Chapter 1: A Flight Unexpected

written by: Scott Sevener (appearing courtesy of Just Laugh magazine)

This might not turn out to be such a bad summer after all! As the airplane rose higher and higher into the stratosphere, Jane and Julia tipped back glass after glass of red wine as fast as the stewardesses...or flight attendants (to keep the politically correct lawyers at bay)...were able to bring them. Mind you, they were still incredibly excited by the bizarre chain of events that had gotten them this far over the past several months, yet time, or even fate, would soon prove that consuming mass quantities of alcohol probably wasn’t in their best interest at this point...

Brief Recap:

For those of you just joining the party, let us take just a brief moment to bring things up to speed. Our heroines, Jane McCaffery and Julia , just recently busted their boss, a greasy-looking fellow named Jim Gosen, for a huge embezzlement scheme involving Robin Williams and a lawn bowling tournament. One thing led to another and eventually they found themselves in the first-class section of a plane on its way to Bermuda...with a whole lot of cash. You can catch the rest of the details here on your own time, but right now let’s get back to our current story.

As the pseudo-homosexual give-and-take of Antonio Banderas and Woody Harrelson progressed between fight scenes in the background, Jane and Julia continued to pound away drinks like a couple of sorority sisters, transforming what should’ve been a bone-racking twelve hour journey into their very own Margaritaville at 30,000 feet! It was surprising to many that the plane even made it to its destination, and even more surprising that several first-class passengers were still both conscious and coherent upon arrival, but possibly the most surprising of all was the fact that not a single person noticed the two mysterious men that had been closely following the girls ever since they had left the Lawn Bowling Championships in Gosen’s limousine. You’d think that it would’ve been fairly obvious, too – a couple of middle-aged gentlemen decked out in henchmen-like clothing straight out of the 1940s, bowler’s caps and all! Just goes to show you what a little tequila and a lot of free time can do to you, now doesn’t it?

Unfortunately, Tim and Jerry actually were two of the conscious and coherent passengers on that flight, but certainly not by Jerry’s choice. Tim had this rule about not getting completely blasted while they were on a job, especially one that was paying as much money as this one happened to be paying, and over the years Jerry had found that it was just easier to grumble and go along with his partner’s stupid rules. Twelve hours – hell, he’d experienced hangovers in three different time zones within a twelve hour period back in the day, but not on this trip. No, this time his sentence was spending nearly half a day stuck in an airplane’s lounge, watching crappy boxing movies while everyone else was having the time of their lives. If it weren’t for the $200,000 that they were promised for this deal, he’d already be kicking back in an extremely oversized tiki hut somewhere between here and nowhere...but for the time being, Bermuda would have to do...

Tim, on the other hand, was obviously the more professional of the two, almost to the point of being pretty anal about it, and not in that cute sort of way! He had, however, picked up one important skill that was becoming more and more important on every mission they were assigned, and that was being able to tune out Jerry’s incessant bitching and whining. Deep down he knew that Jerry was only kidding around, for the most part, and apparently it could actually have been much, much worse, according to some of the horror stories he had heard from other seasoned men and women in his particular line of work, but it was really the last thing he needed at this point, especially on a job as big as the one that they had been handed. He had seriously considered finding a different partner for this particular gig, but, for whatever reason, the boss insisted that he and Jerry did this one together, so Tim just shuffled his papers, played around on his laptop, and tried his best to pretend that the seat next to him was empty.

But man, twelve hours was an awful long time for anyone to spend shuffling papers! He looked over to see Jerry buried in an intense strain, his nails so deep into the armrest that it was nearly coming apart, and although Tim was unsure whether it was the lack of alcohol surging through Jerry’s system or his desperation for a plot that made any sense as Fight Club came to a conclusion on the screen ahead of them, but he knew that they needed to get off of that plane, fast. Tim motioned to the stewardess and requested a single, dry martini for Jerry, just to help calm his nerves. Returning the armrest to as close to its original form as he could manage, Jerry gratefully took the drink and downed it in two swift gulps, thanking the woman as she left.

Leaning over towards his partner, Jerry spoke for the first time since they had boarded the plane, "So you’ve got everything in order, right?"

"Yeah," Tim replied with a quiet murmur, "everything’s under control. Those two are so toasted right now that an eight-year-old could tail them, so at least our first night in paradise should be a cake walk. After that, though..."

Jerry nodded, "I was afraid of that..." They continued on this secretive, whispering banter for a few minutes, even though they probably could’ve been using megaphones for all anyone else cared.

An intoxicated haze drifted over the first class section, directing the cares and concerns of the other passengers up through the copious ventilation ducts, thus presenting them all with only a taste of what they could look forward to in the land without schedules, curfews, or even rules in general! Bermuda was a place where anything could happen, and in fact anything often did happen, without much of an explanation to boot. Some people traveled there for a chance to disappear from their normal, chaotic, mundane lives, while even more traveled there because it was the perfect place for less than legal activities to easily disappear off the record. And then there were those who just sort of managed to disappear for no good goddamn reason – the kinds of stories that ended up on Unsolved Mysteries and the cover of the National Enquirer...

Julia and Jane, coincidentally, were distinct members of this inebriated bunch who simply couldn’t wait to touch down and start exploring, so when they heard an attendant announce that it was time for everyone to buckle their seatbelts for the final approach, it only took them seven tries between the two of them to figure the silly things out. Nonetheless, though, it wasn’t nearly enough to distract Jane from the feeling that her eardrums were about to explode...if only she had been chewing Wrigley’s Winterfresh gum, "Where icy cool breath is always on..." (Reasonably priced and available everywhere, she’d be sure to grab a pack for the return trip!)

As the plane finally touched down after a long, long journey, the attendants made their last minute arrangements and began ushering out each of the first-class passengers together with their respective parties. Three elderly couples proceeded before Jane and Julia began to make their way to the exit, and not just because they were being polite! A still tipsy Jane found her hands groping for support from the nearby attendants in more than one instance, leaving the staff to wonder just how long it would take for either of the ladies to pass out in the heat!

Keeping their distance a few rows back, Tim and Jerry arose and thanked the stewardesses for "a most entertaining flight," receiving a general response that they only hoped that their stay would prove to be just as memorable. Jerry grinned uneasily as Tim gave a hearty chuckle and rushed his companion onward. Slipping past the captain and his cockpit crew who were already busy shaking children’s hands and giving away trinkets, they passed a large, illuminated sign that nearly took up half the terminal and invoked a laugh from even Jerry as they walked on...

Continue on to the next chapter...