Fourth quartet

Given the intricate intertext that I've subtly woven not once, not twice but thrice, I shall gift thee a chance to play catch-up as catch can. Caught up? Splendid. Tune in next paragraph and subsequent ones for the exciting conclusion to Being the Continuing Continued Adventures of Leon Czolgosz, Irishman.

The turgid roar of unseen turboprops cut through the night, as dark and stormy as the last, yet now distended with the shellshock of Gatling gunned thunderbolts flashing a glance at the steel speeding out of earshot. To the layman, they were simply airplanes. To this Irish agent, the unmistakable whine of political hubris. To this Irish agent lost in the Kingdom, and lost he was, so far off his Occidental mission that he might as well have been working for the Khanate of Cathay. Crouching underneath a precipitation-plundered plum tree, Leon lifted his faux-leather bomber over his head, sculpting just enough dry space to espy the daguerreotype suggestively slipped into his pocket by those ruby-tipped fingers.

"Yeesh, what an ugly motherfucker." Locating this unseemly contact, the one who would ostensibly be able to answer all of his questions -- or so that supposed Daughter of a Bohemian Yugoslav said -- this hideous love child of a leprosy-stricken Liszt and John Merrick, was going to prove easier done than said.

Reaching the covered gate of the castle compound hiding cozily underneath the skirt of Belgrade, Leon hid his faux-leather bomber in the bushy, roadside mud to reveal a suit whose swank would have impressed the son of Beau Brummel if there was still such a creature but we all sadly remember his state funeral on radio, and popped a Winston-Salem, taking a cool drag that fooled the guard just enough to gain him entry.

Wading neck-deep through black tie, black dress, black caviar and, eerily, row after circle after rhombus of too-white teeth, he slowly ascended the gently curving Cararra marble staircase with a velvety élan, instantly recalling his voluptuous captor who, even at distance, cast a smoothly electric gaze that all but erased this too-beautiful crowd, a lush, gaslit hum illuminating -- ah, there, in the northeast corner amidst the murk, his homely quarry.

"Yeesh, what an ugly motherfucker."

"Monsieur?"

"Get gone, garçon," retorted the determined Dubliner as he quickly snatched a snifter of champagne, copped a canape and descended, all in one fell swoop. Sweeping across the parquet, he made an A-line for the hideous monstrosity, none other than the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Forcibly welling up every wellspring of willpower, Leon gently but firmly and most importantly, revoltingly, clutched the Minister's upper limb.

"Ministru, aş dori o vorbă cu tine, te rog."

His eyes instantly glazed over as if someone had poured sugar on them and deftly applied a low flame, for he, like all provincial Yankee double agents, knew no second language.

"Eu spun, domnule ministru, aţi --"

In a continent of shock, Leon stumbled backwards, only a tapestry-laden column keeping him upright until he eventually slumped down in a heap resembling a scorched pile of Hamburger Helper. Futilely gasping for air, a long shadow pierced his personal space, becoming ever darker as the ample assets of the girl with the coffin curl came into view, a ruby-nailed digit flipping his upper lip as her neon-green eyes permeated his every sweaty thought.

"Just as I suspected. No one dare speak the language of the Empire in public save an adult film industry defector -- or the enemy."

"Vai!"

"Oh, my dear, dear Paddy. 'tis a shame you won't have time to get used to those pearly fangs. Someday, I might even have let you take a drink of me," she said, scraping the drop of scarlet beading down his chin, the ruby nail taken hungrily into her mouth.

"Dar de ce?"

"The kingdom's loins needed girding, darling, and you're the grease for the gears of war. Officer, in the name of his Imperial Majesty, arrest this Transylvanian vampire."

As the Yugoslavs roughly dragged him away, Leon cursed the day he learned to play whist.

Chicks. Oh,

fin.