Hazardous Duty (Presidential Agent 8)

“I didn’t get halfway down the stairs when this despicable little pervert started aiming his camera at me and screaming vulgar things. I’m sure he was French; they always have their minds in the gutter.”

“I have to ask this, Mrs. Alekseeva,” Annapolis said. “What exactly did he scream at you?”

The Widow Alekseeva blushed.

“Go on, Sweaty, you started the story, now you have to finish it,” Charley said.

She looked at him for a moment, and then said, “If you insist. What this miserable French pervert screamed at me—”

“In the belief, of course, that Sweaty was Miss Red Ravisher,” Castillo injected.

“. . . was ‘Show us your teats, Red!’” the Widow Alekseeva furnished.

“How awful for you,” Annapolis said. “May I ask what happened then?”

“I asked him what he had said, and he repeated it, adding, ‘I don’t have all night, and you came here prepared to show the whole world your’ . . . you know whats… ‘so out with your boobs, baby!’”

“And then what happened?”

“I demonstrated with him.”

“Sweetheart, I think you mean ‘remonstrated,’” Charley said.

“What she did,” Dr. Casey furnished, “was coldcock this clown with a one-two jab, and then when he went down, she kicked him in the… you can guess, and then she picked him up and threw him into the other bums, taking out four of them. Actually, three of them and Roscoe, who was standing there with them.”

“And then Max got into the act,” Castillo said. “Max loves Sweaty, and it is not wise to threaten anyone a Bouvier des Flandres is fond of.”

“And then my Carlito came to my defense,” the Widow Alekseeva said. “My knight in shining armor.”

“And then Lester and Peg-Leg came to help,” Castillo said. “Peg-Leg hopped around on his good leg and used his titanium one like a club.”

“By the time the cops stopped it—” Dr. Casey said.

“And you, too, Aloysius,” the Widow Alekseeva said. “You were just as quick to rush to my side as the others were.”

“. . . there were a lot fewer paparazzi standing up than there were before,” Dr. Casey concluded.

“Aloysius,” Annapolis asked, “you said the police stopped it. Are there going to be any problems in that area, with the law?”

“I don’t think so,” Dr. Casey replied. “Terence McGonagall?”

“Captain Terry McGonagall, chief of the Las Vegas Police Department’s Celebrity Affairs Bureau?”

“Yeah. Well, when we got to the jail, Terry was there to see who got out of the paddy wagon.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to use the term ‘paddy wagon,’ Aloysius,” Annapolis said. “It’s considered offensive to those of Irish heritage.”

“I’m a Boston Irishman, Swab Jockey,” Dr. Casey replied, somewhat impatiently. “And I’ve been in paddy wagons often enough to know a paddy wagon when I’m in one. As I was saying, when we got out of the police prisoner transport vehicle, Terry was there and he talked to the cops who had busted us, and eventually they let us go.”

“And why did they do that?”

“Well, Terry—he and I are fellow Grand Exalted Oracles in the Knights of Columbus—pointed out that if they charged Sweaty and us with assault and battery and destruction of property, such as their movie cameras, I could charge them with criminal trespass. Charley’s airplane was parked on my property. And so far as the camera guy Sweaty took out with a right cross, Terry asked him what judge was going to believe a good-looking redheaded lady weighing maybe a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet had broken the nose of a six-foot-five two-hundred-and-fifty-pound male. So it turned out to be a wash.”

“All’s well that ends well, as they say,” Annapolis said.

“That’s what I just said,” Dr. Casey said.

“So tell me, Colonel,” Annapolis said. “What brings you to Las Vegas? How may we be of assistance to the Merry Outlaws?”