The International House of Mojo

Sam and Max Walkthrough

Transcribed by Jason. Written by "Captain Tripps" Ashburn

Chapter 1
The Proverbial Puzzling Prologue

    It was a sunny day in Brooklyn.  The golden rays poured down on the dusty tenements like maple syrup on flapjacks.  My insouciant partner Max and I had just returned to our office, having just administered a satisfactory beheading to a nefarious mad scientist, when a call came through from the Commissioner. 

   The telephone bell split the air like the aftermath of bad chili.  I dived for it.  Had I known the aggravation I was letting myself in for, I would have grabbed Max and hopped the first train to Palookaville (a charming backwater the food is cheap and the natives ignore the sound of gunfire).  As it was, I took my orders like a good soldier.  It was obvious that this would be the kind of case that would require capital, so I dipped into our stash in the mousehole.  Max thought this would be the kind of case that required ultra-violet illumination, so I picked up his black light from the closet. 

   We headed down to the street to meet our contact from the Commissioner.  On the way, we encountered our neighbor, Flint Paper, engaged in a negotiating session with one of his clients.  As a fellow low enforcement professional, I've always admired his hands-on approach to business. 

   Outside, the street was remarkably empty for a weekday afternoon.  Maybe that's because it was Saturday morning.  The only sign of life (and a pretty scrawny sign it was) was a mangy looking kitten.  Knowing the Commissioner's love for trickery (and Keane paintings), I was sure this was our contact.  But the kitten was playing it sick.  I had to use Max to get him to cough up the info.  I wasn't surprised to learn that there was something shady going on at the Carnival.  I just hoped once we got there, I wouldn't be taken for a ride.  Granted, I don't look like a ride, but I hate disappointing little kids.   

Chapter 2
The Curse of the Kushman Carnival

    It was the kind of carnival I'd hated all my life – brightly colored tents, cheerful music, and the smell of popcorn and cotton candy in the air.  I prefer the kind that looks like it should be filmed in black and white, with ghostly calliope music and old handbills blowing along the surreally dangerous Midway – but this case wasn't about what I wanted.  It was about earning enough money to keep me in puppy biscuits. 

   My mood didn't improve any when we encountered those two misanthropes – a short, mean Brit with bad hair, and his southern-fried hyperthyroid gunsel.  They were exactly the kind of thugs you always meet early in a case that you know will turn up again when you least want to see them.  Some sort of bizarre law of detective physics. 

   Then the fire-eater decided to get cute on us and not let us in. 

   I've seen this before.  They get a little fire in the belly and they think they're so keen.  I gave him what for.  I gave him our credentials.  He let us in. 

   The Hall of Oddities reminded me of my old neighborhood – a group of cruelly distorted social outcasts with noplace else to go.  The only difference was we charged to get out instead of to get in.  The Kushman Bros. gave us the lowdown on the case – all about Bruno the missing Sasquatch kidnapping Trixie the missing Giraffe-Necked Girl – but somehow I felt there was more to it than they were telling, so I decided we should stick around.  I picked up the sample of Sasquatch hair at the base of the melted ice, and headed for the Midway through the back of the tent. 

   We passed the Tunnel of Love and the Cone Of Tragedy, but I wanted to check out Trixie's trailer first.  Turns out it was locked, with no key under the doormat – not even a doormat.  I was getting frustrated already, so I decided to take out my anger on a small furry rodent.  I realized Max might come in handy later on, so I settled for Wak-a-Rat.  With a little practice, I easily clobbered 20 of the little cheesivores and won myself a flashlight – just what a courageous crimefighter like me needs to explore dark scary places like the Tunnel of Love.  Only problem was, it was minus a bulb.  I quickly inserted the black light, and after fifteen minutes of Max saying "I told you so", we headed for the Tunnel. 

I used the flashlight as soon as we got in, and somehow its magical ultra-violet powers were able to reveal several secrets of this cheesy ride – including a fuse box. I thought about how I hated people who said, "I told you so" and I thought "Max should get a charge out of this," so I used Max with the fuse box. When the ride stopped, I got the chance to investigate the Henry the VIII diorama.

   It's always been a secret fantasy of mine to pull a sixteenth-century Tudor monarch's beard, and it's a good thing, because this gained us access to the lair of Doug, the Mole Man, a squinty-eyed ne'er-do-well who would rat on his Sasquatch friends for the price of a box of pecan treats.  Fortunately we had passed a roadside store on the way to the carnival, so I flipped the switch to get the ride going again and we hightailed it down the turnpike to the nearest Snuckey's.    

Chapter 3
The Puzzle of the Praline Purveyor

    If you've wandered up and down the backroads and interstates of this great republic as much as I have, you know about Snuckey's – a roadside infestation for fifty years where American families can buy tacky postcards, consume carbohydrates, and (most importantly) enjoy sanitary facilities far cleaner and commodious then those they are used to. 

   This was a typical example of the breed, with the exception of a cup left behind by a litterbug.  I gathered it up as potential evidence and sauntered inside, only to be assaulted by the kind of Muzak that makes you leave an elevator in mid-descent.  And then I saw him – the kind of nonplussed nondescript nonentity who saves up all year so he can go to the science fiction convention dressed as Kilgore Trout: in short, a dweeb's dweeb.  I picked up the pecan treats and negotiated the sale.  Since Max was bugging me about going to the bathroom and since I hated sweeping rabbit pellets out of the car, I got Max the key as well.  I noticed there was something suspicious about the rasp file attached to it, so I quickly terminated the conversation and intercepted Max outside.  I talked him into keeping the key, and we sped back to the carnival.     

Chapter 4
The Talisman in Trixie's Trailer

    When Doug spilled the beans, he really spilled the beans.  Fortunately there was already a foot-deep layer of empty cereal boxes and Chinese take-out cartons on the floor, so the beans didn't do much damage.  Then he began to talk...and what a story he had to tell.  It seems Trixie had not been kidnapped after all, but left of her own volition.  In fact she was in love with Bruno, and arranged his getaway.  Chaçun d son goo, which is French for "to each his ointment."  Funny people, the French. 

   Anyway, Doug forked over Trixie's key (which looked remarkably like a crowbar), and also mentioned that his Uncle Shuv-Oohl might know where to find Bruno.  Unfortunately, Doug didn't know where to find his uncle, but did mention he had lst been seen at the Giant Ball of Twine.  I jotted down the location on my map, and then Sam and I beat it before the little stool pigeon felt moved to disgorge more explosition. 

   Trixie's trailer proved to be largely a disappointment.  Max did manage to get in some exercise, and I did find an awesome stilt-walker suit in her blue prop box, but the only real clue was in her shocking pink wardrobe closet – a scorecard for the Gator Gold Emporium in Florida – another place to check out on the map. 

   Still, we had made some progress, and I felt we could allow ourselves the time for one ride on the Cone Of Tragedy.  I informed the operator we wanted a spin, and we were soon strapped in and whirling around faster than a gerbil in a blender.  The Cone certainly performed as advertised, because afterwards I was seized by a crushing sense of loss.  No wonder, because when I looked into my box of junk, every clue I'd accumulated was gone.  I cornered the operator, and gave him no peace until he produced a claim check which he claimed we could redeem at the Lost & Found tent.  Unfortunately, the man was as good as his word (I'd been looking forward to pounding him into the shape of a decorative hassock). 

   The unbelievably ugly person of indeterminate gender in the Lost & Found tent not only returned all my junk, but also threw in a fish magnet from the famous World of Fish.  When I looked closely at it, I was able to get another location for my map, but first we had to track down Shuv-Oohl.     

Chapter 5
The Swami Who Swore Like a Sailor

    The World's Largest Ball of Twine, located near Marutilamooh,(*) Minnesota, is a lucrative monument to obsessive thrift.  There is a rotating fish restaurant at its peak, which is world famous for its candied lutefish in chocolate sauce. 

   Enough with the travelogue.  Having arrived at the Ball, we got little satisfaction from the custodian of the museum at its base, so we decided to check out the restaurant. 

   Outside the eating facilities we could observe the fish delivery deck, where a knife-happy chef was happily butchering the day's catch.  Since access from our side of the deck was impossible.  I wondered how they delivered fresh fish.  I also wondered if it would be possible to borrow some of the twine, in case we needed to restrain a suspect for an hour or two (or six) of wholesome interrogation. 

   We didn't have much better luck inside the restaurant.  Once we figured out how to use the elevator in the hub, we found a largely deserted restaurant with an apparently broken pair of binoculars.  Since it was noon, I assumed the restaurants staff was out to lunch.  Speaking of out to lunch, there was one other inhabitant of the restaurant – some kind of Midwestern mechanic-turned-psychic.  He was into personal growth, if you judged by the stubble on his jaw.  Judging by his language, his favorite mantra was unprintable.  I questioned him about his hobby-bending crescent wrenches by mental force.  He ended up giving me one.  Perhaps e was merely a colorful character instead of the surly lout he appeared to be.  In this business, it's so hard to tell.  

(*) A Native American term expressing dissatisfaction with the treaty policies of a nineteenth century U.S. President. It means, literally, "Oooooh, Mr. Grant!"

Chapter 6
The Peril of the Piscatorial Paradise

   Since everything else in this case was starting to smell fishy, it seemed only logical to check out the World of Fish.  The fish in the bucket seemed somehow familiar, and I was going to appropriate some, when a helicopter showed up to haul away a netful.  I still confiscated the bucket as evidence, but by checking with a local angler, I confirmed that this was the source for the Ball of Twine restaurant's fish dinners.  It occurred to my keen detective wits that if I wanted to get that twine (and getting that twine was becoming an obsession – I've always been fascinated by twine), it would help if I looked like a fish.  So I hatched a plan – and I didn't have to swim upstream to do it. 

   I used the bent tool on the large fiberglass fish in the river to loosen it up.  Then I used the fish as a disguise and encouraged Max to use the fish as well.  We ended up on the deck on top of the restaurant, where it was an easy task to use Max's sharp little rodenty teeth to get the twine – a healthy 91 yards of it.  It seemed after all this exercise with no sign of Bruno or Shuv-Oohl, a little vacation was in order, so we headed for Gator Golf in Florida.    

Chapter 7
Gator Golf-Grief in the 'Glades

    When I got to Gator Golf, I had to congratulate the owner.  Even though I found the contents of his wastebasket (a broken set of golf ball retrievers) more interesting than his conversation, I still felt combining alligators and miniature golf was an inspired recreational notion.  It made far more sense to a mug like me than those inane computerized adventure games, where goofy characters shlep impossibly large inventories from location to location trying to solve pointlessly obscure puzzles in pursuit of elusive goals and a highly improbable ending.  Gator Golf is a real man's game. 

   Unfortunately two real men had beat us to it – or one-and-a-half real men anyway.  It was those two misanthropes from the Carnival: Conroy Bumpus, the diminutive country and western singer with the toupee taller than he was, and his bestial bodyguard, Lee-Harvey.  Max couldn't resist the opportunity for verbal abuse – he wouldn't be Max if he could.  A brouhaha ensued, that ended with Max in the Dunk the Beast tank, on the wrong side of an alligator-infested swamp adorned with clown heads and windmills.  I had to get to that island and rescue my partner.  He may be maniacal, he may be homicidal, he may torture animals smaller than himself, but he's still my partner. 

   It is a fact little known outside the detective community, but there is a small spot on an alligator's back where he will allow you to step without bothering you.  I knew if I could find a way to get those alligators to line up, I could utilize that spot to walk across the gators to the island.  Fortunately I happened to have a bucket of fish on my person.  I replaced the bucket of balls with the bucket of fish, then used the golf clubs to drive the fish in front of those gators until I had them where I wanted them. 

   A short stroll later I was on the island, freeing Max by opening the cage door.  He wasn't very grateful, but at least he wasn't dead.  He also had another Sasquatch hair sample.  Further investigation of the dunk tank turned up a snow glove of the famous Mystery Vortex, with a personal inscription from, of all people, Doug's uncle Shuv-Oohl.  A real lead at last!  Look out, Mystery Vortex, here we come!    

Chapter 8
Vanishing Varmints in the Vortex

    You'd think a detective would feel at home someplace called the Mystery Vortex.  You'd think it would appeal to his sense of adventure and sharpen his deductive powers.  Well, you'd be dead wrong.  To me it was just a garishly decorated cave where you pay money to lose your lunch. 

   We were pretty sure that Shuv-Oohl was hiding out somewhere in this joint, but all we could find at first was evidence of yet another missing Bigfoot in the gift shop to the rear of the cave.  Since it was getting to be a habit.  I picked up yet another Sasquatch fur sample. 

   I figured since Max and I were going around in circles anyway, we might as well ride the Mini-Vortex.  It must have shaken something loose, because I suddenly intuited the working principles of the whole Vortex.  It all had to do with the Unified Field Theory, wherein electromagnetic energy is intimately related to spectral deviation and relative altitude.  In other words, size equals color divided by magnetism.  Elementary, my dear Max. 

   Obviously, to gain access to the inner workings of the Vortex, I needed a prismatic reflective surface.  The mirror at the top of the stairs would have to do.  Inside, just as I suspected, I found huge color magnets.  I turned them successively on and off until I found just the right combination to math each of the right combination to match each of the door colors.  I was able to try each door this way until I found Shuv-Oohl. 

   About then the profound understanding of physics seemed to wear off.  Must have been a temporary phenomenon due to residual dizziness.  Happens to me all the time. 

   Shuv-Oohl was you standard hippy burnout mole man.  He was able to give us generalized directions to Frog Rock, and intimated he could tell us more if we could get his mood ring out of the Ball of Twine.  Sometimes in order to solve a case, a man's got to get string between his fingers.  We headed back to Minnesota.    

Chapter 9
Fantastic Phenomena at Frog Rock

    There didn't seem to be any way I could unravel this case quickly, and it would take even longer to unravel the Ball of Twin.  I needed some way to reach in to the center, and then some way to find the rings and get it out. I had the retriever, which could extend my reach, and I had the fish magnet, to pull the ring out, but I needed some kind of gripper to connect the two.  It seemed to me that Jesse James' hand from the Hall of Oddities at the Carnival might do the trick, so we sped back to see the Kushman Bros. and pick up the jar with the hand.  While I was there, I remembered seeing a lens in the Wak-a-Rat tent that might help me locate Frog Rock through the binoculars, so I picked that up too.  

   Now I had the retriever, the magnet, the lens, and the hand in a jar.  Wait a minute... I couldn't get the blasted hand out of the jar.  I needed an expert at food container extraction.  I headed, albeit reluctantly, for Snuckey's, where the clerk was able to give me a hand with the hand. 

   I returned to the Ball of Twine with a strong sense of deja vu, or deja string.  I attached the hand to the retriever, and the magnet to both.  Then I used the retriever with the Ball of Twine in the Museum, and the mood ring was ours. 

   I thought I should check out the binoculars while I was here.  Carefully avoiding the turbaned telekinetic, I used the lens with the binoculars.  But I still had that spinning problem.  Maybe if I attached the wires from the restaurant motor to the binoculars, I could get some control.  It seemed to work.  I moved the needle slightly to the left of center until I saw one of the landmarks Shuv-Oohl had mentioned, then, as soon as I saw the rock, moved the needle dead center to stop the rotation, and there it was.  I noted the location and we headed back to Shuv-Oohl. 

   At first I thought the little Summer of Love relic had been nibbling too many of the wrong kind of mushrooms when he gave me a "Magic Powder" and said I should use it with my three fur samples on Frog Rock, but the rest of this case had been so daffy, I decided what the heck, off to Frog Rock I go. 

   It wasn't much as tourist attractions go.  As Max so astutely remarked, it didn't even look like a frog.  Of course, neither did Max. 

   I carefully deposited each of the fur samples on the Rock, and then sprinkled the Powder over them.  Then everything got dark.  I'm not sure about what happened next[sup]*[/sup], but I had this strange urge to go to Bumpusville.   [sup]*[/sup] Actually I know exactly what happened, but Flying Saucer Mole Men from Outer Space and celestial phenomena have no place in a narrative of criminal investigation.  They'd kick me out of the union.     

Chapter 10
Bucolic Blunderings at Bumpusville

    When it came to high-tech gadgets and fancy electronic paraphernalia, nobody could hold a candle to Conroy Bumpus.  But when it came to tasteful decoration of his home and tourist museum, Bumpus would be the only man that Liberace would have called tacky.  Of course, when I first saw his overblown, neon-illuminated version of Tara, I had no idea that Bumpus was also #1 on the SPCA hit list. 

   It was clear when we walked through the front door that C.B. had put a lot of monkey into the place.  That life-sized portrait alone must have cost at least $199.95.  Max and I hung a left at the portrait and kept going until we found ourselves in Conroy's "Menagerie" and concert hall.  We weren't surprised to find him singing his own praises.  We were surprised to find Bruno and Trixie in his backup band.  Surprised, that is, until we noticed that the instruments were acoustic, but the musicians were electrified – by random jolts of several hundred volts. 

   We had to get them out of there, but standing in our way was a high-tech alarm system with an electric eye.  I needed a good idea to get out of this one.  I thought perhaps the portrait in the next room of John Muir, the famous naturalist, might give us some inspiration, but Max kept babbling about talking dead animal heads.  Max always gets weird(er) when he's been on the road for awhile, but this was a new direction even for him. 

   The rest of the house consisted primarily of the virtual reality room, where Lee-Harvey was camped out, and Bumpus' bedroom, complete with Monster Truck bed and alarm-rigged wigstand.  This was all very fascinating, but I kept noticing the little cleaning robot.  I thought if I could figure out how to move the droid around, I might be able to promote a hubbub that would get Trixie and Bruno out of the mansion. 

   Then I saw it over the door of the bedroom – a robot repair manual.  I scooted up the escalator onto the bed, grabbed the pillow just to irritate Conroy, then used the golf ball retriever to get the book.  Unfortunately, Max was underneath, but with uncharacteristic politeness, he laid still until I finished the book. 

   I hunted down the little robot and proceeded to use him.  Specifically, use the writing in his brain in connection with the mansion floor plan to make sure he'd go into the Menagerie and break that alarm beam.  This sent good ol' Lee-Harvey into the Menagerie so that I could check out the virtual reality system. 

   See, Lee-Harvey had just happened to blab that the security system was somehow tied into the virtual reality system.  If I was ever going to really disable the alarm, the key might lay in the polygonic world of virtual reality.  And so it did, after I figured out that the dragon in the medieval fantasy was obsessed with de-tails, especially when it came to his end. 

   I used that key in the alarm system in the Menagerie, but max scared Bruno and Trixie away with talk of returning them to the Carnival.  They didn't leave without a forwarding address, though, since they mentioned something about a Sasquatch party at Evelyn Morrison's Savage Jungle Inn.    

Chapter 11
Jivin' the Geriatric Jezebel at the Jungle Inn

    When you're driving at dangerous speeds with a hysterical rabbit in the car, you dn't have a lot of time to think, so it wasn't until we were actually inside that I realized Bruno & Trixie weren't completely stupid in giving away their getaway.  Right in front of the door to the party was the biggest Sasquatch I'd ever seen.  O.K., so Bruno was the only other Sasquatch I'd ever seen, but this one was bigger than Bruno.  And he was mean, too, probably because of the corns and calluses that covered his feet. 

   Remembering childhood stories about lions with thorns in their paws, I did what I could to help out by giving him the rasp from Snuckey's to deal with those painful growths.  He did seem more kindly disposed, but still insisted that only Sasquatches ("and their dates") could enter. 

   I had some ideas about that, too, but I couldn't leave the Savage Jungle Inn without talking to the fabulous Evelyn Morrison, "B" movie queen of the silver screen in my youth.  She was kind enough to autograph some travel brochures for the Mount Rushmore Dinosaur Tarpit and Bungee Jumping National Park and the Celebrity Vegetable Museum.  I could see where those might prove useful. 

   The astute reader will have figured out by now that we had to get a Sasquatch suit.  The stiltwalker suit was a good start – it would accommodate both Max and me, but we needed a lot more hair if we were going to pass as Bigfoot, and something to stick it to the suit.  I thought it was time for Max and me to go Bungee jumping.    

Chapter 12
Plummeting from the Presidential Proboscis

    I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Mt. Rushmore.  Maybe the name appeals to a speedy guy like myself, or maybe it was the Hitchcock movie, but for me, the Fab Four always means South Dakota rather than Liverpool.  I didn't so much mind when they added Bungee jumping, but the dinosaur thing was such a blatant attempt to cash in on that mid-90's cinematic spectacle – and John Goodman doesn't look that much like Fred Flintstone anyway. 

   Once I got a chance to look at the dinosaur models, I was even less impressed.  The mammoth locked like it was covered with bad Sasquatch hair- whoa, Nellie!  And here was Max with a full set of razor-sharp choppers!  I set him to work, and we shortly had enough hair to clog a Municipal drain.  We still needed sticky stuff, though.  I thought as I walked past the tar pit toward the elevator to the Bungee jump. 

   And then, as I left the elevator, I saw her.  She came into my life wearing a U.S. Parks Service T-shirt and shorts.  I could tell she noticed me, too – it isn't every day that a six-foot talking dog wearing a blue suit and hat walks into George Washington's nostril with Bungee jumping on his mind.  She told me to go behind the screen and change my clothes.  I wondered what she had in mind until I saw the crash helmet and Bungee harness.  Then I knew.  This doll wanted me to take the Big Fall.  Problem was, I was ready to fall for her already. 

   I wanted to show her I could take it, so I used the bungee, picked up Max, and... Sweet Mother of Mercy!  This wasn't fun, this was suicidal.  I was hurtling to my doom in a giant vat of sticky tar...[Sproing!]  Hang on a minute, did I say sticky tar?  If only Max could reach it...[Sproing!] Hang on a minute, did I say sticky tar?  If only Max could reach it...[Sproing!]  Maybe if we used the golf ball retrievers, along with that cup from Snuckey's to pick up the tar...[Sproing!]  Good work, Max.  Now how do we get off of this thing? 

   I eventually made it back to the platform and the past tense.  And she was there waiting for me, smiling her enigmatic smile and propping her sugar-free gum as I changed back to my civvies.  I promised I'd write, and headed back to earth where I belonged. 

   Back at the Jungle Inn, the tar and the hair worked just fine with the stiltwalker suit, but when we used the suit, the bouncer felt there was still something wrong with Max's head.  I've thought for years, but I think he meant Max is fuzzy instead of furry. 

   We needed one more piece of hair, or hairpiece, and I knew where to get it, but first I felt we needed a detour by the Celebrity Vegetable Museum.    

Chapter 12
Zoomin' the Zucchini Zone

    Actually, this was a sentimental journey for me.  I wanted to look up Violet, an old flame, who ran the place.  She'd married a wealthy but cheapskate dentist who was always fixing his own teeth.  There was a messy accident with a high speed drill, and now he was a vegetable.  I think that's what interested her in her current line of work... 

   She did vegetable versions of famous celebrities, and I knew she'd have to have a Bumpus somewhere around the place.  Sure enough, there was a remaindered eggplant by the counter just the right size.  I pocketed it, wished her well, told her she was still a hot tomato, and put the pedal to the metal on the road to Bumpusville. 

   The alarm system on the wigstand reminded me of an adventure movie I had seen on TV, where the hero substituted an object of equal weight for an ugly idol.  Well, Conroy was about as close as you could come to an ugly idol, so I thought using the eggplant with the wigstand might work.  It did indeed (if you don't count the arrows). 

   We returned triumphantly to the Jungle Inn, attached the wig to the suit, put it on, and emerged as the true party animal.  But as we walked through the door, I still felt that Fate had a few whoopee cushions up her sleeve.    

Chapter 14
Boogeyman at the Bigfoot Ball

    I  like Bigfeet.  Bigfoots.  Whatever.  But when it comes to parties, I've seen Livelier funerals.  The food was OK, if you don't mind vegetarian – there was some cute imitation turkey legs made out of tofu, but the music was like Lawrence Welk meets Winsome Hill, and no one seemed to get off on it any more than I did.  It wasn't what you'd call a hip crowd. 

   I made my way back to the kitchen to check out the exits in case I had to make a quick getaway.  There was a nasty surprise waiting outside the back door.   It seemed Conroy and Lee-Harvey were crashing the party with a pocket taser, and Conroy thought I was his next exhibit.  I waited until Lee-Harvey split, then showed Conroy the error of his ways in the most forceful way possible – I took off my Sasquatch suit.  

   But this didn't stop the two miscreants.  Now C.B. wanted to pop into the freezer with Lee-Harvey and the suit, so he could infiltrate the Sasquatch community and capture them all.  I don't know who Bigfoots pray to (Smoky the Bear and Hooty the Owl come to mind), but they were obviously watching over us, since Max was able to sneak behind the freezer door and shut it on them. 

   We might have done a self-congratulatory dance of joy at this point, but the Bigfoot elder arrived and, when he heard the news, made us Bigfoot elders too.  All this really meant was we had a new mystery to solve.    

Chapter 15
The Tantalizing Totem Tetrology

    It was this way.  There were these four totems, and they represented the salvation of the Bigfoot race.  The only problem was that no Bigfoot could fiure them out.  I didn't see any problem except for the legwork involved. 

   The first totem looked like a tornado in the palm of a hand.  That would take the most work, so I decided to save it for last.  The second one was particularly ugly, but seemed to be dino dentistry.  Uh huh.  That wouldn't take too much time.  The third one was some type of patriarch being showered with vegetables.  Possibly the hardest to solve, but one of the easiest in terms of legwork.  And the fourth totem depicted a bald head and a hairy one – that one I could fix without leaving the pool area. 

   It was obvious that the fourth totem was about miraculous hair growth, and on my person I happened to have Conroy's pillowcase soaked in wonder hair-grower.  I gave it to the elder by the hot tub, he wrung it out, and one totem pole was instant sawdust.  Weird. 

   To take care of the rest, we'd have to Hit the Road."  As I passed through the kitchen, Max suggested I pick up the icepick, so I humored him.  He's been taking icepicks to bed with him lately.  I think he watches too many politically incorrect movies.  I was more in the mood to pick up the bottle from the table at the party. 

   I dropped off the portrait of John Muir with Violet at the Vegetable Musuem, and she said she'd have a zucchini for me shortly.  So much for totem. #3. 

   I then went straight to Mt. Rushmore and used my 91 yards of twine on the T Rex's tooth while he mouth was open.  Then I picked up Max, tied the rope to him, and threw him to my squad car (specifically the door of my police car) and presto!  One dinosaur tooth.  We can retire totem #2. 

   Now for #1.  First I went to the Ball of Twine restaurant and talked the salty swami into bending the icepick.  Then I used the pseudo-corkscrew in the bottle and popped the cork, which I used in the snow globe.  A quick trip to the Mini-Vortex at the Mystery Vortex gave me a hand-held vortex, and all the totems could come tumbling down. 

   I picked up the John Muir zucchini on my way back to the Jungle Inn, and gave all three objects to the elder.  He put them into the hot tub with appropriate gestures, and Max and I gritted our teeth for the inevitable (but flashy) happy ending.  It goes with the job.    

Chapter 16
The Environmentally Evergreen Epilogue

    We couldn't be so inhumane as to leave Conroy in the freezer; besides we had to pick up a paycheck at the Carnival.  So the Sasquatches are happy, the Kushmans are learning to live with a new star attraction, everybody's breathing easier.  As for my partner and me, our lives are the same old round of existential angst and mindless violence.  We wouldn't have it any other way. 

   He's a bunny.  I'm a dog.  We're dangerous, but we work cheap.  We're the Freelance Police.  Give us a call.