The Search for Yaser Abdel Said (part 23)

Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF versionPiffy offered no resistance and the patrol officers hustled him back to his cell—it was time for another conference with Deputy Chief Constable Stumble and it wasn’t long in coming. He sat there on the edge of his cot, a tired old man, as Stumble paced back and forth in front of him. Neither said a word. At last Stumble sighed, shifted his no-tobacco pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other, checked the cell door for the third time—Harry Houdini couldn’t have got out of this room without help, not Harry Houdini. He studied the old man. “Just how did you get out of here?” he asked. “The door was unlocked,” said Piffy. Stumble resumed his pacing—but only for a moment. He stopped, appeared puzzled, sniffed. “Is it my imagination or do I smell a dog in here?” “A dog?” aid Piffy. “What would a dog be doing in here?” Yes, what would a dog have been doing in there? It would have been against regulations. Stumble sighed again. “There’s something strange about you, Piffy,” he said. “I’m going to have the prison psychiatrist come around tomorrow for a talk…you’ll be at home, won’t you?” “If I’m not dead,” said Piffy. “That’s what I like about you—“ said Stumble, ‘your positive attitude.” He tried the door again—no, not Harry Houdini. He called to a guard to let him out. Stumble had scarcely disappeared down the corridor when the chocolate terrier came bounding out from under the cot and onto Piffy’s lap. It was a frisky little mutt—as playful as all get-out and not much more than a handful—but the extra set of teeth worried Piffy. He tossed a chicken bone into a corner for the puppy dog to fetch and the bone came back shredded as if somebody had run it through a meat grinder. Nothing seemed to last in its mouth and it never slavered. Strange! When the screws (prison guards a-la 1930s) came around with supper, the puppy dog hid under the cot. When they left Piffy shared his meal with his new cellmate. Then he stretched out on the cot to catch a few winks. But as exhausted as he was sleep would not come. He couldn’t stop thinking about Aisha. Whatever had happened to her had been his fault. He had heard her cry out in pain and then that falling sound and Said or Ahmad’s ugly voice. She was only ten-years-old and he was eighty but in those few hours he had known her as the ten-year-old version of Bernard Piffy sparks had flown. One of them had lit a fire in his heart. He had to do something for her—but what? He could have told Stumble but what good would he have accomplished by that? British officials dared not meddle in Muslim affairs. Eventually he fell asleep and that was when he found out why St. Anthony had told him to smear his toes with Transylvania garlic before he went nighty-night. It had been something about soothing the savage beast—right? He awoke with a start. The puppy dog had already chewed through the toe of his left shoe and had hit flesh! It was a piranha attacking a goldfish! Piffy yelped! He sat up and grabbed for the garlic! Good grief! The mutt would chew his foot off at the ankle if he didn’t do something in a hurry! He got the vial open and the effects of the garlic on the puppy dog were immediate and gratifying. The mutt was instantaneously calmed! Piffy let out his breath and went to smearing his feet with the Transylvania garlic, adding a touch behind each ear—he was taking no chances. By the time he was finished with his ablutions puppy dog was curled on the floor around his feet like a kitten sleeping off a three-day tuna fest. Nonetheless, Piffy spent the rest of the night with one eye open. Morning came and he shared his breakfast with his ‘pet.’ He had St. Anthony to thank for this. Next time he would pray to St. Francis of Assisi or to St. Benny of Anaheim. He spent most of the morning worrying about Aisha and cursing Asma bint Marwan—St. Anthony was, after all, still a very minor irritant. And Piffy’s thoughts were not happy ones. He was doomed to die in this rat hole because of what bint Marwan had done to him and St. Anthony’s puppy dog would devour his mortal remains. No one would ever know what had happened to him. He would have cried if he could. He was a total one hundred percent wreck. His head ached, there was a pain in his side; a boilermaker had left a red-hot rivet in his left hip and the only reason he wasn’t worried about the little finger on his right hand was that it hadn’t turned black—yet. Sometime around ten o’clock a screw stopped in front of his cage. “Bernard Piffy?” he said. “Conjugal visit. A Pernicia Piffy awaits you.” “How can you be so cruel?” said Piffy. “Conjugal visits aren’t allowed in England.” “You have a special permit because of your…ah…because of your health,” said the screw. “What about my health?” demanded Piffy. “Ah…they don’t expect you to…ah, live much beyond the end of the week,” said the screw. “Oh, my God!” exclaimed Piffy. “I’m going to die!” He started to cry. The screw grimaced. He turned away. “Sorry,” he said. “Follow me.” The door opened. Piffy scooped up the chocolate terrier and stuffed it in his pocket. It might come in handy in the jailbreak he was planning. It didn’t take up much room as long as he wouldn’t have to sit down. The garlic went into a back pocket. The screw led Piffy to room 69 in the prison annex. It was Asma bint Marwan. He had known that right from the start. Leave it to bint Marwan to choose a name like Pernicia Piffy. He was hoping it would be the luscious mini-skirted version in the peasant blouse and the glowing bra, not the old hag in the bulky nikab with the shopping bag, the wart on her nose and the steely eyes. Unfortunately, it was the latter, minus the shopping bag. As soon as the officer left the room, bint Marwan removed her headscarf. She was very angry. “I’ve got half a notion to leave you just like you are for the rest of your life,” she said. “Where’s your shopping bag?” he asked. The shopping bag was essential to his escape plans. Without it he wouldn’t be going anywhere. It was the old hag’s time machine, the way she got about from one end of the universe to the other, her hole in the wall to the netherworld. It could take them to where the woodbine twineth or to the innermost recesses of hell. All the spooks, jinns and goblins had their time warps to and from the twilight zone. With the mini-skirted bin Marwan it was the glowing all-purpose bra; with the precocious preteen version it had been a halo; Ka'b used a perpetually shifting doorway. But the old hag was not cooperating. “We haven’t got much time,” she said. “We’ve got to change you back into what you were…you know the routine. This time you will have to count backward—from ten to one instead of from one to ten. Think you can manage that? And you must start immediately or you could end up in your mother’s womb…Do I make myself clear?” It was all too clear as far as Piffy was concerned. “Is there any other way we can do this?” he asked. He didn’t want to put his hand on the old hag’s boob. For once the hag smiled. She saw right through Piffy. “Make believe you’re putting your hand in the ‘other’ bint Marwan’s ‘magic carpet,” she said. “It has worked before.” Piffy reached inside the old hag’s nikab for the younger bint Marwan’s ‘magic carpet.’ He closed his eyes and began to count. “Ten…nine…eight…” There came an incredible surge of energy. It shot through Piffy like a bolt of lightning! It raised him up on his toes! His eyes rolled up in his head and every hair on his body stood straight up. He couldn’t be sure but he thought his toenails were smoking and the little finger on his right hand imploded. It was not a pleasant experience but when it was over he was once again the Bernard Piffy he wanted to be—the middle-aged private eye on the trail of the notorious Dallas taxi driver, Yaser Abdel Said, who had murdered his daughters, Sarah and Amina Said, in a fit of Islamic rage and had fled the country supposedly to the British Isles. Piffy wiped the sweat from his brow. Thank God it was over. He ran a hand across his face—the wrinkles were gone! It was a miracle! He felt his right arm. The flab had disappeared; the muscle was back. He could bend his knees without pain! An Alfred-E-Neuman-smile spread across his face. “You know,” he said, “for a minute I thought you might turn me into a woman to get some kind of revenge.” “A woman?” she said. “It can’t be done. I tried.” The words should have scared him but they didn’t. “Now all I have to do is get out of here and rescue Aisha,” he said. “Aisha?” she said. “Yeah,” said Piffy. “She’s a beautiful little girl. She’s only ten years old. Her father, Ahmad, who I think is Yaser Abdel Siad, is taking her to Gaza to enroll her in a Madrassas. She says he wants to turn her into a suicide bomber because she dishonored the family.” “Ten-years-old?” said the hag. “You’re not pulling a Mohammed, are you?” “Of course not,” he said. “There was nothing between us but a little tra-la-la twiddle-dee dee-dee. And I was only ten years old at the time—you saw to that.” “Tra-la-la twiddle-dee dee-dee?” She wasn’t sure what that was. “If you turn into Mohammed, I’ll turn you into a warthog,” she warned. “It was the ten-year-old me that fell in love with her,” he said. “Sometimes I think you are more trouble than you are worth,” she said. She started to remove her nikab. “What are you doing?” he asked. “We’ve got to get you out of here,” she said. “That’s where your shopping bag would have come in handy,” he said. “No,” she said. “We’ll exchange clothes. They will never recognize you in a nikab.” It was a good idea, better than risking an exploding time warp inside an enclosed space. The swap was accomplished in a matter of minutes and just in time too for a screw was soon pounding on the door. “Times up!” he called. They came out of the room holding hands. The old hag in the prison jump suit looked enough like the eighty-year-old version of Bernard Piffy to have fooled just about anyone. When they reached the corridor in the annex where the visitor took leave of the prisoner they stopped. The screw was watching them closely. “Let’s make this look good,” said the old hag. “What?” said Piffy. She whispered in his ear. “Kiss me, you damn fool!” she hissed. Piffy grimaced but did as he was told. He kissed her full on the lips. The response was more than he expected—far more. Something scorched his heart and started a fire down below. It was all he could do to pull away from her. And then he was out the door and a free man! And the old hag was stuck with the puppy dog and the garlic and he was on his way to rescue Aisha. At least that was what he thought. Things had never looked brighter! (To be continued)