#5: Espionage
By Emerson Kluge

In the sultry evening twilight Luigi slipped from Mushroom Castle into the city. He made his way through the nearly empty streets to a small and under used market where a lone used book merchant remained, lethargically packing his wares for the night.

The merchant paused shortly as Luigi approached and quickly exchanged coins for a book. It was a sundry, low brow pulp novella filled with the flimsiest of characters and a most unlikely plot. All to facilitate the writers desire to describe lurid acts of corruption and hint at obscenity too depraved to publish.

With the market out of sight Luigi flipped through the book, his thumb stopping at a rectangle of stiff cardstock slipped between the pages. On it was an address in an old and abandoned area of the city. The dilapidated area of town was host to the factories and workshops that supplied the Mushroom Kingdom in times of war, but which otherwise lay abandoned.

Luigi walked quickly.

He spotted his destination: A heavy iron door with a single chalk mark set into a brick factory wall. Luigi pulled on the steel handle and stepped into the small, red lit inner cubicle; a second door blocked his way and a sour faced mushroom person stared from behind iron bars.

Luigi stared back as soft music drifted from behind the inner door.

"Hey boss!" the attendant finally called over his shoulder into a back room.

After a shuffling of papers a gruff voice called. "What?"

"There's this guy here." The attendant stared again at Luigi.

"What?" the gruff voice called, hinting at annoyance and anger.

The attendant turned around in his seat. "Boss. There's this guy here. Take a look," he snapped.

There was grumbling and a wooden chair scraped along the stone floor. A second mushroom person, fat and unkempt, waddled into the booth and looked Luigi from head to toe. Without a word he turned to leave again, calling over his shoulder, "Let him in."

The attendant smiled and burst a single laugh. "Alright... hey, wait what?" His face dropped and he called to the back room again. "Let him in?"

"Yeah. Let him in," the gruff voice replied.

"Why?"

"Don't ask me why, just let him in."

The attendant soured again before locking the outer door and opening the inner.

Dark and with a low ceiling the club was the watering hole for Mushroom Kingdom social outcasts, malcontents and Koopa Kingdom expatriates alike. The groups, each with their unofficial areas of the bar, rarely mingled though they all enjoyed the establishment's relative anonymity.

Luigi approached the bartender, an eye-patched ex-Koopa Trooper dispassionately polishing glasses, lights behind the bar illuminating him from below.

"I'm here to meet..." Luigi started.

"There," the bartender interrupted, pointing to a walled off booth at the rear of the club.

Luigi sighed, taken slightly aback and headed to the rear.

The bartender continued polishing glasses.

Approaching the booth, Luigi heard lively chatter and rounded the corner to see Birdo reclining, legs crossed on the rear bench of the booth, rubbing a large, white egg balanced on his chest. Two shyguys flanked him on the other cushions.

Birdo drew his finger up and down a frosted glass, filled with equal parts blue liquid and crushed ice. A slice of fruit hung stuck to the rim. "...and then she said she'd call on me later and..." Birdo's eyes popped wide in surprise. "Luigi!"

Luigi stood across the table. "Hello, Birdo."

"I..." He playfully drew the word out. "Have been expecting you. Oh, it's so nice to see you!" Birdo pushed himself upright. "Here. Sit, sit!" He gestured to a chair.

Luigi hesitantly slid in, remaining stoically calm, if only for the sake of his brother and Princess Peach.

"Oh, but you should have brought a drink. It'd been on me." Birdo grinned, drawing a circle on the egg with his finger.

"I'm sorry, it's just business today." Luigi folded his hands on the table.

"Oh, my, business? I heard about that. Terrible. Bowser?" Birdo closed his eyes and shivered in disgust. "Ohh. Just thinking about him taking the Princess."

"Yes, well. I'm sure you heard things. It wasn’t exactly like Bowser's other attempts."

"I did hear that." Birdo turned his egg in place on the seat cushion next to him. "I think you want to help your brother because something's just not right about the whole thing."

"That's right." Luigi nodded. "I heard that you can help me with that."

"Well, I can. I can. And I'll do it for free, 'cause it's for you, and, well that whole honor 'help you're brother get his princess back' thing gives me a kick thinking about it," Birdo thrust his hips against the table, rattling the condiments and glasses.

The shyguys looked at each other and then away, both embarrassed and exasperated.

"Now, it's not much, but there's a certain person in the Koopa Kingdom who's very interested in meeting you. And, I can tell you he's fairly important too."

"That's it?" Luigi questioned.

"I did say it wasn’t much. But it is something! Go here." Birdo wrote on the back of a napkin and handed it to Luigi. "It's in the Koopa Kingdom. I'm sure you can get there." He winked.

"Right." Luigi slid out from the booth and turned to go.

"Oh, Luigi?" Birdo spoke batting his eyelashes when Luigi turned. "Do you like my bow?"

Luigi stared. "It's very nice, Birdo," he replied in monotone.

Birdo blushed pinker than he already was. "Thanks," he said.

Luigi headed for the door.