Two More for the Road
part 3

The Sea Duck

Louie hopped out of the co-pilot's seat and reached down to pick up the piece of paper that had fallen from the safe. "Polyester," he read. "Top secret."

"Polly an' Ester who?" Baloo said, positioning the autopilot - a crowbar - across the control yoke.

"Not who. What." Louie squinted at the complicated chemical formulas, then turned it upside-down. No matter how long he looked at it, he could make neither heads nor tails of it. "I'm guessin' this gobblety-gook's some kind of instructions on how to make polyester - whatever that is."

Baloo picked up a strip of beige fabric, which had also come from the safe. "Must be this."

"Ah, I get it. A text on textiles." Then, Louie chuckled and pointed to a sketch of a leisure suit on the back of the paper. "Check out these craaaazy threads."

"Where's the jewels?" Baloo asked, turning the safe upside-down and shaking it.

"There ain't no jewels. We've been fleeced, cousin."

"Aw, man." Baloo set the empty safe down with a bang. "What're we gonna tell Natty? That little girl will be heartbroken, not to mention her aunts."

Louie shrugged. "Tell her the truth." Flashing a toothy grin, he added, "She can cry on my shoulder."

"Not if she's busy cryin' on my shoulder."

Because they were occupied by their argument, they didn't notice the fleet of planes following them.

Dimitri's Place
Thembria
Dawn

On the western edge of Thembria, a squat stone building crouched at a crossroads in the vast emptiness of the great frozen wilderness. Atop the building was an ice-encased sign - the faded 'Dimitri's' was barely legible in the gloomy grey dawn. A few bulky Thembrian airplanes sat in the snow around the nightclub like chickens roosting around a watering hole.

Louie, noting the planes as he hopped out of the Sea Duck, remarked, "Must be the breakfast club."

"Breakfast?" At the thought of food, Baloo's stomach growled. It had been a long time since that inedible gruel cookie at Natalia's aunts' house. "Don't mind if I do."

"Is food all you ever think about?" Louie asked, shivering as he and Baloo fought against the bitter wind to the shelter of the nightclub.

"That...an' Natalia," Baloo replied with a dreamy smile.

"Fine. You think about her." Louie jerked his thumb at himself with a smirk of superiority. "I'll marry her. You wanna be my best man, doncha?"

"Always was," Baloo said with his own smirk of superiority as they squeezed through the doorway together.

Fifty pairs of eyes belonging to fifty warthogs wearing the same drab uniform turned towards them when they blew through the door. They silently stared at Baloo and Louie for a few seconds before returning to their pickles, roasted turnips, gruel, and shaved ice. There wasn't a cheerful face in the place.

Shaking the snow from his feet, Louie frowned as he looked around at the unadorned grey walls, at the silent patrons sitting on hard wooden chairs around circular tables, at the pickles floating in barrels of brine that flanked the plain wooden bar. He thought, Man, talk about your doom and gloom! Watchin' water freeze has fewer zzzzzs.

Baloo sauntered to the bar and addressed the bartender, who was drying a glass with a white towel. "Hey, buddy."

The grim warthog studied the bear and ape from beneath his grizzled eyebrows. After a long pause, he said gruffly, "The name's Ivan."

"Nice ta meet ya, Ivan. I'm Baloo an' this here's Louie." Baloo held his outstretched hand over the bar.

Ignoring the proffered hand, Ivan grunted and polished the glass more vigorously.

Feeling slightly slighted, Baloo dropped his hand, leaned across the bar, and murmured confidentially, "Listen. Have ya seen two old ladies an' a bee-you-tiful girl 'round here?"

Louie added, "The gal's kind of an iceberg, but, don't worry. The ol' Louie heat'll make her melt right down to butter an' make her little heart flutter."

"Buy something, and maybe I will tell you." Ivan set the glass on a shelf behind the bar. "Maybe."

"Buy somethin', huh?" Baloo ran his eyes over the room to see what the other people were eating. The least disgusting dish was a pickle-flavored shaved ice. His appetite faded faster than money disappeared from his pocket. "Gee...I can't decide."

Just then, a short, oddly-familiar warthog climbed up onto the barstool beside Baloo. He lisped, "I highly recommend the house speciality."

"What's that?"

"A knuckle sandwich and a pound cake for dessert," Spigot chortled.

Before you could say 'gotcha', all of the Thembrians pushed back their chairs with a loud scrape, pulled handguns from their uniforms, and aimed them at the two outsiders.

Baloo and Louie gulped, raised their hands, and backed up into the bar. When they felt Ivan's Great War pistols stuck in their backs, they jumped and yelped in surprise.

"What did we do?" Baloo cried, his heart pounding.

"I didn't do nuthin'," Louie replied. "It musta been you."

Before Baloo could retort, Natalia stormed out of the backroom behind the bar, shouting, "Let them go, Agent C! This wasn't part of our agreement!"

Agent C's barked, "Silence!" stopped Natalia in her tracks. The director of M.U.M. roughly shoved his way through the flanks of spies until he was standing right in front of her. Fixing his steely gaze on her, he gestured with his gun towards Baloo and Louie and ordered, "Give me the formula and you can go free."

Natalia glanced around at the roomful of armed spies, then flashed a worried glance in Baloo's and Louie's direction. Her lips trembled, but she bravely met Agent C's eyes. "Promise that you won't hurt them."

As if he hadn't heard her, Agent C said coolly, "If you refuse, you'll go back to prison for playing in the snow, law breaker."

A collective gasp of astonishment and a few shocked murmurs arose from the Thembrians.

"Playing in the snow?"

"That is serious!"

Head hung in shame, a dejected Natalia made her way around the bar to Baloo and Louie.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, tears pricking her eyes.

"Don't worry 'bout it, Natty," Baloo said with a wan smile.

Louie scoffed under his breath, "'Don't worry 'bout it', he says."

"Look at it this way, man. How can things get any worse?"

At that moment, fifty Shropshearians toting guns crashed through the door accompanied by a swirl of wind and snow.

"You had to ask," Louie said sardonically. "Can we start worryin' now?"

"Yeah." Baloo swallowed hard. "Now would be a good time."

The leader of the Shropshearians said, "Hand over the papers and no one gets hurt."

"Over their dead bodies," said Spigot from his barstool.

"Hey!" Baloo exclaimed. He clamped a protective hand over the prized papers protruding from his shirt pocket and bit his lip to suppress his nervous smile. "What are we gonna do?"

Sweat beading on his brow as his eyes darted around at the unfriendlies, Louie replied, "Dunno, cuz. I'm up for suggestions. Hey, watch where you're pointin' that thing, buddy!" He roughly shoved a rifle barrel away. "This haberdashery is real imitation silk."

The warthogs and border collies moved in closer, all cocking their guns.

Louie gulped. "Sounds like we're gonna be on the receivin' end of a one hundred twenty-one gun salute."

"Swell," Baloo said sarcastically. Out of the corner of his mouth, he muttered, "How'd we get ourselves into this mess anyhoo?"

"Right now, I'm more worried about gettin' out of it," Louie replied. "I've been in hot water so long, I feel like a tea bag."

"Yeah, sure looks like we're cornered." The pilot briefly took his eyes off their adversaries to look longingly at the exit. So close, yet so far away.

"Cornered?" Louie's eyes lit up. "That's it!"

"Huh? I'm not pickin' you up on my radar."

With a wink, Louie whispered, "Follow my lead." Pretending to strangle Baloo, he shouted at the top of his lungs, "You big galoot! You cornered me into this!"

"Me?" Baloo gasped. He also pretended to strangle Louie while the Thembrians and Shropshearians looked on, wondering what they were doing. They became so engrossed in the quarrel that they lowered their guns and flashed each other questioning glances. "Why you gutless, whinin' little..."

"Now!" Louie shouted.

At that moment, Louie decked the Thembrian behind Baloo, and Baloo decked the Shropshearian behind Louie. The punch-ees toppled into the person behind them, creating a domino effect.

With a collective shout of protest, a free-for-all broke out. Thembrians slugged Shropshearians and Shropshearians slugged Thembrians in retaliation.

Baloo, Louie, and Natalia stood in the middle of the fray. Natalia shrieked and ducked when a chair and its former occupant sailed over her head and crashed into the bar.

Smash! Three shelves of glasses shattered onto the floor. Glass shards flew everywhere.

Crash! A table flew across the room, plowing over five fighters in its path.

Ka-whoosh! A barrel of pickles got turned over, causing pickles and sticky brine to slop all over the floor. Revelers slipped and slid on pickles.

Beaming with pride, Louie surveyed the fracas that he helped start. "Now this is what I call a nightclub."

"An' it's time to say goodnight. Let's get outta this place!" Baloo grabbed Natalia's wrist and snaked through the chaos to the door.

At the door, their way was barred by Spigot. Instead of a gun, he held a pickle. "I order you to halt!" He grunted in frustration as he tried to fire the pickle. "Where's the trigger on this thing?"

Seizing the pickle from Spigot, Louie said, "You really oughtta cut down on these. They're stuntin' your growth."

"Yeah. Pick on someone your own size, shorty." Without further ado, Baloo picked up Spigot and hung him by the back of his uniform on a wall-mounted coat hook.

"Have fun hangin' around," Louie laughed as he, Baloo, and Natalia made their escape.

"Dunder-her-her!" Spigot cried, kicking his legs wildly.

"Coming, Agent Spigot, sir!" Dodging blows and furniture, Dunder carefully picked his way through the waning fight. "Excuse me, pardon me. Oh, that looks bad. I have some salve," he said, bending down to get a better look at Ivan's two black eyes and bloody nose. He gently picked the bartender off the floor to lay him on the bar.

"Get over here right this second, soon-to-be-shot-Dunder!"

"Sorry, sir! Right away, sir!" Dropping Ivan on the floor like a hot potato, he rushed to Spigot's side and lifted him down.

Agent C stormed across the room. His booming voice reverberated over the din. "Nozzle!"

"It's his fault!" Spigot said, pointing to Dunder. "I had nothing to do with it."

"Sorry," Dunder apologized.

"This is the last straw. You are the worst spies I've ever seen in all my years at the Ministry Under Mustgo."

"Or M.U.M. for short," Dunder added.

"Is that a short joke?" Spigot asked, glaring up at Dunder.

"Guilty," Dunder said ashamedly.

Agent C threw up his hands in frustration. "As of now, you both are transferred to the Glorious People's Air Corps."

"The air corps? But, sir, I don't know how to fly," Spigot said, groveling on the floor at the director's feet.

"Even better," Agent C said with a sinister sneer. Without a backwards glance, he left the building.

Wincing at the bang of the door, Dunder said quietly, "Look at the bright side. At least he didn't feed us to the polar bears."

"Poor Grandma," Spigot said tremulously.

The Sea Duck

"What the heck was that?" Baloo said, flipping switches as fast as his fingers would go. The Sea Duck did a 180 degree spin on the snow before soaring into the air.

"An ambush minus the bush." Louie peered out the starboard window at the rapidly retreating roof of Dimitri's Place.

"Everybody in there was tryin' to kill us!"

Hearing a click behind them, they turned to see Natalia holding a gun. Their hearts sank.

"Here, too, cuz," Louie said ruefully, raising his hands in surrender. "Look, I-I know we ain't got your aunties' jewels, Natty baby, but that's no reason to give us flow-through ventilation."

"Yeah," Baloo chuckled nervously. "We'll help ya find your jewels, scout's honor, but I can fly a whole lot better without a gat in my back."

"There never were any jewels, you idiots," Natalia said contemptuously. Gone was her shy, sweet facade. In her eyes flashed a glint of malice. Her ruby red lips were curved into an evil sneer.

"Th-there aren't?" Baloo stammered, twiddling his fingers on the control yoke.

"Ya mean all that jazz about your aunties was a lie?" Louie secretly wondered when Natalia's evil sister came on board.

"Lies. All lies," she said unconcernedly. With one manicured fingernail, she stroked the gleaming barrel of the gun.

Indignant at being duped twice in one day, Louie asked, "Well, how come you fabricated all them wild yarns?"

"I needed to get the polyester formula," Natalia said simply.

"You mean you're a spy, too?" Louie yelped, nearly jumping out of his seat in astonishment.

"I'm surprised you love-sick imbeciles worked that out all by your half-brained selves," she said snidely as she reached over the pilot's seat to pluck the formula from Baloo's shirt pocket.

"What kind of spy?" Baloo asked.

Louie guessed, "Singamorian? Thembrian? Uslandian?"

"Industrial," Natalia replied, turning the formula over with a look of satisfaction.

Louie exclaimed, "Industrial!"

"Where's that?" Baloo whispered in a loud aside to Louie.

"It ain't no country, cousin. She's playin' 'I spy' for some company."

"And getting well-paid for it, too," Natalia said, her smile broadening, training the gun on Baloo and Louie.

"How come you didn't know that earlier?" Baloo asked Louie accusingly.

"What am I - a mind reader?" Louie shot back.

"You're s'posed ta be, Swami."

"Shut your yaps, both of you!" Natalia ordered.

Baloo and Louie were stunned into silence.

After a moment, Baloo murmured, "Man, we've been framed."

"Like an oil painting," Louie mumbled.

"Who are ya workin' for, Natty?" Baloo asked, glancing over his shoulder. Seeing the gun, he quickly added "Uh, if ya don't mind my askin', that is."

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you," she said, smiling. Then, her smile turned into a sneer and her eyes gleamed dangerously. "In fact, I think I will."

"Hold the phone!" Louie said. "Before ya blast us to bits, will ya at least tell us why we're in this mess?"

She shrugged her slim shoulders. "Fair enough." Keeping her gun pointed at them, she began her story. "Last week, I was hired by a fabric company to procure the polyester formula Drs. Angus and Dalton were developing. I was given $5,000, a promise of $95,000 upon delivery, and explicit instructions to make sure that the theft would never be linked to me or the company that hired me.

"That being the case, I needed someone to lay the blame on. Thembria came to mind, because no one is easier to dupe than a Thembrian. Well..." she laughed condescendingly, "except for girl-crazy buffaloes like you two."

Baloo and Louie bristled, their faces darkening with every syllable she spoke.

"So, I went to Mustgo and played in the snow, knowing that it was illegal. True to Thembrian form, I was arrested and thrown into prison. When I was cross-examined by Agent C, I offered a deal promising the delivery of the polyester formula in exchange for my freedom. His beady little eyes lit up at that idea. Having the polyester formula would allow Thembria to produce inexpensive fabric without importing wool or cotton. And if there's one thing Thembria needs, it's cheap, warm clothes for all of their so-called glorious people. It's cold in Thembria."

"We noticed," Baloo and Louie said simultaneously, sharing a brief glance. The pilot made a surreptitious motion with his hands. In response, Louie nodded.

"Now all I needed was someone to steal the formula for me. Agent C gave me detailed instructions on what to do when I found my dupe."

The guys winced.

"Then he flew me to Moola-Boola where there are always men who are suckers for a pretty face and the promise of money. I ran into you there," she nodded towards Baloo, "and we went to Thembria where we met up with you, Louie. Two dupes for the price of one."

"Nice knowin' you think so highly of us," Louie muttered sarcastically.

"Thinking the safe contained my aunties' jewels, you gallantly stole the formula from the Dyed in the Wool Factory for poor, helpless, little me and then went to Dimitri's where it looked like you tried to sell the formula to the Thembrians. All in all, it worked out better than I planned, and the rest, as they say is history. And speaking of history..." She took a step forward.

Louie sprang from his seat. "Wait, Natty baby. You're forgettin' one very important thing."

"What?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow in suspicion.

"We ain't as dumb as we look." He grabbed hold of the back of co-pilot's seat just as Baloo jerked the control yoke sharply to port.

Because Natalia wasn't hanging onto anything, she lost her balance and skidded across the cockpit on her backside. Before she could get up, Louie snatched the formula from her hand.

"Give that back, you big ape! That doesn't belong to you!" she shouted, chasing Louie around and around the cockpit.

"What a coinky-dink. It don't belong to you neither, Baby Cakes!" Louie said before escaping into the cargo hold.

Pounding on the door separating the cockpit from the cargo hold, she screamed at the top of her lungs, "I am not your 'Baby Cakes'!"

"Nobody's home," Louie sang from the other side of the door.

Then, she spied the axe designated for emergencies hanging on the cockpit wall. She seized it and started chopping on the door.

"My baby!" Baloo yelped from the pilot's seat. "You're hurtin' my baby!"

"Who asked you?" Natalia snarled.

"More like, 'Who axed you?'" Louie murmured to himself as he looked around the cargo hold for a means of egress.

"Hey, I'm still flyin' this here potlicker," Baloo said angrily.

"Do you want me to use this on you?" Natalia said, meaning the axe.

"When ya put it that way..." Baloo's sentence trailed off into a nervous laugh.

With a few well-aimed chops, Natalia severed the doorknob. She dropped the axe, picked up her gun, and entered the cargo hold.

Neither Louie nor the formula was nowhere to be seen. Just the usual cargo hold full of crates, boxes, and litter.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," Natalia said, peering around a tower of crates.

"Mind if I just drop in?" Louie asked as a large fishnet fell on her and scooped her up, making her shriek in surprise.

Struggling to escape the heavy net, she dropped her gun. "Let me out of here, you dumb ox!"

Louie secured the pulley system suspending the net from the ceiling, then strolled over to, or rather, under her. "Not until you promise to be a good little spy," he crooned, tickling her toes.

"Never!" spat the furious figure from inside the net.

"Have it your way." He picked up the swatch of polyester, and ascending the tower of crates, crammed it into Natalia's mouth. "Aw...look who's tongue-tied."

"Mm-mmm-mmmm!"

Bounding into the cockpit, Louie said, "Hey, cuz, I caught me a whopper-tellin' whopper. Can I keep her?"

"Nah, she's too mean to keep. We oughta toss her back to the authorities," Baloo replied, grinning. He and Louie shared a high-five.

Dyed in the Wool Yarn Factory
Clipping, Shropshear

Dr. Angus, an intelligent-looking bovine, said to Baloo and Louie, "How can we ever thank you chaps for returning our polyester formula?"

The collie Dr. Dalton slapped Baloo and Louie on the back. "Yes, ripping good sports of you. Saves us lots of extra work redeveloping it, eh, wot?"

Slipping the formula into his lab coat pocket, Dr. Angus said, "Right. By the by, whatever happened to that industrial spy?"

Baloo and Louie exchanged conspiratorial grins.

"Well," Louie said, "you could say she's been put out to pasture."

Baloo pointed to a flock of sheep clustered around a section of nearby fence. In the middle of the curious sheep was Natalia, bound and gagged. The fishnet that encased her was securely tied to the fence to prevent her from scooting away. Her bedraggled hair hung limp in her face, her dress was wrinkled, and a furious expression marred her pretty features. Her muffled yips of pain and protest could be heard over the bleating.

"That's what she gets for being baaaaad," Louie said.

Everyone, except Natalia of course, joined in on the laughter.

The Sea Duck

The seaplane was soaring ten thousand feet above the lush Shropshearian hills when Baloo said, "Sure was nice of them doctors to reward us for returnin' their formula. Two thousand Shropshearian hounds apiece."

Louie bit into one of the gold coins, upon which was engraved the image of Shropshear's King Arfbert, to make sure it was genuine. Satisfied as to its authenticity, he tossed it back into the pouch and pulled the tie strings taut. "What are you gonna do with yours?"

"I'm gonna have a big lunch with a side of dinner." His mouth was already salivating at the thought. "How 'bout you?"

Watching the clouds speed by, Louie said, "The fortune-tellin' act has gone stale. That stop at Dimitri's got me to thinkin' 'bout openin' a nightclub of my own."

Baloo's ears perked up. A nightclub had his two favorite things - food and entertainment - all wrapped up into one convenient package. "In Thembria?"

"No, thank you," Louie said with a shudder. "I've had more'n my fill of them frozen Thembrian stiffs!"

"Then where?"

"Dunno, cuz. Someplace where the people aren't as cold as the climate."

Baloo's smile stretched from ear to ear. "I know just the place. Ever been to Cape Suzette?"

The End