Trapped in the Cab

Trapped in the Cab

As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.

“Another ten minutes and it could have been us in the back of that Färdtjänst Bus.”

The morphine was pure enough, medical grade, Come Watson come! The game is afoot. I’ll take three bags of them. He placed the three bags deftly inside his coat and deposited them in the safest of his own pocket designs. He felt a warmth comfort flow out from his intellect. With his other hand he paid the man and walked silently away into his own fog.

“Another ten minutes could have been you in that bloody bus”.

The White Bus, like a van with windows, and with the red and blue “curved triple mirrored” stripping that shows it really is a Färdtjänst Bus. “Färdtjänst” is pronounced “Fair-d-Cher-unst” but pronounced a bit quicker, so it sounds like one word, and then “bus”.

Whatever you do “don’t open” the box. It’s because of the box that they are valuable. Once you open the box they are toys. A Broken or not a Broken toy is still a toy. That is the difference. I once had “one” with a Snake and a Rat but my daughter opened the box, she saw “toy” written all over the thing. Looks Real. Feels Real. Choking Hazard for the under threes. Classic box package, the whole-box deal with lots of information on the back. Worthless, cause the plastic is “cut”. Not busted or broken, but cut. That’s the worst. A cut shows it wasn’t a mistake. Cut shows intention, intention shows motive, and the motive is ‘cause it’s a toy. Logic my friend is a powerful tool, even in the hands of an innocent.

The morphine had started to work, he’d dropped two tablets straight away, he saw immediately that they were the real deal, medical grade. You can’t get them to look like that when you glue them back together with super glue or some other solvent you have lying around your “pad”. The deal is always sweeter when the goods come professionally packaged by trained experts in the Art of Weights and Measures, with the relevant University Educated in Advanced Chemistry needed to deal anything of Value. These people I feel safe with. People employed by large Pharmaceutical Companies for large amounts of wages, they are the ones I am putting my money on. Some guy in a flat in Lupton Park is not cracking open my wallet open for some brownish white powder in a squeezey bag. That could be any vile compound from the depths of some twisted specimen of the species so called mind. In my blood stream, that mixture, I think not.

“It just don’t let you out, just drives around and around”.
“Seriously Gustav there in no White Bus that drives people around and around”.
“That’s what you says but other’s say there be a White Färdtjänst Bus that do.”
“Gustav do not get upset please, relax now, lay back and take a dose of morphine from the pump you have.”

It had been the woman from the Public Health authority that had approached him a on a matter of some delicacy. She said immediately that she didn’t want to be in this somewhat difficult predicament, because it really was not her departments’ responsibility. That was almost the truth; apart from the fact it was hers and her departments only responsibility. She was personally in charge and fully responsible for the relationship between the entire Stockholm Medical Authorities Central administration and the Suppliers of Transport and Taxis for the patients that were covered by Central Insurance Transport, the so called “Färdtjänst”.

Färdtjänst (“Fair-d-Cher-unst”) was split into two major groups. The first being what you or I would call a normal black taxicab service. The two good taxi services that are run as legitimate businesses of driving taxis, the two big names in taxi services. Now they have a round decal in their windows, clearly visible, a large white ring and a large “F” bang smack in the middle. I think then the writing is in blue, it repeats the word Färdtjänst in a ring around the big red “F”.

Then there are the White minibus van, Färdtjänst Service, that are designed to be able to move patients in Wheelchairs, permochairs, electric driven chairs of all sorts of specialized equipment, that some people need to move around in. The White buses are only used by “Färdtjänst” and are marked accordingly, only with “Färdtjänst”. They use a taxicab like system to process travel and payment information. These white vans are always ordered in advance over the phone to central travel orders. You can’t stop one of these on the street. There is then the difference if you are allowed to travel alone or must make a party of people before you can be driven about.

The rain splashed against the window it sounded softer today, he pulled on his robe, adjusting the belt to hold the fold of the robe in a straight line, the tubes from his morphine pump had been sown into a series of simple but ingenious channels by his beloved wife. This meant when dressed he could move about with almost no hindrance. This case would call for upon all his skill of disguise and even the pipes and tubes would serve him well when dealing with such people as Medical Central authority and the notorious Färdtjänst transport system gangsters.

“So Madam you are in fact directly responsible for this situation, are you not?”

“There have been rapports of disappearances and time lapses, complaints made, accusations heard. I do not know whom to turn too. I can’t go the Police; it would cause the most terrible scandal. The media would eat us alive. You are the most highly recommended operative of them all. Dear Sir I turn to you as our last and only hope to solve this mystery as quickly and as quietly as humanly possible”.

“Madam my fees for this case may seem irregular to you. You may even feel a sense of unease and regret, but if I am to take this case then I have a particular requirement in terms of my fee for solving this case. I require a regular supply of medical grade morphine in tablet form to be delivered to my residence by safe hands. The amounts of tablets will be directly connected to what particular variation of tablets and strengths we will be dealing with. I dictate the amounts; it will always be my call. This Madame this is the fee I ask, my expenses are billed separately, as costs incurred during action are to be paid for me by your organization and their counter part in other forms of government work. These bills are to be paid by your economic department without discussion, I am a reasonable man and do not push my cash need beyond any reasonableness. I shall also need certain false identity cards, documentation and papers that work for all forms of Färdtjänst”.

“I accept your terms kind Sir and the first delivery shall be this afternoon to show our good faith. The deal will be pure medical grade morphine, starts from grade 1 to goes up to number 6, that’s the top dog. We could have it Piped in if you want Sir”.

“Hmumm, a most flexible and generous deal Madame, I would shake on it, but I have low immunity thresholds and never touch other people.”

Because the Färdtjänst had several different variations of the level of service. Some of the older people who had the “the right” to use this service, but they were not dying or seriously ill patients, were driven around in busloads (they filled the white bus up with other people before taking you where you wanted to go). The white buses had about five permanent chairs and three places for wheel chairs and such like to be strapped into the bus. So it was not uncommon for a group of six people to be in one of the white Färdtjänst bus at the same time. It was during these times that rumors and whispered words took place. It was said that there was one White bus, a particular White bus that when it picked you up, if you were “alone” you didn’t get out again alive.

Or if you were still alive you had been driven around and around for many miles, not daring to ask why, in case as the bus driver turned around from his front seat and smiled his wide toothy smile, that left little for the imagination, he would the answer “Hades my friend”.

Action figures are so much more than toys; they are portals into that other realm of fantasy. The packaging is such an intricate part of the pieces as to be the true outer body. This is why children should never have the chance to see them, because the packaging is merely something to be removed so “play” can begin with toy inside the plastic box. Both points of view are valid within there own context, but unfortunately directly opposed to each other in practice. This is why so much good stuff goes to waste for the poor collector. Thankfully the general awareness has increased since the 1950’s and onwards; so collectable items will increase overtime. This and the wonderful developments that have occurred over the last 20 odd years in the action figure collectables; The Star Wars merchandising did blaze the way for some time. And we have moved on to some truly stunning modern results. As long as rule number one is always stuck to, no matter, no way, never open the box.

His first plan of action was of course to use this Färdtjänst White bus service. He needed to be fully informed and acquainted with all the usages and possibilities. Within three days he held all the identity cards and papers in his hands and had been given all the relevant information on how to use them. He had received his first delivery the same day of the meeting with the woman, so all was being followed according to plan. Smoothness was such a satisfaction for a mind so egotistical, vain and condescending as his. He had both the option to travel alone or in a group. He wanted to blend into a group first, be less visible. He would use the older man disguise that he had used on the “Signet Water Lilly” case.

“That’s what they do they just drives your around to drive you mad.”
“ No Gustav darling they have to get the other people off the bus at some other place than where your are going”
“ Where’s that then?”
“ I don’t know Gustav, I wasn’t on the bus with you today it was Jose’sh”.
“Who that then?”
“ She is here on the weekends Gustav, Jose’sh, you like Jose’sh, she is small”.
“ Oh small”
“ Yes Gustav small, now get some rest your tired after the running about in the bus”.
“Them White buses drives you round and round, some says they never let you off lest you dead”.
“No Gustav darling, not until you’re all dead dear, there now get some sleep, you need it”.

He’d been on the bus for while now, he had booked an early trip to be the first on the bus so as to be able observe clearly. There was very little structure in the driving plan so far. The driver Agdbash Nuramity had started a rather interesting swoop in the southern western suburbs of Stockholm’s inner town. There had been pick-ups of all sorts of people and one roller-chair all over the area. When he was finally done with all the pick-ups they had six passengers (five patients and one assistant) in the van, and the driver himself Mr. Agdbash Nuramity. The general level of fidgeting stopped as Mr. Agdbash Nuramity announced his first destination. Mrs. Olsson to Södersjukhuset (the hospital on the South Island). Good this will show him a thing or two about Mr. Nuramity’s mind set, the time is now 10,43, traffic in Central Stockholm would have thinned by know, so what does he chose highway or byway?

Mrs. Aldertun to Kings Island, Fridhemsplan, (Follow Chair Two floors Lift)
Mrs. Nilsson to Central Station (12,45 Train to catch)
Mr. R. Lilly to Aspudden
Mr. Anderson to St Paul’s Street on the Southern Island (after 14,30)

He couldn’t see the driving information displayed on the monitor because the roller chair with Mrs. Aldertun in it had completely blocked view that he had planned to have of the machine once the driver had flipped it into “drive to” mode. He was now unable to assess any information, most importantly of all; the frame of the information against Mr. Nurmitys driving performance was to be gauged. So it was small talk and whispers that he would have to put some faith into. The first drop was at the hospital, good always took longer at hospital, and it is hard leaving people at some reception or just at some counter with no personal. As Mrs. Olsson was being lifted out into a hospital wheelchair, he made his move. He had time to strike up a conversation, before Mrs. Olsson had been processed.

“Mr. Anderson was it, my name is Lilly, Reginald Lilly. Hello how do you do”.

It took little to set these “lonely wound up little mice with crashing symbols” banging away at some thing, but to interrogate them was another matter indeed.

“These white buses, these Färdtjänst white buses, ever had any problem with them? Ever found yourself thinking if they know where they are going, or just driving around in circles?”

It was only when he played the violin that he ever felt really at peace. Not a calm peace but a sorrowful dark peace, some would say repressed passion. His mind had become an encyclopedia of knowledge over the years trained in a cool logicians ease of deduction. He knew inside that whatever madness Mr. Gustav Anderson had bound to that “White Bus” taxi service he would only continue to confirm his fear and thereby serve his purpose. That was Mr. Gustav Anderson’s intention to spend as much time as possible, being driven around in the white Färdtjänst bus with other people to talk to. Mystery is simple my dear Man, it is the common that fools us.

The End