Butler Did It! (15 page)

“Baby loves to shop as much as I do,
don’t you my itsy pooh-pooh?” she trilled, kissing the little dog
full on the lips before letting it down under their table. Hen and
Charles seemed to be trying to gather their thoughts in the face of
this brightly painted intrusion. Unbeknownst to Charles, the dog
trotted over to his leg, sniffed carefully at his shoes, and, with
no remorse whatsoever, immediately raised a leg on his white linen
pant cuff.

Suddenly two men slammed open the metal
stair doors, shattering this touristy interlude.

Tommy and Butler burst through the door
yelling instructions at each other.

“Look for cover,” yelled Tommy, “I’ll
see if there’s a way down.

At the same time, Butler yelled, “I’ll
look for cover; you look for a way down.” They said the last three
words in unison.

The little dog started barking, the
effort causing it to jump in the air with every bark.

“Oh my Gawd,” shrieked the Poodle
woman.

Both Smythe-Stuttlers sat frozen in
astonishment.

Even in the rush to find safety,
Tommy’s hindbrain reacted to the edifice of bad taste standing next
to the Smythe - Stuttler’s table.
He thought, a cross between
Anna Nicole Smith, Zha-Zha Gabor, and the Wicked Witch of the West
laboring as a female drag queen.
All together, it was an odd
tableau of tourists and tits.

Butler’s scan for cover revealed a
canopied tent on bamboo poles between the tourist’s table and the
elevator. Beneath the tent was a complete bar with shelves of
high-end booze and a shell-shocked looking bartender.

Tommy raced to the nearest side of the
building where he saw, five stories beneath him, a fenced patio
with several dozen-glass tables and numerous wrought-iron chairs
scattered about.

“No chance on this side, buddy. No fire
escape.” Tommy yelled out loudly.

Butler reached the other side of the
building and looked down on to another patio cafe lined with
pointed wrought-iron fencing. “This side is no good either, unless
you want to be a pincushion.”

“It looks like we’re going to have to
find some other way off this roof. Try the side behind the bar,”
Butler hollered.

Tommy, anticipating Butler, was already
there. His reply came back immediately. “It’s just a narrow alley
on this side.”

“We need something
brilliant.”

“I'm thinking!”

“Well, think smarter.”

By the sound of pounding footsteps on
the stairwell, the thugs were getting closer. Tommy summarized
their situation brilliantly. “We’re stuck on a roof. As far as I
can see, the only way down is by parachute.”

They both began looking around as if
the rooftop bar would be fully stocked with handy parachutes.
Butler focused on the bar. He pointed at the nylon canopy over the
bar and asked, “How about Leonardo's parachute? Do we have the
technology for that?”

Tommy grinned wide and replied, “Yes,
we have the technology for that.”

“You put it together,” Butler returned,
“and I'll slow down the opposition.”

Tommy rushed to the bar and immediately
began wrestling with one of the bamboo poles, trying to get it out
of its seat.

The bartender blurted out, “Mon Dieu,
What are you doing?”

“Ask him.” Tommy grunted, as he pulled
at the canopy supports.

At the same time, Butler strode over to
the trio of bewildered tourists, flashed his most brilliant smile
and asked, “Is this chair taken?” Without waiting for a response,
he slung the chair at the doorway to the stairwell. By either
fortuitous aim or blind luck, the chair glided through the doorway
and crashed down the stairs. He began throwing every chair within
reach at the stairwell. Many of them went down the stairs but many
more ricocheted off the entrance and began creating a tangled mass
of metal in front of both the stairwell and the
elevator.

The bewildered bartender leaned over
the bar and yelled, “Hey, you can’t do that!”

Butler strode over, pulled out a wad of
cash from his wallet, and slapped it down on the bar. “This ought
to cover just about anything!” he said.

Just then the elevator dinged, Butler
jumped over the bar, and at the same time shouted to both the
bartender and patrons, “Y’all might want to duck about
now.”

The Smythe-Stuttlers, suddenly awakened
to the danger, fell to the floor and began crawling toward the
shelter of a heavy metal planter box. The pink intruder screamed
and tried to gather up her poodle. The dog, frantic with
excitement, was bouncing about uncontrollably on the end of its
leash.

Butler looked around and immediately
began grabbing liquor bottles from the back of the bar and slinging
them at the opening elevator doors. Two thugs armed with silenced
automatics leaped out, only to encounter four or five liquor
bottles moving at a high rate of speed and shattering all around
them.

“Tommy, how we doing?” shouted Butler
over the bedlam.

Gunfire from the open elevator door
interrupted Tommy's response. Almost simultaneously, more gunfire
came from the stairwell door opposite. Butler threw more bottles of
high-grade liquor, alternating between the stairwell and the
elevator. In the middle of all the chaos, the bartender’s hand
snaked over the bar top, searching for the wad of cash Butler had
left behind. Just as quickly, it disappeared into the bartender’s
jacket pocket.

Butler yelled out again to Tommy. “I
hope you’re making progress because I'm running out of booze,
here.”

“Two more minutes!” Tommy yelled
back.

When Butler grabbed a particularly fine
bottle of Armagnac, the bartender suddenly came out of
hiding.

“No, no. Not that one!” He screeched
and handed Butler an off-brand bottle of gin instead. Now involved
in the process, the bartender began handing bottles from the far
reaches of the bar over to Butler. Stopping for a second, Butler
grabbed the bartender and asked, “Does this place have a fire
sprinkler system?”

“Yes it does! Why do you
ask?”

Ignoring the question Butler began
patting his pockets; he turned and asked, “Does anyone have a
match?”

This time the bartender was faster on
the uptake. “No, no you can't!” he pleaded, knowing his pleading
was futile.

Butler followed the eyes of the
bartender to a large brandy snifter full of book matches engraved
in the Bar’s logo. He pulled out a book, lit the whole thing, and
tossed it back into the glass. As the matches began to flare
brightly, he threw the snifter at the elevator doors. The spilled
liquor ignited with a gentle whoosh, followed by several
high-pitched screams. The elevator doors slowly closed on two thugs
beating at their clothing. A quavering fire alarm bell began to
ring. The thugs in the stairwell, seeing Butler’s firebomb attack
and hearing the alarm, realized that they too were completely
doused in liquor. Expecting immediate immolation, they quickly fled
back down the stairwell.

That should give us a breather for a
bit
, thought Mathew.
Once the alcohol evaporates, they’ll
get over their fear.
Butler glanced over at Tommy to see him
wrestling with the canopy near the edge of the roof.

How's it going Tommy?

Tommy's answer was cryptic at best. “I
need your pants!”

“Mine? No way!”

“It won't work without some pants!
Dammit, I need pants.”

Butler looked at Jean the bartender
questioningly. The bartender emphatically shook his head
no.

“No luck here. I guess you're going to
have to use your own.”

Turning to the bartender, Butler
apologized for the destruction, telling him to put all the damages
on Katherine Annenberg’s hotel room bill, and that everything would
be taken care of.

“I think it would be a good idea for
you and the old folks to stay hidden for a bit after we leave.
Those guys will be back.”

There was a sound of chairs being moved
in the stairwell and Tommy stuck his head around the bar, yelling…
“It’s time to go.”

At Tommy’s instruction, he and Butler
grabbed hold of the canopy whose bamboo support legs had been
hastily tied together at the bottom with Tommy’s pair of khaki
cargo pants. Lifting the canopy above their heads like a large,
square umbrella, they climbed onto the ledge of the
building.

Peering over the edge and realizing how
far up they really were, Tommy blurted out, “I've changed my mind.
I’m not jumping!”

As gunfire erupted from the stairwell,
Butler leapt off the building, dragging his reluctant partner with
him.

While it’s possible that the canopy may
have slowed their fall a bit, it sure didn’t seem that way as the
pair watched the alley floor rush toward them.

A fire escape on the building next door
caused the alley to narrow just as they began to scream in terror.
The narrowed space pinched their erstwhile parachute against the
walls of the building and with a great ripping, grinding crunch it
wedged between the fire escape and the wall of the hotel. They were
stuck, the two of them hanging with their feet a little further
above the pavement than they would have liked. Tommy’s pants had
begun to disintegrate on the way down and the sudden halt had been
the final blow to the abused garment. The pants gave in, ripping
into two pieces at the crotch. Both Tommy and Butler fell to the
street in a clumsy heap. Tommy came up limping and rubbing his
butt, he had hit the same spots he had injured that very morning on
the Jet Ski. Butler fared better but had ripped one knee of his own
pants and was bleeding a bit.

At their most nonchalant, the two
rapidly sauntered out of the alley into the patio that Tommy had
seen from above. It turned out to be the outdoor café where they
found Katharine waiting for them, seated at a table at the front.
“Where did you two come from?” She asked.

Tommy and Butler each grabbed her by an
elbow and began to hustle her out of the café. She broke from them
long enough to grab her handbag and a camera bag from the table as
she continued; “I hope you didn’t look for me at the other café
around the corner. I forgot it was there until I had been sitting
here for a while, waiting for you.”

She stopped to look at the two of them,
Tommy limping along in boxer shorts and Butler bleeding through the
torn knee of his jeans. “What’s going on?” She asked. And to Tommy,
“weren’t you wearing pants, earlier?”

“We need to get out of here, right
now,” Butler said, leading the way to the Carmine. “Try not to
attract attention.”

“Right,” muttered Tommy.

“Do you think Leonardo knew that his
parachute didn’t work?”

“Nah, his design was flawless; the
problem has to be pilot error.”

Tommy gave Butler a nasty
look.

As they pushed off, Butler said, “Thank
God you wore boxers today”

Tommy responded, “Next time, we’re
using your pants.”

<<>>

Back on the Carmine Electra, Tommy and
Butler explained what had happened and what they had
learned.

“Men in my hotel room?” asked Katharine
incredulously.

“Yeah, big guys with guns!” Tommy
answered.

“But I didn’t see anyone; I got dressed
and went down to that café and everything was fine!”

“You were lucky then. I bet they just
missed you. I imagine they were watching for you to leave the
hotel, but you didn’t come out because the café you were in was
part of the hotel. They got tired of waiting and went up to your
room, just in time to meet us,” said Matthew.

“And you really jumped off the
roof?”

“There just weren’t any other options.
Too bad the parachute didn’t work.”

“Most likely co-pilot error,” Tommy
defended.

“What should I do then, go to the
police?” Katharine asked.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, at
least not until we figure out if this Levasseur guy has the cops in
his pocket. The locals we talked to made it sound like he can do
anything he damn well pleases.”

“You’ll be safe aboard the Pelican, at
least until we can figure out what’s going on.”

“You two have been so brave risking
your lives for me, and I’ve put both of you in danger.”

Tommy and Butler looked at each other
to see who was going to say the obligatory macho response.
We’re
always in danger
, or
Danger’s our middle name
, or even
We do this all the time
.

“Don’t worry about it” mumbled
Tommy.

“It’ll be okay.” Butler said at the
same time.

<<>>

Kobi awoke slowly, taking several
minutes to get around to opening his eyes. He tried to piece
together the events that had brought him to these unfamiliar
surroundings.

Questions swam through his mind, but
not with much urgency.
Where am I? Where is the girl in the red
wetsuit? How did I get here?
All passed through his
consciousness and flew away in a lazy, dreamlike way. The one that
stuck with him and brought him fully awake was,
Am I in
trouble?