How to Archer (17 page)

⁵⁸
At some other casino, because come within a half-mile of this one again and you’re going to be
walking
to the airport. Mainly because no cabbie in the world is going to pick up a guy whose balls have been stuffed into his mouth.

⁵⁹
While many things (Spanish-speaking housekeepers, magical tigers, etc.) in this particular scenario may seem applicable only to Las Vegas, the shouting, tomato-faced Asian herd is not: walk into any casino in any country in the world, and you will see some Asians smoking and scowling and playing the absolute shit out of some pai gow.

⁶⁰
We job that out.

⁶¹
You strike me as the sort of person whose bed would be on a cheap metal frame.

⁶²
Through no fault of the author’s.

⁶³
Which, by the way, isn’t my strongest foreign language to begin with. I’m not actually all that great in
any
foreign language. Although this is much less of a handicap for a secret agent than you might imagine because, in my considerable experience, people in foreign countries always just speak English, just with a heavy accent of whatever country they’re supposed to be from. So international travel is pretty much like watching
Hogan’s Heroes.

⁶⁴
Also in alphabetical order, turns out. Apparently my editrix is only anal when it comes to book layouts.

⁶⁵
Malcolm X used to get high on nutmeg to kick his heroin habit when he got sent to prison for burglary before he became a movie star (which is pretty cool). Two tablespoons of nutmeg will kill you (which isn’t).

⁶⁶
Today. Dumbass.

⁶⁷
I realize that it’s in fairly poor taste to have an entry concerning Ernest Hemingway immediately follow a joke about eating a shotgun. Take it up with my alphabetically anal editrix.

⁶⁸
I don’t know what this is, and Woodhouse is out running errands.

⁶⁹
Woodhouse still isn’t back yet.

⁷⁰
You may notice it says “gin” and not “gin or vodka.” That’s because this is a recipe for a gimlet, and not a “vodka gimlet,” which—regardless of what anyone tells you—simply does not exist. The cocktail of which you’re thinking is properly referred to as a “vodka, combined with the ingredients that any sane person would use to make a gimlet.”

⁷¹
Still not back.

⁷²
Which is pronounced
mar-a-SKEE-no.
And even money says you’re also mispronouncing bruschetta. Dummy.

⁷³
Which I’m pretty sure You-Know-Who doesn’t have.

⁷⁴
Seriously. HarperCollins is far enough up my ass already.

⁷⁵
Hi, welcome to England: we have no idea what we’re supposed to be doing.

⁷⁶
Seriously, how long does it take to pick up a bag of oranges?

⁷⁷
I am going to beat Woodhouse with that bag of oranges.

⁷⁸
Duh.

⁷⁹
Seriously, thirty seconds after Woodhouse walks in the door with those oranges he will be bleeding internally.

⁸⁰
Woodhouse, the creaking old fiend, has some heroin stashed somewhere in here. But to be honest, I probably have enough addictions as it is. Also, I just assume it’s hidden in his room somewhere, and the thought of even crossing the threshold of that foul little cell fills me with equal parts nausea and dread. Plus, I don’t like needles.

⁸¹
Exactly not unlike Messrs. French and Belvedere.

⁸²
Although those probably weren’t the best two rhyming examples to use; they look pretty similar. Sorry

⁸³
Hey, where do you guys get your checks? Will the bank or whoever let you have king cobras printed on them?

⁸⁴
Unless that tie is knotted in a half-Windsor. If this is the case, you are probably a child and thus should not be reading this book. Although if you
are
a child, and have made it this far (without skipping ahead!) you’re probably going to eventually become an absolutely kickass man-adult, so keep reading: pretty soon we get into whores.

⁸⁵
Which you probably call
Florence.
Because I still want to murder you.

⁸⁶
Me.

⁸⁷
Don’t ask me what kind of elk, I have no idea. But I just assume it’s a German one; the blade was made there, and historically the Germans have been pretty good at maximizing economies of scale. Just usually in really horrifying ways.

⁸⁸
Because I feel like I’ve been pretty blabby. Secrets-wise.

⁸⁹
That sounded a lot less racist in my head.

⁹⁰
If she happens to be
more
stunning, it is perfectly acceptable to dump your date and ask the hostess to dine with you.

⁹¹
I’ve also had some success posing as Boz Scaggs. Two people the Abracadabra will
not
work with, however, are Bob Seger (because people are pretty sure you’re supposed to have a beard) and Jethro Tull (because he’s dead).

⁹²
Because I don’t have a vagina.

⁹³
Plus this isn’t a cookbook.

⁹⁴
In your defense, I can see how the book’s title is maybe a little misleading.

⁹⁵
You strike me as the sort of person who would be caught dead on a bus.

⁹⁶
You also strike me as the sort of person who works in a place where they have lockers.

⁹⁷
Note: I did not include this phrase in Arabic. This was not because I do not find Arabic women sexy. In fact, quite the opposite. I did not include it because, A) this stupid word-processing software turned the Arabic phrase into wingdingery gibberish, and B) even if you’re as sexy as I am, no matter how much an Arabic woman wants to have sex with you, she doesn’t want it enough to get her buried up to her neck in sand and pummeled in the face with rocks all afternoon.

⁹⁸
If she takes her work seriously, she’ll have a rate-card.

⁹⁹
Not unlike a real relationship. Am I right, fellas?

¹⁰⁰
I actually don’t vote at all. To learn more about this interesting fact, please turn the page.

¹⁰¹
No. (Duh.)

¹⁰²
This is because I normally gain four to five ounces of unsightly winter fat every year, which all seems to go straight to my face, and I feel the wider lapel helps to balance the overall look. Although now that I think about it, I have dozens of fall/winter suits which are entirely separate and different from my dozens of spring/summer suits, so to pay to have them
all
altered is actually pretty stupid. See? We can all do a little better when it comes to saving.

¹⁰³
Little Baby El-Ro, we called him.

¹⁰⁴
Thailand used to be called Siam. Conjoined twins used to be called Siamese twins, because the first (well-known) conjoined twins, Chang and Eng, were from Siam. They made a pile of money working in freak shows, moved to America and bought a huge farm in North Carolina, married two sisters with whom they had a total of twenty-one children (ten for Chang and eleven for Eng), and owned a bunch of slaves. All of which I find pretty darn fascinating.

¹⁰⁵
Who writes this? Wait, what? You’re shitting me.

¹⁰⁶
And his last. This whole thing was a huge pain in the ass.
¹⁰⁷

¹⁰⁷
Shit. That’s only 29,797 words. Okay, so now we’re doing this: cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra. There. Now fuck off, HarperCollins.