MAGNUM OPUS
"May I help you?"
Arthur put on his stage smile. "I have an 11:30 with Sheila Talbot."
"11:30? She just left, for lunch hun."
"Fiddlesticks," Arthur snapped his fingers. "Must have crossed a wire somewhere… Tell you what, love, you ring her mobile and I'll wait in her office."
The receptionist, her will eroded smooth by decades in hell, obeyed without question. Her lips folded into a thin smile. "Sheila's is the weird cube near the back."
Arthur prowled the office maze. He wondered what exactly made a cube "weird" until the moment Sheila's came into view.
Posters of mascaraed musicians wallpapered her work space. A society of superheroes and dolls swarmed her desk. Zombies and goblins skirmished on a shelf over an undead Barbie. A 12-inch Pumpkin King (complete with hand-stitched clothing) danced atop the ridge of her computer monitor, his Sally waiting atop the printer.
Arthur sat in Sheila's chair, spun a 360 to Sheila's work terminal. He cracked his knuckles and wiggled the computer to life.
'User, TalbotS, please enter your password to log on:'
"Pants." Arthur's mind, preoccupied imagining the sexy plot twists and double entendres of his espionage mission, hadn't even considered something so banal as a computer password. "Should have brought Kavi."
He looked to the ceiling, hoping Talbot’s passkey would simply appear in plain text across water-stained drop tiles. It did not.
"Double pants." Arthur shrugged and instead rifled through Sheila's desk. He pulled open drawers. He shuttled aside pens and post-its. He hoped to find a spiral-bound notebook with, "How I'll Kill the Irregulars" scrawled across the cover in blood, but alas. He was starting to maybe think his mission was more Get Smart than Goldfinger when he caught a flash of blue as he opened the lowest desk drawer.
"Hello, now," he squinted. "Is there something taped to the inside of this drawer?"
Arthur plunged elbow deep into the drawer. His fingers brushed something like paper, but smoother. He picked back a corner with his fingernail and yanked, a magician pulling a rabbit from his hat. A long, origami-like chain of shiny blue papers emerged.
"And just what the hell do you think you're doing?"
Sheila Talbot filled the cube's entry, hands on hips and Aviators slid down her nose. Arthur spun to face her and froze. What he’d thought was some sort of origami paper chain he now saw was an impressive string of condoms.
"Magnums, eh?" Arthur twirled the string like a propeller. "You're either a very lucky girl or a wishful thinker."
Talbot swiped her condom stash and thrust it back in the drawer. "This is going to make one hell of a headline in tomorrow's paper, 'Accused Thief Ransacks Reporter's Office.'"
"Mmmmm," Arthur cocked his head and smiled. "Would we call it an 'office?' Besides, you're not going to tell a single soul that I was here."
"I'm not?"
Arthur reached into his jacket pocket and pulled his trump card. The voice recorder shone like silver.
"What the hell…?" Sheila reached to swipe the recorder, but Arthur clutched it close.
"Tsk, tsk. Didn't mumsy tell you it's bad manners to take?"
Sheila chewed at her lips and slid her glasses up over her head, taming her hair. "That's why my voice recorder is blank. You know I was on the phone with tech support for an hour yesterday. You stole it yesterday at Perky's?"
"Stole?" Arthur put a dainty hand to his chest. "The coffee spilled. There was a misunderstanding."
"You son of a bitch."
"It's a minimum three years in prison for concealing the commission of a felony," Arthur twirled the voice recorder between his fingers, a drum major leading this shit parade down a back alley. "You know why I'm here. Give me what I want."
"Sorry, I already have a boyfriend. Besides, I don’t think my Magnums will fit you."
"Oh don't you wish." Arthur shot to the edge of his seat, elbows to knees. His eyes glimmered a sinister shade of blue. "I want your copy of The Sacred Theft."
"You want it back, you mean."
"However you need to justify it; Just give me the story. Otherwise, the Detective finds out you had foreknowledge of a felony."
Sheila sighed. She flipped the aviators from her nose and hucked them onto the desk. Members of the Justice League splashed and tumbled to the carpet. Sheila sunk deep into her bony shoulders, arms crossed in thought. To Arthur, it looked like a powerful fart could blow her sideways.
"Fine." She flipped open the messenger bag slung across her chest. "I wasn't a hundred-percent convinced before, but I am now." She thrust a manila envelope. "You're guilty as hell."
"I am guilty of many things," Arthur pried open the envelope, "just not this." Kavi's familiar story, stapled in the corner, sat inside. A second sheet, flimsier, was paperclipped to the packet. Arthur turned the envelope in his hands. There was no return address.
"Your prints are on the envelope. On the photocopies. I dusted it myself and compared it to the police report. It's your thumbprint, clear as the summer sun, Kite. You know what I think?"
"Please," Arthur said, "I can't wait to hear the opinion of the woman with the doll cubicle."
"I think you could give a shit less about the money. I think you want to live in a real-life mystery so badly that you're sending these little envelopes, spying on me, calling me, threatening me. I think something's gone wrong, maybe you have cold feet, and you need this envelope back because it proves you did it. But guess what? I don't give a shit anymore. Do what you want, but I'm publishing the truth."
"The truth? You? Please."
"Before this moment, I thought you were too flighty to be evil. But I can totally see it now. You robbed that jeweler's. You bloodied that poor clerk and you shot that awful Natze kid. My only real question is how you roped Kavi and Harris into your scheme."
Arthur leaned back in Sheila's office chair, fingers pressed into a gothic cathedral before at the tip of his nose. He breathed slowly, nodded. "That would certainly make for an excellent plot point, wouldn't it? An unsteady artist versus the rangy, strong-willed reporter?"
"You want strength? You want strength?" Sheila Talbot slapped Arthur's cheek. He recoiled, face to the cube's back. Perfect hair splayed down over his face. Sheila stood over him, chest heaving, face hot.
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