“Gee, that driver is awfully big,” said a hyperventilating Danny. “At least we know that my alter-ego is only my size. Say, what are we going to do now? I don’t have any more chloroform.”
Glancing around, Aldo was relieved to see no witnesses in sight. He said, “You never had any chloroform in the first place – that was just a bottle of plain water. Call it the placebo effect. I just couldn’t obtain any of the real stuff last night. I thought you’d feel braver if you believed you actually had chloroform, but it’s all good. Thanks for putting my bottle of ‘fake chloroform’ to good use. I still need you to hide in the back of the limo, and distract the other Danny until I manage to knock him out. OK, you know that I’m not Hercules – so, help me lift this big brute into the limo’s trunk.”
Aldo wrapped several winds of duct tape around the unconscious limo driver’s hands before securely closing the lid.
After picking up the driver’s black cap off the ground which had the ‘Amy’s Limousine Service’ name across the top, Aldo put it on his head and climbed into the driver’s seat. A minute later the limo pulled up by the Donaldson residence gate. The famous Danny was already waiting outside the gate holding a suitcase in his hand. He appeared to be nervous, and frustrated.
As Aldo drove the stretch limo right in front of Mr. Donaldson, Danny watched in amazement from behind the smoked glass windows. He couldn’t believe his eyes… “Gee, this guy really does look exactly like me. I’m suddenly feeling rather creeped out.”
Aldo, now posing as the limo driver, exited the vehicle. He was instantly chewed out by his snobbish customer, “Hey, do you know what time it is? It’s already 8:05. You were scheduled to be here at 8:00 o’clock, sharp. I need to get to the airport, and I don’t want to be late. If I miss my flight, I’ll make sure that the limo company fires your ass.”
“I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Donaldson, but at Amy’s Limousine Service, we have a policy of giving special treatment to customers when we show up late.”
“Special treatment?” asked the cranky customer. “What can you possibly do to make up for the inconvenience?”
“Just stand still for a moment…” and with that, Aldo swiftly kicked him hard in his lower gut. “Thank you, sir, for choosing Amy’s Limousine Service,” he said just before he landed a hard karate chop to the back of his head. The rich snob fell unconscious onto the cobblestone driveway.
Danny watched the show from behind the smoked windows. He opened the door and said, “Not bad, for a physics professor.”
“Thanks, but I’ve had enough of fighting for one day. Quickly now – change clothes with the guy while I drive back to my car up the hill.”
Danny was repulsed by the action of stripping the clothes off of another man – and somehow it was made even worse by the fact that the rich Mr. Donaldson was a perfect duplicate of himself. However, he knew what he had no other choice. To help spur his own enthusiasm, Danny convinced himself, “I’m doing this for the slim chance that somehow, someway, I just might be able to win the affections of the one girl I’ve always loved – ‘Jessica Sweet Hart’.”
As Aldo stopped the limo right behind his parked Toyota, Danny jumped out of the back looking like an identical twin of the famous author. However, he had a distressed look on his face. He said, “Aldo, I just can’t find his wallet anywhere. I looked everywhere – I even looked in his suitcase, but I couldn’t find it. Do you suppose he could have accidentally forgotten his wallet somewhere back inside the house?”
“Oh no – I can’t believe this. Your bad luck ions still seem to be at work. Hopefully, his wallet just fell out of his pants in the driveway during our little scuffle. We need to drive back down to the front gate. We won’t be able to make a bank withdrawal without his ID.”
After a couple of minutes of frantic searching around the driveway Aldo came to the conclusion, “The guy seemed nervous from the beginning. I bet he accidentally forgot his wallet somewhere inside the house – probably in his bedroom. It certainly isn’t anywhere out here. I’ll wait right here. You need to go inside, and don’t leave until you find it.”
A stressed out Danny stepped up to the control panel. He knew the camera was now focused on him. An automated voice announced, “To open the security gate, either use the key pad to enter your numeric code, or place your right index finger firmly against the identification window. If you are denied access, you may pick up the receiver, and contact the owner by intercom.”
A skeptical Danny pressed his right index finger to the fingerprint recognition window. He held it for several seconds, but he removed it when it appeared his access would be denied. Suddenly, the same automated voice said, “Permission to enter has been granted,” and the electronic gate opened.
As soon as he walked in, the gates closed behind him. Seconds later, the barking Rottweiler dogs ran straight at him. Danny managed to calm them down when he said in a firm voice, “Killjoy – sit! Chomps – stay!”
Danny let out a sigh of relief when the guard dogs stopped barking. He was glad to see them wagging their tails. Danny thought, “I must even have a similar smell to the rich Danny Donaldson.”
Danny hesitated for a moment when he got to the ten foot tall, front door of the mansion, and then he cautiously entered. The door was unlocked.
Although Danny had seen online photos of the spacious house’s exterior, he was clueless as to where the master bedroom might be.
He gazed up at a grand, winding stairway. Danny thought, “I think I can find the master bedroom somewhere upstairs. I’ll try that first.”
Fancy works of fine art adorned the stairwell and hallway walls. It was a long corridor, with many doors. “I’ll bet there are at least a dozen bedrooms in this awesome house.”
Danny practically tiptoed as he continued forward, while wondering where he could find the master bedroom. Suddenly, he heard the sounds of weeping permeating through one of the doors. Soon, he noticed that the crying came from behind a closed, double door.
Danny pushed down on the door handle, and entered the enormous master suite. In front of a lake view bedroom window was a large, hand-carved oak desk. Sitting in the swivel chair was Jessica, dressed in her bathrobe. Tears were streaming down her face, and her eyes were tightly shut as she pressed the tip of a hand gun up against her temple.
“Stop! Don’t kill yourself!” called out Danny.
A tearful Jessica was surprised to see that she wasn’t alone. She slowly lowered the gun, but kept holding it in her hand. She muttered, “I thought you were going to the airport – to meet your lover, Babs. You see, I know all about you two. I found out that you’ve been lying to me for years. I feel like such a fool for marrying you. I was just about to shoot myself, but now that I’m looking at you straight in the eye, I know who my true enemy is. You’re the one who deserves to die.”
She raised her right hand, and pointed the gun right at Danny, who was frozen by fear. A moment later, she pulled the trigger, “BANG!”
6
Jessica was ready to end her life when she recently learned that her unfaithful husband had cheated on her for years. After all, they had been high school sweethearts, and her Danny was the only lover she ever had. The feeling of betrayal and rejection was just too much for her to take. She literally believed in her wedding vows, ‘until death do us part’.
However, her thoughts of suicide instantly turned to homicide when she saw the man she clearly believed to be her unfaithful husband unexpectedly standing in front of her. Visions of him sleeping with Babs, was just too much for the distraught Jessica to handle. She aimed her gun straight at his crotch, with the intention of letting him suffer a slow, agonizing, and humiliating death. After blasting away his genitals, she would rather kill herself than to face a lengthy court trial, followed by jail for life.
However, her aim was noticeably off. Instead of hitting him in the crotch, the bullet shot a hole clean through Danny’s left thigh. Although the gunshot missed the bone, it ble
d like crazy – mostly on the back side of his leg where the bullet exited, and became lodged into the wall.
Danny remained conscious, but he was in terrible pain. A growing pool of blood was forming beneath him as he slumped down to the floor. He applied pressure to his leg with both hands, but the blood continued to pour out.
Jessica had a crazed look in her beautiful blue eyes. She looked straight at him, while taking dead aim for a second shot.
Danny held out a bloody hand as he pleaded with her, “Please – don’t shoot! I’m not your husband. I’m an imposter from another world who just wanted to get some money to begin a new life. Back in my world, I was deeply in love with a girl named, Jessica Hart, but ever since I fell off a ski lift back in high school, I’ve been a cripple in a wheelchair.”
Jessica was very intrigued and mesmerized by his remarkable story. She had expected some phony plea from her philandering husband that he would promise to stop cheating on her, and that he wished for a second chance to make it up to her. However, she was completely taken by surprise with this amazing, unique story told to her by someone who was a dead ringer for her husband. Somehow, she instinctively sensed that the man she was about to shoot wasn’t her real husband, and that he just might be telling her the truth. Yet, she remained very cautious…
“So, you’re an impostor – can that possibly be true? You look, sound, and even dress like my asshole husband. I’ll give you a minute to prove it, or I’ll just shoot you again – and I won’t miss my target next time.”
Suddenly, a message came across the intercom. They both listened to Aldo saying, “I just heard a gunshot. Danny, are you OK in there? We need to scram right now. I have an uneasy feeling about this.”
Danny’s face was turning white as shock was rapidly setting in. A groggy sounding Danny made a last request before losing consciousness…
“The man outside is a brilliant, wonderful guy named Professor Aldo Paganini. Please write him a check for a million dollars. He deserves to keep his experimental lab going.”
With that, his eyes closed as he was bleeding to death. Although Danny’s story sounded incredible, Jessica thought there must be some truth to it. After all, dying men have no reason to lie.
She made the hasty decision to answer the intercom, which was set on ‘speaker’. She said out loud, “I know your name is Aldo. Drive through the gate when it opens, but don’t get out of the car until I call off the watchdogs. I shot a man who claims to be my husband’s impostor. His leg is bleeding profusely.”
Aldo knew that something had gone drastically wrong, but he had to help his dying friend, Danny. Moments later, he drove down the cobblestone driveway to the front of the house.
He saw a scantily dressed woman covered in blood restraining her Rottweiler dogs.
“Aldo, please hurry,” said Jessica as she led him upstairs to the bedroom.
It was a gory sight with poor Danny slumped unconscious against the wall. He had lost an awful lot of blood. Aldo had some basic first aid knowledge, and he used a silver candlestick holder to make her robe’s belt into a viable tourniquet.
Once Aldo managed to stop the bleeding, he looked back up at Jessica. She pointed the gun right at him and said, “You had better tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, or else I’ll shoot you too.”
At this point, Aldo wished he had never gotten involved with Danny’s scheme to solve all their monetary woes, but he knew he had passed the point of no return. Jessica was quite serious, and she wanted some honest answers – now. He decided to tell her the absolute truth, regardless of how amazingly absurd his story was...
“I’ll tell you everything, but you probably won’t believe a word of it,” said a skeptical Aldo.
“Try me,” she answered, while continuing to point the loaded gun at him.
“I’m Aldo Paganini, physics professor at the University of Washington. I was developing an experimental communication chamber intended for contacting ghosts from a spirit world. My communication apparatus accidentally connected with a wormhole tunnel which leads to an alternate, parallel universe. Somehow, your husband’s alter-ego, twin – the Danny Donaldson from another world ended up being transported to our world when he became airborne after being struck by a truck, and then had the misfortune of being struck by a bolt of lightning a moment later, right before he crashed into a telephone pole.”
Jessica was still pointing her gun at Aldo as she said in a businesslike manner, “OK – I’m listening. Please continue.”
“Well, it turns out that Danny Donaldson from the other world has perennially bad luck in contrast to the great luck your husband has. The unlucky Danny and I met each other while we were both in a financial crisis. I’m about to lose my house in foreclosure and I lost the government funding to continue with my research lab. We decided to make a fresh start, since we knew that this guy here on the floor is a perfect impostor to withdraw money from Key Bank, where you currently have just over five million dollars.”
“Correction – I have five million dollars at the Bank of America.”
“You did, but that snake of a husband of yours just transferred it out of your joint account at Bank of America and deposited it to his private account at Key Bank. He was planning to give it to his lover, Babs, who is waiting for him at the Grand Cayman Airport.”
Jessica lowered her gun, but continued to hold it in her hand.
“That is the most ridiculous sounding story I’ve ever heard – but I believe you’re telling the truth. So, what did you do with my unfaithful husband? I honestly hoped you spared me the trouble by killing the two-timing bastard.”
“I agree he probably deserves to die, but the law of the universe is such that if either one of these two twins were to die, the other one will also die to maintain a universal harmony. That’s a new concept, even to me. Anyway, we’ve got ourselves in an incredible pickle. Your real husband is unconscious, wearing just his underwear, in the back of the limo, and his limo driver is unconscious in the limo’s trunk. At this point I expect to spend the rest of my life in jail, so if you really want to shoot me, go right ahead.”
Jessica pulled out the desk’s top drawer, and put away the gun.
“I believe you, but I want to see my husband in the limo with my own eyes.”
“Fine, but we need to hurry. My Danny’s lost too much blood. He needs a transfusion, but we will all be in big trouble if I take him to a hospital, since all gunshots are reported to the police.”
Before heading out to the limo, Jessica quickly inspected the bloody Danny’s left thumb.
“My jerk husband accidentally cut his left thumb yesterday on a broken wine glass when I tried to wrestle away his smart phone. I’m pretty sure it was a phone call from Babs. I’m pleasantly surprised to find no recent cuts on your Danny’s thumb. Let’s see if my husband still has a cut on him.”
Aldo led her down to the scuffed up limo parked in the driveway, and opened the door to the passenger section. Sure enough, an underwear-clad Danny was out cold on the limo floor. Jessica inspected his left hand. Not surprisingly, he had a fresh bandage wrapped around his left thumb.
“OK, now I believe you. Say, can you also show me the limo driver in the trunk?”
Aldo cautiously opened up the trunk lid, since he was worried that the big, tough looking Samoan might have been able to free himself by now – ready to fight once again. However, instead he found the big chauffer lying there very still. Aldo held his hand directly in front of his face for a minute.
“I don’t know what happened, but this man is dead,” said a deeply concerned Aldo. “He doesn’t seem to be breathing.”
Suddenly, Jessica felt terribly guilty for shooting the wrong man.
“Oh my God, I’m afraid I just shot an innocent man – and he could bleed to death,” said Jessica with a new set of tears beginning to flow. “I think I should call ‘911’ and just face the consequences.
“I happen to have some IV
needles, hospital plastic bags and hoses at my house in Shoreline. My Toyota is parked three blocks up the hill, and I can be back in less than an hour. I can save him by pumping a couple of quarts of blood into him.”
“Come on,” said a skeptical Jessica, “you don’t even know what blood type he is, and where can you find a donor?”
Aldo raised her unconscious husband’s hand upward as if to answer, ‘Yes – I’ll volunteer.’
“It really doesn’t matter what blood type your husband is,” explained Aldo. “I’m quite certain their blood types are an identical match.”
“Well, OK, but if I let you go, how do I know that you’ll be returning. Maybe you’ll just leave your wounded friend here to die without help.”
“I, Aldo Paganini, am a man of honor – but I understand your concern. Here – keep my wallet until I return. It has my driver’s license, credit cards, and about forty dollars cash in it. Keep it as some form of collateral if you don’t trust me.”
“Mr. Paganini, I’m sorry, but at this time I really don’t trust anyone. I got burned when I trusted my own husband – so, no offense. Go ahead, I’ll put the dogs in their kennel, and let you out of the gate. Please hurry back. I don’t want to be guilty of killing your friend.”
“I would never turn on a friend. I need to hurry, but first – can you open the garage door so I can hide this big limo from being seen?”
After quickly pulling the stretch limo into the huge, six-car garage, Aldo hurried on foot to his car, while Jessica went back to her bedroom to stay with the wounded Danny.
As soon as Aldo made it to the top of the crest right next to his car, he noticed a policeman standing in front of his car. He was busy writing a ticket, but he looked up when he noticed someone approaching.
“Is this your car?” asked the police officer.
“Why, yes sir, it is,” answered a nervous Aldo. “Is there some kind of problem?”
Ions Of Luck Page 4