“Hey.”
“Sorry. Sorry.” Henry slouches low. Recognizable faces from the office return from lunch, hustling across the frosty parking lot.
“There weren’t any. Just focus on Malinta Redding, she’s the key. I don’t really care about mozzarella sticks, the boss certainly doesn’t. She’s the gatekeeper. Redding is your primary objective.”
“I’m sorry, I’ll try harder.”
“Anything else?” Tony says, desperate. “Before I let you go.”
Henry holds his wrapper. The lucky Space Burger number is 12171979.
“Uhm, oh yeah,” Henry’s voice picks up. “They are running a hush-hush thing called Salute to Genius. Some commercials about Christopher Winters and what a great guy he was. It makes me sick to my stomach.”
Tony whispers, “Shit.”
“No, I can handle things, don’t sweat it. I just don’t think this job makes anything easier. He is dead because of me.” Henry’s tongue runs a back-and-forth line across the cheek.
“I’m not talking about you.” He is violently quiet. “I’m talking about this horseshit ad campaign. Our memorials won’t be ready for another few weeks. The competition can’t beat us. Winters was our founder. Next thing you know they’ll be blasting Russians into space.”
“Oh, sorry…I don’t know much—”
“Just.” Tony huffs through his nose. “Just pump Malinta. Force booze down her throat. She’s got a weak spot. Get info from her, okay?”
“Sure thing, sir.”
The phone dies. A quiet wraps Henry. It’s just him and a bag of steam. The car smells like a griddle. His heart sags further with aching dead weight.
Some guy from accounting walks by and squints into Henry’s windshield. The undercover agent slinks below the dashboard line.
He crunches through a few more bites, trying to recall the last time he didn’t suffer such loneliness. Cuts kill with the chewing.
A bang on the window explodes Henry’s silence.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Malinta says.
“Oh, Jesus,” Hamler peeps, bucking in his seat. He grabs the familiar gray bag with old-fashioned green lettering, crumbles and stows it under his seat.
He opens the door.
“Hey, Malinta, you scared me.” He steps out.
“Sorry, I just caught you out of the corner of my eye.” Her lips click tisk-tisk-tisk. “And I saw what you were eating.”
Embarrassment washes over his face and fog pours from his nose in the chilly air. “Busted, huh?” He debates the next move. My cover, he realizes, is officially blown.
Malinta wears a red and white hat, obstructing her wound. For the first time, Henry focuses on the rest of her. Eyes, even trained spy eyes, are always drawn to gauze and blood spots. The cold pinches her lips into a pink so deep, daughters want their bedrooms this color. She’s cute for a girl, he thinks.
“Don’t sweat it, Holdate,” she says. “I kind of prefer Winters myself.”
“It’s Holgate,” Henry Hamler says, relieved. “And, can I just say, whew!”
“But that’s a bleeping secret.”
“No problem.”
“I’ll tell you something else. I also really like healthy stuff. Tofu, veggies, soymilk. All that. I love it. Is that weird?”
“Wow, I’ll have to…” Henry’s pulse slows with the lies. “Try some.”
They share a silence, but Hamler doesn’t recognize it. This quiet isn’t the icy lonesome that normally crowds his time. It’s something whole. Something welcomed.
“Wanna hear a big secret?”
They look at one another as their breath knits together. Hamler holds off speaking for a long while. “Um…sure.”
“I even play the Cosmonaut Game.” Her words are tense and whispered as the breeze. “A couple nights back, I got to fly the suit for sixteen minutes until some punk stole the controls from me.”
“Really, how was it?”
“It was the warmest feeling I’ve ever had. Knowing I was helping save those poor, stranded astronauts. It was…” Her eyes glide up toward the sky.
Hamler counts the hairs in her nose. “What?”
“I think it was the most rewarding feeling of my life.” Her face turns cutesy and childlike. “That’s not sad, right?”
“I don’t think so—”
“It made me realize I don’t get that feeling a lot. Being a good person. It’s so much easier in our business to manipulate and cheat and be self-centered.”
“Don’t get carried away, you’re not—”
“It makes me want to be a better person. I’m trying, obviously.”
“You are?”
“The curse words. Hello?”
“I think we should talk about something else,” he says, hoping to get a speck of top-secret info.
“Okay, okay, but wait…can I tell you one last secret? I’m trying to be more honest, too.”
“Just one more, okay?” he says, proud of what a great spy he is.
“My odds of dying by falling off a ladder are six times higher than dying from a terrorist attack. Twelve-thousand people worldwide broke their stupid necks falling off ladders last year. Only two-thousand died from terrorists. Doesn’t that seem wild?”
“That’s…” He bites his lower lip. “Comforting?”
Henry watches her nod the same way his mom does when letting an expensive chocolate melt in her mouth. “I’ll say. I’ve been researching that kind of stuff for a special project. It’s amazing. Life is really precious. Too precious to spend being an awful person.”
Henry takes a silent balloon of breath and holds it. He touches cold fingers to the arm of Malinta’s wool coat. “You are an odd woman,” he says, letting the breath seep out in ghostly ribbons. “You want to get a drink after work?”
Okay, you’ve been very patient for the thrilling conclusion to Burger History 101. This is where the Monte Cristo batter hits the fan.
Prior to Bust-A-Gut’s immaculate conception, Winters enjoyed dictatorial dominance in the fast food market. Having an American hero for a founder proved as popular as Mickey Mouse peddling your amusement park. Winters’ burgers spread with epidemic speed throughout post-war America. History being the repetitious bastard it is, the competition developed its own Axis of Edible.
This all changed in 1979.
A rivalry was inevitable since both beef giants were headquartered in the same city. No one is sure why Bust-A-Gut opened its main operations down the road from Christopher Winters’ office, since its parent corporation was located wherever it was located. Much like Winston-Salem mothering cigarette giants, the city became the capital for all things fried and bovine, quickly earning the nickname: Burger Town, USA.
Bust-A-Gut consistently finished third place during its first few years of operation. That is, until Globo-Goodness Corporation purchased second-place Ka-Pow! Drive Thru and converted each of its one hundred and eighty eight restaurants like Hollywood actors to Scientology.
Still, Bust-A-Gut was never taken seriously until it slipped under the 1980s’ hot neon spotlight. The restaurant unveiled a new menu featuring fried chicken, BBQ pork sandwiches, roast beef, doughnuts and “The Shot Heard ’Round the World” in the hamburger industry: The Double Cheeseburger. Apparently, nobody thought of mixing a couple slices of cheddar with Beef Boy’s Fat Boy recipe until this point.
You know how an avalanche can start by someone yelling really loud? Consider the double cheeseburger the full-throated yodel that sent Burger Mountain rolling.
Bust-A-Gut’s broad menu catapulted the mysterious wunderkind into first place in sales. Since then, the gastronomic arms race between the two giants has heated up like clockwork. One adds bacon while the other adds another layer of beef and cheese. One tops its burger with three-alarm jalapeño poppers while the other slides in a layer of onion rings. This cold war hit full-force with Bust-A-Gut’s “Bonzo Breakfast Burger.” The Bonzo consisted of three alternating layers of beef, che
ese, fried egg and country sausage stacked Dagwood-style between two waffles. Syrup came fifty-cents extra.
Health Watch International, a consumer advocacy group, chastised both companies for going so far as to produce sandwiches with four times the recommended daily amount of calories and saturated fat. Health Watch referred to the Bonzo as “a Cardiac Grenade.”
Health Watch also initiated an investigation with the help of the popular television news program Nightbeat, claiming Winters Olde-Tyme actually invented trans-fats and MSG. The results were inconclusive.
A few years ago, the burger landscape shook to its knees when Roland Winters jumped behind the CEO desk. The young Winters imitated his famous father as much as possible, even wearing matching clothes. But the boy was never taken seriously and several top executives resigned upon his promotion. Soon, the plump offspring of America’s hero ushered in the era of extreme dining. Winters Olde-Tyme Hamburgers switched its focus to habañero chicken sandwiches, pork rind spinach salads, monster fries, and all-you-can-eat BBQ ribs. The beef patty was left for dead on their doorsteps.
Bust-A-Gut quickly returned this serve.
The word “cheeseburger” basically fell out of favor in the American dining dictionary. For a while it was the neglected orphan of fast food.
However, several years ago, without fanfare, Bust-A-Gut introduced its Retro Burger line of ground beef. The return of sizzle-fried patties and melted cheddar was a throwback for American stomachs. With even less flair, Roland Winters changed its name from the short-lived Winters Olde-Tyme Extreme Eatz back to the original Olde-Tyme Hamburgers.
Immediately, the burger behemoths started slugging away in the bout’s twelfth round. As opposed to the “More beef and cheese…and country sausage” mentality of years past, Roland Winters and Bust-A-Gut CEO Clifford Findlay are currently in the midst of revolutionizing cholesterol counts as America knows it.
Winters’ Reuben Sandwich Burger birthed Bust-A-Gut’s Teriyaki Jerky Burger. (Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese and a quarter pound of teriyaki beef jerky on a sesame seed bun. “Don’t forget the chopsticks!” the commercials claimed.) Olde-Tyme responded with the Lunch-on-a-Bun (a submarine hoagie roll with three beef patties, cheese, onion rings, French fries and, at the tail end: a slice of hot apple pie). Sales blimped for both corporations as the general public anticipated each side’s response like summer blockbusters. Despite outcry from Health Watch International and several subsequent Nightbeat specials, the war continues. Rumors of rampant spying and sabotage buzz through online blogs.
Recently, Bust-A-Gut threw the blue and yellow gauntlet with its Monte Cristo Burger, a double bacon cheeseburger with onions, tomato, lettuce and Baco-naise© all dipped in a thick batter and deep-fried until golden. The dome-obsessed restaurant bragged about the process locking in the flavor and American stomachs agreed. It soon ground all sales records into powder and snuffed them up its nose.
In a publicity stunt, the Bust-A-Gut’s mascot—Bonzo the Burger Clown—died from a heart attack after eating a Monte Cristo. The commercial coroner determined his passing had nothing to do with calories and arteries, rather his taste buds overloaded from the sandwich’s freshness. “Talk about dying with a smile on your face,” the television doctor proclaimed.
Monte-Mania swept the continent for several months. The deep-fried lump even appeared on the cover of Time.
Winters counteracted with an even larger strike, a blow so deep many consider it the final word in the Burger Wars. Just prior to the death of its founder, Olde-Tyme Hamburgers unveiled the revolutionary Space Burger. Modeled after astronaut food, it is the world’s only freeze dried burger. Customers marveled that it weighed less than a pack of gum, but tasted like Styrofoamy meat.
NASA was approached as a marketing partner, but proved too expensive. Soon a new ad campaign, in conjunction with the budget-priced Russian Space Program, was launched.
“Yes,” a broken Russian voice says. “Hamburgers do taste better in zero gravity, comrade.” The screen fills with a press photo of the four-man, one-woman space team. According to our Cosmonaut Watch anchorman, video feed is still unavailable with the space travelers.
“Luckily,” the man with perfect teeth and a non-regional American dialect tells us, “we can still communicate with the cosmonauts via radio.”
“We did not think we would ever eat again,” says a voice the viewer is told belongs to Dimitri. He sounds squeakier—less diplomatic than before. Something has changed in this man and not for the good. “Thankfully, many brave Americans guided our Space Burgers home.”
“Now, Dimitri,” our anchor says smoothly. “Just who is that lucky person? I’m told you are the only ones with equipment to determine the winner.”
“Ah, yes, yes,” the squeaky voice says, like stepping on a canary. “But our Russian space equipment is much slower and weaker than your state-of-the-art American computers. We will not have answer until eight PM, Eastern Standard Time tomorrow.”
“Well, Mister Cosmonaut,” our anchor says. “We’ll all be tuned in with baited breath for the results. Any final words before we sign off tonight?”
“Yes,” Dimitri says. “Thank you America, but thanks also to Winters Olde-Tyme Space Burgers for saving our lives. It is truly the finest hamburger in the galaxy.”
“Ha, well gosh,” our anchor says. “There you have it folks, we did it. We saved the cosmonauts and it’s all thanks to you and Space Burgers. Don’t forget, tomorrow at eight PM, five Western, we’ll announce the results. Please stay tuned for another thrilling edition of Nightbeat.”
The bar Malinta picks looks wet. The floor and seats and tables have a greasy black vinyl glow. Henry runs palms along the booth to check that it’s dry before sliding in. The light fixtures sweat a delicate blue light below.
“I’m thinking gin for you,” Malinta says, rummaging through her purse. “Gin and tonic. Rocks maybe.”
Henry has a sweet tooth for dessert wine, but spy training has taught him to adjust. “Wow, you got me nailed. Gin and tonic has been my drink since I was eleven.”
“You should try and branch out. Have you had a good scotch? That’s my top dod gamn choice. Gin, well, people should only drink clear liquor at the beach.”
“I’m up for anything.”
The scotch is old enough for middle school and boils down his throat. “It’s good.” Henry exhales nuclear breath. “I’ve been missing out my whole life.” He slips fingers into his shoulder bag and rubs a Peppermint Pattie between his fingers, knowing it would cool his stomach the way it did after the Christopher Winters job. Unlike love, he thinks, candy never disappoints.
“Yeah,” she purrs.
Oddly, Henry Hamler isn’t nearly as frustrated with this job as he imagined. In fact, the last few days have been fun. He enjoys being someone else. When he’s Henry Holgate, he’s not the guy who murdered Winters. He’s not the romantic equivalent of bowel cancer. Not to mention, he hasn’t even thought about Lothario Speedwagon.
Instead, Henry’s a stealthy Serengeti predator. Something soundless creeping through the brush. A mouth filled with dagger teeth. He’s an obsessed animal, getting closer and closer to Malinta. Wooing her into the jaws of espionage.
Or so he tells himself.
“How’s it been going,” Henry says, “being a better person?”
“Hard.”
“Really? You seem pretty good to me.”
“Maybe I am. I don’t know. I think everyone is toughest on themselves. I just sometimes look at the mirror and think, this girl isn’t very nice. This girl would be a terrible mother.” Outside of the office, Malinta slows down a gear or two. Where normally she spoke in a long string of sentences, she now breathes and pauses and closes her eyes in between.
“Kids?”
“Yeah, I think I want to be a mom. I mean, not like today, but someday soon. I never used to think that. I used to only want the fanciest title possible at work. But, I think a lit
tle kid would be cool. That’s not scary, is it?”
“Yes.”
She laughs and nods. “Tell me about yourself, Henry. Why are you working here?”
He holds back a cough just like the first time he smoked grass. The sting of scotch turns Henry’s mind surprisingly fast. Instantly, Henry invents an interest in working for a good American product that makes people happy. He is really into global logistics. His family grew up surrounded by memories of burgers…plus, he’s a spy.
“Aren’t we all,” she says. “I just killed a KGB operative in my bedroom last night.”
“They’re tough,” Henry says, kicking himself for letting the booze break down his honesty. “That cold Russian blood pours out like honey, I hear.”
“Among other things.”
“So…” Henry takes an airy pause for drama, gracefully changing the subject. “Tell me something I don’t know. Tell me how this place works.”
“Runs itself really,” she says, blowing blonde hair from her eyes. “I just collect a paycheck.”
“That’s not what I hear.” He leans across the table, eye contact the whole way.
“Well, temps hear a lot of stuff,” she sucks an ice cube from the empty glass. “Mostly the hum of copy machines.” She laughs at her joke. A little, tight burst.
The after-work crowd fills the tiny room. Men in shiny shoes and women with haircuts the price of jewelry compare martinis. Gradually, Henry and Malinta have to raise their voices. Six empty scotch tumblers spread across the table by the time Henry’s boss slips in the booth.
“Well, look at this group,” Martin says. In the low blue light his Puerto Rican skin is espresso dark. The boss gives Hamler a once-over before his thin hips scoot the spy against the booth wall. “I didn’t expect either of you here.”
“I’m just getting to know our new employee, Marty.”
“You’ve already forgotten my name, Ms. Redding?”
She grins and crushes a cube between her teeth.
“Well, Henry, catch me up to speed about yourself,” his boss says. “Tell me the dirty secrets.”
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