by J. M. Porup
“We are beset on all sides, Frolick,” he said. “There are those in this world who do not believe such purity as you and I practice is even possible.”
The Twinkie flexed its wings in my ankle holster. Not now. Not now! The Prophet couldn’t know. I’d kill myself if he ever found out. I forced myself to answer.
“That’s true, sir.”
“The UN continue their food drops up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Their planes and helicopters fly the Red Cross. For every one I shoot down, two more take its place. I’ve got secessionists in the so-called Rocky Mountain Republic, a.k.a. the Republic of Food, with their open flaunting of the food laws and their illegal Gluttony Congress in Denver. I’ve got cannibals on the loose on the West Coast, I’ve got hillbillies with hydroponic gardens in Appalachia, and do you know what the worst thing is, Special Agent Frolick?”
I had no idea what it might be. I didn’t dare guess. I said as much.
“The worst thing of all,” the Prophet said, “is that even after our glorious Amendment passed, even after the Air Force sprayed every square inch of arable land with an herbicide powerful enough to last for fifty years, food continues to be available in this country! And do you know why?” He did not wait for me to answer. “Because of the mafia, that’s why. The French Food Mafia. Because of Fatso. Did you know he even calls himself the Foodfather?”
“The Godfather of Food,” I corrected.
“I said the Foodfather and I mean the Foodfather,” the Prophet said. He didn’t raise his voice, but a note of steel cut into his tone.
“I need some good news for a change,” he continued. “I need it soon. Something to show the world. That we’re making progress in the War on Fat. I need your help.”
I threw my shoulders back. The Prophet needed me. The clarion call of duty had come at last. How could I fail to oblige our savior?
“Understood, sir,” I said. “You can count on me.”
“I hope so, Agent Frolick. Because tomorrow I am hosting the Coalition of the Fasting at the Thin House. Presidents and prime ministers from all over the world will be here, including the heads of state of Tonga, Lichtenstein, Monaco and the Federation of South Pole Research Stations. Our most important allies in the Global War on Fat.” He covered the receiver for a moment, and it sounded like he was blowing his nose.
Green looked at me and raised his eyebrows. I held out an open palm. Wait.
The Prophet came back on line. “When word gets out about tonight’s murder—oh, I know, our press would never publish something like this, but those vicious ferrn news outlets take such delight in tearing down everything we’ve worked so hard to build. When word gets out, our enemies will use this as an example of our failures. ‘Look at how crazy they are!’ the French president will say. ‘Trying to ban food.’ Do you know he actually tried to give me” —and he lowered his voice to a whisper— “a giant wheel of Camembert cheese at his last state visit?”
“The French are nothing but a bunch of food-sucking slaves to pleasure, sir,” I said.
“I just don’t understand why the ferrn press can’t print our press releases and be done with it, the way the Thin House Press Corps does,” he lamented. “It would be so much less work.”
“It’s the same all over the world,” I commiserated. “Ignorance is the greatest crime. If people only knew what was good for them, they would surely do it.”
“A man after my own heart, Frolick. Let me tell you what I need you to do.”
“Anything, sir.”
“I need something to show the Coalition of the Fasting. Something to reinforce their loyalty to the cause. We are in the middle of delicate negotiations for tightening this all-important military alliance, including opening new Fat Camps in their countries. Need I say that a scandal right now, a murder outside the Thin House, of a pizza dealer no less, could easily derail the alliance and put the progress of air-eating back twenty years?”
I mumbled noises of agreement.
“It all comes down to you, Frolick,” he said. “On your shoulders. Bring me Fatso.”
My mind whirled, reviewing everything I knew about Fatso and his organization. He had proven the most elusive criminal I had ever matched wits with in my ten years in law enforcement. The only one, too.
I frowned at the difficulty of the task. “I’ll do my best, sir.”
He lowered his voice. “Your best is not good enough.”
I cringed. How could I be so stupid? My best wasn’t good enough. I knew it, and now the Prophet knew it. What was I going to do?
The Prophet then said: “You will do everything in the power of the government of the United States of Air to bring Fatso in. Alive. I have signed an executive order putting the entire resources of our military and intelligence establishments at your disposal. Screw the Food Courts. Fatso’s going straight to Fat Island.” The tiny atoll in the Indian Ocean where extraordinary rendering takes place.
I gulped. The Supreme Food Court had ruled that only ferrners could be sent there. “But what will the judicial branch of our sacred constitutional republic say?”
“You let me worry about the Obstructionist Nine. This is a direct order, Special Agent Frolick. From your Commander-and-Air-Eater-in-Chief. Find him. Do whatever you have to do. You have twenty-four hours.”
I came to attention again and saluted. “Yes, Mine Prophet!” I said. “Your will be done.”
“At home as well as abroad,” he replied. The formulaic rebuttal complete, he surprised me by shifting gears. “Have you ever considered applying for the Skinny Service? We could use a man like you.”
My jaw went slack. I fingered the tape measure at my waist. “I would not presume to such high ambition, sir. Besides, I’m at least a couple inches short of—”
The Prophet’s reedy voice cracked high. “Exception can be made, Special Agent. Bring me Fatso and you work for me. Here. In the Thin House.”
I stammered, “That would be an honor, sir.”
“Twenty-four hours, Frolick,” the voice said. His cold seemed to be getting worse. “Now give me Erpent.”
The SS man took the phone. “Erpent here.” He listened for a long moment. “Understood, sir.” He hung up and turned to us. “The Thin House has woken the D.C. medical examiner. He’s on his way to the morgue right now. The contents of the victim’s stomach will no doubt lead us to Fatso’s greasy lair.”
An ambulance idled nearby. Two paramedics had arrived while I was on the phone. At a signal from Erpent, they loaded the dead pizza dealer onto a stretcher and trotted off.
Erpent and I turned to go, but Green just stood there with his arms crossed. “What are you waiting for?” the SS agent demanded. “Let’s move!”
“We’re not going anywhere,” my partner said. “Not until we’re finished with the crime scene.”
“Twenty-four hours,” I pleaded with him. “That’s all we have before the Coalition of the Fasting meets. The Prophet is depending on us—on us!—to find Fatso for him.”
“And the way to do that is to spend some time here looking for clues.” He gestured at the vomit and blood at our feet. “It’s the only way to bring the real criminal to justice.”
Erpent stepped forward until he stood nose to nose with Green. “And who, in your opinion,” he asked, “is the real criminal?”
My partner flushed. “Well, I don’t know, do I? That’s why we have to investigate.”
Erpent jabbed a finger into the other man’s chest. “The real criminals are lone wolf food terrists. People who look just like you.” He smiled. “Who even work for, say, the ATFF. Sleeper cells of entire families. But they forget. Their disobedient child loves the Prophet, and refuses to be force-fed—”
“Enough!”
“—force-fed their parents’ food-eating lies.”
“I said, enough!” Green backed away. “You win. We’ll do it your way.”
Erpent pursued him across the dead grass. “You don’t know anyone like that. Do you?�
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My partner’s shoulders slumped. “No.”
“What would you do if you did?”
“Arrest them, I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“I would turn them in. It would be my duty.” His voice had taken on a wooden inflection.
I slapped him on the back. “Good man.”
His head hung low, like he was sleepy. I was tired too, but now was no time for a nap.
“Come on, Harry,” I said. “Let’s go eat some caffeinated air.” I put my arm around his shoulders to lead him away. But he just stood there, staring at the Thin House lit up across the street.
Erpent barked at Thinn, “Sergeant. Skinny Service cleaners—I mean, forensics team—is due here shortly. Make sure you leave no traces of your presence. Wrappers or…whatnot.”
Thinn gulped, and tossed a greasy burger wrapper into the nearby garbage can.
“Wrappers under control, sir.”
“And Thinn?”
“Sir?”
“Have a talk with fuzzy cheeks here.” He turned to the rookie. “What’s your name, son?”
“Officer Olde, sir,” the boy said, rubbing at his puffy eyes. Nice kept a tight grip around his friend’s bicep. “I said nothing more than the truth, sir. I believe in the Prophet. That’s why I became a cop.”
“Isn’t that precious,” Erpent said. To Thinn: “Officer Olde needs a lesson in protocol. Don’t you agree, Sergeant?”
Thinn pinched the rookie’s cheeks. “I’m putting demerits on your record,” he said. “You’ll be lucky to keep your badge when I’m through with you.”
“But why would you do that?” Olde asked. “I’ve done nothing wrong.” He waved to me and Green. “Happy hunting!”
“Don’t you worry about that,” I called over my shoulder as we limped toward the car. “We’ll have Fatso behind bars faster than you can say ‘Go the Power of Air.’”
For some reason the cops laughed at that, a laugh Erpent cut short with a look. Thinn and his colleagues waddled over to their cruisers and drove off. The ambulance waited for us to follow. The park was empty now, except for the three of us and a blood stain where Nick Hungry had died. Only the murmur of the Thin House water fountain in the distance could be heard.
We climbed into the Smart Car. The vehicle had no back seat—always a conundrum when transporting handcuffed suspects—so Erpent perched on Green’s knees.
As I pulled away from the curb, I smacked my forehead with my palm. “You ought to give Judge Oscar Meyer-Weiner a call. We got the guy’s name and social, right?”
“Get a warrant,” Green said. “Good idea.”
“Put a toilet tap on the guy’s house. His family, his friends, known associates. Anyone goes poo in those toilets, or even a little pee-pee, we’re going to know about it. Maybe they can lead us to Fatso’s hideout. We might even find his Thanksgiving convention this year.”
A toilet tap is just what it sounds like: the sewer company comes out and installs a fecal monitor on the sewer output valve of your home. It can also detect urine, and pretty much anything else you might care to flush down your toilet: tampons, used condoms, withered celery stalks, old boots, computer hard drives, sacks of flour—dime bags of ground-up grain were especially common during food busts—what have you. The sewer company also has fecal monitors on all the sewer branch lines. This way we can compile effective statistics as to which neighborhoods harbor the most food terrists, and what kind of food they consume. Although the press had kept silent about this new technology at the Prophet’s request, word had begun to leak out into the criminal community. Many hoods had taken to building latrines or outhouses in their backyards, which severely limited our ability to track their movements. Their bowel movements, that is.
Erpent snickered. “A warrant. How quaint.”
“Hey,” I said. “We swore to uphold and defend the Amendment. The Constitution is part of the Amendment, last time I checked.”
“It’s the other way around,” Green said.
I frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Judge Meyer-Weiner!” Green said into his cell phone. “Sorry for the late call. Got an emergency for you.”
We’d had a citywide toilet tap authorized by the judge for months, looking for a single strand of Fatso’s DNA, anything we could use to track him. But Don Fatso was meticulous in his hygiene, and no matter how much he ate—and he was rumored to be a glutton of the first order—not a drop of pee, not a milligram of his poo ever found its way into the D.C. municipal sewer system.
While Green organized the toilet tap, I followed the ambulance as fast as I could. But the paramedics pulled away from us. I couldn’t keep up.
“Faster!” Erpent urged.
“What difference does a few minutes make?” my partner asked, hanging up the phone. “We’re both going to the morgue.”
“Every second counts,” the SS man snapped. “It’s a matter of national security.”
I hunched over the steering wheel. “I know a short cut.”
“Take it,” Erpent said. “That’s an order.”
I popped the flasher on the roof and squealed around the corner onto Avenue the Prophet Jones. Heading straight into the heart of Georgetown.
“Are you crazy?” Green shouted. “Go back!”
Erpent clutched the dashboard. “Are we going where I think we’re going?”
I peeled through a red light, swerved around a burned-out police cruiser. “Fastest way to the morgue is through the ghetto.”
“Fastest way to get eaten by cannibals, you mean!” Green shouted back.
Georgetown was D.C.’s food ghetto, famous the world over for the lawlessness of its food dealers, where you could get anything—anything—your overdeveloped and unnecessary digestive organs might desire. But for a price. The common wisdom held that it was only safe to enter Georgetown by day. Especially in the morning, after the addicts had gotten high off their white rice—they boil it, can you imagine?—and collapsed into bed in a drugged stupor. Some are even known to freebase the stuff, wash it down with a glass of water. But after dark? Don’t go to G-town, the ooga-booga cannibals will eat you.
Please. Stories to scare children into eating their vegetable-flavored air.
Where others see a cannibal, I see a lost soul. Someone who needs to hear the Prophet’s Gospel of Air. How I long to press a copy of Food-Free At Last into their bloodstained hands, get down on our knees together in the middle of the entrails and body parts, and pray. For faith. These people deserve our compassion. Not our derision and scorn.
I had been wanting to come here after dark for ages to spread the good word, but Green always seemed to come up with some excuse to keep us away. My visits were few and far between, and never at night. Now was my chance to save some souls. Even if it was only a brief visit.
To my surprise, Green and Erpent grabbed the steering wheel and tried to turn us around. But I was resolute. The fastest way to the morgue was by doing the Prophet’s will at the same time. Isn’t life just like that?
We turned a corner, and there they were. A jeep barreled down the street toward us. Men with automatic rifles clung to the roll bars. Red stains ringed their lips. One gnawed a bone, and threw it at us as they sped past. The bone bounced off our roof. Painted in red on the side of their vehicle were the words “Suck the Marrow Out of Life.”
Green clutched his service weapon. “Let’s hope they aren’t hungry.”
Erpent looked behind us. “Here they come!”
The jeep pulled a U-turn and roared after us. I popped the glove compartment. Empty.
“What a tragedy.”
“You’re telling me,” my partner said. “I don’t fancy being someone’s dinner.”
“No,” I said. “I mean we’re out of literature.”
“They’re going to kill us and eat us,” Erpent said, “and you’re worried about what kind of kindling they’re going to use to cook us?”
“No, silly,” I sa
id. “That’s the Sushi Gang behind us. They don’t cook their victims.”
He gasped. “You mean they eat them raw?”
“They’ll cut off a leg and blowtorch shut the wound,” Green said. “Meat keeps fresher that way.”
Gunfire sizzled around us.
“Sizzle, sizzle!
Like crispy frying bacon
and fluffy scrambled eggs!
Served with French toast
and drenched in maple syrup! Yum!”
The flying Twinkie wriggled and chirped against my leg. I gritted my teeth. Not now. Focus on the scenery. Look at all the empty storefronts spilling broken glass into the street.
“They’re gaining on us,” Green said.
“What are you so afraid of?” I asked. “They are poor, misguided souls who don’t know any better.”
“And that’s enough to kill us!” Erpent screamed. “Now do something!”
I spotted the Golden F’s up ahead. “Relax. I’ve got a plan.” I turned down a narrow alley, sped around a disused strip mall and pulled into the Air Temple drive-thru. I realized with horror that the jeep had been unable to follow us. We could just make it out, creeping around the block, looking for some sign of us. I would have to be quick, or I would lose my chance.
I rolled my window down. “Yeah, can I get half a dozen Prophet Packs and four condensed Food-Free At Lasts?”
“They don’t strike me as readers, partner mine,” Green said.
A second jeep rolled after the first.
“Better make that a dozen Prophet Packs,” I said into the microphone. “And be quick about it, please. We got souls to save!”
I reached for the horn, to let the cannibals know where we were, but Green and Erpent wrestled my hands away from the wheel.
“What are you doing?”
“Can they see us?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Maybe they’ll give up. Dawn is coming soon.” Military street patrols began at dawn.