Korben moved slowly toward the door, keeping his face turned away as much as possible.
“Are you human?” asked the cop, straining to get a better view.
“No,” said Korben. “I’m a meat popsicle.”
The cop was just about to examine Korben’s face up close when a voice came from down the hall.
“I found him!”
The nameplate on the door said Korben Dallas.
Bingo!
The cop stuck a see-thru sticker on the door.
Korben’s nasty neighbor was shaving. His face was covered with shaving cream. Almost like a-beard.
The cop turned off his robotic bullhorn. Why make a big fuss and annoy everybody?
“This is a control,” he said politely. “Please put your hands in the yellow circles.”
Korben’s nasty neighbor peered through the transparent circle on his door.
He saw two young cops, nervously holding stun guns and a picture of a guy with a beard.
They saw a guy shaving.
“Open the door!” they said
Never at a loss for a response, the nasty neighbor said what he always said when faced with a new irritant in an always irritating world:
“Fuck you!”
Korben heard it all from his own apartment.
He heard the police request and the nasty neighbor’s answer.
Then he heard the blasting of the door, the stun gun shots, the struggle.
He smiled. “Wrong answer.”
There were more footsteps, and more cops came running.
Korben watched through the see-thru, which was already fading back to opacity.
He saw the cops dragging the squirming arrest bag down the hall, manhandling it down the stairwell.
“Okay, okay!“ one of them was hollering down to the street. “We got the guy under wraps!”
Right Arm also heard it all.
He was on the phone in Zorg’s office, patched into the police lines via cell phone.
“It wasn’t easy, but we bagged him,” a police lieutenant said over the phone. “Thanks for the tip.”
“Glad to help,” said Right Arm. He smiled as he hung up the phone.
“They just arrested this Dallas character for uranium smuggling,” he said proudly to Zorg.
“Everything’s going as I planned.”
“Uranium smuggling?” Zorg was skeptical. “I thought he was wanted on traffic violations and evading arrest?”
“A clerical error,” Right Arm said. “I patched it into the allpoints code just to make sure.”
He showed Zorg a forged plane ticket and passport—both in the name of Korben Dallas.
“All I have to do now is go to the spaceport and take his place. I should be on Fhloston in less than four hours.”
Zorg was unimpressed. “Don’t come back without the stones.”
17
Korben opened the shower. Leeloo was standing under the spray, shivering violently.
“I’m sorry,” said Korben. “I forgot the hot water doesn’t work too well in this old racktower.” He dragged a blanket out of a corner and wrapped her in it.
She snuggled into his arms, still shivering violently.
Korben’s rubbing slowed, passing gradually over the line that divides a friendly rub from an intimate caress.
“It’s funny,” he said. “I’ve met you twice today, and you’ve ended up in my arms both times.” Leeloo smiled and snuggled even closer. “Vallo massa. Chacha hamas.”
“Uh… you’re welcome,” said Korben. Nervously, he pulled away.
“Coffee! That’s what you need,” he said. He hit the control pad on the microwave.
Such eyes! They made him nervous. “A nice hot cup of coffee. With honey.”
He had sworn off women for good. Hadn’t he? So why was his heart pounding?
“With honey!” Korben said agitatedly. “You’ll see, honey’s great!”
But where was the damn honey? Korben opened drawer after drawer, rummaging through six months of unsorted bachelor debris.
“A hot cup of coffee… with honey…”
Leeloo seemed to want to help. Still wrapped in the army blanket, she followed him around the tiny apartment, opening and shutting drawers.
“Huh knee!” she said.
“I’ve got this great honey somewhere,” Korben babbled nervously. “You know about honey? There used to be these little animals with antennae who made it…”
Leeloo found a picture in one of the drawers. She took it out and held it up.
It was Major Korben Dallas, War Hero. Accepting a medal for Valor Above and Beyond.
“…and there were these other animals that ate it,” Korben went on. “Some were called bees and some were called bears.”
Leeloo looked from the War Hero to the nervous, fumbling man who was babbling to her about bears and bees…
And she smiled.
“I forget which ate it and which made it,” said Korben. “But… here it is!”
He held up an old-fashioned screw-top jar. He unscrewed the top.
“Taste this.”
Leeloo stuck her lovely finger into the pot of honey; then stuck the same finger into her lovely mouth.
Korben was mesmerized.
“It… melts in your mouth, uh, doesn’t it?”
Leeloo nodded. She sucked her finger sensually; then dipped all four slender fingertips into the jar, and sucked them clean… one by one by one by…
Korben was lost.
Gone.
Helpless.
He was so enthralled by the sight of Leeloo that he didn’t even hear the muffled knocking from inside the wall.
Until it became a steady thud.
Thump.
Thump!
THUMP!
THUMP!!!
“Do you hear that?” Korben asked.
Leeloo nodded, still licking her fingertips.
“Cor knee lee us,” she said.
“Oh, God!”
Korben pushed the button on the wall, and the bed popped open.
Father Cornelius was tangled in the dirty laundry, upside down.
“I’m really sorry,” Korben said. “Let me help you!”
“We don’t need your help,” said Cornelius, untangling himself up with all the dignity he could muster.
Bleep! went the microwave.
“Coffee’s ready,” said Korben. He crossed to the counter and poured a cup for himself and one for Leeloo.
“I’m warning you,” he said. “Coffee’s not my specialty.”
He turned to offer her her cup—and saw that she had removed her wet clothing. She was wringing them into the sink.
She had set aside the army blanket.
She was nude.
Shockingly, fetchingly, adorably, magnificently, wonderfully and totally nude.
Perfectly nude.
Embarrassed, Korben turned away, back toward the coffeepot.
“Maybe I should, uh, keep it hot,” he muttered. “I like it… hot.”
Behind him, Cornelius was studying a heavy, dusty military trophy—an award Korben had gotten during a forgotten war and now used as a paperweight.
Cornelius hefted it, then raised it over his head—and brought it down on the back of Korben’s head.
A short, sharp shock.
Leeloo looked at Cornelius angrily. “Vano da, mechtaba? Soun domo kala chon hammas!”
“I know,” said Cornelius. “I’m not proud of myself. But we don’t have the luxury of choice.”
Meanwhile, the police SWAT team was taking the bagged nasty neighbor out the entrance to a waiting cruiser, when they, too, felt a short, sharp shock.
Pop!
Pop!
Pop!
Three tranq shots from silenced weapons, and the cops folded up like newspaper in the rain.
Three Mangalore warriors, experienced shapeshifters, picked up the body bag even as their features were shifting back to their natural, hideous form. The strain of looking human had taken its toll, and all three warriors were exhausted.