Penthouse - Big Cat Batsu


The penthouse is clearly the most coveted of all the rooms in the hotel. It is an enormous suite, to the point at which as if someone built a full-fledged house atop the entire tower. In the middle of it all was Hollywood's hottest couple of all time: Leo and Lana Lionheart. He, the mascot of the legendary MGM studios, had stepped into the acting ring, he and his wife, Lana, with open arms at exactly the right time. After just one movie, they had become the new Bogart and Bacall. Around them was their congregation: a tiger, Ellis, a cheetah, Nate, the leopard from room 400, two Pink Panthers, a cougar, Morgan, and Tom, Jerry and Toodles from room 161. Sam enters with a room-service cart. "Sorry for my being late, but I have everything you asked for."
"Lateness is the least important virtue and patience, the most important," Leo roared. "Let me introduce you to the pride. I'm Leo, this is my beau, Lana." Sam introduces himself. Leo continues, finishing with, "I believe you know Madison from 400 and the 161 trio. Okay, that's done. Let's see what you've got for us! C'mon, Nate. You should be interested in this." 
"Damn, Skippy. Tell it!" Sam gets out the items in this order: a block of wood, a roll of duct tape, an icepack and a mallet. 
"A mallet as hard as Gibraltar is what I asked for."
"Well, you be the judge." Morgan takes the mallet and pounds it on the cart. "Well?"
"That's a hard sonnuva bitch, right there. Bring that sucker and the rest o' this bullshit over to the bar." 
"You heard him." 
Sam is completely confused and starting to get a little scared, but he does what he's told. Nate and Ellis notice him. "What's this?" 
"Live, from Tokyo, it's Gaki no Tsukai!" 
"No way. You're gonna do it?" 
"Sure as hell, we're gonna do it!" 
"All right! Showtime!" 
Sam is even more confused. "What are you talking about?" 
Ellis draws near Sam. "If you don't know what 'Gaki no Tsukai' is, it's a late-night variety show from Japan. Every year at New Year's, the emcees, Matsumoto and Hamada, challenge one another to a dare, contest or game of some kind. The loser has to endure something ridiculous or painful for 24 hours as a punishment." 
"Morgan and I had just made a similar dare," said Leo. "He's putting his tail against my wife's boobs that he can use up an entire box of matches, lighting each one in rapid succession on the first try for each one."
"Why the 'T' instead of the 'A'?" Morgan asks. "It's simple. We were all sittin' here watchin' some Gaki no Tsukai that Leo recorded back in Osaka. Lana happened to enter the room with bare tits. I flip-flop between Gaki and Lana's tits and tell Leo, 'I'd do anything to split her sweater kittens,' and Leo's like..."
"'...Anything???' So I dare him to use up a whole matchbox, one match at a time, with each match striking on the first go. If it takes more than one try for any of them to light up, Morgan has to suffer the pain of a broken tail for a whole day. And this, Sam, is the part you have in this. We want you to be our diceman."
Sam senses no good in this situation and rushes to the door, only to be stopped when Leo shouts, "Money!" Sam turns around. "I got a hundred-dollar bill here with your name on it, whether you do what we ask or not, just to sit back down in the chair for one minute more."
"I don't want to break his tail!"
"Maybe you will and maybe you won't, but that has nothing to do with this hundred-dollar bill in my hand. You can tell us all to go fuck off and walk right out that door. But if you sit back down and wait sixty seconds before you do it, you'll be even richer."
"You can do what you want to do," Nate tells Sam. "All we're askin' is for you to spend another minute with us."
Sam thinks for a while, then comes back to the bar. "Fine. I'll take the money. I'll sit back down. However, I won't guarantee that I'll accept your other offer."
"I'm not guaranteeing that you will either. We'll either convince you or we won't. Ellis. Care to be my timekeeper?"
"Not at all." Ellis gets out a stopwatch. "And...go."
Leo starts his pitch, a race against time. "Okay. Now, I'll be making two piles of money. One..." He puts one Franklin on the counter. "...that's yours. And another pile..." He makes another pile, which grows as he speaks. "...which could be yours. Now, what you have to be aware of is we're gonna do this dare, one way, or the other. Whether it's you who holds the hammer, or the desk clerk downstairs, or some bum we yank off the street. You know, Sam, a person's life is made up of a zillion little experiences. Some, which have no meaning, are insignificant and you forget them. And some that stick with you for the rest of your natural life, barring Alzheimer's of course. Now, what we're proposing is so unusual, so outside the norm, that I think it would be a pretty good guess that this will be one of those experiences that sticks. So, since you're gonna be stuck remembering this moment for the rest of your life, you gotta decide what that memory will be. So, are you gonna remember for the next forty years, give or take a decade, how you refused a thousand dollars for one second's worth of work, or how you made a thousand dollars for one second's worth of work?" Ellis calls time. "So, what's your decision?" Sam looks at the pile, then looks up. "Okay." The group cheers. Everybody gets in their position by the bar. Morgan duct tapes the end of his tail to the wood block, empties a matchbox and picks up one of the matches, positioning it and the empty matchbox. Sam takes the hammer and raises it above Morgan's tail, in position. "Perfect, perfect, perfect. This is one of those portfolio moments. One that will stick with us for life. Morgan. Are you ready?"
"I'm ready." Morgan looks hard at the matchbox in his hand. Sam, holding the hammer, stares focused on Morgan's tail.
"Sam. Are you ready?"
"Ready."
"Okeydokey, Morgan...begin." Morgan strikes the match, which sparks, but doesn't light. Without missing a beat, Sam brings down the hammer, smashing Morgan's smallest tailbones. Morgan lets out a scream. Sam, in one move, lays down the hammer, scoops up the money, sticks it in his pocket and walks out the door. His first week on the job might've been odd, but it's been profitable. In fact, now he wants to stay, so that he'll never miss another adventure. He even made the hotel his semi-permanent home, keeping a journal of all his adventures; the first part of which is what you have just finished reading.