How Do You Spell Patsy Again?

Last episode, Ben had been hit by Mr Chow’s Egg Fu-Yong truck. The last thing he had seen was the three Chinese stooges – Dong, Dong, and Dang. Now he has just woken up in some sort of hospital. Dazed and confused, he was high on sedatives. A sadistic-looking nurse kept pumping them into him. He desperately tried to take in every detail. Three familiar faces appeared. He struggled to focus on them. His inner voice, Calvernicus the Godfather of Compliance, delivers a stern message. Read on…

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“Harro, Mr Snake,” said a set of smiling teeth, the one that seriously needed a dental plan and a very large mint.

“Who are you?” Ben asked, wishing the sets of teeth would move back a couple of inches. He felt like they were so close they were going to kiss him! He tried to wiggle up the bed to put some distance between him and the chopper threat.

“Me are Ding, dis is Dong, and over dere is Dang.  You have bad accident, velly stupid Mr Snake not rooking where you going." Ben tried to store the thought in his head: ‘green teeth’ is Ding.

“How long have I been in here?" persisted Ben.

“For once, play along, Ben. We will have a chat when they have gone, but for now pretend you are still drowsy. Get rid of them; they are bad news,” pleaded Calvernicus.

“Need more sleep,” said Ben, closing his eyes.

“We be back,” added Dong or at least that is who Ben thought it was, the one that needed the mint anyway.

“We take you to our place soon, Mr Snake, then you go home,” were his parting words.

“Where is Tina?” demanded Ben.

“She on holiday, she gone away, left you alone it seems Mr snake,” replied Ding with an evil little chuckle. 

Dong joined in, but Mr Dang did not seem as enthusiastic as the other two. He only raised a smile.

Tina wouldn’t do that, would she? Ben thought to himself.

“Hey Hotshot” he said to himself, “is that true?” expecting the voice of Calvernicus to ring in his ears.

"Patience, grasshopper, patience,” were the only words that came back.

[Next Day Bright and Early ...]

“Good news Mr Snake, no dlug for you today.  Tomollow we go to our place much better for you to get better.  Nurse come too,” said Rotten Teeth the one that Ben was sure was Ding. 

“I've got to remember this," he said to himself, “Mr Ding is old green teeth, Mr Dong is ‘Colgate smile’ and Mr Dang was the quiet one.”

“Do I have any clothes, and where are they?” asked Ben.

“We got them,” replied Dong, “safe with us at our place. Not far from here, but quieter.  You will see.  Better place, meets travel policy for China, four-star, but no flequent frier points,” said Ding which brought raucous laughter from both Dong, but again not so much from Dang.

After the three had left, the Misery nurse came back in.  Ben cringed she had that evil look on her face again.

“Time for medication. Just some pills. Need to pee? If so, got to get up. Me not touching you anymore. You get up and go by yourself. Tomorrow we go to new place. Better for you, better for me. You need to pee?”

“You’ve been touching me?" said Ben, feeling violated.

“How you think you go pee and do number two’s, Mr Snake?”  replied the nurse.

Ben had not thought about it. He had been in the hospital before, but only for a day or two at most, and had always looked after himself well.

“I’m good,” said Ben, just wanting her to go away. She made him nervous.

She gave him two tablets and left with a blunt warning. “You be walking by end of day with clutches,” as if there was no choice whatsoever.

After she had gone, Ben reached out to Calvernicus. “OK, tell me what you know and don’t leave anything out.”

For the next hour, Calvernicus shared what happened over the last three weeks. Two of those weeks were mostly empty since Ben was in the hospital. No one knew where Tina had gone, but Calvernicus knew that it had something to do with the three ‘friends’.

“Why are they so keen to get me out of here?” asked Ben.

“Because you have Tina’s jump stick and they know it, but they do not know where it is. "My guess is that after the truck hit you, they thought you’d be dead. “Then they could just toss all your stuff and fix their issue,” Calvernicus said.

“Someone called the hotline. They reported that Tina was missing. You were in the hospital, and many bad things were happening." Doug has been up to his earhole in stinky stuff because his whole plan went wrong.

“His boss is asking many questions. Someone leaked info about potential bribery to the press. Now, the Chinese government is interested, which embarrasses Laxo Smut Klump,” added Calvernicus.

“I remember now, Tina and I were supposed to conduct an audit follow-up from Tina’s last visit. When we got to the hotel, she pleaded with me to change rooms. When I got to her room about 15 minutes later, she was gone. I looked for her, but she was nowhere to be found, and no one knew where she was. "I got her a teddy bear, a small diary, and a jump stick." "I couldn't access the jump stick; it was encrypted," Ben said, feeling more excited as he recalled.

“Great! "They're moving you to find out what you know or knew before the accident. They realise you're onto them, but they need to keep the Chinese Wall intact." They have corporate interests at stake,” Calvernicus said, trying to motivate Ben.

“Will you help me, Calvernicus? I need to find out what is happening and what happened to Tina. She would not leave me like this.”

“Together we will get to the bottom of this, Ben, but you've gotta start listening to me. OK?”

Ben suddenly had the urge to pee. Now this will be interesting, Calvernicus mumbled to himself. Guy hasn’t stood up for three weeks, and he thinks he can shoot a fly at 2 meters? He let out a hearty chuckle and sat back to watch the show.

Next Episode: Episode #30: “Home Sweet Home_ I Don’t Think!”