Athanasius Finch: Private Dick | ONC 2020

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"I don't think you understand the concept of 'innocent hand'," said Mr. Katz, shoving half a corn dog down his throat.

"Let me rephrase that, then," said Athanasius, squirting Dijon mustard into ziploc packages while the minimum wage employee at Gray's Papaya had a face that suggested an internal battle between calling him out or not giving a fuck. I suppose he decided that he wasn't paid enough to spare one of his fucks. "We need a neutral hand."

"Again, not my forte," he said, tossing the stick of his corn dog into an ever-growing pile behind him. "You're paying, right?"

"Yes, yes, the meal is on me," said Athanasius. "Keep the stick swine coming, garçon!"

"But he is a millionaire!" I cried. "We have to eat cigarette ash and sweat from yoga mats to survive!"

One of Athanasius' most disgraceful, if brilliant ways to cut down on food is by drinking protein shakes. It is mostly a mix of ash and coffee grinds he steals from a Starbucks' dumpster, but is in the water that he gets the proteins from. He stalks local yoga studios, where a bunch of soccer moms that pop vitamin pills like candy sweat into their yoga mats, which he then infiltrates and squeezes into mason jars for later use. The body can only take so many vitamins before having to peel them via urine and sweat. And that many is not a whole lot.

Or at least I think it was the sweat. I hope it was.

"Hush, Miss Cagliostro," said Athanasius, sticking a corn dog into my mouth. I almost cried from the taste of real meat. "And I was perhshoping that your skills as an individual of dubious morals could work in our favor."

"You told me you represented half the people there," I said while slowly chewing, savoring every ounce of delicious trans fats. "I don't think anyone would object to you being the one that takes the game ticked out of the boiled coconut thing."

Mr. Katz tossed yet another empty stick at the pile. If he kept eating like that, he was going to have a bad time. "So, lemme run this by you again. You want me to rig the election game thing-"

"Right-" I said.

"-to make Mrs. Fatone win and draw out whoever killed Mr. Fatome," said Mr. Katz.

"That is the general gist," said Athanasius, which at that point had forsaken the bag for his own mouth by squirting directly into it.

"And what game do you think it's gonna do that? I love the woman, one of my best clients, but she ain't the crunchiest bit in the clam chowder."

"Ah, you leave that to me!" said Athanasius. "I have devised a most ingenious game that plays to Mrs. Fat One's incredible strengths. Speaking of, Miss Cagliostro-"

"Not a miss-"

"Have you located a local Disc Jockey?"

"I did my best," I said, not having done my best, "but I found one."

"Excellently!" said the lilliputian dick, "well then, Mrs. Fat One shall provide the butler uniform and we shall be on our way, posthaste!"

"Wait!" said Mr. Katz, waging the corndog towards us in the same way one would try to distract a particularly hyperactive cat - vigorously, and with a hint of rage. "I never said I was gonna help you lot. At least not for free."

"Name your price," said Athanasius without skipping a beat.

I was 100% sure he was going to use his lawyery ways to put us in some lawyer voodoo, but he instead smiled at me in a way that made both incredibly uncomfortable and mildly intrigued - not unlike the time I witnessed my first rat orgy, which all New Yorkers have seen at least once in their life.