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Chapter 3 – Hollywood or Bust? Bust.
— Woody, from 'Toy Story,' Hargrove's period of unconsciousness was mercilessly brief, lasting as it
did, not even long enough for the chilli vapours to disperse. And what was that
odour mixed in with the chilli? The nauseating stench of Givenchy lovingly
mingled with three-alarm Texas chilli, with an overtone of what Hargrove knew
from personal experience could only be regurgitated Spanish wine. Close examination revealed that the bullet appeared to have passed cleanly
through his shoulder, and aside from the pain there seemed to be less damage
than he usually suffered from being shot. Small consolation, thought Hargrove, but he perked up some at
the thought of Candace Appel and her lost sibling: find my sister, Hargrove, and you won’t believe just how grateful I
could be. Never underestimate the imagination of a Marxist, Hargrove thought with a
delicious shudder, as he wrapped his shoulder in gauze from the first aid kit.
Thus repaired, but with legs weak from the whole experience, he moved to
the leather couch, eyeing it with loathing.
As he settled himself in, it creaked and conformed to his body. He scrunched his face at a thumping sound coming from the rear of the plane,
briefly toying with the idea of getting up to have a look.
Within seconds, though, the thumping stopped, and Hargrove decided that
proving his Marxist superiority over the lurid evil of plush leather furniture
was far more important anyway. You won’t lull this revolutionary into idleness with this pathetic
furniture of the great capitalist evil, Hargrove thought sleepily, remembering
fondly his years in the one bedroom apartment in Stalingrad.
Rats and welded pipe industrial grade furniture kept one’s mind
attentive and reminded one that the great Mother Russia was the Mecca of the
proletariat; cushions were for those who rode the backs of the masses, not for
those who pulled the yoke of the people. Hargrove’s
eyes closed contentedly in the memory, and he snuggled more firmly into the
depths of the couch. His eyes caught the world spinning outside the aircraft’s cabin windows.
“Shirley, babe! You’re
doing that landing thing again! I
thought we talked about this! You
promised!” He lurched as the aircraft suddenly stopped spinning, and the
nose pulled up hard. Captain Will’s happy laughter floated back to them.
Hargrove’s chin shuddered, as he strove with bulging neck muscles to
stop his head from lurching forward. Dewie
stared in confusion at the body of his double crossing steward, at the Webley in
Hargrove’s otherwise empty seat, and at the blood which had turned the
formerly white linen of Hargrove’s jacket a dirty brown. “He shot me,” Hargrove explained, “after giving you a sleeping potion.
Of course he was soft, the result of years of overeating and rampant
consumerism, and no match for a hardened socialist.
Being a Marxist detective is more than just fame and eye candy, you see.
I’ve killed him.” Dewie had been motionless for the first part of this, but
started at the second part. His
foot reached out and prodded the body of the steward. Looking Dewie straight in the eyes, Hargrove added, “He said his name was
BFG Jr. Wapkaplet.” Dewie didn’t register any surprise at this information, but spoke in a
voice that to Hargrove’s seasoned ears was hiding something – or at very
least distorting the truth. On the
other hand Stickem was a Hollywood producer, and Hargrove wasn’t sure if he
ever sounded like he was telling the truth.
“Wapkaplet? As in, BFG
movie studios? Fantastic Babe,
you’re halfway there now. A piece
of the puzzle for you! So Wapkaplet
did it, there you go!” He was
smiling now, and Hargrove could almost see the sparkle gleam off of his shiny
white teeth. Captain Will smiled around the corner again, with a hearty cheerful ripping
burp. “Um.
Hang on guys,” she said happily, “It isn’t LAX, but I think you are
going to like this airfield we’re landing in.
It’s not really long enough, but like I always say, ‘where there is a
Will, there is a way!’” She giggled, and disappeared. Other than the screaming, the front landing gear tires blowing out as the
aircraft exceeded the landing strip length and ran partway into a field which
caused the gashing of Hargrove’s head against the teak coffee table and
resulted in the catapult of Wapkaplet’s body into Hargrove’s lap, the
landing was uneventful. Dewie was
upbeat about it all and cheerful again. “Every
landing you can walk away from, Babe, is a successful landing!” he said. It occurred to Hargrove through the haze of pain throbbing in his head, as he
shifted BFG Jr. Wapkaplet unceremoniously back onto the floor, that perhaps
there should be a general review of piloting standards.
Perhaps even some consideration given to raising the bar. Hargrove sat motionless for a second in a mingled fog of shock and pain, but
Dewie was completely unfazed by these events.
He pulled out his cell phone, flipped it open, and began hitting keys,
smiling beatifically at Hargrove. “Babe! Dewie here!
Dewie Stickem, Ultimate Pictures!”
Dewie smiled harder at Hargrove, who turned from him in disgust.
“Yes, of course you do, you’re beautiful. Abso-fucking-lutely beautiful, if I’ve said it once I’ve
sai…what’s that? Of course,
you’re busy. I’ll hit the high
points, a moment of your time, just a moment of your time. Look babe, I’ve just been in a plane crash here, nothing
too serious….fine. Oh fine,
don’t worry about a thing, but listen, do you still have a car in this
area?” Dewie’s voice was beginning to grate on Hargrove’s already strained ears,
grinding like a diamond saw down the chalkboard of his migraine.
Looking up, he saw Captain Will silhouetted against the light of the
front window in the cockpit door way, with her skirt riding up on one shapely
leg, her top blouse button popped open from whence spilled the beginnings of her
firm, round, cleavage. Hargrove
moaned uncontrollably, and felt an embarrassing heat and lump in his lap, which
covered with the bloody Ultimate Pictures pillow.
His gaze, with great strain, travelled slowly above her perfect bosom,
rested for a moment on the small pit where her clavicle ended and her neck
started a long gentle slow curve upward to her chin.
To her firm red full lips, which pouted sensuously at him; to her perky,
perfectly sized nose, wiggling sensuously…wiggling due to her perfect finger,
which was inserted firmly inside it, fishing around frantically. Hargrove winced and recoiled; no longer trapped in the delights of her
individual features, Hargrove saw her lips in a sneer of concentration, her eyes
screwed up as she dug earnestly around her nostril.
With a small delighted smile, she picked something out, and began rolling
it around in her fingertips, giving her face a wipe with the back of the other
hand. She noticed Hargrove staring at her, and smiled suggestively
with dancing eyebrows, flicking the nasal detritus at the bulkhead beside her. “Babe, we’re good to go!” Dewie announced from behind Hargrove, whose
headache had just returned with full force.
“Be five minutes, he said, not a second more.
And then? Hollywood, babe,
Hollywood!” Captain Will opened the bulkhead across from the galley, and prepared to
lower the ladder to the ground and its relative safety.
Hargrove sat up. The thumping he had heard earlier repeated itself from the
rear of the aircraft. “Problem, babe?” Dewie asked Hargrove, eyebrows raised.
“Her landings aren’t for everyone, I’ll admit. But
those legs! Gives me shivers, babe,
shivers.” He lowered his voice.
“And between you and me, sugar, this aeroplane’s seen one too many
landings like this for its age! Never
mind the parties, if you know what I mean.” Hargrove didn’t, in fact, know what he meant, but he imagined that these
were exactly the sort of anti-collectivist wastrels whose gatherings squandered
the fruits of labour of the many. Even
Mother Russia had these types, he thought darkly, and a pox on all of them.
Aloud, he said “Problem? I
have no problems, other than with your flaunting of your anti-collective ideals.
With your indolent wardrobe, your soiling of the grand Ideal, your…” “Yes, yes, Mr. Hargrove, sure,” Dewie interrupted, “why the banging
then?” “I’m not banging. And if
you’ll step aside, I’d like to stand on firm ground again.”
And Hargrove brushed past Dewie heading for the door, thinking that he
should have taken his chances with the pathetic western security at the airport. “Well I’ll have a look. I
have to get the bags, anyway,” Dewie grunted as Hargrove passed, and stepped
to the rear of the cabin – to his left, the lavatory, whose door stood open.
Empty. Dewie reached for the handle of the closet opposite the
lavatory. With a loud crack, the closet door shattered, throwing Dewie through the open
door behind him, and setting him down hard on the seat of the toilet.
A flash, and a hole appeared in his chest.
Dewie’s eyes glazed over but never closed, his peacock blue silk suit
growing ever damper and darker, a reddish brown puddle growing beneath him. Hargrove stumbled back, crowding behind Captain Will as they scrambled to
exit. Another shot rang out, and
Hargrove felt a pulling in his leg, and stumbled to the ground outside. “Goddamn, almighty stinking bullshit!”
A voice cried from within the aircraft, as Captain Will pulled at
Hargrove, who limped with her as fast as he could.
“My Goddamn head! Where the piss is that goddamn Wapkaplet imposter?
And who the hell are you, Dewie Stickum, you lying pissant, to get in my
goddamn way? Serves you goddamn
right, and don’t you forget it!” The voice grew louder, as the person inside neared the exit.
Hargrove and Captain Will ran faster, the curve of the captain’s thigh
and the pleasant roundness of her bottom distracting Hargrove from his wounded
leg. The smell of chilli was growing stronger; toast, thought
Hargrove, toast is what you smell before a seizure. He wondered what happened after you smelled chilli and
cordite? It couldn’t be good. A screech of tires ahead made Hargrove look up.
A black limousine was screaming through the gates of the small rural
airport, and heading down the tarmac towards them.
Hargrove limped on, risking a frantic look behind him.
A figure stood in the open exit, training a revolver at the fleeing pair,
dressed in a rumpled black suit and wearing leather cowboy boots and topped with
a ten gallon hat. “Hold Goddamn
still, you pair of weasels!” The
figure cried, squinting down a huge barrel aimed roughly at Hargrove’s centre
of mass. Hargrove stumbled in panic as another shot echoed out, and felt an agonising
pain in his bandaged shoulder. He pitched forwards, the side of his face scraping its way
into the rough asphalt runway, his progress halted when his good shoulder
impacted and the rest of his body thumped heavily to the ground.
Captain Will rolled him half up, and took cover behind him.
The smell of fear and sweat rolled off of her, keeping Hargrove conscious
despite his best efforts to pass out. The
figure aimed once more. The resounding click of the hammer falling on an empty chamber was followed
by a swell in the sound of the limousine, which had now arrived.
The rumble of it’s twelve cylinder engine was temporarily eclipsed by
the screaming of its breaks, and the limousine’s front sank as its back
lifted, sliding to a halt between the aircraft and the fallen pair.
The chauffeur flung his door open, and ran over to them. “Shirley?” The
driver said cautiously, ignoring Hargrove completely. “Shirley, honey, is that
you? It’s Marty!
Marty Stabble! Baby, you look like shit!
Where’s Stickem?” Captain Will recovered herself, standing, suddenly all business.
“Save it, car jockey. Dewie’s
dead. We’ll be dead soon too, if you don’t quit being a jackass
and open the door for me.” She
tossed her head, her long curly hair bouncing off her shoulders. “I, um, I…Okay, yeah, of course, yeah, all right,” Marty stammered, and
threw open the back door. “Well? Do I have to carry him?” Captain Will demanded, head jerking towards Hargrove. “No, no, of course!” Marty exclaimed, and dragged Hargrove over to the
limo, driving his head into the doorframe as he hastily shovelled him into the
back. Once Hargrove was in, Marty
turned and offered his hand to the suddenly imperial seductress, who brushed
past him with a glare, ignoring the proffered hand. Marty shrugged. When she was
settled, he gently closed the rear door. Through the tinted bullet-proof window, Hargrove could see
Marty clutching his side and looking up at the downed aeroplane. “Sound-proof too,” purred Captain Will, playful once more.
“If the moron will just get in here, we’ll be fine and on our way.
Spago is open late. There is
still time.” Hargrove’s mind reeled. Spago?
At a time like this, to be thinking of dinner?
There were so many things wrong with this scenario, but Hargrove
couldn’t collect his thoughts. In
fact, the pilots beautiful face was fading, and he seemed to be leaking all over
the stalwart labourer’s upholstery. As
the blackness reclaimed him, Hargrove’s thoughts returned to his own Mavis. He resolved to reward her dedication; nobody deserved such
inattention as he had shown Mabel, after her years of service. A lovely fruitcake, he thought, Mindy will like that. Everyone loves fruitcake. |