by J. M. Porup
“So what?” Thinn said. “Maybe it was the Sicilians whacked the guy. Wanting a piece of the action.”
“Fatso’s got an iron grip on the pizza trade,” I said. “Remember last summer when the Colombian cartels tried to muscle their way in with that pizza lab over in Georgetown?”
“Got muscled out, as I recall,” my partner chuckled. “Car bomb, wasn’t it?”
“I heard about that,” Officer Olde said, but fell silent at a glance from his sergeant.
“So someone’s trying again,” Thinn said, shoving fries into his mouth. “Knock over a pizza dealer, start a war. A mafia hit.”
“Then why,” I asked him, holding my vomit-coated finger under his nose, “would a hit man proceed to eat a million dollars’ worth of pizza, and then vomit it all over his victim?”
“How should I know?” Thinn asked. “Maybe he got food poisoning or something. Overdosed. Who knows why these crazed food terrists do what they do.”
“They hate us for our freedom,” I said. “Our freedom to eat air. That’s why, and you know it.”
“You know what I’m thinking, partner mine?” Green said.
I groaned. “Not more of your cynicism.”
He held out a hand. “Hear me out. It isn’t called the District of Crap for nothing.” The high levels of fecal material in our capital’s sewers had given it that nickname.
“What are you suggesting?” Thinn asked.
“Corruption. What else?” my partner said. “The pizza was a bribe.”
“None of our politicians are corrupt,” I said hotly. “How can you say such a thing?”
Green covered his mouth with his hand. “What about Ed Ibble, the judge? What happened last week?”
“That was an accident,” I said. “He fell asleep with his head over a cheesecake. Of course his mouth was full of food.”
“Well what was he doing with a cheesecake in the first place?”
Why was Green always so obtuse? It was like talking to a brick wall sometimes.
“Taking it to be destroyed. Obviously. See this is your problem, Harry,” I said. “You’re always so negative. You see food crime everywhere.”
My partner scrunched up his face. “That’s because it’s there to see!”
“No. It’s not,” I said. “Tell me something. Eating food is what causes crime—what causes food terrism. Right? So how can there be corruption when everyone is eating air?”
He stared at me for a moment, dumbfounded by the truth of this insight. Finally he said, “Then how come you and I still got jobs?”
He was trying to turn me into a jaded cynic like himself, but I wasn’t going to let him. “There are occasional…anomalies,” I admitted. “Perversions of the norm. These people need to be educated. Taught that the way to happiness lies in following the Prophet’s air-only diet. It is my hope that one day soon we will both be out of a job.”
Green cocked an eyebrow. “Because they fire us?”
“Harry,” I said, and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I love you like a brother, but sarcasm does not become you. When no more food terrists remain to threaten our national security, a day that is coming soon, then our jobs will no longer be needed.”
“Frolick’s got a point, you know,” Thinn said, jamming the last of his fries in his mouth.
“You think so?”
“Sure. Since the Amendment passed, D.C.’s become a corruption-free zone. I was just saying that down at the station the other day. Wasn’t I, boys?”
“You was saying exactly that, Sarge,” Officer Nice said.
I held my palms out wide. “You see?”
Green crossed his arms. “Alright then. I’m open to suggestions. Who would do such a thing? A bulimic stick-up artist who picked the wrong guy?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it.” I turned to look across the street at the Thin House lit up by floodlights. To think that purity could live so close to crimes like this. “Only thing I’m sure of is that I don’t like it.”
“Neither does the Prophet,” said a voice from the shadows.
I was on my feet before the voice finished speaking, Laxafier in hand. Green, at my side, had his out too.
The owner of the voice stepped into the light. The cops swallowed hastily and hid their burger bags. Except for Thinn, who seemed surprisingly unconcerned. Green and I holstered our weapons. I forced myself to relax.
“Jumpy,” the man said. He grinned, his face a death’s-head mask in the light of the streetlamp. “Aren’t we?”
I stiffened my spine, flung my palm out at an angle. “Go the Power of Air!” I shouted.
The others did the same.
He wore the black trench coat and red tape measure of the Skinny Service. He flipped open his badge, but I didn’t bother to check it. His fourteen-inch waist said it all.
He returned our salute with a limp hand. “Go the Power of Air,” he said in a bored tone of voice.
When the Prophet took office, he transferred the old Secret Service to the FBI’s counterfeiting division, and hired a new squad of intensely loyal, super skinny bodyguards. You had to have at most a fifteen-inch waist just to get an interview. I should know. I had been bombarding their office with my resumé for the last two years. It had been my dream from the beginning to work for them. To report directly to the Prophet in the Trapezoidal Office itself. But no matter how hard I tried, I could not get my waistline under eighteen inches. I’m sure many of you out there can sympathize with my struggle. I even tried eating less air. Nothing worked.
What’s that? The Prophet redesigned the shape of his office so that it would no longer be in the same shape as the food paraphernalia known in street lingo as “platters,” which were often in the form of an oval.
Now the SS were the best of the best, the thinnest of the thin. We called them the Unpinchables. As in, “can’t pinch an inch.” Their job was to protect the Prophet. It was also to root out corruption at all levels of government. This, despite the theoretical impossibility of such anomalies. The ATFF and Food Bureau of Investigation went after food dealers and grow-ops, and, increasingly, organized food crime. The SS went after people like Judge Ibble with his cheesecake—although I still think they were wrong about that one. Also district attorneys taking burrito bribes, even the occasional ATFF man caught with a single Tic Tac in his shoe.
This last was the worst possibility. Possession of even a single calorie by an ATFF agent was considered a breach of the oath of office, and punishable by 180 days in Fat Camp, the maximum permitted under the Amendment.
There is no crime more serious than a violation of the public trust, as the Prophet always says.
This handful of corrupt government officials lived in fear of the Skinny Service’s network of Fat Camps at Guantanamo Bay and in Eastern Europe. In these all-inclusive resorts, anomalies are treated to hands-on, faith-strengthening therapy. I don’t know why they lived in fear. I confess I’m jealous of these people. Journalists, academics, hippies, chefs, restaurant critics—doubters of every kind—have all gotten this five-star treatment. To be able to devote your every waking hour to making strong your faith in the Prophet—it gives me goosebumps just thinking about them in Poland or Cuba somewhere, sucking down that exotic, ferrn air. They must like it so much, in fact, that they never come back. Sometimes I think about going myself, resigning from the struggles of the world, dedicating my life to meditation. But the threat to our national security at this time is grave, and the Prophet has asked me to step forward. How could I say no?
Of course, the innocent have nothing to fear from the SS. Most people are Amendment-abiding air-eaters. But in order to protect the innocent from savage attacks by food terrists deranged by their withdrawal symptoms, the Skinny Service has the power to search anyone without a warrant, or even probable cause.
The agent stared at each of us in turn. The cops around me trembled. Their burgers were zero-calorie, but perhaps they feared a misunder
standing. I myself began to quake a bit. But I had nothing to hide. I had been on an air-only diet for years. My Twinkie rapist, though—it was lurking in my ankle holster, ready to pounce. How would it react to the stranger?
I stood there in the park, the body of Nick Hungry at my feet, unsure what to do. And bearing down on me through the murky pre-dawn haze, an SS agent with a skeletal grin, a stronger, more loyal man than I, a man who ate the same air as the Prophet, mere feet from where our holy ruler lives and works. A man no doubt unafflicted by flying pastry predators. He stepped over the body, shoes squelching in vomit, and came to a halt in front of me. He withdrew a bony hand from his trench coat pocket and reached for my waist.
I sucked in my gut. He’s going to pat me down. Think thin. Be thin. He’s going to find the Twinkie. What am I going to do if it attacks?
FIVE
The SS man held out a bony hand. “Agent Erpent,” he said. “You must be Frolick and Green.”
Was that all? A handshake? He glanced down at my ankle, where I was staring. Did he know? Could he guess?
“Guilty as charged,” I said. His fingers felt brittle.
“Brittle, brittle, like peanut brittle,
like Gramma used to make!”
Careful…down boy. Bad Twinkie.
“The Organized Food Crime Division over at the ATFF said you were the best they had.” He patted my waist with his other hand. “And the most loyal.”
I felt ashamed. If only my faith were stronger, I wouldn’t be orally abused by suicidal Twinkie rapists. Evil tormentors! How could I make them go away? At this rate I would never get my waistline down to fifteen inches and fulfill my Skinny Service dreams.
“Heard about that apple pie bust,” he added. “Those housewives were a major threat to national security. Good work.”
Warm fuzzies.
“Warm and toasty
blueberry muffins
slathered with butter and—”
Green saved me. “Cap said to meet you here. What can we do for the SS?”
“Find that pizza lab and shut it down,” Erpent said. “It’s a disgrace that food deals like this are going on across the street from where the Prophet sleeps at night.”
“Disgrace is right,” I said, “but we have to find the murderer first. He’s out there, somewhere, in a dark alley, crying his eyes out.” I swept a hand at the body. “Look at what food made him do.”
Erpent nodded. “That’s true. But what about the poor addicts who suffer because of that lab?”
“It’s a good point,” Green said. He flipped his notebook shut and put it away. “Why don’t we do this the SS way?”
I thought about that. It was a tough call. “The murderer deserves our compassion,” I said. “WWTPD?”
Erpent frowned. “What’s that?”
“What Would The Prophet Do? We can only save souls one at a time from the Terror of Food. Right now our priority has to be putting that murderer in Fat Camp. Getting him the treatment he needs.”
The SS agent folded his twiglike arms across his hollow chest. “And suppose I told you these are the Prophet’s direct orders?”
Before I could reply, Officer Olde gasped. The rookie with the puffy eyes. “Holy Air!” he said. “The Prophet’s orders? Really?” He flicked on his flashlight, turned it on a patch of dirt. “Over here, Special Agents. You’ve got to see this!”
“What is it?” Erpent hissed.
“A trail of blood. Or it might be pizza sauce. I’m not sure. It leads off that way.” He pointed into the darkness, where a string of blackened streetlamps led toward the Thin House.
“No, no, no,” said Officer Nice, shaking his head. He drew his friend roughly aside. “You must be mistaken.”
“But I’m quite sure,” Olde said. “It might help solve this case. I know what Sergeant Thinn’s instructions were, but if the Prophet himself is involved, then it’s our duty to report everything. He is the Leader of the Food-Free World, after all!”
“Quite so,” Erpent said, his voice frosty. “What does the senior officer think?”
“Probably leftover ketchup from a hot dog stand that used to be here three years ago,” Thinn said. “It’s nothing.” To the rookie: “You shouldn’t waste important people’s time like this, Officer.”
“But this is my beat, Sergeant. I walk by here all the time. That stain wasn’t there yesterday.”
“The ketchup theory makes sense to me,” I said.
“But look where the trail leads! Straight toward the Thin House! Maybe he’s going to try to assassinate the Prophet!”
“The SS will protect the Prophet,” Erpent snapped. “Don’t you worry about that.”
I felt my partner tense at my side. “Hang on. Did you say toward the Thin House?” he asked.
Olde traced the bloody trail into the darkness with his flashlight. “See for yourself.”
Green jumped forward, notebook once more in hand. “It can’t be Hungry’s blood. He’s dead. Maybe the murderer was injured in the struggle. We have to find out where it leads. Expose this criminal to the world.”
He took the flashlight from Officer Olde and traipsed off into the darkness. I turned to follow.
Erpent grabbed me by the shoulder. “You said it yourself. It’s just a ketchup stain. Tell your partner to come back.”
“Green’s a bloodhound,” I said. “What if he’s right? It could be an important clue.”
“By the Prophet’s two-timing taste buds!” he swore. “We haven’t got time for this.” To Thinn he called out, “Get him back here, now.”
The sergeant gestured at two of his men. Nice and another cop jogged off, and came back carrying Green between them. They jogged awful fast for not having eaten in three years. I wondered where they got the energy.
They set him on his feet, and Green came up swinging.
“This is an important piece of forensic evidence,” he said. “A major clue to who the murderer might be. Justice in a case like this could mean freedom for us all.” He looked around at us wildly, his fists bunched up. “Don’t you understand that?”
Erpent’s face had turned red. He looked like he was going to explode. Like a Spanish-style blood sausage when you throw it into the furnace and watch it burn. Instead, he pulled out a cell phone and pushed a button. To Thinn he said: “Did you find it?”
The sergeant cleared his throat. “What you were looking for? No.”
“What were you looking for?” Green demanded.
“Yeah, Sarge,” said Olde. “What were we looking for, anyway?”
But Erpent held out a warning finger. “Yes,” he said into the phone. “No…no, Agent Frolick. With a k. What? At the end. He’s right here.” He held out the phone to me.
“For you.”
“Me?”
He nodded.
“Who is it?”
“The Prophet.” He looked at me like I was a package of Twizzlers about to be destroyed on Burn Day. “And you’re keeping him waiting.”
“You’re joking,” I said.
Green squeezed my elbow. “He doesn’t look like the type.”
Erpent took a step forward. “He wants to talk to you, Special Agent Frolick.”
If the skies had opened and a bearded god addressed me from the clouds, I could not have been more shaken. Who was I? A lowly ATFF agent, tormented by a plague of suicidal Twinkie rapists. All because my faith was weak. I shuddered in self-loathing.
Still Erpent stood there, blinking at me quietly, unmoving, arm extended. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. The Prophet. The man to whom I owed my life. My freedom. Everything I had. The Prophet wanted to talk to me?
“For me?” I croaked again.
Erpent nodded and shook the phone in his hand impatiently.
I took the phone and lifted it to my ear. But it slipped from my grasp and I fumbled for it, caught it before it hit the ground. I let out a long, trembling sigh and looked up at my partner. Green held out both palms. Relax. I p
asted the phone back to my head. Opened my mouth to say hello, but a sound like sandpaper on metal squeaked from my lips. I held the phone away from my head and coughed to clear my throat. Loudly. Several times. Then, before I could lose my nerve, I brought the phone back to my ear and said as casually as I could:
“Hello?”
Nothing but silence. Had I broken the connection when I dropped it? Or was this some kind of practical joke? It was just the sort of prank the guys down at the station would play.
“Agent Frolick?”
It was a familiar voice, and it wheezed, deep with the bitter self-reproach that had won him so many followers. I remembered the speeches, the videos, that gravelly, growling voice of truth, with its reedy whine—so strange, but so compelling—listening to his life-changing righteousness pour from my car stereo, back when I needed a hydraulic lift to climb out of my vehicle.
It couldn’t be. How could it be? It was. “This is Frolick,” I said, with as much nonchalance as I could muster.
Another pause, then that voice again, like an out-of-tune oboe.
“Do you know who this is?”
By instinct, I flung my palm out and clicked my heels together. “Yes, Mine Prophet!” I bobbed my head in the darkness. “Can I just say, sir, what an honor it is to, to, to—”
“Agent Frolick.”
Had I offended him? Offended the Prophet? What did I say? I swallowed hard. “Sir?”
“Do you believe?”
“Yes, Mine Prophet! I believe, I believe, that is, I—”
“Do you renounce food, and all its wicked recipes, and all its wicked restaurants?”
The litany from Air Temple. I was on solid ground now. I relaxed, let my arm fall to my side. “I so believe.”
“Who will lead us from bondage, break the shackles of that grim overseer Food, and deliver us from the Babylon of Calories into the Promised Land of Oxygen?”
“The Prophet will,” I responded by rote. “That is, I mean, you will, sir.”
There was another long pause. I heard panting in the background, as though from exertion. Come to think of it, his voice sounded kind of nasal. Or at least, more so than usual. Like he had a cold or something. What was the protocol here? Was it polite to inquire if the Divine Leader was congested? Or would that be rude? Before I could make up my mind, the Prophet continued.