Behemoth had already arranged a Mercedes-Benz bus.  A pretty girl with a nasty purple scar about her neck sat in the driver’s seat.  As Lucky clambered into the bus, a fellow named Korovyev was doing card tricks for the pretty girl. He called her Hella.  I heard him telling Hella that, for a taste of her left nipple, he was willing to do 5 card tricks.  Hella told to go fuck himself.  

What a mistake Hella’s command was.  In an augenblick, the inventive Korovyev created the illusion of him fucking himself.  His illusion sang Russian folk tunes as it gave itself a fucking.  From the top of my bag, I noticed Hella was grinning and leering at the sight of Korovyev’s conjured member.  That faux penis was longer and thicker than a baby’s arm.  Hella’s mouth was watering.

Lucky had the good sense to get me back to a staider, comfy portion of the bus.  Behemoth and Walt were sitting at a card table where they were encouraging us to join them for a game of Hearts.  

Walt assured me it was an honest game.  Korovyev was excluded.  When he played, he shot the moon every hand.  Neither Walt nor Behemoth was willing to grant that Krovyev was lucky at Hearts.  They suspected him of cheating.  Don’t play cards with a conjureman.  

Before I could agree on stakes, Lucky intervened.  “Crocky isn’t allowed to gamble.  He can’t control himself.  So, I forbid it.”  Behemoth listened to her as he poured himself a yard of Belvedere vodka.  Behemoth sneered that it was “unseemly” for a cat to take orders.  

Lucky chimed in that Behemoth should think of me as a Love Machine, not a cat.  I wished she hadn’t said that.

“Well, he looks like a neutered cat to me,” replied Behemoth.  Everybody at the table got a good laugh out of that.  I could feel a sulk coming over me, along with a vague idea that life would be easier in diapers.  Before I could retreat with my wounded ego, Walt got me to sit next to him.

Since he was still lapping up beer, Walt’s tongue had loosened.  He was drinking Paulaner Salvator Doppelbock.    According to Walt, life in San Antonio got boring after his victory at Martinez Creek.  To many of the Toms got soft from bedding down with Molls. Family life was not for Walt. 

Anyway, not long after my work in Somalia, Behemoth and Woland showed in San Antonio.  Azazello was with them.  They described their rage at punk Somali pirates seizing ships owned by Woland that carried more drugs than a Spanish galleon of yore.  Behemoth gave Walt a tirade on how worthless the American and the Brits had become on pirates.  “Nobody wants to hang pirates anymore.  The Brits used to string scores of them up on the yardarms of British Man-of-Wars.  Now they negotiate.   Gag me”  As he said that, Behemoth slammed his bottle of vodka down so hard that he broke it.  Walt confessed he was amused when Behemoth mopped up the vodka with his own tale and proceeded to suck the vodka out of it.  

Woland and Azazello then had made a simple pitch to Walt.  “We know you, Walt.  Our sources tell us that you’re a natural killer.  We’re recruiting soldiers- or, if you prefer, sailors-of-fortune willing to treat pirates like pirates.  We can’t have Somali amateurs stealing drugs from us and then having the chutzpah to try to extort ransom for the drugs from us.  Tell us you will join our campaign of deterrence to start hanging these mother-fizzuckers.”  

Walt lapped up more beer.  According to Walt, at first he didn’t feel a strong pull to hang Somalis, but then Woland got down to talking about Walts fees and incentives.  He promised Walt that he was free to torture the Somalis any way he chose during interrogations.  Further, he would receive 20% of any drug inventory on any reclaimed ship.  Even better, he would receive a $10,000 bonus, payable to Swiss accounts in gold bouillon, for every hanged pirate. Once Walt stopped the piracy, he would receive a subsidy for life, also payable in bouillon, to run a People’s Republic on the Coast of Somalia, provided all Somali boys were gelded at birth as a measure to prevent the development of criminal friendly traits like muscles.  

After agreeing on terms, Walt told me he made himself a rich man.  Alas, he found that living in Somalia didn’t agree with him.  bHe fixed tat by promoting his ablest Lieutenant, Kitty Niger Bravo, to terrorise the Somalis out of returning to piracy.  It turned out it was easier to suppress piracy than Woland or Azazello imagined.  The key, said Walt, was refusing to be squeamish about hanging or enslaving the wives, children, and extended families of pirates.   Then, too, the longstanding kitty judicial principle that it is better that 1,000 innocents hang than one criminal escape his just desserts made suppression easier to achieve and maintain.  Of course Niger Bravo’s habit of shooting troublemakers from the UN, Oxfam, Amnesty International, and other foreign snivellers was creating tensions, but, as Walt put it, “True leaders must be firm with crybabies.”  

“But why,” I asked, “are we headed to Lithuania?”  

Walt stared into my green eyes. “There is a fight coming, Crocky, a fight that will have more excitement in it than sex with a thousand and one Molls.  I want to be there.  Life’s not all about money.”

As I listened, I didn’t have the heart to tell Walt I’d been earning extra Krugerrand writing more stories for L’Afrique Aujourd’hui and other African mags touting Putin as the saviour of Africa.  I had just written a story on the latest scourge in Somalia, Great Leader Niger Bravo.  I didn’t have to make up many lies about P’s rottenness.  The Puti is a mega-monster.  If you want him to look bad, just tell the truth.  I did have to tell one whopper after another to continue the pretence that Putin is a friend of Africans rising up from their precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial history.  Like most of the world, African countries didn’t need to have colonialists to be run by crews of stinkers.  Letting the locals run anything can always equal or better the catastrophic works of colonialists.  

I did decided against telling Walt thatPutin was still paying me for the hagiographical stories I was writing on him.  What embarrassed me is that Puti is so vain he believes the bullshit I write about him.  And it’s a miracle that I can write this nonsense without getting drunk to do it.

I was processing Walt’s Out of Africa story when I heard a scream and a ruckus at the front of the bus.  Caution is the best policy when in doubt! Discretion is the better part of valour!  I hopped back into Lucky’s bag.  I survive because I am never afraid to flee.

Lucky, though,  was headed in the wrong direction, she was headed to the front fo the bus with a Walther in hand. Peering over the top of Lucky’s bag, I could see Korovyev bleeding from his chest  Hella soon spit a wad of titty-flesh onto the bus’s floor.  

Hella wailed that Korovyev tasted disgusting.  “I bit off a piece of his hairy titty.  It’s as nasty as almost anything I’ve ever put in my mouth.  Blame him.  A man should know better than to conjure himself fucking himself in front of a succubi.  For god’s sake, succubi live on a diet is sperm. I’m starving.  Based on the taste of his titty, I bet his cock’s a poisonous hose.”

Lucky was sympathetic.  “Do you want me to shoot him dead for you?”  

Hella didn’t hesitate, telling Lucky, “Don’t be ridiculous. If I wanted him dead, I’d kill him myself.  I’ll just want the other succubi about how bad he tastes.  He is one evil tasting seducer.”  In the meantime, Korovyev did the smart thing.  He had made himself invisible.  He was plainly a man with plenty of experience when it came to knowing what to do after wearing his welcomes thin.

Once Luck got back to me, she scratched my head.  I learnt from her that Hella would never kill Korovyev or ask to have him killed.  Behemoth and Woland make to much money off Korovyev’s magic to make killing him okay.  

“Then why did you offer to kill him?”  My curious mind wanted to know.

With total disbelief, Lucky stared at me. She then said, “Haven’t you noticed I’m Chinese?  It’s a Confucian etiquette thing. I had a duty to offer and she had a duty to refuse.”

When I shook my head, she got mad.  She hissed, “A cat dares to lecture anybody on killing anything over nothing.  At least when I kill somebody, I don’t play with his remains or leave a headless body for my boss to find.”

She then turned to disassembling and cleaning her PPQ.  When I started to crawl out of her bag, she suggested I make myself useful and figure out how to escape from this gang.

Before I’d solved that puzzle, we stopped at a rest area.  A running lorry was parked there.  Hella strolled from our bus.  She walked straight into a men’s room.  In 10 minutes, she returned.   After apologizing for the delay, she mentioned she no longer felt hungry.  The facilities, she said, had a men’s room with a unneeded glory hole and two obliging gents.  

Looking a wee tousled, she brushed her hair. I noticed her ears looked the worse for wear.  Lucky shushed me before I could share my thoughts.  Hella must have guessed what I was thinking, blowing me a kiss and then saying, “Sweetie, I’m not the kind of girl to let boys, even the biggest boys, to use my head and tell on me.”  She  pulled the bus away from the rest area.  Then I faced a new puzzle. Nobody other than Hella had ever left the men’s room.  The lorry was running but unoccupied. 

My face  scrunched.  Lucky was smiling, “And now, darling, you begin to perceive what a dangerous mob we’re travelling with.  You can stop looking at the lorry.  The cops will eventually tow it.  Its drivers are a permanently indisposed.”