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After a leisurely dinner at the restaurant next door to the hotel, I returned to my room. There were several calls that I wanted to make, and my body was longing for a refreshing, leisurely shower.

With the time difference between Chicago and Boston, I thought there might be a good chance of contacting, respectively, either Beth Idaho or Jennifer or both. If my timing was right, I might be able to catch them just after they had eaten supper but before they, possibly, were going out for the evening.

I tried Beth's number first. After about four rings, she picked up the phone and said: "Hello!"

"Beth, its David Phelps calling from windy, downtown Chicago," I responded. "How are you?"

"I'm fine David," she indicated. "What are you doing in Chicago?"

"Well, if you will recall our last conversation," I replied, "you may remember me promising to tell you what I found around the next curve. In reality there have been a number of curves that I've gone careening about in the last few days, so I thought I would bring you up to date before my vehicle goes completely out of control."

"Oh! Oh", she intoned. "I don't know if I like the sound of this."

"There is an upside to all of this, Beth," I suggested. "After all, if I had departed from the land of the living, I probably wouldn't be permitted to make this phone call.

"In fact, two friends of mine did make such a departure very recently. Consequently, I would have to say that, in the light of everything which has happened, I'm quite fortunate to be able to talk with you."

"I'm terribly sorry to hear about your friends, David," Beth sympathized. "What happened?"

"No one is really sure," I answered. "They were murdered several days ago, but by whom or why, is not known."

I didn't want to go into details about the situation with Beth. I suspected she might feel responsible, in some way for the deaths of Ken and Pam if I were to share with her some of the possibilities linking the various deaths, abductions, and so on, that had begun to pile up since Beth first walked into my office.

She had nothing to do with what happened. Moreover, I didn't believe Brian had anything to do with the death of my friends. Nevertheless, we all seemed to have become entangled in the same net of fate which had been cast into our collective lives by an unknown fisher person who was trolling for who knows what.

Technically, there was a correlation between Beth's appearance on my doorstep and a number of subsequent events. However, in terms of causality or culpability, she was not responsible for any of what had happened.

I didn't want to run the risk of Beth conflating the two separate issues. This would be just one more problem for her to deal with on top of her missing brother and the abduction ordeal.

Beth needed to be warned, I felt, but I wanted to do this in a roundabout manner. Therefore, I decided to let her know about how I almost had become a card-carrying member of her club.

"You may not believe this, Beth," I began, "but I'm fairly certain the people who abducted you also tried to do the same with me."

"What?" she gasped in shock. "When? Where?"

"On Monday evening," I informed her, "not too long after I had come from a movie. If not for the intervention of a street person, I was done for.

"If I compare the symptoms I experienced with the ones that you described to Jennifer, they are pretty much identical. In both of our cases, I feel fairly certain some kind of drug was used.

"I won't bore you with the blow by blow account, but, actually, one of the reasons I'm in Chicago is to follow up on a possible means of helping Brian. I'll fill you in on the details later.

"I wouldn't recommend getting too excited about any of this quite yet," I advised her. "The lead I'm looking into is connected with the Botclofot group Brian had mentioned to me toward the end of my visit with him.

"The whole thing may go nowhere since, on the surface, it would seem to be, at best, a long shot. Nevertheless, I thought you might like to hear that I haven't given up on trying to help your vision to become realized."

"As I told you before, David," Beth reminded me, "I never had any doubts about the man in my vision either finding a way, or being found by a way, to help Brian, but I'm also worried for your welfare."

There she was, again, with her certainty about things spiritual. I found it a little annoying, but I also felt that a good portion of my annoyance probably was out of envy for someone who was sincere in her faith and who seemed to know about such things from the inside out, while I was stuck looking at the same things from the outside in, through an extremely besmirched window of observation.

I decided to pass over her statement without comment. Instead, I said: "I suspect I know what the answer is, Beth, but you haven't heard anything further about, or from, Brian have you?" I inquired.

"No," she stated, "I haven't. "In fact a new element may have been added to the cosmic stew which is being heated up.

"My other brother, Warren, has disappeared. Some friends have been trying to get in touch with him for nearly a month now, but he has dropped completely out of sight without leaving any clues or indications as to where he is or has gone.

"Apparently, Warren's friends have been able to determine he has left South America. Nothing else, however, is really known."

"You may feel this is silly, Beth," I proposed, "but I think you and Jennifer ought to stay together for a week or ten days until, hopefully, the situation becomes more stable and resolved. At the present time, however, the rate of strange and dangerous happenings seems to be picking up acceleration.

"I'm sure Jennifer wouldn't mind. I would feel a lot better if I knew you both were readily available for one another, if necessary, and so that you could guard one another's back, so to speak.

"I was about to call Jennifer anyway, and I could ask her about the idea. You would be doing me a big favor, Beth, if you were to say yes."

"I'll tell you what, David," she offered, "why don't you have Jennifer call me and the two of us can discuss the situation directly? Will that satisfy you?"

"No, it won't," I answered, "but its better than being flatly rejected.

"I'm going to say good-bye for now, Beth. When I hang up, I'll try to get in touch with Jennifer.

"If she's not home, I'll leave a message explaining the situation and ask her to call you. In one way or another she will get in touch, either through your home or your work number.

"Take care, Beth. I'll keep you posted on the latest breaking developments."

"You be careful as well, David," Beth cautioned. "Thank you for calling."

After hanging up, I tried Jennifer's home . She picked up the phone on the second ring.

She said: "Whoever this is, it better be good, because you are interrupting the flow of creative energy which is busy painting beautiful word pictures on the screen of my computer's monitor."

"More endearing words have never been spoken," I replied. "I bet you say this to all of your suitors."

"Love is nice, but creativity is the spice of life," she shot back. "Do you really want to go down in history as the one who's silly obsession with a truly radiant and beautiful woman has, quite tragically, interfered with and prevented her great thoughts from being communicated to a needy world?"

"Yes, I suppose the idea of this call was rather selfish and shallow of me," I said, somewhat chastened. "If you wish, I could call back at another time."

"And, what, drive away the guardians of inspiration once again?" she criticized. "The damage already has been done, I might as well speak with you."

"It's nice to hear your voice too," I offered. "Incidentally," I added, "please give Beth a call and see if you can persuade her that you both might be a lot safer if she were to, maybe, stay with you for a few weeks, or so, until, hopefully, the situation resolves itself somehow and becomes more stable and people friendly."

Jennifer responded with: "I'll see what I can do." Quickly changing the subject somewhat, she asked: "Have you made any progress with your Chicago mission and the mysterious Botclofots?"

"The only progress I've made is to undergo an evolution in my thinking concerning origin-of-life issues," I stated.

"Has someone, finally, managed to inform you about the birds and the bees?" queried Jennifer.

"Not quite," I indicated. "The information is more along the lines of the secret and salacious lives of all manner of hydrocarbons, including their bonding habits.

"In addition, we even have had an opportunity to gain some insight into the rather controversial cross-bonding inclinations of some of the more daring hydrocarbons. I'm beginning to feel somewhat like a voyeur."

"Well, although from your perspective, all of this may appear to be quite risque, nevertheless, you seem to have a long way to go before you reach the part about the birds and the bees?" observed Jennifer.

"Not at all," I countered. "I've already encountered detailed accounts of the mating habits of all maner of autotrophs, heterotrophs and eukaryotic life forms. I very strongly feel that I may be on the verge of some major breakthroughs."

"Let's hope you are up to speed by the time you get back," she remarked. "I would hate to think I was considering marrying someone whose understanding of the way of the world was stuck in the existential angst of Pre-Cambrian days."

"If you promise to marry me," I posited, "then, I will apply myself diligently to learning all I can in these matters."

"Don't get too rambunctious," Jennifer advised. "I find your innocent naivety very attractive."

"Your every wish is my command," I acquiesced.

"I wish you would hang up," she commanded, "so I could set about trying to re-ignite the fires of creativity that you have so thoughtlessly extinguished with your mindless prattle about evolution."

"I miss you deeply, as well," I pined. "By the way, I've sent you another poem which you might receive, depending on the mood of the US postal service, tomorrow or Saturday, or, possibly, on Monday.

"If you will recall, Jennifer," I added, "you did say that as long as a sufficiently long period of time had passed, you would be receptive to receiving another poem from me. Somewhat arbitrarily, I have decided the true, official, technical meaning of 'sufficiently long' is about seven days."

"I was envisioning something more along the lines of the length of the Jurassic era," she responded. "Isn't it strange how some people see things in such narrow, constricted terms, while others of us look to the big picture.

"In any case, David, despite the extensive nature of your growing list of faults and foibles, I love you and miss you," she confessed.

"Your charitable expression of sentiments concerning my person," I noted, "emboldens this humble one to ask if you would deign to spend time in my unworthy presence, perchance, on the Tuesday night next?"

"If you promise to take English As A Second Language between now and then, its a date," she confirmed.

"I'll see you on Tuesday night, David, maybe around 8:00 p.m. or so."

"I love you," came from my lips as I hung up the phone.

Upon finishing the conversation, I busily set about making preparations for a nice, long shower , including the laying out of some fresh clothes to complement and celebrate my body's soon to be acquired new lease on life.

When I had finished washing up and dressing, I checked my watch. The time to rejoin the group for the evening session nearly had arrived.

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