Baril de Singes [Barrel of Monkeys]

  ***

  Excusing myself from the dinner party proved an easy task. Goofy Eddy, on the coattails of my stage preview, enthralled the gathering by recounting the varied intricacies found within the exhaust manifold of the 1939 Packard Touring Sedan. Mia made certain everyone was served a warm after-dinner drink and, with Stinky still focused upon her in his quivering repose, held open the door as I slipped away. The guests, recharged by Goofy Eddy's descriptive mechanical travelogue, scarcely noted my departure.

  Through the wide halls of Tumultuous Manor I raced, grossly stretching the limit of the no-running rule. Entering the massive grand staircase, I was greeted by an assortment of chimes striking the nine o'clock hour while taking the thickly padded steps two at a time, quickly reaching the expanse of my living quarters on the third floor.

  The study was blanketed in darkness save for the modest glow of a banker's lamp, setting atop the expansive oak desk, alit with an eco-friendly bulb beneath its green shade. I eased the padded chair forward on its casters and, with one hand upon my forehead, began studying Sondheim's message in order to comprehend its gist and urgency.

  Included were the three obligatory code words [bookworm, hookworm and wormwood] which served to authenticate the origin of the document and the details contained therein [a security feature added after the dreadful Cri de Minuit du Bébé affair]. The assignment outline was sketchy out of necessity, but provided enough information for me to know I needed to pack a travel bag and prepare to leave the Manor within a matter of hours. I barely acknowledged Smudgely's arrival with a pot of Earl Grey and a creamer of milk.

  "Send Mia upon your return downstairs," I requested, remaining engrossed with the notes I scribbled in the margins of the printed document. "Advise her to bring all her communication devices."

  "Sir," Smudgely nodded from across the paneled room.

  I picked up the landline receiver and, scanning my notations one final time, dialed the encoded number listed beneath Sondheim's name.

  "You're prompt this evening," the familiar voice toasted me from the other end of the connection.

  "Thank you," I chuckled. "I had to tear myself away from a lovely dinner gathering after receiving your summons. Swaying the masses with impersonations of Hollywood's finest legends, wouldn't you know."

  "Too bad I wasn't invited," Sondheim's voice blew coolly, "I could have witnessed your mimicry firsthand."

  I stammered momentarily, recalling Sondheim could be frustratingly void of thick skin. "Well, I, um, Mrs. Potsdam hadn't scheduled your favorite on the evening's bill of fare, so I thought perhaps you should be spared the indignity of it all."

  "My favorite?" Sondheim's thought process listed off course. "What precisely did you have?"

  "Tripe," I replied instantly, belching up another bubble of Mrs. Potdam's fiery curry, "plain tripe topped with kelp sauce mixed with a wee bit of raw plankton."

  "I love tripe," came his bitter response, "and plankton, too."

  "Damn!" I proclaimed, merging together in my mind a heated, unified reaction as delivered simultaneously by both Barrymore and Rathbone. "Damn and forsooth, damn!"

  Sondheim was silent for several seconds before responding. "Chaplin?"

  "You know me only too well, dear Sondheim," I said, disappointed with his inability to identify my dramatic output yet amenable to slipping the hook of an angry would-be tablemate.

  "What I have for you this evening is no comedic matter, old squash."

  "I never laugh when it comes to business between us." I paused to consider the ambiguity of my statement. "Or anyone else."

  "Laughter will be the furthest thing from your mind when I recount the details as they are known."

  "Laughter and intelligence make for strange bedfellows." I confidently tacked myself back into the race. "Repelling one another beneath the sheets, fighting over the comforter, never sharing the common feather pillow."

  "There won't be any pillow talk involved in this travail, I can assure you, old bean."

  "I've never been one to sleep on the job." Not that I was compelled to inflate my abilities for Sondheim. Yet, it was always good form to place a shine on the spokes of one's transport. "I prefer to sparkle when going round and round."

  "What's that you say?" Sondheim figuratively scratched his head. "I don't comprehend the reference to being circularly brilliant."

  "What's that, then? Just pointing out one's reputation should ever be polished and ready for parading past a colleague's review stand." Dodging this bullet, I opted for Sondheim to lead our conversation from here on out. "We seem to be twice removed from the purpose of your contact."

  "Indeed. I'm afraid I have a rather tricky one for you, old radish."

  "And serious, too."

  "Indeed, serious. Are you familiar with global financier Wayland Bridgework?"

  I ran a sweep of my memory bank and, in less than a second, came back empty-minded. "The name sets off a distant chime, yes."

  "Of course you have. He's a Yalemouth boy --"

  The gritting of my teeth generated a distinct level of static on the line.

  "Who went onto Dartmouth while I pursued my calling at Yale." Sondheim guffawed at the irony before continuing. "I must say we Yalemouth boys took no great pleasure challenging the unpredictable squad you fellows at Trotters mushed together each rugby season."

  "That would be Germany Kornblatt's bailiwick," I said, wondering if my humiliation involving prep school matriculation would in some strange way reach its zenith that evening. "He helmed the team when we lost our two hundredth consecutive game."

  "A landmark which garnered Trotters special mention in Sports Illustrated, I might add. Good old Stinky. Sorry to learn the Greenland affair led to his departure from the diplomacy trade. Hell of a rugby captain, though."

  The opportunity for further discussion of preparatory school passed when Mia entered the room. Glancing at her figure as she floated through the darkness served to remove the irritant from Sondheim's reminiscence. "Go on about your boy, Wayland Bridgework."

  "Indeed. Sorry, old cuke, caught up in a gob of nostalgia there. It was Yalemouth who toppled you in that record setting game, wasn't it? We'll save that for the next serving of tripe at Tumultuous Manor, what say?"

  "Wayland." I gestured for Mia to sit, which she did ever so gracefully while crossing her slender legs beneath the flicker of gold fabric.

  "Bridgework. A distant chum of mine, found his fortune in international banking and finance. Seated on the board of several multinational corporations, staked his claim and then some by age thirty. There are, however, problems when one clambers up the ladder of success so astutely."

  "What's that, then? Too much money? Not enough?" I studied Mia's face in the dim light, the personification of feminine mystique and beauty.

  "You, old cob, are nothing less than just shy of brilliant! How you grasp and deduce a problem so quickly is a tribute to --"

  "My having attended the finest state university. Now, on with it." My father, both a Rhodes Scholar and thirty-third degree Scottish Rite Mason, never suffered such inflictions. Where his intellect commanded the respect and subordination of his fellow man, mine was continually placed in a position of having to deny the alleged stasis of its reasoning. "Bridgework."

  "My client chooses to remain anonymous on this one, Baron. No identification shall be supplied, per our agreement." Such was Sondheim's standard disclaimer, the official disguise he draped over a tongue-tied foreign government, vertically integrated international corporation or weaseling member of Congress. In the equation of any assignment, it was not my business to know who was footing the bill, picking up the tab or paying the freight.

  "I fully understand our terms of business, Sondheim. Always have, never laughed." This machoism caught in Mia's ear, prompting me to sharpen and repeat the statement. "Never ... laughed."

  "Be that as it may, old carrot, my client is frightfully afraid Bridgework is coming undone at the seams. That
cannot, and will not, be tolerated. He is too much a leading economic indicator in the global financial markets to have going off the deep end, particularly at this stage of the game. Am I making myself clear to you?"

  "By all means, my good man." I could tell from the seriousness in Sondheim's tone that our insignificant chatter had come to an end. I stared at the bridge of Mia's slight nose as a wave of testosterone unleash through my loins. "Never ... laughed."

  "For Christ's sake, the occasional bout of levity is permissible, Baron. Lighten up, will you?"

  I cleared my throat and studied Mia anew. Her eyes flickered upward once to meet mine, then returned to the machinations of her laptop keyboard. "Quite."

  "We need to have Bridgework reined in, old tater. We need him in a calm state of mind, to have him stop his racing about and reduce the havoc in his personal life. When Bridgework is turbulent, the international monetary framework follows suit."

  "Perhaps you'd consider hiring him a life coach?" I raised my eyebrows in wonder of having a high-powered consultant such as myself called in for what was seemingly a case of one jettisoning his marbles. "How about a local parish minister offering pastoral counsel?"

  "He's agnostic and diagnostically challenged."

  "Meaning he believes in nothing except that he, himself, has no problems."

  "Your grasp of the obvious amazes me, old yam."

  "Amazement is my job." I leaned back in my seat. "Why not have him placed in an institution? Subtly done, of course."

  "Under no circumstance should Bridgework be seen as mentally deficient or intellectually derailed," Sondheim said adamantly. "If he's placed into an asylum right now, do you realize what would happen to the world's financial markets?"

  "Global recession? Countries suffering record high unemployment? Bank failures knowing no bounds?" I rattled off a series of headlines that appeared in the Journal during the past week.

  "Precisely. And we -- my client and myself -- cannot abide by that. Nor," Sondheim added, a tinge of drama entering his presentation, "can our fellow citizens."

  "Sondheim, I see this as being the proverbial piece of blackbird pie, baked with the windows open and served warm at the kitchen table by grandmother's own hands. All that is required is a good, firm collaring of Bridgework, followed by relocating him to the nearest golf course. I'll cure him through an intensive treatment of links therapy."

  "Splendid, old cabbage, but it may be a bit more complicated than that. Bridgework has himself surrounded by an entourage that includes his wife, daughter and son-in-law. Cracking this cabal will prove formidable, even for a specialist of your caliber."

  "Cracking cabals is my nature. I shall not fail."

  "I'm counting on you, Baron."

  "My regular fee applies."

  "A bargain, old pea. I will forward the dossier via e mail momentarily. Make arrangements to depart for Ochos Rios, Jamaica. Bridgework presently resides there in a secluded villa. We're unsure how long he might remain put. I'll send out a feeler to him advising of your imminent arrival."

  "Ah, Jamaica. It's been too long since my feet touched her soil."

  "Pack lightly and remember this. Things are not what they seem."

  "Are they ever?"

  "Quite, old rutabaga. However, you see only the tip of the iceberg."

  "With the knowledge that still waters run deep."

  "They run silent and deep." Sondheim's voice grew shaky, betraying his emotion. "Be safe, old gourd."