arc 02 | colombo

The Human Resources employee almost disregarded the email at first. The subject line read: UNACCEPTABLE WORKPLACE DISRUPTIONS! The employee, a lanky man with greasy long hair, immediately recognized the sender’s email address. It was Thompson. Again.

Thompson had become something of a legend in the local HR department. Too productive to fire, yet too unambitious to rise through the ranks, Thompson had been shuffled between several low-level company positions over the last two years. Inevitably, his complaint emails would begin as a trickle a few weeks after he started working in a new office, and then increase to a flood by the end of his first month.

The HR employee’s haunted-looking eyes briefly glanced at the video Thompson had sent. It showed the Regional Manager of the local company’s central office, Elizabeth Regal, fighting and defeating some upstart named Nico Pinstripe. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the video; such battles took place on a daily basis in offices throughout the world.

The video began to play again from the beginning. The HR employee was just about to delete the email and resolve to never open another complaint from Thompson again...

...When he saw it.

He hunched forward, almost pressing his nose against the computer screen, studying the video. His finger hovered over the mouse button, like a lion waiting to pounce on its prey. He paused the video just as Nico was bouncing into the air after having fallen to the ground.

The HR employee began pulling on a strand of his hair absent-mindedly, first with one hand, and then with both. His eyes were narrow and suspicious.

“One stripe…” he muttered, tracing the single line that went up the left sleeve of Nico’s button-down with his eyes.

He scrubbed through the video frame-by-frame, carefully studying the button-down as he went. Sure enough, the shirt had only one stripe on the left arm. He leaned back, still pulling on his hair, deep in thought.

Suddenly, he turned in his chair, pulling open a long drawer in the bottom of his desk. It was full to bursting with Clothiers advertisements. He leafed through them, slowly at first, then faster. Suits. Shoes. Dresses. Faster. Cufflinks. Blazers. Slacks. Faster! Ties. Belts. Button-downs. Faster! Tuxedos. Socks. Glasses. FASTER!

His heart was racing. His mind was a blur. His scalp was crying out in pain as a chunk of hair was slowly being yanked out by its roots, but he paid it no mind. He was close. He was sure of it. The pile of Clothiers advertisements in the drawer got lower and lower. The floor of his office was covered in papers. FASTER!!!

He was more convinced with every page. The obsession that filled his nights, that dominated his lunch breaks, that directed his dreams, was burning within him so hot that he felt feverish.

Almost there. Just a few more advertisements to go. Pocket squares. High heels. Button-downs. Blazers. Suits. Suits. Suits. Suits. SUITS. SUITS. SUITS. SUITS. SUITS! SUITS!!!

He was throwing papers over his shoulders now, tearing them to pieces, shredding them, biting them, blood trickling down his cheek from his scalp, a handful of greasy hair lying forgotten on the floor, a wild passionate frenzy in his eyes.

And then the drawer was empty.

He sat there, panting, trembling.

“Keh… Keh Keh Keh… KEH KEH KEH… KEH! KEH! KEH!” He laughed, his high voice becoming shrill and shaky.

He leapt to his feet, studying the freeze frame, convinced, assured, determined. He watched the video again from the beginning. There was no doubt. The button-down that Nico Pinstripe was wearing was surely a powerful fashion statement. There was no other way he could be holding his own against the powerful blows dealt by the Regional Manager. He was sure now. In all his thousands of hours of obsessive searching, he had always believed, and now he knew, he knew, that his faith had paid off.

He had finally found it.

“Keh Keh Keh…”

He was calming down now, slowly but surely, mastering himself. As he watched, the video looped again and again, the single pinstripe on the button-down called out to him like a siren song. The trickle of blood from his scalp was drying and itching now, and he scratched his face slowly without paying it any mind.

If he was right, and he was sure he was right…

He had finally found the powerful fashion statement he needed.

“Can’t wait to meet you, Mr. Pinstripe,” he said, touching Nico’s face on the screen with a bloody finger. “I have some questions for you. Keh. Keh Keh Keh… KEH KEH KEH KEH KEH!”

***

Elizabeth observed her reflection in the elevator mirror. She hadn’t had time to change clothes since her battle with Nico a few hours earlier, so she’d taken to hurriedly licking her thumb and scrubbing the last bits of plaster dust from her dress. She didn’t exactly look immaculate, but she felt presentable at least.

The number on the screen above the door climbed higher at an alarming rate. 39. 40. 41. 42. She reviewed her mental notes. The memories of her hours of research were blending together with frustrating indecipherability. She felt disarmed and unprepared.

Just this morning, she had planned for this meeting with the Regional Director to be the one in which she would make her move. She had spent over a month planning her takedown of Big Chuck. She had found security camera footage of one of his fights. She had pored carefully through his company records. She had studied him closely in each of their previous meetings, searching for a plan.

Big Chuck lived up to his nickname. He was a hulking giant of a man, standing nearly seven feet tall. By contrast, his temper was short. He had brawled his way to his current position by pummeling his opponents without mercy. He didn’t stop punching until they stopped moving, and even then he kept going for a minute or two. No one who had challenged him before had escaped unscathed. Many suffered severe injuries.

Elizabeth had worked hard to discover the source of his incredible endurance. He seemed to never tire, even when exerting himself beyond the limits of a normal man’s exhaustion. His size might account for some of it, but the rest was undeniably the work of The Clothiers.

The problem was, Big Chuck’s business attire was incredibly plain and nondescript. Brown slacks, a short-sleeved dress shirt, and a simple black belt made up his daily business wear. Not much to go on.

Elizabeth’s research into Clothiers attire hadn’t gotten her very far in identifying the source of his power, either. While some Clothiers products advertised their effects, these were usually the lowest level business wear. Entry-level clothing for entry-level employees. Cheap, budget options meant to deceive the rubes into thinking they were investing in their careers, when really, they were spending two week’s salary on upgrades that put them on par with more physically fit or better rested versions of themselves.

The real powerful business attire, the fashion statements that held the power to defeat one’s superiors and climb the corporate ladder, were much more expensive. They were often customized for the buyer, and many such pieces were made specifically by request. Sure, secondhand Clothiers business wear existed, especially among the lower ranks of employees, but the license tracing technology usually kept such upstarts from progressing too far without being caught and having their unofficially obtained business wear confiscated.

Then, during her third meeting with the giant man, she had gotten her chance. That meeting had been a week ago...

***

Big Chuck was sitting in his oversized office chair, looking at Elizabeth with a predatory sort of enthusiasm as she entered his office. His eyes took in her slim figure with a hunger that she recognized as perverse. She cringed inside, but decided to take advantage of the situation. After all, the sooner she found a way to bring him down, the sooner she would never have to feel those ravenous eyes on her again.

She let her eyelids drop into a sultry expression and smiled at the Regional Director. “Hi Big Chuck,” she said.

Big Chuck gave her a nasty wink. “Hi Lizzie. Why don’t you… shut the door behind you, huh?”

Ignoring the trepidation she felt, Elizabeth used her hip to close the door. Focus, she ordered herself. Find his weakness.

She walked toward him, sitting against his desk in a way that gave him a better view than she ever wanted him to have. But it was working. He looked like he was getting a little hot and bothered, which meant he wouldn’t be thinking as clearly.

“Why do you want the door shut, Big Chuck?”

“Uh… So we can uh…”

“Oh!” She winked at him, feigning scandalized surprise. He smiled in return, taking the bait as intended.

“Yeah, Lizzie,” he growled, and Elizabeth ignored the hate of that nickname coming from those lips that flared deep in her belly. Instead, she twisted a bit more, giving him an even better view, determined to get this over with as quickly as possible.

Big Chuck unbuttoned the top button of his short-sleeved dress shirt. Elizabeth’s heart hammered.

“What are you doing?” She crooned.

“I want you, baby,” the huge man replied. “I want to take you right here, right now.” He unbuttoned another button.

Elizabeth cringed. “Oh really? Are you sure you can… keep up?”

Big Chuck chuckled, and reached down toward his belly. For a moment, Elizabeth felt very tense, but then he just grabbed the buckle of his plain black belt and showed it to her.

“See this, baby?” he said. “It’s a Clothiers original. Makes it so I never get… tired out… if you see my meaning.”

Got you.

Elizabeth slipped out of his reach, off of the desk. “Oh, wow!” She breathed, making each word as sultrily enthusiastic as possible. Like she was a stupid little girl who was amazed by some fancy toy that this big strong man was showing her. She hated herself for it a little bit, hated the lust in his eyes, hated him most of all, but she didn’t waver.

“Where are you going, Lizzie?” Big Chuck growled, sounding both disappointed and dangerous.

Elizabeth put as much breathiness into her voice as possible. “I can’t. Not today. But I want you, Big Chuck. I want to… meet again. Somewhere more private. And when we do… I think I’m going to ask you for a raise,” she winked.

Big Chuck was breathing hard, but the dangerous look in his eyes had given way completely to an almost petulant lust. “What are you gonna do to earn it, Lizzie?”

“Whatever it takes.”

She turned and left him to his vile imaginations, making a show of opening the office door and slipping out.

Whatever it takes.

***

The elevator kept climbing. 55. 56. 57. Soon, she would reach the 70th floor. Soon, she would be putting her month of research to use. Soon, she would make the sacrifice of her dignity for the sake of that pervert’s trust worthwhile.

She wiggled her toes in the incredibly comfortable baby blue high heels. A memory flashed through her mind, a memory from earlier today.

“How did you beat me?”

“Is your masculinity smarting, Mr. Pinstripe?”

“No… no, it’s not that, I just mean… It was like you knew what I was going to do before I did it. How? Is it those high heels?”

“No, Nico. It’s not the heels.”

She watched the number increasing as she got closer and closer to the moment of truth. She had picked this rendezvous spot carefully. It was an unused conference room on a floor that was normally reserved for the use of upper Aleph Corp. executives when they came to town for inspections. It would just be her and Big Chuck. She only hoped her act had been convincing enough to make the pervert let his guard down.

She had visited the conference room earlier this week, planning her attack. There were a number of columns throughout the 70th floor, columns which she could dash behind for cover if necessary. All she had to do was get him to take off the belt. All she had to do was dodge his attacks. All she had to do was win.

66. 67. 68.

She took a deep breath. She shook her golden hair down.

69. 70.

The elevator came to a stop.

SLAM!!!

There was a tremendous crash against the elevator doors just before they began to open. The whole elevator car shook alarmingly from the force of the blow. Elizabeth immediately shifted into a combat-ready position, suddenly sure that Big Chuck had outplayed her, that this whole situation had been manipulated by him from the beginning, that he was going to take her out before she could do the same to him.

The doors opened. There was a terrible scraping sound as a heavy object slid down between them and thudded against the floor of the elevator.

It was Big Chuck.

He lay unconscious, bloody, his head and shoulders inside the elevator, the rest of his body sprawled outside of it. His shirt and shoes were gone, and so was his Clothiers belt. He looked like he had taken a brutal beating.

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps echoed down the hallway. Someone was coming. Elizabeth, frozen in surprise, could only watch as a figure emerged from the darkness into a small shaft of dim light which emitted from a conference room window.

“Sorry about that,” the figure said.

“What the hell?” Elizabeth demanded. “Who are you?”

The figure laughed. “The new Regional Director. And soon… the Business King.” They walked toward Elizabeth, stepping into the light spilling from the elevator.

It was a young man, perhaps a year or two her junior. He smiled widely, tugging the sides of his bright red bow tie to tighten it. His white hair hung to his shoulders. His light stubble made him look considerably older than he would have without it. He was slim and long-limbed.

“See you at work, I suppose,” he said, and stepped through a side door.

Elizabeth barely had time to process what had happened. The sign above the door the young man had exited through showed that he was taking the stairs down rather than deal with moving Big Chuck’s body to clear the elevator.

“What the hell?!” Elizabeth said again. She glared at Big Chuck. A month of work, down the drain. So much preparation. So much effort. So much damn flirting with that pervert!

She screamed with frustration and raced after the mystery man, determined to catch up with him and demand answers. But when she looked down the seemingly endless flights of stairs, he was nowhere to be seen.

***

Blue started as they were shaken awake by the man on guard. Their bruised legs ached.

“Wake up. Quick,” the guard grunted. He jerked his head towards the locked door. “Spats is here.”

Blue’s heart jolted. They were suddenly wide awake. Terrifyingly awake. What would Spats say? Did he like the drawing too? Would he let Green go? Would he kill them both now? They stood and backed into the corner next to the drawing desk. A discarded drawing crackled under their foot.

They watched the door with a fear so huge that it seemed endless. But then a thought sprang to their mind, and despite the fear, Blue suddenly choked out a giggle. Spats. More like Shits.

It was a terrible joke - not really a joke to begin with, in fact - but Blue couldn’t stop the fit of giggles now that they had come. Maybe I’m having a nervous breakdown, some distant part of their mind observed. But somehow that thought was even funnier than calling Spats “Shits”, and their giggles turned into a full-blown laugh.

The guard eyed Blue with a mixture of wonder and irritation. “Shut up!” He growled. “Spats’ll kick your ass!”

“Shits!” Blue cackled, tears now streaming down their face. Oh, it hurt to laugh, but it felt so damn good too.

The guard’s face went red with anger. He raised a belt threateningly, the same belt he’d used to bruise their legs many times over the last three months. He wasn’t allowed to hit Blue anywhere above the legs. It hurt like hell to have that thing smack your calf or thigh, or, if you were really unlucky, your kneecaps or your toes, but Blue found they didn’t care anymore.

It just didn’t matter anymore. This had gone on for too long. Ride or die, Green had often said, and that was what Blue was now determined to do. Ride or die. And the fear of death didn’t hold much meaning now.

“SHUT UP!” The guard bellowed, and advanced, preparing to swing the belt, and -

There was a loud click as the door was unlocked from the outside.

Blue stopped laughing immediately. The guard froze, lowering the belt to his side. The opening door sucked all the humor from the situation like a black hole. The force of it left Blue breathless and trembling.

The door slid gently to a stop. A man stood on the other side. It was dark out there, and the dim light of Blue’s prison did little to illuminate the man. He was a shadow in the darkness, an impression of a man more than the substance of one. Every part of him was cloaked in shadow.

Except for his spats.

The spats were brilliantly white, cleaned to impeccable spotlessness. They almost glowed out of the shadows like ghosts. Their small silver buttons gleamed.

The man stepped forward, into the dim light of Blue’s small prison.

He was of average height, but his imposing presence made it seem like he towered over them in the doorway. Even the large guard seemed dwarfed by Spats, even though he stood several inches taller than his boss. Spats’ dark hair was slicked to the side with a care that would have been almost prissy if it wasn’t the crown on the head of a king of the underworld.

He looked surprisingly young, but the ghosts of crow’s feet around his dark eyes, the thin lines across his forehead, and the touches of grey on his temples argued otherwise. He wore a double-breasted grey suit with subtle dark stripes. His dress shirt was white, but not nearly as brilliantly so as his spats. His striped tie was tucked into a vest that bulged slightly with the handle of a concealed revolver. He held his hat in one hand.

Spats snapped his fingers, and the guard quickly pulled the cord that brought the overhead light to life. Blue winced against the sudden brightness, and shrank even more against the wall. As their eyes adjusted, they took in their captor in all his imposing glory.

DA-DOOM!

This was:

James “Spats” Colombo. Head of the Colombo Mafia.

Spats approached Blue with an expression of complete calm. “Nice work on the drawing,” he said pleasantly. He waited for Blue to respond, but when they didn’t he just nodded.

“Well anyway, I am serious,” he continued. “Great design. I think it should be good enough to get the attention of The Clothiers. Took you a long time, but why rush art, right? So. We submitted the design, and we should hear back from The Clothiers soon enough. You know what comes after that, right, Blue?”

Blue nodded.

“Tell me about it,” Spats said. His voice hadn’t changed at all, but there was a spark in his eyes that told Blue quite clearly that this was a command to be obeyed.

“I… I go to the interview,” Blue said, not meeting Spats’ eyes. “I show them the designs, I pass the tests.”

“Good. What then?”

“They hire me, and I get the information you want. Then you let us go. Me and Green.”

Spats nodded thoughtfully. “That was our deal, after all,” he said.

Blue nodded, having no idea how else to respond. Spats looked them up and down. “You’re pretty banged up. Hey, Tiny.”

A new voice came from outside. “Yeah, boss?”

“C’mere a minute.”

“Sure.”

A huge fat man built like a tank ducked into the room. He towered over Spats, but looked at the shorter man with the slavish devotion of a small dog. Spats gestured to Blue’s bruised legs.

“Make sure that’s not a problem, huh?”

Tiny glanced at the bruises and nodded. “You got it.” He ducked out.

Spats walked to the drawing desk, looking down at Blue’s design drawings with unfeigned interest.

“You got some real talent, Blue,” he mused. He leafed through a sketchbook. “Real talent. You’re doing a good job, you know.”

“Then let me see Green,” Blue insisted. Spats was standing close, uncomfortably close, to their position next to the desk, but they didn’t dare move away. The mobster shook his head, not even looking up at them.

“Nah, you do your job first. That was our deal.”

The words tumbled out of Blue’s mouth before they could stop them. “Come on! You said I did a good job, right? How do I even know you haven’t killed Green? How do I know you’re keeping your end of the deal? Just let me see them and I promise I won’t cause trouble.”

Blue half-expected Spats to become indignant at the implicit accusation, but he didn’t. He just turned away and walked to the door without a word. He nodded to the guard, who rose from his seat.

“You know,” said Spats, placing his hat on his head, “I heard a funny story from Babydoll. You’ll think this is hilarious. She said, you called her a bitch. And I, I told her, no way, that’s not something Blue would do. Blue’s smart, Blue knows better than to call my girl such a dirty word.”

He was smiling, as though telling a joke, but a terrible threat lurked in his dark eyes.

“But she tells me,” he continued, “over and over again, she tells me, you called her a bitch. And I just couldn’t make sense of that. So, here’s the thing. I think, Babydoll, she had a dream. A real convincing dream, right? A lucid dream. And in that dream, you called her a bitch.”

The ghost of Babydoll’s slap tingled on Blue’s face.

“So I told her, well, you know what, Babydoll? You’re a queen. You’re way above somebody like Blue.” His eyes glinted dangerously. “But you know what? Even in your dreams, Babydoll, I said, even in your damn dreams, nobody has the right to call you a bitch. Nobody but me. So anyways Blue, it wouldn’t be fair of me to punish you for something you didn’t even do, except in my girl’s dreams, right?”

Blue nodded quickly. What was Spats saying? Was he letting them off the hook?

“So I told Babydoll, you go right ahead and beat the shit out of Green instead. After all, that oughta shut up this imaginary version of Blue, right? So she did. And oh boy, Blue, I have rarely seen that woman in so fine a form. She really gave it to your friend Green, you know?”

The world was swimming. Blue felt like they were falling. Falling, falling, into oblivion.

No. Green. No.

Spats chuckled. “That woman, she’s got some real fire.”

Then he reached into a pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a small package. He tossed it to Blue, who caught it instinctively. It was a folded piece of paper. Blue unfolded it with trembling hands. It contained a hunk of green hair. They started shaking all over.

“We understand each other?” Spats asked calmly. “I don’t particularly care if it’s real life or a dream, Blue. Any funny business, any at all…” He shrugged, as if to say that going into more detail would be distasteful. And, to be fair, it probably would be.

Blue nodded their understanding.

“Good,” Spats said, and smiled. It was a cold smile, the smile of a predator. He turned and left, locking the door behind him.

Blue stared at the hunk of green hair. They were in shock. They carefully placed the paper onto the desk, then sat down and started drawing.

Moments turned to minutes. Minutes turned to hours. And without even realizing it, Blue fell asleep.