VII: The Pope Shits in the Woods

Then, in a flash, it was all over. The station zoomed low over their heads, heading straight for the Eiffel Tower. It passed just over the top, and caught the very tip in one of the inner spaces of the circular station.
Ringing the Eiffel Tower like a horseshoe on a stake, the space station finally came to a stop. Throughout the park, people screamed and fled in all directions. Sirens could be heard approaching from all corners of the city, but for a moment it was just a space station in an empty, iconic park.
No one was around when, a short while later, two figures crawled their way out of a broken window on the space station and climbed down the Eiffel Tower to the ground. They walked slowly away.

The shifty and eccentric Johnny Go and his beautiful and psychotic sidekick Dixie Doublestacks were having a uniquely French afternoon. They strolled down a quintessential Paris street wearing berets, black slacks and striped shirts. As they walked, they swiped snacks and carafes of wine from the tables of little sidewalk bistros and were called all manner of slurs by the patrons.
Having eaten their fill, they next set about stealing a couple of scooters, which they used to careen around the city for a few hours before crashing into a news stand. The owner swore at them as they scooped up armloads of nudie magazines and ran off. As they ran, Dixie ripped pictures out of the magazines and stuffed them into the hands of every child she passed.
Figuring they’d drawn enough attention to themselves for the time being, the disastrous duo then hid out in a nearby fromagerie, gorging themselves happily on whatever cheeses they could get their hands on without being seen, snickering all the while, after which they stopped at a bakery and stole the largest baguettes they could find. They carried these to the Pont de l'Alma where they used them to sword fight one another until the flics showed up and urged them to move on. Upon being told to leave, Dixie wapped one of the men with the limp baguette a few times while Johnny swiped the man’s clopes, and the two trotted off, laughing, into the Parisian dusk.
From there, they headed to the Louvre so that Dixie could press her boobs on the big glass pyramid. Johnny pressed his crotch first, then his butt, and then the two took off gleefully through the crowd before the museum guards could catch up.
Later, they were slumped beneath the Arc de Triomphe, eating from a crock of coq au vin with their hands and drinking a nice full-bodied Bordeaux straight from the bottle. Dixie shivered.
“Hey, how come it’s so cold out?” she asked. “Isn’t it supposed to be spring?” She chucked a chicken bone at a crowd of tourists. “Are we in Australia!?”
“Well, let’s see,” Johnny began, taking a long pull from the wine bottle. “It was Valentine’s Day,” at the mention of Valentine’s Day, they both spat on the ground, “when we left the onion farm. Then we followed the space shuttle to Florida.”
“That didn’t take that long,” Dixie said. “Even though that fucking spaceship riding the plane was slow as balls.”
“It really was. Why is Earth so outdated when it comes to intergalactic technology?” Johnny mused, shaking his head.
“Then we went to that bar,” Dixie continued.
“Right. And then I don’t really remember anything until we woke up on the space station.”
“How long do you think we were up there before it crashed?” Dixie wondered.
“It felt like a day, but honestly, who can tell in space?”
“Yeah. Time’s always different there.”
“But we only drank, like, six bottles of that space vodka. Usually that’s an afternoon for us.”
“True.”
“Maybe we fucked up the seasons when we crashed the space station?” Johnny asked. But Dixie had already nodded off.
Johnny finished the coq au vin and was soon asleep, as well, clutching the wine bottle protectively. They slept, undisturbed, until morning. When they awoke, they were freezing.
“Dix,” Johnny said. “We gotta get to the bottom of this weather thing.” They climbed to their feet and staggered away.
At the first cafe they passed, they ordered two café au laits and another bottle of wine, then walked out with the café au lait bowls, spiking their drinks with wine as they went. When they finished the bottle, Dixie swiped another carafe.
After wandering around for a little bit trying to warm up, they came across a bar-tabac where Johnny picked up a newspaper.
“Novembre,” he muttered. “November?” He looked at Dixie.
“It took us,” she paused and counted on her fingers, almost dropping her wine carafe as she moved to her other hand, “nine months to get from the onion farm to here?”
“What the fuck we were doing all that time?” Johnny asked. Dixie squinted off into the distance as if she was trying really hard to remember, but then just shrugged.
“Well, it’s definitely not the first time we’ve lost almost a year,” she said.
“And probably not going to be the last, either.” They high fived. Johnny tucked the newspaper under his arm, not bothering to pay, and they walked off down the street.
“I wonder if we did anything cool?”

***

Chichay Milano pulled her flashy convertible into her usual parking spot behind Certain Doom and cut the engine. She liked getting to the restaurant early so that she could have a few minutes of peace to catch up on her work before the rest of the staff arrived and things got chaotic. She was surprised that day when she noticed another car parked behind the restaurant. She didn’t recognize the car, but she couldn’t remember if Hans, their pastry chef, had mentioned getting a new one.
Chichay sighed. She needed a break. She made a mental note to tell Sweaty that they should plan a vacation. Not long, maybe just a few days away to recharge. She reached the rear door of the restaurant and put her key in the lock when the sound of the car door opening made her turn.
Before the man in the car had stepped his left foot out, Chichay had reached into her handbag and pulled an unreasonably large weapon out, handling it flawlessly with her non-dominant hand. She took aim as the man was rising to his full height. She popped the safety as he turned to face her. Chichay gasped.
Before her stood a hideous fish-faced man, clearly alien, with a humanoid body. He was dressed in an expensively tailored suit. The Trout Mob. Of course.
“They aren’t here,” Chichay said, recovering from her momentary shock. Sometimes, in her domestic and entrepreneurial bliss, she forgot that there was a whole universe of weird shit out there. And that usually her colleagues were the ones to open the door and let it in. She lowered the gun, but kept it in her hand, her finger still resting on the trigger.
“We’re just here for the money,” the man said. To his credit, he recognized Chichay, as well, and was doing a good job of not jumping back into his car in terror. She was, after all, one of the most renowned assassins on Earth. “Long as you have it, we don’t even need to see ‘em.”
“Yeah, no,” Chichay said, shaking her head slightly. “If you want your money, you’re gonna have to take that up with them. And they aren’t here.”
“I’ll just come in and wait then,” he said, taking a tentative step toward her. She raised the gun again.
“Or, you get back in your car and drive away from here before I add fish fry to our nightly specials.” The man smirked. At least, that’s what Chichay thought his weird fish face was doing. He climbed back into his car. She kept the gun trained on the windshield until he left the parking lot and accelerated up the road. Then she went inside and got to work.
The night was busy, as usual, and nothing out of the ordinary happened until shortly before closing, when a man and a woman came in saying that the lights being out in the parking lot made it really creepy and unsafe. Chichay sent Sweaty out to check, and he confirmed that, indeed, the lights were out. They looked like they’d been shot out. Chichay had her suspicions, but over the course of the evening, she hadn’t yet been able to relay the story to Sweaty.
They had both arrived home shortly before midnight to a mercifully quiet ranch house and were sitting side by side on the couch, eating ice cream out of the container when she finally relayed her experience.
“He was sitting there waiting for you?” Sweaty asked when she’d finished her story. “I’ll fucking kill him!”
“Sweetheart, you know I can handle it,” Chichay said with a smile.
“I know, but that pisses me right off. Those guys think they can intimidate us into giving up Dixie and Johnny?”
“That’s absolutely what they think,” Chichay said. “Unfortunately for them, I’m not easily intimidated.”
“Also, we don’t know where they are.”
“And I’ll be damned if I spend one minute looking.” Chichay sighed. “Honestly, I think he knew all that, which is why he left without much of a fuss. But I’m pretty sure that’s who shot out the lights.”
“Yeah, makes sense,” Sweaty agreed. “Those guys usually resort to other forms of pressure when overt threats don’t work. Not sure making us replace some light bulbs is really that much pressure, though.”

***

The next morning Chichay was sitting in the kitchen with Rex, reading the paper and enjoying a leisurely cup of coffee. Rex had his feet up on one of the other chairs and was enjoying a plate of bacon while perusing the missed connections section of the local paper. Sweaty was in the other room watching TV and tinkering with another one of his homemade computers.
Chichay got up and grabbed the coffee pot, refilling both her own mug and Rex’s, and had just taken a seat again when Sweaty called out from the living room.
“Uh, guys?! You better get in here!” Chichay and Rex locked eyes over the tops of their newspapers.
“Well, we had a good run,” Chichay said, getting up from the table. She carried her coffee into the living room with Rex close behind. Sweaty pointed at the TV and turned up the volume. The news was airing a story about a missing woman who hadn’t been seen since the previous afternoon.
“Michelle was last seen leaving her office on Grand Avenue. She told colleagues that she was meeting a friend for lunch. According to her friends, she never arrived at the restaurant. Authorities are asking for the public’s help in locating Michelle. Anyone with information can call the number on screen.”
Sweaty turned and looked at Chichay. “Wasn’t Michelle Conway that reservation that didn’t show yesterday?” Chichay sat down on the couch.
“Yeah,” she said. “I think it was.”
“You don’t think this has anything to do with our visitor, do you?” Sweaty asked.
“What visitor?” asked Rex, looking from one to the other. Chichay quickly relayed the situation to him. When she finished, Rex also slumped onto the couch. “So I guess we’re doing this again.”
“Yeah, I thought Dixie and Johnny had severed ties with those guys. I wonder what they did to them this time?” Sweaty mused, clicking off the TV.
“Remember that time they got drunk and stole the bulldozer?” Rex asked.
“They leveled this laundromat the Trout Mob and the Merlino family had set up as a front for a puppy mill,” Sweaty explained to Chichay. She looked horrified.
“Oh my god. They ran over the puppies?”
“No,” Rex said. “The puppies were all in the basement, so in the chaos of the rest of the building collapsing, Dixie and Johnny climbed down and stole the puppies.”
“Sold ‘em to their black market guy and we used the money to fly to Montecarlo.”
“That was a fun trip,” Rex said, finishing his coffee and placing the mug on the table. He stretched and stood up. “I’m sure there’s no connection, right?” Without waiting for an answer, Rex hurried out of the room.
“Probably going to pack his things so he can hide out until this mob business is settled,” Sweaty muttered.
“So what do we do?” Chichay asked.
“Well, we hope this is a mistake, and we keep an eye out for anyone with a fish head in the meantime.”
“And if we see them?”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Sweaty said with a smirk.

***

Over the next week, several other local residents disappeared. All had either recently dined at Certain Doom, or were on their way there. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the next week, the bodies started turning up.
Chichay and Sweaty waited anxiously for the local police to make the connection, but other than questioning the staff about what they had seen on the particular days in question, that avenue of investigation seemed to remain unexplored.
“I kinda can’t believe the cops haven’t said anything about the fact that the one thing connecting all these incidents is our restaurant,” Chichay said one afternoon. She and Sweaty were sitting at the bar sipping lemonade an hour before they opened for dinner.
“It’s a small town PD. They aren’t known for their competence,” he said. “What I want to know is how many more people the Trout Mob is going to kill before they accept the fact that we don’t know where Dixie and Johnny are, and we don’t have the money to pay their debts?”
“Well, I mean, we kinda do,” Chichay said.
“What, know where they are?”
“No, we have the money.”
“Yeah, but that’s our wedding and honeymoon money.”

***

Dixie and Johnny headed south out of Paris and wandered aimlessly through the countryside for a while, oscillating between drunk and very drunk, and causing trouble at every turn. The longer they wandered, and the higher into the mountains they got, the colder it became.
Just as they were considering burning their clothes in a desperate bid for warmth, they passed the high stone walls of what appeared to be a sixteenth century convent. Curious, Dixie grabbed hold of the vines growing up over the side and climbed, peering over into the sanctuary.
“Johnny,” she called down to him. “There’s a clothesline. And it’s full black robes and stuff.”
“The long kind?”
“Yeah, like what judges wear.”
“On my way!” he cried and began climbing up behind her. They scrambled over the top and dropped gracelessly down on the other side, landing with a thump in the remnants of a vegetable garden. Fortunately, it was winter and the garden had been put to bed already, so they mostly landed in a mix of manure and topsoil. They got to their feet and made their way across the lawn, where up ahead, a line of long black nun’s habits flapped gently in the breeze.
When they reached the clothesline, they quickly got to work unpinning the habits, balling them up under their arms and reaching greedily for more. Dixie was about to reach for yet another gown when she noticed a nun coming toward them. She stopped.
“Johnny, this is a nun place.” He turned his head and looked over his shoulder. The nun was getting closer.
“Quick, grab the rest before she gets too close.” They kept unpinning. The nun kept walking.
“You should stay there,” Dixie called out, yanking another habit off of the line. Beside her, Johnny was struggling with a clothespin. Dixie reached up to help and when they had wrestled the black cloth off the line they looked again and the Nun was still striding forward. She was almost at the ten foot zone.
“NO!” they cried in unison. But she took another step. Dixie and Johnny jumped for cover, glad at that moment that they had stolen enough clothing that they could use some of it to clean the blood and guts off of themselves. They hit the ground with a thud and assumed a classic duck and cover position, curling up and shielding their heads and the backs of their necks as best they could. They waited for the explosion. All was quiet.
They stayed that way for a moment until finally, with a shrug, they looked cautiously up. The nun stood over them looking down. She smiled.
“Why didn’t you blow up?” Johnny asked, confused.
“Wait a minute! You’re not a nun!” Dixie exclaimed loudly. At this, the nun frantically shushed them, crouching down and quickly gathering up the habits, then helping them to their feet.
“Please,” she said as they stood up. “No one can know my secret.”
“Oh my god! You’re in hiding!” Johnny whisper-screamed.
“What’d you do?” Dixie asked excitedly. “Hiding from Nazis?”
“Jewel thief?”
“Mob goomar?”
“Had a child out of wedlock and gave it to the nuns and now you’re undercover trying to find it because its father has decided to grant it legitimacy and now it’s next in line for the throne?”
But the nun just shook her head. “Please,” she said. “It is better for you not to know.”
Dixie looked like she was about to burst, but she managed to say nothing more. There was an awkward moment of silence then, as the three appraised one another, each with a predatory gleam in their eyes.
“So, uh,” Dixie said. “I guess you didn’t take any vows, then?”
Johnny nodded and reached for the nun’s hand. Dixie reached for her other hand and the nun, smiling, led them into one of the stables.

***

“I must get back to the house,” the nun said a few hours later as she hastily pulled her habit down over her head. Dixie and Johnny were still collapsed in a pile of straw, and watched the nun as she dressed with satisfied looks on their faces. “The saison de Noël is approaching. Will you stay?”
“No can do, toots,” Johnny said, reaching for one of the nun’s habits he had taken off of the clothesline. “Unless you want to spend Christmas in a decaying pile of the remnants of your sisters, we really shouldn’t share your holiday meals.”
“Besides,” Dixie said. She got to her feet and began hunting around in the straw for the habits she had brought in. “If it’s almost Christmas, then this is perfect timing and me and Johnny have someplace we gotta be.”
A short while later, the fake nun tearfully boosted the two cons in nun’s clothing over the convent wall. Despite not being a woman of the cloth, she said a quick prayer and crossed herself before heading back into the convent house with the rest of the laundry.
“It rules that she wasn’t a nun,” Dixie said as they walked down the small lane, their habits trailing behind them.
“She was a some all right,” Johnny said, licking his lips. “But you know, Dix, the whole incident really drove home the most unfortunate downside of this… affliction of ours. We’re never gonna be able to have an orgy with real nuns.”
“It’s a fucking tragedy,” Dixie agreed. “Don’t want to get blown up, can’t fuck a pile of burned goo.”
“Not like I haven’t tried.”
“Nice of her to remind us it was almost Christmas, though. We woulda missed out on caganer season.”
“What ones are you looking for this year?”
“You mean besides the pope?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, a CHUD got in the house and smashed my Aristotle Onassis one, so I’d like to replace that. How ‘bout you?”
“Danny Aiello as Helen Keller in the Miracle Worker.”
“Classic. I know a lady in El Clot that might be able to hook us up.”
“Lead the way!”

***

“Just the two of you this afternoon?” Emmy asked the two men in nondescript dark suits who approached her hostess stand at the front of the restaurant. She reached under the stand to pick up two menus. “We have tables and booths available, and it’s open seating at the bar with full menu.”
The taller of the two men shook his head and reached into his inside jacket pocket, withdrawing a leather identification wallet. “We’re with the FBI. We’d like to speak with the owner.”
“Is this about those poor missing people?” Emmy gasped.
“We’re looking into it,” the agent said simply. Emmy gestured toward the bar.
“Why don’t you two take a seat at the bar. It’s nice and quiet this time of day. I’ll run in back and grab the owners.” She led the two agents to the bar, gesturing to the tall chairs at the end, then nodded to the bartender. “Paddy,” she called. “Anything these gentlemen want, k?”
When Emmy was out of sight in the back hallway, she broke into a run and raced toward the back office, skidding to a stop once inside. Chichay and Sweaty were sitting at the desk looking intently at a spreadsheet on the computer. They looked up in surprise.
“Em?”
“The G-Men are here,” she breathed slowly as she said it. Sweaty groaned.
“Guess that’s why the locals weren’t doing anything,” Chichay said as she got to her feet. Sweaty followed. “They’re waiting out there?” she asked Emmy.
“I put them at the end of the bar. Told Paddy to give ‘em whatever they want.”
“Perfect,” Chichay said as she walked out the door.
“You’re worth your weight in gold, as always, Emmy,” Sweaty said.

***

“Agents? I’m Chichay Milano,” Chichay smiled her most charming smile as she reached out her hand to the agent. He took it suspiciously and shook. Chichay had always been a tantalizing and elusive rumor in law enforcement circles. No one could agree on whether she worked for the good guys or the bad guys, and no one could definitively prove that she worked for anyone at all.
“Ms. Milano?” the taller agent, obviously the lead, looked at her in surprise. “So this is what you’ve been up to lately.”
“Clearly our restaurant’s reputation has preceded it,” Chichay said coolly. At that, Sweaty stepped forward. “My partner.”
“Mulligan,” he said, shaking both agents' hands.
“What can we do for you, agents...?” Chichay asked, eager to get this over with.
“Simon and Marshall,” the agent said, gesturing to his partner. Then he got down to business. “I’m sure you’re aware of the string of recent kidnappings and murders in the area?” he asked.
“We are,” Chichay said. “We’ve been out there every day providing meals to the search teams. It’s such a tragedy for our community.”
“Yeah, well,” the second agent said.
“We’re curious about just that,” Marshall said. “It seems like your restaurant here is really at the center of all this. So far, all of the victims have either eaten here directly before they went missing, or they’d planned to eat here, but went missing before arriving.”
“Well, as I said Agent Simon, we’re a part of the community. A lot of people eat here.”
“Yeah, that does seem to be the case,” he replied, looking around at the dining room, which was growing more crowded by the minute. “And a lot of them seem to end up mutilated.”
“Why don’t you get to the point, agent,” Sweaty suggested. The agent masked his irritation with a smirk.
“Ok. I’ll level with you. We think these killings smack of the Mob. The mutilations look like others we’ve seen in cases where the mafia was involved. The question is why are they all centered around your restaurant? We think you’re involved.”
Chichay let out a perfectly timed snort. “That’s what you came in here to say?” The agents said nothing.
“Feel free to actually do your homework, gentlemen,” Sweaty said, turning away from the bar. “You’ll see everything here is on the up and up. Always has been.” He walked off.
Chichay smiled broadly again. “I do hope you find the monsters responsible for this,” she said as she, too, turned to walk away. “Paddy? The agents’ diet Cokes are on the house.”
Back in the office, Chichay shut the door, leaning her back against it. Sweaty sat on the edge of the desk.
“Everything is on the up and up here,” Chichay said. She started to laugh as she said it, shaking her head. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“I know,” Sweaty replied, laughing. “I could barely get it out with a straight face.”

***

The small motorbike bounded along the country lane, with the shifty and eccentric Johnny Go driving and his beautiful and psychotic sidekick Dixie Doublestacks sitting behind him, facing backward, and holding onto a rope that towed a rusty shopping cart. The shopping cart was loaded to the brim with bottles of wine. The rush of wind whipped their nun’s habits into a frenzy, but the two sipped their wine and hardly noticed.
After an hour or so, Johnny reached back and tapped Dixie on the shoulder. She reeled the shopping cart in, grabbed a bottle, uncorked it with a corkscrew she had hidden in her habit, and passed the bottle to Johnny. He took it, but tapped her on the shoulder again.
“What?” she called over her shoulder.
“Check it out!” he shouted back over the wind. Dixie managed to swing herself sideways, narrowly avoiding getting her habit stuck in the rear wheel of the bike.
“Is that what I think it is?” she shouted. Up ahead, a small white and gold vehicle puttered along. It wasn’t moving quickly and they were rapidly gaining on it.
“Damn right!” Johnny shouted.
“Get us closer! Where there’s a Popemobile, there’s a pope!” Johnny pushed the motorbike faster. It began to shudder.
“Dix,” he called. “Didn’t it seem like Von Feymouse was gonna kill the pope?”
“Yeah,” she shouted back. They were getting closer to the Popemobile and could see the man’s pointy hat through the rear bullet-proof window. “But I think every time you kill a pope, another one spawns in its place.”
“Probably have to destroy the whole Vatican if you want to end the Popage.”
“Next stop Italy!” They clinked their wine bottles.
Dixie and Johnny motored on until they were alongside the Popemobile. The man was really focused on the road and didn’t notice them, even though they were driving in the opposite lane in order to stay next to his car.
“Hey Popey Popey Popey!” Dixie shouted, waving. The Pope glanced out the window, nodded beatifically, and turned his eyes back to the road.
“Let’s give him some wine,” Johnny suggested.
“Good idea,” Dixie said. She reeled in the cart and pulled another bottle out. As she did, the shopping cart swung wide, clipping the back of the Popemobile. The Popemobile was solid, gripping the road. The motorbike, not so much. The momentum of the swinging cart pulled the bike off its path. Johnny quickly tried to correct their course, but caught his robe in the throttle, and a moment later he had plowed into the side of the Popemobile.
A moment after that, the Popemobile ran swiftly off the road, rolling down an embankment, crashing to a stop in a stand of trees, and tipping over. The motorbike, shopping cart, Dixie, and Johnny, were close behind, slamming into the underside of the mobile.
As usual, Dixie and Johnny popped right up after the crash, somehow barely a scratch between the two of them, although Dixie’s habit was torn, leaving a slit up to her thigh like a fancy evening gown. The Pope, on the other hand, was pinned inside his Popemobile, and called weakly for help. Dixie and Johnny seized the opportunity, and a moment later had dragged the holy man out of his vehicle. They sat him down on a nearby tree stump. He was badly shaken up.
“So, Popey,” Dixie said, sitting down on the ground in front of him. Johnny was pulling a wine bottle out of the twisted metal of the shopping cart. “How come Von Feymouse didn’t kill you?”
“Yeah,” Johnny said, sauntering over with an open bottle of wine. He chugged some, then passed it to the Pope, who took it gratefully. “We figured Von Feymouse killed you that day in the desert.”
“No offense, but you were hopelessly outgunned,” Dixie said. She reached out and snatched the bottle away from the Pope, then downed what was left in one gulp. She gestured to Johnny to get another.
“So what happened?” Johnny asked as he wrestled the cork out of another bottle. “Wait, lemme guess! You boned her and she let you go? Cause that’s what I did.”
“Works every time,” Dixie said. They high fived. The Pope looked bewildered.
“Please,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Uh, the airship?”
“Yeah, there was a Vatican airship in the desert chopping it up with a ship called the Dunstan.”
“Previously helmed by Abe Lincoln and some ninjas, but later by us,” Dixie said. They high fived again.
“But then Margarita Von Feymouse showed up in this wicked war rig. Looked like she was about to blow your ass outta the sky. We nabbed the Dunstan when Abe died and took off, so we don’t know how it went down, but when she came after us a few days later she was in your ship.”
“It wasn’t my ship,” the Pope said, shaking his head. “That was the Antipope.”
“The… huh?”
“He challenged me for the seat. He wasn’t lawfully elected, but he had a significant following so he declared himself to be the pope. That’s why he was able to take off in the ship.”
“So there’s two popes?” Johnny asked.
“No, there’s one. Me,” the Pope said.
“Says who?”
“Huh?” The Pope seemed confused.
“Well, you said he just decided to be the pope, you just decided to be the pope. How do you know who’s the real pope?” Dixie asked.
“Look, it’s really a lot to explain and I need to be going. I’m supposed to give mass tonight in Toulouse.” He started to get to his feet, but Dixie was way ahead of him. As he stood, she grabbed his arms.
“Not so fast,” Dixie said. Johnny looked at her.
“Dix?” he asked. But she turned back to the Pope.
“Hey Popey, you ever seen a caganer?” she asked. Johnny whirled his head around and stared at Dixie, wide-eyed.
“Dix, you’re a nun-fucking genius!” The Pope winced at this comment, but when he looked up and saw both Dixie and Johnny leering at him, he looked worried.
“It’s caganer season,” Dixie explained as she headed to the shopping cart and began to pull out a long section of rope. “And we were on our way to Barcelona to buy some caganers to add to our collection.” She turned back to the Pope, holding out the rope. He began to back away, but found Johnny Go behind him, blocking his path. “The most prized caganer of all is the Pooping Pope.”
“El Papa Caca,” Johnny added, pinning the Pope’s arms behind his back.
“But we don’t even need to buy one now,” Dixie said. She passed the rope behind the Pope’s back to Johnny, who bound the holy man’s hands. “We have a Living Caganer.”
“A what?” he asked in disbelief.
“And we’re gonna be rich!”

***

The next day, Dixie and Johnny sat in folding chairs alongside the road, sipping wine and enjoying the winter sun, warming them through their dark nun’s habits. Beside them they had a large piece of plywood: El Caganer Viviente, it said. Come see the Pooping Pope! Venez voir le pape qui fait caca! En direct et en personne!
They had placed these crudely painted signs for miles along the road, from both directions. ¡Establezca la apuesta definitiva! Answer the unanswerable question! Du plaisir de Noël pour tous!
€10. Gratuit pour les enfants de moins de 10 ans.
They placed their newly acquired pope in a small clearing just off of the road. He was in a cage, large enough that he could sit, stand, lie down, and walk a few paces back and forth for exercise. They gave him a small porcelain pot and commanded him to poop.
“Lemme know if we can get ya some beans or something,” Johnny said. “Move things along.” Then he and Dixie sat by the entrance to the little forest clearing and waited for the tourists to arrive.
And arrive they did.

***

“Two more FBI agents came by the restaurant today,” Chichay said. She and Sweaty were getting ready for bed. Chichay had spent the evening at their flagship restaurant, while Sweaty had spent the day working with the new manager of Certain Doom’s deep fried vegetarian sister restaurant, Certain Shroom.
Sweaty stared at Chichay in the bathroom mirror, a string of dental floss hanging out of his mouth. “Two more agents?” he asked. She nodded.
“Yep. Different guys from last time. They said they were investigating multiple reports of “fish head men” that may or may not be connected to the recent mutilation of some of the locals.”
“What’d you say?”
“Stuck with the party line. Was so sad to hear of the loss of those members of our community, but don’t have anything helpful to add. Never heard of fish men.” She paused. “I guess the first two guys were the organized crime unit, and these two are the aliens and other spooky shit unit.”
“Yeah,” Sweaty said, resuming his flossing. “I assume the FBI is a place where no one’s allowed to know too much. You think they’re gonna come back?”
“I mean, they found another mutilated person in Bryant Park, and I didn’t really give them a satisfying answer, so yeah.”
“Well, I look forward to it.”

***

The next day, Chichay and Sweaty were both at the restaurant when the FBI showed up again. It was the same agents as before, a man and a woman.
“Decided to come back and try the ribs, Agents?” Chichay asked as she greeted them at the bar. Sweaty appeared beside her and Chichay gestured to him. “My partner,” she told them. He held out his hand.
“What can we help you with, agents?” he asked.
“Your partner said she hadn’t seen anything unusual related to this recent string of killings,” the agent began. “I assume you haven’t, either?”
“Nope. Like Chichay said, and like we told the other agents, we’re really saddened and disturbed by what’s going on in our community, but we don’t know anything about it.”
“And you’ve never seen anyone outside your restaurant who looked… alien?”
“Not sure what you mean, agent,” Sweaty said. He was really enjoying where this was going. “This is Texas.”
“Why don’t you get to the point, agent,” Chichay suggested. “Just ask my partner what you asked me.”
“Fish head aliens,” the agent said simply. “The reports we received indicate several sightings in the area, around the time of the disappearances, of humanoid men with fish-shaped heads. Know anything about that?”
Sweaty played dumb. “Fish-shaped heads? Is this a joke, agent? First it was a mafia connection, and now it’s aliens?” He tried his best to look insulted.
“Mr. Mulligan, Ms. Milano,” the agent said, his patience clearly wearing thin. “If it was anyone other than the two of you, I would expect this reaction. But I know the two of you have seen and done some shit. I know that the existence of an alien mafia wouldn’t surprise you in the slightest. In fact, I think you’ve had run-ins with them before.” At this, Chichay and Sweaty looked at one another and rolled their eyes.
“Ok, I’ll humor you,” Chichay said. “What do these fish head mobsters look like?” Satisfied, the agent took out a picture and handed it over to her. Chichay studied it for a moment, then passed it to Sweaty.
“Uh, you guys know this is just the cover of that Captain Beefheart record, right?” he asked, handing the picture back to the agent. The other agent looked embarrassed.
“All the same,” the agent said. “We’d like to talk to your staff about this.”

***

Dixie and Johnny were slumped in their lawn chairs, tired and bored. They appreciated the additional cash that they’d received from running their roadside attraction. In fact, Johnny was lovingly stroking a pile of Euros in between sips of wine, but the number of visitors to their little tableau had dwindled over the past few weeks. That day, only a group of local pre-teen bullies had visited, spending about a half an hour poking the pope through the bars of his cage with sticks.
The Pope looked significantly worse for the wear. His cassock dirty and torn, his face thin, drawn, and humiliated. He had long since stopped begging his captors for his release, and he remained silent when visitors arrived, knowing that they didn’t believe he was the real pope anyway. He worried that, in his absence, an Antipope was rising to power. The only sound he made was when he was praying, which he tended to do first thing in the morning and in the middle of the night. No one answered.
After several hours and no new visitors, Dixie yawned, stretched, and stood up. Johnny looked up at her, the bundle of money pressed against his chest.
“Wanna get out of here?” Dixie asked. Johnny nodded and got to his feet. They kicked over the chairs, gathered up their dented shopping cart that still contained a few bottles of wine, and walked toward the road.
“Popey,” Johnny called. “We’re outta here. It’s been real.”
“Where are you going?” the Pope called. Dixie and Johnny ignored him and kept walking. “Wait! Aren’t you going to let me out?”
“He’s really needy,” Johnny said as they walked. They could hear the Pope calling to them faintly in the distance.
“The lord helps those that help themselves,” Dixie muttered as they walked. “You’d think he’d’ve known that.”
After about a mile, they wandered off the road and into the woods. They were spectacularly drunk by then. Dixie tripped on the long hem of her nun’s habit and tumbled to the ground.
“Jammy,” she called. “I’ink the pace house is falled over.” She tried to sit up, failed, then rolled over onto her back. Johnny looked around, but couldn’t see Dixie.
“DIX!” he screamed, his voice echoing through the woods, scaring birds from the trees. “We-” hiccup. “We-” hiccup. “We ‘eed more juice.” He fell to the ground, as well, landing conveniently beside Dixie. They stayed that way for a long time, singing Christmas carols at varying volumes, and with an impressive array of offensive lyrics, as the effects of the massive amount of wine they’d consumed worked through their systems. Eventually they nodded off.

***

Dixie and Johnny awoke a few hours later, staring upward at the trees. A light snow was falling and had started to coat their black habits. Dixie sighed.
“We’re out of wine.”
“I know. And I think we’re in the woods, so we’re gonna have to walk somewhere to get more.”
“This is bullshit.” They both struggled to their feet, shaking the snow off as they did. Dixie took a staggering step forward. “Wasn’t there a road or something?”
“You’d think.”
“Let’s just go that way, I guess,” Dixie said, pointing in a random direction.
“I don’t know how long I’m gonna be able to make it without booze,” Johnny said, shuffling behind her. “Walking is just so goddamn boring when you’re sober.”
“Tell me about it.” They struggled on, their boredom and despair like a weight around their necks, causing them to sigh, groan, and drag their feet.
After what felt like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, they came to a clearing, where the woods fell away and a large, neatly plowed field stretched out before them. Dixie stopped and stared, as if crossing this small field would be like crossing the Sahara. Johnny, who had been looking listlessly at his feet, bumped into her and toppled over sideways, landing with his cheek pressed against the forest floor.
“Dix,” he said, as his eyes focused on the detritus in front of him. “Salvation!” She turned slowly and looked around, not seeing him.
“Huh?”
“Down here.” She looked down, gasped, then dropped to her knees beside Johnny. There, in front of Johnny’s face, was a small pile of hallucinogenic mushrooms. In the next instant, they had greedily plucked all of them and divided up their haul. They tucked half into their habits, and stuffed the other half into their mouths.
“It’s not the bright, bold red that I’ve grown accustomed to,” Johnny said with his mouth full. “But it’ll do.”
When they’d finished eating, they both collapsed against a tree and waited for the shrooms to kick in. They watched the snow falling across the field until it was no longer snow, but something else entirely, like a cross between a wildfire, a royal procession, and a laser light show being performed just for them. They smiled, each hearing their own soundtrack, maybe, the music coming directly out of their souls. Johnny Go began to play an air guitar and Dixie climbed to her feet to relive her burlesque days. The trees in the forest became an audience, Dixie and Johnny were celebrities. They were gods, their long dark habits pulsing and glowing and making them float.
This went on for hours until they both abruptly stopped, staring straight ahead in disbelief.
“Johnny,” Dixie said slowly.
“Dixie,” Johnny replied, his voice barely above a whisper. They knew that if they both saw it, it had to be real.
“I’ve waited my whole life for this,” Dixie said. It was the closest she ever came to an emotion other than rage. She took a step forward, Johnny followed, and they picked their way across what, to them, was a swirling ocean of gold and silver coins lit by a million blinking fireflies until they reached the Tió de Nadal, which was standing at the edge of the field looking at them curiously.
“Is it really you?” Dixie asked the creature, in awe. It didn’t reply. She didn’t expect it to. It was a Tió de Nadal, after all.
“I’ll get some sticks,” Johnny said. He rushed off into the woods and returned a second later with two large branches. He handed one to Dixie and in the next instant, they fell upon the Tió, smacking it over and over while singing, chanting with each swing Caga Tió! Caga Tió! Caga Tió! They got louder and louder. The creature recoiled, backing away from them. It fell to the ground and tried desperately to crawl away. They kept smacking it. When the creature ceased moving, Dixie reached for a lighter in her habit and attempted to set it on fire, but the snow that coated the creature’s bark made it damp, and it merely smoked and smoldered. They went back to smacking the Tió de Nadal. On and on they beat the Tió as day turned to night until finally, exhausted, they collapsed on the ground in a heap and slept.
When they awoke, the sky was just beginning to lighten over the field. Dixie and Johnny were still for a moment, trying to recall what had happened the night before. In unison, they sat upright with a start.
“Tió de Nadal!” Dixie gasped as she scrambled to her feet with Johnny close behind.
“I wonder what kind of presents he brought us!” Johnny shouted. They raced into the field and stopped, looking around in confusion.
“I don’t see it,” Dixie said.
“No Tió and no presents,” said Johnny.
“What the fuck.” They walked a little way into the field and stopped when they noticed something up ahead. Dixie pointed.
“There it is!” The two began to run, their habits tangling in their legs as they did. Johnny tripped in a divot on the barren field, but managed to stay upright. When they skidded to a stop, they realized the shape they were standing before was that of a dead man, bruised and badly beaten. It was unclear whether he’d died of his injuries, or of the elements.
“This is what Tió brought us?” Johnny asked, deeply disappointed.
“What the fuck kind of Christmas present is a dead farmer?”

***

“Cruz, party of four!” Sweaty Mulligan called through the front door of Certain Doom. The restaurant’s patio area was full of people waiting for tables. The smartest thing they’d done, Sweaty thought to himself, was to install a bar on the patio so that people were spending money drinking while they waited for their table.
A lumpy looking family appeared at the door, which Sweaty held open for them. “Our hostess will seat you,” he told them as they passed. He was about to follow them inside when a sudden movement across the parking lot caught his attention. An older Ford sedan had just pulled into a parking space on the far side of the lot, between a pickup truck and a white panel van. The door opened and a woman stepped out, she had just closed the door when the sliding side door of the panel van opened, and a grotesque fish-head man leaned out, seizing the woman by the arm. She shrieked.
Sweaty was about to race across the parking lot when, from the rear of the building, rushed a veritable armada of FBI vehicles. Nondescript government-issue Fords and Chevys, armored vans, and a massive tactical truck squealed around the corner and skidded to a stop a short distance from the van. While the FBI did its best to block the restaurant patrons’ view of the van, most had a clear vantage point to observe the situation. Sweaty stopped and watched.
The agent in charge was, of course, the alien obsessive who had visited the restaurant the other day. He stepped casually from his car, placing a bullhorn to his lips, and issued an ultimatum.
“Riccardo Finolo and Guglielmo Bolle, you are surrounded. Release the woman and step out of the van and no one gets hurt.”
“No deal, G man,” a watery voice shouted from the van. “I ain’t no CW.”
“There’s a lot of firepower out here, Billy,” the agent said. “There’s no way you make it out alive.” From inside the van, they could hear the woman’s panicked cries grow louder.
“There’s only two ways this ends,” the agent said. Around him, the other agents were loading weapons, taking positions behind their vehicles. A team that looked like snipers snuck off to look for a prime place to take a shot. They all wanted to be heroes.
At the door to the restaurant, Sweaty shook his head and sighed. He addressed the group waiting on the patio, who were all captivated by the drama unfolding.
“Folks,” he said. “It looks like we’re gonna be closing early today. My suggestion is that you get out of here before-” He was cut off by the sound of gunfire from across the parking lot. Everyone on the patio hit the ground, screaming and terrified. Sweaty again held the door open and called to the crowd on the patio. “Might as well wait inside, everyone. Army crawl to the door.” No one moved. “We’re comping meals as an apology for the little shootout between the Feds and the Mob that’s currently putting all your lives at risk.”
Texans will always army crawl for a free meal.

***

The standoff lasted for several more hours, with gunfire erupting at several points, although it was unclear who was doing the shooting, or if it was productive. At the end, the abducted woman had been released, though her wrists were bruised from where she’d been bound, and she was jabbering so incoherently that the FBI opted to send her to the hospital for a psych eval. The patrons who had been ushered inside at the start of the incident got their free meals, but stayed so long that most ordered again. Between that and the drinks, Chichay and Sweaty estimated that they ended up bringing in more than they would have on a normal evening.
About an hour before close, the special agent knocked on the door of the restaurant. Emmy, who had been keeping an eye on the entrance, let him in. He was surprised to see how busy the restaurant was, and that everyone inside was in boisterous spirits, seemingly oblivious to the events that had taken place in the parking lot. Emmy asked him to wait by the door, since there was no space at the bar this time, and went off to find Chichay and Sweaty.
“Agent,” Chichay said when she appeared a moment later. “I hope you’re here to tell me you’re releasing the crime scene you created in my parking lot.”
“I am, Ms. Milano,” he said. “Although I don’t know why you’re complaining, your restaurant seems to have made out alright tonight.”
“It has, no thanks to you,” she replied coolly. “Is there anything else I can help you with?” she asked.
“Actually, yes,” he said. “I assume you’re going to tell me that the names Riccardo Finolo, Guglielmo Bolle, and Anthony Vardenetti don’t mean anything to you?”
“Not in the slightest,” she replied.
“Ricky the Fin, Billy Bubbles, or Dolly Varden?”
“Still no.” She gave him an impatient look with raised eyebrows.
“Well, we apprehended a van full of, shall we say, Mafia-affiliated gentlemen. Two were obviously muscle, but we were expecting three Capos who are known for having a little more finesse.” He paused. Chichay crossed her arms.
“And?”
“Well, we only got the soldiers and two of the three Capos.”
“And?” Chichay asked again. She knew what he was getting at, but she had no intention of playing along.
“Well I guess I just wanted to check one more time and make sure you didn’t know anything about these guys.”
“Right, because when you asked the first couple of times, and I said no, you thought that might have been a mistake.”
“No, I just-”
“Agent, it’s really too bad that you lost one of your perps, here, but this line of questioning is starting to border on harassment. I mean, first someone’s in here saying it’s the Mafia, then it’s aliens, then Mafia aliens. I don’t know what you even found in the parking lot, but if you look around our dining room, it should be pretty clear that native Texans is as weird as it gets here.”
“So you aren’t harboring anyone who meets the previously discussed descriptions?” the agent asked. Chichay had already started moving toward the door to unlock it.
“We don’t harbor criminals here, agent. My partner already told you that.” She opened the door, holding it wide and waiting. The agent mustered some dignity and left, nodding to her as he passed through the door.

***

“So the FBI lost one of the Trout Mob?” Sweaty asked as he and Chichay tied up the last two remaining bags of trash. They had let the rest of the staff leave and finished the final bit of cleaning up themselves.
“Uh huh.”
“Dixie and Johnny aren’t off the hook yet, then,” Sweaty said as they started to drag the trash bags down the hallway toward the back door.
“Yeah, but it’s a huge organization,” Chichay said. “The debts and obligations get passed on. It’s like an inheritance. The only way Dixie and Johnny are ever going to be free of this is to just pay them the money. They’d have to kill all of organized crime otherwise.” They pushed open the back door and walked to the large dumpsters behind the building.
“I guess we should try to get in touch with them, then,” Sweaty said as he lifted the lid to the dumpster. “Just because it kinda worked out this time, doesn’t mean we can have Trout Mob fucking with our customers and-” he gasped, then quickly pulled the lid closed. Chichay looked at him, confused.
“What?”
“One of the Trout Mob guys is in there,” he said.
“What!?” Chichay exclaimed. At that moment, the man in the dumpster began to try to push his way out. Sweaty held fast to the lid.
“AY!” the man’s muffled voice came through the metal of the dumpster. “Lemme go!”
“Tony?” Chichay asked, still in disbelief.
“Look, we can make a deal,” the man shouted.
“You had a chance to make a deal,” Sweaty said.
“The FBI makes deals,” Chichay said. “We don’t.” She turned to Sweaty. “Think you can hold him while I get a padlock?”

***

They climbed into their car a short while later. They could still hear Tony Vardenetti pounding on the inside of the dumpster as they started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. Chichay fished around in her purse and eventually came up with the FBI agent’s card. She smiled.

***

Dixie and Johnny tore down the narrow mountain road, their stolen truck rattling like a dog in a dishwasher. It was an old fashioned truck, the kind with the wooden sides. It had been loaded high with Christmas trees when they heisted it outside of Lourdes. In the chaos that followed the explosion of a dozen or so nuns making a pilgrimage, no one had noticed.
They rattled out of the Pyrenees and along a minor highway for a ways longer until they finally started to see signs of larger cities, more people. Dixie was at the wheel, and she slowed the truck as they approached Zaragoza.
“Which way to Barcelona?” she asked. Johnny was sitting in the passenger seat nursing a bottle of red and a handful of smashed croissants.
“Right,” he said. “Always turn right.”
Without signaling, she did, and three hours later, the pair found themselves in the middle of downtown Bilbao. As they cruised down a wide, central thoroughfare, they had no idea that they weren’t in Barcelona.
Eventually, while attempting to adjust a cordoban hat that she’d picked up at a highway rest stop, Dixie drove the truck into a fire hydrant. Water blasted everywhere, and the engine of the truck finally kicked the bucket, so she and Johnny got out and walked.
They made their way through the Parque República de Abando and were starting to wonder whether they were in the right place when up ahead they noticed a huge building, all shiny chrome and futuristic lines. They stopped and stared.
“Huh,” Johnny said.
“I know,” Dixie replied. “It’s most like…” She trailed off. Nearby, a young mother with a small son walked along. The mother, noticing the little boy’s shoe was untied, bid him to stop and stand still while she crouched over to tie it. The boy looked over at Dixie and Johnny while he waited, but when he saw that they were staring intently at something, he followed their gaze.
“¡Mamá!” he called, tapping her on the head. “¡Mira mamá! ¡Una nave espacial!”
Dixie and Johnny looked at one another and smiled.

***

A short while later, much to everyone’s bafflement, a wing of the Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa lifted off, detaching itself from the rest of the building. Its engines roaring, white-hot heat blasting forth, it climbed through the atmosphere and was gone.

***

Chichay Milano and Sweaty Mulligan were curled up on the couch in the living room of the ranch house. It was late, and the only lights in the room came from their newly decorated Christmas tree. They each held a mug of steaming cocoa in their lap, although Sweaty’s contained a generous shot of bourbon.
In the kitchen, Rex could be heard bustling around, preparing his traditional Christmas eve cheese plate. Out on the lawn, the Troubadour brothers had just returned from caroling, but weren’t ready to come inside just yet. They stood, a little ways back from the window, and belted out a few more for good measure.
Chichay sighed a contented sigh. Fish headed mobsters aside, she loved how normal her life had become.
Across the room, a communication device on a tall bookcase chirped. Sweaty and Chichay looked at one another for a moment, then Sweaty groaned. He gently unwound his arm from Chichay’s shoulder, got up from the couch, and crossed the room to the bookcase. He switched the device on as he made his way back to the couch and placed it in front of them on the table.
“Hello?” came Johnny’s voice across the unfathomable distance of space. “Are you dicks there?”
“Hi Johnny,” Chichay said. “Merry Christmas.”
“It is?” Johnny asked. The picture on the device began to come through, but it was fuzzy and static caused it to cut out every few minutes. “I thought it was November.” The murmurs of Dixie and Johnny grappling with lost time took up the next few moments. Sweaty attempted to bring them back on track.
“So what’s going on, you guys? Where are you?”
“We’re in space,” Dixie said.
“Yeah,” Johnny added. “We just called to let you guys know that we’re going on a sabbatical.”
“A sabbatical,” said Sweaty. “Is that right?”
“Yeah, we worked really hard this year, and we’re feeling a little burnt out,” Dixie added.
“I can totally see that,” Chichay said. Sweaty suppressed a snort and pinched her leg.
“Yeah, well, you gotta take care of yourself first, you know?” Dixie said.
“Totally.” Sweaty bit his knuckles. Neither said anything else.
“Hopefully the restaurant’ll be ok without us,” Johnny said.
“The restaurant? Ok without you?” Chichay asked. She looked at Sweaty.
“Yeah, gosh,” he said. “I hope so, too.”
“Well, you two take all the time you need,” Chichay said quickly. “Listen, we’ve gotta go, there are carolers here. Merry Christmas!” She switched off the device just as she and Sweaty dissolved into a fit of laughter. It went on for the next ten minutes.
When they finally calmed down, they looked at one another with a shrug.
“A sabbatical from what?” Chichay asked.
“From fucking up our life?”