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“Uh, it’s art. Yeah, bananas just like this have been selling for millions, and I want my due. Paintings stuck to walls…you name it. Bananas are the next best thing. Thought I’d be a good soul and cut you in on the deal.”
“Right. So you’re asking for how much for this banana?” The banana in question is rather ordinary. Slightly curved, yellow with a brown bruise by the stem, a little squishy looking right there at the top, and a few dark freckles along the outer curve.
“I figured that it had to be worth at least ten grand.”
“Because it’s made of gold on the inside?”
“No, because it’s art!”
“It just looks like a banana to me.”
The kid shuffles his feet and clasps the banana. Hard. It makes a little squishy, farting sound, and he lets go of it in alarm. Nope. Definitely not made of gold inside.
“This banana could make you famous! Isn’t that the point? You could do what all those other guys are doing and get a head start!”
I barely manage not to roll my eyes, sigh, and go into a full beast mode where I tear off my shirt and gnash my teeth and…okay, whoa. Not letting the demons out today. No way. And not just because it’s a full moon, and I’m kind of on my own mission here, where staying undercover is a good thing.
“Tell you what? I am kind of hungry. I’ll give you twenty-five cents for that banana.”
The kid looks behind him, shuffles his feet again, then sighs. “Alright. I’ll take it.”
I point to the counter across from me, where Sher is waiting. She’s biting her bottom lip, and it’s either to hold in a torrent of bad language, which she’s known to let fly if provoked, or to hold in laughter. Probably both.
“If you head over there, Sher can write you up. We have to do paperwork for all sales, no matter how big or small.”
The kid lumbers off, and I take the banana and return to my office. It’s a solid room with a steel door that locks. I normally leave it open so everyone knows I’m not one of those creepy bosses who do questionable things. Right now, I take pleasure in locking it, plopping onto my chair, and letting out a big sigh.
Goddamn, Granny, you picked a fine establishment for me. I swear she’s still punishing me for the whole unsanctioned kidnapping of Ayana’s best friend. So, yeah, it could have ruined everything, jeopardizing the whole mission, but it didn’t. Granny helped me set up my office here after proudly announcing that she’d bought me a pawnshop to run for the next six months or until she found another mission for our family as a whole. We’ve never been without cases, so I didn’t buy that, but I did know better than to argue with Granny, especially because her whole reason for helping me set up my office was to hide hollowed-out books with Glocks—her weapon of choice—stashed in them on the bookshelf.
I peel the banana and lean back, biting off the mushy bit and forcing myself to swallow. The subsequent bites are better.
The banana isn’t even the worst of it, and that’s considering the fact that this week alone, we’ve had someone bring in a jar with poop in it—we all had bets on the odds of it being human poop, but we never found out for sure—a bag of fingernail clippings that were supposed to be from an early saint, but when we had them expert dated, they turned out to be no more than five years old (yes, I shit you not, pun fully intended), and a parrot. We ended up buying the parrot because they’re hard to care for as pets, and people often abandon them—how sad is that? Plus, one of my employees wanted it, and I wanted to give it a better life. I think all of us were just glad about anything that came in that wasn’t excrement or a human body part.
Real or otherwise.
That’s right. We get everything here from fake limbs, which are actually super expensive, to the aforementioned poop in a jar (not super expensive, just super gross).
Suddenly, my cell goes off, vibrating my banana—the banana on my desk, I mean. My phone is right beside it. I grab it and slide my finger across, fully expecting the blocked number to be one of my brothers, so I’m surprised when Granny’s voice blasts over the line.
“You’re having lunch with Cassadina Platt today, end of story, so don’t even try arguing with me. Pie and fries, Lennox. Pie and fries.”
“What? I…I have a meeting during lunch today. Can’t do it. Sorry.” I seriously freaking knew this was the reason Granny wanted me here. So far, she’s been subtle about it, but I guess that’s at an end.
