Cowsnofsky looked up from the newspaper he had been reading. “Here’s something interesting,” he said. “Some goofy tourist took off his shoe in front of the Birmingham Central Mosque in London and threw it at an Imam…Isn’t that where Piffy was going… to the Birmingham Central Mosque?”

The Professor glanced at Joe. “Piffy?” he said.

“Oh, no!” said Joe. “I hope he didn’t! I could get sued!”

“Yes,” said the Professor, “and Piffy could get killed if he was stupid enough to do something like that.”

Piffy was Bernard Piffy, the private eye the boys at Joe’s Bar and Grille and Gun Club had hired to track down the notorious Yaser Abdel Said, the Dallas taxi-driver who had murdered his daughters, Sarah and Amina Said, in a fit of Islamic rage. Joe was the owner of Joe’s Bar and Grille and Gun Club. He liked to keep a low profile. He’d been in the CIA…or maybe it was in the FBI…something important. His grandpa had been a big-man in the WPA…something to do with excavation. Joe had a large reproduction of a Richard Tracy Junior Crime Stopper’s Badge placed near his cash register.

“Does the story name names?” asked Joe.

“Naw,” said Cowsnofsky. “Just some tourist. He was pursued by a mob of angry Asians.”

“Asians?” said Ranch House. “They have a China Town in London?”

“It’s a euphemism, Ranch,” said the Professor.

Joe glanced down the bar at Henrietta. “Will, you please stop doing your nails in here,” he said.

Slowly, deliberately, Henrietta crossed one delicate leg over the other. “Why?” he said.

“If Blind Pew finds out you’re a transvestite, there will be hell to pay in here,” said Joe.

“You should have sent me to London,” said Henrietta.

“Now that is an idea whose time has come,” said Joe.

“Henrietta has a crush on Piffy,” said Rufus Quagmire.

“I do not!” said Henrietta. “I scarcely know the man.”

“Well, it couldn’t have been Piffy who threw the shoe,” said the Professor. “The man is not an idiot.”

“If it was Piffy,” said Cowsnofsky, “I hope he was wearing his Air Jordans.”

Was there a record for the hundred-yard dash with one shoe on and one shoe off while being pursued by a mob of howling Asians? If there wasn’t, there should have been. It would be just Piffy’s luck to miss out on the Guinness Book of Records. If he had had a stopwatch, if he had had an official timer, if he had been wearing Air Jordans who knows what records he might have set. He hadn’t run this fast since he was eight-years old. He had just left a midnight Halloween spook show and one of his companions had pointed at a shadow and had screamed, “It’s the Frankenstein monster!” Bone chilling, it had been.

Now, legs pumping like pistons, Piffy fled down an alley, cut through a back lot, and dodging traffic crossed from one side of the street to the other. By then his pursuers had been left in the dust. He slowed to a walk and slipped into the first pub he came across. He let out his breath. He was sweating profusely. Safe—safe at last! He put on his shoe—the one with the missing heel—and strode toward the bar as if he were Hoot Gibson entering a Dodge City saloon.

The place was almost empty. No Otis Campbell, no Willy Lump-lump, no Andy Capp, just a couple of lushes and… Wow! Va-va-voom—sitting at the end of the bar, a blonde bombshell with a décolletage reaching almost to her navel! She was digging in a purse large enough to conceal a cosmetics factory! She could have passed for Brigitte Bardot! She would have made Paris Hilton look like a boy! She had more curves than Daisy Mae—more curves than Moonbeam McSwine at the end of an all-day Sadie Hawkins Day race.

He slicked back his hair, strode manfully toward the end of the bar. He sat down. “Howdy,” he said. Oh, yeah, just like Hoot Gibson. Now where was that horse he was supposed to kiss?

“You sure made a mess of things,’ she said.

Piffy nearly fell off his stool. “Bint Marwan?” he croaked.

“You were expecting Little Orphan Annie?” she said.

He looked her over carefully. The voice was bint Marwan’s all right but the accessories belonged to someone else. “What happened?” he gasped. He was suddenly out of breath. “You’ve…you’ve …you’ve changed!”

“I can’t go around looking like Orphan Annie all the time,” she explained. “They’d get on to me.”

Piffy was gawking. Maybe it was the décolletage, maybe it was the short skirt, the healthy thighs, the ample hips, the…

“Oh, this is not the real bint Marwan,” she said. “It’s a disguise. I don’t look like this. What you’re seeing is a phantasmagorical projection of you own psychic imbalance. I’m a poet. Good Heavens! Do you think poets look like this?” She laid a hand on his arm. “You’re trembling,” she said.

He was. Maybe it was the close call he had just had in front of the mosque, maybe it was his proximity to the new and improved, more mature version of bint Marwan, the decolettage…the short skirt. He swallowed. “Where’s your, ah, halo?” he asked.

“That old thing?” she said. “It doesn’t go with this outfit. I’m having it overhauled.”

She smiled and a thrill ran up his leg. He was turning into Chris Matthews. He hadn’t been this excited since Spanky Abernathy had dragged him into the room behind Shontek’s barbershop to show him his Playboy collection.

“You want me to change into someone else?” said bint Marwan. “I can be the Lady from Worcester if you want. I can be Maggie Thatcher. I can be Anne Boleyn.”

“No, no!” said Piffy. “That won’t be necessary. You’re fine just the way you are! Just fine!”

Bint Marwan reached into her purse, produced a tissue, dabbed delicately at the corner of her mouth.

Piffy eyed the purse. “Oh, I get it,” he said. “The purse is your escape hatch. Smart! It looks roomy enough. I hope it has seat belts.”

“It’s an accessory,” said bint Marwan. “It’s part of the disguise—nothing else.”

“An accessory?” echoed Piffy. “Then how do you get back and forth from the netherworld? I don’t see anything that could be a conveyance of any kind…” He stopped. A strange oscillating glow was coming from beneath bint Marwan’s blouse. Was it her bra? He swallowed. He was getting that Chris Matthews feeling again.

“Victoria has her secret,” said bint Marwan, “and I have mine.

Piffy couldn’t take his eyes off the oscillating glow. Wow! Would he like to take a ride in that thing! Nothing like this had ever happened to Mike Hammer or Dan Tanna, he was sure of that.

Suddenly the glow was gone. “Let’s get down to business,” said bint Marwan. “Abu Afaq says he knows a man who will take us to Yaser Abdel Said but the price is steep.”

Piffy frowned. “I’ll have to call the boys at Joe’s Bar and Grille and Gun Club.”

“The man doesn’t want money,” said bint Marwan. “He wants toenail clippings.”

“Toenail clippings?” echoed Piffy. Inspector Clouseau has said something about toenail clippings!

“Yes, toenail clippings.”

Piffy was hesitant to ask. “Whose toenail clippings?” he said carefully.

“Muhammed’s.”

Piffy blinked. “Muhammed’s?” he echoed. “The Prophet? He wants the Prophet’s toenail clippings? Is there such a thing?”

“Yes.”

Piffy was silent for a moment. His mind was racing. Toenail clippings? It was absurd! He looked at bint Marwan. A green oscillating glow was coming from her bra. “I—“ he began. He didn’t finish.

Bint Marwan was nodding toward the pub’s entrance. “Don’t look now,” she whispered, “but your friends are here.”

By now the smell of cordite and phosgene was overpowering. He should have been paying more attention to the pub’s entrance than to bint Marwan’s magic bra, now it was too late. Mohammed Atta and Hani Hanjour were bearing down on him like a couple of undertakers after a two-day old corpse and bint Marwan had disappeared inside her bra. Yes, disappeared! He made a grab for what he thought was a bra strap, came up short and sprawled across the floor. When he looked up, Atta and Hanjour were grinning down at him.

“Allahu akbar!” one of them said. Did it matter which? Of course not, he was doomed!

(to be continued)

If Bernard Piffy had been Mike Hammer he would have known what to do. He would have pulled out the old trusty Army Colt.45 and blasted Umyar back into the Pleistocene Age, filled him so full of holes he would have been mistaken for a Swiss cheese in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. But Piffy had left his peashooter back in his flat over the Red Dragon. He could have taken to his heels. That would have been another option. If he had been Jim Thorpe he would have been halfway to Heathrow the moment he had caught sight of Umyar but he was not Jim Thorpe, he was Bernard Piffy. There wasn’t much traction left in his Buster Browns. He would never make it out of the mosque alive!

He heard something scream! It could have been a dinosaur. It could have been Fay Wray. It could have been Bernard Piffy. It could have been Umyar who was lurching across the mosque toward him like King Kong searching for a toothpick! He swallowed, glanced at bint Marwan. Good grief! She was taking a powder, evaporating, pulling herself up into her halo! In a moment she would be gone and he would be left to face the music! Hot damn! The mosque was shaking as if a hundred Heinkels had just flown in from Der Vaterland with gifts for a broken-down old private eye name of Bernard Piffy! He could feel Umyar’s breath singing his collar! Was this the way it was to end?

Then a hand reached out from what was left of the halo—a tiny hand, a child’s hand, bint Marwan’s hand! “Hurry! Hurry!” she urged. Piffy grabbed the hand and bint Marwan pulled him into the disappearing halo! God, she was strong for someone so little. But something had him by the foot—something was tearing at his shoe, at his pants leg! The scream came again! It was Umyar, a cry of rage. The struggle over Piffy’s pants leg was brief and he was suddenly free and the halo, now no more than a thin slice of light in what had become an inebriating darkness, shot away from the Prophet’s premier assassin. It made a circle of the mosque—maybe two—and then vanished through a hole in the wall. No, that would have been too easy. It must have been a time warp—yeah, a time warp!

The darkness in the aura was all encompassing. It was a roller coaster ride at sonic speeds. He was upside down, then right side up. He was standing on his head, rolling over and over. His nose was running.

“Will you stop groping me!” squealed bint Marwan.

“I’m not groping you!” said Piffy. The very idea! Piffys didn’t grope children! Piffys didn’t…

“Maybe I had better stop this thing,” said bint Marwan.

And stop it she did—suddenly and completely. Piffy tumbled out of the halo into a puddle that stank worse than the Devil’s armpit! He sat there for a minute or two trying to figure out where he was. Then he got to his feet. He was covered with coffee grounds and grapefruit rinds. “You ought to put some seat belts in that damn thing!” he said.

Bint Marwan was massaging her derriere. “I’ve never had a passenger in this thing before,” she said.

A bobby with a flashlight was coming down the alley. “I say, what’s the racket here, old chap,” he asked.

It was at this point that bint Marwan, having little taste for the affairs of mere mortals, took leave of Piffy. A mist had come up and quicker than Piffy could say ‘Count Dracula’ bint Marwan had become part of it and had drifted back into her aura and in another moment she was whisking down the alley like a dead afterthought.

The bobby never noticed her. He looked Piffy up and down. “You again!” he said. “Didn’t I tell you yesterday to move on and the day before that and the day before that?  And just look at you! What a mess! Do you always wallow about in the garbage like this?”

No, Piffy didn’t always wallow about in the garbage like this but there was no mistaking he was a mess. He stank; he was covered with filth, his left shoe was missing its heel and his left pants leg was shredded from the knee down. It could have been worse, but he didn’t’ see how.

“Run along now,” said the bobby. “I don’t want to see you here again. Understand?”

Piffy understood.

He made his way back to the Red Dragon. As he walked up the steps to his flat he caught a whiff of cordite and phosgene! On, no! Mohammed Atta and Hani Hanjour! Of all the rotten luck! This was all he needed! He paused for a moment, took a deep breath. This was where Jessica Fletcher would call in the real cops and they would make the arrests. All nice and easy—there was not much chance of that happening here. He needed Mike Hammer, not Jessica or Gomer and Goober. For a moment he was tempted to turn around and go the library or somewhere peaceful and come back later when it would be safer.

It took him a moment to regain his composure. He took a deep breath, trudged down the corridor to his flat. Odd—the odor of cordite and phosgene wasn’t as strong as it had been coming up the stairs. Were they behind him? Maybe he could make a stand in his reum. He leapt toward his flat, threw open the door.

There was a man lying on his bed—a man in a trench coat and a crown hat with a long thin nose and a trim mustache. It was Inspector Clouseau!

“Ah, you are still alive!” said Clouseau.

“What are you doing here?” demanded Piffy.

“What does it look like?” said Clouseau. ‘I am looking for a reum.”

“A reum?”  Piffy glanced around the flat—what there was left of it. It looked as if a Kansas twister had touched down for an afternoon snack. Everything was turned upside down; papers were strewn across the floor; drawers had been torn open and their contents dumped in careless piles. The easy chair had lost some of its stuffing and a spring was sticking out of the mattress right where Clouseau was making himself at home. The lining was gone from Piffy’s suitcase and someone had poured his aftershave into the kitchen sink—but the place smelled nice.

Piffy turned on the Inspector. He was as mad as a blue hornet. He, Bernard Piffy as occupant of the first part, would be expected to pay for the repairs. He felt like taking it out of Clouseau’s hide. “What the hell were you looking for?” he said.

Clouseau swung his feet over the edge of the bed. ‘Toenail clippings,” he said.

“Toenail clippings?” said Piffy. That was ridiculous!

“They know you are looking for Yaser Abdel Said,” said Clouseau.

“What?” cried Piffy. “ Did they think I was hiding him here?” It didn’t make any sense.

“No,” said the Inspector. “ They were looking for the toenail clippings. They do not appreciate your interfering in their affairs.”

“Out!” said Piffy. “Out!”

“They know about your contract with the boys at Joe’s Bar and Grille and Gun Club. They know about bint Marwan.”

“Out!” said Piffy.

Clouseau stood up. “Have you met Bond?” he said. “I can get you an interview with him.”

“Out!” said Piffy. He grabbed a bookend from the floor.

“Well, I can see you’re in no mood to talk,” said Clouseau. He backed toward the door. “Remember, for two quid I can arrange a meeting with 007” Then he bowed—he had reached the exit. “Viva la France,” he said and then he was gone.

Piffy lay down on the bed. It was too late to do anything but cry and he was too tired for that. Maybe things would look brighter in the morning.

Piffy had overslept. He splashed some water on his face, put on his spare pants, dabbed some aftershave on his face from the sink. He didn’t have the foggiest idea of how to contact bint Marwan but he was sure she would take care of that. They had some unfinished business to attend to—the soul of Yaser Abdel Said. But first he would have to find a new pair of shoes. He couldn’t go clumping around London like Walter Brennan in The Real McCoys—not with that large stain on his spare pants. That smart-aleck bobby would be sure to get after him. Didn’t them rascal ever sleep?

He left the Red Dragon. Something seemed to be pulling him toward the Birmingham Central Mosque. It must have been Kismet. A peddler was selling shoes from a cart directly across the street from the mosque. Was it more Kismet, fate or just plain dumb luck?

Piffey took a look at the shoes in the cart. They were good sturdy brogues, the kind that would have appealed to Jed Clampett. They had been imported from Turkey—the George W. Bush U-2 model said the peddler; they were noted for their sturdiness and ability to maintain a true course when launched in a proper trajectory.

A blind man with a seeing-eye dog came up and began an argument with the peddler. The dog took an instant liking to Piffy. It was a nice pooch with large liquid eyes. It sniffed Piffy here and there and nuzzled Piffy’s hand. Piffy scratched the dog’s head. “How you doing, Cujo?” he said.

A large group of Muslims were across the street escorting an Imam to a waiting vehicle.

“Could I try one of these shoes?” Piffy asked the peddler.

“Allahu akber!” said the peddler. “You are my tenth customer this morning. Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim!”

Piffy took off the shoe with the missing heel. He set it atop the cart; then rummaged amongst the footgear till he found one to his liking—the good sturdy reliable George W. Bush U-2 model. His back was to the street, to the Muslims clustered about the Imam. He had better look inside the shoe to check its size. Yeah, a good idea—he didn’t want something so small it would pinch his toes. He was bringing the Bush U-2 model up to his face when the seeing-eye dog must have mistaken his left leg for another dog. Maybe the mutt was just horny and wanted to cop a quick feel. It was the suddenness of the mutt’s assault that startled Piffy. He yelped as Cujo’s nose ventured into his derriere and the hand holding the Bush U-2 shot into the air. The shoe slipped from Piffy’s fingers and went sailing across the street and into the believers gathered about the Imam. Something went ‘thunk’ and there was a stunned silence!

Someone screamed. It was shock and awe! “He threw his shoe at ul-Haq!” a voice thundered.

A bearded man—what the heck, they were all bearded—pointed at Piffy. An ugly murmur rose from a dozen throats

“It was the Kafir!” bleated an overweight replica of Omar Bakri.

“Blasphemy! Blasphemy!” they were all yelling at once. “He has insulted Islam!”

Piffy immediately realized what had happened. If it wasn’t the faux pas of the Century it was close! He grabbed his shoe from the top of cart and took off down the street with the mob after him. He might not have been Jim Thorpe at the ’36 Olympics but even with one shoe on and one shoe off he was a damn site faster than Walter Brennan and he would need every last MPH he could get out of his tired aching limbs! He would be lucky to get out of this one alive!

“Holy Mother of God, save me!” he cried. Maybe he should have yelled “Allahu akbar” but who in the hell would have been fooled—not the mob behind him!

(To be continued)