Thursday was the last to leave the table and he watched as his four remaining compatriots left the restaurant. Sunday had left first, and when he was gone, Thursday turned to Monday and said, “He just let the spy get away like that?”
“Surely Sunday has caught up to poor Wednesday by now,” Tuesday said, and there was strained laughter around the table.
“Indeed,” Saturday said in his old, breathy voice. He was a man with fully gray hair on his head and face and he was dressed like he had stepped out of a time machine. His mustache was the largest feature on his face and it covered his lips completely. It moved when he talked and his appearance would have been humorous if not for the menace behind his eyes. When he looked around or at Thursday, it was as though he was either suspicious of everyone around him, or that he was thinking horrible things to do or say to someone that only his eyes were broadcasting.
The entire meeting of days was peculiar in that way, with a menace that could be skepticism of everyone and everything. Thursday was relieved that everyone left shortly after Sunday. Before Monday left he stopped her.
“So that’s it?” he asked. “Tuesdays gonna kill Beyonce and that’s it.”
Monday smiled and frankly, it creeped Thursday out more than the looks of menace that unified the group of days as he sat with them. It was as though moving the muscles responsible for a smile caused her pain and she seemed to wince and snarl at the same time.
“You are funny,” she said. “We meet every week, someone will tell you the location before then. And don’t be late, you wouldn’t want to miss the details, Tuesday should have it done by then and he loves to talk.”
Alone at the table, Thursday wondered if he should go back to the deli where he’d met the man in the dark backroom and tell them about the plot to assassinate Beyonce, but if he did that, he’d probably never see Sunday again. Surely the man would go underground through whatever metaphysics he employed to shapeshift as he did and who knows how long it would be before Thursday could find him again.
He decided against ratting out Tuesday’s plot just yet, but if Monday was right, Beyonce would be dead within the week and the more Thursday thought about that, the more dismayed he became. It was such a waste, and it sucked too to allow a white supremacist to murder a symbol of black excellence.
Thursday left the restaurant and went to the bathroom on his way out the door. A man with long hair stood at one of the sinks, periodically splashing water on his face. As Thursday watched curiously, the man turned and he recognized the face.
“Wednesday? I thought you were a woman? What are you doing here?”
“I had to play the part,” he said in a voice that sounded feminine like it had at the table. “I tried my best. When the investigators approached me and told me what my boss was up to, I couldn’t believe it. But there you all were at the table, celebrating mischief and planning an assaination, just like they said. I’d hoped it was a lie, I prayed but on the off chance that they were right and there was a group of Idiots united in the goal of ending the world, I agreed to dress up like my boss and come to this dinner. I look an awful lot like her and I’ve known her long enough to do the voice. How did he know I wasn’t her? What I that man?”
Thursday could tell that the man was shaken to his core with fear, like he had been to hell and somehow survived the experience.
“You’re an investigator, or an Investigator?” Thursday asked.
“You just said the same word…”
“What is the greatest enemy of the Idiot?” Thursday asked.
“The Order of Sound Reason,” the man said and he produced a silver badge attached to a leather wallet as Thursday produced his.
“You’re an undercover investigator, too? What are the odds.” Thursday scratched his chin. “I can’t tell if this is a good omen or a bad one. It seems our Order is closing in on Sunday, but what kind of GK Chesterton clown show is this that we didn’t even realize other investigators had infiltrated the Idiots? Are you reporting back to the man at the deli? You should get them to put extra protection on Beyonce or something…”
As Thursday talked, the man became pale with fear. His eyes dropped and his mouth gaped open.
“I’m done with this,” he said. “If I keep meddling and Sunday finds out…” he trailed off and splashed more water onto his face. “Did you see the man? If we can even call him that. Was he really a man or just a vision, a living nightmare snatched directly from my head? No, I’m done with this, I’m leaving.”
The man pushed past Thursday and left the bathroom.
“Well that’s a waste,” he said as he used a urinal and then washed his hands.
When he was out on the street, it was either very late at night or very early morning, and the streets were startlingly empty. The lights of the city flashed around him as he walked the sidewalk, but there were no people, no cars.
Thursday decided to head back to his dorm and he wished the helicopter that had brought him to the restaurant had been considerate enough to take him home. He found a train station and groaned as he approached it. Couldn’t they have built all of these things above ground, Thursday thought to himself, Do we really need to be any closer to the rats than we already are?
Before he descended the stairs, he noticed a man who looked an awful lot like Saturday perusing the papers at a newstand.
Is he following me? Thursday wondered. Maybe Sunday was suspicious of his new Thursday and had tasked the old and ancient Anarchist to follow him. Maybe Monday had sicced the old man on him, Thursday had asked a lot of questions that a truly initiated Idiot should know. But why Saturday? The man was pudgy and round in his fancy clothing, and if people were capable of living to a hundred and fifty years of age, then Thursday was sure Saturday was one of those people. He walked away from the newstand using a cane and he seemed to have injured one of his legs because he limped away from the station that Thursday was about to descend into.
Thursday shrugged away his suspicions, it may not have even been the old man, Thursday hadn’t gotten a clear view of his face so he hadn’t seen Saturday’s signature mustache. Underground, he walked the platform that was mostly empty except a few people leaning against the tiled wall, or against the columns situated every few feet along the platform. Thursday leaned against one of the pillars and pulled out his cell phone. He scrolled through the news while he waited for the train, but soon he felt the invisible weight of eyes on him and he looked up from the screen, and across the tracks to the other platform where an old man stood facing him with his face obscured by a hat. The only visible feature of the face was a large mustache and Thursday knew that it was Saturday this time.
“What the hell?” Thursday said to him, and then the train arrived and a rush of air pushed Thursday back onto his heels. He got onto the nearest train car and found a seat away from others. As he sat, his doubt returned. Saturday was following him, and that probably meant that Sunday was suspicious.
Just as the doors were closing, there was a commotion and Thursday realized that someone was trying to force the doors open before the train took off. His mouth fell open in shock as he watched the old man, Saturday, push onto the train and then thank the others who had helped him pry open the doors. He sat with his back to Thursday and far away, but this only made Thursday more nervous.
He was on the other side of the station, Thursday thought with amazement. Did he jump across the tracks?
Thursday kept his eyes on Saturday as he slipped out of his seat and through the door of the train car into the next. He sat and kept his eyes on the door as the train rattled up the island of Manhattan. When he made it to his stop, he rushed out of the door and ran up the stairs to the gate of the university he attended. There was a booth manned by a security guard next to the gate and as he noticed it, Thursday saw that Saturday was leaning against the booth and chatting up the security guard.
This man must have the metaphysics of Sunday, Thursday thought to himself. How is he moving like this?
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