Art
Art
Art put his hand in his pocket and felt the stiff edges of an envelope. How strange. He was sure his pocket had been empty when he’d left home. Had he started stealing things subconsciously? That would not be a welcome development.
He pulled out the envelope and stared at it. Art was printed boldly in the center, in neat, cursive handwriting. How on earth had it got there without him having noticed?
Art opened the envelope, pulled out a single sheet of high-quality notepaper, and held it at arm’s length, since he didn’t have his reading glasses with him. The words gradually came into focus.
Art,
I’m sorry.
D.
Art smiled. That obviously hadn’t taken Daphne long to write, but he genuinely appreciated it. Perhaps she wasn’t such an evil old bat after all. Maybe they could even be friends. The woman had balls, and life was actually a lot more interesting with her around. Not always in a good way, admittedly.
For a minute, Art almost forgot why he was there, but pulled himself together, just in time.
“Subject is leaving the building. Do you copy? Over,” he said, from his lookout point opposite the entrance to Jeremy’s office, in the heart of the financial district.
“Loud and clear! Moving into position,” said Anna.
“You have to say ‘Over,’?” said Art. “Over.”
“Why?” said Anna.
“So everyone knows you’ve finished speaking. Over,” said Art.
“You can tell I’ve stopped speaking when it goes quiet,” said Anna.
“He’s approaching the bicycle racks!” said Art. “There’s a huge crowd already!”
“You didn’t say ‘Over,’?” said Anna.
“I’m getting this all on film. Over,” said William, who had positioned himself in a rooftop bar with a selection of extremely powerful lenses.
The channel went silent as they watched Jeremy push his way through the crush to find his scooter. The crowd parted easily around him. Art imagined he’d been elbowing his way to the front of the pack since he was a toddler.
Jeremy stared at the assembled bicycles and scooters, his brow furrowed, then took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, as if that would make the extraordinary sight in front of him go away.
In the exact spot where he’d chained up his top-of-the-range scooter that morning was a giant, pale-pink knitted penis. Yarnsy, it turned out, had been secretly working on it ever since the accidental slideshow at the nativity, and had donated it to Daphne’s plan.
The huge woolen shaft covered the entirety of Jeremy’s scooter’s front column and handlebars, and two massive knitted testicles covered the front wheel.
Jeremy grabbed the top of the neatly circumcised penis with both hands and tried to pull it off his scooter, but it had obviously been tied tight to the base. Beads of sweat were breaking out on his forehead.
“Is that your dick you’re handling, mate?” asked a man with a hipster beard, his phone trained on Jeremy. A ripple of laughter spread in a wave through the crowd.
“Nothing to do with me,” replied Jeremy, quickly releasing the phallus and blushing with what looked gratifyingly like deep humiliation.
Art crossed the road as Jeremy strode away from the knitted knob covering his scooter, powered by righteous indignation and fury. Right on cue, Anna, driving her pimped-up mobility scooter, blocked the pavement ahead of him. Jeremy pulled up short with a harrumph of annoyance, and Art, with fingers honed by years of pilfering, reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his mobile phone.
Art gave Anna a thumbs-up signal from behind Jeremy’s back, and she moved her scooter out of his path.
“Quick,” she said, as soon as Jeremy was out of earshot. “Try the PIN.”
Art fumbled with the phone, inputting—as suggested by Lydia—Jeremy’s birth date. The phone unlocked.
“The man’s an idiot. If you use your birthday as your passcode, you deserve everything you get,” said Art, before remembering it was exactly what he’d done. Note to self: change PIN.
Art scanned through Jeremy’s text history until he found the information he was looking for.
“Daffy, do you copy? Over,” he said into his walkie-talkie.
“Reading you loud and clear. Over,” said Daphne.
“He’s going to a restaurant called Le Pont de la Tour by Tower Bridge. Sounds fancy.”
“Pon. It’s pronounced Pon, not Pont. It’s French. Over,” said Daphne.
“Whateveur,” said Art, in a cod fench accent.
“See if you can bag us a table and I’ll meet you there once I’ve sent this text,” said Art.
“Roger that,” said Daphne.