Devil's Food

by Anthony Bruno

  The mug shots stapled to the folder were the typical head-tilted-back-with-attitude poses. Martha Lee Spooner was pale and slender, with a mess of dark, permed curls and rhinestone blue eyes. Snow White with a record. Pretty—in a hard sort of way.

  Loretta knew the type all too well. It was easy to imagine Martha Lee riding on the back of a Harley, hanging onto some hairy creep in a Nazi storm trooper helmet, someone not unlike Joe, the biker who’d just been brought in. Loretta shut the file and started to stand up, determined to get right to work. “Which of those desks out there is mine?”

  “Sit down, sit down. The clock ain’t ticking yet. First thing you gotta know, Ms. Loretta Kovacs, is that we don’t play solos around here. It’s strictly ensemble work with an emphasis on duets.”

  “Huh?”

  “In other words, Mama don’t ‘How no working by yourself. Jump Squad officers work in pairs at the very least. Jumpers tend to be bad dudes. And dudettes.” He pointed to the Martha Lee Spooner file. “These people don’t run off ‘cause the dog ate their homework. You dig?”

  “Right.” She hadn’t thought about having to work with a partner. She’d never had one before, but it did make sense given the job. And with help, she’d probably find Martha Lee Spooner that much faster. Of course, it all depended on who the partner was. Usually she didn’t have much patience with coworkers, especially ones who disagreed with her.

  Julius cupped his hands around his goatee and shouted at the open doorway, “Marvelli! Stop stuffing your face and get in here.”

  Loretta looked over her shoulder at the empty doorway. She had a feeling the guy who had brought Joe the biker in was going to be the one—he was the only other PO in the office as far as she could tell. But she was still a little steamed about that comment he’d made about Joe being fat as a kid. On the other hand, Marvelli was kind of cute, and she had to admit, the way he’d handled Joe was very impressive.

  But when Marvelli walked into Julius’s office and took a seat, the enticing cinnamon aroma came in with him because he’d brought the whole tray of buns, and that riled her because it instantly made her hungry and she knew she really shouldn’t be eating sweet cinnamon buns oozing with sugary white icing.

  Marvelli smiled at her as he chewed. There was a half-eaten bun in his hand. He held out the tray to her. She shook her head and resisted the temptation.

  “What’s up, Julius?” he said between bites. Peaks of white icing dotted the corners of his mouth.

  “Before I forget, Marvelli,” Julius said, “who was that you just brought in?”

  “His name is Joe Pickett. You need his file? It’s in the car. I’ll go get it.” Marvelli started to get up.

  “Later.” Monroe leaned back in his chair and gestured like a preacher. “Frank Marvelli, Loretta Kovacs. Loretta, Frank. You’re gonna be partners for the week.”

  Marvelli smiled and nodded at Loretta, but he didn’t stop eating. Instead he stuffed the rest of the bun into his mouth, wiped his fingers on his pants, and offered her his hand. “How ya doin’?” he said with his mouth full.

  She changed her mind about him again. He was disgusting. She zeroed in on his slicked-back hair. He must’ve combed it after he’d secured the biker because there was a little pompadour in front that hadn’t been there before. Yes, he was good-looking, but his style was pure Guido—black knit shirt with white rectangular panels down the front, pressed jeans, black leather jacket.

  She forced a smile for him—new policy, she kept reminding herself. “Nice to meet you, Frank,” she said and shook his hand even though she knew it would be sticky. She was going to make this work. She had to.

  “Sure you don’t want a bun, Loretta? They’re pretty good.” He picked out a fresh one for himself, then offered her the tray again.

  She scowled down at them as if they were poison. Each one had to be at least 500 calories. “No thanks,” she said. They were tempting enough; she didn’t need him hawking them.

  “Your loss,” he said, chomping off half of the new bun.

  Her stomach rumbled. She did want one, badly. He smiled at her, his cheeks bulging. He looked like a slaphappy chipmunk. If he were in the middle of the road, she would’ve run him over. He wasn’t that good-looking.

  Not really.

  Julius stood up and moved toward the door. “Stay put, you two. Get acquainted. I have to go see someone upstairs about something. Oh, and remember, Ms. Loretta Kovacs,” he said from the doorway, “one week.”

  Marvelli, still chewing away, was craning his neck, trying to read the Spooner file in her lap. “Fill me in, Loretta. Whatta we got here?”

  Just my future, she thought. That’s all.

  She stared at the seven buns left in the tray and sighed.

  3

  Martha Lee Spooner stared blankly out the window as she unwrapped another Hershey’s Chocolate Kiss and popped it into her mouth. Off in the distance, a shimmering pagan bronze sun was setting over the turquoise waters of the Florida gulf. Martha Lee was in her office on the top floor of “the cube,” the three-story mirrored-glass office building that housed the corporate headquarters of Roger Laplante’s WeightAway empire, which included WeightAway Food Products, the nationwide franchises of WeightAway Weight-Loss Centers, and Rancho Bonita, Roger’s fat farm deluxe. The cube was in the off-limits section of Rancho Bonita’s 246 jungle-lush acres.

  She swiveled around in her chair and frowned at the fax machine as she crumpled up the tinfoil wrapper and flicked it into the wastepaper basket beside her desk. Come on, ring, dammit! she kept thinking. Her hands were shaking she was so nervous. Come on, ring!

  She chewed the sweet chocolate and swallowed quickly, peering into the basket to make sure the wrapper had gone down to the bottom where it couldn’t be seen. Her boss, Roger Laplante, was a goddamn Nazi when it came to his stupid food rules, and she didn’t want to piss him off, not now. She was so close to putting this thing together she could taste it.

  She looked toward the doorway, then quickly unwrapped another Chocolate Kiss and popped it into her mouth. Eating on the sly like this took all the enjoyment out of it. She hardly tasted anything she was so busy watching out for Roger. She looked back at the doorway, stopped chewing, and listened for a second. It was still quiet. She started chewing again. It should be quiet, she thought. It was after six and everyone was done for the day. But Roger, of course, was liable to be anywhere. She swallowed and started biting the cuticles on her right hand, going from finger to finger, looking for a cuticle she hadn’t already destroyed. She scowled at the stubborn fax machine on the side desk, next to her computer.

  Come on, dammit! Ring! she thought. Before friggin’ Roger shows up.

  She looked at the framed picture on her desk—Becky, her five-year-old daughter, in pigtails and a hand-me-down pink party dress—and she felt a twinge of panic. What if she got caught doing this? Martha Lee thought. She’d never done anything like this before. Cleaning up dirty drug money was nothing compared to this. She was used to being in control of the assets, hands on. And she was used to having biker muscle backing her up. But this thing was totally different. This was international, and she was doing everything long-distance. In the past she’d never had to rely on anyone else the way she was relying on Luis down in Panama, and that made her even more nervous. She hardly knew him, and they’d never met face-to-face. What if he was a screwup? What if he was just jerking her chain with all his promises? What if he was trying to scam her?

  She glanced back at the doorway again, then yanked open the bottom drawer of her desk, where she kept the big cellophane bag of Chocolate Kisses. She hesitated, worried about getting caught, but finally she grabbed a whole handful. To hell with Roger, she thought. She wasn’t on a goddamn diet. She barely weighed a hundred pounds, for chrissake. He could take his goddamn food rules and shove ’em up his ass. That’s all he ever worried about, what people were eating. And not eating. Like chocolate. She was sick to death of the healthy crap she h
ad to eat around here—raw carrots and celery, oat-bran muffins and hundred-grain breads, soy milk, and, worst of all, wheat-grass juice. Jesus, spare me! she thought as she fumbled with the foil on another Chocolate Kiss.

  She checked her watch again and wondered what time it was in Panama. But that shouldn’t make any goddamn difference, she thought angrily. Luis said he’d be faxing the bill today, and she had to be here when it came. So where the hell was it? She couldn’t just leave and have it sitting in the machine overnight where anyone could find it. What if Roger found it and started asking questions?

  She swiveled around and gazed out the window at a terraced grove of palm trees about a hundred yards south of the cube. Roger’s ultra-modern California-style mansion was hidden behind those trees. Roger was a big star because of all the infomercials and TV talk shows he did. The fatties loved him—he was their guru—and spa guests were always snooping around, trying to catch a glimpse of him in the flesh. That’s why he had to fence off this part of the ranch, to get a little privacy.

  Off in the distance toward the gulf, Martha Lee could make out a pack of huffing-and-puffing fatties down on the aerobics court. Must be sweating like pigs out in that heat, she thought, shaking her head. And to think these dumb bunnies pay big bucks just to come here and suffer. But all the better for her, she figured. The way she saw it, the more money Roger raked in, the more careless he was about spending it. So far he hadn’t questioned a single bill she’d paid. Not one. And she hadn’t been working there all that long. Whatever she did seemed to be just fine with him. He was more worried about what she ate than what she spent. Going on TV and making personal appearances at the franchises around the country took up most of his time, so he didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to day-to-day operations. He said he trusted Martha Lee because she was a former fattie who’d seen the light. He also believed that her name was Martha “Sykes.” The man was very trusting.

  Her “fat picture” was pinned to the bulletin board on the wall. She’d shown it to Roger back when she’d interviewed for the job, told him how she’d lost all that weight with the Weight-Away program and how it totally changed her life. She’d kissed his ass like crazy that day, and she’d been kissing it ever since to keep him from suspecting anything. Martha Lee knew from experience that the secret to handling people like Roger was to always make them feel smart, even when they’re dumb as shit. They’ll believe anything you say as long as they think they’re on top. That picture was a good example. She treated him like the Lord Jesus of fatness, and so he took her word for it that the picture was her. It wasn’t her at all. She’d been skinny her whole life. It was actually her fat-ass sister-in-law, all bloated and sloppy at somebody’s birthday party, wearing a pointy party hat and so much makeup she looked like a floozy raccoon. Just thinking about her crazy in-laws made Martha Lee shiver. She was sure glad to be rid of them. They were too much like her own family.

  But thinking about her own family got her to fretting about her daughter, Becky, again and how her mom was bringing Becky up back in Slab Fork. Kids shouldn’t be raised by their grandparents, and they shouldn’t have to put up with places like Slab Fork, West Virginia, where your life is all written out for you before you’re even off the tit. Becky’s father, Tom Junior, had never taken much interest in her, and Martha Lee didn’t see any point in finding a substitute father figure because she intended to provide for all of Becky’s wants and needs all by herself. Just as soon as Luis got the goddamn money, and she and Becky were safe and sound down in Costa Rica.

  She made a face at the fax machine and popped another Chocolate Kiss into her mouth. “Come on, Luis,” she moaned. “Where the hell are you? You said today.”

  “Martha!”

  She sat up straight and froze. It was Roger, standing in the doorway, and he had that look of horror and disappointment on his face, the one he used on his infomercials whenever he listened to the cooked-up testimonials by the supposedly former fatties who were actually over-the-hill fashion models. She squeezed the Chocolate Kisses in her fist, but there was a mess of foil wrappers with their telltale paper tabs scattered all over her desk. Shit!

  “Martha!” Roger cried. “Why? Why are you doing this to yourself?” He stepped into the room and took her hand, gently opening her fist to reveal her dirty little secret. He acted as if he’d just found track marks on her arms. “This is dietary assassination, Martha. Don’t you know that?”

  She looked at the floor and swallowed what was in her mouth. She was trying hard to look ashamed, but she really wanted to kick him. What the hell was he doing here now?

  She picked up her head and shook out her dark curls, showing him eyes of contrition. As usual, he looked terribly hurt but ever willing to forgive. Just like in his infomercials.

  Roger was a big guy, over six feet, and despite the tan, the expensive haircut, and the Hollywood wardrobe, his French-Canadian lumberjack roots still showed if you looked hard enough. He was a strawberry-blond with the squarest jaw she’d ever seen—squarer than Jay Leno’s. He also had earnest little eyes that would’ve looked perfect on a moose. She could just imagine what he looked like as a kid, all bundled up and chubby, trudging through the snow with an ax over his shoulder, chopping down trees with his father and brothers way up in that freezing ass-end of New Hampshire where he was from.

  Except that despite the melodramatic way he acted sometimes, Roger was no dummy. He’d wised up somewhere along the line. No one makes as much money as he has by accident. She hadn’t worked for him very long before she recognized that Roger Laplante sure had what it takes to make it: he was greedy, he had nerve to spare, and deep down inside he was a real prick.

  Roger took the last two Chocolate Kisses from her hand and held them up by their paper tabs as if they were mice. “You’re not supposed to have these here, Martha. Fat, sugar, sodium, and cholesterol are forbidden on the grounds of the spa. You know that.”

  “But, Roger, I’m not on a diet.”

  He nodded at the photo of her sister-in-law on the bulletin board. “Overweight people are like alcoholics, Martha—we’re never really cured. You don’t want to go back to being like that again, do you?”

  “No, but a couple of Chocolate Kisses couldn’t hurt—”

  “Wrong! A couple of Chocolate Kisses can only lead to a few more Chocolate Kisses and that leads to chocolate ice cream and chocolate ice cream leads to chocolate cake and eclairs and pudding and milk shakes and cookies and candy bars and chocolate mousse and fudge and brownies. And it doesn’t stop there. It just goes on and on and on until you’re right back where you started from.”

  Martha Lee hung her head in shame. “I know, Roger, I know. You’re right.”

  Prick.

  She noticed him glaring at the photo of Becky on her desk. He made no bones about the fact that he hated kids, especially his own three. He bitched like hell whenever his ex-wife shipped them down here from New York for school vacations. Couldn’t wait to ship ’em back.

  “You’re not thinking about bringing your daughter down here, are you, Martha?” he asked.

  “No. I—”

  “Well, just so you know, if you did bring your daughter down—permanently, I mean—you’d have to move out of your bungalow. Kids aren’t allowed in staff quarters. It’s in your contract.”

  “Yes. I know, Roger.”

  Prick!

  “I just wanted to make sure you understood.”

  Martha nodded and looked down at the carpeting. She was boiling inside. She wished she were stealing more from him.

  But that reminded her about the fax. She glanced sideways at the fax machine, and suddenly her heart started to pound. Sweet Jesus, not now, Luis. If Roger sees a bill for ninety tons of cocoa, he’ll go ape-shit.

  “Martha,” Roger said, “what if one of the guests wandered in here and found these?” He was still holding the chocolate vermin by their tails.

  “Guests never come in here, Roger. This building is off-li
mits. I mean, has a guest ever gotten into this part of the ranch?”

  “Overweight people get desperate when they’re deprived, and they can be amazingly resourceful. I can very well imagine someone sneaking in here looking for forbidden treats.” He shook the Kisses like jingle bells. “Can you imagine what would happen if one of our guests found chocolates here at the spa and that got out to the press? God forbid. It could ruin me!”

  “Roger, I think you’re exaggerating.”

  “I’m not exaggerating. I know how these people are. Fat is my life!”

  She had to hang her head to hide her pissed-off expression. “I’m sorry, Roger, I really didn’t mean to upset you.”

  At least not yet, she thought. She glanced at the fax machine and wished to hell he’d get lost.

  He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep cleansing breath. “I’m sorry, too, Martha. I didn’t mean to yell at you. It’s just that I’m very stressed out. I can’t stop thinking about that IRS guy.”

  “What IRS guy?” She didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “Didn’t you get my memo? I sent it to you this morning.”