by Aidan Truhen
“Silent silent. Like below the thermocline.”
“The—thermo—what—Jack I don’t know what that is.”
“Like a submarine for fuck’s sake Sharkey did you never watch Das Boot?”
“I’m claustrophobic Jack I don’t watch movies except Westerns and not even those if they spend too much time in the saloon. Mostly I watch those nature shows.”
“I did not know that.”
“We all got our crosses man.”
“Yeah I guess. Okay well we’re going to do our next thing in total silence like a gliding majestic whale.”
“Whales make a surprising amount of noise Jack like they go WHOOMMMNAAAARP to one another right and that is—”
“Sharkey would you get on board with this please? We are going to do this like a real quiet whale, maybe shy maybe even mute.”
“That would be a serious fucking evolutionary problem for an animal that navigates by sonar Jack.”
“So this will be a short-lived metaphorical whale, man, but the silence will be forever.”
“I dunno Jack—”
“They are bored Sharkey.”
“…Bored?”
“Yes Sharkey the Demons are bored.”
I let him consider that in its fullness. Corporate boredom is just what happens and that is fine when your coworkers are typists or software engineers or even sheep herders but it is not fine when their skill sets revolve around germ war and artisanal murderings and making things explode. Then it is not a good thing for anyone.
“All right Jack I will look into it.”
“That is fine Sharkey. Do your thing and we will do ours. If we crime it, they will come.”
And I am right.
* * *
—
Incoming call, Poltergeist Secure VoIP: accept? y/n
(Poltergeist is this whole electronic thing that happens in Iceland it is like a concierge service for the digitally liberated societal and legal nonconformist, which is to say criminals of all stripes but also revolutionaries and freedom fighters and so. It is like the spy equivalent of the Apple Store or Google if they were based in nuclear-proof cells hollowed out of the Arctic ice and staffed by ice kobolds with computer science magic coming out of their ass. They are obsessed with client privacy and digital hygge and some variation of Scandawooj libertarian communism I do not comprehend because I do not have husky semen in my blood. Helluva nice people do not under any circumstances piss them off.)
Accept y/n?
y
(Ping and the little light goes green.)
“Hi it’s Jack.”
“Jack Price.”
“Yes that is me hello.”
“I wish you to rob a bank.”
“I would LOVE to rob a bank. I have not done that it is a classic.”
“…Mr. Sharkey suggests that we speak.”
“We are in fact doing that now.”
“I should like to meet in person. I will wear a gray suit Mr. Price. I am of ordinary height. I am told I appear intense.”
“That’s nice for you I guess, are you—I mean do you also put that on Tinder because—”
“Mr. Price. You should now tell me how I will recognize you.”
“We are in touch Mr.—”
“…”
“We are in touch Mr. Client we are now talking as men do. I figured I’d book a table and like they would bring you over and I’d do like a cool thing with one hand, ‘please do sit Mr. Client,’ right, and then we’d just make our deal. But now I sense that is not where you were going with this.”
“It is not.”
“You’re thinking all yellow chalk and Gauloises I guess, and that is fine but I have to tell you sign and countersign for a meeting where you are in phone contact with the principal, that is kind of more obvious than actually just calling out a person’s name to the maître is all. Like I could wear a flower and carry a copy of, I don’t know, like Butterfly Sex Quarterly? There is a place down the street which sells really fucking outré magazines, there is one for people who collect only model trains made in India before partition. Can you believe that is a thing? So I can absolutely do that but if I do that and someone is there, let us say doing a vice bust or whatever, doing something that is in no way like what we are doing, they will pay close fucking attention Mr. Client, and that is not to our advantage at all. And that is before we discuss the other diners Mr. Client, they also might be the kinds of person who watch for that shit who are even a little bit attracted to it that would depend on where we meet. I was going to pick that sports club on the marina. I’m guessing you can do that.”
“…I can.”
“Yeah what I thought so—”
“That will be fine. Until then Mr. Price.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“Are you still there Mr. Price?”
“…Yes?”
“Why?”
“I honestly have no idea it just seemed rude to put down the phone.”
(Click.)
* * *
—
What I could have done is I could have traced Mr. Client after the meeting. I did not because if you get caught doing that, people think you are not going to deal square and they become antsy and oftentimes they will do something regrettable like try to kill you or set you up later. They think you want to maybe blackmail them or kill them or in some other way you are seeking power over them, and that is inevitably what people in this situation absolutely do not want. Therefore at a certain point in a for-hire criminal enterprise everyone has to accept everyone else’s boundaries. Everyone has to decide they do not want to know stuff the other person does not want them to know because knowing that stuff makes you enemies, and you need to be friends or at least like able to put your hand in your pocket while standing in the same elevator without that other person thinking you are going for a knife no not a shiv that is taxonomically inaccurate plus also fuck you.
So that is what I did.
I respected everyone’s boundaries.
Yeah I hear ya but you were not there.
* * *
—
The marina restaurant is one of the places with those seats that look real comfy and when you sit it turns out they are harder than stone so the first thing that happens is you go OOF as your ass bounces on the uncomfortable seat and this happens every time. The food is deceptive as well like the fried fish is cold and the ice cream is hot who fucking does that but: business so la la la. Why do these people meet and eat? Because they are human and humans think that if you share food it makes a bond it is mammal shit evolutionary shit and it is bullshit but that is what they do. Oasis comfort zone. Every man’s L’Affable is his castle.
This ain’t no L’Affable.
Maître fusses over. Fuss and fuss and la and I stick out my hand. Heavy bill in there because that is how you achieve focus in a place like this. Maître takes it like his paw is a vacuum cleaner like SLURP and gone and now we are old friends.
“Hi I am Pierre-Paul Gondorf I am here to meet that gentleman over there here is my credit card this meal will be on me—”
And la la la please come this way sir. I am not Pierre-Paul Gondorf that is a made-up name: I am a criminal and that is how we do.
* * *
—
I sit at my table until the maître d’ brings me someone to talk to.
Mr. Client is a slim fella with deep eyes. I don’t mean he has bedroom eyes ooo la la and I don’t mean he has skull face like you see sometimes a perfectly ordinary person has skull face like a fucking reminder of mortality.
No this guy has eyes that spend way too much time seeing you. Most people, their eyes see you a little and then they skate. Eyes go someplace else then back then someplac
e else then back it is polite. Try not doing it sometime you will find it is hard and people start to edge away from you. But this guy: his eyes do not travel they just rest and sometimes he is looking at you and sometimes his eyes have not moved but he’s seeing something else. Like the guy has a multiplex in his head and you are only one of the screens and not the best one.
Mr. Client sits down (oof) and he says hi and I say hi and we drink sparkling water with ice. I say the fucking seats in this place and he says yes they are by Emmersen and she is overrated. I say I do not know Emmersen and he says I am very wise.
He takes lemon: two fingers and PLINK. Winces as the glass touches his lips. Mr. Client has lips like a baby’s all pure and pale and soft and that right there is what you call a tell because until this morning this guy had a mustache and maybe some bit of a beard but like a real fucking pretentious bit of face fur like you would have if you were real into your villain mojo. Right now the guy has a baby face and he is all tender. Fastidious that is the word he is fastidious to the point that it’s a thing with him.
Mojo, by the way, in parts of Spain is a tangy red pepper sauce made with bread but that is not the kind Mr. Client is into.
“Good day sir and what do I call you?”
“Mr. Price I feel I have been clear that I do not wish to be known to you.”
Got an accent but so does everyone. That just means he hasn’t got my accent but what accent it is I don’t know. In the modern world Henry Higgins is fucked. Guy with Dutch parents grows up in Dubai learns English from American movies and a French teacher who studied in Canada and BOOM where are you? You’re nowhere and don’t pretend. That does not matter I am respecting the guy’s boundaries I do not care where he comes from.
“Okay I’ll just carry on calling you Mr. Client is that okay?”
“Mr. Client will do fine.”
“Great. Have the ajiaco it is excellent.”
“I will order some for appearances but in fact I will not be eating, Mr. Price.”
“O well that is a relief the food here is terrible—”
“It is, but that is of the nature of such truck stops for the world’s elite, they pay for exclusivity not substance. In fact I recently had excellent ajiaco in its native setting. It was delicious but one cannot have it every day. It has an adverse effect on the body mass index.”
“Straight on the hips I guess.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“So I’m going to rob a bank for you Mr. Client.”
“Yes. If we can come to an agreement.”
“So what bank?”
“It is a very particular bank.”
“Okay.”
“It cannot be robbed.”
“Cool.”
“I wish you to rob it.”
“So you said.”
“It is the Kircheisen Festung.”
“Which branch?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Obviously there is only one of those and I am kidding, that is bank felony humor.”
“Oh. Is it.”
“Yep.”
“I will leave that part to you.”
“…Okay.”
“I am happy to say I possess physical plans for the Kircheisen Festung Mr. Price.”
“O you do?”
“Yes. They are—let us say they are probably accurate but not complete. They are four years old and you know what security people are. They tinker. They tinker endlessly and month by month like hoarder ants until their tunnels are thick with the wax of their obsession.”
“…That is a colorful way of putting it Mr. Client.”
“I had not noticed. I will provide you with the plans and I will pay you to provide me with specific items from within the vault. That payment will be substantial Mr. Price although I suspect you will find it is the ancillary aspects from which you derive the most profit.”
“And what is this item exactly Mr. Client?”
“Ten metal suitcases weighing approximately thirty-two kilograms each. Three hundred and twenty kilograms in total. For these cases and their contents unharmed I will give you three hundred million euros. But the rest of the vault—I do not care. And Mr. Price the contents will be delightful. All the secrets and treasures of the world. Nonetheless I would not have you concerned as to the profitability of the enterprise so I offer you a share in the value of my part of this. And I very specifically do not want anyone else to have those cases.”
“So the cases—”
“Are of uncertain value Mr. Price. In brute terms they approach a notional yield of one billion dollars but there are complications. I say this only for orientation, obviously you would not be so crass as to double-cross me before we have even shaken hands.”
“I would not double-cross you at all Mr. Client I just like to know what everyone gets out of the deal. It saves misunderstandings later regarding value given especially if prioritization is necessary during an operation.”
“…That is fair.”
Mr. Client’s eyes go all dark and thoughtful like Mr. Client is seeing the universe. Figure he’s a religious leader some kind of deep Catholic thing and people shake when he touches them and try to walk on broken legs, I’m sure that goes well for everyone.
“Mr. Price these cases contain conflict emeralds totaling one and a half million karats. They are of various sizes but generally with few inclusions, so the legitimate market value would be nearly a billion dollars if they were not also from war zones. As things are, they cannot be sold without a laundering process and in fact it is that process to which I object.”
“You do?”
“I object very much indeed. The reintroduction of these stones is being done through a false mining project in Egypt to fund an enterprise of which I greatly disapprove. At one time Egypt was a great producer of emeralds, and so the notion is not preposterous—but the fact is that the entire facility now exists solely to facilitate the appearance of wealth in a particular gentleman with whom I am in competition. Let us say that we have differing dreams for the same future.”
“Politics.”
“Yes, Mr. Price. Inevitably, politics.”
“I do not like politics Mr. Client but at the level of this operation one must simply hold one’s nose.”
“As in all things Mr. Price so too in our professional lives we must eventually contend with how the world is made, the place it is.”
“You would not like us to go and ask this gentleman to dream in some other direction?”
“I am afraid he would be replaced, Mr. Price. But in the event that the funding should dry up, the whole situation will become fluid, and in that moment, I may effect the results I desire. And on that note, Mr. Price, Mr. Sharkey tells me you are eager to demonstrate a deep subtlety in your modus.”
“O subtle actually comes out of my modus.”
“…Perhaps a problem in translation.”
“But your English is excellent.”
“Yes.”
“…”
“…”
“ANYWAY you were saying—”
“I must ask that you be discreet.”
“In practical terms we should talk thresholds and such, so: how discreet?”
“Deaths may be inevitable Mr. Price I accept this. It might be better if the bank were not in a position to admit to the theft, at least initially. Or perhaps if they were not aware, or simply were in such great turmoil for—let us say forty-eight hours—that they could not know for certain what had been taken.”
“That is achievable I am sure.”
“But noise…I do not wish noise. Nothing garish or obvious or loud that would spoil the timing of my own maneuvers.”
“I am positively mouselike Mr. Client.”
* * *
—
I get the check and I walk away and with each step I take away from the table it is harder and harder to know that I was ever there at all. Ghost money: the Poltergeist in the machine.
* * *
—
Mr. Client takes his baby face and goes back to his yacht or his helicopter or his mansion or whatever the fuck this guy has that he thinks is so all-fired important and I think about robbing banks and my modus out of which I am all the kinds of subtle and shut up yes I actually am and look here is me subtling—
There is one easy way to gain access to any bank. It is the quietest and the most subtle and that is what I am being paid for. Also I am a negotiating sort of guy it is always my preference. Oftentimes you can get more by offering a guy his heart’s desire than you ever will the other way. More than that it is professional and appropriate and it is just polite. In any business but in this business most especially politeness is never wasted because you see how disagreements can escalate. You always offer the other guy a parachute.
VoIP call outbound.
Ring ring.
“Hallo Die Festung Kircheisen?”
“Hi there my name is Olembert Hecht.”
Obviously my name is not Olembert Hecht that is a lie although you know philosophically if I call myself Olembert Hecht and I perform Olembert Hecht I mean aren’t we all in the end just the intersection of our own created no I’m fucking with you it’s a lie.
I figure Olembert Hecht is a transactional sort of person he is Australian with diffusely north European ancestry. Olembert is not a made-up name but it sounds almost like it might be. It could come from almost anywhere like the name of a new Asian deluxe-brand executive saloon. By the same token no one knows exactly what it says about its owner. Olembert is himself and nothing else and right now he is the voice of modern economics. He is capitalism walking.
“Hallo Mr. Hecht how can I help you today?”
“I wish to buy you.”