“Here are our methods in action,” he said. “We prefer not to go hungry while you gorge yourself, speaking freely, for the one reason that all of this stuff represents what you ate every morning when you were a kid.” Leaving me to digest this shapeless utterance, he bit into his impromptu sandwich and sent golden-brown crumbs showering to the carpet.
“For as the important, abstemious man you are now,” said Mr. Clubb, “what do you eat in the mornings?”
“Toast and coffee,” I said. “That’s about it.”
“But in childhood?”
“Eggs,” I said. “Scrambled or fried, mainly. And bacon. Home fries too.” Every fatty, cholesterol-crammed ounce of which, I forbore to add, had been delivered by barnie-hands directly from barnie-farms. I looked at the rigid bacon, the glistening potatoes, the mess in the eggcup. My stomach lurched.
“We prefer,” Mr. Clubb said, “that you follow your true preferences instead of muddying mind and stomach by gobbling this crap in search of an inner peace which never existed in the first place, if you can be honest with yourself.” He leaned over the desk and picked up the plate. His partner snatched a second piece of bacon and wrapped it within a second slice of toast. Mr. Clubb began working on the eggs, and Mr. Cuff grabbed a handful of home-fried potatoes. Mr. Clubb dropped the empty eggcup, finished his coffee, refilled the cup, and handed it to Mr. Cuff, who had just finished licking the residue of fried potato from his free hand.
I removed the third slice of toast from the rack. Forking home fries into his mouth, Mr. Clubb winked at me. I bit into the toast and considered the two little pots of jam, greengage, I think, and rosehip. Mr. Clubb waggled a finger. I contented myself with the last of the toast. After a while I drank from the glass of water. All in all I felt reasonably satisfied and, but for the deprivation of my customary cup of coffee, content with my decision. I glanced in some irritation at Mr. Cuff. He drained his cup, then tilted into it the third and final measure from the pot and offered it to me. “Thank you,” I said. Mr. Cuff picked up the pot of greengage jam and sucked out its contents, loudly. Mr. Clubb did the same with the rosehip. They sent their tongues into the corners of the jam pots and cleaned out whatever adhered to the sides. Mr. Cuff burped. Overlappingly, Mr. Clubb burped.
“Now, that is what I call by the name of breakfast, Mr. Clubb,” said Mr. Cuff. “Are we in agreement?”
“Deeply,” said Mr. Clubb. “That is what I call by the name of breakfast now, what I have called by the name of breakfast in the past, and what I shall continue to call by that sweet name on every morning in the future.” He turned to me and took his time, sucking first one tooth, then another. “Our morning meal, sir, consists of that simple fare with which we begin the day, except when in all good faith we wind up sitting in a waiting room with our stomachs growling because our future client has chosen to skulk in late for work.” He inhaled. “Which was for the same exact reason which brought him to our attention in the first place and for which we went without in order to offer him our assistance. Which is, begging your pardon, sir, the other reason for which you ordered a breakfast you would ordinarily rather starve than eat, and all I ask before we get down to the business at hand is that you might begin to entertain the possibility that simple men like ourselves might possibly understand a thing or two.”
“I see that you are faithful fellows,” I began.
“Faithful as dogs,” broke in Mr. Clubb.
“And that you understand my position,” I continued.
“Down to its smallest particulars,” he interrupted again. “We are on a long journey.”
“And so it follows,” I pressed on, “that you must also understand that no further initiatives may be taken without my express consent.”
These last words seemed to raise a disturbing echo, of what I could not say, but an echo nonetheless, and my ultimatum failed to achieve the desired effect. Mr. Clubb smiled and said, “We intend to follow your inmost desires with the faithfulness, as I have said, of trusted dogs, for one of our sacred duties is that of bringing these to fulfilment, as evidenced, begging your pardon, sir, in the matter of the breakfast our actions spared you from gobbling up and sickening yourself with. Before you protest, sir, please let me put to you the question of you how you think you would be feeling right now if you had eaten that greasy stuff all by yourself?”
The straightforward truth announced itself and demanded utterance. “Poisoned,” I said. After a second’s pause, I added, “Disgusted.”
“Yes, for you are a better man than you know. Imagine the situation. Allow yourself to picture what would have transpired had Mr. Cuff and myself not acted on your behalf. As your heart throbbed and your veins groaned, you would have taken in that while you were stuffing yourself the two of us stood hungry before you. You would have remembered that good woman informing you that we had patiently awaited your arrival since eight this morning, and at that point, sir, you would have experienced a self-disgust which would forever have tainted our relationship. From that point forth, sir, you would have been incapable of receiving the full benefits of our services.”
I stared at the twinkling barnie. “Are you saying that if I had eaten my breakfast you would have refused to work for me?”
“You did eat your breakfast. The rest was ours.”
This statement was so literally true that I burst into laughter and said, “Then I must thank you for saving me from myself. Now that you may accept employment, please inform me of the rates for your services.”
“We have no rates,” said Mr. Clubb.
“We prefer to leave compensation to the client,” said Mr. Cuff.
This was crafty even by barnie-standards, but I knew a countermove. “What is the greatest sum you have ever been awarded for a single job?”
“Six hundred thousand dollars,” said Mr. Clubb.
“And the smallest?”
“Nothing, zero, nada, zilch,” said the same gentleman.
“And your feelings as to the disparity?”
“None,” said Mr. Clubb. “What we are given is the correct amount. When the time comes, you shall know the sum to the penny.”
To myself I said, So I shall, and it shall be nothing; to them, “We must devise a method by which I may pass along suggestions as I monitor your ongoing progress. Our future consultations should take place in anonymous public places on the order of street corners, public parks, diners, and the like. I must never be seen in your office.”
“You must not, you could not,” said Mr. Clubb. “We would prefer to install ourselves here within the privacy and seclusion of your own beautiful office.”
“Here?” He had once again succeeded in dumbfounding me.
“Our installation within the client’s work space proves so advantageous as to overcome all initial objections,” said Mr. Cuff.
“And in this case, sir, we would occupy but the single corner behind me where the table stands against the window. We would come and go by means of your private elevator, exercise our natural functions in your private bathroom, and have our simple meals sent in from your kitchen. You would suffer no interference or awkwardness in the course of your business. So we prefer to do our job here, where we can do it best.”