When I got back to Webster Groves, I clung to Roberta.  If she was unavailable, I stayed close to mike.  As I reckoned it, if I had a bodyguard for the first couple of weeks back in Webster, it was only a matter of time before Fielding and Bart forgot they hadn’t beat me up yet.  It worked.

With Constance’s departure, Straub’s stopped bringing pounds of tenderloin to the house along with other goodies;  however, Wolverine always sent his mum more than she could eat.  I made out well, despite the pain of having to share with Fielding, Bart, Quine, and Chicago. 

Constance and Lucky recovered about the same time.  When Constance was leaving Webster, I got news from sources in London that Lucky and her party had cleared out of the Savoy. If she stayed in London, nobody I knew knew where.  

I imagined I could spend time relaxing with left-over tenderloin and maybe even make a few extra Krugerrands writing about how beloved Putin was in sub-Saharan Africa.   I suspect the Eumenides always plot against our good fortune.  Whenever I’m hoping for easy, it gets hard.

One velvet Monday when I was up early watching Squirrel, a local celebrity, steal tomatoes from Roberta’s garden, I sensed a presence.  Then I heard a voice.  “Hello, fool.”  I looked to my right where I saw Chaucer’s apparition sitting.  His fiery eyes glared at me.

“You know, I don’t know why I bother with you.”   Reasontempted to tell him not to bother with me on my account.  My instinct for self-preservation overruled Reason.  

Chaucer sighed. ‘If I had a lick of sense, I’d have used Behemoth to teach Wolverine a few lessons.  And he’d have brought his sidekick Azazello along to make sure the killing got done right.  Instead, I picked a team of assclowns for the Reading Rumble that couldn’t even finish off Constance, let alone blow a getaway car with Wolverine in it to smithereens.  

“And was that failure enough?  Not for you, Crocky, not for you.  You disgrace all cats by losing your ass to Chinamen playing third-rate Go.  Behemoth would have emptied their accounts, be it in Go or Chess.  And Behemoth could have done that with a gallon or two of vodka in him.  You, Crocky, are no Behemoth.  You’re dumber than Sylvester, that pathetic cat that Tweety Bird confounds at every turn.

“But you can relax, sneak.  Lucky got your Go debts cleared when she threatened the lawful winners of your little game with death and destruction for ‘taking advantage of a congenital idiot.’  ‘What’s a congenial idiot’ you ask?  That would be you, Crocky.  So, let’s see if you’re a lucky idiot.  Maybe you’ll yet redeem yourself.”

Before I could say a few words on my own behalf, Chaucer vanished into thin air.  What can I say?  Disappearances, it’s something ghosts are masters at.  

Now I had shivered at the mention of Behemoth’s name.  He’s a nasty alcoholic brute that used to hang out with the disgraced Soviet writer Bulgakov.  Behemoth also kept wicked company.  Woland was the worst of them.  If you know Behemoth, you know he was at the Grand Master level in chess.  I doubt Magnus Carlsen could whip him in a match, but Behemoth has always preferred vodka, big meals, and trashy women to tournament chess.  For him, chess is something to do whilst getting drunk.  

As for Azazello, you couldn’t find a more vicious demon if you had searched every corner of hell.  I always avoided him at all costs.  The guy would rape and kill his own father, and probably had.

All that said, I don’t know what Chaucer wanted me to do.  I doubt he wanted Wolverine dead.  If he had, I bet he would’ve had Azazello take care of the matter.  My soul tells me Chaucer wanted Wolverine humiliated.  Losing to me is pretty awful for anybody with pride.

As I pondered how to proceed, one of my African sources, Sheik Snitch, contacted me from Dar es Salaam.  He told me he had me booked in a room in Johari Rotana.  “You’ll want to cover what’s going down.  Mosaad is meeting with friends of Putin.”  

According to snitch, the Israelis were fed up with terrorist groups operating out of Africa.  They had an idea that a new “product” they had might eliminate a nest of terrorists with minimal risk. Mosaad, never liked anything simple, they had devised a plot. 

Snitch told me one other thing that whetted my appetite. “By the way, old Chap (Snitch had been at Eton with Peregrine), I hear your friend Lucky Ming is in a suite in the Johari.”   

How could I not go?  Lucky would not go to Dar es Salaam unless big something was going down.  

It was a long flight to Dar es Salaam, but Snitch had used his connexions to get me on a jet of a Saudi gazillionaire.  I liked the guy right off.  His sole questions to Snitch about me coming along aimed to seek reassurance that I was not a filthy dog.  Before long, I was at the Johari Rotana.

When I hit the lobby of the hotel, the gods arranged that I bump into Lucky.  

“Darling, you’re here.  You always find me, don’t you sweetie? I knew you would.”  I made as if to check in, but Lucky would have none of it.

“I’ve a large Ambassador Suite.  You must stay with me, darling.  This is Africa.  You’d not believe all the predators on this continent.  You’ll be safer with me.  How I love my little darling.  Are you hungry?”  She swept me up and carried me to her suite.  Fresh fish was soon on the way.