Another AU from "The Penultimate Peril." All characters belong to Daniel Handler.
What Else Can I Do?
Hal hesitated. He had just called Room 174, but when he heard loud coughing on the line he nearly hung up the phone. He was only a librarian turned cook, not used to spying and reporting on guests.
"Harrugh! Harrugh! Poe speaking!" said the voice on the line.
"Pardon me," said Hal. "This is the Indian Restaurant in Room 954."
"What do you want? I never eat spicy food. I prefer all my food boiled," said Poe.
"Sir, this afternoon I received a message from one of the managers, Frank or perhaps Ernest, that someone from Mulctuary Money Management was here investigating a bank robbery."
"Yes, that is why I'm here," said Poe, coughing loudly again.
"I was to report any suspicious customers," said Hal.
"Yes?" said Poe.
"A customer eating lunch here complained that being on the run from the law made her cranky," said Hal.
"I see," said Poe. "But that may not mean anything."
"Not only that, she complained that her sada ravi dosai was only 18.5 centimeters long instead of 19," Hal said.
"Highly suspicious," said Poe. "What room is this miscreant in?"
"The meal was charged to Room 371," said Hal.
Half an hour later, the authorities marched Vice Principal Nero out of the hotel in handcuffs.
"You can't do this to me!" Nero yelled. "I'm a musical genius and I have a recital on Thursday!"
"Tell it to the Justices," said Mr. Poe. "We caught you red-handed with the loot."
"We caught you red-handed with the loot," mocked Nero.
Mr. Poe left the Hotel Denouement, his robbery case closed. Whatever tragic events were to happen late that night, Poe would not be there to blunder in.
"Nine!" counted Count Olaf.
The three Baudelaires children took another step forward and put their hands on the harpoon gun. They pulled at the gun but he wouldn't give it up. The hooked tip was now pressed against Violet Baudelaire's chest. Klaus and Sunny were close beside her, preventing him from aiming at Dewey Denouement.
"What else can I do?" he asked softly.
Conflicting ideas raced through Count Olaf's mind. He barely heard the children's words about destiny.
"Calling a person's bluff" is a phrase which comes from the game of poker. If a player bluffs (that is, pretends to have better cards than he or she actually does) the other players can call (that is, bet against them). The cards must then be put on the table, and the bluffing player loses.
Olaf had not been aware he was bluffing when he threatened to use the harpoon on the Baudelaires. But now, as his finger twitched toward the trigger, then drew back, he realized how little he actually wanted to kill them. He knew now why he had left them alone time after time to find a way out of his schemes.
But if he permitted them to call his bluff, how could he ever successfully threaten anyone again? Worse, he would be humiliated in front of his ex-girlfriend and the obnoxious brat she doted on.
Justice Strauss and Jerome Squalor saw his hesitation.
"I knew you'd stop in the name of the law," said Justice Strauss majestically.
"I knew you'd stop in the name of injustice," said Jerome Squalor.
Humiliation in front of those two clueless buffoons? Unthinkable.
Olaf took a moment to think about what would happen...
"I can't do it!" Olaf finally yelled, throwing the harpoon gun to the floor in despair.
He should have remembered from La Forza del Destino, the opera in which his parents were murdered, that throwing a gun to the floor in despair is a very bad idea. In an instant, everything changed.
In an instant, you can prepare a batch of mashed potatoes (assuming they are instant potatoes). In an instant, you can decide whether to retrieve a precious object from its watery hiding place, or let it be forgotten. And in an instant, a harpoon gun can hit the floor and go off, killing someone in the room.
"What have you done?" cried Dewey Denouement, for it was not his destiny to be killed by a harpoon that day.
"You cakesniffer!" cried Carmelita Spats. She stomped a foot and her spurs rattled.
"Aaack!" cried Esmé Squalor, for the harpoon had hit her squarely between her top two lettuce leaves.
The three Baudelaires looked at each other, then into Olaf's face with more horror than he had ever seen in their eyes before (and he had seen a great deal).
Sounds of people waking up came from all over the hotel.
"What's going on?"
"It sounds like they're murdering people down in the lobby!"
"It sounds like my mother!"
Olaf backed off from the Baudelaires and made a dash for the elevators. One was waiting on the ground floor and he jumped into it. He pushed the button for the roof.
"Stop! It's against the law to flee the scene of a crime!" cried Justice Strauss.
The Baudelaires, the closest people to Olaf and the quickest to recover their wits, dashed after him and ducked into the elevator just as the doors were closing.
"What have you brats done to me?" Olaf snarled. "I've never killed someone by accident before!"
"That's a step in the right direction," said Violet. "You couldn't bear to kill us on purpose."
"You should turn yourself in and throw yourself on the mercy of the Court," said Klaus.
"The Court has no mercy!" said Olaf. "I'm ruined. Once the man with a beard and no hair and the woman with hair and no beard find out what I've done, that I threw away my chance to get the sugar bowl, they'll find me guilty and throw the book at me."
("Throw the book at me" is a phrase which here means the judges would give Olaf the maximum penalty allowed by law.)
"Find guilty?" asked Sunny.
"They're the other two Justices of the High Court, you idiotic child!"
The Baudelaires gasped in horror.
"I-it can't be," said Violet. "Justice Strauss knows and trusts them."
"Justice Strauss trusted me when I gave her a part in 'The Marvelous Marriage'," Olaf retorted.
None of the Baudelaires had a reply to that.
"You won't get off yourselves," said Olaf. "They're planning to find you guilty by a vote of two to one, send you to prison for life, and to give your fortune to me as compensation for the misery you caused me."
"The misery we caused you?" asked Violet.
"That was before. Now they'll find a way to give it to themselves," said Olaf.
The elevator finally reached the rooftop sunbathing salon.
"Why did you come up here?" Klaus asked.
"I've got to get out of here, but I'm not leaving without the Medusoid Mycelium," said Olaf.
There were shouts from the floors below as people began to search the hotel for fleeing criminals.
"The only way out is to push that boat off the roof and escape by sea," said Olaf.
"That's not safe," said Violet. "I'll invent a way to break your fall."
"Violet!" said Klaus, "Why are you helping him to escape?"
"Why?" chimed in Sunny.
"Because we need to escape too," said Violet. "We know now we won't get a fair trial."
"Every noble person has failed us," said Klaus. "Why not?"
Violet grabbed up some dirty towels left by sunbathers and some of the reflective tanning mats and set to work.
Suddenly they realized they weren't alone on the roof. The three freakish henchpersons had taken another elevator.
"Hey boss, not so fast," said Hugo, grabbing a sharp-edged tanning spatula.
Olaf grabbed up the other spatula to defend himself.
Colette contorted herself toward Olaf. "You promised us a life of crime."
"Now you've gone soft on the kids," said Kevin, raising both his hands equally in a menacing gesture. "Given up on the gang. That means we'll go back to being nobodies and freaks."
"But if we kill the kids then we can stay a gang," said Hugo.
"I'm the boss! I decide who gets killed and when!" yelled Olaf.
"Like the way you shot Esmé?" Colette said. "If you did that to your girlfriend, you might decide to kill us any time."
"I might," said Olaf through his teeth.
Olaf gave the boat a shove with the spatula. It popped out of the pool and slid down the sloped roof to the sea-side edge. He jumped aboard as the three freaks closed in. The Baudelaires also scrambled aboard.
Kevin grabbed the boat with both his left and right hands. "Got you! I won't let you go."
"Goodbye," said Sunny. She bit both of Kevin's hands equally hard. Kevin yelled and let go.
Olaf shoved off with the spatula. The boat tipped over the edge.
Violet had somehow managed to tie tanning mats to the sides of the boat with towels as makeshift glider wings, while Klaus had managed to turn the sails to catch the stiff night breeze.
"Mommy!" Olaf called as they fell. He remembered his vow to avenge his parents by making the Baudelaires miserable. Now he might die with them.
They hit the water hard, but the boat did not break up or sink. With one spatula for a paddle they sailed away.
All this went through Olaf's mind as he thought about the worst thing that could happen if he gave in. He could be stuck on a boat with the Baudelaire brats, with no henchmen, no fortune, no sugar bowl, and no Justices on his side...
From the corner of his eye he saw Justice Strauss grab Jerome Squalor's 'Odious Lusting After Finance'. She was going to throw the book at him.
"Ten!" He pulled the trigger. What else could he do?