The Moosehead Stratagem, Chapter 5, Part 3

“This is your safe house?”, Karen asked, flatly.

“It is”, Mike replied.

Karen turned to him with a disgusted look and remarked, “It’s a house… shaped like a safe”

“What were you expecting?”

“Something less conspicuous”, Karen answered.  She opened her car door, unfurling her long sexy Plantagenet legs, but tried to keep from exposing herself at the same time.  By the time she stood up, Mike was standing next to her car door.  “What were you doing?”, she demanded.

“Nothing”

“You were planning to spear my adam’s apple”

Mike laughed nervously, “That’s… absurd…”

Karen grabbed him by the lapels and said in a very loud voice, “Women don’t have adam’s apples”

“Really?”

The angry archaeologist let Mike go and she stalked to the front door underneath a very large combination dial.  “What’s the combination?”, she demanded.

Mike shrugged, “I don’t even know if it is functional.  The house just looks like a safe”

“So, how do we get in?  Is there a key?”

Mike reached past her and turned the knob, “We usually just leave it unlocked”

Karen’s face and visible body reddened, “How safe is that?”

Mike paused at the open door, “Safer than a key.  You know how many people are killed by keys each year?”

Karen push Westershenshenham aside and walked in.  “No”, she replied.

“And, you call yourself an archaeologist”

The living room was sparsely furnished with a couch of indeterminate color, a recliner, some paintings on the wall and a rug that looked like Timothy Leary vomited on it.  The recliner looked less disgusting than the couch, so Karen sat there.  She noticed, after she’d sat, that her thigh was exposed up to her navel.  She tried in vain to cover up.  “Can I get some clothes?”, she asked.

“What’s your size?”, Mike asked.

“Five or six”

“No”, Mike answered, immediately.

“Anything a little larger?”

“No”

“Anything a lot larger?”

“I don’t think we have clothes here”, Mike responded, “But, we can get some serious hardware, here”.  Mike wasn’t wrong.  Somewhere in the Safe House there was a hammer that absolutely REFUSED to laugh at anything.

“Then, can you go out and buy me some clothes?”, Karen asked.

“Why?  We have clothes here”

Karen kicked the coffee table with a bare foot and yelled, “You just told me—“

“I said nothing of the sort”, Mike interrupted, “I told you that there might be a picture of an iguana in the other room.  I have no IDEA what YOU are on about”

Karen threw up her hands, which she’s eaten earlier that day.  “I’ll find them myself”, she snapped, getting up.

“I think there are some clothes in the next room, under the iguana picture”

The adjoining room was a bedroom, with a brass bed, a dresser and a lamp with a shade that was partially melted by the bulb.  Karen went straight to the dresser and found some clothes she could wear:  A dark wool coat with a white silk blouse.  There was a wool skirt as well.

It would take a lot of effort to tear apart and lose those items of clothing; but, Karen felt that she was up to the challenge…