Koppelmeister Update

     "He's bankrupted the town with this repressed adolescent fantasy of his. He's made the good folk of the State of Iowa look like paranoid racist idiots," he says. "International Minnesotan Conspiracy! I'm just surprised Jesse Ventura hasn't come down here and kicked his bloated supreme butt!"

     "A lot of folks have a lot on money invested in property, here. They're not about to just walk away from it. So, we're appealing the incorporation of the so-called Maple Avenue Reich and its annexation of Mentor."

     Schneck sighs and angrily kicks the ground. "Thing is, we lack money. Koppelmeister's going to use the town funds to fight us, anyway. Sort of makes the whole exercise futile."

     Koppelmeister, meanwhile, Supreme Leader of the Greater Maple Avenue Reich has shaken off the '98 Governor's Race Defeat and the Iowa Winter Doldrums. On April 15, he declared Mentor to be in the midst of "A New Golden Age Of Prosperity":

     "The Iowa Folk stand poised against the International Minnesotan Conspiracy! We know the Secret Coded Instructions! Powder Milk Biscuits indeed! It is the insipid call to Minnesotans to stock pile for their eventual conquest of the Midwest: gunpowder, milk, and biscuits! Norwegian Bachelor Farmers? Why these are bio-engineered Viking berserkers waiting to pounce in snarling carnal glee upon the breasts of Iowa's Feminine Pulchritude!

     We must be alert! Decipher the signs! Identify, isolate, and exterminate the Crypto-Minnesotans dwelling amongst us! We need but will it and it will be achieved!"

     To be sure, this was no mean feat. The last time the public saw this prating human dynamo, he was ordering the angry and unruly 25-strong Iowa City Freikorp back to their homes to plan for "...victory against the slack-jawed Duluthian voluptuarian in the next gubernatorial election!"

     The mob dispersed, singing We Shall Overcome in dark discordant tones...

     I wasn't surprised that my request for an interview with the Supreme Leader had been denied. The hotel clerk handed the official looking envelope to me. Inside, the official notice from the Reich's Office of People's Enlightenment (the word "Enlargement" crossed-out in marker and the word "Enlightenment" scrawled over the top) was signed by Joel Heim. Since the election, the Supreme Leader had purged those individuals who he felt lacked his vision. In particular, Alice Gorman, who fled Mentor the early hours of November 8 after she was discovered draping herself naked on a disemboweled goat chanting incantations. Koppelmeister's unabashed disgust with the occult as well as Ms. Gorman's insulting of Iowa Men Of Freedom President Charlie Hotz during a botched endorsement meeting doomed her career with the Greater Maple Avenue Reich. No doubt Skip McPherson, Koppelmeister's Campaign Manager laughed so hard with joy over breakfast that his cornflakes flew out of his nose. Heim was probably next on the block and to look more effectual, he controlled access to Koppelmeister.

     So, with the interview pretty much in the toilet, I figured, I would go down in the morning to Johnson's Diner and get the Real Politik from Eddie Johnson on Schneck and the Long Knives Committee. I had an early dinner, watched TV and fell asleep by 10 PM.

     I awoke in complete darkness to the crunching noise of my hotel door bursting open. Hands grabbed me, yanking me out of bed. When I resisted, something slammed against the base of my skull and I fell unconscious.

     I found myself sitting in a plush leather armchair, a bottle of winecooler lodged in my fist. The rectangular room was tastefully appointed in red carpeting, dark paneling, and mythic marble statuary. At the opposite end, beyond the glare of the room's single bright lamp, a man stood, his back to me, clad in black tunic, riding breeches and boots.

     The sinister-clad man suddenly spun on his heel and took three resounding paces towards me, the harsh lamp light playing jagged shapes across his grim features.

     "So it is you," I sneered.

     "'Sir' will do just nicely, thank you," snapped Koppelmeister. His feet apart, his fists pushing into his hips, I now recognized the jet-black uniform of terror.

     "Since that dogma-breath Heim denied my interview with you, I figured I'd do some paleontology work," I sarcastically explained. "You know, fossil hunting."

     "I KNOW WHAT PALEONTOLOGY IS!" Koppelmeister thundered, a fiendish smile crossing his face. "But now the table has turned; the interrogator is now the interrogated! You will talk! Who sent you? That scheming rabble from Johnson's Diner? You will answer!"

     "Look, I'm just a journalist," I shouted back angrily.

     Koppelmeister contemptuously studied me. "It doesn't matter who sent you; even it if was that pompous windbag Campbell or that puny weed Ardenti! It's too late to halt me now, leibkind! Therefore, I will answer your miserable snooping questions about what I'm doing here in this secret installation, attired in this heroic manner instead of knocking-back cold ones in a some seedy hofbrau."

     "I haven't asked any questions, yet!"

     "BUT YOU COULD HAVE! YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN INSTRUCTED TO!"

     "Of course," I soothed. I looked around, easily discerning that the Secret Installation was actually his basement rumpus room.

     "Precautions must be taken! Plans made! Orders issued! Papers checked and re-checked! There are rigid security procedures!" he bellowed then suddenly appeared worried, and cradled his chin in his hand, biting his lower lip. "All must be in order! PERFECT ORDER! Ach, but I've forgotten my manners! Would you like a pigsknuckle sandwich?" he muttered, hardly listening for a reply.

     "No thanks," I replied, taking a sip of the tepid wine cooler in my hand.

     "Werner? Is he having a sandwich?" came Eva Brown's crisp, sensible voice from behind me and above. I turned, and saw her silhouetted at the top of the stairs. Ever since I first met her at the opening of the later abandoned summer concentration camp for drunk drivers, she seemed a nice, level-head woman. As I heard her come down the stairs, I expected her to appear in a neat and comfortable blue sweatshirt, hand embroidered with a matronly homey design, over a white turtleneck, a pair of sensible shoes, and trim pair of freshly pressed designer blue jeans.

     "Hello Gene," she said. "You know I can never get a sensible answer out of him. Did you want a sandwich?"

     I swallowed hard. She wore black spike pumps and a scanty French Maid's uniform made of black patent leather. I suddenly wished to God that I was ten years old at home reading The Hobbit in bed with a flashlight, safe under the sheets.

     "Uh...no," I muttered. She smiled sweetly, put a sandwich plate on the Supreme Leader's desk and walked back up stairs.

     "Never before have the Iowa Folk found itself trembling at the very Mouth of Destiny!" Koppelmeister shook his hand at me. "The Iowa Folk can let itself be deceived by outside decadent meddlers bent on turning our paradise into a national sceptic pond, or it can soar to the heights of national leadership! The Iowa Folk has the will for that role but the elected shortsighted voluptuaries have corrupted that will! Like a cataract, these scum have clouded the Iowa Folk's vision of our true destiny! They must be excised! Cut out like the cancers that they are! I am the instrument of that deliverance: I am the Knife of Providence!"

     He drew himself erect, gazing absently at a statue of a nude warrior in heroic pose. "But it has been a struggle-as well you know! The expulsion from CPMA! The dance instructor years! Ah, but that magic Scottish night in August of '91! Tell me, do you know what it is to have your conscience caught upon an actor's lips?"

     "I've heard Killing Me Softly With His song," I snidely offered.

     "Barbarian!" he whirled about, stomping over almost on top of me to glower. "I speak of my epiphany! Fictional Episodes In The Life Of A German Corporal galvanized my very spirit and gave me direction! Founding the Maple Avenue Reich was child's play; annexing Mentor a deft coup; becoming Governor would have been ingenious! But my next act shall be my masterstroke! There but remain a few petty annoyances...and they will readily be brought to heel!"

     He studied my expression, breaking in to a suddenly malevolent smile. "You do not understand, mein boopie? Come, I will show you! Ha-I will show them all!"

     At that he strode briskly across the room to a door and unlocked its loud clacking lock. He entered and I followed, more intrigued than nervous. Hot air rushed at me, the room thrumming with electric fans. Ranged along the gray concrete walls were several racks of computer towers, a half dozen monitors, and what appeared to be four of five very high-tech ultra-high-gain radios.

     "I have willed the thing," he strutted with cocksure triumph, "And it has been accomplished! Yes-you begin to comprehend, Tirpitz! I have allies! Powerful allies not of this Earth! Allies who will vaporize the Iowa Folk's Foemen and give the Greater Maple Avenue Reich dominion over all!"

     I sputtered with surprise.

     "Come Tirpitz," he coaxed arrogantly. "Say it with me: Aliens."

     "Impossible!" I shouted. "You're mad!"

     "At midnight, December 31, the lights all over the world will go out. Entire code-illiterate populations will degenerate into jabbering panicky animals wiping each other out! At the height of that blood-soaked orgy, my Allies will descend from on-high to bestow my apotheosis!" he held his hands outstretched aloft, probably picturing the very alien ships in the palms of his hands.

     He uttered a disgusting cackle, and pushed his way past me into the other room. I followed only to discover Skip McPherson waiting at the base of the stairs, a martial grimace marring his young face.

     "And now, it is time to bid you farewell, my dear boopie," the Supreme Leader smirked. He reached into his brown sportcoat...

     One thing I have learned over the years is to stand my ground to the last. The delighted look on Koppelmeister's warped face confirmed that I was facing my Finalé and my sole regret then was that it had to come in such a badly decorated room.

     A second later, the Supreme leader withdrew his hand and tossed something small and clinky to Skip. "Take him to his hotel," he muttered. "And make sure you bring it back full this time."

     "So," I sighed a heavy-if badly concealed-sigh, "you're letting me go."

     "Naturally. Who would believe you, boopie?," Koppelmeister sniggered a mad Supreme Leader-like snigger. "Not even your own mother."

     There was nothing else to do. I slugged the bastard hard in the nose. He fell backwards onto his huge oaken desk. Before I could grab him to ring his Supreme throat, Skip slammed something large and hard against my head...

     I came to in the back of a car going down a road. The sun was coming up.

     "Sorry for whacking you, Mr. Tirpitz," Skip said from behind the wheel.

     I groaned something that may have sounded like, "It's okay."

     "No, you don't understand," he pleaded. "I have to keep my cover. We in the Long Knives have a plan."

     "Huh?" was all I managed as it sank in. "What about all that Alien-radio-stuff?"

     Skip snorted, "That's a diversion I threw together for him. Mostly stuff I downloaded from SETI On-Line and modified. While he's been dreaming his Fürher dreams of global domination, the Long Knives has been getting ready. Next month, there will be no more Supreme Leader, no more Greater Maple Avenue Reich, and-if we let some folks have their way-no more Maple Avenue."

     When we pulled to a stop and I staggered out. "Hey," Skip pleaded. "Just hold this story for one more month, okay? That's all we need."

     The delicious memory of Koppelmeister's face crumpling under my fist sent a shiver through me. "No problem," I smiled. "No problem at all."

     Addendum:

     On May 13, a single engine Cesna carrying Supreme Leader Werner Koppelmeister and piloted by Minister for Peoples' Enlargement Enlightenment, Joel Heim, vanished in the skies over that region of Fayette County known as the "Putnam Parallelogram" (see: The Putnam Parallelogram: Iowa's Answer To The Bermuda Triangle?, August, 1996, vol. 3, Issue # 8). Koppelmeister and Heim were on their way to "an undisclosed destination" in northwest Iowa.

     Meanwhile, the people of Mentor have entirely purged every last vestige of their Supreme Leader and installed a new temporary city council headed by Boynton Schneck and containing several other members of the Long Knives Committee-including Skip McPherson.

     Asked if the Long Knives had a hand in Koppelmeister's disappearance, Skip vehemently denies any involvement. The FBI, the National Transportation Safety Board, and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the disappearance. The NTSB announced that it has not ruled out sabotage or pilot error in its investigation. Sources for the FBI, meanwhile, have declined comment.