And again
Dunno why.
Tougher Than Stone
It had been three days since James Grubel had eaten a good, meat-based meal. Money was tight and it didn't help that work had been slim either. To make him even more angry, he was late for work. When he got in to his office, he was greeted by an elderly gentlemen in a proper suit. “Dad, why can't you just leave me alone?” James asked.
“Nonsense, boy,” the man replied, “I'm not your father.”
“Right. Sorry.”
The man's voice was gruff, as if he were born in to money.
“Why shouldn't I book you for breaking and entering?” James growled, whilst beginning to unbutton his shirt.
“Calm your testosterone, boy. I've got a job for you. A man named Walter Rathers has stolen something of mine, except I can't prove it was him. I need you to get it back, sort of... off the books. You understand,” the man said, as he chuckled a little, “with a matter this sensitive I cannot go to the police.”
“Who are the police?” James asked, before remembering that they were an old-school law enforcement department that became totally redundant since James came of age.
The gentleman paused, a little aghast, then said “...anyway, will you do the job? I can pay handsomely.”
“Sure. Whatever. I'll find your whatever-it-was. Get out of my office.”
The man upped to leave. “It's a diamond. I like your style, you seem like the sort of guy who can-” he said, before James cut him off.
“GOD, WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?” James yelled, then pushed the man out of his office, elbowed him across the side of the face and slammed the door.
He sat down at his chair and tried to ignore the sound of a man moaning in pain outside his door. After a few minutes, the sound subsided and James could get to work. He removed all the staples from his stapler and decided to trim his nails with it. He slammed the stapler down on his left thumb a few times, and some of his fingernail came off. He smiled, as he couldn't go hunting diamonds without find attending properly to personal hygiene.
After an hour or so of stapling his fingers, his telephone rang. He picked it up.
“Hey James, it's Jake. Jake FIST, your partner in crime-fighting.”
“Wow!” James gasped, in amazement at the introduction and feeling slightly uplifted in an absolutely platonic way, “What is it? Crime?”
“You bet! I've just been asked by an anonymous gentleman to retrieve a diamond from a man named Walter Rathers.”
“No way. I was given an almost identical assignment this morning... you know what this means? Walter Rathers has stolen two diamonds!”
“I'll pick you up in ten minutes in my Abrahms M1A2 Battle Tank.”
“Gotcha.”
James was so excited that he decided to work out for ten minutes. He got up and clenched his fist, tightening his badly bruised fingers, and started to take out his tough rage on a filing cabinet.
* * *
James and Jake cruised along in the heavily armoured tank, Jake manning the steering levers and holding down the air-horn continually as James manned the side-mounted automatic machine gun which he was using to deal with parking violations and littering offences.
“Where are we going?” Jake yelled over the sound of the horn.
“I have no idea. We've got to find Walter Rathers!” James yelled back, as he blew away a pedestrian that had moments earlier dropped a crisp packet.
Jake steered out of the opposing lane of traffic and back on to the correct side of the road. “Why don't we find out where he lives? You have a friend in the police, don't you?” he shouted.
“Those guys again... good point. Let's get to the 22nd precinct and ask him for a favour.”
They made their way to the police station. When they arrived, Jake smashed his tank through the rear wall to arrive directly in DCI Martin Wayman's office. They got out of the tank only to see that, somehow, DCI Wayman had been horribly crushed and maimed by the tank. He coughed up some blood on to the rubble next to him.
“Oh god,” James said, “who did this to you, Martin? Tell us who did it, we'll get them. We'll make them pay to death.”
“I don't know,” he coughed, and laughed a little, “I'll be okay though. I may never walk again, or live to see my child's fifth birthday, but this is just a scratch.”
The damaged seemed pretty bad. James didn't want to dampen his spirits, so he comforted him. “Don't worry Martin. The damage doesn't look too bad. You'll pull through. You've been through worse.”
“You can't fool me, James. How long have I known you, ten years?” DCI Martin chuckled again, and then coughed painfully.
“Well anyway, I need you to look up where a guy called Walter Rathers lives,” said James, pausing for a moment to think and then adding, “and also, stop complaining.”
Martin signalled towards his computer station, which was now a smouldering chunk of metal. “The computer's out, but I guess it doesn't matter, because I can tell you where he lives. We've had our eyes on this guy forever for illicit diamond trafficking, but we've never been able to pin anything on him... maybe you can finally nail him? He lives at the beach-front mansion at 2710b Chester Drive.”
“I'll get him,” James said, “I'll revenge you. Don't worry.”
Martin smiled, and began to mouth the words 'thank you' before his eyes transfixed on a point at infinity and his whole body went limp with death. James looked upon him, and then stood up next to his mangled remains and looked towards the sky. He tensed his arms upwards and yelled “No! It can't be!” before turning to Jake and giving him a hearty high-five and returning to the tank.
They headed towards 2710b Chester Drive.
* * *
This was a hell of a case. It had cost his dear friend's life, and James had almost even been a bit upset about it, but quickly shunned the thought of it from his mind. The sun beat down on their vehicle as they sped across the city's parkway. Not even using the machine gun to mow down a host of poor-looking children who would probably become criminals cheered James up.
“We've got to get these two diamonds out stealthily, and take in Mr. Rathers at the same time with the evidence,” Jake yelled over the sound of the tank's air-horn.
“I know,” James said.
Jake brought the tank to a halt. “James. I need you to be here for me, man. I can't do this on my own. Tell me you're together, and you're not going to fall apart on me in the field,” he said, and then pulled out a 9mm gun and shot James in the leg.
“I'm okay. I'm together. I'm sorry, you can trust me. If you get pinned down, I'll cover your six. You know that,” James smiled, and felt even more platonic towards Jake than he had earlier.
Jake started up the tank and held down the air-horn again.
“This is a covert mission. We've got to get in, get our evidence and get our man, and get out without any of the security systems being triggered. You got any ideas?” Jake asked.
“I have one. I know how we can sneak in. From there it's up to the both of us,” James said, his eyes angry with anger.
* * *
At around 7:35pm, the Abrahms M1A2 heavily armoured battle tank pulled up to the beach front property and came to rest. The property was surrounded by a seven foot brick wall with a barbed wire top. The large front door of the property was cast-iron and about seven foot high as well. “How do we get in to this? It's like a fortress,” Jake asked.
“It's very clever, we do this,” James said, as he manned the turret controls for the tank.
He aimed the reticle at the side of the house and after a few moments pulled the firing pin and the trigger. A loud clunk sounded and the whole tank shook a little. Moments later, a deafening explosion sounded outside. “What are you waiting for Jake, let's go!” James yelled.
Jake jumped to the controls and slammed down the air-horn and drove the tank clean through the perimeter fence. He pulled up to the house and they both jumped out of the tank. The house had been severely damaged by the tank's shelling, the side of the house had mostly come away and the second and third floors were burning quite badly. “Now, we just sneak in,” James said, as he climbed over singed rubble in to what used to be a pantry-of-sorts, “get the stuff and get out. Real stealthy-like.”
Jake picked up two AK-47 automatic rifles from the tank storage bin and threw one to James. “Let's go,” he grinned.
They ran in and split up. James took the left wing and Jake took the right wing. They found heavy resistance from the mansion staff, but thanks to the heavy firepower they were packing, the threat was minimal. James bust in to a room in the left wing and took down a waiter who he could swear was both crying and coming at him using an engraved silver tray as a deadly weapon. The room was a nice sitting room area, with ornate sofas and a stonework fireplace. He looked above the fireplace and saw a large painting of a naked lady in an oyster shell. It was in a beautiful golden frame and seemed to be a hand-painted original. James walked over to it and removed it from the wall and threw it across the room. Behind it, on the wall, was a safe. “Jake! Jake!” he yelled.
About a second passed, and Jake arrived. James motioned towards the safe, and said, “Do you think you can crack it?”
“I don't know, it seems tough... but I'll give it a go,” Jake answered.
Jake walked over to the safe and eyed it up. It was sealed with a built-in rotary combination lock, which is notoriously easy to break with the proper equipment. However, equipment was one thing Jake didn't have, and another was time. He took a few steps back and then took a deep breath. He lowered his head and ran at full speed towards the safe, smashing his skull against it. His nose started gushing with blood, but luckily the safe cracked clean in half. Out rolled a single diamond, about the size of a baby's fist.
James picked up the diamond. “Only one diamond? Something's not right,” he muttered.
“Stop right there,” a familiar gruff voice said from the doorway.
James and Jake turned around. The man who originally gave them the job stood there, aiming a magnum at them. “Drop the guns, lads,” he demanded.
They dropped their guns and put their hands up. “Why are you here? We were half way through the job,” James asked.
“You nincompoop,” the man scowled, “don't you get it? I'm Walter Rathers. I wanted you to steal my own diamond as insurance fraud. But you've messed it up, blowing up half my house and killing most of my staff. I was furious, then I realised something better. I've caught you both here, and I can say you were planting evidence in my residence. I can sue both of you to bits as bent cops. You'll spend so long in jail that you'll never see the light of day again.”
“But... this is your diamond,” Jake protested.
“I know that!” the man said,” but it's my word against yours, and frankly, with the trouble you've caused, the law won't look nicely on you.”
James was angry. He knew that the old guy was more or less right. There was nothing he could do, unless Jake had a trick up his sleeve. He looked over to Jake, who was trying to suppress a smile. Was it possible..?
“What is it?” the old man yapped, waggling his gun at Jake.
“It's just,” Jake said, “how will you frame us for planting evidence, if there isn't any evidence?”
“What do you mean?” the old man asked.
Jake raised the diamond in his fist and began to grunt a bit. He tensed up his whole body, starting with his rippling pectoral muscles, following through to his upper and lower arm muscles, which were glistening with sweat. James look upon him, in a very platonic way. Jake began to growl and tense even harder, and soon a grinding noise filled the room. Dust began to trickle from Jake's clenched fist, a little at first and then a lot. He brought his other hand up to push harder on his first hand, as the dust flow began to lessen. Then, he shook off the rest of the dust from his hands, the diamond being nowhere to be seen. Walter Rathers' jaw dropped and he began to say something when Jake yelled “NOW!”
James jumped down and grabbed his AK-47, pumping Rathers' lower half full of hot lead until the clip ran empty. Rather fell to the ground screaming, blood gushing from the mangled remains of his legs. James got up and reloaded his AK-47, and unloaded it again in to Rathers' legs and waist.
“I think we can wrap things up here,” James said.
Jake and James gave each other a righteous and well-deserved high-five. They made their way out of the wrecked mansion and saw that the tank had been damaged under a structural collapse of the upper east wing. “Damn,” Jake said, “I don't want to lose this baby, she's done us so well. Shall we carry her home to repair her?”
James nodded. They both went to opposite sides and pushed their fingers underneath the tank, before lifting it high above their heads. They walked out of the estate and down the lamp-lit highway, holding the tank aloft. It had been a good day, and another case lay in pieces behind them.
Tougher Than Stone
It had been three days since James Grubel had eaten a good, meat-based meal. Money was tight and it didn't help that work had been slim either. To make him even more angry, he was late for work. When he got in to his office, he was greeted by an elderly gentlemen in a proper suit. “Dad, why can't you just leave me alone?” James asked.
“Nonsense, boy,” the man replied, “I'm not your father.”
“Right. Sorry.”
The man's voice was gruff, as if he were born in to money.
“Why shouldn't I book you for breaking and entering?” James growled, whilst beginning to unbutton his shirt.
“Calm your testosterone, boy. I've got a job for you. A man named Walter Rathers has stolen something of mine, except I can't prove it was him. I need you to get it back, sort of... off the books. You understand,” the man said, as he chuckled a little, “with a matter this sensitive I cannot go to the police.”
“Who are the police?” James asked, before remembering that they were an old-school law enforcement department that became totally redundant since James came of age.
The gentleman paused, a little aghast, then said “...anyway, will you do the job? I can pay handsomely.”
“Sure. Whatever. I'll find your whatever-it-was. Get out of my office.”
The man upped to leave. “It's a diamond. I like your style, you seem like the sort of guy who can-” he said, before James cut him off.
“GOD, WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?” James yelled, then pushed the man out of his office, elbowed him across the side of the face and slammed the door.
He sat down at his chair and tried to ignore the sound of a man moaning in pain outside his door. After a few minutes, the sound subsided and James could get to work. He removed all the staples from his stapler and decided to trim his nails with it. He slammed the stapler down on his left thumb a few times, and some of his fingernail came off. He smiled, as he couldn't go hunting diamonds without find attending properly to personal hygiene.
After an hour or so of stapling his fingers, his telephone rang. He picked it up.
“Hey James, it's Jake. Jake FIST, your partner in crime-fighting.”
“Wow!” James gasped, in amazement at the introduction and feeling slightly uplifted in an absolutely platonic way, “What is it? Crime?”
“You bet! I've just been asked by an anonymous gentleman to retrieve a diamond from a man named Walter Rathers.”
“No way. I was given an almost identical assignment this morning... you know what this means? Walter Rathers has stolen two diamonds!”
“I'll pick you up in ten minutes in my Abrahms M1A2 Battle Tank.”
“Gotcha.”
James was so excited that he decided to work out for ten minutes. He got up and clenched his fist, tightening his badly bruised fingers, and started to take out his tough rage on a filing cabinet.
* * *
James and Jake cruised along in the heavily armoured tank, Jake manning the steering levers and holding down the air-horn continually as James manned the side-mounted automatic machine gun which he was using to deal with parking violations and littering offences.
“Where are we going?” Jake yelled over the sound of the horn.
“I have no idea. We've got to find Walter Rathers!” James yelled back, as he blew away a pedestrian that had moments earlier dropped a crisp packet.
Jake steered out of the opposing lane of traffic and back on to the correct side of the road. “Why don't we find out where he lives? You have a friend in the police, don't you?” he shouted.
“Those guys again... good point. Let's get to the 22nd precinct and ask him for a favour.”
They made their way to the police station. When they arrived, Jake smashed his tank through the rear wall to arrive directly in DCI Martin Wayman's office. They got out of the tank only to see that, somehow, DCI Wayman had been horribly crushed and maimed by the tank. He coughed up some blood on to the rubble next to him.
“Oh god,” James said, “who did this to you, Martin? Tell us who did it, we'll get them. We'll make them pay to death.”
“I don't know,” he coughed, and laughed a little, “I'll be okay though. I may never walk again, or live to see my child's fifth birthday, but this is just a scratch.”
The damaged seemed pretty bad. James didn't want to dampen his spirits, so he comforted him. “Don't worry Martin. The damage doesn't look too bad. You'll pull through. You've been through worse.”
“You can't fool me, James. How long have I known you, ten years?” DCI Martin chuckled again, and then coughed painfully.
“Well anyway, I need you to look up where a guy called Walter Rathers lives,” said James, pausing for a moment to think and then adding, “and also, stop complaining.”
Martin signalled towards his computer station, which was now a smouldering chunk of metal. “The computer's out, but I guess it doesn't matter, because I can tell you where he lives. We've had our eyes on this guy forever for illicit diamond trafficking, but we've never been able to pin anything on him... maybe you can finally nail him? He lives at the beach-front mansion at 2710b Chester Drive.”
“I'll get him,” James said, “I'll revenge you. Don't worry.”
Martin smiled, and began to mouth the words 'thank you' before his eyes transfixed on a point at infinity and his whole body went limp with death. James looked upon him, and then stood up next to his mangled remains and looked towards the sky. He tensed his arms upwards and yelled “No! It can't be!” before turning to Jake and giving him a hearty high-five and returning to the tank.
They headed towards 2710b Chester Drive.
* * *
This was a hell of a case. It had cost his dear friend's life, and James had almost even been a bit upset about it, but quickly shunned the thought of it from his mind. The sun beat down on their vehicle as they sped across the city's parkway. Not even using the machine gun to mow down a host of poor-looking children who would probably become criminals cheered James up.
“We've got to get these two diamonds out stealthily, and take in Mr. Rathers at the same time with the evidence,” Jake yelled over the sound of the tank's air-horn.
“I know,” James said.
Jake brought the tank to a halt. “James. I need you to be here for me, man. I can't do this on my own. Tell me you're together, and you're not going to fall apart on me in the field,” he said, and then pulled out a 9mm gun and shot James in the leg.
“I'm okay. I'm together. I'm sorry, you can trust me. If you get pinned down, I'll cover your six. You know that,” James smiled, and felt even more platonic towards Jake than he had earlier.
Jake started up the tank and held down the air-horn again.
“This is a covert mission. We've got to get in, get our evidence and get our man, and get out without any of the security systems being triggered. You got any ideas?” Jake asked.
“I have one. I know how we can sneak in. From there it's up to the both of us,” James said, his eyes angry with anger.
* * *
At around 7:35pm, the Abrahms M1A2 heavily armoured battle tank pulled up to the beach front property and came to rest. The property was surrounded by a seven foot brick wall with a barbed wire top. The large front door of the property was cast-iron and about seven foot high as well. “How do we get in to this? It's like a fortress,” Jake asked.
“It's very clever, we do this,” James said, as he manned the turret controls for the tank.
He aimed the reticle at the side of the house and after a few moments pulled the firing pin and the trigger. A loud clunk sounded and the whole tank shook a little. Moments later, a deafening explosion sounded outside. “What are you waiting for Jake, let's go!” James yelled.
Jake jumped to the controls and slammed down the air-horn and drove the tank clean through the perimeter fence. He pulled up to the house and they both jumped out of the tank. The house had been severely damaged by the tank's shelling, the side of the house had mostly come away and the second and third floors were burning quite badly. “Now, we just sneak in,” James said, as he climbed over singed rubble in to what used to be a pantry-of-sorts, “get the stuff and get out. Real stealthy-like.”
Jake picked up two AK-47 automatic rifles from the tank storage bin and threw one to James. “Let's go,” he grinned.
They ran in and split up. James took the left wing and Jake took the right wing. They found heavy resistance from the mansion staff, but thanks to the heavy firepower they were packing, the threat was minimal. James bust in to a room in the left wing and took down a waiter who he could swear was both crying and coming at him using an engraved silver tray as a deadly weapon. The room was a nice sitting room area, with ornate sofas and a stonework fireplace. He looked above the fireplace and saw a large painting of a naked lady in an oyster shell. It was in a beautiful golden frame and seemed to be a hand-painted original. James walked over to it and removed it from the wall and threw it across the room. Behind it, on the wall, was a safe. “Jake! Jake!” he yelled.
About a second passed, and Jake arrived. James motioned towards the safe, and said, “Do you think you can crack it?”
“I don't know, it seems tough... but I'll give it a go,” Jake answered.
Jake walked over to the safe and eyed it up. It was sealed with a built-in rotary combination lock, which is notoriously easy to break with the proper equipment. However, equipment was one thing Jake didn't have, and another was time. He took a few steps back and then took a deep breath. He lowered his head and ran at full speed towards the safe, smashing his skull against it. His nose started gushing with blood, but luckily the safe cracked clean in half. Out rolled a single diamond, about the size of a baby's fist.
James picked up the diamond. “Only one diamond? Something's not right,” he muttered.
“Stop right there,” a familiar gruff voice said from the doorway.
James and Jake turned around. The man who originally gave them the job stood there, aiming a magnum at them. “Drop the guns, lads,” he demanded.
They dropped their guns and put their hands up. “Why are you here? We were half way through the job,” James asked.
“You nincompoop,” the man scowled, “don't you get it? I'm Walter Rathers. I wanted you to steal my own diamond as insurance fraud. But you've messed it up, blowing up half my house and killing most of my staff. I was furious, then I realised something better. I've caught you both here, and I can say you were planting evidence in my residence. I can sue both of you to bits as bent cops. You'll spend so long in jail that you'll never see the light of day again.”
“But... this is your diamond,” Jake protested.
“I know that!” the man said,” but it's my word against yours, and frankly, with the trouble you've caused, the law won't look nicely on you.”
James was angry. He knew that the old guy was more or less right. There was nothing he could do, unless Jake had a trick up his sleeve. He looked over to Jake, who was trying to suppress a smile. Was it possible..?
“What is it?” the old man yapped, waggling his gun at Jake.
“It's just,” Jake said, “how will you frame us for planting evidence, if there isn't any evidence?”
“What do you mean?” the old man asked.
Jake raised the diamond in his fist and began to grunt a bit. He tensed up his whole body, starting with his rippling pectoral muscles, following through to his upper and lower arm muscles, which were glistening with sweat. James look upon him, in a very platonic way. Jake began to growl and tense even harder, and soon a grinding noise filled the room. Dust began to trickle from Jake's clenched fist, a little at first and then a lot. He brought his other hand up to push harder on his first hand, as the dust flow began to lessen. Then, he shook off the rest of the dust from his hands, the diamond being nowhere to be seen. Walter Rathers' jaw dropped and he began to say something when Jake yelled “NOW!”
James jumped down and grabbed his AK-47, pumping Rathers' lower half full of hot lead until the clip ran empty. Rather fell to the ground screaming, blood gushing from the mangled remains of his legs. James got up and reloaded his AK-47, and unloaded it again in to Rathers' legs and waist.
“I think we can wrap things up here,” James said.
Jake and James gave each other a righteous and well-deserved high-five. They made their way out of the wrecked mansion and saw that the tank had been damaged under a structural collapse of the upper east wing. “Damn,” Jake said, “I don't want to lose this baby, she's done us so well. Shall we carry her home to repair her?”
James nodded. They both went to opposite sides and pushed their fingers underneath the tank, before lifting it high above their heads. They walked out of the estate and down the lamp-lit highway, holding the tank aloft. It had been a good day, and another case lay in pieces behind them.