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Chapter 7 - The Plot Thickens “Don't touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn't understand things with alloys and compositions and things with ... molecular structures.” -Ash,
Army of Darkness Into the sudden silence, Hargrove
spoke confidently. “I deduce that
you are BFG Wapkaplet,” he said, as if this information had not just been
offered freely, “CEO and president of BFG Movie studios, competitor to
Ultimate Pictures, and employer of the missing Ida Appel - the beloved sister of
my client!” Moxie gaped at Hargrove.
Without taking his eyes off him, he half turned in awe towards Shirley.
“Amazing! How does he do that?” he whispered. “Come in, come in, Mr.
Hargrove,” BFG Wapkaplet continued dryly.
“Yes, what you say is true. You
have been watched from the moment you set foot onto BFG Movie Studios.” Petunia beamed happily in Shirley’s direction, winking
shyly as her tongue slowly caressed her lips. Felix immediately sprung
forward, startling several of the guards and quickly drawing a pistol from his
within his voluminous trousers. There
was a general scattering of the guards, although the Wapkaplets remained
motionless. Before anyone could
react, Felix had put the muzzle of the pistol to his own head.
Moxie choked back a gasp, and Shirley snorted in a most unfeminine way. “No, fellow labourer!” cried
Hargrove, squinting through a sudden noxious fog, “fall not before the boot of
the bourgeoisie! Be brave!
This, too, will pass, man! When
they are long dead and trampled under the revolution of the masses, the
proletariat will rise – you will have a place for your peculiar mix of…”
Hargrove paused, searching, “your particular blend of, er, talents!” he
finished, awkwardly, absent-mindedly fanning fresher air towards his lungs. Hargrove let out an inadvertent
shriek as Felix pulled the trigger, spraying blood and brains in a mist at the
guards lining the far end of the room, and dropped prone to the floor.
“No,” Hargrove breathed, dropping to his knees beside the man, “it
was not your time!” Felix lay
still before him, and Hargrove lifted his face to the ceiling passionately.
“We will avenge this loss!” A
trio of slug-like creatures detached themselves from Felix’s head and scurried
on six legs between the legs of the shocked guards and under the crack in the
door. Hargrove bowed his head
silently. The tender stillness only lasted
for a moment. Felix opened one eye
and smiled. Hargrove recoiled to
his feet in horror, staggering back into the guards who had stepped in front of
the door when they had arrived. Felix
sprang to his feet, grinning broadly, stripping the dripping red latex from his
head. He stepped demurely forwards,
and dropped a business card onto BFG Wapkaplet’s desk. “Felix Lechat,” he said with an inclination of his head,
“F/X the way they were meant to be done.
Call anytime – no job too difficult, no monster too large, and no death
too realistic. If you need an
effect, I’m your man. Number is
on the bottom.” Felix, with head
still inclined, stepped back behind Hargrove again, still smiling.
In an undertone pitched for Hargrove alone, he added, “brilliant
acting, man, you totally made that work. I
owe you one.” One of the guards clapped
half-heartedly, tapering off when BFG Wapkaplet spared him a cold glance.
BFG Wapkaplet hadn’t blinked, hadn’t even looked at Felix during the
performance, and ignored him now, looking back to Hargrove.
He motioned to the guards. The
guards advanced behind the trio, searching them quickly and removing
Hargrove’s Webley before pushing them further into the room.
Hargrove stumbled as they prodded him, staring at Wapkaplet Jr. again in
confusion. “Wapkaplet
Junior?” He said, both belatedly and redundantly. “Hell yes,” Junior bellowed
into the silence; BFG Wapkaplet winced and turned slightly, silencing his son,
who shrunk sheepishly with a muttered apology and a petulant glare. Moxie seized his opportunity.
“Say, this might be bad timing here, but what the hell,
this script is pure gold! Moxie
Jumpbush, sir – I’ll ask you to picture Karl Marx dot com,” he said,
warming up to his thirty second pitch, “it’s a character story, a love
story, sort of Meg Ryan bookstore ‘You’ve Got Mail’ meets ‘Rosetta’
but with more guns and car chases, you know?
I see Robert DeNiro as the Agent, in all his squinting glory.
Karl Marx might be too dull, so we could make him a her if you wanted,
into Karla - so you bring in Emilie Dequenne, maybe after a boob job, and…” “My son tells me that you met
an impostor posing as him on your plane,” BFG Wapkaplet said hoarsely,
returning his gaze from Wapkaplet Jr., and ignoring Moxie, “you keep
rather…dubious company Mister Hargrove.”
His eyes flickered over Shirley Will.
“Ultimate Pictures would do almost anything to steal our market
share.” Hargrove’s brain squirmed in
revulsion at this. “Market
share?” he asked, offended. “Mar…
I’m not interested in your market share, in the size of the pies you are
hoarding, Mr. Wapkaplet. I am a Marxist Detective, my interests are in the
people’s truth alone, and I won’t be influenced by your money, your lies, or
your threats of torture!” BFG Wapkaplet’s eyes narrowed.
“Torture?” Felix nudged him;
“Upshay Shutnay,” he said in a stage whisper. “I believe that should be
‘tup shay p…’” began Shirley, but BFG Wapkaplet interrupted her. “Surely,” he said, and
Shirley’s head snapped around, “surely you didn’t believe the ravings of
that girl. We have people, Mr.
Hargrove, strategically placed. We
know about Ms. Appel. We rather
thought that you would see through her pathetic lie before it came to this.”
He tutted disapprovingly. “I
can’t say that I’m very impressed with your…detecting.
Candace Appel, you would have found with a bare minimum of investigation,
is an actress currently in the employ of Ultimate pictures.” Hargrove’s mind raced; “So
Ida Appel is here, then? Naturally
you would not object to my meeting with her?” “Of course, Ida is a very busy
woman, and doesn’t have time for all of this.
Surely you understand.” BFG
Wapkaplet slid his chair back and stood, waving off the offers of help from
those around him with a frown. He
took a manila envelope from his desk, walked painfully around to where Hargrove
stood and handed it to him. “Every
thing you will need is contained within this, Mr. Hargrove.
I think you will find this file complete.
I’ve taken the liberty of booking you a flight home, on the BFG Movie
Studios tab – consideration for your time wasted on this.
While you should have known better, we do feel we’ve been somewhat at
the base of this.” He settled onto the desk
wearily. “I would be more
impressed with your reputation as a great detective, Mr. Hargrove, if I had seen
any evidence of any actual detecting, thus far.
Have a good trip home, and please,” he said, fixing Hargrove with a
cold stare, “please don’t let me find you on this lot again.” Hargrove and Shirley both began
to respond, but the guards closed ranks as BFG Wapkaplet returned to his chair.
One of the guards surreptitiously cracked a nightstick across
Hargrove’s shins, causing him to yelp something rude in Basque before the pain
choked him into silence. There was
no further opportunity to speak as the guards led the small group from the room;
Felix and Shirley, with Felix chatting seriously about his performance, Hargrove
and Moxie following them, with Petunia and Wapkaplet Jr. trailing behind. “That wasn’t bad, Felix,”
Shirley said, “and they replaced you with CGI?
I may be able to help, put a good word in for you.” “Did you like it?” Felix
said with quiet pride. “That was
my patented Blown Brain latex film and remote delivery system, coupled with
Insect2001, last year’s marvel – the intelligent aliens.
Those are remote thinking devices, very useful.
They do all the cinematronics stuff, of course, but they are also remote
listening and audio devices, for those hard to track scenes.
I worked on those for months.” Hargrove’s limp slowed their
party down, causing him to lag further and further back, until he could no
longer follow the conversation. It
wasn’t so much the pain in the leg; Hargrove was used to the rough handling
his life seemed to garner. Rather,
Hargrove wanted to focus his powers of detection onto his surroundings during
their forced exit. He exaggerated
his limp as much as he could, despite the resulting shoves from their captors.
Their route took them right through to the center of the golden executive
building; Hargrove noted that BFG Wapkaplet’s office had been on the top
floor, the fifth from the numbers on the doorways they passed.
The main entrance to the suite seemed to be accessed via a large
spiraling marble staircase in the middle of the building. Not very impressed with my detecting, Hargrove thought.
We’ll see about that. Hargrove peered surreptitiously
into each office as they passed, fixing them in place in his photographic
memory. On the fifth floor, the
offices were garishly large, and housed Armani suited executives sitting
indolently amidst gigantic plastic foliage.
The hallway curved around the outside of the open center section of the
floor towards the stairway, around a large sitting area. There was a pair of large muscular black suited men stationed
casually across this area, obviously protecting what seemed to Hargrove to be a
meeting in progress. It wasn’t so
much the presence of a meeting in this building that caught Hargrove’s
attention as the faces he recognised in attendance.
Two Saudi Princes looked quickly away from Hargrove’s seasoned
scrutiny, recognising him from the unfortunate affair in the palace of the
Sultan of Brunei – one of the Princes had the grace to blush before turning
quickly away. Two Saudi Princes.
The Moroccan ambassador, a short unpleasant man Hargrove remembered from
a misspent summer promoting Socialism in Africa.
Three obvious representatives from the Peoples Republic of China, in
their state sanctioned Maoist attire, and the Canadian director of CSIS, whom
Hargrove knew from the Stuttgart affair. Before
Hargrove could identify the farthest members of the gathering, obvious
westerners from their features and clothing, Wapkaplet Jr. had pulled him
roughly by his white linen jacket towards the top of the stairway, forcing him
down it. Hargrove could see that Moxie
had also recognised some of the attendees.
He had broken off from their group, and was pointing excitedly in the
direction of one of the westerners, when the two guards Hargrove had seen
earlier strolled over and grabbed him. As
they disappeared down the stairs, Hargrove’s last image of Moxie was of him
being quietly and quickly beaten and dragged in the other direction. The fourth floor was also
opulent, sprinkled with statuettes and art of rather dubious nature.
Hargrove forced himself to remain attentive as they passed massive
offices filled with the detritus of Hollywood; favourite pieces of sets,
autographs of the more successful employees of this megalith company.
The lower floors were progressively more ordinary, until they reached the
first floor, with mazes of cubicles - each of which housed one miserable
functionary. Hargrove could stand this no
longer. “Rise, fellow workers!”
he cried, breaking free of Wapkaplet Jr.’s grip and leaping onto the nearest
desk. “You are better than this!
Look above you, and see where your masters live!
Why do you toil ceaselessly in these cages so that they can have…”
The rest of Hargrove’s impassioned speech was lost to history as the desk leg
collapsed, and he toppled helplessly into the lap of the skinny, spectacled
blonde accountant upon whose desk he had leapt.
She burst into tears, the last thing Hargrove saw for several minutes. Hargrove recovered consciousness
as they exited the gold executive building, dragged behind a moody Wapkaplet Jr.
still clutching the manila envelope, while Shirley hovered and fussed anxiously
around him. The side of his head
was sticky with blood, and he left wet imprints on every solid object that
Wapkaplet Jr. dragged him into. Since
he was being dragged forward while looking behind them, he could trace their
progress in this manner: the doorway they’d come out of, the tree beside the
entrance walk, the compound’s perimeter gate, and so on. They were rejoined by Marty as
they passed the set of Alien 17, where he had seemingly been casually waiting
for them. His shirt was torn, and
he was scratched and bloody, but he seemed unaffected. Taking in Hargrove’s mode of travel, he gave a tired
looking wave and fell into step. “Hello
Mr. Hargrove,” he said, “did you find what you were looking for?”
He looked around. “Hey, where’s the tour guide dude?” Hargrove closed his eyes, too
tired to respond as he scraped along behind BFG Jr. Wapkaplet. Shirley looked around.
“Yeah: where is Moxie?” “shl’a crekna, R’lyah sbettorn,” Marty said quietly, “Icklavat’na.” Hargrove opened an eye.
“What?” he said, “did you say something?” “Sorry? No,” Marty said, “no, I didn’t say anything.” Hargrove examined Marty
suspiciously for a second, and then closed his eyes and resigned himself to
being dragged. “Next time,” Wapkaplet Jr.
said loudly, as they reached the front gate “make sure you check your facts,
Detective Hargrove. Don’t let the
goddamn little head do the thinking for the big head, if you know what I mean,
and you’ll be fine.” He dumped
Hargrove unceremoniously onto the sidewalk.
Hargrove sat up. One of the
guards dropped his beloved Webley onto the pavement with a clatter than made
Hargrove wince, while Petunia covertly passed a card to Shirley.
Shirley’s eyes widened and she jumped as she took the card, removing
Petunia’s hand from her bottom. The
guards, Petunia and Wapkaplet Jr. turned back inside, and the gates shut with a
metallic boom, leaving Hargrove, Felix, Shirley and Marty to the mercies of
Hollywood. “Hey look,” Marty said,
picking up a flyer from the ground. “Anyone
up for a show? ’Darkest of the
Hillside Thickets!’ is playing tonight, near Spagos – it says they play
music ‘inspired by Lovecraft’. Some
Canadian band. I could use a drink
- anyone want to go?” A figure detached itself from
the shadows beside the gate, clad in a trenchcoat and a fedora tipped low over
his brow. A man’s face was dimly
lit in the red glow of a cigarette; a hand emerged, and a finger tipped up the
brim of the hat revealing ice blue eyes. “Hello kids,” a gravely
voice rasped, “The name is Graves. I
can’t say as I haven’t seen a brighter bunch in hours. See anything interesting?”
The hand appeared again, this time to facilitate a long inhalation of the
cigarette. Graves slowly tapped off
of the ash, looking at the group piercingly. “Not unless you count a high
level meeting of world operatives, a missing girl, the kidnapping of a tour
guide or the harassment of an honest Marxist,” Hargrove said.
“Certainly not unless you care about the use of Hollywood as a cover
for insidious attempts at world domination, a cabal masquerading as
entertainment. If you don’t count
these things, I’ve seen nothing interesting.” Shirley and Felix looked from
the figure, to Hargrove, and back again. “I didn’t see any of that,
even,” Felix said, amazed. “Nqyay b’aneeth.” Marty intoned, but everyone ignored him. “A dame, eh?” Graves said. His hand emerged yet again, only this time with a pistol. He pointed it directly at Hargrove. “Oh, yes. I count those things. Interesting enough to die for.” His finger tensed.
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