"Maybe now that we're all lovey-dovey friends here, we could shoot
the breeze over a few drinks?" Barton offered hopefully. "I'll try to
call the graphologist again and see if he'll meet us there." Barton turned
and addressed the leprechaun, who seemed to have perked up considerably now that
he knew that he wasn't about to be tortured to death.
"Say, buddy, did this lady tell you where to go to get this pot o' gold?"
The leprechaun appeared miffed at the question.
"At the end of a rainbow, of course. Everybody knows that."
"O.K., so where were you supposed to go to find the beginning of this rainbow?"
Scott thought that maybe he was getting the hang of this interrogation stuff.
Maybe the goombahs would offer him a job too.
"The lady told me to meet her at some bar around the corner. Dumbo's, maybe?"
Barton knew every drinking establishment in Coconut Grove, most of the ones in
Greater Miami, and had a solid working knowledge of the tri-state area.
"Dumbo's?" Dumbo's... could the leprechaun actually mean Bimbo's?
"Do you mean Bimbo's, by any chance?"
"Bimbo's, yeah, that's it, Bimbo's." Barton felt as if the weight of
a thousand suns had lifted from his chest. Songbirds chirped merrily outside.
A scent of wildflowers wafted in on the breeze through the broken window.
"Why, that's just where we were headed." Barton went into his office
and speed-dialed Alphonzo's number again.
"Mouzon Services," Alphonzo answered his own phone neutrally, coasting
until he figured out which of his many hats the caller wanted him to wear.
"Yo, 'Zo, Scott here."
'Hey, Scooter, harya doon?" Scott hated being called Scooter.
"Well, alright... look, we got something here that might require your professional
services. The graphology gig, you know?"
"Professional services means like this is a paying gig, or what?" Mouzon
had a good nose for money, regardless of which of his hustles he was working.
"Well, I'm sure we can work something out..."
"Scott, ‘working something out' with you means you'll offer to buy
me a few drinks then try to scam me into doing a real job for free." Dang,
but the fellow was good.
"Oh, I'm sure there could be some money in it somewhere." If worse came
to worse and they needed a ransom, they could always appeal to the Swami's internet
clients for donations. Heaven knows the man himself had done cheesier things for
money than the ol' ransom plea. Surely even an atheistic millionaire pirate captain
like Thropnoodle didn't expect that the Swami would keep ready cash lying around?
"Come on, 'Zo, I'll buy you a few drinks down at Bimbo's, I've got a few
notes I want you to see."
"Bimbo's? Oh, well that's different... when you going?”
"We're leaving right now."
"I'll see you in 10."
Barton had high hopes for the sojourn this time. Not only was his bar tab going
to be paid by the Mafia, but he figured that with a cute leprechaun and a rich
sugar daddy in tow his odds of pollination were automatically increased. Between
the well-padded goombah and the little green guy, Barton hoped he'd shine like
a pearl in the middle. Of course, now there was Alphonzo Mouzon to contend with.
'Zo had started his ecumenical career in the Church of Harley before he got into
Beanie Babies and graphology, and he still looked, talked and smelled every bit
the biker. Though, some chicks really dug the wildman effect - Mouzon had stopped
by the office a few times to visit Scott and he'd set Lila, Claire and Veronique
all a-twitter.
Uh oh. What to do about the girls? Last time Barton had invited them to go drinking
at Bimbo's, Claire had launched into a seemingly bottomless tirade against the
exploitation of women, touching at times on "Playboy" magazine, the
Equal Rights Amendment, Clara Barton, Barbie & Ken dolls and Scott's own suspect
"sexist pig undertones." Office relations had remained strained until
he had re-wooed them all with flowers and chocolates following a really good score
off of the Chocolate Church.
His client had been Miami Mayor "Boom-Boom" LaRoux, a secret binge-eater,
and he had helped her legitimize her feelings about food and cured her addiction
by introducing her to the Chocolate Church and other related faiths. Although
the church often accepted substantial donations from industry sources, the mayor's
subsequent ballooning to 350 pounds in no way affected Scott's ability to refer
more clients there. Hey, latent fanatics could be found lurking anywhere. The
Chocolites seemed to attract an inordinate number of these - "Cocoa Locos"
as they were referred to in the popular press - but freedom of religion was constitutionally
mandated, and the skirmishes over chocolate (between the "milk" and
"dark" factions, for example) were minor compared to the bloodbaths
of the more conventional religions.
On the other hand, the girls would be tweaked if he didn't take them out drinking,
too. Especially since they had taken such a shine to the leprechaun. Especially
since they seemed to think Alonzo Mouzon was hot stuff, despite his odor. Heck,
maybe because of his odor, there was no telling with chicks. When in doubt, punt,
thought Scott. He sidled over to Louis B and murmured,
"Um, just how discreet do you want to make our excursion? I realize that
we have to engage in some sensitive negotiations, and the ladies are understandably
mourning the kidnapping of the Swami, and...."
"Nonsense," blustered Louis B. "I'll not hear of it. Bring all
the dames, too!" Scott could tell from the ensuing gooshing and primping
that he had made a crafty decision.
Suddenly, the door burst open and goombah #1, the wide one, tumbled back in.
"Boss! Boss! Da car, it's... it's... gone!"
"What do you mean - gone?"
"I just left it for a second, Boss, when da guy trew da tree trew da winder,
and..."
"You left a ninety-five thousand dollar stretch limo running, with the keys
in it, in Miami?"
"Well, I, uh..."
"Hadn't you better go find me a car, then?" Not even a trace of an accent
now. Goombahs #3 and #2 muttered things about "responsibility" and I-told-you-so's
until Louis B remarked brightly,
"Well, at least we got us a baseball pitcher out of the deal!" Everyone
laughed nervously. Mafia bosses trying to be funny were scary.
Good Lord, thought Barton, or he would have thought that had he believed in God,
a vicious and vituperative god who was conspiring to keep Barton from Happy Hour
until he expired from a lack of strong drink. Hell, it was only a block and a
half to Bimbo's, he could walk there in three minutes and eleven seconds. Hell's
bells, the way things were going he could crawl there on his belly through broken
glass and poisonous vipers in the time it would take to sort out this latest mess.
"You know,” wheedled Scott, "I agreed to meet the graphologist
there immediately so that we could go over the kidnapper's notes together."
Go over them over a nice cold tankard of something extremely refreshing, a fact
which he neglected to add but which did not go undetected by his officemates Lila,
Claire and Veronique. Oh yes, they knew their Scotty-boy, all right.
“We could go there and keep Mr. Mouzon company while you help Mr. B with
his automobile problem.” tootled Veronique. Barton swore that they did this
sort of thing on purpose sometimes. Goombahs #3 and #2 were busy on their cell
phones, apparently calling up Louis B’s back-up limousine while goombah
#1 wandered about outside looking for a limousine, or for a sword to fall on or
an alligator to gobble him up.
“Meestair Bart-oh,” Louis B was, remarkably, full-blown French again,
“why you no go ahead and vee vill catch up to you, no?” Barton swore
there was a mischievous glint in the old guy’s eye, too. However, his fleeting
misgivings at leaving Mr. B alone with the girls was easily overwhelmed by his
cataclysmic thirst. Surely, Louis B could afford his own women? Scott snatched
up the notes from the kidnappers and put them in his genuine tank-grown alligator-skin
briefcase, along with his nerdpocket loaded with pens. Donning his zebra-skin
sportcoat, he slunk out the door like a whipped dog, albeit a whipped dog who
lived next door to a sausage factory. Soon a lilting bounce crept into his stride
and he began to whistle. The birds were chirping again.
Bimbo’s was in the opposite direction down Commodore Plaza from the Divine
Light Bar and Grill, around the corner on Main Highway. The late afternoon Coconut
Grove party crowd was out in full regalia. It never ceased to amaze Scott to see
pretty girls out in flowered sundresses in March after his blighted and underheated
upbringing in Keokuk. Ah yes, this was the life, Barton thought as he headed into
Bimbo’s. Besides the leprechaun and the kidnapping and the broken window
and the car theft, what could go wrong?
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