Making Money d-36

by Terry Pratchett

  'No catch,' he said. 'If you put a hundred dollars on deposit, then after a year it'll be worth one hundred and one dollars.'

  'That's all very well for you to say, but where would the likes of me get a hundred dollars?'

  'Right here, if you invest just one dollar and wait for — how long, Mr Bent?'

  The chief cashier snorted. 'Four hundred and sixty-one years!'

  'Okay, it's a bit of a wait, but your great-great-great-et cetera grandchildren will be proud of you,' said Moist, above the laughter. 'But I'll tell you what I'll do: if you open an account here today for, oh, five dollars, we'll give you a free dollar on Monday. A free dollar to take away, ladies and gentlemen, and where are you going to get a better deal than—'

  'A real dollar, pray, or one of these fakes?'

  There was a commotion near the door, and Pucci Lavish swept in. Or, at least, tried to sweep. But a good sweep needs planning, and probably a rehearsal. You shouldn't just go for it and hope. All you get is a lot of shoving.

  The two heavies there to clear a way through the press of people were defeated by sheer numbers, which meant that the rather slimmer young men leading her exquisitely bred blond hounds got stuck behind them. Pucci had to shoulder her way through.

  It could have been so good, Moist felt. It had all the right ingredients: the black-clad bruisers so menacing, the dogs so sleek and blond. But Pucci herself had been blessed with beady, suspicious little eyes and a generous upper lip which combined with the long neck to put the honest observer in mind of a duck who'd just been offended by a passing trout.

  Someone should have told her that black was not her colour, that the expensive fur had looked better on its original owners, that if you are going to wear high heels then this week's fashion tip is don't wear sunglasses at the same time because when you walk out of the bright sunlight into the relative gloom of, say, a bank, you will lose all sense of direction and impale the foot of one of your own bodyguards. Someone should have told her, in fact, that true style comes from innate cunning and mendacity. You can't buy it.

  'Miss Pucci Lavish, ladies and gentlemen!' said Moist, starting to clap as Pucci whipped her sunglasses off and advanced on the counter with murder in her eyes. 'One of the directors who will join us all in making money.'

  There was some clapping from the crowd, most of whom had never seen Pucci before but wanted the free show.

  'I say! Listen to me! Everyone listen to me,' she commanded. Once again she waved what seemed to Moist to look very much like one of the experimental dollar bills. 'This is just worthless paper! This is what he will be giving you!'

  'No, it's the same as an open cheque or a banker's draft,' said Moist.

  'Really? We shall see! I say! Good people of Ankh-Morpork! Do any of you think this piece of paper could be worth a dollar? Would anyone give me a dollar for it?' Pucci waved the paper dismissively.

  'Dunno. What is it?' said someone, and there was a buzz from the crowd.

  'An experimental banknote,' said Moist, over the growing hubbub. 'Just to try out the idea.'

  'How many of them are there, then?' said the enquiring man.

  'About twelve,' said Moist.

  The man turned to Pucci. 'I'll give you five dollars for it, how about that?'

  'Five? It says it's worth one!' said Pucci, aghast.

  'Yeah, right. Five dollars, miss.'

  'Why? Are you insane?'

  'I'm as sane as the next man, thank you, young lady!'

  'Seven dollars here!' said the next man, raising a hand.

  'This is madness!' wailed Pucci.

  'Mad?' said the next man. He pointed a finger at Moist. 'If I'd bought a pocketful of the black penny stamps when that feller brought them out last year I'd be a rich man!'

  'Anyone remember the Triangular Blue?' said another bidder. 'Fifty pence, it cost. I put one on a letter to my aunt; by the time it got there it was worth fifty dollars! And the ol' baggage wouldn't give it back!'

  'It's worth a hundred and sixty now,' said someone behind him.

  'Auctioned at Dave's Stamp and Pin Emporium last week. Ten dollars is my bid, miss!'

  'Fifteen here!'

  Moist had a good view from the stairs. A small consortium had formed at the back of the hall, working on the basis that it was better to have small shares than none at all.

  Stamp collecting! It had started on day one, and then ballooned like some huge… thing, running on strange, mad rules. Was there any other field where flaws made things worth more? Would you buy a suit just because one arm was shorter than the other? Or because a bit of spare cloth was still attached? Of course, when Moist had spotted this he'd put in flaws on purpose, as a matter of public entertainment, but he certainly hadn't planned for Lord Vetinari's head to appear upside down just once on every sheet of Blues. One of the printers had been about to destroy them when Moist brought him down with a flying tackle.

  The whole business was unreal, and unreal was Moist's world. Back when he'd been a naughty boy he'd sold dreams, and the big seller in that world was the one where you got very rich by a stroke of luck. He'd sold glass as diamond because greed clouded men's eyes. Sensible, upright people, who worked hard every day, nevertheless believed, against all experience, in money for nothing. But the stamp collectors… they believed in small perfections. It was possible to get one small part of the world right. And even if you couldn't get it right, you at least knew what bit was missing. It might be, f'r instance, the flawed 50p Triangular Blue, but there were still six of them out there, and who knew what piece of luck might attend the dedicated searcher?

  Rather a large piece would be needed, Moist had to admit, because four of them were safely tucked away for a rainy day in a little lead box under the floorboards in Moist's office. Even so, two were out there somewhere, perhaps destroyed, lost, eaten by snails or — and here hope lay thick as winter snow — still in some unregarded bundle of letters at the back of a drawer.

  —and Miss Pucci simply didn't know how to work a crowd. She stamped and demanded attention and bullied and insulted and it didn't help that she'd called them 'good people', because no one likes an outright liar. And now she was losing her temper, because the bidding had reached thirty-four dollars. And now-

  -she'd torn it up!

  'That's what I think of this silly money!' she announced, throwing the pieces in the air. Then she stood there panting and looking triumphant, as if she'd done something clever.

  A kick in the teeth to everyone there. It made you want to cry, it really did. Oh, well…

  Moist pulled one of the new notes out of his pocket and held it up.

  'Ladies and gentlemen!' he announced. 'I have here one of the increasingly rare first-generation One Dollar notes' — he had to pause for the laughter — 'signed by myself and the chairman. Bids over forty dollars, please! All proceeds to the little kiddies!'

  He ran it up to fifty, bouncing a couple of bids off the wall. Pucci stood ignored and steaming with rage for a while and then flounced out. It was a good flounce, too. She had no idea how to handle people and she tried to make self-esteem do the work of self-respect, but the girl could flounce better than a fat turkey on a trampoline.

  The lucky winner was already surrounded by his unlucky fellow bidders by the time he reached the bank's doors. The rest of the crowd surged towards the counters, not sure what was going on but determined to have a piece of it.

  Moist cupped his hands and shouted: 'And this afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Bent and myself will be available to discuss bank loans!' This caused a further stir.

  'Smoke and mirrors, Mr Lipwig,' said Bent, turning away from the balustrade. 'Nothing but smoke and mirrors…'

  'But done without smoke and in a total absence of mirror, Mr Bent!' said Moist cheerfully.

  'And the "kiddies"?' said Bent.

  'Find some. There's bound to be an orphanage that needs fifty dollars. It'll be an anonymous donation, of course.'

  Bent looked sur
prised. 'Really, Mr Lipwig? I'll make no bones about saying that you seem to me to be the sort of man who makes a great Razz Arm Ma Tazz about giving money to charity.' He made razzmatazz sound like some esoteric perversion.

  'Well, I'm not. Do good by stealth, that is my watchword.' It'll get found out soon enough, he added to himself, and then I'm not only a jolly good chap but a decently modest one, too.

  I wonder… Am I really a bastard or am I just really good at thinking like one?

  Something nudged at his mind. Tiny hairs on the back of his neck were twitching. Something was wrong, out of place… dangerous.

  He turned and looked down again at the hall. People were milling around, forming into lines, talking in groups—

  In a world of movement, the eye is drawn to stillness. In the middle of the banking hall, unheeded by the throng, a man was standing as if frozen in time. He was all in black, with one of those flat wide hats often worn by the more sombre Omnian sects. He just… stood. And watched.

  Just another gawper along to see the show, Moist told himself, and knew at once that he was lying. The man was causing a weight in his world.

  I have lodged affidavits…

  Him? About what? Moist had no past. Oh, a dozen aliases had managed a pretty busy and eventful past between them, but they had evaporated along with Albert Spangler, hanged by the neck until not-quite-dead and awoken by Lord Vetinari, who'd offered Moist von Lipwig a life all shiny and new—

  Ye gods, he was getting jumpy, just because some old guy was looking at him with a funny little smile! No one knew him! He was Mr Forgettable! If he walked around the town without the gold suit on, he was just another face.

  'Are you all right, Mr Lipwig?'

  Moist turned and looked into the face of the chief cashier. 'What? Oh… no. I mean yes. Er… have you ever seen that man before?'

  'What man would that be?'

  Moist turned back to point out the man in black, but he had gone.

  'Looked like a preacher,' he mumbled. 'He was… well, he was looking at me.'

  'Well, you do rather invite it. Perhaps you'd agree that the golden hat was a mistake?'

  'I like the hat! There's no hat like it!'

  Bent nodded. 'Fortunately, this is true, sir. Oh, dear. Paper money. A practice used only by the heathen Agateans…'

  'Heathen? They've got far more gods than us! And over there gold is worth less than iron!'

  Moist relented. Bent's face, usually so controlled and aloof, had crumpled like a piece of paper. 'Look, I've been reading. The banks issue coins to four times the amount of the gold they hold. That's a nonsense we could do without. It's a dream world. This city is rich enough to be its own gold bar!'

  'They're trusting you for no good reason,' said Bent. 'They trust you because you make them laugh. I do not make people laugh, and this is not my world. I don't know how to smile like you do and talk like you do. Don't you understand? There must be something which has a worth that goes beyond fashion and politics, a worth that endures. Are you putting Vetinari in charge of my bank? What guarantees the savings that those people are thrusting over our counter?'

  'Not what, who. It's me. I am personally going to see that this bank does not fail.'

  'You?'

  'Yes.'

  'Oh yes, the man in the gold suit,' said Bent sourly. 'And if all else fails, will you pray?'

  'It worked last time,' said Moist calmly.

  Bent's eye twitched. For the first time since Moist had met him he seemed… lost.

  'I don't know what you want me to do!'

  It was almost a wail. Moist patted him on the shoulder.

  'Run the bank, like you always have. I think we should set up some loans, with all this cash coming in. Are you a good judge of character?'

  'I thought I was,' said Bent. 'Now? I have no idea. Sir Joshua, I am sorry to say, was not. Mrs Lavish was very, very good, in my opinion.'

  'Better than you could possibly know,' said Moist. 'Good. I shall take the chairman for his walkies, and then… we'll spread some money around. How about that?'

  Mr Bent shuddered.

  The Times did an early-afternoon edition with a big picture on the front page of the queue winding out of the bank. Most of the queue wanted to get in on the act, whatever the act turned out to be, and the rest were queueing on the basis that there might be something interesting at the other end. There was a boy selling the paper, and people were buying it to read the story entitled 'Huge Queue Swamps Bank', which seemed a bit odd to Moist. They were in the queue, weren't they? Was it only real if they read about it?

  'There are already some… people wishing to enquire about loans, sir,' said Bent, behind him. 'I suggest you let me deal with them.'

  'No, we will, Mr Bent,' said Moist, turning away from the window. 'Show them into the downstairs office, please.'

  'I really think you should leave this to me, sir. Some of them are rather new to the idea of banking,' Bent persisted. 'In fact I don't think some of them have ever been in a bank before, except perhaps during the hours of darkness.'

  'I would like you to be present, of course, but I will make the final decision,' said Moist, as loftily as he could manage. 'Aided by the chairman, naturally.'

  "Mr Fusspot?

  'Oh yes.'

  'He is an expert judge, is he?'

  'Oh, yes!'

  Moist picked up the dog and headed for the office. He could feel the chief cashier glaring at his back.

  Bent had been right. Some of the people waiting hopefully to see him about a loan were thinking in terms of a couple of dollars until Friday. They were easy enough to deal with. And then there were others…

  'Mr Dibbler, isn't it?' said Moist. He knew it was, but you had to speak like that when you sat behind a desk.

  'That's right, sir, man and boy,' said Mr Dibbler, who had a permanently eager, rodent-like cast to his countenance. 'I could be someone else if you like.'

  'And you sell pork pies, sausages, rat-on-a-stick…'

  'Er, I purvey them, sir,' Dibbler corrected him, 'on account of being a purveyor.'

  Moist looked at him over the paperwork. Claude Maximillian Overton Transpire Dibbler, a name bigger than the man himself. Everyone knew C. M. O. T. Dibbler. He sold pies and sausages off a tray, usually to people who were the worse for drink who then became the worse for pies.

  Moist had eaten the odd pork pie and occasional sausage in a bun, however, and that very fact interested him. There was something about the stuff that drove you back for more. There had to be some secret ingredient, or maybe the brain just didn't believe what the taste buds told it, and wanted to feel once again that flood of hot, greasy, not entirely organic, slightly crunchy substances surfing across the tongue. So you bought another one.

  And, it had to be said, there were times when a Dibbler sausage in a bun was just what you wanted. Sad, yet true. Everyone had moments like that. Life brought you so low that for a vital few seconds that charivari of strange greases and worrying textures was your only friend in all the world.

  'Do you have an account with us, Mr Dibbler?'

  'Yessir, thankyousir,' said Dibbler, who had refused an invitation to put down his tray and sat with it held defensively in front of him. The bank seemed to make the streetwise trader nervous. Of course, it was meant to. That was the reason for all the pillars and marble. They were there to make you feel out of place.

  'Mr Dibbler has opened an account with five dollars,' said Bent.

  'And I have brought along a sausage for your little doggie,' said Dibbler.

  'Why do you need a loan, Mr Dibbler?' said Moist, watching Mr Fusspot sniff the sausage carefully.

  'I want to expand the business, sir,' said Dibbler.

  'You've been trading for more than thirty years,' said Moist.

  'Yessir, thankyousir.'

  'And your products are, I think I can say, unique…'

  'Yessir, thankyousir.'

  'So I imagine that now you need our he
lp to open a chain of franchised cafes trading on the Dibbler name, offering a variety of meals and drinks bearing your distinctive likeness?' said Moist.

  Mr Fusspot jumped down from the desk with the sausage held gently in his mouth, dropped it in the corner of the office, and tried industriously to kick the carpet over it.

  Dibbler stared at Moist, and then said: 'Yessir, if you insist, but actually I was thinking about a barrow.'

  'A barrow?' said Bent.

  'Yessir. I know where I can get a nice little second-hand one with an oven and everything. Painted up nice, too. Wally the Gimp is quitting the jacket potato business 'cos of stress and he'll let me have it for fifteen dollars, cash down. A not-to-be-missed opportunity, sir.' He looked nervously at Mr Bent and added: 'I could pay you back at a dollar a week.'

  'For twenty weeks,' said Bent.

  'Seventeen,' said Moist.

  'But the dog just tried to—' Bent began.

  Moist waved away the objection. 'So we have a deal, Mr Dibbler?'

  'Yessir, thankyousir,' said Dibbler. 'That's a good idea you've got there, about the chain and everything, though, and I thank you. But I find that in this business it pays to be mobile.'

  Mr Bent counted out fifteen dollars with bad grace and began to speak as soon as the door closed behind the trader. 'Even the dog wouldn't—'

  'But humans will, Mr Bent,' said Moist. 'And therein lies genius. I think he makes most of his money on the mustard, but there's a man who can sell sizzle, Mr Bent. And that is a seller's market.'

  The last prospective borrower was heralded first by a couple of muscular men who took up positions on either side of the door, and then by a smell that overruled even the persistent odour of a Dibbler sausage. It wasn't a particularly bad smell, putting you in mind of old potatoes or abandoned tunnels; it was what you got when you started out with a severely foul stink and then scrubbed hard but ineffectually, and it surrounded King like an emperor's cloak.

  Moist was astonished. King of the Golden River, they called him, because the foundation of his fortune was the daily collection his men made of the urine from every inn and pub in the city. The customers paid him to take it away, and the alchemists, tanners and dyers paid him to bring it to them.