CURRENT ISSUE 05/27/03 Front Page Weekly Features Ain't That America? To-Do List News from Travistan Musing with Mitch Moth's Diary Globetrotting with Push Riding Shotgun with Adventure Info Archives Crap Shop Who's at Fault? Contact Us! Aye, mateys! Get you some Daily Probe booty!	Riding Shotgun   With Adventure   by Ron Langston   Ch 17: A Girl of Some Gumption The dull bronze key slipped silently into the lock on the glass-top case. Herr Mueller eyed me coolly from the narrow gap between the top of his half reading glasses and the shadow of his abundant salt-and-pepper eyebrows. "So. You wish to see ze stamp." It was not a question. The air in the tiny old shop hung like a bad reproduction of a Dürer etching - stuffy, dense and Teutonic, with heavy overtones of Freud and crackpot mysticism. I leaned an eight of an inch forward. Herr Mueller stopped. "You do not think that ze stamp, if it exists, and if I were cursed to have it, would be kept in a glass case in this pathetic shop, Mr. Langston?" From beneath the dusty felt liner, he drew out a vintage Lugar - it had seen better days, but seemed nonetheless perfectly able to ruin mine. "You have ten seconds to give me reasons you should not soon be floating face down in ze canals." Musty tweeds and leather elbow patches or no, Herr Mueller was all business. "A certain actress, with whom you are, ah, familiar, committed a series of indiscretions involving Aztec ruins, financial derivatives and farm animals. I have pictures. One set will be mailed to an EU judge of your acquaintance if I turn up missing." A nervous twitch crossed his face, and he lowered the Lugar. "Follow me," he said, and headed to the back room. I followed him through a long hall. The stamp itself, over which men had wept and women endangered their immortal souls, seemed nothing more than an adolescent prank. Congress had authorized yet another philatelic memorial to American heroes. 36 sheets of stamps depicting Amelia Earhart handing the Lindburg baby to the Attaturk were produced before authorities caught on. One sheet came up missing. Three stamps were said to have been mailed. Only one got to its destination - a Mrs. Edna Kravitz of Maumee, Ohio, a simple housewife who made a mean hot dish, chaired the St. Alban's altar society, and who, in her spare time, laundered money for the Rosicrucians and the enforcement arm of Campfire Girls. Her Mueller opened a door. "Cookie, Hon?" Mrs. Kravits sat, a needlepoint of kabalistic symbols across her lap and a plate of her legendary Double Chocolate Chip cookies beside her. There was nothing for it. "Thanks, ma'am," I croaked. "Got milk?" Next Week -- Ch 18: The Revenge of Momma's Secret Pizza Topping (Transcribed by Joseph Moore)
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