THE PRINTS AND THE POPPER ~ ~ Epic*sode Sweet 16 ~ "THE GREAT ESCAPE" ~ By Absolutely*Kate and Harry B. Sanderford of Harbinger*33

WAIT!

WHAT'S BLOODY GOING ON HERE?

Is there a clue in the
Belgian chocolates?
 
Who charged the Charger?

  

MURDER*MYSTERY

* MATINEE *

  
"THE PRINTS

 AND 

THE POPPER"

FROM WHERE WE LEFT OFF

 IN OUR LAST CLIFFHANGER

*AT THE BIJOU*

  

 CLIFFHANGER CATCHUPS?

QUICK! Do the Epic*sode Click:

    

Epic'sode 15 ~ A Wise Ass

Epic'sode 14 ~ A Wrinkle in Time

Epic'sode 13 ~ Lucky For You?

Epic'sode 12 ~ Midnight Cowboy

Epic'sode 11 ~ The Shadow Knows

Epic'sode 10 ~ The Pissing Match

 Epic'sode 9 ~ Chain, Chain, Chain 
Epic'sode 8 ~ Too Cool!

Epic'sode 7 ~ Meet Virginia
Epic'sode 6 ~ I See the Light

Epic'sode 5 ~ Lucky Shot
Epic'sode 4 ~ Hi Jinks

Epic'sode 3 ~ Groping Against Grope
Epic'sode 2 ~ The Clot Thickens
  
and the original mystery of it all ~  Epic'sode 1 ~

 THE PRINTS AND THE POPPER

 

 

 ~ ~ EPIC*SODE Sweet 16 ~ ~

"THE GREAT ESCAPE "

~ By Absolutely*Kate

and 

Harry B. Sanderford

 

 "The Russians aren't playing ball. The Americans and the EU are dividing up what once was dribbling on the pitch of the global playing field. Foreign policy is not following the same diplomatic snappy salutes which used to wave signal flags."

"I'm no nitwit you Brit. I get all that. Had it down cold in my Post Cold War Theory Seminar in Luxembourg several years ago.  So what is it Boss Gabardine has that Russia wants?"

 

"That's what they called me in for Tanya."

"Oh yeah? Direction or misdirection?"

"Nice one Sweetheart. On behalf of InterNoir, I'm supplying potential plot summaries to the highest bidder."

"Had any takers?"

"Penny Payne tried to stop me on a dime but didn't stick around long enough to get her full nickel's worth. Her breaking story that's the hot Holler around town and country has more blind alleys than a dark labyrinth." He chuckled in the roll of a low rumble, easy on the ears. "Chances are she'll get cheesed off and come looking for me faster than the Lucky Shot's Nickelodeon can warble out you Yanks' Johnny Mathis. Other than that, Dan Stine evidently has a backer and the savvy bartender bloke Anthony pours insinuation like he heavy hands hootch. I want to talk to this Kate first. There's an angle her theatre's staging more than just filmways productions." 

"So her prone Prof who I was sent to off may be a ticket to what you're trying to show? And you just happened to show up with these fine parting gifts of yellow roses, dark Belgian chocolates and the recently released issue of Foreign Affairs while I was here? Saaaaaay - Wait just a crime-stopping minute Buster -- that's not the same cover on my copy. I have Russia's Invisible Civil War and Battling Mexico's Drug Cartels on mine. This copy reads America's Concern About the Euro. Jeepers creepers - the old pre-pubbed copies of Foreign Affairs to gain you the waltz in the door of a scholar's domain? I thought that slick trick was a stone's throw away from tumbling with the Berlin Wall, Paul. And will you pleeeease tell me what's burning a hole in the sheen of Gabardine?"

To his con and credit, Caracas grinned like a college sophomore caught with his hand in the open test file. "I thought Gabardine's coalition got to you. I ran a check on  your dossier on the way over and noted your class connection with the Professor at the Yale Summer Institute for European Studies in 2008. Predicted you'd go soft rather than daft. So he's not actually offed? What did you use?"

Tanya Gall's smug smile preceeded itself. "Digoxin."

 

"Brill, a beta-blocker. I'm chuffed. Shot in the arm?"

"Yeah right."

 

"Bugger and blast Tanya -- It's no farce what they say about you and arse turning the other cheek, eh? As for Boss G, there's no easy answer to that question. It's dodgy and involves the Ukraine during the time Mademoiselle Jeanette Bessette was Gab's main squeeze dans la nuit. I'll tell you about that on our way. It's sweet. But we've little time to fanny around. If my Rollex is silently ticking true, we've got approximately 12 minutes and 33 seconds before a blinkering Gabardine goon of gloom enters this room to collect a body. We've got to do a bodge job, throw a spanner in their works. C'mon lass, let's move fast."

"What do you mean?"

"Hustle your hips back into that nicey naughty nursey ensemble, Nightengale. Be right back."

The door closed softly. Tanya hustled hips and waded back into white fishnets. Swifter than a button could conceal cleavage appeal, Caracas and a laundry cart pushed on in.

"Yikes! He's long. He's tall. He's not going to fit in that thing! Not at all Paul!"

"Tanya there's no bloody time to bicker! We bend him like Beckham!" Donning the most unwrinkled orderly garb he could skim from the cart's surface, Caracas placed one firm hand at the small of the professor's back and the other beneath his knees. Patient protocol fell in an unceremonious bum rush into Mercy Always sheets and slipper socks. To the Prof, he lowered his whisper, "Keep your pecker up. We'll get you to a safe house sir, we will." Over his shoulder to a dilly dallying accomplice he barked, "Bollocks! Leave the roses. Take the chocolates!"

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Eugene Gabardine was a sulky, spoiled, boy and never one given to following orders. He did not leave the keys in the Charger as Harry had instructed. With the warehouse door barely closed between him and any immediate consequences for his actions, he exorcised a small tantrum that had been building in his chest by kicking the side mirror off of Harry’s T-Bird. “You aren’t the boss of me!” he screamed with huffy school-girl conviction. He then hopped in the Charger and backed it straight into Harry’s car. There was a satisfying crunch as the T-bird’s plastic tail light puzzled and Eugene found he felt much better. He shifted into drive and blasted Harry’s car with a spray of gravel before schweeling on out of the parking lot. Foresight was not a characteristic that would ever be associated with Eugene but he was not one to dwell on the past (or learn from it) either. As his spinning tires barked onto the asphalt of the county road, Harry and Jeanette ceased to be a concern.

                          

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Chester Hook’em Hanks unplugged the juke box to silence Molly Hatchet. He had a plan to hatch himself and damned if their infernal catterwalling was helping him think. He successfully warded off any protests the whelps at the pool table might have been considering with a practiced stink eye that seldom let him down. The three of them, still too sober for pressing the point, broke eye contact first and went back to their game. Hook’em in his own show of peace raised his can and gave a nod in their direction.  Long as he had the can in his hand he went ahead and drained it, set it on the bar and went back to his note pad.

 

Ruby picked up the empty can and set a fresh cold Schlitz wrapped in a bar nap in front of him. “What you studying on so hard tonight Hook?” the rotund Ruby inquired. Chester closed the pad quick and smiling up at Ruby said, “Darlin’ I’m composin’ a sonnet for the prettiest barmaid I ever did see. I’m a little stuck right now though, maybe you can help me. You got 14 lines in a sonnet. I need something else that rhymes with Ruby and I already used boobie a dozen times.”

 
Ruby rolled her eyes, sifted the pile of change from Chester’s last twenty, extracted two ones and offered, “How about Doobie? As in I find your sincerity to be dubious. Or maybe try Scoobey, as in you are a damn dog! Then there’s always Newby, as in you are one naive son of a bitch if you think you are ever sweet talkin’ your way up next to this!” Ruby stepped back and presented with a sweep of her hand just what it was Chester would be missing out on. Then she turned on her heel in an exaggerated huff and rang the register for Chester’s two dollars.
 
Chester couldn’t help but grin. He loved getting Ruby going and he loved it even more when she got the better of him. Truth be told, Chester loved Ruby. He plucked a five from his diminishing pile, folded it lengthwise so it would stand and balanced it on the edge of the bar.

Chester had just reopened his note pad when the door opened with a jangle and he looked up to watch Boss Gabardine’s no account nephew shamble into the bar. He wondered if this night could get any better.

* C * L * I * F * F * H * A * N * G * E * R * S * !

* AT THE BIJOU * 

Mosey on over to next Sunday's Matinee

for the next gut-gripping epic'sode!

" The Prints and The Popper "

(c) 2010 ~ Dashing Duet Authors

Absolutely*Kate and Harry B. Sanderford

  ( Kate thinks the "B" is for 'brilliant' some times )

   

Creative EU rendition ala Radu Ceuca

Visualizations ala EringTaylor, Skibler, SpottieWattie