Initiating Incident: “Business Opportunity”

The deal came with a story; that alone should have alerted Ralph. Jigme Dorje, a former Buddhist monk, now full-time drunkard, had made a friend at his last rehabilitation center. This friend was involved in selling grass flown in from Hawaii. The low price offered was contingent on Jigme’s participation. Jigme had no money whatsoever, and needed a backer. So Ralph was informed by Valley Girl Jenny, an old acquaintance from his Tibetan scripture class.

Through all the easy-going exchanges that led up to the handing over of the money – the cryptic answerphone messages, whispers at the shop’s till, the preliminary meeting with Jigme over cream-cheese bagels – Ralph felt a gut certainty that he was being ripped off. Yet, because he couldn’t logically justify the certainty – and because he urgently needed the money – he went through it all as if hypnotized, even saying, when it transpired that the money had to be handed over two days before the drugs appeared:

“Never mind. I know I can trust you,”

in a voice not his own.

The money was still in the envelope from the bank. It felt chunky. Handing it to someone was like giving them something huge and unwieldy: a safe, for instance. When it was done, and Jigme had left, walking too fast, Ralph immediately began to sweat.

Long before the two days had passed, he was raging, all the more furious for having known all along.