Blonde Joke Chapter Twenty by Jeffrey M. Mahr   How many blondes does it take to play hide and seek? One.

Having intentionally approached the ten stall garage at White Wood from a different direction than the one Katrina was to take Tommi waited, impatiently dangling the key, by the little yellow sports car she had decided they would take. In had to be only minutes, but it felt like hours before the side door between the garage and the main house opened. Tommi jumped and bit back a scream of surprise before confirming that it was Kat, who quickly ran to her side.

Kat was surprised when Tommi grabbed her and hugged her fiercely. She didn’t realize how tense she had been until she glanced at Tommi, saw she was crying, and realized there were tears dripping down her face too.

“Oh, damn,” Kat exclaimed. Tommi looked up, saw the tears and both broke into laughter.

“Now we’ve got to fix our makeup again,” Tommi observed as they released each other.

“What you mean we, paleface?” Kat responded with a thick accent as she pretended to be Tonto, the Lone Ranger’s faithful Indian sidekick. She was still feeling giddy from her successful escape. “I’ll be in the trunk. You’re the one who has to look pretty.”

“Gee, who’s the clown–I mean clone–now? What self-respecting female would leave the house without properly applied makeup, even if for the trunk of a car? What happens if some hunky policeman stops me, opens the trunk lid, and finds you?”

“I surrender. I surrender. Let’s both fix our makeup and get out of here,” Kat laughed.

Harry lay on his stomach on the bed at the back of the camper while Dick sat in the passenger seat, swiveled around to face her twin. All the blinds had been drawn so no one could see in, which was a good thing since they were both naked except for oversized bathrobes and the camper was parked on the street in front of Maggie, Karen and Barbie’s apartment, as they had no where to go and insufficient cash to buy the gas they would need to go anywhere anyway.

“Something tells me we didn’t think this through quite as well as we should have, Harry groused.

“Yah think?” was Dick’s only response.

“Well, yah. We don’t look the same which is good because Brodsky won’t be able find us and kill us, but we don’t have ID, we don’t have educational records, we don’t have jobs–hell, we don’t even have clothes.”

“Thank you, Miss Obvious. Why didn’t you raise any of these points when we were first deciding to do this?”

“Well, if you must know, Dicky Poo, it was a choice between Miss October and your rambling. Care to guess who won?”

“You decided to change genders because you wanted to stare at a really pretty pair of boobs?” Dick asked incredulously before bursting into laughter. “I sure hope you’re happy, Harry-ette. The perspective is different, but now you’ll never be far from a set just as good as those you were staring at.”

Harry’s immediate retort was cut off by a knock on the door of the RV. Both women jerked in surprise and Harry whispered, “Does anyone know we’re here?”

“Not that I know.”

“Should we open it?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“Yeah, I guess. If nothing else, it will be a chance to see if anyone recognizes us.”

“Okay, so open it.”

“You open it.”

“No, you open it.”

“No, you…”

The door creaked and opened as Dick and Harry stared fearfully. When it was finally open, Karen stepped in, looked around and frowned before saying, “Excuse me. I was looking for Dick Baldwin and Harry Walton. Isn’t this their camper?”

“Uh, hi, Karen,” Dick said. Harry waved from the bed.

“I’m sorry. Do we know each other?” Karen asked, but then peered more carefully into the gloom to examine the two women before her. “Kat? Tommi? What the hell are you too doing here and why are you dressed like that? Maggie’s been worried sick about you both. Why didn’t you call? Where have you…”

“Uh, sorry, Karen. We’re not Kat and Tommi,” Dick interrupted. “I am–was–Dick Baldwin and the lump on the bed is–was–Harry Walton.”

“Yeah, sure,” Karen huffed. “I thought we were friends. What kind of scam are you pulling anyway?”

“No scam, Karen. Really,” Harry responded as he awkwardly rolled to the side of the bed, tied her bathrobe, and sat down on the edge closest to the door. “We…”

“Yeah, right,” Karen retorted angrily before Harry could finish. “Well, if you don’t want to talk to me, I’ll leave you two to whatever it is you’re doing.”

Karen moved, to back out of the RV, but before she could, Dick jumped up and grabbed her arm. “Please, Karen. Wait. Harry’s telling you the truth. At least listen. Please…”

“Two minutes. I’ll give you two minutes, but this had better be good.” Karen yanked her arm away from Dick and considered sitting at the small kitchen table between the bed and the driver’s seat, but instead decided to stand with her arms crossed, angrily tapping her foot.

“Open the gate please.”

“One moment, Mistress. I need to check the car.”

“Talker, I’m running late for a business meeting. I don’t have time for this right now.”

“I’m sorry, Mistress. Master’s orders.”

“Master’s orders? Who the hell do you think wants me at the damned meeting? Now get that gate open and let me through.”

When the man still hesitated, Tommi Brodsky’s face turned red with anger as she growled through clenched teeth. “Talker, open that gate right now.”

The guard took one look and opened the gate. The car roared through it before it was completely open. It was a miracle nothing was damaged.

The two blondes preened in front of the full length mirror on the back of Maggie’s bedroom door.

“Looking good, Dick.” The one on the right offered.

“Looking good, Harry,” was the reply from the one on the left.

Dick and Harry had matching white t-shirts and jeans with peds and white sneakers. Their hair had been washed and brushed to give a bit of body and curl. Makeup had been lightly, but dazzlingly applied.

Maggie, Karen and Barbie just lay back on the queen-sized bed, legs dangling off the sides and sighing in exhaustion. Any lingering doubts about the identities of the two blondes was extinguished as the three roommates had needed to explain, cajole, demand, and demonstrate, just about every part of the process of dressing them in other than the oversized bathrobes in which they had entered the apartment.

“So what do we call you?” Maggie finally asked, garnering enough energy to prop herself up on her elbows.

“I don’t know. I guess Dick or Richard is no longer appropriate. How a bout Rikki? It’s close enough that I’ll recognize that people are talking to me.”

“Well, I don’t ever want to be called Harriet. It’s a horrible name.”

“Hey, that was my aunt’s name,” Barbie blurted out and sat up.

“Sorry. I’m sure she was a wonderful woman. I just can’t handle the thought of being called Harriet.”

“Aw, don’t worry about it,” Karen said without moving. “Barbie hated the old harridan anyway.”

“True,” Barbie noted. “How about Hallie? Hope? Honey? Heather?”

“Hailey? Hanna? Heidi? Helen?” Karen offered.

“Hillary? Holly? Haden? Harmony?” Maggie added.

“Heda? Heloise? Hermione? Hildegard?” Rikki offered with twinkling eyes and a huge grin, quickly moving away from Harry before she could be hit.

“Actually,” Harry said after scowling at Rikki for a moment, “I kind of like Sydni, spelled S-Y-D-N-I.”

“Sydni?” Maggie asked. “Where’d that come from?”

“I’ve never mentioned it before, but my middle name is Sidney. I figured if I was going to be a new person, I could have a new variation of the name, so I had some fun with the spelling.”

“So where do we go from here, Sir?” Agent Serdland asked his boss.

“Summarize what we know again, Agent Serdland. I want to make certain I haven’t missed anything.”

“Yes Sir.

“We know that Franklin Brodsky has been using electronic bugs to illegally listen in on the personal conversations of the Federal Judge hearing the case of Isseksen v. Brodsky Holdings, Inc. and to track all the computer usage of the judge’s secretary and law clerk. We also have strong reason to believe that he has kidnapped Dr. Isseksen and replaced her with a double. Our information source also alleges that Dr. Isseksen is being held at Mr. Brodsky’s estate–White Wood it’s called.”

“And…”

“That’s all, Sir.”

“That’s what I thought I read,” the man behind the desk sighed. “You believe there has been a kidnapping, but there are no records to support the existence of one of the people alleged to be kidnapped and several well respected businessmen who have every reason to undercut Brodsky, yet provide testimony indicating that the other person alleged to be kidnapped is well and moving about freely in the community. You have evidence of illegal wiretapping and electronic surveillance, but nothing that clearly ties it to Brodsky. So far you have no evidence of Brodsky’s involvement, thus there’s no basis for a search warrant to search his estate or his office. I suggest you find some more evidence of wrong-doing or drop this investigation, Agent Serdland.

“Yes, Sir.”

Dejected, Serdland turned to exit the office, but his boss called out to him, “It’s not that bad, Agent. Go back to your sources. If they know as much as they seem to know, they should be able to provide something more tangible, something to finally clearly tie that old bastard Brodsky to wrongdoing. I’ve wanted to prove he’s crooked for years.”

Talker rode shotgun while the other guard drove. They had a mandate. Find Tommi Brodsky and Katrina Isseksen before they could talk to anyone. Their first stop had been the Cravat followed by phone calls to friends in the city police department. Next stop was the sister’s apartment. Just as they pulled into the block, the two missing women walked across the street to a beat up old camper and entered it. Talker sighed. Their jobs would be saved. This recovery would be easy.

The call came in as Agent Serdland was just leaving the FBI branch office to meet with his contacts again. Maggie Isseksen was frantic that two men had just grabbed two women who were exact duplicates of her sister and Tommi Brodsky. She was able to tell him exactly what color and style of car it was and most of the license plate. Truly this was a fluke, a chance, serendipity, but what the hell, sometimes that’s the only way to break a case. Serdland ran with it.

A quick check with the state’s motor vehicle department gave enough of a match that his boss agreed and sought a warrant. It also got them the good news that the vehicle in question was new enough to have a built in GPS unit. It took only five more minutes for his boss to be able to determine the ID code for the GPS unit and locate the vehicle, clearly on its way toward Brodsky’s estate. A second team was sent to meet Serdland at the entrance to White Wood. A bit of high speed driving and Serdland met the backup team at the entrance moments before the kidnapper’s vehicle arrived. There was just enough time to place Serdland’s vehicle in front of the gate, but set back from the road so it wouldn’t be seen until the kidnappers turned into the entrance to the estate.

The vehicle turned in as expected and the second vehicle pulled up behind it to block it in.

Everyone road back to the FBI office and Talker, true to his name, was very talkative. Agent Serdland was very pleased.