nodded sagely at his blank stare.
—I understand, I assured him.—You maybe have a code name you’d prefer? Something we could use to make the conversation subtle yet smooth, insofar as we’d know to what each of us was referring, while keeping our neighbors (a dark glare again at the not yet chastened neighbor) in the dark?
He shrugged his acquiescence, but offered no alternative.
I thought long and hard.—How about ‘firewood?’ I said.
The Puppet Man was a cagey one; he neither argued nor assented. It occurred to me that Binelli might have offered up a bit more information before throwing me into the Assignment, but Binelli would only have said that it was my job to gather the pertinent information. My job to suck, as it were, the details from the tight-lipped party. Like snake-poison from a big toe. I used the necessary imaginative tools at my disposal. I leaned in.
The glass I’d requested was smacked down on the table by the thin-hipped barman at that very moment, averting any possibility of sucking for the time being. Informational or otherwise. I poured a generous helping of the beer and offered to refill the Puppet Man’s glass.
—Look, he said, holding a hand up.
I stopped pouring. I looked up. He shook his head impatiently and motioned for the pouring to continue.
I wondered if the Puppet Man was in some way impaired.
He took a long drink from his glass of beer and set it back on the table.—Look, he said again.—I just got out of something and I don’t really—
—Whoa! I told him, holding up my own hands.—I have to ask that you maintain some sort of professionalism here. You are, I admit, a man of very pleasing countenance, and under different circumstances I might allow temptation to overtake my duties. And I can certainly, I said,—understand your own attraction, but let me please assure you that it is based solely on illusion; I am not at all desirable. I am only confused and therefore appear slightly insane, which I understand is quite attractive to the average male. Not to imply that you are at all average, per se, but only that I understand your willingness to throw caution to the wind and attempt to entice me into drunken foreplay. My first priority however, I said,—is the Assignment, as I’m sure beneath your animal impulses your priority rests as well. Therefore, I will ask that we hold off the flirting, kissing, fondling, et cetera, until we’ve come to some sort of agreement regarding the Puppets.
He looked slightly mortified.
—I’ve embarrassed you, I said apologetically, without really apologizing. I’d meant every word and knew that as soon as he was out from under my sway he too would realize the wisdom of my lecture.—Please understand, this is not a direct rebuke of your affections, only a holding off until such a time as they would be more appropriate. Perhaps after another decanter or two of beer, when the business is completed to our mutual satisfaction. Agreed?
I held up my glass to cheer his, but Binelli roared up to the table before the chastened Puppet Man could even toast.
—Finley.
—Binelli.
—What the hell do you think you’re doing, he wondered.
—My Assignment. Or did you forget you put me on Puppets?
—This, he pointed a shaking finger at my recalcitrant drinking companion,—is not Mr. Uppal.
—Mr. Who.
—Mr. Uppal. Of Uppal Puppets. The elderly Indian gentleman who has been waiting with all patience for your arrival at his table. The hors d’oeuvres he’s ordered have gotten cold. The fine artisinal champagne has become warm. His spirits are low and his ire is raised. So what, I again wonder, the hell do you think you’re doing flirting with this lacrosse-team remnant here.
The target of this last comment bristled a bit at the implied slight but we paid him no mind. I took a second look at the Indian gentleman who had earlier been on the receiving end of my finest, frostiest glare. He gave me a slight nod and raised a dangerously overfilled champagne flute in our direction.
A little bit became clear.
Then, as I considered further, a little bit more.
—I see, I told Binelli.—Mr. Uppal. Of Uppal Puppets. Indian gentleman. Yes.
—Would you please now wait for me outside. I recognized the quality of barely controlled rage in his voice, particularly when bumped up against the polite tone he used to next address the Puppet Man-turned-Lacrosse-Team Remnant.—Please excuse this Finley. She knows not what she does.
Now barely controlled rage welled up in me. I knew what I did. I knew and did it well. I used all the tricks, the full arsenal of wiles bestowed upon members of my species and sex. I had been, simply, misinformed. I drank half my mug of beer in one long swallow before flouncing out into the daylight.
4
Murphy found me collecting myself in the doorway. He smelled of sun and of something else, synthetics perhaps. Perhaps something else. Those were great gray days.
It was probably not his fault.
Things stick to Murphy, things and other things like people. For instance: If three of us—say me, Binelli, and Murphy—were to be coated in honey and tied to a post, and a hive of bees were to be slashed open, the bees would settle on Murphy. He would be covered in honey, and covered in bees, and covered in welts. He would be filled with fear and pain. It was probably not his fault, whatever that other smell was. I could overlook it. I took the bad with the good.
—Was that lacrosse-team remnant you were sitting with the Up All Puppets! guy, he said.
—Evidently not, I said.
—Then who was it?
—Someone who was not the Up All Puppets! guy.
The smell was rankling me a bit. It wasn’t, I was sure, Murphy’s fault, but nonetheless I became ever so slightly brusque. Where had he found sun. Those were great gray days, smelling of any number of things. Sun not being one.
He shrugged.—I didn’t think so, he said, unwarrantedly smug.
Binelli interrupted before I had the chance to shun Murphy viciously.
—Finley, he said.
—Murphy, he added.
—Binelli, we said in a remarkable unison that must have pleased Binelli to no end. Love of order, all that. His face softened ever so slightly.
—Finley, Mr. Uppal has agreed to a brief meeting over a not-even-close-to-inexpensive bottle of port I’ve ordered for his table. The cost of which will, incidentally, be withheld from your wages.
Wages?
—So if you would please get back in there with all due haste, he suggested,—we can begin to repair the damage your ineptitude has so far caused this Investigation.
I paused, wondering if this was not perhaps the
