14,590 Words

Indeed, Ryan Seacrest loved the museum, although the game of dinosaur bone fetch that Kansas had envisioned never came to fruition. Mostly Bracy brought the mutt along because she was unused to spending nights alone and his condo was starting to reflect her displeasure at being left to her own devices. With Kansas spending more and more time at Bracy’s, he secretly figured the place could use a night (or two) to air out, and he’d flung wide the French doors to the balconies before the happy clan had piled into his faithful Jeep to head for Super Hero Stakeout Number Five.
Never famous for her patience, Troy had spent the better part of the last two days parading groups of schoolchildren and spry nursing home residents to and fro in front of television cameras as part of her campaign to encourage all citizens—law-abider and jewel thief alike—to visit Our Fair City’s Museum. “I’m tempted to prop the damn doors open with a cinder block after closing time,” she’d confessed to Bracy and Kansas that morning over coffee and leftover pizza.
“I don’t know,” Kansas joked. “On the news last night it looked a couple of those old ladies you brought in had a gleam in their eye. If any of the jewels do go missing and we’re not there, I’d search the nursing home first.”
“Kid’s got looks and jokes,” Bracy cracked, jerking his thumb at Kansas.
“I hate that combination,” Troy muttered.
The cinder block in the door would have been a wasted effort, as it happened, because when the Museum was invaded that night, it was by a pair of black denim-clad scofflaws in balaclavas who threw first a rock, then a rope, through one of the Museum’s signature skylights.
Handsome Man and B.O. Boy were in the thrall of the game of Uno on the table between them in the Museum’s broom closet when they heard the tintinnabulation of a violated pane of glass followed shortly by the echoing thud of rock on marble in a vast atrium. Ryan Seacrest chuffed in her sleep, but Bracy stayed her with a gentle scratch between the ears and, never one to doubt her master, she graciously accepted his permission to stay put in doggy dreamland.
“What was that?” Kansas asked, pushing back his chair.
“Our cue,” Bracy surmised, rising from the card table. Kansas opened the zipper on his hoodie about half way and followed Bracy out into the Museum. Bracy checked his reflection in the glass cases of several Museum dioramas as they scurried past to ensure that his irresistibility was at Maximum Volume, and when Kansas had to double back and tug him away from his own reflection, he knew he had these bad guys in the bag.
Per Troy’s instructions, however, the loverboys laid low behind the duck-billed platypus habitat, watching and waiting until the crooks had at least breached the protective glass case around the jewels. It was indeed illegal to break into a Museum via skylight and rope ladder, but Troy had been very clear in her desire to see any eventual thieves apprehended with the reddest possible hands.
The crooks that eventually tiptoed across the Museum into view could have come straight from the set of the latest Scooby Doo movie. While Bracy and Kansas cut a fitting Super Profile—Handsome Man broad-shouldered, tall, and white of teeth and golden of hair, B.O. Boy presenting a similarly clean-cut if narrower-hipped version of the same character, just a few bowls of Wheaties shy of the very same ideal—their new nemeses, like any Diabolical Duo worth a super hero’s time, proved to be a study of physical opposites. One tall, one short; one heavy-hipped, one slight; one leading, the other dutifully following, they crept up to the lavish display of polished rocks and took pause.
“Are you sure these are what we’re after?” asked Short ‘n’ Slight.
“It says right there, ‘The Jewels of Mary Magdalene.’” replied Tall ‘n’ Tanklike, pointing to the exhibit’s enthusiastic signage.
“Some jewels,” Shorty observed. “No wonder she donated ‘em to the Museum.”
“She didn’t donate them,” Tank said, exasperated. “They’re millions of years old.”
“Like fossils?”
“I guess so.” That the historical provenance of the stones in question fell somewhere in between each crook’s understanding of their target seemed unimportant to either of them, and Bracy wondered what in the world two people were doing breaking into a Museum to steal something they knew so little about.
“You know how Mrs. Morganstern is,” Tank said. “She collects all kinds of these dusty doo-dads. All I know is she said they’re worth a ton and there’d be big money it in for us.” The large criminal unsheathed a hammer from somewhere and handed it to the smaller sidekick, saying, “So let’s get to smashing.”
All the prompting the little one required, apparently, as soon there was another tinkling smash and another shower of glass. Kansas looked at Bracy, who, winking broadly, stepped out from behind the platypuses. “Now look what you’ve done,” he called. “There’s glass everywhere.”
The crooks jumped at the sound of Bracy’s booming Handsome Man Voice volleying around the atrium and swung around to face him.
“Who are you?” Tank demanded, yanking the hammer away from Shorty, the better to wield it in a threatening manner.
Traditionally rather beside the point at this stage in the proceedings, Bracy couldn’t help but notice, but he did not fluster. With the supreme confidence of the supremely handsome, he held his ground, arranging his pleasing body for maximum effect. He planted his feet wide, knowing that this particular pair of cargo shorts showcased the power in his thighs as well as the sinewy grace of his perfectly plumped calves. He planted his broad, manly hands on his narrow, muscle-swathed hips to highlight both the veins criss crossing his forearms and the mighty bulge in his biceps, and he puffed up his broad, brick chicken house chest, knowing that the overhang of his impressive pecs had caused more than one lookie-loo-related traffic accident in their day. He tossed his head back so that the coppery threads of glittery orange in his sunshiny hair could not fail to sparkle, and he flashed a smile that he hoped the ne’erdowells would not look at directly, lest his conscience be burdened with their blindness. “I,” he boomed, “am Handsome Man.” Keeping his broad stance, he thoughtfully took a step back, knowing that the fainting of both thieves must surely be imminent and not wanting to impede anyone’s flop onto the floor.
“Meh. You’re alright, I guess,” said Tank, failing utterly even to flinch in the face of Handsome Man’s beauty. Bracy was confused, but he persevered.
Shorty shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.” Bracy tossed a smug smirk at Tank, before Shorty continued, “I’ve seen better.”
At which Bracy’s jaw dropped. “You have not seen better,” he insisted, tossing his bangs again for emphasis.
“You’re not really my type,” Shorty said, turning back to flick some of the larger shards of glass from among the jewels.
“Um, excuse me,” Bracy said, now advancing on the shorter, slighter partner in crime. “But I’m everybody’s type. What could you possibly be looking for that I don’t have?”
“Well,” Tank weighed in, “you got a dick?”
Bracy scowled. “It’s not just ‘a’ dick. It’s long, it’s thick, and it does exactly what I tell it to do.” He reached for the fly of his shorts. “You wanna see it?”
“God no,” Tank said, holding up both gloved hands. “That’s my point, dumbass—we’re not into dudes.”
Bracy was flummoxed. The two criminals looked at each other and, though they were wearing snug-fitting ski masks, there was no disguising the roll in their eyes. “Full of yourself much?” the short one asked. “We’re lesbians.”
"What, both of you?”
They laughed. “It is more fun that way,” Tank affirmed.
Bracy stood for a second, one hand still on his zipper, which had never before failed to entice. What now? If his zipper, of all zippers, wasn’t going to distract these thieves, then what would?
From his niche behind the platypus, Kansas could see on Bracy’s face that the mind of the hunky hero was slowed by a combination of surprise and conceit, so he unfolded his knees and, after taking a second to shake the pins and needles out of his lean legs, advanced on the deadlocked trio.
His appearance blew the cobwebs from Bracy’s brain, and he rallied. “You’re for it now,” he crowed in triumph. “B.O. Boy is here.”
“B.O. Boy?” Tank parroted.
“Dude, do you even know what a lesbian is?”
Bracy smiled his best smug I’ve-got-you-now smirk and said, “Go ahead, B.O. Boy. Let ‘em have it.”
Striking a heroic stance similar to the one Bracy had assumed on his entrance, Kansas yanked the zipper of his hoodie wide open and flung the sweatshirt to the floor, raising his hands high above his head to form an exultant ‘X.’
Bracy was flung to the floor as if from a bomb blast, scrambling to pinch his nose closed, crying and cussing at the unbelievable onion tang that emanated from under Kansas’s rope-muscled arms. He choked and gagged rather more theatrically than Kansas considered strictly necessary, but the diabolical dykes seemed unimpressed, barely looking up from the task they had set about of scooping The Jewels of Mary Magdalene into a canvas sack.
“He’s alright,” Shorty said. “He’s got pretty nice abs. May I?” she asked, holding one hand out to hover over Kansas’s exposed and extended midriff.
“Um, I guess so,” he said, twisting to get his peach fuzzed pits closer to her face. He knew he hadn’t undergone any mystery cure; Bracy was crawling away from him, frantic to get out from under the toxic cloud, and he could hear Ryan Seacrest off in the broom closet snuffling and sneezing in the face of the stench, but Shorty just ran a hand up and down his stomach.
“He’s a little skinny for my taste,” Tank weighed in, “but I guess I see the appeal. You can put your arms down, son. It’s like we were telling your boyfriend over there⎯”
“Is he quite alright, by the way?” Shorty asked.
“What’s he got asthma or something?” Tank chimed in.
“You mean you can’t smell me?” Kansas asked, slowly lowering his arms.
“I mean, a splash of cologne probably wouldn’t hurt,” Shorty said, “but I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“Seriously?!” Bracy cried, still staggering under the stench, unable to rise any higher than a genuflection in front of the platypus habitat. “’A splash of cologne?’ He killed that plant over there!” He pointed to a drooping palm across the atrium that, it pained Kansas to realize, had looked rather healthier at the outset of the episode. He stooped to pick up his sweatshirt, his lean torso chilly in the atrium, unsure of how to proceed.
The jewel thieves laughed. “What, he stinks? That’s his power?”
“He doesn’t just ‘stink,’” Bracy started to explain, but Tank cut him off.
“Hate to break it to you chowderheads, but we’ve both got the worst flu we’ve ever head. Can’t smell nothin’, can’t taste nothin’. Been like that for almost a week.”
“I’m sick of it,” Shorty griped. “I wish I could smell you,” she told Kansas. “At least maybe then I’d be able to breathe.”
Bracy and Kansas traded a glance. “Now what?” Kansas asked, shrugging back into his sweatshirt. He heard Ryan Seacrest’s collar jangling off towards the closet, but knew that with the sweatshirt on, his stink would dissipate soon enough and give the puppy some relief. Still venturing only shallow breaths, Bracy shrugged.
“Well,” Tank chimed in, “you two see what you can cook up. Meanwhile, we’re going to get on with the heist here so we can clear out.” The two set about clearing the display case and then made for the rope ladder dangling from the ceiling to make good their escape.
“I mean, like, should we stop them or something?” Kansas ventured.
“I guess we could have at least pulled the ladder down,” it occurred to Bracy.
“Oh yeah, they coulda done that,” Shorty said to Tank.
“Aren’t you glad we got the pretty ones and not the smart ones?” Tank cracked, readying herself for the climb to the roof.
When Ryan Seacrest jogged into view, Bracy patted his chest. “Come ‘ere, girl,” he beckoned. He hoped that having both his beloved boyfriend and faithful canine companion by his side would at least temper the humiliation he expected to feel watching two crooks get away with insulting his intelligence and a sack full of jewels, and he slumped to the floor feeling something very like defeat.
Ryan Seacrest gamboled up to him when prompted and happily set about licking his face, sparing a small woof of thanks for Kansas for putting his armpits again under wraps. The noise snagged the attention of Shorty, who wobbled her task of steadying the ladder for Tank’s climb, and when Tank looked down to scold her, she halted her ascent.
“Is that your dog?” she called out to Bracy.
“Yup,” he said, ruffling the fur on the puppy’s neck while she licked away.
“Are you seeing that dog?” Tank asked Shorty.
Quite unnecessarily, as Shorty was already halfway across the atrium, her hands out in dog-friendly greeting, “ooohing” and “awwwing.”
In her scramble back down, Tank twisted the ropes of the ladder, and fell to the floor of the atrium with a smack.
“Yikes,” Kansas said, sucking his teeth. “Are you alright?”
Tank jumped to her feet and limped across the floor towards the heap of Bracy and his dog. “I’m OK,” she said. “What a cutie-pie that little puppy is.”
“What kind of dog is she?” Shorty asked Bracy, stooping to pet Ryan Seacrest.
Bracy shrugged. “Some kinda mutt. I got her at the pound when she was just a puppy.”
“Aww.”
“You probably saved her life,” Tank said with some admiration.
“Well, look at her,” Bracy said. “If I hadn’t adopted her, someone else surely would have. She’s a great dog.”
“Yes she is,” Shorty said, kissing Ryan Seacrest on the snoot and scratching her sides. “Yes she is a good dog. Are you a good dog?”
“Shove over,” Tank said, squatting gingerly to get closer to Ryan Seacrest. “Let me pet her.”
“You can pet her in a second,” Shorty fussed. Still she scooted to make room for her partner to cuddle the puppy too. Ryan Seacrest wriggled and wiggled and licked every face she could reach, basking in the attention.
From his perch outside the pile, Kansas sought Bracy’s eye and, when he snagged the big blond bumpkin’s attention, he held up his cell phone. Bracy winked his understanding and started down a list of distracting dog-lover questions, tickling Ryan Seacrest under her scruffy chin to keep her at her wriggliest. “Do you have a dog? What’s his name? What’s he like?” Both Shorty and Tank leapt at the opportunity to share puppy stories, and when the police that Kansas slunk away to call arrived with a canine unit in tow, both thieves surrendered their sacks of loot without hesitation, begging to ride downtown to jail in the backseat with the department’s sad-eyed Alsatian.