“Look,” he says in a makepeace voice, “at least in the short term you need your job, right? You’re not going to get reinstated to solo just by pulsing one job to term. You’re not going to get a fucking whiff of solo because you go one-and-four instead of oh-and-five. Is Herk right? Hell yes, Herk’s right. You need to do something dramatic. You need to put an M-80 up Janus’s ass.”
“And what is said M-80?”
“The Rat Burglar, naturally. You need to take down the Rat Burglar.”
Even though I’m the butt of this joke, I can’t help laughing at it.
“Sure. Why not? I’ll put that on my list. Laundry, milk, return movies, and, oh, yeah, bring down the most successful talent on earth. Right. Oh, but just one thing—how the hell am I supposed to find the Rat Burglar when Interpol hasn’t, when MI-5 hasn’t, when the FSB, DST, SISDE, FBI, CIA, and various mobsters haven’t?”
“You’ve got an advantage they don’t have. You know where he is going to be.”
“Oh yeah? Where’s that, smart guy?”
“The same place you are.”
I think about this for a second. It’s true. I’ve never thought about the Rat Burglar’s affection for me as a tactical advantage.
“So I’ll probably see the Rat Burglar if I ever get a gig again. Then what?”
Herk makes a gun gesture with his hand, fires it.
“Oh no,” I say. “I’m not shooting anybody. You know how I feel about guns.”
“Just one pop—”
“No. I don’t want to pop anybody, Herk. I don’t want to off anybody. I don’t want to cap anybody. Got it?”
“But it’s self-defense.”
“He’s never actually tried to kill me, quote unquote. All the juice he’s used has been nonlethal.”
“What’s the difference? He’s killing your livelihood. What do you think happens to burned-out pulses? You think you can find a lot of good jobs out there for people who can sit on their ass for seventy-two hours without sleeping? Really. Where will you go from here? A nice comfy stool somewhere? Is that what you want?”
“I don’t want to shoot anyone. I don’t even know how to shoot a gun.”
Herkimer again makes a gun gesture and squeezes a finger to illustrate how easy it is.
“It won’t make a difference anyway if Po-Mo fires me today.”
“Well, right. If that happens. Sure. Or if your balls shrivel into Raisinettes.”
“Is this your idea of a pep talk?”
This time my senses don’t let me down. I hear Po-Mo’s assistant coming a mile away to fetch me. Before he exhales I know what words his breath will make and before his facial muscles flex I can see the satisfied smirk.
The J-Mart Employee of the Year Pleads His Case
My boss, Everett Polizzi-Molanphy—Po-Mo—sits in his chair, with his back to me, staring out the trompe l’oeil window while steepling his fingers archvillainously. For a long time he sits like this, as if there were a view to admire. He’s trying to make me sweat, and it’s working.