by Shane Kuhn
“I would owe you big-time if you could pull that off,” I gush.
“When I skin that Yalie douche, you can take me out to crush some beers and pull the wings off a few chickens.”
“Deal. I know the best wing place in town.”
“Hicks from Peoria always do.”
With that, she walks away, ensuring I have a full view of her ass as she heads for the elevator. That went well. Not only did I rise above my drooling-hunchback-in-the-dungeon status, but I also made our meeting seem like a chance encounter, one of the most powerful aphrodisiacs known to man. Thanks to chick flicks, the concept of true love being orchestrated by the rough, construction worker hands of fate is an easy sell.
8
* * *
ACCESS
Later that afternoon, Alice throws me the bone I’ve been waiting for: access. It comes in the form of multiple file deliveries to the upper floors, giving me the chance to suck up to someone who might give me some real work. Sweet Alice. I wheel an ancient cart full of foul-smelling, oddly stained files to the higher floors and loiter my ass off for as long as possible. Then I see my opportunity. One of the senior associates is calling for his assistant to get him some coffee. Said assistant is in the break room, gossiping with the rest of the cake-fed cube farm heifers. I slip into his office, my hands pressed together like Hemingway’s valet, bowing ever so slightly.
“Good morning, sir.”
“Fuck you, Howdy Doody.”
“Coffee?”
“You heard me say it. Should have just gotten it before you walked in here like a mental patient in your grayish brownish greenish fucking . . . what kind of a goddamned suit is that? Don’t answer. I don’t care. Just go. And kick my assistant in her fat ass on your way back.”
“How do you take it?”
“Black. And it had better not taste like it’s been scraped from the bottom of a crematorium oven.”
I leave without a word. ALWAYS let them have the last word in every conversation. If you trail off with some useless acknowledgment, they will hate you for assuming they give a fuck about any word that comes out of your mouth other than yes.
* * *
Rule #4: Learn how to make the perfect cup of coffee.
This is the single most important part of your job as an intern. Go ahead, laugh. You can make copies and do runs until you’re blue in the face and an exec will not give a shit. You make him the best goddamned cup of coffee he’s ever had and he may not remember your name but he will make damn sure you are at his desk every morning for a repeat performance. That’s repetitive exposure, which begets access and trust. Forty-four percent of my kills came from my superior coffee-making ability. It’s simple, puts you in direct contact with the target, and it can be a vector for a variety of weapons. This opportunity presents itself more often than you think. Admins HATE making coffee, even though it’s part of their job. That’s because all of them are “just doing this job while they pursue a career in ________.” Fill in the blank: actress, singer, porn star, reality show freak—same shit, different day job.
Example—Job #20. I was working an exec at a military satellite software company for months. He was in the heavily secured upper floors of a ninety-story office building. Every access point I put into the scenario was a dead end. Fucking guy went to the gym with armed security. Then I saw him standing in a long line outside Starbucks one morning with his goon detail. So I stepped up to talk to him, and one of his goons almost curbed me in the bus lane. I showed him my key card and told him to go to his desk, that I would handle this for him and that he shouldn’t be drinking the monkey piss they serve at Starbucks anyway. The goons thought that was funny. The nerdy exec chilled out. Instant connection. Since this was a particularly difficult access scenario, I had to bring in the big guns, so to speak. So I brought him a cup of El Injerto from the Huehuetenango region of Guatemala—150 euros a pound and not available for purchase in this country. Ground the beans myself. (I keep an entire coffee service case in my cube at all times.) Served it with unpasteurized French cream and raw sugar cane lumps. Guy looked like he wanted to kiss me or be my bunk mate in a Turkish prison.
I brought him that same cup of coffee every day for three weeks and he waited for it like Lou Reed was waiting for his man. Anyway, he finally got tired of having to escort me into his office and gave me full access to the highly secure eighty-sixth floor. Access. Trust. Do you know how many people would love to waterboard this guy to get their hands on his fucking BlackBerry? But he lets some intern, whose name he could NEVER remember, have unescorted access to the floor? Keys to the kingdom. And don’t think for a minute that his being on the eighty-sixth floor was lost on me.
Three days later, I made him a special cup. Mixed in a little isopropyl nitrate and laced the sugar lumps with a catalyst I’d rather keep to myself. You can’t have all my secrets, grasshopper. Per the routine, I brought him the coffee; he dropped in the lumps, etc. But while he mixed it, I pulled on the Kevlar poncho I had stuffed in my file cart and took cover behind the fire door in the hallway. I didn’t get to see his face as the coffee solidified and released a concentrated hydrogen gas that blew him and his office back to the days of disco, but I’m sure he was surprised. I’d make a joke about strong coffee, but you know how Bob feels about my jokes.
Why would I blow him up, you might ask? Doesn’t seem very subtle, but it’s all about the profile. This guy is essentially an arms dealer, so his enemies are fond of bombs, specifically exotic explosive devices. Feds will assume they planted a device, which will appear to be very sophisticated and worthy of his enemies’ time, money, and expertise. Ballistics will never find fragments of my cup—a hardened polymer that dissolves into the same type of melted plastic you find from a variety of objects at ANY fire investigation. So the end result is a crime scene that points a smoking gun at a very specific class of perps.
Unfortunately the explosion didn’t take out his security detail, and those guys were tough as nails. Within a few seconds of the blast, they stumbled into the hallway, ears bleeding, and opened up on me with two TEC-9 submachine guns. The Kevlar poncho saved my ass, but it felt like I was inside a laundry bag getting beat up by a bunch of gorillas with sledgehammers. They emptied their clips and bounced me down the hallway until I smashed through a quarter-inch glass conference room window. I’ll never forget the looks on the faces of the poor bastards cowering under the conference table as I pulled a flash grenade from my suit jacket pocket and chucked it into the room. It’s a nonlethal stun grenade that uses a bright flash of light and a loud bang to knock anyone within ten feet of it unconscious. I dove back into the hallway as it detonated. Meeting adjourned.
I had to go through all of this rigmarole because no one could know that I was ever there. Bob’s instructions were very specific: target eliminated with a covertly planted device so that the identity of the bomber would only be a matter of speculation. So I was not in a position to get into a gun battle with the security guys, who were now reloading in the hallway. I knew I had to make a move before they got those second clips in, so I whipped out The Pig. It’s a little invention of mine, kind of like a Taser, but instead of using wires to deliver a high-voltage shock, it uses barbed darts and thin surgical tubing to pump drugs, poisons, and other nefarious liquids into the target. I can dial up all kinds of exotic, untraceable cocktails with The Pig. I just need to get close enough to deploy it. And since these guys were fifteen feet down the hall . . .
I took off at a full sprint. The first one chucked his TEC and went for the Beretta on his hip. Dumb. By the time he had it out, I was fully airborne, smashing my size twelve, nondescript, brown wing tip directly into his chest. As he went down, I deployed The Pig into his armpit. Side note: forget the neck, Dexter. The medical examiner will see that a mile away. ALWAYS choose a hairy injection point. You could jab a horse needle in there and lazy-ass autopsy drones will never go bushwhacking for clues. He’s out before he hits the floor, but his bud
dy now has the TEC locked and ready to rip right in my face. I bench-press his buddy into him just in time for him to pull the trigger. The barrel is buried in the guy’s ass, causing the blowback to reverse in the chamber. The TEC-9 explodes in his face, and he goes down.
Now I had a mess to tend to and I had about thirty seconds before the fire crews would come crashing into the hallway. I bagged both TEC-9s in my Kevlar poncho and quickly removed the shrapnel from the security guys’ faces. Then I dragged them both into the target’s burning office so they would get good and charred and fit right into the scenario. Scooping up the shell casings was a major pain in the ass but I bagged them all, got into the stairwell, and jumped through the door on the floor below just before the fire crew went stomping past.
Yes, that is a lot of extra work after the target is already dead, but remember that we don’t just whack people pell-mell and drop our guns at the scene like you see in some of the shittier movies about our profession. It’s all about finesse and keeping the politics under control. Next day, the New York Times reported a terrorist bombing. That’s when the job is truly complete, when the paper of record prints your target’s epitaph on the front page and shovels coal into the formidable engines of the Bullshit Express.
Back to Bendini, Lambert & Locke and asshole lawyer guy. I didn’t have the time to whip up as good a concoction for him. First off, El Injerto is no longer available, due to rebel activity in that region. You can get it black market, but it’s up to 1,500 euros a pound, and that kind of price gouging is reserved for rappers who think eating contraband whale at a sushi restaurant is cool. I have a backup pound of Diablo Gold Coast from Colombia—Juan Valdez, baby. Not only is this an amazing coffee, but it’s also inexpensive. Only twenty-two bucks a pound. Yeah, I know you can buy a pound of that free-trade Starbucks dreck for eight bucks a pop, but you might as well brew up a pile of hobo whiskers and call it a day.
So, I grind up the Diablo, pour some boiling Fiji water into a French press, and brew it black and strong. It’s inky and oily and smells like the victors of the Spanish American war looked. He takes one sip and raises an eyebrow. Now, some people say they like black coffee because they think it makes them manly, like saying you like cigars, even though they taste like rolled turds, no matter how expensive they are. But this guy is a true connoisseur of black coffee. Thank God, because if he hadn’t been, he might have been coughing up blood by now. He takes another sip, like a lion sucking marrow from the leg of a twitching gazelle.
“Intern maggot?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If you are not at my desk at oh-seven hundred every single fucking day of the week with this coffee, I will personally see to it that the only job you ever get in the state of New York is the monkey shit shovel boy at the Bronx Zoo. Is that perfectly clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s your name?”
“John.”
“See you tomorrow, James.”
That afternoon, the admin who brought me up to the Barracks comes to tell me I’m being assigned to a different department—asshole lawyer’s department: Wills and Trusts. When I ask her if this means I can move out of my dank ass dungeon office, she just laughs and tells me not to push my dumb luck.
If you’ve ever wondered why death is so fucking complicated—not for the dead guy but for the family he left behind—it is because even the most expensive law firms love to charge exorbitant fees to handle their Wills and Trusts but hate to do the actual work. They know that when you are dead, you aren’t going to do shit to them and neither is your blubbering, grief-stricken family. So they don’t care about fucking things up royally. My assignment was to update as many wills and trust documents as possible, based on the reams of legal addendum notes that someone bothered to type up after client meetings but never bothered to actually execute in the Wills and Trusts. You wouldn’t believe how many of the beneficiaries in these older wills were people who were already deceased. That’d be a kicker at the reading, right? Welcome to probate hell. Your golden goose just took it in the ass.
I gather up a truckload of the ancient file boxes that have been left to rot, sneak them out through the service entrance in a laundry cart, and take them back to HR, Inc. Now, with this type of shit, Bob is a fucking rock star. He has a team all ready for me, and these guys work ’round the clock popping dexies as they tackle the mind-numbing task of updating these documents. Bob may not be the best with providing intel—and never forget that is by choice—but he sure as hell is the king of field support. And with the paper-pushing cage match they had going over at the firm, I needed it more than with any other gig.
Needless to say, when I show up thirty-six hours later with no fewer than two hundred files updated and looking tip-top, I make an impression on Hartman and asshole lawyer guy. Normally, I am not into making impressions, but this gig, and probably my life, depend on me winning one of the three slots. So, through the weekend and over the next few days, I keep impressing them with the work. Hundreds of delinquent files that had been collecting dust and roach wings are now viable, and the partners can bill for the work! I am making them some money now, and with their base rate of $750/hour, I am making them a lot of fucking money.
9
* * *
THE KEYS TO THE KINGDOM
I am sitting in my cube, admiring the work Bob and his crack team have done for me that day, when none other than Bendini, one of the partners, walks up with asshole lawyer guy. Of course, asshole lawyer guy is playing the part of congenial business guy so that he can suck up to his boss. Bendini ignores him and gently places his hand on my shoulder. He is probably in his early sixties and looks like what I always imagined Geppetto, Pinocchio’s puppet maker “father,” had looked like. He is thin and fit, but his skin has some serious city miles on it. He wears a thick, old-timey mustache that is always in need of a trim. His watery blue eyes are shockingly kind, and I find myself depressed that I never had a real grandfather. This is the way he is looking at me, like a benevolent grandfather. He offers his hand. I stand and shake it.
“What’s your name, son?”
“John.”
“My son’s name is John.”
Fuck. Memory hook.
“It’s a good name.”
You can hear asshole lawyer guy’s eyes rolling a mile away.
“John, I’m having a hard time believing you’re just an intern.”
Double fuck. I know he doesn’t know why I’m there, but he’s complimenting me the way you compliment someone you believe is an undiscovered talent or star.
“I enjoy working here.”
“Well, you are doing a standout job. We’ve billed into six figures since you’ve been in Wills and Trusts.”
These guys love money more than their own children.
“My father was in Wills and Trusts.”
“He must have been a force to be reckoned with in your . . . hometown.”
Hometown was well seasoned with snooty condescension. I’m not from the actual hometown he was referring to, but I felt offended and then congratulated myself for owning it.
“Thank you for saying so.”
“I came over to congratulate you on securing one of our three intern positions.”
Yes. Hell yes. There are three days left in the competition and I am already in. This will put me on many shit lists and radar screens, but FUCK IT, this is my last gig. They are never going to see me again. Now more than ever I am tempted to try to have a little bit of fun on this assignment, even though I know that’s a bad idea. You can’t assign fun to the murder of another human being. It just doesn’t work that way. I am telling you this because I don’t want you to ever get cocky. Ego is your worst enemy, and people will stroke it when you blow them away with your work ethic. But you have to let it go because it can start to cloud your judgment.
“Thank you, sir. I’m honored.”
“You’re welcome. A man of few words. Good.”
I just smil
e. I would be an idiot to speak after what he just said.
“I’ll see you around the floor.”
They both walk off, asshole lawyer yipping in Bendini’s ear like an annoying lapdog. Bendini looks back at me as they walk. It’s the look of a man who just found a diamond in the rough.
10
* * *
TURNING TRICKS FOR THE GOLDEN TICKET
After turning in my four hundreth viable file, Alice walks into my cube. She makes herself comfortable on my small desk, which improves my entire cube decor exponentially.
“Well, this is certainly an improvement on your previous assignment.”
“I’ve been looking for you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I believe I owe you some beers and wings, counselor.”
She just got the associate position, beating out the Yalie douche. Now she’ll have infinitely more access than she did as an intern.
“Damn right you do. But we’ll have plenty of time for that, now that we’re working together.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s right. Evidently you’ve raised more than a few eyebrows around here with your hard work and new revenue stream.”
“And you’re here to make sure I don’t fuck it up.”
“No. I’m just here to help you turn over more volume. Greed is an insatiable mistress. Plus, I’ve been working for Bendini for most of my internship, and he thinks we’d make a great team.”
“Is that so?”
“Of course, you’ll still have to work in this Roach Motel, and I’ll have a cool junior associate’s office. Oh, and I’ll kind of be your boss slash slave driver. Technically.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”