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Alfred had been hoping for a normal night, or a comparatively normal one if that was all he could manage. His typical options were either waiting up for Master Lawrence while he attended a social function as the eccentric tycoon, Larry the Cucumber, or assisting his employer when he pulled a heist as the supervillain, LarryBoy, with the occasional trip to the movie theaters thrown in. Helping the young supervillain track down another supervillain in order to duel for the honor of a blonde photographer LarryBoy fancied generally was not the first thing that came to mind when Alfred pictured a pleasant evening.
"Really, Master Lawrence," the asparagus said as he followed the cucumber across the cavern that was the Larry-Cave. "S-Cape is hardly going to be flying around downtown Applyburg wearing a sign that reads, 'Here I am. Come and get me.'"
"But if he is in Applyburg, you'll be able to find him on the Larry-Computer," the younger man replied. "You didn't break it while I was out, did you?"
"Hardly."
"Then you shouldn't have a problem finding that two-bit gourd," Master Lawrence retorted as he stepped toward the changing screen in one part of the cave. "S-Cape went after Vicki, so this is personal."
"Solving problems with your usual sense of diplomacy, I see."
"I have to play to my strengths, Alfred."
"By avenging a good girl, sir?"
Master Lawrence stopped short of the screen and rounded on him. "I told you stop calling Vicki that, Alfred. She's morally neutral until proven otherwise."
"I'm merely voicing my concerns, Master Lawrence," he replied. "It's possible that you're going through all this trouble for a woman who won't accept you as a suitor once she finds out you're actually a supervillain. Why risk your neck hunting down S-Cape if she won't show you any gratitude?"
"Oh, what would you do if it were the Applys' housekeeper that you like so much?" Master Lawrence challenged as he slipped around out of Alfred's sight. "You know, Lovey, or whatever her name is? Now, she's a good girl who probably would like to know what you really get up to."
Caught off guard, Alfred cleared his throat. "That's hardly comparable."
"You're right," smirked the cucumber, sticking his head back out. "I have a chance of settling down with my girl."
Instead of taking the bait, Alfred replied with dignity, "Merely one of the many sacrifices I have made in your service, sir."
Master Lawrence snorted and disappeared again. "Hypocrite."
In a few moments he stepped out from behind the changing curtain, ignoring Aflred's disapproving expression. He had already donned the spandex portion of his LarryBoy costume, consisting of purple trousers and dusty-blue shirt with a white collar, and he carried his purple, plunger-eared helmet and metallic utility belt against his side. He laid these down on a table and pressed a button, causing a panel on the table to flip over to reveal a collection of supervillain gadgets. LarryBoy started to grab them and lay them beside his belt.
Alfred drew up alongside him. "Might I remind you that you already RSVP-ed to Miss Abigail Apply's charity gala tonight? You ought to attend."
"Send my regrets," LarryBoy sniffed. "Abby won't miss me anyway. She only invites me to things because her dad guilts her into it."
"Master Lawrence, if you are going to preserve your secret identity, you really ought to keep your social engagements," Alfred pressed. "Last month, you missed Cubby Carrot's birthday dinner and told him you were sick, and so his mother came here with a bowl of homemade soup and nearly discovered your secret."
"That was just the one time, Alfred. Most folks in this town don't care what happens to an orphaned punk, no matter how much dough he's worth," LarryBoy answered bitterly before he lifted his eyes, which gleamed with fresh determination. "But Vicki cares. She thinks I'm just a regular janitor, and she let me take her to lunch three times this week. She's more important than any gala."
"Oh, yes, you can gauge a woman's affections based on the number of free meals you offer her," Alfred answered dryly.
LarryBoy ignored him, focusing instead on attaching the gadgets on his utility belt. Alfred waited until he finished before trying again, switching to what he hoped was a more sensible argument.
"And what about obtaining those artifacts from the Institute of Archaeology in order to learn their secrets?" he asked. "You haven't made any great strides toward planning our next attempt."
"Sure, I did!" LarryBoy replied as he slipped his belt around waist. "Vicki got me inside to take pictures, remember?"
"That was three days ago."
"And these things take time, Alfred. Right now, I have to defend my future queen." He donned his purple helmet. "What's the point in having an evil empire if you don't have an evil empress to share it with?
"One of the greatest questions of our time."
"Oh, cut the sarcasm."
"Why deprive you of it now?"
LarryBoy shot him a withering look before he checked around his suit again and paused, thinning his lips.
"I better take some snacks with me or something. I don't want to waste time coming back here if I get hungry."
He swung around and marched toward the stairs leading back up to Larry Manor.
Alfred wished he had fingers so that he could pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration.
"Spending all these resources to avenge a good woman instead of marrying a supervillainess." He exhaled, shaking his head. "Such a waste of potential."
He went over to the Larry-Mobile to give it one last checkup before the cucumber went out.
Before the arrival of that blonde photographer into his life, Lawrence did not lose focus so easily on a heist, despite his sometimes capricious moods. The thrill of the hunt and the anticipation of triumph over obstacles had sustained him for stretches at a time, even in his teenage days. He had had the makings of an excellent cat burglar long before Alfred had met him.
It was almost a cliche, really, Alfred reflected as he ran a handheld vacuum over the Larry-Mobile cockpit. Wasn't it the apocryphal trope of mysteries that "the butler always did it"? The hired help being the assistant of a cat burglar was something straight out of a spy film or even Fitzwilly, but here he was, a butler who aided a dictator aspirant through a mixture of mechanical engineering, computer skills, and ironing socks.
But where would the boy be if Alfred had disciplined him the first time he caught him stealing? Where would Alfred be now if he had insisted that Mr. and Mrs. Cucumber put their foot down and rein their son in? Perhaps he would now be keeping house for some respectable socialites in town, the kind who went to country clubs and gave to charities for the tax write-offs and invited movie stars to their soirées and vacationed in the Alps every Christmas.
How perfectly boring.
When he had first come to work for the Cucumbers, the proud owners of CukeCorp, he had treated it like just another job, a stepping stone in his career in service work. Master Lawrence had been only sixteen then, a mischievous lad who was more interested in pranks than learning how to run a multi-billion-dollar company in his father's footsteps. He skipped school and his parents' social engagements to go to video arcades or burger joints, and much of Alfred's days were spent tracking him down and getting him to where he needed to be.
Even so, Alfred could not be entirely cross with the boy, often wondering if his reckless behavior was just a cry for attention from his parents, who often dismissed his troubling behavior with a weary sigh and a shake of head.
"That's just Larry for you," they would say. "He can't help himself."
If he caused property damage or walked out of a restaurant without paying, his parents wrote a check and were done with the matter. If he crashed a company car, his father did not raise his voice but simply went off to play golf to vent his frustrations. If Lawrence pilfered his mother's diamond earrings to pay for a new gumball machine, she would simply buy herself another pair and not talk to the boy about it.
In those days Alfred had more scruples about morals, and when he found an antique cameo brooch that had been plucked from the penthouse belonging to one of Mrs. Cucumber's friends, he had sat a sulking Master Lawrence down. The parents were attending a business meeting in Europe that weekend, and Alfred had complete control as the young man's temporary guardian.
"You have more potential than you think, you know," he told him. "A boy with your smarts could do great things if you learn how to apply yourself."
Master Lawrence snorted. "Nobody thinks I'm smart, Alfred."
"Being smart goes beyond doing math homework or reciting Shakespeare, Master Lawrence," Alfred countered. "You are incredibly artistic, and you're quite cunning with all your youthful escapades. A boy who can sneak a priceless heirloom out of a penthouse with security guards could probably be on a S.W.A.T. team or a special-task force."
Master Lawrence scoffed at first, but the more Alfred described scenarios where he could go into secured areas and rescue hostages or retrieve stolen goods, he began to perk up. He asked Alfred for help looking into that career, and Alfred suggested he join the Applyburg police force following his graduation as a stepping stone toward a more illustrious life of excitement and adventure. With a purpose in life that he had to work for, rather than having one handed to him by his indulgent, if distant, parents, Lawrence had a new spring in his step, and he stopped causing mischief and even began to take his school work seriously.
Then came the rainstorm — and the car accident — and Lawrence the Cucumber, mere months before his high-school graduation, was alone in the world, except for his butler.
It was not that long before Lawrence began stealing again.
They were small things at first — some gumballs from the candy store to cheer himself up; a comic book from a store where the cashier was rude to him; then Abigail Apply's new bike when he had visited her house, but it was an "early April Fools' joke."
Eventually, Alfred caught him bringing home a priceless painting which he had taken from Pearl and Cubby Carrot's home, and Lawrence showed him his stash of stolen treasures.
"Life is too short, Alfred," the young man had said in defiance. "Why should I play by anyone else's rules?"
And that was it. That was the first real step toward his becoming LarryBoy. Collecting stolen goods eased his heartache, and the excitement of a heist made him feel like life was worth living, and Alfred had willingly gone along. It would still take them years to develop the young cuke's skills and the various gadgets that had made him infamous across Applyburg, but LarryBoy, the persona, had taken root inside him.
Alfred went along with the schemes, first out of a sort of compassion for a young man who had lost his parents before he could reconcile with them. Lawrence had no one else to turn to, except for his estranged great aunt, Ruth, and a cousin named Ryan, and he seemed to need somebody to care if he came home at night, which was probably why he never spoke of getting rid of Alfred after he came into his inheritance. Alfred felt that if he called the police or turned in his resignation, then it might drive Lawrence into a much darker place, so he kept his mouth shut and developed the gadgets for LarryBoy, including the great helmet with super-suction ears and retractable tether cords. Over time, however, he developed a genuine taste for the work. He began to think he might like to be a cat burglar himself, but he did not look good in spandex, and it was much safer to live vicariously through LarryBoy anyway.
After being a cat burglar, Master Lawrence had stepped into the world of supervillainy, and that changed their lives even further, and finally the cucumber turned his eyes towards world domination. Other nefarious fiends had tried, and they of course had been thwarted by superheroes, but LarryBoy had one thing going for him that the other villains did not have.
He had never been unmasked.
All other villains had been caught eventually, and their real names had been released to the public, but after all these years no one knew that the young owner of CukeCorp moonlighted as one of Applyburg's most feared villains. The young man who had barely graduated high school towered intellectually over self-proclaimed evil geniuses through his cunning strategies and masterful escapes (with assistance from Alfred, of course). If any supervillain could succeed at world domination, Alfred was sure it would be LarryBoy, and it seemed nothing would lure Master Lawrence off his path to greatness.
Then, seeing the current limitations of the Larry-Computer, Alfred had encouraged Lawrence to get a job at The Daily Apple so that they could keep tabs on events across the city and plan their future heists. It had the added bonus of giving Lawrence an alibi, should he need one. On paper, it was exactly what Lawrence needed to further his villainous career, but Alfred had forgotten one important detail.
Master Lawrence was a lonely young man, and even a newspaper had pretty women on staff.
Like many a cuke experiencing first love, Lawrence fell hard, and Vicki Cucumber, the blonde photojournalist with the beautiful laugh, was the primary candidate to be his future evil empress.
Unfortunately for Lawrence, the "morally neutral" girl he insisted on marrying seemed to support Applyburg's newest superhero, Altruistic Alvin, in his endeavor to make the city a better place. If that were true, then Vicki could very well be a good woman, and good women only spelt trouble for a supervillain in the long run.
Alfred had resolved to make sure it would never come to that, but for now he would do as he was told.
The sounds of footsteps brought Alfred back to reality, and he turned to see LarryBoy hopping back down the platform, carrying a satchel.
"Got my snacks, a few Umph! bottles, and my car keys," he listed off, adjusting his helmet. "Am I forgetting anything?"
"Your sense of perspective?" Alfred suggested dryly as the cucumber passed him.
"Or maybe a new butler," LarryBoy threw back.
"Oh, yes, I'm sure there are butlers who have master quantum mechanics lining up to help a supervillain commit felonies," Alfred returned. "The streets are practically clogged up with them. How ever will you sort through them all?"
"Keep making jokes, and you'll see." He tossed his satchel into the Larry-Mobile and climbed in after it. "Be my eyes now, Alfred. If you see anything that looks like S-Cape, tell me without the sarcasm. I want this problem nipped in the bud tonight."
Alfred exhaled and drew back as the turntable pivoted the Larry-Mobile toward the exit.
"Waste of potential," he muttered as the rocket inside the rear plunger ignited, and LarryBoy drove off.
THE END