That was the summer everyone was supposed to be reading It Is What It Is, the gone-viral first novel by CuttyCrabCakes, author of the self-help book of the decade, So You Can Get What You Want When You Want. And they did. Read it, that is. And masturbated en masse to all the top ten highlighted scenes. Especially pages 42–45, 101–5, 126–31, 187–92, and so on. Even MisterMenu took a look, and he hadn’t read anything as frivolous as a novel since his navel-gazing days at Weights & Measures University. Novels were for sissies. When he did open a book of any sort, which admittedly wasn’t often these days, he preferred the heroic history-type stuff. He didn’t like being “fooled” by fiction. But he was as susceptible as anyone else to the lures of genteel pornography. His favorite passage was everyone’s favorite, the one in red type that began on page 263. He read it several times with great interest. He’d been trying to get MissusMenu to lick his taint for years. No luck.
So here he was, alone again with a book (a damn book) on another stale weeknight, waiting to get his pipes cleaned whenever Her Highness bothered to return from her latest charity ratfuck or other. He rarely attended such events. He was busy. He had a conflict. There were people he had no wish to see. Like Chorusline. Or worse, UnlimitedMessaging. Plus, MisterMenu had a headache.
He looked at TastyNewsNuggets online. Nothing new there. He read less than half of an article about himself. All wrong. He glanced through the latest spreadsheets. Nothing really new there, either. Company doing fine. Life was complicated; money was not. The economy was a pixie. You had to believe in it or it fell to the ground stone cold dead. And MisterMenu believed. Lord, did he believe. He hit a couple of buttons on the ol’ keyboard. Made some more money. Lots more money. Ho hum. (Actually, he was thrilled. He always got a little thrill whenever he made some money.) He clicked on the FabuVision. Caught the last twenty minutes or so of some tarted-up pageant (possibly a rerun) where famous actors gave awards to other famous actors. Didn’t everyone already have an award? How much love did these people need? Sometime after that he drifted off. He dreamed he was awake. But not awake enough to hear MissusMenu come home, slip into bed beside him. In the morning he told her not to speak to him the entire day. Suspiciously, she complied. Without complaint.
Then, seated in the back of the GalacticCloudTouringConfiguration, on his way to work, suddenly popping into his head, for no particular reason, the memory of one of the greatest—if not in fact the very greatest—blow job of his life. He’d met her his sophomore year in an uncharacteristic, at least for him, face-off about halfway through the second week of the centerpiece of the business school: Financial Engineering for Apprentice Wizards. What he remembered about her was her name (AccountsReceivable), her height (top of her head to the bottom of his chin), her eyes (were they all pupil or what?), her mouth (had anything ever been invented in the whole history of the globuverse that was as blah blah blah as someone else’s hot lips and tongue drooling all over your precious jewels?). She’d worked that sweet spot on the underside of his dick, just below the mushroom cap. Until it felt like his whole dick was vibrating. And his whole being. And his whole fucking world. And when he came, or whatever that was, he went to a place he’d never been before. I love you, AccountsReceivable, he said to himself. Easy for him to say. They lived together for a couple of semesters. Until all the pretty vibrations went away. Where’d they go? Damned if he knew.
The DingleBerry rattled awake. It was InternalBundling, his CFO. His Clueless Fucking Onionhead, as MisterMenu liked to refer to him, especially to his face. Of course, he loved the guy dearly, though his understanding of the word love may not be the same as yours. There were apparently major discrepancies in the PissOnMe contract. The day’s steeplechase already begun, and he hadn’t even gotten out of the goddamn car. Actually, he didn’t mind, really. He enjoyed the ride. Pretty much. Forty-five minutes of peace before the deluge. Not today. He told InternalBundling to take his thumb out of his ass and get ahold of NoRefrain over there in Dislocations & Infringements. He’s got the 411 on all this crap. Did he (MisterMenu) have to think of everything himself? Now look at how hot he was running, and he hadn’t even entered the building yet.
The NationalProcedures corporate HQ was located, naturally enough, in the BigPointyBuilding in the high-end, businessy part of town. NumberCrunchers, where all the tooth-capped aristocracy stuffed their faces, was just across the street. There was a dark old church of some antique denomination or other down on the corner. The fancy I. M. Me–designed world headquarters of Perpetua, Inc., on the next block. An upscale branch of the upscale Crumblecake & Sons, Ltd., right next door. It was a neighborhood where people made money. It was a neighborhood where people spent money. Lots of it.
The Galactic glided to a halt. MisterMenu instructed Trefoil, his chauffeur, to bring the machine back around at a quarter to one. What he neglected to inform Trefoil was that he was planning on lunching at LaLaLa’s with EpoxyGrout Sr., the bloated head (egotistically, and, fittingly enough, physically) of MagnitudeNewsCorp, the self-proclaimed voice of the sick, the lame, and the lazy. Hefty demographic. Trefoil had no need to know. Much of anything.
On his way into the building and through the lobby to the elevator, MisterMenu dutifully said good morning to anyone who happened to look at him. He was famous for that. He had his own private elevator. A gold-plated express to the top, which opened directly into his office.
“I’m here,” he said into the intercom.
“Very well,” said MissyMiss.
MissyMiss’d been with him for ten, eleven, twelve years—whatever the hell it was—and he’d wanted to fire her about every other week for the whole ragged run. But he could never quite prod himself to finally bring down the hammer. Maybe because he just liked looking at her. He liked being in the same room with her. And she had a great smell. It was like having a living air freshener in the office. And sometimes, at home, he’d catch a whiff of that scent coming off his clothes, and he’d be transported to someplace else, where he was living with or married to MissyMiss instead of MissusMenu or, worse, the evil-smelling VelvetRope, mother of his children, former face of WhatYouLookingAt?Cosmetics, and all-around pain in the ass. How much she’d taken from him in the divorce settlement was a figure as closely guarded as the actual number of gold bars left stored in the national vault. Both numbers would probably surprise a lot of people.
He sat down at his desk. The very desk once owned by none other than the original Old King Cole. He’d gotten it for a steal from OptionalFeatures, who’d needed a quick cashfix to pay off the dream team of attorneys who’d gotten his securities fraud conviction reduced to a pinch and a whistle. MisterMenu went to work. Usual routine. Morons in and out. Phone clattering, clattering phone. Meetings morning, meetings night. Anytime he wanted, he could be “busy” every waking minute of every waking day. His choice. You guess. But this a.m., after just a few hours, the light from the computer screen had gotten inside his eyes. He barked at employees he didn’t usually bark at. The data stream read like an alien language. Then he remembered. The honey bag. The missing honey bag.
“MissyMiss,” he said into his intercom.
“Yes, MisterMenu.”
“Get DelicateSear up here.”
“Yes, MisterMenu.”
“STAT.”
“Yes, MisterMenu.”
DelicateSear was the Executive Vice President for Context and Control. Nifty title, huh? MisterMenu made it up himself. He enjoyed being creative. What DelicateSear really was was the company wrangler. She put the boobs back in the bra. MisterMenu’d known her a long time. She was an ex-fuckbuddy, a current friend, and a general all-around screwaround. Deadass credentials, too. She’d graduated magma cum loud from PortOfSuccor College. She had a master’s degree from the University of BlackToast. She’d been in the military. She’d been in the police. She’d been other places no one talked about. She’d been where you had to be. He’d met her on the leveraged buyout of PolkadotIndustries. She’d represented the other side. He’d bought her out. Of course they’d gone to bed together. She liked the sun in the morning and the moon at night. So did he. But it hadn’t been a good fit. She liked her greasers plain. He doused his in slobbersauce. Her favorite TV show was PickMe. He couldn’t stand that caterwauling, even when it was being done by CarbonatedDiva. She rooted for the Javelinas. He put his dime on the Subprimes. He liked getting blow jobs. She did not like giving them. He hadn’t seen her in months. All quiet on the company front.
“You’re looking well,” she said, showing up about two and a half minutes after he’d asked to see her.
“Clean living,” he said.
“How’s the missus?”
“Getting it done.” She had the kind of face you could look at for hours without getting tired.
“That bad, huh?”
He waited a beat. Then he said, “I’m not rising to that anymore.”
“Oh? Not rising to what?” She speared him with her silkiest smile.
“Your bait.”
“I’m not baiting you.”
“Coulda fooled me.”
“And you’ve always been such an astute reader of other people’s fine print.”
“I’m famous for it,” he said. The longer she talked to him, the brighter she seemed. Or was he only imagining the effect? Who knew? “What’s that you’re wearing?” he said. “I can smell it from here.”
“PrettyMe,” she said. “The latest from ExquisiteEffluvia.”
“Come over here,” he said. “So I can give you a big yummy squeeze.”
She did. And he did. And it felt as good and as comfortable as it always had. Bony, but comfortable.
“Oh, my,” she said. When they finally unclinched. “How long has MissusMenu been gone? Was there something extra in that? Or am I imagining?”
“The missus hasn’t gone anywhere. And she’s as good as she needs to be. Have a seat. That’s not what we’re here to discuss.”
DelicateSear sat down in one of the ergonomic chairs personally designed for MisterMenu by Eggwhite of Residuum. Your back will say thank you after mere minutes of such luscious lumbar support.
“Don’t tell me this is only about some dreary company business. I changed my dress twice before running up here.”
“It’s about some dreary personal business.”
“Better. Much better.”
He told her about the bag. Omitting all references to MissusMenu. The bag fell, all right. Somehow. Done and done. He told her he wanted the bag back. He told her he wanted her to be the one who got the bag back.
“No problem,” she said.
“Really? I would have thought there would be issues and complications. A verminous horde of issues and complications. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
“When I say no problem, it means there is no problem.”
“That’s what I’ve always liked about you. Your confidence. You are a supremely confident person.”
“I know that.”
MisterMenu laughed as loudly as it was possible for MisterMenu to laugh. “That’s what I mean.”
Two days later DelicateSear was back. She held in her manicured hand a transparent DVD jewel case.
“I’m sure somewhere amidst all this splendor you’ve got a bonehard player of some sort.” She handed him the case.
MisterMenu pressed a button. A Hoo-Ray deck slid out of the wall. He pressed another button. A screen descended from a slot in the ceiling. MisterMenu put the disc in the machine. They sat back and watched.
“The first clip is from the surveillance camera in front of your building,” said DelicateSear. They saw a busy street scene. Ordinaries walking back and forth. In the background cars and buses and cabs and bikes moving steadily from right to left. They saw the bag suddenly plummet from the sky, almost brain some nondescript nobody. They saw the nobody kneel down, examine the bag, open it, look inside, close the bag, and then just get up and brazenly walk off with it.
“He looks like he could use the dough,” said MisterMenu.
“This next clip is from the MetaHealingBank branch on the next block,” said DelicateSear. They watched the nobody with the bag struggle down the street through hordes of largely oblivious pedestrians. The screen went blank, then almost instantly came back on again. “The camera outside FontanelleJewelers,” said DelicateSear. More struggling. “Time&TideLaundromat,” said DelicateSear as another camera tracked the bag’s slow progress. The nobody set the bag down and sat down on top of the bag. He glanced here. He glanced there. He glanced all around.
“Look at that idiot,” said MisterMenu. “Guilty as hell. He’s expecting the hand on his shoulder at any moment.”
“Now there’s a gap here of about half a block. We pick him up again in front of FlavorTown.” The nobody set the bag down again, took a paper towel from his back pocket, and wiped his forehead. Looked around, appeared to ponder something important, then stepped boldly into traffic and hailed a cab. Nobody and bag got into a big yellow taxi, and they were gone. The screen went black.
“That’s it,” said DelicateSear. “If he had kept walking we could have followed him all the way up to his door.”
“I’m astonished,” said MisterMenu. “How’d you get access to all these cameras?”
“When I want something, I get it.”
“Extraordinary. Well, I’m impressed; I’m goddamn impressed.”
“Thank you.”
“Now what?”
“As you could plainly see, the visual quality of the last clip is not anywhere near the high-tech spy quality we normally prefer. We’re working on deciphering the cab number and the tag. When we get it, I’ll tell you.”
“Who’s this ‘we’?” He waited a moment. “Wait a minute, never mind, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“My associates,” said DelicateSear. “They’re all on your payroll.”
“Fine. But the less I know about payroll the better.”
“Now you really surprise me. The poster boy for fervent micromanaging.”
“I’ve got enough crap in my head at the moment.”
“Yes, the missus’s care and feeding and all.”
“That’s enough.”
“Well,” said DelicateSear. She got up out of the Eggwhite. “I’d better get to work.”
“Nice seeing you again, D.”
“Me, too.”
“You’re looking particularly—well, healthy.”
“You, too.”
MisterMenu walked her to the door. Breathing in her scent the whole way. Citrus and musk and something cinnamony. “I want to thank you in advance for the enormous expertise already expended on this project.“
“You’re welcome.”
“You’re one of the handful of people in this paranoid organization I can actually trust.”
“It’s not necessary to stroke me.”
“I’m not. I’m simply relaying a basic fact.” He tried to say something warm with his eyes, but he didn’t know if that worked or not.
She patted him on the hand. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We gonna get your money.”
“I know.”
“I do, too.”
And she was gone.
He watched her stride briskly away down the deeply carpeted aisle. A rare female creature of surpassing beauty and intelligence. Fine ass, too.