by Aidan Truhen
“Sit there I will get some.”
He goes.
I do not sit there.
* * *
—
“Sir I am afraid you cannot come in in that—”
“MY NAME IS BANJO TELEMARK I AM A GUEST HERE GET THE MANAGER IMMEDIATELY—”
“O Mr. TELEMARK I had no idea so sorry MY GOD what has happened—”
“I was ATTACKED yes ATTACKED by TERRORISTS I must have champagne immediately and my room my room and warmth and—”
“Yes yes of course come with me—”
Doc will find me. She’ll know to look here.
Before they do.
But I’m so tired and the hotel was the first place I thought of.
Concierge takes me upstairs and opens the door.
“Welcome back Herr Telemark.”
Stupid to be here. Stupid should take a different room tell the hotel—
Too tired to be clever. Call Doc. Fuck this shit just—
Sit down on the bed and sleep in my heat packs and my borrowed sweats and Egyptian cotton sheets the good kind not the bullshit kind they sell everywhere now.
All fine all fine sleep—wait what is that smell that is weird is that those nasty chocolates on my pillow or some kind of floor polish—
That is when Evil Hansel falls from the fake A-frame rafters like a giant bat and slams a plastic refuse sack over my head.
I fucking hate Switzerland.
It is a Swiss refuse sack and so it is paid for by taxation at point of sale and you have to use these sacks to get your refuse taken away although recycling is free but that is not the point the point is that it is tough and thick and industrial and Evil Hansel gets it tight over my face so that the lip of the sack is pulling up under my chin like the strap on a helmet. He is actually standing on my shoulders and lifting with his legs strongman-style. I struggle of course but he’s a limber little shit heel and I cannot get rid of him. I smash myself against a wall but he shifts grip around to—I’m not sure. It’s hard to say. It’s hard to say anything.
Hypoxia is amazingly quick and faster when you’re working hard. You have breathed every second every day of your life. Try not breathing and running at the same time and get back to me.
I try to breathe and the air in the sack tastes of solvent and hydrocarbons and a hint of antibacterial cleaner. At least the floor polish smell is gone now all I can smell is my own dying. I guess that is Swiss. Evil Hansel is killing me with a sterile murder weapon.
Sterile and gray. Battleship gray like the doors of the Festung which if I die here I will not rob. Gray plastic and gray steel. I cannot see the gray plastic because it is opaque and over my eyes. My face feels as if it will explode off the front of my skull.
Well I guess this is going to suck but at least Doc will have to shut up about it.
Doc would not give me a tracheal stent but she gave me a modified tactical pen. This is an ordinary pen but made of titanium dragon penis or something and it does not break and the edges, if you remove the rollerball cartridge, are really sharp. The front inch or so is detachable to make an emergency stent and Doc and Charlie gave it little tick arms so that once it’s in it’s in.
I flick the lid off and punch myself in the throat with it.
The sharp end of the pen cuts right through my skin like almost too far. It hurts like fucking hell and then I heave my chest and something goes SPLURT and that is the little plug of me flying out of the tube and then I am breathing through a surgical hole in my neck.
I am a fucking genius. I totally saw this coming and I planned for it and I am a fucking genius bleeding all over the sheets.
Evil Hansel says something that sounds like “ach, you minor goofy” and the grip slackens. I figure he is right now pretty fucking startled and maybe a little horrified even if he is a nine-year-old psychopath with impeccable Aryan hair. I buck and feel him rattle against my torso so I do it again and then I catch him in one hand and pull at the bag with the other and I pull them apart and—
The world is still there.
Bright and dizzy and I am alive and FUCK YOU AGAIN FUCKERS I am alive.
I look around and see Evil Hansel and his whole face is covered in red me-funk. I wait for him to pull the knife and come at me but—
But Evil Hansel is just completely still.
I realize he is listening to my breathing which is a weird fucking noise like a seal barking in a plastic box.
“Yeah you little Nazi I’m breathing through my neck hole! You try it and see how that goes! C’mere I’ll show you ya little fucking Heydrich on a tricycle—”
I can say this because my special tactical trache pen is fenestrated to allow for speech it is not like that thing you see in movies where the guy sounds like a kazoo. Doc has all the best stuff.
Evil Hansel actually flinches.
I wonder for a second if he is afraid of blood but he can’t be that’s not it.
I wonder if he thinks I’m just going to kill him now with laser vision or something I mean in the end he is nine so—
Evil Hansel runs out of the room and I swear he is crying.
Well sure fine be a kid suddenly. Be a fucking kid and run away you little—
Fuck you anyway you murderous little bastard.
…
…
Fuck.
Fuck fuck FUCK IT.
I’m standing here with another fucking hole in me and breathing through a TUBE for the love of—
And HE’S the one crying that is just—
Fuuuuuck it FUCK it.
How the fuck do I feel like I’m the monster here?
* * *
—
Call Doc. Doc sends Saul. Saul comes and carries me down to the goods bay and we disappear. It’s not the most sophisticated disappear not like we have actually vanished more like quietly left and not waved at anyone. There is blood everywhere in the hotel room so we may assume the management will be calling the cops on Banjo Telemark.
catastrophe artist missing after terrorist shootout
It’s a headline, but it’s one of those headlines. It’s too obviously something from a movie to be actually true, especially in Bern. The truer it seems the more there is something else going on particularly when you throw in the presence of a noted asshat prankster like Banjo. The more it looks as if it must be fake, the more Agent Hannah’s bosses will represent that it is the exact truth and no they are not even a little bit joking. The more they say it is the truth the more they invest in that the less they will believe her crazy theory that Banjo Telemark is Jack Price and the more she will know it is true.
And Hans Eiger will still hate every word of it.
Mr. Eiger.
O Mr. Eiger.
Gunmen in armored cars? In a civic space where there are homes and families? Where there are children sleeping? What if someone found out? People might say that it is inappropriate to a gentleman of your associations and position in society. They might say MY god that is NOT correct that is QUITE IRRESPONSIBLE it is anti-social really and scandalous there should be a criminal investigation serious consequences HERR GOTT NO’MAL.
Influential people. Sensible, right-thinking people. Mothers. Fathers. Train drivers and technologists and chocolatiers and ski teachers and scientists and—you know—
The Swiss.
Mr. Eiger.
For shame sir.
For shame.
* * *
—
Doc comes and I am a mess with blood and by now it’s really uncomfortable having a pen in my breathing parts and every time my lungs work it’s like well exactly like you would fucking imagine. Hashtag do not want.
“Price what the fuck—”
“Just glue it—”
“I am gluing it shut up for ten seco
nds—”
“Just OW—”
“Shut up ONE Thermopylae TWO Thermopylae…”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“TEN O thank God—”
“You PINCHED me in the TRACHE HOLE ow Doc enough with the needles already—”
“That is a drip full of good things you need at this time. Now hush. Our guest is here. At least you are authentically tousled and disreputably drug-seeking—”
“I am not drug-seeking you pronged me in the blood parts—wait what guest—”
“Remember last night before you started a war in the capital of a peaceful nation?”
“That was not me that was them but also too YOU SAID—”
“I said distraction—with an A not a U—”
“I see what you did there but Doc it truly it was not my fault also too Agent Hannah—”
“Hush Jack.”
“Wait what?”
“Hush. Jack. It’s fine.”
“…You called me Jack?”
“I did.”
“Because of the future we have that we totally do have?”
“Because use of an injured person’s first name is demonstrated to have an immediate calming effect and even there are studies showing increased healing.”
“Or that.”
“Jack.”
“Yes?”
“Also because of the future.”
“The future that we do have?”
“That future. Yes.”
“Aw Doc.”
“Always accepting that the future as we construct it is—”
“I have glandular feelings for you Doc such as would be observed in a brain releasing oxytocin and associated neuropeptides that are linked with the human experience of positive emotion but also with the urge a starfish has to evert its stomach and devour small crustacea as prey.”
“…Shut up or I will have sex with you now and it would hurt you.”
“Ooooooh…”
In fact Doc does not have sex with me because somewhere between the moment when she leans down to kiss me and the moment I touch the skin of her stomach with my hand and I hear her chuckle in her throat and she captures my hand—the one which was inappropriately touched by a significantly excited federal clitoris but the one also which held the tactical pen—and slips it into her mouth—which I totally remember happening but she says never happened—I fall asleep.
* * *
—
Here then I guess is the scorecard apart from that we successfully kidnapped a nice lady from a seal sex establishment:
I have annoyed Hans Eiger enough that he called in Monsieur Leclerc the Franco-Belgian Nazi. Leclerc is not a drawing room guy he is not presentable not Swiss-friendly he is a tough guy. He has crossed the line and in fact metaphorically he has peed in the civic fondue and the whole of Swiss lawful goodness desires his balls in a bucket—though they are too lawful good to actually bucketize him—all the same the heat is on him and that is nice. It is not on Eiger so long as Leclerc does not squeal like a—
We do not discuss the squealings of pigs in that way anymore they are family now.
(The ones that are left.)
The heat is somewhat also on Jack Price the international criminal although not very much on actual me right now because Agent Hannah is drowning under legal challenges to her irresponsible and defamatory treatment of the artist Banjo Telemark. Banjo does not take kindly to being pushed around by the running dog lackeys of capitalism and unfreedom and he has unleashed upon her the firm of Jaeger Globus & Driskoll of Geneva. Why them well because obviously we murdered the only lawyer we knew in this town and plus also Banjo Telemark needs lawyers not in any way associated with this whole thing so far. In any case I have in my life been exposed to some vindictive motherfuckers but I had not until I spoke to Ms. Jacinta Globus encountered anyone so necrotizingly joyous at the idea of fucking up a federal agency. It seems to me that Ms. Globus takes an unholy pleasure in such work and what is weird about that is that she is herself as far as anyone can tell—and when I say anyone I mean me and Charlie and Mr. Friday’s nephew in Hafnarfjörður who does odd information security jobs for him between fishing trips—she is totally without criminal history or activity of her own. It is just a thing with her but fuck me she is good at it and she has the knowing of every nook and cranny of habeus gofuckyourself.
For the next few days while all that is sorted out Agent Hannah can look at my corpus delicti but she can’t touch any of this yes I do know that is not what that means.
Corpus delicti.
Cannot—in fact—touch this.
Tra la la tra.
Cannot touch—any—of my corpus delicti—with her federal agent lovebutton—or any other damn thing she brings to the yard—YES I have changed songs sue me O RIGHT YOU CANNOT because I have a Jacinta in my pocket and she is not pleased to see you.
And Doc’s plan for the Kircheisen Festung…it is good. She has the necessary elephant tranquilizer and she has a vector for it. She has the physical body of Elena Riccardi the programmer, last seen passing out in FischFisch from a high dose of whatever, and soon she will have answers.
All security systems have dirty secrets. It just depends how dirty you are prepared to get yourself to uncover them. We went to FischFisch and I got clitorally assaulted so we are already quite dirty and I think my suffering should entirely count for something.
And it does because Elena Riccardi is waking up.
Charlie says: “Good morning sleepyhead YAWN.”
Elena Riccardi says: “VASS?”
“Oooo Tiger steady it’s a little bit early for shouting although I do like it when you yell—”
“VASS—WHAT WHAT O SHIIIIT—”
Fisahypnozerasol plus some high-grade opiates to trigger it will leave you with a sense memory of fairly humungous physical pleasure and no idea what happened to cause it. That is fine if you wake up next to your acknowledged sexual partner and less good if you walk into the breakfast room of a log cabin full of weirdo strangers wearing nothing but a borrowed XXXL tour shirt for a Euroskiffle PMV band called the Dover Bends.
If you do not know what PMV is do not Google it.
“Owwwww loud loud loud Elena fercrissakes not cool—”
“Oh hey Rita you here too?”
“Yes Banjo,” Doc says, “me and Lulu and even Bad Man Adams from the band.”
(That’s Charlie and Lucille she’s pointing at and of course I have a hole in my neck that has recently been superglued but even without that the idea that one might have done sex with Lucille is a troubling sort of a thing. Lucille looks like a hair puller.) “Aaacccch ne ne ne ne—where are we? Where is my husband—”
Charlie says: “Well this is our house and Oscar well he bailed after you guys got into it a little that guy cannot take his hooch I am afraid he was way grouchy and you told him to—well you were clear about who wears the pants in your house sexually speaking—but wow lady—you! You are THE dirtiest hunter in the ocean sweetheart that I gotta give you I have not been speared and flensed like that in—”
“…o SHIT du meine Gute shit shit shit…”
Elena Riccardi is having a really bad morning right now and Charlie is just grinning at her and bringing her coffee and that is making it worse because she cannot remember anything at all except being really really you know—
—satisfied—
—by person or persons unknown but if you’re lucky maybe you can piece it together and find them again and pin them to a wall and—and she does not feel good about that but at the same time she really does and—
And that is why you go to FischFisch in the first place.
* * *
—
This is the key to a professional drug amn
esia play. In the aftermath the subject should feel incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of asking questions about what they don’t remember, but not so uncomfortable that they want to call the police or alert their employer to a potential security breach. You definitely do not want a software engineer specializing in security wondering whether she might have given up the details of a massively secret project she worked on as an associate a dozen years ago. You would not want her thinking that she had for example given you back doors and exploits and vulnerabilities and the Internet Protocol address of the system’s only contact with the regular interwebs or any of that shit. If she thought that she might call in to work and tell them what has happened and that would put a massive crimp in your robbery and you would need to take steps but Mr. Friday was real clear about the rules of engagement here so those steps would be problematic. No long-term harm he said and there will be none. Just a few days of mild ethical discomfort and emotional woe because she inexplicably forgot her husband somewhere along the road to orgytown and that is not part of their Deal.
No sirreebob. That is a big fat no-no it is on their list of no-nos that they keep on the fridge door beside the little bright colored alphabet magnets and the school calendar. In truth probably her husband would be okay about it he is not a bad guy and he loves her. That slightly makes it worse and so now she has to deal with that fuckup and it is in the forefront of her mind and she wants it gone from there—
“(SCHEIßEREI!)”
—and she is definitely not asking awkward questions about whether she compromised Hans Eiger’s impregnable fortress.
There is no such thing as ethical fair trade kidnapping but if there were it would be this and I am mostly fine with it. We have done a crime to her and a mean one which preys upon her emotional vulnerability and her lifestyle and that is a shitty thing to do. But on the other hand Elena Riccardi will eventually work out what really happened and she will be pissed as hell and she will be right, but in the long and even the medium and actually the short term Elena will be as okay as anyone ever is and unlike let us say Sharkey or Volodya she is alive. In this world you have to wake up every morning grateful about that or you will just blink and miss it.