Nicholas timing and trunk, etc

Roy C. Lackey · 04 May 2010, 17:26 · from 2010-May.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Tue, 4 May 2010 12:26:10 -0500
Subject: (urth) Nicholas timing and trunk, etc
References: <331192.93829.qm at smtp816.mail.ukl.yahoo.com><003501caeb58$69240c60$21d04a0c@rclackey>
	<370240.97486.qm at smtp822.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <003501caebae$e7d037e0$35d14a0c@rclackey>

Mo Holkar quoted and wrote:
> >But all this brings up another nasty problem I should have seen before.
In
> >the middle of the river battle, Bax got that silly phone call from
Nicholas,
> >who was supposed to be locked up again in the trunk. The problem is, the
> >trunk was on the back of Bax's old car, the same car he and the others
drove
> >out to the Skotos Strip in. So was Nicholas back in the trunk when Bax
drove
> >the car out of the driveway of his house that day? If so, then Nick
failed
> >to tell Bax before he set out, and Bax had talked to him.
>
>
> Hmm, that is tricky. I guess it's possible that the trunk had been
> removed from the car. I have the impression that it's detachable --
> "the trunk is an actual trunk, a huge piece of luggage that could...
> be carried" (108). So it could still be back at the house, wth
> Nicholas inside it, during the battle. It would seem a bit of a cheat
> not to mention this though (plus, who would be the notional four men
> required to move it?)

No, it was on the car. In her postscript Doris said, "We cornered Nicholas
and he agreed to go into the trunk (tied on the back of your car) and let us
close it if we would give him a cell phone." (290) That she bothered to make
her parenthetical comment at all bothers me. Bax knew where the trunk was.
It's almost as if Wolfe was drawing attention to this timing issue. I must
be missing something.

[snip]
> I am now wondering why it is that on pp242, 244 Bax is hiring cabs
> rather than driving himself. Maybe he is now wary of using the car,
> because of the associated (he believes, although Mme Orizia has
> already told him otherwise, 221) faerie effects?

He was going downtown to search courthouse and library records (243), so he
may have anticipated difficulties parking his big old car, difficulties
Doris had mentioned earlier when they left the lawyer's office.

> Also, this cab period follows a conversation with Nick which Bax says
> he will give Millie in its proper place (242) -- but, as far as I can
> see, he never does so. I don't think it can be the conversation that
> he reports to George on 254 et seq, because after that he goes to bed
(259).

I think it is the conversation in that letter (# 36) addressed to George.
Though the letter is addressed to George, he didn't know where George was so
he was sending it "to your dear and loyal Millie" (255), knowing she would
read it (260). He went to bed but hadn't finished the letter. The postscript
was evidently added the next morning after breakfast. (ibid.) In fact, in
the postscript he says that Martha "has asked me to join her in search of
her son Emlyn." Martha told Bax in the phone call she made to him the day of
the river battle that that was the real reason she had called (278). She
wanted to search the house for Emlyn, but Bax thought that it would be
easier to find him by finding Lupine, and that was the reason for the trip
to the Skotos Strip.

-Roy

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