Page 18 of On the Double

I glanced at a nearby table and picked up an avocado. “How about this?”

His eyes widened as he did a double-take, snatching it from my hand. “An avocado,” he said in awe. “This…this is the epitome of amazing fruit.”

I stared at it in question. “It’s green. And it’s a vegetable.”

“Oh, how wrong you are, sir. This…this, my friend, is a fruit. It is because of their reproductive origins that we know this. See, the tree produces flowers, which in turn become the fruit we so love and admire.”

I wasn’t sure about anyone else at OPS, but I definitely did not love and admire avocados. “I think you’re taking this too far.”

He stopped staring at the fruit and shot me a side-long glance. “Do you have any idea what is going on in the world right now?”

It seemed like a stupid question, but I’d bite. “World hunger, wars over land, genocide, cartels…How long of a list did you want?”

“I’m not talking about any of those. I’m talking about the avocado wars.”

I looked at the fruit and then back to him. “People actually go to war over this?”

“It started back when a Mexican farmer couldn’t pay the taxes on exporting his avocados. His daughter was attacked—raped and murdered.”

“Over avocado taxes? How much are we talking?”

“Sixty an acre.”

“Sixty thousand?” I exclaimed.

He frowned at me. “No, sixty dollars. Anyway, that was when the avocado wars started. But since then, the violence against these avocado farmers has exploded. This little fruit is causing quite the stir in Mexico.”

“Wow,” I said, hardly believing I stood and listened to that. “I really don’t know what to say.”

“You say…we need to get these avocados,” he said, scooping them by the armful into the cart.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking all the avocados.”

First, all the Funyuns. Now the avocados? “Fox, we don’t need all these.”

He snorted at me. “Right. That’s what the cartels say.You don’t need all that money. I’ll relieve you of some.”

“I hardly think you can compare cartels stealing money to whether I get one avocado or five.”

“And that’s where it all starts,” Fox sighed. “The problem is, nobody really thinks it could happen to them. But mark my words,” he said, shaking an avocado at me, “one of these days, the avocados will be missing, and you’ll wish you had taken my advice.”

I watched as he continued to take every single avocado from the stand. The pile started to tumble as he pulled each one and put it in the cart. I looked at the price and flinched. There was no fucking way I was paying for all that.

He had a lot more to take, so I walked to the front for a second time and grabbed another cart, completely avoiding him until I made it tothe checkout lane. He was walking up and down the walkway in front of the registers, searching for me. I ducked down, holding my hand up to my face to block his view.

“Oh, it’s you again!”

I barely heard the woman behind the counter. I was too focused on avoiding Fox. There was no way I wanted to be seen with him and his carts of Funyuns and avocados.

“Can we be quick?” I asked.

“Of course. I understand you want to avoid this,” she chuckled.

I finally looked at her, confused by her words. “Avoid what?”

“You know,” she winked. “The whole…recognition thing. I would pretend I didn’t know me either.”

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