Monday, June 14, 2004

   Cream Filling & Nougat: Third Helping (Chapter XVI)
[For those of you keeping track, this chapter officially makes this the longest "Cream Filling & Nougat story" EVER written! Ahh . . . but, I'm not gonna push my luck, so I'm gonna see if I can round it off soon. It'd be best that way, I think. Don't you? Of course you do!]


The two gangsters continued to circle around the club's parking lot in the early evening watching out for a man who was apparently a police officer of some sort. Of the dozen or so men that went into the club to flush him out, they were the ones left back in case the cop somehow got past them. They had detachedly watched the unmoving cars for about five minutes when a voice called out from the nearby alley,
"Someone stop him before he gets away!" They looked up and saw the man waving for them to come with him. Without question, the two men palmed their concealed guns and ran towards the direction of the alley.

Just as they ran past the alley, they caught up to the man who had called for them earlier. He seemed out of breath, and was staring out down the nearest road while his shoulders sunk down.
"Which way did he go?" the first gangster asked, "we'll get him for ya." The man swallowed hard, and continued to breathe heavily.
"No, it's too late . . ." he said before turning around, smiling.

Before the puzzled gangsters could do anything, the first one had already taken a sharp punch to the solar plexus and was hunched over. The second gangster drew his gun, but before he could level it, the man had already vaulted over the first man and had slammed the bottom of his fist against the base of the still standing man's neck. The aggressor finally swung a hook at the staggering gangster's head and knocked him to the pavement, while simultaneously using the motion of the punch to turn himself back towards the first gangster. A swift knee to the bent over man's head completed the movement.
". . . . . yeah, I think he got away," Cream said as he looked at the two unconscious men on the ground. He then quickly made his way back to his car.


Cream had since gotten far away from the club and any potential pursuers and was parked on a small, unlit residential street. With but his interior lights to give proof of his existence in the world at the moment, the detective thumbed his way through the many papers he had recently liberated.
"Okay," he said as he spoke to his distanced partner, "we got crap . . . crap . . . more crap . . . possible crap . . . . . another food wrapper, aw damn it . . ."
"Well, what does the potential crap say?" Nougat asked.
"Uh, lessee . . ." Cream flipped back and started skimming down the messy and undoubtedly male hand writing. ". . . okay, it's all in point-form, and now that I think about it, the words look like they're in a sort of code-ish speech or cant or something."
"Let's hear it."

Cream mumbled some of the words to himself as he read down the list.
"Ah, I get it now," he said, "they're making it sound like they're cooking a pizza or something . . ."
"You better be sure that's not an actual pizza recipe, man," Nougat said, a hint of a laugh in his breath.
"Noug', they're gangsters, they're not Italian, and it was in a locked drawer in a nightclub," Cream retorted. "I think we're safe." Nougat exhaled from his end.
"Alright . . . tell me how we make this pizza . . ."

The two detectives spent the next ten or fifteen minutes passing phrases and theories back and forth to each other, trying to discern the best way to go about things.
"Okay," Cream said, looking down the list again, "so if what we're doing is actually right, then what we've got is an important guy about to leave town from either a hotel or a motel or something . . . and that's a big if, all things considering . . ." Cream sat silent as Nougat mumbled thoughts to himself.
"You said there were some numbers, right?" he asked
"Yeah, that's right," Cream answered. "Now, I know only weirdos would bake a pizza at different temperatures . . . especially ones so insanely different from each other . . . . ."
"Maybe it's a time?" Nougat suggested. Cream thought for a moment before jumping up in his seat.
"Or a date!" he said as he looked back to the sheet. "Yeah! This gives like, last week's date!"
"Last week doesn't help this week, Whip'," Nougat said.
"Hold on, hold on . . ." Cream went back to flipping through papers while Nougat waited. ". . . . . yeah! There it is!" The excitement in Cream's voice dared to waver right out of his body.
"What?"
"Another paper dated to that day last week! It's talking about a flight leaving in . . . about four hours tonight!"

Nougat sounded honestly convinced as he spoke back.
"Alright, so most likely he'll still be at his hotel, or wherever he is, right?"
"Most likely, yeah," Cream replied. "Of course . . . I've stirred up the hornet's nest now, so he'll probably be getting out a little earlier, ya figure?" Nougat grunted.
"Good point . . . alright, another race against the response . . . . . which hotel is it?" Cream looked back to the first paper with the scribbled notes and scanned up and down them.
"Okay, I got a longshot here . . . near the bottom of the 'recipe', it says something about enjoying the dish with a late night video . . . . ."
"Just spit it out, already!" Nougat barked.
"I'm just thinkin' . . . late night video . . . say he means home movie or something . . . . . could this guy be at The Hilton?" Cream waited while Nougat remained somewhat stunned.
"Dude . . . . . you're a perv'." Cream grinned.
"Yeah, but you got to where I was coming from, so that means it's not just me."
". . . such a perv' . . . . ." Cream grinned once again to be seen by nobody but himself in the rearview mirror.
"Yeah, I'm goin' to The Hilton. Call ya back."


[Okay . . . I think I sorta cheated with this chapter. Originally Cream was going to have already gotten to the hotel before it ended . . . but, well, I just HAD to get into secret codes and crap . . . . . in any case, hopefully nobody steps in the major plotholes of this chapter, and I'll get back to ya as soon as I can! Peace!]
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