Villainous Company

Brett's eylids pounded out an "SOS" as his spent husk twitched spasmodically to life in delayed reaction to the religious shrill's fund-raising efforts and the darkening sense that once again he would be subjected to the strains of an all-night faith revival and Clinton Family Swinger-Session without so much as a howdy-doo and a swig of Snapple, until he spied the ravened-haired waif with the ribs sticking out cleanly from her terribly taught trunk, and glanced down at his fading tattoo to make sure that it was she.

Live was hard

You are so dead :)

I raise you a drink.

Spelling is hard, too, Mr. Rdr. :)

Hey...The Man is a harsh taskmaster.

"You suck worse than Pile on!," she smiled sweetly, the ebony strands of her dark dank hair masking her deep-set black eye and violet irises, adjusting her ample headlights while one cleft boot dug toe-like into the muck that was moments before a steaming, fetid mosh-pit of global warming and casual desire. He never wanted her more than at that moment.

"Don't be absurd, doll-face", he replied nonchalantly, trying to disguise the trip-hammer action of his heart in his chest as it pounded away, hammering...hammering, thundering in his ears until he didn't think he could take the incessant yammering any more, until it was making more noise than Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton after Hurricane Katrina... "No one sucks worse than Pile On".

He sat up and reached for her longingly..

*********************
(by the way, just who in the hell is this chick anyway, spd? I realize she has big headlights, but how does she fit into the PLOT???)
*********************

Although his cheap sunglasses worked well to sheild his puffy eyes agianst the unstoppable glare of her high beams, Brett was focused on the tattoo slithering up out of her tight blouse and up her slender neck.
"Eek!" she cried out meekly as the asp sunk it teeth into her throat. Brett reacted quickly, letting his training take over. Leaping to his feet, he tossed a 5-spot on the table where the young woman lay writhing. "Never to forget to tip," he thought to himself as he headed for the door and the damp Washington evening.

"Pile On!" "Pile On!" he murmered to himself as he stepped into the moist Washington evening. It was one of those nights only moss could love. The air was as heavy and wet as a Turkish bathhouse with a new coal man trying to impress as he overfueled the boiler. It too reminded him of the harsh night 10 years ago when he was so close to exposing a double agent CIA operative, only to have Pile On's seduction lead her away from Brett's trap. And then that chap Wilson snagged her secrets -- and her love, which like a coach your drunk college roommate had pissed on, was just there for the taking after Pile On had used her and left her on the curb.

Oh Lord... :)

As the cab door opened, Chi Chi La Bamba tentatively extended a silk-clad toe into the humid DC air then snatched it back again as though stung. "Sheesh! It's getting deep out there", she thought as she steeled herself for another encounter with the Oink Cadre. Wincing slightly, she grabbed the door handle and plunged into the night as her gently swaying highbeams momentarily blinded the driver of an oncoming car, causing him to run over an old woman, her dog, and several unsuspecting pedestrians. Suddenly, she felt someone grab her from behind. It was her Bosom Buddy, Tippy Goodbody, a blonde bombshell with... well, let's just say shorthand wasn't the strong point on her resume.

"Chi Chi!", she said breathlessly, her chest heaving with each syllable (this was getting tiresome)... "I need to talk to you... something funny is going on at work..."

Suddenly from around the corner a car came barrelling straight for Tippy's ample derriere. Boom! Tippy went flying through the air with the greatest of ease, kind of like those magnificent men on the flying trapeze, but in a rather more scenic way due to the manner in which her postmodern Frank Lloyd Wright-esque cantilevered bustline caused her to flip, end-over-end, in slow motion before finally coming to rest exactly upright in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, pointing due North.

And to think they said that type of architecture was inherently unstable.

Fools.

"Aye Chihuahua!" thought Chi Chi to herself (because, after all, who else would she be thinking such a thing to?)

"Tippy's boss...eet hwas...Joe Hwilsone!"

Joe Wilson was in a biographical mood when the call to duty came. He was the painfully shy, unassuming, self-effacing son of an Egyptian baker, Farouk Souk, whose specialty was Yellow Cake with Mint Tea Frosting. His father had emigrated from the desert as a young man of 21, and soon after married Tagay Panaligan, the cute little Filipina lounge singer from the ship that had borne him to America’s welcoming arms. He was smitten when he first saw her sing “Volare” in the ship’s forward lounge, and he could not pull his eyes away from the tattoo that slithered and undulated with her every move, the asp that seemed to climb out of her sarong and up between her low beams to sink its fangs into her neck. There were no secrets between them, save one. Tagay would not discuss the tattoo.

Farouk loved America. He studied English and the American Constitution like a man possessed – he loved America, and would earn his citizenship and have a dozen children and teach them to love America too! He would teach them the names of the Presidents and the founding fathers, and it was with pride that he hung the framed portrait of Richard Nixon above the front door in the place where Gamal Abdel Nasser’s visage had hung in his childhood hut. The day he became an American citizen, he registered to vote, proud to be a Republican.

By day he toiled over a hot oven, by night he toiled over Tagay, and their shared labor resulted in her solitary labor, and she gave birth to a Caucasian son (this being America), whom they named Joe Wilson, in honor of Joe DiMaggio who had signed a baseball for Farouk, and being an immigrant who was trying mightily to assimilate, misunderstood the signature, believing that the “Wilson” on the baseball was Joe DiMaggio’s last name. From the time he was a child, shy little Joe Wilson avoided doing anything that would call attention to himself, including hiding on Picture Day at his elementary school, and ducking behind the person beside him at the last second when group photographs were taken of his little league team. In later years, there were so many pictures of Wilson’s face, obscured from the bridge of the nose down, that when the television show “Home Improvement” came on the air, his co-workers jokingly gave him the nickname “Wilson”, after Tim “The Toolman” Taylor’s reclusive, but wise, neighbor.

Reclusive and wise. These were Joe Wilson’s guiding principles, except the “wise” part. For there was a dark side to Joe Wilson. And so his biographical mood was shattered, along with his windshield, as he drove through Washington on that steamy, muggy night, and took aim with his Basalt Black Porsche Carrera GT, and sent that troublesome Tippy Goodbody into the next commenter’s post. He hoped she had not had time to talk. He sped off, without a backward glance, certain that no one had seen him, since he’d driven the black Carrera, and left the Fayence Yellow one at home.

Chi Chi ran to where Tippy's stiffly upright corpse stood, ramrod straight in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, her Twin Peaks jutting proudly out into the moist DC evening like... err.. twin peaks. Gingerly, she extended a lacquered fingernail and poked the dimwitted (and now dead) damsel squarely between her heavily-mascara'd eyeballs. Tippy did what upright corpses do, slowly beginning to tip over in a surreal sort of motion. Just at that moment out of the corner of her eye she saw a flash of canary yellow whiz by her at blinding speed and crash...right into Tippy's slowly-tipping corpse.

In a tangled mess on the pavement lay a man in nauseatingly-bright yellow bike shorts. He leapt up angrily and began looking around him into the otherwise deserted street.

"Did you see that?" he yelled. "That Secret Service agent got in my way! Do you know who I am?"

By the way MMom, I hate you.

Between you and spd, I'm going to give up :) You are too funny. Snake tattoo, indeed. Hmmmpppfff.

While ChiChi spd Tippy off to General Hospital, the Young and The Restless were gathered with All My Children waiting for the Edge Of Night to discuss Ryan's Hope. Or Brett's.

Anyway, Valerie La Plame, ChiChi's cousin twice removed, met Joe and it was Love At First Bite.

She so badly wanted to recipe for Yellow Cake with Mint Frosting...she would either have it or the man who could make it, she didn't care. But in order to make the cake, unknown to La Plame, Joe had to make cladestine trips to both Nigeria and MacArthur Park.

Chi Chi sat at the curb outside of the Emergency Room at DC General. Tippy had been pronounced DOA at the hospital... that's right, she was gone.

That's right, you guessed it....tits up.

Someone had left her yellow cake out in the rain.
All her sweet, green icing flowing down...

Yes, someone - she didn't know who yet, but she'd find out if it was the last thing she did on this earth - had left Tippy's cake
out in the rain --

Oh....God! she sobbed!
I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again!

Oh NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

ChiChi called Valerie, her only hope...

"Val, Tippy got the recipe but was run over by Karl Rove's Corvette. She told me before she died it was
seared, seared into her brain."

Valerie cursed, then hung up. After a few moments frantic pacing, she...

...realized, with anxiety rising, that if Karl Rove had run over Tippy with his Corvette, then their plan for Joe Wilson to run over her with his Porshce had gone horribly wrong! Or perhaps ChiChi, loyal ChiChi, was not as loyal as they thought?

...With a lurch, Tippy sat up on the Emergency Room gurney. After being sideswiped by Joe Wilson in a black Porsche Carrera, mauled by John Kerry on an out-of-control bike in a particularly detestable pair of yellow biking shorts, and finally steamrolled by KKKarl Rove, who, though no one was able to figure out exactly how, had been able to suddenly appear in DC in a Corvette when he'd last been seen in a hot red spdster daydreaming of hot butterfly-on-butterfly action somewhere south of Rancho Malario, she'd had just about enough. Reaching into her voluminious handbag, she dialed the only person she knew she could still trust...

Don Brouhaha.

Don was leaning on a lamppost in the dark, rainy night on a deserted DC avenue on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, smoking an unfiltered Gauloise and stinking of gin and unfulfilled dreams. A grizzled veteran of too many late nights playing Halo and deconstructing the Constitution while watching film noir, Don liked his women hard and his liquor straight up... or was it the other way around?

"Brrrrrrng????" went the enormous retro cellphone in the pocket of Don's double-breasted trenchcoat. He struggled to retrieve it. Damn, it was big...

as he began wrestling it out of his pocket.

"Pardon me while I whip this out," he panted to no one in particular.

"I just spit jooos all over my self....", lisped the former Chinese, Jewish-Mexican-American Lawn Chica, aka Chi Chi La Bamba, now on a 3-way con call with Tippy and Don. "I can not bee-leef jou are a-life meye darleenk!"

"But why are you talking like that all of a sudden Chi Chi?", said Tippy?

Ladies, you *DO* notice Don is ignoring us.

This means war.

"Bee-kawth, that ith what 'they' made me do in the lastht sthory...no, you cannot know of the 'orrible theengs I wath made to do by thethe thyber people...
But theenthe thee money was even bettaire for theeth job, I took eet on condition I sthpoke that way again."

"You know Tippy" said Don in his best Sam Spade impersonation (not very good, either),"everybody wants you dead. If it's not that schmuck Wilson, it's that weasel Rove; not to mention Cheney, who's out 'bird hunting', if you get my drift. And watch out for that Albright dame, she'll kick your lungs out; and baby, you got a great set of lungs!. I mean, they are really 'Piling On', if you get my drift, sweatheart. You know too much, and you're going down for it. Novak has spilled the beans on you just like he always spills the beans. Cripes, he spilled beans on my second best suit yesterday. If I were you, I'd get a good bodyguard, or a good lawyer, or both!"
"Wait, I know this guy in Richmond who might just be able to help. He's a lawyer, and he's also got a whole squad of Amazon daughters trained in the martial arts. They're like ninjas, with red hair. Scary stuff, sweatheart."

Karl Rove sat, confused, in the black Mazda RX-8, or was he in a Corvette? It was so very hard to understand, especially as he was introduced to the story in a sentence without a verb. Oh, yeah, there were prepositional phrases up the wazoo, and lots of talk about hot butterfly action, but he was at a loss. What was his motivation? He was the evil mastermind of the BushReich! He told Halliburton what to do, through his puppet Dick Cheney! And here he was, in a story heavy with intrigue of the sort he thrived on, and he didn't know what to do! The sensation was unnerving for him. He felt empathy with someone (for the first time in his evil life), even though that “someone” was a fictional heartless metal character in the Land of Oz. If He Only Had a Verb! “Karl Rove to the butterfly kiss of Delilah's hand reaching across the jet black interior of the Mazda RX8;” What did it mean? What did it all mean??? If he only had an editor!

Miles away from the dark damp moist dangerous DC streets a young man enjoyed a cold ale while mindlessly watching a baseball game on a hot dry scorching summer evening. I heart air conditioning he thought to himself, (because who else are you going to think something like that to), as he spent another evening enjoying his retirement from the world of intrigue and danger.

Suddenly and completely, utterly without warning his ears began to itch, then began to burn, the kind of burning and itching that makes one think there isn't enough cortizone in the world to make it all better.

A thought bubbled up through his effervescent mind like the carbon dioxide bubbles bubbling up through his cold ale to their bubble freedom into the air conditioned air in front of the tv; he had not felt this kind of burning and itching since....

..he had eaten one of those 500 year old Chinese egss. The thought of that caper make him chuckle with mirth. Yes, that was quite the profitable adventure.
"Chi Chi, I'm tellin' ya, look out for that Tex Pile On, exhorted the slimy Brouhaha, on his ancient analog cell-phone. " He's smooth and handsome on the outside, with a dark chocolate center. No! that's not it. I mean baby, he's just plain dangerous. He has urban kids in Texas fronting for his drug lab, and smuggles Chinese antiquities out of China (imagine!), to sell to spinsters in Kalamazoo, and Frederick, Maryland; places like that. And worse, he runs fine imported lagers and ales into dry counties all over the country, and sells them for exhorbitant prices. Last I heard, he was tied in with the Dog Lady, and she's a piece of work, too. Watch out for him, he's got big hands, too. And speaking of big hands, that reminds me of..."

...that long-ago summer with Val, the torchy, trashy fling he'd had while on that field trip to DC. Yeah, he'd stolen her from some schmuck named ... what was his name? Rhett? Jett???

Oh yeah...BRETT! That was the ticket! Some dumb Marine. Served him right, too. They'd made hot, passionate whoopie under the bleachers at RFK field while the hogs went hog-wild. Yep, those were good times.... he wondered where old Val was now...

A DARK CHOCOLATE CENTER????

TMI, Don :P

AND GET SOME OINTMENT FOR THAT ITCH, DURNITALL.

It wasn't Karl Rove that was introduced to the plot sans verb, it was his 'Vette. His Corvette ran over Tippy...who was driving?

'Dark Chocolate Center?'

*sputtering helplessly*

Karl Rove was certain he didn't have a verb, although he thought he might have a Corvette. He checked the very first sentence of the story again, the one up there by the picture of the butterfly, and, nope! No verb. He may have been dead since the beginning of the story! As he began to sink into a deep depression at the thought of his death, his mood of despair lifted as quickly as it had come, because he realized, deep in his verbless being, that being dead in this genre wasn't the impediment that it would be in the real world. Death had been easy on Brett, and Tippy seemed none the worse for her meeting with the Grim Reaper.

Maybe he had fainted? Maybe he had begun howling at the moon! Perhaps he became disemboweled. Maybe "Rove" was the verb! Yes! "Karl rove to the butterfly kiss...", no, that would need to be "Karl roved to the butterfly kiss..."

No, no NO!!! This would not DO! He needed a verb, and he needed one NOW.

*****************************************
AND NOW, FOR A LONG OVERDUE COMMERCIAL BREAK

Are you planning on going out this weekend in a skirt? Don't you want to look your best if things go wrong?

Whether you are driving or just walking down the DC streets, you never know when you will be the victim of a runaway sports car, or even a deliberate hit attempt of Karl Rove, that leaves you tits and ass up in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue.

That is why it is important to wear clean, sexy underwear, and wax those delicate parts so they look nice to the bystanders who look at your derriare up in the air. And it wouldn't hurt to have the good doctor who puts you back together think nicely of your hygeine either. He might be single.

So come to The Wax Man. When your skirt is riding high, we make you look like a million bucks.

Valerie dug through her purse in vain. She had already checked the vanity at home, and her carry-on bag from her last covert operation. She had worn a ridiculous-looking turtleneck sweater to work on this hot, steamy, muggy, damp, moist day because she couldn't find it at home! Which was worse, having people wonder why she was dressed so unseasonably, or reveal the fangs of the asp tattoo which slithered inkily up her torso, ending at her neck? She opened every drawer in her desk and finally found the last tiny bit of Tattoo Camo Camouflage Makeup in the back of the bottom drawer. She took her compact mirror and rushed to the Ladies, locked herself in a stall and went to work covering the artwork that identified her as one of an elite group, one of the select few...

the CIA Analysts, a group of gals whose ability to sift the data was peerless. She also had to check her source outside the Agency, as leaks had been rumored for years...dang G. Gordon Liddy and his group of plumbers.

Holy frijoles, this itching is unbearabe he thought as an ad for a tattoo removal clinic interupted the baseball game. The last time he itched like this.....there had been danger....he no longer sought out danger, oh sure he still fought for liberty, but only against small town tyrants that posed him no danger....he wanted no part of danger.... and danger sure as hell didn't want any part of him...no he could not think it....those days were behind him.

And that had been a burning and itching, this you see was more of an itching and burning.

Maybe it was the couch, time to kick it to the curb he supposed.

Meanwhile, in another dark bar at the edge of the Empire, Brett Barboursville sat hunched in a rear banquet and slowly stroked his long crisp lager to the beat of Madonna on the jukebox while he spoke in hushed tones to the shadowy figure skulking in the shadows across the table from him, although he couldn't be exactly sure about the "sulking part," on account of his guest was a shadowy figure in the shadows, and Brentt was still wearing his cheap wrap-around sunglasses to ward of the myriad of headlights glaring brightly at him in this seedy, but friendly, in a kind of Runyonesque way, dive just off K Street, but who was nevertheless rapidly scribbling notes on the margins of a not-yet-released transcript of a non-scripted moment moment between Kofi Anan and a transecular swing-set named "Peaceful."

"Like I said," Brent spoke after taking a long, cool pull on his studly hops, " I met this guy and his wife in a bar just two blocks north of here a couple of years ago."
"How many years ago?" asked Captain Shadow," a name that Brent had come up with all by himself in just ten or twenty minutes, and for which was suitably proud.
"A couple,maybe three four years ago. I can't remember dates...except for that one day long ago where I was found near death on the floor of..."
"Just shaddup, willya? An get to the facts."
Brent drained his flagon, and dropping the glass to the floor, he stared long and hard at his shadowy guest. And then, as if to signify the importance of the secret information he was about to impart, Brent straightened himself, and, staring directly into the shadowy visage before him, let out a class IV blelch that pasted the shadowy guest back agianst the faux-leather bench-back.
"I'm empty" Brett announced.
The waiter brought a tray.

*****
You know, it is so good to be doing this again.

You all make me laugh so hard :)

Thank you.
****

PS, Mommy - what's a blelch?

*running away*

Yes, it is. And Brett, Brentt, Brent, Brett has some identity issues - could be leftover trauma from being raised from the dead so many times.

Yes, like Karl, a man Roving the streets in search of a verb, endlessly prepositioning butterflies, Brett, or Brent, or whatever the hell his name seems a bit confused doesn't he?

But you would be too if you'd been caught with that dear-in-the-headlights look as many times as that poor man has. Honestly, our faces are up here.

I have a feeling I'm going to pay for that one...or not. More likely it will be ignored, like most of my stupidity... heh.

"I don't useflly get plaid, or laid, on laccount of my ploor typing" Brett belched belatedly. "What doh you want to know, Captin Shlado?"

The tense silence that passed between the two figures could only be described as akin to that special air that one gets as two cellar-dwellers battle in 95 degree heat tied at zero-zero in the bottom of the 15th inning with two out and nobody on. Somebody was going to die...and soon.

"What? Again?" the shadow at last spoke sharply. "Jeezus Christmas you flippen stew-pot! Just tell me what Wilson told you! Moron."

"Moron." Brett slurred softly. "That's waht she alaways called me. Goshhhh, I mished her."

It was then that Brett suddenly felt the lighting strike of forgotten duty course through his veins. Every muscle in his body was immediately alert to its mission, an he sat upright and ready to puke everything to the shadow holding the taser.
"SHHHHHHHITTTTTT!," he began. "Okay, okay here's what I know."

"Is transecular anything like transexual?" thought Val to herself as she combed out her bleached-blonde locks in the mirror of the ladies room. "Oh nevermind". She checked her watch, carefully adjusting the seams on her silk stockings as she closed the door to the stall and headed for the M Street Metro station. It wouldn't do to be late.

Karl never liked it when she was late.

The Fat Man perspired softly in his Corvette as slid into the plush seats. "Hey Baby... it's been too long", he said, breathing heavily, as he always did.

"Oh for Pete's sake" she thought, "Here we go again". "Look Karly, don't start with the Magic Fingers routine again - I let you blab my name all over hell and gone - are you finally going to tell me what the end game is?"

:D

"Yes, like Karl, a man Roving the streets in search of a verb, endlessly prepositioning butterflies..."

Yes, yes...he did...the pervert! I was one of them.......But I did not have sexual relations with that man.....Mister Roving.....

Ohhhh..."e", not "o"....Never mind.

Meanwhile, in a seedy bar in SoHo, a tall, white haired figure sucked at the teet of his bourbon glass, whispering over and over again, "I can't believe I let that bimbo get me impeached." He mumbled it again.

Just then, a pair of headlights entered the bar. She wore the official blouse of the CIA, but her heels said working girl. It was enough to make a depressed Senator's husband forget he wasn't a Kennedy. Besides, his bravodo and libido were on overdrive before the first bourbon, a fine Blanton's single barrel, Barrel No. 3, stored in Warehouse H, Rick No. 6, 2003. Now that the bottle was empty, it was time to turn on the headlights and point them towards his room.

Where were those car keys? Shit, where were his pants?

Boy KJ. You killed that story.

No silly. It's Cass's fault, as usual. spd had a good thing going and like woman she couldn't keep her yap shut.

After he sent Tippy flying satisfyingly to her reward and out of his life (for he was unaware that she had somehow been revived), Joe “Wilson” Wilson had driven around the warm, damp, moist, sub-tropical, steamy streets for what seemed like 36 hours, finally deciding to get the windshield repaired at a little shop he knew near the Senate Office Building. The guy there knew how to keep his mouth shut – he did a lot of work for the Kennedys, the Clintons, and Gary Condit – and he wouldn’t raise an eyebrow at large clumps of hair and fabric stuck in the broken windshield. As “Wilson” pulled the discrete black Porsche out of the parking lot, a flash of yellow caught his eye. “Probably John Kerry out riding”, he though to himself, (and as we have established, there’s not really anyone else you can think to, unless it is one of those psychics or telepaths you drive by where they have a sandwich sign out front emblazoned with the words “Palm Reader”, but even then they may be faking it), but then he saw a familiar taillight disappear around the corner. “That was not a pair of yellow cycling shorts”, he thought, again to himself, “that was a Fayence Yellow Porsche Carrera GT”, just like the one in the fourth stall in his garage. In fact, it was the one from his garage – and he wondered why Valerie was out driving around, not behind her desk doing very classified things for the CIA and keeping her normal low profile. He decided to follow.

It had always rankled that a handsome, graying and dignified, self-effacing, humble, shy person like himself, a former Ambassador, should have to rely on his trophy wife to get him jobs. He should be an executive with his graying and dignified looks, and instead he was reduced to telling his twins sons that they should keep it absolutely secret that Mommy was a spy, telling no one, not even the reporters. His train of thought (which he was thinking to himself) was abruptly derailed when he saw the yellow Carrera parked and empty, and then saw his wife’s derriere disappear into the parked Corvette.

Wilson.
What could you say about him. Once a respected deputy ambassador in the State Department, the wasted years stranded on that desert island with Tom Hanks had affected his reasoning powers. He was menaced by hearing voices now. Like the voice of a young, towheaded boy, always distantly shouting, "Mr. Wiiiilson!"
He was, to put it bluntly, quite mad.

In fact, he was hearing voices right now. He was hearing the voices from someone else’s head, someone thinking to himself about danger, and how he was glad he was nowhere near danger, danger being something he’d left behind. “Wilson” stuck his fingers into his ears to get the dangerous voices to stop, but that only started them itching. Itching and burning. Where did the voices in his head come from? Everyone else thought things to themselves, but he was hearing someone else’s thoughts! If that wasn’t dangerous, he didn’t know what was. And the voices in his head seemed to sense danger, but seemed unwilling to engage.

Then his own thought came to him…he patted his breast pocket and there he felt the small cylinder with the child-proof cap. He pulled it out – empty! He had forgotten to refill his Lithium.

The Fat Man tried to remember when he first became enamored of Val. Was it the Playboy photo-shoot of the "Girls of the CIA" back in 2001? Was it from late night perusals of "Who's Who in Metro D.C." that tickled his imagination, or was it the cold, grey somber, writings published in the New York Times by Judith Miller about WMD (whatever that was!). But now he was hooked on her.
If only he could find a way to dispose of that nudnik husband of hers; the half-mad, half-baked, Wilson. Just the thought of Wilson gave the Fat Man an itching and burning sensation in his ears.
He needed deniability for the hit on Wilson. The thought dangled in his head like a dead chicken choked on a rope. What to do?
Then, a name came to the surface of his dank, dark, humid memory.
Barboursville. Brett Barboursville. He was supposed to be dead, but the Fat Man knew he was still loose, like big bag of potato chips without a Mr. Clippy holding them closed. Hmmmmm. Potato Chips.

As Val Plame and Karl Rove walked into the deserted stands of RFK Stadium, Val couldn't help thinking of her long-ago tryst with Brett...or was it Brent? Rhett? Jett? Brentt?

Whatever. He had really had some covert moves, that one. Suddenly the stadium lit up like a West Virginia nativity scene, blinding Karl in the glare of a thousand headlights. Damn. She'd forgotten the Redskins cheerleaders were practicing that night - they'd have to move to the other side of the field or he'd never pay attention.

Men.

Sans pants, the white haired figure found his keys in his blazer and drove to a small bar just off of Washington DC lawn. He really enjoyed driving Jack Bauer's car -- the one that gets him anywhere in southern California by the end of the next commercial break. So there he was, from SoHo to DC in just 18 minutes.

Just then his appointment appeared in a Fayence Yellow Porsche Carrera GT. She drove through a red light and whirrled the vehicle around via a donut and parked next to the Bauermobile.

"Discreet as always" he thought to himself.

"What do you have for me?"

"Mr. President, it is worse than we thought. Where are your pants? Anyway, Brett Barboursville is alive. And Kim Jong Il knows it."

Just then, Karl Rove and the President, in two different locations, each wondered the same thing? Is this the really Plame? Or has the rumor of Joe Wilson's cloning experiments been true. Was the real Plame with the former President? Or Karl? Or somewhere else, with two clones, each doing the dangerous work of a CIA operative?

Wilson was now frantic for his Lithium. Voices in his head. Novak. Geraldo. Dobbs. Keith Olberman. It was really bad this time. They all came back to him now, like the hot slap after a wet kiss.
And where the Hell was Valerie, his devoted wife, ex-CIA operative and now fiction novelist? She had to know where to get more Lithium carbonate. He needed it. NOW. ASAP. His mind was starting to feel like a volleyball that had just been spiked by a 19 year old California beach player who had drank too many Red Bulls. Ouch. That itching was back again.
But the question, of course, was which Valerie Plame? Even in his deluded, schizophrenic state, he knew the answer to that. Heh. He was still one step ahead of the Fat Man.

Valerie Plame heaved her chest in a sigh for what seemed like the 1,000th time. MEN. She ruminated for a few minutes about her job. She could analyze the helk out of the data, connect the dots from 1-100 but still couldn't figure out what or where her part was in all this.

Maybe it was time to go to that cozy little bar in Georgetown, have a drink and escape the pressures of telling the press to leave her alone and her many interviews.

Where did it all go wrong? She sighed again, grabbed the keys to the 'vette and...

"Mr. President, it is worse than we thought. Where are your pants? Anyway, Brett Barboursville is alive. And Kim Jong Il knows it."

The tall, white-haired ex-president, thought about this for a moment, then quickly advanced to the slender blond, grabbing her left wrist, and placing his hand on her neck.
"Where's the tattoo, Valerie?" he inquired.

"Wha, What tattoo, Mr. President? Sh-, Sh-, Surely, you're jesting?" stammered Val.

"If you don't know about the tattoo, you're an impostor!" sans pants, it was easy for the ex-Prez to draw out his weapon and threaten her with it.

"No! No! Surely, it's not my fault! I'm not the original Valerie Plame. I'm Val-004!"

"Valerie? Val-004? What's that all about?" inquired the ex-President."And stop calling me Shirley!"

"Even I don't know the whole story, sir. But Valerie -001 was cloned, because there just wasn't enough Plame to go around!"

"Groan..." thought the real Val Plame as she exited RFK stadium and pulled the high-tech listening device out of her shell-like ear. "What an awful pun". That Brouhaha was such a card. But her heart was beating like a jackhammer at the thought of seeing Brett again. He was alive! After all these years! After stopping by the offices of the WaPo, Washington Times, and DC Examiner to make sure they were leaving her alone she continued on to the Round Robin where she made sure the waiter gave her a prominent seat at the center bar where she would be left alone in plain sight in the middle of the room.

There she whipped out her secure encrypted cellphone and placed an ultra super-duper secret call to Captain Shadow.

"Shadow!" She yelled into the encrypted phone, glad she'd brought it so no one could overhear their clandestine conversation.

"Damn it, I thought I told you never to call me here, babe!", the immensely powerful man replied tersely from his highrise office.

"B..b..but *Daddy*!", she whimpered, tears starting to well up in her baby blue eyes. "You p..p...promised."

"Aw Jeez honey, I'm sorry, spill. What has that worthless bastard of a husband of yours done now??" Heaving a disgusted sigh, spd swept the 12 boxes of Commerce Clause litigation briefs and 14 months worth of back issues of Formula 1 Racing on HWY 64 Fer Dummies and the well-thumbed copy of Pamela Anderson's autobiography to the floor and settled in for yet another a marathon bitch session with the oldest of his 19 daughters.

"Daddy - the press won't leave me alone!"

"Well of *course* they won't leave you alone. Joe just bought you those new boobs with that loan I gave him, and the maintenance session at the spa didn't hurt either. You look great, doll. Just in time for the Trial of the Century. It's all coming together just like Daddy planned it.... heh."

"But... Daddy! I thought you liked the Shrub!"

"Listen darling, Plame No. 1 is bitching to her real Daddy now. I need to listen in on this call pursuant to the super secret survailence program I installed after the first WTC bombing. Of course, spd helped me set that program up, as it did not violate the commerce clause. And now I will learn from Plame No. 1 what plan is afoot."

"Isn't it what you walk on," asked Plame No. 3, or was it No. 4?, as she looked down past her non-surgically enhanced busom to her feet.

"Listen, babe, I have a cigar in the car. Let's talk after I listen in on this call. spd may be about to tell Plame No. 1 about my diabolical plan to become President for a third term, if only we can eliminate Brett."

Once the notorious 'Captain Shadow' had left him, after wringing every half-truth, mixed metaphor and un-conjugated verb from his beer-besotted brain, Brett stumbled out of the bar, onto the rain-soaked, dark, glistening street, and proceeded to slide about.
They had been talking about...Wilson! Yes, that crazed schizo, refugee from Foggy Bottom. The thoughts swam around in Brett's brain like dying goldfish in warm tap water...sluggish and putrid.

Suddenly, a yellow Corvette whipped around the corner from K-Street, and screeched up to the curb. The window rolled down, and the Fat Man, Rove, gazed up at the bleary-eyed Barboursville.
"Well, look who's here; just the chump I've been looking for. Get in!"
Brett staggered over the bumper of the car and flopped into the black leather passengers' seat,"Buuuurp, hey Rovey, got a...beer?" stammered Barboursville, reminiscent of the late Harry Carey.
"I'll talk, you listen, and if you play you're cards right, you'll be in hops and barley for the rest of your natural life," which brought a small chuckle from Rove." And maybe I can get you back with that trollop Delilah you're so fond of."
"Derida?" burbled Brett."I dun't like de-construvtisssim..."
"No, the woman, you drunken twit, Delilah!" retorted Rove, as he pulled away from the curb at break-neck speed.
"Oooh, ma neck. I need a beeer, blelch", slobbered Brett.
Rove shook his head and rolled his eyes, "Shut up and listen, you miscreant. Now here's the caper...."

Brett listened intently to Rove’s roving description of the caper (or as intently as a falling-down drunk can listen), and it seemed like a full day before he comprehended all of its intricacy and perfection. The perfect part was that he was promised hops and barley for the rest of his natural life. It would be sort of nice to jump Delilah’s bones again, too. Rove left him on the curb just as he’d found him, drunk as a skunk. Brett staggered to a bench, sat down, and as he began to tip over, suddenly his Drill Instructor’s voice from the past seemed to be screaming in his ears – “Get up, maggot! You’ve got a job to do! This story is getting stale, and we need someone to get it moving! Now, get on your feet, numbnuts!”

He snapped to attention, the adrenaline coursing through his veins, sobering him up, every reflex finely tuned, every muscle taut. He could almost smell danger now. It smelled dangerous. He knew what he had to do. He had to exterminate Joe Wilson.

“Karl Rove” looked in his rearview mirror at that dunce Marine, and laughed evilly to himself. He stuck his finger under the collar of his shirt, and lifted the edge of the pliable mask he was wearing. Criminey, these things were hot, especially in this hot, humid, steamy, muggy, sultry weather that only mildew could love. He pulled and tugged, removing most of the disguise in one piece. spd glanced at the mirror to help him remove the bits that were still stuck to his forehead. He could not believe it! He was going to get rid of that disgusting, preening son-in-law without leaving his fingerprints on the hit, and he would not have to suffer the heartbreak of listening to his little angel Valerie cry ever again.

Using these “Karl Rove” masks had been a stroke of genius - no one would ever figure out that he had blown her exceptionally clandestine cover, and leaked her name to the press. He loved it when a plan came together. Who would believe that a high-dollar Republican donor such as he was actually the brains behind the planned 2008 Edwards/Kerry campaign? And if that priapic, silver-haired, pantless ex-President could focus long enough on something besides his zipper, his obligation to supply hops and barley for the rest of Brett Barboursville’s natural life would not be a drain on his budget for long. Barboursville’s natural life was about to end.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Math Mom.

I get tired sometimes :) I will pick this up in the morning. I promise.

It's too good to stop - talk about intrigue! Be good to yourself, Cass.

OMG! You people are good! I love this stuff!

As spd drove through the inky blackness of the DC night in his ass-engined black Porsche with the whale tail he wondered, how had he ever gotten to the point of betraying the GOP? How had he: a dyed-in-the-wool red-meat eating, manly-man, federalist Virginian attorney (well OK, that last part doesn't quite fit) jumped the shark?

Some people called him the space cowboy, some
the gangster of love. Hell, some folks even called him Maurice! He'd never quite figured that one out, but nevermind. He spoke with the condements of love.

At various times in his misspent youth, he'd been a picker, a grinner, a lover, a sinner. He'd played his music in the sun. Old spd had been a joker, a smoker, a midnight toker...watevuh.

He sure didn't want to hurt no one.

But the turning point for him had been watching his own party split in two over the controversial appointment of the openly gay Justice Roberts. It was at that moment, listening to a S'Kerry campaign speech in his immensely-powerful high rise office that a Plan came to him, and became seared, seared, I tell you into his mind for all eternity.

The Republican Party was in hopeless disarray. The Senate were brawling and feuding like a passel of inebriated uncles at an Irish wake... like.. like... Democrats. What they needed was a common enemy - they needed something that would force them to get behind the administration for once. And damn it all, he was going to give them one, if it brought them to their knees!

spd had always despised Joe Wilson.

When his beautiful but wild oldest daughter eloped, returning with a snake tattoo and a sloppy, womanizing husband named Joe, he'd almost cut her off. The man was clearly unstable even then. But a man with nineteen daughters is no stranger to frustration (if only of the emotional kind) and so he relented.

And so he'd had Wilson watched clandestinely with growing alarm, noting his trip to Niger. And when Wilson's infamous Op-Ed appeared in the Times, spd came out of the closet (so to speak) in full Rovegalia and "outed" his daughter, calling his good friend Paddy Fitzgerald and asking him to lock up Scooter Libby for the duration and "make it look convincing". A few weeks later, mr rdr spent the evening watching his cherished copy of Two Women before paying a little visit to Judy Miller at the Alexandria Detention Center.

Not for nothing was this man known as a criminal mastermind.

Laughing softly to himself, spd winced as his eyes struggled to adjust to the brilliant glare of the headlights in his law office. He really needed to get some older paralegal staff. Or better sunglasses. The plan was all coming together now.

Over breakfast a few months ago, he'd cleverly swapped Joe's lithium for sugar pills. The effects were already becoming apparent. Just last week he'd filed a ridiculous lawsuit that was the laughingstock of Washington. Val didn't know about the pill swap, but that was all to the good. He had the Spamalot tickets for tonite - seat D101. Barboursville would be waiting in the balcony just overhead. And at the critical moment...

Heh.

Condements of love?

Is that what it is? Is that what you hear?

Heh!

I don't know, but it amused my reverse side away extremely.

I looked up the lyrics because I didn't trust my mammaries...err...memory and that is how it was rendered. I thought it was so funny I left it in :D

...the dullard Barboursville would deliver a huge Yellow Cake with Mint Tea Frosting to the group in the balcony, and one of spd's minions in an usher uniform would give that cake a little shove over the balcony rail at the appropriate time. Irony, blessed irony. Joe Wilson would be suffocated in yellow cake.

Hmmmm...spd had a few calls to make...there was no question as to where he would order the yellow cake - Farouk's Souk and Pastry Nook, of course. But what if that lamebrain Marine failed? He needed a backup plan - Guido's Concrete - specializing in foundations, parking lots, and colored "decorative concrete". He'd order up a big batch of yellow, and a bigger batch of green.

The only way the plan would be more perfect would be if Joe Wilson could see Tippy Goodbody jump out of that cake before his denouement.

The headlights were hanging lower than usual that night at the National Theater... it was an older crowd. They groaned softly at the atrocious puns coming from the assembled knavery as the show drew to a close.

As the Search for the Holy Grail droned on and on, the final Clue was unearthed in the form of a chiseled rock bearing the words D101... what could it mean? Seat D101! Why of course!

Off into the audience flew the cast members... straight for a bemused looking Joe Wilson, who immediately jumped straight up out of his seat, becoming airborne much like that small red RX8 on that long-ago road known as Barboursville Street: a road famous for its intimate book stores, cozy cafes, and the state's only Egyptian bakery, a street of lovers, dreamers and mimes, resembling nothing so much as a severely startled kitten flying over a speed bump on his way to destiny and a floury death on the floor of Farouk's Souk and Pastry Nook.

At that moment, in walked Don Brouhaha, in a wrinkled trenchcoat and stinking of cheap gin and even cheaper regrets...

"I like to watch," was dummy Don's only remark. "I've heard the rumors on the street that Wilson's going to get his cake, but I doubt very much if he'll be in the mood to eat it afterwards. Heh. Heh-heh."

He pulled out his cellphone, and dialed in the Houston area code and phone number, hoping to reach the nefarious 'Tex' Pile On. Sure, pile On liked to pretend he was out of the 'danger' game now, but like the old crime-dog that Pile On was, Brouhaha was sure that he could entice him back in, like an old bloodhound scenting the spore of a scared and sweaty running rabbit (do rabbits sweat?).
He reached Pile on, and talked fast;"Pile, Wilson is about to get what's coming to him, and you should get up to D.C. pronto; there may be something in this for you. I hear that there is plenty of Plame to go around, now. Heh."

Pile On turned the idea over in his mind, and....

(At that same time, in another part of town, spd rdr, Attorney-at-Law, Major League Republican Donor and Philanthropist to the Greater DC Area, was finishing discussions with the Park Service about converting a small area of Rock Creek Park into a children’s play land and petting zoo. Although the contemptible tree-huggers thought Woodsy Owl and Smoky Bear-themed play equipment was most appropriate for the wild area near the Capitol, spd had convinced the Park Service that kids today were seriously into “Alice in Wonderland”, and the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party was the perfect theme for the play land. He described his vision of huge concrete tea cups that children could climb on, massive concrete statues of Alice, the Dormouse, March Hare and the Mad Hatter seated at a concrete table, but the centerpiece of the play park would be the huge concrete yellow cake, with mint-green concrete frosting. It would be a tower for climbing, a twelve-layer green-frosted cake, with yellow-and-green slices cut and placed on plates by the statues. He had convinced them that concrete would be a low-maintenance material, impervious to wear, a permanent playground for generations of excited, energetic children.

He told them with misty eyes about his darling twin grandsons, and how their favorite dessert was the Yellow Cake with Mint Tea Frosting that was their doting father’s masterpiece. Now, he had devised a cake that was impervious to the hot days and nights of the D.C. area. The sweet green icing would not melt in the dark. This was a cake that could be left out in the rain. It would be extremely heavy, so no one would take it, no one would really have to bake it, and and they'd never need that recipe again, so all signs were Go-oooooooooooooooo!

Success! The ink was on the contract.

spd, chuckling to himself, but wary of thinking to himself on the off-chance that one of these Park Service dupes was psychic or off his lithium, now had every “i” dotted and every “t” crossed. If that cretin Barboursville failed tonight at “Spamalot”, it would take only a couple of phone calls to get his dilettante poseur son-in-law Joe “Wilson” Wilson on another trip to Niger. People disappeared all the time in Niger! And generations of D.C. area children would climb, none the wiser, on his tomb, a gigantic yellow concrete cake with mint-green concrete frosting.)

Bummer. Forgot to put italics code at the beginning of each paragraph - Preview doesn't show the paragraphs. Imagine entire post in italics, sort of sotto voce.

After the meeting with the Park Service representatives broke up, spd thumbed through his Rolodex for a phone number from long ago, for Texan who used to thrive on the dangerousness of danger (wasn't Danger his middle name?), a guy who might be coaxed out of retirement.

Just in case.

He might need to send him to wait for a certain aircraft's refueling stop in the Azores on its way to Niger, and to help a certain delusional passenger seek "medical attention" on the layover. Of course, if that passenger didn't show up on Immigration records in Niger, who would wonder about it? Records in third-world countries were notoriously imprecise.

"Hmmmm, interesting offer, Brouhaha," you moron, thought Pile On. "Wait a minute, I've got another call on call-waiting." Click!
Now, who could be bothering me at home again, thought Pile, as he drew another sip on his cold, Bavarian blond lager. He thought about cool, blond Val and her beautiful, foamy, uh shapely! legs. Ahhh, legs! Shapely, not foamy; that was foamy beer! Really nice stems that woman had. They went all the way up to her....

...asp. Tattoo, that is.

...

"Mr. On, we speak again, as the Ebb and Flow of time and space has brought our mutual interests in coincidence again," intoned the velvety-throated spd rdr."If you're interested, I have a very profitable proposition for you."

The inimicable Pile On thought for a moment; who was this, now? Could it be...? No! Not again! I keep trying to get out, he thought, and they keep pulling me back in! He composes himself for a moment, then replies,"Ah my dear Mr. rdr, so long ago we have last conversed, and not even a Christmas card in the interim. And what mutual interest is now coincident? The last time we spoke, you inferred that I, uh, sucked!"

"Well, well, Mr. On. So sorry I left you with that impression, but time marches, On, you know. You, perhaps better than anyone," then, without missing a beat, rdr advances his ever-thickening plot."It's about our old friend, Mr. W. You know of him, the husband of our young Miss P?"

The silence was palpable, like cold, sticky maple syrup on a winter morning in Maine.

"Ah yes," replied the nefarious On, "I have heard he is about to be served a special item, sort of a just dessert, no?"

Rdr fumed for a second. How could Pile On know of this, all the way in Texas? Over a thousand miles from D.C. ! His organization must have a mole! Well, he would take of that later, yes indeed!
"Indeed, Mr. On, your information is quite good. May I ask the source?" coyly asked the clever lawyer.
"Oh, I just hear these thing, here and there. It's amazing what people will tell you. I wouldn't want to, well, Plame anyone at this time," and Pile On snickered at his own pun.

Pile's well lubricated brain was whirling as things came into focus. The itching and burning had subsided and he noticed a certain desperation in spd's voice that alarmed him. Was spd trying a double cross? With a triple salchow?

"Spd" Pile said, "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".

"Right".

"Time heals all wounds".

"Uhuh" spd said, becoming noticably irritated.

"This ain't no party spd, this ain't no disco, this ain't no foolin' around", Pile sang, starting to enjoy himself.

Are you going to take the job Pile" spd yelled, clearly fed up with Pile's bullsh**.

"The good Lord helps those who help themselves....dude".

Pile hung up and quickly made a call to Atlanta, (to a person in the city, not the city itself). A young male voice answered and said hello, as is the custom in Atlanta, Pile said "force or fraud" and hung up, going back to his beer and baseball game.

Shortly after 3 a.m., the sirens still echoing through the granite canyons and with the stench of cheap bourbon and cheaper perfume rising in thick waves from his rumpled pin stripes, spd crawled out of the smoking wreckage that was once a promising legal career and staggered blindly like a junkie in heat across the darkened city in search of billable hours. He found them at the corner of Eighth and Main in the form of one Ezra T. Pimpoodle, a shambles of what once might have been a man, now a filthy lump cowering in the shodows of a Georgetown doorway, his grimy face relecting only the dim light of the lap top computer resting on his disgraceful lap.

"Hey, old timer. How's it going?" spd inquired.
"Go to hell." the urban outdoorsman answered, and spat something really really nasty in the general diretion of spd's shoes.

"HEY!" spd yelped as he jumped away from the potentially caustic substance now glittering on the hot pavement with its own eerie light like some form of radioactive snot.

spd looked at the malevolently glowing substance and made a quick call to Doc Brown. He wondered...could this be what was causing Pile to itch and burn?

Doc Brown showed up in an enviro suit, driving his
specially equipped DeLorean, took a sample and went back to the future.

Be patient. I'm about to bring this baby home :)

"Home," spd thought while hunkering into the dank Georgetown doorway where E.T. Pimpoodle manipulated the touchpad of the DOD laptop he'd found abandoned on the Metro to cruise through the highly detailed contingency plans for the invasion of Venezuala and the graphic deconstuction of known terroist activities that included everything from the Bali massacre to the wholesale reduction of Pamela Anderson's breasts, "is where the beer is."

A shadow fell across his already dark doorway.
The temperature fell anouther 25 degrees. He looked up and was very still; a scream of horror frozen in its utterance at the appearance of...

*sigh*

...the lowest-hanging pair of headlights he had ever seen. Emerging from a cab across the street was Helen Thomas.

What this has to do with our story has yet to be seen.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town it was a dark and stormy night, much like one gloomy summer night long-ago before the 2004 election. Jet black as the plush leather seats of the Mazda RX8 that gripped Delilah's trembling thighs like an overzealous car salesman on a slow afternoon - except it wasn't afternoon this time, was it? The players seemed to have come full circle, pawns in some cosmic chess game filled with more senseless plot twists than the season finale of Desperate Housewives.

It was closer to nine pm outside the National Theater where the only sounds to be heard on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams were the purring of the rotary engine and the sudden sound of that annoying ringtone on Delilah's cell phone. "Talk to me, babe", said Delilah, motioning for silence to the vehicle's only other occupant.

From the glowing face of her cell phone came the voice of the genius who'd thought up and then squirreled away the plan that would decide the fate of the entire free world in his Blackberry... if he didn't fat-finger it horribly:

"It's all coming together now. I can't do any more. This thing has more moving parts than J-Lo's butt."

Soft laughter with a vaguely Southern accent emanated from the dark recesses of the passenger side of the RX8. Not for nothing did they call him the Livid Terrier. He was the mailed fist, the genteelly-gloved power behind too many sordid Hotlanta power deals. In the new South, the knife all-too-often went in with a polite smile and a southern drawl, and the last words too many of Georgia's hapless toads heard was, "force or fraud, mister?". And now he was headed into the National Theater to hand Brett Barborsville a really, really big Yellow Cake with Mint Tea frosting.... a cake that would prove the Final Undoing of one Joe Wilson, Toad Extraordinaire.

As Delilah and the Terrier unloaded the Yellow Cake from the rear of the RX8 and wheeled it into the alley behind the National Theater, a shadowy figure detached itself from underneath a nearby lamppost. As he said, he liked to watch.

As the cake passed by him silently in the mist, Brouhaha whipped out his oversized retro cell phone, cursing silently to himself as he struggled to fit it through the slit opening of his trenchcoat pocket. Sometimes being a slave to fashion had its drawbacks. Pushing up the brim of his fedora with one finger, he uttered just one phrase into the 1940's style cellphone:

"Here's lookin' at you, kid"

On the other end of the wireless connection, Tippy Goodbody stepped into an oversized reproduction of a Yellow Cake with Mint Frosting that was stashed in the orchestra section of the National theater, just in front of seat D101. She was wearing a sequined bikini that showed her...assets off to perfection. Chi Chi placed the top of the cake back on and wished her luck.

The third and final act was ready to begin.

This was where it was all going to end. The badly-written melodrama that featured more headlights than Interstate 95, cheap bimbos who can't remember how to spell their own names (or even what kind of accent they speak with), politicians who stink of gin and fear and regret. As the play wore on, Joe Wilson became more and more agitated. He kept popping pills from the little vial in his jacket pocket, but they didn't seem to have the usual calming effect on him.

Val was getting worried. The musical's grand finale was the search for the Holy Grail. The cast unveiled the final clue: a huge rock with the words D101: that was Joe's seat! The spotlights panned over and settled right on her husband, and at that moment three things happened:

She looked up at the balcony and saw the love of her life, Brett Barboursville, pushing an ENORMOUS yellow cake over the balcony...right only her husband! It seemed to topple in slow motion, over, and over, and over....

Out of the orchestra pit came a huge yellow cake with mint frosting on wheels. It stopped right behind the cast. The top popped open and up popped a busty blonde with the most enormous, err ....tracts of land Val had ever seen. While everyone in the audience was watching her...errr...acreage several men in swat gear bundled up Joe and threw him into the now-empty cake, wheeling it way. Some guy in pinstripes who looked vaguely like an attorney could be seen typing maniacally on his Blackberry in the wings.

The cast reached down into Joe's seat and pulled out a Golden Cup. Inside the Grail was a typed confession, signed by Joe, detailing his part in the Niger conspiracy.

It said...

....how did you like the play Mrs. Wilson?

CONFIDENTIAL

Dear Sir,

Good day and compliments. This letter will definitely come to you as a huge surprise, but I implore you to take the time to go through it carefully as the decision you make will go off a long way to determine the future and continued existence of the entire members of my family.

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Joseph Wilson, the husband of the late head of secret state spy service and commander in chief of the super secret squirrel forces of the federal government since 1992.

My ordeal started immediately after my wife's attack of PMS on the morning of 8th June 1998, and the subsequent take over of my office and garage by the feminist wing of PETA. The present neo-con government is determined to portray all the good work of my wife in the bad light of her husband and have gone as far as confiscating all my porno mags and freezing our accounts both within and outside the Beltway. As I am writing this letter to you, my son Robert Novak is undergoing questioning with the government. All these measures taken by past/present government is just to hel p me gain international recognition and earn a buck off of speeches, books and stuff.

I and the entire members of my family have been held incommunicado since the New York Times published my first story about not finding any Duncan Hines mix in Niger's only supermarket. I thus seek your indulgence to assist us in securing permanent celbrity status. We are not allowed to see or discuss with anybody our plans to replace Tom Cruise and whatsherface as America's Nubmer One Couple. Few occasions I have tired traveling abroad through alternative means, but still no one recognizes us.

It is in view of this I have mandated JERRY MCGUIRE, who has been assisting the family to run around on so many issues to act on behalf of the family concerning the substance of this letter. He has the full power of attorney to execute this transaction with you.

My wife had/has Eighty Million USD ($80,000,000.00) specially preserved and well packed in trunk boxes of which only Scooter Libby and I knew about. It is packed in such a way to forestall just anybody having access to it. It is this sum that I seek your assistance to get out of Washington as soon as possible before the present civilian government indicts my wife and I on fraud and purgury and confiscate it just like they have done to all our credibility.

I implore you to please give consideration to my predicament and help a news jones in need.

May George Soros show you mercy as you do so?

Your faithfully,

Joe Wilson and His Super-secret Spouse Valerie

N/B: Please contact Nancy Pelosi on this e-mail address for further briefing and modalities

....how did you like the play Mrs. Wilson?

Pile -

Well played!

Valerie Plame Wilson sat in stunned silence as the events of the last moments replayed in her mind like a Headline News segment during a long airport layover. Had Joe finally found yellow cake? Or had yellow cake finally found him?

She was jerked back to her senses by a tap on the shoulder from a person in the row behind. She turned around, only to see Helen Thomas trying to get her attention. As she attempted to comprehend this latest distraction, she saw Helen’s index finger scratching at her neck, but then it slipped under the edge of a flap of skin there. She looked in horror as the flap of skin stretched, stretched and stretched, and if her eyes did not deceive her, she saw the skin detach from Helen Thomas’ neck, and a brown hand pulled until the “Helen Thomas” mask came off.

Valerie’s face revealed a rippling cascade of emotions from misunderstanding to revulsion, to horror, to confusion, and when her mind said “TILT”, she sat blinking with her mouth opening and closing like one of those bulgy-eyed goldfish they used to give kids as door prizes at the 6th Grade school fundraiser, because for once she had no secrets to divulge. She looked mutely at the person before her, and as her eyes tried to find something normal to behold, she saw the fangs of an asp on her mother-in-law’s neck.

Tagay Panaligan hissed into her ear: “Perhaps now you will understand the meaning of covert!”

Brett saw Valerie AND Delilah below him, on the stage of the theater, and could only think to himself,"Boy, am I glad I had those fourteen cups of expresso to sober me up before this!"
The decision of a lifetime was in front of him: to return to Delilah, the love of his life, or to now depart with Valerie, sans Joe (who was departing for places unknown), with who he was infatuated, or to got the Men's Room to relieve the pressure from fourteen cups of expresso. "Out of my way", yelled Brett, as he barrelled through the balcony crowd, and headed for the Men's Room.
Fate and destiny would be postponed for a few more minutes until Brett......

MathMom, you rule.

...could find the nearest WC. "Outtathaway", he yelled, feeling distinctly cranky. "Official business!"

As Brett Barboursville ran for the comforting cover of the Necessary Room for Gents (he always knew which one to duck into -- usually it was the one bearing the International Symbol for "Man": a tiny stick figure with no feet who, amazingly, never seemed to get into trouble for loitering near a public rest room with no pants on) the events of the last few moments scrolled across the bottom of his brain like a CNN Headline News segment during a long airport layover: "Breaking News!!! Miserable Failure Alert!!! CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE EAST!!!!!!!!!

Well no sh*t, Sherlock. There'd been a crisis of one sort or another in the Middle East for the last four decades or so. For a moment he considered going back and rifling Wilson's pockets for some of that Lithium, but there simply wasn't time...

There was a man he needed to find. A man who, at one time, had thrived on the dangerous dangerousness of danger... Because right now, Brett was down. Troubled, too. He needed some love and care. And nothing, no nothin' was goin' right.

He dived into an empty stall, slammed the door behind him, closed his eyes, and thought beery thoughts. Soon he would be there to brighten up even this darkest and stormiest of nights. Suddenly, over the sound of fourteen cups of expresso blessedly making their way into the public sewer system Brett heard a telltale noise; it was the door swinging open. Next came a soft tapping on the door of his stall:

"If the sky above you
should grow dark and full of clouds
and that old north wind should begin to blow
keep your head together
and call my name out loud
soon I'll be knocking upon your door"

Things were going to be all right. You see, he had a Friend.

Well, Cass, you brought Helen Thomas! And now, James Taylor! Or someone.

And the Vines, though that was an afterthought :D

Which ought to be an indicator that I am seriously schizoid.

mommy....what's a synbol?

Brett may have met a casual a “friend” in the Men’s Room (so many Men’s Rooms, so little time), but it was certainly not Valerie. For at that moment, the part of her central nervous system that had previously been overwhelmed, preventing speech, reset, and she began to scream. That scream dissolved into a miserable wailing like a Siamese cat lookin’ for love in all the wrong places, and she began to rock back and forth in her seat, howling “My mother-in-law is an asp! My mother-in-law is an asp!” The man seated next to her tried to comfort her while dialing 911 on his cell phone – “That’s ok, dear, my mother-in-law is an ass, too, but you just can’t interrupt a performance at the National Theater to tell everyone about it.”

A news crew from CNN burst into the auditorium, and as the Headline News ticker that is so annoying during a long airport layover scrolled across the bottom of the screen, “EXCEPTIONALLY COVERT CIA AGENT VALERIE PLAME WILSON, WIFE OF FORMER AMBASSADOR JOE WILSON, GOES VIOLENTLY INSANE AT NATIONAL THEATER PRESENTATION OF SPAMALOT”, very nice men with soothing voices (and a Thorazine drip) from the Beltway Secure Center for the Media-Averse and Incurably Delusional fit her into her outfit for her next photo shoot – an off-white canvas jacket accessorized with straps, buckles, and too-long sleeves.

Mathmom wins the VC Nom de Plame Award.

*(blush)* Thanks, Cricket! At least we were able to tie up two ends. I worry that Brett is still there in the Men's Room with...umm...I don't know whom, and The Pantless XPrez is probably still pulling his weapon on someone. But you'll probably fix all that. :) (btw, if you hadn't made Cass find Helen Thomas, how would we have taken care of The Extremely, Super-duper, Covert Spy Valerie Plame Wilson, whose cover may now be blown?

Oh man...I was reading a Netscape story about a spoof Bill Clinton response to Ann Coulter's alleged allegation of his homosexuality. The Pantless Prez's reply, according to the gap toothed host
was only when 'evil b*tches' were around. Would he have included Hillary in that, I wonder?

Would that mean, then, that he is gay?

'Metrosexual'.