Lovelace and Button (International Investigators) Inc.

by James Hawkins

  “She’s trapped,” muses the Honda driver, expecting the Volkswagen to grind to a halt amongst the garbage bins and discarded cardboard boxes, but the lane is wider than most highways in her native land, and Daisy screeches through without slowing. “Oh, man!” moans the lead driver, and he is quickly back on the radio. “All units: she’s headed west on 55. I repeat — west.”

  “Whad’ya want me to do, boss?” queries the Ford driver, but the driver of the limousine cuts in. “I’ve got her. She’s on 24 going north again.”

  Daisy spots the black limo pulling out of a junction ahead of her, and without slowing appreciably she flips the car sideways onto two wheels in the middle of an intersection, spins one hundred and eighty degrees, and takes off south again.

  “Okay — back off! Back off all units!” yells the Honda driver, then he calls for reinforcements.

  The siren and flashing lights of a police cruiser finally force Trina’s Jetta to a halt a few minutes later, and as men come running from all directions, Daisy leaps out of the car and stands with her hands in the air, shouting, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

  “Boy, that was some fancy driving, ma’am,” beams an officer as he lowers her arms and shakes her hand. Then another front-runner sticks his head into the car, asking worriedly, “But where is Chief Inspector Bliss?”

  “J’ne parle pas anglais,” claims Daisy, as per Bliss’s instructions, but one of the officers speaks French and steps forward to explain that he and his colleagues are a protection team sent to ensure Bliss’s safety.

  “It’s just that the governor heard he’d had a few problems yesterday and wanted to make sure that he got to the conference all right,” the man continues, before questioning, “So where is he?”

  Daisy’s eyes give the game away, and seconds later the lid of the Volkswagen’s cramped trunk opens.

  “Chief Inspector Bliss?” queries one of the officers as Bliss unwinds himself and groans in pain.

  “Are you okay, sir?” asks one of the men helping him out of the back of the vehicle.

  Bliss warily eyes the sharply dressed men surrounding him, demanding, “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “Lieutenant Jewison at your service, sir,” says the Honda driver, stepping forward.

  “And…?” Bliss queries, expecting to find Brush-head and his sidekick amid the sea of faces with an order for his immediate deportation.

  “And, I’m here to put this limousine and official escort at your disposal with the governor’s compliments, sir,” the officer continues, smiling proudly.

  Ten minutes later, with Trina’s car safely stored at the Bellingham police station, Bliss carefully checks the passing road signs through the limo’s deeply tinted windows, still half-concerned that his escort might be whisking them to the Canadian border, while whispering to Daisy, “The trouble is, I’ve no idea who are good guys and bad guys anymore.” But Daisy is more interested in a growing aroma that’s permeating the air as they sink into the soft leather seats.

  “What’s that smell, Daavid?” she queries, turning her nose up at his jacket.

  “Banana,” he says sourly.

  “Banane?”

  “Oui,” he says, cursing Trina for leaving a paper bag of the overripe fruit in the trunk of her car.

  On any normal day, the owner of the Volkswagen might have laughed had she heard of Bliss’s misfortune, though she is certainly not laughing today. Despite Daphne’s repeated attempts to keep up the younger woman’s morale, Trina is sapped by the constant anxiety over her husband and children, and by mid-morning she is close to crashing. “It’s Thursday,” she sobs. “I only made them food for three days, and I left the bananas in the back of the car.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they’ll manage,” says Daphne absently as her mind spins with implausible plans to break out of the room.

  “Never, never, never, give h’up,” the survival expert had repeatedly insisted. “There is no such thing as a totally h’escape-proof prison, h’and there never will be.”

  So what about this place? Daphne questions herself, then sets out to explore every conceivable escape route her mind can conjure.

  “First: try to catch ‘em h’off guard,” the animated bantamweight officer had said as he’d pranced around, punching at an imaginary foe, but Daphne shakes her head at the prospect of taking on Spotty Dick and Bumface. And she similarly dismisses equally impractical notions involving tunnels, explosives and rooftop rescues. The idea of emulating a team of British officers, who had surreptitiously built a full-size glider in the attic of Colditz Castle during the Second World War, holds her attention far longer than it warrants, and she is finally left with little beyond stealing a monk’s habit and impersonating one of the guards. However, Spotty Dick and Bumface have given up their masquerade and now appear in T-shirts and jeans.

  “They’ll be pigging out at McDonald’s on burgers and shakes,” carries on Trina pessimistically, while Daphne is deliberating whether or not it will be possible to climb the razor-wire fence, or whether they should try to hack their way through it with her penknife.

  “They’re never gonna let us go, are they?” whines Trina, and Daphne finally decides that a serious talk is called for.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” says Spotty Dick, starting to rise as the two women scuttle back into the bathroom, but Bumface waves him back down.

  “Hey, forget it. They might as well have one last fling if they want,” he says and catches a critical look from his partner.

  Daphne has picked up on the danger signals as well. “I don’t like the way that Bumface is behaving,” she admits with a worried frown. “He’s lost his bolshiness. As if he doesn’t care what we do anymore.”

  “What does that mean?” asks Trina in a whisper.

  “It means he thinks he knows what’s going to happen to us,” replies Daphne as she recalls the captivity survival officer’s warning to “watch h’out for any cold-hearted bastard who suddenly goes soft on you. It usually means he’s getting ready to drop a bomb.”

  “Maybe they’re going to let us go,” suggests Trina, brightening.

  “Maybe…” says Daphne, appearing to agree, before adding, “But we’ve got to stay strong — all right?”

  “All right, Daphne.”

  “Mustn’t let them think we’re weakening, okay?”

  “Okay, Daphne. But what are we going to do if they don’t let us out?”

  “Come on, ladies,” calls Bumface from the bedroom. “We’ve brought you some nice lunch.”

  “Thanks,” mumbles Trina, and they emerge from the bathroom to find Bumface wearing something akin to a smile as he puts a laden tray on the table.

  “There we are, ladies,” he says as if he’s prepared the meal himself, but Daphne has her eye on Spotty Dick, who is skulking nervously in the background, and she waits for a nod of approval that doesn’t come.

  “It’s all my fault, Daphne. I’m always doing stupid things,” says Trina as the two men leave, but Daphne is hardly listening and replies vaguely, “Trying to help Norman and the others wasn’t stupid.”

  “Then why are we here?”

  “Because —”

  “I’m never going to see my kids again, am I?” keens Trina, unaware of the hiatus as Daphne struggles to get her thoughts together. “H’always watch for a change,” the officer is saying in her mind. “H’especially if the greasy little bastards start treating you really nice.”

  “Listen,” says Daphne, sidling up to Trina and stroking the heartbroken woman’s hair reassuringly. “You mustn’t give up. You’ve got so much to look forward to. But I’ve already lived my life — every day is a bonus. It’s like being given extra time at the end of a hockey match with the chance to score the deciding goal.”

  “You can’t. Not stuck in here,” howls Trina.

  “You’re wrong, Trina. Maybe I’ve got the chance to score the most important goal ever.”

  “How?”

  “By ge
tting you safely back home to your family.”

  “And how are you going to do that? They’re not going to let us go now. You know that.”

  “You’ve just got to follow the White Rabbit.”

  “What?”

  “Trina. Surely you remember Alice in Wonderland?”

  “Of course,” she snivels.

  “Well, then, all you have to do is drink the shrinking liquid to make yourself smaller and smaller until you can fit through the keyhole, and then you follow the White Rabbit to the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.”

  “That’s stupid,” she cries again. “There is no keyhole.”

  “Oh, yes, there is,” says Daphne. “There’s always a keyhole. It’s just that you can’t see it at the moment.”

  But Trina is unmoved and continues weeping, “I’m never going to see my kids again.”

  “Sure, you are,” tries Daphne, though her tone lacks conviction and Trina buries her face in her pillow, crying the universal cry of the unjustly imprisoned. “But we didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “We didn’t,” muses Daphne as she stares through the lens of the surveillance camera, seeking the faces behind it. “But someone obviously has.”

  “Trina,” says Daphne quietly as she gently strokes the woman’s hair, “don’t eat or drink anything, all right?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure,” she replies, taking a close look at the meal, “but I smell something fishy.”

  “No problem. I don’t feel like eating anyway.”

  “Good. So promise me.”

  “I promise,” says Trina, her eyes drying a tad at the seriousness of Daphne’s tone. “But what are you going to do?”

  “I think it’s time one of us got out,” murmurs Daphne, and Trina screws up her face in confusion. “Leave it to me,” whispers Daphne, then she heads for the bathroom, adding loudly, “I think it’s time I had a long, hot soak.”

  “What the hell is the old bat on about now?” asks Bumface as he listens in.

  “God knows,” says Spotty Dick, having tuned the two women out while pondering his partner’s sudden softening.

  The road signs clearly indicate that Seattle is ahead of them, taking some of the pressure off Daisy and Bliss, if only temporarily, as they sample the comforts of nobility in the back of the governor’s car.

  “I zhink it is nice to have a limousine wiz a chauffeur,” says Daisy as they snuggle together in the privacy of their tinted compartment while they watch passing motorists and pedestrians peering in for a glimpse.

  “Maybe when I’m a famous author we’ll have a chauffeur all the time.”

  “Daavid,” she cautions, “you promised my mother you would not write zhe book.”

  “Maybe if I hired a chauffeur for her as well — peut-être?” mollifies Bliss.

  “Oui — perhaps,” agrees Daisy, and Bliss demonstrates the advantages of the arrangement by kissing her warmly before picking up the phone to call Phillips in Vancouver.

  “You were absolutely right about the kidney contraption, Dave,” says the Canadian officer, “and it must have been brought over in a fish truck. There’s a ton of salmon scales stuck in the tires.”

  “So it couldn’t have been pedalled there.”

  “Correct. It’s about twenty miles from the nearest salmon river.”

  “It’s a long shot, Mike, but check with Canadian customs and see if they have any records of a large white van with Washington plates crossing the border in the early hours.”

  If Daphne has figured out an escape strategy by the time she returns from the steamy bathroom, her face gives nothing away as Bumface slides in to collect the lunch tray.

  “You haven’t eaten anything,” he complains, spotting the untouched food.

  “I’m not hungry,” keens Trina as she sniffs back the tears.

  “But you gotta eat, or you’ll get sick.”

  “Breakfast was more than enough for me,” chimes in Daphne heartily.

  “All right,” says Bumface, turning to Trina and cracking into a crooked smile. “Here’s a deal: if you stop crying and eat your lunch, maybe you can go home tonight.”

  “Wonderful,” shrieks Daphne delightedly, and she rushes across the room to hug Trina tightly, saying, “Come on. Chin up, Cinderella. We’re going to the ball.”

  “Why did you tell them that?” demands Spotty Dick once the door has closed.

  “I dunno,” shrugs Bumface. “Cheer ‘em up, I suppose.”

  “And what happens tomorrow morning when they wake up and they’re still here?”

  “ If they wake up.”

  “What d’ya mean?”

  “Look. They can’t stay here and they can’t go home. So work it out for yourself — okay?”

  But Daphne has already worked it out. She’s known the answer for more than sixty years — from the day of the escape officer’s lecture.

  “Never, h’ever, believe ‘em h’if they says that they is going to let you go ‘ome,” the bubbly little man said, and then he had put a frown on his face and slowly shaken his head from side to side. “Believe me, the only ‘ome that they ‘ave in mind for you is with the ‘eavenly father h’up above. If you get my drift.”

  “There just has to be a way out,” muses Daphne, scrutinizing the sparsely furnished bedroom, the handleless door and the surveillance camera.

  “But he said he was going to let us go,” Trina reminds her.

  “I just hope that’s what he meant,” says Daphne, hiding her pessimism behind a smile, then adding gently, “but it never hurts to have a backup plan, Trina.”

  One plan that has worked is that of Washington’s governor, and as three o’clock rolls around Bliss steps on stage at the conference to be welcomed by the American delegate of Interpol.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” announces the Los Angeles officer, “it’s my privilege to present from Scotland Yard — and I hope he’ll excuse me for saying this — one of the world’s most celebrated detectives since Sherlock Holmes: Chief Inspector David Bliss.”

  Bliss takes to the podium, and as the applause dies in Seattle, Daphne Lovelace is headed back to the bathroom with the germ of an idea.

  “But you just had a bath,” says Trina confusedly.

  “I know,” replies Daphne. “And I feel so much better. Maybe you should do the same.”

  “I don’t —” starts Trina glumly, but Daphne cuts her off, grabs a hand and hauls her out of bed. “Mary, Mary, quite contrary,” she scolds as she pulls the younger woman to her feet. “Come along. It’ll do you good.”

  But Trina’s bath is short-lived, and a few minutes later, as they emerge together from the bathroom, she slips into bed and buries herself under Daphne’s enormous hat. Daphne, on the other hand, muses, “I think it’s time for a good clear-out,” and begins a major housekeeping effort, muttering, “We can’t leave the place in this state. What would the next people think?”

  Fifteen minutes later she is still bustling around, sweeping, mopping and dusting, when Dawson enters the surveillance room and gives Bumface a quizzical look.

  “What the hell is going on now?” he wants to know as the screen momentarily falls under the dark shadow of Daphne’s mattress.

  “She’s trying to turn the mattress,” laughs Bumface as Daphne lurches clumsily around the room with the springy beast, before it momentarily wavers in the air, apparently out of control, and collapses back onto her bed in the same state as it began. Then he shakes his head incredulously. “She reckons mattresses have to be turned every two days to get rid of bedbugs and evil spirits.”

  “Hah,” snorts Dawson derisively, though when the picture clears he frowns at the untouched food on the table.

  “They’ll get hungry eventually,” shrugs Bumface as he checks the clock.

  It’s four-thirty by the time Bliss wraps up with a warning to the conference: “If Western governments continue shoring up their flagging economies by subsidizing, and encouraging, rampant consumerism,
then they risk being swamped by an unstoppable tide of the very refugees that their policies have created.”

  “You were wonderful,” says Daisy as Bliss comes off stage and finds a crush of reporters waiting for him.

  “Really?” he says. “To be honest, I don’t remember a lot of what I said. I’d left my notes in the cabin.”

  “Hard-hitting words, Chief Inspector,” says a reporter with a microphone in Bliss’s face. “So you’re actually suggesting that police crackdowns on trafficking merely provide greater incentives and increased incomes for the criminals and organizations that provide the service.”

  “Well, it’s a strategy that’s worked extremely effectively with alcohol, prostitution, gambling and drugs over the years,” agrees Bliss. “Where would the Mafia and the Colombian drug cartels be without the demand for illegal products and services?”

  “So you’re advocating that we just open the borders?” asks another incredulously.

  “I’m suggesting that you might take a different view if you lived in a tin hut and tried to survive on a dollar a day, while the guy in the country next door spends ten times that amount feeding his pet poodle. But what I’m really advocating is —”

  “There’s a phone call for you, sir,” butts in Lieutenant Jewison as he tries to lead Bliss into a side office.

  “I just wanted to mention the missing women…” starts Bliss, but Jewison keeps up the pressure.

  “He said it was urgent, sir.”

  “I bet it’s Edwards,” murmurs Bliss, guessing that it won’t be long before the chief superintendent disembowels him for playing politics. But it’s Mike Phillips with news of several vehicles fitting Bliss’s description of the van he’d followed to the monastery. “And this is interesting, Dave,” carries on Phillips. “One of them belongs to a fish dealer. Apparently he goes back and forth a lot. I’ve asked Washington police for a make on the licence plate.”

  “Fifty bucks says he delivers salmon to a certain monastery place.”

  “That’s a stretch, Dave.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “So what are your plans now?”