“One moment, my friends; we should not be in such a rush. There is much to talk about, particularly the mutual friend we share.”

He motioned with a tilt of his head toward the front door, brightly lit with daylight. A large passenger car pulled up to the curb and parked. The driver got out, came around, opened the rear curbside door and smiled as he gestured to us to get inside. We complied and within moments the three of us were speeding along the busy city streets. I noticed that there were no door handles on the inside and the radio was playing Bluegrass music. “Odd”, I thought.

“Whoa, whoa, what’s the rush,” he wheezed at us. “It took me fifteen minutes to get up those damned steps and I’m not about to go back inside.”

Jenlinda began rambling, “you see, Herr Gutenberg, the thing is, there was a minor Mocha Kokomo Cocoa Latte Drop incident involving an Indianan . . . an . . . Indianananite. We don’t know what he has inside that Pacers fanny pack but we know we don’t want to find out - - we’ve got to get inside!”

“I emphatically concur,” I emphatically concurred.

As we made our way down the stairs, I found myself thinking that something must have been slipped into the latte that slipped from my hands. It’s the only explanation for the moments of memory that even now are missing from my recollection of these events.

Where did those lights come from? That disembodied voice? How did I get up on the roof in the first place??

Something was definitely rotten here, and all the fishwrap in the world couldn’t conceal the stink.

I felt myself drawn to the light, its warm glow bringing me closer and closer as the hypnotic, nasal, heavily-accented voice of Pinch had a strangely calming effect upon me. I was about to loose all sense of time and space when the sound of a Washington, D.C. Metro bus plowing over several pedestrians brought me back to reality. Sensing the danger, I grabbed Jenlinda by the arm and pulled her toward the stairs, intending to flee what I now knew to be a horrible — and increadibly overpriced (for the experience so far anyway) — place.

“Forget Kokomo. Forget lattes. Soon neither will matter.” She then raised her hand slightly above her head, snapped her fingers sharply, and called out, “Bernard! Bring the car around.”

Jenlinda took a step toward me, reached out and steady my arm. “You’ve never done this before?” she asked, breathing heavily.

SPLAT.”

“Hi! Call me Jen… or Linda!” she says in a bubbly voice. ” It’s about time you got here!” she says. I look at her with a confused expression on my face.

I took two steps forward toward the old man.

It’s now known as the Newsoleum.