Dropping in at the Buenos Aires Film Museum (Museo del Cine), a beleaguered Argentine cinematic facility bearing its sponsor’s name, Pablo Ducrós Hickens, either inspired or led Matt Pfarrer astray.

Although the repository rising by an elevated roadway had now occupied constant premises since the 1990s after years of being spread across several sites before permanence, it didn’t enjoy any real centralized catalogue. After upwards of four decades, staffers and researchers were still coming across new easter eggs among its shelves. In fact, nearly a generation ago missing elements of Fritz Lang’s German silent classic Metropolis were discovered there then reintroduced to cineastes after almost 80 years of absence. That is after almost 80 years of knowing those spools had disappeared but not a whit of knowing to where they’d vanished.

Pfarrer roughly likened el Museo del Cine to a played-out gold mine. One some prospector makes a quit claim hunch on in mere hopes of finding nuggets enough to make his efforts pan out but then strikes a seam instead.

And yes, the gold mine analogy proved more apt than a box of chocolates.

Friendly and helpful as staffers there were, they mostly possessed ideas of what waited hidden within the storage aisles. Ideas, never certainty. After all that time a full thorough accounting had yet been pursued. For those employed there every day was a treasure hunt except all the letters but X appeared on the map.

Nonetheless, this museum was an opportune place to chat up the young enthusiastic docents. They grilled him about life in America. In turn, Pfarrer listened and picked up the youthful au currant of Buenos Aires. Their suggestions had him entering venues and enjoying performances that normally might’ve remained out of reach. His often being “the old guy” in crowds was better than tolerated. They welcomed him.

It was during one of these social/investigative sessions inside the museum that she approached him. At the information desk, his back to her, conversation with staffers with whom he spoke ebbed. By their faces he recognized the universal sign of an eminence whose presence demanded a return-to-work rigor. Pfarrer assumed whoever drew attention behind him a museum mucky-muck. The kind who’d wonder why a visitor diverted so much attention from several ought to be busy working staffers.

For them Pfarrer had an alibi already prepared. He turned and readied to launch when the sight before him derailed his oration. The figure now before him wasn’t a museum higher up. Instead, she resembled more of a tourist or visitor than he did.

Standing a few inches shorter than Pfarrer and rangy, the yet unknown woman looked back at him through black eyes. Dark brown and gray curls spun atop her head. A pointy nose and thin lips pushed and pulled themselves from the lightly lined pale plains of her face. He reckoned this woman to have been in her early 50s.

Outdoorsy attire hampered his determining whether she had any shape. The woman’s long white neck funneled into an untucked plaid button-down short-sleeved shirt. Below that sick green cargo pants. She wore brown/gray hiking shoes.

By her mien Pfarrer understood she knew him. A decided leg up for her. He gave his brains a quick rattle. He did not recognize her from any of the expected spots. No restaurant. No club. No bar. No concert hall. No bed. He would’ve introduced himself but he had no idea to whom.

She didn’t erase her anonymity. Rather, she confirmed his disadvantage.

“I know you,” she said.

Pfarrer asked the reflexive question. Seems they shared workplace accommodations. Or so she claimed. Her encouraging smile eased his minor dismay. However, it didn’t bring her to his forefront. She told him something, but it wasn’t that vital something.

“You aren’t there that often. Me, I’m a pretty constant habitue. I knew you are an American. Even before I heard you speak to those engineer guys.”

There had been several “engineer guys” Pfarrer had conversed with at different times. Therefore, that clue as a guidepost was out. He asked what betrayed his nationality.

“You must be one of the few men in Buenos Aires who wears bowling shirts,” she said. “Only an American might do that.”

Hand extended, she then introduced herself. “Lisa McKenzie-McKenzie. But please call me McKenzie.”

Pfarrer took the offered hand, ended any mystery behind his own name. Big hands for a woman, he liked her firm grip. It almost made him overlook her last name.

“McKenzie-McKenzie? Is that, uh, like an incest thing?”

She grinned. “Both mum and dad were McKenzies. From entirely different families, thank you. Notice there’s no third eye buried in my forehead.”

He grunted. “Well, wouldn’t that have been a Twilight Zone episode? So, you have dual last names to honor, or what, signify, both parents. Kind of like the Spanish or Mexicans. But whose comes first? Mom’s or dad’s?”

McKenzie-McKenzie who Pfarrer from thereon dubbed “McKenzie Squared” shrugged wide shoulders.

“Let’s just say it keeps them guessing.”

“And here I was hoping it was in homage to Duran Duran,” Pfarrer said. “The movie character. Not the band.”

She reached into her shirt pocket. From it she withdrew a business card and presented him it. Her gesture reminded him he carried his own. Unless the occasion a business matter requiring one, he never had any need to fork them over. Pfarrer dug into a pants pocket, yanked out a silver card case. The item drew a raised eyebrow and smirk from McKenzie Squared.

“Christ,” she murmured. “You are a Yank.”

Thankfully his card was less extravagant. Bona fides exchanged he scanned hers. Somewhat startled he gazed at her.

“You’re with Film Board Canada? I know this will sound kind of, I don’t know, but were you involved with that Yukon project? The one that dug up all those silents outside Dawson?”

It was her turn to be left-footed. Wide-eyed openmouthed astounded also. Indeed, she had participated in that disinterment expedition. She asked her own obvious questions. Pfarrer replied.

“Years ago, it must’ve been. Covid times. I was on the couch flipping around streaming offerings. The caption for yours hooked me. And only because of the Metropolis find down here. Otherwise, I’d have little interest in flickers. I mean, yeah, Charlie Chaplin and that other guy, Rudy, yeah. Sure. But I start getting hot about movies when it’s those early Warner Brothers gangster pix. Anything before that …”

McKenzie Squared replied. “I’m still in shock I’ve met somebody at the bottom half of the world who watched, much less saw that movie. A documentary at that.”

“So, you’re here at the museo,” Pfarrer said. “Got any leads you’re chasing? Another unearthing in the Metropolis vein? You can tell me. Dismissed scout’s honor I’ll keep your secret.”

“I could tell you and we could talk shop here in the museum,” McKenzie Squared said. “Or perhaps we could talk shop in a convivence somewhere.”

Her initiative pleased him. And by her look he pleased McKenzie Squared by accepting what she proffered.

“What luck for us both I know a place,” Pfarrer said. The pair arranged a date. He’d gather her up early that evening.

Later, her hired a cab which took him to her address. Unlike his architecturally uninspiring accommodation, McKenzie Squared’s apartment building nestled on a leafy avenue among other graying Baroque Revival edifices. It was the sort of neighborhood Pfarrer instinctively knew whose interiors went wild on curving stairways and balustrades.

She waited for him under the shade of the vestibule. Gone was her hiking attire. In its stead a green blouse, white slacks, and open-toed strappy heels whose height made McKenzie2 an even taller glass of water. McKenzie Squared had painted her toenails to match her fingernails – electric fuchsia. Her blouse billowy, she had left several buttons undone to possibly let him inspect the shallow valley between lapels. Only if Pfarrer had stared could he have discerned the design of the pendant suspended on a thin chain.

A brown leather handbag just large enough to hold essentials swung off a shoulder.

McKenzie Squared had gone easy on eyeshadow, blush, and lipstick. Perfume, too.

He got out of the taxi and held the rear door open. Her slight head bob indicated thanks. She ducked inside then slid across the backbench. Pfarrer hopped in then gave the driver an address while shutting the door.

In motion, McKenzie Squared remarked on his choice of conveyance. With ride shares so prevalent she claimed to believe taxis to have been relics. Naturally hers was an exaggeration. BA’s yellow and black cab fleet was ubiquitous on conurbano streets.

“As in the States, there are calls and streets gig drivers here won’t take or drive down,” Pfarrer said. “Besides, taxi drivers are real life working people. Gig drivers just do enough to make beer and gas money then call it a night.”

She laughed. “That’s quite an opinion.”

Smiling, he replied, “It’s a fact. Before I invented my cushy gig, I was a working man. Working people recognize other working people. Gig drivers aren’t anywhere among our ranks.”

Quietude yielded to traffic, and traffic thicker congestion. Low rises gave way to taller buildings. These ramped into gray and glass canyons along whose curb-height cement strolled more and more pedestrians. That time had arrived in BA. The gloaming. More so because the canyons truncated sunset had hastened neon and LED lighting. A time when major urban hustle and haste gave itself to unhurried throngs moving towards leisure, amusement, or distraction.

The taxi let them off on the side street of a major east-west thoroughfare. The evening milder here than at her address.

In a commendable bit of big-city caution, McKenzie Squared lengthened her handbag’s cable-thick strap. This allowed her to orbit it around her neck and let an arm pass through the now longer loop. A quick adjustment and the bag itself rested against her chest.

As added precaution, Pfarrer placed himself between that side of her body with the treasure and oncoming pedestrians.

Despite the sidewalks’ thickening humanity, this couple wasn’t jostled. Evening funseekers consciously navigated as did the pair. And when bumps just couldn’t be avoided, profuse apologies tumbled forth.

They walked upon his favorite BA place. El Grand Splendid Atendido. Not just a bookstore, Pfarrer told McKenzie Squared, but a “book emporium.”

The pair didn’t enter, though McKenzie Squared stood off to the entrance’s side and surveyed what she could. He described what waited beyond her sight.

A former theater, El Grand Splendid Atendido’s lyceum exterior had been retained while its interior had been renovated and reconfigured for bookshelves and common areas. All sort of groups met there and trod atop red carpeting. Thanks to its former purpose, the structure also lent semi-hideaways to readers who sought solitude. In these repurposed box seats they might lounge unbothered while immersing selves in faraway locations or situations as people different from themselves.

“Here is a fine place you’ll find books that’ll transport you body and mind,” Pfarrer said.

They continued walking. Two or three blocks onward the couple arrived at their destination. An Italian restaurant that offered outdoor seating. The al fresco didn’t line the outside wall, but did sit diners within an enclosure the length of the establishment’s facade. Between eatery and pen, a shortened-width sidewalk. Seeing the constriction, Argentines adjusted their steps accordingly and kept the flow as smooth as possible.

Streetside, seated shoulder-high gray bollards further wrought to resemble a thick whimsical fence served to fend off vehicles that might’ve swerved onto that curb. A metal rail along the same height as the avenue-facing blockade established a corral separating patrons from passersby. The rectangle’s opening aligned with the restaurant’s entry.

The hostess knew Pfarrer. She either smiled from seeing him again or seeing him again with another different woman. He indicated his preference to be seated outside. She led them to a table, sat both, handed each a menu, then wished “Buen provecho.”

They gave their menus once overs. During her peruse McKenzie Squared commented favorably on his shirt. It served as one of his standard glad rags. Wearing black shoes and black slacks instead of his usual chinos, Pfarrer’s short-sleeved color chart sported vivid pink flamingos against a bright turquoise background.

He acknowledged her compliment. Afterwards he added, “Yeah. I was feeling kinda Miami tonight.”

She asked for and he gave her several recommendations. A waitress who frequently served him in the past was their server. They exchanged greetings. Pfarrer insisted his guest order first. She chose one of his recommendations, the clams. He went with chicken cacciatore.

“In this shirt, I spill any, who’s going to know?” he said.

For drinks McKenzie Squared chose a Sauvignon Blanc. Which thanks to his wine adventure he remembered would be paired nicely with her meal. Pfarrer asked for a Cuba libre. And as usual he requested Cuban rum. Once their server went to put in their meal orders and fetch drinks, he explained such a specific.

“Thanks to Florida Cubans you can’t get Cuban rum in the States. Not only will they not let go of the island, they’ll go to lengths to make their misery others. Like this embargo. In the years since, America has made peace with Vietnam and found accommodation with Red China. But a country 90 miles away? Although Cubans are harmless, we’ve kept them as mortal enemies. Even the Irish have reconciled somewhat with the English. Can’t we even do that?”

Naturally McKenzie Squared, a Canadian, had visited Cuba. She mentioned that to him. Curious, Pfarrer asked for a general impression. Of the people, not the system.

“Despite the bad hand the United States continually deals them, Cubans are resilient and resourceful. Friendly, too. Well, at least to non-imperialist visitors.”

Pfarrer smirked. McKenzie Squared then added:

“You really have to wonder what sort of invention they’ll develop as a society after the embargo and all the other millstones the United States has thrown on their backs are finally lifted. Must hope we’re still alive for that day.”

The server brought drinks. Pfarrer raised his glass.

“You can’t get this up there,” he said, meaning the spirit. “I’ve only lapped up Cuban rum here in Argentina, Spain, and, of course, Canada. Viva la Cuba! End the Revolution to end the Embargo!”

They sipped.

“Now,” he said, “here we are at a ‘convivence.’ How does a Film Board Canada associate come to Argentina? Since you were at the museo and since you occupy a work desk here in town, it can’t be a vacation of any kind, can it?”

McKenzie Squared had been in Argentina from shortly after New Years. She and a small team had descended below the Equator tasked to find a film believed long lost from the silents era. Rumors alone did not dispatch them. Reliable persons had reported back the hidden gem existed.

As audiences who’ve viewed its film roster knew, the Board’s tastes and output were eclectic unto esoteric. Yet government just wasn’t going to sock taxpayers with a bill if the result didn’t somehow enhance, if not altogether glorify, Canadian heritage. Maybe its patrimony, too.

Fortunately, long-ago circumstances took care of those criteria. A Hollywood production, a Canadian director helmed it. The leading lady came from Halifax. Combing through surviving records listed several Canadians among the bit players and crew. Probably all relatives of the director.

McKenzie Squared said, “The only way that movie could’ve been more connected to Canada would’ve been if Eliza Gatewood Warren had written the source material.”

Pfarrer pretended he knew of this Gatewood Warren woman. McKenzie Squared continued.

After getting its bearings in sweltering Buenos Aires, and, admittedly ascertaining whether basin and toilet water drained clockwise below the Equator, by rail followed by coach the team trekked down Argentina’s Atlantic Coast. Way-way down. Only because of the season did the Canadians fail meeting penguins.

Calling the refuge sought a “town” could’ve been generous. More like a “habitation.” Beyond rough residences, it consisted of one of everything civilized humans supposed necessary. One posada. One escuela. One iglesia. One restaurante. One taverna that doubled up as a live-music milonga on Friday and Saturday nights. One tienda also serving as the locale’s correo. Out of sight somewhere one hoped a hospital. And finally, after first standing before the structure and thinking it an ornate onion domed Orthodox church, one having been misplaced in Argentina instead of deepest most frigid Siberia, learned it housed the cine.

McKenzie Squared spoke. “When we saw it, everybody asked, ‘Which of these things here does not belong?’”

The couple’s dinners arrived.

Between bites McKenzie Squared chronicled the Canadians’ expedition south. She effusively praised their Argentine counterparts’ cooperation. They did all the heavy lifting. They transported equipment from Buenos Aires south to the town. Other than luggage, a Moviola was the bulkiest item the Northerners toted.

Naturally the Argentines further extended themselves. The project’s success would generate terrific publicity. That and word of mouth regarding the locals’ helpfulness could only draw beneficial attention to the nation. Perhaps even attract other unusual searches. Just the sort which might turn Argentina into a girl with a curl.

The technical aspects were cut and dry. Nearly 70% of found cannister contents held reels in viewable shape all things considered. What remained swayed between seconds of strips still viable enough to watch or two or three sequential frames amid silver fragments and dust.

“The initial process was a very patient white glove affair,” McKenzie Squared said. “That and very little heavy breathing.”

After transferring the fragile past onto safety film present, the team sat down and made sense of what had been recovered. Film Board Canada had gotten the studio which had produced the film to rummage through its archives.

Studio staff somehow prestidigitated a treatment, not a script. Since the book unavailable, its study guide sufficed as cram material. These notes also provided clarity regarding intertitles.

Where necessary the team inserted salvageable still fragments then heavily augmented them with new detailed intertitles whose exposition maintained story continuity. In the end, the final product made sense.

“I’m glad it wasn’t a talkie,” McKenzie Squared said. “Didn’t have to sweat syncing sound.”

Pfarrer asked her evaluation of watching an entertainment likely unseen for almost 100 years.

McKenzie Squared contemplated momentarily, then said, “It was like raising the dead. Living beings who once spoke, breathed, bled, felt, but now shadows whose words cannot be heard. Cast and crew are long gone as are the audiences this movie once entertained. No one from 1928 can tell us about the production. No viewers survive who can relate their vicarious thrills in the darkened theater. Let’s hope we’ve done a good enough restoration for our latter-day audiences to supply that.”

After their plates were cleared, the pair declined dessert and coffee for more wine and Cuba libres.

“By the way,” Pfarrer said, “what’s this epic called?”

She answered, “The Leopard Changes His Spots.”

He dubiously repeated the title. Afterwards he requested a synopsis.

“Cad chases girl,” McKenzie Squared said. “Cad gets girl, intending to leave after his conquest. Girl knows this and tries burrowing her way into his black heart. But the cad believes himself invulnerable. He abandons her to agony. The girl is heartbroken. Powerful second thoughts pursue the cad. He submits. He reconsiders. He returns to the lovelorn girl. Loving eyes. Tender feelings. Generous kiss. Fade out.”

McKenzie Squared asked him if any of that sounded familiar. Confused, she had him at a disadvantage. Truly.

His dinner guest gloried in spilling the beans. These tumbled from her mouth juicily.

“You and Flor!”

His response was dry. “Now, before you tear off on aspersions and exploiter/exploitive comparisons, let me explain.”

He did. Pfarrer started at the beginning with dinner at the Hotel Jaures. There, that pair made a pact. An Argentine wine angle seemed a most natural article topic to Pfarrer. Florencia would be his guide, his encyclopedia. Financing was all his responsibility. What eventually transpired wasn’t on the itinerary. At least not his.

Departure agreed upon, Florencia made their mid-April arrangements. She declared this would be an optimal time. Near the end of la Vendimia. The harvest.

The bus ride on Route Two nearly took four-hours. When she informed him of her choice of conveyance, he almost suggested renting a car instead. But by bus was her normal mode of transportation to Rosario. He decided no need for an unnecessary hiccup. Anyway, the seats were roomy and the road itself smooth.

Route Two paralleled the western bank of Parana River. Gray conurbano tumbled into green. Having been in BA, the spread speeding northwest outside bus windows was lush. They arrived during mid-afternoon in Rosario. Heavier thicker warmth greeted them in Rosario.

The sun seemed stronger there but then of course it was a low-rise city compared to BA. Shorter structures let more sun filter down.

Pfarrer was glad he’d brought along his wide-brimmed straw hat. Unnecessary in BA, such portable shade would spare the back of his neck. Sun glasses would further lessen inclinations to squint.

He would’ve sprung for a cab. But Florencia declined it minus any explanation. He assumed she would’ve regarded the expense as extravagant. Fortunately, all his neighborhood wandering throughout BA kept him from being winded because the hotel she selected would never have been mistaken as a hop-skip-and-jump distance.

Nor would it have been mistaken as an address in the commercial district.

Rather than some affiliate of a globally known brand hostelry, the hotel she’d booked them expressed character. Meaning history also resided inside. If its white five-story exterior reminded Pfarrer of some colonial hotel seen in plenty of mid-century black and white movies, the interior confirmed this. Right down to the lazily spinning ceiling fans above.

All the lobby missed was someone seated there reading a newspaper while cagily assessing all who came and went.

The concierge greeted Florencia with familiarity. She introduced Pfarrer through a nice touch. As her “companion.” The desk man didn’t miss a beat. He welcomed Senor Pfarrer with grace then hoped his stay in Rosario pleasant and charming.

They’d been assigned connecting rooms that shared a bath. Behind the reception desk a dark open-faced wooden keyholder cabinet lined with boxes in which mail and messages could be stuffed as well as where keys hung for unoccupied rooms or guests who’d stepped out. The concierge grasped two consecutive numbered keys, each with fobs large and weighty enough to have been used as blackjacks in a pinch.

Of course, the gated narrow elevator which lifted them from the ground floor up to the third clattered on ascent. The open sliding windows of their spacious rooms faced east. It gladdened Pfarrer to see ceiling fans instead of mosquito nets hanged above either bed. Black mesh window screens lessened the old remedy’s necessity.

White ductless air conditioners wedged affixed on walls against ceilings. The latest flatscreen TV blankly reflected the room.

Pfarrer tossed his bag on his bed. He entered through the bathroom to watch Florencia empty her suitcase. She hung garments on hangers into a closet or folded them neatly before stacking them in drawers. Disgorging finished, she brightly suggested a stroll around these immediate Rosario blocks.

He eagerly agreed to stretch his legs further. Yes, he remembered to give his key to the concierge before leaving the premises.

Along their wander, Pfarrer realized this part of Rosario might’ve only been glimpsed by foreign visitors seated in tour bus luxury. And that hurrying towards a winery. They walked along worn streets whose shop windows appealed to residents, people who were lowkey but lively nonetheless. In passing, more than a few of whom wished both “good day.”

During the walk, Florencia recited their agenda in Rosario. From what he gathered four or five wineries sat on her list – and none of them were next door to another. Most importantly, she gave the reasons behind her selections through the most elementary explanations. Not only did she want Pfarrer to see and feel the earth beneath his shoes, around him, but engage his senses of taste and smell to their fullest.

Which was how they occupied themselves across the next three full days.

Watching and listening to her digress with growers and harvesters, one might’ve thought Florencia la jefe and Pfarrer simply her large amanuensis. There were occasions when she sensed he might’ve lagged. In these cases, she told him to “write this down.” Which was just her polite manner of saying, “pay attention!”

In the quiet evenings over dinners eaten outside at small restaurants whose dishes imparted the love of home cooking, they discussed, no, reviewed, no, she further instructed him on what that particular day encompassed. At such times he felt already his copious notes to have been rather deficient.

On their last evening in Rosario, instead of accompanying Florencia back to the hotel after dinner he preferred to remain behind. Pfarrer found a bar where he slowly indulged in several contemplative beers. Though no deadline pressed him, the anticipation of starting, forming, then satisfactorily concluding an article, an article, not an assignment, okay, a challenge, roused him. Again.

Pfarrer had one last beer, a celebratory glass of cold suds, before walking back to their hotel. If the key fob hadn’t been so ungainly he might’ve taken the stairs. Instead, he succumbed to sloth and the thrill-ride elevator. Once more on the third floor, he unlocked his room door and entered. Light washed upon the walls from two bedside lamps. He supposed the housekeeper had forgotten to switch them off after tidying the room. Only then did his sight fix on the bed.

Sitting on the tuffet, half hidden by a sheet tucked around her waist, thin arms wrapped around bent legs, chin balanced knees, eyes only on him, Florencia Cardinale. First, Pfarrer thought this a pleasant vision. The hospital white bedding emphasized how summer had browned her. Second, he thought he’d entered the wrong room.

Immediately Pfarrer realized three things. One, he stood in his room. Florencia had settled his bag on the floor at the foot of his bed. Two, no phony hysterics from her. Three, no slapstick attempts by her to reestablish modesty. Florencia sat there as if they both should be accustomed to seeing her naked. Or least topless.

Florencia had left the curtains apart, the sliding windows still open. In Rosario, that section at least, the vantage would not have fulfilled Peeping Toms. An unimpeded view gaped across the Parana River then into the black void of marshland. The window’s fixed half reflected him as he closed the room door.

McKenzie Squared interrogated him. What had he done next? Pfarrer spoke plainly.

“Know how when you go to somebody’s house and they have a bowl of candy set out? It’s pretty much granted that if the sweets are out in the open, you take a piece. Maybe a couple of pieces. Florencia then? Florencia was candy. I grabbed some candy.”

At first her McKenzie Squared looked upon him skeptically, as if he jested. That skepticism slowly dropped into disturbed bemusement.

Somberly, McKenzie Squared accused him of not being much of a gentleman, implying he’d taken advantage of “an underling.” Pfarrer corrected her; told her she meant “subordinate.”

“She knew what she was doing,” he said. “She knew what she wanted.”

After a moment to let her disapproval of him walk itself off, Pfarrer asked McKenzie Squared how she even realized he and Florencia flirted with an “entwinement.”

“Observation is my superpower,” she said. “When you’re absent Flor is nowhere near as active as when you’re there. Remember I’m in that office steadily. Your being around makes her do detours and loopty-loops your way.”

Pfarrer laughed, admitting he’d been unaware of her “deviations.” McKenzie Squared added to his laughter.

“Well, didn’t you get an article from it?” she asked.

“Good you ask,” he said. “The syndicate sent another email about it. They want a follow-up feature about Rosario and its wine. They want more. What luck that I have plenty to give still.”

McKenzie Squared spoke.

“Then let me further burden you. Next week I’m heading back south. A two-headed thing. I’ve hired the theater to re-premiere, I guess, The Leopard Changes His Spots. For the locals. Show them what we crazy foreigners were doing. That and I sent a work print DVD to some local musicians down there. The same combo who provides live accompaniment in the milonga on weekend nights.

“You know how when silents are shown now, theaters try and hire orchestras – or at least an organist – to provide live ambience. I suggested the local Argentine band to the Film Board. The town’s house band. It’s that kind of movie, so their kind of music will fit. Once I got approval from Vancouver, I got the band’s feeling on it.

“They loved the idea! So, the work print. Buenos Aires, can’t say enough nice about Buenos Aires, sent a sound engineer and recording equipment down there. Everybody played together nicely. And quickly. Before the rest of the team left, we synced pictures and melodies. The print as finished thus far is what I’ll be bringing. Instead, if we’re all lucky, the band will accompany the movie live. That would be wild!

“Anyway, Mr. Matt Pfarrer, this is where you could come in. This project could benefit magnificently through the perspective presented by a writer’s pen. Of course, Film Board will renumerate for labor and expenses.”

Pfarrer didn’t bother thinking long about her offer. His “Why not?” came easily. Besides, he was already sort of heading that way already.

“Tell you what,” he said. “We can make this a two-fer. On the way, I have a lead I want to check out. I guess it may be about halfway to your site. Thing may be astounding. Or it may be a practical joke. Either way, it’s a chance to see a part of the country I haven’t seen. Come along if you like. Or I’ll join you afterwards.”

She grinned. “What’s the prospect?”

“Oh,” he said breezily, “a submarine.”

She looked at him as if he kidded her.

After dinner and after McKenzie Squared accepted joining him during his own venture south, he squired her home. At night, all her shadowy neighborhood lacked were black crosshatches thrown from Spanish Moss tree branches and leaves to further instill ominous menace.

Taxi parked in front of her building again, the pair shared goodbyes. But hers contained a fillip.

“Oh, on our tour don’t expect to find me in your bed.” McKenzie Squared smiled, turned, walked to her vestibule. Just before reaching it, a motion sensor light illuminated her approach.

Pfarrer called out to her back. “Thanks for the warning.”

She raised a hand shoulder high and twinkled her fingers goodnight. McKenzie Squared had disappeared once the beam extinguished.

(Mehr noch)

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