STaGgeR chapter 39

[Michael Bailey]

It's 3 times chapter 13, a triple bankruptcy where some.of the bills are paid (-;

Less farfetched is a nod to the 39 Steps. I think I saw a Hitchcock version, but there are a couple of other remakes, one from 1978. Juicy sidetrack

There are 3 segments

If you want to buy the whole horror show take, in segment 1, old Cheesemeister Bruno is flipped into another timeline along with his handlers/jailers -

No textual evidence that others from this timeline also endure the shift, although one could read it that way.

But that 1st third of Chapter 39 is dealing specifically with the  Al Capone of cheese, whose straitened circumstances may have affected his credulity to the point of believing whatever cockamamie characterization of the Statue of Liberty Stuffy presents.

"It's the U.S. but not exactly the one you left."

Implying that the original one is still there, with its inhabitants.

Bruno's world has grown small and the U.S. he will experience is pretty much whatever Stuffy chooses to deliver.



Segment 2 is Hicks in Hungary, hungry for food & for love. Apparently he's found a love interest, Terike, who's teaching him Hungarian.

"Paradicsom" with paradisiacal overtones means tomato. Hicks is ready to apply the term to the fruit she hands him or, with gumshoe slang, to Terike.

Her next lesson is the words for "kiss me" so he says it & she does, whereupon his keen nose picks up a new perfume on her, exactly where she applied which he proceeds to determine, as one does.

Mitsouko perfume
https://www.guerlain.com/us/en-us/p/les-legendaires-mitsouko---eau-de-parfum-P024104.html

The scent of mysterious feelings
Mitsouko is part of Guerlain’s Legendary fragrance collection. A collection made of emblematic fragrances, composed for more than a century by 5 generations of Perfumers. These mythical pioneer perfumes compose a unique olfactive library, that the Maison Guerlain endeavors to preserve.

Jacques Guerlain named his creation “Mitsouko” after the name of the heroine in the bestselling novel of that time called La Bataille. Mitsouko, a beautiful married Japanese woman, secretly loves a British officer. In 1905, the Russo-Japanese war breaks out. Mitsouko awaits with dignity the outcome of the battle, nobly dominating her feelings.
Jacques Guerlain had the incredible and daring idea of combining a chypre with a very fruity peach note, giving this fragrance all of its modernity.

 Designed by Raymond Guerlain, its iconic “inverted heart” bottle is underscored with graceful scrolls typical of Art Nouveau. Its avant-garde stopper, in the form of a hollowed heart, evokes the delicate romanticism of this perfumery masterpiece and represented a real technical feat at the time.


--- a little more about segment 2 tomorrow, and another dab at section 3