Nap Lapkin’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve (part 2 of 4)

(originally posted 12/28/2017)

Security was tight around the Marriott and Nap couldn’t let Clark know he was there by flashing his credentials. If Dick knew he was there, he’d simply disappear into the night. If he even caught Nap’s scent, he’d run, so he washed off his usual Fulton and Roark Captiva cologne and doused himself liberally with Michel Germain’s Sexual Paris Pour Homme Eau de Toilette. He winced as he took a whiff of himself. He just hoped there were no women he wanted to sleep with later that night.

Incapacitating a Marriott bellhop was child’s play. Once Nap had dragged him into a storage room and switched clothing, he realized the young man must have recently applied a large amount of Black Suede cologne and Nap’s head swam a little as the musky scent squared off against the Michel Germain’s Sexual Paris Pour Homme Eau de Toilette already on his person. He briefly imagined Dick Clark’s first words to him being “Is that really Black Suede AND Michel Germain’s Sexual Paris Pour Homme Eau de Toilette?! What are you … a male prostitute?”

He moved quickly up the stairwell to the top floor. For those of you who appreciate good cardio, that’s forty-nine floors without taking a breather. For those of you who appreciate all things olfactory (things related to smell, for those of you who usually stick to Harry Potter books), you can imagine the effect sweat would have to the already potent mixture of Black Suede AND Michel Germain’s Sexual Paris Pour Homme Eau de Toilette.

And yes, I realize that reading Michel Germain’s Sexual Paris Pour Homme Eau de Toilette over and over is annoying and yes, I also realize that those of you who usually read Harry Potter books are smugly thinking to yourself “J. K. Rowling never makes us read Michel Germain’s Sexual Paris Pour Homme Eau de Toilette over and over and that’s why she’s worth just under a billion dollars,” but if you really can’t suffer through a few superfluous (which means unnecessary for you Potter fans [“J.K. never makes us read unnecessary words like superfluous… or even regular fluous’], “no wonder nobody reads your dumb books, Lance Manion”) Michel Germain’s Sexual Paris Pour Homme Eau de Toilette references, then I feel it’s probably best to part ways now.

For those of you still with me, you’ll be thanking yourself soon enough as things are about to heat up.

Before that happens though, let familiarize you with the word “thrall.” It means a mortal who serves a vampire. A slave of sorts. I’m about to just casually start using the word and I can’t have you thinking it means “heartthrob” or “supermodel” like a dumbass who reads the Twilight series would conclude.

(“Stephenie Meyer has a net worth of $125 million” … proving that once you let a Harry Potter fan interject in the middle of your story, they are going to keep doing it until you take away their parentheses privileges.)

Nap slowly opened the door and looked down the lavish hallway. There were two beefy men standing rigid outside a large doorway which clearly was the largest of the rooms on the floor. They were wearing dark suits and looked to be all business.

Patting his concierge jacket (concierge means “bellboy” for any fans of The Hunger Games… ok, ok. I’ll stop), Nap took quick stock of some of the spy gadgets on his person to see if any might help him get past the sentries. The pen that shot out shocks the equivalent of a stun grenade might be a bit of overkill. The poison darts in his cufflinks assumes that the guards are bad guys, and for all he knew, Dick Clark might be in the adjacent room and he will have killed Ryan Seacrest’s bodyguards for no reason. The same objection could be raised for the throwing stars contained in each of his shoes. The drone he carried in his front pocket, the size of a postage stamp, wouldn’t be able to tell him anything he didn’t already know.

“Screw it,” he said quietly to himself and threw open the door and approached the men. I know you keep waiting for me to call them thralls but at this point, there’s no way you could know they’re thralls. I know it. You know it. But you just don’t know you know it yet.

I refuse to pander. It’s one of the things that have kept me an unknown writer.

The two guards began with the “You can’t be up here” and “Sir, you’ll have to go back down” patter but the niceties ended abruptly when it became apparent to everyone involved that Nap meant to get into the room and would accept no other outcome.

There were brief fisticuffs. Brief but shockingly violent.

Nap tried the doorknob and found it was open.

He entered.

Didn’t I tell you it was going to heat up?

The room was spacious and the attention to detail in the furnishings and color palette was impressive. Clearly, no expense was spared. Even the sheets where the corpse laid looked like they had a thread count that would make a Duchess choke.

Nap walked over to the corpse. He looked oddly familiar. It was hard to make out where he’d seen him before because he appeared so pale but then Nap noticed the enormous parachute pants.

“Holy shit. M.C. Hammer!” was all he could say.

“You can’t touch that,” said a voice mockingly behind him.

Nap whirled around to see who it was exiting the bathroom.

It was Dick Clark.

He looked ghastly. Not as bad as his last few years on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, but still terrifying.

“Is that really Michel Germain’s Sexual Paris Pour Homme Eau de Toilette?! What are you … a male prostitute?”

“Shut it, Dick. We both know why I’m here,” said Nap producing a long stake from inside his jacket.

Just as he started to walk towards Dick Clark, he sensed movement behind him. It was Ryan Seacrest coming out of the closet (which really shouldn’t surprise anyone, let alone a spy like Nap Lapkin).

“And there’s some Black Suede mixed in,” Seacrest noted as the stun gun he was holding made contact with Nap’s back. Instantly 300,000 volts made their way into him.

“It… takes… more… than a … stun …” started Nap but Dick Clark obviously knew where the conversation was headed and almost took off our hero’s head with a punch of supernatural force.

All went black for Nap.

“Bring him downstairs to the underground lair,” Dick ordered Ryan, “and then snap Hammer’s neck. The fool agent interrupted my feeding and I don’t want Hammer having to spend eternity wandering the Earth wearing giant gold lame’ pants. I may be cruel but I’m not entirely heartless.”

I feel like this would be a good spot to remind you to read that last sentence in Dick Clark’s voice. I just get the idea you’re barreling through this and not really making an effort. For both our sakes, I hope you take the time to savor the image of Ryan Seacrest breaking the neck of M.C. Hammer as Dick Clark looks on.