working title):

Time Slip (writing)

Traynor and crypto currency wizard Britt Coyne travel back to the Middle Ages in a castle in Latvia.

Voynich Manuscript (writing)

Traynor, Britt, and Parker follow the clues encoded in the Voynich manuscript to find its treasure in Prague.

La Serenissima (idea, plotting)

Traynor and Britt fly to Venice, Italy, for a romantic getaway; hilarity ensues.

Happy Birthday, America!

Happy Birthday, America! Here's the present:

The Case of the Kidnapped O'Connors, free to download for your Kindle today, July 4, 2013, midnight to midnight Pacific Time. The Case of the Kidnapped O'Connors, the new Kevin Traynor mystery. A locked room mystery about art, anarchy, objectivity, and madness.

When his girlfriend's prized paintings are stolen from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Kevin Traynor has to find them fast, lest she slip from her usual objectivity and rationality into madness, mayhem, and murder. There is no lack of suspects — and no way how any human being can have smuggled the paintings out of that proverbial locked room. There simply is no explanation that is both rational and plausible. The hunt for the thief leads the couple into one dead end after another. It dawns on Traynor that the only way to find the thief is to find the paintings... But is he up against a mere mortal thief, or against The Phantom of the Met?

Kevin Traynor. With the right to be politically incorrect.

The Case of the Kidnapped O'Connors, Chapter One, Part Two

Begin with the beginning.

To save himself from exploding with laughter and from his girlfriend's ensuing ire, Traynor sauntered over to the column wall, where his best friend, Nick Parker, stood staring at Diminishing Returns, going, "For some reason, I like that mannequin…"

Short but muscular, with dark eyes and wavy black hair, Parker looked like a bull ready to charge a red rag. Apparently, he was giving the redhead he had been flirting with some time to miss him before he reeled her in. Traynor followed his friend's stare. The painting featured a painter's wooden mannequin sitting on a turquoise drum in turn sitting on a reddish cliff. Below, a blue ocean, or at least a reservoir, like Lake Powell on the Colorado River, stretched beyond a reddish headland. Above, a cloud in several shades of blue with a silver lining covered most of a blue sky. The mannequin was juggling what looked like colorful Christmas balls, with a red one already shattered on the ground.

To Traynor, it looked like surrealism, and not very good surrealism at that. The most he could make of it was a caricature of Howard Roark gone crazy on his cliff. According to Jennifer, the official Objectivist line was that the playful lay figure represented gaiety. If it made her happy…

As far as Traynor was concerned, the exact opposite might be just as true. The inescapably surreal nature of the painting might symbolize statism. The wooden, faceless, soulless stick figure might be a government bureaucrat playing with and casually breaking the baubles produced by capitalism.

Others said that the mannequin, having hooters, the drummer on her turquoise drum, was Ayn Rand, and that the balls she was juggling bore self-portraits of her husband Frank O'Connor. You take it from there. To Traynor, any interpretation was as good as any other in this case, as any the other flavor of intellectuals offered for the nonobjective art in the other galleries.

Parker stirred. "Gotta go now, look after another lay figure."

Traynor looked languidly on as his friend left the gallery. As languidly, the muddy river of the mayor's speech emptied into an ocean of applause. Now the crowd grew restless, some milling to the paintings, some out of the gallery to one of the impromptu bars. Traynor headed back to his girlfriend.

Whoosh!

Suddenly, clouds of smoke billowed from the air conditioning vents. The fire alarm sounded.

"Fire!" Panicky cries rang out, interspersed with coughs.

People rushed to the exits, but that moment something or somebody triggered the burglar alarm, and the massive steel doors clanked shut, locking everybody in. Traynor ducked under the thickening smoke screen. Where was Jennifer?

He dashed toward the place he had seen her last, rooted through a forest of legs, homed in on a fair pair under a black miniskirt, ran into her, and grabbed her by the wrist. "Gotcha!"

"You play with Nick for five seconds, and bang, there's a fire."

"I try to do my best. But I'm not sure that there's fire where there's smoke."

However, the gallery kept filling with dark-gray smoke. Some people tried to filter the smoke by breathing through tissues or handkerchiefs. It did not seem to help much. Others dropped to the floor for clearer air. Panicky people cursed, screamed, raged, ranted, and banged their fists against the steel doors.

"Fuck!"

Cough!

"Fire!"

Cough!

"Terrorists!"

Cough!

"Anarchy!"

Cough!

"The end of the world!"

Wheeze!

"I knew we shouldn't have come here!"

Gasp!

"Give me that tissue!"

"Get your own tissue, bitch!"

Cough!

"Call 911!"

"Where's my phone?"

Cough! Gasp!

"Where are the firefighters?"

"Where are the police if you need them?"

"Stand back!" ordered one of the mayor's bodyguards.

"Freeze!" ordered another.

"Stand back!"

"Freeze!"

Wheeze!

"Stand back and freeze!"

Cough! Wheeze!

"Everybody, stay clear of his honor, or we'll fire!"

"The building has already been fired!"

Wheeze! Cough!

"I'm not even close to his honor!"

"Where does he have any honor?"

Gasp! Cough!

"Shut up! I bought his honor last week! A clean million into his Swiss bank account! Now it's strictly for the birds! What an irony, to die like this, together, like two rats!"

"Birds? Rats? Keep your imaginary zoo to yourself, or his honor will sue you! His honor doesn't have any bank account in Switzerland. He can't even find Switzerland on a map. He doesn't even know how to spell it."

"Who cares? He can't sue, 'cause we're all gonna die in here!"

"Gasp!"

"I never voted for that rat anyway."

"Who cares what you voted for? We're gonna die!"

Cough! Wheeze! Gasp!

"There ought to be a law against this shoddy construction!"

"There ought to be a law against these steel doors!"

"There ought to be a law against fires!"

Cough! Cough! Cough!

"Jesus, we're all gonna die!"

"Oh my god, the end is nigh!"

"Oh my god oh my god oh my god…"

"Yea, though I walk in death's dark vale, yet will I fear no ill. For thou art with me, and thy rod and staff me comfort still…"

Cough! Cough! Wheeze! Wheeze! Gasp! Gasp!

"Sam, I have a confession to make. I've been lying about my age for years. I'm not going to turn thirty next week. I'm turning forty."

"I know. I know. The divorce papers are in the mail."

Cough out loud!

"My poor hair! Oh, that damn smoke. It's going to ruin my hair!"

Rolling on the floor wheezing!

"Take the phone, Ferris, and say goodbye to the children!"

"Oh, come on. I know they're not my kids."

Cough-o-copter!

"Oh, those fucking terrorists!"

Cough! Cough! Wheeze! Wheeze! Gasp! Gasp!

In people's minds, the smoke grew into everybody's personal nightmare, be it fire, bombs, or poison gas. It became impossible to see anyone or anything more than a couple feet away.

Jennifer shook off her boyfriend's hand. "Where are the fire extinguishers?"

"There are some over there, but where's the fire? Maybe not such a great idea, blindly emptying the fire extinguishers into the ventilation ducts."

That moment, a busty brunette standing and coughing nearby, lacking a handkerchief, ripped off her blouse, sending buttons flying every which way, one hitting Traynor in the chest, and used it as a makeshift gas mask.

Through the smoke, Traynor watched her hooters strain against her bra and wobble with every cough. "Maybe coming here was not such a bad idea, after all. Too bad Nick isn't in here. He'd love that."

Coughing herself, Jennifer shot her boyfriend an icy glance. "You want me to compete on these terms?"

Traynor grinned. "Well, you'd be one step ahead of her, oh my braless wonder. Besides, she can't compete with you anyway."

"Thank you."

" 'Cause she isn't even blond."

"Thanks. I think."

Traynor drew his .45 Colt M1911 pistol and chambered a round. "Better 1911 than 911."

"Doesn't help much against the fire, though," cautioned his girlfriend.

Traynor coughed. "What fire? What about the burglar alarm and the steel doors? Looks more like a heist to me."

With the doors shut and the smoke, there seemed to be nothing they could do, except to be ready to defend themselves and to wait for the smoke exhaust system to cope and firefighters to fight the alleged fire and to open the doors. Through the smoke and the noises of the alarms and the charging mob, Jennifer and Traynor thought they heard a swishing sound from the center of the gallery. A shadowy figure clad all in black brushed past them. Jennifer gasped involuntarily. He or she — or it — had no face! There was nothing there but a dark blob of slime!

Buy the full story.

The Case of the Kidnapped O'Connors, Chapter One, Part One

Chapter One

The Phantom of the Met

Kevin Traynor yawned.

Jennifer Jordan rolled her blue eyes, then looked up at the ceiling of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's new south wing. Not that she expected any help from anywhere up there. Yes, it was boring — but did her boyfriend always have to put on a show on what he thought about others?

"Serves you right," she hissed. "You kept me waiting for half an hour."

Traynor brushed his hand through his dark-blond hair before he put his arm around her, flashed a roguish grin across his angular face, and looked her disarmingly into the eyes.

His sparkling blue eyes utterly denied the importance of being earnest or late. "Not my fault. As I said, Nick had two tickets for the Foxy Boxing World Championship."

"He had tickets? I thought he ran that circus."

"Anyway, you could have moved the opening to another night. Could easily have been more than half an hour. Was hard enough to bum a ride off of Nick to get here from the Garden. He wanted to go backstage, comfort the losers, and celebrate with the winner."

Nothing good could come out of a serious argument with Kevin Traynor.

"But he did drive you here."

"I told him there would be chicks. By the way, you used to enjoy a good catfight in your day, if I may say so."

"My day? I have not yet begun to fight! Anyway, you better watch out. My sources keep telling me that The Great D'Ancy is in town."

"Rene D'Ancy, the famous French art thief?"

"The same. Rene Honore D'Ancy. He's a genius with disguises. You better watch out. Anybody in here could be D'Ancy. Hell, I could be D'Ancy."

"That, we'll find out tonight."

"I don't think so. After all, you could be D'Ancy."

"Would that make any difference? Anyway, rest assured I don't feel terribly D'Ancy tonight."

"At least try to be a little more vigilant."

"I can't help it. That guy's a walking, talking bromide. It's more interesting to watch paint dry — or for that matter, to watch these columns grow."

The speaker, a portly gray-haired gentleman by the name of Publius B. Vandam IV, droned on and on about how his great-granduncle, the noted progressive, reformer, and philanthropist, had been martyred on a cross of gold by those Gilded-Age robber barons. Vandam was the chief executive officer of the company that had designed the interiors and the lighting of the new galleries. Before Vandam, Leslie Ford, the museum director, had exhorted the audience that art was not a commodity, but a public trust.

Before Ford, one Geraldine "Jeri" Culpepper, an elderly socialite, culture vulture, and philanthropist apparently well-known among the Four Hundred, had lauded donors for contributing to the cultural cause, but urged them to match their donations dollar for dollar with charity for the poor. Traynor figured that she had inherited or married into her money. Now her guilty conscience was as black as her dress and gloves. She could not "give back" her unearned wealth fast enough — to those who had not given it to her. Well, her problem. The trouble was that she wanted to force her betters, those who had made their money, like Jennifer and Traynor, "to give it back" as well. To whom? To those who had not made it. And before her, there had been a long line of similar silver spoon socialist speakers Traynor had forgotten or repressed.

The new north and south wings of the museum had been paid for by a hundred-story apartment tower rising above each wing. First American Corporation had built the towers and the reinforced concrete shells of the museum wings on which they stood. Jennifer was First American's Vice President for Safety, Security, and Special Assignments, while Traynor, who had held that job before her, continued as a consultant.

However, the museum had insisted on awarding the contract for the interior design of the museum wings to Vandam Construction. After all, would it be fair for one multi-billion dollar corporation, and the world's largest at that, to monopolize the whole project? Moreover, Vandam was among the museum's most generous benefactors. Nevertheless, like his construction company was but a small part of the fortune he had inherited, his patronage of the arts was dwarfed by his charitable giving championing the poor, the underprivileged, and the disenfranchised. A philanthropist so public-spirited could not be ignored without a social backlash — in other words, without bad PR.

For Jennifer, her donation to the museum had been a chance to get her collection of Frank O'Connor paintings displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, much to the horror of every curator up to the director. Neither what he had called their "proto-fascist" provenance nor their amateurish technique had helped any. Ultimately, only Jennifer's thinly veiled threat that her position at First American permitted her to maneuver the Met Museum Towers project on a back burner through an uncharitable safety assessment had gotten her what she wanted. This had an even more horrified director gnashing his teeth, grudgingly permitting "those paintings" into his holy halls, half recognizing that she who pays the piper calls the tune, half rationalizing that one of the paintings having been featured on the cover of an enormously popular bestseller permitted a retrospective of the painter in the holy halls his paintings may in part have helped to build.

Consequently, the grand opening of the new wings was nothing short of an utter nightmare: Not only were there the usual inane speeches, but the silver spoon socialist speakers tried to outdo each other in their condemnation of the selfishness the O'Connors represented. The silver spoon socialists resented the fact that the new south wing would be named for First American's chief executive officer, whose name they scrupulously avoided to even mention. Culture vultures were furious that they had to thank what they called "those crass materialists" for the museum expansion, that they even had them materialists perch like eagles in their nests above the culture vulture haunt. But what they hated most was Jennifer's O'Connor paintings displayed on the wall of the sturdy column in the center of the windowless gallery, behind Vandam. They hated those paintings even more than they hated the fact that columns supporting the towers above intruded into the new museum galleries, which they believed they should have gotten for free.

The painting Traynor found most interesting, or frankly, the only one that aroused more than a passing interest in him, was Man Also Rises, Frank O'Connor's painting of a cityscape at dawn, which graced the cover of the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of The Fountainhead. Four white shafts of sunlight broke out of a gray cloud over a city skyline. In the foreground, the red steel frame of a skyscraper under construction rose through the right third of the painting. As Traynor loved the book and loved skyscrapers even more, he found the painting, however crude, appealing. Jennifer had purchased a couple more O'Connors, but to Traynor they constituted diminishing returns, and not only the one that was named thus.

Finally, Vandam having finished, the mayor launched himself into a flight of fancy extolling the nobility of public service. Mayor Mark Messing was as short and stocky as Ford was tall and slim. Together they looked like Mutt and Jeff. Apart from the mayor's head of carefully parted silvery hair, that is.

In contrast, Ford's tousled brown hair reminded Traynor of ruffled feathers. In fact, with a small head and a big nose shaped not unlike a toucan's bill, and a tendency to abruptly look hither and thither for imaginary smudges, scratches, chips, and tears on his treasures, the museum director did look like a bird on his perch. The two of them made for a preposterous picture. Traynor was chuckling inside. He could not look at the two of them for any length of time for fear of having to laugh out loud.

Read on…

Or buy the full story.

The Case of the Kidnapped O'Connors

Now available for your Kindle: The Case of the Kidnapped O'Connors, the new Kevin Traynor mystery. A locked room mystery about art, anarchy, objectivity, and madness. Free to download tomorrow, June 13, 2013, midnight to midnight Pacific Time.

When his girlfriend's prized paintings are stolen from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Kevin Traynor has to find them fast, lest she slip from her usual objectivity and rationality into madness, mayhem, and murder. There is no lack of suspects — and no way how any human being can have smuggled the paintings out of that proverbial locked room. There simply is no explanation that is both rational and plausible. The hunt for the thief leads the couple into one dead end after another. It dawns on Traynor that the only way to find the thief is to find the paintings... But is he up against a mere mortal thief, or against The Phantom of the Met?

Kevin Traynor. With the right to be politically incorrect.

Kevin Traynor Amazon UK Book Deal

Save on Kevin Traynor books with this hot new Amazon UK deal!

There are now much cheaper dead tree editions of Torch in the Night (£5.99 instead of £10.33), Phantom Train (£6.99 instead of £10.98), and Mysterious Boat (£7.99 instead of £12.91) available at Amazon UK, just like they are available at Amazon in the US. These editions are being rolled out across local Amazon websites in Continental Europe, too.

The new versions are identical to the old ones, except for minor changes to sizes of author picture and text on the back covers.

Happy reading!

Kevin Traynor on Shelfari

Torch in the Night, Phantom Train, Mysterious Boat, and Debacle are now featured on Shelfari, which has lists and descriptions of characters, organizations, and locations, tables of contents, and many more in-depth book details and facts and makes them available on the Shelfari website and as Book Extras on Kindle readers.

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Thus you can profit from the low prices of Kevin Traynor e-books and the free Book Extras without spending money on a Kindle reader. Nifty, huh?

Gunpowder Tea, Chapter One, Part Three

Begin with the beginning.

When Traynor was about to detour through that flower-filled strait between the low rises of the British Empire Building and La Maison Française, he stopped short and stepped over to the balustrade above the Sunken Plaza in front of the GE Building, his favorite spot in Midtown Manhattan. His gaze swept across the sunshades of the cafe in the plaza below, to the golden figure of Prometheus soaring above Mount Olympus and the zodiac, bathed in the waters of the fountains and the shine of the spotlights, holding high the sample of fire he had stolen from the gods. "Prometheus, teacher in every art, brought the fire that hath proved to mortals a means to mighty ends," stated the inscription on the granite wall behind the statue. Faced with the skyscrapers around him, Traynor could not but agree.

Another drink? After what had just happened, maybe not tonight. If he got kicked out of his other favorite hangout as well, he might start to feel drinks jinxed. He started to hum again.

Mine eyes have seen the number of the coming of the lord:
It is trampling out the vintage years whose heads are less than scored;
It hath loosed the fateful lightning of its terrible swift sword:
This truth is marching on.

Traynor just had to do something special before the summer and the millennium were over. Sure, the bean counters claimed the old millennium had another year's worth of blood in it, but someone who believed that the change from 2000 to 2001 would be more special than that from 1999 to 2000, someone who would not see the obvious, could not be trusted. Who cares if there was a year 0?

Anyway, whatever he did, whenever he did it, maybe he should not do it in the city, state, or even country where he tentatively intended to read law to one day help make it a little less asinine. If his rap sheet grew much longer, even his parents would not be able to protect him from getting disbarred before he ever got barred, uh, admitted to the bar. Five Flag Theory… He needed a place to play, a place where it would not matter if he ended up being a wanted man, uh, juvenile delinquent, in short, a place where he would never go again.

At the ass end of the Channel Gardens, Traynor turned north onto Fifth Avenue, his back to the Gothic pile of St. Patrick's Cathedral, and his head up at Atlas heroically propping up a hollow world below the International Building. One street crossing and one avenue crossing later, he (Traynor, not Atlas, although Traynor sure had an ego big enough for both) arrived at the bronze-colored box of Olympic Tower, now a black silhouette dotted with diamonds of light. His dad's duplex condo was on the upper floors. When Traynor entered the library off the living room on the upper level of the duplex, the red light of the answering machine on the desk was flashing. He pressed the appropriate button.

It was a message from his girlfriend. "Hi, you still recognize my voice? I'll be back soon, and then you can take me to that… Yadda, yadda, yadda."

That did not exactly make him a happy camper, as she was only a placeholder girlfriend. At first he had thought she looked all right and had a pleasant enough personality. However, it had not taken him long to decide that she was dull, unintelligent, a mees-tick, a dinner whore, jealous, and worst of all, not blond enough. Ah, hair the color of… He lost his train of thought.

She sounded like she expected him to pop the question, and failing that, would pop it herself. Would he go steady with her? Would he commit to an exclusive relationship? Well, he'd rather be committed.

Blech.

Did he look that stupid?

Traynor went over to the huge globe in a corner to play Atlas: He made the globe spin, closed his eyes, and stabbed it with his index finger, stopping it. He had stabbed some hole in the wall called Sidi Ifni, Morocco. Yet he let on he hit Casablanca. Sounded more romantic. Why not see Casablanca in color? Plus, Casablanca reminded him of his mom's latest entry in her series featuring Isabella, the white slave of Timbuktu. Let's pay Isabella a visit and see about those more or less oriental delights. He sat down at the computer to help put some travel agents out of work (as the looters would put it), or speed the transition to a new economy with better jobs for all (as the sane people put it).

Down in his room, a packing Traynor also packed the .45 Colt 1911 automatic pistol his dad had given him for his birthday some months before. Officially, the gun was still the property of his dad. Traynor senior had the connections to get any firearms license he wanted from City Hall. He was literally and semi-officially above the law. Hell, he could probably have gotten a license to drag a howitzer down Fifth Avenue, with the mayor and the police commissioner blocking traffic for him.

His son was not content to muddle through by gaming the system. He would do something about it. Either the system would change, or it would be overthrown. Traynor junior believed that all people should be equal before the law, and that you should not have to have connections to have the law recognize your rights. Those stupid laws better be changed pretty damn quick. However, he was not stupid enough to obey them while they were still in force, particularly not if obeying could get him killed. Change the law if possible — bend or ignore it if necessary. And he sure did not believe in sucking up to its custodians. The law was an ass. Fuck the law. He would be the most lawless lawyer in legal history.

He hid his Colt, some spare magazines, and some boxes of cartridges in cutouts in the foam padding between the inner and outer shells of his suitcase. Better safe than sorry. The checked baggage would not be screened. Chances that Casablanca customs would find these items were near nil. And if they found them, it would be a welcome opportunity for them to demand a small baksheesh. Or maybe not so small.

Traynor went up into the kitchen to leave a note mesmerized to the refrigerator for his mom and dad to find when they got back from a book tour and some sort of mercenary mission, respectively.

Folks:

Gone traveling. Will be back soon enough. (Don't hold your breath.)

Love and stuff,

Kevin

Traynor had a deal with his parents. They would not try to parent him as long he would not try to educate them. Savages said, "It takes a village to raise a child." The Traynor clan knew it takes no one. Only in a dysfunctional family, Traynor was sure, can you grow up to be a decent person.

Gunpowder Tea, Chapter One, Part Two

Begin with the beginning.



Nursing his Bostonian blue law blues, a cross Traynor crossed the cavernous elevator lobby and took one of the spacious express elevator cars down. Under his breath, he kept whistling "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
I have tortured every teacher — I have broken every rule
Us boys are playing poker and the girls are shooting pool
The school is burning down!

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Offed Miss Pettigrew with a mousegun .32
And that old bat don't teach no more!

He left the cathedral-like tower lobby and marched through the subterranean mall to the subway station.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
I have tortured every teacher — I have broken every rule
I have shot the secretary and I hung the principal
The school is burning down!

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Met her at the gate with a loaded .38
And the teacher don't teach no more!

The 1 train roared into the station; the doors parted. "This is a Bronx-bound 1 local train. The next stop is Chambers Street."

Traynor boarded the enemy vessel and stared down the passengers. The doors clicked shut, steel squealed on steel once more, and the train rumbled into the tunnel.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
I have tortured every teacher — I have broken every rule
I have bound and gagged the principal and tossed him in the pool
The school is burning down!

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Shot him out the door with a Magnum .44
And the teacher don't teach no more!

"This is a Bronx-bound 1 local train. The next stop is Franklin Street."

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
I have tortured every teacher — I have broken every rule
I slowly killed the principal at a quarter after two
The school is burning down!

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Took his fucking life with my old Colt .45
And the teacher don't teach no more!

"This is a Bronx-bound 1 local train. The next stop is Canal Street."

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
I have tortured every teacher — I have broken every rule
I have barbecued the principal, destroyed the PTA
The school is burning down!

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Shot her up to heaven with an AK-47
And the teacher don't teach no more!

"This is a Bronx-bound 1 local train. The next stop is Houston Street."

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
I have tortured every teacher — I have broken every rule
I have sliced the English teachers and have drowned them in their blood
The school is burning down!

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Shot him in the bean with my favorite M-16
And the teacher don't teach no more!

"This is a Bronx-bound 1 local train. The next stop is Christopher Street – Sheridan Square."

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
I have tortured every teacher — I have broken every rule
I am killing all the teachers — I am breaking all the rules
The school is burning down!

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Met her at the bank with a cool main battle tank
And the teacher don't teach no more!

"This is a Bronx-bound 1 local train. The next stop is Fourteenth Street."

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
I have tortured every teacher — I have broken every rule
I have broken every piece of chalk as well as every rule
My truth is marching on!

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Blasted him real mean with a nuclear submarine
And there ain't no teacher no more!

Unlike his truth, Traynor stopped marching around the subway car. Boy, he sure needed a vacation. He got off at Fiftieth Street and Broadway, turned east, and walked crosstown through Rockefeller Center. The dark canyon between the big boxes that were the Exxon and Time-Life Buildings lay deserted. He felt a bit naked without a gun. Even between the setback-riddled limestone slab of the GE Building and Radio City Music Hall the tourist count was low. Like moths, the few passersby were drawn to the bright floodlights of the Channel Gardens.

Read on…

Gunpowder Tea, Chapter One, Part One

Chapter One

Where Nobody Knows Your Name

New York City, the last summer of the millennium.

The setting sun shed its last golden rays on the little Statue of Liberty far, far below, out in the harbor. Big black ships and little white boats, both as tiny as matches, crisscrossed its waters with their wake trails. Beyond the harbor and the twin black blotches of Liberty and Ellis Islands, the as black flatlands of New Jersey, intersected by inlets and waterways, stretched into a golden infinity.

On the other side, a vast rectangle of sun-gilded silvery columns stretched out and down until they too blurred into rows of matches. Atop Tower Two the tourists' cameras started to flash, and would not cease until the observation decks closed for the night. There sure was a reason why the southeastern quadrant of the one acre of Manhattan real estate that was the 107th floor of One World Trade Center was called The Greatest Bar on Earth and why it was Kevin Traynor's favorite hangout in all New York.

This side of the narrow floor-to-ceiling windows was pandemonium. Actually, it wasn't really pandemonium. Even on this Friday night, the bar was only moderately busy at this early hour. There were still some seats and barstools available, and only a couple junior investment bankers released from their cubicles were doing their antics on the small dance floor. It only felt like pandemonium to a Traynor who did not feel like dealing with people tonight. But like the game was safest below the barrel of the hunter's rifle, the multitude of the eight million constituted the best guarantee of anonymity for Traynor. Give or take a cougar or two to be dodged.

Tonight, a tequila sunrise and Traynor were celebrating the night his high school had closed for the summer. As far as he was concerned, it ought to be closed down and burned down for good. He raised his glass to its eternal burning in the hell of nasty institutions.

Yet for Traynor, favorite spot or not, The Greatest Bar on Earth was no safe bet, either. He constituted a decidedly endangered species up here. While the tourists atop the tower's twin continued to flash their cameras across the canyon, Traynor flashed the fake ID his dad had given him in recognition of passing grades.

"You don't look twenty-five." The waitress frowned formidably under her frizzy black hair tied into something midway between a sloppy bun and a severe pony tail.

"Not the first time I hear that, not the last." Traynor looked at the ID. He found it quite convincing and would almost have believed he was an adult.

She stormed off in a huff. Fortunately, the tower had been designed to withstand hurricanes, so there was little damage she could do.

But to Traynor she could cause no end of trouble: She returned without his second drink, but with a little something or rather someone else. "I'm sorry, but my supervisor has to examine your ID."

Supervisor. In a fucking bar. Even if it was, in name and in fact, the greatest bar on earth. A fucking bartender. The fucking bartender following on the fucking heels of the fucking tequila dolly held out his fucking hand, demanding Traynor's fucking ID.

Traynor cocked his head. "What?"

"Could I see your ID?"

"I showed it to your little friend."

"You'll have to show it to me, too, and good, if you want another drink. After all, you don't look twenty-one, much less twenty-five."

Traynor flashed the waitress a grin. "Hey, I told you it wouldn't be the last time."

Now the bartender frowned forebodingly as well. "Please?"

"I can't."

"You just showed it to me."

Shut up, dolly, I'm talking to your "supervisor," thought Traynor. "Uh, I swallowed it. I don't believe in IDs. It's an un-American concept."

"Then I believe your next drink will be orange juice straight. You swallow your ID, you don't swallow alcohol. Underage drinking is un-American, too. "

"No. It's America's number one teen sport. It's just un-puritan. Puritan is un-American."

The bar boss looked at Traynor like he was not sure whether to call the pigs to have him arrested for un-underage activities or the men in white coats to have him hauled off to a nice, safe padded cell. Public order was sure to collapse once Traynor's views took hold.

Traynor shook his head. "Maybe you can't see Boston from here, but you sure can smell it."

"Huh?"

"Don't bother. The check, please."

Read on…

Introducing Young Kevin Traynor

Over the next couple months, I will write and serialize in these pages Gunpowder Tea, the first story in the Young Kevin Traynor series, which will reveal how everything began.

Stay tuned for Kevin Traynor's very first adventure!

Kevin Traynor, Warrior Prince?

Been reading up on Beowulf last night. Looks like those Dark Ages warriors had a more enlightened idea of corporate identity than today's wage slaves.

Although Hrothgar and Beowulf are portrayed as morally upright and enlightened Pagans, they fully espouse and frequently affirm the values of Germanic heroic poetry. In the poetry depicting warrior society, the most important of human relationships was that which existed between the warrior — the thane — and his lord, a relationship based less on subordination of one man's will to another's than on mutual trust and respect. When a warrior vowed loyalty to his lord, he became not so much his servant as his voluntary companion, one who would take pride in defending him and fighting in his wars. In return, the lord was expected to take care of his thanes and to reward them richly for their valor.

This is actually quite a good description of the relationship between Kevin Traynor (and his thane colleagues, like Nick Parker) and his bosses at First American Corporation.

Wage slaves of the world, arise! Fire your pointy-haired bosses and live like warrior princes!

Kevin Traynor 4-for-3

At the moment, all books of the first Kevin Traynor trilogy are part of the Amazon.com 4-for-3 promotion. Buy all three Kevin Traynor books plus another book (how about Democracy Society?) and get the cheapest one for free.

Here the qualifying editions:

Torch in the Night

Phantom Train

Mysterious Boat

How about Democracy Society as the fourth book? If you like Traynor, you're probably gonna like this one, too.

Reporting Evil Patriots to Attack Watch

Hey, Obama, I want to snitch on my parents. They say you're a communist.

Hey, Obama, I'm looking for the office of the Thought Police.

Hey, Obama, they say your IQ is 70, 35 in the morning and 35 in the evening.

Hey, Obama, they say you need an ear job.

Hey, Obama, they say you're dumber than either the shrub or Palin and have done more to destroy America than both of them together.

Hey, Obama, my fellow entrepreneurs say they won't hire anybody as long as they don't know what Obamacare will cost them.

Hey, Obama, they say you defrauded investors and handed GM to your union buddies/sponsors.

Hey, Obama, they say you fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.

Hey, Obama, they say you fell out of the idiot tree and hit every branch on the way down.

Hey, Obama, all my friends are libertarians, i.e., by your definition, domestic terrorists. Where can I report them?

Hey, Obama, I'm an anarcho-capitalist. Where can I report myself?

Hey, Obama, they say there are gremlins in your computer. Watch out!

Hey, Obama, they say you're dumber than you're ugly.

Hey, Obama, they say you, Papa Smurf, and Karl Marx are one and the same person.

Hey, Obama, my telescreen is on the fritz. You can't see me anymore. Help!

Hey, Obama, there's plenty of stuff on right-wing blogs that needs to go down the memory hole.

Hey, Obama, do you know that your new website sports the nazi colors?

Hey, Obama, you're late: 1984 has come and gone.

Hey, Obama, my neighbor Winston Smith has smashed his telescreen.

Hey, Obama, they say you should read a book called "Atlas Shrugged."

Hey, Obama, I want to report my latest book, "Mysterious Boat." It's full of evil anarchic right-wing stuff. Can you refute it?

Hey, Obama, the paper your book is printed on is way too tough.

Hey, Obama, they say you should publish your scribblings on toilet paper, so it has some use.

Hey, Obama, the exchange rate fluctuations caused by your insane policies have hurt my business. Will you give me a refund? After all, you have money for this here kind of shit.

Hey, Obama, they say you're second only to FDR as the worst president ever.

Hey, Obama, they say you could benefit from economics lessons from a Valley Girl.

Hey, Obama, they say you believe in shovel ready projects.

Hey, Obama, is this the website for Nobama for America?

Hey, Obama, I want to donate to your cause. I have a snail shell and two pieces of pocket lint.

Hey, Obama, I want to thank you for solving the immigration problem. Since you ruined the country, no one wants to come anymore.

Hey, Obama, I'll be rooting for you in 2012. The Republican candidates are all bigger morons than you.

Hey, Obama, where can I join the Junior Spies and the Youth League?

Hey, Obama, they say you look like the backside of a donkey.

Hey, Obama, they say it's impossible to smear you: Whatever one says, the truth is worse.

Hey, Obama, the rich say you're already looting enough of the wealth they produce.

Hey, Obama, the rich say they will move to a place called Galt's Gulch.

Hey, Obama, the rich say they're gonna do some seasteading. Let me explain this to you: They all move on a big cruise ship, which means you and the other losers can then go tax each other.

Hey, Obama, the rich say they're gonna pay their fair share. Here it is:

CreateSpace 1, Lulu 0

From Lulu Press via Facebook:

Share the Savings on us through Aug. 15th with our forward to a friend discount, good for 15% off up to $100. Coupon Code: MYBOOK325 Tell your friends!

Sorry, not a deal I can recommend. For example, Mysterious Boat is $9.99 through CreateSpace at Amazon.com, but $13.99 at Lulu.com.

The latter is already discounted from a whopping $19.99 list price. With the additional MYBOOK325 discount, that works out to $11.89. Still almost $2 more than through CreateSpace.

Why is Lulu so expensive? From the proofs I've seen, quality is about the same at CreateSpace. The royalties I get from CreateSpace are a bit lower, but not that much lower.

All Should Be Equally Poor, Says Cuban Commie

Life imitating art — this pervert is like a certain character from my book Mysterious Boat.

Then there are people like Juan — a Communist Party faithful, also in his 70s, who doesn't want much to change. "Raul is playing with fire," he says.

He remembers the social inequities that plagued Cuban society before the 1959 Revolution and fears a return to what he calls "institutionalized inequality" if private enterprise is given the space to take root.

"Some people just think about what we don't have here without appreciating what we've built."

They've built — nothing. The commie motto: Not to each his own, but for all the same — even if it's nothing.

Inequality isn't institutionalized in the social system of capitalism — inequality is institutionalized in human nature.

Men are not equal in intelligence, rationality, ability, diligence, and productivity. In a free society, the more able will always prosper more than the less able. Material equality means robbing the intelligent to give to the stupid and robbing the diligent to give to the lazy. The only way to achieve a semblance of material equality in a society is by abolishing liberty — by looting — by resorting to the guillotine and decapitating those who refuse to obey — by cutting off the heads that house the ablest minds. In other words: socialism. (Torch in the Night, p. 126.)

Kevin Traynor on Kindle

Now Torch in the Night, Phantom Train, and Mysterious Boat are available on Kindle.

So do not delay, download today your Kevin Traynor Ass Kicking Bar Association!

Kevin Traynor. The most lawless lawyer you'll ever meet.

Kevin Traynor. With the right to be politically incorrect.

Cool Atlas Shrugged Trailer

(HT to Joshua Zader.)

(Should rather be called a freight car than a trailer, 'cause the movie's not about trucking.)



Boy, am I glad they updated this one. With 1950s buildings, trains, and cars, the movie would not only have been uncool, but unwatchable. The plot theme is grim and dystopian enough, and this way there's at least some eye candy to make it bearable.

I don't care shit about the ass pull with the airline bankruptcies. It pales in comparison with the train wreck the alternative would have been.

For all the fan boys who disagree, go read that 1,000+ page doorstopper over and over until you turn into Officer Barbrady. :P

Oh, and it's us who move the world.* Welcome to the twenty-first century.

You could take the Twenty-First Century Limited to get here. But that's another story entirely.

* "Although the nominative case is traditionally required after the verb 'to be', even careful speakers say 'it is me' (or him, her, etc.) rather than 'it is I' in informal contexts."

— Collins English Dictionary

Usage Note:

Traditional grammar requires the nominative form of the pronoun in the predicate of the verb be: It is I (not me); That must be they (not them), and so forth. Nearly every speaker of Modern English finds this rule difficult to follow. Even if everyone could follow it, in informal contexts the nominative pronoun often sounds pedantic and even ridiculous, especially when the verb is contracted, as in It's we. But constructions like It is me have been condemned in the classroom and in writing handbooks for so long that there seems little likelihood that they will ever be entirely acceptable in formal writing. The traditional rule creates additional problems when the pronoun following be also functions as the object of a verb or preposition in a relative clause, as in It is not them/they that we have in mind when we talk about "crime in the streets" nowadays, where the plural pronoun serves as both the predicate of is and the object of have. In this example, 57 percent of the Usage Panel prefers the nominative form they, 33 percent prefer the objective them, and 10 percent accept both versions. Writers can usually revise their sentences to avoid this problem: They are not the ones we have in mind, We have someone else in mind, and so on.

Put that in your pipes and smoke it, grammar nazis.

No grammar for you! Come back one year!

The Secret of the Lost Tribe, Chapter Two

Begin with the beginning.

Chapter Two

The Hotel California

It was dark. It was night. It was late. At least too late to be riding around a highway winding through some Indian reservation, without any definite idea where they were going.

Before nightfall, Jennifer and Traynor had visited another tourist attraction, El Morro National Monument, also known as Inscription Rock. It was another ruined Anasazi village, this one atop a sandstone promontory that was covered with inscriptions left by the Anasazi, the Spanish, and American pioneers. However, tourist attraction or no tourist attraction, now the highway ahead and behind them was deserted.

"Where the hell are we?" cursed Jennifer over the country music wailing from the radio of the roadster.

"On some kind of a road or a state highway or some such thing called 53, according to this map," Traynor replied wearily.

"We might already be in Albuquerque if not for that stupid pileup and detour on the Interstate. Welcome to Gallup — The Drunk Driving Capital of America."

"So much for Amarillo by morning. But on the Interstate we'd have missed that El Morro Anasazi thing."

"Fuck the Anasazi."

He grinned. "Wasn't that funny when that ranger told you that you need 'sturdy walking shoes' for that trail? I'm not the kind to go, 'I told you so,' but I told you so."

"Shut up." She looked straight ahead.

"I mean, there's nothing funnier than two government agents duking it out. Former government agent, in your case. Can you tell me who exactly of you two had the monopoly on the legitimate use of force back there?"

"Shut up."

"Do you think he should have shot you for your own good when you simply ignored him and walked up that trail anyway?"

"Shut up."

"To play the devil's advocate: What about property rights? Doesn't the government get to make the rules on government property?"

"Shut the fuck up."

"Best thing is that the Interstate's got to already be open again. Otherwise we'd have more company. This is the only road paralleling the Interstate."

"Do you want me to turn around?"

"No. Sooner or later we've got to end up on the Interstate again, according to the map."

"To hell with your stupid map."

Traynor looked up from his stupid map. On the radio, Emmylou Harris observed, "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues." He looked around. Obviously, Emmylou was right.

He cocked a brow. "Not the end of the world. But if it weren't dark, we could see it from here."

If anything, the darkness was emphasized by the light of the full moon. It only made one think what might lurk in the shadows between the silvery silhouettes of trees and bushes. Ahead, beside the road, a butte rose steeply into the sky. On its apex, outlined against the white disk of the moon, stood the black silhouette of an Indian horseman, like a ghost from a time long gone by. Despite the deceptive moonlight, Traynor was sure it was an Indian, not a cowboy from a nearby ranch. The figure did not wear a war bonnet like a plains Indian, but he did not wear a cowboy hat, either. Traynor thought he got a glimpse of the savage garb. Most tellingly, however, the shadow held a bow instead of a rifle.

Traynor nudged Jennifer. "We've got company."

She blinked her eyes in fatigue. "Huh?"

He pointed out the silent, immobile figure in the sky.

She shrugged. "It's a reservation, after all."

"We've got to be a couple miles out of that reservation already."

"So do you wanna climb up there to tell Chief Moth Eaten he's out of area?"

"Not necessarily. It's a free country."

"By the way — how the hell did he get up there?"

"Maybe there's a path on the other side." He grinned wryly. "Still, a bit creepy with that bow — one would think today's Indians pack rifles. Like he's on the warpath, ready to command some unseen army to attack…"

That moment, a flaming arrow burned through the windshield of the Auburn, hitting Jennifer's eye. At least that was what she felt. As the automobile sped towards the needle of light, the needle grew into a speck, then into white neon letters advertising: "Hotel California." The sign sat on the roof of a single-story building. In front of it was another light, a flashing blue neon sign announcing: "Vacancy." It was not actually a hotel; Motel California would have been closer to the truth. From a row of rooms sprouted a more spacious wing, probably the office and maybe a restaurant, with two gas pumps and a diesel pump in front of it. That was all. Jennifer pulled into the parking lot between the vacancy sign and the motel.

"Gas. Food. Lodging." Traynor frowned. "Not exactly the Plaza."

"Let's get that real straight right now. I'm about to fall asleep at the wheel. And you're not exactly the world's greatest driver. You'll understand that I'm not too keen to have you drive my Auburn at night. So we're kind of running out of options. Either we'll be sleeping in my car, or we take a chance on this Hotel California."

There did not seem to be too many guests. Only a handful of other vehicles sat in the parking lot in front of the rooms. Jennifer stopped the Auburn in front of the motel office.

When they entered, they found a middle-aged couple behind the front desk. Both of them stood a bit taller than either Jennifer or Traynor. Apparently, they were discussing some business matter. As Jennifer and Traynor checked in, the four of them got involved in a conversation. It turned out the other couple owned the motel. They said their names were Irv and Maxine Goldman. Eventually, Jennifer and Traynor realized they were not only very tired but also very hungry.

"Well, I've already closed the kitchen for tonight, but I can get you some apple pie," offered Maxine.

"That would be wonderful," Jennifer sighed.

They moved to a booth in the diner. Now the New York couple saw that there was more to this wing than just front desk, office, and diner. A spacious room next to the diner was a veritable general store selling souvenirs to tourists and groceries to the few locals living out here. This place had to be the supply depot and gathering place for ranches far and wide.

While Maxine got the apple pie, Goldman volunteered to mix them drinks. Some strands of his receding gray hair escaped from under his Stetson. His face was tanned like leather, and his stout frame was dressed in a flannel shirt and worn blue jeans.

"You guys are Eagles fans?" asked Traynor.

"Eagles? Oh, you mean because of Hotel California?" Maxine brought the apple pie and sat down at their table.

Her hair was still black — possibly dyed. However, the first thing one noticed about her were her big, questioning eyes that seemed to wonder at something inexplicable. She looked a little slimmer than her husband, although that was hard to tell due to her flowing floral-print dress.

The apple pie smelled delicious. However, Traynor knew that that meant nothing. But when he tasted it, it proved to be delicious, without that chemical aftertaste of factory pastry.

Goldman served the tequila sunrises Traynor had ordered, got himself a beer from the refrigerator under the counter, and joined them. "No, we were actually on our way to open a hotel in California when we came across this here place. The guy who had built it wanted to get rid of it badly, so we bought it for a song, and opened our hotel here instead of in California. But we named it for our formerly promised land. You know, we're originally from Chicago. As the saying goes, we saved our pennies and saved our dimes — to build our own hotel someday."

"Maybe we should have moved on… After all, when we found out why he had to sell…"

"Shush, Max."

"But…"

"Let's not worry our guests."

Jennifer frowned. "But? What is it?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all."

"Irv, you know it's one of these nights…"

"Max! Enough is enough."

Although he was curious himself, Traynor thought it more important to avert marital discord. "That reminds me… Could I get another tequila sunrise?"

Jennifer rolled her eyes. "Take it easy, desperado…"

Buy the full story.

The Secret of the Lost Tribe, Chapter One, Part Three

Begin with the beginning.

Some miles down the highway, Traynor was looking at the road map. "There are supposedly some kind of Indian ruins at the end of that dirt road over there."

"Yeah. Read about them in my guidebook last night. Wanna have a look?"

"Sure, why not?"

Jennifer turned onto the dirt road. "They were called the Anasazi. The Indians, I mean."

"How do you spell that?"

"I-N-D-I-A-N-S."

"Very funny. The other guys."

"A-N-A-S-A-Z-I."

"You sure that's not supposed to rhyme with nazi?"

"Quite sure. After all, I'm the language expert here. Anasazi means 'enemies of our fathers' in Navajo, I think."

"Yeah, I read about them. Some mysterious Indian tribe that vanished during the Dark Ages. They left ghost pueblos all over the place, but no one really knows anything about them: who they were, what they did, what they believed, how they lived, why they vanished, where they went, or what became of them."

Traynor unzipped the black leather jacket that protected him from the airstream. It was late fall, but unseasonably warm. When Traynor and his friends had busted a terrorists plot some months before, one of the instigators had confessed that he had invented the global warming hoax as a ruse to guilt Americans into submission to the world community. Now, Traynor was wondering whether that son of a bitch had merely been bragging. In any event, if this was global warming, he loved it.

They left the Auburn at the end of the dirt road and walked along the winding footpath that had to run to the ruins. The path meandered up to the saddle between two hills, overlooking the ruins on the barren moonscape. It was a fairly large complex of interconnected hovels or rooms, different shades of orange, brown, and sand in the sunlight. Their roofs gone, all the hovels were open to the sky. The walls, some of them half-collapsed, had been heaped up from thin stone slabs of irregular size. A perimeter of roughly rectangular rooms protected round ones in the center like shrines. They walked on, down to the ruins.

In her Indian outfit, Jennifer looked like one of the hippies who infested Indian ruins to seek some kind of ersatz spirituality. Like a vulture, one of the requisite gurus taking advantage of them swooped down on her. This specimen was a rather seedy old man with a white beard; he was wielding a pendulum.

"May I introduce myself? I'm Grunzgurk — Dr. Gregory Grunzgurk, energy scientist. I'm in charge of the archeological dig here. May I give a lovely lady like you a tour of the place?"

"You may," Jennifer replied icily, taking Traynor's arm.

Grunzgurk appeared a bit disconcerted at this turn of events. He looked from Traynor's cowboy boots up his blue jeans to his open leather jacket revealing a white cotton shirt — and a glimpse of the holster holding his .45 Colt M1911 pistol. Traynor sure was no hippie.

The witch doctor pointed out the round rooms. "We believe kivas were temples — our physicists found they were important shrines radiating concentrated fields of electromagnetic energies."

Grunzgurk waved to a busty brunette in rumpled shorts and a brown deerskin jacket similar to Jennifer's. "May I present, Laura Popoff, the renowned investigating physicist — and fortunately, also my assistant."

The "investigating physicist" nodded a welcome to the visitors, then produced a dowsing rod, pretending to investigate something.

Grunzgurk continued his narrative. "All natural stones are polarized by the magnetic field of the earth. If they are assembled haphazardly into a building, this results in an unhealthy environment. Look at the size of these stones. Kivas are huge generators of negative energy. Sensitive people can feel that. In their hands, a pendulum will swing clockwise or counterclockwise, depending on the prevailing polarity of energy — positive or negative.

"I believe kivas were used for healing. Hundreds of people would assemble in them to radiate energy to the sick. The negative radiation of disease would go out, and the sick person's battery would get recharged."

Traynor snorted. "If the Anasazi were such great, um, engineers and such great, um, doctors, why didn't they even manage to build new towns when they had to move from here due to drought?"

"It was their own technology that did them in. Hundreds of kivas created a great energy updraft over the valley, which dispersed clouds, leading to the widespread drought."

"Surely, a supply of tinfoil hats would have saved them, poor things."

Grunzgurk gave him a quizzical look. "I don't believe that that would have helped in this particular case. Be that as it may, when the drought came, the Anasazi lost faith in their priests who had failed to predict the times for planting and harvest — and to preserve harmony with the gods. They lost faith in their religion."

"They lost faith in their religion? At least one step in the right direction."

"Do you think so? After all, it was their knowledge that failed them. They learned that nature is unpredictable. They found that their culture had grown too complex. They were afraid they had created a monster they could not control, and therefore they returned to a simpler way of life. There seem to have been numerous cultural collapses of this kind in America."

"Why don't you talk turkey? Whatever theories you come up with all amount to nothing more than to: Give up, give up, give up, give up. You're gleefully wallowing in the failure of the Anasazi 'civilization' and praising them for returning to a simpler life — to the primeval muck. You're insinuating it's happening again. You believe all that nonsense because our culture — which by my standards is not yet very complex — is too complex for a nitwit like you. The moral you're insinuating is that we all need to return to a simpler way of life — because you don't wish to confess to yourself that you're the only one who is so primitive that he has to return to a cave. In other words, your motivation for making up all this hocus-pocus is that you're an idiot too stupid to live."

Offended, Grunzgurk turned to Jennifer. "We can test that scientifically. Stretch out your arm horizontally — yes, like this — and make it very strong. You see how strong the field is here? Very strong!"

The "scientist" led Jennifer into a ruin. "Now make your arm strong again. You'll see here it collapses completely, upon the slightest touch, because of the negative field… I said it collapses completely!" The "scientist" tried to push Jennifer's arm down with all his strength, but could not make it budge.

"Doesn't work if I don't play along, huh? Maybe you can do that with your suggestible assistants, but not with me. Listen, you big wuss: You're not a doctor. You're not a scientist. You don't feel anything of any consequence. And people don't have batteries."

The big wuss still kept pulling Jennifer's arm, his pendulum oscillating frantically. "I'll show you, lady."

"Let go of my arm."

"Just another second," he smiled.

"Don't touch me."

"Don't worry. It won't hurt."

"It will hurt."

The big wuss gulped.

Traynor was steering the Auburn down the highway at speed. He looked into the rearview mirror. No highway patrol. He glanced for a second at Jennifer, who sat sullenly beside him. "I guess you had to make him swallow his stupid pendulum?"

"Shut up and drive."

Read on…

Or buy the full story.