See "An Introduction to Detective Monica" for Full Disclaimers.

Part Five

Of course, by now you know to whom I'm referring -- it was Green Robe!  My old lurker from the streets of Seacouver, sans robe and slippers, but still with his sword.  And doing quite a nice kata with it, too, with no one paying him any particular attention. He musta been practicing back home, 'cause he sure seemed to have more confidence with that sucker than the last time I'd seen him with his sword out.  Of course, that was just after he'd fallen down a certain hill . . .  And he'd had the sword taken care of, too, it was straightened out and brightly polished and looked quite realistic.  Until you compared it mentally to Duncan's sword, of course, at which point you realized it was one of those replica thingies.  However, even for one of those, it looked pretty damned good.

Good enough, and attached to a suspicious enough character, that I did a smart about-face and proceeded bargewards at a brisk pace. Much more brisk a pace than I'd taken up to that point.  Well, as I keep saying, I'm not  stupid.  I have no idea of who this guy is, why he keeps lurking around Duncan (or is it me, I wonder?), or what the heck he wants.  If anything.  Maybe he's just practicing to be a spy or something, like I was learning how to be a detective when I was tailing Duncan in the park before the hill incident.  It  could be something totally innocent like that, although I don't think so.  Too many anomalies about him, entirely!  So I was in no mood to even wonder how he'd managed to A) know where Duncan was headed, and B) how he'd afforded the flight to Paris.  Pretty good money management for a guy who'd appeared to be living on the street back in Seacouver . . .

Which was why I was in a nervous mood on the way back to the barge, and I kept my eyes peeled behind me for any trace of being followed -- and when I did make the barge, I hopped on board fast and dived into the cabin like a rabbit into its burrow.  Not the best of ideas, as it turned out.  In keeping a lookout for Green Robe, I'd forgotten the  other little problem of Mahoud.  Well, I was rather forcibly reminded once I got inside . . . because the two goons tearing the barge apart promptly grabbed me and stuck a wad of something over my nose and mouth.  Then a few seconds later I was out like a light.

****

*sigh*  Geeze, this is boring.  Sorry, I didn't mean writing to  you is boring!!  It's just this whole situation.  I mean, I'm antsy as hell after being locked up in here since . . . what, late yesterday afternoon, presumably.  Unless I was drugged long enough that I lost more than another night; which is something I'd rather not think about, 'cause it means Duncan's having trouble finding me.  Or that Mahoud has him meeting somewhere else than my actual location.  Which is a  really depressing thought, 'cause it means that Mahoud will only be coming back here to take care of loose ends -- like me -- after he's dealt with Duncan.

Damn, I wish I could do something!

It's afternoon now, of the same day I woke up here and had the little interview with Mahoud.  I just finished what you could call a very late lunch or awfully early dinner -- or, if you were British, tea.  It smelled wonderful, too, and I would've drunk the tea if I trusted Mahoud at all.  Which I don't.  But It's a little more difficult to drug food so it doesn't taste funny -- at least that's what my books tell me -- so I ate that very, very slowly.  I'm still awake and alert, so it wasn't drugged, hopefully.  Trust me, I dragged out my eating time as long as I could, and should have felt the first effects of anything about halfway through the meal. Nothing yet.  And although I don't have my watch any more (probably to confuse me and dig away a little more at my self-confidence -- hah!) I can feel that it's late afternoon.  Although not past 5 p.m.  (I have this pretty accurate clock in my head, so don't really need to use clocks or watches . . . but at any job, people give you funny looks if you don't have a watch, they think you'll always be late or something.  I found that out in a hurry, so got a cheapie watch and just wear it for camouflage.)

Meanwhile, I'm bored to tears.  I've speculated on what the hell Green Robe is doing in Paris, and if he has any connection with Mahoud; I've wondered what the heck it is that has Mahoud in such a snit over Duncan, bad enough to want to kill him, yet; and I've written this to you -- boy, are you going to be reading, huh?  -- and made a mental reconnaissance of the route they took me by to see Mahoud, and everything I can see out of my window.

This place appears to be pretty old.  From going to see Mahoud and back, it looks like they stuck me in what would have been servant's quarters, or something; anyway, the floors abruptly changed from parquet to flagstones about halfway between here and there, and in the stone floored section the halls are a lot narrower.  Which means the place is old, as the stones are pretty worn in spots, kinda hollowed a bit.  Dunno how many years it takes to hollow stones from walking over 'em, but probably a couple of hundred at least.  Then there's the paintings hanging in one big hall they dragged me down, plus the general  air of the whole place -- it feels like a museum, except one that's lived in.

The view from the window -- which I have to stand on the bed to see -- seems to bear out that this is probably a chateau at least in the suburbs of Paris; although with the amount of time I was out, they could've driven the length of France, for all I know. But the weather feels the same . . . and I can hear a fairly busy road not too far away, so I don't think we're that far from Paris. Just a feeling, mind you, but my hunches are usually good.  Most of what I can see from the window is an impressive amount of lawn rolling away towards a stone wall  quite a ways away -- with a few little patches of trees here and there, but nice, neat patches, not growing wild, you know.  I'd presume there's a good-sized building that I'm in, with a fairly large property surrounded by that wall. In other words, a wonderful place for seclusion and privacy.

Lot of good all this analysis does me, I'm not likely to be able to get the grillwork off this window -- and believe me, I've tried!  But, what the hell, I can at least keep an eye out the window while I write more, and see if I can spot anything.  Although it's now past 5, and getting dark awfully quick.  You know, winter and all.

And while I'm excruciatingly bored, I keep comforting myself with thoughts of what Mahoud or his guards could be doing that would  not be boring, to put it mildly, and thanking my lucky stars that he hasn't started doing any of them.  Yet.  Although, y'know, he could star--

???  What on earth?

Hang on a minute . . .

****

Ohboy,  that was weird!!  Man, I nearly jumped outta my skin!  Oh, gawd, but it was so funny-

Sorry, I know, I'm rambling.  Well, you'd be giggling your head off too if you'd just made a new friend with a snuffly nose and it's standing outside your window making little whinny-grunts at you.

Yeah, you heard me right.  It's a -- get this -- miniature  horse!!!  You know, those little teeny ones about 36 inches high or so??  Smaller than Shetland ponies, even!  It's the  cutest little thing, awful darn delicate-looking -- some of 'em are like tiny draft horses, but this guy is more like a mini-Arab with a little potbelly.  He's apparently just running around loose on the grounds; I wonder if they have a whole herd of 'em?  I also wonder if Mahoud actually has a grain of humanity in him, too; anyone who keeps these little buggers just  may have a softer side to them. Notice I said  may.

Well, there really is no window -- just the grille, you know, I'm thanking God they actually left me my coat, and a blanket on the bed, at least I  hope I won't freeze.  Anyway, I was peacefully writing to you when there's this weird noise right at the window, then this little guy suddenly sneezed -- and I nearly died from fright!!!  Until I saw what it was sticking an inquiring little black velvet nose through the grille.

Anyway, he seems awfully lonely -- maybe he's the only one, and horses hate that, as would any herd animal -- and he loves my leftover lousy food.  Ok, so he's not an epicure, what the heck, he's company. Plus he seems to like my voice, 'cause the food almost ran out long ago, so I started rationing it; but he's still snuffling at me while I scratch his nose on and off between scribbling. Well, if I reach through the grille, I can scratch behind his ears, and even his tummy.  He likes that; and it's the cutest fuzzy widdle tummy!  Oh lord, I'm going googly-eyed over him, with baby-talk yet, which I despise.  Yeah, but he  is adorable!  Too bad he's not a real horse, and there isn't some magic way I could get on him and ride on outta--!!!!!

Oh my.  Oh me oh my.  Hell's bells and panther tracks, as my mother used to say.  I . . . Have . . . An . . . IDEA!!!

****

I know, I know -- hang on, this gets a little complicated.  But I  will tell you everything.

Okay -- so, there I was, in a room half-underground, starting to freeze, making friends with a miniature horse, of all things. Then I was suddenly thwapped in the head, so to speak, with this utterly insane idea.  I mean, the sort of thing you  know won't work.  Only in a TV show, like 'MacGuyver.'  Then, well, yeah, of course.  But I said to myself, "Self, what have you go to lose, after all?"  Self said zip.  So I went ahead.

Well, once I managed to rip the sheet into strips and tie 'em together, then I was kinda worried about my little friend.  I mean, I doubt if he'd had any training whatsoever in his life, much less training for the kind of thing I was thinking of.  After all, you usually don't do plowing or anything with a team of miniature horses.  Not even for gardens instead of farms.  Plus was he strong enough?

Yeah, yeah, get to the point, I know!  Well, I tied this big, solid loop in the middle of the long strip I'd put together . . . solid as in it wouldn't tighten up when you pulled on the ends of the sheet strip on either side of the loop.  Okay, I'll call it a rope!!  Easier.  It's just such a  cliche, y'know?  I mean, the rope made of torn-up sheets . . .

Anyway -- I managed to put the loop over my little friend's head; he didn't seem to mind at all.  I'd already managed to hoist the bedframe -- with a lot of grunting and cursing, fortunately it was a very narrow, old-fashioned single bed.  So I ran the ropes back through the bedframe, then back to the window and tied both ends to the grille.

I know, it's crazy.  As I said, totally insane.  Well, I said a prayer, let my friend sniff the last bite of roll I had from dinner, and then I threw it.  Over him, out on that big, humongous lawn. Then braced myself against the bed frame and hoped I had enough weight to keep the bed put against the (hopefully) forthcoming pull.

Well, horses aren't naturally retrievers or anything, but he was smart enough to figure out that A Goody had gone behind him somewhere. He managed to get turned around without tangling up or pulling the rope off his neck -- whew!  -- and started heading out towards the wide-open spaces.  Then he ran out of rope.

Hmmm.  His ears pinned back and he gave a little snort and shook his head; then he switched his tail and turned to look accusingly at me.  Not so dumb, huh?  (After all, let's face it; I love them, but horses are  not the smartest animals in the world.  Give me a donkey any day, they're  much smarter than horses. Why do you think mules are considered so durned stubborn??  'Cause their daddy was a donkey jack, and they got their brains from him.  Which means you ask a mule to do something, he or she is gonna wanna think about it first and calculate the odds of getting hurt.  None of this galloping themselves to death for their master for  them, nosirree.  The master can damned well get down and run if he wants to get somewhere that fast.  They'll stop and take a breather, maybe eat a little grass, then go on when they're ready.  At a nice, sensible trot, not a gallop.)

Well, anyway, so here I am, looking pleadingly at a miniature horse and wondering desperately how I can get the idea across that I want him to  pull . . . and I was so freaked I reverted to matinee Western thinking.  (In reality, 'Bonanza,' but what's the diff . . .) I  actually clicked my tongue a couple times and said, "Giddyup!"

Now, this was brilliant.  As if he'd have any idea what I wanted him to do.  Not to mention the little fact that we were in France, and presumably if he'd  ever heard any commands, they'd all been in French!  Well, hell, what do I know from French for 'giddyup'??  So at this point I was pretty well figuring I'd have to break my new friend's trust in me and poke him in the rump with my pen or something, to get him to pull.  But to my everlasting wonder and amaze, that little thing actually tossed his head, snorted -- sort of like, "well, why didn't you  say so?  This I understand!" -- then he stuck his head down, dug in his feet, and started pulling like a draft horse at a plowing competition!  I nearly cheered, I was so flabbergasted!

Fortunately, I remembered in time and kept my mouth mostly shut -- I just kept saying giddyup and hup and anything else I could think of to encourage my little hero.  Meanwhile praying that (A) he wouldn't stop, (B) he was strong enough, and (C) nothing made too much noise.  Then the grille started a little drawn-out screech, and I hastily switched from (A) and (B), to (C) alone.

Amazingly enough -- I dunno  how, God sure does look after idiots -- in another few minutes that grille popped out of its setting and into the room (and on top of the mattress -- I repeat, I was trying to keep this  quiet) as pretty as you please. I yelled "Whoa" in sort of a whisper, and darned if that blessed beast didn't stop dead right away.  I nearly fell down 'cause I was still braced against the bed frame, which made a great pulley substitute, by the way.  Another one of those little things to remember, Just In Case.

Well, you know I didn't waste any time shoving my bag through, jumping up and wiggling out the window.  Fortunately, it had at least half the opening above-ground, and I was able to squeeze through.  Not forgetting, of course, to hug and pet my friend and give him a lot of praise, while scanning nervously for anything like guards or dogs or trained attack weasels or other unexpected guests.  I half expected Green Robe to rise up out of the mist that was hugging the ground, like the Hound of Baskervilles or something, but no.  The place was quiet as a graveyard.

Not that graveyards bother me -- what, dead people have nothing better to do than come back and scare schmucks who romp in graveyards? Naaahhh.  It's just that if there had been a little cheerful noise around to cover up any noise  I made, I would have been a lot more confident of getting outta there in one piece.  Especially as my friend now seemed firmly attached.  I started sidling along the wall of the chateau, and Friend kept right up, his nose at about hip pocket level, sniffing as if he thought I was hiding the Extra Special Goodies out of sheer meanness.  He kept poking me, too, with that little nose of his.  Don't you believe miniature horses are 96-lb.  weaklings just 'cause they're so small.  They're still  horses.  And while they have the softest muzzles, they also have a nice, solid horse-skull under 'em, with darned strong neck muscles powering things.  You try getting poked -- hard -- in the hip over and over again by something with, say, about 40 lbs.  of force, and you'd keep staggering too! Not to mention the other hip was also getting nicely bruised from every nudge whamming me against the wall of the chateau.  Whee;  more bruises!

I suppose I could have whapped him back, but gee, it seemed kind of ungrateful, y'know? I mean, he'd rescued me; now I was supposed to thunk him on the nose to stop him nudging me? I just couldn't do it.  So I kept staggering along, gritting my teeth and trying to lessen the noise of me being rammed into the wall every five steps or so.

Well, it was a good thing I hadn't hit him, after all; he was a great early warning system.  One second he's nudging, then next he stops dead, pricks his ears (no, it wasn't a bright night, I was resting a hand on him), and lets out this one little warning-type of snort.  I'm no dummy.  I stopped dead too and tried not to let my heart beat too loudly.

I kept peering in the direction Friend was staring at -- well, actually, I used his ears as pointers.  I couldn't see where he was looking but I sure could feel those little ears moving around nervously.  Peering didn't do much good, however; no moon, and there was only a dim sort of glow around the chateau, no outside lights at all on the side we were on.  Which, obviously, made it a great approach for some sort of attack, right? Right.  I apparently wasn't the only person to think so.  'Cause all of a sudden my little friend gives a  loud snort -- the kind that means, "Danger, run like hell!" -- and he lets out this herd-stallion bugle and whirls around before letting his heels fly.

It's amazing how high horses can kick, you know?  After all, this little guy was just under three feet high at his withers -- okay, that's his back where it joins his neck, all right?  Geeze.  So you've learned your new thing for the day.  Anyhoohow, you wouldn't think a little thing like that could kick as high as a tall man's groin.  At least,  I wouldn't have!

Neither, apparently, had the goon that was rolling in agony on the ground.

Fortunately, there was enough light to see him on the ground -- and to see the cute little Uzi or similar that he'd been toting go flying out of his hand.  So first thing I did was grab that.  Next thing was to kick said goon in the head.

What?  You think I'm going to trust a hit to his wedding tackle to take care of him?  C'mon.  That can be a highly over-rated way to take a guy out.  Yeah, sure, it hurts.  Exquisitely.  But not everyone reacts the same way to pain, you know.  And if it's a serious fight, even major pain can be blocked off long enough to take care of something threatening their life.  You can always curl up in a groaning ball of pain  after you've killed whatever was trying to kill you.

So I kicked him in the head, hard, and fortunately he stopped rolling around.  I nudged him a couple of times -- well, okay, I kicked him in the ribs, too.  Just to make sure he wasn't faking it.  But no, he was out, all right.  At the least.  I don't  think I killed him.  Frankly, I wasn't worrying about it.  They were threatening to kill me, and the man I loved; I wasn't going to pussyfoot around and fuss over any amount of damage to them.  I had to make sure, and I wasn't going to risk getting close to those big ham-hands of his to check whether he had a pulse or not.  And while the Uzi was nice to have, those little guns are also noisy.  (Yeah, it was an Uzi; I recognized it as soon as I got my hands on it.  Yet another thing to be grateful for to my ex-boyfriend Weasel, the gun-running biker.  As disgusting as it sounds.  Damn, I may have to send a thank-you note to him over in San Quentin.  As long as I make sure to mail it from an anonymous location.)

Conclusion

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Go on to the third story in the series.)

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