Chapter Fifty
Who’s Crying Now?
“What in blazes happened here? This place looks like my old frat house.”
“Oh, thank God you are here, Mr. Will. I was scared out of my wits. These men lured me up here, stripped me naked and…”
“And dropped a desk on your foot?”
“Yes. I mean no. That fell as I was fighting them off. And I’m in such pain.”
Between painful grimaces, Rich decided to chime in with his usual charm. “Let go of me you clown and get me an ambulance. I am so going to sue you. I was trying to save her.”
“That’s a crock.”
“Yeah, what a load of horse puke.”
“Easy, Mick. Easy, Earl. Looks like you’re already taking it easy, Charles. I was standing outside the door and heard Mr. Shareholder’s sage rape story advice to his daughter.”
Earl came over to me and not so gently unwound my duct tape restraints freeing from me from my ergonomic leather appendage. He managed to rip out slightly less than half of my remaining arm hairs. My screams might have been embarrassing if they had not been drowned out by the yelps from Dusty and Rich.
“Geez, everybody, I’m trying to process a crime scene here. Y’all sound worse than a bunch of tweener girls at a Justin Beiber concert.”
While that didn’t quite match the earlier shocks I had, it was close. Will knows who Justin Beiber is?
“Mick, you want to hold the gun on Hop-a-Long here while I cuff him? Earl, can you cover up the lovely Dusty’s assets and lift that desk off her? And can somebody please wake Chuck up?”
“Daddy, I hate you. I will see you burn for this.”
Hell hath no fury, even when it’s your daughter, I guess. Maybe he should have gone with Papa was a Rolling Stone.
Will got the scene under control in his usual authoritative style. He “accidently” stepped on Rich’s foot a few times which elicited an even louder howling scream of pain. The smile on Will’s face confirmed to me that he did this in response to Rich’s “clown” comment. After a bit of minor on-site first aid for Rich and Dusty’s injuries and introducing them to lockable silver bracelets he said, “Listen up, everybody. With two obvious exceptions, let’s meet at Doris’s in forty-five minutes and sort this thing out. I’ll drop this trash at the county pokey and see you there.”
We managed to find Dusty’s smelling salts under the rubble and used them to bring Chuck to a near conscious state.
“Mick, you won’t believe the dream I just had. You’re all sticky. And you stink. Are you buying cologne at Wal-Mart again? ”
“Can we knock him back out, Earl?”
Aside from some minor cuts from the window glass and aches and pains from getting nearly annihilated by ICBM Earl, the three of us were in relatively good shape. We managed to stagger down the stairs and squeezed into Dream On. I headed off to drop Earl and Chuck at their respective houses with a promise to see them shortly at Doris’s.
“What are we going to tell our wives?”
“Good question, Earl. Tell them there was a very minor accident at the plant and you need to go to a post event safety review immediately. Since none of us quite know what just happened, that’s a pretty good cover.”
I watched Earl open the door to his house and get joyfully pounced on by my new best friend, Bread.
By the time we got to Chuck’s, he was fully alert and dressed.
“Thanks, Mick. You and Earl, well more Earl than you, really saved the day. See you in a few minutes.”
I headed home for a much needed shower and change of clothes. Afterwards, I still hurt but at least looked and smelled presentable. In my opinion…
“You smell worse than my special pork and cabbage stew leftovers. Did you lose a wrestling match with a rabid skunk?”
“Ah, Doris, it is so good to see your smiling face. As I faced death tonight, the thought of never seeing you again or being able to partake of your culinary delights filled me with…”
“Save the charm for someone your own age. Whaddya all want to eat?”
Will, Chuck, Earl and I were crammed into her finest booth. We placed our orders and tried to sort out the night’s crazed events.
Will let out a big sigh and said, “Ok, gents, since I seemed to be the last one to the party at Chuck’s, I mean Charles…”
“Heck with it. Call me Chuck. Everyone has behind my back for years.”
Earl and I exchanged wide-eyed looks as Will continued.
“Great. That will make life easier. As I said, I was the last one to arrive at Chuck’s office. Chuck, I assume you were the first, so let’s start with you.”
“Ok. I’m at home watching America’s Got Talent when I get this urgent call from Dusty. She says she has found a gaping hole in our computer security and I should meet her in my office right away. Then she hangs up. So I got dressed and headed to the plant. She was in my office behind the desk looking at my computer screen when I got there. She told me to come look at something I would not believe. When I came around the desk the first thing I saw was that she was naked from the waist down. The second thing I saw was a guy that looked like a huge well dressed fire hydrant standing behind the door. The third thing I saw was a spray coming directly at my face. Just as I realized she was right, I didn’t believe anything I was seeing, the curtains came down and I went off to la la land. The next thing I knew Earl was waving smelling salts under my nose.”
“Ok, Mick, you’re next.”
I related how I wound up on the floor of the burned out control room and was saved by Bread, the Wonder Dog.
“That’s my boy,” said Earl beaming with pride. “I taught him everything he knows.”
“Is that why he licks his rear about every fifteen minutes?”
“Funny as a wheelchair, Mick.”
MBA - Moron$ Ba$ and A$ PG Version Page 51
