by Al Lamanda
Next to Double D, Wheezer said, “I think I see him.”
Next to Wheezer, Snafu said, “Yup, that’s him. Why’s he all dolled up like that?”
“What?” Gavin said. “Where?”
Patience looked out her window and started to laugh.
“It’s not funny, P,” Gavin said.
“Yeah, it is,” Patience said.
“Ian’s going to have a fit,” Gavin said.
“Is he holding flowers?” Snafu said.
Gavin banged his head against the steering wheel.
“It’s not that big of a deal, Lee,” Patience said.
“What’s that in his other hand?” Wheezer said.
“What, where?” Gavin said.
“Oh my God, it’s a box of chocolates,” Patience said.
Gavin banged his head against the steering wheel several more times. “It’s impossible for any human being to be this stupid.”
“Want I should get out and go talk to him?” Snafu said.
“Shoot him is more like it, the dumb bastard,” Double D said. “Want me to blow him up later, Lee?”
“That’s a kind offer, Doug, but right now we need him,” Gavin said.
“Let’s just see what happens,” Patience smirked.
Gavin looked at Patience. “You have an evil streak in you, don’t you?”
“I married you, didn’t I?”
“She’s got a point, Lee,” Snafu said.
“Shut up.”
Ian was happily enjoying a last minute takeout snack of baked, stuffed chicken breast with a side order of broccoli and melted cheese while Muffie-Jo dressed in the bedroom.
At the knock on the door, Ian stood up from the kitchen table and went to the door knowing it was Fubar on the other end of the knock.
Ian opened the door.
There stood Fubar in a suit and tie, flowers and chocolates in hand. “I’ve come to pick up Muffie-Jo,” Fubar said as if he rehearsed the line a hundred times like the fat hood in the Godfather, which he did, in front of a mirror no less.
“Have you lost your mind?” Ian said.
“Is Muffie-Jo ready?” Fubar said. “We don’t want to be late for the show.”
“Get in here,” Ian said as he yanked Fubar into the apartment.
From the bedroom, Muffie-Jo called, “Ian, is that my date? Tell him I’ll only be a moment.”
“He’s not your…has everybody gone crazy!” Ian shouted as he marched to the bedroom.
Before Ian reached the bedroom, Muffie-Jo appeared in the doorway. “I’m ready,” she announced.
Ian stepped back and looked at his wife. “You’re not going out wearing that,” he said. “Go change right now.”
“There’s no time,” Muffie-Jo said. “Besides, what’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
Ian looked at the skin tight, hip hugger jeans, the pink, cashmere sweater and string of pears from Sweden, the diamond earrings he gave her for Christmas, the over the calf black boots and French braid and said, “Well, for one thing you look drop dead gorgeous and no wife of mine is going on a date looking like that. You go frump it up.”
“Oh, silly,” Muffie-Jo said and kissed Ian on the tip of his nose. “We’re in character. If it doesn’t look like we’re on a real date, we won’t act like we’re a couple. Isn’t that right, Fubar?”
“You look beautiful,” Fubar said. “I brought you flowers and chocolates.”
“Thank you, Francis,” Muffie-Jo said. She took flowers and chocolates and handed them to Ian. “Would you put these in water for me, we don’t want to be late.”
“How come when I call you Francis, you taze me?” Ian said.
“She looks better in jeans,” Fubar said.
“Oh, funny,” Ian said.
Fubar held out his arm. “Shall we go?”
“We shall,” Muffie-Jo said.
The door opened, they left and Ian stood there with flowers and chocolates in hand. He returned to the kitchen and dumped the flowers in the garbage bin. “Stupid son of a bitch,” he muttered; about to toss in the chocolates with the flowers, but at the last second he paused.
They were Godiva Chocolates, a mixed box.
Ian stared at the box. “Thank you, Francis,” he said.
“Here comes Ian and he’s carrying a purse,” Snafu said.
Ian walked from his building to the car, opened the front door and sat next to Patience. “Did you see that nitwit leave with Muffie-Jo?” he said.
Gavin started the engine and pulled away from the curb.
“Why you carrying a purse?” Snafu said.
“It’s a European shoulder bag,” Ian said.
“It looks like a purse,” Snafu said.
“Well, it ain’t,” Ian snapped.
“It’s very nice, Ian,” Patience said as she touched the leather bag. “Where did you get it?”
“It was a Christmas gift,” Ian said.
“Your wife gave you a purse?” Snafu said. “What did you give her, power tools?”
“It was a gift from the mall,” Ian said. “Now can we please drop it?”
“The mall gave you a gift?” Snafu said.
“Drop it,” Ian said.
Gavin entered Central Park at the crossway to the east side. “We’ll pick up Johnny on the Fifth Avenue exit, then Patience will follow us to the club. Remember where to park.”
“I remember,” Patience said.
Just before Peru closed the trunk on Gavin and Ian, he said, “I tested her for fumes and the trunk is solid. Air tight.”
“Thanks, Johnny,” Gavin said. “Ian, put on your rubber gloves. There won’t be time later.”
Gavin and Ian put on the rubber gloves and Gavin nodded to Peru.
Peru closed the trunk and Gavin and Ian were immersed in total darkness.
For about ten seconds.
Which was about how long it took Ian to remove the mini battery powered lantern from his European shoulder bag and turn it on. “There,” Ian said, delighted with himself.
The engine started and the car started to move.
“Don’t tell me you really are afraid of the dark?” Gavin said.
“No, but I can’t see my selection,” Ian said as he removed the chocolates box from his bag and flipped the lid.
“Oh, for God’s…are those Godiva?” Gavin said.
Ian shoved three pieces into his mouth. “Why, yes, they are. Melt in your mouth delicious.”
Gavin removed a piece from the box and gently placed it in his mouth. “From Fubar, huh?”
“Don’t start,” Ian said.
Grinning, Gavin grabbed another piece of chocolate.
For ten minutes, the only sound inside the trunk came from Gavin and Ian smacking their lips as they ate chocolate. Then, with five minutes left in the ride, Ian paused when a sudden, very sharp pain hit him in his side.
“What?” Gavin said.
“My stomach,” Ian said.
“What about it?” Gavin said.
“I think I have…gas,” Ian said and released a trunk full of broccoli, cheese, chicken and chocolate laced, noxious fumes.
“Jesus Christ!” Gavin shouted as he pulled his mini tank from his pocket. “What did you eat, week old road kill?”
“I think it’s the broccoli, cheese combo,” Ian said and let loose another cloud.
Gavin stuck the mini tank in his mouth, held his nose and sucked oxygen through the mouthpiece.
Five minutes from the Science Club, Peru started to smell Ian’s toxic fumes as they leaked into the car from the trunk. He sniffed the air, then lowered the windows. “Son of a bitch really is gastrophic,” he said.
Exiting the park, Peru drove east and north to the block the Science Club was located on, then he circled the block once until he spotted Gavin’s rental parked alongside the curb a ways up.
Peru pulled alongside the curb where a car recently vacated a spot, put the rental in reverse and hit the gas. He expertly jumped the curb w
hile turning the wheel and smashed through the large window of the Science Club. Upon impact, he hit the brake, then killed the engine.
Unhurt, Peru smashed his forehead into the steering wheel hard enough to raise a lump and draw blood. It wasn’t enough. He smashed his nose into the steering wheel with enough force to break it and the river flowed. Still wearing his seatbelt, Peru waited for the magic to happen.
Inside the trunk, Gavin pulled the release cord and jumped out the second the lid sprung open. “Jesus Christ, don’t ever eat that again.”
Ian jumped out beside Gavin. “I think it passed now.”
“Let’s go,” Gavin said. “And stay behind me.”
Gavin and Ian raced to the stairs on the far side of the lobby and between the first and second floor, the gas tank blew and the car burst into flames.
Peru released his seatbelt, opened the passenger door and flopped onto the sidewalk. “Help,” he croaked. “Somebody help me.”
In the rental, Wheezer watched Peru crash through the front glass window and said, “It’s show time, folks,” and with the push of a button on his laptop, sixteen stoplights would stay green for twenty minutes.
Mike the Magnificent was at the point in the show where he asked someone from the audience to remove something personal from their handbag or pocket and hide it under their table. Mike would turn around, identify that item while his back was turned, amazing the stunned participant, and crowd.
This amazing feat was accomplished using sixteen surveillance cameras hidden in the ceiling and walls, operated by an assistant in the back room who would zoom in on the object in question, then transmit the information via a tiny receiver in Mike’s left ear.
This night, Mike had his eye on the scathing hot blonde woman in the front row who appeared as intelligent as a dead moose, but of course, Mike rarely chose audience participants with MENSA backgrounds. Her date looked good and stupid, too. He was about to go into his speech when a loud bang from outside startled the room.
On the sidewalk, as the flames in the car grew higher and higher, Peru rolled around on the sidewalk, yelling, “Help Me! Somebody please help me!”
People from inside the comedy club rushed out, saw the fire and several men dragged Peru away from the curb to safety.
Inside the Science Club, Gavin and Ian arrived on the third floor where, according to Wheezer’s blueprint, the egg was secured in a glass case in a central display room.
“Here it is,” Gavin said as they entered the display room.
“There it is,” Ian said as he looked at the square glass display case atop a wood table.
The egg, visible through the glass rested in a nest of straw.
“Cute touch,” Ian said of the nest.
“Never mind that,” Gavin said. “Pick the lock and be quick about it.”
From his European shoulder bag, Ian removed his set of lock picks. He removed two picks, a straight one and a curved one and looked at Gavin. “Every alarm in the building’s gone off by now, what’s one more?”
“Exactly right,” Gavin said.
In the rented sedan, Patience, Wheezer, Double D and Snafu watched the amazing scene unfold on the streets. With every streetlight within an eight-block radius of the Science Club stuck on green, traffic was clogged to a complete standstill. Horns blared, cars smashed into each other, ambulance and police sirens sounded in the background.
And nothing moved.
“My husband,” Patience said. “Is a menace to society.”
“Exactly right,” Wheezer grinned.
Inside the Science Club, Ian lifted the glass, removed the egg and handed it to Gavin.
“You have the chicken egg?” Gavin said.
“In my shoulder bag,” Ian said.
Gavin slipped the rock hard Dodo egg into his pocket and picked up Ian’s purse. He felt around for the egg, found it wrapped in bubble wrap and pulled it out. “It’s raw,” he said. “I told you to hard boil it.”
“What difference does it make?” Ian said.
Gavin placed the chicken egg into the nest and Ian replaced the cover. “Raw eggs spoil. A month from now, this room is going to stink to high heaven.”
“We won’t be here to smell it,” Ian said. “Why do we need to replace the egg for anyway?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Gavin said. “For maybe just in case the police decide to do a walkthrough of the building and notice the egg in the glass and just maybe when they contact the insurance company and the insurance company contacts the idiots in Europe and the idiots ask if the egg is still there and they tell them yes, the idiots won’t decide to come home early. Maybe.”
“That’s why you’re the details man and I’m the brains,” Ian said.
“Well, brains, are you ready?” Gavin said.
Gavin and Ian took the stairs to the sixth floor and opened the door to the roof. Another set of stairs led to the glass skylight.
“You want to grab the bolt cutter from your purse,” Gavin said.
“European shoulder bag,” Ian said.
“European shoulder bag,” Gavin said.
Ian dipped in, produced the foot long, mini bolt cutter, and gave it to Gavin. Gavin reached up and snapped the hasp of the padlock that locked the glass skylight to the roof. He gave cutter and broken lock to Ian, who dumped them into his European shoulder bag.
Gavin reached up with both hands, shoved the skylight up, over, grabbed the lip of the roof, and pulled himself up, over, stood and looked down. “Now you,” he said to Ian.
Ian grabbed the roof and pulled himself up, slipped and fell. “Gimme a hand,” he said. “My gas is killing me.”
“Christ sake, you got enough gas in you to float,” Gavin said, reached down and pulled Ian to the roof.
“Wow, listen to all that noise,” Ian said.
Gavin replaced the domed skylight, then he and Ian went to the edge and peered over just enough to see below. Traffic was clogged in every direction. Police cars, fire trucks, ambulances were stuck behind cabs and cars as sirens blared and horns honked. On the sidewalk, several men pulled Peru by the ankles as the car burned in the window of the Science Club. People started to gather on both sides of the street.
“Gotta hand it to you,” Ian said. “You really know how to make a mess of this city.”
“Let’s go,” Gavin said.
Inside the comedy club, the maximum allowed crowd of three hundred people gathered at the windows and door, anxious to witness the pandemonium occurring on the street. Even Mike the Magnificent stepped down off the stage to check things out.
Which gave Fubar ample opportunity and time to sneak past the bathrooms where a staircase led directly to the roof where he cut off the padlock on the skylight with the mini bolt cutters he had hidden down his back under his suit jacket.
Gavin and Ian crossed over to the roof of the comedy club, which was actually an apartment condo with five floors of apartments above the first floor club. Gavin lifted the skylight, allowed Ian to enter first, then followed and replaced the glass dome.
On the sixth floor landing, a separate door led to the stairs on the apartment side of the building. “Ian, you take the apartment stairs down to the street and wait for me in the car,” Gavin said.
“Right,” Ian said.
“Can I get the egg from your purse?”
“European shoulder bag.”
“Sure,” Gavin said.
Ian dipped into the bag for the egg and gave it to Gavin. “See you in ten minutes,” Gavin said.
Ian opened the apartment building door and entered a hallway. He was on the fifth floor when a voice behind him called out, “You Hoo, Mr. Superintendent, could you please take my garbage for me?”
Ian paused, turned around and looked at the old woman who had to be ninety if she was a day. A plastic bag was in one hand, a five-dollar bill in the other.
Ian walked to the old woman. “No problem,” he said.
The old woman handed Ian the garbage b
ag, then the five-dollar bill, then patted him on the cheek. “Thank you so much,” she said and entered her apartment.
Ian walked down to the fourth floor where he left the garbage bag on the top step. On the third floor, a male voice said, “Oh, there you are.”
Ian paused and turned around. The voice belonged to an old man who was ninety-five if he was a day. He held a large box in his arms with a ten-dollar bill between his fingers. “Here I am,” Ian said.
“I was wondering if you could take this box down to the lobby for the mailman in the morning?” the old man said.
“No problem,” Ian said and took the box and ten spot.
On the third floor, Ian tossed the box and made it to the second floor before an old woman shouted, “Oh Mr. Super, can I see you for a moment?”
Ian sighed, paused and turned around. The old woman was a hundred if she was a day. Her hands were empty except for the crisp twenty-dollar bill she waved at Ian. “I know I’m at the bottom of your repair list,” she said and waved the twenty at Ian. “But, I just have to have my garbage disposal repaired.”
Ian snatched the twenty. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you,” the old woman said.
“No problem.”
Gavin opened the door a crack and peered out into a dark hallway where the bathrooms were located. He could hear, but not see the crowd buzzing about the street activity because the hallway made a sharp turn to the left.
Gavin stepped out, closed the door and walked past the bathrooms and into the comedy club where the large crowd was divided into two groups. The first group consisted of mostly women huddled around the windows and open door. They buzzed with excitement at the scene unfolding on the street.
The second group, all men, huddled around Muffie-Jo like flies on a fresh cow turd. Six rows deep in a circle, they buzzed with excitement as their wives and girlfriends were too preoccupied to pay them any attention. Gavin could barely see the top of Muffie-Jo’s blonde French braid as he tried to get close, but couldn’t put a dent in the wall of men.
“Oh, for,” Gavin muttered.
