Thanks to maudeb for graciously betaing; any remaining errors are on my own head.
A Little Addendum to the End of "Bugsy"
What a night! Andamo straightened his clothing, noting again the loss of a button from midway down his ruffled shirt. He sighed. Well, it could have been worse. It nearly had been worse. It had skated all around being worse ever since that fellow Praiswater and his two trained monkeys had boarded the Fortuna II a few hours earlier.
No, strike that. It hadn't started when that unholy trio had boarded, but earlier than that, when Bugsy McKenna and his wife had managed to slip aboard unseen. And then they had hidden themselves in Lucky's own cabin!
And if that hadn't been bad enough, when Lucky had set out to keep Bugsy hidden from the hit men, what had Bugsy done but go and get himself stinkin' drunk and then wander tipsily all over the boat. Andamo had done his best to corral the lush, but just as the light at the end of the tunnel was in view, just as the hired guns were leaving the ship, Bugsy had managed to drop a bottle of wine right on top of Praiswater's noggin. And that had done it.
It was a blur from then on. Unfortunately, Praiswater and his goons had herded them all - Bugsy, Lucky, and Andamo - back to Lucky's cabin. Fortunately, Mrs Bugsy had found a gun and gotten the drop on the bad guys. Unfortunately, she hadn't had a clear idea of which were the good guys and which the bad ones - and on top of that, her gun hadn't been loaded anyway. Fortunately, no one had shot her, or for that matter, Lucky or Andamo. Unfortunately, one of the trained monkeys had shot Bugsy.
Fortunately, Bugsy hadn't died, but Lucky had been able to convince the gunmen that they'd killed him. Unfortunately, Praiswater had insisted on a burial at sea. Fortunately…
Oh wait. No, he was back to unfortunately. Unfortunately, Joe the croupier had balked at playing the role of dead body, so Andamo had been tapped to strip to his skivvies and play dead. He'd been wrapped in a sheet and trussed up with rope, then tossed overboard with a carton of scotch tied to his supposed corpse to insure he would sink. Fortunately, Lucky had provided him with a knife and so he had set himself free and reboarded the ship, even managing to sneak into his own cabin to towel off and hastily redress himself.
Unfortunately, the poor carton of scotch, having never done a moment's harm to anyone, had sunk.
Fortunately… no, unfortunately… no, wait…
Oh, whatever! In the end, they had wound up, Lucky and Andamo, having to fight Praiswater and his thugs on the fantail, and there - definitely fortunately! - the good guys had won, and the bad guys had been knocked out cold, ready to be handed over to the Coast Guard.
Not long afterwards, Andamo was lounging against the stairway that led to the upper deck, smiling and waving as Praiswater and company were escorted from the Fortuna II. Bugsy was sitting on a cushion in the fantail, an ice bag on his head and unlimited coffee at his disposal to sober him up, while Mrs Bugsy, having finally gotten a firm grasp on reality and knowing at last who her real friends were, was sitting at her husband's side, filling his ears with sweet loving nothings and his innards with coffee and more coffee.
Lucky, having turned the thugs over to the Coast Guard, strolled over to join Andamo. "Well," he smiled, "that's it."
"Yeah, but that's not quite all," Andamo replied. He nodded at the doting couple in the fantail. "What're we going to do with them?"
Lucky shrugged. "The first thing to do is get a launch over here. And the first thing before that is to rig up a way to signal Pudge and let him know we need the launch, since Praiswater turned the ship-to-shore radio into so much smashed glass."
"Right," said Andamo. "I'll get right on it." He shoved a shoulder against the balustrade, pushing himself upright.
"Oh, ah, wait a second there, Andamo," said Lucky, putting out a hand to stop him.
"Sure," said the Latino. "Something wrong?"
"Well… actually, Andamo, there is something wrong. You, ah, you need to… well, there's a small problem with your… ahem!" Lucky paused, choosing his word. "With your attire," he said at last.
"My attire?" said Andamo. He looked down at himself, wincing anew as he saw the empty buttonhole again. "Oh, yes. One of those goons managed to pop a button off my shirt. I'll take care of it shortly, Lucky. Don't worry."
"Button? Oh, right, I see that now. That's… that's not what I was talking about."
"It wasn't?" Again Andamo peered down at himself. "Then what?"
He looked up at Lucky, surprised to see the first hint of a blush coming up over his compadre's face. Lucky blinked a couple of times, cleared his throat, then turned his eyes to look out over the harbor and watch the Coast Guard ship cruising away as he leaned in close to Andamo and whispered the final three letters of the alphabet to him.
Andamo's brows knit. Why was Lucky so embarrassed, and what was he talking about? Why would he say X, Y…
And then the penny dropped. Andamo's eyes bulged as the blush that had only been hinted at on Lucky's face now arose full-bloom on his own. "Oh! I, ah… I'll see to that right away, Lucky, right away!" With a gulp, the Latino glanced around quickly, then hurried off to avail himself of a little bit of privacy to, well, to take care of that - ahem! - that small problem with his attire.
What a night! At least now though, surely indeed that was it and that was all!
~~~ FIN ~~~