North by Northwest
Zoo-Lu had arranged for Scott and James to travel in style. Two first class plane tickets on an extremely expensive airline.
They were shown to their seats by Steve, a veteran airline steward.
“Drink, sir?” said Steve, handing Scott a card.
Scott looked at the card for a moment. All of the drinks were complementary.
“I’ll have a beer. I just turned 21, and I’m going to Newtown College in Boston. Sure, it’s a bit old to be attending college, but I am 21.”
“And your friend?” said Steve, gesturing to James.
“Just a virgin banana daiquiri, please.”
“Sure, as you’re in first class, we’ll happily make that for you. Will you be having dinner?”
“Two vegan meals for us. Thanks.”
“I’m afraid we don’t have any decent vegan food sir. This is the USA in 2014. Here’s some saltines.”
James snatched the crackers and threw them onto the floor, before leaping out of his seat and pounding the crackers into a fine dust with his hands.
“I’ll see what we can do” said Steve, hurrying away to whatever they call the little kitchens on planes.
Scott kicked back with his noise-canceling headphones and settled into eight full hours of his favorite crime drama, Altoids Law.
V/O In the cold dark streets of Boston, exists a special department of the police force. Solving the crimes that nobody wants to solve… this is Altoids Law.
The show was one of those gritty TV dramas. A shot of the police station was shown over some slap-bass music.
Detective Curtis and Chief Wilson were talking.
“Rough night, Curtis?”
“I’ll say. Crime everywhere. Another tennis player slain. I just don’t understand it. Why would a serial killer attack tennis players?”
“Somethings are just meant to never be understood.”
Another detective entered. Detective Morris.
“Sir, a call just came in. You’d better get down to the warehouse district immediately.”
“Murder?” asked Wilson, already knowing the answer but asking anyway to build suspense and to pad out the show to a full hour slot.
“Afraid so.”
“Okay, Curtis, you come with me… oh and Morris, you’d better get me another can, this one’s almost dry.”
He shook an empty can of Peppermint Altoids in front of Detective Morris. Altoids Law was the latest in a series of crime shows centered around a common, everyday product. Designed to make the show more accessible to the public, Altoids Law saw the detectives, criminals, judges and even the victims all constantly munching away on white cylinders of peppermint-flavored sugar. And when they weren’t eating Altoids, they were cleaning them off the streets, for in this show – uniquely – even the chalk outlines of the dead bodies were made of a thick line of carefully placed mints.
Thunder rattled as the detectives arrived in the warehouse district to the tune of some more heavy bass guitar.
Det. Curtis and Chief Wilson showed up. A detective was waiting for them.
“Looks like the medical guys already got here and removed the body!” said Curtis.
“Knickers!” shouted Wilson, slamming his hand on the dashboard quite hard.
A ‘chalk’ outline of a man was on the ground, made of Altoids.
They approached the detective, who was sucking on an Altoid.
Chief Wilson was crunching on some Altoids. “What we got here?”
“John Doe. mid 40s. No ID on him.”
Detective Curtis seemed preoccupied.
“Crap.”
Curtis checked his pockets for Altoids, he didn’t have any. Wilson noticed and opened a can, offering them to him. He took a lot, throwing them all into his mouth at once. Nobody mentioned it or referred to it. The conversation continued.
Wilson (still crunching) began to yell into the face of Curtis.
“Okay, get me an APB out. Seal off the block, start talking to anyone who may have been something.”
“Yeah, just one witness we found so far. The lady who called it in. She runs the kiosk”
“Okay, let’s talk to her.”
Wilson and Curtis walked over to the kiosk.
Scott continued to watch Altoids Law for the reminder of the flight, but near the end of this particular episode the TV shut off.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Boston Logan International Airport where the local time is 3:20pm.”
