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CRANKYBLANCA
CHAPTER 12: "By Gad, Sir, you are a character!"
RBB [voiceover]: I stared into the mirror, and I didn't like the look I was giving myself. It was worse than the thousand-yard stare I'd seen myself fall prey to in the past. I'd seen too much killing, too much blood, too much evil and scheming, and I was sick unto death of it. I needed a break -- a break from Crankyland, from my work, from everything and everyone around me. But I couldn't have it. I was stuck.
I rubbed my eyes with the fingers of my right hand, kneading the bridge of my nose as if that could massage away the pain of my headache and the nightmares that wouldn't leave me alone. My dreams were pervaded with the sounds of gunfire and shattering glass, the screams of the wounded and the moans of the dying, the sights of flowing blood and eviscerated bodies. Too much had happened all at once, and I'd had no chance to assimilate it.
It was another early morning in Crankyland, and I was the only one awake save for the tireless Hans, who was struggling to get the website fully back online. The forums were down and the squalling and screaming protests were piling up in everyone's E-Mail systems. I didn't give a good goddamn, at this stage; all I wanted to do was walk away, but when a man's client is shot and his client's website is targeted you have to do something about it. It doesn't matter what you think of them or how you feel about it; they're your client and your client's website and you have to do something.
I turned away from the mirror and splashed water on my tired face, and then I dragged a comb through my graying hair. And then I steeled myself to go back in and deal with the others.
The only one whom I could look at without my stomach heaving in protest was Princess of PMS, and even with her I was having a problem. I wanted -- hell, I didn't know what I wanted, and when I felt that way, I knew better than to do anything hasty, to jump into something. I didn't like anyone who treated another person carelessly, and I would be goddamned if I ever did that to Princess. The night before, after the Crankyland control room nearly took us all with it in a grand auto da fe, we were trying to settle down and get some sleep, and our eyes met. I could feel things within my heart stirring, things that I didn't trust, things that felt more like the need to have any arms at all around me rather than a particular set of arms attached to a particular person. It was the need to cheat death, to reassert that we were alive -- but neither of us was so far gone, tired and stressed as we were, that we were going to risk damaging ourselves and each other with one injudicious move. So we met each other's gaze and smiled -- a lopsided, sad, wry smile that said volumes. And we sacked out and went to sleep.
Now we were both awake.
RBB: Good morning.
PRINCESS OF PMS: Good morning to you.
RBB: Look, about last night --
PRINCESS OF PMS: Bad movie.
RBB: I never saw it, actually. But I heard that it stank.
PRINCESS OF PMS: Let me say it, Richard. When the time is right, we'll both know. It wasn't right last night, and I agree with you about never being careless with someone else's life.
RBB: I'm glad. I would never have wanted to hurt your feelings or anything like that.
PRINCESS OF PMS: Don't worry about it. What should we do today?
RBB [voiceover]: Princess's question sparked a train of thought in my exhausted brain, despite my belief that if I opened my skull I'd find a substance of the consistency and usefulness of the lint you find in a dryer's lint trap.
RBB: I know what we should do.
PRINCESS OF PMS: What's that?
RBB: There's a lead we haven't had the chance to follow up. Charlton Casino 2d and his cleaning service.
PRINCESS OF PMS: I agree.
RBB [voiceover]: We awoke Ivan and Philm Phan and the four of us barged into Hans's control room. He was still working on rewiring the basic circuitry, and Badtz Maru was helping him. He was grumpy but he remembered his promise to me and thrust a piece of paper into my hand. It was the last invoice from the Charlton Casino the 2d Cleaning Service, and it gave us an address.
We headed out of Cranky's Cafe Americain and piled into Ivan's SUV and were on our way. I didn't know what we'd find, but I was prepared for anything. Anything except what we found.
We pulled up in front of the headquarters of the cleaning service, only to see that the sign was gone, and the place seemed deserted. I went up to the front door and rang the bell. No answer, but I could hear people moving about inside. I started pounding on the door. Suddenly it opened.
JEN: What do you want?
RBB [voiceover]: She was about my height and curvaceous in all the right ways. Honey blond hair tumbled down past her shoulders, and even though she was wearing old jeans and a work shirt she looked damned good. She had a light Southern accent -- Maryland, I guessed -- but her eyes were cold and wary. I was taken aback, because I'd seen her at Cranky's and she was damn friendly then, welcoming every newcomer personally and with a high-voltage grin and friendly gaze that had people baying at the moon at midday. Then, behind her, loomed a guy whose like I'd only seen in the sections of bookstores I sneered at. He was tall, easily six foot three or four, powerfully built, with dark hair and eyes that brooded on the problem that I seemed to present. He put a protective hand on her shoulder and she leaned back against him, her eyes frank and challenging. OK, I thought, so you're firing off each other's nerve endings. I don't give a rat's ass about that. But the Fabio clone had decided to use his larynx.
PVT. GUMP: I'll take care of this, love. Who the hell are you?
RBB: Is this the Charlton Casino the 2d Cleaning Service?
PVT. GUMP: It was. What the hell business is it of yours?
PRINCESS OF PMS: We're here to speak with Mr. Casino or anyone working for him concerning Cranky's Cafe Americain.
JEN: I don't know anything about it.
RBB: The hell you don't, sister. I've seen you there.
JEN: So what?
PVT. GUMP: Don't give the bastard what he wants, hon. He's a troublemaker and so is she.
IVAN LEOPOLD: You would be well advised to speak with us.
PVT. GUMP: I handled worse than you in my day, Comrade. Knock it off.
PHILM PHAN: My dear, you and I have always been friendly. Perhaps we can brush these testosterone-crazed men aside and just figure out what to do.
JEN: I keep telling you, I don't know anything about the attack on Crankyland.
RBB: We didn't mention that. You did. So how do you know about something you know nothing about?
PVT GUMP: You're so smart you have an answer for everything. How about an answer for THIS?
RBB [voiceover]: He swung at me with a lead pipe, and I only just managed to duck in time. The next thing I knew I was in a full-blown fistfight. He had nearly a foot and a hundred pounds on me; I was trying to hold my own when suddenly I heard a click. Philm Phan had drawn her pistol and had it pointed right at the bridge of Gump's nose. He let go of my shoulders and neck, and I managed to break my fall.
PHILM PHAN: All we want to do is to speak with Mr. Charlton Casino the 2d. Is he here or not?
CHARLTON CASINO 2D: My dear lady, all you had to do was ask. Here I am, supervising my good friends who have come to help me...
RBB [voiceover]: I couldn't believe it. Sydney Greenstreet had died nearly half a century ago and here he was standing reincarnated before me. The same plummy accent, the same large frame and vast bulk, the same melodious voice shaped by decades of Gilbert and Sullivan performances. He was even wearing the same suit that Greenstreet wore in THE MALTESE FALCON.
CHARLTON CASINO 2D: They are helping me close out a failed venture and salvage a few souvenirs from what dear Mr. Shakespeare would have called the "wrack of all my hopes." All of you, please come in.
RBB [voiceover]: He turned on his heel, and with what Raymond Chandler called that peculiar noiseless grace of fat men, vanished into the store. Jen and Pvt Gump sulkily stepped to one side, and let us follow him in.
Casino was walking through a vast empty space. I could see places where computer terminals had stood but were now ripped out, where file cabinets had been removed, where a conference room once had dominated the center of the floor space but now was a memory, its partitions and duck-hunting prints stacked in the corner.
CHARLTON CASINO 2D: Yes, all this came to a sad end yesterday. That was why we never sent our trucks to Jason Cranky's establishment, and we could not even manage a telephone call. Our line is disconnected, you see. Ah, me, a sad fate, sad and disappointing, an ignominious end to a fine enterprise. May I offer you some refreshments?
RBB: Some coffee would be good.
CHARLTON CASINO 2D: I like a man who likes his coffee. He knows that the best way to approach life is to do so full throttle, and coffee opens the throttle as far as it will go. How do you take yours? Black? Better and better. I like a man who likes his coffee black. He is not content with substitutes or dilutions -- he insists on the real thing, at maximum strength.
RBB [voiceover]: He was pouring coffee from an elaborate coffeemaker into a large mug with his business's logo on it. Ivan and Philm Phan noticed it and each sent me a warning nod -- it was what they'd seen on the truck last night. I accepted the coffee but waited till he had refilled his mug from the same pot and sipped his; then I sipped mine. French roast, and good stuff, too; I nodded approvingly despite myself. The others accepted mugs of coffee, too. Meanwhile, Jen and Pvt. Gump were still standing in the doorway, staring back at us, radiating suspicion and distrust.
RBB: So does this mean that all the enterprises you were running out of this place are gone? The statistical analyses of Crankyland? The polling? All of it?
CHARLTON CASINO 2D: I hope to revive them someday. I may well write to Jason Cranky and ask him if he would consider incorporating my little ventures into his empire. I had hoped that my independence would bolster my credibility and my fiscal success, but ... such is life.
PHILM PHAN: And when exactly did you decide to discontinue?
CHARLTON CASINO 2D: Last night, at close of business. Ah, me, everyone wept. I wept. I do not hide it. I distrust a man who displays a Stoic demeanor to the world; he is afraid to show his true feelings, and that means that he will dissemble to all, even to himself.
RBB: So, if you heard that a truck from your enterprise was seen barreling past Cranky's Cafe Americain while its occupants raked the place with high-caliber automatic weapons, you'd be surprised?
CHARLTON CASINO 2D: I am shocked -- *shocked* -- that such a thing should have happened, let alone that so estimable a person as your lovely colleague should have believed that it was one of our vans. Ah, me, no -- two of my drivers took one of the vans as partial satisfaction of back wages.
RBB [voiceover]: Now *he'd* slipped -- he had pegged Philm Phan as one of the two people who had trailed his van last night.
PRINCESS OF PMS: And you'd have no problem giving us their names and addresses and phone numbers?
CHARLTON CASINO 2D: Oh, of course not ... provided that you have the authorities supporting your -- er -- "request" with a valid warrant.
RBB: You're sure you couldn't be prevailed upon to dispense with formalities and officialdom, Mr. Casino?
CHARLTON CASINO 2D: Dear me, no. It would be an unthinkable breach of faith to my former employees, to whom I still consider myself as being in loco parentis.
RBB [voiceover]: He was good, he was very good, and this was getting us noplace. And I was getting angry. I hurled the coffee cup into the corner, where it shattered.
RBB: Look, you *will* talk to us, and you'll drop all this loco parentis hoohah and your polite regrets and your hiding behind the law. And another thing -- don't send the overgrown muscle guy after me. I don't like him. I'll rip his guts out if he looks crosseyed at me. You got that?
CHARLTON CASINO 2D: I must say, Sir, you have a most violent and ungovernable temper.
RBB [voiceover]: Now he was handing out Greenstreet raw from MALTESE FALCON. I figured I'd do the same.
RBB: You have till 5:30, and then you'll talk to us or you'll never talk to anyone again outside a jail cell. You've got until 5:30, and then you're in or you're out! For keeps!
RBB [voiceover]: As I stormed out, I could tell that the others were perplexed, except maybe for Philm Phan. She got the movie references. As always, I figured -- if you have to steal, steal from the best. And if Charlton Casino the 2d could steal from THE MALTESE FALCON, so could I.
As we left, I heard him chuckle, and then he said something that made me smile reluctantly.
CHARLTON CASINO 2D: By Gad, Sir, you *are* a character. One never knows what you will say or do next, except that it's bound to be astonishing!
RBB [voiceover]: His bravado was admirable, but I knew that we'd be back. And then we'd see what Casino's next move would be.
[...to be continued...]
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