La Belle Dame Sans Merci

            I didn’t go anywhere on Thursday. I got caught up on my writing.

            I read all of the John Keats poetry that is required for my Romantic Literature course but I’ll probably read it all again out loud tomorrow.

            I recognized that the structure of his poem “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” is almost identical to Leonard Cohen’s song “Teachers”. I sang the Keats ballad to Cohen’s melody and except that there is one less syllable in the last line of Keats’s poem it fits.

            
            I cleared up some space on my hard drive in preparation for downloading the latest season of Doctor Who.

            I had some mini-potatoes, a small carrot, a small chicken breast and some gravy for dinner while watching Peter Gunn.

            This story begins in a house of horrors at a carnival. A plain-clothes cop holding a doll is pretending to be one of the wax figures. He begins to move, is suddenly chocked by an arm from behind and stabbed. Bart, the manager of the carnival goes to Ed, the guy who runs the shooting gallery to see how business is. Ed tells him that a cop shot every target and demanded one of the feathered dolls from the top shelf, so he gave it to him. Bart reminds Ed that he’d told him never to let anyone take the feathered dolls and he begins beating and kicking him. He fires him and Ed runs away. Jake, the owner of the carnival observes this and tells Brad that his reaction would have made Ed realize that there is something special about the dolls. He tells Brad to go after Ed. At Mother’s Edie is singing “Sorta Blue” by Henry Mancini and Sammy Cahn. 

            Ed goes to see Gunn and tells him Brad is following him to kill him because there’s something in the dolls of value. Gunn tells Ed to go home and stay out of sight. Gunn goes to the shooting gallery and hits all the targets. Jake is running the gallery this time and doesn’t appreciate Gunn’s questions and tells him to get lost. Gunn says, “I’ve got a prize coming.” He asks for one of the feathered dolls on the top shelf and Jake gives it to him. He takes it to a picnic area near the river and breaks it open to find it comes from Mexico and it's hollow inside. Nearby he runs into Lieutenant Jacoby, who has just found the missing cop in the river that was killed by a left-handed assassin. Gunn tells him there may be a connection between the dolls and the dead cop that involves him having stumbled on a smuggling ring. Jacoby wants Gunn to bring Ed to him. Gunn goes to see Ed but he is not at home. Jacoby gets word that a man’s body has been found at the pier with note in his pocket saying “Peter Gunn, Mother’s”. The man's face has been beaten beyond recognition. Gunn goes to see a reformed counterfeiter named Scratch who now does engraving on watches. On his wall are some samples from his Former career and one of them is a $17,000 bill. Gunn shows Scratch the note that was found in the body by the pier and asks if the writer was left-handed. Scratch confirms that he was. Gunn goes to the shooting gallery after hours and breaks into where the dolls are stored. He begins breaking them when Jake is suddenly there with a gun to his head. Gunn easily disarms him and twists his arm until he tells him that they’ve been smuggling heroin. Jacoby has found a carnival concession ticket in the dead cop’s pocket and so he and Gunn go to the carnival with two pictures of the cop to see if any carneys recognize him. At the house of horrors the ticket girl thinks she recognizes him but isn’t sure. Suddenly Ann, the owner of the house of horrors says that her employee in mistaken. Gunn becomes suspicious and buys a ticket to go inside and begins looking closely at the floor near the wax figures. Ann follows him and says, “The customers are supposed to stay on this side of the rope!” He replies, “The customers are also supposed to come out alive”. She says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about”. “If I find bloodstains we’ll have a lot to talk about.” She tells Gunn, “If you’ve got a badge let me see it! If not get out of here!” He says he’ll come back with some lab men. Again she says, “Get out!” But just then Ed steps out from the shadows with a gun. Gunn says he knows he killed the cop because he’s holding the gun in his left hand. Gunn knows that Ed stumbled on this heroin operation accidentally and that he’s not in it with Jake and Bart. Ed says the contact is buying $100,000 worth of heroin tonight. He’s about to shoot Gunn when Gunn shoves one of the wax figures at him. They fight and just as Gunn takes Ed out Ann tries to get away with the heroin. Gunn grabs her and the doll falls with all of the heroin exposed on the floor.

            Ann was played by Peggy Maley. Among her many lovers were King Farouk of Egypt, Al Capone’s mobster cousin Joe Fischetti and tough guy drummer, Buddy Rich.