by Aidan Truhen
“Hi hi the room is lovely I am a particular fan of the box jellyfish tank are they defanged in some way?”
“No Mr. Mahboubian they are authentic but the tank is sealed and made from surplus space shuttle glass so it is perfectly safe.”
“O that is excellent are they also for sale?”
“A local artisan Mr. Mahboubian I will get you his details—”
“O thank you thank you and a more trivial and banal request I am visiting the Emerald Trade Center today by I wish very much to eat ajiaco can you recommend a few places that might be convenient to the location?”
“O of course—”
Short list.
“Hi Jack Mahboubian hi I hear you have the best—no the BEST ajiaco in town I read where it is mmmMMM! Can I get a little—I am having a party for my investors could I—thank you so much—”
Except that half the time I am doing all that in Spanish because yes I speak Spanish of course I fucking do it is the one of the world’s languages plus also did I say COFFEE yes I did.
And yes of course they can help me out and little by little it goes:
“Well of course my friend was in here like a couple months back very sophisticated guy excellent taste looks like—maybe you remember—O well never mind—”
—never mind never—
—never mind—
—never—
“O you do?”
“Yes I think I do was a French guy maybe?”
“Yes of course he was now he told me—he told me you were super-duper expensive—”
“No of course we are not! Did he really—”
“Yes he said—well to be honest, looking at these prices I wonder if maybe you overcharged him by like an extra zero I’m gonna laugh at him for not noticing he is a rich man—no don’t worry about it seriously the guy is so damn rich—O you have well I guess of course you have records yes I would be delighted to give him a message to call you say he paid by card? Why yes OF COURSE there he is François Leclerc you are so right and look he just has no fucking idea what he is talking about—or—you know what I bet he was joshing me like trying to keep you guys to himself! Because this ajiaco is SO GOOD could I try the Bandeja Paisa if I come in tomorrow I would like a table for eight yes I would be delighted to pay in advance—”
François Leclerc.
Mr. Client.
Hi there I’m Jack.
SEVEN
AND THAT IS THAT AND THAT IS WHEN you leave the party. No one in Bogotá has any idea that the first of the Seven Demons is in town or that the former maker of the Pale Peruvian Stallion is here or any of that and that is how we like it so we leave everything in our hotel room and we just fly out again.
Except that we do not because Mozart is in a bar fight so first I go in and I fake arrest her and drag her out and put her in a hire car like she was a prisoner and she spits like a fucking cat and then we drive off to the general approval of a bunch of guys feeling nauseous and ballsmacked and two dancers who are evidently twins and to be honest I completely understand how that kind of shit can happen but now it is very much time to leave because under no circumstances do we wish to attract attention or get held up at the airport.
Giant fucking jet privileges do not apply to Mozart’s flying turd in the same way as they do to Fred’s porno plane.
I do not try to bribe anyone it is a mismatch to offer at this time do not ask me why it is an instinct.
They look at our passports and they look at us and one of them says something about how we’re fucking and we’ve stolen the jet and they all laugh and Mozart says something in gutter Bogotano which implies I have been chemically castrated and they all freeze and then start laughing and we are through and it’s just my imagination that behind us somewhere someone is putting two and two together because we’re on the runway and gone and then it’s just flying time.
“Thanks Mozart.”
“Go to hell Jack.”
“O you’re still an asshole?”
“Fuck you Jack.”
“Soooo I almost forgot I need to go to Iceland on the way home can we detour for like three million one hundred and—”
“Yes five will be fine—”
“So tell me the whole life story thing while we—”
“No—”
“Come on I feel like we bonded—”
“We did not bond you’re an asshole—”
“So’re you—”
“I am a motherfucking LADY—”
…
…
…
“Mozart?”
“It’s fucking Rossini—”
“Iceland is definitely up from here—”
“Which of us knows navigation?”
“I am right now looking at Google Maps though—”
“Fuck you Jack that’s bullshit let me see that—yeah no you’re right hang on—”
“I am?”
“Of course you’re fucking not don’t be absurd.”
* * *
—
Mr. Friday is the not-boss of Poltergeist. He likes fishing and Scandinavian art-house cinema and he has exquisite taste in hair liniment. When he speaks he sounds like Santa Claus if Santa was increasingly concerned about the role of the Global South in the production of cheap plastic Christmas toys. He abhors violence and has strong views on social responsibility and he is totally calm even when his BFF is putting an iron spike in someone’s brain. Be like Mr. Friday. Do not be like the person with the double-vented head parts.
Doc says that I get along with Mr. Friday on some kind of deep psychological level she does not think is rational. Doc says that some aspect of my self-expression speaks to Mr. Friday’s suppressed desires and he responds to my wishes in ways he would normally refuse to contemplate.
I do not think this is true but Doc has charts so it must be that is science.
Mr. Friday stands in front of a smoking hole in the ground, which is evidently his house. I say:
“This was absolutely nothing to do with me Friday hand on heart.”
Mr. Friday looks round.
“O Hallo Mr. Price! I had heard that you were now deceased.”
“I have also heard that but I do not think it is true.”
“Oh ho ho oho yes oh oho.”
(Do not laugh like Mr. Friday. That laugh is just fucking creepy like going to an empty house in a storm and the woman who owns it is entirely hairless and dresses in black net and she says to come in and that’s when you notice she’s had that thing done where they bifurcate your tongue and you can never quite see her feet and when you wake up you find a man-size-shed snake skin on the second bed. Which is completely unfair on Mr. Friday who I think is a genuinely moral person in an imperfect world.)
“Do not worry Mr. Price I know this was not you it is an aspect of our geology here. From time to time there is a movement in the earth and the strata of rock change. Yesterday there was water in my basement that was the wrong kind of water. So I moved my furniture out into the street and went to stay with friends and last night my house exploded.”
“It did.”
“O yes. Superheated steam from the bowels of the planet. It is invigorating. We will build a new house at the end of the road and put my furniture in it. That is Iceland. It is how we do. Oh hoho hohohoh. What can I do for you?”
“I am seeking your wisdom Mr. Friday.”
“I am happy to offer professional help of course.”
“Aw that is very sweet. I miss you guys also.”
“It is a form of words Mr. Price you are not absolutely at the top of our list of preferred customers on account that you are a fissure in the strata of society and also a bad egg.”
“I—wait—a bad egg?”
“Indeed.”
“A bad egg
.”
“Yes Mr. Price.”
“O well excuse me the Duchess of Croquet called and I believe she would like her idiom back.”
“…Now inexplicably I feel remorse. Oh very well. Come and we will walk to my new house.”
We walk to Friday’s new house. It is also a hole in the ground but it is not smoking and there are people doing things that look like things that will make a house happen quite soon.
“What do you need Mr. Price?”
“I need to find a programmer. In Switzerland.”
(Obviously you do not list the precise name and address of the programmer of your fortress for exactly this reason but there is a limited number of firms operating in Switzerland who handle this kind of work and programmers are not in general humble monkish types they are programmers and that means they are a kind of artist whose art winkies are so engorged that they require canvases costing millions of euros. Every programmer is waiting for a Great Pyramid.)
Mr. Friday says that he will not help me hurt anyone.
I say that I am not going to hurt the programmer all I want is to have a perfectly nice conversation.
“Why do you want this information Mr. Price?”
“Aw Mr. Friday I wish you would not ask me that or if I would tell you that would have to be you know just between friends.”
“We are not friends Mr. Price.”
“We’re not but all the same man we got history is what. Like deep history.”
“Horrible history.”
“Yeah but Mr. Friday in this world you know sometimes that is the most reassuring kind.”
“…that is both true and appalling.”
“Yeah well I’m an artist now.”
“You are?”
“Yes I am known as Banjo Telemark—”
“O really I have seen your work in—wait that means it has never in fact existed—”
“That is the genius of my ambiguity Mr. Friday—”
“Mr. Price?”
“Yes?”
“You are proposing to crack Die Festung.”
“No I mean that would be entirely no of course not also too Jack Price is deceased I am an artist why do you ask?”
“You are.”
“If I was going to do that, is it something you would be upset about?”
“In fact we do not like them. We believe in freedom, they in perpetuation. We are in fact a revolutionary movement albeit an incremental one they are deeply conservative to the point of stasis. It is an incompatibility. Mr. Eiger and his ilk—”
“Ilk.”
“Yes his ilk. Cornflower men. He and his sort—they appear to be Swiss but they are not like true Swiss who are compassionate in surprising moments and directions. They are the other thing. The closed door and the sneer. The cancer that hides in the body of the Gemeinde there is a similar issue elsewhere even here. When people are afraid they espouse severity. The Cornflower Men make them afraid and then offer them answers.”
“That was real stirring but I am not entirely—”
“They are a little bit Fascists.”
“How little?”
“Quite a lot actually.”
“I’m going to do me things to these guys.”
“…”
“…”
“…It seems I am constantly in the position of helping you because you are pointed at monsters more horrible than yourself. And yet each time I do this you become more…you.”
“Seriously man I have a job I just want to get it done and they are being unreasonable is all like they—Friday they killed Volodya the sniper I mean that guy…”
“He was appalling. He made ham from the dead.”
“Man don’t start with that he absolutely did not it was just ham we had this whole running joke about that it used to make him laugh.”
“You cannot actually believe that.”
“O shit Friday did he really make ham out of—Jesus never mind I just—all I want is to get this job done okay and these guys are putting themselves in my way when I—you know I totally tried to do it the respectable way but there are issues of—”
“You propose to annihilate them.”
“Will you help?”
“Do you promise me that the programmer in question will not be harmed?”
“Yes.”
“…I believe we should define harm.”
“Friday—Friday man I’m not—okay I have been off my game that thing with the lady whose car we stole is well she is not alive and obviously there was the unfortunate business with Mr. Sharkey’s exploding face but—but when—let’s say when I am in control of the environment I do not wish to make people die that is not my thing.”
“You derive no pleasure in random killing for its own sake. That is true.”
“Well so here we are I am asking you as a service to I guess local humankind to help me here so that no one has to get so much as a nosebleed—well I say no one but obviously I’m excluding from that certain un-Swiss fucking Fascists who will probably fall from a great height onto a pointy object or something—”
“Do you also understand the reasonable bounds I require in exchange for this information?”
“No serious physical discomfort or damage no death little or no loss of earnings no serious long-term emotional or psychological trauma.”
“That…is correct.”
“Within the obvious limits like if I don’t know if this person has a shotgun under his bed in some ultra-Swiss thing that I do not know about—”
“Yes of course self-defense is respectable even in a criminal context if not legally understood—”
“Okay.”
“…Okay yes.”
“You people are awesome I am just so grateful.”
“Do not thank me please it makes me feel soiled.”
“You’re an asshole and you’ve given up everything about who you are to do this one dirty thing and I can’t believe you’re helping me. Aw that came out cold man I did not mean that to sound cold.”
“…”
“Honestly Friday I really do like you guys and if you like I’ll give you a hug to get you through this weird little moral crisis you’re in but I get the sense that would not help. Right? Am I right? Yeah so maybe hug Mr. Dory and get back to me when you can okay?”
“…”
“…”
“When I talk to you Jack Price I believe I have woken from a coma to find I am living in a locally made experimental film.”
“Ain’t that the world these days my friend.”
* * *
—
“Thanks Rossini that was horrible here is money bye.”
“Did you just call me Rossini?”
“I am an asshat lady but I know the difference between the Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville and you did right by me so yeah I did.”
“…You need me again, you call, that’s fine. But call me Mozart okay?”
“…Sure Mozart I will.”
“Now I’m going to go park my plane in front of your plane again and maybe draw a giant penis on it in ultraviolet paint.”
“O screw you.”
I go before she says in your dreams or some such because Mozart is a nice person and very useful and I cannot have Doc murdering her for loose talk.
* * *
—
Doc still has the same number of pigs. The door has been well behaved. Lucille has been watching it to make sure.
Every hour of every day.
Door vs. Lucille. Lucille vs. door.
Rex says that neither of them has blinked.
* * *
—
Back to Eiger. Back to the job.
“Hi Charlie how’s it going?”
“It’s going boss that I will say.”
“Are you in yet?”
“God LORD boss butt-plug joke much?”
“What?”
“Oh my God never mind yes I am in.”
Charlie vs. the dongle for Eiger’s checking account: first to three falls.
One.
Two.
Three.
This is how truly modern bank robberies happen and it is the best way. You just steal a few cents from every account in the ledger and put it all into a new account, which transfers every month to another external account, which immediately forwards it to one of those banking jurisdictions which do not keep great records and then you spend it. Kids’ stuff.
Or you don’t steal anything because that was never what you were there for in the first place.
* * *
—
There’s one more thing that Hans Eiger does every day. He goes to a tobacco shop. It is not one of the grand ones it is quite small and even a little bit scruffy but even so when you go in there it smells of respectability. It smells of old men keeping secrets and it smells of government. There is a mezuzah on the door frame and a morbidly obese dachshund on a cushion by the till. Hans Eiger does not ever buy anything in the shop but every day he goes in and he inhales one cigar and then nods to this little guy and the little guy nods back.
So this time when Hans Eiger goes out I go in. I figure the little guy for maybe Armenian but when I wish him barev dzez he snorts and says his mama is Beta Israel so we talk coffee. Ethiopian coffee is serious coffee. Weak-ass North American barista brew is like a ballet shoe and Ethiopian coffee is like something handmade in leather for the president of a Russian bank.
We do not talk about Hans Eiger at all and still less do we talk about cigars even although these are some fine fucking cigars and they should be respected by the mouths of beautiful women because that is the best thing that can happen to a cigar. We talk coffee like two old men remembering great sex they once had with girls they wish they’d hung around for and fallen for and I wish Doktor Paul was here because he would love this.
We talk for like two hours and then the little guy says it is time now for me to go and I say thank you yes it is and I buy a cigar. I tell him give me his favorite and I guess that he does. I do not know what it is and he does not tell me. Doc will smoke it sometime Doc loves a good cigar and it is a good cigar.