Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I am Mashie Niblick.  I am presently employed as the greenskeeper of the Hoity Toity Golf Club in the big city of Tracy. This was all a Perils of Pauline misadventure when she did not need me, as usual.  I am writing it in third person.  Until various people filled me in, I knew none of this was happening, well, except for the occasional text.  Pauline was supposed to be taking care of our New Years Baby (first at T.R.U.S.T. Medical Center this year).  And I think she had a couple coming over for a little therapy session.  No big deal.

I was working for our other employer, the alphabet soup organization that keeps a lot of secrets.  There was an agent and a friend that were coming out of deep cover.  Our boss, Hugh McAdoo is known by Pauline as “Huey – and where is Dewey and Louie?”  I call him Hugh because he signs the checks.  Hugh wanted both of us to debrief the deep cover people.  Pauline could have dinner with someone and find out dark secrets about them, but she had a knack for figuring out if someone had turned into an agent for the other side.  It happens.  So, I was bringing them home for the night, and Hugh was going to stay with us.  We had the room, a big house and only us and a rug rat. 

I will simply let the story unfold as I pieced it together from police recordings and our doorbell camera and eyewitnesses.  But I will start after she raised the alarm:

Polly Pulice, police officer was driving the patrol car when the text appeared and the GPS started giving her directions.  “Oh, that is near where we were last week.”

Guy Weiss, aka Wise Guy, groaned, “No! Tell dispatch that we are busy and have someone else take the squeal.”

Polly asked, “Why?  That’s a nice neighborhood and the code is for attempted murder.  That would be our call anyway to secure the scene.”

Guy said, “Nothing good comes out of that house.  The woman there has mad skills and she’s a bit crazy.  Last time she faked trying to give me a back massage and she nearly killed me.”

Polly asked, “What did she do?”

Guy said, “I’d rather not talk about it.”

Polly said, “But if someone tried to kill her, she might still be in trouble.”

Guy said, “If someone tried to kill her, the assailant would be the one in trouble.  Then there would be a big black, unmarked airplane at the Tracy cargo hanger, and then black SUVs would drive over to the house where we are going.  This lady may be crazy, but she has some powerful friends outside Washington, DC.  It’s really spooky.”

Polly asked, “So these two people, the Niblicks, are spooks?”

Guy squeaked, “Don’t ever say I said that!  I’d probably go to jail forever. Lost in the system.  I mean these two are well-protected.”

Polly shook her head, “Black jet, black SUVs, mad skills, turning a massage into a means to knock people out.  These are either better agents than the ones in the movies or I am riding with a conspiracy theorist.  Ummm, Guy?  You look like you need to go to the bathroom.  Are you okay?”

Guy, a little too high-pitched, “No, I’m fine.”

They pulled in the cul-de-sac and Pauline was standing at the front door.  There was a large man facedown on their welcome mat.  His arms and legs were tied up behind him with duct tape (pink with a cartoon print on it) and he had a strange gag in his mouth.  It looked like a diaper.  He was out cold.

Pauline smiled and waved.  “Guy, it’s about time you got here.  This must be your new partner, Polly Pulice.  I have heard good things about you.”

Polly asked, “You must be Pauline Niblick.  Are you here alone?”

Guy muttered, “Dr. Pauline Niblick, the college professor with a lethal death grip.”

Pauline frowned, “Guy, I have never killed anyone.  Well, at least no one that I know of.  And to your question Polly, I have a couple in the downstairs bedroom.  They are, umm, indisposed.  They have not left the room, so they have no eyewitness account for you.”

Guy said, “Let us be the judge of that.”

Pauline walked over to Guy.  In a soothing voice she said, “But, Guy, I have to plead patient-doctor confidentiality.  I am helping them through some sex therapy, and I would rather not let the world know who is in the bedroom.  You do understand.”

Pauline had slowly moved over next to Guy, and she slowly put one arm behind his back.  Guy said, “Polly, draw your weapon and protect me.  She’s about to do that death grip thing.”

Pauline grumbled, “I keep telling you it is not a death grip.  I have never killed anyone with it.”

As Pauline stepped away from Guy, his eyes rolled into the top of his head and he slumped to the grassy lawn beneath his feet.

Polly asked, “How did you do that?  I didn’t even see you grab him.”

Pauline sighed, “It is not a death grip.  I do not even grip him, but I know where to massage so that if I do it with just the right pressure, they fall asleep.  So no death, no grip.  Just rubbing deeply in the right spot.  Last time I did it to Guy, he was supposed to take a delivery truck back to the distribution center.  I had, ummm, borrowed it.  I made all the man’s deliveries that day, but the police were a little upset and Guy was being rude.  He, somehow, fell asleep when he got into the driver’s seat.  When he woke up, he was only wearing his underpants.  The rest of his clothing was laundered and sitting next to him and his uniform was freshly ironed.  I have no idea why he complained.  Oh, being handcuffed with his own cuffs to the steering wheel might have had something to do with it.”

Polly bent over double laughing, “I have met my new best friend.  You have to teach me that.”

Pauline shook her head, “No, I have a doctorate.  It comes with a lot of schooling and I am registered with the Feds.”

Polly said, “Guy said something about that.  He said this place would be crawling with black SUVs any minute.”

Pauline nodded, “Probably so.  I will tell you what happened, so we will have that over with when they get here.  My husband, Mashie, will be with them.  I was expecting Mashie and our parttime boss, Huey.  Oh dear, this is official, so his pretend name is Hugh McAdoo.  Those guys change their name more often than their underwear, mild exaggeration.  Back to the report: The doorbell rang and from the camera it looked like a delivery man.  We were not expecting anything delivered other than the, umm, package that Mashie and Hugh were bringing.  Package as in a couple of humans that are on the flight manifest as cargo.  Wink, wink.  Nudge, nudge.  But then I noticed that the man was eastern European.  I opened the door.  He said he had a package and then I heard the distinct snick of a switchblade.  I swiped the knife from his hand.  The knife is in the mulch over there, covered.  I then got him off balance by kicking him a couple of times between his legs, and I used my massage technique before he could counterpunch.  The details are fuzzy.  Then I got some duct tape and tied him up.”

Polly asked, ‘I like the diaper gag.  I am sure it is a clean one?”

Pauline frowned, “Oh, no, dear.  When you have children of your own, you will know how expensive those things are.  Definitely not a clean one.”

At that moment, two black SUVs pulled up.  Her husband, Mashie Niblick and Hugh McAdoo got out of the first SUV.  The two SUVs were followed by Poached and Jim in a staff car that the precinct had.

As more police and crime scene people arrived, Pauline explained that she kicked some mulch on top of the knife so if the guy ever woke up, he would not have it to use against her.  His pistol was safe inside.

Baffy toddled out the front door and slapped the man on the welcome mat, “Dad!  Dad!  Dad!”

Mashie said, “No, Sweetie, I am right here.”  Baffy looked up and toddled into his arms.

Pauline said, “Mashie, she was saying ‘Bad! Bad!’  Baffy say, ‘bu, bu, bad.’”

Baffy just whined and hugged her Daddy.

Pauline asked, “Where is the package?”

Hugh pointed to the other SUV.  “They are with Dewey and Louie in the other SUV.  Please call them by their real names, or at least the names on their nametags.  I enjoy your nickname, but they do not.”

Pauline held up her hands in surrender.  “Huey, I just said to say ‘Hi’ to Dewey and Louie.  I never assigned anyone in particular those nicknames.”

At this point, Otto and Zuzka emerged from the house, fully clothed.  Otto said something about a party and they had not been invited.  Then as Hugh rolled the assailant onto his back, Zuzka screamed.

“Otto, protect me!  That is man who kidnap me!”

Hugh looked pensive and then said, “I doubt it Zuzka, but he does have a twin brother.  This guy is wanted in several countries.  He is an accomplished hitman, but then he never ran into Pauline and her mad skillz, with a “z” as I remember. Thank you though for making the connection.  I will let our European friends know that the twin brother might be into human trafficking, or he was when you were kidnapped.  You may finally have some justice.”

Jim Wednesday said, “There is a stolen car about a block away.  It belongs to a delivery guy in Stout County and he claimed he had his laundry on the seat when it was stolen.  Probably where the guy got the uniform.  He parked up the street to not be a dead give-away.  He isn’t dead, is he?”

Pauline huffed, “Will you people quit insinuating that I use a death grip.  I have not killed anyone.”

Jim and Poached said in unison, “At least no one that you will admit to killing.”

Deviled Yeggs and his wife in a wild blue hairdo walked up.  Dev said, “We were watching from the tree line.  We had no idea if this guy was working alone or if he had a partner.  We can’t see any evidence of anyone else.  Hugh, if this guy is a hitman from Europe, do we lock him up or do you take him?”

Hugh shook his head, “If you can write this little gathering off as a misadventure of some sort, I will deliver the package to Pauline so that she can interview them and welcome them to the USA after all these witnesses are gone.  And then I will sweep up the trash and deliver him to some folks in DC.  We will ask him questions and then give him an option of being released to the wolves in Europe or high security maximum here in the USA as a terrorist.  All he would have to do is talk.  Pauline, I am so glad you used your death grip.  He probably has a cyanide pill on himself somewhere.”

In the end, what happened at our welcome mat never happened.  The guy was carted off to DC and took Hugh’s offer.  He had come to our home to kill everyone and wait for Hugh and I to bring him the package, which was his primary target.  And Wise Guy was afforded the honor of not having his clothing removed.  Maybe it will become an every other misadventure.  We’ll see.

Oh, one thing did change.  Polly Pulice exchanged numbers and she comes by to visit quite often.  She even volunteers to babysit.  That is a welcome change.  With Dev’s wife, Naomi, Pauline’s boss, she is usually filling in for Pauline at the university and the three Yeggs children are extremely busy in school, but why Blaise and Sophie spend so much time at Lily the Pink, I will never know.  And I am supposed to be the Spymaster.

Credits

The Perils of Pauline was a movie serial started in 1914. It defined many serials that followed, including the Perils of Pauline “moment,” the cliffhanger that caused you to return to the theater for the next installment.

And Huey, Dewey, and Louie are the nephews of Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck is their great-uncle.  You can only tell them apart by their caps: red, blue, and green.  But as mentioned when Hugh McAdoo was first introduced, besides the rhyme, his name was derived from the Roger Miller hit song, Do-Wacka-Do.