Charles Frenzel

I am having Friday lunch at a popular French Quarter cafe with the youthful, as well as pleasant, Sandy Meraux, an engagement fueled by the upcoming renewal of my lease on her wealthy father’s building where my fledgling business, the Nightwing Testing Laboratory, is located. I’m most fortunate to be offered a long term lease […]

The Cassells Part 2 Then the troubles started. Nancy flushed with anger at the memory of the way she and her husband had been manipulated by a European consultant. Nancy shook her head as she remembered when Blain had insisted on hiring a certain Dr. Fuchs, a German manufacturing consultant. It seemed to Nancy that Fuchs came highly […]

The Cassells Part 1 Nancy Cassell wondered if the summer would ever end. New Orleans sweltered under a haze of chemical laden salt air that colored the short shadows cast by the relentless midday sun a pale yellowish gray. Out here in the east where everything seemed to settle, there wasn’t much in the way […]

Malcolm Adams: Part 3 Adams returned to his point, “Our sources tell us that the pouring schedules in the concrete foundations at the Chernobyl site are faulty.” “And this means,” she prompted. “The critical supports under the reactor pile will probably fail within a short period of time—probably not until after the reactor is brought […]

Malcolm Adams: Part 2 For her part, Madge Gonzaga brought out her eyeglasses and fiddled with the thin folder in front of her, trying to decide what she thought of Malcolm Adams. On the surface he was an ordinary British business man who owned some minor oil interests in Nigeria as well as a small […]

A Meeting with Malcolm Adams, Part One: For Malcolm Adams, the flight from Mobile, Alabama back to Washington, D.C. had seemed almost as long as his earlier flight from London Heathrow to the States. By now, he hoped, the replacement diesel generator would be fitted out below deck and his freshly painted yacht would be […]

I call Julie who by now is at the office to tell her my immediate schedule. After further adventures at the bank, I have a few extra minutes before Monday’s staff meeting at the office, so I drop by Noel’s office to have a chat about my liability insurance—or soon to be lack of said […]

“Ms. Nightwing?” The voice belongs to my field tech in Houston, Texas. “What is it, Laz?” Laz, short for Lazarra. Lazarra Rayburn, my field tech at the Sabine River Nuclear Project. She is a smart young woman that I like a lot. Background noise on the connection blurs her speech.

I pull the sealed tab on the bottle of skimmed milk and pour a slug of soured milk over my beautiful peach. A key turns in the side door in the dining room. Molly Flannigan lets herself into my house with her usual, intimidating flourish. With grace and skill I jerk back the hand with […]

I’d never make it in paradise. I ask too many questions of management, stuffed animals don’t make me feel warm or cozy, and I stir up trouble when I get bored. I swallow hard against a lump in my throat and then shiver with a sudden chill. For a moment I hope that the dream […]

Monday Morning “The line of showers that moved through the New Orleans area last night will continue south into the Gulf, today. Monday’s forecast calls for clearing along the coast from Biloxi, Mississippi west to Lake Charles, Louisiana. The marine forecast predicts: northerly winds offshore at fifteen knots, decreasing to five knots by this evening. […]

             Morgan and Mark eventually made their excuses and wandered off to do what it is that young people do, leaving me sitting alone on the Friendly Lady and doing what old people do—thinking too much and waiting for something to happen.             When I felt a gentle tilt to the deck I […]

Sam writes in his Journal             The Friendly Lady is a registered sailing vessel of the United States. Sam Friendly is listed as the owner’s name and Captain of the thirty ton sailboat. According to maritime custom, I could offer a marriage on the high seas—or a funeral. Neither occasion has risen.       On deck […]

Sunday Afternoon with Mark             The fact that I never finished my conversation with Chalmers about Mary bothers me. If my engineer is feeling distracted, I haven’t noticed—but then I’ve been distracted and so I’m not so sure I’m paying much attention to that sort of thing.        When Mark caches up with me […]

Some History of Chalmers and the Moutons             What a small world. “I had no idea that you know Mary Mouton,” I reply.       “Not so much your Mary Mouton, her parents,” Chalmers says. “Your Mary was a little girl in a pink dress at my father’s funeral. Margaret, Mary’s mother, married Hamilton Mouton […]