—Finley.
—Binelli.
—What the hell do you think you’re doing, he wondered.
—My Assignment. Or did you forget you put me on Puppets?
—This, he pointed a shaking finger at my recalcitrant drinking companion,—is not Mr. Uppal.
—Mr. Who.
—Mr. Uppal. Of Uppal Puppets. The elderly Indian gentleman who has been waiting with all patience for your arrival at his table. The hors d’oeuvres he’s ordered have gotten cold. The fine artisinal champagne has become warm. His spirits are low and his ire is raised. So what, I again wonder, the hell do you think you’re doing flirting with this lacrosse-team remnant here.
The target of this last comment bristled a bit at the implied slight but we paid him no mind. I took a second look at the Indian gentleman who had earlier been on the receiving end of my finest, frostiest glare. He gave me a slight nod and raised a dangerously overfilled champagne flute in our direction.
A little bit became clear.
Then, as I considered further, a little bit more.
—I see, I told Binelli.—Mr. Uppal. Of Uppal Puppets. Indian gentleman. Yes.
—Would you please now wait for me outside. I recognized the quality of barely controlled rage in his voice, particularly when bumped up against the polite tone he used to next address the Puppet Man-turned-Lacrosse-Team Remnant.—Please excuse this Finley. She knows not what she does.
Now barely controlled rage welled up in me. I knew what I did. I knew and did it well. I used all the tricks, the full arsenal of wiles bestowed upon members of my species and sex. I had been, simply, misinformed. I drank half my mug of beer in one long swallow before flouncing out into the daylight.
4
Murphy found me collecting myself in the doorway. He smelled of sun and of something else, synthetics perhaps. Perhaps something else. Those were great gray days.
It was probably not his fault.
Things stick to Murphy, things and other things like people. For instance: If three of us—say me, Binelli, and Murphy—were to be coated in honey and tied to a post, and a hive of bees were to be slashed open, the bees would settle on Murphy. He would be covered in honey, and covered in bees, and covered in welts. He would be filled with fear and pain. It was probably not his fault, whatever that other smell was. I could overlook it. I took the bad with the good.
—Was that lacrosse-team remnant you were sitting with the Up All Puppets! guy, he said.
—Evidently not, I said.
—Then who was it?
—Someone who was not the Up All Puppets! guy.
The smell was rankling me a bit. It wasn’t, I was sure, Murphy’s fault, but nonetheless I became ever so slightly brusque. Where had he found sun. Those were great gray days, smelling of any number of things. Sun not being one.
He shrugged.—I didn’t think so, he said, unwarrantedly smug.
Binelli interrupted before I had the chance to shun Murphy viciously.
—Finley, he said.
—Murphy, he added.
—Binelli, we said in a remarkable unison that must have pleased Binelli to no end. Love of order, all that. His face softened ever so slightly.
—Finley, Mr. Uppal has agreed to a brief meeting over a not-even-close-to-inexpensive bottle of port I’ve ordered for his table. The cost of which will, incidentally, be withheld from your wages.
Wages?
—So if you would please get back in there with all due haste, he suggested,—we can begin to repair the damage your ineptitude has so far caused this Investigation.
I paused, wondering if this was not perhaps the best time to wonder aloud about these wages he’d mentioned.
Binelli clapped his hands sharply in front of my face however, not just once but three times, in rapid succession.—Now? he said in a way that sounded like but was certainly not a question. I nodded quickly and made for the door.
5
You see then why a report becomes necessary.
You see how the tiniest misunderstanding is conflated. How with more information. How the meeting had been conducted, nonetheless, information or no, almost none whatsoever, with the utmost precision and professionalism. How precisely and professionally, subsequently, I have narrated the events. Transcribed. How henceforth it will be simply a matter of pulling a precise and professional and perhaps quite creatively fastened sheaf of pages from my satchel, and locating the moment in question, and pointing a stern and righteously trembling finger at that precisely and professionally transcribed moment, and being redeemed. Rewarded. Regaled with praise for keeping such a fine account.
However tedious to keep it may already be proving.
6
Whereupon such tedium, offered an inch, begs mightily, mercilessly, for a yard, and I am compelled to gesture—with a great and profound reluctance, somewhat wishing reports had never been started—toward that great tedious time between my waking and today, rendering, one can only hope, further digression unnecessary.
So:
Murphy came after I was already there. He came of his own accord.
I too may well have come of my own accord; I may always have been there, but Murphy definitely was not always there, and as far as I can ascertain was not summoned/dragged/blackmailed/et cetera. I remember the day he came. It had not been sunny then either and, as would make sense, he did not carry any smell of sun about his person.
Whence the sun smell.
I wonder.
I also digress. From the digression itself as it were. He came and he was absorbed without formality into us. Maybe he had been expected. Binelli introduced him to me as Murphy. He didn’t look like a Murphy, like what I at least would expect a Murphy to look like. And apparently I didn’t look much like a Finley to him, because when Binelli introduced us (Murphy, Finley; Finley, Murphy), Murphy said,—Finley?
And Binelli said,—Sure, why not?
So.
When Binelli had retreated behind his door, Murphy stared and stared at me. I was made slightly anxious by this, until I realized the probable cause.—My eyes, I acknowledged.
He nodded quickly.
—Are yellow, I finished.
—Yes, he said.
—I don’t know why, I said.—They just are.
—Yes, he said.
Then he said,—It’s very unusual, yellow eyes.
Then he said,—Why do they call you Finley.
—Why do they call you Murphy, I answered, not really answering, having ultimately no surefire explanation.
—I suppose, he said,—it’s my name?
He said it like a question and looked at me closely. For what, who knew. Perhaps an answer. Perhaps not. The eyes I am aware can be distracting. Binelli had said so at least. The Lamb had as well, had in fact on several occasions pronounced them nightmare-making.
—Try not to look at them, I offered.—If they bother you.
—They don’t bother me, he said.—Finley, he said. He shuffled something