Home Sweet Home_ I Don’t Think!

Last episode: Ben sorted out some of the past events with Calvernicus. The three smiling assassins plotted to take him to a "better place." To Ben’s horror, the nurse from hell was coming too. Ben was enthused because he was getting his memory back. He was more determined than ever (with Calvernicus's help) to find out what was going on.

Read on……..

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Back at GSK headquarters, Doug Selfritious was on the phone.

“You listen to me, dipstick! I am not taking the rap because you couldn't do a few simple things. There is a lot invested in this,” yelled Doug.

The China General Manager, Li Wan Fuckno, tried to interject, “Mr Doug…”

“Shut up! I am not finished yet. "You were supposed to make Tiuna love China so much that she'd want to climb the Great Wall or something. Look how that turned out!"

“But…” tried Fuckno again, to no avail.

“But nothing. Then all you had to do was run over that stupid jellybean Ben Boa, and we would have been O.K. You couldn’t even do that without making a mess of things, and now you're trying to get out of it.”

“You had better have good news for me next time. Things are getting really hot around here because, oh, that’s right, one of your people called the hotline. Now Simon is all over me like hot soup,” Doug ranted. He slammed down the phone and cursed everyone, except for the photo of his dog on his desk.

“I should send you over there to bite them on the arse; that is what I should do. Then they would know I was serious," he said to himself and the photo.

He stormed out of his office for his meeting with Simon, the head of Laxo Smut Klump. As he did, he walked past Penny Promo.

"Hi Doug,” she said with a big smile. “How is Ben getting on? I haven’t heard from him in ages.”

“He’s an idiot. If I never see him again, it will be too soon,” he spat back at Penny with all the venom of a pit viper.

“That’s our boy; give him my regards,” replied Penny with an even bigger smile than before.

[Back in China…]

Ben woke up from a groggy sleep in his old hotel room. “So, this is what they meant about their place,” he said to himself.

It was just as he had left it. He wondered if it had all been a bad dream. He needed to go for a leak and tried to get out of bed, but then remembered the last time he had tried. It had not gone well.

As he tried to move his leg, he realised his leg was in plaster.

“I don’t remember that I was in hospital,“ he thought.

As he swung it over the edge of the bed, not onto the floor, he felt as if he'd sat on an echidna with a hundred and one spines. Fire shot up his leg with such pain; he passed out.

When he came to a few minutes later, he paused. He waited for the pain to kick in again as he tried to move his leg. No pain, and it felt lighter than he remembered. He tried the other one.

“Ahhh, God,” yep, it was that one!

After some effort, he stood up. “I can walk!” he said to himself. “I can walk!"

He started hobbling to the toilet. Left. Right. Left. Right like some deranged pirate with a wooden leg. He passed the door and looked through the peephole. There, sitting on a chair outside his room, was Ding, Dang or Dong. He didn’t know which one, but assumed it wouldn't be Dong, since he seemed to call the shots. Most likely it was Dang who seemed to be the lowest in the pecking order of the three brothers.

“What the hell?” He was a prisoner in his own room.

Whoever it was, they were guarding his door. He looked up the corridor. Two doors up, another Chinese guy sat outside that door. He didn’t recognise him, but they all looked the same to him.

Wait, two doors up, he suddenly had a flash of memory; wasn’t that where Tina was? Wasn't that her room?

The guy outside Ben’s room answered his phone. He looked up and down the corridor and said something to the other guy. He reached under his seat, grabbed a briefcase, and headed for Ben’s room.

Ben nearly pole-vaulted off his plastered leg. He landed on the bed, covered himself, and pretended to be asleep. God, he needed to pee!

The door clicked open. A stream of light filled the room, and a small figure shuffled in. The figure moved to the desk. Click. Click. Ben didn't know if it was a gun or something else. He shut his eyes even harder.

A brighter stream of light flicked across his face. He squinted to keep his eyes shut. If he were going to be shot, he didn’t want to see it.

[Meanwhile back at GSM Headquarters…]

“So let me get this straight, Doug," said Simon, turning a bright shade of purple. “You sent Tina to China to look into their finances because you thought something was wrong. She comes back (eventually) but has nothing to say, and now you're none the wiser. You don’t even know where she disappeared for weeks on end.”

“Then you send her back to China with someone else, this Ben Boa guy,” snapped Simon.

"You sent Tina and this guy back there with no experience. He got caught up in the whole mess. You called it 'some more digging,’" he screamed, ready to explode.

Doug was just about to interject but thought better of it.

“Now Tina is missing again, and this Ben guy gets hit by a truck and is in the hospital. I am in the hot seat because all of this has been leaked, and the press is having a field day with this. Someone is telling them that we have been bribing doctors to prescribe. Have you seen the stock price today?”

If only he knew the whole story, Doug thought. He tried to reassure Simon.

“Don’t worry, I have been talking to China, and it is under control."

“Fix it!!!,” yelled Simon. “Fix it? You’re damn right you will fix it. If you don’t, guess who is going to get fixed. Now get out of my sight."

Next Episode: Episode #31: The Case of the Cute Little Teddy Bear

Till next time,

Calvin