The Search for Yaser Abdel Said (Part 9)

The Professor looked up from the letter he had been reading. “Well, he’s coming back,” he said.

Joe swabbed idly at the bar. “Who?” he asked, “Piffy?”

“Yep,” said the Professor. “He’s giving up. He’s calling it quits.” He was silent for a moment.

“Are you going to tell us what’s in that letter,” asked Cowsnfsky, “or do we have to guess?’

Piffy was Bernard Piffy the private-eye the boys at Joe’s Bar and Grille and Gun Club had hired to track down the notorious Yaser Abdel Said, the Dallas taxi-driver who had murdered his daughters, Sarah and Amina Said, in a fit of Islamic rage and had then disappeared without a trace. Piffy was not what one would call a hardboiled private eye—he had been President of the Save the Three-Toed Tree-Sloth Society in Junior High—but he was no stranger to the rough-and-tumble. He had won the Mayberry County Junior Calf-Roping Championship three times. He had busted broncos and wrestled alligators. He was the County’s all-time 100-yard dash champion and he had averaged three skeet-shooting championships a year. No one would mistake him for Mike Hammer, but he was willing and able and he had been an Unarmed Self Defense Instructor in the Marine Corps. He had trailed Said to England where he had met Asma bint Marwan and after that nothing had gone right. He had been chased out of the Birmingham Central Mosque; Inspector Clouseau—the famous Inspector Clouseau—had trashed his apartment and he had scarcely avoided being lynched by a mob of angry ‘Asians’ for accidentally throwing a shoe at Riyadh ul-Haq.

Now he was pouring out his woes to the boys at Joe’s Bar and Grille and Gun Club via snail mail. “I ran into a bar to hide,” he wrote. “Ul-Haq’s followers were hot on my heels, thirsting for my blood and Asthma bint Marwan wouldn’t let me hide in her bra and Mohammed Atta and that other guy came in. They took me into the alley. They wanted the clippings from the Prophet’s toenails. I didn’t know what they were talking about. The Prophet’s toenails! They must have been mad. They were going to shoot me! Then a big wind came up! It was that crazy Umyar! He was looking for Asthma bint Marwan—he’s always looking for Asthma bint Marwan. He chased those two rascals away, then he recognized me as the man that threw the shoe at ul-Haq and he got mad! He has the strength of ten Hulk Hogans! He was choking the life out of me and everything was going black when this little guy, this midget with a whip, this Algernon A. Algernon, showed up. He’s no bigger than Opie Taylor was when Opie was in the third grade. He chased Umyar down the alley like a mouse herding an elephant. Then he got after me! If it hadn’t been for St. Anthony I would have been one dead private eye.”

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” broke in Cowsnofsky. “I can swallow the part about the bra. Every red-blooded American boy has had that fantasy. And the midget with the whip and the toenail clippings might be a bit unusual, but, heck, we all watch Family Guy, we can understand things like that, but St. Anthony? He’s got to be kidding. What would St. Anthony be doing in an alley behind a London bar?”

“St. Anthony?” mused Ranch House. “Ain’t he the patron saint of lost dentures?”

“Please, let the Professor finish,” said Joe.

“There’s not much more,” said the Professor. “Piffy says St. Anthony agreed to help him find Said but Tony—get this, Piffy calls St. Anthony Tony! He says Tony had so many small jobs to do he never got around to finding Said so Piffy’s coming home. He says we owe him 125 pounds and 10 ounces.”

“Ten ounces?” said Lord Lauderdale. “I thought they went metric?”

“Ten ounces, that’s what it says here.”

“Thank God this is over,” said Joe. “Maybe I can start paying my own bills for a change.”

Piffy tucked the plane tickets into his shirt pocket. Well, that was that. It was over. All he had to do now was pack his bags and be at the terminal tomorrow morning. It had been a noble crusade while it had lasted but he had bitten off more than he could chew—and that was it. It happened to best of them. It happened to Mike Hammer; it happened to Shell Scott; it happened to Nick and Nora Charles. It happened to all of them sooner or later. Of course, Hammer would have tied Umyar into a knot and shoved Algernon A. Algernon’s whip into some place where the sun didn’t shine. But he was Bernard Piffy. So he failed. So what? It wasn’t the end of the world. Columbo didn’t solve every case. Travis McGee, once he ran out of colors, never solved anything. And there were a lot of unsolved cases in old Sheriff Wild Bill Bascomb’s files back in Mayberry County. The Old Mongoose just didn’t talk about them. No one was perfect. Once he got back to the states he would look around for something. Maybe get a job as a night watchman in a wax museum.

He stopped at a newspaper kiosk to glance at the headlines. Barack Obama delivers fifteenth inaugural address! Had he been gone that long? No, it was still 2010. Something was out of whack.

Ahmadinejad says there is no significant need for the United States! He scowled. If he could have ten minutes alone with that little rat-bag—just ten minutes.

He was reaching in his pocket for some change when a voice buzzed in his ear.

“Shame on you, Bernard Piffy, shame on you,” it said. “Have you no spine? And consorting with that awful St. Anthony! Do you know how much that hurt me?”

It was Asma bint Marwan. He recognized the voice. But where was she? He made a half turn. An old crone was hovering at his elbow. He scowled. “What do you want?” he said.

“It’s me, bint Marwan,” said the old crone.

Piffy blinked. Good grief! What in the heck had bint Marwan done to herself? She looked like the Wicked Witch of the East, like Rosie O’Donnell at 5 o’clock in the morning, like Janeane Garofalo at any time of the morning, like Roseanne Barr after a date with George Costanza, like Keith Olbermann after a date with Keith Olbermann. She was ugly—positively ugly. Something was dripping from her nose. There was a gap in her teeth and a wart on her chin. She had a basket of flowers in one hand and a large shopping bag in the other. Piffy eyed the shopping bag. It was probably her time warp, her escape hatch to the other world, her tunnel into the absurd where druids caught moonbeams and sold them door to door to the Centaurs. He didn’t want to get anywhere near that thing! He preferred halos and bras—especially the bras. He edged away from her. And she stank—like an anchovy that had fallen out of the net and had been left rotting on the dock.

“What’s the matter?” said bint Marwan. “Never been this close to a mature lady before?”

Piffy wrinkled his nose. “Mature?” he said. “Are you sure word isn’t ripe? You kind of smell.”

“I have to act the part,” she said. “Umyar has been getting wise.”

“Well, it was nice seeing you again,” he said, “but I’m going back to America.”

“Oh, no, you’re not, “ said bint Marwan. “We made a deal. I’m taking you to Yaser Abdel Said whether you like it or not.”

“I don’t remember making any deal,” said Piffy.

“Well, you did,” she said. “And it has to be consummated or I will lose face.”

“Consummated?” said Piffy.

“You know what I mean,” she said.

“Look, if you can take me to Said, just do it,” he said.

“I can’t right now,” she said, “but I’ve been asking around. There are a lot of jinn joints in this town. Rick’s…Lazlo’s…somebody knows something and I’ll find it out.”

“No, thanks,” said Piffy. “I’m going back to the States.”

“Like Hell your are!” said bint Marwan.

She grabbed him by the arm. He tried to pull away. My God, she was strong—she was like a bulldog, like an orangutan, like Johnny Weissmuller’s big sister. It didn’t take him long to realize what she was up to—she was trying to drag him into the shopping bag! Yeah, the shopping bag—her space machine, her time warp! And it was no longer a shopping bag—it had grown to the size of a duffle bag and was still expanding! He could see something red flashing on and off! Good grief, landing lights! The damn thing had landing lights! It was getting ready to take off! She was going to drag him to where the woodbine twineth, to where the swan lay with Leda!

The wind came up so suddenly it caught Piffy by surprise. His hat went sailing. A screeching sound filled his ears! His teeth began to vibrate! It could mean only one thing—Umyar! The kiosk collapsed in a shower of wood splinters! Bits and pieces of newspaper filled the air! Like a cat pouncing on ‘uncovered meat,’ Umyar had Piffy by the ankles and was trying to drag him out of bint Marwan’s time warp!

The duffle bag or the shopping bag was whirling round and round now, faster and faster, picking up speed. The bottom fell out of Piffy’s stomach. Everything had become a blur. Bint Marwan had him by the arm and Umyar had him by the ankles! This would never do! Lights were flashing on and off! Shadows were chasing each other across a dread universe! He wasn’t sure but he thought he was losing his pants! Then all of a sudden, he was loose, free of all restraint, and away he went. He shot though the air! He must have sailed at least ten feet! He wound up in the remains of the kiosk. He still had his pants. He had one last glimpse of bint Marwan’s shopping bag disappearing into the land of dungeons and dragons, Umyar’s feet dangling from its orifice like the legs of a frog from the jaws of a python! It was eerie.

He got up, brushed himself off. A crowd had gathered. It was time he removed himself from this crazy land. He found his hat, clamped in on his head and walked away from the kiosk without anyone noticing. He would go back to his apartment, pack up and leave. He would sleep at Heathrow…yeah, or in a gutter; he had had his fill of Merry Olde England. Was it any wonder Tom Paine had given up corsetry making for a ticket to America?

He had just finished packing when Inspector Clouseau staggered into the room. Yes, staggered—that was the word. Staggered. One more step and he would have pitched forward on his face. His clothes were in tatters; his hair was a mess, there was a cut on his lip and he was gasping for air like a halibut flopping around in the bottom of the Calypso

“What are you doing here, Clouseau?” snapped Piffy.

Clouseau stared at the private eye. His eyes were wild with fright. “Who are you?” he said. “Do you live here? Do you own this place?” He glanced round the room. “Can I hide here? I will pay you…I will pay you anything you want.”

“Oh, come on, Clouseau,” said Piffy. “Quit with the games! You know damn well who I am. You’ve been shadowing me for months.”

Clouseau wiped at his bloody lip. “I have? Are you sure? I don’t remember you.” He scratched his head. “Then again you look familiar…I don’t know what those bastards have been doing to me. They have been tinkering with my mind” He stepped closer, looked Piffy in the eye, nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, yes…I might know you…what did you say your name was?”

“Piffy. Bernard Piffy,” said Piffy.

Clouseau glanced over his shoulder; the wild look was back in his eyes. He shuddered. “I know all their secrets,” he said. “By now they must know I have escaped—really escaped this time”

“Escaped?” said Piffy. “Escaped from where?”

“I don’t’ know—from somewhere,” said Clouseu. “From…from…” He glanced around the apartment. He sniffled. “I was held prisoner for three years, you know—for three years in a rheum far worse than this miserable dump.” He seemed to notice Piffy for the first time. “You don’t live here, do you?” He faltered. “I am sorry, I intend you no harm, but now that I have escaped they will have to kill me…yes… and because I am going to tell you their secrets they will have kill you too.”

“What secrets?” said Piffy.

Sweat was pouring down Clouseau’s face. He swallowed nervously.

“You mean the clippings from the Prophet’s toenails?” prompted Piffy.

Clouseau was instantly on the alert. “How much do you know about the clippings?” he asked warily.

Piffy shrugged. “Not much. About a thousand years ago some nut saved some clippings from the Prophet’s toenails—that’s about all. What’s the big deal?”

Clouseau collapsed on the edge of the bed. “Then you don’t know anything at all,” he said sadly. “Nothing at all. And I shall be the author of your doom. You poor miserable wretch!”

“Okay! Okay!” said Piffy. He had had enough. “A toenail clipping is a toenail clipping. It doesn’t matter from who or where it came from unless its been dipped in curare and shot into your butt by some guy named William Tell.”

“Oh, you poor deluded fool,’ said Clouseau. “It’s not toenail clippings we’re talking about.”

“It’s not?” said| Piffy.

“No,” said Clouseau. “Toenail clippings is a euphemism—a euphemism for something far worse.” He took a deep breath, glanced nervously over his shoulder. “They are…“ He paused to make the sign of the cross. “They are fleas…fleas from the Prophet’s beard! And these fleas are still alive! Yes…still alive…after 1,400 years!” He looked at the floor; his next words were scarcely audible ‘”And they are not from the Prophet’s beard…no…that is another euphemism! They are from his…”

Piffy could not make out the last word.

“If they fall into the wrong hands,” groaned Clouseau, “the world is doomed!”

“Doomed?” echoed Piffy.

“Yes, doomed!” said Clouseau.

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