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Subject: {ASSM} The Saga of Blanche, Part VIII: Fade to Blanche
Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 07:10:01 -0400
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The Saga of Blanche, Part VIII:
FADE TO BLANCHE
by
Frank Saynesberry


Well, I'm about to lock up the so-called offices of Grimbros Investigations 
for the last time.  The beaten-up old filing cabinet stands in the corner, 
all four drawers yawning open and empty; the few files I didn't burn are 
stashed in a big cardboard box, underneath my cherished MD 20/20 wall clock, 
ready to be hauled out to the car.  Just another empty "office suite" now, 
probably waiting for a wrecking ball.  The only trace of myself I leave 
behind is on the far wall, which is a mess: in moments of boredom, I used to 
lean back at my desk and have "target practice" by engraving Janet Reno's 
initials on the wall in bullet-holes. Well, it'll give the landlord an excuse 
to keep my deposit; that should make him happy. Those were simpler times....

I know, you're waiting to hear about Blanche and the Dwarves.  I'm getting 
there, okay?  We've finally gotten to the last chapter of this story, and 
you've been patient with me.  I appreciate it. Sometimes, y'know, I think you 
want me to tell the story nice, and easy....or maybe some of you guys on 
auto-scroll want me to tell it nice, but kinda rough.  You know, like a big 
gang-bang, with all the Dwarves fucking Blanche 'till her eyes pop out, and 
then fucking the sockets....but there's just one problem.  Y'see, it didn't 
happen that way. So now I'm gonna finish telling you what happened .... but 
it won't be easy.  'Cause this is the case I could never walk away from ..... 
Well, enough of this Proud Mary bullshit.  Let's get to it.

************************************************
The last time we saw Coyreen, the Porno Queen, she had just been neatly 
impaled, from her pussy to her throat, on one of the long, curving tusks of a 
concrete statue of a woolly mammoth, standing in the midst of the La Brea Tar 
Pits.  In a space of 48 hours, she had been directly responsible for the 
violent murders of a Sunset Strip hooker, an Engineering student from USC, an 
off-duty policewoman, a burned-out porno actor and junkie, a church choir 
leader in Watts, and, finally, Chang, the biggest, strongest, and most 
determined of all the Devil's Dwarves.  Had she not died in the Tar Pits, she 
probably would have also killed her husband, Miles O'Smiles, but she never 
got the chance.  She had also come close to killing Blanche Snowe, who now 
lay in a post-electroshock coma at Watts General Hospital, with the injured 
Dwarves Chief and Snap.  

I got the story of Coyreen's death from the only person who could possibly 
have told me: Vitaly Arkhoff, her former masseur, who was hiding out 
temporarily in the San Fernando Valley.  When he returned Chang's body to the 
Dwarves, he had been met with cold, suspicious stares: if the Dwarves 
appreciated his gesture, they didn't show it.  (Of course, two of the 
surviving Dwarves were still in the hospital, so the group hadn't really had 
a chance to evaluate the situation.)  After very gently placing  Chang's 
massive corpse in the waiting arms of Burt and Nacho, Vitaly had looked them 
both straight in the eyes and said simply, "Zee woman keeled him.  I'm sorry. 
 But beeg elephant keel zee woman."  Then he had turned, climbed back in his 
HumVee, and driven away.

Later, Vitaly would learn that the Dwarves were not angry or upset with him 
at all.  In fact, after I told the Dwarves what had gone down that night, 
they unanimously voted to make Vitaly the Seventh Dwarf, replacing Chang.  
When I conveyed their invitation to him (I was beginning to feel like 
Kissinger, commuting back and forth between Watts, the Valley, and Palos 
Verdes, where Miles lived), he was astonished.  

"Well, Vasily, why the Hell not?" I asked him.  "It makes sense to me.  You 
know you're not gonna want to work for Miles O'Smiles after this, and I 
really can't see you just blending into some nine-to-five routine.  No 
offense, but you're just like the Dwarves (shit, you're just like me!), an 
outsider.  You understand 'em.  They understand you.  And then there's 
Blanche.  Seems to me like you'd be one big happy family."

The big man thought about it, but, ultimately, decided not to take them up on 
their offer.  "Meester Greembross," he said, "I would like to be with zee 
Dwarfs, and Mees Blanche, but....." he shook his head, trying not to give 
offense, "Me and Dwarfs are all outsiders, yes, but .... ze Dwarfs, zey are 
American outsiders.  Vasily watched zem, when zey weren't looking. Zey even 
look like America: deef'rent colors, deef'rent lankwages .... You don't see 
it, because you are American, too.  But Vasily will always be Russian, a 
Russian outsider. Ze place for me is ze Rodina, ze Motherland."  And that is 
where he went: back to his beloved "Zaint Petersburg," with a suitcase full 
of large-denomination American bills and a single unframed photograph, which 
he would cherish until the day he died.

It was not a photograph of Coyreen.

***************************************

On my last visit to Miles O'Smiles, I gave the porn magnate two things.  
First, and most important, were the facts concerning Coyreen's death.  
According to the LA County Coroner, and now in the professional judgment of 
the Grimbros Detective Agency, her death was nothing more or less than a 
horrible freak accident.  I spared Miles the bloody details: he didn't need 
to spend the rest of his life visualizing the woman he loved skewered on a 
mastodon's tusk.  I simply told him that she'd been driving under the 
influence of cocaine (which was true enough), and that her car had been 
struck by a much larger vehicle (also true).  She wasn't snuffed by rival 
porn bosses, or thumped by the cops, and she definitely had  not committed 
suicide.  I hope the truth eased his mind; it was all I had to offer.

Oh, the second thing I gave him?  The retainer he had paid me when I first 
took the case. (In fact, I had put his original retainer down on the nose of 
that lucky nag Prince Charming, and had won it back at six-to-one odds.)  
It's not that I hadn't earned the money; it's just that, as things turned 
out, I couldn't accept payment for this particular case.


Because this is the one that got personal.

*******************************************

I had interviewed everyone who was anyone in the Coyreen case.  I'd 
interviewed Miles, and Vasily, and all the Dwarves except Chang.  (Yeah, I 
finally got to interview the Chief and Snap, who had both been released from 
the hospital after being patched up.)  I'd interviewed the office staff at 
O'Smiles Productions, where Blanche used to work as a secretary; I'd 
interviewed Miles' tech staff, the bright boys who had created the mirror.exe 
program, and who were astonished to hear how the program had rewritten itself 
and plunged Coyreen into a homicidal mania.  I'd even talked with the 
Under-Assistant West Coast Promotional  Director of  'N Synch's record 
company, who said,  No, of course the group hadn't done any "custom" 
recordings for O'Smiles Productions, dammit, didn't I know how BIG these boys 
were?  Didn't I know that these boys just finished a tour of fucking JAPAN? 
.... Right, right.  Anyway, I'd interviewed everyone except Blanche Snowe.  
So that's where I went next.

It had been 48 hours since Coyreen's attack with the electric stun-gun, but 
Blanche still lay in a coma in the Intensive Care Unit at Watts General.  I 
walked into the door of the Emergency unit, and made my way through the long 
white line of security guards and nurses by keeping my head down, mumbling to 
myself, and greasing a few palms: I'd been here many times before, and the 
staff knew me, and we all knew how the game was played.  When I finally got 
inside the ICU, I had a brief chat with the attending physician, a 
dark-skinned young woman whose name-tag proclaimed her to be Razi 
Prazwitappichakthanom. I had not seen her before, so I flashed my phony 
police badge at her and started grilling her about Blanche.

"How much of a charge did she get, Doctor, uh - - - " I peered down at her 
name tag again, trying to get it right.  "Doctor Praz...Prazwittip..."

"Call me Dr. Razi," she said in a neutral tone of voice.  "Everyone calls me 
Dr. Razi.  But I cannot tell you how much charge she got.  Was not a single 
charge, you see.  Was continuous discharge for multiple seconds.  Altogether, 
even though I must say I am not the electrician, I think we can safely 
estimate she did receive a very big charge."

"Isn't it unusual for a victim of electrical shock to go into an extended 
coma like this?"

Dr. Razi looked bored, but maintained a polite, if put-upon, tone.  "As I 
say, I am not the electrician, but yes, I think that since electricity 
burning victims rarely, if ever, respond in this manner, then, yes, it would 
seem to be unusual.  You will please excuse me."  Before I had a chance to 
ask her if Blanche would ever recover, she turned on her heel and went to 
read some x-rays hanging on a nearby light table.

Okay, sister, I thought, I'll just check out the damage myself.

I had already been told that Blanche was located in one of the farthest 
cubicles in the wide, dimly-lit ICU; and, once I got past Dr. Razi, she was 
simple enough to find.  She lay in a steel hospital bed, just like all the 
others, with all the miraculous life-support paraphernalia clustered around 
the head of the bed: a forest of tubes and tapes and graphs and readouts and 
electronic gadgets that would puzzle an astronaut.  In fact, I had to gently 
weave my way between several of the machines before I could even see her....

Lying there, as if on a bed of rose-petals, her arms folded across her 
breast, her skin luminescent, pale, yet brilliant, like the full moon; her 
hair as black as the deepest corner of the farthest galaxy; her lips red as 
blood against her snow-white skin....seemingly asleep, or perhaps resting, or 
perhaps dead.  But such perfection, such unexpected, undreamed-of beauty! If 
she was dead, then death was more beautiful than life; if she still lived, I 
wanted her to live forever.  I think I gasped; I know that I felt slightly 
dizzy; but once I got my sea legs, I edged closer to her bed, and stood 
looking down on her.  And then, as the machines hissed and whistled and 
hummed around us, I felt an overwhelming compulsion to lean over, and kiss 
those lips, whether they were cold or warm.

And they were rather cold at first, although indescribably soft and 
heartbreakingly sweet; but then, to my amazement, they became warmer, and I 
opened my eyes and saw color rising in her cheeks, the very palest pink 
rushing to replace the stark whiteness;  and as my lips lingered on hers, her 
eyes suddenly opened wide: the clearest, darkest, brownest eyes I had ever 
seen, sparkling with life, but unimaginably deep; and we were literally 
looking each other in the eyes, when I felt her arms reach up and clasp my 
neck, pulling me closer.  And now there were tears coming from those eyes, 
and from mine as well, and I felt her little body shake as she whispered 
heavily in my ear, "I knew you'd come!  Are you a prince?"

And I could only respond, whispering into her ear, "No, dear lady, I'm a 
dick."

And she hugged me tighter, and the machines went into overdrive as her vital 
signs became normal, in fact robust; and we kissed and kissed..... And 
finally, after gathering ourselves, we managed to slip past Dr. Razi, and the 
entire staff, and ran to my waiting car, my pride and joy, my 1965 white 
Mustang convertible, and we headed straight for the Dwarves' house.

And, yes, we lived happily ever after.

THE END

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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