Well, the morning of the demonstration is finally here. Hopefully, this stupid mission will be over soon (or at least over enough that I can slip away).
Cornball goes to the island to check out the hotel facilities. After noting all of the observers in the lobby, identifiable by their upside down newspapers, he finds that, once again, his failure to explicitly state when, what, where, how, who and why has resulted in less than satisfactory results. The room is wired for ‘lights and sound.’ Dmitri, the Greek contact sent by Babour Shipping, did not understand that Cornball wanted video as well, but at least the lights work. Anyway, they rig up a camera in the A/C duct. Cahill manages to control his growing frustration.
Maggie, Luke and Karin are busy performing their various work duties.
Claire is experiencing the wonders of a Sheila drinking binge hangover.
I go to the kitchen to wow the other cooks with a demonstration of vegetarian cooking the likes of which have never been seen before (mostly because of all the meat in it …).
Monotone Man makes the mistake of pointing out the presence of meat in my recipe. I tell him they are radishes or peppers or something. He doesn’t believe me and we have yet another argument. (I’ll bet he’s sorry he hired me back now!) He continues to whine in that barely audible worse-than-nails-on-a-blackboard voice of his that is somehow the polar opposite of the voice of the Librarian Arlene, yet miraculously, no less annoying. I ask for a show of hands from those in the kitchen that can actually understand anything he says. Not a raised hand in sight. I tell him he can go away and he does. My demonstration receives a standing ovation (although I am unsure if it was my cooking demonstration or my how-to-belittle-the-boss expertise that earned the audience’s admiration).
After finishing the vegan cooking demonstration, I have to go the hotel to watch the auction (I know it’s really because Cornball doesn’t trust me out of his sight, but what does he think I am going to do? Leave or something? Oh yeah, well I never said he was dumb.)
Karin, Maggie and Luke are heading toward the hotel when Maggie spots the IRA bidders looking more than a little lost. She helps them out by tearing up their map and pointing them in the correct direction. The lads are more than a little stunned when Luke grabs their butts. The entire ensuing conversation is lost on Karin who only manages to contribute by chiming in with some insulting and definitely not politically correct Irish jokes. Believe me, the TV beer ads are right – Germans don’t do comedy – or rather they shouldn’t. The Irish boys have had more than enough of the map-tearing, butt-grabbing, bad joke-telling group and make for the hotel post haste. The happy threesome go to watch the lobby of the hotel while the auction is going on.
Claire escorts the charming Dr. Gumble to the auction, where she proceeds to apologize to Cornball for her behavior the night before – explaining that she was drinking with me.
Shortly thereafter, Cornball calls me over to tell me to pick on people my own size. Does he realize that I am just short of anorexic? There are very few people that are my size! And I think he has challenged me to a drink your opponent under the table contest that I may yet take him up on.
The auction participants gather in the conference room: the morning sheik, the Eco-terrorist, the IRA boys and Detective Falani. The Russians have been missing for some time now.
It turns out that the sheik has an incredible fondness for glazed donuts, so I attempt to prepare some, even though I don’t have the right oven or ingredients (like that ever stopped me before).
Claire instructs the doctor on how to accept bids. She asks detective Falani where she is from. The lying Swiss says Sheboygen, Wisconsin.
The doctor begins his demonstration. He takes out a small vial and puts three drops on the huge block of ice that has been provided. The ice promptly vaporizes causing the room to heat up and become very humid. The participants begin to dab at their sweaty foreheads. Shit! I haven’t been this uncomfortable since I was traipsing about in the jungles of Peru with a big wounded cat. Nor have I been this culinarily (screw you – it’s a word now) impaired. I announce that the donuts are done.
Cahill techno-babbles the occupants of the conference room with engineering questions while Claire carries some cups around to catch the water vapor as it condenses and hands the cups to the sweaty participants.
After finding out that the doctor has a half-liter of the formula to give to the bidder, Cornball tells me to send Luke, Maggie and Karin back to the ship to find it.
Claire stays after the auction to collect the bids.
Cornball decides that someone has to rattle Detective Falani’s cage until she falls over the edge, so he sends me to take the doctor and her to dinner at the island’s finest restaurant. I ask Dmitri for the name and he tells me that it’s Dmitri’s. Is everyone on this fucking island called Dmitri?? And while I’m complaining, why am I a good candidate to frustrate someone? I’m starting to get a Cornball-induced complex.
I go back into the conference room and grab the arms of the bewildered couple and lead them off to the restaurant. The bitch, I mean detective, wants to know who I am. The ship’s chef, duh. I tell her to say ‘ship’s chef’ three times fast. The doctor looks at Claire for help and she tells him it’s part of the package, so off we go.
We arrive at the restaurant and I regale them with charming dinner conversation. I tell the Swiss detective posing as an American from Sheboygen, Wisconsin that I am so glad she is an American so I can share my thoughts on Europeans, you know, the whole I live in France and the French don’t bother me, but those Swiss – boy do I hate them thing. Yeah, those slimy Swiss, pretending neutrality while stealing from thousands of Holocaust victims and finding all sort of ways of refusing to give the money back. I can see her starting to smoke and actually fear that she will spontaneously combust before I can finish my fun.
Meanwhile, back on the ship, Karin is checking the manifest to see if the good doctor put anything in storage, but she doesn’t find anything. In the stateroom of Dr. Gumble, Maggie and Luke have found a bottle of cologne that doesn’t seem right. After arguing over how to test it, they finally get some ice, put it in the sink and put a drop on it. Maggie’s contact lenses dry out and the porcelain sink cracks. Oops!
Hee hee hee … Um- hmm, sorry.
Let’s see, where was I? Oh yeah, Cornball goes to the airport to get a secure communication line, Claire is collecting ballots, Maggie and Luke have stolen the sink from Cornball’s room to replace the broken one in the doctor’s stateroom, and I am annoying, I mean entertaining, my dinner guests with brilliant conversation.
The detective is obviously pissed off and starts rambling in French (a language I readily understand) that she is going to leave if he doesn’t do something about me. I tell her to sit the fuck down – en Francais – and she starts to call me some very interesting names in both English and French. I am so amazed by her um, diverse multi-lingual vocabulary that I write them down on my napkin. This seems to enrage her further and she grabs her water glass to throw its contents on me. Unfortunately, a case of Jack-Aim has struck and she pours the water on the doctor. I take the opportunity to say, "was that meant for me?" while hitting her on the head with my beer bottle. She falls to the ground and, never one to let an opportunity to damage an opponent – or a mistaken for a bad guy friend (sorry Jake Jake) – with my trusty and fortunately still intact beer bottle, I hit her again. This time she is knocked unconscious. I confiscate her gun, much to the doctor’s surprise. He wants to call an ambulance, but I hate to ruin a good meal, so I order another beer to replace the now broken one I am holding.
Just then my cell phone rings (no, I am no longer using the ‘vibrate’ feature which generally results in a third degree burn to my skin). It’s Jack. I tell him that this is sooooo not a good time. Hearing the sound of mayhem and approaching sirens in the background, Jack feels like he is in a warped alternate universe. He tries to do his best Sheila imitation. "What have you done?" I can play along. "Who me?" "Yes." "Nothing." "You’re lying." Wait. He’s got it all wrong! It’s more like – "Jack, you lying piece of cabaret shit – what have you done now?" Men!
Anyway, I tell him I’ll call him back and then call Cornball to ask for help with the lifeless of the party.
Cornball tells Dmitri to cancel the ambulance call and send his own company (owned by a man named … Dmitri) in to pick up the bitch. Then he hurries back to the ship with his Dmitri so he can don his Greek disguise.
Luke has proven that, while he is able to fight his way out of a room full of heavily armed marshal artists, he is defeated by the simple mechanics of plumbing. (Karin’s latest joke – how many marshal artists does it take to install a sink – one, as long as she is a female). Since he can’t install the intact sink, they decide to burst some pipes in the doctor’s room instead. Yeah, brute force is something Luke can handle. Just to be on the safe side, Maggie leaves the room first.
Claire calls the doctor to tell him that Sheboygen is in Michigan, not Wisconsin and see how he’s doing. He tells her that he needs help and she should come to Dmitri’s. She seems confused by the vast number of Dmitris that she met while on the island. He tells her to come to The Dmitri’s.
Karin calls Cornball and tells him that they have the formula and they got it out before the flood so he shouldn’t worry. (If I was nice, I would loan Cornball my extra large bottle of extra strength aspirin …)
Celia heads towards The Dmitri’s.
Before Claire can arrive, Cornball, Master of big-nosed disguises shows up posing as a German policeman. He thanks the doc and me for capturing an International chemical formula thief, unfortunately, he denies that there is a reward for the capture. He takes her gun from me and heads out to the ambulance.
Cornball calls the CIA to tell them that he has Falani and asks what they want done with her and the other bidders from the auction. The Feds want Falani, but they don’t care about the rest of the bidders (since the Russians have disappeared), except for the Irishmen whom they want dead.
Cornball then calls Maggie and Luke and tells them to make Irish a dead language.
Celia gets in a taxi and asks to be taken to The Dmitri’s.
Upon her arrival, the doctor proceeds to complain about the bloodstain on the carpet and my table manners. Since I know he will want to head back to the ship soon and Cornball wants us to delay his arrival, I jot down the recipe for the Martiki so Claire can brief the bartender. I tell her to disregard the foul words on the top of the list (the ones that Fall-down Falani was hurling at me).
Jack calls and we arrange to meet at my neat and orderly apartment in Paris in the morning. All I have to do is get off this fucking island! I bring Doctor Dumbo back to the ship’s bar where Claire has been busy teaching the bartender to make something that resembles a Martiki (well, at least the later batches were blue) and leave him in her care when he passes out. I run to my quarters to pack and make a plane reservation before heading to the airport.
Anyway, things got kind of confusing, but here’s what ended up happening: Maggie and Luke go to kill the Irish only to find that Finbar is a bloody mess in his bathroom and Ian is gone; Karin is preparing to leave the ship; Claire is packing Cornball’s things; Cornball has once again threatened the kneecaps of the less than cooperative Detective Falani before turning her over to the Feds; and Jack is boarding a plane for Paris.
I make my way to the airport and happily pass through customs. I am busy planning the breakfast menu and thinking how easy this was – why didn’t I just leave sooner – when a customs official approaches and tells me I have to go talk to another man. You guessed it – it’s Cornball. The Master of big-nosed disguises is now a Greek customs agent and, apparently, he is less than pleased by my early departure, but let’s face it – I never wanted to be here. After a particularly annoying and humiliating search of my luggage (although, believe me it would have been worse if I had known he was going to look through my bags), he tells me I have to personally ‘check with customs’ before leaving. I tell him I’ll remember that in the future. And I will – remember it, that is. Doesn’t mean I’ll do it …