Ali and I are unsettled. We are talking about the “personal delivery” of a new story by Curt Finks. Either our cover is blown, The Benefaktor is out of hospital, or someone is acting on his behalf. But The Foundation Doktor is apparently in East Anglia. Nobody else knows the location of The Manse. I have read the final “meta” blog planned by The Benefaktor/ The Foundation Doktor, saved as scheduled post on the WordPress system. “They” are up to something.
I do not usually share GANTOB business with Ali, but I thought that in this instance he needs to know as it potentially concerns his late father Curt Finks. We have had some successes in unearthing Curt’s unpublished writing, and occasionally his Edinburgh Fringe programmes or flyers come up at auction, or are found slipped inside a book as a bookmark. But we can’t yet verify the provenance of this new story.
Ali checks his CF spreadsheet. One of the columns is incomplete so he goes to his shed to look through his Dad’s things. He comes back a few minutes later with the 1986 copy of the Keighley Literary Almanac*. Turning to the pages with his father’s pencil annotations he runs a finger down the list, entering missing details about each journal’s conditions for submission. There is not a consistent format in the printed text, but Curt appears to have followed up the rules with selected editors and has added details in his neat hand. “Stet” he writes above one word, the smudge of a substandard eraser partially concealing the text. Ticks beside the first line of the address or phone number could indicate either enquiry or submission. Ali completes as many details as possible on his spreadsheet and then shakes his head. None of the highlighted journals’ rules match the details from this new Curt Finks story.
We return to the personal delivery of the envelope. Ali goes into a rambling story about the plot of a murder mystery he finished recently, where the serial killer attempts to divert attention by committing further crimes with the same MO, but ever more distant from his hometown. Might The Foundation Doktor actually be holed up in Badenoch rather than East Anglia, waiting to revenge The Benefaktor’s fall? But a blog apparently posted elsewhere would surely be a very flimsy alibi. We will lock our doors and snib our windows.
GANTOB
31 OKTOBER 2023
* To give it its full title, we should add “/Fanzine” after Literary.
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