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Chapter 9 – How Well do Hotel Towels Staunch Large Puncture Wounds?

“Very few people have ever been killed with the bayonet or sabre, but the fear of having their guts explored with cold steel in the hands of battle-maddened men has won many a fight” – Patton

Hargrove’s senses were honed to a sharpness that one could prick a finger on, as the van rolled down the streets of Hollywood.  Although the van’s driver had done nothing to arouse suspicion, other than show up out of nowhere, professing to be working under Candace and offering a ride unbidden, there was no way the famed Marxist Detective was going to be caught unawares.

“So, you with the Afro, Candace sent you?” he said, cautiously probing.  If the driver made even the slightest hostile move, Hargrove would deflate his gravity-defying hair-do with a .455 bullet.

“Yeah, man.  Candace sent me.” 

“Yes, I see.”  Hargrove studied him.  “And perhaps you can describe her.”

“Sure, man, I can describe her.  She’s like, a chick.”

“Go on.”

“Her hair is, uh, sort of a dirty blond, verging on brunette, but with some red in it too maybe.”

Hargrove realized he had no idea what Candace’s hair colour was, since he had been too busy staring at her cleavage.  He was reasonably sure he could identify that in a police line-up, though.  The Marxist Detective abandoned his line of questioning.

“…And there’s nothing suspicious in the glove compartment,” continued the driver. 

Well, thought Hargrove, as long as there’s nothing suspicious…

He looked around.  Shirley was wiping a finger clean on the green shag carpet lining the van.  Marty sat next to the driver, fumbling with something in his lap.  Closer inspection revealed it to be a piece of tripe.  Even closer inspection revealed that Marty was petting the hunk of cow innards the way someone might stroke a cat.  Any inspection closer than that was wisely not taken.

As for the driver with the cantilevered Afro, he was dressed as if the wardrobe closet of Grand Funk Railroad had thrown up on him.  His clothes, this van, even the news on the radio were all from a bygone era.  Although Hargrove had little fondness for the 70’s, it was nice to hear about Nixon being impeached again.

He sighed.  It seemed he had more questions than answers, and any answer provoked a score of questions.

Hargrove explored what he had managed to save from Wapkaplet Sr.’s package – a few scattered pages of the spreadsheet and the small envelope with the key.  Luckily, he had grabbed the page outlining the payments to Le Scorpion, infamous aristocratic assassin.  If nothing else, he would be able to send the information along to Lt. Col. Portmanteau, his contact at the fledgling Europol police force.

The key, now that was something else.  Hargrove shook it out of the envelope and scrutinized it.  “Rm. 1522” was inscribed on it – clearly a hotel room key.  But which hotel?  There had to be hundreds in Hollywood, and the non-descript brass key could belong to any of them.  He focused all of his considerable powers of deduction upon the key.  When nothing came to him, he redoubled his efforts.  Other than making the key heat up slightly, and bending several spoons in the van, he achieved nothing.

“The Hyatt West Hollywood,” said Shirley.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Hyatt West – that’s the hotel for that key.”

Hargrove stammered.  “B-but I’m the detective, not you!  How did you figure that out?”

The voluptuous pilot shimmied her hips suggestively.  “Are you kidding?  When you’re built like me and live in Hollywood, you know *all* the hotels.  Remind me to tell you about Las Vegas some time too.”

Crestfallen, Hargrove slipped the key into his one remaining pocket.  “Fine, then we go to the Hyatt West.  You with the Afro, can you take us there?”

There was a long pause.  “I.. I don’t know if I can…”  He glanced nervously about the van, his eyes lingering on the glove compartment, then on his wristwatch.

“Marty, he doesn’t know the way.  Check the glove compartment for a map.”  The many-tentacled chauffer complied, popping open the door and peering inside the compartment, as the towering-coiffed driver stifled a sound. 

“Can’t see any maps – only thing in here is a time bomb.”  Satisfied he had tried his best, Marty latched the door and continued fondling the piece of tripe.

“By Stalin’s all-Cossack chorus, that really burns me up.  How can anybody expect to get around in a city if they don’t even have a map?  And then to take up all the space reserved for map and glove storage with a bomb, it makes you wonder about people’s priorities.”  Hargrove looked into the distance, a misty quality quavering in his voice.  “I remember my first car bomb.  Rome, May Day, the Red Brigade…what a magical time.”

“Aren’t car bombs dangerous,” inquired Shirley.

“Yes, but only if one is within the effective blast radius.”

Marty’s voice shared Shirley’s unease.  “And wouldn’t sitting inside the vehicle carrying the bomb be technically within the blast radius?”

“Well,” said Hargrove.  “Hypothetically speaking…”

Marty slapped a tentacle on the accelerator.  “You with the Afro!  Drive like your life depended on it, which, K’shuleth dyath, it does.”

The van careened down the street, barely making corners.  Marty’s implacable tentacle pushed relentlessly on the accelerator, while others slowly wrapped around the wide-lapelled lime-green suit of the driver.  “So where are we going?”

“I thought you knew,” said Hargrove.  “It isn’t like driving faster would distance us from the bomb.”

“Does anybody know how to disarm a bomb?” asked Marty.  “I can never remember whether you are supposed to cut the red wire or the blue one.”

“Blue,” said Hargrove.  “Occasionally the red, never the green.”

“Why not go to the Hyatt?  We need to get there anyway,” said Will.  The van driver nodded in helpless agreement, and spun the wheel into a left turn through oncoming traffic.  Within minutes, the hotel was in sight.

The quartet leapt from the van as soon as it was marginally safe to do so, racing past a startled parking valet.  Hargrove tossed him the keys.  “Park this, babe, and preferably away from a support column or load-bearing wall.”

The famed Marxist Detective was barely two steps into the lobby of the luxury hotel when he was assaulted by its sheer opulence.  Marble floors and soft, diffuse lighting knocked him to his knees while the wafting piped-in music laid siege to his anti-elitist sensibilities.  The sight of the corporately-produced sculpture caused him to bite clean through his lip. Twitching like a ticklish spastic with a ferret down his pants, Hargrove fought his way to the front desk.

Clutching at the edge of the desk, he pounded his hand down a dozen times before managing to hit the bell that would summon the clerk.

Admirably, the clerk showed no outward sign of noticing Hargrove’s condition, although he was quivering inwardly at the sight of the detective’s drool making the ink run in the register.

"How may I serve you, uh… sir?”

Struggling to speak, Hargrove eventually responded after several false starts.  “NNNNNno!  You may not ‘serve’ me, in a farcical ritualized drama of the worker’s struggle against the so-called ruling class.  Erg!  Velvet cushions on the lobby couch!  EEEEeeeeyou unwittingly oppress yourself with your servile manner, paying unnatural homage to a parade of bourgeois parasites!  NnnnnnnnNNNNNnnnngh!  And SHUT OFF THAT GODDAMN ANDY KIM ON THE MUZAK!”  In one smooth motion, Hargrove spun, drew his Webley and fired, blasting the speaker off the wall.  Instantly, he felt better.  Surprisingly, so did everybody else in the lobby now that the shooting, and Andy Kim, had stopped.

“Now, my good man,” said Hargrove, turning back to face the desk clerk.  “Oh, there you are.  Could you point the way to the elevators from under there?  On the left?  Thank you.”

The elevator doors closed behind them with a mechanical purr.  The ride was conducted in near silence, Shirley clenching her marvellous buttocks with eye-crossing intensity, Marty furtively patting the pocket where his purloined[1] tripe resided, Hargrove holding onto the Afro’d van driver’s sleeve, and the driver looking increasingly miserable as the counter noted each floor passed.

As soon as the doors opened on the 15^th floor, the curvaceous but dyspeptic Captain Will let forth a machine-gun burst of flatulence, provoking a small stampede out of the elevator.  By the time they had found Room 1522, their composure had returned, although “You with the Afro” had the demeanour of a suspected embezzler about to walk in on his annual performance review.

The door opened readily to Hargrove’s touch, revealing a sumptuous hotel room.  Reflexively, he spat on the spongy carpeting.  “I despise this gross display of wealth, from the inviting king-size bed, to that enticing fruit basket, to that freaking-huge TV.  This… this…”  Hargrove wavered, feeling the tug of the room’s opulence but luckily was saved by an ear-piercing scream from Shirley Will.

“Why thank you, Shirley.  That’s the first unpleasant noise out of you unaccompanied by a stench.  And, more importantly, it rescued me from the demonic seduction of this over-priced, bourgie bed-and-breakfast.”

“I was screaming because of the corpse,” said Shirley, pointing at the dead woman on the floor.

“Well,” said Hargrove, pleasantly.  “Whatever the reason.”  He started flipping through the channels on the monolith-sized TV, pausing at the scrambled porn.

“Aren’t you going to look at the corpse?” asked Marty.

“Not really sure why I should,” said Hargrove, who had given up the TV remote instead to peruse the room service menu.  “You’ve seen one corpse, you’ve seen them all, frankly.  Blood, bullet holes, compound fractures – if I wanted to see that, I could look in a mirror.”

Shirley glowered.  “I think.  You should.  Look at.  The corpse.” 

Sighing, he complied.  Instantly, something looked familiar about the dead woman staining the carpet.  With a sinking feeling, he remembered where he had seen her before – the 8x10 photograph Candy had given him.  “Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to the late Ida Appel.”

Ignoring the gasps behind him, the famed Marxist Detective knelt to inspect the body.  Next to it were several spent .44 calibre shell casings.  The .44 Desert Eagle wielded at the airport by the homicidal Wapkaplet Jr. loomed large in his mind.

“Obviously BFG Jr. killed her to hurt Syc Offant.  Obviously Syc was closing in and Jr. killed Ida before she could be rescued.  Obviously Jr.’s plan is in a critical phase, with visitors from Saudi Arabia, China, Canada and Morocco here, and so he couldn’t spare his resources to guard Ida, so he killed her… uh… obviously.”

Hargrove sat on the terribly comfortable bed, and idly rubbed the luxurious bedspread.  “To continue.  The bomb in the van was meant for us, meaning that Jr. is after us too, realizing too late that the envelope his father gave us contained valuable information as to his plans, as well as a clue so we could rescue Ida.  And that means that the driver of that van is not working for Candace, but for BFG Wapkaplet Jr.!  You with the Afro!  Freeze!”

“Uh,” said Marty.  “Where’d he go?”

“Right here, man!” he shouted, leaping out from behind the TV and burying a large knife in Hargrove’s back.  With the others left agape, he ran for the open door to the hotel room.  At the precise moment that he crossed the threshold, a loud cracking noise filled the room, originating from the juncture of the driver’s shin and a walking stick.

A man stepped into the room, dragging the whimpering driver behind him.  He took a moment to adjust his silk tie with its diamond stickpin, and flick a non-existent piece of dust from his shoulder. 

“Having problems, Hargrove?” he asked, the mocking tone clearly evident in his voice.

“None whatsoever,” replied Hargrove, who was having great difficulty dislodging the knife buried between his shoulder blades.  On the upside, however, it had managed to deal with that itch in the spot that the famed Marxist Detective never could seem to reach.

“Marty, Shirley, allow me to introduce you to my arch-rival – Rockefeller, the Capitalist Detective.”

“And,” said Rockefeller.  “Allow me to introduce you to Syc Offant.”  With a flick of his cane, he knocked the Afro wig off of the prostrate Offant.

What?  Syc Offant trying to kill them?  But doesn’t Candace work for Syc?  Why isn’t Syc broken up about the death of his fiancée?  What is Rockefeller doing here?  Will Hargrove have to tip the parking valet, even though the van blows up?

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