Upstooging A Scammer -- III

Okay, so "Curly" has sent both the lawyer and Gbenga the Western Union information in the early hours of September 1. Before any of this is acknowledged, however, I get this rather inexplicable email from Gbenga:

Your lawyer refused to come to Benin City not until our conservations through the phone. I told him he should come and let me show him some form and give him some key word that he will use in the meeting date, which is promise to come maybe tonight if the payment is made. He wants assurance he travel five hours to Benin City for not nothing of a journey.

Now Curly decides to drag a little Wizard of Oz into the proceedings:

I am not understanding. I pay the aturkey that you recommend so highly to me the money he demands, and how he doesn't want to come to the Benin City? All he has to do is follow the yellow prick road. Follow the yellow prick road. Follow the yellow prick road. Follow follow follow follow follow the yellow prick road. Follow it to the Benin City, where he will meets with the great Wizard of Odds, who can make all things come to pass. He can even raise me from the dead. Tell him to seek out the great Wizard of Odds. But he must be careful on the yellow prick road: the Wicked Witch of the Highlands, her and her flying monkeys with terrible gas, and her carnivorous apple trees, with which she is capable of making such mischief with. Bitch. Tell him I have wired his money through the greatest of difficulties, and he must embark at once. The Wizard of Odds waits for no man, Jablonski. I'm pushing on to the Rhine (I couldn't resist inserting a line from Kelley's Heroes, knowing full well it'll go nyahhhhh right over these two dolts). Tell him to be off!

A full day passes, and then I get this from the slowly-awakening Oh Henry:

Are you into some kind of joke or game with me? I am already in Benin City to represent you and no paymet has been met. I asked for the teller of the money transfer and you didn't send that. I can't even track the money online. Where did you get this MTCN number from 4377016996? Not even your name on it. Is this what you call a progressive business? Send me the teller of the transfer in 5 hours time. All the money payment info was fake and there will be nothing to procede. I need the teller, your full name and the right informations on how you send the money. I am disappoint in you as a client but I still have your job here for 5 more hours.

Time to see how Oh Henry feels about...the spirit woild:

A joke? In my heyday, jokes were my life. Game? Nobody loved games more than me. But today, I'm a shell of my former self. Fact is, Oh Henry...I'm a corpse. I died in 1952. I forward to you a photo of my tombstone at my current address of 4334 Whittier Blvd, Los Angeles California: The Home of Peace Memorial Park Cemetery/Mausoleum. Here is where I am buried (I attached a photo of Curly's head stone for Oh Henry's mortification).

How, you ask, did I become involved in this? First, thanks to the burying of a fiber optic cable in close proximity to my final resting place -- coupled with technology on my side of the spectral plane, called ITC -- I was able to be contacted by your partner via the internet. Inadvertently, on his part. I was amused by his offer to give me the business. But my years of comedic antics died harder than I did. He gave me a chance to relive my heyday. One I soitenly seized upon.

Yes, I sent you money via Western Union. But I used the Western Union branch located on the 3rd Astral Plane. In order for you to cash it, you'll have to visit that branch. To do so, you'll have to be like me. Dead. Long as you are rooted in the physical plane beneath the 3rd Astral, you are as far removed from the money I sent, as if I had sent it to the Moon. Though, Ralph Kramden is standing here, offering to send you there if you wish...*BANG...ZOOM!* He's still funny...nyuk nyuk nyuk.

I hope you enjoyed your trip to Benin City. Now that you find the Wizard of Odds is not all-powerful, you find that you have, within you, the power to return yourself home. Just tap your ruby red slippered heels together three times and say, "lift that barge, tow that weight, ZOOT!", and I guarantee you'll find others looking at you really funny.

By the way, would you contact my cemetery and tell them to mow the grass? It's starting to tickle. J. Curly Howard

I never again hear a peep from Mr. Gbenga; but Oh Henry isn't willing to let it go just yet:

Thanks alot. You waste my time and my money. This story of yours i do not buy. you are fool. I have telled Gbenga about you. go to hell.

Then on September 3, I get this from Oh Henry:

You are lucky that you are already dead. My friends help you otherwise. Be wise no be course. Dead and living have nothing in common.

Since he's not willing to let it lie..*TOING*..neither am I:

Oh Henry, Of course I'm lucky. I play poker with my brothers, and characters like Einstein, Newton, Edison and Darwin. Darwin should concern you in particular. And weekends, I get to go dancing with Princess Grace and Princess Diana, among others. Afterlife on the 3rd Astral Plane is a gas. Where you'll wind up, it's a touch hotter, but them's the breaks for the choice you makes nyuk nyuk nyuk. If you want to be scary, you need a whole lotta work, sonny. Right now, you're an earth-bound mugu, and a pretty pathetic one at that. J. Curly Howard

Either Oh Henry has finally wearied of this, or something about the subject matter has tweaked him, as his last email suggests:

Let go off me please...you are a dead man but i can still bring you back to life? if you have some skills to show please let me be!! i am just new in job and you fucked me up and dont even want me to make a next step..i am still novice ok. i am sorry just keep off my way cos i have a soul i fear for. i am not what you think cos i am in this dirthy stuff...just let go off me!!!

Real or an act on his part, I decide to keep up the "skeer" on 'em:

Oh nooooooooo....once you consciously decide to cross to the Dark Shadows, you tap into the evil denizens of the spirit woild, too....once you've summoned them, they come back again and again and again. My neer-do-well friends are now your shadow, and will forever after be your shadow, long as you partake in the "dirthy stuff" you're in. Nyuk nyuk nyuk!!!! Or maybe this will sound more scary...MWHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Act or not, Oh Henry sends a last plea: STOP IT! NO LIKE THIS JOKE! STOP!!!

LOL...if I were a nice guy, I'd say the point was made and that'd be that. But I ain't:

Once you tap into the negative energy of the dark side, Luke, we never stop. Like a psychotic Energizer Bunny, we'll be back.

Oh Henry is either truly tweaked out, or...:

PLEESE! YOU BRING DARKNESS ON FAMILY! I BEG OFF TO YOU TO STOP! YOU DESTROY MY LIFE!

Yawp...that was the ideer:

Darkness on family? Destroy your life? Yeah, so? You expected less when you chose the Dark Side, Luke? I am your shadow forever. Nyuk nyuk nyuk. Hey Moe, look that Oh Henry here!

Not a nuddah woid since. The "spirit" of Curly it seems has sent Oh Henry scampering in a flurry of "whoob whoob whoobs" and "nyahh nyah nyahhhh"s. And all without a single *eye poke*.

See that? *BONK* ow! Hey, Moe!