Prelude

The phone rang, and I picked up, trying not to sound too desperate. We hadn't had a case since we'd failed to recover a stolen mustache back in March, and that one barely paid the phone bill.

"This the ACME detective agency?" a woman's voice asked.

"That's right."

"We've got a job for you, if you're interested."

"What kind of job," I asked. Let her think we weren't on the verge of bankruptcy. It makes for a better bargaining position.

"Something new. Maybe something big. Not the kind of praxis you're used to. This one's going to combine fiction and fact, the found and the fabricated. It's going to grow and change over time. When you submit it, that will only be the beginning. And, you're going to need the participation of other players, and not just your collaborators either."

"Praxis? Players? Lady, I don't know what you're talking about. But, let's face it, I need the work."

"Good idea. Might as well stay in character. And remember, try not to mention any trademarks belonging to a long running video game and television franchise if you can help it, although of course it won't be long before people recognize what you're up to."

"I still don't know what you're talking about. But, it's your dime now. What's the job?"

"You'll find out soon enough," she said before hanging up.

"Damn prank callers," I muttered. I got up from my desk, walked over the window, and looked out across the bay at San Francisco. Beautiful, as always. But, something didn't seem quite right. I couldn't place it, but something was clearly missing.


The phone rang again, and I picked up in a flash. It was the chief.

"We've got a case, and this time it's in your neck of the woods."

"Fill me in, Chief."

"It's the Sutro Tower. Someone's taken it."

"Any leads?"

"None. All our operatives in the city are stumped. Go check it out."

First Day



It was late afternoon by the time I arrived at Mount Sutro. I'd always used the tower as a landmark, so it took a while to find the place. With the tower gone, it was just another Eucalyptus Tree-covered hill.

I hiked around back and crossed a field to get to the site. There were no obvious signs of struggle, and few clues to be had. Then, I spotted a trail cut through the bushes.

Was it the trail the thief used? No way to be certain, but there was no other way to get to the site. I followed it. Near the path, I spotted my first clue! A bottle of Heineken, dropped along the trail, perhaps by our thief. What does it mean? Is the perp a lush? And why would he or she choose that particular brand of beer? I decided to move on, in search of more clues.

Back out on the street, I found long scrapes running down the sidewalk. Something heavy had been dragged along the ground here. I knew I had to be on the right track.

Then the scrapes disappeared, perhaps because someone had transferred the tower onto a vehicle. I continued along the street without much hope, when I spotted a flag lying in the gutter. Just the sort of flag one might use to mark a wide load on a trailer! Perhaps I was still on the right track.

Further along, I encountered two smaller towers and some people on the hill up ahead. I moved in closer, started asking questions. The towers must have seen the crime committed, yet they weren't talking. The people were no help either. Most of them pretended they didn't know what I was talking about. One denied that the tower was even missing. And all of them refused to say anything on tape. I handed out business cards, asked them to call me if they thought of anything later.

As I turned to leave, my eye caught the glint of sunlight off something metallic on the ground. By the side of the road, I found a strip of paper with some stamps on it.


What did it all mean? I was out of clues, and out of ideas. Perhaps a night of rest would bring me some answers.

Meanwhile, I am posting my findings here in hopes that the international community of SFØ will be able to offer some insight into the case. If any of these clues make some sort of sense to you, the Sutro Tower could sure use your help.

Second Day, Morning

The next morning, I arrived at the office to discover Lincoln and Dark Aardvark had made quick work of the previous day's clues. Sure, it may have been a long shot, assuming anyone drinking a Heineken had some association with Holland, but it was the best I had.

I checked the answering machine, and was delighted to find a couple more clues had arrived overnight. Handing out business cards had proven worthwhile after all.





I had a feeling we might actually have a chance at cracking this case. And yet, even in a relatively small country like the Netherlands, there are a lot of places one could hide a radio tower. I needed a more specific location. And, I needed contacts in that country able to do the foot work to help find the tower. I continued to ponder the available clues, searching my phone book (or "player list" as I call it for sentimental reasons) in search of suitable locals.

Then I went out for an early lunch. After all, not doing anything and waiting for other people to solve the case for me had worked like a charm so far.


Second Day, Evening

I returned from Lunch several hours later to find intriguing conjecture, but nothing solid. JJason suggested Chicago, apparently out of nowhere. Was he just guessing? Did he have access to inside information that he was too afraid to disclose? Or, was he working for the bad-guys, trying to throw us off the track? I wasn't sure. Either way, it was clear I'd have to keep an eye out for any future Chicago connections.

Lincoln seemed to be onto something, especially when it came to the thief's identity, but it looked to me like we'd need more evidence to narrow down the list of suspects. He also seemed a bit quick to rule out the dead, especially while considering the testimony of an inanimate object. But, whatever the overheard conversation meant, if it meant anything, it was clear there were no more clues to be had in San Francisco. I only hoped we were right about the Netherlands.

At Dax's suggestion, I decided to turn the case over to our Dutch colleague, the High Countess Emily.

Third Day (Emily)

It began with a phone call in the middle of the night. I've got to admit: when I agreed to join the Amsterdam branch of the ACME detective agency, I never actually thought I'd be called upon to do anything. But when Deputy Gumshoe Loki finally got it through my sleepy head that the Sutro Tower had been stolen, I knew that I couldn't just stand by and let the thief get away with such a vile crime. I grabbed my camera and set off in search. But where to begin??

Fortunately, my fellow sleuths hadn't left me empty handed. Following Lincoln and Dax's suggestions, I realized that the thief wouldn't be just anywhere: he'd be touring a brewery, taking a canal cruise, or just generally trying to remain inconspicuous in a crowd of tourists. If I want to track down the thief here, I'd better follow the crowds.

Still, getting a lead in a city this big wasn't easy. My first stop was the museums. Everyone loves museums, right? But no dice. No one would admit to having seen anything suspicious. Following another inspired suggestions from Lincoln (and taking advantage of a rare sunny day), I scouted out the major parks as well, but still no leads.

After a full morning of unproductive sleuthing, I was getting tired and hungry. And then it hit me: the markets! Where better to get lost in a crowd?

Sure enough, persistence paid off, and before long I had my first lead. A number of vendors had noticed a suspicious character sneaking around this market. According to one, he seemed particularly interested in the fresh pasta:

Unfortunately, I seemed to be a few hours behind him, and no one at the market had seen which direction he had gone in. At least I know he's in this city, but where to look now??

Third Day, later

I had a trail. Really, I did! I might still, but... it's getting cold. Already. It's hard to believe, but even though the thief just arrived in Amsterdam, I'm getting the sense he's moved on already. From the market, he seemed to head off in the direction of the train station. Of course, I can't be sure whether he hopped a train or not, but I do have a report of his visiting the church across the street:
According to a staff member, a man with a tower showed up and wanted to learn more about Catholicism. But he got frustrated and left because he couldn't bring the tower inside!

There's so much that's still mysterious. To begin with, who is this thief? If we catch up to him, how will we know we have the right culprit? My next priority will be to search for some clue to his identity. But if he's no longer in Amsterdam, where is he now? I'll admit that I'm stumped. I hope that the international SF0 community will step up to the plate once again!

Fourth Day

Some things are so obvious once you've been told them. Pasta, Catholicism... of course! The theif is headed to Italy! Well, I was glad to do my part when the thief was in Amsterdam, but I'm afraid I can't follow him all the way to Rome, so I'll turn the investigation over to our Italian agent, La Scarlatta.

However, I won't leave her empty handed! In addition to the information Deputy Gumshoe Loki initially collected about the theif, I've obtained a further eye-witness report. (See the video at the bottom.)

And with that, I turn the case over to La Scarlatta.


Day IV:

ACME's RomaZero branch is officially open for business.

You may wonder what I've been up to all these months since my last tasking. Well, dear SF0ers, I knew this day would come. Since January I have been undercover, deep undercover, assimilating as best I can so that I would be prepared to undertake a highly sensitive investigation at a moment's notice. To this end I have endured many hardhips: strolling around to see and be seen, owning no fewer than three cell phones, always having a lit cigarette in hand, drinking tiny cups of coffee containing entire packets of sugar, and talking to strangers on public transportation. I even braved the insanity of Roman traffic and rode a vespa. So when one of my phones rang this morning (the special red International Incident phone), I knew just protocol to follow! I donned a trendy coat, put my hair back just so, lit a cigarette and headed out the door (making sure to have over-sized sunglasses on at all times, even indoors, to avoid suspicion). I stopped at a bar to have an obligatory caffè and mull over the clues collected by my esteemed colleague up north.

So there's a Spanish-speaking man with a stolen tower wandering about the city? It seemed to me that it would be necessary for him to stash Sutro somewhere. The streets here are exceedingly narrow and windy, for the most part, and navigating them with such cumbersome plunder would be nearly impossible. But where could someone hide a tall, narrow object? And what was the significance of the thief's language of choice?

In a flash it became clear -- the ideal place to hide the tower would be behind scaffolding, which (unlike a large radio tower) is not an uncommon sight here. In fact, there is an obelisk at Piazza di Spagna, at the top of The Spanish Steps, that has been obscured by scaffolds for years. Perhaps our thief had stowed the tower there, while plotting his next dastardly move.

I hopped the Metro and arrived at the summit of the Spanish Steps:



No dice. Just the obelisk within. But something told me there was a clue about. I could sense a certain malevolence in the air, and knew that the suspect was not far off. I looked out at the Piazza below. As always it was full of people...any one of whom could be our multilingual purloiner:



I survey the crowd...


Aha! There, by the corner, is a sign pointing straight ahead:


Saint Peter's. Of course! Our robber's penchant for Catholicism surely meant that the trail of clues would lead to Piazza San Pietro. I will head there bright and early tomorrow, hot on his trail! I only hope I will know him if I see him...

Day V:

I arrived at Piazza San Pietro out of breath and out of luck. The place looked pretty much deserted:


I tried interrogating the fountain, but clearly I don't have Gumshoe Loki's finesse for getting answers out of landmarks. There were a lot of stones, but no answers. I looked all about, but could see no trace of lovely Sutro, nor did any Spanish phrases come to my ears. It seemed the trail had gone cold; the suspect had fled already to his next evil lair. But why would he have left so quickly from the place that could teach him most about Catholicism? Even now the dais was set up for the Pope's weekly address.

Then I felt the clammy chill of defeat as I realized that the thief's stay in Rome had been necessarily brief: there is an ordinance that no building can be higher than this very dome of St. Peter's Basilica. Curses! But where in the world has he gone to next?

Looking about, I see another arrow. Surely a man panicked by possessing an illegally tall tower would have run in this direction!


I hurried to the other side of the colonnade. And stopped in my tracks. There on the ground was a clue that the thief had tauntingly (tantalizingly) left for me to find:


An eagle! A brightly-colored eagle, beneath an image of Mary holding the baby Jesus.

This leads me to the following conclusions:
1. The suspect is a graffito. I could tell by the brazen nature of the art he left behind that he had left his mark on a neighborhood before.
2. He has gone to a country associated with the symbols of the eagle and the Virgin Mary. Perhaps a largely Catholic country?

But where? Where? And how did the suspect's Spanish skills fit into all this?

Day V, Evening.

During our daily ACME conference call, we discussed the evidence. Things were really starting to heat up, with major clues pointing to either Mexico or Los Angeles, and two likely suspects: Yellow Bear and C.M. the Gonzalez. Then there was C.M.'s chain of deductions leading to Vietnam. Was he playing word games with us, or was he on to something? Since he was also one of our prime suspects, we decided tickets to Vietnam were premature, no matter how convincing his arguments.

After some heated debate, we had to agree with Lincoln's comment. There may be painted eagles in LA, and it would be the natural hiding place if C.M. were the thief; however, if Scarlett's symbolism hunch was right, Mexico seemed more likely. If we were wrong, we figured we'd be able to find some help in Los Angeles before the thief had time to cover his tracks. Fortunately, we had an agent already working in Mexico ready to help out.


Day VI (agent S. Derkins, Mexico City)

Yeah, even when there were suspects in LA the clues could also be pointing to Mexico after all. Dang. Which meant that if they were, and unless there was a flash SF0 Zero Roadtrip coming here, say, right away, all responsibility for Sutro Tower was on my shoulders.
At least Italy is on the other side of the ocean, so the only way he could get here is by plane. I got to work and found out that there are not that many flights from Rome to Mexico City:

Rome-Paris-Mexico City (Air France-Aeromexico)
Rome-Amsterdam-Mexico City (KLM-Aeromexico)
Rome-Madrid-Mexico City (Iberia-Aeromexico)
Rome-Paris-Mexico City (Aeromexico)
Rome-Amsterdam-Mexico City (KLM)
Rome-Paris-Mexico City (Air France)
Rome-Miami-Mexico City (Delta-Aeromexico)

I guess he would rather not use KLM or Delta, since authorities from The Netherlands and the US were already aware of a misplaced large radio tower...
Iberia is known to have bad tempered and bad looking employees, so, unlikely.
Plus, Aeromexico employees are probably easier to bribe into supersizing the 20 kg luggage limit. Air France is impossible that way. Which puts him on the AM 9416 flight arriving at 17:55 on Friday. I had just time to call my contacts at the airport, to keep an eye on any unusual piece of luggage coming in the AM 1946.

They sent me this picture:

That´s when I reported back to ACME central headquarters.

But when I tried to get more juice from the airport informant I got onto a brick wall. Dollars or euros, it seemed that the man had outbid me.

I asked around, at the vehicle rental offices. A truck had been rented to a guy the evening in question. He had asked for directions to the Maria of Guadalupe Sanctuary, La Villa. In Spanish. A tall guy ("como uno noventa") with sunglasses. Not much more: todos los gringos se ven iguales.
He had wanted to rent a cell phone, which is impossible to do here, but the entrepreneur female attendant rented him her own on the spot.
I thanked her with a brand new one. Couldn´t afford to lose that lead.

The hypothesis was that the thief was driving an unmarked white truck and hauling Sutro Tower with it (somehow). A description was radioed: "*Very big* red and white radio tower with triangular top."

Some photos were received. Well, yeah, but not quite.



My only hope is that he returns the truck tomorrow, as promised.

I´ll keep ACME posted.



Day VII (Agent S. Derkins, Mexico City)

Oh, gosh, he did come back! My lovely contact at the car rental agency typed this, his last conversation on his (her) cell phone, while he waited for his cash deposit:

Yeah, they are everywhere, but they are purple! I told you I wanted her covered in pink ones! Well, maybe, but the season is over here! Over! Just take a look at the pictures, would you? Not nearly enough in the whole country.
... Yeah, definitely, book me for the tour, the parade, everything!... Would they do it to John Phillip ´s music, you think? I mean, you can´t get any more local than him. ... And while you´re at it, book me for a snore and roar sleepover. What do you mean till June?! Sheesh. Then what, stamp collections?! Old planes? .... WHO?!! The Pope?!! Seriously? He comes to me now!... When?... We might be off by then. Yeah, we´ll see. ... OK, see ya there tonight.

He returned the phone to the señorita and left.
She found these pictures that had been taken with it and a link to this video.



He is certainly up to something and he has an ally.
But where is he taking Sutro now?
I hope the heads of my esteemed colleagues together can brew us some answers.

[Esteemed agent Spidere is stationed at Washington D.C., where the National Cherry Blossom Festival is being held as we speak, and where the Pope will be arriving in a few days. Both events will be pretty much doused with Sousa, I think. The Smithsonian is there too. And in any case Sousa alone means D.C. (unless it means the UK across the sea and well, he wrote the Monty Python tune...).
Oh, well I think we should ask good ol´ Spidere to get on it, anyway. He´ll know, one way or the other.]

Day VIII (Spidere, Washington, D.C.)

I haven't worked for the Chief for a while--there were just too many memories after that business down in Panama. Not everyone came back from that, and it hit me pretty hard. I've been seeing a shrink most nights since--his name's Louie, and he serves a mean bourbon. So I wasn't eager to work with ACME again. Still, when you get a personal call from friends and taskers like these--that's a case you have to take. I was on the case.

I knew the culprit was in DC--if they hadn't already skipped town, that is. But it's a big town, DC, with some of the shadiest folks you'll meet. Maybe he hadn't met with the lobbyists, but it sure seemed like a good place to start.




Sure enough, there was buzz about the Sutro tower--talk about making a special exception to DC's height limit so it could stay here for a while, or maybe just a rider declaring Sutro's height to legally be 200 feet. The thief didn't get what he was expecting, though--maybe the folks here had more morals than I'd been giving them credit for; or maybe Congress just moved too slow for the international metal tower market. I had to grease a few palms to find someone who'd cop to having met with the crook, but pretty soon, I got two tips. First, they let slip that they'd started off chatting about their taste in philosophers. Still, it's easy to say you find Confucius to be more relevant than Kant, especially when you're asking for something. So that didn't give me much to go on. But they also mentioned the DC library was the criminal's next stop--so I made it mine as well.

Of course, I should have checked here first. I don't know why, but for some reason, the library's always a good source of information about international crooks. They always seem to stop by. So when I asked around, a librarian recognized the culprit in question. It turns out that after he'd made some noise dragging the tower around, she'd noticed him making off with a number of books. When she checked, she found that everything from this section was missing.




Sutro was bad enough, but stealing books from a library? That's just plain wrong. Fortunately, it seemed like I was catching up--things were going to go bad for the thief, and soon. I'd see to that. Still, the questions remained: who was this sticky-fingered filcher? He'd already snuck around the world--where would he go next?

I'll keep nosing around and see what else I can find.

Day IX (Spidere, Washington, D.C.)

We're getting close to catching up to Sutro--hopefully, close enough for the criminal to feel us breathing down their neck before long. But if and when we do, will anyone in SF0 have put together enough information to figure out who's responsible, and get a warrant beforehand? Or will this end like so many dirty crimes, with the criminal unidentified until too late, and walking around, free to lift some other monument and carry it away? ACME's got to be worried about that, and I am, too. We've got a lot of big monuments here in DC--we've got to watch out for criminals like this.

Well, that's not my job today. Today, it looks like the criminal has moved on, and I'm just here to try to follow the trail. Or maybe just make sure that a cat puppet beat me to it. Some lessons are hard to take.

Still, there's something to be said for being the detective on the ground. You knock on enough doors, ask enough people questions, and you'll find something. Or someone. Like a shopkeeper who saw the guy, apparently before his library stop--said he was looking for more snacky treats. When the shopkeep said they were out, and wouldn't have more for weeks, the criminal got angry and stormed out. That kind of snack food obsession can drive a man, make him do crazy things, go to extremes no sane man would consider. That kind of hunger can eat a man from the inside out.



I didn't stick around to ask more questions. Time was starting to run short. I had to pass this off, and soon. Just a few more days until ACME closed the case--one way or another. It wasn't a case I was sad to see go, but I had the feeling that it wasn't through with me yet. That's the way it always goes with these troublesome cases--just when you think you're finally free, they come back to haunt you. I decided to leave it to someone else to put together the clues and figure out who was behind this caper. My job was done for now, and it was time for another session with Louie.

Day X (Flitworth, Seoul, South Korea)

I received a call from my spirituous associate Spidere in the wee hours. Naturally, I was already fully aware of all that was going on but I am of the old school and I wait for invitations, even the ones that will inevitably come. Seoul is a logical place to hide a tower as we have a large number of them already. In addition it is the season when yellow dust blows in from the Gobi, casting a hazy pall over an already polluted city. One need merely observe from the crook's progression that this is no common thief but one more erudite. Now, given the thief is aware of the excellent cover provided by this city he must clearly have some knowledge of Asia and as we know he has absconded with a number of books and has visited some of the world's finest cities we can be certain that he has an interest in humanities, art, and language. Miss Bex has proposed a probable purloiner and I have taken the liberty of submitting the request for a warrant.

Circumstances forced me to print the forms and present them in person and en route I discovered clear evidence that a large object had been moved through quite recently. Laying in the sidewalk along one of Seoul's major thoroughfares was one of the straps undoubtedly employed to keep the Sutro Tower in place for travel:


I followed the road and saw that an overpass would force the criminal to turn off within clear sight of a used bookstore. A man who will lawlessly liberate literature from a library would surely stop here. I politely ducked in and began to look for evidence of a recent, relevant rapscallion raiding the racks. I inquired with the ajima and she tore herself away from her drama long enough to slur something about "ondol" and wave in the direction of the architecture books. I quickly found what I needed. By observing the angles of the books in the pile I photographed you can clearly see that the crook had shown interest in the Gehry book but foolishly calculated that by piling other books on top I would not detect his interest. Still, he had ultimately decided on another book...but about who or what?
Day XI
While, like Bex, I was convinced that I had already correctly deduced the malefactor's moves, I believe in due process. While a VILE Agent indicated that the rook had already flown the coop I set out to confirm that he had not taken a land route on a Seoul train. Interviews confirmed that the train station was not the right track for this investigation and I headed to the airport.

On the ride to Incheon I had time to consider the clues more carefully. This is the second city where the robber had run only to be rapidly routed. With an interest in architecture and a potentially Freudian fixation with at least one tower there were no shortage of possible cities. Gehry's work is widespread and international so that doesn't narrow the field but, ultimately, the pilferer selected another volume. The old lady had said ondol, which is traditional Korean floor heating. It was Wright who brought underground heating to America so there must be a connection between the two.

The information desk lived up to its name; the woman informed me that a man with a tower who looked like he needed a day off had requested the way to the United Airlines desk. I cursed my slowness as I discovered I missed the shift change but a woman at the ticket check-in said she heard there had been an uproar about a tower and flight availability related to the recent inspection groundings. Irksomely the woman didn't remember where he was headed but insisted I wait while she fished around behind the counter. It was well worth it as she produced a copy of Mies Van De Rohe's West Meets East, which the tower-laden traveler had dropped. Three architects, it shouldn't take long to triangulate with certainty whether Bex is on the right track...

I cannot doubt Dax's deft deductions and so I have requested that he officially join the investigation. Whether the deviant's determined destination is Chicago or not, UA's hub is in America's heartland and he'll have to stop there. Tracking a tower is a tall order but I trust the talented taskers of the toddling town to trip up the truant.