Did you ever have one of those days that starts out bad and kind of stays that way? Nah, me neither. My days seem to start bad and get progressively worse until I feel that the only way to deal with things is by hitting someone upside the head with a full bottle of dark and chewy ale … then I go to bed, sleep, awake and it starts all over again. It’s like some horrendous version of Groundhog Day, only instead of me learning to get better at things, the Universe gets better at fucking up my once neat and orderly, but now fairly unrecognizable life.
I shall start things today with the end – because that’s what the past 24 hours have been. The end of my retirement, the end of my peaceful life – hell, it was the virtual end of my life – but more on that later, the end of the stated mission, the end of Paris’s monogamous relationship with Deputy Duped, the end of Rossi’s dancing days (for awhile, anyway), the end of (Up)Chuck’s dominance in the machismo ring, the end of Karin’s belief that people actually understand her when she speaks English, and certainly it was the end of Diamond’s peaceful night’s sleep.
Now, you’re probably interested in just a few more details. Well, where did I leave off? Oh yeah, Jack and I had just boarded the plane to fly to New York when Andre le Couer shows up. Whatever. I tell him to send flowers; he delivers fruit in person. Nobody ever listens to me. Jack and I decide to ignore him upon our arrival in New York.
We go to Jack’s place and rescue his cat, Gatsby, from Mrs. Ochmonoch.
As luck would have it, it is St. Patrick’s Day so there will be no absence of things to do today.
Back at team headquarters, Karin, whose impulse to simply off the annoying Brat Girl is becoming something of a moral imperative, has opted to skip the parade to take the day off and go drinking. Paris goes with her. The rest of team, with the exception of the wounded (Up)Chuck, take Brat Girl and Company to the parade.
Andre le Couer goes to see (Up)Chuck at the Four Seasons hotel. (Up)Chuck is less than enthusiastic that the French detective follows him into the bathroom and continues their discussion while (Up)Chuck showers.
Eventually, (Up)Chuck gets Andre back into the main room of the suite so they can play … cards. When Jean Giscard shows up, the game switches to ‘oo can make the best googly eyes at ‘oo.
There is much confusion as (Up)Chuck winks at Jean, Jean tries to indicate to (Up)Chuck that he likes girls, and Andre gets mad at (Up)Chuck.
At the bar down the street from the hotel, Karin and Paris have attracted the attention of a gemologist. After several rather frustrating attempts, he is able to explain to Karin that he works on valuable gemstones, not pebbles and rocks. Paris gets into (get this) a sports argument!! and a beer gets spilled on her once lovely sweater. She tells Karin not to leave for awhile. Karin’s insistence on knowing how long awhile is leads to Paris’s selection of twenty-eight minutes. Paris leaves Karin drinking with the gemologist and returns to the hotel to change.
Jean Giscard is both excited and relieved to see Paris show up in the hotel suite. (Up)Chuck decides that he should go back to the bar with Paris. Unfortunately, waiting for (Up)Chuck to change results in Paris’s absence extending to thirty minutes and eighteen seconds. When she returns to the bar, Karin is gone.
Paris calls Jack and arranges to meet us in Little Italy for lunch. While we are there, I notice two Russian types sitting at a table watching us. I use the wine bar as an excuse to pass by their table, but I am unable to obtain any useful information from my trip (I may have accidentally fallen by their table).
Anyway, while we are sitting there, I receive a phone call from some strange person saying that more company is on the way. We decide to leave and part company with (Up)Chuck and Paris. As Jack and I are making our way back to his apartment, I realize that we never ate and I am hungry. We stop for some food. Jack wants to lose our tails on the way back, but we fail miserably (we must have been jet lagged) and eventually accept their offer of a ride home.
Paris and (Up)Chuck return to the hotel along with the rest of the team, who have been enjoying more New York’s night life, but (Up)Chuck leaves to take Bambi lite home and never returns.
Paris, upset that Rossi is drunk, (Up)Chuck is missing and Karin is both drunk and missing, is muttering something about making plans and sticking to them (damn it) and roughly packing everybody’s bags so they are ready to go to Chicago the next day. Never piss off Paris when she has a prepared itinerary.
Paris tries Karin’s cell phone for hours but gets no response. Eventually, about two in the morning, she reaches the German lush, who drunkenly tells Paris it’s okay, she is in the hotel. Paris, who may be about to have a Sheila-sized breakdown of sorts, yells that she is not in the right hotel and sends Sal to pick up Karin from the hotel of the gemologist.
As Karin and Sal are returning to the Four Seasons, Paris’s voice sounds on the radio, yelling that there is trouble and she needs help. Apparently someone has broken into Brat Girl’s suite and is sedating team members with a dart gun (Jack, please note that they actually hit the person with the dart in order to achieve the maximum sedative effect). Karin takes out her gun and drunkenly offers her assistance. Sal relieves her of her gun and they go upstairs when the all-clear is sounded. Although several team members and Stefan are enjoying an unscheduled nap, nobody is seriously injured and the device is safe in the team’s suite.
As everyone is preparing to go to sleep (except for Karin, who is searching for some fur of the puppy – hmm, must mean hair of the dog), they receive word of a break-in at the Chicago lab where they scheduled to go next.
Paris finally goes to bed when (Up)Chuck gets up. (Up)Chuck wakes Rossi to get the cars ready.
Early the next morning, Stefan phones down to the team’s suite to say that, per Brat Girl, they are not going to Chicago. Rossi is relieved that he can go back to sleep. Karin finally gets up and (Up)Chuck tells her to get her gun and go wake Paris. Karin thinks that this might be a slightly extreme way of waking Paris, but she grabs her gun and heads to Paris’s bed. (Up)Chuck jumps in front of her and ‘gently’ pokes the sleeping Paris who swings at him.
Anyway, the team is finally awake and assembles to discuss the abandoned Chicago trip. Paris offers the services of (Nun)Chuck to Brat Girl and lets them speak on the phone. (Nun)Chuck agrees to fly to New York. When Rossi seems inclined to enlighten Ms. Van Buren to the glories of New York City Monday night life, (Up)Chuck ‘gently’ stomps on his foot, causing quite a bit of internal damage and necessitating yet another trip to the hospital. Karin, eager to be away from the vexing presence of Brat Girl, volunteers to take him. While in the lobby, she meets an incredibly attractive man who offers her assistance (particularly necessary when she fails to hold the injured Rossi up). Ian, the attractive man, helps her take Rossi to the hospital.
(Up)Chuck shows up with the keys to a brand new Porsche for Rossi (kind of a slap in the face since Rossi can’t drive it on account of a really fucked up right foot).
Meanwhile, back at Jack’s place, I am getting really annoyed at all of his little secrets. He leaves on some covert errand and has to cut through Central Park to try and lose his tails.
I go to the drugstore to purchase some hair dye. Since my ever-present tails have decided to follow me into the store, I take them on a tour of the feminine hygiene aisle. I also pick up a bag of bite-sized Snicker bars to throw at them like little doggie treats. They have the good grace to look slightly embarrassed.
Upon my return to Jack’s place, I mix two batches of hair dye. One burgundy box for me and a bright red one for Gatsby to use on his paws to create a decoupage effect on Jack’s furniture and carpets. I am delighted with Gatsby’s paw-work, although I am not so sure that fair-skinned blondes look good with burgundy hair. Oh well. I take a knife to Jack’s side of the bed, exposing the springs of his extra-firm mattress.
When Jack gets back, he looks less than thrilled with the apartment renovations. He accuses me, but I point out that I don’t have paws. I tell him that Gatsby is less than thrilled with Jack’s secrets and constant disappearances. He complains bitterly about his mattress, so I tell him to call 1-800-MATTRES (leave off the last S for Sheila) and get a new one. Then he makes airline reservations for us to return to France.
We are heading to the airport when my phone tremors. Some stupid voice tells me not to leave New York if I know what’s good for my friends and me. Yeah right – like I’m going to stay. I call Paris and repeat the message. She asks me for a brief report complete with run-on sentences and prepositional phrases, so I comply: Jack and I left the apartment with our tails, we are currently in a cab on the highway, I received a call on my cell phone, etc. Jack calls ISIS and asks to have the call traced.
We continue to the airport. Jack won’t shut the fuck up about my newly acquired footwear wardrobe (I am finally replacing the shoes that (Up)Chuck destroyed) and the fact that we now have five suitcases. As I am unloading my suitcases, Jack gets a phone call from (Up)Chuck who tells him that there is an alert out for Jack to be indefinitely detained at the airport.
Jack and I finally notice the large number of suits assembling inside the terminal and jump back into the cab. We decide to go to Grand Central Station and get a train north. I am getting really pissed. All I want to do is go back to Europe and forget about all of this shit.
(Up)Chuck calls again and tells us that the call to my cell phone came from an apartment on 117th Street. He has discovered that this happens to be the same apartment that was listed as the address for the person who visited a bail bondsman on behalf of the various criminal types who have crossed the team’s path during this debacle, including the moron who broke into the New Jersey lab. Then he phones me and asks if we will break into the apartment and check if there is any remote relay equipment there for the phone.
Now, let’s think about this. Jack asked for the trace, yet it is (Up)Chuck who calls us with the information. Since when has (Up)Chuck ever assigned me to do anything? I don’t even work for ISIS anymore. (Up)Chuck keeps reminding me of the difficulty that I had leaving Scotland before certain persons were ready for me to leave. I have a headache the size of one of (Up)Chuck’s biceps and my scalp is starting to itch. I think I am allergic to the brand of dye I bought. Jack and I go to dinner and ‘discuss’ our options. Finally, I tell Jack we will do the job, if for no other reason than to finish this crappy affair and get the flock out of here.
Back at the Four Seasons, the team has gone down for dinner, with the notable exception of the lovely Paris who is dining with Jean Giscard. Paris becomes rather spellbound by M. Giscard’s charms and returns to his hotel with him.
In the hotel dining room, (Up)Chuck notices that their waitress, whom he recognizes as also having been at one of the clubs that the team visited earlier, seems to be new, as she is not interacting in a familiar way with any of the other staff. (Up)Chuck does not trust Ian (who is there with Karin) and a battle of machismo follows. Much to (Up)Chuck’s dismay, he does not have the upper hand.
There is a slight disturbance as Detective Horan of the NYPD arrives with Detective Haddon of the Chicago PD (whom (Up)Chuck had spoken with earlier regarding the Chicago break-in), and (Up)Chuck greets them and invites them to join the group at the table. As they are discussing developments in the case, Karin and Brat Girl get into an argument, mostly caused by the fact that Karin has decided to end every communication between herself and Brat Girl with ‘comma Bitch’ (I knew that grammar guide I gave her would come in handy). Brat Girl makes fun of Karin’s lack of English skills and tells the team to come upstairs so they can talk.
Ian excuses himself and tells Karin to call him later.
Upstairs in the suite, Brat Girl spews some load of horse shit about Kenneth Cole (the break-in man from the New Jersey lab) being after the group, which (Up)Chuck bites into like a ripe and luscious grapefruit. Rossi and Karin are not fooled. Rossi goes to convince (Up)Chuck that she is lying, but ends up being convinced by (Up)Chuck that she is correct.
Meanwhile, Jack and I head to Harlem. Realizing that I would stick out like a sore thumb, even if my hair wasn’t bright purple, I stop and buy a hat and some gloves.
Jack and I tell Jaffar, the driver, to pick us up in twenty minutes and head toward the apartment. What do we see, right outside the apartment? An ISIS surveillance car. I smell setup. I knew (Up)Chuck had to have an ulterior motive. I am in more of a hurry than ever to be done with this. Jack decides we should go a few buildings down, make our way to the roof and head back to the targeted building. Unfortunately, he selects a crack house. Two less than polite gentleman meet us at the door and seem intent on harming us. I shoot and kill one of them. Jack pulls two guns, one of which becomes immediately Smuckered. He does manage to use the second gun to hit the other guy who, while not stopped, is an amazingly poor shot (even in Jack’s eyes) and misses us completely. We finish him off and run out of the about-to-be-incinerated-by-the-remaining-drug-dealers-upstairs crack house. I am thoroughly disgusted by now, so we go in the front door of the target building and make our way to the apartment. Although I manage to defeat the contact on the door, we fail to find the motion detector. I am looking over the relay equipment when Jack yells, "bum" (or maybe it was "bomb") and pushes me out of the room. We are almost out of the apartment when a fireball catches up with us. At least my hair is still intact (thanks to my cap), although when I was lamenting my fair skin earlier, this was not one of my plans to rectify the situation.
Jack looks at me, tosses our cell phones into the fire and says, "we’re dead," and we run out the back. We head to his apartment to collect some things and fake a robbery. We are trashing the place (I don’t know why he bothered to clean it up earlier) when an explosion lights the sky a few blocks away. We grab our stuff and get Gatsby. New Yorkers are more than a little uneasy about explosions these days and we need to leave the city before it gets locked down.
Back at the Four Seasons: while the boys are out arguing, Karin tells Brat Girl that she is full of shit. Less than kind words ensue, some of which are further insults on Karin’s English and some of which are German expletives that are so long that it would take several bowls of Paris’s favorite alphabet soup to spell out. Brat Girl expresses her wishes to have Karin removed from the team and Karin says she will remove herself. When Brat Girl invites her to take a gun out to the balcony, the tension becomes so thick that it alerts (Up)Chuck and Rossi to the impending danger. Karin is overcome with an incredible desire to shoot Brat Girl, but the presence of two detectives, one of whom may still be convinced that she shanked some low-life in a Greenwich Village bar with a broken bottle, stops her. Since Ms. Van Bitchen has reminded Karin that her mission is to protect Herself and Karin knows that is something she truly has no interest in doing at this time, Karin quits the mission and leaves.
(Up)Chuck calls Paris and tells her that things are going downhill faster than Jack’s cell phone in the Swiss Alps, but she doesn’t seem keen to leave the presence of the charming Jean Giscard. Their call is interrupted by the operator who connects (Up)Chuck to the team watching the building at 117th Street. They tell him that a man and woman were seen entering and then there was an explosion in the apartment.
(Up)Chuck immediately calls Paris back and implores her to return to the hotel. She takes Jean and heads back.
Paris enters the suite with Jean only to have (Up)Chuck grab Jean ‘gently’ by the neck. Paris jumps on (Up)Chuck’s back and beats him with her beaded bag (which is rather heavy due to the gun in it) while Jean is gasping ‘let me go’. (I miss all of the fun stuff.) (Up)Chuck shakes Paris off (after taking a bit of bruising damage) and pulls a gun on Jean. While they are arguing and eventually engaging in hand-to-hand combat for the gun, Paris notes some activity in the suite upstairs. Her shouts go unnoticed by the battling bumpkins, so she sends Sal up to check it out and calls Stefan.
Rossi is making his way to the combatants with the aid of his walker when Paris notices that the device has begun a countdown.
She starts shouting ‘OUT,’ but gets little reaction until she switches to ‘BOMB.’ The team scrambles to get out of the suite.
The explosion results in much injury to the team, as well as the death of Jean Trembly, may he rest in pieces.
At the bar down the street from the hotel, Karin has been enjoying a drink with the scrumptious Ian, whom she called upon quitting the mission. It seems that his ‘company’ is insuring the safety of Ms. Van Buren. Karin is somewhat gratified to finally learn that the bitch is definitely an impostor as she suspected and the real Ms. Van Buren has been kidnapped. She grabs Ian and starts running for the hotel when she hears the explosion.
When she sees (or rather doesn’t see) the top of the hotel, she phones Diamond. After a round of dueling accents between Karin and Kieran, the boss finally comes to the phone. Karin tells him that Ms. Van Bitchen was definitely not Ms. Van Buren and there has been an explosion at the hotel.
When she spots the rope dangling from the balcony of what used to be Brat Girl’s suite, she tells Ian to help her look for the bitch. He immediately makes a phone call to MI6 and tells them to go into action.
So, that’s where we are and I am sure you will understand my consternation. I have lost four suitcases full of new shoes and clothing; Jack wants to pretend we are dead, but I have a job, a restaurant and an apartment to return to; MI6 is involved in the whole disaster, which means that Britain’s snootiest will likely be on the scene soon; Paris has ‘cheated’ on Deputy Dumbfounded; Rossi, the team’s driver, has a broken foot; Diamond may be out at least a half a million; the hotel will surely be upset at the damage to its upper floors; I think (Up)Chuck set Jack and me up, since he sent us on a mission to get blown to smithereens (either you can’t retire from ISIS or he’s really pissed about the whole Andre le Couer thing); Karin is beside herself (I dare her to figure out what that means) that Brat Girl got away; (Nun)Chuck is enjoying his airplane meal while flying to New York; my hair is bright purple, my scalp itches like crazy and I now have to locate a dye that is my original hair color so I look like my passport picture. I think I need something stronger than extra strength aspirin…