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“THIS IS NOT MY PHONE,” Bill said, his brow furrowed. “Someone stole my phone and switched it with this one, look,” he handed his phone to his girlfriend, the busty and blonde Lucille.
“Who the hell is Francine?” She asked, her lips turning down into a pout.
“I don’t know. This isn’t my phone.”
Lucille handed the phone back to Bill and he continued to scroll through the numbers.
Suddenly, it rang. The assigned ring tone for a caller called “Godzilla” was the theme from Friends.
Bill pressed the answer button. “Hello?” he asked, brow still furrowed.
Lucille pulled a nail file from her purse and started vigorously filing her middle finger.
The voice on the phone was deep and mechanical.
“Go to the Eight of Clubs. There you will meet a man called Leibniz, he has the secret. You will receive a phone call from Restricted Number. Give them the secret and you will live. Deny them the secret, and you and your busty little girlfriend will die.”
“Eight of Clubs the bar or the pawn shop?” Bill asked. The phone went dead. “Hello? Hello?”
“Who was that?” Lucille asked.
“Godzilla,” Bill said. “We have to go.”
Bill hoped on his Harley, Lucille in the sidecar, and drove first to the pawn shop, though something told him this Leibniz guy would be at the bar. He went inside, instructing Lucille to stay by the bike, and asked for Leibniz.
The pawn shop owner shrugged. “Ain’t no Leibniz here,” he said. “Try the bar.”
Bill entered the bar and looked around. A haze of smoke drifted above eye level, fighting the fans that spun lackadaisically on the yellowed ceiling. An obese gentleman at the bar in a tight-fitting brown, pinstripe suit sucked on a cigar. He flipped a couple bills out of his money clip and put them on the counter.
“Thanks, Leibniz!” he called, waving across the bar. Bill looked to where he was waving but didn’t see anyone. He approached the bar.
“Where can I find Leibniz?” he asked.
“Who wants to know?” The bartender asked, uninterested while he wiped the counter. He was a bulky man with rippling biceps in a black muscle shirt.
“I do,” Bill said. “Bill Billsly,” he said.
“Oh, hey!” The bartender said, eyes brightening. He stopped wiping the bar. “Bill Billsly is here!” He yelled over Bill’s head. Bill turned to look. When he turned back around, the bartender had his arms crossed. “Who the hell cares who Bill Billsly is?” He said. “Get outta my bar.”
Lucille leaned on the counter and popped her gum. “Hi,” she said with a bright, toothy smile.
Bartender leaned on the counter on one elbow. “Heyhowareya,” he said, like it was one word.
“Fine,” she said with a sassy flip of her hair. “Where’s Leibniz,” she asked. Bartender’s eye balls would have fallen into her cleavage if they hadn’t been lodged securely in their sockets.
“In the back corner,” he said, visibly drooling.
Bill rolled his eyes, grabbed Lucille’s wrist and dragged her to the back corner.
On the table was a name card that read, Leibniz.
“Sit down.” A man, who was obscured completely by a newspaper, said. “You want the secret?”
“Yes.” Bill slid into the booth. Leibniz lowered the newspaper.
“Here it is, listen and listen closely.” He could have been related to Woody Allen. He was old, with gray hair and a large nose with big, dark-rimmed glasses perched on top. His accent was from New York. “One cup of sugar, two teaspoons of lemon juice, a shot of Crown, and a drop, just a drop you hear, of pure vanilla extract. It has to be pure or else it won’t work.” He raised the paper back in front of him.
“Wait, can you say it again? I need to write this down,” Bill said. He grabbed a napkin.
“Nope, that’s all you get,” Leibniz said.
Lucille shrugged. “I remember it,” she said. She pulled a little pink notebook from her little pink purse and wrote the secret in pink ink with a little pink pen.
“Thank you, Leibniz.” Bill said.
When they left the bar, the cell phone rang with the familiar TV show theme. It was Godzilla.
“Did you get the secret?”
“Yes,” Bill answered.
“Good,” Godzilla replied. “Restricted Number will be calling you shortly.”
No sooner had Bill hung up with Godzilla, the phone rang again with Restricted Number’s theme—Jaws.
“Give me the secret,” Restricted Number said before Bill had the chance to say Hello. His voice was deep and gruff, as if he just woke up with a sore throat.
He looked at Lucille who handed him the paper she had written the secret on. He relayed the message.
“What?” Restricted Number said.
Bill repeated the secret.
“That can’t be right,” Restricted Number said. “That’s not a combination, that’s a recipe!”
Before Bill and Lucille could do anything, they were surrounded by a group of teenagers in white shirts. Each held a different type of weapon. Bill wondered if they got to choose their weapons when they joined up with whatever agency it was that they belonged to.
A girl with a backwards ball cap on swung a chain around in a circle. “Let’s get ‘em boys.”
Back at the Eight of Clubs, Leibniz stood up and looked at his name card. “Oh darn, they spelled my name wrong, again!” He crossed out the z and added a ck to the end. “No wonder those kids thanked me by the wrong name, sheesh!” He tucked the paper under his arm and left the bar.
