"Oh-my-gosh!  How spooky is it out here in the dead of night?"

"You never been down here skinny-dippin' with the lady ninjas?"

"No!  Have you?"

"Let's just say that Ho Min Chi Lui is very nautical!  Eh?"

"I didn't know she sailed.  I thought she was one of those nubile-double-agent-killing-machines that 'HisNibs' likes dripping off his arm."

"Oh, yeah, she's Evil-Eye Candy, for sure!  No, I meant 'Naughty'-cal.  It's an innuendo."

"Bit rude that, Phillip.  Nice girl like Ho Min isn't going to like you wondering about innuring and casting aspersions."

"Yeah, sorry.  Don't know where I was going with that..."

"Well, I think I know where you would have liked to have gone!"

"Ere, now your at it!"

This was too much for me.  Seventeen years of wonderful, faithful, unswerving companionship and duty and the Henchmen couldn't even placate me by holding a dignified service for Minty.  I threw them a look.  They caught it and fell silent, allowing me to continue to deliver the eulogy. 

Minty would have loved it.  If he wasn't dead.  We all processed down from the Lair, taking time to twenty-one gun salute him as we rounded the Hidden Volcano Missile Silo.  The funeral march took us past the palms which swayed in the jasmine scented breeze, and past the Ornamental Fish Pond that served as his home for so many memorable years.  He loved it when a Henchman would accidentally slip and fall in!  My word, I never knew a happier shark than when Minty played with his dinner...

The sombre procession then carried his fading gray body along the creaking boards of the pier.  I couldn't trust myself to watch the pall bearers heavy tread with my pet encased in a huge coffin of the best Mahogany and Walnut finish money could buy.  I told myself everyone would be tearing up with the choking vapors of the torch lights we carried like savages, worshiping this pagan god like effigy of a shark.  I cast my eyes downward, content to look at the sparkle of the reflected fires undulant on the black surface of the water visible between the decking.  Then we reached the pier head and placed the coffin in the row boat where its load rocked against the wooden sides in awkward moans of protestation.

I made the service up.  I originally intended to deliver a little speech based on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the one where she had died for the second time) and spent hours with a golden pen and black cue cards.  The rivulet of tears which fell from the pools in my eyes meant I couldn't read them.  I figured Buffy would have wanted me to speak from the heart anyway, so I pocketed them when I threw that look to Phillip and Yorgi.

"He was the bestest shark an evil, megalomaniacal, bastard could have had in his life!"  I continued.  "When I first caught him on that Deep Sea Fishing day out at Florida Keys I looked into his black, dead, eyes and I knew I loved him.  Knew, too, that he would have bitten my face off if he had the chance.   He loved chewing faces. 

"Remember the time 006 went home 005 and a half?"  A few of the Henchmen who had been with me a while snorted a muted laugh at the shared memory.  "I might find some other shark to take over his tank, but I'll never find another to take over the world by my side.  What God has joined, in pet and master understanding, let no man put a sunder.  To Minty, may the after life be rich with protein filled carbon based life forms!"

"To Minty,"  the Henchmen rejoined. 

Sergi cast off the little rocking boat as the dozen or so torch bearers at the edge of the pier launched their flaming lights in graceful arcs which fell within and ignited.  A viking funeral seemed a glorious send off for my friend, and I stayed until the light of the flames began to mix with the orange glow of sunrise on the horizon.  The others returned to the Lair where the Evil-Eye Candy threw a wake for Minty.  I smiled one last evil grin at my departed friend and headed back to join them.  I hoped they'd left me some of that peppery watercress soup I liked.

I stopped by the Ornamental Fish Pond.  Even with dragonflies lazily looping over lilly-pads and coy carp mouthing their condolences I still expected the shadow of his form to pass by.  He would be missed.