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J. Jonah Jerkson
Mon Sep 05, 2005 at 11:09:24 pm EDT
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The Baroness, Part 36. "You got to know when to hold 'em . . . ."
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The Baroness, Part 36
“You got to know when to hold ‘em . . . .”

[In our last episode, Baron Ottokar Zemo traveled to Houma, Louisiana, in search of Killer Shrike’s astral spirit, which had been blown away from New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. (Hurricane Katrina was an unfortunate side effect of the Baroness’ use of her great-uncle Heinrich’s weather machines to guarantee a pleasant day for a garden party.) The Baron encountered the dog Screwy-Doo and his four teenaged companions and then Roger Wilton, on Her Majesty’s Secret Service in search of Baroness Elizabeth Zemo. Escaping from them, he became mired in a bayou, only to encounter – the Bog Thing.]

A tap on Baron Otto’s shoulders caused him to whirl around, and see – the Bog Thing. Fifteen years of Prussian education kept him from leaping backwards in alarm; sixty years of occult studies kept him from screaming. Instead, he merely whimpered, “You, you . . . are what?”

A sepulchral voice replied, “I AM THE BOG THING. AN ELEMENTAL SPIRIT OF DECAY, I HAUNT THESE SWAMPS, WAITING FOR MY AVATAR TO RETURN.”

“Ach, another one of those tree-hugging ecological archetypes. Nice to meet you, if I had more time I would enslave you and risk elemental catastrophes, except there already seems to be one. Just tell me where I can find the spirit of Killer Shrike, who has already decayed, and I will leave.”

“YOU ARE NOT ALIVE, YET YOU DO NOT DECAY. YOU MAY NOT LEAVE BAYOU LEPIOU UNTIL THIS IS RESOLVED.”

“What! I am to have dinner at six with Madame Dessalines! You have no idea how angry she gets when she is stood up!”

“HOW BAD CAN THAT BE?” intoned the compost construct.

“Do the words ‘black voodoo’ ring a bell?”

Meanwhile, about a half mile away, Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Roger Wilton were waiting by the mired Mystery Machine, hoping for rescue. Roger decided to chat Daphne up.

“Hey, my little chickie-doo, what say we take a little stroll, and I’ll introduce you to my mojo.”

“Not interested, thanks.”

“Look, baby, you ought to get to know me. I have connections, you know. I did photography for Herman’s Hermits. Jean Shrimpton thinks I’m divine.”

“Eeew. Go away.”

At that moment, the defrosted MI-5 agent’s trained ears picked up the last part of a remark by Velma, who was on her cellphone seeking help.

“Triple A member card code? I’m BEH ZE-M0, and I’m hidden under some trees on the Bayou LePiou road. . . . Six hours? I know all the trucks are going to help New Orleans, but someone must have a winch to pull us out.”

Roger Wilton snatched the cellphone. “Don’t worry, love, I’ll handle this. Is this the Royal Automobile Club? Now see here, my man, it’s absolutely essential that you send every vehicle you have down to this Bayou place immediately. The fate of the world may depend on it. Now don’t dilly dally, or I shall have to call the President forthwith.” There was a pause, and Roger closed the phone.

“Are they coming?” asked Velma.

“I must have lit a fire under the chap,” Roger replied. “Hung right up; I’m sure so that he can get right on it. Nothing to fear, darling.”

“Darling?” Velma spat. “Nobody calls me ‘darling.’ Daphne, she’s ‘darling,’ everybody goes for her. I’m just the one with the brains and the body that doesn’t quit because it never gets started.”

“You must be joking,” Roger leered. “You’re smashing. You’re just the kind of bird that could be the toast of London. I really don’t understand why you aren’t some sort of international supermodel.”

“You’re just saying that to flatter me,” Velma’s rational side emerged.

“No, darling, I’m not. I really mean it.”

“Say it again. ‘Darling.’ I want to hear it again and again.” Velma’s repressed romantic side demanded its turn.

“Darling. Darling, sweet, beautiful . . . Velma. Listen to that beautiful name, like silver bells ringing.”

The stocky Screwy-Doo sidekick surrendered. Finally, it was her turn. Maybe, maybe they even might . . . make out a little. “Come on, Roger, let’s talk a walk.”

“Let’s do, darling – Elizabeth.”

“Who’s Elizabeth?”

“Let’s just say I know your little secret, darling.”

“Elizabeth is my secret? What are you talking about?”

“Darling, darling, sweetheart, let’s take that walk,” Roger Wilton pleaded.

“All right. Just don’t call me Elizabeth.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” Roger assured, with a broad wink on the side of his face away from the adoring Velma.

Meanwhile, another woman with a secret (actually, about 1,500 of them) was enjoying a weekend without her grandfather.

“Would you like another Bellini, Sally?” Elizabeth Zemo and Silicone Sally were stretched out on lawn chairs on the rear terrace of Schloss Schreckhausen, enjoying the view of the city below and the Atlantic Ocean beyond.

“Not just yet. Look over there at Off-Central Park. See the balloons and canopies? That must be where Princess Uhunalura is getting married. What a crowd.”

“Hmph,” responded the Baroness. “An Abhuman marrying a telekinetic delivery boy. Her family must be so proud.”

“So you don’t believe in marrying commoners? How unromantic.”

“Marrying commoners is romantic. Marrying Nats – she has no idea of the hell she’s about to go through.“

“Speaking of hell,” Sally riposted, “we haven’t raised any for at least three days. Has something gone wrong?”

“You’re right. We haven’t done anything.”

“So what have you been doing?”

“Oh, a trip to the spa, some shopping at Henri Bendeuver’s, a lunch with Visionary.”

“I know all about that stuff,” Sally snapped back.

“Good. And I know all about the other stuff.”

“You’re no fun. Thank you, Liesl,” Sally said, taking a silicone-laced Napoleon from the offered tray.

“I’ll have a regular one, Liesl,” the Baroness requested from her lounge chair.

After a few moments of savoring the first bites, Sally tried again. “If you’re having lunch with Visionary, does that mean that you’re going to drop those lawsuits against the poor dweeb?”

“Cough, choke, hack.” Elizabeth Zemo’s pastry went down the wrong way. Liesl ran up with a large glass of water to ease the mistress’s distress. Several minutes of choking and a determined use of the Heimlich maneuver by Sally later, the Baroness was able to talk again.

“Drop the lawsuits? With his depositions starting next week? Never! And what have we found out about that missing little pyromaniac, Kerry Shephardson?”

“She’s still at large, somewhere north of here in GothametropolisYork state.”

“Just so long as she’s not around here. Get Social Services cracking, Sally; bribe them again if we have to. Just keep her on the run and away from here.”

Baron Otto was also on the move. As the day wound down toward evening, he found himself once again right back with the Bog Thing, after trying to walk his way west out of Bayou LePiou, having tried north, east and south.

“What kind of spatial warp are you playing with?” demanded the bedraggled Baron.

“HOW SHOULD I KNOW,” intoned the Bog Thing. “EVER SINCE DIGGLE AND DYSART STARTED WRITING ME, I’M STUCK IN THIS BAYOU LIKE SOME MINDLESS VEGETABLE. HERE I AM, BRAIN THE SIZE OF A LANDFILL, AND WHAT KIND OF DIALOGUE DO I GET? ‘ARRGH. HURRGH.’ CALL THAT JOB SATISFACTION? I DON’T.”

“Hey, don’t get down, sport. I just made a special trip to see you. Can’t let the being who possessed me get too lonely, you know?”

“Johnstantine!” Baron Otto snarled.

“In the flesh, your dibs. Not looking too fresh, are you, Otto?”

After emitting a tortured growl, the Baron began an incantation.

“Not so fast, Baron old boy, or you’ll not only spend the rest of your life with my chronically depressed friend here, you’ll also piss off Madame Dessalines. That’ll be a lot more uncomfortable than I can make you.”

Despite himself, Baron Otto shuddered. Madame Dessalines had an unparalleled command of the vodoun arts.

The magician went on, “So, Otto old chap, I think you need to make a deal with me.”

“Deal? With you? A third-rate, meddling, part-time magician who’s best at seducing vulnerable brunettes? Quatsch.”

“All right, for the sake of your precious honor, let’s play for your release. Here’s a deck of cards, we’ll play three poker hands. You win two or three, I get my buddy here to let you drag your muddy ass back to Houma. You don’t, you stay here until I feel even more generous than I am now.”

“I deal first, dealer’s choice,” the Baron jumped in. This way, he could choose two of the games. “Five card draw, jokers wild.” Taking the deck from Johnstantine, he put on an impressive display of shuffling, making the cards rocket from right hand to left, fanning them too fast to discern.

“Hot stuff, Otto. Pity you’re not that much of a player,” Johnstantine sneered.

“The highest stakes you’ve ever played are probably a quarter,” Baron Otto sneered back. “How many?”

“I’ll stand, chum,” the Liverpudlian replied.

“Hmm,” was the Baron’s only audible response. His lips kept moving, though, triggering an incantation that brought Johnstantine’s cards to his eyes. A 7-J straight. The Baron looked at his five cards. A mess, but with three hearts. “Two,” he muttered, and made arcane motions with his left hand under the table. He drew his two cards with his right hand. Two hearts. Excellent. A flush. “I stand. Heart flush,” he announced.

“Straight flush, spades,” Con Johnstantine replied languidly, tossing them on the table. “First blood to me.”

“What! ! You chea—.“ The Baron cut off in mid-splutter. Another word and he would be admitting his own deceptions.

“What’s that you were about to say, old sod?” Johnstantine asked with insincere concern.

“You devil,” the Baron muttered back.

“Thank you, squire, and I deal. Cincinnatti. I like having the cards out in front of me – keeps us both on the up and up, right?”

“Grrrrrr.”

Otto received a 7-2, the worst possible hand. Some more muttering gave him a glimpse of Johnstantine’s hand. Q-J. Johnstantine drew the first card for the flop. Queen. Desperate measures were called for.

“Look, over there. A ruby-throated woodpecker.”

“You think I’m going to fall for that one, your baronship? What do you take me for?”

“A man who doesn’t know what’s about to hit him.”

Moments later, the formerly extinct bird swooped low and fast, buzzing past the tree stump on which the cards sat and scattering them.

“Lieber Gott, what a coincidence!” the Baron exclaimed with a perfectly straight face.

“Who would have thought that a bird extinct for sixty years would show up to wreck your miserable poker hand,” replied Johnstantine with equal sang-froid.

“SOMETHING STRANGE IS GOING ON,” huffed the Bog Thing.

“Deal, deal, or forfeit the hand,” Baron Otto demanded.

The cards were gathered and shuffled again, with the Baron receiving an A-A. His eyes lit up noticeably. The magician dealt the flop: 3, A, 7, J, 7.

“Ready to fold, Herr magician?”

“Not quite, sport,” said Johnstantine. He threw in his cards. A-A. “Full house.”:

“Cheat!” the Baron expostulated. “There are five aces here. I have the spade and the heart, you have the diamond and club, and the flop has . . . .” Uh, oh. "Look, there’s that woodpecker again!”

This time Johnstantine did take his eyes off of the cards for a moment, long enough for Baron Otto to do some prestidigitation. “I mean, I have the spade and the club,, and the flop has the the heart. Your club is a fake!”

“Are you quite sure of that? Look at the cards again.” Now, the heart had returned to the unalive man’s hand.

The Bog Thing moved to resolve the dispute. “BOTH OF YOU HAVE BEEN TAMPERING WITH THE CARDS,” he growled. “I SHOULD KEEP YOU BOTH WITH ME.”

“Well, we’ll just replay the hand,” Con Johnstantine suggested.

“It is almost six o’clock! I cannot waste any more time!” the Baron shrieked.

“Cool it, sport. We’ll split the hand. If you win the next one and tie me, I’ll send you on to the voodoo lady.”

“Fine, fine. My deal, London lowball. Your kind of game, Johnstantine, but I will still defeat you.”

The cards were dealt, and the Baron once again received a 7-2. Johnstantine had a K-10. Out came the hole cards: 3, A, Q, Q ,7. The Baron screamed.

“Well, Boggy, old pal, you now have some company to talk to. Although I don’t think the Baron will be able to answer back very much after Madame Dessalines is through with him. Three minutes of six, Otto.”

“I’ll deal!”

“That’s the spirit, old man. The usual stakes – one favor, any kind, any time I want it. And no cheating, unless you want to meet a couple of pals of mine from what we’re now calling Nats-land.”

“Deal. Get me out of here, and get me cleaned up.”

“No sooner said than done, sport,” replied Con Johnstantine, and the Baron appeared on Madame Dessalines’ front porch, clean, but disheveled.

Notes:

From Who's Who in the Parodyverse:

The Bog Thing is – or was – a guardian created out of muck and slime to be the guardian of the nexus of Unrealities that is currently located in Florida’s Wookiegetlucky Swamp. It is the Nexus’ presence on Earth that makes Earth the current focal point of this reality, just as it is this reality’s closest current proximity to the core of the Interdimensional vortex that makes it the principal plane. These things have never been explained more fully than that. The Bog Thing is currently destroyed (by permission of his poster-creator) but I suppose he or a replacement might rise again if required. He was an occasional member of the JBH.

According to Wikipedia, John Constantine was introduced to DC comics in the pages of Swamp Thing.

Playing the part of Baroness Elizabeth Zemo

J. JONAH JERKSON
Voice of the People



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