The Bohemian Club
April 15, 1974 | Monday
Michael
All right, so, the info we have by late afternoon Monday is the following:
Patty Hearst has shot and killed two customers who stumbled into the Hibernia Bank, Eugene Brennan (70, retired) and Peter Markoff (59, liquor store owner), both locals who used the branch for their banking.
The SLA apparently used multiple cars to make their getaway. A city and region-wide manhunt is underway to find them.
The fire at the Bohemian Club has appeared in local news bulletins but there's been no substantive follow-up from the media after the fire was put out (not surprising, considering what else is going on, but also kind of hinky considering what Viv witnessed on the ground, the "private" fire fighting ladder, no cops let inside the Club, etc.)
Jolly West used Black linguist Colston Westbrook as his cut-out for recruiting Donald DeFreeze into becoming a Black revolutionary: Marshall's access to CIA files can reveal a lot about him, including the fact he's also a Vietnam vet and Phoenix Program alum.
Archie lets Marshall know after his call with Mary-Lynn at Shasta that Mitch is on a ramble with one of his top students and will get back in touch once he's back.
Roger is still not answering his phone, nor is he at any of his SF or LA hangouts.
Brant
That afternoon, Marshall assigns:
(a) Sophie to prep a file for his review on DeFreeze and Hearst, highlighting anything she thinks is memetically suspicious or which pings her radar;
(b) Jo to contact her boys at the FBI to get an update on the Bureau's involvement in this situation, find out what they know, what leads they're pursuing, etc.; and
(c) Dave to stay "in the field" monitoring police activity, including specifically the police scanner for any breaking news.
He's going to stay at the Mutual Bank offices waiting for Mitch's call and for Viv to report in; we didn't do this in-session but he'll have given her instructions to report in every two hours while in Berkeley just to make sure she's OK.
Michael
(a, this information comes in by around 3 or 4 in the afternoon of the 15th): Sophie is quick on the draw with evidence around the SLA's activities and statements over the past months since the assassination of Oakland School Superintendent Marcus Foster with cyanide-packed bullets back in November of '73, over his plan to give students ID cards. The FBI (more from them later, obviously) grabbed a copy of an August 1973 SLA statement of purpose from one of their safe houses that the SLA put to the torch in January; Sophie telefaxes that to Kearney Street and it's attached here. Sophie analyzes their stance as broadly Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, especially in Mao's dictum of "the guerrilla must move among the people like a fish swims in the sea." Throughout their statements and actions, they treat themselves as the self-appointed revolutionary vanguard for the multi-racial working class of the Bay Area. The SLA's famous seven-headed serpent is meant to represent the components of the "Symbionese" race; i.e., the shared struggles for the liberation of Blacks, women, etc., put in near-ecological terms of "symbiosis," different beings living and working together for the good of all. Also important to the SLA, at least since DeFreeze/Cinque seized control of the group last summer, are the rights of prisoners; the huge prisoner underclass in America, the SLA's propaganda reinforces over and over again, is a potential revolutionary powder keg and disproportionately made up of Black, Chicano, and other racial minorities.
The SLA symbol itself, Sophie says, is—at least according to an article from last month in the countercultural weekly The Boston Phoenix—derived from certain carvings depicted in James Churchward's The Sacred Symbols of Mu. Allegedly, this carving is meant to represent the Nāga, the half-cobra, half-woman demon of the Indian subcontinent. Marshall is plenty familiar with them, both from his studies of Hinduism and from the very obvious parallel with the irruptor class he and Merrick tangled with back in June, the bašmu. Both the Hindu nāga and the Sumerian bašmu often had multiple heads, much like the Greek legend of the Hydra. In fact the muš-saĝ, the serpent slain by Lagash culture hero Ninurta, was seven-headed, just like the figure in the SLA logo. Sophie also telefaxes the Phoenix article for Marshall to check out (pp. 3, 12-13).
There are no source-code-powered memetics in any of the SLA releases, audiotapes, or internal documents that Sophie's been able to find so far, but of course the Mu/nāga connection seemed quite suspicious, and she's flagged it as per Marshall's instructions. As is the SLA use of cyanide! Sophie writes in her hand-written telefaxed note. "Many of that literary circle in early 20th century San Francisco did away with themselves by cyanide: Nora May French in 1907, George Sterling's ex-wife Carrie in 1918, and of course Sterling himself on the fourth floor of the Bohemian Club in 1926. London chose morphine but killed himself in 1916."
A call from a Berkeley payphone at around 3:45 pm; Marshall brought Charley's caller-identification module from Livermore when he moved into the Mutual Bank offices.
"Marshall, it's Viv. Just a quick report in. I went to Hearst's old apartment, the abduction site, to see if I could sense anything, any threads leading from her life. I didn't get much, but I did feel a vague urge to go investigating in Oakland instead of Berkeley, that it would be a hotter trail. Makes sense if we're talking the Foster assassination and Black activism. Do you have any lines on any SLA-like groups there?"
Now Marshall wasn't on-site that day in late March last year, but in the after-action reports of the folks who were at the Mansa concert, he remembers Jocasta had an evil eye on a bunch of Maoists who were looking to cause trouble, proselytize, what have you: a wild-card in the tense stakes around the coming of the kusarikku and the mind control waves in the band's music that we managed to stop. Archie's memes were good that day, and the good vibes prevailed. Checking the files from the FBI and from Sophie, Marshall does see that after escaping Soledad in March '73, DeFreeze was presumed to have spent time at Peking House commune in Oakland before he was hidden at other leftist safehouses in the area, including the house of Patricia "Mizmoon" Soltysik, where he presumably began recruiting the (white) core of the SLA. Hell, the calendar is such that DeFreeze could have even been at the Mansa show that day, if he dared show his face immediately after escaping prison.
Rob
(In this timeline, did the SLA demand groceries for the poor as a ransom for Patricia? (It's not important tactics-wise, I'm just curious.))
Official bodies shunned the handouts, claiming it was giving in to terrorism. Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, remarked "It's just too bad we can't have an epidemic of botulism".
Michael
Oh yeah, for the record everything in the news about the SLA was History-א standard right up until Tania shot and killed Markoff and Brennan.
The author of that Boston Phoenix piece also mentions the Reagan botulism comment, Christ
Rob
very quotable, our Ron
Leonard
Reagan cooked up that botulism thing with the help of Cap Weinberger, so goes the rumor
Brant
A call from a Berkeley payphone at around 3:45 pm …
(I thought this was a great way to handle Marshall’s Eidetic Memory — well done.)
Michael
(You are the bard, the keeper of Uriel's scroll)
Brant
“None specifically,” Marshall responds after a few seconds’ silence. “But last year we shut down a subduction event in Oakland — a Black band, Mansa. Jo had her eyes on a few Maoist agitators that day. That’s a possible connection.” Marshall writes “Mansa” “Oakland” “DeFreeze” “SLA” “Hearst” on a white board an intern just rolled in. “Jo is en route to us from LA and will be here soon. If you go to Oakland, please take her with you — it is an unsettled zone.”
Michael
"Okay, Marshall. If you get me Jo's arrival information, I'll pick her up, and we can put our heads together on this." I figure our private pilot flies from either Hollywood—Burbank or less frequently LAX and can put down at Alameda in Oakland.
Dave calls in around 4:30. "Boss, updates from local law enforcement and the Bureau. SFPD quickly found the two getaway vehicles about ten blocks northwest on Lawton Street and they're now combing block-by-block the entirety of the Sunset District. But me, I dunno... this feels like a switch job to me. The cars were rentals, from two different agencies, and if the SLA had someone clean enough to rent two cars under fake names, they could probably rent four. I don't think they would have safe houses all the way over on the West Side. The neighborhood doesn't feel right; it's Irish, Italian, and Chinese working class folks. The SLA would stick out like a sore thumb over here. This whole thing feels like a feint to me. There are some boys in the Bureau who agree, who want to widen the dragnet to the entire city, but you know, it's way too late for that."
"Interviews with eyewits and the photos from the security cameras pretty much unanimously back the initial claim that Miss Hearst did the shooting. There are people saying the Hearst family is trying to scotch that information from getting out, but from what I've seen, the press is gonna ignore their wishes and go wide with it."
"It's the exact headline that they want, the late editions will be flying off newstands."
(If there's more specific law enforcement info Marshall wants before Jo makes it up to the Bay Area, let me know and I'll see if Dave can get it.)
Brant
"Excellent work, David. Top notch. Keep your ear to the ground but stay relatively mobile -- we have Menos coming in by plane, and Abeille is out in the field, about to make her way to Oakland. I don't think we can do much else this evening but obviously, call in if you find anything."
Marshall then calls Sophie, Viv, and John Merrick and tells them what David said about this being a feint. He cautions he has no better intel at this time, and it is just a hunch on David's part, but they should all be on the lookout for other unusual goings-on right now that might not be catching the media's attention.
Michael
Marshall then calls Sophie, Viv, and John Merrick and tells them what David said about this being a feint. He cautions he has no better intel at this time, and it is just a hunch on David's part, but they should all be on the lookout for other unusual goings-on right now that might not be catching the media's attention.
So I think the only remarkable thing among these three conversations worth mentioning narratively (I think Merrick will probably want to hold off on any esmology until the Monday night network news has had time to filter down to the West Coast), is that Sophie is going hard on us getting some eyes on the Bohemian Club fire (other than Viv's earlier brief lookie-loo visit of course). Doesn't have to be today, but soon, while the vibes are still hot. "Either Jo or Mitch," she says, meaning either we get some Psychometry or Detect (History B) on the site of the fire. Maybe this Bohemian Club/Bohemian scene obsession is just a weird vestigial holdover from her "old" pre-THROWAWAY personality, Marshall wonders to himself, but she seems to really sincerely believe the Montgomery Block/Bohemian artist "Group" of the early 20th century is linked to this whole SLA thing. Marshall has not heard much in the way of definitive proof (esmological or otherwise) from Sophie: both the Hearst family/Bohemian Club connection and the cyanide thing seem a little circumstantial to Marshall's liking. As do socialist politics considering only a few of those artists were committed socialists (and some, like Jack London, also concurrently held other views that wouldn't fly on the left these days, like race science and eugenics).
Brant
“Tonight is short notice — but your concern is … warranted. I can’t do what Mitch does,” he pauses, “but I can go take a look.” Marshall will call David and tell him to meet him about a block from the Club in 45 minutes. He’s gonna bring an “I BELONG HERE” glyph and an evidence collection kit.
Michael
Merrick can man the Kearney Street phones while Marshall and Dave are in the field.
Brant
Oh, also, he’s not being secretive. He’ll leave a message to let Jo and Viv know where he is, etc. So anyone can come find him there if they wanna try.
Michael
(poorly cropped to remove contemporary vehicles)
Brant
normal
Michael
def not beating those allegations
The chaos of earlier this afternoon is completely cleared by the time Marshall meets up with Dave across the street from the Bohemian Club. Fire engines and law enforcement all gone, the crowd of gawkers well and dispersed. It's likely at least one news crew is here doing a lonely live spot on film for later use on the 6 and 11 o'clock news, but this story definitely seems to have taken second banana news-wise to the Hearst shooting/SLA robbery. The front door is, of course, watched by the Club's doorman but the SANGUSH glyph will obviate that problem for Marshall. Question is, is Dave intended to join Marshall inside (which will require some Fast-Talking to get him in as a guest) or will he just wait outside while Marshall is inside breaking the sacred seal of secrecy of the Bohemian Club?
Brant
"I'm surprised there's a doorman," Marshall thinks. "You'd think the place would be condemned pending investigation. Odd." He stands on the opposite side of the street from the Club, smoking. To no one in particular besides, I guess, David, Marshall muses. "So we want something to do with this Club, this secret boys' club. Maybe we want to take something from it. Maybe we want to destroy it. Maybe we want to kill someone inside. But we need a distraction. What kind of distraction? A violent bank robbery involving an American heiress? OK, what sort of distraction does that serve? Who is distracted by such an event? Law enforcement, sure, but that seems drastic for just law enforcement. No, there must be someone, or something, to the Club that an assault on this particular bank would have a strategic impact. Naturally," Marshall adjusts his posture, "we assume its money. The bank's president, its board, trustees, they're probably all in on this place. Places like this, it's all boys like that, all the way down. So we hit this bank because this bank is significant to someone at the Club. And then we torch the club? Wait here, radio me if something happens." Marshall crosses to the Club door.
Marshall is, for the record, dressed in such a way as to blend in among Club membership, and has carefully combed back his hair, all the better to blend in.
Michael
Dave nods, flips on the radio to passive. Marshall walks in. The doorman nods to Marshall. "Sir. Just a note: the facilities and guest rooms on the top two floors are closed pending repair due to the recent fire. But all the other Club facilities and floors are available for members' use."
Brant
"Really. That's interesting. Were you here when the fire started?" Marshall's gonna hypnotize him.
Michael
Hypnotism-18.
Brant
>> SUCCESS by 10
Marshall wants to know everything this guy knows, saw, smelled, recalls, etc. about the events surrounding the fire.
Michael
The doorman, already well-disposed to Club members (and, by extension, keeping their secrets), freely offers up the doorman's version of how well he followed "Club protocols."
"I was on duty, yes sir. We had a complete evacuation of staff and members, it went off flawlessly. Alarms on the top floor went off at 10 this morning. Staff helped get the few Club members onsite out onto the street, and we followed Club protocols by directly calling Engine No. 41 on Leavenworth Street. They were here in less than five minutes and the fire contained soon after No. 41's arrival. Damage was minimal, confined to a guest room on the top floor. Arson investigators from Engine No. 41 finished up at around noon. I believe it was confirmed as most likely being an electrical fire. Repairs are set to start tomorrow morning."
Brant
Marshall nods. “Who do I talk to about guest rooms? If I needed one, you know? Just hypothetically.”
Michael
"Ah yes, the Club Concierge, Mr. Ellis, would be more than happy to help you with that once the upper floors are fully reopened." The doorman goes to his desk and pulls a business card with the name "Theodore Ellis" and a phone (and Telex!) number on it (as well as the Club's address and insignia, of course.)
Brant
“Is Mr. Ellis here now?”
Michael
"I believe he was coordinating with the Building Committee on the repair works, he should still be in his office at this hour and reachable by phone."
"Would you like me to page him?"
Brant
“No, just tell me where his office is.” Once he does, Marshall heads off to find him. If he finds him, he’s gonna immediately hypnotize him and ask him to tell Marshall everything about the room where the fire started and who was staying there, if anyone.
Marshall thinks, “Maybe the room is haaaaunted,” in a Vincent Price voice. “Did I say that out loud?” he asks as he walks down the hallway.
Michael
(Cool, I will move on this tomorrow morning, I think! Might as well give me another Hypnotism-18 roll before the scene kicks off.)
Brant
>> SUCCESS by 13
Michael
That is a crit.
The concierge is indeed in his office in the basement of the Bohemian Club, and he is indeed hard at work lining up contractors, cutting checks, and a-flurry with activity to make sure his members are not inconvenienced any more than they have to from this unexpected fire. In this workers-only area of the Club, the SANGUSH glyph seems to give Marshall the appearance of a member of house staff rather than a Club member to Ellis, but that's moot anyway as Marshall's voice near-instantly hypnotizes him. "Of course, that's the Sterling suite," Ellis says in a dull-and-hypnotized yet also fundamentally ironic and dubious voice to Marshall, whom he gossips with as a fellow member of Club staff, "and you've probably heard all the stories guests and members have told about the room since George Sterling killed himself there in 1926. Cold spots, strange sounds. Pure ridiculousness, of course. But I suppose it's all part of the pageant of Club history. And the fact the Club gave him a room when he was at his lowest; well, it's an important story. A myth, sort of."
"The room was unoccupied at the time of the fire, thank goodness, and Engine 41 did their usual good job making sure that only the trusted were allowed inside the building. Mr. Merrill's men served the Club well," Ellis says with a conspiratorial grin at Marshall.
Not only is Ellis being wholly truthful, thanks to Marshall's hypnosis, but Marshall can tell the stress of the day has made him more loquacious and voluble, nervously garrulous, and eager to gossip.
Brant
Do the names George Sterling and Mr. Merrill ring any bells with Marshall?
Michael
Well, George Sterling is the poet that Sophie was talking about in her fax to Marshall; he killed himself with cyanide here at the Bohemian Club in '26, as Ellis notes. As for Merrill, Marshall can give me a generic defaulted-from-Celebrity Culture Current Affairs roll at a 12, with additional hidden penalties because you've got no first name (yet).
Brant
Oh right, duh. Nice work Sophie.
>> FAILURE by 4
Nope!
Marshall asks: “Do we know how the fire got started?”
Michael
"The investigators said the fire started in the walls, which usually means an electrical fault. That should loosen the Building Committee's purse strings to update some of the outmoded features of the building," Ellis says, his dismay at his superiors' reluctance to renovate and modernize evident even through the flattening aspects of the hypnosis. "This building was put up a couple of years after the earthquake, so there is a lot of room for modernization, as I've been telling them the past few years."
Brant
"Give me the keys to the room. I'm going to go take a look. If anyone asks, tell them I'm with the city."
Michael
A hypnotized individual is extremely suggestible. Roll a Quick Contest of Hypnotism vs. the victim’s Will for each suggestion. The subject resists suggestions that threaten his life or his loved ones, or that go strongly against his character, at +5.
So yeah, Hypnotism-18 again.
Corruption?
Brant
Nah.
>> SUCCESS by 4
Michael
Can you roll against 12 for me please.
Brant
>> 3d6 … 12
Did I do that right?
Michael
Yep, it just so happened you rolled exactly 12.
Ellis now levels his gaze at Marshall's face, and the glyph on his lapel, back to Marshall's face. "Who... who are you?" He's still hypnotized, but Marshall can tell that the hypnotic suggestion to hand over the keys did not quite take. And goddamn it, by all accounts it should have. Marshall can now give me a Body Language-17.
Brant
>> SUCCESS by 4
Michael
So two realizations hit Marshall suddenly: first of all, this concierge takes his job and responsibilities at the Bohemian Club seriously, despite the amiable gossip and banter he engaged with his presumed co-worker. Quite literally deadly seriously. The unexpected request to hand over the keys snapped something in Marshall's extremely routine and very successful hypnosis attempt; Ellis literally could not bring himself to do it. Marshall's immediate diagnosis, reading Ellis's clenched, tense, nervous body language, the fear response in his heartbeat, respiration, and perspiration (despite the relaxed hypnotic state) is that when it comes to the security of the Club, he has some powerful compulsions, placed there from outside. A Psychology roll while under hypnosis could help unpack what's going on here. Second, Marshall's interpretation of Ellis's body language indicates that this request and Ellis's powerful resistance to it seems to have short-circuited the SANGUSH glyph's effect on Ellis. Ellis is still "under," thanks to Marshall's initial critical success, he's still in a thoroughly suggestible hypnotic state, but Ellis can see Marshall's true face now. Marshall can try to request the keys from Ellis again (at a -1 to the Hypnotism roll) but he will remember Marshall's face without some further hypnotic reprogramming.
Brant
>> SUCCESS by 7
Marshall’s gonna try to Hypnotize him again but with a new command. After a moment’s thought, in response to Ellis’ question: “No one important. Forget I was ever here.”
Michael
The Psychology roll: It doesn't take long for Marshall to explore the roots of Ted Ellis's reluctance to hand over the keys to his "coworker." Just some gentle, hypnosis-aided prodding brings the nature of the powerful "counterprogramming" out in great detail. "I am... not a member of the Club, of course. But I have their trust. And with that trust comes security, money... the kinds of material reward you can't earn even at a top international hotel or retreat. I am asked... I am given much trust, and in exchange I am asked to treat the entirety of this building as holy, as sacred. My discretion... if I were to break it for anyone..." He drifts off. "It wouldn't merely be my safety at risk. But my family's. My parents, my sister." It's not that Ellis has been hypnotized or trained into this resistance; if so, he'd have been a much harder nut to crack at first attempt. He's just been mundanely compelled by the Bohemian Club into keeping their secrets. All their secrets. When Marshall probes those areas, asks Ellis to go against Club protocol, Ellis resists with incredible force. Gossiping doesn't trigger it; giving the keys to a presumed underling or even co-worker does. It's a neat job the Bohemian Club's code of silence has done on him, and it's made this guy into a severely repressed neurotic. Go ahead and give me another Hypnotism-18 roll for the "I'm no one, forget I was here" hypnotic sugggestion. This suggestion, now that Marshall has charted his psychology, won't trip any of Ellis's "Weaving spiders come not here"-instilled impulses.
Brant
>> SUCCESS by 4
Assuming that works, Marshall will immediately wander off into the building while I debate my next move.
Michael
He's all sealed up, double-checked, and should be none the wiser from this visit. Before doing so, are there any post-hypnotic suggestions you want to instill?
Brant
No, nothing yet, Marshall just wants to get away from him to ensure he's forgettable.
Michael
(Just a little color for Marshall as he ponders his next move.)
Marshall goes back up to the first floor and enters the overstuffed reading room (as so vividly described in game-inspiration). A half-dozen or so of the Club's real regulars are there—elderly gents, some level of drunks, all by the look, sounds, and smell of it—and Marshall happens to be there as one of the Club's "boys" delivers the evening editions of the Chronicle and the slim, west coast evening editions of The New York Times and The Washington Post to the bins by each of the gorgeous leather chairs and couches. The Club needs its members well-informed at all hours of the day and night, and of course the Patty Hearst news is in big headlines above the fold on all the newspapers, both out-of-town and local. There's also a stock ticker (now mostly quiet for the day as the West Coast exchanges have closed and Asia is just waking up) and a bay with courtesy phones for the members (free long distance!). Each of the attendants and members in turn catch glimpses of the SANGUSH glyph on Marshall's lapel as he walks the room and accept Marshall readily as a Club member. "Randy's little girl is all grown up!" one of the Club members drunkenly half-shouts as he reads the Times. "Gone communist and insane, just like the rest of the country," he harumphs as he settles back into his cut crystal glass full of brown liquor. This loudmouth's Club brethren sort of ignore the outburst, and return to their backgammon games and quiet conversations. It's a Monday night so there are few "jinks" going on, high, low, or otherwise, and the place (with the exception of the single drunken anti-communist outburst) does have a quite moribund atmosphere.
Brant
Marshall walks over to this drunken member reading the Times. He says, "Give me that," gesturing at the crystal glass. He's gonna hypnotize him.
>> SUCCESS by 10
Figured I'd get it out of the way.
Michael
He's drunk, emotionally unstable and labile, and in his most comfortable place in the world. The drunken loudmouth is hypnotized easily.
Brant
Marshall takes the glass and sits. He sniffs it and takes a sip, then scowls and puts it down. "My father drank brandy. Usually with soda. Never understood the appeal." He fixes the man with his serpent gaze. "Who are you? Do you know Randy personally?"
Michael
"Bacon. Bob Bacon, E.F. Hutton." Under hypnosis there's still a tinge of gladhander in his voice and attitude but it's totally lacking in the aggressive kinesthetic "rush up to Marshall and shake his hand firmly" aspect that he might perform normally. He remains seated stock still in his plush chair across from Marshall, locked on his gaze. "Randy? I know of him. Seen him at events and so forth. Of course he's not one of us," Bob says with a slight eyebrow raise to his "fellow" Owl Marshall.
Brant
"Why not? He is Randolph Hearst, after all."
Michael
"Ah, but you forget your Club lore, son." Again, the patronizing didactic affect he might exhibit full-on while un-hypnotized is deadened somewhat, but this Bob Bacon definitely seems to take delight in being right and tsking his inferiors/younger Club brethren. "Sure, Bill Hearst was an Owl, but then came the feud of Ought-Two, after McKinley got himself shot and absolutely every staid old Republican in San Francisco blamed Billy Hearst and his pet rabblerouser Ambrose Bierce for Leon Czolgosz's bullet. How did the old doggerel go?" Bob clears his throat, again not as theatrically as he might un-hypnotized, but still relishing any attention for his impromptu stagey high jinks:
The bullet that pierced Goebel's breast Can not be found in all the West; Good reason, it is speeding here To stretch McKinley on his bier.
"Randy's dad took his ball and went home; founded his own little social club, The Family. Also-rans, a pale imitation of Bohemia. Whatever the case, Randy's a good liberal, pink to his daughter's red—imagine giving into those dirty commies' demands, giving free food to the slovenly host—he likely wouldn't want to be a Bohemian, under any circumstances."
"Now Randy's brother Bill Jr., he's an Owl. Through and through."
Michael
"Decided to go against his father's obstinance about the Bohemian Club and good on him."
Brant
"Have you seen Bill Jr. here today?"
Michael
Bob shakes his head. "No, I haven't."
Brant
"Which way is the staircase to the guest rooms?"
Michael
Bob, a little confused as to why a member would be asking him for directions, puts it out of his mind almost immediately ("this nice calming young man is probably a provisional member") and gestures out of the reading room to the west, "Up those stairs. But those floors are closed off after the fire!" Bob says as Marshall gets up to leave.
Brant
Marshall smiles and thanks him, then hands the unfinished drink to a passing waiter. He heads toward the stairs. At the same time, he’s looking around — is anyone watching him? And also: are there prominent member photos or portraits hanging anywhere within sight? Marshall is specifically looking for that might be this “Mr. Merrill.”
Michael
is anyone watching him?
Observation-16
Marshall is specifically looking for that might be this “Mr. Merrill.”
Search-11 (Defaulted from Perception minus 5; failure will just mean more time Marshall spent combing the walls)
Brant
Observation.
>> SUCCESS by 4
Search.
>> SUCCESS by 1
Michael
Okay, well, Marshall is able to tell that the SANGUSH glyph is doing its job well (with the exception of that minor glitch triggered by Ted Ellis's fear of retribution from the Club) with both workers and members. As he casually wanders the halls, looking at the cartoons, candid (and rather embarrassing) Grove photos, and amateur Owl-made artworks on the walls, everyone gets a glimpse at SANGUSH and accepts Marshall's presence with no comment.
As Marshall spends some time speed-reading the labels on the candid photos (not every picture is labeled, of course, just some that are either newspaper clippings or typewriter-labeled private prints), he sees a likely Merrill pop up a few times. Fred Merrill, Bohemian Club member for over 25 years. In his serious photos (like the included head shot here), he looks genial enough; the candid photos number two: one at the Bohemian Grove meeting in 1967 (the year Nixon gave his speech to rally the business world around his candidacy) where Merrill is standing with newly-elected Governor Reagan and a pipe-clenching Bing Crosby, all three with silly hats on their heads, and another undated one (Merrill looks about the same age) where he's standing with a group of about twenty men in front of a tiny SFFD firehouse wedged in between two buildings. Half the men are wearing business suits, half are wearing "Engine No. 41" firemen's jackets and uniforms, and ALL the men are wearing "41"-labeled fire helmets, the be-suited men as an obvious goof with broad smiles on their faces. A typewritten legend states, "The men of Engine 41 meet the equally valorous members of the board of the Fireman's Fund Insurance Company, upon the lucrative occasion of the Fund's merger with American Express Company." Apparently this event was something worth celebrating here at the Bohemian Club. Curious.
Brant
Marshall wishes he remembered more of his grandfather’s stories about the good ol’ days on Nob Hill, before the quake in ‘06. But he had learned at a young age an ability to sort of “zone out” while people — older people, mostly, like his grandparents, stern and calculating — thought he was listening to them. The key is in the gaze: people are such visual creatures, if you don’t look at them, they think you’re not listening. So one just gazes sort of passively, looking into the middle distance, but concentrating very hard on a part of their face. The eyebrows, mostly.
Marshall goes upstairs; he’s going to try to find the “haunted” room where the fire started.
Michael
There are still a few odd maintenance workers wandering around on the 4th floor where the guest suites, including the Sterling Suite, are, doing cleanup and so forth. All of them nod curtly to the SANGUSH'd Marshall. Generally speaking this floor of the Bohemian Club does have the vibe of a nice antique hotel, but with more meeting rooms and open areas for social congregation. The Sterling Suite is at the end of the building's southeast corridor. There's some caution tape up over the door. The hallway here is a bit grimier from the smoke, and there's evidently going to be a lot of work needed on getting the water used to put out the fire out of the floors and walls; this is the kind of work that Ellis was likely cutting the checks for downstairs.
Marshall peeks into the Sterling Suite. It's a medium-sized room with attached bath; probably about 300 square feet total. Marshall sees the wall behind the room's bed blackened and scorched, in some areas down to the support beams. Curling and crumbling wallpaper peels off the wall; the bed's mattress is partially burned and soaked with hose water.
I can give Marshall a Forensics-10 roll here, defaulted off his IQ, to see if he can get a hint to or a sense of how the fire started.
Brant
Forensics.
>> FAILURE by 1
Regardless, Marshall steps inside after looking around to make sure no one is (obviously) watching him.
He's going to poke around, see if he can find anything interesting.
Michael
That will be a secret Search-11 (defaulting from Perception minus 5) roll that I'll make.
Marshall does a quick yet thorough search of the room for anything out of place or unusual. Peering into the walls, he doesn't see anything out of the ordinary amidst the scorched burned beams. Likewise, the closet, the drawers of the room's bureau and writing desk, and the bathroom are completely devoid of anything interesting. It's clear either there was no guest staying here when the fire broke out, or the guest's possessions were cleared out in a hurry.
Brant
Where is this room positioned vis-a-vis the main street? Like is it toward the back of the building, front of the building, what does the window look out onto?
Michael
The southeast corner of the Bohemian Club looks out onto Post Street; the front door to the Club, the owl emblem, and the weird Bret Harte memorial from the top of the thread are on Taylor Street.
Brant
Is there a fire escape out the window, or any other form of ingress/egress besides the door Marshall came through?
Michael
No sir. No fire escapes and the room window... hmm, I hadn't considered that the firefighters might have needed to break the window to hose the room once the ladder was up. Let's say the window was broken and there's some SFFD-supplied plastic sheeting taped up in place of the missing windowpane.
Brant
OK, is there like a small object that looks like it was present during the fire — i.e., it's covered in soot, wet from the firehose, etc. — that Marshall can pocket to bring to Jocasta? Assuming so, he's going to do that and then try to find his way into the backrooms and kitchen where the staff work.
I'm thinking like an alarm clock or a stationary pad or a pen or something.
Michael
Yes, definitely. Finding a small portable object that has an "emotional" imprint from the fire will be no problem. The alarm clock near the bed actually sounds like a perfect choice. Heading back downstairs to the kitchens and staff areas, also no problem. Will need to follow up later tonight/tomorrow but tell me what the agenda is down there and I can prep for it.
Brant
Marshall learned from his good friend Roger that there is ... let's call it informational disparity between the upstairs and downstairs, especially if the staff is Black. For most of his life he thought of staff as being sort of identity-less, extras in a stage play; if they heard or observed anything it didn't matter, just like it didn't matter if your lamp overheard you talking to someone. But Jocasta has taught Marshall that the lamp can tell you something it observed and that, plus what he's learned from Roger, gave him the idea to go "talk to the help."
So his agenda is just to get into the staff area, see who's who down there, what they may know, if this weird sort of outside memetic brain-control thing affects them, too, etc.
Michael
All right. You evoked memetics so I think that's an interesting approach for Marshall to take to analyze the kitchen staff and servant class here at the Bohemian Club. Sussing out exactly how resistant or willing the staff is to gossip about the Club members—the wealthy, the powerful—would be a good way to find out a) exactly how strong the code of silence that Marshall detected through hypnosis in Ellis is, b) whether it extends to the Club servant class (who are obviously at a much lower level in the hierarchy than Ellis is), and c) whether either's code of secrecy involves actual source code or not. So the way to do this, I think, will be for Marshall to roll Current Affairs (Celebrity Culture)-18 (giving you a +2 because of Charisma). Drop some famous names in a very sly way, see how a pebble flung into the social pond here in the kitchens and stockrooms ripples outwards. After you've done that, I'd like you to give me an IQ minus 5 roll (11). Then depending on the results of those two rolls, we can see if there's any memetics to analyze.
Brant
>> SUCCESS by 4
>> SUCCESS by 0
Michael
Marshall-as-SANGUSH'd-waiter spends some time among the kitchen and housekeeping staffs, listening carefully to their conversational rhythms, selecting the right moments to inject the name of a known Club member here and there. The staff aren't by and large huge gossips, but they do react normally to a snide comment against the Club members: a chuckle, a conspiratorial comment ("He likes to drink until he has to be scooped out of his easy chair"), etc. It's clear no one at this level of the club has been psychologically-trained to not give away the Club members' secrets, but they also only possess the kinds of "secrets" that you get when you're serving them food and drink. The housekeeping staff are similar, but Marshall also surmises that many of them may have seen and heard more juicy stuff, given the nature of the job. They remain tactful and less likely to chuckle or gossip, but Marshall also hypnotizes one or two and sees no "you're going to murder my family" type primal fears like the ones that Ellis has. All throughout this process, Marshall tunes himself to the rhythms and identifying marks of a memetic payload having possibly been deployed in either of these populations, and he very decidedly finds none. However, in the process of blowing the dust off of all his "detect memetics" cerebral circuits, listening for the infinitesimal changes in English syntax and spoken rhythm that indicate the presence of memetics, Marshall finds himself with a little something stuck annoyingly and unwillingly in his head.
...Good reason, it is speeding here To stretch McKinley on his bier. The bullet that pierced Goebel's breast Can not be found in all the West; Good reason, it is speeding here...
In that quatrain, Marshall can tell, is a memetic payload. A 70-year-old memetic payload, no wonder old Bob Bacon could recite it by heart. All of a sudden, Marshall feels, well, resigned to the fact that someone is gonna inevitably shoot President McKinley. Not only that, but maybe it would be a good idea if someone... Marshall shakes his head, dismissing the meme from his consciousness. Expert Skill (Memetics)-16.
Brant
Marshall grabs a bowl of bar mix off a server’s tray as he walks by and then grabs a nearby seat. He chews the trail mix thoughtfully.
>> SUCCESS by 11
(Also, OOC: in the in-game universe was McKinley actually assassinated?)
Michael
(Also, OOC: in the in-game universe was McKinley actually assassinated?)
(Yes, absolutely! Shot in Buffalo in 1901 near the beginning of his second term, T.R. succeeded him, just like in History-א.)
Then roll against Expert Skill (Memetics) to discern its specific memetic architecture: its Power, its purpose, its etiology, and its designer’s characteristic techniques.
With a critical, the architecture of this little bit, four lines out of the larger poem, is laid bare to Marshall. It's a very potent meme: Power 10, which explains its ability to still get lodged in people's heads despite the fact both Kentucky Governor William Goebel and William McKinley have been dead for three generations. And Bierce's style, of course, is that archaic poetic style that lends a certain hypnotic quality to the verse. Marshall would need to read the entire poem to get a sense of the context, but the memetic messages inside those lines of poetry are: "Violence is inevitable. Political violence even more so. This is what will come, inevitably and ineluctably, to those who rule as tyrants." Marshall can see clearly that if read by someone with just the right psychology, the right side of grievances, this meme could be a trigger for them to act. It's powerful enough that everyone would remember it, but designed such that only a, shall we shall, "disgruntled loner" might act upon it. It's the work of an accomplished, learned, sophisticated, very talented memeticist: someone who can set up a memetic time bomb and have it go off spectacularly a year or so later. It's also designed with plausible deniability: Marshall could see Hearst and Bierce argue that it was clearly a civic warning that a great assassination might happen, rather than a coded message for someone to carry it out.
Brant
“So this is one of ours,” Marshall says aloud while chewing on the trail mix. A young Black valet glances at him; Marshall returns the glance and stands. “Sorry, talking to myself. What’s your name?” he says to the young Black valet.
Michael
Back in the physical and social context of the Club's sitting room, Marshall's SANGUSH gives him the appearance of a Club member to the staff. The valet says, "Raymond, sir."
Brant
“Raymond? Hm, I knew a Raymond once.” Marshall gently leads the valet by the shoulder to a secluded spot. He fixes him with his serpent gaze while handing him a folded $20. Hypnosis: “I am going to give you a phone number. The next time you see Mr. Merrill here, I want you to call that number and say to whoever answers, ‘Stanley wanted me to tell him his guest arrived early.’ Understand?”
Michael
Hypnotism-18.
Brant
>> SUCCESS by 11
Michael
The post-hypnotic suggestion, aided by the double sawbuck, sinks into Raymond's mind. He accepts the programming and the payment.
(So if Marshall and Dave are heading back to HQ after the Bohemian Club, they can meet Jo and Viv at HQ and we can all compare notes. And once the Archie/Mitch phone call wraps up, we can get an ETA on Mitch's arrival as well.)
Brant
(Yeah that’s perfect. Marshall heads out after grabbing a complimentary matchbook and has Dave drive him back to HQ, expecting to rendezvous with Viv and Jo).