Management wishes to apologize to fans of the thrilling "Jonkatta of Mars" serial, but the feature film this episode runs a bit long in order to resolve the Five Brothers plotline. Tune in next episode as Jonkatta finally meets his distant cousins, the Red Squirrels of Mars! Coherent Comics UnInc. Presents: ___ __ __ ___ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ CRAZY GUY #25 / '/ | / | / \/ / ' / / \/ "Oh, Brother!" / /--' /--| / / / __ / / / copyright 1998 Dave Van Domelen `___ / | / |/__ _/ `__/ \__/ _/ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Jack snapped the disguise kit from his car closed with a satisfied SNAP and checked out the results in one of the hotel room's mirrors. His hair was more or less white, thanks to generous amounts of talcum powder. A shaggy white mustache was glued to his upper lip, and shaggy false white eyebrows mostly covered his real ones. A pair of wire-rimmed glasses with fake lenses perched on the end of his nose, and a wide-brimmed white hat sat atop his head. In short, he looked like a southern gentleman straight out of a bad high school play. Smoothing down the wide lapels of his longtailed white coat, Jack cleared his throat and went into the room's kitchenette to find Louie. "Ah say, suh," he addressed the squirrel in a really fake southern accent. "Have you, ah say, have you seen a gennulmun by the name of Jack?" he grinned briefly before returning to a stereotypical gruffly southern mein. "What in the name a' Buddha's left pinky...who are ya, and how did ya get inta th' room?" Louie demanded, then realized that most people didn't know squirrels could talk. "Er, chitter, cheep, squeak." He tried to look cute and harmless. Jack peeled off the mustache and broke into a wide grin. "It's me, Louie! Great disguise, hey?" Louie paused and shook his head, as if trying to clear the cobwebs from it. "As a matter a' fact, it's a lousy disguise. I seen Inspector Clouseau do better. After Sellers died, even." "But it worked, didn't it?" "Yeah. WHY?" Louie demanded, his eyes bugging out nervously. "Am I crackin' up so bad so's dat lousy mustache tricked me?" "Nah," Jack said, putting the mustache back on rather lopsidedly. "The makeup man told me it's like the Mask Principle. As long as I stay in character, the Cheesy Disguise Principle keeps people from being able to see past the role. Doesn't work for everyone...you have to be from a movie reality like me, or work in Hollywood for a long time." "So," Louie sighed the sigh of someone who knows he's about to willingly enter the jaws of embarrassing death, "we're gonna go back ta th' house and try ta buy th' other brother?" "Sure, the plan is foolproof. Come on, let's go get Mairi," Jack headed for the door. As he followed, Louie muttered under his breath, "If it's foolproof, how did it let you get involved with it?" * * * * "When did the woman in room 133 check out?" Jack asked the man at the checkout desk of the hotel. "Mairi Wynn," he added. The clerk punched a few keys on his terminal. "About an hour ago. Wait, there's a message here...are you Jack, room 161?" When Jack held up his room key and nodded, the clerk opened the file. "It says here she had to catch an early flight and didn't want to wake you. She left a package for you in the hotel safe. Could you sign here for it while I get the package?" He proffered an electronic clipboard with stylus attached to it, and indicated the place he should sign on the LCD screen. "I wonder what she left for me," Jack mumbled as he signed on the line and hit the "done" square with the tip of the stylus. "I'll be over behind th' pillars in case it's tickin'," Louie said as he scampered off Jack's shoulder and ran across the lobby. Jack handed the clipboard back and took the package from the clerk. It was a heavy object, wrapped in a few layers of the complimentary stationery and tied with complimentary floss. The clerk handed it off with a mild look of distaste. "Will you be checking out, sir?" "Huh? Oh, no, not yet, anyway. I still have business in town today. Thank you." He started walking back to his room. "Come on, Louie, seems safe enough." "NOW ya invoked Murphy. I'm stayin' right here." "Fine, be that way. Meet me at the car in five?" "If yer still in one piece, sure." * * * * Five minutes passed without any earth-shattering kaboom. Then ten, and Louie started to worry. After fifteen minutes of watching the dashboard clock, Louie scampered over to the window of the hotel room, an easy enough task since it was on the first floor. Inside, Jack was just sitting on the edge of the bed and staring at something in his hands, occasionally shaking his head. Louie rapped on the window, but got no response, so he crawled up to the bathroom vent (which he'd had Jack loosen the night before) and entered the hotel room. "So, what was in th' package dat gotcha so riled up?" Louie asked, unsteadily weaving across the bathroom tiles on his way into the main part of the room. Claws are not good on tile. Jack looked up. He'd removed the fake mustache and glasses, tossed the hat in the corner and shaken most of the powder out of his hair. "This," he said, holding up the Third Brother. "Mairi must have grabbed it on the way out and left it for me." "Great! One less wacky chase scene to deal with, right? So how come yer not happy? Looking forwards ta th' southern fried gentleman schtick?" "Because this puts me in a real ethical bind, Louie. There's no way I can take this BACK to the mansion, explain I stole it and then offer to buy it, at least none I've been able to think of sitting here. So I have to choose between botching the mission and stealing something I have no guarantee was stolen in the first place." "Geez...looks like ya need some serious moral guidance here, Jackers," Louie sighed. As if on cue, Jack's PacHell(TM) cellphone rang from under one of the pillows. Jack nearly jumped to the ceiling. "Gah! I thought I left that in the car!" "You did, I just saw it there a minnit ago," Louie confirmed. "Seems ta be a running gag. Answer it, already." Jack dug the phone out and flipped it open, hitting the "receive" button. "Hello?" "Hello, Jack. B.L.Z. Bobb here," the voice on the other end oozed. "I hear you're having trouble dealing with an ethical dilemma, and thought I might give you a hand." Jack paused and stared at the phone for a moment, then put it back to his ear. "*You* have advice on dealing with an ethical dilemma? What would you know about ethical behavior, other than how to avoid it?" "You wound me, but you do reach the, ah, crux of the matter. In order to consistently avoid something requires a great deal of knowledge about that thing, yes? If a vegetarian is to avoid meat, she must know a great deal about what innocuous-sounding dishes hide meat or meat-related products in them, you see. Similarly, it's very hard work here at Hell (TM) Inc. determining precisely what is the good and the beautiful, that we may avoid and/or oppose it." Jack furrowed his brow. "I suppose that makes sense." "Watch out, kid...when the devil starts makin sense, ya know yer in trouble," Louie warned. "Of course it does," Bobb replied. "Now, as to the matter at hand. As I understand it, your particular dilemma involves a question of the ownership of the Five Brothers, specifically the Third Brother, although it's not unreasonable to say the question could arise in other cases. Yes?" Jack nodded, then realized he was on the phone. "Uh, yes." "Then there is no real problem. All five of the statues were stolen by British and other colonial interests in the mid-1800s. As part of a title search in preparation for taking possession of the statues once you recover them, Mr. Jones had clerical determine the identity of the true owner of the collection. In a bit of good luck, the last legal owner of the statues was a Manchu businessman named Tiger, who was part of a recent trade in damned souls between Hell (TM) Inc. and one of the Chinese afterlives...we like to think of this sort of thing as bringing talent up from the minors, you see. So, as Mr. Jones owns Tiger, and Tiger owns the Five Brothers, you are actually recovering our property after all. Wait, I have another call, could you hold?" "Er, okay," Jack said. There was a faint click, and the sound of Hansen covering "Bohemian Rhapsody" wafted from the receiver. "Gah, Hell's (TM) Muzak (TM)." Fortunately, it didn't last long. "Jack, Bobb here. I've just been informed that the most recent owner of the Third Brother has joined us down here this morning, rendering the whole issue moot...he belongs to us too, unsurprisingly. Good luck finding the First Brother, I'll talk to you once you get back to the States." "Er, bye?" Click. Then it sunk in and Jack smacked his forehead. "THAT'S where Mairi went. I totally forgot she was hired to kill that guy. Guess there's no point in hanging around here any longer...let's go check out." * * * * On arrival at LAX, Jack had no trouble getting through customs once he flashed his Hell (TM) Inc. businesscard, despite the fact he was carrying several pieces of (strictly speaking) stolen jade artwork. Professional courtesy and all. What, you didn't know that customs officials are apprentice Tormentors from 666NASTYNASTYNASTY? Come on, you don't think they *accidentally* wipe out your vacation film, spill your aftershave in your laptop computer and impound anything you happen to need for work tomorrow? They're working their way up to serious psychological torment, like posing as consumers and calling software support lines...or posing as software support personnel and answering consumer questions (once in a while a fake consumer gets a fake support person, but they usually figure out what's happening and fake a lively conversation which one of them then starts circulating as a net.myth). Where was I? Oh yeah, about to shoot down my chances of ever having an untroubled flight for the rest of my life. But before I end up getting my luggage permanently routed through Terrania, it's time to (in a narrative sense) run headlong down the concourse to catch up with Jack, who was on his way out while I waxed philosophical. "...yes, I recovered the Second Brother, John," he said into his cellphone, looking for all the world like just another businessman hurrying through the airport with a squirrel in his pocket. Or maybe he was just glad to see you. Ow, stop hitting. "You've had the Fourth Brother shipped to L.A. already? Thanks much, I'm sure my employer's getting impatient by this point. No, no need to mention me in the recordbooks, the regular driver deserves the credit. Bye!" he hung up on Mr. Upton. On his way to the car rental counter, Jack stopped by the food court [Author's note: I don't really know if LAX has a food court, but every other major airport I've been in has added one, so it's not too hard to accept that LAX has one now. Maybe they added one during the rebuilding following Mighty Guy's most recent visit to L.A.] and grabbed a somewhat overpriced order of dumplings and rice from Mark Pi's Chinese Express And World Domination Plot Oh Wait Ignore That Last Part, which he deftly ate as he wove between the various harried travelers. "Hey, Jack, ain't'cha gonna open th' fortune cookie?" Louie asked between bites of one of the dumplings. "No way. This title may call me Crazy Guy, but I'm not insane. Fortune cookies are *dangerous* these days." "Nah, only if yer in High School. Here, I'll open it." A rustling of cellophane, a cracking of cookie. "Hmm. 'You will get indigestion from the dumpling, the chef extends a thousand apologies.' Okay, maybe not just High School Students." "Thanks a lot, Louie. Now I'm going to get indigestion. I ate more of the dumplings than you did." "Yeah, but each dumpling's the size a' my head. Maybe if I eat th' cookie it'll help." * * * * Jack left the mewling and thankfully not puking Louie in the car as he went into the Jung Gallery, Importers of Fine Jade. The cookie hadn't helped, and now Louie was valiantly trying not to toss it on the rented upholstery. The owner, whose name was not Jung, and who would explain the whole long boring story behind this if you didn't stop him in time, greeted Jack just inside the door. "Hello, Mister Yuen [the false last name Jack adopted a few episodes back when visiting this gallery - Ed.]! I got your message, and have made the arrangements you requested. You won't regret your choice to keep the Brothers here while you complete the set. Our security is much higher than that of the bank you were using, and we're more discreet. May I see the pieces you brought with you?" With a slight pang of guilt, Jack opened his satchel and pulled out the Second and Third Brothers, setting them down on the table so that their sides locked together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The owner's eyes went wide with appreciation as he motioned to an assistant to bring out the Fifth Brother, which had arrived that morning from the bank. It fit against the Second Brother smoothly and precisely. "Amazing. No one alive today has seen more than two of these statues assembled in one place. Isn't it breathtaking?" the owner asked. "Yes, it is," Jack had to admit. He could see where the First and Fourth Brothers would fit, could almost see the statues by means of the spaces where they weren't. "And to think, in a few days we might see all five together for the first time in over a century." "Oh?" Jack cocked his head. "You know where the First Brother is?" "Indeed I do. In fact, it is in Los Angeles, in the possession of a local businessman and community leader. I have already contacted him on your behalf and he has agreed to meet with you to discuss terms of sale." Jack's face lit up. This was going to be easier than he thought. The owner continued, "His name is Pei Man." Jack's face fell like a damaged souffle. "You know him?" the owner asked. * * * * "Ready...FIGHT!" Jack and Pei Man warily circled each other on the padded mat as two referees stood back and kept pace with the pair, and an auditorium full of people cheered and yelled. Jack had the advantages of youth, speed and rapid healing, but Pei Man was crafty and experienced, the crowd was mainly cheering for him, and he'd picked the rules of the fight. "I will sell you the thing you seek on one condition," he had said the day before, as they met in his home. "Once before you defeated me through trickery and a magic staff [in 36 Crazy Plots #3 - Ed]. I desire a rematch, without weapons. Just still against skill." "To the death?" Jack had asked in return. "No. I know of your special talents now...I cannot kill you, and have no desire to die once I tire of snapping your neck. It will be a refereed event." As Jack leaned back to avoid a lightning-fast two-finger strike, he started to realize what kind of situation he'd gotten into. With touches counting for the points under this scoring system, his supernatural talents gave him no edge. And while he had the statue regardless of whether he won or lost, the real stakes were reputation, face. If he lost this time, the earlier agreement he'd forced between Pei Man and Li Ning would probably crumble. The fact that his sometime ally "Slow" Moe Shen was in the audience didn't help either. A feather-soft touch flickered across the back of Jack's leg as Pei Man delicately tapped him with the heel of his left palm. Delivered with real force, it would have been a leg-breaker move, and the judges raised their flags. The first bout went to Pei Man. As the combatants went back to their respective ends of the mat, Jack wracked his brain for a style which could help him out here. Almost every art he knew was designed with the intention of inflicting real damage, and by the rules Pei Man had laid down for this match, real damage was grounds for immediate forfeiture. Pei Man's adapted Tai Chi exercises were gentle enough to meet this requirement, but Jack had to hold back too much to avoid not holding back enough. The second bout started, and Jack decided to try and turn his own exercises to good use. "Plucking flies from the air," he muttered as he started making snatching motions with his hands, as if trying to grab at Pei Man's flowing white mustache. His strikes were blocked, and he was about to have to do some blocking of his own, when he recalled a move from Kid Fu. "Trick or treat, smell my feet!" he said, shoving his foot straight up into Pei Man's face, stopping just shy of hitting and then tapping his toes against the Triad boss's nose. The flags went up. The audience booed, snarling at such a childish move. This was no good. If he won this way, the crowd would still be against him. But what other style had his father taught him which might prevail here? He could shatter walnuts in his hands, break boards with his head, snuff candles across the room with his...well, sometimes they flared up instead. But his experience had always been in causing serious damage. He was a regular bull in a china shop. Bull in a china shop. Of course! The animal styles! The flags dropped to start the deciding bout, and suddenly Jack was charging across the mat, changing directions almost at random, snorting as he ran, his arms at his sides. Pei Man was taken aback. Had Jack given up on the rules and decided to go for blood? Jack charged at Pei Man, who leapt over Jack's head, his white hair fluttering like a banner as he arced through the air. Jack turned on his heel and rammed his head towards the descending opponent, who couldn't change his trajectory enough. Fortunately for him, Jack stopped just shy of ramming Pei Man, instead butting him gently in the stomach with the top of his head. "Bull in china shop breaks bowl," he said clearly enough for the crowd to hear. The flags went up. Jack had won. The audience was largely silent, with a smattering of polite applause. Pei Man stepped back, a look of calm resignation on his face. "Very well. My honor is satisfied." With that, he turned and left for the locker room, followed by his assistants and the Serially Numbered Triad Goons. * * * * "I'm sorry," Jack explained to the owner of the Jung Gallery, "my employer insisted that no one else be present when the Five Brothers are reunited aside from himself and me." Which was true...Jack had even had to tell Louie to wait outside. "Well, I suppose he's paid enough for the priviledge of being the first to see the completed group," the owner sighed. "Maybe he believes in the occult powers and doesn't want to share?" the man grinned impishly. "Still, I hope he relents and lets me view it before leaving." "I'll be sure to ask. Now please go, he'll be here any moment." The owner nodded and left the secure back room in which the Five Brothers sat, each on its own pedestal. Jack waited a moment, then closed and locked the door. Almost instantly, the room was filled with a smell which assailed Jack's nose...old socks. Satan T. Lucifer Jones, Duke of Smelly Feet and other such epithets entered the room in a burst of brimstone which somehow didn't mask the tremendous foot odor. "Ah, the Five Brothers. I've anticipated this for some time." He waved his hand and the five pieces of exquisitely carved jade floated together to join on the central pedestal. Jack braced himself. Several long seconds passed as Mr. Jones admired the piece of art, before he noticed that Jack seemed to be cringing. "Whatever is wrong with you?" "Well, where's the flash of light or burst of smoke or whatever?" Jack asked. Jones laughed, a deep basso profundo chuckle. "My dear Jack, take a good look at this statue. What do you see?" Jack scrutinized the Five Brothers. "A jade statue...probably the most beautiful I've ever seen. But I expected..." Satan interrupted with a grin. "Yes, you expected it to be some object of legendary power which I might use to launch another assault on mankind. No, not this time. Is it not enough that it is beautiful? Is it so hard to believe that I might want something beautiful just because of that beauty? Too many people fixate on the 'fallen' part of fallen angel, and forget that I can appreciate things like this. This is one of the finest expressions of the human spirit ever crafted. Perhaps not in the top hundred, but definitely up there. Apart, the pieces are oddities, interesting but not inspiring. Together, there is a transcendental purity and wholeness to the piece." Jack scratched his head. "I thought your primary goal was to spread pain and suffering, not create beauty and inspiration." "Ah, but there's sin of commission, and sin of omission," Jones replied, beckoning the statue closer to him with a crook of one finger. "Omission?" "You can create the evil by removing the good. No one will ever see the Five Brothers in this world again. Goodbye, Mr. Bobb will be in touch when I have another job for you." And with that, Satan T. Lucifer Jones vanished, as did the Five Brothers. And the world got a little less beautiful. ============================================================================ Author's Notes: Bummer, eh? And things are going to get worse for Jack before he figures out a way to make them better. Oh, and there's a joke to the Jung Gallery name (it's pronounced with j as in jug, not like Carl Jung), but it's too involved to go into here.