(worstfailure)
The Bistro was a classy place and so its patrons needed to look like classy people. This meant that for the first time since they met, Stan finally saw what Izzy Lopez looked like in formal attire. It surprised him how radical the transformation was. His partner was wearing a low-cut, black sequin dress with a slit up the side. Her hair was done up in curls and her makeup was applied from a trip to the salon. She wore a pearl necklace and had a handbag with a very thin strap over her shoulder.
"You look... good," Stan said awkwardly upon seeing her at their rendezvous.
"Feels like my freakin' tits are gonna pop out at any second. And I got a hell of a wedgie."
"There she is, there's the pinnacle of sophistication I know," Stan said sarcastically.
"Careful, Padding, or you might just end up on the menu tonight."
"Don't joke about that," Stan snapped. "This is a serious situation! We both know the usage licenses for the men being eaten at the Bistro are forgeries! We're here to rescue innocent people!"
Izzy yawned, unmoved. "Technically, we don't know the usage licenses are forged, which is why we need to go undercover in the first place. Besides, the Commish told us our number one priority is to gather intel on the Red Whale's organization. Our second is to protect our cover at all costs. So you're not allowed to do any cowboy cop heroics if you see a tiny in danger, and I'm fully allowed to gobble you up if needed, instead of just pretending to like we practiced. Thank god intel says they clean you first. I know where you've been."
Stan, wanting to change the subject away from his partner possibly devouring him, said, "Do you have the bug?"
"Other than you?" Izzy smirked. "Yeah, I have it right here. It's the false bottom of this lipstick," Izzy said, taking the object out of her handbag. "As soon as there's an opportunity, you plant this somewhere where we can get some juicy info. Now you ready for this, Padding?"
"As I'll ever be," Stan said reluctantly.
A second later, he was inside Izzy's handbag.
-
The real Bistro was located in the basement of a restaurant of the same name. To get in, you needed to tell the maitre d' the passphrase.
"Good evening, miss," a pretty woman in her mid-twenties said when Izzy got to the front of the line. "How many are in your party tonight?"
"Just me," Izzy said in a tone way more formal than she'd ever sounded when addressing Stan. "My cousin had to cancel at the last minute. I hear great things about the shellfish here. My cousin's allergic but I can't get enough."
"I'm sorry to hear about your cousin," the maitre d' said, responding with her part of the passphrase. "How do you like your shellfish prepared?"
"Raw," Izzy responded. "I even brought my own cocktail sauce."
The woman smiled and pressed a hidden button under her stand. "I believe there's a table in the back. Right this way, miss."
The maitre d' led Izzy through the restaurant, into the busy kitchen, and out a door into the back. To the left was a door leading outside where food was delivered. To the right there was a hallway with a women's bathroom opposite a janitor's closet. However, as the woman led her down the hallway, the back wall between bathroom and supply closet opened like a door swinging on its hinges. A woman in a black suit held open the wall door and closed it behind them.
"So you said you brought your own meat," the maitre d' said as she led Izzy down the stairs. "Any juicy story there?"
"Not really," Izzy said. "He's just a pain in the ass from work. I've already done everything else under the sun to him, figured it was time to give this a try. And what better place to dine than here?"
"There's no better place on God's green earth! It's frankly absurd we need to quarantine the cooking of tinies to our basement. Some people are just squeamish over the silliest things. I know if they were ever lucky enough to taste a meal prepared by Head Chef Renee, they'd rethink their morals in a heartbeat. By the way, I alerted the Head Chef you were coming--oh, there she is now!"
A very tall and very thin woman waited for them at the base of the stairs. Surprisingly thin considering she was a chef of such renown. The only fat on her body came from her prodigious breasts. She was dressed in a chef's uniform and wore a head chef's hat over her short, chestnut hair. She was a pretty woman with an aquiline nose.
"Good evening, I am Head Chef Renee. Welcome to the most exquisite dining experience of your life. It is my understanding you've chosen to dine on meat of your own choosing rather than selecting from the stock I've selected. I want to assure you, no matter what pedestrian dreg you've chosen as your dining partner, once he's been in my kitchen, he will emerge transcendent. You will experience a culinary ecstasy the likes of which will make you truly wonder if you've ever had food before in your life."
"That good, huh?" Izzy said, unable to help herself.
"That good?" the Head Chef repeated stiffly. "Young lady, the reason God created the heavens and the cosmos was to see if one of her creations could surpass her own works. With every dish I serve, I prove she has found her superior. You would be wise to show respect to someone about to serve you divinity on a silver platter."
"You're right," Izzy said, feeling creeped out by the intensity of the woman in front of her. "I'm sorry."
"This is how you will be served," the Head Chef said as if there'd been no interruption. "I will visit your table personally and appraise the meat you brought before taking him back into the kitchen. After a thorough cleansing, he'll be sampled and judged by me on a number of criteria in order to determine the flavors that will best compliment him. I will then offer you my recommendations on the best way to prepare him to your utmost satisfaction. Unless," she made a face that conveyed bottomless contempt at the absurdity of the option she was forced to offer every guest, "you have chosen a way you'd like him prepared."
"You give your customers that option?" Izzy said, surprised such a control freak would allow it.
"My investor tells me the customer is always right. So yes, if you wish me to prepare pig swill for you, I shall do so."
"Nah," Izzy said. "My palate's not refined enough to know the best way to cook him. I'll leave it in the hands of the professional."
"Very good," Head Chef Renee said as if Izzy had just made the most obvious choice in her life. "I trust you have a usage license for your meat?" Izzy produced it from her handbag. It was a forgery but the Head Chef gave it no more than a cursory glance before returning it. "There is a line ahead of you. The wait is estimated to be over an hour before I can judge your meat's quality. I assure you, once you've tasted what I have in store, you'd gladly wait on your knees for 20 years in a desert, weeping tears of joy if that's how long it would be before I could serve you seconds. Show her to her table," Renee said before she headed back to the kitchen.
The maitre d' seated Izzy at a table next to a roaring fireplace. As soon as the woman was gone, Izzy took Stan out of her handbag and dropped him roughly on her plate. The tiny cop was about to lash out at her for being rough when Izzy whispered, "Get on your knees and start groveling."
Stan was going to ask what she was talking about before he remembered where he was. All around him he could hear the small indistinct pleas and cries of men drowned out by the casual conversations of women eating and the clinking of cutlery. Sometimes a particular scream would be met with a feminine laugh and then the ecstatic sounds of a woman moaning as she tasted her food. Seeing the sense in her words, he did as she said. He really wished he could help these people. He and Lopez had their orders but just letting his fellow tinies suffer didn't sit right with Stan.
Izzy nodded her head to the back wall behind Stan and muttered, "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
Stan followed his partner's gaze. Though there were thirty tables for diners, separated by a sizable distance in the back corner was a booth big enough to seat ten women. It was currently empty and blocked off by a velvet rope. Heavy curtains were ready to be drawn for the diners privacy. Above the booth was a painting depicting a shipwreck at sea caused by a monster that was mostly hidden beneath the waves. The back half of the ship had been crushed by a colossal crimson tail fin. The front half was packed with panicked sailors who were trying to climb over each other to reach the prow. But there were so many and the incline of the deck so steep that the men could only slide down straight to the only other part of the sea monster that was visible: the hungry red maw of a whale opened greedily as sailors plunged toward it to be swallowed whole.
It was no mystery who that booth was reserved for.
"Should we plant the bug now?" Izzy asked.
"No," Stan said. "The Red Whale's people sweep for bugs before meetings. If Helgesson shows up, we need to plant it after she's seated."
"Maybe we'll get lucky and she'll show up tonight."
Stan rolled his eyes. "Izzy, be realistic. What're the odds the most feared crime boss in the city is just going to waltz in on the first night of our sting?"
What happens next?
1) The most feared crime boss in the city just waltzes in on the first night of Stan and Izzy's sting.
2) There's a surprise opening in Head Chef Renee's schedule due to a last minute cancellation. She's going to take Stan to the kitchen to sample him and determine the best dish to serve him with for Izzy.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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