Taxed

With a satisfied smile, Brian Kinney looked at the papers in his hand. His latest campaign for Mr. Cauhtana's IC collection was going to be a success. He knew it.

At this late hour of the evening, the office was quiet. His employees had gone home hours ago. As the creative flow that carried him through the long day ebbed, he felt full blown exhaustion overcome him. With a crooked, little smile he extended a tired hand to the stapler on his desk. And reached nothing.

Annoyed, he looked at the desk. I'll fire that cleaning person first thing tomorrow, he thought.

But, on the desk where the stapler should've been there was a white envelope with his name on it. Taken by surprise, he just looked at it for a second before he took it and turned it around. It was sealed closed.

"What the fuck?" he let out. "Hmm."

He looked at the front again and proved his perception true. There was no stamp.

"Where did you come from?" he mused as he opened the envelope.

Inside, he found a neatly folded white paper. He unfolded it and read the one-word message:

TAXED.

"What the fucking hippies?" he said, scratching his head.

Brian sat for a moment staring at the white piece of paper, then he wrote a message to Cynthia and left.
 

*****
 

Next morning, Cynthia put a new, black stapler on Brian's desk, and everything was back to normal at Kinnetik. Brian put the incident out of his mind. He had a plane to catch; in New York, Ico Cauhtana was waiting for his ideas for the campaign.

The next time Brian needed his stapler was two days later when he was back from New York. Again he found the stapler missing from his desk and the message "TAXED." left in its place.

"Cynthia!" he yelled.

"Yes, Boss?"

"What the fuck is happening here?" he growled. "Who is making these bad jokes?" He waved the piece of paper at Cynthia.

"What jokes?" Cynthia asked and reached out to take the message from Brian.

"Who's stealing my staplers?"

"Staplers?" Cynthia had no idea what Brian was talking about. To her the message said nothing about staplers.

"The new stapler that I asked you to get; it's gone. Just like the old one."

"Gone?"

"Stolen from my fucking desk!"

"Or... taxed?" Cynthia asked, a smile twitching her lips.

"Whatever." Brian didn't see anything funny in the matter. "Wait. Who's been in here?" he asked as Cynthia's expression made him aware of a certain possibility.

"Gus and Debbie came by yesterday. He was really sorry not to see you."

"I told Gus that I was going to be in New York for two days. Why would he come here? Unless... he had something to do here that he didn’t want me to know about." Brian smiled widely. "Smart boy."

Cynthia laughed out loud and left.
 

*****
 

The next stapler that was taxed was the one Brian had at the loft. He found it missing first thing that night when he got home. He didn't know how Gus had done the switch, but he had to admire the boy's resourcefulness. Maybe Gus had asked Michael for help; Michael was the one person in Pittsburgh that had the key to his loft. With a grin, he took his cell and dialed Lindsay Peterson's number.

"Hi, Linds," he greeted the mother of his child. "I'd like to speak with Gus. Is he there, with you?"

"Hi, Brian. I'm well, thank you. How 'bout you?" Lindsay laughed. "Sorry, no. Gus isn't here. He's with Melanie tonight. I think that they are spending the evening at home. Try and call him there."

"I might," Brian sighed: he was not savoring the idea of speaking to Melanie Marcus. "Lindsay, did Gus talk to you about his visit to my office a few days back, when I wasn't there?"

"Yes; he was quite upset when he didn't find you."

"But I told him the evening before that I was going to New York," Brian said quietly. He was quite upset, too, having been the cause of his boy's disappointment.

"No need to get defensive, Brian; Gus was misinformed by Debbie."

"Oh, Debbie." Brian rolled his eyes heavenwards. "But... well. Did Gus say anything about my stapler?"

"Your stapler?" Lindsay sounded flabbergasted. "No, he didn't. What's happened to your stapler?"

"It's been taxed, whatever that means."

"Taxed?!" If possible, Lindsay sounded even more flabbergasted.

"That's what the prankster told me. Taxed."

"So you know who the prankster is?"

"I thought I knew. I thought that it was my smart, little boy."

"Why would you think so?" Lindsay's tone of voice turned a bit chilly.

"It's April, and Gus mentioned that they had learned about taxes at school. I thought that it might be him, joking with me. But, if he didn't tell you anything about it, I'm not so sure anymore."

"You sound quite strange. What is it? Are you annoyed? It's just one stapler, dear."

"Actually, it's three, so far. Two from my desk at work and one from the loft. There aren't too many people that have access to both places, Linds."

"True. Even I haven't got the key to your loft," Lindsay said, bringing up an old cause of strife between the two friends. "Michael has it, though, and he would be let into your office even if you weren't there. Do you think...?"

"That Michael would have done something like this? No, it's not Michael's style. I wouldn't put it past Justin, but he's in Milan. I talked with him when I was in New York. It can't be him."

"Unless he had someone helping him," Lindsay pointed out.

"Yeah, I guess that's a possibility," Brian said letting the thought take hold.

"But still, it would involve Michael."

"Justin and Michael are involved with each other, because of Rage," Brian pondered.

"And Rage is about mysteries," Lindsay suggested.

"And about mind games, just like this one," Brian filled in.

"Together, Michael and Justin could cook up a plot like this. There's something comic-like in the whole thing, don't you think?"

"I think that I'll call Michael in a minute," Brian said, bringing the call to its end.

As soon as Lindsey was off the line, with a smug smile on his lips Brian dialed the number of his oldest friend. He disturbed Michael and Ben's dinner, but Michael told him not to worry about it.

"I like cold pizza," the man said. "So... What's up?"

"I was wondering if you and Justin have been talking lately," Brian asked nicely.

"Not since he started his visit to Milan. Why? Is he alright?"

"As far as I know he's having a wonderful time, and yes, he's alright," Brian said drily. "So, tell me what kinds of plans you two cooked up before he left. Anything about staplers?"

"What? Staplers? Why would we talk about staplers? What are you talking about?"

Michael sounded completely perplexed, but it didn't convince Brian.

"Don't tell me that you haven't let yourself into my loft during the last 24 hours." Brian wanted to stop the game right at the beginning.

"I wouldn't do such a thing!" Michael cried defensively.

"You would and have, Michael," Brian reminded his friend who was notorious for letting himself into the loft at the most inconvenient moments. "Which one of you came up with the idea?"

"What idea? What are you talking about? I haven't done anything. I've been nowhere near your place in days."

"Really, Michael. There's nobody else. Excepting Justin who's out of town, you're the only one who has my key." Brian was quickly getting bored with the whole thing.

"What are you talking about?!" Michael, on the other hand, was getting angry.

Brian winced and took the phone from his ringing ear. He continued the call as soon as he got the phone on his other ear.

"I'm talking about my staplers: the one in my loft and the two at Kinnetik," Brian said in a reasonable tone of voice; then he changed into a more unreasonable one, "What the hell were you thinking?"

"What's happened?" It was obvious in Michael's tone of voice that he could find no reason for Brian's accusations, but he tried to placate his friend. "Something's been done with your staplers?"

Brian huffed, "Something's been done indeed. To my staplers. Which one of you came up with the idea of the taxed-notes?"

"What notes?" Again, Michael sounded like he was on shifting ground. "What the fuck are you talking about?!"

"If it wasn't you it must've been Justin."

"What? Stop skipping from one thing to another! I haven't got a clue..."

"How true," Brian chimed in.

"...about what you mean by all this."

"I'm beginning to believe you, but if it wasn't you and Justin, who was it? Hmm... I need to make a call."

"What happened? Brian? Brian? Are yo..."

Michael's voice was cut short as Brian disconnected the call.

Annoyed, Brian dialed Melanie's number and asked to speak with Gus. The boy was ecstatic to talk unexpectedly with his father and told Brian about his day at school and described the games he had played with his friends, but he didn't say anything about taxes, staplers or jokes. Brian had to let go of the idea of Gus being involved in the prank.

Brian's next call was to Justin who also adamantly denied any involvement in the taxing of Brian's staplers. That night, Brian went to bed not a whit wiser.
 

*****
 

"Good morning, Brian," Cynthia greeted Brian the following morning. "Before you go in you should know something..."

"No. Please, tell me I'm wrong!" Brian puffed.

"You aren't. Sorry, boss. Your stapler is missing, again." Cynthia did not laugh, but it was obvious that she had a hard time keeping her face straight.

"Taxed?"

"I guess so. There's an envelope, similar to the others."

“Fuck!”

“By your reaction I guess it’s not Gus behind the prank.”

“No, not him, nor Michael or Justin either.” Brian pinched the bridge of his nose. "This is ridiculous."

"It is. Should I call the supervisor of the cleaning crew?" Cynthia said, suddenly all business.

"No. Don't," Brian said, frustrated. "Cynthia, this thing doesn't happen just in here but also in my home. I use another cleaning service for my personal space, so the cleaning people are not to blame."

"But somehow you're losing your staplers." Cynthia's voice had lost all levity.

"It's a mystery. A ridiculous mystery.” Brian turned to walk to his office door.

“Regardless, there’s a breach in your security.” Cynthia was dead serious now.

“Duly noted. However, I just want to know two things at the moment: who and why," Brian said and stepped into his inner sanctum.

Unfortunately, his inner sanctum was not safe enough for his staplers.
 

*****
 

During the next few days, six more staplers disappeared from Brian’s office and home. The prank was stale, but since Brian could not find the culprit there was nothing he could do to put an end to it.

At the end of his wits, Brian put the latest replacement stapler in his safe at Kinnetik.

“This joke’s been going on for too long. It’ll stop right here, right now,” he said to Cynthia. “Nobody knows the combination to this safe but me. Not a soul.”

“That should do it,” Cynthia agreed. “I won’t miss finding you new staplers every day.”

“I can’t blame you,” Brian laughed. “OK, let’s get started with the schedule of the day, shall we? The first meeting is at ten, isn’t it?”

It was a busy day for Brian. He had no time to think about the stapler-thief. Only at the very end of the day, when he needed to staple a pile of papers, he remembered the whole sorry mess. With a self-congratulating grin he opened the safe, but the grin turned into a grimace when he found a neat, white envelope instead of a shiny, black stapler.

"What the fuck?!" he groaned. “This is not possible.”

The envelope was similar to the envelopes he had received earlier, but it was heavier and had more bulk. With a mild trepidation, Brian opened the envelope. Inside, he found a little box and a note.

Brian read the note, and started to guffaw. Alarmed by the unusual noise, Cynthia knocked on the door, and Brian, still laughing, let her in.

“Boss?” Cynthia asked carefully.

“I guess I should’ve expected this,” Brian said and gave the note and the box to Cynthia.

A second later Cynthia was laughing, too.

She had a little box of staples in one hand, and the note in her other one stated:


JTTS: The Connection Tax

Kinney, Brian A.



Connections created and maintained in 2011:



In business:

Total amount: 168 connections

Value: 32 staplers, 160 staples

Pre-collected tax: 8 staplers, 40 staples

Tax: 8 staplers, 10 staples



In personal life:

Total amount: 74 connections

Value: 14 staplers, 80 staples

Pre-collected tax: 3 staplers, 120 staples

Tax: 3 staplers, 13 staples



TAX REFUND: 137 STAPLES.


For redress, contact the office


The persons to contact: Justin Taylor, Theodore Smith


PS: You should’ve asked Justin if he knew where his key was, and did you really think that your combination for the safe was a secret? You’ve only got one Sunshine, after all.



The End
 

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