The Search for Yaser Abdel Said (part 10)
It was too much! Fleas from the Prophet’s beard loose in the 21st Century! It was mind-boggling! If what Inspector Clouseau had said was true and the fleas were as dangerous as he claimed then the entire world was at risk! An attack by these hellacious insects would make Osama bin Laden’s assault on the World Trade Center look like Richard Reid fumbling with his shoelaces.
Well, he couldn’t go back to the States now. He would have to tough it out. The boys at Joe’s Bar and Grille and Gun Club would have to cough up a few more pounds—that’s all. He would have to notify the authorities. He would have to tell M-15 and M-16 and 17 and 18 and 19! He would have to tell Blair and Brown and Bush and Obama and Thatcher and Bond. They would have to call out the Marines, the National Guard; the RAF…
Wait a minute! Wait a minute! What was he going to tell them? What Inspector Clouseau had told him? “Mr. Brown, Mr. President, fleas from Mohammed’s, uh, beard are loose in London and are plotting the destruction of English civilization?”
Oh, yes, they would believe that! Fleas! 1,400-year-old-fleas! One got loose in a trench filled with German soldiers in 1918 but it was corralled by its keeper before it could do any damage—only one man, an Austrian Corporal, had been infected and he had reportedly died in a military hospital in Pasewalk, Germany! Who would believe a story like that? Obama? Brown? Hardly. How about Asma bint Marwan? Mohammed Atta? Sure. Maybe Harry Potter. But who else this side of Spanky and Alfalfa? It was absurd.
He was exhausted. He needed some rest Maybe things would look better in the morning. He curled up on the bed, the airline tickets still tucked in his shirt pocket.
He
awoke with Clouseau’s feet in his face. Pink socks? Good grief! He sat up quickly. Someone
had cleaned the room. He smelled bouillabaisse. Clouseau’s
manservant Cato was
puttering over a portable stove.
“Smells good,” said Piffy.
“Not for you,” said Cato. “For boss man.”
Clouseau had made a remarkable recovery. He was as dashing as ever. He danced about the ‘remodeled’ apartment, took a trench coat from an oversized portmanteau that had appeared from nowhere, tugged a crown hat down over his head. “Now zat I am properly attired,” he said, “let’s see if mine can salvage something from the mess you have made of zis thing. Of course, mine shall be off to France to contact Chirac. I trust you will inform Blair and the Archbishop.” Chirac…Blair…the Archbishop? He must have meant Sarkozy and Gordon Brown.
Sure…Brown and the Archbishop…and maybe the Green Hornet and Woodrow Wilson. It would be the least he could do. He sniffed. Was that apple pan dowdy? He edged closer to the portable stove. Yes, it was! Wow! Bouillabaisse and apple pan dowdy! It sure beat cold beans and Peas on a Trencher! This was the way a private detective was supposed to live!
But Clouseau scarcely sampled the food. A spoonful of bouillabaisse and he was gone—just like that! It was almost as if he hadn’t been there at all—the portable stove and the portmanteau disappeared—and if it hadn’t been for the three unconscious ‘Asians’ Cato left stacked in the corridor alongside the door no one would have known.
Piffy finished the bouillabaisse and the apple pan dowdy. Yep, this was the way a private detective ought to live. Now all he had to do was contact Brown and the Archbishop.
The Archbishop? What Archbishop? He didn’t know any Archbishop! He didn’t want to call on Asma bint Marwan again. He had had enough of halos and shopping bags to last him a lifetime. Besides, he didn’t know how to contact her and she might be dead anyway. He hoped not but it was a possibility. No, he would go home before he would call on bint Marwan again.
Then he remembered Algernon A. Algernon, the little guy with the whip, Abu Afaq's London agent. Compared to the others he seemed reasonable. He looked in the phonebook and there it was: Algernon A. Algernon: London Agent, Abu Afaq Enterprises.
Algernon A. Algernon waited for his secretary to leave the room. Piffy was the first caller
he had had in more than two years and he didn’t want to seem too eager, too anxious. He wanted to make a
good impression, put his best foot forward. Abu Afaq set high standards of
conduct. It was rumored he monitored office calls; went through wastebaskets,
occasionally posed as a janitor. If Algernon screwed up he could be called on
the carpet. He would have to be on his best behavior. He waited patiently for
the client to state his case.
“So you see what the
problem is,” said Bernard Piffy.
Algernon adjusted his
tie, smiled at the private detective, bit the end off a cigar and spat it on
the floor. “The Archbishop?” he said. “That would be Rowan
Williams.” He got up, walked around the desk, kicked the cigar fragment
into a corner, turned around, came back and glared at his potential client.
“How bad do you want to see the Archbishop?” he asked.
”It’s a matter of life and death,” said Piffy.
“It’s about the fleas, isn’t it?” said Algernon.
“Yes,” said Piffy.
“Well, it won’t be easy,” said Algernon. “Have you been cleared by the CIA? Has the FBI ever heard of you? How about Rush Limbaugh? Ever appeared on MSNBC? Do you know Britney Spears?”
“Does it matter?” asked Piffy.
“Only if you say yes to the last one.”
“The FBI has heard of me,” said Piffy, “and I’ve been cleared by the CIA. And I don’t know Britney Spears.”
“I was afraid of that,” said Algernon. He put his feet up on the desk. “Will it be Master Card or Visa or would you prefer our new 10-year plan?”
Piffy thought quickly. “Ah…the 10-year plan,” he said.
“Smart choice.”
“How soon can you get me in to see the Archbishop?”
“Right now, if you want. It will be dark in an hour or so.”
“Okay,” said Piffy. “That sounds good.”
“Smart choice. I’ll get my whip.”
Whip? Why would he need a whip? They were only going to see the Archbishop. Maybe it was a harmless eccentricity…yeah, a harmless eccentricity… Of course, there was that incident in the alley behind the bar…nothing was as easy as it seemed…
Something wasn’t right. It this was one of the entrances to Lambeth Palace, the Archbishop’s main residence, where were the church officials? Where were the young acolytes with the candles? Where were the guards in their gaudy uniforms? Where was the old geezer in the long robe mumbling something from Leviticus as he led them to the Archbishop’s inner sanctum? They hadn’t seen a single living soul! And why was it so dark? And that sound of trickling water! It was scary! Were they near an artesian well?
Piffy was sure they were being watched. He didn’t like this a one bit. Something scurried out of the way. Was it a rat? “Where the heck are we?” he whispered.
“Quiet!” hissed Algernon. “We’re almost there.”
“There?” said Piffy. “Where’s there?”
“The Archbishop’s loo,” said Algernon.
“The Archbishop’s loo?” said Piffy. What was this?
“The Archbishop’s loo,” whispered Algernon. “I always come this way to avoid the crowds. It’s where we turn to the left. Now be quiet. You don’t want to get arrested, do you?’
Arrested! Oh, no! This was too much! He should have trusted to bint Marwan’s halo!
“Follow me,” whispered Algernon. “I know this place like the back of Moll Flander's bum.”
That was precisely what worried Piffy. Of all the dumb decisions he had made this was positively the worst yet. He could end up in Newgate. But he kept quiet and it wasn’t long before they were climbing a series of crumbling, curving steps. It was as dark as the Devil’s colon and the passageway was so narrow that his shoulders seemed to brush both walls at the same time. He could hear muted voices coming from somewhere. He coughed.
Again Algernon cautioned silence. “Do not make any sudden noise, you could disturb the ghost of William Whittlesey. He is said to inhabit these precincts.”
Fine! Ghosts were all Piffy needed to make the evening complete!
By now they had come to a stop. Algernon felt along the wall. He removed a small piece of canvas from a porthole of some kind and a spray of light penetrated into the passageway. “Whatever you do now,” he warned, “do not push forward—you could fall through the wall. I will be back in a minute. I have to visit the Archbishop’s loo.”
Algernon was gone before Piffy could object. Well, that did it! He was alone! He had been deserted! He couldn’t have followed Algernon in that black maze if he had wanted to. Well—he might as well make the best of it. He edged closer to the porthole. If he put his face right up to the small opening he should be able to see what was on the other side of the wall. Great idea! Right? He had to do something.
There was a conference room on the other side and he had a great hiding place. He could see everything.
Several men were seated around a large table. He was looking down at them. He didn’t know it at the time but he was watching them from behind a portrait of the famous William Whittlesey. One of the men at the table appeared to be the Archbishop. He was talking and gesticulating. Piffy strained to hear what was being said.
“So the second objection to an increased legal recognition of communal religious identities can be met,” the Archbishop was saying, “if we are prepared to think about the basic ground rules that might organize the relationship between jurisdictions, making sure that we do not collude with unexamined systems that have oppressive effect or allow shared public liberties to be decisively taken away by a supplementary jurisdiction.”
“Here! Here!” someone said.
Shared public liberties? Unexamined systems? Communal identities? Supplementary jurisdictions? Oppressive effect? Piffy didn’t know whether he agreed with that or not. He wasn’t even sure he understood it. It sounded like gobbledygook. Obviously the Archbishop wasn’t a Father Mulcahy. He edged closer to the hole in the wall so he could see from the corners of his eyes.
“Once again, there are no blank cheques,” said the Archbishop.
“Here! Here!” someone interjected enthusiastically.
The Archbishop droned on and on. “There is a bit of a risk here in the way we sometimes talk about the universal vision of post-Enlightenment politics.”
“Here! Here!”
Post-enlightenment politics? Universal vision? That was well and good but how was Piffy to get the Archbishop’s attention? The men in the room below were unaware of his presence and if he said something he would probably scare the be-Jesus out of them. That would never do. They might think it was Whittlesey’s ghost. Maybe he should wait till the conference was over. But that could take hours. What should he do? And where was Algernon?
And then a loud screeching noise broke the deathly stillness of his hiding place. It came from above and below and from all around! Was it a smoke detector? No, it was worse than a smoke detector; it was a burglar alarm; yes, a burglar alarm! But it didn’t matter. It might as well have been an air-raid siren! Piffy could not have been more startled if the Devil had blown a trumpet in his ear!
And then he did what Algernon had warned him not to do—he pushed forward. “You could fall through the wall,” Algernon had said. Yeah, he pushed forward. He pushed forward right through the wall, right through the portrait of Whittlesey and down, down he went, head over heels into the conference room, arms flailing like a drunken sailor trying to grab a Maypole!
If he hadn’t landed on the Archbishop he might have been seriously hurt!
(To be continued)