They Don't Come Any LargerChapter One in the continuing adventures of Mr.X It was a cold night in Sabre city. The kind of night when honest citizens huddled close in their homes, watching "Moonlighting" and drinking kool-aid. The wind blew threw the barren trees forming visages from the countless bad horror movies we all go to see. But a few people did dare to walk the streets. Yes, the geeks, noids, and depraved all dared, they didn't have the brains not to. Who could keep the teenagers, partyers, and criminals behind bars? But more insidious than the rest was doc Skin and his portly co-hort The Berg. Yea, It was up to me, Mr.X, the Sam spade, David Adison, and Dick Tracy; of this two-bit city, to keep these city slime in line. I was sitting behind my desk in my $100,000 office kicking back when a new case came bursting in. It was Ma Shlepberg, a local rep. for a sporting goods company. The company was an off-shoot of a mental brew-thru owned by none other than doc Skin. She was quick to talk telling me that the doc was trying to muscle her out of her new position because she new too much. Simple case, familiar plot. No sweat. I took the case, I was going to nail these lying bunch of non's once and for all! My first step was to gather dirt on these dweebes. I picked up the 'ol raprod and called the local P.W.N.B.T.D. (people with nothing better to do) office. Hell, I was going to need help and this was the best place to find it. I talked to a guy who gave me the names of a "few good men" willing to help. I called up the people on the list and told them what was up. Only four guys volunteered. Fine by me, I didn't need any wimps on my team, people who couldn't take the heat. We fanned out across the city to find what we needed. I grabbed my Nikon Super Automated Do-Everything camera, my all purpose 17 to 500mm lens, and of course my .50 Calibre auto pistol in case somebody wanted to give themselves trouble. I headed down to corporate HQ to confront doc Skin and his henchmen. As I drove up I noticed the sign on the building-Adolescent Instructional Brain Cramming Corporation- "We're good at what we do and we're fair too." I laughed at this as I parked and went up to see the big guy. The receptionist was just what you would expect, tall, blond, and perfect. Just the kind of girl you'd like to- no, later, back to the story. She wasn't to keen about letting me in but I persuaded her by just ignoring her and going right on in. #"What's the meaning of this?" barked the doc. #"I'm here on the behalf of Ma Shlepberg," "I know what you're up to but it won't work, you're through in this town bucko so pack your bags!" I snapped a few pictures as his head turned a bright red. He drew a Big Gun from the top drawer of his desk. This, I thought, would be a very good time to leave. I floored my car out of the garage with three old, black, Lincoln "biscanes" on my tail and a hail of bullets raining down on all sides. BOOM, was the only sound I heard as my 1965 Corvette Stingray lost a tire and careened off the road and into a large ice cream truck, sending tutti-fruti everywhere. I pulled my way out of the wreckage and watched with ddoouubbllee vision as cars tore off down the street in the opposite direction from which I came. Yes, I realized, my patented Acme Hero Anti-Death Suit had saved my life yet again. They were going to pay dearly for this, "they ruined all that tutti-fruiti and broke my camera," I thought, as I sunk into an black oblivion... The moist touch of a towel awoke me from my 72 hour sleep. My head felt as if an elephant with hiccups had sat on it. Take it from me, it's not a nice feeling. As I forced my eyes open to view my towel bearing savior, the words "ooh, dat eesh niice!!!!" came to mind. She was a vision. 5'6". Brunette. Brown eyes and a bod to match it all. "Move over Annete Funichello", I thought. "I'm Bessie", she purred. "Dont try to get up", she said, as I did just that. "you've got a terrible boo boo on your head". Well, following the rules of being a "tough guy" I ignored her pleas and forced my self back into my slick Anti-Death Suit. She fixed me a little breakfast (which the FDA would probably have put into quarantine) and told me just the facts. According to her, she found me trapped under only what could be described as a sickly looking, blue, 1976 Toyota Mark II. Using her "muscles in all the right places," she dragged me free and into her pink, convertible, volkswagon bug. She brought me home , cleaned the tutii-fruti out of my ears and put me to bed. As I strapped on my pistol and all the other nifty dyno gadgets I carry with me, Bessie slunk her way over to me. "Let me go with you, I've always wanted to live a life of danger," she said. I just couldn't tell her that eating her cooking was just that, so I consented to let her come along. We hopped into her other car, a slick looking Ford Tempo. A real get-up-and-go-nowhere-machine, 0-60 in 3.8 minutes. I used her "Cellular One" as we sped down route 66 back towards the big city. I called the guys that were doing my dirty work and told them to meet me at my office for a big pow wow-war council. After a long and dangerous trip (women drivers!), we made it back to my office. Sending Bessie out of the room, I got everyone's attention and got down to business. Lance Speedstick informed me that we could expect to get any aid necessary from the homosexuals and transvestites of the underground in cracking this case. And they would all love to "kiss ass" to help; scratch that area of info, definitely! Next was I.R. Cool, our liaison to the cities teens. They were smart kids, they new nothing and had learned it all in high school. Unless it dealt with parties and alcohol you could count them out. Biff Appleton had talked to the yuppies of the area. No good, they were all worried about what color wall paper to put up and paying off their new BMW's. Last but not least Senator J.D. Bedfellow had contacted the local politicians, all of which refused to comment unless they were being indited. This was a blow, it looked like I was going to have to do all the butt kicking my self! Lord knows I was just the guy to do it. I adjourned my meeting and took Bessie with me back to my apartment to get all my supper bad guy beating equipment. As we drove along I reflected upon my long career...well, so maybe this was my first case. I studied under Sherlock Holmes, yea, that's the ticket. We arrived at my penthouse to find it gone, along with the rest of the building. Forgot to lock it up...Well at least I knew what my next case was. That was the last straw, I was mad, and the only person to take it out on was doc Skin and The Berg. As we pulled up in front of their corporate office, I slipped into my new Acme-Battle Suit. With a hearty "Up, up, and gone!" I flew out of the car and into the 80th story window (I really wish they'd open the windows in these stupid stories!) to face my foes. "It's a pigeon, it's the Concord, NO! it's Shtupor Man!!!" I went right into action, with a giant "S" on my chest and a billowing pink cape. "Hold it right there you "Aunt Jamima" looking somebodies!" First, knowing that the bullets from my .50 cal. pistol would never penetrate the fat on the Berg, I lifted him up and threw him out the window to land with a large "splat!" on the roof of a taxi 80 stories bellow. Bang, the sound of a gun shot! Doc Skin smiles as a Ronco Mini-nuke smashes me in the chest doing full damage. Ouch! Faulty #$'&% damn suit! And I lost the warranty too. But never fear my super good guy power prevailed as I lunged at the laughing form of doc Skin. "This is for the people and all those other kumquats everywhere!" I screamed as I fired round after round into his shiny dome looking head. He fought back hard, hitting me with a large kosher salami stick. In the end though, he just couldn't beat me. "Gurgle, glup, ach, phtt," gasped the mangy form of doc Skin. Victory at last! Epilogue Well another case through. Ma Shlepberg is now president of the brain mashing firm. The Berg was used to fill pot holes around town. And you can bet he filled them all! I sit here, gorgeous babe at my side with my feet propped up on doc Skin's hide, a real nice rug. Not to shabby for a stud and a half like myself... To be continued! Enter selection or <return> for menu: 2 Ctrl and [S-Stop] [Q-Continue] [C-Quit] Murder in the Cesspool Chapter Two in the continuing adventures of Mr.X I was in the jungle. The heat was unbearable. The mosquitoes were biting like blood sucking beasts. I lost 10 pounds in an hour. I chopped through the jungle but in five minutes it would grow back. I could hear the tribal drums beating. Dooom, dooom....dooom, dooom...things weren't looking good, the natives were getting closer...doom duda duda doom ding-dang a walla-walla bing-bang... "Bessie turn down that radio!". False alarm I thought as I turned off the Hypno 3-D climate control. The room faded back into the familiar high class ritzy-do place it was. Things had been slow these days until the phone rang. "Bring, Bring." Whata coincidence, eh? I picked up the ol' raprod to hear the bellowing voice of Capt. Lardbucket. He explained that they had a case right up my alley. Simple yet difficult. Easy yet hard. Totally ridiculous. A man had been found down at the old Cesspool boat house with a "Twinkie" lodged in his skull. Hmmm, this was interesting. "Ok, Ill crack it wide open, just send me some help, all my regulars are on vacation. Suit up Bess, We've got a case on our hands thats a real hum dinger." Bess looked real hot in her one size to small Acme Heroine-Anti Death Suit, as we jumped into our super speed Ford Tempo. Normal time to the boat house in heavy traffic was 10 minutes, but in our suped-up baby it took us 45. The place was a hole and crewies were everywhere. Our police liaison, Special Agent Kay was already there beating the info out of these jocks. "I'm Kay, just call me Special." He had a young looking, intense eyed, red head in tow who he explained saw the murder. "Spill it," I said as she did just that by throwing up on my shoes. "Gee, that wasn't nice." sighed Bess. The excitement was to much for "Red". "I'm real sorry Mr.X, I'm Robyn, I take care of the place for the owner, old man Dugwump." "Just the facts mam." I sighed. "Here's what I know: I was out back storing oars and all that other crew jazz when I heard a spine chilling scream. I turned and ran towards the noise where I saw a man slam a large "Twinkie" into the victims head." That was either one strong "Twinkie" or one soft head, I thought. I wanted to examine the body but it had already been fed to the hungry light weight rowers. That reminds me, I haven't had lunch. On my meager budget we stopped at Le Sleazebag Ristoraunt for a quick repast and then it was on to old man Dugwumps to see what he had to say. Dugwump wasn't very interested in talking, but we convinced him he'd like to cooperate with us by having Bess blow down his front door with a Ronco Economy size Disposable Bazooka. I just love a babe who can make me feel sooo niiish and handle one of those babies too. He said he knew nothing, but we didn't buy that. We decided to search the dump he lived in and see if we couldn't find something to nail him on. Special Kay sniffed out the "Twinkies" in a sec. They were hidden under his "Fruit of the Looms" next to his rubber duck. "You've found me out, but you'll never take me alive!" It all happened in an instant. Dugwump snatched a petrified "Twinkie" from Special's hand and proceeded to hold it to Bess's head. "Ok you bung's, anyone moves and the dame gets it!" What could I do? I could shoot through Bess killing 'Wump, but that could get messy. "It's your move Dugwump," I sneered. "I'm getting out of here and she's my ticket, as for you all , your history!" Uh oh, I didnt like the sound of that... Next thing I knew we were all tied up, literally, with an old B&W T.V playing the current days soaps, this was worse than being strapped to a bomb! There was only one thing to do! I carefully removed the All Purpose Cutting Tool from my Dyno-utility Belt. My bonds were broken and I proceeded to smash that damn boob tube into a million pieces. VRooom, Screech, was the sound that greeted us as 'Wump tore off down the street in my hot Ford Tempo, Bess trapped in the trunk. I had no car. How was I going to win this one? This was one of those times when there is only one thing that states all the facts: "Oh, shit!" Enough standing around, it was time to move, save the dame and beat the bad guy! A quick but thorough search found us a bicycle. This would have to do. Special Kay pumped the pedals while I rode "shotgun" on the handle bars. It was all up hill, but through amazing biking or incredible luck we managed to catch up with 'Wump. "Faster, faster!" I screamed as Kay shifted gears and pumped harder. 'Wump decided to get tricky by going off road and down the side of a hill towards a small highway. Have you ever rode a bike down a flight of stairs? Thats my interpretation of our ride down the hill as we weaved in and out of trees and assorted bushes. Once we hit the highway it was full speed ahead and into high gear as I readied my means of stopping the fleeing car ahead. I snapped the safety off on my Extra-Compact Ronco Pocket-Machinegun. Budda-budda-budda, was the sound as hot brass flew over my shoulder and lead into the rear windshield of the tempo. Screeech, smash!! As the the car ran off the road and into a fire hydrant, killing several small dogs and causing a large fountain of water to form over the dead car. Destroying public property, that does it! Dugwump was mine! Special skidded to a halt in front of the car just as Bess kicked the trunk lid open. You can never keep a good women down...We quickly went to work sorting through the wreckage in search of Dugwump. It wasn't a pretty sight. Evidently when the crash occurred 'Wump was holding one of the murder weapons in his hand as he drove, preparing to throw it at us no doubt. But when he crashed , his head was thrown into the steering wheel and into the "Twinkie" held in his hand, killing him instantly. We couldn't find enough of him to fill a dixie cup. That'll teach him to wear his seat belt! There wasn't anything left for us here, but I had a hunch that this case wasn't over just yet. We hopped on the scooter and faded back to my place to think things over. "Somethings just not right about this whole thing," I thought. I was pondering this whole mess, playing a few games of Pac-Man with Bess while Special ate me out of house and home, when it came to me-"Eureka!" I exclaimed. "Mphttt?!" Cried Special through a mouthful of "Hostess Ding- Dongs". "Grab your hats people theres a mystery to be solved!" We took the express elevator down to the garage and hopped into Specials parked Ford Taurus. Special floored it out of the garage, the car shifting gears like a sling shot, giving me and Bess minor cases of whiplash. We shot on over to the dame we had talked to earlier's house to give her the third, fourth, and fifth degree. The door to the place was already open. It was dark, and so quiet you could hear me thinking. Click. Blam-blam-budda- budda-boom! Tinkle, tinkle, crash. Suddenly theres light. "Oops,"says Special. "You can say that again." "Oops." "You've successfully killed a parakeet, one china cabinet, three old Elvis Presley glasses, and a small, defenseless, stuffed, "Teddy Ruxpin."" Oh well, Special was his name... "All you had to do was knock, detective," Robyn said as she slunk in from the other room. "Ok sister, tell us the whole truth; I know that you're holding more than your stomach back!" "What do you mean!" she exclaimed. "Dont play dumb with me babe, it wont work, I'm dumber than you are so I can see right through your little scheme. Dugwump was your lover who you finagled into doing your dirty work for you, if he got caught, you'd still be in the pink. The man he murdered was the only other person qualified to cox the winning, nationally famous, light weight four, besides your self, of course. And you wanted it all, fame, power,and glory, but you didn't count on me and my superior intellect figuring out this plot. Pack, it up babe, your doing hard time!" "You'll never take me alive!" "Well what ever, doesn't matter to me." And we were off, the chase was on! Robyn ran from the room thru the doorway with us right on her tail. It's a wonder what the though of jail will do to make one run so fast. We had gotten down the stairs and onto the dock of the old boat house (which was conveniently placed right next to her house) just in time to watch her jump into a motor boat and go tearing out into the Poluteomac river as if jaws was after her. And lucky us, there wasn't another boat anywhere in sight! Time to strain the old brain and come up with another save the day plan...Hey, why not use my Acme-Battle Suit?! Goggles on, the next thing I knew I was zooming along the waters surface like a human torpedo. "Hurry up, stupid, she's getting away," special yelled from his water skiing position behind me. "Bess, use your Ronco-Bazooka, and stop her already!" From her position on Special's shoulders, she'd have a great shot at our little murderess. FOOMP-Woosh, and another case was through. Epilogue Well, another one done. The dames doing hard time busting rocks at the pen. She confessed to everything, saying that she couldn't take anymore of this silly story. Anyway, she was still going to be rich and famous by the time she got done suing me for the destruction of her priceless Elvis Presly McDonalds glasses. As for Special, he was a great help and he should recover fine from his little tango with the buoy we hit, he may walk a little stiff legged for a few weeks, but that wont stop Special. Bess, she's still a little wet be hind the ears but a dry towel and some chicken noodle soup will cure that. As for me, it's miller time and so with that it's back to my jungle, a place where I can escape the one outside on the streets, boom- dadda-boom-ding-dang, "Bess!"... To be continued... ################################################################################### ##################### Enter selection or <return> for menu: 3 Ctrl and [S-Stop] [Q-Continue] [C-Quit] A Pop in the Chops -Chapter Three in the continuing adventures of Mr.X- Things had been good to me lately, my reputation as a crime fighter was spreading all across the city like the plague. The Mayor had been kind enough to give me a key to the city, nice, since I was always locking myself out. I had even been asked to appear on the 200th annual Jerry Lewis Telethon with the national poster child for homosexuality, Michael Jackson. And it seemed even the neighborhood dogs liked me since I hadn't came up with a wet ankle on the way to my car in weeks...Yes crime was down. As I sat and cleaned my fancy highly expensive camera equipment, the phone rang. Bring, bring. "Wah wawa wah, wah wah." Click. "Captain Lardbucket needs you right away down at the precinct, sweetie, something about bodies exploding." "Ok Bess, I'll get my gear and we'll get going." "Sorry dear, I have a roast in the oven, so you'll just have to take care of this one your self." Darn. Whata bummer, no good looking dame on this mission. After I refreshed my self with a little physical pick-me-up and said good-bye to 'Bess, I hopped into the elevator to the garage to get in my new car! The sight of it gave me "duckpimples," it was a beautiful, bright, cherry red, hearse with a big, fuel injected, turbo-charged, top of the line dual exhaust 440 Magnum . I just love lots of adjectives when it comes to my cars...Strapping myself into the aircraft style seatbelt and g-suit, I flicked the switch to start her up. BahROOOM, bludda, bladda, bludda. Screeeeech, boom, was the sound as I pulled out of the garage on the way to my next case, leaving ten feet of rubber and creating a small vacuum behind me. It was good to be on the open road once again. People greeted me with wild, happy waves as I cruised down the sidewalks of South Weener Way Avenue, the wind and exhaust wiping in my face. Police officers of all ranks jumped up to attention when I pulled my car up onto steps of the 87th precinct. Captain Lardbucket was in a state of apoplexy, screaming at the top of his lungs to the various personnel who rushed about doing his bidding. "Glad your here X, this is the evidence, see what you think." He threw me what appeared to be a five pound bag of grade "E", ground chuck, extremely rare. "Thats whats left of the victim, he was identified by his girl as Alex Lyman." Needless to say the bag proceeded to make a sickly splat, louder than the remains of my lunch, as it struck the floor. I recomposed myself and prepared to get down to business. Lardbucket, decided to tell me the whole history, so I to could see how stupid this was. Lyman was a local crew stud down at the Old Cesspool Boathouse. He had a lot of potential to go places as long as he didn't blow it. Uh yea. His only weaknesses were his love for art and chocolate, yes, he was a chocoholic. He would do anything to get his fix: eat it, smell it, even shoot it up directly, a sick habit that many GiveAdamnericans had. His evil habit shortly caused the rotting out of his teeth as he lost his self will and forgot to brush. About a week ago he was fitted with dentures, false choppers. Everything went fine until this morning when he was forced to eat hard candy because of a lack of "choco" on the market. The official statement from his ex, (a girl I knew well but hadn't seen much of lately) Kate, was: "One minute he was sitting on his bike chomping away, when next, blewie! His whole body was raining down on the hood of my Volkswaggen Rabbit! Whata mess, I still cant get all the blood stains out of my jeans..." "Can you help X?" "Yea, I'll solve this one, it sounds interesting, but I'll be needing some help, my groups busy again." Lardbucket gave me Special Kay. He wasn't busy, never was, and anyway, he always loved a little bit of excitement. As my second replacement 'bucket suggested a guy named Datta, Tej Datta. I had heard of him, he was a smooth, totally under control guy, and street smart to boot. I met both out front. Special was looking jockular and ready, Datta was cool as ice, chanting lines from the Rolling Stones tune "Satisfaction". We hopped into the hearse and I backed out into traffic, people honking with crazed excitement upon seeing me on the trail of a new mystery. I decided that the two best possibilities were the hard candy or dentures, they were the only two things new to his character. Doing 150mph on 395 at approximately 5:25, we rocketed towards Lymans apartment. He lived in east b.f., better known as Borelington, a suburb located across the Poluteomac from the District of Confusia. The house was a mess. Medals, trophies, and ads for ivy league schools such as Princeton, an area branch of the grand Diesel Institute of GiveAdamnerica, were everywhere. We spread out to rummage through the ruble, looking for any clues that could lead us to an answer. The answer came as a piece of paper lying next to an old "Hershey Kiss" wrapper. It was an ad for the "Rot 'em and Drop 'em" denture makers, a company known for it's use of inferior materials. Not suprising since Lyman's habit would have used up most of his cash and "Re a De" was cheap, cheap enough to take the poor suckers last dime and give him less than that back. Now the problem was to find the place since it was an underground establishment. "No problem X, I can find it," said Datta. I knew he would come in handy. After a quick stop at the "Seven Eleven" for Specials mid afternoon post lunch pre-dinner snack, we shot towards Datta's connection at the Crossed Sabres newspaper, a real rag, nothing like the Northern Virginia Sun or National Enquirer. Now thats respectful journalism! The place was crawling with reporters, and worse still, photographers with big lenses. The kinda people that I felt right at home with and, as it seemed, Datta's kind of people also. We headed for the second floor in search of the person with the info. But, yes, you could of guessed it, a gang of female admirers attacked us half way up the stairs. I finally had to drag Datta from the crowd at gun point, threatening to plug any dame that tried to stop us. That didn't put me high on their list but at least we got on with this fool mission. We found his contact hiding out in the paper's political office. She was tall with curly brown hair and a smile that would have brought a dead man to life. "Hi Tej, what can I do for you?" She chimed. "Hi Kathleen, we need the location of an underground establishment, and with your knowledge, I figured that you might have it. Here's the name of the place." With that he handed her the paper with the name of the dental works on it. She set the compromising pictures she held in her hand down and examined the paper closely. "Sure, I know where they are, but it'll cost ya. You know how it is, if they ever found out who told you, they'd kill me!" "Ok X, give her the money and get the info, I'm taking Special with me downstairs to get some photo supplies I need." Datta and Special filed out the door and down the stairs. I reached into my pocket and forked out a "Benjamin Franklin," and handed it to Kathleen. "That'll be fine X, the place your looking for is on the corner of Washed-out boulevard and Kirkwood road. But I don't know how your going to get into that place, securities very tight." "Don't worry about me doll, it'll be a piece of cake!" "You don't talk much, but some how I believe you, I bet you can handle your self pretty well, if you have a chance, give me a call sometime, we'll do lunch." I smiled and headed on down the stairs to get Tej and Special so we could get over there and confront these bozo's. I decided to call it a day and get some rest before the big finale. I dropped everyone off and headed back to my penthouse suite. I got home to find Bess sick with a head ache. Just my luck! The next step before my blessed relief was to get on the blower and call the people on my special "support squad" to let them know that I would be needing their special abilities. Afterwards I leaned back in my easy chair and thought over my present case and wondered if it was all worth it. Sure, what the heck, fame, glory, and lots of money would make any stupid shmuck agree that it was all worth it, an that was me. At first light I gathered my men together out behind the Flab Slab Gym. I was leaving Special behind to guard the car and and be our back up in case they brought out the big guns. In his place I was bringing Sasha Ivanchocuv and Steve Veit, a couple of ace tunnelers, at home in the sewers and lovin every minute of it. "So who are we after? Whats the case? Do I get over time?" "Just shut up Steve and I'll give you the details." Kid asks to many damn questions. Sheesh. "Ok, the plan is this: we're going to go in via the storm drain which runs right below the building, there is a man whole cover that leads right up into their underground garage. From their we'll take out their security system and then go looking for evidence. Both Tej and I have our Super Automated Do-Everything camera's so we'll be taking shots of whatever we find. Ok?" "Hmmmm, I think we had better think about this some." "But it's a perfect plan Sasha, it's the best we've got." "Hmmm, well..." Theirs just no pleasing people these days. With that the professionals went to work, Steve used an old pair of pliers to lift the lid off the sewer, and in we went, led by the faint beam of light coming from Sahsha's flashlight. Ahh, just what I love, a nice walk though sewer water that has detergents, chemicals, animal pollutants and other foreign items floating in it. Now thats the way to start a day! It took us only five minutes to reach the man hole into the building, a little muscle and we were inside. "Ok you guys, keep it quiet! Steve, stay here and guard the exit, we'll be right back." From here it was up the stairs to the Switch box room that contained the security box. "Ok Sasha, take care of it." Blamm, budda, budda, boom, buzz, crack, as Sasha whipped out his Jennings pocket auto and let the whole mess have it. "Well they'll never know we're here now! What a pro!" Knowing that we would have little time before we were swamped with more corporate thugs than you could imagine, we took off to do our thing and blow this popcicle stand before things got sticky. Wa-ooga, wa-ooga, wa-ooga. Well maybe we had no time. We took the next five flights of stairs in a dead sprint and turned smack dab into what we were looking for. The room was filled with billlleeons and billleeons of false teeth waiting to be put into the dentures that the many poor fogies and troubled people of the city needed. Tej went to work right away firing away with his camera and motor drive, sounding more impressive than a submachine gun. I decided to inspect a box that appeared to contain the materials that were used in making the teeth. H-I-G-H E-X-P- L-O-S-I-V-E-S (please keep out of the reach of children). As I snapped a few pictures of my find every thing fell into place, while, at the same time, everything else fell apart. "Gang way, incoming," were the words Tej yelled as about 15 guards opened up with their Acme power guns, doing their best to turn us into swiss cheese. Three against fifteen, was not my idea of even odds, which meant I was going to have to do one of my amazing super good guy stunts if we were going to get out of this one alive. As my partners blazed away with their guns, I drew my .50 caliber autopistol with "butt kicking rounds" and returned fire. The enemy dropped back in abject terror as we pressed forward in our attempt to escape. Not being good with guns, Tej shot out the various inanimate objects that stood between us and freedom, many of the enemy succumbing to his evil plan, falling over in fit's of uncontrollable laughter. Whata plan! Just like something I would have come up with. The light of day greeted us like a flash bulb in the face as we dashed to the awaiting safety of our get away car. It had all fit into place, this case was more diabolical than I thought. I proceeded to explain my solution to Capt. Lardbucket, my colleges standing to the side smiling, knowing that I was a true genius. First I told the Captain about the clues we had found and our little escapades to the secret establishment. After developing the pictures that both Tej and I had snapped before the fire fight, the real clincher clue became apparent. The large warning that said "explosives" was in plain view. This made us look at things a little more closely, where we found the words "C-5" burned into the box. Plastic explosives. Easy to get a hold of at your local Army base and it molds real easy. It seems that the firm's scientists had come up with a way to semi-harden the explosive so that it could be used to make the dentures. They also knew that the people most likely to come to them were "choco" addicts, so if the C-5 didn't hold up, it wouldn't matter since they would be to stoned to complain. "But what caused the explosion and the death of the victim!" "Elementary my dear Lardbucket; the hard candy." "Lets not get fresh now." "Ummm, just pay attention." I continued to explain that they were making the dentures for the punishment of eating a constant diet of chocolate. They didn't expect a shortage of the drug and the turning of it's users to a harder substance. The cracking of the hard candy acted as a sort of blasting cap on the modified C-5. "And there you have it, blewie." Epilogue The police snapped right to it, they called in the 101st Airborne and stormed the place. Since most of those military types are real rough necks, they brought in the heavy artillery. The next thing you knew they were really airborne. Oh well, they got the bad guys too. To the amazement of everyone, the victims ex-girl friend, Kate, joined the local chapter of Chocoholics Anonymous, she to had become a victim of this dreadful addiction. As for me, I shot on back to the old ritzy-do penthouse, people waving wildly as I drove by, happy that I had solved another one and hadn't run over them in the process. Home to the awaiting arms of my beloved babe, and that was heaven enough... To be continued...! ################################################################################### ################################## Enter selection or <return> for menu: 4 Ctrl and [S-Stop] [Q-Continue] [C-Quit] Zepplin for the Road -Chapter Four in the continuing adventures of Mr.X- I lay on my couch, wondering where my next meal ticket was coming from. Yes, once again things were slow, crime was down and it was all my fault! I'm just to good. Oh well, at least I know it, the bigger the ego the better. Yea... The afternoon sun filtered it's way through the darkened room and onto the "waterford crystal" glass panes in my door. The sun felt warm on my face easing me into a deep sleep, then the door to my apartment opened. My full attention was suddenly focused on the girl standing in the doorway, and the 90 decibel alarm horn going off above her head, which I, of course, promptly shot off the wall with my .50 cal. auto pistol. She walked towards me, door closing behind her. I sat up and pulled on my shoulder holster, knowing that a new case had just walked in. "Mister X?" She said, removing her sunglasses at the same time. She was around five-four, dark hair with deep brown eyes that spoke of the orient. I looked her over trying to get a first impression on what was on her mind, besides a little air. She had a slightly bored, sarcastic look on her face. "Please, have a seat." I said gesturing towards the couch. She sat down and crossed her legs. "What can I do for you miss..." "Hong. Kathy Hong. Call me Kiki." #Phew! Glad we got that straight! "I want to hire you to check out an establishment that I'll be attending next year." With that she told me the whole story. She was going to attend a Brain Cramming Institution of Higher Lore this coming fall, but there was a problem. She felt there was something fishy going on down there and she wanted me to look the place over. This would mean a trip to the far coast and the recruitment of some special operatives. I told her I'd take the case. She wanted to come along, "maybe I'll learn something," she had said, and what the hay, Bess' was away and it always helps to have a dame around, just in case. I grabbed my jacket and fedora and we headed out the door, she flipped a "butterfly" knife the whole way to our next destination. Special Kay showed up as we were leaving and offered to come along. Yea, we could never be without Special. We hopped into my hearse and shot down the sidewalks to "JR's Mags 'n Things" on the far side of the county. A dingy little place nearly wallpapered in old, yellowing, paper thin books. Both me and Special frequented the place and this is where we would find the three people who were needed for this sort of operation. As we walked in, the place went silent, eyes bulging and tongues hanging, the men we were looking for stood drooling at my client. "Put the hormones on hold fellas, I know you all don't get many females in here, but this ones off limits, she's a client." "Ahh, come on 'X," was the cry... I ignored their obscene requests and got down to business and told them what was up. The leader of the group, Troy, was a master in the martial arts, and was a man good with a gun and "Ginsu" cutlery. Rich, was the next one, good at surveillance and capable of doing the "dirty work" necessary to achieve our goal. He had worked for the Federal Badguy Impounders, so, you knew he must be good. Last but not most was Tony. Tony was a computer hack with the ability to sniff out any dark, depressing person within ten feet and blend in with the "brothers" as long as he kept raping. They liked the case and were ready to take off whenever. "Thats right, we'll get the cretins, because they won't be able to beat a superior god-like being like myself...why I could bring the perpetrators here now but that would ruin the challenge." Uhm, yea, I'm glad Troy's on our side, then again... We hopped into the hearse and headed for the highway. I picked up my mobile voice box and told Captain Lardbucket that I was head'in out of the city on a mission and Special was coming along as our official liaison. He gave me 1000 reasons for not leaving the city on this fool mission; all of which I shrugged off as mere responsibility. Lardbucket wished me good luck and said he'd put out the word that it was safe to walk the sidewalks again. With that I hit my Acme Anti-Collision Cruise Control and cranked up INXS on the radio. An hour later Bryan Adams "victim of Love" was blaring out of my highly expensive stereo when I noticed the flash of the old red and blue behind me. I dropped out of cruise control and pulled off to the side of the road. I was somewhere between South Carolina and Georgia, and it looked pretty backwater to me. "Howdy boy, now yous ain't going to give me no horse crap about ain't hav'in done nothin is you boy?" This was going to be interesting. "What exactly did I do officer?" "I's sittin back der eat'n my Tasty Freeze cone when I's clocked you doing 175 ina 45mph zone, then ya's proceeded to go through old man Zeke's chicken coop and you sucked one of dem birds into your turbocharger-dothingy. Basicaly thats a 420: reckless driving, a 367: destroying domesticated farm animals with a motor vehicle with out a license, and a 763: the intentional intent to ruin an officer of da laws uniform with a Tasty Freeze cone. That adds up to about a $500.00 fine and 30 days in jail. So what do you have to say for yourself?" Uh oh, this guy was serious! First I showed him my club card for the National Anti-Badguy foundation, showing me to be a fellow upholder of the law; no such luck, he just leaned against my car looking us over and spitting large wads of "skoal" on my new paint job. Ok that was the last straw, I was on a case and this guy was leaning on my car! Obstructing an honest city "dick" and his colleges from helping this young lady with her problem just because he didn't like TastyFreeze vanilla icecream! Unbelievable! I threw the hearse into four wheel drive and reverse and floored it, backing right over the officers car. Into drive, and floored again, I went back over his car and left him standing in the middle of the road as feathers floated out of the sky around him. I still to this day can't figure out where those feathers came from... Two days, 10 "McDonalds", and 20 restrooms later we pulled onto the campus of University U- California. It was a sprawling metropolis that just crawled with every sort of post pubescent teenager imaginable. We got right down to business. I sent Rich and Tony down to the main building to start looking for clues that signaled foul or stinky play. Rich would grill (or at least toast) the President of the "U" and Tony would attack the campus computers. The rest of us headed for the dorms, we'd ask a few questions and get a few answers. The dorms were unbelievable. The scene resembled only what could be described as a set for a disaster movie. We watched as people filtered in and out of the first floor windows, using them like doors. Empty cans and bottles that were obviously not used to hold fruit punch lay strewn and stacked throughout. Our first encounter came with a tall, blond, and over tanned youth who appeared to be cleaning his room with a shovel and a large can of "Lysol", a bulldozer would have been better. Special stepped forward and attempted to communicate with the youngster. "Like totally, #%&$6754%&', and it's like rad too, dude." "Dude?! Don't ever call me dude!" Screamed Special Just as I feared, as the words flowed out of his mouth like an alien tongue, I realized that we were in the heart of surfer/skater territory. The speech could be heard filtering out of every nook and cranny of the building, along with the giggles of inebriated, blond dames. Wild men on boards raced by us with ever increasing velocity and danger. Special stood perplexed as our "interrogate-E" spewed out more skater speech. I stepped forward and got to the core of the matter. "Ok guy, McCool, blah blah blah, blah totally thrasher." The guy didn't know much, but said that somebody had been making waves over at something called a "library." I thanked him and gave him a buck for a real haircut. We headed back to the rendezvous with our other team mates, Troy tripping skaters as we went. Things didn't look good, Rich had found out that, the president of the "U" had been paid to keep his mouth shut about all the stuff he knew nothing about and wasn't supposed to tell us. We walked back over to his office to give him the billy club and rubber hose treatment only to find him dead. Death by "Mr. Rodgers" overdose. He sat strapped to his fake leather chair, eyes blood shot and staring, a look of wholesome horror on his face. "Now boys and girls, can you say neighbor?" I realized that this was more than any person over four could take. This proved that there was something going on, more than met the 'ol bi-focals. I rallied my troops and started off for where Tony had been doing his job, my client keeping a comforting arm around my waist. Our arrival was to late. Tony lay face down on the terminal's keyboard, right hand stuffed in the disk drive. Killed by a computer "virus"; but I knew that someone had to have done poor Tony in. A scream and a motion near the door alerted us that my client had just been snatched and was being carried away by Tony's murderer. I pulled my .50 cal. auto pistol from its holster and laid out in hot pursuit. Down the stairs, down the the hall we chased the assailant, as my client threatened to flay his various private body parts with her knife. This made me and my men mad, this guy had killed a friend and was making off with the only dame in the story! We ran out the main doors, the bright sun blinding us for a second. When we could see, we realized things were going to be harder to deal with than first expected. We were standing face to face with about 30 ultra right-wing republican neo-nazi bikers, Miss Hong held in their midst! As the bikers slowly slid off their cycles and advanced towards us wielding chains and clubs and knives, I came up with our first tactic- "Run!" The four of us sprinted 20 feet and dove behind an empty VW beetle. Troy, Rich, and Special opened fire with their small calibre hand guns as at the same time the bikers opened fire with their Acme Power Guns, slowly melting our cover into a puddle of shiny slag. I set the selector on my .50 cal. for "Stupid Radical Blasting Rounds" and opened fire while I desperately tried to think of a plan to save my client, and our necks, from these Lyndon LaRouche lovers. Then it came to me. Several of the bikers were down, but not enough of them. I leaped the beetle and ran towards them firing away and calling taunts such as "Nixon in 88," and "Mondale is God." They were taken aback by my courage and stupidity. In their split second of indecision, we took the initiative. Troy jumped around the car and let loose with a searing blast of "Anarchy in the U.K.", by the Sex Pistols, from his portable boom box. They fell back in horror, being used to Lynard Skynard and Barry Manilow played at twice normal speed; he followed up with several karate chops to the knees. Yes, our opponents were weakening! Rich and Special followed suit by laying down an incredible field barrage of fire from their patented Acme Never-Empty Hollywood revolvers. It was time to make my move. I activated my Acme New and Improved Battlesuit and flew towards the enemy. Accelerating to full power I crossed the 30 foot wide area in five minutes and smashed in to the line of bikes our foes had set up for the devastating domino effect; paint chipped, and handle bars bent. That was it, our attackers couldn't take any more of this sort of punishment and promptly surrendered. Glad my plan had worked (?), I had meant to hit them! Faulty damn suit, that's it I'm calling Consumers Report! Epilogue The bad guys were beaten. After rounding up these thugs and seeing to Miss Hong's well being, we squeezed some info out of the goons. It turns out that this group had been paid by the mob to guard Jimmy Hoffa's brother. Which turned out to none other than Elvis. Yes he was drugged up beyond belief and believed that he was living in Graceland II, located in Albecerque, New Mexico. Needless to say there was great rejoicing across the country and Elvis was named President of the U.S.A., that is until he was chalked up as another sighting. As for my client, she was happy to see that the place she was going to was allright, except for the skaters, which she knew how to handle. We had all become quite fond of her in our brief time together. It was with a tear in our eye as we said "later" (never good-bye), gave her a last fleeting hug, and watched her walk towards her new home-away-from-home. Things would be a little duller without her around but that was the way of things. She had a bright future ahead, and we were but many of the supporting characters in her life's play. With that we walked back to the hearse and headed for home. "Stairway to Heaven" played on the radio, and life as usual beckoned to us from afar... ##############################################################