The Search for Yaser Abdel Said (part 11)
Submitted by Denis Schulz on Thu, 06/11/2009 - 07:51
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“Well, if that doesn’t beat all!” said the Professor. He shook his head, finished reading the article, shook his head again, folded the newspaper carefully, laid it on the bar and took up his beer. “I don’t believe it!” he said.
“What’s that?” said Joe, owner of Joe’s Bar and Grille and Gun Club.
“Piffy,” said the Professor.
“What about Piffy?” Joe asked. “Did Cowsnofsky and Henrietta forget to pick him up at the airport this morning?”
The Professor snorted. “Fat chance of that!” he said. “Piffy’s been arrested for breaking into the Archbishop of Canterbury’s office at Lambeth Palace.”
“Our Piffy?” said Joe. “Are you sure?”
“Is there any other?” said the Professor.
Piffy was Bernard Piffy, the private detective the boys at Joe’s Bar and Grille and Gun Club had hired to track down the notorious Yaser Abdel Said, the Dallas cabdriver who had murdered his two daughters, Sarah and Amina Said, in a fit of Islamic Rage. Piffy was not what one would consider a hard-boiled private eye. He was nowhere near Mike Hammer. He was more like Junior Tracy with muscles. He was better than Inspector Clouseau. Not as good as Nick and Nora Charles. He was more like Bulldog Drummond. He was dogged, determined, persistent, relentless and pertinacious. He was like the son Charlie Chan didn’t talk about. And he had a sense of humor. Picture Spanky and Alfalfa making believe they were Abbott and Costello meeting the Frankenstein monster and one had Bernard Piffy.But Piffy could make waves—he could make waves standing in an empty bathtub. He had insulted the notorious Riyadh ul-Haq; he had been chased through the streets and back alleys of London by assorted thugs, jinns and assassins; he had spent all the money the boys at the bar had been able to scrape together and he wasn’t a bit closer to finding Yaser Abdel Said than the day he started. Now, out of sorts and out of money, he had given up, thrown in the towel; he had called it quits and was supposedly on his way back to the States. Cowsnofsky and Henrietta had gone to the airport to pick him up.
There was a sudden clamor at the door. It was Cowsnofksy. He was furious. He stormed angrily into the bar, plopped down on his favorite stool. “He didn’t show! The son of a gun didn’t show!” he exclaimed. “He wasn’t on the plane. Hank said to wait for the next flight. But he wasn’t on that one either! Can you beat that? I was in that airport six hours sitting alongside a transvestite—a transvestite, your nephew, Joe—and he was wearing a tight skirt! Everybody in the airport was staring at me! Wait till I get my hands on that guy!”
“Henrietta?” said the Professor.
“No, not Henrietta!” thundered Cowsnofsky. “I mean Piffy!”
“If you want Piffy, you’ll have to go to England,” said Joe. “He’s still there. He’s in jail. He was arrested for breaking into the Archbishop of Cantilever’s office in Lambeth.”
“You’re kidding,” said Cowsnofsky.
They were silent for a moment. The Professor looked up and down the bar. “Well,” he said slowly, “I guess we’ll have to bail him out.”
“Oh, no!” said Joe. “That means me!”
Piffy was furious. He paced back and forth across the tiny cell—five steps in one direction; five steps in the other. He would have climbed the walls if he could. He had been left holding the bag! He could scarcely contain his rage. Algernon A. Algernon had got away scot-free, and with a stack of the Archbishop’s private papers if the story he was hearing was true, and here he was, the one and only Bernard Piffy, the pride and joy of Mayberry, locked in a bleeping jail cell under a suicide watch! A suicide watch! Who did they think he was? Michael Jackson? He hadn’t meant it when he had said he would kill himself before he would put on one of them ugly orange prison jump suits. Sure, he had tripped and tore the crotch out of one of the dang things but they didn’t have to put him under a suicide watch!
He should have got on that plane; he shouldn’t have listened to Inspector Clouseau; he shouldn’t have listened to Algernon A. Algernon; he shouldn’t have listened to Asma bint Marwan; he shouldn’t have listened to anybody!
The voice startled him. “They will see you now,” it said.
It was about time! He stopped pacing, the door opened and two screws entered the cell.
Screws! Sixteen hours in the slammer and he was already talking like Jimmy Cagney!
They escorted him to an elevator. They went down six floors to what looked like the bomb shelter beneath Herr Adolph’s Fuhrerbunker and there at the end of a dimly lit corridor they deposited him in what one of them laughingly referred to as “M’s office.” They closed the door behind him and he was alone in a room that was so suffused with mellow yellows and priapic delights it might have been Matt Helm's boudoir. Then he noticed a shriveled-up old man sitting behind a desk. He blinked.
“Bond,” said the man, “James Bond.”
Piffy was stunned. “You’re James Bond?” he whispered hoarsely.
“You were expecting Sean Connery?” said the old man.
“No, but…gosh, what happened to you? You’re…you’re so old and shriveled. Mike Hammer could break you in two with his little finger.”
“It was the babes,” croaked Bond. “I couldn’t keep up. I could handle the Goldfingers and the Dr. Nos, but the babes—they got the better of me.” He sighed. “If Her Majesty should be so kind, I hope to attend a refresher course for Double Naught Spies at the Playboy Mansion this fall.”
“Really?” said Piffy. “The Playboy Mansion?” He couldn’t get over it—this little old man, this shriveled-up Peewee Herman, this dried-up remnant of Pa Kettle was the legendary James Bond! If Jethro Bodine could see this pathetic Andy Warhol caricature of the great 007 it would break his heart! A fry cook had more appeal.
“What do you know about Inspector Clouseau and the fleas?” asked Bond.
“What am I supposed to know?” said a wary Piffy.
“You look like a man I can trust,” said Bond.
“I should say so,” said Piffy. “Twenty-five years with Sheriff Andy Taylor and six months with the JBGGC, one of the top private security agencies in the United States, you bet.” The JBGGC stood for the boys at Joe’s Bar and Grille and Gun Club.
Bond was not deceived. “I’ve been informed about the boys at the bar,” he said. “Now sit down and I will clue you in.”
Piffy sat down. There were a lot of things he didn’t know and he was anxious to be clued in. And clued in he was.
First, there was Inspector Clouseau. The Keepers of the Fleas had kidnapped Clouseau more than a decade ago! Yes, the Keepers of the Fleas! They had kept Clouseau in an altered state most of that time. They would send him out on missions when it was too risky to use one of their own operatives. They had used him to keep an eye on Piffy. Then Clouseau had escaped and had told Piffy about the fleas. Most of this didn’t make much sense to Piffy and he said so.
“What would you say if I told you somebody stole the fleas from the Keepers and the Keepers want them back?” asked Bond.
There wasn’t much Piffy could say to that. They talked for another half-our, Bond wheezing and gulping air from an oxygen tank. If you’re going to have sex under water he told Piffy, do it in a diving bell. And stay away from sexual escapades in outer space.
When 007 had finished, he looked the man from JBGGC over carefully. No one would mistake Piffy for Napoleon Solo. Bond shook his head sadly. Piffy would have to do. “There’s a man waiting for you in the Annex,” he said. He tapped a button on a remote control and a section of wall slid open.
This was more like it thought Piffy. He stepped into a small room and there—believe it or not—was Algernon A. Algernon!
“You!” growled Piffy. He lurched forward, fists clenched, nostrils flaring—for a fraction of a second he was the Frankenstein monster, no, no, it was worse than that, he was Mike Hammer with a mad on!
“Take it easy!” said Algernon. “I’ve arranged for your release. You’re a free man. Besides, you brought this on yourself, you know. Didn’t I tell you not to push forward against that wall?’ He paused; he had something in his hand. “Look, “ he said. “I’ve brought you a sandwich. I was told you like ham.”
Piffy stopped. The mad was over. How could anyone stay mad at this weird crazy little guy? It couldn’t be done. He sniffed. Was that really ham? It sure as hang was! After sixteen hours of eating prison slops he was as hungry as a Tasmanian devil loose in a rabbit preserve. He took the sandwich from Algernon. It reeked of ham and mustard.
“You’re free to go,” said Algernon.
“Go where?” said Piffy.
Algernon gestured toward a door on the far side of the room. “You can go there,” he said. “It leads to the prison library—or you can go with me.”
”Where are you going?” Piffy asked.“I’m delivering a load of Viagra to Bond,” said the imp.
“I think I’ll take the library,” said Piffy.
“Suit yourself,” said Algernon.
Piffy took a bite from his sandwich, crossed the room, opened the door, went down a short corridor and stepped into the prison library. Wow! What a change!
A one-eyed 'Asian' wearing a skullcap and with a hook for a right hand, was haranguing a group of ‘Asians’ in front of a book display. He appeared angry and was gesticulating with his hook as if surrounded by drooling crocodiles.
“She likes John Travolta,” he was saying.
John Travolta? Did he say John Travolta? Piffy stopped. He wanted to hear this.
“John Travolta,” said the one-eyed ‘Asian.’ “Who is dancing and moving his stomach as quick as the—as I don’t know what—and she likes that…We teach our wives through television how to answer back—is that clever…Kaffir blood is halal (permitted), it means he can be killed…his money can be taken unless he accepts shahada (witness)…
This was more than interesting. Piffy edged closer. He wanted to hear what this rascal would say next. He took a bite of his sandwich—and down he went! He must have tripped on a robe or a shoe or something. He fell flat on his face, the sandwich and its contents splattering across the one-eyed man. There was a stunned silence.
“Was that…was that…ham?” croaked one-eye.
“Yes…it was ham!” croaked the rascal standing next to one-eye. He was staring in horror at a yellow splotch that had appeared suddenly and mysteriously on his robe. Someone had to grab him to keep him from falling.
“Blasphemy! Blasphemy!” roared a man in a turban.
Another ‘Asian’ pointed at Piffy. “It was him!” he cried. “Get him! Get him!’
Somebody grabbed Piffy from behind and before he knew it he had been dragged back through the short corridor and into the Annex. The door was quickly slammed shut and bolted. By now Piffy’s heart was in his throat!
“I can’t leave you alone for a minute!” grumbled Algernon A. Algernon.
“What in the Sam Hill is this all about?” asked a trembling Piffy.
“I think,” said Algernon, “Abu Hamza has just laid a fatwa on you!”
(to be continued)
