Jack has returned to his team and I am once again mired in wedding plans and menu changes for Chez Sheila. I have been busy trying to finalize the ingredients for my cold Revenge soup and Simplicity Steak and I think I finally have it. I am carrying the steak from the oven to the counter when my f***** cell phone vibrates, scaring the shit out of me. Simplicity Steak is scattered all over the floor to the delight of Gatsby and Daphne Noel. I am pissed at the waste of food, but apparently if my restaurant ever closes, I can market Simplicity Steak as gourmet cat food.
I politely answer the offending phone call. It’s Jack. Through my annoyance, I can tell that he is rather disturbed by his team’s progress. He is mumbling something about an explosion, the police and $30,000. Wait, the money reference was from someone in the background. Then I hear the words that should never be spoken in reference to Jack: Monte Carlo. That bastard! He swears he went to Monte Carlo, but didn’t gamble. How f***** naïve does he think I am? My return rant is interrupted by the muffled sound of a silenced weapon discharging ... many times. Then I hear screams and a loud bang, followed by the distinct sound of slurping. What the fuck is going on there??? That’s it. I get him to give me his address and hang up. I quickly pack a bag and run out to the car.
Wouldn’t you know it? Inspector Clusine and Andre le Queer pull up as I am about to get in the car. Just what I needed. I tell them politely to leave, but they insist on showing me a picture of Jack with some Italian writing underneath it. I don’t speak Italian. Inspector Clusine asks if I know this man. I look around for the candid camera crew. What kind of stupid question is that? I tell him I’ve never seen the man before, but he doesn’t buy it.
Eventually, I leave. I am so pissed off that I don’t even realize that they are following me.
I make one stop to stock on extra strength aspirin.
You might be wondering about the events that led up to this little fiasco. Eventually, I get a fairly coherent story from Jack.
He arrives back at the villa after our long weekend and finds the team arguing with Daniel about Karin and Rossi’s bar fight. He calms them down and instructs them to separate into two teams with Claire and Daniel on one and Rossi and Karin on the other. They are to start at opposite ends of the route taken by the Nazi convoy from which the Cezanne and other goodies were ‘lost’.
While Karin and Rossi discover the wonders of Alpine pubs, Claire and Daniel manage to find an old man who walks with a Nazi symbol adorned cane. After many meals, Claire gets the man to tell her his story. His son interrupts Daniel’s tale of Big Foot sightings in the Alps and translates for Daniel. Apparently, the old man was on a team of Italians who got the convoy from the Nazis, but he claims that the missing items were already gone by that time, as one of the trucks was empty. The old man even gets some of his wartime cronies together the next day for yet another meal so they can all share their stories. By the time they part company with the old men, Claire and Daniel are in possession of some clues and five extra pounds each. Between the information they received from the veterans and the research that she and Daniel have been doing, the pair realizes that they have to go back to the ruins. They believe that the items were taken to a bank that wasn’t really a bank, but more of a depository for valuables or something. They head back.
Meanwhile, Rossi and Karin are making their way north. They spott some members of the French racing team and followed them. The French lead them to a village where Karin spots Claire’s car. Since they have now reached the same point as Daniel and Claire, they feel it is okay to return to the villa and follow the French south when they leave. Rossi is driving Karin’s VW because Jack forbid her to drink and drive.
The French are speeding up to lead Rossi on a merry chase. Rossi speeds up, but is rapidly losing them. Karin asks him what kind of a driver he thinks he is. He speeds up. The car is sliding all over the road, but Rossi keeps reassuring Karin that he has driver’s training, so it’s okay. And it is, … the first two or three times. Then he hits something, the car skids off the road and flips. The two manage to get out of the car before it blows up. Karin is staring at her poor little car, the only one she’s ever owned, in shock. No cursing, no garbled English … she must really be pissed! Rossi tries to throw her over her shoulder and she tries to beat him. The sound of approaching sirens send Rossi, the driver who is not allowed to be seen driving this route prior to the road rally, and Karin, the more than slightly I-tried-a-beer-at-every-roadside-pub-we-passed tipsy car owner, running. They both received substantial injuries during Rossi’s demonstration of his driving skills and go for bandages and beer, not necessarily in that order, before finding a motel for the night.
You might be thinking poor Jack, alone at the villa with nothing to do, right? WRONG! Fear not, he is not alone, Black is with him. Ben convinces Jack to make a short trip to Monte Carlo.
Shortly after their return to the villa, Jack hears a knock at the door. It’s the police. He invites them in. They start asking him about Karin Volker and mention that her car exploded, but she was not found.
Jack calls Karin. He asks her to tell him the story. Careful what you wish for, Jack! "Okay, ve ist driving und driving und drinking good bier und dann driving some more. Ve find Claire’s car so ve follow ze French back. But ze French ist going avay, so Rossi drives faster again und hits somezing. Zen ze car goes inside out, no … upside down und around … und around … und around like a curly, no virly ride – I hate zose tings – und zen stops. I beat Rossi. Ve smell smoke und run, no … ve limp away. Ze car goes kaboom. I beat Rossi. Ve run for bier und bandages, because ve ist hurt. Och, zat looks bat." At some point, Jack realizes her narrative has stopped. Attempting to contain his frustration, he tells her to get back to the villa. She promises they will be back tomorrow.
The next day, Rossi steals a car and he and Karin drive back, but not until Karin has wrested a promise from Rossi that he will give her the Porsche that (Up)Chuck gave to him in New York to replace her demolished car.
Finally, the team is reassembled at the villa. Daniel and Claire are sharing the old man’s war stories, Rossi and Karin are displaying their wounds to the delight of the team, and Black is regaling the group with tales of his big winnings in Monte Carlo. Jack decides to call me.
That brings us to the phone call. Jack is pissed off that Black keeps mentioning the whole gambling thing that I overhear. Since nobody will shut up, he takes out his gun and shoots around the room, taking out the junction box, the power in the neighborhood and a ceiling fan (and I don’t care if the fan had blades, Jack, that does not count as an armed kill). Daniel is screaming and running, Black is leading the way out to his camper and Claire, deciding that the fact that Jack wasn’t shooting at them spelled doom for their safety, leaves with the boys. Karin is horrified at the beer that has spilled from broken bottles and is quickly trying to slurp it all up from the table.
Well, that clears it all up, doesn’t it?
Black phones Karin to tell her that they are out in his trailer and they have beer. She hurries out.
I finally pull into the villa driveway, just in time to see the lights go out in Black’s trailer. I shout at them, "Yeah, like I don’t know you’re in there" and go bang on the villa door. "Come in Sheila."
Jack is working on fixing the destroyed wiring and I ask when he got a perm.
We may have had a small tiff. I ask if he’ll swear that he didn’t put up any of his money in the hopes of winning someone else’s money. He says he didn’t, but my Jack Bullshit meter is pinned.
Jack tells me he doesn’t know how I do this – meaning the whole operative thing. "Nerves of steel," I tell him as I pop another Valium.
(Truthfully, the way to control this team for a few hours would be to break something on the car and assign Rossi to fix it; give Claire all of your scribbled on cocktail napkins notes and have her organize them and alphabetize by fact; tell Daniel that you detected some ectoplasmic activity in the attic and then lock the door behind him; give Karin several cases of beer and demand an in depth analysis of their texture, taste and inebriation factor – shit she’d spend a couple of hours just figuring out what she was supposed to do; and instruct Black to map out all possible motorcycle routes in and out of the area, but I won’t share that secret with Jack.)
Outside in the trailer, Black has hooked up a parabolic mike so they can listen to our argument. As always, we tire of fighting, and since poor Jack looks as if he is genuinely on the verge of breakdown, I give him some aspirin and a back rub.
The next day, I come up with a wonderful new recipe – San Remo sausage and eggs. Out of the corner of my eye I see someone, who must be this Daniel person, running up the stairs. I am insulted. The aroma of my new culinary creation is permeating the air and he didn’t even stop to check it out!
Never one to forgo the opportunity to try out a recipe on someone new, I head upstairs with a plate for him. He is in the shower, so I go in. I pull the curtain aside and tell him to try the food. He is shrieking and looking for a towel. I give him a hand towel and he drapes it over his … thingie. He takes the plate from me and stands there. I tell him, "try the food, it’s a new recipe and by the way, you’re not allergic to hemlock, are you?"
Not wishing to move his towel holding hand, he starts slurping the food off the plate. Men are such pigs. But, I think he likes the food. I may add it to the brunch menu.
Just then, Jack bursts in and asks what is going on. I yell, "oh no, you caught us!" Daniel is freaking out. He even drops the plate. How dare he drop my food on the floor! Claire had apparently relieved Jack of all possible weapons before he came up, so I tell Daniel it’s okay – Jack isn’t armed, but I am. Daniel does not seem at all relieved and starts yelling, "help, police!" Which would have been really comical, had the police not been inside the villa at the very moment. Inspector Clusine and le Couer, who followed me here, are downstairs telling Claire they are looking for us, and judging by the screams, they have a pretty good idea where we are.
Jack spends the next hour convincing them that any of his dirty work will take place in Italy and will, therefore, not be their problem. They finally leave.
The rest of the team prepares to return to the ruins. Karin has remembered seeing a destroyed building in the village with the word Banco engraved on it.
The team eats dinner at one of the restaurants in the semi-populated area of the ruin site and notices the owner of the German race team and a woman there. Since the Germans seem to be waiting for them, they split up. The Germans follow Rossi, so he leads them on a merry chase. Daniel has made his way back to Rudolfo’s place and spots a woman named Eve. She gets Rudolfo for him.
Claire and Karin, who have lost their way, somehow stumble onto Daniel’s location and Black arrives shortly after.
Daniel tells Rudolfo that his friends have come to help him in his search for the supernatural in order to atone for the evil trick they tried to play on him earlier. A voice from the corner states that that is not why they are here.
Daniel, who is relieved to see that Eve and Rudolfo’s images are reflected in the face of his watch, is desperately turning his wrist in an attempt to catch the newcomer’s reflection.
The man introduces himself as Arturo and asks Eve to light some candles, which she manages to do without use of a lighter or match. Daniel is trying to tell Arturo that he (Daniel) will be more respectful of Arturo’s privacy than will anyone else who comes looking for the same thing that he is. Arturo feels that Daniel is trying to threaten him, so Karin uses her I-grew-up-in-a-suspicious-society experience to reassure Arturo.
Rossi, having lost his tail, arrives and Arturo tries to imitate the not quite so scary cabbage patch dance that Rossi performed in his ghostly appearance. I hear it wasn’t pretty.
Arturo seems to speak many languages fluently and easily switches back and forth with no hesitation.
Anyway, despite Daniel’s new wrist affliction, Arturo tells them where the banco is and takes them there. Upon looking at the ruined building, most of the team quickly realizes that this particular building was not destroyed by an earthquake, rather it was blown up, but they keep quiet.
Daniel is poking Karin, twisting his wrist and asking her to look. She tells him it is 9:05, but she believes that his watch is off by one minute and fourteen seconds.
A frustrated Daniel tells Karin that he has something in his eye and asks for a mirror. She gives him one. As he is attempting to look for a reflection, Rossi and Claire notice Arturo subtly wave his hand just before the mirror falls from Daniel’s hand. He attempts to retrieve one of the shards, but with another wave of Arturo’s hand, cuts his finger.
Daniel, who apparently never travels without his anti-vampire/demon/werewolf kit, removes holy water from his pocket to pour on his wound. Claire sees Arturo reach into his pocket and sprinkle some powder on the ground. All of a sudden, a bunch of rats emerge from the ruined bank. Claire and Karin um, express their displeasure at the appearance of the rats and the team decides it’s time to leave. As they reach the edge of the ruins, Claire realizes that Arturo is gone, although his voice can be heard bidding them a good night.
When the team is alone, Daniel tells the team that Arturo is a vampire. Karin, who finds Arturo more than just a little alluring, tells him that is ridiculous. Claire is insisting that Arturo simply disappeared. Black is busy explaining to Claire how Eve lit the candle without a match. Rossi is trying to impress the group with his losing a tail prowess.
I don’t know, there may be hope for this mission yet. After all, Jack’s resources include most of my bridal party – Black, who is determined to lead Jack down the path of total self-destruction in the gambling halls of Monte Carlo; Rossi, who will now have to explain to (Up)Chuck why he is giving the Porsche away; Claire, who probably has an exact accounting of how much damage Jack did to the villa during his shooting spree somewhere in her portable files; Karin, who is bereft at the loss of her beloved Beetle; - and Daniel, who may be in need of some nerve calming medication at the end of this.
I smile, sip on a martiki and think about how nice it is that I am not in charge.