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Armondo Guitierrez was not like other men. He was brilliant. Dangerous. Cultured. The kind of man who could quote Machiavelli in five languages and be wearing the perfect cufflinks for the occasion. He moved with purpose, spoke with precision, and wore his bright orange prison-issued suit like it was tailored by Milanese artisans.
He was, in short, a man of refined villainy.
And his prison cell at Martin Zoomer Maximum Security Prison wasn't like other cells.
There was no flickering lightbulb, no creaky bunk beds, no toilet in full view of the door. Instead, there were velvet drapes (imported), a plush reading chair, a record player spinning Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, and a single espresso machine that hissed dramatically whenever anyone made a mistake in his presence.
The guards feared him. The warden catered to him. The rats avoided him. And ever since he stepped foot in the prison, he had been left alone to read, plot, and practice his speeches about vengeance in the mirror.
Until today.
Guitierrez was reading the latest magazine of Business Week from his leather wingback chair when his cell door unexpectedly and noisily clanked open. The prison guard on the other side kept his gaze on the floor. "Mr. Guitierrez. Sir. Um. There's been… uh… we're a little short on space at the moment so we have to put the new prisoner in here temporarily. Warden's orders," he said breathlessly.
Guitierrez lowered the magazine with slow, deliberate disdain. "I beg your pardon?" he said, each syllable sharpened like a knife.
The guard flinched. "It's… just for a day or two. Maybe a week. Or a month. Uh… definitely not more than six months." He shuffled nervously. "Probably."
Armondo narrowed his eyes. "I trust you've explained to this… individual that my quarters are private and not open to the public?"
Before the guard could answer, the decision made itself.
With a loud clatter, a suitcase on wheels bounced over the threshold, followed closely by a short and sallow man wearing a badly buttoned orange jumpsuit and a dark wide-brimmed bucket hat. He grinned as if he were walking into a hotel suite.
"Wow! This place is way nicer than my apartment! I would have let Freakazoid capture me earlier if I had known I'd end up here."
Armondo's right eye twitched. The other eye may have twitched as well, but it was covered by his eye patch. The espresso machine hissed disapprovingly from the corner. But before he could say anything else, the guard had already slammed the door shut and made a hasty retreat.
The newcomer wandered to the center of the cell, spinning slowly in place. "Ooo, you have drapes! And they're on the wall even though there isn't a window there! That is so fancy! Can I touch them? I'm gonna touch them."
"Those are decorative panels, and you will do no such thing," Guitierrez said coldly, rising from his chair with the weight of a man whose dignity had been personally insulted by fate. "Perhaps you have not been informed. I am Armondo Guitierrez."
"Neat!" came the eager reply. He held out his hand. "My name is Waylon Jeepers!"
Guitierrez didn't even glance down at the offered hand. "I have destroyed commercial empires with a whisper. With the wave of my hand, I have buried men for all eternity in the center of a dead planet. Do you understand the magnitude of what now stands before you?"
Waylon slowly put his hand back by his side. "Yep! You're my new roommate!"
Guitierrez blinked.
Jeepers beamed and flopped down on the leather chaise with the kind of bounce usually reserved for inflatable furniture.
Guitierrez inhaled deeply through his nose, as if summoning the patience of a man who had once negotiated multi-million dollar contracts. He turned away and walked—deliberately—toward the espresso machine.
"Ohhh, fancy," Waylon said, bouncing in place. "Is that one of those EXpresso things? I saw one on TV once, but I think it was actually just a humidifier with a sticker on it."
Guitierrez said nothing, but Waylon's mispronunciation of espresso caused his eye to twitch involuntarily. He selected a demitasse cup from the shelf with the reverence of a man who had earned good porcelain.
Waylon continued, completely unfazed. "So here's the thing. You ever think about how toast always lands butter-side down, but cats land feet first? That's quantum science, Armondo. It's real. Look it up!"
The espresso machine hissed. Guitierrez didn't look up. Guitierrez poured himself the perfect cup and sipped his espresso in silence. The cup was warm, the crema perfect. But the moment was tainted.
"Hey, you're a smart money guy, right, Armondo?"
Guitierrez didn't look up. "Guitierrez, if you please. And yes. I hold a doctorate in global economics from the Sorbonne and a second in behavioral finance from the University of St. Andrews."
Waylon nodded thoughtfully. "Neat! So you'll totally understand my plan, then. You see, I've been studying beavers."
There was a moment as Guitierrez tried to process Waylon's words.
Waylon leaned in as if sharing a stock tip. "See, I used to have this watch. Not just any watch. A mystical watch. Very rare. Very shiny. Glowed when the moon was full and that. But there was one very important thing it did: turned beavers into gold."
Guitierrez's espresso cup paused just short of his lips. He stared at Waylon like the man had just sprouted wings and flown off.
"I know what you're thinking," Waylon continued, "where do you even find enough beavers for a full-time operation? It's not like you can just find them in any old pet store! That's what stopped me the first time! But now—now I've got plans. Big ones. We're talking a controlled breeding program. Ethical, of course. Maybe a commercial jingle. A slogan! Something like: 'They gnaw, we haul—solid gold for all!'"
Guitierrez set his cup down very carefully. "You intend to… domesticate beavers."
Waylon beamed. "Uh-huh! I was thinking I'd start with just a dozen, get 'em comfortable with indoor plumbing and maybe I'd learn a little accounting. You know, to track profits."
Guitierrez blinked once. Then again.
"And once production scales up, we can expand to squirrels. But gold squirrels might be too brittle. That's still in the R&D phase."
"I see," Guitierrez said slowly, as if attempting to translate the nonsense into anything else that could make any sort of sense. "And how do you intend to regain this mystical watch?"
"Oh, I don't!" Waylon chirped. "Freakazoid took it away from me and threw it into a dimensional rift. But I've got a line on a guy who sells ancient relics out of a van behind the Arby's."
A long, brittle silence followed.
Then Waylon perked up. "Oh! Almost forgot." He reached into his jumpsuit pocket and pulled out something slightly crumpled and glittery. "Here's my business card! I used glitter for the logo so it stands out."
He proudly handed over a homemade card made of construction paper, golden glitter, a mysterious orange smear that might have once been Cheetos, and one limp pen stroke that read: Waylon Enterprises – Alchemy, Beavers, Limited Liability-ish.
Guitierrez stared at it for a moment. Just long enough to consider every decision that had led him to this precise moment in time.
He closed his eyes. Took a long, meditative breath.
"Please," he said at last, the words heavy yet still twinged with elegance, "stop talking to me."