Detectives Page and Plant arrived at the Corporate Corpulence New York headquarters near Rockefeller Plaza. They had earlier determined that the most likely location of the corporate vault was in the basement part of the building. After wracking their brains to figure out how they would gain access to the basement, Robert had decided that they should go undercover as exterminators.
They sat in the Duster wearing the white Orkin Man jumpsuits they had gotten from central procurement while Jimmy experienced a change of heart about his willingness to impersonate a pest control expert.
"Look, Jim," Robert said to his partner, "you've got to do it. This is undercover work. Just fun. Nobody'll say 'there's Page and Plant exterminatin' bugs,' I mean, that would be ridiculous, unthinkable! Wouldn't it? No, they'll say, 'hey those Orkin Men look a lot like Page and Plant,' and leave it at that. Plus, you have a nice moustache and everything." Robert scanned the street for effect, and added: "I don't see any paparazzi about, either."
"I won't do it. I won't go out in public wearing this suit. I feel like a cross between a courthouse janitor and a cheap Elvis impersonator."
"Well," Robert quipped, "you would certainly know about the former."
"And, YOU would certainly know about the latter," Jimmy shot back. There was a pause, and they both erupted into laughter.
After the laughter subsided, Robert said, "These really aren't much different from the getups you used to wear on stage. Think about it."
"I have," Jimmy said stubbornly, beginning to unzip the suit, revealing a black tee shirt and jeans underneath.
Robert took hold of his partner's hand to prevent him from zipping further. "We're doing this for Banana," He said quietly.
Jimmy paused and sighed. "Okay," he fumed, "but this is the last time I'm going to look like a jackass for this job."


"We're here to exterminate your bugs," Robert Plant declared to the front desk secretary at Corporate Corpulence Records.
The pretty blonde ruminated her cinnamon Dentine rapidly while regarding the pair skeptically through her long, fake eyelashes.
"Ah, I don't think we're expecting you guys today, are we? I don't recall putting in an order . . ."
"Preliminary inspection," Robert broke in, tapping a clipboard he brought with him as an official looking prop, "ordered by Mr. Biggs's office. Seems you have an infestation around the vault area."
"Mr. Biggs, huh?" The secretary lifted the telephone receiver, and turned her attention to her desk while she talked.
Throughout the exchange, Jimmy had been continuously and nervously pressing his fake moustache. Robert nudged him a little while the secretary's attention was diverted, and motioned for him to stop. Jimmy rolled his eyes and clasped his hands behind his back.
The secretary completed her phone call, and said, "Wait here. A security guard will take you upstairs to the vault area."
"Upstairs. Figures." Jimmy whispered to Robert from behind the fuzz on his upper lip. Robert shrugged.
Presently, a young man in a Pinkerton security uniform materialized, and escorted the two onto the elevator to the tenth floor. They exited the elevator, and the security guard led them down a long, empty corridor.
"Say, Robert," Jimmy whispered to his partner as they lagged behind the Pinkerton, "what do we do when we get there? What do bug killin' guys do, anyway?"
Robert shrugged. "Damned if I know. We'll have to improvise, I guess. We're good at that."
"Right." Jimmy said. "Well, at least it seems that we're the only people on this level."
The trio turned a corner at the end of the corridor, and there they saw the heavy, battleship grey door of a very large vault. The Pinkerton waved them ahead, and said, "Well, here you are. You can look for your bugs now."
Robert and Jimmy were stymied as they realized that the "vault area" consisted of a bare hallway with no nooks or crannies to make their inspection look painstaking. Robert halfheartedly wandered around the marble-veneer corridor, viewing the floor and pretending to make notes on his clipboard. Jimmy stood watching and fingering his moustache, which had begun to itch fiercely.
The Pinkerton guard watched them curiously. "What kind of bugs are you looking for?" he asked, "cockroaches, I bet, huh?"
"Yeah," Robert replied, uncertainly, poking his pen at the baseboard. "Spiders and stuff, too. It's a very severe situation, I hear."
Robert continued to look and poke; and Jimmy continued to fidget with his lip. The guard hovered, keeping an eye on the odd pair.
"Er, um, Mr. Guard." Robert said finally, tiring of the charade, and beginning to feel a bit humiliated in his role as pest exterminator.
"Yes? Is there a problem?" The young man asked, approaching them.
Jimmy shot Robert a quizzical look.
"Yes," Robert replied, motioning for the Pinkerton to come closer. "I believe we need to get into that vault."
"I'm sorry sir, but no one is allowed in the vault except Mr. Biggs and his assistant."
"You see," Robert continued desperately, "judging from the, uh, evidence I found, the bugs are coming from inside this vault."
"Sorry." The Pinkerton insisted, this time fingering the riot club hanging from his belt. "I'm not even allowed in there. You can get permission from Mr. Biggs if you need to. Now, I think we ought to return to the front, okay? It looks like you've done your job." He turned his body slightly as if to leave, gesturing for Page and Plant to go ahead of him. Jimmy, now outright scratching his upper lip, looked pleadingly at Robert, asking him silently what they should do now.
"Wait!" Robert said, loudly enough for his voice to echo eerily down the corridor. "We really need to get into that vault. Now."
"What's the big deal? You can talk to Mr. Biggs about it, if it's so important. What's with you guys, anyway? Why should I let you into the vault? The Pinkerton's eyes darted from Page to Plant and back again, nervously.
"Well, because we're Robert Plant and Jimmy Page! Remember us? From Led Zeppelin?" Robert shot a glance at Jimmy, whose eyes were brightening.
The Pinkerton looked more disconcerted than ever.
"Remember?" Robert slid over to where Jimmy was standing, and began to sing, a little shakily at first: "Hey, hey mama said the way you move, gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove!"
Jimmy, taking the cue, brandished an air guitar, and pointed it at the Pinkerton in classic Page fashion. He bugged his eyes, pouted his lips, and played his riff furously while Robert provided a powerful and convincing, "Bah nah nah nah nah-nah, Bah nah nah nah . . ."
The now incredulous and wide-eyed Pinkerton started to back away from the rock and rollers during their serenade, groping for his walkie talkie. Robert, realizing that the display frightened rather than impressed the young lad, cut his aria short, and approached the retreating guard.
"Hey . . ." Robert began, at which point the Pinkerton turned and started to run down the corridor. Robert ran after him.
Carried like the wind by his long legs, Robert caught up with the guard and grabbed him by the collar.
"Look, dude!" The struggling youth protested against Robert's grip, while Robert relieved him of this riot stick and radio, "I'm not into that shit! Like I have a girlfriend and . . . woah! HEY!"
Robert tried to stop the guard's shrill cries with reassuring words, but he shouted all the more and began to swing his fists at the singing Orkin Man. Robert was still holding onto the collar for dear life, while blocking punches with his other hand.
Jimmy approached the struggling pair, and dancing around the blows that were now being directed at him, managed to reach out and squeeze the base of the guard's neck. The Pinkerton immediately collapsed, and the tenth floor of Corporate Corpulence Records was silent once again.
"Shit, Jimmy!" What'd you do?" Robert asked, breathless, as he bent to see if the young man was still alive. He was.
Jimmy arched his eyebrows and shrugged. "Don't know. I saw some Martian on the telly do it. That Mr. Spot guy. Thought I'd give it a try."
"It certainly worked," Robert remarked. "Can you believe he never heard 'Black Dog' before? Must be a country and western listener or something."
They both shook their heads sadly, and left the Pinkerton in repose while they hurried back to the vault door. They stood in front of it in silence for a moment.
"Alright, Jim. How do you propose we get into this thing?" Robert directed his question more to the vault than to Jimmy.
"Well, come on!" Robert said, turning to his friend, "you're the psychic guy. You should be able to crack this safe."
Jimmy moved closer to the vault to inspect the numbered dial and fly wheel. He then turned back to Robert, a look of frustration on his face. "I can't do shit with this thing, Robert. Sorry."
They both sighed, knowing that the guitar they were seeking was most likely right behind that door.
"If only a certain Zeppelin staff member from the seventy-three tour were here," Robert said.
"Yeah," Jimmy replied with a bitter laugh. "We could certainly make use of his skills right now."
"And then we could kill 'im," Robert said, patting the pistol under his exterminator suit.
Jimmy approached the vault door once again, and, half out of a lark, yanked on the fly wheel. To the absolute surprise of both, the door made a clicking sound and opened a crack.
"Jesus!" Robert gasped.
Jimmy pulled some more, opening it enough to let a person in. He shook his head. "Some idiot forgot to close this all the way."
"All that bullshit for nothing!" Robert sighed.
They both slipped into the vault and stood blinking. As their eyes became accustomed to the dim, incandescent lighting, they realized that they were in a rather large room; and as the contents of the room became visible, they both gasped.
Lining both sides of the room were glassed-in display cases. The cases were filled with all manner of music memorabilia: guitars, concert posters, tour jackets, stage clothing, gold and platinum records, framed letters and plaques. It was a veritable museum, and to Robert's and Jimmy's utter surprise, they saw that the vast majority of the items were from Led Zeppelin.
"Lordy," Jimmy whispered, "you think Fred Biggs is a fan of ours?"
"I would say. I wonder where he got all this stuff?"
"Look!" Jimmy cried. He scurried over to a guitar display case and pointed to an orange Les Paul Custom. "Here it is!" He said triumphantly. Robert joined him in front of the case. "Banana's Les Paul. See? My signature!"
Robert and Jimmy both stood reverently before the elusive guitar. A moment of silence ensued in tribute to the dead thrash rocker.
A short moment later, Robert began to view the rest of the merchandise on display, realizing that much of it consisted of items that could only have been procured from a Zeppelin insider. He noticed other memorabilia from acts such as the Everly Brothers and the Yardbirds. The collection impressed him greatly.
Jimmy, whose quiet rememberance had also ended, discovered what was unmistakably a climate-controlled audio tape storage cabinet in the corner of the room. He tried the cabinet, which opened effortlessly. "Today's me lucky day," he mused to himself while examining the dozen or so reel tapes hanging inside. And then, most unexpectedly, he broke into a hysterical rage.
"Holy shit! My tapes! My bloody music!" He cried.
Robert, who had been eyeing what he had identified as some gold-rimmed bar glasses from Caesar's Chariot, hurried over to his distressed partner, whose cries had become more shrill.
"I don't believe it! My tapes!" Jimmy touched the tapes as if they were something sacred, and retracted his hand, placing it over his heart. He stepped back and began to hyperventilate a little.
"What tapes, Jim?" Robert asked, gripping Jimmy's shoulder to try to calm him.
"The tapes that were nicked from my house! This is unbelievable!" Jimmy was now blinking back tears of rage.
"Wow." Robert said quietly. "It looks like Fred Biggs has more than one skeleton in his closet."
"I'm gonna get this guy!" Jimmy fumed while he unzipped and began to step out of his Orkin Man jumpsuit. "I'm gonna see him . . . uh, FRIED for this!"
"Jimmy," Robert cautioned, "we're here for the guitar, remember? We can't spend too much time here."
"I'm not leaving without my tapes," Jimmy said. He quickly tied knots in the bottom of jumpsuit legs, and began filling them with the reel tapes from the cabinet.
While Jimmy was busily nicking back his tapes, Robert turned his attention to the Gibson in the display case.
"You think it's wired?" Robert called over to Jimmy, who had almost completed relieving the tape cabinet of its contents.
Jimmy grumbled something unintelligible.
Robert took that as a cue. He pulled his gun out, stepped away from the case, and threw the weapon at the thick glass frontage with as much force as he could muster. The gun hit the glass panel, and the panel shattered with a frighteningly loud crash. Robert positioned his hands near his ears in expectation of an alarm, but to his relief, none sounded.
"Makes sense," he reasoned to himself, "we're in a vault, anyway."
"Jeez, Robert! What the hell are you doing?" Jimmy hurried over to the shattered display case, tapes rattling in his makeshift bag. He crunched across the glass and carefully lifted the Les Paul from its perch, examining it carefully for damage.
"How are we going to get this stuff out of here?" Robert asked, retrieving his pistol from the debris. He started looking around the vault room nervously. "We've gotta get out of here, you know, Jim."
"Yeah. I know. Here. Just take the guitar." Jimmy shoved the guitar toward his partner. Robert took it.
"What am I gonna do with it?" He asked helplessly.
"I don't know. What am I gonna do with these?" He held up the Orkin Man suit bulging with reel tapes. "Let's just get the hell out of here before somebody decides to check up on us!"
They took one last look around the mysterious Zeppelin archives, and raced down the hallway, leaping over the still unconscious Pinkerton guard, to the elevator. As the elevator made its way sluggishly down the shaft to the lobby level, Jimmy gave Robert some quick getaway suggestions.
"Just hold the guitar behind you and walk with your back toward the wall at all times. I'll carry the suit like this." Jimmy attempted to drape the lumpy garment casually over his arm. "Maybe they'll think I soiled it, or something."
The elevator door slid open, and the pair stepped out into the lobby. The secretary turned toward them, and asked, "Well, what'd you find?"
The two rattled detectives scuffled toward the front door. Robert, who was doing a miserable job of concealing the guitar behind his thin frame, said, nervously, while quickening his scuffle:
"You've got lotsa bugs."
"Yeah," Jimmy added, "Big bugs . . . shit." To his dismay, just as he said the word "bugs," one side of his moustache came unglued and flopped over his mouth.
The secretary, who at this point realized that the Orkin Men were really thieves, gasped and grabbed the phone. "Security to the lobby! Now!" She cried into the receiver, as Robert and Jimmy both broke into a run.
They plunged out of the Corporate Corpulence building, and sprinted across the street, contraband in hand, to the double-parked Duster. Guitar and tapes were tossed into the back seat, and they squealed off to Jimmy's house.


Ever Onward
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