After the meeting with Mr. Hill, Smolder put a call in to Miss Bailey and requested the next available flight out of George Bush Intercontinental to Ninoy Aquino International. He preferred Singapore Air, but she offered Air China with a layover at Chiang Kai Chek. It wouldn’t leave until after 10 the following night. Smolder calculated the time and told Bailey to have the bungalow key out where he could get it. She said the door would be open.Air China. Smolder thought to himself. That was a knock. It had been awhile since he had been on one of their planes, but if they were still operating 747s Smolder could expect cramped seating and a single screen in the cabin section for in-flight entertainment. The Agency always insisted on coach for reasons of inconspicuousness. Smolder hoped the airline had transitioned to the 777s which offered a smaller but roomier cabin, but as he recounted his last trip to the pearl city of Shanghai, where he noticed the prominence of government trucks with insanely bald tires endangering the speedway, he thought any improvement on behalf of the airline was unlikely. The People's government skimps.
Smolder considered asking Miss Bailey for a JAL or an American Airlines flight, even if it took longer, but, for now, he needed to find a cool spot and read more about this Finknottle. That queer duck...that Jeffrey...was not on the level. In the meeting there was not one word mentioned about the wordjuicer, yet the accusations towards the ruthless publisher were unmistakable. What did E.D. really think of this case? Smolder mused then smirked at the musing: Finknottle certainly seemed to upset the right people.
Kingsville was a place of few landmarks. By instinct, Smolder returned to the same diner, asked for the same booth in the corner with no windows that overlooked the television set playing Headline News. He ordered a pot of coffee, brought out his attache case, pulled out some documents and began reading.
Finknottle. There was a paranoia in the man’s scribblings when it came to certain things…like his workjuicer.
June 5th, 2006:
The Authorities are constantly trying to shut this device down, not because of the noise and the billows of foul effluent from its drains, but the Indignity of having more horsepower-per-word than the National Armoury. But I will not hand it over to them, they will use it to punch endless meat-and-liquor tickets, a task far far beneathe its abilities.
The defiance – the cocksuredness! The ridiculousness! What was a wordjuicer? From the sound of it, Smolder thought it must be a mechanism whose singular purpose was to violate EPA standards. And then there was his advice…his muddled and bizarre, intangible, incorrigible advice. Finknottle was, after all, an advice columnist for Liverputty. Smolder read the letters and drank the remaining drops of Old Pogue from his flask and read some more.
When a letter asked how to placate a mistress when a trip that was planned for her was, through crazy circumstance, delivered to the wife instead, Finknottle responded:
You want to Dominate and Keep two women at the same time. I see no legal or moral probleme with this, so let's skip righte to tactics. Keep the two women separate, making use of handcuffes and a Systeme of winches and pulleys. Lift one Woman up and out of the way to gain access to the other. If this is not Deemed practicable, perhaps because of a low ceiling, you may substitute rolling gurneys.
Did Jeffrey Hill pay his advice columnist for this type of thing? Another letter asked:
Dear Frinkmuzzle,
What kind of animal would make the best birthday gift for my mother? I would like to surprise her.
Warm regards,
- from Ms. Amanda Huggenchiss
- from Ms. Amanda Huggenchiss
To which Finknottle responded:
The best animal for any circumstance is the Badger. He is a friend to man and very industrius. He can dig for miles and never tire. I recommend a system of tunnels be constructed with teams of badgers. This can serve many uses. The first being improved sewage flow and rain evacuation from your property. Next there may be ways to increase the production of your crops with badger-tunnel technology. Experiment and get back to me.
Now, as for presentation of the gift, choose a time when your Mother is scheduled to be away for at least a fortnight, a month would be better. Let the Badgers loose in the grounds with specific instructions for the network of tunnels and inter-change stations (to transfer from one tunnel line to another.) Be sure to allow for seasonal and daily bottlenecks and make small adjustments in traffic flow to fine-tune the system.
When Mother arrives home, perhaps from the South of France, she will see an eye-popping marvel of Badger ingenuity.
That is how the letters went. This man possessed little merit, advice-wise, so far as Smolder could figure it. He read on until it was time to make his trip back to Houston and to the bungalow where he hoped to find Miss Bailey waiting. He also planned to replenish his flask with the remaining Old Pogue in the agency wet bar. He crawled in the F150 and made his way back to the bungalow, half paying attention to the accordion-driven polka of the spanish station. The steady progression of traffic slowed to a crawl as he approached the sprawling city-state and he had ample opportunity to reflect on the massive American strip malls that lined the length of the interstate. His impressions ranged from disgust to admiration and focused somewhere towards the latter. America was a glut of consumer choices. It was like eating a rich soufflé and then being forced to eat a lot of it. On one hand, the people of America are a little bigger than they need to be, but on the other, they are infinitely likable and just. Houston was an entrepreneur’s town. Liability rested in the hands of the individual, more-so than in other U.S. cities. There was no zoning, per se, and things seemed to spring up organically. It wasn’t always pretty, but it was always pretty inspiring.
When Smolder pulled into the driveway of the bungalow he noticed that only the bedroom light was on; the porch light and living room lights were not illuminated to welcome him, though a far away table lamp was lit. According to the agency manual, for a single-story three to four bedroom house, this was a distress signal. Smolder slowly felt the edge of danger overcome his skin, which tensed up like it always did and shot a blast of coldness threw his extremities despite the hot humid air. He checked his revolver and felt vainly at his flask, which was empty. His hands then went instinctively to the heals of his shoes, where he kept two concealed knives. He thought for a brief moment. Where were the doors? There was a side door and a backyard door and, of course, the garage door, where Miss Bailey’s car must have been. Smolder noticed a Mercedes SUV around the corner. Was that significant? The windows would be locked. The bay window in the front of the house would have certainly revealed the F150’s headlights when he pulled in the drive. There was no question that his presence had been registered, so there was no use in finding an alternate entrance. Smolder grabbed his Beretta and took a quick, shallow breath, one that did not satisfy his lungs, but he was anxious and a deeper breath wasn’t readily available. He pulled on the plastic door handle and climbed out of the truck. The heat of the Houston eve calmed his sudden alertness and he was able to gain his breath as he walked towards the front door. Things were right for a confrontation. He noticed the overly rounded rock in the flower bed. It was so obvious, yet so ingenuous. The Agency knew how to blend into an environment. He leaned down and turned the rock over to recover the key. He then slipped it in his pocket and stopped at the door to press the ringer. His presence was already known, but perhaps making the invaders answer would sway the advantage, if only somewhat.
Directly Smolder heard a solitary trace of a voice blurt out in spite of itself and then cut itself short as if trying to maintain an exposed secret. He sensed confusion in the room and smiled to himself. He plunged the ringer again and again to stir that confusion.
There was a click and then the door opened. Smolder refused to be shocked, but at the door was the largest and dumbest looking man he had ever seen. At once Smolder’s palms dampened and he swallowed to keep from getting dry mouth, but his outward composure remained intact.
"I would like to speak with the queen bee," he said.
The blank rock of a face, almost entirely one thick brow, dumbfounded, managed only to look dumber than it had just a moment before. The transition was not great, yet startling nonetheless. The fleshy beast pulled the door further and Smolder entered before the void face could regain any comprehension at all. Surely this oaf had a keeper who would make up for any cerebral deficiency.
What Smolder found in the living room surprised and excited him to no end. There was, next to the coffee table, a man on the carpet, in the fetal position, his appendages outstretched and tied together as if he were the unfortunate calf in a bulldogging exercise. Behind the man, in a dark corner with a pistol in her hand and sitting on the bar stool with her back to the wet bar was Miss Bailey. She looked serious, alert and confident. The oaf shut the door behind Smolder. Miss Bailey broke the silence.
"Now, back over to the chair," she ordered to the dumb beast who returned resentfully back to where he had spent the last hour.
"Well," Smolder said, "it looks like you have the matter well in hand."
She smiled briefly, but then looked at Horror again and straightened herself into the humorless bitch that had gotten the best of the menacing but now fangless duo.
"These two have it out for Jeffrey Hill. They seem to be after some money owed to their boss," she reported.
"Is that so?" Smolder replied and lit another Lucky. "Who’s their boss?"
"I’m guessing by their Detroit accents that they are part of the Purple Gang. Mr. Finknottle promised the gang over $3 million for some service it had rendered, though I'm not sure how that involves Mr. Hill. That part wasn’t clear. The goof on the floor is Sluggsy. The doorman is Horror. Don’t ask them to speak the Queen’s English. They’ve never heard of it."
"How’d you get the drop on them?" Smolder asked.
"It wasn’t so hard," she puffed. "They happen to be oblivious to details, even the smart one on the floor." Bailey took a pull from the glass in her hand. "Let’s just say Sluggsy had no reason to go marlin fishing at all."
Smolder looked down at the Italian unable to spit through the racquetball stuffed and taped in his mouth. There was little doubt in Smolder's mind that this helpless individual had anything to say that wasn't an expletive un-related to the case. Smolder looked up at Miss Bailey and never felt such an infatuation towards a woman.
"Impressive," he said, "E.D. couldn't expect so much from his field operatives. You're one of the agencies unsung heroes, Miss Bailey."
"I'm sure that will be reflected in my bonus, assuming it gets in your report."
"You still have your sense of humor. Naturally, this will be in my report. Any idea what service Finknottle elicited from the Purple Gang?"
"Search me," Bailey shrugged and took a pull from the glass in her hand. "I'm not completely sure they were after Finknottle for the three million. I found this in Horror's pocket."
She handed Smolder a card. On the back of the card was some almost indecipherable cursive, presumably from the boss or some higher-up in the Purple Gang:
Take care X in Monarchtown two wks. Proceed straightway Pontian Kechil - locate Agent R & await further instructions.On the front side was a grainy black and white portrait of a younger mustachioed individual with only the hint of a goatee and eyebrows hooked in conspiracy and beedy eyes that screemed "I'm disgruntled." Above his portrait was a title: "Agent R". Below were mysterious credentials: "Level II; Forgery; Nice but Evil."
Smolder turned to the Sluggsy on the floor and pulled the gag from his mouth. The thug spit out something invisible and adjusted his lips. Although the shame of his predicament initially put him in a rage and caused Bailey to resort to the gag, lying on the floor helpless for such a length of time reduced his heat to a boiled down sustainable simmer. When Smolder pulled out the bitter racket-ball Sluggsy was reluctant to lash out verbally at him and chose, instead, to enjoy not tasting the the bitter rubber of the ball. The damp spot on the carpet, cold like his rage, was a reminder of the gag.
"Sluggsy, is it?" Smolder asked. Sluggsy coughed and nodded affirmatively. "What service did Finknottle receive from your boss?"
"Protection," Sluggsy said, the faded bitterness of the tennis ball still on his tongue.
"Why?"
"I don't know," Sluggsy said. "I don't even think the boss knows."
"And what the devil do you mean by that?" Smolder pressed.
Sluggsy grew silent. He did not want to tell Smolder what he knew. But he saw the woman stand up, setting her drink down. She gave him the stink eye.
"Finknottle approached the Boss a couple of years ago about an arrangement. The Boss agreed to give Finknottle security during these operations, but the thing was, I don't think the Boss knew exactly what Finknottle was doing. A few times he tried to arrange meetings with Finknottle to get the details, but Finknottle was hard to get in touch with, even for the Boss. And when he did meet with him, the Boss came back convinced we should continue to provide security. Finknottle was gone by the time we realized he was finished with his activities."
"And you never knew what those activities were?" Smolder queried.
"No!" Sluggsy said defiantly. He looked at Bailey, thought for a minute, then continued: "He had some Pakistani and Filippino assistants. Boss kept men on their tail...or tried to, at least, but Finknottle and his men were slippery.
Interesting, Smolder thought. He couldn't help but believe Sluggsy. The sympathetic nods from Horror as Sluggsy retold of the gangs dealings with Finknottle only reinforced Smolder's belief that the stories were true. Hell, they never taught that in SMERSH. Over the next hour Sluggsy told everything he knew. Everything. For once Smolder was able to gather information about Finknottle that did not leave him more befuddled than before. In fact, certain things about Finknottle that Smolder had already learned were now reinforced and verified. Sluggsy had also let on that the Purple Gang had associations with other gangs overseas, including the Kuratong Baleleng in Manila that were on the lookout for Finknottle. He was a queer duck with peculiar abilities. Not to be underestimated. Still, Smolder thought he best continue with his plans to go to the Far East. Protecting Finknottle until he could bring him back was an inherent part of his mission.
When the information was gleaned from the two thugs, Miss Bailey had already contacted the Agency and contractors were on their way to assume possession of the prisoners and extradited them out of the U.S."
"You can't do that!" shouted the hog-tied Sluggsy. "I've got rights!"
"My dear fellow," Smolder laughed, "the Agency has contacts with half a dozen secret American prisons floating about the Atlantic, a dozen in the Pacific, not to mention several unscrupulous tin-pot dictators who have absolutely no aversion to keeping in you horrible conditions indefinitely."
Miss Bailey piped in: "And we have friends in Washington. We have no problems doing pretty much whatever we want - especially when it concerns people of your ilk."
"Whatever we want," Smolder repeated. "Which reminds me, Miss Bailey, is that bottle of Old Pogue still in the bar?"
"And a bottle of A.H. Hirsh, if you prefer it. ED had mentioned your preference for A.H. Hirsh when it has aged 16 years."
"I've become somewhat attached to Old Pogue. Perhaps I'll pour half and half in my flask....and leave the bottle of Hirsh out so that I can pack it in my suitcase. Does the Agency have anything on this Agent R?"
"Not much," Bailey said, "but I'll have the Detainment Team forward the request to Records when they arrive to fetch these two. You'll have the dossier on R.
"And anything available on the Kuratong Baleleng."
"Of course," she said, "Now, should we inform Jeffrey Hill that the Purple Gang has men out looking for him?"
"I see no reason Mr. Hill needs to know that," Smolder said.
