"Extract from the Memoirs of Jesse Berlin, Private Eye Extraordinaire" by David Michael

            “Now I say, I’ve had enough!  These shenanigans shall not continue, sir, for by Jove I’ll…!”  The man halted his tirade and stared at me as if I were a trench-coated Chihuahua sitting on his sofa rather than the suave freelance detective that I am.  I guess he wasn’t expecting me, but that’s okay – most people don’t.  What worried me was the revolver that he waved with a tad less care than I would’ve liked.  He was a prim-looking fellow with a figure reminiscent of a tall Chianti wine bottle and dressed in a pinstriped tuxedo any penguin would be proud to wear.  I stood up, politely removed my fedora, and offered him a friendly hand, ignoring the gun that glared into my chest.

            “Jesse Berlin, private eye,” I said, with that professional smile used when meeting presidents, beautiful women, and strange aristocrats holding me at gunpoint in their own foyer.  “I knocked and the door swung open a bit by itself, so I took advantage of its hospitality and made myself comfortable.  I hope you don’t mind.  By your British accent, I take it you were the fella that called me?”

            His face lit up instantly.  “Oh yes, of course, sir!  Detective Jesse Berlin!  My sincerest apologies for this barbaric entrance, ‘tis no way for a guest to be welcomed.  Please come this way.”  He nervously stuffed the revolver under his suit jacket, and led me back into the room he had just barged out from.  “My name is Brighton, sir, and I am the butler for this manor, just recently hired.  I apologize for not providing any details over the telephone, but I can never be sure when someone is listening in on another line.  There are so many in this house.”

            We continued walking down a carpeted hallway past various pieces of Victorian furniture and a painting whose individual value could easily have been more than half an Ivy League school’s tuition.  It depicted two figures cloaked in black glaring fiercely at each other; a warrior with a bear-like body crouched defensively and brandished a broad sword up at a man with black skin and veins that glowed like fiber-optic wires.  Some surrealist fantasy work, I mused.  Weird.  “Listening in?  You mean you didn’t call on behalf of your employer?”

            “Oh dear no,” replied the butler.  “Master Noruma never involves outsiders in his affairs.  In fact, he rarely involves insiders either!  Keeps himself company more often than not.  But in fact, he is the very reason I called you.  You see…”

            “Noruma, is that an Asian name?”

            “Oh I’m not sure I would say that, though he’s certainly not from around here.”

            “Is the master at home?”

            “As always, unfortunately.  But every night he spends hours in the North Wing, where his study, personal library, and observation tower are.  He won’t have heard you enter from there, a fact I made certain of before calling you.”  A pair of mahogany double-doors stood before us, but their apparent weight didn’t stop old Brighton from gracefully swinging one open.  “The common library, Mr. Berlin.  We shall speak in here.”  He stepped aside to allow me to enter first, which I did as humbly as I could manage, keeping my gray trench coat close around me and ducking my head slightly in spite of the tall doors.

            Gothic.  That was my first impression, due to the smooth stone pillars that marched down the long room like so many Marines at attention.  Marble I might have expected in a mansion like this, but solemn gargoyles glared down at me from the base of the vaulted ceiling as if daring me to voice my surprise.  I sniffed at them and sauntered easily in, my boots clomping loudly on the floor.  It, too, was stone.  I guessed I wouldn’t have to worry about some uptight sharp-nosed librarian drowning in her own scarf telling me to be quiet in this place – you could hear a dust bunny snore.  The long hall was lined with massive bookcases stuffed with all manner of leather-bound hardbacks in dusty browns, blues, and maroons, and an ornately carved railing traced the exposed upper floor around the shape of the room.

            They just don’t make ‘em like this anymore, I smiled admiringly to myself.

            A scraping noise resounded behind me as the two doors closed shut.

            I turned to my host.  “Oh by the way, Brighton, just before you barged into the entryway I heard some glass shatter loudly at the other end of the house.  Sounded like it coulda been a window.”

            “What’s this?” he replied, his eyes blinking rapidly in concerned annoyance.  “Oh dear!  Pardon me, Mr. Berlin, but I must see to that immediately.  Wait for me here.  And please don’t make a noise or touch anything!”  With the same graceful action as before, he swiftly reopened one of the library doors, slipped through, and shut it again.  His footsteps echoed erratically through the door as he ran down the hall.  Then all was silent.

            I glanced up at the gargoyles.  “You don’t talk much, do you guys?”  They glared back at me as if I were a huge sack of talking meat.  “No, I suppose not.  Probably wouldn’t want you to, either.”  Unconsciously my hands patted the concealed Browning Hi-Power pistols under my trench coat.

            Brrrrrrring!  Zounds!  I nearly tripped on a coat rack and hemorrhaged at the sudden loudness of the ringing.  A dark round coffee table stood by two elegant hunter-green chairs more stuffed than a Thanksgiving turkey, and the insistent telephone sat right in its center.  Brrrrrrring!  Pulling my fedora down over my eyes, I gave the insidious little implement of telecommunication my fiercest glare.  Over the years, I had developed an intense hatred of telephones, enhanced by their growing necessity in my line of work.  They always managed to ring just as I was most in need of silence.  The fiends…

            Brrrrrrring!

            It appeared that I was the only living soul in the room, and thus it was my responsibility to answer the phone.  Of course, it wasn’t my house, and the British fellow had asked me not to touch anything, but after a few years as a freelance detective you begin to ignore those kinds of warnings.  Few things, it seems, happen by mere chance.  I picked up the receiver.

            “House of Mr. Noruma, how may I help you?”  For some reason I felt rather silly saying that, but it was all I could think of on the spot.

            A husky female voice answered anxiously, almost whispering, “You are in great danger.  Follow the yellow brick road.”

            At that moment something bright caught my eye on the floor.  Hopping amiably past me towards the bookshelves was a fluffy long-eared rabbit with fur the color of summer clouds.  The little fellow took no notice of me, but flopped merrily on his way.

            “How ‘bout the white rabbit?” I asked, eyebrows raised slightly.  Apparently Master Noruma kept no dogs, or that little ball of fur-covered meat would be hopping a little faster.

            There was a pause on the other side.  “Oh right, I’m sorry.  Forget the yellow brick road.  Follow the white rabbit.”  The mysterious lady sounded vaguely embarrassed.

            An odd thought struck my mind, not hard enough to hurt but enough that I took notice.  “Look ma’am, I don’t mean to pry, but it doesn’t by any chance have large sharp fangs and like to bite people’s heads off, does it?”

            A pause.  “This is not Monty Python, Mr. Berlin.”

            I started in surprise.  “Well pardon me, how do you know my name?  Who are you?”

            Click.

            For a moment I sympathized with telemarketers, but that swiftly passed.

            I hung up the phone, and looked over at the rabbit, which had stopped by one of the bookcases and now inquired back at me through glossy brown eyes filled with cuteness utterly devoid of intelligence.  My guide through an eccentric’s mansion.  Figures.  After a quick glance around the library to make sure no one else was present, I stuffed my hands in my pockets and strode sulkily over.  “Alright Pete, show me what ya got,” I muttered.

            The little fella’s cotton ball excuse for a tail led me past a dozen or so towering oak bookcases, each one labeled with a runic font inlaid with silver in a language I didn’t recognize.  It certainly wasn’t Russian or German; those languages I knew.  I made a mental note to ask Brighton about it.

            My furry leporid guide turned down one particularly shadowed alley – hey, I’m a city man, alright? – where the shelves were stacked with crumbling scrolls that reminded me of those delicious pirouline cookies, the cigar-shaped ones of flaky vanilla wafers folded over a thin cylinder of dark chocolate that melts rapturously in a morning cup of cappuccino…

            Pardon my distraction, but it’d been a long night and I was in need of a sugar rush.

            When I finally pulled my eyes away from the distracting scrolls and looked at the end of the bookshelf alley, I stopped my casual gait and stared incredulously at the sight before me.  Not ten feet away was a full-sized red British phone booth.  Peter Rabbit hopped gaily up to it and turned back to look at me; I swear the fella was grinning.  This entire situation was getting a tad too bizarre for me, and I felt increasingly uneasy – a problem which I countered by drawing my thick pistol.  The phone booth looked empty through its glass window, but I approached it cautiously regardless and swung the door slowly open.  It was empty but for the phone.  I was confused.

            “Ms. Peel?  Mr. Steed?”  No Avengers here, apparently.

            The silence was broken by the violent staccato notes of a machine gun echoing from back in the North Wing.  I ran quickly to the end of the bookcase alley, the wind from my gray coat ruffling a few scrolls, and peered around the corner.  Gunfire sputtered again a few times, chased by the crashes, rips, and thuds of big things breaking.  A thoroughly irritating silence followed.

            The library doors were flung violently open and Brighton dashed in as though the Prime Minister was over for tea and he just realized that the scones were on fire.  Well, except for the revolver in his hand, which he again seemed to forget as he saw me.

            “You answered the bloody telephone, didn’t you?!” he accused, running towards me.  “Blast!  Well run while you’re at it, Mr. Berlin, run!  Enter the phone booth, it’s the safest way!”

            I glanced back at the red booth, where little Peter had somehow got onto the ledge below the phone and was now actually dialing a number, the receiver dangling uselessly from its cord.  “What’s going on, Brighton?!  Who was firing a machine gun?  And why the HECK is a RABBIT dialing a NUMBER in a British PHONE BOOTH in the middle of a LIBRARY?!?!”  I shouted.

            The distraught butler reached me and grabbed my arm, leading me back towards the phone booth.  “I’m dreadfully sorry, sir, but there’s too much to explain now.  It’s my master, sir.  He has a dreadful skeleton in his closet!”

            Why do the Brits always have to use crazy figures of speech?  Sheesh.  “Yeah, well we’d better find out what it is quick, ‘cuz this place is starting to freak me out.”  I stepped inside the phone booth, noting what an uncomfortable fit this would be for us.

            “But that IS what it is, sir!” cried Brighton as he squeezed his narrow frame inside and shut the red grated door.  Peter Rabbit finished his dialing and looked at me as if I were a 6’5” carrot.

            “Pardon?”

            The butler grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me as much as he could in the cramped space.  “Bones, sir, bones!!!”  I felt like a pneumatic drill had just tap danced on my head – apparently opening doors and serving tea builds excellent upper body strength.  My hands reached up and gently removed his from their vice grip on my shoulders.

            “Oh, a dead body!  Why didn’t ya just say so in the first place, so I’d at least know I’m dealing with a homicide.  Golly!  Now please, WHAT IS GOING ON?”

            Brighton took a deep breath before continuing.  “Master Noruma is a very secretive man, and I know next to nothing about him, other than that he pays me well to answer the door and not ask questions.  But queer winds have been blowing, strange noises heard from the North Wing at night, and ill-seeming folk coming to meet with him for business that can’t be good, sir.  The skeleton was what made me take action.  Somehow he’s found out though, I don’t know how!  He has a terrible temper.  Someone shot at me when I ran to investigate the breaking glass you mentioned and I immediately ran back here.  Things are moving in this house, Mr. Berlin, and I warn you to be careful!  Nothing is as it seems.”

            Something outside caught my eye and I looked up at the high vaulted ceiling.  “No kiddin’.”  Brighton looked up and groaned pitifully.

            “Oh dear.”

            It was a gray-skinned creature whose thin bat-like wings supported a wiry muscular body and arms that ended in a vicious set of claws.  The head was like a man’s but that fangs as long as pencils protruded from the mouth and the eyes shone like the headlights of my black remodeled ’39 Ford in the mansion’s driveway.  A predatory light shone from those eyes.  Then I saw another creature circling above, and another, and another and…and then I noticed that the stone gargoyles were no longer perched cold by the ceiling.

            “Don’t worry, Mr. Berlin,” said my pinstriped penguin butler friend.  “We’re safe in the phone booth.”

            I stared at him incredulously.

            “Reinforced glass,” he whispered, and winked.

            The tiny red compartment lurched suddenly upward, bobbing for a few moments in midair before rising steadily above the bookshelves.  It hovered for a few seconds before floating over to the open area near the double-doors.  Brighton smiled and scratched behind the ears of the little white furball.  “Jolly good, rabbit!”

            “Peter,” I said absentmindedly, watching the circling gargoyles as we drew to eye level with them and gripping my pistol firmly.

            “What?”

            “Peter.  I…I named him Peter.”  The butler’s eyes bored into me and I coughed in minor embarrassment.  “You know?  As in Peter Rabbit, from…the…the Beatrix Potter story.”

            “Ah.  Yes.”  There was an infuriating amusement behind his eyes, no doubt mixed with worries that he had hired an insane man to solve his mystery.

            Fortunately, one of the gargoyles saved me from my discomfiture by abruptly ramming the hovering phone booth.  The box lurched and a clawed gray hand punched through the window, bursting glass shards on the three of us.

            “Blasted rabbit!” shouted Brighton as he cringed back into his corner.  “You didn’t activate the protection shield!  You dialed the wrong bloody number!”  Peter didn’t appear perturbed at his unfortunate error.

            I shot the beastly thug as it tried to hoist itself through the broken window.  It gave a broken cry somewhere between a snarl and a whimper before dropping to the library floor like a sack of bricks.  Another stony-faced (pardon the pun) gargoyle flew up to the gaping hole and received another of my ready-made slugs in his face, causing bits of rock and dust to fly.  Its arm was reaching in as I shot it, though, and now it wedged between the glass and the phone box as its heavy body relaxed to hang.  I felt the floor of the phone booth tilting like the Fun House at a carnival and braced my hands on the red metal bars on either side of me, shouting to Brighton to do the same.  It didn’t work.  Three other gargoyles saw what was happening and grabbed onto the corpse of their comrade, and their weight caused the phone booth to tip enough that I found myself staring at the smooth stonework some ten feet below. 

            “Brighton!” I yelled, feeling my hands slip.  I heard a gasp behind me and felt his thin body hit my back, and we both tumbled down.  Ten years of jumping out of Black Hawk helicopters above steaming jungles and rugged mountains kicked in at seven feet and I hit the ground rolling, trench coat whipping around my legs.  In one motion I sat up, drew my second pistol from my coat, and riddled the descending monsters with all the lead in the clips.  Three gargoyles thudded to the ground, their chipped limbs and shattered wings clapping harshly on the stone floor.  I heard a groan behind me and turned to see Brighton curled like an injured lamb on his side, grasping his leg painfully.

            “Don’t think I can run, Mr. Berlin,” he mumbled.

            “You won’t have to!” I replied, desperately trying to reload my pistols.  I glanced up as I did so, just as six more of the brutes swooped roaring down.

            Machine gun fire resounded sharply from somewhere and slivers of broken rock scattered from the air above as three of the attacking brutes fell from flight and the others wheeled off screaming.  A figure in raven black Spec Ops gear leapt from the second floor balcony with a blazing Colt AR-15 assault rifle in his hands and landed heavily beside me.  The uniform was skintight but for the Kevlar vest and armor pads, as well as various holsters and ammo clips on his belt.  His black tailored leather footwear looked like a cross between old-style riding and modern combat boots.  He looked down at me through glinting yellow sunglasses and grinned a grin that I knew far too well.

            “Ye still shoot like an American, Jesse Berlin,” he said through a mild Scottish brogue.  “but no time fo’ chatter now, Ah’m afraid!  Start running!”  The large double-doors began to open behind us and a gloved hand pointed a handgun in.  The Spec Ops fella whirled on a dime and let a few rounds send the thug scrambling back behind the door.  Apparently there were more thugs over there, for we heard other voices shouting and guns cocking.  Our newcomer took off down to the far end of the library.

            I returned one of my pistols to its holster, swung the injured Brighton over my shoulder, and followed at a dead run.  Just as we reached the end of the library and opened a back set of doors, the main entrance doors swung open and a score of masked thugs dashed in with handguns and rifles.  I slammed the door shut behind us and let Brighton sink gently to the ground.  We were in a small storage room, nearly empty but for a naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling by a wire and another door in the back.

            “You!” winced Brighton, pointing at the black Spec Ops man.  “You’re the one who shot at me!”

            “Oh?  Ah’m sorry, Ah didn’t know ye were a good guy.”

            The butler stared at him with that horrified indignant expression so peculiar to the British.  “I’ll have you know you broke a priceless stained glass window with your illegal entrance, sir!”

            “Bah!” said the Scot, waving his hand.  “That window weren’t more ‘an 200 years old.  Ye want an antique an’ Ah kin show ye the suit o’ armor me family got as a gift from ol’ Robert the Bruce in 1307, for the service the Brigant clans rendered him while he was on th’ run from you bloody English!”

            Leave it to a Scot to worry about family ancestry.  Nevertheless, I caught my old friend in a brotherly hug, which he returned with laughter.  “Well I’ll be!  Hello Double-O.”

            Instantly he drew back and glared at me.  “What’s this now?  Not again!”

            “Oh come now, James, don’t be modest,” I laughed, winking at the butler.

            Brighton’s eyes grew wide, and he gazed at the man as if he’d just asked for a martini shaken, not stirred.  “Double-O?  You…you…you’re the…James?  Bond?”

            “Blast it, Berlin, ye’ve gone an’ done it again!” the Scot cried at me.  He turned to Brighton.  “Ah’m sorry to destroy your dreams, sir, but Ah am NOT 007.  Mah name is James Brigant, captain of the elite – well, ye’ve no need to know their name –, an’ though mah dashing American friend here seems to have forgotten, Ah hail from Scotland, not soggy ol’ England.”

            “Soggy?!?!” cried Brighton in severe indignation.  “Well I say, that’s nice coming from a people who chase sheep around the moors in plaid skirts while screaming like savages!”

            “KILTS!” roared the Scot.  “Dinnae slander th’ clans, ye lit’l English teabag!”

            “And remember,” I cautioned the butler.  “The Scots do have haggis.”

            “O Lord, please!”  James Brigant rolled his eyes towards heaven.

            “And again,” I said, putting my arm protectively about the butler, “let’s not forget that Sean Connery, God save him, is Scottish.  Which reminds me, Brigant, you’ve also got the same initials as Mr. Bond.”

            Brigant stood his assault rifle on its barrel and stared at me.  “So do you, Jesse Berlin.”

            I paused.  “Oh right, I guess it’s not so big a coincidence then, is it, Jim?”

            “James,” he growled.

            “Aha!” I cried in victory, and winked at Brighton.  “I knew I’d get him sooner or later, he hates that nickname.”

            For a few eternal seconds after that remark you could’ve died of compression due to the pressure in the air.

            A smattering of bullets burst loudly through the door without warning, just missing my hat as I dove to the ground with Brigant.  “Oh by the way,” I said.  “Thanks for saving my life again.  You can tell me why you’re here later.”

            “Ah’m here ‘cuz you’re bloody here, that’s why,” he replied with his old smile.  That answer satisfied me.  Then he suddenly cursed and held up his rifle, the magazine bent in where the bullets had hit.  “Curses, that was darn good weapon, too!  Bloody useless now though.”  He tossed it away.

            Brighton gasped suddenly in pain, and I helped him awkwardly to his feet.  “That back door, it opens to a corridor that leads to a storage room in the rear that has a door to the outside.  It’s our best hope for escape.”

            I hoisted the wounded man back over my shoulder and nodded to Brigant.

            As we ran down the narrow corridor, I thought I heard a strange voice chanting something back in the library.  A moment later there was an ear-shattering explosion as a wave of vicious flames and smoke billowed out of the door behind us, followed by splinters of wood.

            “What in th’ name o’ William Wallace was that?!” yelled Brigant.

            “Oh dear oh dear oh dear,” muttered Brighton nervously.  “Master Noruma is angry with me.”

            Brigant glanced at me quizzically as he ran.  “Isn’t it illegal to have high-powered explosives in a private residence around ‘ere?”

            “That wasn’t an explosive, my great Scot,” answered Brighton, turning his head awkwardly so he could see the man over my shoulder.  “Nor was it a rocket or napalm from a flame-thrower.  It was Master Noruma.”

            We reached the door at the end of the corridor, and Brigant put his ear to the wood, listening with all the skills he’d learned from masters all over the world, from Russian spies and Japanese ninjas to the Spanish gypsies and Native American braves.  Then he slowly turned the handle and inched the door open, just a crack.

            “Thair are more thugs inside,” he whispered.  “They’re quiet, waiting, but they don’t know we’re here yet.  They aren’t watching this door.”

            Gently I set Brighton down.  “So, how about I take the boring job of caring for our wounded comrade while you can do the honor of clearing our path with those floozies of yours.”

            “Uzis,” replied Brigant, drawing the two Israeli-manufactured rapid-fire handguns from his belt.

            “Yeah.”

            The Scot thought for a moment.  “I’ll tell ye what, Berlin.  You burst inta that room guns blazing like Steve McQueen meets The Matrix an’ I’ll stay in the hall to cover yer back.”

            I grinned.  “Aww, you’d do that for me?”

            He grinned right back.  “In a minute.”

            “Well then,” I said, “it’s only fair for me to accept such a generous proposal.”  I shrugged easily and checked to make sure my pistols had all the cartridges loaded that they could hold.  When satisfied, I looked up and smiled, stepping lightly towards the door.

            “Wait just a minute!” cried Brighton.  “What about me?  As soon as the smoke and flames clear from that back room, Noruma and his cronies will be in here and I’ll be as good as dead before you get back!”

            “Ach, I kin hold off a score o’ men with my Uzis,” said Brigant.

            Just then the sound of footsteps and shouting was heard down the corridor in the room by the library.  Among the shadows to be seen in the light that streamed from the hole where the door had been was a tall muscled figure with a cape billowing out.

            “But not Master Noruma,” replied Brighton.

            “Well that settles it!  We’ve got one go, let’s make it good.” I said, grabbing the butler and hoisting him over my shoulder.  I nodded to Brigant and adjusted my gray fedora with my free hand.  He nodded back, brandishing his Uzis as I pointed to the door with my Browning Hi-Power pistol.

            “Tally ho.”