“Yes, he is. That’s why we’re here.”
“What happened at the airport?”
“As well as I have been able to put this all together,” Charley said, “Las Vegas is hosting some sort of award ceremonies dealing with the adult motion picture business.”
“The fifteenth annual Hard-On Awards,” Hotelier said. “At the Streets of San Francisco Hotel, Resort and Casino.”
“What do they call them?” the Widow Alekseeva asked.
“The Hard-On Awards, Svetlana,” Hotelier said. “You know, like the Oscars? The winners get golden — or at least gold-plated — little statues, called Hard-Ons.”
“What’s a hard-on?” the Widow Alekseeva asked.
“Moving right along,” Castillo said quickly. “Apparently one of the contenders for the… top award… is a lady professionally known as ‘Red Ravisher.’”
“Yeah, she won last year, too,” Hotelier said. “I think she’s got five, maybe six, Hard-Ons total.”
“I asked what a hard-on is,” the Widow Alekseeva pursued.
Charley went on: “… and the, what do you call those photographers who chase celebrities around?”
“Paparazzi,” Annapolis furnished.
“Right. Paparazzi. Well, the paparazzi apparently heard Miss Red Ravisher was flying into Vegas in her personal Gulfstream…”
“I hear there’s almost no limit to how much money those people with Hard-Ons can make,” Radio & TV Stations said.
“… so when we landed and taxied to the Casey hangars in our Gulfstream,” Castillo went on, “the paparazzi apparently decided that it was Miss Red Ravisher, and that she was trying to escape their attentions.”
“Some of the really big Hard-On stars are like that,” Hotelier said. “They forget their humble beginnings.”
“In any event, when we got to the Casey hangars on the far side of the field, all we knew when we looked out the window was that there were three lines of limousines, and maybe fifty paparazzi waiting for us.”
“Three lines of limousines?” Annapolis asked.
“I didn’t know Hotelier was going to send limos,” Aloysius Casey, Ph.D., said. “So I sent five of ours. Then there was Hotelier’s line, and then the line that the dirty movie awards people sent.”
“They were spectacular,” Castillo said. “All white, and with lines of flashing lights around the doors and windows.”
“They call that ‘the Bride’s Carriage Model,’” Hotelier explained. “The Elvis Presley Wedding Chapel and Casino Incorporated has a fleet of them. They charge fifty dollars extra for turning on the flashing lights around the windows.”
“I don’t want to hear anything about the Elvis Presley Wedding Chapel, thank you very much,” the Widow Alekseeva said. “I’ve gone through enough tonight.”
“Aloysius,” Hotelier said, “the adult film industry people don’t like the term ‘dirty movies.’ They would prefer for you to call them ‘adult films.’”
“You ever heard that ‘once a Green Beret, always a Green Beret’?” Dr. Casey asked.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Well, I’m a Green Beret and I know a dirty movie when I see one. An adult movie is one like that Anna Karen—whatever, where the Russian broad jumps under a train at the end. That adult movie made me cry.”
“I cried, too, Aloysius,” the Widow Alekseeva said. “That’s very sweet of you to admit it. My Carlito said she was a damned fool.”
“Don’t mention it, Sweaty,” Dr. Casey said.
“Well, when we saw all this activity,” Charley went on, “and knew it couldn’t possibly be for us, I sent Roscoe J. Danton down the stairs to find out what was going on. One journalist to other journalists, so to speak. Then Sweaty—”
“I’ll take it from here, my darling, if you don’t mind,” the Widow Alekseeva interrupted. “I thought perhaps I would have a chance to see a movie star, maybe Antonio Bandana, or Clint Eastwood, so I followed Roscoe out the door. Actually, Roscoe and I followed Max out the door. Max always gets out first to attend to his calls of nature.
“I didn’t get halfway down the stairs when this despicable little pervert started aiming his camera at me and screaming vulgar things. I’m sure he was French; they always have their minds in the gutter.”
“I have to ask this, Mrs. Alekseeva,” Annapolis said. “What exactly did he scream at you?”
The Widow Alekseeva blushed.
“Go on, Sweaty, you started the story, now you have to finish it,” Charley said.
She looked at him for a moment, and then said, “If you insist. What this miserable French pervert screamed at me—”
“In the belief, of course, that Sweaty was Miss Red Ravisher,” Castillo injected.
“… was ‘Show us your teats, Red!’” the Widow Alekseeva furnished.
“How awful for you,” Annapolis said. “May I ask what happened then?”
“I asked him what he had said, and he repeated it, adding, ‘I don’t have all night, and you came here prepared to show the whole world your’… you know whats… ‘so out with your boobs, baby!’”
“And then what happened?”
“I demonstrated with him.”
“Sweetheart, I think you mean ‘remonstrated,’” Charley said.
“What she did,” Dr. Casey furnished, “was coldcock this clown with a one-two jab, and then when he went down, she kicked him in the… you can guess, and then she picked him up and threw him into the other bums, taking out four of them. Actually, three of them and Roscoe, who was standing there with them.”
“And then Max got into the act,” Castillo said. “Max loves Sweaty, and it is not wise to threaten anyone a Bouvier des Flandres is fond of.”
“And then my Carlito came to my defense,” the Widow Alekseeva said. “My knight in shining armor.”
“And then Lester and Peg-Leg came to help,” Castillo said. “Peg-Leg hopped around on his good leg and used his titanium one like a club.”
“By the time the cops stopped it—” Dr. Casey said.
“And you, too, Aloysius,” the Widow Alekseeva said. “You were just as quick to rush to my side as the others were.”
“… there were a lot fewer paparazzi standing up than there were before,” Dr. Casey concluded.
“Aloysius,” Annapolis asked, “you said the police stopped it. Are there going to be any problems in that area, with the law?”
“I don’t think so,” Dr. Casey replied. “Terence McGonagall?”
“Captain Terry McGonagall, chief of the Las Vegas Police Department’s Celebrity Affairs Bureau?”
“Yeah. Well, when we got to the jail, Terry was there to see who got out of the paddy wagon.”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to use the term ‘paddy wagon,’ Aloysius,” Annapolis said. “It’s considered offensive to those of Irish heritage.”
“I’m a Boston Irishman, Swab Jockey,” Dr. Casey replied, somewhat impatiently. “And I’ve been in paddy wagons often enough to know a paddy wagon when I’m in one. As I was saying, when we got out of the police prisoner transport vehicle, Terry was there and he talked to the cops who had busted us, and eventually they let us go.”
“And why did they do that?”
“Well, Terry — he and I are fellow Grand Exalted Oracles in the Knights of Columbus — pointed out that if they charged Sweaty and us with assault and battery and destruction of property, such as their movie cameras, I could charge them with criminal trespass. Charley’s airplane was parked on my property. And so far as the camera guy Sweaty took out with a right cross, Terry asked him what judge was going to believe a good-looking redheaded lady weighing maybe a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet had broken the nose of a six-foot-five two-hundred-and-fifty-pound male. So it turned out to be a wash.”