Clip 10 The Vampyres Of New York

The Vampyres Of New York

Clip 10

A Novel

by

R.E. Prindle

 

I sat comfortably in my chair with a glass of excellent Cabernet looking benignly at Lessing, Giusti, Barron Cammell and in the speaker’s seat, Max Savings.  There was some uneasiness as the Chicago insurrection was still raging, other disturbances were taking place in cities with majority Negro populations.  While cause for concern, the concentration of Negroes in urban centers localized the disturbances rather than making them general.

In many other majority Negro areas most of the Negroes had found it expedient to head for the big cities.  Thus the Negro-White situation was rather cleanly divided.  Of course Manhattan was a different situation.  The Negro population had halved over the past three years so while seven and a half percent was still a large population on Manhattan Island their minority status quietened them somewhat while having been expelled from the Aryan areas even those are untouched directly by the gathering storm.  The news today had announced the formation of a New Islamic Republic in lower Manhattan so hostilities were imminent from that part of the city.

I think it struck all of us as odd that we were to discuss events that occurred a hundred years ago having little or no reference to today.  It seemed rather eerie.  Nevertheless Max began:

Max:  All of us are old enough for the Bolshevic Revolution to have influenced our lives.  Those born in the year 2000, now turning eighteen, may not have even heard of it, or if they have, its irrelevance to them leaves the mention of it forgotten.

Those born after, say, nineteen-eighty are old enough for more to have heard of it and perhaps taken cognizance of it but except for the few more scholarly the Revolution lacks meaning.  The names of the participants save Lenin and Stalin have no true meaning to the majority of Americans living.  Even the term American now has little real meaning.  It is good to have some company tonight who share my interest.  Sometimes walking down the street I feel like a time traveler visiting the future or perhaps a transient from a parallel universe, a man from Mars.

So, the greatest heist in History has gone down the memory hole.  The theft of the wealth of a great and extensive nation.

The seizure of the government of Russia by the Bolshevics was accomplished by men who had never know power, men who had no experience or notion of governing, no background in economics nor did they ever have any idea of what money is.  Thus when they gained power they were astonished to find that civilization was based on money, and they had no idea where money came from.  They immediately destroyed the economy, that is the taxation base so that the only liquid wealth they had was the gold reserves and they were running through those fast.

Knowing nothing of relative value they valued the accumulated wealth of centuries at face value not realizing you could flood the market on things of extrinsic value such as jewels and art works but thing of intrinsic value such furs were only used goods that sold at fire sale prices.

Nevertheless they plowed ahead.  Since they were murdering the aristocracy the aristocrats grabbed whatever of value was portable and fled the country.  Thus, not only were these confiscated goods a drug on the market but for decades they were a drug on the market.  The emigres growing more impoverished by the year they sold their jewels and other portable wares while becoming a laughing stock. 

Imagine having been the equals in the highest society then walking around in worn out outdated clothes, no money, while being mocked as ‘Count’ if you dared to say who you had been.  And then as former autocrats of Russia they were despised and hated as much as the Germans have been since the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

As they walked the streets, warehouses in the new Soviet Union, the name Russia having been obliterated from the maps, were packed with long rows of stolen or ‘appropriated’ fur coats, furniture, painting and any removables of value.  Not only did the Soviets steal from the aristocrats but in an anti-Christian frenzy fabulous churches were invaded, priestly vestments, irreplaceable icons, gold and silver vessels, anything, anything of value was removed.  The Soviets themselves were then on the same level as the displaced aristocrats.  They had miles of stolen goods but no money.

The Money Trust, both gois and Jews, was willing to make loans to them but the amount of money required to maintain the old Russian Empire couldn’t be obtained through loans; loans were just stop gap measures and since the Soviets had no income they couldn’t pay the loans back anyway let alone the interest.

In desperation they took like some Jewish old clothes peddlers to trying to hawk old fur coats, paintings, used furniture.  The Soviet Union in many ways was founded on vengeance.  As has been said of the Russian Revolution- Where are the Russians?  In fact there were few of them.  Mostly they came from the subject peoples of the Russians- Letts, Poles, Jews, Georgians, from everywhere but mostly Jews.

As Dostoyevsky sagely remarked in the nineteenth century:  The Jews would kill us all if they had us in their power.  Well, now the Jews had the Russians in their power and, in fact, they were killing them; those that hadn’t the opportunity or wisdom to flee.

Barron Cammell:  Hold It!  Hold it!  This isn’t going to some anti-Semitic Jew bashing like that one’s over there is it?  The Jews!  The Jews!  Always the Jews!  The first to be blamed and last to be forgiven.  Show me some proof that even one Jews was involved.

Me:  Leon Trotsky.

Barron:  Trotsky was a secular Jew; he wasn’t religious.  An atheist.

Me:  OK.  So he was an unreligious, secular, atheist Jew.  What does it take to be a Jew in your eyes Barron?

Lessing:  Barron! Barron!  Let’s not have any outbursts.  This is a fraternal society.  We can express ourselves freely without rancor.

Max:  It’s just history.  The fact are easily ascertained.

Me:  Barron, it is no more clear than in Russia that the Jews work as a national unit and secondarily as an international people working together in their own interest against all other interests in battle for supremacy.  Why then are you offended that Max is placing them in the place and time?

Barron:  Oh, shut up, you.

Lessing:  Barron, no rudeness now.

Barron:  I don’t know why you brought that guy here Lessing.  Everything was fine until he showed up.

Hodding Giusti:  No, Barron, things were about the same.  It was just that no one had investigated anything where the Jews played as prominent a role.

Barron:  They certainly did in my report on the Rothschild’s yet I didn’t accuse them of any crimes.  I praised their economic acumen.

Hodding:  Well, you were very generous to the Rothschilds.  You barely touched on how they got their money or how they bent the rules.

Barron:  You mean innovated, how they changed the way things were done.

Hodding:  Merely another way of saying the same thing although laudatory instead of critical; after all theft is theft and everyone at the time knew it was theft.  Time and an eraser have just altered the reality in the mainstream consciousness.  A legend or myth has replaced the reality.  Such altering of the past was nearly a cottage industry by the time I retired.  But, let Max go on.

Lessing:  Yes, Barron, after all Max puts a lot of time and effort into his presentations.

Barron:  So do we all.  Except for him (indicating me) obviously.

Max:  I may resume then?  Nevertheless, the largest faction of revolutionaries was Jewish or of Jewish origin, since Barron insists that Trotsky wasn’t Jewish for various reasons, hoping to distance them from the mass, as it were.  I won’t call it recent research since the obvious has been known since the Tribe arrived at the Finland Station, however only recently, that is a few years ago, have the Jews admitted publicly that they were the engine of the revolution.  I hope we can consider that settled.

It can be no coincidence that while thousands of Christian churches were looted or destroyed not one synagogue was touched so that only Russians were expropriated.  Needing money and having little except the accumulated things stolen from the nobility and churches, the Soviets determined to convert the stolen things to cash.  This was an incredible stash.  Whatever the Nazis are said to have appropriated from the Jews was miniscule in proportion while a large part of their wealth was probably fenced goods from the revolution. 

I use as my main source Sean McMeekin’s History’s Greatest Heist: The Looting of Russia by the Bolsheviks published in 2009.

As the Jews primarily were responsible for accumulating these trinkets they naturally had the networks in Europe and the US to dispose of the stuff.

Barron:  Stop it!  Stop it!

Lessing:  Barron, please! Have some respect.

Max:  Of course as all the stuff was in a legal sense stolen, the Soviet Union itself was acting as the fence.  There was opposition in the West to becoming receivers of this stolen merchandise.  There certainly were protests from Russian emigres when they could identify items that had belonged to them.

Curiously their claims were disregarded unlike with the Jews after WWII during which claims without a shred of evidence were awarded from items appropriated from the Nazis, different in no way from the Jewish Soviets.

Barron:  There is a great deal of difference, somewhere between six and ten million Jews were murdered by Nazi thugs in the Holocaust.

Me:  Six to ten?  It keeps going up.  Let me point out though that the Jews, as a national group, atheist or religious, were complicit in the murder of millions and millions, using your method, Barron, tens of millions of Russian aristocrats and kulaks, simple folks, and whoever didn’t keep their heads down or make it to the border.

Barron:  I believe we can lay the blame for that at Stalin’s feet.

Hodding:  I don’t believe we can.

Barron:  Well, that’s certainly as it is in the historians I read.

Lessing:  There are other histories.

Max:  May I go on?  Thank you.  The attempt, as I say, to sell the stuff ran into opposition so that it was necessary to operate underhandedly in which the main operatives were what Henry Ford called the international Jews.

Barron:  Name one.

Me:  Armand Hammer.

Max:  Yes, he was certainly one of the biggest.  And what Jews were big buyers, especially for jewels and paintings?  This leads us on to wonder how many paintings Jews were reclaiming as theirs had formerly belonged to Russian aristocrats or came from the Hermitage, that is the Czar’s personal stash.

Certainly these selling activities during the twenties were well known to the Nazis so that one might say they had an immediate example perhaps making them believe they were reappropriating Aryan treasures, to use the term.  In any event theirs was not a unique crime.  Nazi crimes may be considered as an extenuation of Soviet crimes.

Barron:  Oh my god!

Lessing:  Hush!

Max:  One of the main conduits to the US, if not the main conduit was the Jew Armand Hammer.  He was quite notorious at the time being resented and hated on a fairly wide scale.  While it was forbidden to attack him as a Jew, anti-Semitic,  he could be attacked as a Communist or tool of the Communists, which he denied on both counts.  Needless to say he denied he was a Communist although his fortune was made by the Soviets.

Even his name, Arm and Hammer, bespoke his father’s politics.  Hammer’s fortune was made in the Soviet Union and then he was chosen as the chief conduit to dispose of the aristocrats’ treasures in the United States.  Can it be any wonder then that Hammer acquired one of the great art collections in the world for himself.  How many other art works were funneled into Jewish art collections such as that of the movie star Edward G. Robinson’s?

Barron:  Can you prove that Robinson bought from Hammer?

Max:  Not at this time but it does make sense.  For instance, David Bazelon who was the Alien Properties Custodian during WWII made Chicago’s Jews, he was a Jew from Chicago, wealthy after the war when he sold whole industries confiscated from the Germans cheap thereby making fortunes, giving Chicago’s Jews great economic power.

Barron:  Can you prove that?

Max:  Certainly.  Those sales are public knowledge and above board.   The government records exist.  Hammer’s sales may have been more clandestine although Andrew Mellon’s collection can be traced to Hammer.  Mellon’s paintings were eventually given to the US National Gallery where they reside today, unclaimed by any Russian although had they belonged to Jews you can believe they would have been ‘restored’ by now.

Barron:  You sound embittered by that.

Max:  Indeed I am for crime anywhere is a reflection on me if I hold my silence.  Heard that one before Barron?  Or, all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing?

The point is that Hammer’s collection was composed of stolen merchandise of which he was both a fence and receiver that could be traced to the original Russian owners, but neither Hammer nor any of the Jewish buyers who knowingly and gloatingly bought stolen merchandise ever returned it to the rightful owners.  All legal actions taken by the rightful owners were thrown out.

Yet, when artworks were taken by the Nazis the Jews demanded that such, under very tenuous evidence of the former ownership, were given to them.  Many probably obtained from the Russian hoards.

Even though the Jewish population losses were horrendous, six million are claimed to have fallen in the holocaust alone while other massacres such as Babi Yar and what we might call natural wartime attrition may have claimed a million or two which should have nearly exterminated the whole European Jewish population but miraculously didn’t.  Thus, perhaps, using figures wildly eight million or more Jews perished out a possible ten million yet claimants sometimes multiple claimants after 1945 were there to claim anything that might possibly have been owned by Jews.

Barron:  Do you depreciate Jewish suffering to concentrate on a few dollars.  How heartless.

Max:  You can be exasperating Barron.  I don’t denigrate anything, both Whites and Jews have been known to kill for a few dollars more.  The point I’m trying to make is that the Jews are not long suffering innocents and that on the one hand they conducted according to McMeekin the greatest heist, that is theft, in history and on the other hand play innocent victims.  The end I’m trying for, I suppose, is that neither the Germans nor anyone else need feel guilty for causing Jewish suffering anymore than the Jews feel guilty for causing the untold suffering of the European Holocaust endured through two world wars.  If Freud and the members of the B’nai B’rith wanted to see Europeans and Europe dead then between two world wars they nearly did.  They sought the destruction of Russia and achieved it when Russia was wiped off the map becoming the USSR.  As a Union of Republics, the Jews being one, they on paper, at least, achieved autonomy.  When it became time to murder the much despised Czar and his family Jews did it.

It seems to me the height of obtuseness to believe the Jews are a holy and innocent people.

Barron:  It seems to me that you and that over there lack compassion.  I think you’re being heartless and are despicable.

Me:  Compassionate?  Compassionate?  There’s no one more compassionate than me.  My heart bleeds for the whole of suffering humanity.  All of it not just an infinitesimal part called Jews.  I see the suffering of one as representative of the whole.  How can anyone be happy knowing that some poor individual somewhere is unhappy, to quote Liberal dogma.  What is going on outside our windows as we sit comfortably sipping fine wine is equal to any suffering in the history of the world.  I feel their pain but, still, this is excellent wine and they will have to pry my cold dead hands from the stem of this glass before I give it up.  There Barron, was that passionate enough for you?

Lessing:  Hear, hear!  If I feel guilt I’m sure it isn’t too obvious.

Hodding:  History shows that the suffering is not evenly distributed over the entire population.  Even in the worst suffering some suffer more and some suffer less.  I choose to suffer less.  Pass that bottle over here.

Lessing:  I found your presentation interesting Max.  I really wasn’t aware of the confiscation of the material wealth of Russians by the Bolsheviki.

Max:  Who said I was finished, but if I am, I suppose I am.  It is quite a story.  I was driven off my prepared remarks to a large degree by Barron’s vociferations.

Me:  You made your point anyway.   I rather enjoyed the controversy but then I am a child of controversies.  Barron, what’s the problem here?  Since you speak of Jews you know there is a collectivity that calls itself Jewish or it would be useless to speak of Jews.  If there is such a collectivity then that collectivity must have some identity, some standards of conduct that it acts on.  Since the collectivity functions in the external world it must be observable.  Right?

Barron:  Yes, of course, but that is no reason for Jew bashing.

Me:  Well, analyzing those activities, whether the analysis is correct or not doesn’t constitute bashing does it?

Barron:  It’s the intent that makes the difference.  You are…you are…

Me:  Ok, I’ll finish for you:  You are an anti-Semite.  Right?

Barron:  Not me, you are.

Me:  Right.  I was just finishing the sentence for you.  But Max didn’t say anything that wasn’t true did he?

Barron:  That’s not the point.  The truth is irrelevant.  Some things just shouldn’t be said.

Me:  The truth is irrelevant?  I give up then.  When true things can’t be said there is no hope.  Civilization falls to the ground.

Lessing:  A good report none the less.  Let’s call it a night.

 

We all gave as jolly or cordial a good night as possible.  Barron even bent a little although avoiding me in his gaze.  As I was leaving Lessing asked for a meeting.  I said I had to see about my suits from James Carter.  I would give him a call after talking to Goldbladder.  As I was leaving, my phone rang.  It was Ange.

Ange:  Partly, Merivale is at the door.  I can see him.

Me:  How does he look, Ange?  Agitated, determined, worried, what?

Ange:  Sort of angry, I can’t tell.

Me:  Does he have his cell phone visible?

Ange: Yes.

Me:  But he’s not trying to use the door speaker?

Ange:  I, I, I don’t know

Me:  OK.  Hold on Ange, I’m going to speak to Lessing for a moment.  Don’t hang up.  Lessing, Steinberg’s at the condo trying to get Angeline to come to the door.  You have his cell number, right?  Can you give him a call and advise him he isn’t acting in his best interests?

Lessing:  I think so.  Ask Angeline to report on his reaction.

Me:  Ange.  Lessing is calling Steinberg now, keep your eye on the monitor and tell us his reaction.

Lessing:  Merivale, Lessing here.  We’d appreciate it if you ceased bothering Angeline.

Steinberg:  I just want to talk to her Lessing.

Lessing:  That isn’t possible Merivale.  Angeline is no longer under your control.  She is with Perry now.  They consider themselves husband and wife.  You have already damaged her enough.  Be a good fellow and just leave.  Go home.

Steinberg:  Damn it, Farquhar, I’ve got rights.  I…

Lessing:  Rights are exactly what you don’t have Merivale.  Rights are what you don’t have and actually never have had.  I shouldn’t have to tell you that there are serious criminal acts here.

Steinberg:  You’re not threatening me, Farquhar, because if you are…

Lessing:  Call it what you will, I’m telling you we’ve got you by the shorthairs.  Whatever happens you lose.

Steinberg:  This is some sort of anti-Semitic trick isn’t it Farquhar?

Lessing:  Good God, Steinberg, we’re talking crime, not religion.

Steinberg:  Judaism isn’t a religion.

Lessing:  Who cares what Judaism  is Merivale.  Be wise, turn around, get on the elevator and don’t come back.

Ange:  He just looked into his phone, Partly.  He looked at the elevator and then back at his phone.

Me:  Tell him to leave again, Lessing, he’s ambivalent.

Lessing:  Angeline doesn’t want to see you Merivale.  She’s thinking of calling security; avoid a ruckus and get in the elevator.

Merivale:  Fuck you Farquhar.  Watch your step.

Ange:  Oh, good, Partly, he’s walking back to the elevator.  He’s leaving.

Me:  Excellent Ange.  Have a relaxing cup of tea.  I’ll be there within the half hour.  Good job, Lessing.  I’ll pass a message through Goldbladder this Monday at my fitting.

Lessing:  Will Merivale get it?

Me:  Oh yeah.  Goldbladder will have minutes of this meeting tomorrow.  Steinberg within minutes of my fitting.

Lessing:  And the minutes of the meeting will come from Barron, you think?

Me:  Sure of it.  Alright I’ll call you Monday evening to relay what happened.  Great reading from Max.  See you later.

 

Things are moving very fast now.  My own present life has been one of stress that almost makes me dizzy.  I have to make an effort to stay calm.  On the home front managing Ange is demanding all my powers so that I have to develop a second personality to deal with external matters.  My greatest pleasure, reading, has been shot to hell, no time, while squeezing in writing has forced me to reorganize my time usage.

Dealing with the New York situation has me, uh, ‘rising to greatness.’  I’m learning to delegate whatever can be delegated and hope for success.   Cooperating in an unprecedented emergency has been high.  The ethnic cleansing of our area goes more smoothly than might be expected.  The major problem is our people who have been conditioned to sacrifice their interests to others and who resist the expulsion of Negroes, Moslems and others.  In order to discourage others some of these fanatics have been excommunicated , expelled North into Negroland or South into Moslemland.  Tribeca being somewhere between is a mad confusion of peoples.  Obviously the American Experiment has hit the rocks.

Saturday and Sunday morning then I spent working with Ragnar and his gym crew and delegations working out governmental problems within our community, maintaining Western Civilization as best we can.  It’s sort of like the frontier of the nineteenth century.  This is not easy.  Afternoons I spent with Ange.  While we consider ourselves married we still have to get to know each other.

Central Park is now safe so we spent Saturday strolling the lanes and exchanging confidences about ourselves to each other.  Ange is more lovely than I could have hoped for, beautiful in mind and body.

Sunday we combined romancing with touring community neighborhoods to get some firsthand knowledge of how things are shaping up.  Unsettled to say the least but people seemed to be concerned for themselves and each other.  Transitioning from one state of being to another isn’t easy.  So far, so good.

Then Monday was the day for my fitting.  Everything going to hell but business as usual.  Have to remain centered.  Amazingly, amongst the growing chaos the stock market is holding up well.  Instead of losing I’ve actually gained a few points in my investments.  Of course I have to be nimble.  Amidst all this nonsense I find myself plotting my investments.  Well, life goes on, nothing stops for tea.

Our area was well below forty-fifth street so there was no problem getting from Tribeca to forty-fifth although I did have to cross the border from Tribeca into Whitelands.  Our armed troops were patrolling the streets.

Me:  Any problems getting gas, Ragnar?

Ragnar:  No.  All deliveries are flowing through without any problems.  We are getting food shipments from Jersey both through the tunnels and across the Hudson.  No interference through the Bronx as yet.  Our membership has been growing which we have been able to accommodate so far through expulsion of others but as we’re prepared for trouble Bronxside we’re organized to invade if necessary.  It would be nice to have Columbia in our fold.

Me:  What does Lessing say about Obama?

Ragnar:  So far DC is in a dither.  Fires burning in too many places for them to wrap their heads around.  Incredibly they were so confident in their agenda that they had no clue this was coming.  You’ve probably noticed the jets and copters overhead but so far they’re only making noise.  Lessing says they are calling in troops from NATO and other places as our troops are depleted here in the US, or what used to be the US, but where they will deploy first we don’t know.

Me:  Yeah, well, I’ve got more important fish to fry just now.  I’ve got suits to fit.

Ragnar:  I sure hope you can handle it, Boss.

Me:  Might not be the highest assignment but I’ll be better dressed for one now.

Ragnar:  Especially in hot pink.

Me:  You spying on me Ragnar?

Ragnar:  Word gets around.  Not everyone in town wears a hot pink suit with matching hat and shoes.  People do talk.

Me:  Yeah?  Well I’m going to have a little pink mask too.  Fantomas in splendor.

I hopped out of the limo, entered and mounted the staircase.  Let’s see what Abe is up to.

Abe:  You’re on time as usual, I see.

Me:  I’m pretty consistent Abe.  Time is money and all that.

Abe:  According to Freud so is shit.

Me: Ah ha, ha.  Well he’d know better about that than me. However I am willing to pay in kind if you like Abe.

Abe:  That was just a bad joke.  We’re sticking to your card.

Me:  Great.  So how close are we to getting the suits?

Abe:  This might be the last fitting.  Here let me show you something.  Check out these shoes, this hat, and these gloves.

Me:  I didn’t order gloves.

Abe:  No, but I knew you’d want them.  Look at this matching hot pink to go with the suiting.

Me:  But they’re not fluorescent Abe.

Abe:  Get out of here ungrateful One.  Do you have any idea how much work this has been?

Me:  No, but I have an idea what it’s going to cost.  Remember I don’t have a first born.

Abe:  We know.  By the way how did it go at the whatchamaycallit club you belong to go.

Me:  Something tells me you can tell me Abe.

Abe:  Do you think we have the place wired or something?

Me:  Something.

Abe:  What would that something be?

Me:  Not what Abe, who.

Abe:  Oh, I see.

Me:  Sure you do.  So what did you boys think of Max’s presentation.

Abe:  We thought it was anti-Semitic.  We’re beginning to think you guys are Nazis as well.

Me:  Paranoia becomes you Abe.  Max is an historical researcher he simply reported what was true.  We’re true historians Abe.  We don’t distort the facts to fit an agenda.  You have only yourselves to blame.

Abe:  Sometimes the truth doesn’t have to be revealed.

Me:  The other night wasn’t one of them.  So what else is bugging you Abe?

Abe:  We know you’re Nazis because your goons are forcing we Jews out of Little America or whatever you call your enclave.  That is anti-Semitism and it has to stop.

Me:  Nobody is forcing anybody to leave Abe.  Those Jews you referred to wanted to be in Brooklyn in your national colony there.  You aren’t going to deny that Brooklyn is a Jewish colony are you?

Abe:  How would you like it if we forced Whites out of Brooklyn?

Me:  We’d love it Abe, almost pay you to do it but we’d still make a big noise about it, just to put you in a bad light.  Times have changed Abe, national lines have been drawn.  Anti-Semitism doesn’t have the meaning it did anymore.

Abe:  A big noise hey?  Wait till you see the new issue of New York magazine.  By the way, I see you people have started a new magazine, the New York Beobachter, is that what it’s called?

Me:  I’ve always like your sense of humor Abe.  No, it’s the New York Intelligencer.  We have two hundred and thirty-four subscribers already.  We expect to double that shortly.

Abe:  I suppose you write that crap?

Me:  No, Abe.  I haven’t contributed as yet.  So far we’ve used stringers to report local events and analyses plus relying on letters to the editor.  So far, so good.  Want to take a bundle of a hundred back to Brooklyn?

Abe:  I don’t live in Brooklyn; I live in Manhattan.

Me:  Really?  Where abouts?

Abe:  Not too far from you I imagine in what we call the Tribeca Free State.

Me:  Yucka, yucka, Tribeca Free State, that’s good Abe.  Well then, it’s either Brooklyn or the Free State for your emigres but they will have to move; we’re not much on diversity from embedded elements, we have enough problems with our own of various backgrounds.

So, is this the last fitting before delivery Abe?

Abe:  There will be a last touch up to make sure everything is true.  That’s next for all your suits.  Make an appointment.

 

I did.  As I entered the apartment Angeline greeted me breathlessly to announce:  Partly, I just got a call from Lady and they’re coming back now.  All hell broke loose in Europe.  They were lucky to catch the last plane out.

Me:  Damn.  I suppose that will bring the stock market down, at least temporarily.  Well, where are they now?

Ange:  She said they were a couple hours out.  They should be here tonight.

Me:  You’ve got everything spic and span, no problem there.  Just a minute while I call Ragnar to let him know.

Ragnar, we just received news that Lady and Miles will be back in a couple hours.

Ragnar:  I know, they called.  I’m on my way now.

Me:  Ragnar already knew.  He’s on his way.  We’re shipshape here.  Cook something up in case they’re hungry.

Ange:  Lady didn’t sound very happy I was here.

Me:  I’m sure she was surprised.  She had no reason to suspect I would marry.

Ange.  It didn’t sound like that.  There was a note of disapproval in her voice.  Maybe she thinks I’m not worthy.

Me:  Honey, nobody’s opinion but mine counts.  I know your worth, I know the criminal acts that were committed on you.  There is no better person in the world than you, however the career of Angeline II, of which you are still not totally aware is still out there; for many people that is the only Angeline Gower they know.  We don’t know but perhaps Miles attended one of those parties and, well, who knows?  Be prepared for the worst but we can’t let that affect us.

Ange:  But Partly, I don’t want you to be hurt.

Me:  Honey, nothing can hurt me.  I am proof to the world.  I know how things function.  Let me call Lessing to see if he knows.  Lessing…

Lessing:  I’m on my way.  Hold the fort.

Lessing is on the way Ange, everything is under control.  We can only wait.

When the keys began turning in the locks Lessing, Ange and I were in our places and ready.  The early return was obviously due to the eruption of the Moslems in France and the incursion from Germany to the East.  We should soon have some details.

Lessing:  There’s the keys.  I’ll go open the inner door.

 

The Carmichaels literally burst through the door in high agitation.

Lady:  You can’t believe the turmoil over there.  France is in flames from Marseilles to the Belgian border; Belgium is in flames.  They are looting, burning and killing on all sides.  They are every where, everywhere, Notre Dame was blown sky high.  Churches everywhere are being blown up or burned.  The clergy are being murdered.  The uprisings are in all parts of France.  While the army has been mobilized to combat the invaders from Germany, the troops are ambushed from all sides.

Good God, never in my lifetime, never in my lifetime did I believe something like this could happen.

Me: (clearing my throat)  Welcome back to the Tribeca Free State Miles and Lady.

I said nothing but I had written that this exact same thing would happen.  At my age I didn’t know whether it would happen in my lifetime but anyone who followed EU policies could see it coming.

Miles:  Tribeca Free State?  What are you talking about?

Lessing:  Well, Miles, things have been happening here too.  Manhattan is now several different States.  You have the Moslem Caliphate in Lower Manhattan, the Tribeca Free State here, the New American Republic in mid-Island both East and West, the African Chieftanship in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx.  So things are different.  And then there’s the Orthodox Hebrew Theocracy in Brooklyn,  Queens isn’t clear and we haven’t heard much from Staten Island but it appears it might be Whiteland.

Miles:  Egad!  The Tribeca Free State!  Why that?

Lessing:  Nobody is so dominant that it can be claimed but we’re doing our best to get it into the New American Republic.

Lady:  Well, at least the lights are still on.

Me:  Yes, we were able to seize control of the grid.  We’re using it to try to freeze out the Moslems.  They have no power at all, of course, that has raised some havoc with Wall Street but they can always go back .  Once we cut off their water they will have to vacate.  That adds to the woes of Staten Island and Long Island, New Jersey but it’s unavoidable.

Miles:  So war is going on here too?

Lessing:  Yes, Miles, you might call it a phony war as so far there hasn’t been too much shooting; we’re all still sparring with each other, waiting to see what Obama will do.  So far, we assume he’s ‘assessing the situation.’

Lady:  My God, is it the end of the world?

Me:  It is certainly the end of civilization as we’ve known it.  But then that began back at 9/11, now we’re really into it.  But, you said something about Merkel inciting it.

Lady:  Yes.  Over there they think Merkel had the plan when she admitted all those Moslems in ’15 and ’16.  The French think it’s a continuation of the Nazis.  They think Merkel is rearming Germany and once the Moslems are out of Germany with France in total turmoil Germany will attack Moslem France and begin the conquest of Europe.

Me:  Far out!  Crazy little Mama Merkel.  Who would have believed it.  I suppose the Moslems are smashing the wine stores.

Lady:  Yes, of course, but what a thing to mention.

Me:  Damn.

Lessing:  Ata boy, Perry, first things first.

Lady:  Now that you mention it Perry I’m afraid that you and that woman will have to vacate the apartment.  We’re sorry our agreement isn’t viable.  Force majeure.   You do understand, don’t you?

Me:  Of course, Lady.  Angeline has her own condo so we’ll move over there.  We’ll pack and leave tomorrow.  I can assure you I have no objection and no regrets.  I can’t thank you enough for a very wonderful experience.  I’m sure Lessing can fill you in after you’ve recovered from your flight and as we are all fighting the good fight I hope we can be friends and associates.

Lady:  I’m sure we can Perry.  But, I’d prefer you spent the night at…her…apartment and pick up your things tomorrow.

Me:  Certainly.  I understand fully and as I say Lessing will fill you in later.  We’ll take our leave then.

Lessing:  give me a minute Perry and we can go uptown together if you like.

Me:  Sounds good Lessing.  Alright with you Ange?

Ange: (suppressing a sob)  Yes.  I’m yours Partly.

 

Proceed to Vol. I, Clip 11