The Amazing Adventures of Miss Ariana Okata

Coda No. 1

After "Jacques" was arrested, booked and fingerprinted, and after he'd spent a few nights in jail with some new friends, I visited him, mostly out of curiosity. Daniel didn't want me to do it but I thought I might be able to pick up some more tasty tidbits of evidence for the upcoming trial. By then, the hairy human remains on the banks of the Nile had been positively identified as belonging to 'Pierre'. I knew in my gut that 'Jacques' was responsible.

Once again, we rigged up a secret recording device but this time the mic was concealed inside one of my enormous, dangly pierced earrings which resembled miniaturized versions of the solar system. Why the solar system? Because an old boyfriend, an astronomy enthusiast, had given them to me for my birthday after purchasing it at the Planetarium Gift Shop. The mic was concealed inside Pluto, I believe; however, as Pluto is apparently no longer a planet, the mic may have been inside Neptune. Regardless, I thought that this was one of those times when being a robot would have come in handy, what with having a functioning hard drive inside my skull to record everything, including what I was seeing. I'd just have to be careful not to give it any hard knocks, just like with any human brain.

When I entered the kiosk, I sat down and picked up the non-criminal's telephone in order to communicate with the fake Frenchman through plexiglass, on his criminal's telephone on the other side of said plexiglass. I was wearing one of my shortest leather minis (purple) and tightest, lowest-cut tops (pink), and had slipped on a pair of navy blue suede Manolo stiletto slides. As they say, sex sells, and it could only help in my search for more information.

I sat down and daintily picked up the non-criminal's telephone.

"Hello, Jack. Remember me?"

Daniel had told me his name was not Jacques Chevalier but Jack McDougall.

"Of course, my blossom of de Orient. Ariana, right?"

His fake French accent was long gone. He now sounded a wee bit like Tony Soprano.

"You remind me of a girl I saw in a movie...what was her name..."

"Was it hooker #2 in Full Metal Jacket?"

I was kidding, of course. It's a line I'd heard once from Emma (who else?). He just gave me a funny look and said nothing.

"What happened to your French accent?" I kind of missed it, despite it being fake, preferring it to this new, coarse, semi-coherent one.

"Too hard on my vocal cords," he replied.

His accent suddenly reminded me of a TV show that I'd only heard of but never watched, and didn't particularly want to. "You're from New Jersey, aren't you?"

"Yeah. What of it?"

I decided to continuing having a little fun with him.

"Did you enjoy your time with Suki?"

His eyes narrowed.

"Suki? Wadda ya talkin' about?"

I just looked at him and waited. Nothing. I made an irritated noise in my throat. It was time to trot out the Sukiyaki accent, which involved raising my voice about three octaves.

"I am Suki Yakisoba, Japaneezu roboto for your ple-ja."

"What? Speak English!"

The man had never gotten the hang of fake Japanese accents, which I found quite annoying. Dropping the accent, I blurted out, "It was me, Ariana! I was pretending to be a robot!"

Then because he was still giving me a blank look, I added, "I'm Suki Yakisoba!!"

He looked genuinely surprised, but then tried to change his expression back to one of nonchalance, but I'd already seen it.

"Oh, yeah, I knew dat. Yeah. I knew it was you. It turned me on, so I played along."

I didn't believe him, and gave him a look right then that indicated so. It was my opinion that Emma was right in this one instance; we all look the same to guys like Jack. Then I realized this would come in handy during my future undercover operations as a private eye, so my brief anger passed.

"Do you have anything else to share with me? Now's your last chance," I offered generously, I thought.

He smiled and said, "Too bad baby, you missed out." Then he trotted out the Clouseau-inspired accent one last time. "Once you've had Jacques you don't go back."

"You're quite right. I have had you. And now you're going to spend time with your new friends in prison. You killed a good man, and a friend of mine, when you killed Ted. And you cheated all of those investors out of their hard-earned money. This proves crime doesn't pay. Now you're going to pay for it. Goodbye, Jack."

Before he could come up with some smart-ass, quasi-French retort, I hung up my non-criminal's phone, stood up and walked out, making sure to work my butt inside the miniskirt just a little bit, to give him something to regret; namely, his loss of freedom. Someone whistled, but I preferred to play it cool and didn't turn back to look. I didn't plan on returning ever, if possible.

I am pleased to say that was almost the last time I ever saw him. The very last time I saw him was inside courtroom #7 in the Van Courthouse on Hornby Street, where he was convicted of one count of first-degree murder plus several counts of fraud. My last image is of him wearing a prisoner's jumpsuit, handcuffs and leg irons, and being led out of the courtroom by two burly Sheriffs. He still had that arrogant smirk on his face that he often wore, yet I knew it was a useless pose, as he would be spending decades locked up away from society. The feeling it gave me was most satisfying, and the fact I had been largely responsible was even more satisfying. If this is what it felt like to be a private investigator, I knew I had definitely made the right career choice.

Afterwards, I threw a celebratory luncheon for Daniel, Petra, the whole surveillance team, the SWAT men (and, as it turned out, one woman) and legal team at, ironically, Alejandro's where I had once spied upon Jacques during one of his robot-investor meetings. Ted paid for the whole shindig, as he'd included a clause in his will that when (not if, because he had so much confidence in my abilities) I had cracked the case and brought the perpetrator(s) to justice, I was to throw a celebration for all of the people who'd worked so hard on the case. Ted was still a generous man, even postmortem.

And later that night, in my apartment, Daniel and I threw our own private celebration, which I shall just keep to myself because it is, well, private.