(November
19, 1988)
My name's Johnson. Smiles
Johnson, Private Eye. I sat in front of my desk in this stuffy, rat-infested,
hellhole I call Headquarters. I heard a knock at my door. I knew by the sound
of the knuckles on the oak that it was a bureaucrat.
"Come in," I
said, kicking back and throwing my sweaty, smelly, lint-covered feet on my
desk. Finally, he walked into the room. Perhaps “walk" is too specific a
word. Rolled? Lumbered? Whatever it was
he did, he came in. His massive body made me wonder if this was one person or
two.
"Can I help you?"
I asked the Blob.
"Mr Johnson, I am
Preston Philstein." He was obviously used to speaking down to people.
"I'm from the Pentagon."
"The Pentagon? What
does the Pentagon want with a simple gumshoe like me?"
He shifted his weight so he
could sit down. His thighs and butt oozed over the edge of my Lazy Boy. I
almost asked him if I could take his coat, but I was afraid he would spill
everywhere if I did. He opened his briefcase and placed it in his lap.
"Mr Johnson, have you
ever heard of Saul Whithersby?"
"Nope, I'm afraid I
haven't," I said scratching my head.
"He was our best
research scientist. Then, two weeks ago, he and his life's work disappeared. We
thought perhaps he had been kidnapped until our sources in Moscow told us that
Saul had been there of his own free will."
"So, your pal was
corrupted by money?"
"It seems so. But the
Russians turned him down. So he took off to Tibet."
"Tibet?!"
"Tibet. This, Mr. Johnson,
is where you come in."
"Me? What do I have to
do?"
"We need you to go to
Tibet and get Whithersby and the weapon he's trying to sell."
"What is this
weapon?"
“Mr Johnson, if I tell you
this, you cannot repeat it to anyone!" he said jiggling just a bit.
"I understand," I
said finally putting my feet under the desk.
"It's known as the
MK876-IV. But it's being unofficially called the Platonic Bomb," he said
with a hint of horror in his voice.
"The Platonic Bomb?
You must be kidding," I said laughing.
"Mr. Johnson, this is
no laughing matter!" he said getting worried. He stood up. Well, his
skeleton stood up, and the rest of him followed a few seconds later. Then he
extracted
from the pocket on the left side of his lower hemisphere a small
picture. The picture was of a bomb. And, standing in front of it was a
wimpy-looking guy with a lab coat on, smiling and waving. On the side of the bomb
was printed MK876-IV.
I looked
Preston in his fat face. "How dangerous is this bomb?" I asked.
"Very. One bomb can
cause the destruction of all life in a 72-&-lj2-mile radius."
"My God! How does it
do this?"
"It makes everything
not want to mate! People, animals, vegetation, anything. Nothing will breed and
everything will die out."
My mouth dropped open. I
shut it quickly because I figured that Preston would see something he liked
stuck to my teeth and go for it.
"Mr. Johnson, will you
do it?" He stuck his hand out.
I shook his hand and nodded
'yes'.
I packed a few things in a
duffle bag and got my fresh-faced, idealistic, trigger-happy,
asthmatic, sidekick Charlie.
We hopped on the first
plane to Tibet.
We landed in Hong Kong with
intent to catch a small cargo plane to take us to Lhasa, Tibet.
"Gosh, Mr. Johnson.
Look at all the Orientals," Charlie said in awe.
"What else did you
expect to see here? Charlie, you really are stupid, aren't you? Okay,
take, for instance, the oriental
gentleman over there," I said motioning behind us.
Charlie turned around.
"Gee, Mr. Johnson, there must be 4 dozen Oriental gentlemen over
there."
"No, Charlie. The one
wearing the YALE sweatshirt. The one staring at us indiscreetly from behind the
Wall Street Journal. He's probably been sent here by Whithersby to keep
an eye on us."
"Golly! I didn't catch
onto that."
"That's probably
because you don't have the finely tuned vision or keen senses that I have.
That's only because I'm a seasoned professional."
As Charlie and I moved through the
smoke, stench and Asians of the international terminal in Hong Kong, the
"Yale" guy followed. Suddenly, I had just about enough of him and was
about to rub
him out when…
"Twin-otter to Lhasa,
Tibet, leaving from terminal 6."
Charlie and I made a break
for terminal 6. The spy ran after us. We ran through the crowd, knocking over
an old woman and Moonies. I turned around and saw him extract a gun from his
back pocket. I whipped around with my roscoe out. I pulled the trigger and
fired through the crowd. I saw the guy get hit with the bullet and fall back
onto a group of midget nuns.
Charlie and I ran to
terminal 6. We stood in line at customs.
"Sir, do you have any
fruit or dairy products to declare?"
"Nah. Just a couple of
guns and 7 boxes of ammunition."
"Okay. Go ahead.
Next??" he said allowing me to pass.
The plane was dank and
smelly. They didn't even have decent cocktails.
"Sir?" The
stewardess approached me, "Would you like a drink?"
"Well. What do ya
got?"
"Coke or a Llama's
milk and tonic."
I felt my llama meat'
burrito squirm in the pit of my stomach. "Coke, please."
Charlie was snoring loudly
in my right ear so I slapped him. He sat up with a jolt.
"What was that
for?"
"You were snoring! And
shut up or I'll be interviewing a couple more fresh-faced kids to see if I can
maybe find a new sidekick. Just watch yourself," I said.
I put my hat over my face
and leaned back to go to sleep.
Suddenly, a couple of
camouflage-clad clods hopped out of the back of the plane.
"Okay. Nobody move.
All we want are those two guys up there," said the shorter of the
two.
Charlie and I looked at
each other. "Us?!"
They grabbed us, threw
parachutes on our backs and shoved us out of the plane.Charlie started yelling
so I slapped him again.
We landed on the snow. We
were surrounded by a bunch of furry Tibetans with guns. We walked for what
seemed like days but was, in fact, twenty minutes. with each step, the snow
crunched under our feet like a fat man, probably Preston, eating corn chips. We
stopped
for a few minutes and rested. Charlie
and I sat on a rock while the Tibetans made snow-angels.
Suddenly, I had a plan.
"Charlie?"
"Yeah, Mr.
Johnson?"
"I've got a plan. Just
play along. This will work, but I need your utmost cooperation. Are you with
me?"
"Yes, Mr.
Johnson."
I turned and looked behind
the guards. I screamed. The guards grabbed their guns and looked around in
panic. One of the guards came over to me. He had sheer terror etched across
his face.
"What is it?" he
asked.
I shook as
if terrified. "It's the YETI!!"
The guard fainted. The
others prepared to fight and hid themselves amongst the rocks and crags that
surrounded us. Charlie and I slowly got up and walked off. The guards were so
involved with looking for the beast that they didn't notice. Charlie and I
found a cave on the other side of the mountain. Since it was getting late, we
figured that maybe we should camp for the night.
I sat watching Charlie
trying to start a fire by rubbing the two balsa wood strips that he had in his
pockets together.
"Gosh, Mr. Johnson, I
don't see why this isn't working."
I rolled my eyes. Then
something caught my attention-- a shimmering light deep in the cave.
"Charlie, come with
me," I said drawing my gun. We edged our way along the ice cold rock, ice and steel. STEEL?!! Steel inside a
mountain?
"Girders. Steel
girders! What are these girders doing here?" I looked at Charlie as if he
could answer intelligently.
"Well, gosh, Mr.
Johnson," Charlie began. "Maybe during the latter part of the 19th
century, the British started mining for gold here to support the lavish
spending of the government under Queen Victoria and the high standard of living
that most of Great Britain had become accustomed to during the prosperous time
that was the mid 1800's. That would be my guess."
"Are you getting smart
with me?" I snapped at Charlie.
"No, Mr.
Johnson."
"Good. Come on!"
We went deeper toward the
light. As we got closer to the light, the floor and walls of the cave began
vibrating as if it was alive. Finally, slowly, cautiously, Charlie and I
stepped into the place where the light emanated.
As we walked into the huge cavern, the
first thing we saw were huge machines which were making the walls vibrate. The
second, were soldiers which surrounded us. American soldiers.
"What the ...?"
As I was about to say every
obscene word known to man or beast, Preston heaved his obese body through the
soldiers to me and Charlie.
"Preston, Thank
God!" I said looking around at the stern and often scarred faces of the
soldiers. "It's Okay," I said to the young men with the guns.
"I'm with him."
Preston looked me up and
down. "Tie 'em up," he said, walking away.
"What?!" Charlie
and I yelled as a rush of army arms grabbed us.
The
ropes were exceedingly tight. Charlie and I stood back-to-back, struggling in
vain.
"Preston,
Why?" I yelled at the bloated ox that stood glaring at us.
"You see,
we've got the Platonic Bomb. But, we don't know if it works. Plus, we want to
develop a Platonic Grenade. Okay, let her in!" he said to one soldier.
Suddenly, the most beautiful blonde in the world walked in. She looked fertile
--very fertile.
I felt Charlie start to pant.
"NO! You can't possibly subject us
to torture like this!" I yelled trying hard not to stare at her. I turned
to Charlie, who was bug-eyed and salivating heavily. "CHARLIE!! DON'T LOOK
AT HER. SHUT YOUR EYES! DON'T STARE, YOU STUPID IDIOT." Preston laughed
maniacally as we were lifted into a large gasoline tank. I decided to go with
as little grace as possible. "You fat creep! Liposuction reject!
Jerk!" My insults were getting very juvenile. "Moron!"
The lid slammed shut and the rope let
us go. We dropped to the tank floor.
"What are they going to do, Mr.
Johnson?" Charlie asked and I could hear the lump in his throat.
"Charlie, they are going to expose
us to platonic energy. They are going to destroy our will to breed."
"What are we going to do?"
"I don't know. But, it had better
be good because so far, the plot of this story has been pretty stupid."
"I just wish this was all a stupid
dream," Charlie said with tears in his eyes.
"Shut up and help me push on this
hatch," I said banging on the small door that was the only way out.
Suddenly, in the furthest corner of the
tank, I saw a man crouching down.
"Who are you?"
The man stood up. It was the wimp from
the picture of the bomb. He came toward me.
"I'm Professor Saul
Whithersby."
"Saul, is there any way out of
here?!"
"There is only one way. Over
there, those tracks let the floating roof come down. If this was filled with
gasoline as it should be, the inner roof rises and falls. If we can get up
those racks, we can get out."
"What's that?" I asked motioning
to an apparatus on the far end.
"That's the fire suppression
system. It fills the tank up with suds."
"And that?" I said motioning
to a pipe that came down from the roof to about 3 feet above the floor.
"That's used to test gasoline at
the bottom of the tank."
I had an idea. We hooked the fire
suppression system up to the test pipe. Whithersby and Charlie shimmied up the
tracks to the roof. They undid the hatch. I turned on the suds machine and
hurried up to the roof.
Outside, the suds were shooting high
into the air. Soldiers looked around in panic. The three of us scrambled down
the ladder into the chaos. I caught up with Preston trying to make off with the
Platonic mechanism.
"Where do you think you're going,
Chubby?" I said holding him at gun point.
He wiped some foam off his fat brow and
put the mechanism down. Whithersby gathered it up.
"You know, Preston, you seem to
have bitten off more than you could chew this time. And, from the looks of you,
that's probably unusual."
Preston sighed
and waddled ahead of me with his hands in the air.
Suddenly, Whithersby switched the bomb
on.
"STOP, all of you!" he
yelled.
I spun around. Charlie looked at me and
I shrugged my shoulders.
"Don't be a fool, Saul!" I
yelled trying to reason with the obviously deranged wimp.
Preston began yelling, "Saul, if
you don't put that bomb down, I'm going to kill you!"
"Good, Preston," I said.
"I admire your diplomatic skills."
Whithersby laughed and put the bomb on
timer.
One of the soldiers shot Whithersby
down. The bomb fell to the ground. I looked at it and looked at my watch.
"Sorry, guys. Gotta fly."
Charlie and I ran out of the cave.
As we ran past the girders that held
the entrance up, I began kicking the main one.
"Come on, Mr. Johnson,"
Charlie yelled.
"Get out, Kid!" I shouted
just as the girder gave way and the cave-in started.
We made it out into the snow just as
the whole cave collapsed. Deep inside, we heard the loud BOOM of the
bomb going off.
The sun was bright on the snow.
Charlie headed slowly down the slope.
“Mr. Johnson?"
"Yes, Charlie?"
"So the guys on the airplane,
everything was just a plot to get us here to test the bomb?"
"Yep"
"Why us?" Charlie asked.
"Don't ask me. Ask the
author," I said as we reached the bottom.
"Well, how do we get back to
L.A?" asked Charlie.
"I don't know. We'll walk," I
said smiling. "Now. Which way is it?"
THE END