The Deluxe gang: Carmen and fifteen new crooks

Deluxe kept Carmen and let everyone else go. None of the 1986 crooks made the cut. The 1993 DOS CD's data and the Windows build list the same sixteen dossiers, Carmen Sandiego plus fifteen henchmen, and each file carries a one-line note. Here they are as the data has them.

The files

• Carmen Sandiego: “currently on a fad diet to lose 1.35 pounds. Her car radio is always set to a classical station.”
• Kareem Carmel: nicknamed “KC”; spends his free time in his garden, “waging a battle against gastropods.”
• Freda D. Darke: an amateur painter whose latest work is “a bowl of half-eaten fruit.”
• Liza Lotsa: “crazy about classical music and rich friends, especially rich friends with valuable jewelry.”
• Ben Derbyfore: look for him on the golf links, where “his mental lapses often cause him to play 54 holes of golf in a day.”
• Donna Fret: “known to bluegrass musicians as a pesty autograph hound.”
• Armand Geddon: will “travel across the states for a plate of crepe suzettes.”
• Polly Graph: “Carries a purse stuffed with coupons for dietetic food.”
• Mae Hemm: started a bridge club at V.I.L.E. headquarters. “Only Mae has signed up.”
• Hal E. Luya: “a cutthroat gin rummy player” who also loves salsa.
• Dee Molish: “Despite her tough exterior, Dee is an accomplished French cook.”
• Ed Settera: combines golf and gardening “by planting flowers in the sand traps.”
• Hammond Swiss: “Ham” never uses the chairlift and sidesteps all the way to the top of the ski run.
• Nell N. Void: “Little Nellie” to her closest friends; has played golf since the age of two.
• Hugo Yurway: “just sold a painting to his favorite salsa band.”
• Ray Zarumpus: “Cannot be trusted while playing cards. Ray always wears long sleeves.”

Reading a note against the warrant

The Warrant Department takes evidence under seven headings: hair colour, eye colour, hobby, food, sport, music and other. The witness script splits the first six four ways each: hair black, blond, brown or red; eyes blue, brown, green or grey; card games, gardening, painting or astronomy; French, Italian, diet or vegetarian food; bowling, dancing, golf or skiing; bluegrass, classical, jazz or Latin music. The notes use the same vocabulary: Mae's bridge, Hal's gin rummy and Ray's sleeves point at the card table, and Ben, Ed and Nell keep turning up on the golf course. How the lists grew game by game is at how suspect traits changed.

Names and pronouns

Say the names aloud and most of them confess: Armand Geddon, Mae Hemm, Polly Graph, Dee Molish, Ed Settera, Hal E. Luya, Nell N. Void, Hammond Swiss (see pun names of V.I.L.E.). The notes settle sex for some: “he” or “Mr.” for Kareem, Ben, Hammond, Hal, Ed and Hugo; “she” or “her” for Carmen, Freda, Liza, Dee and Nell. For Donna, Armand, Polly, Mae and Ray they don't say, so this file doesn't either.

Two loose ends

Catch Carmen and the wire report says “Milo Bellicose is expected to appear in her defense at the trial”; the Windows build adds that it will be “held in San Francisco.” Milo never gets a dossier. And the 1994 floppy's executable still holds a developer test menu listing the gang by first name, “1)Kareem 2)Freda 3)Flo 4)Ben” and on through Ray. Slot three is Flo where the CD data has Liza. Whether she ever reached the screen under that name, the files at hand don't say.