“Hello?”
“Hello. This is Bill Payson from Payson, Allen, and Boreanaz. Is Tom available to speak on the phone?”
“Tom?”
“Tom… Allen? This is 646-555-3447, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Uh. This is Tom.”
“Wow, uh, just wow. That’s… uh… quite a change in your voice there, Tom. Alice was really short on details. How did the procedure go?”
“Good, I guess.”
“Well, listen, I was calling because Alice texted me to tell me you were ready to come back to work. Want to come to partners’ breakfast tomorrow morning? At Café Beaujolais at 7, like always.”
“Um, uh. I don’t really have a suit that fits, Bill. My body changed a lot.”
“Oh, I see. You’ve got to get an appointment with Mel and get some new suits rushed. But that’s fine. Wear whatever you have and we’ll keep you out of the client board rooms for a couple of weeks while Mel does his magic. Tomorrow at 7, agreed?”
“Yeah, mang.” Tom hung up with a click.
The next morning, Tom stuffed himself into his BMW M5 and roared off toward the cafe. As he took off up the toll road, suddenly he was aware of lights flashing in his rearview mirror.
“Chit. Of course. La chota.” He pulled over onto the side of the road and got his registration and insurance card out.
“Good morning, sir. Officer Ramirez, New York Police Department. License, registration, and proof of insurance please.”
Tom rolled down his window and wriggled his arm out the window with the documents.
“What’s this paper?” asked Officer Ramirez. “Where’s your license?”
“I just got the temp yesterday, officer. I don’t have the card yet. It has to be mailed from Albany.”
“Step out of the car, sir.”
Tom carefully unbuckled, swung the door open, and stepped out. The officer’s jaw dropped. He stared at the paper license, then up at Tom. Then back down at the license.
“Thomas Allen?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Just turned 18?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Whose car is this?”
“Uh, my dad’s. He’s Thomas Allen too.” Whew. Safe. Wait, why did he lie?
“You don’t look like a Thomas Allen.”
“I was adopted,” said Tom. Wait, more lies?
“Do you know why I stopped you?”
“No, sir.”
“For your lead foot. The speed limit on parkways in New York City is 50. I clocked you doing 87 miles an hour.”
“Oh… sorry, his car is more powerful than mine. Please don’t ticket me. My dad will kill me! I’ll slow down, you can follow me the whole rest of the way if you want.”
The police officer got a wan smile on his face. “You should come to my squad car and let’s figure out a way to handle this,” he suggested.
Tom looked confused. Ramirez switched his body cam off with an audible snap and said, “You do something for me, I do something for you.”
Tom still stared at him. “Damn, you’re dumb,” snapped Ramirez. “Look down. No, between my gun and my cuffs.”
Tom looked at the officer’s pants and noticed Ramirez had an erection.
“You want me to… to… blow you??”
“No, son,” said the cop. “I’m a bottom. You’re a young Latino stud. I want you in me. There’s bushes right over next to my squad car. Or, I can write you a citation. But I can already see you’d rather do it my way.”
Tom looked down at his own crotch and realized he, too, was rock hard. He gulped.
“Never done it with a man before? Really?”
Tom grinned as he walked over to the thicket of bushes, unbuttoning his jeans as he went. “Let’s go, Ramirez.”
Twenty minutes later, after Ramirez cleaned up his uniform, Tom sauntered back to his car, a goofy grin on his face.
He pulled into the valet at Café Beaujolais and sauntered up the stairs into the dining room. His bulk took up so much of the doorway that the restaurant darkened visibly as he paused at the entrance. Conversations hushed, and dozens of heads looked at the front door.
“May I… ugh… help you? Job candidates go through the kitchen door,” crooned a snotty voice.
“Um, Bill Payson’s table, please.”
“Oh, I think not. And there is a dress code here, young man.”
Tom’s eyes flashed. “Take me to his table, or I will call him on my phone and have him come get you. He eats breakfast with his senior staff four mornings a week, do you really want to piss him off?”
The host murmured to a passing busboy, “Tell Mr. Payson there is a… young man here to see him.” The busboy disappeared into the dim light.
A minute later, a voice thundered through the room, “Goddammit, Percival, you couldn’t just bring him to… my… holy shit. Tom? Is that you?”
“Yeah, mang. In the flesh. All of it.”
“Okay. You have to explain this. But at the table. Come on.” He put his hand up on Tom’s shoulder and steered him toward one of the prime tables.
“Gentlemen… ladies… I don’t think any of you have had the pleasure of meeting the new Thomas Allen.”
Gasps all around the table.
“I thought you were being put into a compatible body,” said Jenny. “We weren’t expecting this.”
“Though would it have killed you to dress professionally?” interjected Alec, the head of copyright. “Jeans, sneakers, and a high school football shirt? The rest of us take this seriously.”
“This is all I have,” said Tom. “I have an appointment with my sastre, Mel, this morning to have suits made. It’s not like I expected to become a six and a half foot tall monster.”
“Settle down,” said Bill. “Tom, order yourself some food. We’re discussing the Lipinsky case. That bastard Ericsson asked for another fucking continuance. He knows the second Tom gets in front of a judge, he’s going to make an anti-SLAPP motion so obvious the judge will have no choice but to agree. Right, Tom?”
“Uh… anti-SLAPP?”
“Yes. Did you forget about your caseload? The guy who is suing Councilman Lipinsky for trying to intimidate him out of publishing a list of the councilman’s misdeeds ??”
“Uh. I’m sorry, I…”
“Jesus,” guffawed Alec. “Did your brain die with your body? You’re doing a credible impression of the stereotypical dumb jock.”
“Shut up, Alec,” ordered Bill. Alec snorted derisively and flipped both Bill and Tom the middle finger.
Before anyone could react, Tom stood up, darted over to Alec, and grabbed him by the shirt. “I don’t take that shit from nobody, especially not some dickhead gabacho lawyer,” he snarled. He grabbed Alec’s loose suit pants, hoisted the litigator above his head without any effort at all, and threw him bodily into the next booth.
Shocked silence. The entire restaurant fell quiet.
“You need to leave. Right now,” ordered Bill. “You and I are going to have a serious talk about things after I’m done in court. I suggest you arrange to be home.”
“I’m calling the cops! No, better yet, I’m going to sue your miserable greasy ass!” bellowed Alec as he tried to untangle himself from the booth with Jenny’s help.
Tom, aghast, slunk toward the front door of the restaurant.
“You didn’t eat, seńor?” asked the valet. “You want your car?”