The Ayatollah's Money

  Chapter 59 – The Boys Get to Work

  Right around the time Gale dragged Renee into The Hall for the first time to meet the rest of the team and be reunited with Big George, The Colonel managed to get one eye open, but the other malfunctioned, so he tried his mouth. When he discovered that it too wouldn’t perform according to tradition, his brain, which was slightly more operational, thought, ‘The fucking infidels grabbed me, and I’m in a torture chamber, and they’ve superglued my mouth shut, and if they see I am awake, the waterboarding will start,’ so he closed his eye and waited.

  After a minute something bumped against his side, and he froze. He felt it again, and kept stone still. Then he heard a snoring sound and a gurgle and some wheezing inhalations of breath, and then felt another bump. His brain told him to stay still to avoid commencement of the waterboarding, but his curiosity got the better of him so he opened his one good eye and turned his head to the side. What he saw was so horrible his autonomic nervous system elicited a scream reflex from his diaphragm which rose through his throat with enough force to blow open his glued together mouth and flip open his other eye like a roller shade that gets loose from your fingers and retracts with a loud snap at the top of the window. “Ahhhhhyeeeee.” Next to him, rubbing against him, was Lewy, and Lewy was naked. Instinctively he jerked away from Lewy on the torture platform (the bed) and came up against something on the other side. He turned his head in that direction, and ejected another “Ahhhhyeeeee”, because there he saw Priss, and Priss was naked. Both of his boys were naked from stem to stern. In shock he closed his eyes and lay still, waiting for the first words from the infidel torturer, sure to be something like, “Well my little jihadist friend, so you’re awake. I’ve been waiting for this. It’s payback time. Elmer, bring over the hose.”

  But nothing happened, and The Colonel’s brain started working again, and it produced another bad thought which caused his right arm to move away from Priss and onto his own hip, at which point his worst fear was realized; he too was naked. Yes, there was his limp little pecker, open to the air and the view of any and all present in the chamber, including his boys. He thought, ‘This is really bad news.’

  He resigned himself to his fate, kept his eyes closed, and waited for the worst, which happened immediately when Lewy regained consciousness and extended his arm to his right, with the palm of his hand landing square on The Colonel’s balls. The Colonel said aloud, “Ok infidels, let’s get this over with, kill me please right now and send me over to the land of my forty blessed and horny virgins.”

  Priss said, “What?” and sat up on one side.

  Lewy said, “What?” and sat up on the other side.

  Both of them opened their eyes, looked around, and simultaneously emitted a loud, “Ahhhhyeeeee,” with Lewy’s being louder because he found his hand where neither he nor The Colonel wanted it. Priss also saw it and thought, ‘That cat’s outta the bag.’

  The screams transported all three of them back to reality, and they were surprised to not see guys in black shirts holding scalpels and long hoses connected to plumbing fixtures in the walls. What they did see were the walls of The Colonel’s hotel room, their clothes on the floor around the king size bed, and a cluster of empty tequila bottles on the table by the window. In unison the three brains said, “Ya Ya Ya, Yippee, TEQUILA, baby. More, more.”

  And then it all came flooding back: Hablibi bringing the four hookers into the room; the hookers saying, “Yes, we’re pure, absolutely;” them breaking out the bottles; then breaking out the coke; then the clothes coming off and the games beginning; Hablibi and one of the hookers leaving for some private time together, him being the diplomat and therefore more inhibited in his personal behavior than the three assassins. All of this started about 9pm and ended about 3am with the hookers packing up and leaving the scene of destruction, each a thousand dollars richer and thinking, ‘These Arabs boys cannot hold their liquor, and ain’t much for screwing, either.’

  Lewy climbed off the bed to the left, Priss climbed off to the right, and Aliaabaadi climbed off the end, all three able to stand up, though not steadily, and then able to bend over and pick up their clothes, each keeping an eye on the other two during this maneuver. The Colonel said, “Meet me downstairs in one hour,” and hobbled off to the bathroom.

  An hour later the boys from Tehran met in the coffee shop and drank green tea, not wanting to test their stomachs quite yet with food or coffee. Priss said, “What the hell happened?”

  Lewy said, “We ain’t got no virgins like them, back home.”

  The Colonel said, “Sweet Jesus, that was fun,” and then all three broke out in a giggling fit, slapping each other on the backs, high fiving it, thinking of how to make next time a little wilder. “That Hablibi ain’t such a wuss after all. Wonder what he ended up doing? Couldn’t be as good as what we got, could it?” And the other two agreed. Then The Colonel got serious and said, “Ok, playtime’s over. Now we got work to do. You ready to get the bitch and the money?”

  “Yes, boss,” the soldiers said in unison.

  “Let’s head up to that place and see what’s going on. You guys got your weapons?” They both nodded, with Priss carrying the straws and sewing needles and Lewy the wax coated garroting twine. Lewy had tried to assemble the potato launcher but couldn’t figure out how to attach the small propane canister to the PVC tube.

  Priss said, “Boss, can we stop for lunch on the way. I’m starting to feel better.”

  “No, no lunch. An empty stomach can do wonders for a person’s disposition; make a mean man ever meaner; a killer more cold bloodied; a true blue assassin more in need of a victim. I want you guys ready in case we run into the Laleh woman. Might as well get on with the mission. Remember, if we want to conquer more infidel virgins like those last night, and leave our mark on this godless society, we gotta have some money, and lots of it. Right?”

  “Right,” they said, grinding enamel off their teeth and digging their finger nails into the palms of their hands, trying to draw blood. They’d learned these tricks in the course titled, Self-Motivation: How the Successful Assassin Prepares Himself for the Ultimate Moment When the Time for Vengeance Finally Arrives. The Colonel looked at Priss until he got the message and paid the check, and they headed up King Street, on the prowl for their quarry, their stomachs making loud noises.

  They turned right onto John Street, crossed to the side away from The Hall, and sat down on their favorite bench to reconnoiter. Inside the theater Sody was walking George and Wegs through Scene One, which he had decided would be live on the stage, the opposite of Woody Allen who had started his characters on film. Woody had shocked the viewers by having the actor come out of the screen and onto the stage. Sody wanted to shock his viewers by having the actors disappear off the stage, climbing into the screen and continuing the action on film. HOW he was going to do that he hadn’t quite figured out yet, but he wasn’t worried, it would come to him. It always did.

  Gale watched Sody direct, hoping to pick up some acting tips. Shim watched, seeing his screenplay realized on stage for the first time. Laleh and Gwen were in the back office working on the budget, getting ready to move a few million from Laleh’s account in 'St.' something to the new June Enterprises account Gwen just had opened for the production. Roger and Jinny watched for a while but got bored, and looked at each other. Roger said, “How ‘bout we take the dog for a walk?” Jinny nodded and they left by the stage door into the alley. At the street they turned right and headed towards the small park three blocks down.

  When they appeared out of the alley the three assassins saw them and lowered their chins to their chests, pretending they were napping like old guys. As Roger and Jinny disappeared down the block, Lewy said, “There goes the guy with the gun; now’s our chance. Let’s just go in and snatch the bitch, be outta there before they know what hit ‘em.” The Colonel looked at him, and then at Priss, and then all three hear
d their stomachs growl again. The Colonel took that as a sign from Allah to wreck vengeance on the non-believers NOW, and nodded. They crossed the street and entered the double doors, stopping inside to let their eyes adjust to the darkness. They looked down the center aisle and saw people on the stage bathed in green and blue lights. Laleh wasn’t one of them. Lewy, hunger and a hangover gnawing at him, took the waxed twine from his pocket, wrapped it around one of his hands, and marched down the aisle. Priss took a straw from his pocket and then the package of sewing needles, loading three of them into his mouth, an agent of the Red Scimitar, ready to strike like a cobra.

  At the bottom of the aisle Lewy went left, Priss went right, and Aliaabaadi vaulted onto the stage in the center. All three shouted, “Allah Akbar, where’s the Laleh bitch, we are the Red Scimitar, here for vengeance.”

  The director and the two actors stopped reading their lines and looked at the interlopers. Shimmey looked at Gale and said, “I didn’t write them into the script.”

  Gale looked at Sody and said, “What are you doing? If you want to change the script, you gotta tell Shim first. You can’t just stick something in there without telling us.”

  Sody said, “I didn’t make any changes. I wouldn’t do that to Shim. I don’t know anything about these guys.”

  The Iranians approached the center of the stage, Lewy brandishing his twine string garroting weapon, Priss menacingly holding up a sewing needle, loading it into his straw, and putting the straw to his mouth. The Colonel again said, “Where is the Laleh woman. We have come for her; there is no escape from the wrath of Allah disturbed.”

  Gale giggled and said, “Hold on, I’ll get her.” She headed to the offices at the rear of the stage, entered one and said to Gwen and Laleh, bent over the desk, “Laleh, hon, there’s some boys here to see you, and I think they’re from your neck of the woods. They mentioned someone you might know, a dude named Al, something like that.” She looked at Gwen, said, “They don’t look friendly. One’s got some string he’s playing with, making like a noose or something; the other put something in a straw and is pretending it’s a blowgun, like kids do with spitballs. But they don’t look like kids; they look kinda mean. Maybe you could come out, see what they want. They’re interrupting the rehearsal.”

  Gwen looked at Laleh and said, “You know anyone here named Al?” Laleh shook her head. Gwen got up and left the office, the other two behind her.

  As they came onto the stage Lewy saw Laleh and yelled, “There she is, Boss. Gimme the execution command.”

  Priss yelled, “Thief. Upon thee will fall the blade of the Red Scimitar.”

  The Colonel looked at his boys, keeping a cooler head than them. Once again he wondered how they could forget that if they killed the traitor they wouldn’t get the money. He said, “Hold on. Take that straw away from your mouth,” and looked from Laleh to Gale to Gwen to the others on the stage, and back at Gwen, who he sensed was a VIP in this interaction. To her he said, “Who are you?”

  Gwen said, “Who’s asking?”

  This took The Colonel by surprise, him not being used to females questioning members of the Guard Elite Assassination Corps. “I’m asking, Colonel Aliaabaadi, of the Guard Elite Assassination Corps. You will answer me, now.”

  Gale giggle again, knowing something interesting was going to happen.

  Monique, who was sitting at the edge of the stage reading McCrady’s wine list on her smartphone, looked at Sody and Shim and said, “You two should watch what’s going to happen now. Might get some ideas for the storyline, and how to direct some action scenes.”

  Gwen processed the situation instantly and acted. She moved in front of Laleh, watching Priss because he had the only viable weapon in sight, the blow gun. She didn’t think it was real but couldn’t take a chance. She said to Priss, “Take that out of your mouth.”

  Priss heard the command in her voice, stronger than anything he’d ever heard from The Colonel, and didn’t know what to. He wanted to do as she said, but also had thoughts about what Lewy would think of him. These conflicting influences confused him, and he did something stupid. Gwen was in front of Laleh, so he pointed the straw at Gale, who was close to him, and blew. ZIP, the thing actually worked and the sewing needle flew out the end.

  “Ow,” said Gale, and looked down at the needle sticking in her right boob. She looked at Priss and said, “You little shit.”

  With this stupid move, Gwen brushed aside the flap of her hip length jacket and pulled her Glock nine millimeter compact handgun. On the way up to firing position she racked the slide and assumed a shooters stance. In a second and a half the gun pointed at Priss’s chest. This time she said, “Try that again and you’ll find out whether your celestial virgins are real or not. You really want to take the chance that they’re not?”

  Priss dropped the straw and the package of needles and said, “How do you know about them? You’re an infidel.”

  “Us female infidels are allowed to read books. Now,” and she looked at Lewy and The Colonel, “All three of you are going to sit down,” and she motioned with the gun to the chairs. “You ok, Gale?”

  Gale pulled out the needle, dropped it on the floor, and pulled her sweater up and over her head, which caught everyone’s attention. She dapped at a drop of blood on her boob and said, “Look at what the little shit did. Perfection marred. Shoot him, Gwenny.” She looked at Priss and said, “You’re lucky Jinny’s not here. He doesn’t have the self-control she does.”

  Wegs recovered her wits at seeing Gwen draw a gun, Sody and George still mesmerized, went over to Gale and put her hands on Gale’s shoulders. “You ok?” Gale nodded, and Weg’s dabbed off another drop of blood and leaned down and kissed the tiny wound.

  Gale looked around at the others, smiled and said, “That makes it better. Again, please.”

  Monique wasn’t sure which group of guys was more surprised by Wegs, the three boys from Tehran or the two boys from Hollywood. She decided it was a tossup. She walked over and put her arms around Gale and said, “Let’s go in the back where we can take care of you some more. Let Gwen handle this out here.” And the three women walked off the stage, Gale looking backwards at George, flirting.

  Gwen again motioned to the intruders to move to the chairs, which they did. “Face the chairs and put both hands on the back. Lean over. Laleh, search them.” She moved to the other side of the chairs where she could see their faces, and where she would have a clear line of fire away from Laleh. Laleh never had searched anyone before, but she did a passable job, taking the waxed twine away from Lewy and going through their pockets, running her hands down their legs, Gwen watching carefully. She said, “Turn around and sit down.” When the boys were seated she said to George and Sody, “Come over here,” and had them sit down facing the boys, and then she motioned to Laleh to sit, and then she did. When the four westerners were facing the three Middle Easterners, she said, “Let’s all relax for a minute, and we’ll figure out what’s going on here.”

  At this point the doors at the rear of the theater opened and Roger, Jinny, and the dog started down the aisle. The dog said, “Heads up,” which stopped the two guys in their tracks and caused them to look at the stage. Roger sensed tension and reached for his gun. Jinny already had his out and moved into the seats to the left. Roger moved into the seats to the right. They both watched Gwen as they made it to the side aisles and then towards the stage.

  When they got to the bottom of the aisles Roger said, “Everything ok, hon?”

  She nodded and said, “Come on up, we’ve got guests.”

  Roger and Jinny kept their guns out as they wheeled chairs from the wing to the line now facing the three intruders. Roger was slightly amused, Jinny seemed more serious. The dog looked around for Monique, hoping to resume the spinal massage therapy. Roger looked sideways at his wife, her holding her Glock in a relaxed but pointed way. He said, “Where are the girls
?”

  “They’re ok, they’re in the back. One of these idiots shot Gale in the boob with a needle.”

  Jinny looked away from the boys, at Gwen, then back at the boys. He stood up, pointed his gun in their general direction, and said, “Which one shot Gale?”

  The three Iranians weren’t the only ones to detect menace in Jinny’s voice. George, Sody, and Shim tensed up, this being the first time anywhere any of them had come face to face with guns drawn in earnest, let alone on a theater stage. This was dramatic action of a type the actor and director only had played at.

  Now Jinny walked around behind the three intruders and again said, “Which one shot Gale?”

  Gwen knew Jinny very well, including how Jinny behaved under stress, and she sensed he was under control, so she let him have a little rein, thinking it might soften these boys up a little, and then she wouldn’t have to do it. She nodded at Priss.

  Jinny moved close to his chair, raised his gun, and touched the end of the barrel to the back of Priss’s head. “You fucked with Gale, and she’s my special friend. You got any last words?”

  Roger knew Jinny wasn’t going to kill the guy, but Shim and Sody and George did not, and at this point they were almost as nervous as Priss. Jinny can be a very intimidating presence to those who don’t know him well. Just then the three women came out from the back, Gale having put her sweater back on, much to the chagrin of all the guys present. She said, “Go ahead, Jinn Jinn, blast away. That little fucker shot me in the boob, and it hurt.” Monique and Laleh joined the group that was wondering if Jinny really was going to do it.

  Gwen leveraged the uncertainty that was in all the minds except hers and Roger’s and Jinny’s and said, “Before you do that, Jinny, maybe we should ask these boys exactly what they’re doing here.” She looked at The Colonel. “What’s this about the Red Scimitar and vengeance? And what do you want with Laleh?”

  The Colonel was just as nervous as Priss. He thought Jinny was serious, and that after Priss’s brains were dislodged from his skull, Lewy’s and his would be next. He had no idea Americans were so bloodthirsty, despite the fate that had befallen those ole rascals Osama bin Laden and Sadaam Hussein. So he decided he had no reason to hold back, and said, “She stole money from the People of our country, and we were sent to get it back. We have failed but there will be others who come after us until vengeance has been exacted. That is the way of the Red Scimitar.” And he bowed his head in resignation.

  Gwen looked at Lewy, said, “You got anything to add?”

  Half-heartedly he said, “Yes, we came to return the money to the People, from whom the witch stole it. We act only for them that have been wronged by her and you non-believers.”

  Gale was tempted to say, “I’m a believer, I believe I’ll have another glass of champagne,” but she recognized it was a weak joke and kept it inside her big mouth, which was a miracle.

  Gwen looked over at Laleh and asked, “You know these goons? You know anything about the Red Scimitar?”

  Laleh felt maybe it was time to come clean, tell her friends, yes, she was a thief, just like the goons had said, tell them she was from Iran and had left town in a hurry, just ahead of the goon squad, the Red Scimitar boys, but then she thought she should keep that disclosure for later, after Jinny had done whatever he was going to do. She said, “I don’t know them personally, but they are from my country. I know about the Red Scimitar, everyone in Iran knows about it. They are The Ayatollah’s personal guards and a very nasty bunch. When they came into The Hall the old guy said something about a Guard Elite Assassination Corps. I’ve never heard of that. Maybe it’s the same as the Red Scimitar.” The Colonel winced at being referred to as an old guy, but it came from the mouth of a woman so he didn’t have to give it much weight. “Anyway, they’re here after me, and I’m sorry I got you guys involved in this. I didn’t think they’d be able to find me.”

  Monique, who was smart as well as beautiful, said, “Is this a political thing? Are they after you because you got in trouble at home politically, and they want to assassinate you for it?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Jinny, who also was smart, though not in any way beautiful, said, grinning, “Are you a crook, like they said?” Jinny likes crooks, very sympathetic, unless they're in competition with him.

  Laleh said, “Umm….”

  Gwen cut in, saying, “We’ll figure that out later. Right now we gotta get rid of these guys and get back to work.”

  Sody, speaking for the first time since the assault on The Hall began, said, “This is good stuff, Gwen. Very dramatic. Can you keep it going a little longer? If you give me a little more I can use it as the core for another movie, easy.”

  George said, “If you make that one, I want in.”

  Gale said, “Hey, I was the victim here, the one that took the hit. I want in the movie too, top billing.”

  No one said, ‘Gale, you lost all of two drops of blood, and then you had one and maybe two women kiss the wound and make it better. Leave it off.’

  Roger thought, ‘This is one weird day, even for June Enterprises.’

  Roger, Jinny, and the dog all thought, ‘Wish I’d been here to see Gale with her sweater off.’

  Gwen got back to work, facilitating the debate after which she would make the final decision. “We got three options. One, we let Jinny do his thing with the gun. Problem with that is we’d have to clean three brain and skull remains off the pine flooring, and I’m not sure we could all the blood stains out of it. Two, Jinny and Roger can take them out in the harbor and dump ‘em off the rocks at Fort Sumter, let the tide take the bodies out to sea. Three, we let ‘em go and tell ‘em to get out of town and if we see ‘em again, Jinny gets the go ahead. What do you think?”

  Jinny and Gale said together, “Option one, Option one.”

  Roger said, “I agree about getting the blood stains out of the wood flooring. Too much trouble. I vote for Option two.”

  Gwen looked around at the remainder of the artistic team, all of whom looked back at her, blankly, thinking, ‘Is she serious? She wants us to vote on what to do with these guys?’ George now understood what Jinny meant when he had told him when he first arrived about previous trouble associated with June Enterprises productions. About Gwen not acting benevolently towards some people. Monique was the only one to answer. “Gale’s wound is not serious. It was a very small needle, and both Laleh and I sucked on her boob in case there was any poison on it. So I don’t think this rates killing them. I vote for Option three. We need to be bigger people than them, not assassinating someone for a minor offense.”

  This statement caused a variety of responses: Shim looked at his girlfriend Laleh and said, “You sucked on her boob?”; George looked at his personal assistance cum companion Monique and said, “You sucked on her boob?”; and all three of the assassins said, “Option three, Option three, listen to her, she’s got it right,” and then, “You call stealing a hundred million dollars from the leader of a major country a minor offense?”

  Gwen stood up and holstered her gun, leaving Jinny standing behind the boys with his gun alternately knocking at the backs of each of their heads, keeping them awake during the final deliberation. She walked around the circle of chairs, head down, like Sody had done when he was thinking up the main story line of the filmy play thing, which everyone now was realizing was some kind of ironic premonition. After three circuits, she made up her mind, stood facing the boys and said, “We’re going to let you go. The matter is simple: you show your faces anywhere around here, or around any of us, and you’re dead. First we shoot you, then we take you out in the harbor and float your dead asses back to the Persian Gulf. Understand?” The Colonel managed to maintain a stern semblance of professional decorum, assassin style, but both Priss and Lewy smiled and nodded, breathing normally for the first time in a while, almost grinning.

  Gwen said, “Ok, Jinny, take
‘em out and kick their asses down the street. Then come back. And don’t shoot ‘em. Got it?”