Well, I’ve gone through my make-up bag twice and I have nothing to cover these bruises. Rats. Looks like I’ll have to swing by the cosmetics department at Bloomingdale’s while we’re there tomorrow. Today? When are we?!
I’m Paris, by the way. Paris Mulhare. I have a fictional cousin called Reykjavik – Reg for short – but more on him later.
According to the time stamp on my cell phone, it’s nearly two a.m. Friday morning – too late, even, to call San Diego. Which is just as well; it would be a long conversation, explaining how we got to this point and how I got these bruises.
I’d probably have to start way back on Tuesday – the last stretch of free time the team had. After (Up)Chuck and I did the airport thing, we all kind of went our separate ways. I took Karin off to a day spa for a dose of self-indulgence, Rossi went to a car show in search of rare and exotic belts, and (Up)Chuck headed back out to his place on the Island for some oil and a little quality time with his Universal Equipment.
Wednesday morning Karin and I vacated Jack’s apartment, returning the cat back to the mad old lady downstairs to care for, and checked into the team’s suite at the Four Seasons Hotel. The rest of the team and our second-string players (Annalee, Guy, Guard Basket and Guard Sal) arrived one by one to set up equipment, run wires, run phone lines and run up the room service bill. By two we were on our way by armored caravan to the airport to meet Elise Van Buren’s eight o’clock flight. I thought it a bit excessive, this six hour window, but (Up)Chuck insisted it was something to do with getting through security. Seemed a bit daft, as we are security.
(Up)Chuck led the caravan first to the customs building where Rossi, Guy and I hooked up with Agent Johnson. We hung around the nether reaches of JFK for five hours before the flight came in. Meanwhile, (Up)Chuck and Karin got to go to the international arrivals building. You know, the one with the cafeteria, the lounge, the little TVs and the duty free shops? Even Annalee, Sal and Basket had it better waiting by the cars.
OK, this is not to say that Rossi and Guy weren’t good company, but after a couple hours of chatting, you move on to silence or True Confessions. And since there’s not a whole lot I haven’t already confessed to… At any rate, we muddled through well enough until it was time to take a ride out and retrieve the cargo.
Into our waiting hands go a cased superconductor (it looked heavy so I let Rossi and Guy deal with it, thus allowing them to feel like Real Men) and two slim, odd-sized attaché cases. Having seen similar luggage lurking in the back of a closet in San Diego I was fairly certain the cases contained some variety of projectile weapons. I kept them to myself, having no desire to give Rossi any cause to shout "I’m O-K" this early in the game.
Meanwhile, (Up)Chuck and Karin wait at the gate in the company of Angelique duBois. (Hmm. According to one of Karin’s ubiquitous dictionaries, duBois is French for "of the woods". Perhaps if Sheila were here she could gently reacquaint the snooty assistant with remnants of her forestry heritage. Wouldn’t that be nice?)
Where was I?
Oh, yes. The trio is on hand when Miss Van Buren, her assistant Jean Trembly and her personal tick-about-to-pop, Stefän, step off the Air France jumbo.
Miss duBois snaps into groveling mode and introduces herself to Miss Van Buren while Trembly – delighted that the staff at Air France actually speak French –busies himself with determining the location of the luggage carousel, and Karin attempts to introduce (Up)Chuck to Stefän as the two ooze testosterone and eye one another in a manner reminiscent of Rocky facing down the Russian.
Through Karin, (Up)Chuck – in hopes of getting a better "feel" for his principle – asks Stefän if Miss Van Buren is easy to work with. Stefän – through Karin – informs (Up)Chuck that he’s only been working for Miss Van Buren for the past two weeks.
What with the whole language barrier / pissing contest going on, neither Our Tick nor Das Ticken notice Miss Van Buren strolling unattended down the ramp and towards the Starbuck’s kiosk.
Out of fear for her life or fear she’ll be up all night and want to go jogging in Central Park, Stefän and (Up)Chuck bring the heiress to heel and bustle her and her surprising American Broadcaster English into the waiting car.
Hmm. We were told she had little or no English.
Hmmm. This is the first time Angelique duBitch has ever met Miss Van Buren.
Hmmmm. Stefän has only known her for a couple of weeks.
To steal a phrase, my friends: Ping.
The caravan heads back to the Manhattan hotel and the Bulging Boys bring Miss Van Buren safely to her suite while Rossi, Guy and I struggle with high-power weapons, sunglasses at night and a superconductor. Needless to say, our arrival in the suite is somewhat delayed.
(Up)Chuck lets us in without trying to trick us by requesting a secret password or anything Hollywood-spy-like.
Rossi, bouncing into the room like we have a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding in this mission, spots a lovely lass with strawberry blond hair as she stretches languidly on the balcony – twenty feet from where her bodyguards stand arguing – through Karin – about who has bigger bulges.
Stefän catches sight of me and his eyes light up. But it’s not what you think. Evidently, I am giving off some sort of repugnant my-boyfriend-is-an-assassin vibe because Stefän’s delight at my presence is caused exclusively by the fact that I am carrying his guns. He takes them from me and immediately turns to show them off to (Up)Chuck.
Meanwhile, Rossi has reached the balcony unchallenged. Feeling devilish, he sneaks up on Miss Van Buren and pinches her waist. I guess he thought she might laugh so hard she’d fall into his arms and flip for him. Oh, there was flipping all right. She flipped him so hard and so fast that he was on his back counting stars faster than Neil Armstrong after lift-off.
And can I just say… ping.
I would have whipped out my calculator to do the math on this third in a less-than-fortunate chain of heiress daughters whose safety has been placed in our less-than-consistent hands, but Rossi was in need of ice and the heiress – her profound apologies complete – was in sudden need of an itinerary.
Not surprisingly, she has rejected Daddy’s list of recommended tourist spots. Worse, however, is the fact that she doesn’t want to go to the zoo. Can you imagine someone not wanting to see the zoo?! Madness.
She wants to have a private shopping session at Bloomingdale’s. She wants to have breakfast at Tiffany’s. She wants to wear her sandals and go out to lunch. Well, I have to admit I find these options more appealing than some dusty old museum, but her wish list doesn’t end there. Miss Van Buren wants to go shopping for casual, trendy clothes and then go drinking at a bar like the one she saw in "Coyote Ugly".
Right. As if the Brute Squad Squared would let their principle dance on top of a bar.
Not bloody likely.
I went to the phone and rang the concierge to get the numbers for Bloomies and Tiffany’s. I swear I only turned my back for a minute! And when I turned back, Rossi was on the floor again. Only this time he was unconscious. Seems he had briefly returned to his bubbly self and (Up)Chuck thought it best to gently remove him from the room.
Note to (Up)Chuck: Men who can bench press Volkswagens should not attempt gentle maneuvers.
This looked like a good time to make our exit. Karin revives Rossi sufficiently for him to stumble out under his own power, slurring "I’m O-K". He’s deposited in our suite and Karin and I head down to the lobby lounge while (Up)Chuck checks in with the second string Team.
One of the guards reports seeing a lurker down on the street below – a blond-haired guy with a bit of a swagger who appears to be keeping tabs on our cars. His description is passed along to Guy who sets to work finding out who this guy is. THE guy, not Guy. Stay with me.
Morning… and room service brings coffee. Well, at least we had that much before Guard Basket brings the news that the Stevens Institute had been broken in to during the night.
Ah, hell.
(Up)Chuck calls the institute for a status report but the school’s security chief is unavailable to come to the phone. Fancy that.
With no information to be had over the phone, (Up)Chuck, Guard Sal and I take the drive to New Jersey. One look at the mess and residual mayhem in the labs at the school and it becomes abundantly clear that Miss Van Buren and her superconductor will not be visiting the Garden State any time soon.
Reasoning the thieves had been looking for the superconductor, we phone the team at the hotel and advise them to move the device out of Miss Van Buren’s suite and into our own. Too late I realize we should have left a gnome behind for sheer poetic power.
The school, fortunately, has captured one of the intruders’ faces on their surveillance tape. After a bit of arguing over best policy, we decide to fax a still picture of the intruder directly to Guy so that all team members could get a look at him and Guy could send it through the ISIS data banks.
So there I was, thinking I’d have the evening off and trying to figure out how best to harass Diamond when (Up)Chuck’s phone rings.
It’s Karin, calling to advise us that in response to the news that we would not be crossing state lines with a superconductor just yet, Miss Van Buren has decided she would like to go shopping. Now!
I get her on the phone and try to BS her into believing I desperately wanted to go with her and wouldn’t she wait? But, 00-h that didn’t work. She went off with Karin, Stefän, Jean and Guard Annalee to the funky little shops down in the village.
In and out of shops, up and down steps… two professional guards in tow and it’s Karin who makes their tail – a tall, tough-looking guy with dark hair, a black trench-coat and a cigarette that never seems to burn down. He’s forced to toss it away when at last he follows the group into a shop and makes a "threatening move" toward Miss Van Buren.
To their credit, Stefän and Guard Annalee snap into Professional Bodyguard mode and hustle a compliant heiress into the car and safely away from the scene.
As they’re pulling away, Annalee spots another tail, this one a blond-haired guy, slim, probably French, talking on a cell phone and watching the team’s departure. So that’s two more descriptions for Guy and his ever-present laptop.
By the time we return from New Jersey and everyone is once again assembled in the suite, Guy has coaxed some information from the ISIS data banks.
This is what I wrote down in my Sheila-issued-anti-surveillance kit:
Intruder at the Stevens Institute: known in the US as Kenneth Cole. (Can I just say… alias?) – Italian-American, aka Mike Rendina – contract criminal – dirty deeds dept. – no allegiance – known to work with at least two other people, 1 German, 1 Italian
Blond, swagger boy who was watching our cars last night: Roger Clarke – known to do lookout work for snatch teams – may be called "The Bird" or some variation thereof.
Dark haired, trench-coat dude: Leonard Guardia, known as "Lenny" on the street – a mafia wannabe.
Skinny Frenchman: Jean Giscard – may also be Wolfgang Korban – thief – does not work alone – may be part of an organization or team of at least six people.
So. Is Bird watching for Giscard? Hmmm….
Meanwhile, Miss Van Buren decides that she would like to go to the Coyote-esque bar tonight. (Up)Chuck argues the wisdom here, but the heiress reminds him – in no uncertain terms – that he is working for her.
Out of earshot, Karin renews her campaign for us to kill Miss Van Buren and be done with it. I have got to find out from what slang dictionary she got "Are you in or out?". We convince here that we’re out – for now – and we’re going to take Miss Van Buren to a saloon.
I listen to (Up)Chuck’s suggestions for locales and then call Jack. I mean, really. (Up)Chuck doesn’t drink. If Miss Van Buren suddenly decides she wants to go to a juice bar then I might take (Up)Chuck’s advice on faith. But for a place that serves slippery nipples, I’ve got to call Jack.
I cross-check Jack’s recommendations with (Up)Chuck’s and, when I find a match, tell the team we’ll be going to the Red Rock.
Karin emerges from her room dressed for a saloon. I’m okay with her Cahill-influenced boots. But the pigtails and white leather fringe have got to go.
When I’ve got her looking more "Rent" and less "Annie Get Your Gun", we are ready to move out.
Rossi does what he does best as he drives us in the SUV limo down to Chelsea.
I am, honestly, somewhat concerned about Rossi. I think his recent experiences – being rendered unconscious by (Up)Chuck and getting beat by a girl – have addled his brain. He keeps extending his index fingers skyward and announcing "I keek dee ball." Really, it worries me.
Where was I?
Oh, yes.
The bar is packed and we are forced to single-file it through the crowd. Off by the jukebox I spot Tony, of Tony’s Casino fame, but I have a better chance of parting the Red Sea than I do of getting over to him to say hey.
A charming gentleman with bodyguard-worthy biceps smiles winningly and asks if he can buy me a navel. Naturally, I accept. Karin looks at me, horrified. And that’s before we learn that I don’t get to drink; the gentleman gets to drink. From… my… navel.
OK, so now I’m lying on the bar with a wedge of lime between my teeth and a young stud slurping tequila from my belly button.
Yeah. You think I’ll be informing San Diego regarding this latest development?
Not bloody likely.
But I have to know: how come these things don’t happen to Sheila? What am I doing wrong? Because it doesn’t end there. See, I’m already on the bar when "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" cranks up and – without so much as a drop of liquor passing my lips – I’m expected to get up and dance. On the bar.
Well. All right.
Before you can say "hey", Miss Van Buren is up on the bar as well. And I’ve got to ask, how did the Bulging Boys let this happen?
During one fiddle solo or another, I spot our new nemesis Kenneth Cole shooting pool at the back of the saloon. Must tell (Up)Chuck but he’s not paying attention.
I catch Rossi’s eye and try to get him to get (Up)Chuck’s attention. In his search for (Up)Chuck, Rossi spots Cole as well, gives me a nod, and starts moving further into the barroom, looking as if he’ll pass (Up)Chuck on the way to Cole.
Since Brute Squad Squared is unable to lure Miss Van Buren off the bar, I sort of dance over to her, as if lil ole me could in any way protect her in the event we experience a less-than-lovely evening.
But wait a minute. What’s a semi-sheltered product of finishing school doing up on the bar? I can see her interest in going to the bar, but being up on it? After one drink?
Ping.
So I’m basically dancing with Elise on the bar and she’s getting a little overly friendly. I mean, I wish I didn’t know this but I do: that chick has cold hands.
I look to Karin down on the floor with the normal, semi-sane patrons in hopes she’ll save me. But she’s busy trading beers with some guy who looks like he came down from the reservation with Tony. Strange.
Now, this is where all hell breaks loose.
A shot whizzes past my head. Holy Bar Fight, Batman!
I grab hold of Elise to try and pull her down just as (Up)Chuck leaps over the bar, tackling her at the knees and knocking the three of us to the sticky floor behind the bar.
The principle and her bodyguard are unscathed; I have broken their fall.
(Up)Chuck orders us to stay put then vaults over the bar and into the fray.
I don’t care what (Up)Chuck wants, I have no intention of strolling into the Four Seasons smelling like the beer-hall floor. I roll to my feet but stay in a crouch and Miss Van Buren does the same, except that she’s also ducked her face and placed her hands on top of her head. Maybe this action does make you a smaller target, but no way was I touching my hair after where it had just been.
By the time I peek my head up over the bar, most of the patrons have left. Stefän remains, his back to us as the laser sight of his gun sweeps the room. Tony is standing nervously by the door, gun drawn. And on the floor, roughly between the two, Lenny lies bleeding to death, a pistol in his hand and a broken and bloody beer bottle by his side.
I duck back down and Miss Van Buren wants to know what’s going on. I inform her that the mafia wannabe’s hopes have been permanently slashed and Stefän is covering us. She seems okay with the dead body but is fairly insistent that this is the point at which she should be evacuated.
Of our team, only Stefän remained in the bar, so I assured Miss Van Buren that Rossi and Chuck had gone for the car. Karin, Angelique and Jean must have gotten caught up in the fleeing crowd and were likely waiting outside.
Well, hey, I’ve been wrong before, right?
At that very moment Rossi was pursuing Cole. At that very moment the police were arriving on the scene.
Rossi pulls a gun on Cole and tells him to freeze. Cole reaches for the sky. (Up)Chuck tries to tell the police that he is a bounty hunter and Rossi is working under his direction in stopping a wanted man. The police don’t seem inclined to buy that story.
In light of the arguing and pretty much everyone yelling "Freeze!", Rossi lowers his gun and Cole attempts to flee.
Karin, watching all this, pulls her gun and fires at Cole. He goes down and Karin – terribly pleased with herself – puts her gun away and makes her escape, wholly unaware that her bullet had hit a security camera on the building across the street, rendering it useless instead of Cole.
So why did Cole go down?
Evidently, there are no curbs where Cole comes from and the obstacle was too much for him. (Up)Chuck is "all over him like wheat on rye", which sort of explains why he had so much trouble convincing the authorities Cole was wanted for questioning in connection with a break-in in New Jersey.
Inside the salon, I pour myself a beer, crawl over the bar, sit down on a stool and wave Tony over.
He seems pleased that I really am me, not someone who looks remarkably like me. Of course it’s me. Who else would dance on a bar? Certainly not some Swiss heiress, I can tell you that.
Eventually, Elise Van Buren crawls out from behind the bar and takes the stool next to mine. In fact, she seems intent on doing whatever it is that I do. I briefly entertain the idea of dragging Tony to the ground and smothering him with beer and kisses, just to see if she would join in, but I’d have a hard time explaining that to the cops and other gun-toting friendlies so I decide against it.
At length we are rejoined by (Up)Chuck, Rossi, Angelique and Jean and one Detective Horan who questions us for a couple of hours during which time Miss Van Buren gives up the fact that Karin was with us earlier and the detective confirms that Lenny died of beer bottle wounds.
In response to this not-so-revealing revelation, (Up)Chuck – in some bizarre fit of Turretts – blurts out "Sheila?!"
Not surprisingly, the detective is all over that like white on rice – which explains why he’s still on the job and (Up)Chuck is not.
(Up)Chuck insists Sheila is just an old friend and she’s thousands of miles away. That line of questioning ceases, but you just know the guy with the gold shield has filed the name away for further incrimination.
After a couple of hours we are allowed to leave and we pile back into the limo.
I begin to wonder how it is that Lenny found us at the bar. Clearly, he arrived there with a purpose. OK, so maybe not clearly, but it’s still a bit suspicious.
Back at the hotel, I ask Rossi to check the car for tracking devices and other cling-ons before he joins us in the suite. For this request I get two thumbs ups and one "Duuude".
We head up to the suites and part company with Miss Van Buren’s group for the night. The police have already come and gone and I ask Karin not to tell me what really happened because when the police ask again I want to be able to tell them truthfully "I know nuttink."
Rossi returns with the news that he found a cigarette box-sized "thingie" on the car and it was going "blip-blip". Sounds dangerous to me. He moved it to a minivan with Illinois plates. With our luck, it will turn out to be a rental heading for JFK and back again.
And all of this, this long, drawn-out saga, is why I couldn’t possibly call San Diego tonight. So I think what I’ll do is soak my bruised body in the tub for a while. What with all the sirens and pings, I’m beginning to feel a strange and uncomfortable throbbing around my temples.
If only Sheila were here; she’d know what to do…