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orangeoctopi7 · 5 years ago

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Walking Like a One-Man Army

I guess this chapter is kinda for @soosly ? It does prominently feature Soos being a BA.

: Part 1 : Part 2 : Part 3 :

The three of them piled into Soos’s truck. Ford elected to slide into the back of the cab with Mabel rather than sit shotgun. He needed to tell his niece what Debbs had decided.

“Mabel, I, uh…” He said slowly, “I spoke with your mother earlier this morning…”

The colorful girl tensed and pulled the collar of her sweater up a bit. Had all their ill-fated conversations over the last couple of days left her apprehensive to even speak with him?

“...I told her I wanted to keep Dipper on as my apprentice, and that you were welcome to stay here as well. Unfortunately, she, uh, declined to grant her permission.”

“Oh!” Mabel smiled with relief, letting her collar drop. “That’s ok! Me and Dipper already talked about it and decided not to stay here anyway, so everything works out!”

Ford’s heart sank. So Stan was wrong. The children had indeed come to realize the old researcher was a toxic influence in their lives. He tried to tell himself it was for the best, to focus on his intellect and control his emotions, but controlling anguish was a lot harder than controlling fear. He at least was able to keep his expression neutral as he found something else to distract him: nitpicking grammar.

“Dipper and I.” He corrected her mechanically. “In any case, we need to come up with a plan to confront Bill and find Fiddleford.”

“He’s got this little shelter next to one of the telephone poles.” Soos commented from the driver’s seat. “It’s actually surprisingly nice for something in the middle of the dump made completely out of scrap material.”

“If Bill’s expecting us, that’s probably where he’ll be.” Ford said gravely. “I imagine he’ll keep Fiddleford close-by, to keep a close eye on his bargaining chip. We’ll need a distraction. Bill may be an all-seeing eye, but even he has trouble splitting his attention.”

“Oooh, I’m super amazing at being a distraction!” Mabel piped up.

“I don’t doubt that.” Ford nodded, fondness somehow managing to slip past all the other emotions he was repressing. “But I promised your brother and Stan that I’d keep you safe, so I need you to stay close to me. Soos, do you think you could be a good distraction?”

“Oh yeah, totally.” Soos said nonchalantly. “Mr. Pines asks me to be the distraction all the time! When the taxman comes, or the safety inspector, or the police….”

“Of course he does.” Ford muttered. “What I need you to do is keep Bill’s attention while Mabel and I look for Fiddleford and get him to safety. Bill should still be possessing that time travel agent, so while he won’t be able to access any of the reality-warping powers he wields in the mindscape, he will have access to any weapon from Gravity Falls’ history or future. You’ll need to be ready for anything.”

“Well, they did teach me how to disarm an opponent with a gun or knife in my karate class, so I’ll probably be ok.”

* * *

It was quieter that Mabel was used to when they reached the dump. Normally, you could hear the sound of power tools and banjo strings even from the dump’s entrance, but not today. Today was deceptively peaceful.

The peace was broken by an eerie, high-pitched laugh. It was coming from the center of the dump, but as they looked around frantically, they couldn’t see their enemy anywhere. Ford fired his blaster, obliterating a board in the fence with a one-eyed triangle carved into it.

“Well, he knows we’re here.” He said gravely.

“What should we do?” Mabel asked.

“Proceed with the plan. Soos, you head straight for the center of the dump, we’ll go around the long way. Mabel, do you think you’ll be able to lead me to Fiddleford’s shelter if we don’t take a direct route?”

Mabel nodded with determination, even though she was only about 50% sure she’d be able to find the place, considering she’d only been there once.

They split up, Mabel leading Ford towards the east wall of the dump. She was pretty sure if she climbed up the pile of wrecked cars there, she’d be able to look out over the dump and figure out a way to get to McGucket’s shelter, and maybe even see where Bill was at.

While running through the dump, they heard the occasional scurry of a racoon or possum through the trash. It was clear that Ford’s already twitchy nerves were on high alert, and he leveled his blaster at every single one. Luckily, he hadn’t been startled enough to fire it yet, which was good because they were trying to sneak around while Soos was distracting Bill.

The stack of cars was within sight when they noticed more scurrying around the corner. Only unlike all the other scurries they’d heard, it seemed to be running towards them instead of away from them. Ford pointed his blaster yet again, and pulled Mabel behind him.

“PEEKABOO!” Blendin’s face wearing a contorted grin popped out from around the corner. “WOW, SIXER, YOU REALLY EXPECTED ME TO TAKE THE BAIT AND GO AFTER QUESTION MARK? PPPPFT, PLEASE! HE’S NOWHERE NEAR AS FUN TO MESS WITH AS YOU! OR SHOOTING STAR, FOR THAT MATTER.”

Bill took a few menacing steps towards them and leaned down so he was closer to Mabel’s eye-level. “WHADDAYA SAY KID? HOW WOULD YOU LIKE A NEVER-ENDING PARTY FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY? I’LL MAKE SURE ALL YOUR LITTLE FRIENDS ARE THERE, AND YOU’LL NEVER HAVE TO GO TO HIGHSCHOOL! IN FACT, YOU’LL BE ABLE TO DO WHATEVER YOU WANT! ALL YOU GOTTA DO IS GIVE ME THAT RIFT!”

“Don’t you dare speak to her.” Ford growled.

“You’re a butt-brain!” Mabel shouted, flinging out the worst insult she could think of.

Bill shrugged Blendin’s shoulders smugly. “OH WELL. I WAS GONNA LET YOU HAVE YOUR OWN PERSONAL PARADISE BUBBLE FOR YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS, BUT IF YOU’RE NOT GONNA COOPERATE WITH ME, I GUESS YOU’LL JUST HAVE TO SUFFER UNIMAGINABLE PAIN AND DESTRUCTION LIKE THE REST OF YOUR MISERABLE DIMENSION.” He pulled out a large rusty pipe and hefted it threateningly in his hands. “SO, WHERE’S THAT RIFT, IQ?”

“You really think I was stupid enough to bring it here with me?” Ford scoffed.

“WELL, I MEAN, YOU WERE STUPID ENOUGH TO TRUST ME.” Bill counted on his fingers. “AND TO THINK YOUR BROTHER WOULD ACTUALLY LISTEN TO YOU WHEN YOU CALLED FOR HELP. AND TO USE TOO MUCH GLUE WHEN YOU TRIED TO SEAL THE RIFT. SO YEAH. I DO THINK YOU’RE THAT STUPID.”

“Well I’m not.”

“OH, LEMME GUESS. YOU LEFT IT WITH PINETREE?”

“And with Grukle Stan!” Mabel added defiantly.

Bill snorted. “YEAH, ‘CUZ I’M REAL SCARED OF HIM!”

The possessed time traveler didn’t even get a derisive chuckle out before Soos barreled into him with a flying kick.

“Hey dude, I need you to pay attention to me for the next, I dunno, five to ten minutes?” He looked over at Ford. “D’you think that’s enough time?”

Ford just nodded mutely, unsure of how else to react to the handyman’s sudden entrance.

Bill picked his possessed body up off the ground. “YOU WANT ME TO PAY ATTENTION TO YOU, QUESTION MARK? HOW DO YOU LIKE THIS ATTENTION?” He pulled out a time tape and disappeared in a flash, only to reappear a second later with a large carpenter’s hammer in his hand. He threw it at Soos, who dodged it with skills honed from ten years of karate sparring.

As Bill continued to pursue Soos, pulling out weapons from random time periods as he went, Ford pulled Mabel away, back towards the center of the dump. This was just the distraction they needed, it just happened in a different order than they’d been expecting.

So, her original plan to look for McGucket’s shelter from the top of a trash mountain wasn’t going to work now, but she could still find it, right? She remembered that a telephone pole had been one of the main support beams in the little hut, so she just needed to follow the telephone lines! Spotting one above, she rushed ahead, now pulling Ford instead of the other way around.

Sure enough, they came upon McGucket’s hovel nearby. Too nearby. They could still hear Soos doing his best to lead Bill on a wild goose-chase on the opposite side of a pile of discarded furniture and tires. But they could also hear a low, animal-like moan from inside the shelter. The two of them rushed across the clearing, hoping to reach the fox skin that acted as a door before Bill rounded the trash pile.

Before they could reach it, two things happened.

First of all, a loud, up-beat pop song started blaring out of Mabel’s pocket.

“Girl, oh girl, you got it all, you know.”

“But girl, oh girl, you don’t got me, no!”

Mabel slapped her forehead and pulled out her phone, trying to silence it. “Ugh, Pacifica! Bad timing!”

Second, Bill blew away the trash pile with a shot from a cannon, sending chunks of broken wood and plastic everywhere and clearing a path between him and the shelter.

“THERE YOU ARE!”

Mabel just barely managed to hold onto her phone as Ford grabbed her by the arm and practically threw her into the door. He hurtled in after her, but no second shot came. Instead, they heard a loud, frustrated groan.

“UUUGH, WHY DO YOU HUMANS MAKE WEAPONS THAT ARE SUCH A WASTE OF TIME? WHO THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO HAVE TO REPACK THE GUNPOWDER AND ROLL IN ANOTHER BALL EVERY TIME YOU WANT TO SHOOT SOMETHING?”

“Well, it’s not that they thought it was a good idea, it’s just that they hadn’t developed the technology--” Ford started to explain when Mabel reached up and covered his mouth. He really couldn’t help himself sometimes, could he?

That same moan they’d heard before came again, louder, from under a pile of newspapers. Many of them had frantic calculations scribbled all over them. Ford reached down and brushed them aside, revealing a shivering, hyperventilating McGucket.

Mabel had seen McGucket be pretty crazy this summer. He’d jigged on an unplugged videogame for a week, ate his way out of a dinosaur, and claimed he preferred to walk backwards when she gave him a makeover. But she’d never seen him look so terrified and broken. His eyes were wide and unfocused, like he didn’t even notice they were there, and his breaths were coming in short, sharp whines. It was especially sad compared to the last time she’d seen him, when his mind really seemed like it was beginning to clear.

Ford looked down on his friend, absolutely devastated. If McGucket was looking bad compared to the last time Mabel had seen him, she could only imagine how he looked compared to the last time Ford saw him.

“Y’KNOW WHAT, I’M JUST GONNA GO BACK AND GET ANOTHER ONE THAT’S ALREADY LOADED.” They heard Bill whine, followed by the zap of the time tape being used.

McGucket moaned again at the sound of Bill’s voice, shutting his eyes tightly and clutching his head. That seemed to snap Ford out of his shock, and he reached down and scooped the old inventor into his arms.

“Let’s get out of here.” He told Mabel.

Just as they ran out the door, Bill reappeared in front of them with another cannon.

“UH-UH-UH! FOUR-EYES ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE UNTIL I GET WHAT I WANT, SIXER!”

“Just keep running!” Ford shouted to Mabel. They picked up the pace and just barely got out of the way in time to avoid the cannonball that ripped through McGucket’s shelter.

“Dudes, over here!” Soos called to them, where he was trying to finish reloading the other cannon Bill had abandoned after less than a minute of trying. “We can fight cannon with cannon!”

“There’s no time!” Ford barked. “We need to either get out of here or find cover!”

“Cover, huh?” Soos said thoughtfully, scratching his chin, until an idea popped into his head. “Oh! You’ve seen that old timey video of the dude who takes a cannonball to the stomach and it just bounces off of him? I’ve always wanted to try that!”

Ford and Mabel stared at him for a beat, dumbstruck.

“I say follow your dreams, Soos!” Mabel encouraged him.

“Yes, if you believe you’re capable, I see no reason not to give it a shot.” Ford agreed.

When Bill reappeared with another cannon, Soos stood squarely in front of it while Ford and Mabel made a run for the truck.

“OH, THIS OUGHTA BE GOOD!” Bill smirked as he fired.

Soos braced himself just as the cannonball collided with his stomach. While the iron ball did bounce off his gut and drop to the ground, Soos was also thrown back almost three feet. He landed on his back but the wind was already knocked out of him. As soon as he could move again, he rolled over and threw up.

“Ohhoho… dude…” the handyman muttered. “I knew that was probably gonna hurt, but it still hurt way worse than I was expecting. Ugh, I think I might’ve cracked a rib.”

No answer. Not even a mocking remark from Bill.

“Dudes?” He slowly got up to his feet and looked around. Ford and Mabel had run away, and Bill had chased after them. Oh well, at least Soos had bought them some time. He reached into his pocket to call his abuelita for a ride home, but alongside his phone, he felt another object. His truck keys. “Uh-oh.”

* * *

Despite Soos’s best efforts, Bill was still hot on their tail. Fiddleford squirmed weakly in Ford’s arms as they passed another mountain of garbage. His eyes seemed to briefly focus on Ford, but they looked far, far away.

“I’m jus’ barely gettin’ my mind back now, I don’t wanna lose it again...” The old inventor murmured feebly before resuming his catatonic state. It felt like someone had just stabbed Ford in the heart with an icy dagger, and he picked up the pace.

The sign above the dump’s exit soon came into view, but there were still several more piles of junk between here and there. As they fled, Mabel turned and fired her grappling hook at an old kitchen sink sticking half-way out the bottom of one of the larger junk piles behind them. The hook caught on the faucet and Mabel yanked back on the line hard, dislodging the kitchen sink and collapsing the garbage mountain in a landslide.

“Let’s see Bill blast his way through that!” She cheered.

Ford knew it was too soon to relax. As long as Bill was possessing this time travel agent, he had access to any weapon in human history, or humankind’s future, for that matter. Although, come to think of it, why hadn’t Bill used a weapon from the future on them yet? Perhaps that would draw the attention of the Time Paradox Avoidment Enforcement Squadron?

“There’s the truck!” Mabel exclaimed, bringing Ford out of his speculations. They skidded to a stop as they finally reached the vehicle and Ford tried to open the door.

It was locked.

Soos still had the keys.

Ford swore under his breath as he searched for something to pry the door open with. Yes, he could break into the truck, and yes, he could hotwire it, but that all took time! Time they didn’t have!

He was expecting Bill to step out of the dump any second now, but he didn’t appear. Instead, what at first glance appeared to be a flock of ravens rose out of the nearby woods. At the same time, Fiddleford thrashed in his arms and began to yell incoherently. Stanford tried to lay him in the back of the truck gently, so he wouldn’t drop him. The old researcher’s blood ran cold. It sounded almost identical to the gibberish his friend had spouted immediately after the failed first portal test.

As the mysterious flock drew near, Ford began searching for a rock, a golf club, anything he could use to break open the truck’s windows and get inside, all while keeping a close eye on the approaching swarm. As they came closer, he could see they weren’t birds, they were bats! But why would a swarm of bats take flight in the middle of the day? They were close enough to start blocking out the sun when Ford realized they weren’t bats. They were Eye-bats!

He pulled out his blaster and started firing into the swarm. “Mabel, find something to break into the truck with!”

She nodded and took a step back towards the dump, when Bill finally made his leisurely way to the exit. Ford couldn’t help but notice that Fiddleford’s cries stopped almost as soon as the possessed time traveler appeared.

“YOU FLESH-SACKS AREN’T GOING ANYWHERE!” Bill crowed. “NOT UNTIL I GET THAT RIFT! AFTER THAT, I HONESTLY COULDN’T CARE LESS.”

Just as Bill took another menacing step towards Mabel, Soos appeared, sledding down a trash mountain on a car door. He crashed into Bill and kept going until colliding into the side of his truck.

“Uh… I got the keys.” The handyman said in a daze, holding them up triumphantly.

Ford grabbed the keys and helped him up and into the shotgun seat. “I think I’d better drive.”

“Thanks dude, I appreciate it.” Soos said with a chuckle, then clutched his stomach. “Ooof, ugh, that’s… that’s definitely bruised.”

The truck zoomed away just as Bill rushed for the truck bed where Fiddleford was still laying. The swarm of Eye-bats descended on them, and Ford rolled down his window, steering with one hand and firing his blaster into the flock with the other. He knew it wasn’t exactly the safest position for his friend to be in, nearly unconscious in the bed of a speeding, reckless pickup truck, but he couldn’t exactly pull over and buckle him in next to Mabel. Not if they didn’t want to be overtaken by Eye-bats. The old researcher just had to hope that his old friend would be able to hold out until they reached the shield spell.

* * *

Stan was just sitting and watching tv like this was a perfectly normal day. Dipper wondered how he could possibly do it, just push all the danger and worry aside and vegg out like that. Sure, Stan wasn’t really invested in McGucket’s safety, but he had to care what might happen to Mabel, Ford, and Soos, right?

Of course, Dipper had known Stan long enough that he knew the old conman tended to express his emotions in a weird way. He teased and noogied to show affection, loaded on chores instead of compliments, and lied to the people he loved to try and keep them safe. Not to mention he’d spent the last thirty years trying to bring his lost brother home with an incredibly dangerous machine, while also pretending everything was normal. Maybe Stan was just really good at ignoring danger and worry by this point. And wow, that was a depressing thought.

Dipper kept vigilant watch out the front window, searching for any suspicious activity while also waiting anxiously for the return of Soos’s truck. He’d been sitting there for maybe fifteen minutes when the phone rang. It rang two more times, and Stan made no move to answer it. Dipper was unwilling to leave his post himself, but Stan was just watching old reruns of Baby Fights!

“Uh, Grunkle Stan?” Dipper called out after the fourth ring. Maybe he’d turned down his hearing aide?

“I hear it kid.” Stan grunted.

“Well, aren’t you going to get it!?”

“It’s probably just that triangular jerk, tryin’ to distract us. And if not, whoever it is can just leave a message.”

“But what if it’s Mabel or Soos?”

Dipper was distracted from his complaining when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. A car was coming down the dirt road towards the Mystery Shack. The boy seriously doubted the rescue mission would be back already.

Stan got up with a grunt from his chair to see what had caught Dipper’s attention. “There, see? What’d I tell ya? Wouldn’t’ve noticed whoever this yahoo is if you’d been trying to listen in on me while I was on the phone. When you know somebody’s after ya, you gotta keep distractions to a minimum.”

“You were just watching TV!” the boy gestured back to the flickering CRT.

“Eh, it’s a rerun, I’m not really payin’ attention to it, just need something to calm my nerves.”

The mystery car drove out of the trees. It wasn’t a car at all, it was a limo. One Dipper recognized from the Northwest’s fleet.

“Well, this ain’t gonna be good.” Stan grimace.

“M-maybe it’s just Pacifica coming to ask for help again?” The boy said hopefully, although his heart wasn’t really in it.

Sure enough, the Northwest stepping out of the limo was Preston. He looked around like everything about the Shack was a personal insult to him before stepping up to the door and knocking with a gloved hand.

Stan grabbed the taxidermied fake dodo sitting on a small table in the corner and reached under its wing, pulling out a small handgun, which he held behind his back as he opened the door. Dipper wasn’t quite sure how to feel about the fact that his uncle was answering the door with a loaded gun in his hand. Sure, they were all in danger from Bill at the moment, but he really didn’t want Stan to go to jail for shooting one of the most important people in Gravity Falls, even if Preston probably deserved it.

“Whaddya want?” Stan asked gruffly.

Preston’s small, forced smile seemed painful. “Aheh, yes, well, I suppose I’ll get right to the point then. I’m here to purchase your… I suppose this qualifies as a business on some level? My opening offer is two million dollars for the building and the land it occupies.”

“Hah! Yeah, right!” Stan barked. “I wouldn’t sell this place to a scumbag like you for twenty million!”

“Well, how about fifty million?” Preston asked coolly.

Stan froze, his eyes wide. He stared the billionaire down, trying to decide if he was bluffing. It sure didn’t seem like a bluff to Dipper. The boy knew the Northwests threw that kind of money around like it was nothing, because to them, it was.

“Not for a hundred million.” Stan said, although it was less of a defiant denial and more of a fishing offer, trying to gauge how high Preston was willing to go.

“How about a hundred and fifty million?” Preston offered.

“Higher.” Stan shook his head.

“Grunkle Stan!?” Dipper cried indignantly.

“Ah-ah!” Stan pushed him back without even turning to look. “Not now kid, the grownups are talking.”

“Two hundred million?” Preston asked, his cool smile starting to slip.

Stan shook his head. “Uh-uh. Higher.”

“Three hundred million?” Mr. Northwest ventured again through clenched teeth.

“Higher!”

“F-five hundred million?”

“I’m thinking twice that much.”

“Seriously!?” Preston finally exploded. “You want a billion dollars for this--this hovel!?”

“Y’know what, you’re right.” Stan shook his head. “I’m not askin’ enough. Two billion!”

The Northwest patriarch looked like he very much wanted to strangle Stan.

“C’mon Northwest, I know you’re good for it!” Stan smirked.

“Absolutely not! Seven hundred and fifty million, and that’s my final offer!”

“Welp, my final offer’s still two billion, so you can either pony up or get off my porch.”

“....Fine.” Preston hissed, the veins in his forehead popping.

Stan stuck out his hand for Preston to shake, but as soon as the billionaire reached for it, the conman yanked it away.

“Psych!” Stan chortled. “Hah! I just wanted to see how far I could go before you chickened out! You couldn’t give me your whole dirty fortune for this place!”

It took Preston a moment to regain his composure. “I beg you to reconsider, Mr. Pines.” He said with a dangerous edge to his voice. “Take it from someone in the real estate business, property can lose value so quickly.”

“Yeah, the answer’s still no.” Stan said flatly. “Now get outta here. Don’t think I won’t call the cops!”

“I’m afraid you’ll find they’re busy at the moment. I just made a rather large donation so they’re holding a banquet. Even if you could pry them away from it, I doubt they’d be willing to arrest the man that just doubled their salary.”

“Oh, well, if you’re so sure the cops won’t be coming.” Stan pulled the gun out from behind his back.

Mr. Northwest finally backed off, although he shared a long glare with Stan before getting back into his limo. “This isn’t over, Pines!”

“Tell it to someone who cares!” Stan shouted after him.

Dipper looked up at his uncle with awe as he shut the door. “Grunkle Stan, that was awesome!”

Stan rolled his eyes. “Yeah yeah, don’t think I didn’t notice you actually thought I was gonna take his offer.”

Dipper blushed and laughed sheepishly.

The old conman sighed as he sat back down in his recliner. “Eh, guess I can’t blame you. I was actually tempted for half a second. Then I remembered that guy’s a lying cheating crook, and he wasn’t gonna actually pay anything for this place. Still, two billion dollars, wouldn’t that be somethin’!”

“Grunkle Stan, no amount of money is worth the end of the world as we know it.” Dipper reminded him sharply.

“I know that!” Stan retorted, insulted. “I’m just sayin’, if I’d been able to trick him outta that much, heh, that would’ve been the con of a lifetime.”

“I-I’m sorry,” Dipper stammered, taking up his watch at the window again. “I shouldn’t doubt you. I’m just… I’m just really worried, y’know. Bill’s using more and more people to try and get at the rift. The Northwests are the most powerful people in town. You got him to leave for now, but he’s probably gonna hire thugs or something.”

“I know you’re worried, kid.” Stan said sadly. “I wish you didn’t have to worry about all this junk, but at the very least, you don’t gotta worry about this. I’ve had to hole up against hired thugs in this Shack before. ‘Course, this time I’m not gonna be able to fake my death to get ‘em to give up and go home.”

Dipper grimaced. This conversation wasn’t really reassuring him.

Stan sighed again. “Look, bud, I know Bill’s got a lot of people in his pocket, but time’s on our side, right? Eventually, that glue you found is gonna set, and then what’s he gonna do? Besides, you and your sister are going home next weekend anyway, and then you won’t have to worry about a thing.”

Dipper turned to look back at his uncle. “I’ll still worry about you. And Ford. And everyone else left here in Gravity Falls.”

Stan felt his heart swell when he realized how much the boy cared about him. It didn’t matter if he was safe, if his family was still in danger. Stan was all too familiar with that feeling, and he didn’t like the thought of this twelve-year-old kid being burdened with it.

“Well then, we’re just gonna have to figure something out then, aren’t we?”

#Gravity Falls #Fanfiction #Stanford Pines #Mabel Pines #soos ramirez #Stanley pines #Dipper Pines #My Writing

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buzzdixonwriter · 5 years ago

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Ellison’s Law

Even for the early 1960s, Burke’s Law was a silly gimmick show.

The gimmick? Millionaire Amos Burke, despite inheriting fabulous wealth, always wanted to be a detective so he joined the LAPD and worked his way up to captain of the homicide bureau.

Basically Batman without the trauma or costume.

And like Batman of a few years later, an exercise in camp.

The show was rigidly formulaic, but for practical reasons. It relied heavily on stunt casting celebrities as suspects or witnesses and as such it had to be flexible enough to handle rewrites and re-castings in the middle of production.

The typical episode began with someone found murdered or shown getting killed in some unusual manner, cut to Amos Burke flirting with a lady only to be called away by his police duties. Cue the opening title as Burke and his driver hurry out of his relatively modest Beverly Hills mansion to his Rolls-Royce (actually producer Aaron Spelling’s car which he rented back to the production) as a sultry female voice incants: “It’s Burke’s Law” then after the first commercial break Burke arrives at the scene of the crime and finds clues pointing him to four or five suspects.

Said suspects are the celebrity guest stars, recruited either to give them some manic scenery chewing time or -- more rarely -- an intense dramatic scene.

After three more commercial breaks, Burke intones one of his “laws” (“Burke’s law: Never ask a question where you don’t already know the answer.”), pulls a rabbit out of his hat / solution out of his butt, and fingers that episode’s duly appointed murderer.

The problem with the series as a whole is that it could never quite decide on what tone it wanted to take and stick with it consistently. The British series The Avengers found the perfect balance of tongue-in-cheek / derring-do but Burke’s Law bounced all over the spectrum, frequently in the same episode.

So why bring up this mediocre TV show at all?

Two words: Harlan Ellison

. . .

I’ve posted many times before on Harlan’s career and the impact of his writing and friendship on me.

He was in the mid 1960s at his zenith as a TV writer, and while his writing career as a whole encompasses so much more than that, his brief run as one of the meteors streaking across the Hollywood sky only lasted 4 years.

Oh, he kept writing for TV after that, but the old zing was gone. He supplied stories for other series, created and fought hard to keep The Starlost on track but eventually had to walk away from that heartbreak, adapted several of his own short stories to a Twilight Zone revival, as well as numerous development deals that went nowhere (including two great ideas for The Name Of The Game, another Gene Barry series, that would have fit perfectly into that show’s oeuvre).

If you find his second book of TV criticism, The Other Glass Teat, check out his first draft for “The Whimper Of Whipped Dogs” episode of The Young Lawyers (not to be confused with his short story of the same title).

It’s one of the most powerful / gut wrenching things you’ll ever read…

…but by the time the studio and the network got through with it, the final product was virtually unrecognizable…and unwatchable.

Such was Harlan’s fate after 1967 in Clown Town (as he referred to it).

But from 1963 to 1967, he was golden.

. . .

Harlan’s rocky personal history went through many highs and lows before coming to Hollywood in 1962.

Harlan’s first breakthrough as a writer was with his series of stories and essays on juvenile crime in New York in the early and mid-1950s..

Drafted in 1957. following his discharge, he settled in Chicago with his second wife and her son, editing Rogue magazine, a Playboy imitator.

Feeling his personal life becoming untenable, he called in favors from a friend, drove out to California with his soon-to-be ex-wife and stepson (aware the marriage was over, she also wanted to relocate away from Chicago), made his first sale to TV (his short story “No Fourth Commandment” to the TV show Route 66), then briefly found a sweet spot with Burke’s Law, writing four teleplays for their first season.

Burke’s Law is a good crucible for examination because of its silly, gimmicky nature and rigid format requirements.

These scripts represent a pivotal point in Harlan’s writing career, but more importantly, they mark the only sustained run he enjoyed on a non-anthology show, and as such make a good benchmark in comparing his growth as a writer and how his unique perspective played out in in relation to the constraints of episodic television.

While a couple of Harlan’s better science fiction / fantasy stories were written before 1963, the meteoric rise of his career in those genres began with his classic short story “’Repent, Harlequin!’ Said The Ticktockman” in 1965, followed by a host of other groundbreaking short stories and novellas, and his original anthologies Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions in which he recruited other science fiction and fantasy writers -- many of them already well established pros -- to follow the path he blazed in the genre.

His experience on Burke’s Law occurs squarely between what he once was to what he was becoming, and as such is worthy of attention.

SPOILER: There are no great hidden gems here.

There’s a lot of amusing writing, and a few flashes of the emotional intensity Harlan could provide, but by and large this is journeyman level stuff: Better than most, but not the best.

. . .

”Who Killed Alex Debbs?” was his first script for the series, and he pitched it to producer Aaron Spelling at a cattle call after a screening of the show’s pilot episode.

Harlan jump started the pitch process by improvising an idea off the cuff at the end of the screening, and Spelling took him to his office to hear how Harlan planned to resolve it, then hired him on the spot.

It’s unclear if Harlan was actually a staff writer on the series or simply hung out at the studio a lot, but he used his skills as a quick study to start working his way up the food chain.

His first script fulfills all the requirements of a Burke’s Law episode and shows off two of Harlan’s main strengths: An ability to hone in on intense emotion and a keen eye for the culture around him (in this case, very specifically Hollywood of the early 1960s).

On the downside, logic gaps render this story more implausible than most -- and as noted, Burke’s Law as a series wasn’t famous for its plausibility.

A flaw of almost all Burke’s Law episodes is that the victim is typically found dead under mysterious / bizarre circumstances, and the impression we get of them is constructed entirely through the words of suspects and witnesses.

It’s not an unworkable approach, but not the best suited for episodic television.

In this instance. victim Alex Drebbs is a Hugh Hefner-like men’s magazine publisher and monarch of a mini-empire of key clubs ala the Playboy Clubs of the era. Harlan captures that milieu well but here’s where the logic gaps hit hard: There’s no way a Hefner-like figure would be alone long enough for someone to kill him without being noticed, there’s no way his disappearance wouldn’t be immediately noticed by employees needing his attention, and it sure as hell wouldn’t have happened in a deserted club on the afternoon of its big opening.

On the plus side, there are some great character scenes including Arlene Dahl as a bitter ex-investor in Debbs empire now reduced to licking saving stamps to keep her decay mansion in repair, Burgess Meredith as a men’s magazine cartoonist who is nothing but a bundle of neurotic twitches and tics, and finally Sammy Davis Jr as Cordwainer Bird, the humor editor for Debbs’ magazine.

This was at the Robin Williams stage of Davis career, when all you had to do was point a camera in his direction and let him go. Harlan supplied the corny gags but Davis launched them over the top with his antics, and while he brings the proceedings to a complete disruptive halt, his brief scene is the most entertaining in the entire series. (Harlan later used Cordwainer Bird as his WGA pseudonym when he wanted to indicate displeasure at what had been done to his scripts.)

By his own account, Harlan had less luck with Diana Dors -- “the British Marilyn Monroe” -- and treated her condescendingly during the shoot. (By comparison, William Goldman in his memoir Adventures In The Screen Trade shows a much more sanguine / roll-with-the-punches attitude, and that might explain part of the reason his screenwriting trajectory was far different than Harlan’s.)

All in all, an uneven example of both the series and Harlan’s abilities.

. . .

”Who Killed Purity Mather?” was Harlan’s second script for the series and one of the few that played with the rigid format of the series insofar as the victim is seen alive for a few moments before being killed in a rather sadistic and spectacular manner (splashed with acid then trapped in a burning house, and the high angle shot used to show her demise must have been incredibly risky -- and thus costly -- to film).

It also drops a very subtle clue that I’ll reveal in the footnote.*

This is Harlan going so far over the top he emerges on the other side. Plotwise it features more logic gaps than his first script, but the whole thing is so silly it’s pointless to complain about it.

Purity Mather is a professional witch (!) who speeds up the investigation into her own demise by mailing Amos Burke a recording saying she’ll be killed along with a list of five possible suspects (that she doesn’t mention them by name in the recording reflects the show’s desire for standalone scenes, enabling them to recast and rewrite plotlines more easily; the scene where Burke reads the names to his team was doubtlessly shot after the guest cast was locked in).

Burke & co. start shaking down suspects, including Telly Savalas as Fakir George O'Shea, a Muslim holy man / cosmetics chemist (!!); Charlie Ruggles as I. A. Bugg, an eccentric elderly millionaire who likes to chase -- but not catch -- prostitutes around his apartment while dressed in lederhosen(!!!); Wally Cox as Count Carlo Szipesti, vampire for hire (!!!!); and Gloria Swanson as Venus Hekate Walsh a fright wig bedecked self-proclaimed goddess of free love (!!!!!).

The episode might as well have had a laugh track. It’s amusing with several daft touches only Harlan could provide, but the daftness comes from his take on Hollywood culture of the time.

I’d go so far as to say elements of Cox and Swanson’s characters were based on real life people living in and around Hollywood at the time, in particular some science fiction fans Harlan had come in contact with.

It’s a romp but a disappointing one. The logic gaps are too big in this one (case in point, if you’re the captain of the homicide bureau and you come home to see a masked figure climbing out of your second story window in broad daylight, you don’t simply shrug and let them run off) and the ending is one of those annoying ah-yes-now-that-you-caught-me-I-will-admit-everything-even-stuff-you-don’t-know cappers that Joe Ruby and Ken Spears would have rejected for Scooby Doo.

In short, a script whose parts are better than the whole.

. . .

”Who Killed Andy Zygmunt?" is another slight story that pays off with an insight into Hollywood pop culture of the era. The victim is “a pop artist” (no, he’s not; he an assemblage sculptor) impaled on his own artwork.

He’s also revealed to be an extortionist who acquires embarrassing evidence that he affixes to his assemblages then blackmails his victims into buying the art to keep their secrets safe.

Once again Burke is conveniently handed a list of suspects, in this case the people who bought the last five pieces of art from the exhibit.

This is one of the few times the series had more than one suspect in the same scene as there’s a big gathering in Burke’s office midway through the story (it also includes Michael Fox, a semi-regular on the series playing the coroner, so it represents a pretty sizeable filming day for the show). The suspects include Macdonald Carey as Burl Mason, the star of a popular TV detective show (Harlan gives his scenes what we would now call a meta-fiction touch by playing off Barry’s fictional TV detective dealing with a fictional fictional TV detective); Jack Weston as Silly McCree, a kid’s show host who destroys his career with an on air anti-child rant; Ann Blyth as Deirdre DeMara, a rival “pop artist” who creates her art by spraying women with paint and having them roll around on giant canvases (a gimmick later used in the bizarre 1966 Ann-Margaret comedy The Swinger); Aldo Ray as Mister Harold, former pro-wrestler turned poodle groomer; and Tab Hunter in a surprisingly well done scene as a sky diving playboy.

Hunter’s scene in particular shows Harlan getting his hyperbole under control, much more laconic and evocative than other characters he wrote for the series. As mentioned above, Burke’s Law occurs just on the cusp of Harlan’s huge success in print; he’s beginning to harness the lessons learned to maximum effect. (He would have some setbacks, too, in his screenwriting career, and to be honest part of that can be attributed to his failure to consistently apply the lessons learned, part of it can be attributed to his reputation preceding him, and part of it can be attributed to just bad luck.)

The motives this time are fairly edgy for a 1963 TV series, and combined with the slices of Los Angeles life Harlan provides give a fair example of the cultural zeitgeist of the era.

. . .

”Who Killed ½ Of Glory Lee?” can be explained as Benjamin Glory, half owner of Glory Lee Fashions, with Gisele MacKenzie as the other half, Keekee Lee.

After breaking the budget with his spectacular demise of Purity Mather, Harlan staged this murder as an inexpensive off camera elevator plunge.

This time the plot is a wee bit more plausible, with control of a profitable business being the apparent motive for the murder.

But Harlan loaded up this episode with a more powerful emotional punch than most of his others, and while the dénouement may feel a bit farfetched, it certainly rings true emotionally.

He certainly gave Nina Foch and Anne Helm plenty to work with regarding their characters’ complicated mother / daughter relationship, yet at the same time found room for a playful scene in which Buster Keaton pantomimes his answers to Burke’s questions.

Yet at the same time one senses an impatience behind the keyboard. The opening scene has a squad of female elevator operators (yes, once upon a time there needed to be somebody in the elevator to push the buttons for you) discussing pop culture references of a generation before -- Harlan’s generation.

And while the key emotional conflicts are played out well, several of the other scenes feel rather perfunctory…yet at the same time this is probably the most cohesive whole of any Burke’s Law script, whether written by Harlan or not.

It’s as if after a brief but profitable run on a network series, Harlan realized he’d absorbed as much of the practical end of the business as he could and his next moves should be into broader, edgier territory.

* SPOILER: Purity Mather is the murderer; she connives a career nudist (!!!!!!) to participate in a magic ceremony then disfigures and kills her, leaving evidence that she hopes will convince the police the body is hers. The subtle clue Harlan drops is the victim, wearing a long black negligee, complaining about how she doesn’t like the feel of the clothes. A nice touch, but undercut by Purity then going to the nudist camp her victim operates and waiting in the buff by the front gate for the police to show up and question the career nudist -- whom Purity has mentioned as a suspect in her faked murder. While it works insofar as Purity doesn’t try to pass herself off to anyone else at the camp as the career nudist, it doesn’t scan that she would know when the police would come to investigate or if they could be easily convinced at the gate and not come in to question other patrons.

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