Of course, there was no getting pass the granite-faced guard.
Debbie figured that
the theft of the prism would likely occur during
museum visiting hours,
when Alan, himself, stood guard. She knew he
would be the weakest
link of the tandem. Doing the day-shift guard
duty worked well to
his advantage, however. Not only was he passing
out business cards
hand over fist, but he was getting himself and
the agency attention
from the more influential and wealthy citizenry
of Aliasville and
those from neighboring towns.
"Well," Tina said, as she and Debbie entered the large exhibition
room. Debbie was slightly
annoyed by the business cards he was
handing out, as she
studied the one in her hand.
"hmmm..." she said, gazing upon it. "But look who's guarding it
now. Perhaps the others are purely intimated by 'Jackhammer', I
think this is obvious. But Alan..."
"Yeah..." said Tina.
They had gone to Alan as he continued to laugh and joke with
the patrons.
"Don't crowd, ladies and gentlemen," he said, as he passed out more business cards. He had, unknowingly, even given them to Debbie and Tina. "Call anytime when you'll be requiring my services. We
charge based upon your annual income and number of dependents.
We--" He then noticed the two standing beneath him.
"What're you two doing here?" he asked angrily. "I thought you
were on that Heckyll-Jeckyll case!"
"I solved that two days ago," Debbie said. "It was a simple
open and shut case: Heckyll murdered Jeckyll, as it turned out.
He tortured him by forcing him to listen to twelve hours of talk
radio and tv talk shows--simultaneously--after strapping him in a
chair, with a remote control hanging two inches above his head.
I found out Heckyll was a former talk-show producer; Jeckyll
was a newspaper critic who panned several notable talk show
broadcasts."
"OOooo..." Alan winced, quite chilled by the scenario. "Well,
for your information, this is my case and I'm finally going to get
the credit. No sawed-off little pip-squeak's gonna out-shine me
again! Not if I can help it!. And you can tell that to your buddy,
Karen Daly! I know you two are really working together!"