On to Chapter 13

“He was the guerilla terrorist for the food service industry. Apart from seasoning the lobster bisque, he farted on the meringue, sneezed on braised endive, and as for the cream of mushroom soup, well...”  - The Narrator, Fight Club

Hargrove inched back to consciousness.  The last thing he remembered was the rather spectacular burst of stars produced by Graves’s pistol-whipping.  The famed Marxist Detective sighed sadly.  Using a pistol as an ersatz hammer – if there was an afterlife (ofwhichthereisnosuchthingthankyouverymuch), Samuel Colt was weeping.  Might as well open my eyes and figure out where I am, he thought.

He immediately shut his eyes again, but unfortunately his consciousness wasn’t up to the task of returning to its former state.

“I sense you are awake,” said Hoa.  “There was an immediate and immense drop in the felicitous proportions of this vehicle, which would mean either someone replaced my pine-tree scented air freshener with a set of fuzzy dice, or you have risen from your slumber.  I suspect the latter.”

Annoyed that his subterfuge had been penetrated, Hargrove opened his eyes and took a second look around.  He was in a car - a 1972 mouse-brown Plymouth Duster, to be exact.  The huge Feng Shui Detective was driving with one hand, his other occupied with a long knife pointing at Graves in the passenger seat.  Graves, meanwhile, had his gun trained unwaveringly at Hoa’s right temple.  A standoff, apparently.

To Hargrove’s left sat Marty Stabble, still unconscious from Hoa’s attack.  The tentacled chauffeur’s colour didn’t look good, but that was no reliable indicator of anything.

“Where are we?” asked Hargrove, stalling for time while he figured out an escape plan more dignified than leaning out the window and shrieking like a little girl.  “And where is Shirley?  Where are we going?”

“We are within my vehicle,” replied Hoa.  “The one model ever produced by Detroit with suitable balanced influences.  Shirley decided to ride with Rockefeller, especially after Mr. Graves called ‘shotgun.’  Tang rides with them, and recovers from the wound he received from Mr. Graves.  Presently we are on Vine Avenue, turning west on Sunset Boulevard so that we might dine at Spago’s.”

“Spago’s!” sputtered Hargrove.  “That decadent amuse-gueule of the celebrity wastrels who populate this dreadful city.  I wouldn’t be caught dead in there!”

“That can be arranged,” said Graves, smacking Hargrove with the butt of his pistol and sending him once again into darkness.

More slowly this time, Hargrove regained consciousness.  He could hear voices, stretched like a 45 being played at 33 rpm, or the third hour of a politburo member’s speech.  He fought to the surface, again wishing that he hadn’t once he succeeded.  They had made it in time for the first sitting at Spago’s.  The only comfort was the spare, proletarian décor, right down to the wire mesh chair currently cutting cross-hatching into Hargrove’s buttocks.  He looked around the table, to see Marty (with a large bandage on his forehead), Hoa, Graves, Tang (sporting a sling on his left arm), Rockefeller and Shirley seated.

“Ah, you have joined us again, Mr. Hargrove,” said Hoa.  “Or is it just Hargrove?  You know, in all my research on you, I never could determine whether that was a first or last name.”

The buxom Shirley was sitting next to the Marxist Detective, tugging on his decrepit sleeve.  “You missed the appetizer - tuna sashimi with ponzu, wasabi, avocado, and sweet red onion, but the waiter is coming by to take our main course orders soon.”  She fidgeted in her chair with delight, letting loose a high-speed riff of flatulence.  “We decided to wait until you were conscious again.”

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m ordering the grilled tripe with caramelized corn polenta, balsamic glaze and crisp onions.”  Marty sighed dreamily.  “Mmmmm, tripe…”

“Marty,” Hargrove shouted.  “Have you lost your mind?  Graves wanted to shoot all of us, Hoa knocked you cold, and now we’re breaking bread with them at some overpriced McDonalds’ of the Stars?  Where is your revolutionary spirit?”

“Ixnay on the outingshay, ittoday on the evolutionaryray iritspay,” Marty said, sotto voce.  He paused to let Hargrove catch up.  He spoke again when the famed Marxist Detective’s lips stopped moving.  “Rockefeller got us the best table in the house - near the window to the right of the entrance, third table down, between the kitchen and the reservation desk.  Celebrities have been coming over the whole time to introduce themselves, wondering if we’re the next big thing.”

“Once we told them you were actually a famous Central American narcoleptic movie director,” said a smug Rockefeller, “their reactions went from vapid curiosity to outright pandering.  First class fawning, I must say – Whoopi Goldberg especially.  If anybody asks, you answer to the name “Sleepy” Sanchez.”

“I will have no part in this!  Every table reeks of the Capitalist exploitation of the farmer, from the grilled vegetable plate to the white asparagus with peppered balsamic glaze!”  He thrust his chair back in rage, momentarily distracted by the pins-and-needles sensation in his lower extremities.  “While you dine on overpriced animal buttock and the toadying of various celebrity parasites, I have work to do.”

“Do sit down,” said Rockefeller.  “You’re making a scene.”

“Although,” said Tang, a hand on Rockefeller’s sleeve, “DiCaprio and Eastwood appear to be very interested in us now.  Perhaps they’ll wander by our table later.  Hargrove, do you think I could convince you to loudly say something like ‘I owe my success to Gunter Tang’, with a Latino accent?”

Hargrove spun to face the multi-millionaire.  “And you,” he said, crimson faced.  “Spied on by Hoa, shot by Graves, but willing to sit with them and share a basket of hot rolls?”

“You really should try them,” said Tang, his voice thick with bread and painkillers.  “Besides, once Aaron Spelling found out I was sitting next to the newest hot property, the old fool turned positively unctuous.  Du Lieber, you are a useful fellow.”

Rockefeller chortled.  “Do you see Hargrove?  Everybody else accepts the world as it is and flows with its currents.  Only you resist, clinging to your outmoded beliefs like it was the helm of the Titanic.”

“I reserve my greatest contempt for you,” Hargrove spat.  “You have obviously been irrevocably corrupted by the lure of Hollywood.  Even though we are separated by a yawning ideological gap I would have thought that the sacred detective’s oath would have prompted you to at least attempt to interrogate Graves or Hoa.  Graves, especially, since I’m betting his loyalties are intertwined with…”

“Nighty-night, Sleepy.” said Graves hastily, once again hitting Hargrove with his pistol.

Slowly, ever so slowly Hargrove washed up on the shores of consciousness like a piece of beach glass, worn, etched and broken.  He could feel liquid clinging to his face, and assumed it was blood, only to discover as a rivulet flowed into his mouth that it was plum wine ginger sauce.  Spago’s!  He remembered now! 

The room was full of laughter, for once not directed at him.  Surreptitiously, he cracked an eye open the thinnest slit and surveyed the room.  It was a conference room of some sort.  The upper floors of BFG Studios!  Of course!  Hargrove had seen this room before, while being unceremoniously dragged past it earlier.  And again he had seen it through the marvel of Lechat’s robotic bugs.

The meeting in progress had none of the quiet formality he had seen previously.  One of the Saudi princes sported a black eye and had a wad of Kleenex shoved up one nostril.  The Moroccan ambassador looked more unpleasant than ever in his ripped shirt and disheveled hair.  The CSIS director had one hand inside his suit jacket, clutching at a Browning automatic pistol.  Ever since the Stuttgart Affair, Hargrove had worked hard to recognize a Browning, even through clothing.  Spend three months in the bilge of a Finnish freighter?  Never again!

But who was laughing?  Moving slowly, Hargrove was able to bring the man into view.  By Stalin’s collection of midget bondage porn!  It was Gosling Offant, father to Link and Syc, and owner of Ultimate Pictures!  But what was he doing here in BFG Studios? 

“Gentlemen,” croaked the ancient Offant.  “The choices have been made plain.  Either accept the offers as laid out in those documents, or you will be eliminated systematically by a specialist in our employ.”  He laughed again, ending it with a phlegmy rattle.

There was an uncomfortable murmur in the room.  Hargrove shared the discomfort, not caring to find out if or when he was slated to appear in the systematic elimination.  It was time to leave and find the others.

Standing up slowly, he slunk to the door.  No one noticed him, focused as they were on Gosling Offant.  Three more steps, thought Hargrove, but he was stopped suddenly by the muzzle of an assault rifle sticking up his nose.

“Hey, babe,” said Hargrove, to the armed guard.  “Uh, didn’t I see you on TV recently… uh, babe?”

The guard stared at Hargrove for a moment.  “Yes,” he said cautiously.  “I was Tall Man #3 in a Frito-Lay commercial.  I was the one who said “Yum!”.”

“I thought I recognized you,” said Hargrove, feeling more and more like a snake tracking a mouse.  “High-concept stuff, babe, just brilliant.  Listen, I was just about to go to Junior’s office to pitch a new script, and I’m going to need to tell him that I’ve already got the talent lined up, babe.  Think you are up for a new project?  Babe?”

The guard stammered.  “Yes, absolutely.  This could be my big break.”

“Yes, mine too,” said Hargrove, recognizing that his time was running out.  “Why don’t you go and get me a copy of your CV and maybe a mug shot or two and we’ll meet at Junior’s office.  Bring coffee too.”

The guard scurried out of the room and down the hall, while Hargrove ran the other direction, scanning back over his shoulder in case anybody had noticed him leaving the meeting room.

The famed Marxist Detective stopped in mid-run, with an accompanying sound like a watermelon being caved in with a volume from the Encyclopedia Britannica.  He had run full force into the bunker-like chest of Petunia.  With one hand, she scooped him up and tossed the barely conscious detective over her shoulder, before striding off down the hall.

Hargrove could feel himself blacking out, unable to fight back against the human monolith currently carting him through the opulent corridors of BFG Studios.

Offant’s voice drifted out of the meeting room as they passed the open door.  “…those little HASH pissants will learn what treachery is all about soon enough…”

The famed Marxist Detective’s feeble attempts to free himself ended when Petunia turned a corner and smacked his head against the wall.  Darkness descended.

Some time later, Hargrove was like metaphorical toothpaste, being extruded from the giant toothpaste tube of consciousness.  He was awake again.  An attempt at bolting upright failed miserably, since he was currently draped over Marty’s shoulder.

“Stop squirming,” said the chauffer.  “That’s my deal.”

Hargrove complied.  Hanging upside down was doing nothing for the throbbing pain in his head.  There was little to look at either – Marty’s backside, and the carpet.  The longer he looked at it though, the more familiar it became.  The carpet, that is.  Where had he seen that pattern before?

“Marty, where are we?  And can I get down?”

“BFG Studios still, and things won’t be any more pleasant when you’re standing.”

He remembered now.  Felix’s robotic insect!  This was the room where Wapkaplet Jr. had held his meeting with the members of HASH.  Gingerly he slipped from Marty’s shoulder, and stood to survey the room.  Things indeed were not getting better.  Tang lay dead on the floor, there were several guns aimed his way, and the distinct smell of onions wafted past his nose – damn that Captain Will and her talkative guts.

“Who shot Tang?”

“Really, Hargrove,” called Rockefeller from across the room.  “You aren’t much of a detective, are you?”

Hargrove spat on the carpet, wishing that there had been more saliva in his mouth at the time.  Maybe later perhaps.  “I am detective enough to notice Jimmy Stuten’s business card peeking out of your pocket.  You have been irrevocably seduced by corporate America and the shiny trinket that is Hollywood.”

“Merely looking to the future, my misguided colleague.  Networking is the life’s blood of the successful capitalist, and when this is all over, someone will need to fill the void left by Tang’s passing.”

The gun-wielding HASH members murmured “here, here.”

Hargrove grated his teeth at the thought of the wobbly tower of injustices heaped on the common workingman.  Soon, the proletariat pickaxe of class struggle would undercut its festering foundation of oppression and hit the gas main of inevitable revolution.  Soon, very soon the…

“Having another one of those pinko introspective moments?” Rockefeller asked smugly.

“No, merely reflecting on the eventual demise of you and your ilk.”

“What utter drivel.  Your fantasies crumble like the Berlin Wall.”

“Bah!  Thanks to my unwavering dedication to my ideals, I certainly shall outlast you,” said Hargrove.  “Look at how many detectives I’ve left in my wake – Chad the Gen-X Detective, Chicken Noodle Sioux the First Nations Detective, Bob the Naughty Detective Who Really Deserves a Spanking, Serapion the Feudal Detective, Josephine the Mildly Distraught Bi-Polar Detective.  None of them had a tenth of the commitment to their principles that I have, and look at where they are now.”

“Not staring down the muzzle of a Desert Eagle?” opined Wapkaplet Jr.

Hargrove decided he hated this man.  And not just because he was pointing a bloody huge pistol at him, although that did figure largely in his calculations.  BFG Wapkaplet Jr. was a living embodiment of everything wrong in a capitalist system – no regard for the proletariat, for collectivism, for “from each according to his ability to each according to how much he whined…”.  Something like that, anyway.  Hargrove would look it up in the Big Book of Communism when he got back to his office.

The famed Marxist Detective noted that his ruminations had not succeeded in making any of the firearms currently pointing at him go away.  Time to throw a bomb, he thought.

“So how many people here know that Gosling Offant is in this building and is planning on having you all killed?”

Panicked glances flashed back and forth between nervous, suit-clad men.

“Perhaps we should ask the one person in the room who might be able to shed some light on the matter… someone who is in the employ of Utimate Pictures.”  Hargrove spun to face Shirley, pointing an accusing finger like the pin of an entomologist impaling a butterfly to a piece of cardboard. 

“Why is Gosling Offant here in BFG Studios?”

“What makes you think I know?”

“Weren’t you in the employ of the late Link Offant?”

“You think I’m hiding something you?”

“Haven’t you done so before?”

“What possible motive could I have?”

A burning sting in his leg made Hargrove look down.  “Tranquilizer dart!  I’ve been drugged!”  The room swam before his eyes.

“Statement.  Score is now 30-15.  God, you are bad at this,” said Shirley, as Hargrove swirled down the toilet of consciousness.

There was no way for the famed Marxist Detective to know how long the drug weighed him down.  Thoughts wafted through Hargrove’s mind like bits of Kleenex in a washing machine when somebody has forgotten to check the back pockets.  For some reason, the most pressing thought had to do with several unsolicited letters from brave revolutionaries who needed to move large sums of money out of a government bank account in Nigeria.  The 15 per cent that Hargrove would earn for his part in the endeavor would finance the proletariat struggle worldwide.

But such ruminations were of no use to him now, and since the cold floor he was lying on was aggravating the cross-hatching he had received at Spago’s it seemed an appropriate time to rise.  He tried opening his eyes, but nothing happened.  Perhaps understandably, they were reticent to do so, and required significant coaxing before they would perform as directed. 

The first thing to meet his eyes was the torn gold trim of a cheap replica beefeater’s uniform.  Moxie Jumpbush sat on the cell’s only chair, regarding Hargrove indifferently.

“Moxie!  We need to escape!”

“Escape?  Why would I want to do that?  BFG Studios offered me a job.  As soon as I’ve completed my job training, I’ll have my own cubicle, an extension and business cards.  They’ve even told me I’ll be paid soon.”

Hargrove gnashed his teeth in irritation.  When, oh when, would the proletariat triumph over its masters, to create a utopian system of state-controlled means of production and distribution?  When (Oh when!) would the common man be exploited for the good of all?

Curiously, the smell of onions stayed with him, though Shirley was nowhere to be seen.

“Not only that, but with the time I’ve been locked up in here, I’ve had time to rewrite the part leading up to the big love scene in Karl Marx dot com,” said Moxie.  “Listen to this and then try and tell me it isn’t a blockbuster:

“KARL – “Sure I love you.  Hell, I even respect you.”

JOYCE – “You’ve been so involved in your work lately.  I thought…”

KARL [adding more bubble bath] – “Leave the thinking to me, baby.”

JOYCE – “But, I want to become a Communist too!  It sounds, I don’t know, sexy.”

KARL – “Oh yeah, baby, the sexiest.  The kind of sexy that only money can buy.”

Hargrove threw himself against the door to the cell, clawing at the unyielding wood in an attempt to escape his tormentor before his brain squirted out his ears.

The cell suddenly became dark, as the light from the small, barred window in the door was blocked.  Instantly, Hargrove formulated a plan.  He would strike the jailor in the throat with the deadly White Snake Shoots Tongue technique.  Clutching the then-deceased body, he would shake it up and down as hard as he could until the keys to the cell fell out of a pocket.  Hargrove would then be able to retrieve the keys through the meal slot and make an escape.  He swayed for a moment, caught up by the heady feeling of having developed such a wondrous plan on the spur of the moment.

Remarkably, the door swung open on its noisy hinges before he could do anything.  Hargrove, still crouched and ready to strike, stayed crouched.  He was torn between attacking whoever had opened the cell door, or pretending that he was going to tie his shoelace.  The famed Marxist Detective decided on the latter, hrumphing.

“There’s no time for that,” said the silky voice to the now kneeling Hargrove.  “Le Scorpion is on his way, and he’s about to finish his contract.”

Le Scorpion!  Of course!  Hargrove cursed himself for a fool – the assassin’s trademark French Onion scent!  Only a few world-class detectives would know about that, and with Rockefeller’s defunct sense of smell and questionable commitment to solving this mystery, there would be no warning.

“Marty and the others! They’re in danger!”

“I pray we’re in time,” said Hargrove’s rescuer, motioning him to follow her down the hall.  “My name is Bonavista.  Bonavista Penny.”

Who the hell is Bonavista Penny?  What’s with all the heavy-weight international guys?  Will Hargrove evade the sting of Le Scorpion?

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