“All right, fine,” said Desmond, his mood souring quickly now that he didn’t get what he wanted. “Be that way. But you can’t ask a guy for a favor and not expect him to want a favor in return.”
“Just leave already.”
“All right, all right, I’m going. Jeez. But this is the last time I’m doing your shopping for you, you hear?” And as he left, we could hear him mutter, “Old fool.”
“He’s not very nice, is he, Desmond?” said Dooley.
“No, he’s a very disagreeable person,” I said. “And Henry seems to agree with that assessment.”
“The way he was talking about Kirsten just now? No respect, Max. No respect at all.”
“Well, by now I think we know what to expect from Desmond,” I said. “And the last thing is respect for women—Kirsten in particular.” Or any person, for that matter.
“Odd that Brian keeps him around, though, isn’t it? You would think that a guy like Desmond would have been let go from a job like this a long time ago.”
“Yeah, that is odd. Unless Brian is so preoccupied that he simply doesn’t care.”
But that part of the mission was Harriet and Brutus’s concern. When working as a spy in the field, one thing one learns is that there is a great degree of compartmentalization going on. The left paw doesn’t know what the right paw is doing and so on and so forth. Though in our case we did know what Harriet and Brutus were up to, and frankly I was happy that I wasn’t in their place!
[Êàðòèíêà: img_3]
“Oh, do we really have to?” said Brutus. After their last close encounter with Brian’s libido the last thing he wanted was to go for seconds, since the sequel promised to be even worse than the first installment—as per definition.
“Yes, we do,” said Harriet determinedly. She wasn’t really all that excited about their mission either, but they made a promise to Gran, and in her book a promise was still a promise, and no spy worth their salt has ever left their post, no matter how tough the going gets.
“But we know where those cameras have to go,” Brutus argued. “One behind his desk, one above his desk for that all-important bird’s eye view, and then another one from that bust in the corner—the one that reminded you of Kingman so much.”
Harriet smiled at the recollection. Brian did indeed have a large bust in his office, placed on top of a cabinet in the corner of his office. It probably depicted some important person, though she had no idea who, and did indeed remind her somewhat of Kingman.
“I think it’s Churchill,” said Brutus now, surprising her with his knowledge of history. “I googled it last night,” he explained.
“Okay, look, I know this is a tough assignment, but we have to see it through, snow pea. Or else we won’t be able to give Sara the satisfaction of getting full custody of her kids once this divorce goes through.”
“I know, I know,” said Brutus. “But darn it if this isn’t the worst assignment anyone ever got. Give me Max’s job any day over this one.”
She had to admit that at first their assignment had sounded a lot more important and interesting than Max’s, who simply had to watch some old dude being friendly to Kirsten. But now that things were getting serious, it was obvious that Max had picked the plum job, as usual.
They had arrived at their destination, and once again snuck into Dee’s office, hoping that the PA had left her window open. And as luck would have it, she had.
“Okay, but this is the absolute last time,” said Brutus. “If he’s in there doing the horizontal mambo again, I’m out of here. Even it’s the vertical mambo—I mean it.”
“Promised,” said Harriet. “If he’s up to his old tricks again, we’re gone.”
“Great,” said Brutus, though he didn’t look or sound all that great. And Harriet could feel his pain.
But when they arrived, they could immediately see that they had picked their moment: Brian was in there, wrapped in a passionate embrace with the same red-haired woman as the day before. Gladys Judder had already divested herself of a great proportion of her vestments and Brian himself was also partly in a state of undress.
“Okay, so let’s go over this quickly,” said Harriet. “One camera over there, one over there by Kingman’s bust.”
“Churchill’s bust,” said Brutus, trying hard not to look at the copulating couple.
“And then another one over there, in that little salon.” Cause she was fairly sure that Brian used the salon for more than just entertaining potential residents and their family. “And we should probably install a camera in Jane Judder’s room as well.”
“Agreed. Can we go now?” asked Brutus urgently.
“Yes, please!”
But even as they made to leave, suddenly next to them a familiar figure appeared, sneaking up to the window and peeking inside.
It was Dee Phillips, and when she saw Brian and Gladys getting down and dirty, she uttered a scream of such volubility it actually hurt Harriet’s eardrums!