When I
left Mr. Freeley he was still pontificating at length on some subject of
apparent national importance but of no use to me. He was on his fourth V-8 and feeling it. I don’t think he even noticed me leaving and
I wasn’t going to tell him.
I waded
through the muck back to the police station to collect my bags and my partners. Briefly entertained the idea of not
collecting either. Decided I’d be nice.
It
bothered me that I still didn’t know why we had come to this country. Other than experiencing the ambiance of the
local drunk tank and the thrill of white water rafting sans raft, I hadn’t
learned anything and felt no closer to my quarry than before. If there were any clues to be found here,
they were now buried under several feet of mud.
I dig for clues, but not with a shovel, so if there was something to be
found here other than a one-way ticket to someplace else, I didn’t have the
motivation to look.
Jimmy
& Simon were entertaining the cops by doing their mime routine, and the
uniforms were red faced & rolling on the floor as they watched Simon try to
help Jimmy escape from an invisible box.
I tolerate few things well and no things French, so this little
pantomime came to an abrupt end as I pushed through the double doors. I glared across the room as my two Cirque du
Soleil rejects put their imaginary tails between their legs and grabbed our
things. I told the cops they were idiots
and we walked out.
“That
was pretty rude, Dick,” Simon told me.
“Why? They were
idiots,” I said.
“No, not
that. I meant interrupting our show.”
“Yeah
dude,” Jimmy said sullenly, “They were
getting into it. And we’re good at it
too, you know? I mean, just because you
had a bad childhood experience with – ”
“I said
never to talk about that,” I snapped. “Never.”
“Sorry
man. It just doesn’t seem fair to us is
all.”
I looked
at them both, two grown men standing there moping. Heads down, kicking aimlessly at the ground. Jeez.
“Hey
guys,” I said, “How about a Slurpee?”
As expected,
they both immediately brightened and were soon chatting amiably with wide eyed
anticipation as we headed down the street to the 7-Eleven. Jimmy and Simon each got a 34-ouncer, though
they were different flavors.
Like you
care.
I passed
on the refreshment and picked up a newspaper instead, going stock still as I
looked at the front page. I couldn’t
read it of course; foreign countries apparently never figure that they will
have a visitor who doesn’t know their local language. Not like in America where we pander to every
race, culture, and ethnicity by providing more media for people too lazy to
speak English than we do for those of us who took the damn time to learn it.
But I
didn’t have to speak the language in this case.
Much to everyone’s surprise – including my own – I had managed to stay
conscious in high school geography long enough to recognize a map of the world
when I saw one. And my current
experience with one certain international spy moose gave me enough insight to
know what he looked like. Throw in my
skilled deductive powers and it wasn’t a great jump for me to figure out by
looking at the picture on the front page that my mammalian villain (I like the
way that sounds, don’t you?) had just struck in Columbia. That’s Columbia South America, not South
Carolina.
Interesting
that there’s a Columbia in South America, South Carolina, and North America,
but not North Carolina. Hmmmm. A puzzle to ponder another day.
Judging
from the photos, mighty antlers and churning hooves had apparently laid waste
to the entire agricultural industry of the country. Not really a big deal where foodstuffs are
concerned, but the hit to coffee & cocaine had already resulted in a ripple
effect of lowering SAT scores by 73 points and causing unemployment in the
states to rocket up three percent due to layoffs in the DEA coupled with the
mothballing of half the ships in the Coast Guard.
I
whistled in appreciation of the mayhem caused by this one act and was suddenly
slapped by some chick walking by who had apparently thought I had whistled at
her. If she had looked half decent I
probably would have let her get away with it, but she didn’t so I slapped her
back.
Then, of
course, her boyfriend got mad and decided to do the honorable “man” thing and come to her defense so he punched
me in the stomach. I’ve hit people for a
hell of a lot less than that, so I did my best David Copperfield impression and
turned him into a meat blanket on the sidewalk.
A few
locals in the vicinity took offense at this and jumped in to try their luck. Jimmy & Simon then noticed the commotion
and came back to the 3rd dimension long enough to jump into the fray too, and
before you could say “Sprechen zie deutsch”
there were people slapping and punching each other all over the place.
I was
having a good time but feared a possible return to the local jail if the cops
showed up, so I nodded at the boys and we slipped out of the bedlam and got a
cab to the airport.
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