It could have been worse—he could have been killed in that library, he could have been cut up in little pieces, maimed, scarred for life at the end of that crazy man’s hook. He could still be in jail, pacing that ridiculous five-by-five cell till the hairs on his head turned gray, thinking up cute names for the roaches that would creep out from under his bed to steal the crumbs from the corners of his mouth whenever he dozed off.

He was sure Mike Hammer had never experienced anything like what he had been through the last few days—not Hammer, not Shell Scott, not Travis McGee. It was the kind of adventure that would have made Jessica Fletcher wet her pants. He had thrown a shoe at the notorious Sheikh Riyadh ul-Haq, he had been arrested for breaking into the Archbishop of Canterbury’s office in Lambeth, he had insulted Abu Hamza and because of that he now had a fatwa hanging over his head. How could he have done all that in such a short span of time without trying? It was a mystery. 

“Letter for Cowsnofsky,” announced the mailman as he dumped the mail on the bar at Joe’s Bar and Grille and Gun Club. “From somebody named P-i-f-f-y…What’s that? Piffy?”

“For Cowsnofsky?” echoed Joe. “Why Cowsnofsky?”

Piffy was Bernard Piffy, the private detective the boys at Joe’s Bar and Grille and Gun Club had hired to track down the notorious Yaser Abdel Said, the Dallas cabdriver who had murdered his daughters, Sarah and Amina Said, in a fit of Islamic rage. They hadn’t heard from Piffy for weeks. He had gone to Texas to look into things, to poke around a bit, to talk to a few people, to put his vast store of knowledge of the criminal mind to work, to nail the rascal’s hide to the wall, to put Joe’s Bar and Grille and Gun Club on the map. During the last few days the odds they would never see him again had grown to three-to-one. That he remembered Cowsnofsky’s name was surprising—maybe there was more to the man than an oversized trench coat and a runny nose, more than anyone had suspected. Joe called Cowsnofsky on his cell phone.

“Can you believe that!” exclaimed the Professor.

“What’s that?” said Joe of Joe’s Bar and Grille and Gun Club.

The Professor set aside the letter he had been reading. “Our private eye—Bernard Piffy,” he said.

“What’s he up to now?” asked Joe.

When Mike Hammer was stumped, when he didn't have a clue as to who had murdered his old buddy or raped his ex-girlfriend, when the last beer had been drunk and the last cigarette had been stubbed out and he was still grinding his teeth with a mad on that would have frightened the Frankenstein monster, there was always a guy from way back, a bootblack, a gravedigger, a wino who had once been number two or three at GM who owed Mike a favor, and at great personal risk would supply the information that would break the case. Or maybe it would be some former FBI agent or a Green Beret who had taken down a dozen Viet Cong in Nam. There was always somebody. That was the way it was and that was the way it should be. Then Mike would load Betsy, stuff an extra gun barrel in his pocket, kiss the broad he was sleeping with on the forehead-sometimes he did it in the reverse order-and the rat-bag, the cause of all his anguish and consternation, would have an appointment with I, the Jury.

If Bernard Piffy had been Mike Hammer he would have known what to do. He would have pulled out the old trusty Army Colt.45 and blasted Umyar back into the Pleistocene Age, filled him so full of holes he would have been mistaken for a Swiss cheese in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. But Piffy had left his peashooter back in his flat over the Red Dragon. He could have taken to his heels. That would have been another option. If he had been Jim Thorpe he would have been halfway to Heathrow the moment he had caught sight of Umyar but he was not Jim Thorpe, he was Bernard Piffy. There wasn’t much traction left in his Buster Browns. He would never make it out of the mosque alive!

Cowsnofsky looked up from the newspaper he had been reading. “Here’s something interesting,” he said. “Some goofy tourist took off his shoe in front of the Birmingham Central Mosque in London and threw it at an Imam…Isn’t that where Piffy was going—to the Birmingham Central Mosque?”

Piffy clambered to his feet. “Hi, fellas,” he said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

What else could he have said? He wasn’t Mike Hammer; he wasn’t Travis McGee; he wasn’t Shell Scott; his peashooter was back in the remains of his flat and his vocabulary of cuss words began with “Good Grief!” and ended with “Gee Whiz!” He was Bernard Piffy. He was Mayberry County’s all-time Junior Bronco-busting and Calf-roping champion and he had won every skeet-shooting contest ever held in the Tri-County area for contestants of all ages. When he was nine-years old he won the annual George Gabby Hayes Tobacco-spitting championship against all comers, most of them five times his age. He won every footrace he had ever entered and he rewrote the Marine Corps book on the Art Self Defense during the four years he spent in the Corps. And he had tossed a lot of drunks in the tank when he had been Deputy Sheriff of Mayberry County. Still he was closer to being a Keystone Kop than a Junior G-Man. And there were two of them—at least that was how many he counted, Mohammed Atta on his left and Hani Hanjour on his right. Yeah, that made two. And they were supposed to be dead!

Joe swabbed idly at the bar. “Who,” he asked, “Piffy?”

“Are you going to tell us what’s in that letter,” asked Cowsnfsky, “or do we have to guess?’

“Well, if that doesn’t beat all!” said the Professor. He shook his head, finished reading the article, shook his head again, folded the newspaper carefully, laid it on the bar and took up his beer. “I don’t believe it!” he said.

Mohammad Atta enters the Pearly Gates

He had no idea of how much time had elapsed since he had crashed that plane into the World Trade Center. It might have been minutes; it might have been years. He had been floating in a musk-scented cloud of ecstasy for so long he had become disoriented. From time to time he would shout, “Allahu akbar,” and a renewed surge of elation would sweep over him. Oh, how well he had done Allah’s work! How well!

Then, suddenly, there was a break in the clouds, and, lo and behold, sweeping toward him at a great rate of speed were the pearly gates! “Allahu akbar!” They were so wondrous they took his breath away. Could this be it? Could this be Paradise?

Off to the right, a pestilential wind was howling across a barren landscape. Billowing clouds of black smoke could be seen in the distance. He could hear people screaming. Such despairing and excruciating cries of pain and anguish and terror, he had never heard before. Christians and Jews, he thought. If he had not been such a good Muslim he might have winced.

And then, there he was, standing right in front of the Pearly Gates—the entrance to Paradise. A man in a German Army uniform barred the way. His left eye was missing—shot away, no doubt, in one of the many Germanic wars. His right hand and his right forearm were missing, and all that remained of his left hand was a thumb and two fingers.

Ah, thought Mohammed—Reinhard Heydrich, assassinated by Check guerillas in 1942. But Heydrich was not a Muslim. Perhaps he was being rewarded for killing all those Jews during the War. It would be just like the ever-merciful Allah to make him the Gatekeeper to Paradise.

“I am Mohammed Atta,” announced Mohammed.

“We have been waiting for you,” said the Gatekeeper.

 Mohammed nodded in the direction of the billowing clouds of black smoke. “I had not thought Hell would be so close to Paradise,” he said.

“Yes,” said the Gatekeeper. “Please, follow me.”

“I have no baggage,” said Mohammed.

“You will be provided with all you will ever need.”

Ah, thought Mohammed as he followed behind the former Reichsfuhrer. Allah is good. Allah is great.

He was led into a magnificent courtyard, so full of the most wondrous bubbling fountains and aromatic flower beds that once again his breath was taken away. Almost before he knew it, he was inside a low-ceilinged chamber, seated on a divan so plush he seemed to be floating on air. Rubies and emeralds were everywhere—studding the walls and covering the floor. The smell of saffron and camphor came from everything he touched. He was getting an erection. Ah, yes, he was achieving the permanent state of all true believers! He was really—truly—in Paradise!

“Are you ready for the houris?” asked the Gatekeeper.

“Yes! Yes!” cried Mohammed.

The Gatekeeper clapped his hands and there—appearing instantaneously before Mohammed—was the most ugly, the most wretched, and the most disgusting old hag Mohammed had ever laid eyes on. This time his breath was truly taken away.

“Hi, cutie,” said the hag. “I’m Nightmare Alice.”

Mohammed gasped. He grew flaccid. “What is this?” he croaked. “Some kind of a joke?”

“Would you like to see another?” asked the Gatekeeper.

“Yes! Yes!” cried Mohammed.

Again the Gatekeeper clapped his hands. Nightmare Alice faded into the ether, and Mohammed drew a sigh of relief. Praise be to Allah, that was over! But it wasn’t—it was only the beginning. As he looked up, he saw another hag leering down at him. She was more ugly, more wretched, and more disgusting than the first.

“Hi, sweetie,” she said. “I’m Lena the Hyena.”

“Take her away! Take her away!” cried Mohammed.

The Gatekeeper tried again and again, but he could not find a houri to suit Mohammed’s taste. There was Gravel Gertie; there was Typhoid Mary; there was Roseanne Barr. By then Mohammed Atta would have settled for Susan Sarandon.

“Perhaps you prefer boys?” suggested the Gatekeeper.

“Yes! Yes! That’s it!” cried Mohammed. And it was. Allah knew best. Mohammed liked boys better than women.

The Gatekeeper clapped his hands. Mohammed sighed. Ah, that was more like it! Two extremely nubile youths had appeared at the far end of the chamber. They were garbed in the most magnificent green silks and brocades. They had their backs to Mohammed and they were dragging a cart loaded with mouth-watering delicacies toward the divan—condiments and pastries unknown to mere mortal man. When they reached Mohammed, he placed a hand on a nubile hip. Yes, he was a man again!

“What would you like, sir?” asked the youth.

“Anything,” said Mohammed. “Anything at all.”

“Oh, we have that,” said the youth.

“And what is your name, pray tell?” asked Mohammed.

The youth turned to face Mohammed Atta. In his hands he was holding the greasiest all-pork hamburger ever grilled at Mel’s Diner. “I’m Beavis,” he snarled through the lips of his horribly scrunched face.

“And I’m Butthead,” said the other youth.

Mohammed Atta was aghast. “What is this? What is this place?” he croaked. “Tell me, Heydrich—where am I?”

“Oh, I’m not Heydrich,” said the Gatekeeper. “I’m Claus von Stauffenberg—the man who tried to kill Hitler.”

“You mean…you mean…”

“Yes, you are not where you think you are…but you are where you deserve to be."

Alas! Alas! Paradise Lost!