Well, I’m back in my neat and orderly apartment. Things are good here. I have finally finished kissing my boss’s ass and justifying my trip to the United States in search of remote Indian reservation artifacts. I’ve nursed my plants back to health and started a bonfire (not in my apartment) to destroy all of (Up)Chuck’s gay detective admirer’s love letters.
Jack called and told me that he adopted a new furry friend (courtesy of Bob Diamond), Checkers too. Well that was my idea for a name. I dropped a note to Inspector Clusine saying ‘hey’ from Jack and me.
Anyway, I decided it was time to get my papers in order, namely paying those two @#%$@ tickets I got from Sheriff Fat Boy in upstate New York (no sense in ruining a perfectly good new ID), so I tape them back together and call ISIS, the agency, not the goddess, in New York. The idiot on the switchboard tells me that he thought I was in New York. I tell him no, I am in Paris, that’s why I sound so far away. He connects me to accounting. The idiot behind the adding machine tells me that she thought I was in New York. I tell her no, I am in Paris, that’s why I sound so far away.
Now what on Earth would make them think that I was in New York? I finally come across a mission report written by one James Antos and self and suddenly it becomes clear…
Never one to forgo the opportunity to laugh at the mission misfortunes of another team, I find out more.
It seems that mistress thief Emma Rose is in New York to um, assist in an acquisition. Helping her initially are (Nun)Chuck, the Toilet Terminator and John I’ll-steal-any-car-that-looks-at-me-funny-now-that-I’ve-come-out-of-my-catatonic-state Rossi.
The targets are some Faberge Eggs (which mysteriously went missing after a certain debacle at the Versailles) and some computer tapes in a safe deposit box in Chinatown, belonging to Chinese Triad boss, Li-Chiou Chen. Emma poses as (Nun)Chuck’s assistant (now that is something I would like to see) and they manage to change the registration card for the box they rent to the number of the target box.
Since the team is unsure of intentions of one Mr. Killian (the client), Rossi is following Killian’s girlfriend, a model for Flash who bears a striking resemblance to a younger Emma, at Emma’s request. Hmmmm…
(Nun)Chuck rents an office in the same building as the bank to ostensibly perform acupuncture.
Flash, Antos and Emma go to dinner. Rossi meets them for dessert. Who does Ms. Rose espy, but Kelly Duffy, whose confiscation philosophy extends to if you can’t deactivate the alarm/door/window, break it. She and Ms. Rose, who perfected the Thieves’ Plan B - wait until the other guy steals it, hit him over the head and take the booty – during a botched robbery attempt in Chicago, greet each other and Emma convinces Kelly to stay and assist in the mission.
Rossi and Kelly go to (Nun)Chuck’s newly rented office so they can break into the bank and get a copy of the target safe deposit box key. (Nun)Chuck stays in his office to watch the activity on the street.
Kelly and Rossi, armed with a police radio and various tools, get into the elevator. They use their fire department key to stop the elevator at the top of the opening on the bank’s basement floor. Rossi has trouble with the doors, so Kelly opens them. After opening the doors slightly, Rossi rigs the sensors to stop the alarm from sounding. Kelly jumps out and gets a stool so she can hold them while Rossi gets out.
They argue over what they should do first. Kelly, slightly paranoid about leaving video tapes of her criminal endeavors laying around ever since Diamond got hold of some and ‘blackmailed’ her into helping him topple the Brazilian economy, even though she netted some $26 million from that scheme, wants to go remove the surveillance tapes first. They head to the security office. Kelly has trouble opening one of the doors, so Rossi helps her with it. Once in the office, they hear on the radio that an alarm has been tripped. They find sixteen tapes, so Kelly starts looking for a bag, while Rossi goes to make a mold of the key.
Finally, Kelly finds a bag and loads the tapes in it.
She makes it back to find Rossi looking at the board of keys in dismay. The clueless pair eventually locate the key, but Rossi’s police radio indicates that the police have received a report of a second tripped alarm. Rossi greedily looks at the remaining keys, but hears Emma’s voice telling him that a good thief is cautious, not greedy, so he doesn’t touch any of the other keys.
Meanwhile, up in his office, (Nun)Chuck sees some disreputable Chinese gangster types watching the outside of the building. He calls Rossi’s phone, which won’t receive in the basement and leaves a message that there are gangsters outside. Then he calls 911 to report a stabbing at that location.
Rossi hears the report of a stabbing outside the building on the police radio.
Rossi and Kelly run back to the elevator. After losing a tool or two down the elevator shaft (FORUTNatEly, Rossi didn’t fall down the shaft only to become impaled on some debris), they finally manage to get back into the elevator. Rossi checks his messages only to learn that there are Chinese gangsters right outside this building. The two quickly put two and two together (coming up with a faulty answer of five) and think that (Nun)Chuck has been stabbed outside by the gangsters. They rush up to his office, only to find him there. While Kelly watches the police activity through the window, (Nun)Chuck tries to convince Rossi to submit to acupuncture.
When the street clears, the team leaves the building. (Nun)Chuck is going to take the mold of the key to the ISIS, the agency not the goddess, office and Rossi and Kelly are going to dispose of the surveillance videos. As they part, (Nun)Chuck looks back and sees the writing on the wall – actually it was on the bag that Kelly was carrying – and it contained the name East Asia Banc in bold letters. He runs back to tell them to turn the bag around.
Wait, I have to stop laughing…
The team decides not to attempt to empty the safe deposit box the next day, instead opting to go on Saturday. Rossi has a dinner date with Killian’s girlfriend. Emma sets him up with a car and driver and reservations at Diamond’s exclusive Bertani’s restaurant. The gold-digging girlfriend of Killian is suitably impressed, however, his attempts to get her to talk about Killian and the bank safe deposit box fail miserably. There is a moment of concern among the team when the Toilet Terminator goes to meet Rossi in the men’s room, but he is only going to offer relationship advice to Rossi…
Lordie, I can't take anymore. As soon as I clear my teary (from laughing) eyes, I will continue...
Okay, so Rossi takes the chickie to some popular night spot and Emma and Kelly follow. After a fairly uneventful night of dancing (with the exception of Rossi’s solo cabbage patch dance, which caused quite a stir), Emma returns to Flash’s place and Kelly goes to Rossi’s Holiday Inn hotel room. Rossi goes home with his date.
In the morning, Rossi sneaks out of his date’s room and returns to his hotel. Kelly is sleeping, so he sneaks into the bathroom to shower. She awakens and, after realizing that it is Rossi in the bathroom, is not too pleased that he didn’t wake her to tell her he was back. She remains in the bathroom to tell him so. Wow, that makes two women who have seen Rossi naked in a twenty-four hour period, and neither of them was a relative or medical professional!
The team meets and goes to the bank to conclude their operation. (Nun)Chuck and his assistant, Gabrielle Christy (that’s Emma) enter the bank while Kelly watches outside. Emma told Rossi to get a car, so he runs off to steal one.
Inside the bank, (Nun)Chuck and Emma’ plans are almost foiled by an attentive bank supervisor who recognizes the number of the safe deposit bank as belonging to a preferred customer. After allowing (Nun)Chuck access to the right (or wrong, depending on how you look at it) box, he goes to ‘clear up the error.’ Poor Ms. Christy is apologizing for getting the number wrong, while (Nun)Chuck is breaking into the right (or is it wrong?) box. Anyway, he returns and yells in Koretnamese ((Nun)Chuck’s equivalent of Spanglish) at the hapless Ms. Christy, while the supervisor bows (literally) out of the room.
Outside, Kelly has spotted the Chinese gangsters that (Nun)Chuck described to her. She leaves a message on Emma’s cell phone and continues to watch. Rossi has managed to find a suitable car and is hot-wiring it.
As Emma and (Nun)Chuck enter the bank lobby, Emma checks her messages. She uses spy-speak and the movie listings to alert (Nun)Chuck to the presence of the bad guys outside.
(Nun)Chuck tries to hide his head as he leaves the bank, but the bad guys know where to look for it (his head) and see him. Rossi pulls up in his stolen car and (Nun)Chuck jumps in, empties the safe deposit contents from his bag and leaves out the other door. Emma gets in, pushes the eggs, the computer disks and the money that (Nun)Chuck retrieved from the safe deposit box, into the crack of the back seat and Rossi drives away.
(Nun)Chuck heads down in the opposite direction. The bad guys throw a shuriken into the tire of Rossi’s car and follow (Nun)Chuck. Kelly walks in the direction that Rossi went.
(Nun)Chuck leads his tails into the subway station. Rossi crosses an intersection and pulls over on the opposite side of the road. A Chinese man approaches and offers to help them change the tire. Rossi, pretending to speak only Italian, yells and heads to the trunk. Emma tells the Good Samaritan he can try to help, but Rossi speaks only really bad Italian.
The Chinese man proceeds to hit Rossi with the trunk lid and Emma with the car door, a la Jackie Chan. Kelly, seeing what has happened, tries to cross the street and succeeds in causing several accidents, one of which sends a car through the font window of the bank, killing the supervisor and a teller, the other of which causes a car to smash into Rossi’s stolen car. Rossi falls into the trunk and the lid closes, and Emma falls to the ground. The bad guy is heading towards the driver’s seat. Kelly, suddenly angry that he may be attempting some sort of reverse double twisting version of Emma and her Thieves’ Plan B on them, shoots him. He continues to the car. She shoots him again. He is diving into the car. She shoots him again.
The incredibly wounded bad guy falls into the car. From somewhere nearby, Kelly sees a cop with big ears. He yells at her to stop. She carjacks a GEO Metro and squeezes into the driver’s seat, just as the wounded bad guy starts shooting at her.
The dismayed police officer shoots the bad guy. Kelly drives away. Emma picks herself up off the ground. Rossi bangs on the trunk. Nobody uses the shuriken handily located in the tire to pick the lock an release him.
Hah hah, um, yes where were we…
Down on the subway platform, people come running in from the street. (Nun)Chuck heads back up to see what the commotion is. The bad guys disappear.
The police surround the car and Emma tells them that the Chinese guy had a flat, she and Rossi tried to help, he started attacking them and then a car crashed into them. Oh yeah, and some crazy lady was running across the street shooting at the Chinese guy.
Sounds kind of like a Sheila report, doesn’t it?
The crazy lady puts the car in a parking garage.
Antos shows up and starts confusing the cop with the ill-fitting hat’s description of the crazy lady, turning her from a 5’7" brunette into an Amazon body builder.
Emma spends the afternoon giving her statement to the police.
Rossi spends the afternoon in the ER.
Kelly, having built up a big appetite, goes out for a lovely dinner, a la Paris.
(Nun)Chuck, after several failed attempts at outwitting New York’s finest with drugged coffee and surreptitious movement, watches the car while waiting for nightfall so he can recover the safe deposit items that Emma pushed into the seat cushions from the car.
Antos shows up and tells (Nun)Chuck to wait in his car. In the wee hours of the morning, he takes (Nun)Chuck up to the car and tells the cop guarding it that they have to check the back seat. (Nun)Chuck recovers the items and takes them to ISIS, the agency not the goddess, headquarters.
Flash takes Emma back to his place, and Rossi returns to the Holiday Inn.
After her lovely dinner, Kelly calls Emma and then joins her at Flash’s studio. Emma calls the medicated Rossi and tells him to take a cab to the studio. After he asks where he should leave the taxi, she explains that he should hire one, not steal it.
The next day, the team goes to ISIS headquarters to look at the tapes. They contain all sorts of accounting information that would be incriminating to Li-Chiou Chen
. They decide to let Himself decide what to do with the copies of the tapes and Emma calls the client to tell him they have his merchandise.Killian asks them to deliver it. Paranoia sets in on the team. (Up)Chuck and another driver take Emma, Rossi and Kelly to Killian’s luxurious and very well furnished apartment. It is apparent that Mr. Killian has no intention of donating the eggs to a museum as he professed. His interest was purely in the tapes. Killian thanks them and gives each of them a $5,000 tip for their efforts. Somewhat startled at the relative ease of the delivery and anti-climactic finish to the mission, the team heads home.
Yeah, they may have succeeded in the end, but I am feeling somewhat justified that my teams aren’t the only ones that have those silly little mishaps that result in such merriment among management.
I sigh, smile and snuggle into my bonnie prince Charlie slippers and turn on the late, late movie.