I’m now regretting accepting the invite from mini brainiac turtle to pick up some old friend o’ Cooper’s. I don’t even know this McSaveeny chum. 

If I knew how intimidating it would be sitting in some policewoman’s car facing the prison I was to be transferred to last time I was behind bars, I’d have said “No many thanks you. There’s a bathhouse just opened its glorious doorways. You may come with, if you’ve the taste to disco.”

I’m familiar with Heathrow. While locked at police station in Venicia, I’d heard the most horrible of fairy tales. And even if I have not done any crimes since that groovy yet bumpy vault cracking gig, my history of video piracy has prevented me from looking at the bunch o bunnies in blue with the confidence I once had.

I shoulda come only on the condition the turtle, hippo and foxy fox came to my closet and worn a few little tiny recommendations. Only then would this be tolerable. I cannot really get go for a stroll to properly stretch me legs. That would look suspicious in the guard towers. I should just go home. I really gotta get back to the treadmill. After the season ended at the luscious Marina Cruiseliners, I was put on leave from my skin diving gig. This was fairly recently. Protecting that precious book for turtle and hippo and Cooper when they went exploring through time was a swell enough thing to do while I thought of new opportune moments to snatch.

If cool, perfect, sexy Monsieur Lousteau must be honest with himself, he would say he enjoys the dark little markets. They’re thrilling and promise true reward. I immediately shut down those thoughts. There may be a mind reading guard. Or maybe turtle in there’s being bribed into inventing some sort of gizmo that displays thoughts like a multiplex.

But wait. Turtle’s okay. Cop lady, hippo dog Murray, and some kinda walrus are seen leaving the prison. That must be McSaveeney. He’s buff enough to handle his own and he’s not in no cuffs. Cop lady doesn’t even have her pistol at the ready. Finding myself a little calmer than before, I exit the automobile finally.

“You’re okay,” says Murray to him. McSaveeney looks distraught. Nothing a little smile and glimmer can’t fix.

“Why, hello, big, unaccessorized stranger,” I greet. “Dimitri Lousteau.”

“Oh. Uh, Jim McSweeney.” Ah. So not McSaveeney. I shake his hand. Nearly crushes my own.

“Go easy on him, pal,” Turtle gestures to me. “He’s been behind bars and razor wire since the last time you saw your grandfather Reme.”

“Oooh, that’s not a fast ride through the penal system, bro.”

“Yeah, certainly isn’t,” the walrus agrees.

“Okay,” says Cop Lady. “All of you definitely won’t fit in my car. Yet at the same time, Mr. McSweeney, it would most likely be best to not be in the back of a cop car. Wouldn’t feel fitting.”

“Wow, Carmelita,” gestures hippo, “I didn’t think you’d be thinking about McSweeney like that.”

This seems to strike a strange chord in her. “I...I will get a flat tire and forever bent seats with a hippopotamus and a walrus in my car at the same time, thank you very much. McSweeney, I can arrange a taxi for your size. Would you like that?”

“I think…” McSweeney gasps. “I think I’d like to walk to the safe house. Not ride.”

“That makes sense,” gestures turtle Bentley. “You want to see what’s changed, right?”

“I’ll walk with ya!” I volunteer. “Finally, someone who really needs AND wants some spicing up! It’s been too long since I’ve had that.”

This big lug gives an ambiguous response to that. Ah well. He’ll appreciate it more when we hit the accessories.

“Remember, take your time with him, Dimitri,” says mini lad Bentley. “It’s been a long time since he’s been a free man. Too much at once he might not be able to handle.”

“Ah very well,” I say with a roll of eyes and simultaneous grin, slash snicker. “Don’t worry no mind.”