No Pie

Content Warning (click to expand)

tax evasion

 

by Floyd Largent

I’d erred, and now I was paying for it.

“Cordeeee! Me starving!” my partner shrieked merrily as he bounced up and down on my right shoulder. “Stahh-ahhh-arrving!” He nipped my ear, more a love-bite than a reproach, and curled his tail around my neck. He then confided, in a whisper, “Me starving.”

“Hush, you piglet,” I hissed, blushing as people started to point and talk. “You had a burger an hour ago.”

When one is carrying what looks like a real, live mini-dragon on one’s shoulder, one cannot, as a rule, venture near any combination of deep-fried grease, potato products, pizza, fizzy soda, funnel cakes, popcorn, donuts, cookies, butter, tacos, chicken nuggets, and teenagers without immediate repercussions. I knew before I’d made it twenty feet that I’d made a mistake cutting through the food court, because the sights and smells of the place convinced my companion that, lunch notwithstanding, he was hungry again.

Every eye swiveled to stare at us as I pushed through the crowd, which was thicker than normal because it was the Saturday right after most schools in the SA let out for the summer. They stared partly because I’m tall, topping six-four, but mostly because Geh had just started singing at the top of his lungs in a little-girl voice that could be heard for about fifty miles.

“Me stah-ah-ahrrrvin’!” he warbled.

I grabbed the end of his snout and full-named him, which usually shuts him up. “Sliss-ko-geh! Knock it off! We’re not here to eat!” I was, in fact, here to ask Snowflake South Mall’s management a few pointed questions, while Geh recorded everything and did his human lie-detector trick.

I’d forgotten how flexible outrunner snouts are. He managed to open his lip in a tiny O, and in a toy trumpet voice, squeezed out, “Puhyeeeeease, yaydy?”

I could hear all the idiots around me going “D’awwww!” and one fellow called out, “Aw, come on, puhyeeeeease, yaydy!”

I capitulated. “All right, you win. Now be quiet, and I’ll get you something.”

Geh perked up. “Fry-fries!” he exulted, dancing happily and chirping like a canary. By then, we were surrounded by a semicircle of gaping teenagers, who were all whispering to each other, wondering what the heck Geh was. My ears are very good, and I chuckled as they guessed about GMOs, lab mistakes, interdimensional beasts, or monsters from outer space. Surprisingly, I heard one emo-boy accurately identify him as a Sliss outrunner. Even after all this time, they’re uncommon; most people can go a full lifetime without seeing any kind of Sliss except on TV or the Net. Outrunners usually don’t venture far from their hosts. Geh is an exception.

A glaring exception, at the moment, as I wasn’t moving toward Micky D’s fast enough for him. “Fuh-ry-fries!” he barked.

“Brat.”

“Harridan,” he shot back, nipping my ear.

That was a new one. He’d been watching the soaps again.

•   •   •

My name’s Cordelia Cobb, Special Agent-CI, and Sliss-ko-geh is the cross I bear.

If you’ve never heard of SACIs, well, I’m a type of IRS agent. No, not one of those drones who audits you. People actually respect my branch of the service. SACIs are cops: Criminal investigators who track down, surveil, execute search warrants on, and arrest the high-dollar scofflaws who try to wiggle out of paying Uncle Sammy his fair share.

When I’d learned three years before that I was to be partnered with a Sliss, I was thrilled. I’d studied about them in school, and actually met one or two in law enforcement circles. Sliss males are natural LEOs, with sharp minds and a work ethic that makes Puritans look like layabouts. They have keen senses, and can literally sniff out perps. I knew that the sedentary broodmothers were mathematical and financial geniuses, but they usually stayed home and raised outrunners and children.

Little did I know that, because SACIs deal with both numbers and money, the agency had asked for and received the services of a broodmother. Sliss-ko had moved into my place, parked herself in a custom-built nest, and promptly gave birth to three tiny, incredibly cute outrunners. Sliss-ko never actually left the house; like Nero Wolfe, she sent a diminutive Archie out to do her legwork with me.

By the time we made it to the McDonald’s counter, I’d reached the intersection of Annoyed and Grumpy. I told the kid at the register, “Large fries. Only.”

“Drink with that?”

Hadn’t he listened? I growled “No,” even as Geh yelled, “Rooty Booty!”

“You know they don’t have root beer here,” I told him.

“Rooooooty Boooooty!” he howled at the top of his lungs.

I reached for his snout to shut him up again, and he changed tactics. “Doctah Peppy?”

“Okay, okay! A small Dr. Pepper.” I rolled my eyes.

“Yay! An’ a appah pie!” Geh crowed happily.

“No! No pie!” I snapped, then face-palmed. I’d walked right into that one.

Geh craned his neck to look at me in astonishment and squealed, “Whhhhaaaat? But I didn’t yost my mittens or nussing!”

“Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask,” I begged under my breath, to no avail.

“Did he say mittens?” the emo kid who’d correctly identified Geh inquired. “Sliss wear mittens?”

Sliss-ko-geh reared back and squawked incredulously, “You never heard da song?” Then he grinned toothily and burst into terrible, mangled melody:

Three yiddah Syisskins, they yost they mittens,
and they begans to cry,
“Oh Cordee dear, we sadyee fear,
That we has yost our mittens!”
“Yost your mittens? You naughty yiddah Syisskins!
Now you can’t has no pie!”
Oh no, oh no,
Now we can’t has no pie!

Thankfully, that was as far as it went. Of course he got a round of applause, so Geh bowed and said, in a passable imitation of Elvis, “Thank you. Thank you very much. I here all week. Try the chicken.”

“Awww,” chorused the whole crowd, and I was immediately urged to get poor, starving Geh a piping hot apple pie. Dammit. Now he’d be high all night. For three years, I had regretting teaching him that song when he was a baby.

I threw up my hands and said, “Fine! One pie! But you have to do the dishes tonight!”

As the kid rang up our order, I took out my smarterphone, muttering, and started sliding icons around, sending him the payment for Geh’s goodies. By then, Geh was poking my ear with his tail, which informed me that he had taken exception to my compromise on the pie initiative.

Crossing his stumpy arms, he harrumphedand protested, “Not coo, yaydy! Me and Pah and Fes does everyt’ing at home! Crybaby Catsboy never gotta wash no dishes!”

I sighed and replied, “As you so aptly noted, Crybaby is a catboy. Cats have no thumbs.”

“No thumbs! No thumbs! Ahways the same excuse!” Geh squeaked as he leaped from my shoulder to an overhead ceiling fan, enjoyed a couple of revolutions, and then bounced back to my shoulder.

“And he’s not smart like you are,” I said.

“Yeah I smart! I gonna fix that no-thumbs thing chop-chop!” Geh shot back.

I rolled my eyes as I tapped my pay app. “Ha. Even if you did, he’s still just a cat.”

“Har-rumph! Cats, they foo you humans for t’ousands a years into bein’ kitty syaves. Stoopy humans! Cats smarter than you!” He continued, complaining bitterly, “Syissko-geh, wash dishes. Syissko-geh, scrub fyoor. Syiss-ko-geh, make kitty thumbs. Syissso-geh, paint house. I never been so misprivayeged in my ho’ yife!”

I sighed and said, “Geh, you’re only three.”

“I know! Ah you want is syave yabor! Just yike you cats!”

“The only floor scrubbing you ever did was with your tongue, when you slopped that lingonberry jam on the kitchen floor. And you painted one door. The wrong color.”

His only reply was, “Har-rumph!” Cranky little git.

I started checking my email as I waited for the food, but looked up when I realized our audience was applauding and whistling. Geh soaked it up like a sponge, capering and bowing and sticking out his tongue at little kids. The damn phone dinged, informing me that the clerk, who was smirking, had refunded my payment and was handing me Geh’s food for free. I guess we’d have to do our interview smelling like fries. Not the first time.

When people started throwing money at us, I turned and stalked away, fuming. Meanwhile, Geh managed to grab $27.30 out of the air.

The interview was a bust, but at least we made a cash profit for the day. It went into Geh’s food fund. To hell with reporting it on my taxes.

 

About the author and the piece (click to expand)

This story is another market-killer, one that was accepted for publication at a magazine that stopped publishing last year before this one came out. Floyd Largent is a former archaeologist who never woke a sleeping god or unearthed an ancient evil (alas). His fiction has appeared in Altered Reality, Bewildering Stories, Bullet Points, CommuterLit, Dream Theory Media, Piker Press, and elsewhere.

 

©2026 by Floyd Largent. All rights reserved. May not be used for A.I. training.