The Chameleon Fallacy (Big Bamboo Book 2) (61 page)

She smiled at him, letting him know that it was all right. “Did you see him?”

“
Yeah. The feds told me he was here. I tracked him down, but the slimy little fucker blindsided me. I have to admit it was a pretty cute trick. I was too soft on him. That was before the ante got raised. It won’t happen again.”

“
So what does it all mean?”

“
I have no idea. But I know that little bastard has something to do with what’s going on. He might even be the key, the fucking catalyst that drives the reaction. Who knows? But I do know that when I find him, I find out what this whole shooting match is about.”

“
But how will you find him?”

“
The same way I found him before. It doesn’t make any difference which ship you’re on, the rats are always in the same place.”

Asia smiled and moved against him. “So, er, when does the rat hunt start?”

“
First thing in the morning.”

“
Oh,” she said, climbing on top of him. “Well, in that case…”

***

“
The fucken fat bludger ’ad an arse the size a Ayer’s fucken rock, and ya coulda used the other barstad ter check the oil in yer fucken tank, mate.”

Wally’s description of Low Roll and Hard D lost something in the translation, which was what allowed two of the most conspicuous individuals in Paris to slip undetected, wringing wet and bleeding, through the police cordon and into the sanctuary of Place Pigalle, while the French cops were still vainly leafing through their English dictionaries, trying to find out what a “bludger” was.

A five-hundred euro note was sufficient to allay any fears the cab driver might have had about the upholstery and suspension of his cab, or the obviously fugitive status of his fare, and when they managed to semaphore their destination, he drove away with his eyes open and his trap shut, knowingly eyeballing the battery of flashing blue lights coming from the park and grinning to himself.

They needed a place where they could lay low, although in Hard D’s case, anywhere short of the bottom of the Grand Canyon would be touch-and-go, so they steered the cab driver down ever-darker and dingier avenues, until they came upon a small bar squeezed into the corner of a narrow street, across the road from a fleapit flophouse, and they told him to pull over. It was just what they needed, a drink and a place to crash and regroup. In that order.

From where they sat in a dark corner, they could see the sign of the hotel through the grimy window. Neither one of them could pronounce the name of the joint, but it was La Goulue.

***

Khuy couldn’t help having a little sneaking admiration for Monsoon’s plan, trying to provoke him into a fight with the American so he could make a run for it. Except he had no intention of fighting the American. He was just going to take care of him. He knew the American would figure that he was going to try to follow them, which he was. On his way out, he assured himself that there was only one way out of the beer tent, unless they cut their way out of the back, which only happened in shit corny movies. The guy was an American, so you never knew, but he doubted it.

For obvious reasons, Khuy’s skill level at tailing people undetected was about the same as the Hunchback of Notre Dame’s, so he knew he was going to need a plan. He already had one.

***

The one-eyed Moroccan midget was no longer one-eyed, and no longer a midget. She was actually immense, had two eyes, and was the most beautiful woman who ever lived. This was because she had the R3 jammed up her snatch, and was experiencing an erotic hallucination of epic proportions. The downside was that her twat had turned fluorescent green, but it was a small price to pay.

In her vision she was a giantess, a thousand feet tall, striding across Paris, trampling on all those French bastards who had reviled her and spat upon her. She hawked up a huge gob of phlegm in the back of her throat and flobbed it neatly on top of the Arc de Triomphe.

She strode up to the Tower and lifted her skirts. She spread her monumental minge lips and squatted down, slowly, crying out in ecstasy as the phenomenal ferric phallus slid inside her. A tidal wave flooded down the Seine, bursting the banks and sinking all the boats, as she began to thrust herself violently up and down, and as she screeched in the grip of a volcanic orgasm such as she had never felt before, every bell in the city rang out, and the pyramid outside the Louvre shattered into a million shards.

***

Bon-Bon the Clown was just about to call it a day. Most of the people were already inside, his nuts were itching like hell, and anyway, he needed to catch a few Zs before his nighttime gig at the circus. He was closing the lid on the ice cream cart when some kind of Gigantopithecus swayed up with a five-hundred-euro note in its hairy fist. Bon-Bon was stranded somewhere between surprise and irritation. He was surprised because orangutans with faces like blow-torched coconuts weren’t his typical ice cream cone customer. He was also irritated, because what kind of a twat pays for a popsicle with a fucking five-C note and expects the vendor to have change?

“
Unless
monsieur
wishes to buy ze ’ole cart, ah ’ave not ze change,” said Bon-Bon, somewhat archly.

“
Money not for ice cream. Ice cream for kids, womans, and French pansies. Money for wig, red nose, and clothes.”

“
You do not seriously expect me to…”

“
You see movie
Godfather
?”

“
But of course, but what…”

“
Okay. Pretend I Marlon Brando.”

Bon-Bon took the hint and the euros, and dived behind a tree to peel off his buffoon duds. He wheeled his cart away rather faster than it was designed for, muttering something unpleasant about primates.

Khuy sat on a bench, in plain view, pleased with his plan, and eating his chocolate and vanilla deluxe sundae with sprinkles, which he had scored as part of the deal. He had slurped it down to the cone when he saw Monsoon come pegging out of the gate and head straight toward him.

Monsoon was laughing as he ran. What a fucking ace move he had just pulled. He stopped laughing when the fat clown sitting on the bench stuck out a foot and tripped him up. He scrambled to his feet, and, reassuring himself with a quick glance over his shoulder that Baby Joe was nowhere in sight, turned to remonstrate with the clown.

“
Hey, fucking bozo, why don’t you watch where you’re putting those…?”

Bozo cold-cocked him with an uppercut.

As Khuy was sitting in the shadow of the tree, removing his clown outfit while waiting for Monsoon to wake up, and cursing himself for making the same mistake twice, his cell phone beeped.

He hefted it out of his back pocket and looked at it, confused. On the screen was a picture of the Eiffel Tower. He shrugged and was about to shove it back in his pocket when an amazing thing happened. First of all, from his phone there came the overwhelmingly powerful aroma of what was unmistakable Fanny’s perfume. And then, as he watched, the image of the Eiffel Tower dissolved, and in its place, towering above Paris, shining in the sun like the phallus of the gods, was the Fab 13, perfect in every detail.

He stared, dumfounded. What did it mean? What should he do? He looked down at Monsoon, who was showing no sign of stirring. He made a decision. Fuck it. He’d found the
negry
once; he could do it again. He stood up and sloped off toward the taxi rank.

When Monsoon came to under a tree at Longchamp, he was understandably confused. His first reaction had been to check his wallet, but it was still there, and still intact. Then he had a horrible thought. He checked his asshole, but it was in the same condition as his wallet. So what was the deal with the fucking clown? Did it mean anything? Was it a part of some greater mechanism, the sinister ticking of cosmic clockwork, or was it just a gratuitous celestial slapdown, the godly fuckers bitch-slapping him again just for the hell of it? Who knew, but it needed thinking about, and his shithouse rat instincts led him back to his lair to ponder this latest development, and his next move.

Apart from the fact that he had another knot on his head to add to his collection, he was feeling pretty good about himself. The fake pass he’d thrown to Baby Joe had been a pearl. He had no way of knowing that Baby Joe had passed within feet of his prostrate form as he left the racecourse, and had even looked at him. It was only the fact that he was curled up with his butt facing the road that caused Baby Joe to assume he was just another sad-ass loser passed out in the park, and keep walking.

***

Low Roll and Hard D had the corner of The Tropic of Cancer to themselves. Hard D’s butt was taking care of that. Nobody could squeeze past it. Hard D was still upset. Under the circumstances, it was understandable. They had just murdered someone, been dumped out of a hot air balloon into the Seine, the results of their exploits were now being shown on every TV screen in France, the gendarmes were looking for them, and the French beer was lukewarm cat piss. But that wasn’t why he was upset. That kind of shit was all in a day’s work. He was sulking because of the shot.

“
I woulda made it. I had it fucking
down
, man. It woulda been the greatest shot ever made. I woulda been a fuckin’ legend. And now, I’m gonna be a clown. The joker who bumped his own damn boss.”

“
Don’t sweat it, D. If that fat fuck hadn’t’a…”

“
Aw, no one’s gonna remember that. They’ll just remember that I fuckin’ missed.”

“
Yeah, well, forget it. The next shot’s the one we gotta worry about.”

“
Whaddaya mean?

“
I mean Zalupa. He’ll know we set him up. We gotta take him out. And while we’re at it, it’s time we started thinking big.”

“
Like how?”

“
The jungle bunny. We find him, and we score this gadget for ourselves. Then we deal with this Nightingale character. He’ll know not to fuck with us, and we go home rich, and no more nickel-and-dime gigs taking orders and lip from the likes of Zalupa. Whaddaya say?”

“
I say, fuckin’-A, but how are we gonna find the guy?”

“
Easy. The asshole is just walking out the door.”

Hard D nearly dislocated his neck spinning his head around. They headed for the street, with Hard D running interference, steamrolling through the crowd and mashing people out of the way, and Low Roll surfing in his wake, with one hand already under his jacket and on his piece. They got to the door, with a chorus of choice French imprecations bouncing off their eardrums, just in time to see a woman kick Monsoon right in the bollocks.

They pulled up, laughing. They couldn’t help it. They stopped laughing when they saw two guys grab him, stick a bag over his head, and shove him into a big Renault. They were in luck. The cabbie who had scored the five hundred euros was still hanging around, hoping to maybe peel a few more notes out of the deal. He sized up the situation at once, and was at the curb with the doors open before the Renault got to the end of the street.

Low Roll was a bit disappointed. He had always wanted to say “Follow that car!” but he didn’t know how to say it in French. But it didn’t matter; the cabbie was already on it.

In separate parts of Paris, two separate-but-connected scenarios were playing out at more or less the same time. As Fanny emerged from the elevator at the foot of the stairs and passed out of the shade of the tower, two guys came up from behind and grabbed her.

Monsoon, meanwhile, was busy staggering out of the bar opposite La Goulue, squinting against the harsh light. One celebratory drink had turned into several, and so he was feeling no pain as he wobbled out into the sunlight. Until he stopped a size-six, red-soled Christian Louboutin right in the nutsack, that is. Before he could even fall over, a black bag was shoved over his head and he felt himself grabbed under the arms.

He was so relieved to be able to sit down and nurse his balls that it was some time before he even began to wonder where the car was taking them so fast. They suddenly screeched to a halt, and he flipped sharply forward and belted his already-bruised bonce on the back of the driver’s seat. He felt a body pushed up against him, heard the door slam, and was pushed back into his seat by the force of the car accelerating away again, with the tires squealing in the best Hollywood fashion. His suspicion that it was Fanny beside him was reinforced by the cloud of perfume that engulfed him and the weighty pressure of a firm tit as she kept leaning into him on the curves. He wondered if she had a bag over her head too. Didn’t seem right, somehow.