Part 31 - the beginning of the end

I can't believe this is my last section - it seems like yesterday that I was sitting at home in Hong Kong in the middle of summer, opening up the first fresh pages of the manuscript... all bright eyed and bushy tailed in anticipation of the adventures Rowan would be taking us on. Who knew it would end here; stuck in a dank greenhouse, with a physically inept 24 year old heroine (oh, and heroin too).

No mice here - but I do have a nasty cold, and spent all of yesterday at home sleeping. At least Tony was around to entertain me in his union suit. We're both sick, and decided we would use our time to make homemade ginger beer. This is going to be my new enterprise - artisanal ginger beer. Definitely a luxury item, and thus if I can make my own, think of all the pennies I'll save!

Back to Rowan and her adventures. I was trying to think of a reason why you would want to get rid of your gardener by depositing his body in a mushroom patch - I wonder if anyone has done any research into the benefits of decaying human carcass as fertilizer, or if this was a common method of body disposal by any organized crime syndicate. Anyhow, as we begin my section, Lucy is requesting that she take a leave of absence to shoot up ('just a little lift'), which clearly irritates Kee. This leaves Kee, one of his Korean henchmen, with Rowan and Matt. Matt attempts to get Kee to turn himself in, apparently Matt has filed a report with his 'people' (who are these people? the government??) and they are onto Kee and Lucy's evil plot. This fails to scare Kee who is looking forward to killing Rowan and Matt and making them into fertilizer.

Just as the conversation between these two becomes almost too stifling and cliched to bear, a shot rings out! Who could it be? It's Reshevsky! He's alive! The clever bastard was only playing dead and of course wanted to come back to save his darling Rowan. Kee has two shots left, and Reshevsky has five... ah, mathematics comes to the rescue once again. Rowan is released and promptly flies to Matt's side to release the cords at his feet. A gun fight then breaks out between Kee and Reshevsky - Reshevsky fires the first two shots, the first of which kills the Korean guard, and the second of which misses Kee. Kee returns fire, and it seems as though this really is the end of dear old Reshevsky. More physical shenanigans ensue - Matt and Kee begin grappling (although Matt is still bound at the wrists, making him seem more of a lumbering rock). Keep in mind Rowan is not bound nor particularly physically injured, yet I think the extent of her participation is that of the helpless onlooker. You'd think she would have been able to find a rock or a garden rake to hurl at Kee. I'd like to think if I was ever in such a situation, I would have the presence of mind to do more than gape.

And her helplessness pays off. Matt is defeated by Kee (again mathematics must be used here - remember Kee has two free hands, and Matt has zero). Kee is now free to grab Rowan and aim his gun at her while Matt lies unconscious on the ground.... Is this to be Rowan's last few minutes? What will her last thoughts be? But no! Matt has only been playing dead and has managed to leap up and attempt to choke Kee. This dance of death continues until a great blaze of light illuminates everything. The cavalry has arrived, and somewhere a shot rings out resulting in a well timed gunshot to Kee's neck. I'm assuming these are the 'people' who Matt mentioned earlier. Whoever they are (the anti-commie brigade? a rival gardening party?), they've come to save the day, and have an ambulance with them.

So, I'm handing the last section over to you. Make it a good one.

Part 27 - a smackdown in Under Armour.

Oh Shane, my section is precious. I read it greedily over my bowl of morning oatmeal (oatmeal - not a luxury, but unfortunately I still don't find it particularly tasty), and would have laughed several times out loud, was it not for my mouthful of breakfast. And what a miserable morning it is; I had been looking forward to our field trip to Staten Island but standing around in a suburban wasteland in rainy 45 degree weather sounds terrible.

Which reminds me I need to buy some Under Armour leggings for my trek this upcoming January. I think we've bonded before over our hatred of cold weather and every additional year I spend away from subtropical climate, I am reminded that I am a creature of warmth.

None of what happens in my five pages makes sense, but I was so desperate for a change of pace - something other than the lovesick pining of a 24 year old girl - that every single delicious detail was savored, licked and swallowed whole.

Our Rowan awakes, groggy and in pain, finding herself gagged and tied at the wrists and ankles, in the shack where the generator is in the back of the Greenhouse. She finds a Korean gardener guarding her ... um, weren't they all supposed to Chinese gardeners? are we all interchangeable in 1960's America? And who else! It's Reshevsky! Dum dum dum de dum... ominous 'I knew it!' music plays... He barks at the gardener, telling him that the orders have changed, and he, Reshevsky is supposed to be in charge of the girl now. While this exchange takes place Rowan kicks herself for betraying herself to Reshevsky while simultaneously worrying about Matt. Was he being tortured? is he bound and gagged? is this supposed to turn into a weird erotic novel as I had proposed it would in the beginning?

Just as Rowan begins to worry about Matt she overhears Reshevsky imperiously tell the Korean to go tend to the other man with the questioning (and the Korean obeys, just as 'his peasant ancestors no doubt obeyed their Emperor').

Its interesting to note that Rowan never doubted that Matt was also in custody. If I suddenly found myself poisoned, gagged and held prisoner in a shack I have a feeling I would think everyone was in on the plot - but then again maybe I've never been in love with Matt Cater.

Reshevsky then proceeds to remove her gag and in the manner of the James Bond villain proceeds to tell her everything about the evil plot. What a wonderfully convenient plot device, especially as we only have 30 pages left in the novel. One tasty little morsel we discover is that Reshevsky wishes Kee would use scopolamine (a truth serum!) on Cater, rather than traditional pain.

Reshevsky, like all gentleman villains, of course confesses he thoroughly enjoyed Rowan's company, and considered her a real friend. And like all gentleman villains, he has a dark past which has forced him into his current role - apparently he dabbled in espionage (much like someone would perhaps dabble in recreational drugs?) when younger... he flippantly references some sort of 'treaty'. It was Rowan's aunt who found him, and manipulated him, which would be a fairly standard plot turn, if it not for the fact that Reshevsky reveals that her aunt is a heroin addict! A junkie! This was the cause of one of my near-breakfast accidents with the oatmeal.

Ah ha! it all comes together ... the found needle... her aunt's odd emotional turns... Could it be? Have her aunt and Kee been shipping heroin, or perhaps poppies, out of the greenhouse? Are they the modern Taliban?

It was that needle that Rowan found that made her aunt want to kill her (although exactly why Rowan needs to be tied up, and Matt tortured and interrogated is still beyond me - its not like Rowan had figured anything out). It seems like Kee and the aunt have a habit of eliminating characters though - Ah Sing's disappearance was credited to Kee, and in a crossed out section I'm able to make out that Milly's predecessor (who is that by the way?) also had a habit of 'listening at keyholes', thus necessitating an elimination.

Anyway, this is fun stuff. I'm looking forward to your next section. I have no clue how on earth Rowan's aunt, who is apparently a junkie gardener trying to smuggle things clandestinely from her greenhouse, would even bother with the trouble of killing Rowan.