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Part II:
There Was No Hook Hanging from the Car Door, But There Might As Well Have Been
Partially hidden in the shadows of the alley, a lone figure stood, staring straight at us. I could tell the person's gender from his height and build and, if it were any darker, I might have confused him for a tank. A tank in a dark trenchcoat. He was a massive armature of flesh and muscle: the sort of guy you'd ask to open a jar of olives or see kidnapping Olive Oil from Popeye. The more I thought about it, the more the description seemed to fit -- Bluto in 3-D. Concerned enough that he was actively observing us, my heart was suddenly stabbed with an icy knife of apprehension when he emerged from the shadows and began to walk towards us. Again, Amanda urged me to go on to the safety of the limousine. I grabbed her by the arm and together we began to run. He followed suit, and started after us.
We made it to the limo, which was lacking a driver. I wondered where the hell he was, but it explained why he didn't pull the car around to the entrance of Le Fleur. I went to open the door. Dear God, I thought. Let it be unlocked. It wasn't.
The man wasn't far behind us, and there was no way to get into the car. Amanda and I both stopped after a moment of futile yanking on the handle and turned. As he ran, his coat whipped around his legs. He was bearing down on us with a deep, primal roar pouring from his mouth and a sword in his hand. He came toward us, and as he brought his sword down, Amanda jumped to one side and I jumped to the other. His sword came down between us and slashed into the roof of the limousine. He unceremoniously yanked it out from the jagged steel and swung it at Amanda. She executed an impromptu somersault to narrowly avoid the tip of the blade.
I felt an overwhelming masculine urge to stop him from attacking my date. "Hey!" I yelled. "Leave her alone!" I wanted to roll into a ball and die, because it would've beaten being hacked into tiny pieces by a sword-wielding maniac. Amanda was steeled to fight this guy, and she gave me a look of shock and pity at my outburst. He turned and pointed his sword at me, holding it with both hands at arm's length.
"Is that a sword in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" he asked in a deep voice.
I went into make-a-jackass-out-of-myself-to-defuse-the-situation mode. "My God!" I exclaimed. "You're the white James Earl Jones!" He didn't appreciate my remark.
"Take that thing out and use it," he boomed, and then added, in an insulting utterance, "you sniveling little whelp."
I've been called many things by many people. But no one ever, EVER, calls me sniveling. Unless they have a sword. It was then that I realized what he was talking about.
I reached in and felt it in my trenchcoat. My umbrella. He must've thought it was a sword. I pulled it out to show him that it wasn't what he thought it was. "Look, it's an umbrella!" I pleaded. "I don't have a sword, so put yours away. I'll make one phone call and you'll be on a thorazine bender within the hour...." He brought his sword up over his head and I held up my feeble umbrella to block. He got a stunned look in his face and I wondered why he hadn't split me in two yet. Then, he tipped over and fell to the ground. I ducked out of the way of this toppling giant as he collapsed.
I looked at Amanda. She took my hand and led me around to the driver's side of the limo. I caught a glimpse of the fallen behemoth as she pulled me away, and I saw a syringe sticking out of his back. She knelt in front of the door and produced a coil from her purse. The coil unraveled into a stiff, straight, narrow ribbon of metal. She slipped it down along the window into the locking mechanism and wiggled it around. The lock quickly popped, and she opened the door. "Get in!" she commanded. I still was uneasy following orders, but with a sword-wielding lunatic outside, I was happily willing to make an exception. I crawled into the passenger seat, and Amanda followed behind me. She reached under the steering column and produced a thick bundle of wires. She touched two together and the engine turned over. We sped into the night.
I took a deep breath and began to relax by a minute amount. "A friend of yours?" I asked.
"What?" She was obviously distracted.
"Goliath back there. I never met him before in my life. Do you know him?"
"No. Yes. Sort of."
"Tell me again why you were passed over to give testimony at the O.J. trial?"
"Shut up. You're cute, but you're not helping matters. I don't need this right now." She seemed to switch into a different mood, changing from upset-and-distracted to just merely upset. "Where the hell was our chauffeur?!?"
"Drop the screen," I suggested. She touched a button and the privacy screen between the front and back seats slid down. "I think I found him." Amanda took a quick glance at the back seat and returned her eyes to the road.
Sure enough, our chauffeur was slumped down on the floor of the backseat. "Is he dead?" she asked.
"I don't know from here." I climbed back to him and felt for a pulse. His skin was cold to the touch. "He's dead," I declared. My diagnosis made Amanda utter an expletive I choose not to mention here and now. The gears in her head started to turn. I could tell she was formulating a plan.
"Okay, okay," she began. "We hide the body and bog the car."
"Excuse me? Hide the body? I don't think so. We have to contact the authorities ASAP. Maybe they can--"
"No police!" From her tone of voice, I could tell she meant business.
"All right, all right. There is no need to panic." I said this more for my sake than for hers. I climbed back into the front seat, but not after helping myself to a quick swig of gin from the wet bar.
I went into inquisition mode. A throng of a thousand questions pushed to be asked. I chose the most simple, to give me an idea of what I had gotten into. "First things first. Who was that guy? And what does he want?"
I wasn't exactly prepared for the answer she gave.
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