6 DEGREES OF DECAPITATION
(A SATIRICAL MYSTERY)
Chapter 2: Furious Got Fingered
Okay, here's the deal. It was supposed to be a simple case where I strong armed a guy to make him stop pestering a certain femme-fatale named Gladiola Hassenpeffer. But things are never simple for me, I ended up having person or persons unknown play my head like Keith Moon on a meth binge. Now I have a sore head, and the guy I was supposed to muscle, comedian Tom Green, had been beheaded. No doubt by the same person or persons unknown who gave my noggin a floggin.
There was a rap on the door. It was the cops, also most likely called by the person who coldcocked me.
That little bastard had been busy.
But it's all in a day's work for me.
I'm Furious D, and I'm a dick.
I'm also not above rehashing a predictable joke.
I pulled myself up off the floor and snuck out of the living room and into the kitchen. Normally I would have liked to have looked for clues as to the identity of the person who was deserving a heaping helping of hurting, but I liked going to jail for a murder I didn't commit even less.
Sure, it was only a fifty dollar fine in Canada, but that was only if you were guilty. Innocent men did hard time in this country.
I was free, for now, but there was still somebody out there richly deserving some payback.
And I just happened to know where to look.
The Royal Arms Hotel was one of the city's classiest places. They even rented rooms by the night, but I wasn't there to rent one of their elegantly furnished suites at an unbelievably reasonable price, partake in the all you can eat buffet, enjoy the sociable ambience of their Oak Room Lounge, or try out their Olympic size swimming pool and world class gym facilities.
I had other tasks to do. One of them was to pick up the check for shilling the hotel in this story, the other was to find Miss Hassenpeffer and start getting some answers.
I got her room number from the desk clerk who gave me my check, and I headed up to pay her a visit.I gave the door to room 1313 a sharp rap. But the door didn't respond to my rendition of 'Straight Outta Compton,' so I knocked on it.
The only answer was a low moan from the other side of the door.
Someone was in trouble.
Gave the door a swift kick, and I realised that it was unlocked when it spun back and smacked me on the nose.
It really was one of those nights.
A woman was lying spread eagle on the floor. I pulled the eagle off her and sent it squawking out the window. Damn birds could be a nuisance.
"Oh thank you," said woman as she got up off the floor.
"Where's Lola?" I asked.
"I don't know any Lola," said the woman, "got a call for a photo job, I come up here and suddenly there was an eagle on my back. Then I heard what sounded like someone doing a human beat-box outside, then you knocked."
"What's your name?" I asked.
"My eyes are up here!" she replied.
"That's an unusual name," I said.
Then she slapped me.
"My name is Playful1," she said.
"That smack wasn't exactly playful," I said, rubbing my cheek and looking at her face. "And it's still an unusual name. I'm Furious D."
"The private dick?"
"Know anyone named Furious D who isn't a dick?"
"Nope," she answered, "the only one I've heard of is a real big dick."
"Okay," I said, "let's leave the 'dick' double entendres now and get to business. What kind of photo job were you hired for."
"Somebody said they wanted a picture of something called the Albanian Budgie photographed for an insurance policy," answered Playful1.
I froze, then I turned up the thermostat and thought for a second about what she just said.
The Albanian Budgie was a rare treasure, the stuff the dreams were made of, but what did it have to do with framing me for murdering a comedian?
"Isn't that the person you're looking floor," said Playful1, snapping me out of reverie.
"Where?" I asked.
"If you pulled your eyes up, you'd see her," answered Playful1.
I pulled my eyes up and turned around. There was a familiar tall curvy drink of water. It was on a table, next to the corpse of Gladiola Hassenpeffer. She told me her friends called her 'Lola,' and I guess her last visitor didn't call her that, because friends don't give friends .38 caliber heart attacks.
"Oh crap," I said.
"I'm calling the cops," said Playful1.
"Don't," I said. "Not until we get out of here."
"Why?" she asked. "We both have alibis."
"Yeah," I said, "but I'm about to accused of killing Tom Green."
"It's only a $50 fine in Canada," replied Playful1. "It'll probably even less if the judge saw his show."
Suddenly the window shattered and a bullet ricocheted off the wall.
"Someone's shooting at us!" screamed Playful1.
"Run for it!" I yelled.
"Where's it?" she asked.
"Away from the shooting!"
Another bullet charged its way into the room, smashing a mirror like Alec Baldwin smashing his child's self esteem. Whoever was out there was packing serious firepower.
So I hauled ass out of there, once the ass was safe and galloping down the hall, I went back into the room and dragged Playful1 out into the hall, since she was still trying to figure out where 'It' was.
#
We ran down the stairs, to the ground floor. The door to the lobby was a jar, so I moved the massive jar over a bit so I could look inside. The lobby was mostly empty, only a guy sitting by the jar reading Entertainment Weekly. One side was the entrance to the Royal Arms Dinner Theater. They were doing Fiddler on the Roof with Ben Affleck in the lead role. On the other side of the lobby was the exit, but it was crawling with cops.
I don't know why the cops were crawling instead of walking, but I didn't have time to find out. I needed a distraction.
Then I noticed something.
The man reading Entertainment Weekly was none other Mel Gibson.
With cat like reflexes I grabbed Mel Gibson in a headlock and dragged him past the jar into the stairwell.
"What are you doing?" asked Playful1.
"I'm getting us a distraction," I answered as I popped open a bottle of Kentucky bourbon and poured it down Mel's throat.
"Crikey!" declared Mel, displaying the rare ability to speak while being force-fed booze. He was about to say something else, but then his speech slurred and he started griping about Israel.
"Here goes," I said, shoving Mel Gibson out into the lobby and into the theater showing Fiddler on the Roof.
"What are you doing?" asked Playful1.
"Wait for it," I said.
As if on cue, several theater seats flew out the door of the dinner theater and crashed to the floor harder than critics on Gigli. Screams and roars also burst out of the theater, there was a full blown riot going on in there.
The cops stopped crawling, got up and ran into the theaters, nightsticks ready if any of the audience turned out to be hippies of members of minorities.
I had the distraction we needed.
"Run for it" I said, then corrected myself, "run for the door!"
Playful1 ran for the door with me right on her back. She had to be pretty strong to carry me like that.
We were out of the hotel and onto the street.
I was just about to let out a sigh of relief when Playful1 let out a scream.
A massive 18 wheeler was heading straight for us.
It really was one of those nights.
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