EQUALS

EQUALS
By M. Yaxley Jr.

Eustace Hart is a seedy old bastard, yes he is.  Though he reclines in a wingback chair of grand Edwardian design, sipping a fine, single malt as he considers the last minutes of a mediocre sunset, he knows it’s all a show.  When the intercom buzzes and he instructs his secretary to send his guest to the 11th floor, he will amuse himself with secret thoughts of late nights with rough girls, booze-fuelled show-tunes sung badly by rasping throats in early morning streets among club-footed pigeons.
        “MR. PIGGE HERE TO SEE YOU, MR. HART.” crackles the speaker on his ancient mahogany desk.  Motioning a lazy fly away, he presses the big red button on the device:
        “Show him up won’t you?”
        Mr. Pigge is sweating like his porcine namesake in the small, urine-soaked elevator.  He is here on official business.  His official occupation is ‘unemployed’, but sometimes he likes to think he’s a secret agent or some shit.  He affects an eccentric manner, complete with trilby hat and a r-r-rolling of his r-r-r’s.  2 Years ago he took an advertisement out in the yellow pages:

PIGGE!
INVESTIGATIONS
No job too small
Finest & Dandiest
Noble & Discreet
(01603) XXXXXX

        Indeed, Hart is impressed with Pigge as he steps out of the lift, grimacing from the stench and heat.
        “Har-r-rt!” he declares, unaware the man is a pig.
        “Pigge!” Hart beams back, oblivious he is about to hire a moron, charge him with his first ever case as a Private -unlicensed- Investigator, some relatives who got framed, or something.  Yawn, yawn.
        “I’m here… mind if I sit?”
        “Please do.  You have been recommended to me by a very high source indeed, Mr. Pigge.  Care for a dram?”  Hart waves his decanter jar like an angry Dad waving his sons F-grade exam-paper around the dinner table.  He is, like the Dad, pretty tanked.
        “I don’t dr-r-rink, not while I’m wor-r-rking.” He lied. This, as mentioned already (keep up!) is Pigge’s first ever case, and he’s drunk stupid, like a court-jester made redundant by a credit-crisis.
        “Admirable trait, Mr. Pigge.  Shall we get down to business already?” Hart finishes his sentence with a grotesque belch.  Its odour is such that Pigge can almost bloody see it.  Even so, it relaxes him somewhat, for two reasons; firstly, he detects from the lack of social grace exhibited by his host that they are equals; second, he realises he’s actually detected something…
        The investigatory career of Valentine Pigge is up and running, as of now!
        “I’d love to hear-r-r what sor-r-rt of wor-r-rk you have in stor-r-re for-r-r me, but pr-r-ray, Mr-r-r. Har-r-rt, who-”
        “Eustace, please!”
        “-beg par-r-rdon, ‘Euuussstttaaaaccce’, pr-r-ray tell whom was this illussssstr-r-rious sour-r-rce thr-r-rough which you lear-r-rnt of my r-r-r-r-r-r-reputation?”
        “Golly-gosh-all-mighty-mister, what the hell is wrong with your voice?”
        “I’m cer-r-rtain I don’t know what you’r-r-re talking about.”
        “R-r-r-r! R-r-r-r!”
        “Oh that.  That’s just something I like to do.”
        “Stop it!  It’s weird, it’s freaking me out!”
        “Okay.”
        “Now listen, Pigge, I want you to look at this picture.” Hart spins a frame around on the table.  Like everything else in the room, the frame is of fine craftsmanship, bronze and ornate.  The centre is oval and contains an aged photograph of three men straight out of a Dickens novel.  Pigge puts on some unneeded spectacles, pretends he has to strain to see the image…
        “Yes.  Yes.”
        “Take a good long look now.”
        “Who are they?”
        “The man on the left is my grandfather.  The others are his brothers, my great uncles.  I need you to find me a new frame, for this picture, exactly like this one.  It’s cracked, you see?  Right there.  Don’t get too interested in my ancestors, just concentrate on the frame.”
        “I’ve seen one just like it, in a fucking junk shop on Magdalene Street.”
        “Splendid!  Bring it too me on the morrow, I shall reimburse your expenses and reward you handsomely for swift of dealing.  Huzzah!”
        “Hurrah, for me!”
        “I knew you were my man Pigge!”
        “Hurrah, one for one!”
Then Hart was sick.  The sight and smell and sound of vomit made Pigge sick.  Two men on the 11th floor, both being violently sick.