Greg Gumshoe: Private Eye - Chapter 4

Fourth prompt.
Write about a race between your main character and somebody else.
Ideally, this would happen in the ongoing plot.
Remember to highlight the prompt words/phrases in bold, or ALL CAPITALS, or color.
Due on or before 02/08/10 11:59PM WDC time.
genres: romance/love, detective, comedy

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Greg Gumshoe: Private Eye
Chapter 4: "The Collar Purple"

By Indelibleink

Greg Gumshoe, apparently fearful that the "laying-on-the-floor-behind-the-desk" strategy wasn't going to work ad infinitum, motioned for Babs to quickly get inside of the closest. She grabbed her magazines and scurried into the closet, gently closing the door behind her.

At that very instant, the office door burst open and in came five well-dressed ('well-dressed' if your definition of 'well-dressed' includes stylish night-gowns) seemingly middle-eastern men. Greg, who had taken a position of stretching back in his office chair, with his feet up on the desk, meticulously doing his nails with a un-twisted paper clip, casually looked up at the quintet.

"Howdy, fellas. What can I do for you gentlemen?" He then made note of the attire of the five, and couldn't resist a comment. "Linen sale at J.C. Penny's today?"

The guy in front of the group, whom Greg presumed to be the leader, furrowed his brow at Gumshoe's attempt at humor. "Very funny, my infidelic friend. Mr. Gumshoe, my name is Hoolihan. My constituents and I are in your country to locate something that belongs to my client - who prefers to remain anonymous. Perhaps you can tell us if you have seen this person." He reached - or tried to reach - into his shirt pocket for something, but the gown he was wearing obstructed his efforts. He then tried to go in through the opening at his neck, but his arm got stuck momentarily as the neck opening was too narrow. Increasingly frustrated, be bent down and flung the bottom of the gown upwards, with a goal of getting the fabric just higher than his shirt pocket. Unfortunately, he flung the fabric too hard, and the fabric flew up over his head, and the ensuing few seconds saw him flailing around like a drunken ninja - trying to free himself but with little luck. The mumbled sounds of curse words were indistinguishable beneath the fabric, probably a good thing as they might have exceeded the rating for this chapter had they been clearly heard. The four men who had accompanied him had surprisingly little sympathy for Hoolihan's plight; as they took turns poking him in the ribs and tickling under his arms, causing him to alternately laugh and curse in a breath-taking display of contrast. Finally, he yelled something quite foreign to Greg, but not the cohorts, as they obviously understood quite clearly what Hoolihan was saying. They immediately stopped laughing and quickly helped untangle the harried Hoolihan. With that, he reached - as if nothing had happened - into his shirt pocket and tossed a photo into Greg's lap. "I ask you again, Mr. Gumshoe: have you ever seen this person before?"

Greg picked up the photo, and immediately recognized it as Babs Bin Laden. It looked like a publicity still, with Babs perched atop a camel. Nice profile...She looks hot! He studied the photo for several seconds, obviously not wanting to tip his hand that, yes, he did indeed know her. Greg held up the photo under the light and changed the angle of the photo a couple of times. He felt a hand grab his wrist.

"Mr. Gumshoe, you appear to be stalling. Do you know this woman or not?" Hoolihan had the expression of an unhappy camper.

Greg shook his wrist free from Hoolihan's grasp, got up, walked up to Hoolihan and looked him in the eye. "Can't say that I've ever seen her before. Why do you want this woman?"

"This woman is wanted by our client, who also happens to be her husband. Actually, he's not really that interested in finding her - he says that girls like her are a dime - or in our country, a rupee - a dozen." There was a muffled sound of dissatisfaction that emanated from the closet. "What was that?" Hoolihan's eyes drifted over towards the closet.

"Moths." Greg cringed as he spoke and instantly regretted uttering the first thing that he could think of. "Yeah, millions of them. Can get pretty noisy at times." He backed up over to standing in front of the closet and with the heel of his left shoe, kicking backwards, banged on the door a couple of times. "That ought to keep 'em quiet for a while." Surprisingly to everyone - most of all Greg - the men looked at each other, shrugged, and nodded as if in agreement with what Greg had said. Not exactly Rhodes scholars!

"Anyway," Hoolihan continued, "this woman had in her possession a cat, which is what our client is really after. You see, when this woman fled the country, she took with her the cat. The cat was wearing a purple collar that used to be worn by the first ruler of our land, King Rootin'-Tootin'. The gems and diamonds embedded in the collar are worth billions of dollars, and are the financial standard upon which our country's economy is based. So as you can see, we don't even care about the cat - it's the collar that we want. We are prepared to reward whoever helps us find this woman and her cat handsomely. We just want the collar and the cat, and we will do whatever necessary - even if it means killing the woman and her cat - to get that collar." The last sentence was met by another muffled noise from inside the closet.

"Mr. Gumshoe, it would appear that the 'moths' in your closet are getting rather 'restless', no?" The comment was met by some chuckles from Hoolihan's posse. "Perhaps you could use some help in 'exterminating' them?" With that statement, all of the nightgown-clad contingent drew weapons from ankle holsters (shoulder holsters were just out of the question with today's ensemble) and pointed them at both Greg and the closet. Gumshoe looked skyward as if pleading for some kind of 'divine intervention', and also regretting the fact that he was about to die without ever professing his love to Babs.

When, just out of the blue (or perhaps up from above?) the face-off was interrupted by the sound of a cat purring on Gumshoe's window sill. Yes, it was cat Stevens, resplendent in his beautifully adorned collar, looking teasingly at Hoolihan and company. He then bolted through the open office doorway, and down the stairwell that was adjacent to the elevator. Just like that, Hoolihan and friends abandoned their focus on the closet and took off through the door after cat Stevens.

Greg ran to the closet and freed Babs, who immediately began, um, babbling! "Hoolihan is lying! That purple collar was made with money used to finance terrorist activities. It was converted into the gems and diamonds in the collar when the U.S was closing in on Osama and he didn't want them to find all of his cash. We must get to Stevens before they do!"

There was no concealing the worried expression on Greg's face, so he didn't try. "I'm worried, Babs. The bad guys are already down by the elevator. They're going to win the race to Stevens if we don't think of something quick." An illuminated light bulb suddenly appeared over Gumshoe's head. "Dammit Babs, turn off the light - I'm trying to think!"

"Sorry, I was only trying to help."

Another light bulb went on over Greg's head, but this time Babs wasn't standing by the light switch, which meant Greg must have had an idea. He motioned to Babs to come over, which she did, and he whispered something into her ear. This was a bit curious, since the two of them were the only ones in the room, which would seem to reduce the necessity of secrecy. Unless, of course, it was because that you, the reader, were not allowed to hear the details of Greg's little plan. Anyway, Babs initially winced at Greg's suggestion, and then grudgingly nodded her assent. Greg gave her a quick hug, and then ran to the office door & looked down to the elevator. His nemesis-in-a-nightgown and pals were still waiting impatiently for the elevator door to open. Greg whistled loudly to get their attention.

"Hey, fellas, you don't want to leave without me validating your parking ticket, do you? You're looking at pretty hefty parking fee, especially at the 'limo' rate." He figured that if they had fallen for the moth story, this was worth a shot as well.

The fearless five looked at each other, and found Greg's logic to be sound, and began to return to the private eye's office. In the meantime, Greg donned a fake nose and glasses disguise, and casually strolled by the quintet and, once past them, made haste to get to the elevator door.

As the five re-entered Greg's office, there was someone sitting at Gumshoe's desk, holding a fully open newspaper, so that only the person's hands were visible, and nothing else. Noting that the hands that held the newspaper were clearly female, Hoolihan realized that he and his cronies had been duped.

"Boys, we've been duped! Back to the elevator!" The fearless five turned to return to the elevator. The person behind the desk in Greg's office stood up.

"Yoo-hoo...boys...is this what Osama said wasn't worth finding?" The men turned around to see Babs - completely topless! The fact that the men stood transfixed for precious seconds was all the answer that Babs needed.

"Boys, deja vu! We've been duped again! Let's go!" Hoolihan again took off out the door, but had to return to get a couple of stragglers. By the time they had gotten to the elevator, Gumshoe was long gone.

Babs had just finished putting her clothes back on when Greg entered his office, carrying Stevens. The race had been won. This time, he even locked the door behind him! Babs turned and was overcome with emotion when she saw the two (actually, the same could be said for Greg)! "Greg! Stevens! Thank God you're both okay! But, Greg, what about the five terrorists?"

"After I caught up with Stevens here, I called the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and tipped them off as to the fact that we had five illegals here. I also called the city and said there was a limo illegally parked here. So, before you could say, 'Tow-away zone', the city had a swat team converging, along with INS agents. Those guys won't be bothering us for a while."

Babs came over and hugged Greg. "Greg Gumshoe, I just love you."

"And I love you too, Babs."

Just then, there was a twisting of the knob of Greg's office door.

"But Greg, dear, I distinctly saw you lock the door this time. No way anybody can get in."

"Never say never, Babs. Especially when we have three more chapters to go!"

The sound of the twisting knob stopped. What replaced it though, was worse. It sounded like a key. And not just any key, friends. A MASTER KEY!

Greg looked wearily at Babs. "Okay, get the lights and hit the deck. You know the drill!"

As the master key solved the chambers of the lock, the door opened, ever so slowly...

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word count: 1856        cumulative: 4900