(Ebook - Pdf) Kick Ass Delphi Programming
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“Gumshoe, perhaps. But typical? I don’t think so,” Mevlyn said, her voice suddenly becoming soft and low. The sudden change in her tenor caught my attention. Her eyes no longer filled with hatred but with icy fire, she removed her dark, wide-brimmed hat and lazily flung it across the room, carelessly tossing her head. Her silky, brunette tresses spilled over her shoulders, flowed down her back, turned at her heels, and rolled across the three-foot expanse of floor to the wall, where it lapped up onto the molding. It was obvious I would have to watch my step with this woman.
Someone next door began to play an alto saxophone. Mevlyn picked up my Casebook from the floor where she had dropped it. “Listen, Ace,” she said, lifting her eyes to mine and tossing me a coquettish smile. “Maybe we just got off to a bad start, you and I. Maybe you could just leave this itsy-bitsy book with me, and we could get to be really close friends.”
She pursed her lips, and I noticed she was caressing the buttery-smooth leather cover on my hardbound Casebook as if it were a prize-winning Pomeranian. This situation had all the earmarks of something that could turn ugly very fast. I had to keep my distance. Three bass saxophones had joined the alto, and now they were so loud it seemed they were right there in the room. These cheap apartments really do have thin walls, I thought.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” I said, stepping back. “I already have a really close friend. Her name is Helen.”
“I know,” she replied, steadily advancing toward me. “I’ve seen her. Nice girl, kind of… country. Sweet face. Cute little figure. But tell me,” she said, a wry little smile spreading across her mouth in anticipation, “how do you think she’d like to have these?!”…
With a single motion, and while still holding the Casebook, she grabbed both of her lapels and threw open her full-length raincoat. I gasped and reeled backward, my wide-eyed gaze fixed upon the two incredible objects displayed inside the open raincoat directly in front of me: Sticking out of the inner pocket were a pair of front-row tickets for the Seattle concert on the Stones’ 1999 “Old Rocker” Tour. She smoothly removed the passes and pressed them into my palm, closing my fist around them.
“I’m glad you like them,” she said.
“How—how did you manage to get these?” I stammered, trying to regain my composure.
“Money talks, Sweetheart,” she replied. “Go on. Take them. They’re yours.”
I stared at the tickets for what seemed like an hour. “I’m—I’m sorry, I, uh, just can’t accept a bribe,” I finally said, still visibly shaken. I reluctantly shoved the ill-gotten booty back into her pocket. “I have no choice. I’ll have to turn you in.”
“Can’t blame a girl for trying,” she said, rather matter-of-factly. “So what do you say, Ace…how about a little kiss, just to show there’s no hard feelings?”
She flashed me a devilish smile and pressed close to me. She slipped her arms
under mine and pulled me to her, still maintaining her tight grip on the Casebook. “A…kiss?” I asked stupidly, trying to stall for enough time to get my bearings. A tenor sax had now joined the others to form a quintet, and some idiot had started accompanying them on a kettle drum that resonated inside my chest and echoed in both of my ears.
Her liquid, steel-gray eyes were now riveted on mine. “Of course, silly,” she replied playfully. “You know what a kiss is, don’t you? It’s when two people each press their lips together, and then together they press their lips together… like… this….”
Until now, I hadn’t really noticed her mouth. But as her moist, ruby lips inched their way toward mine, her breath laden with the sweet scent of Twinkies, I could think of nothing else. I found myself in a trance, suspended in time with a small orchestra playing Barry Manilow’s greatest hits, all at once. What could I do? What about Helen? The voluptuous, trembling red lips came closer and closer….
Just as our lips were about to meet, I heard a muffled thump behind me, and a small explosion went off in my brain. Everything slowly melted from Technicolor into black and white and then into a palette of grays. Mevlyn’s lips became twisted in a maniacal laugh that seemed to echo from every wall. I caught a whiff of the distinctive perfume she wore, the same scent that had permeated the scrap of note paper. Now it completely filled my nostrils and burned indelibly into my brain.
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impression on my psyche. Then I had been struck with my hard-bound Casebook, which had left a considerable goose egg on the back of my head. The lump would eventually heal. Right now I had to get my life back together.
I guessed that when my socially-conscious friends heard about this incident, they would all encourage me to try to better understand Mevlyn and to forget the pain and suffering she had caused me. And I supposed I would eventually be able to do that. But it would be a long time before I would again trust any woman with a twisted grin and a maniacal laugh.
Epilogue
Casebook No. 17, April 13: It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. For me, the past 24 hours had been a Dickens of a time. It had been an adventure I never wanted to repeat.
Helen was waiting for me when I got back from the Sleeveless Arms. At least she had been partially right—the perpetrator was a Bohacker. But I had been right, too—he would never have had the courage to try anything with me. Thanks to the information I had gotten from Biff, I managed to track Bohacker to the Gates Motel, where I reached him by phone….
“Hey, I had a ‘date’ tonight with someone you know,” I said. “And it looks like she got the better of me.”
“Yeah? Tell me about it,” he replied. “Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt.” I guessed I had only an inkling of what it must have been like, growing up with Mevlyn. I decided to change the subject to something less painful for both of us.
“Tell me, Bo—are you still doing all your visual programming in C++?” I asked.
“Naw,” he replied. “I’ve found something much simpler that I’m using for a lot of my stuff. I can quickly produce visual programs for networked, client/server environments. Although it is somewhat like using C++.”
It was an opportune time to put the screws to him. “Is it fast?” I asked.
“Well, it’s actually about one-tenth the speed I’m used to, execution-wise,” he admitted. “But with just-in-time compilers—and now with—uh… Well, things are going to be a lot better.”
He was trying to cover up for some bad choices. Obviously, things weren’t going well for him. I decided to blow him off.
“I’ve gotta go. Had a big day, you know. Get some good sleep. And if you ever see your sister, say ‘Hi’ for me, okay?”
“Sure will,” he said.
I placed the receiver back on its hook. It was obvious he still hadn’t discovered Delphi. One thing was for sure: He wasn’t going to hear about it from me.
My watch told me it was 11:39 p.m. I needed to ponder a few things. I
poured a cup of Dark Roast and took a big gulp of the hot brew. I now knew what it was like to have my office ransacked and my property stolen. It’s not an experience I want to have again. Like my Dad, Jack Breakpoint, always told me, “Take care of your stuff, son. There’s always someone out there who wants it more than you do.” Then Mom would add, “And always wear your best underwear, in case you get hit by a bus.”
One thing was for sure: I wouldn’t leave my Casebooks lying around any more. In all probability I would never see the stolen one again. Thankfully, it was only my most recent Casebook, one of several. Someone told me the best parts of it are on a CD-ROM included with a new book on Delphi programming. I can’t remember who it was for sure who told me. I think it was The Editor.
Which reminds me—I had a long talk about The Author with Helen tonight, before she went home. She convinced me that if I really do appreciate what The Author has done for me, I need to talk to him more often and to tell others about him. All things considered, I guess that’s the least I can do.
Against my better judgment, I picked up a copy of the latest CD from Not Ourselves Today at a convenience store on the way home. It’s entitled “Transcend Dental Medication.” I hit the stop button halfway through the first track, “Rinse and Spit.” It was too much like sitting through a root canal to suit my taste.
I sat down at my kitchen table and took another sip of the bitter brown water. Outside I could hear the sounds of the relentless rain as it pounded against the window. I pulled out my wallet and extracted the lone ticket from the envelope left at The Sleeveless Arms. For some reason I just couldn’t get it off my mind.
Perhaps I would go to that concert all by myself. It would be a good opportunity to get away from the hustle and bustle of life in a small town. It was my kind of music.
And after all, you never can tell who may show up in the seat beside you.
End of entry, April 13.
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There was no one to be seen in the lobby, so I decided to poke around a bit to satisfy my curiosity. Who knows, I thought, someday maybe I’ll be living here myself. I picked the second of three corridors leading from the lobby.
The first six doors down that hallway were all marked “Restroom.” I quietly slipped inside the seventh door, under a sign that read “Recreation Room.” I guess I expected the place to be full of ex-programmers working out on exercise equipment. To my surprise, I found a room containing 30 individual cubicles, each with its own client PC, all connected to a network server running the multiplayer version of Doom.
I walked completely around the room, but couldn’t find one person. I supposed a bunch of old programmers might be insular enough to socialize only through games over a network. But why was the room empty? It wasn’t meal time.
Where was everybody? I was standing there scratching my head when a voice came from behind me.
“May I help you?”
I whirled around to face the questioner. She was a relatively young woman, probably early thirties, a tad on the hefty side.
“My name’s Breakpoint,” I said. “Ace Breakpoint.”
“I thought so,” she replied. “You’re here to present the in-service lecture on programming for Windows 95. I’m Dinah Setz, the Volunteer Coordinator volunteer,” she said, extending her hand. After a few pleasantries, she invited me to follow her to the multipurpose room where the lecture was to be held.
“I’ll be your guide while you’re here,” Dinah said, as we walked down the long hallway. “If you have any needs, or if there are any questions I can answer, please feel free to ask.”
“There is one thing,” I said. “We just passed four more restrooms. Why so many?”
“Having them helps alleviate some of the little problems that burden many of our guests,” she replied, flashing me a knowing smile.
“Oh, I get it,” I said. “The old geezers can’t pack the mail any more.”
“We prefer to call them our ‘Legacy Application Developers’ or more simply, ‘guests,’” she said. “We have both men and women here, by the way. And yes, many of our guests experience some common challenges due to the number of their years. Since they are all programmers, we euphemistically refer to the results of these problems as ‘errors,’ and we have assigned standard error numbers to most of them.”
“I don’t think I understand,” I said.
“Well, the most common occurrence is Error 214: Collection overflow error. It frequently cascades from an Error 11: Line too long. That’s why we have included a large number of restrooms in the facility.”
“I see. Uh, listen,” I said, noticing we had come to the dining room. “If you
don’t mind, I’d like to get a little something to bring in with me. Just in case I need some extra energy during the lecture.”
“Certainly,” she said. “Help yourself.”
I expected to get a snack from the kitchen. On entering the dining room, I was surprised to find there was no kitchen—only a series of vending machines that encircled the room full of tables and chairs. Dinah said the place saved a lot of money by just ordering takeout food and billing it to the guests’ accounts. I walked up to one of the machines and dropped in four quarters.
“Ready to go,” I said, slipping a candy bar into my pocket. We walked past an expanse of windows, where Dinah pointed out Hacker Haven Cemetery, located at the rear of the property.
“Nice place,” I commented, noticing the immaculately manicured lawns. “Beautiful place. I’ll bet you charge an arm and a leg to get in there.”
“It’s largely a matter of convenience,” she said. “With the cemetery right here on the property, our guests never have to leave us. We like to think of it as our way of enabling our programmers to terminate and stay resident. Well, here is the multipurpose room.”
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