Chapter Eighty-Six
“I did what you asked, guv’nor!”
Curtis/Thaddeus strutted into Voot’s office and sat himself, daintily, on his desk. Voot shuffled some papers as if he’d been working, fooling neither of them, and tried to imagine what the porter could be on about. Having failed, he asked: “What do you mean?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You said that you’ve done something?”
“You heard right!” He made an exhalatory sound, as if having just enjoyed a delectable beverage; but, Voot could only sit in silence and note, no such beverage was present.
“And what is it that you’ve done?”
“Beg pardon?” Curtis/Thaddeus seemed to be admiring the ceiling, although, when Voot followed his gaze—with his eyes, that is; he did not attempt to climb up the wall or anything—he found nothing particularly admirable about it.
“What did you do?”
“What you asked me to.” Curtis/Thaddeus picked between his (Curtis/Thaddeus’s) teeth with a fingernail (also his), then pulled out and examined his discovery (which was too diminutive for Voot’s gaze to quite catch, but about whose qualities he declined to inquire).
Voot folded his arms and sighed; he could see this might take a while. Fortunately for him, he had little else to do. “I can’t remember specifically asking you to do anything,” he proceeded. “Perhaps you might remind me.”
“You mean—in detail?”
He shrugged, and, summoning the didactic counsel he’d once read in a remedial book on grammar in a break from paperwork, instructed him: “In however much detail you feel is required to adequately communicate your meaning.”
Curtis/Thaddeus rolled his (Curtis/Thaddeus’s) eyes. “Beating around the bush a little, aren’t we, now, Herr Manager?”
“Look, we’re really not getting anywhere.”
“I agree.”
“We’re just going round and round in circles.”
“Round and round!”
“So perhaps you might start again and tell me, very simply, what it is that you’ve done.”
“You don’t. . .”
“Yes?”
“You don’t want me to go out and come back in?”
“No, that won’t be necessary.”
“Well—what, then?”
“Just tell me what you’ve done!”
At Voot’s harsh tone, Curtis/Thaddeus slipped off the desk and made a histrionic shake of his hand, as if he’d just jerked it back from a hot saucepan’s handle. “I was gettin’ to that, guv’nor! Ouch!”
Voot looked on him with a new hatred. The murder of such a weasel would, he was certain, redeem his own (Voot’s) worthless life; for whatever happened later in consequence, he could at least point, with unassailable sincerity, to a single pure deed he had done.
Curtis/Thaddeus smiled angelically. “I wrote the message in Mifkin’s food.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The message you asked me to write.”
“I asked no such thing. What are you talking about?”
“The message you asked me to write.”
“You’ve said that, yes, but I’m still no clearer to understanding.”
“Somdomite.”
“Pardon?”
“Somdomite—it means a bloke who buggers another bloke’s bum.”
“You mean sodomite.”
“Say again?”
“Sodomite.”
Curtis/Thaddeus shrugged. “I don’t see that it greatly matters how you order the letters, if the meaning in what you’re trying to say is pure of heart.”
“So you wrote that to Mifkin?”
“With his food, aye.”
“You spelt it out in his food?”
“Carrots. And potatoes. It were most cleverly done, if you’ll forgive my immodesty, monsieur.”
“But I never asked you to do such a thing.”
“But you did—just this morning.”
“When?”
“In the lobby.”
“I asked you to hide the remaining casks of wine.”
Curtis/Thaddeus shrugged. “I see I misunderstood.”
Myriad possibilities stampeded through Voot’s mind: Was he a daemonic jester? A double agent? A triple agent? Quadruple? Whatever comes after that? A subversive intruder bent on inciting conflict? Or simply, the most logical explanation, an idiot?
“Excellent work, Curtis.”
“Begging Herr Manager’s pardon, but my name is ‘Thaddeus’.”
“Yes, very well, then, ‘Thaddeus’. Keep up the good work. Goodbye now.”
Curtis/Thaddeus bowed, very deeply—Voot noted the tip of his (Curtis/Thaddeus’s) nose brushing the carpet—and went out.
Herr Voot dreamt, that night, that two identical-looking agents, one Curtis, the other Thaddeus, crept into his bedroom and slit his throat, then took charge of the hotel. He woke up, relieved to be alive but disappointed not to have entered Heaven.