Good afternoon. Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce chapter thirty-eight of my story Certified Sadistic Accountant. I must tell you this has been a most dreadful week. My novelist ambushed me Tuesday morning and took me in to have my teeth cleaned. I feel horrible. I am still trying to come out of the spell they put me under. The whole world is slow and lethargic. I just want to lie on my pillow and cry. My teeth hurt and I feel like I am trotting through water. I cannot believe after having to suffer through being boarded for a week I am now being subjected to torture. Yes, of course, putting me under sedation made the whole experience more tolerable but when is getting one’s teeth cleaned ever tolerable? At least it only happens once a year. I know she’s planning on booking an appointment for me to see the groomer soon. That should be a barrel of monkeys and a bag of chips. At least I am writing my story again even if Tuesday was a “lost weekend” as it were. And so, groggy though I may be, here is chapter thirty-eight of Certified Sadistic Accountant. Je déteste aller chez le vétérinaire.

Certified Sadistic Accountant

by

Gigi the parti poodle

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Curtis faced away from the bars, squatted down and grabbed the bottom of the cage with both hands. He struggled at first because of the handcuffs and the awkward position but using his legs he slowly started to lift the cage off the floor. To his delight he found it was not as heavy as he first guessed, and he was able to lift it a foot off the ground before he had to let it drop pulling his hands away just in time.

He breathed deep and squatted back down into position. He grabbed the bottom of the cage until he was able to inch it up to his shoulders. Then the terrifying part: because his hands were cuffed together behind him, he couldn’t lift the cage over his head and drop it in front of him. But he could duck his head and try to slip it off that way. Or he could keep the cage balanced on his back, turn and face outwards and rush forwards. He decided to attempt the latter.

He started turning slowly. He felt the cage slip a little and started to worry he’d injure himself. But he continued to turn one slow notch at a time until he was a full 180° around and facing the opposite direction. Then he stopped and considered a different option. He could slowly rise instead of rushing forwards and let the cage slip down to his hands and lower it to the floor with the hope it didn’t miss his hands or drop too quickly. Easy, he told himself. Go easy. He began to straighten up and the bottom of the cage slid inch by inch…and then it dropped. He quickly opened his hands and caught it. It stung a little when it hit but he caught it. He stepped forwards, pulled his hands back, and let it go.

He breathed a sigh of relief. Now all he needed to do was get the handcuffs off. The easy part would be because he knew his Aunt Odette kept her keys in her jewelry box under the fake bottom. He’d had to retrieve a key from there once when he was in middle school. She didn’t keep all her spare keys in the jewelry box. Just the small ones. The only issue was he needed to be able to unlock the master bedroom door to get to the jewelry box. The problem was the key to his aunt’s bedroom was not in the hip pocket of his jeans. It was in the front. He would need to figure out how to get his handcuffed hands into the front pocket of his jeans.    

If he was flexible, he could step through his hands and reach his front pocket and get the key to the bedroom. Or did any of this matter at this point? Should he just run and try to find a way to survive as a fugitive which, if he was being honest, sounded terrible. Especially with handcuffs on his wrists.

So, then, how could he get rid of these handcuffs? How could he get the key out of his front pocket? He needed a way to cut the chain. And because his hands were locked behind him, he would have to do it without being able to see what he was doing. He tried to remember if his aunt had a pair of wire cutters or something similar that would do the job. Maintenance tools were not her forte. It wasn’t like they were a piece of art she collected. But there might be some oddball items in the garage. Curtis headed into the hall and down the stairs. When he reached the front door, he had an epiphany. If he could get his hands on a long flexible thin pole or stick, one of his hands could steady the end and he could press his hip into a corner of a wall and bend the pole around his hips and work the other end into his front pocket and lift out the keys. He tried to think of an object that would fit the description. Then he remembered somewhere in his aunt’s office was an old long metal shoehorn. He had no idea why she kept it in there instead of her bedroom, but it was in there.

Curtis dashed over to the office where he proceeded to turn around, grab the knob with both his hands, and turned it. He pressed the door open with his hip and then turned around and went inside.

Aunt Odette kept it in the bottom drawer of her desk. Luckily, Curtis had left that drawer unlocked. He squatted down, turned around, grabbed the handle and pulled the drawer forwards. Still squatting he tiptoed back around 180˚ and faced the drawer. Inside lay the long metal shoehorn with the flexible end. He knew if he pressed hard enough into the bar it would bend and then the flexible part could slide into his front pocket and dig out the keys. Curtis turned back around and stuck his hands into the drawer and grabbed ahold of the shoehorn. Using his knees he pushed himself up to stand. Then he walked over to the corner of the wall and positioned himself so that he was holding the end of the shoehorn with his bound hands and began to press his hip against the handle.

Bending it was not as easy as he first thought, and he started to work up a sweat. But little by little the bar gave way and started to bow. Finally, it bowed enough for Curtis to attempt to fish the keys out of his right front pocket. He began to finesse the end of the flexible shoehorn towards his pocket. But the end of the shoehorn flexed and did not go inside. Curtis leaned into the wall and tried again. This time he was able to slip the shoehorn into the pocket before the end bent and flipped out. Curtis staggered back and then gave it one more chance. He leaned his hip into the wall against the bar, then he lifted his hip to give the direction of the shoehorn an angle. He curved a little, so the back of the bendable end folded into the pocket. He held his breath as he heard the light clank of metal against metal. He worked the shoehorn under the keys and attempted to scoop them out. But they caught on the fabric and would not budge.

He slipped the shoehorn in his front pocket again and this time he was able to get it under the keys and slowly slide them to the top of his pocket and flip them out onto the floor. He bent down and picked them up and darted out of the office and up the stairs.

When he reached his aunt’s bedroom, he held the doorknob steady with one hand and with the other he worked the key into the lock. He turned the key and pushed. The door gave way, and he headed inside. He hurried over to the dresser. He leaned in and used his chin to scoot the jewelry box forwards. Once he got the jewelry box to the edge, he leaned forward and let the box drop onto his chest and lowered himself to the floor. He bent in and used his nose to lift the lid. Then he turned around and reached his hands in to lift the fake bottom up.

As soon as his fingers grasped the key to the handcuffs he began to sob. He worked the key into the cuffs and unlocked them. He put his hands to his face as tears streamed down his cheeks. Just then he heard a noise downstairs. Someone was unlocking the front door.

MY BOOKS

You can check out my books Chicane and all five installments of the Musicology book series Musicology: Volume One, Baby!, Musicology: Volume Two, Kid!, Musicology: Volume Three, Twist!, Musicology: Volume Four, Sweetie! and Musicology: The Epiquad on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback editions. You can also check out Musicology’s web site at www.musicologyrocks.com and vote for who you think will win Musicology!

STREAM OF THE WEEK: BABY DRIVER (2017)-NETFLIX

This week’s movie is a smart, fast-paced, edge of your seat action film that is as clever as it is visually stunning. After suffering a car wreck as a young child which left him with tinnitus, young talented Baby (Ansel Elgort) works or rather is forced to work for Doc (Kevin Spacey) as a getaway driver for his bank robber team who carry out his expertly designed plans. Baby’s hobby is remixing conversations he records and blending them with music. He is as frugal as he is brilliant at driving and has saved up a fortune in the floorboards of his apartment which he shares with a deaf foster father named Joseph (CJ Jones). Baby thinks his recent gig is his last and he is finally out of debt with Doc and strikes up a romance with a waitress named Debora (Lily James). But Doc pulls him in for one last job. And this crew is even more unstable than the last with a loose cannon named Bats (Jamie Foxx), a Wall Street banker gone criminal named Buddy (Jon Hamm) and his sultry wife Darling (Eiza González Reyna). When Baby drives the trio to a location to retrieve guns Bats suspects something is awry and things go horrifically wrong leaving Baby with not only his life in danger but Deborah’s as well.