I like Saul he is like having a really huge scary support animal. We talk about old-time TV, which is to say I talk about old-time TV and Saul says he prefers old-time radio, like apparently Richard Diamond is his jam. I say Peter Gunn is better and he says no it is not better it is the same stories on TV but with Craig Stevens.
Train to the west and south. Guard has a nose piercing and sits down to talk about Spanish politics. His mother is Spanish Catalan. She is conflicted. Madrid is wrong but so are the separatists. None of it is what matters. What matters is that his brothers cannot find work and people are saluting Franco’s bones. I say that only a total asshole would have an ongoing dialogue with the skeleton of a dead monster and the guard says yes I have a clear understanding and Europe right now is full of such assholes.
I say that is very bad and I do not say that Saul has a sawed-off shotgun in his luggage because that sort of thing often offends. Sawed-off like at both ends like pistol short. It’s a murder stick not a marksman’s tool and it would be a huge disappointment in any sort of gunfight but as a discussion piece like face-to-face it is super persuasive.
When the guard has gone I tell Saul that I one time made a cannon out of pipe and a gas cylinder and Saul says he doesn’t have much time for improvised weaponry generally. Saul says that of course all weaponry is improvised in one way or another but he makes yogurt at home and is familiar with the variations of flavor and intensity and texture that come with fluctuations in climate and he does not look for that kind of variation in his professional tool kit. I say that Saul is hooked on the gun crack of the military industrial combine and toxic masculinity and Saul says that we are not in a competition about our genitals so it is okay for me to have a homemade cannon and for him to have a room full of specialized mercenary stuff.
For the record anyone who is male and alive is in a competition about genitals with Saul. The only reason I am not actually destroyed by the mere existence of Saul and Saul’s genitals is that he bivouacs with a landscape designer and I am the recognized sex partner of the world’s premier psychopathic bioscience researcher. My boy parts may or may not be physically equal to Saul’s but they are fucking intrepid. Doc’s present erotic jam is an experimental memory drug called Fisahypnozerasol. FHZ is the next thing I will illegally sell if I ever get back into the illegally-selling-things business because it is fucking brilliant. It acts on the brain to blur memory around the point of orgasm so you can remember the fact of having amazing sex but not exactly what was amazing about it or what led up to it, which means you can ask your partner to do something motherfucking weird without fear because both you and they will forget details of the whole thing the following day. On the downside if you do not orgasm you remember everything and therefore it is crucially important to have a backup plan because you do not want to collect a mental library of frustratingly incomplete sexual experiences. But that is fine because you also can do the same amazingly obscene thing over and over and not get bored of it. So Doc and I are having exceptional sex right now and every time it is nervous and new and intimate and totally disgraceful and then we get to do it all again. A month ago I woke up with scratches from my ankles to my ass and words from a Swedish road map written on my junk and I can safely say I will never see the Frösö bridge in the same way again.
I sit and think about the astonishingly obscene things I have done that I cannot remember until we reach the next station.
Cross the border into France. New guard is silent. She drinks coffee. She has a mark on her finger where there used to be a ring. Clips my ticket and we’re done.
Like that.
I read half a book and leave it on the table. Monte Carlo station looks like a golden bathroom with trains.
Short walk across town.
I let us in to Sharkey’s apartment and we get in the shower. Water comes out hard and hot because billionaires love not paying tax but they still expect good pressure or they start to think they’re getting ripped off.
I stand in the shower in my clothes. Saul stands next to me. Saul stands next to me in the shower in his clothes getting soaked and he is okay with that because he is a professional.
“Saul this is super professional I am impressed.”
“To be honest Jack I was thinking about porn. This is a kind of a porn scenario here.”
“That also makes perfect sense but the point is that I could not possibly have known that if you had not told me. That is professional.”
So we stand there being professional and now I’m also thinking about porn. I think about Doc and all the terrible things we have done to each other and about the way she moves and about the terrible terrible things she will do to Agent Hannah and—
Professional.
Sharkey gets in the apartment and hears the water and makes the obvious wrong deduction that his lovely lady Crystal is here and no doubt that in his mind there is also baby oil because he comes through the door naked and flings open the shower cubicle and after a minute or so where we all just look at one another. Because it’s there I guess Saul just rests the emphasis gun right over Sharkey’s erection like a cloche on a cake.
Sharkey passes out on the bath mat.
While I work I am still a little bit unhappy about the sawed-off situation like I feel I am the boss I should definitely have the coolest gun but the gas cannon was a very specific moment in my life and you know what they say you cannot go home again.
Sharkey wakes up.
Sharkey says: “What the fuck do you think—”
“No Sharkey no. Please not today. Today is a me day I am taking a me day.”
There is something in my voice or Saul’s face or maybe just the emphasis gun because Sharkey listens.
“I am unhappy Sharkey. I wish to converse in honesty and openness as between professional men. Men of commerce Sharkey who respect one another and who understand the ebb and flow of economic totality and who recognize imperatives.”
“What fucking imperatives Price for—”
With my free hand I point one finger downward. “Whut wait whut now,” Sharkey says, and looks. Then after a while he says: “What. The. Shit?”
I say: “That is a suicide vest for your scrotum.”
Because it is.
The vest is not absolutely a vest because it is more like a snood. I crocheted it out of detcord. It will not actually kill a person outright. Not immediately at least. Having your scrotum explode is not necessarily fatal it is just what you might say a turning point in a life such that there is a time before and a time after. That said, Doc assures me that very few people will voluntarily act in such a way as to cause explosive testicular vaporization. It is psychology plus also even in the event you are not real into scrotal lifestyles—and Sharkey is—having your sac blown into orbit by a detcord snood is no one’s idea of rock and roll.
Sharkey gets some clothes on like baggy sweatpants and a sports jacket so now he is real on-trend for the Yacht Club brunch and he says that I have his full attention which I do.
“Here is how we will do this Sharkey are you paying close attention? Say yes Jack.”
“Yes Jack.”
“I am right now in a mood Sharkey. I am in a pisser of a mood. But I will trade your continuing scrotitude for information freely and unstintingly given.”
“Aw come on Jack I cannot—”
“No Sharkey NO. I am TALKING.”
“…Okay Jack.”
“I do not want your general business details or your confidential shit. I just want to know about my confidential shit namely who WHO sent a tiny evil Sound of Music–looking motherfucker and a dude with a long gun to do me wrong Sharkey WHO?”
“Not me—”
“Of course not you or you would be on a fucking magic hideaway island somewhere hoping I cannot track you like a bloodhound, which I can. From now on always I can.”
“You can like forever?”
“Once I have tied detcord around a scrotum Sharkey I can always find it again. Unless I have exploded it then basically it becomes a concept scrotum more like a concept piece than something you could hang.”
“Fuck it Jack FUCK IT this is precisely what I was saying with reference to your team being weird that kind of statement is—”
“Sharkey. Say Yes Jack.”
“I do not—”
“SHARKEY.”
“Yes Jack.”
“I am prepared to accept provisionally that you are not enough of a stupid fuck to send a prepubescent to stab me with an oyster knife and leave me alive although also too I am blessed with an exceptional team of persons and it is possible you just messed up your knockout in some way. But seeing as you are going to be super-duper frank with me—and bearing in mind always that there is detcord around your man apples—I am gonna go with the idea that you are not at fault here.”
“Okay.”
“For now.”
“Okay.”
“But that then creates a problem Sharkey because then we touch on the tender area of your professional connections.”
“O shit.”
“Yes. We do.”
“O shit Jack.”
“Yes Sharkey here is the problem it was you or it was one of mine or it was Mr. Client.”
“Okay Jack can I say something?”
“Yes Sharkey.”
“I don’t wanna disrespect nobody at this point in time Jack but someone has to say this.”
“Go ahead man I will be indulgent.”
“You gotta be real calm.”
“I will be motherfucking papal.”
“Did you consider it might be Volodya?”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“Please don’t explode my balls.”
“What—oh—naw man I was not thinking that.”
“Okay.”
“That suggestion more than anything Sharkey is reassuring to me that you are really giving this some thought.”
“It is?”
“Yes it is because that is an intelligent suggestion and it is left field. You are thinking that he fakes getting shot then slips out of the mail truck while I am unconscious and he dumps some vagrant or what have you into the mill engine and now he is invisible and he is coming for me for whatever fortune and glory or just because he is an evil old fuck?”
“I do not know what any of those things are in the middle but yeah I guess something like that.”
“It is a classic and you got to respect your history.”
“Yes?”
“Even if that history is largely like eighties movies. But there is a problem with your theory Sharkey.”
“There is?”
“Yeah man I saw half of his face in a basket before I left this morning. Brain still somewhat in the factory-standard housing.”
“…Oh.”
“Yeah so while I completely respect that you took a risk there and that was very cool of you under the circumstances it does not really get us anywhere. But kudos man that was—”
“…”
“I was going to say ballsy but it seems in poor taste.”
“Yeah okay I hear ya but then Jack you know there’s the doctor and Charlie and—”
“Sharkey I see what you’re doing here and again I got to respect the attempt man because I get that confidentiality is your all but—”
“Jack—”
“There’s no help for it Sharkey you’re going to have to tell me who Mr. Client is.”
“I—”
“Otherwise I will be subject to a reciprocal negative obligation in regard the aerosolization of your ballsack.”
“Balzac?”
“Jesus Christ Sharkey answer the fucking question.”
“…It was a shell Jack I swear.”
“Of course it was a fucking shell we are crime people we do not—”
“It was a shell is what I’m saying so I DID NOT KNOW or I would have never—”
“You know now.”
“Now I’m putting it the fuck together Jack I know something okay SOMETHING but I don’t know how much of it is right and I was honest-to-God wondering whether I should call you today but I—”
“Sharkey.”
“Yes?”
“Papal-fucking-indulgence Sharkey. I am pissed with you but so long as we can get through this conversation I consider actually hurting you a waste of resources.”
“You do?”
“I do and Sharkey this is also the point I am making to you and the world: I am Jack. Fucking. Price. I am not some cowboy I am a professional I like things to BE CALM. That is my fondest hope and in furtherance of things being motherfucking calm I will trade you your fondest hope, which I assume to be retaining your scrotum in non-aerosol form am I right?”
“…You actually did shoot a guy with a severed head that time.”
“And it was huge fun Sharkey and it made a hellacious mediapathic attention-getting mess but my point is it was appropriate and it was proportional to need, okay? Sadly it did not function as a prelude to sensible discussions but that is because other parties who should have known better became needlessly emotional about the whole situation and I cannot legislate for the behavior of others. However exigent fucking circumstances obtain right now, that is to say I have been shot in the Ukrainian and there are—you know Sharkey there are rules and conventions but above all this one, which is we provide a service and we do so according to the norms established by time-honored criminal practice and, you know, all that shit. Okay? We are a service entity and I just want the information necessary to carry on my business in all the relevant directions.”
Sharkey says he does not know like know like something you could use in court, and I have grown as a person in the last few days and months so I do not blow him up by the balls right then. Instead I say: “O RLY?”
And Sharkey says that he thinks it may all have been Hans Eiger all along.
Hans Eiger owns the Kircheisen Festung. Obviously it would be not unheard of for a guy who owns a bank to rob that bank. But I offered him a bunch of money for his bank like waaaay too much. Hans Eiger does not care about money or at least he does not care about money only or money in that way.
I say this to Sharkey and Sharkey says that he is once more thinking about the whole business with whales and the thermocline and Saul says quickly I am not to explode Sharkey’s balls so I just frown my ball-exploding frown that I have just made up. Sharkey gets the message because balls.
Why would a man who does not care about money rob his own bank?
Sharkey says Hans Eiger does care about money because Hans Eiger is oh so very broke, but he cannot sell his bank because if he tries he will probably die.
The thing is that Hans Eiger did not create Die Festung because it was a good idea, he created it because he wanted it to be a good idea and honestly it is a terrible idea. But Hans Eiger cares about stability so much that he cannot see that and someone who cannot adjust to reality is not a good person to be running a company. No sir.
The truth is that no one gives a shit for physical storage these days except a few old folks and Hans Eiger. You care that much about physical stuff and you are that rich, you build your own vault in a volcano—but honestly wealth is vapor now. It is concept more than it ever has been and the hoarding of British Empire diamonds in gold nests like an evil chipmunk is no longer considered a sign of taste and distinction. There’s a certain class of person that has shit that needs to be hidden away somewhere like Die Festung and that class is old-money sinners with no future and there are fewer of them every year. When you have a dwindling client pool you got to be the only sensible choice for the evil-chipmunk people and as it turns out Hans Eiger is not. Not only is Swiss law getting less and less amenable to the stashing of secret money and secret stolen stuff but also there is competition for the evil-chipmunk market. There’s private islands and there’s Hatton Garden and old nuclear bunkers in Dipshit, Milwaukee, and there’s museum loans with maintenance grants and a condition that the item not be displayed for twenty years, and a dozen other ways to get the job done that do not require putting your expensive and illegal shit in a bunker with a rob me sign on the door.
Eiger built his dream just in time for almost everyone else to realize they didn’t need it.
He cannot sell because the moment he does the few remaining customers he has—the legacy mob, your older Chinese and Russian oligarchs with fixations on physical wealth, some real traditional gold-standard believers and yeah likely also some of Those Guys that Ottavio Leopold was talking about—those good friends will feel that he has betrayed a sacred trust. A few of them will probably take steps to prevent any sale. Hans Eiger needed an alternative and that alternative was me.
Oh indeed this was not about running off with the proceeds of robbing his own bank and balling dancers under Mexican stars. This is about the darkest reaches of the human heart.
I’m talking about advertising.
Sharkey says he figured Eiger was legit intending to rob his own bank and claim the insurance on goods he actually still had. Sharkey is wrong. Sharkey is uninterested in revolutionary change. Sharkey is lumpen.
Hans Eiger was not thinking along those lines. Hans Eiger was looking to make a point. A splash. A revofuckinglution in personal financial security. To demonstrate that his bank was unassailable. That his bank had the largest banking genitals in all the wide swinging world of steel and concrete and holes in the ground.
And for that what he needed—what he needed—
He needed us.
The Demons.
Not to rob the bank.
To try to rob the bank.
And fail.
Because if there is one thing everyone likes it is a hero story and for a good hero story you need a villain because a villain makes a headline.
And with the right headlines he could turn the emptiness of the Kircheisen Festung into a frantic demand for space. His perceptual issue will become word of mouth.
If Hans Eiger kills the Seven Demons as we try to rob his bank, his bank becomes the coolest fucking bank in the universe. The evil-chipmunk community will want his smooth stone corridors and his musty steel vaults more than they want sex or money or power. International dumb people will open accounts with him and keep nothing in their fucking vaults at all, just to say that they got an account with Die Festung before their brother-in-law did. So he called me and he sent some flunky to be Mr. Client ooh la la and romance my larceny and—
I fell for it.
I fell for it.
I.
Fell.
For that.
I cannot believe I fucking—well that Eiger would believe I would fall for that is—
It is fucking offensive is what it is and that offense is in no way mitigated by the fact that he was right that is not the point I should not have and he should not have DREAMED that I would. Not EVER.
It’s offensive.
It’s offensive and it is also—he is also—he is fucking un-Swiss. Can you believe it? This whole shit is un-Swiss. He caused a hazard to the public in pursuit of profit and he got caught doing it. That is un-Swiss.
But there’s more than that there is something that is beyond offensive it is fucking Hegelian in its ingenuity to piss me off is what.
Do you know what is beyond offensive? That is a coffee trick. It is a commodities trick. Here is what you do you—and this is why you never invest in the fucking gold market because those fuckers barely do anything except this—you have a bunch of coffee for sale and you get a letter of intent to buy and then you turn around and show everyone that oh so confidential letter and you create a demand. You fuck the first buyer and the price goes up and you sell at the top and everyone else is left holding the fucking bag when the price resumes seasonal levels.
“Sharkey this is all very cogent but I have to ask what made you look at Eiger in the first place?”
“Well Jack there is a thing about Eiger.”
“What thing?”
“There is the thing about his being in the Legion and all.”
“He was in the Legion he was this hard-ass we know this.”
“Yeah but Jack it didn’t matter until now so you didn’t likely look much at his record—”
“Just say it—”
“Okay okay he was a recon scout sniper—”
“FUCK—”
“Jack please do not wave the detonator—”
“Saul I’m not waving the—oh thank you yes I was—”
“That is fine but Mr. Sharkey here has been most helpful Jack and it’s important to be seen to be reasonable under difficult circumstances is that not right Mr. Sharkey?”
“Yes Skipper it absolutely—”
Saul hands me back the detonator and asks Sharkey super-duper nicely not to call him that.
Yeah haha. Very ha indeed but here is the thing Sharkey is right. Sharkey is right and—
Hans Eiger.
Hans Eiger has done that with his bank and the first buyer is me and he has fucked me in my Ukrainian.
All around the world there are a bajillion differing perceptions of what you owe to your friends and loved ones and what is appropriate when someone fucks with them. These perceptions range from respecting their caritas and the forgiveness of all mankind to burning cities and putting heads on sticks but the points is there is a spectrum or in fact there is a like a complex three-dimensional space into which all these responses could be placed. What there is not is unanimity and no one gets to tell you what is appropriate to your grief your relationship your private inner knowledge that maybe things were not as they seemed or la la la. Right?
But here this is not that, it is o so much simpler because yes Volodya was on some level my friend. Sure. That is to say I enjoyed his company and god help me his dubiously-sourced-dried-meat hobbyism and his grisly Soviet Industrial murder bullshit. I even loved that he carried his ridiculous out-of-date-ass rifle everywhere and we had to dress it up as a puppet one time whatever. He was an old fart and I liked him and he liked me, so to say he approved of my brand of awful and he liked that I liked his terrible jokes and his dubiously sourced dried meats and yeah maybe just maybe there was some kind of commonality of soul or I don’t know what.
I am not a soul kinduva person. I don’t really do that stuff so I am not sad right now not like sad sad not like crying. I am totally in touch with my emotions but I am not the crying sort of person and I am not sad. I’m fine. I mean I’ll miss him but I am.
Fine.
Commonality of soul yeah sure but that is not relevant all that is data for your 3D grief graph and that graph is not part of my workflow now because yes right yes you heard me I said: workflow.
Volodya worked for me. That was the nature of our relationship. It was professional.
I have people and he was my people and we are—we were—our RELATIONSHIP yes fucker I said it twice don’t @ me—our relationship is of a professional and even what you would say like a military nature. We were in a killing business and he would have killed anyone—anyone at all in the universe—if I had said so.
Probably not without some discussion and fartery unless the situation was exigent but still.
And he would have—maybe he did and I do not know but that also is not relevant NOT relevant and certainly it is not emotionally relevant or it would be emotionally relevant IF we our relationship was of the sort where that sort of thing was itself relevant but see above—he would have stepped in front of a bullet for me because he was combat and I was leadership and in the end that is what it is.
And reciprocally there is stuff. My Person stuff. Like debts and obligations and interestingly those obligations are super consistent across cultures.
So when I say this it is not like an irrational response to emotional pain at all it is totally rational it is a professional matter is all.
Completely professional.
Mr. Eiger.
O Mr. Eiger.
I am rethinking my approach to this job sir. I am considering a new vision of our onward relationship with certain stakeholders in the wider community. Certain stakeholders who have taken a negatively aspected route in re our privacy and the confidentiality of our new venture. It is not likely Mr. Eiger I am afraid it is not likely at all that everyone will retain their present employment status in the new iteration of the profit track. I’m afraid some positions will be redundant and certain people—yes even some senior executives—will have to seek a new level they will have to be managed out. People with the wrong attitude will not make the cut they will be downsized. I don’t like to say it I do not but here is the honest truth in terms. In the argot. The blunt truth is that it won’t be a soft transition. In the end it has to be acknowledged—well. Sometimes there just aren’t any good remedies for that moment in the corporate life cycle and sometimes you can’t give someone—with the best will in the world you cannot give someone the ending they would like.
I don’t know how else to put this and it is totally your choice that this is where we are—your choice from start to finish do please remember that as we embrace the forward aspect of our dealings—I’m just saying in the end there’s no way around it:
Heads will roll, Mr. Eiger.
Heads will roll.
Sharkey is still staring at me and I’m obviously not going to take him home with me. I mean what would I do with another mouth to feed?
So I get some Saran Wrap and I tape the cut end to the floor and I tape the roll to his hands.
Sharkey says: “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Well Sharkey I am leaving now and I do not want to blow up your balls.”
“Oh that’s great Jack I really—”
“But at the same time I do not entirely trust you to be measured about this situation when the adrenal glands start working their mojo and so on. All kinds of weird biochemical shit is about to break loose in your body Sharkey and your decision making is going to suck so I am first of all going to urge you to do NOTHING for twenty-four hours and then I am going to explain to you what’s happening here okay?”
“Okay.”
“So first of all I am putting the phone I am using as a detonator—which is still live okay so please don’t—okay—in the other room. All you have to do is wait until someone comes in and get them to switch it off. Then you are all good. And I am going to call your cleaning service in about an hour and then you’ll be fine and as I say maybe just take a personal day. But in the meantime Sharkey I cannot emphasize this enough do NOT stand up. If you stand up the static charge on the Saran Wrap will almost certainly induce a current in the detonator cables and your balls will explode.”
“…”
“True fact.”
“…”
“…”
“Saran Wrap will do that?”
“It is science Sharkey I am dating a scientist.”
I walk to the train station and honestly I halfway expect to hear the sound of Sharkey’s balls exploding but I do not so I assume he has abruptly become wise. I call his cleaning service and book them in for five-ish, which is the first time they can make it today. I get back on the train.
Man, Europe is just totally civilized this is the only way to travel.
Doc says: “It does not matter. We do the job.”
“But Doc we have no client—”
“Of course we have a client.”
“Who tried to kill us. It was a setup.”
“It does not matter if the client never wanted the job done. We rob the bank. We bring our employer exactly what he asked for. If he then refuses to pay us that is a problem for him but we—we are the Seven Demons. The robbing of the bank follows inexorably from our hiring as day follows night and one breath follows the next as death follows life. That is all that exists in the world for any of us because we are the Seven Demons. That is what we do and what we are and it is what Volodya died for and that means something to me. Is that clear?”
“But—”
“Is. That. Clear.”
“Yes Doc.”
“I will rob the bank. I am entirely capable of doing that as you well know. You will go and be as loud as possible so that everyone is paying attention to you and while that is happening—”
“Wait I’m the distraction?”
“You are the right hand everyone watches. I am the left one, which empties the pocket.”
“I do not want to be the diversion.”
“I know but Price when all this is done there you will be. Everyone will be used to you and you…you are the razor blade taped between the fingers.”
“…Yes.”
“You will make a miracle for Volodya. For all of us. For me. You will fully express our disappointment.”
“I can do that I guess.”
“You can. The liquid nitrogen wedding was one of the most awful things I have ever heard of and that is what I want from you right now. Only more so. Like that but with actual malice Price. I want it to hurt.”
“Are you…okay?”
“No I am not. Do you understand me? I am not okay.”
“Yes.”
“Make a horrible plan Price because if you don’t I will.”
“Okay.”
“And I do not have your restraint.”
“I’m sorry I think you said you do not have my restraint?”
“Please think about this carefully and realize as I say it that I appreciate the magnitude of the assertion and I am factoring into it the fullest understanding of who and what you are: No. I do not.”
Doc buys a giant electronic whiteboard and writes homer at the top. It is the HOMER board. There is a column for stuff that we need and another for stuff we have dealt with and another for stuff that we haven’t.
I write fucking horrible revenge on the agenda section of the board. Doc says yes quite so. Then she makes a new page on the board for robbing the bank and everyone writes a list of things they would need if they were going to rob the bank their own way.
Full architectural and system diagrams
Pressure diving equipment/biomedical suits times seven
Two commandos
Three bulldozers
Demolitions and entry options tbc
Mi-26 “flying crane” helicopter or best option
Saul says: “Jack I feel like I should say this is not a good way to do this. Like do this head-on and you are in a land war for like seven hundred miles of escape route.”
“That would be super cool though.”
“It would be a cool movie Jack it would not be a cool plan.”
“I am very disappointed in you Saul with your common sense and your shitty practical approach.”
“You’re welcome Jack.”
“Doc Saul is fitting in too well can we kill him?”
“No Price we cannot Charlie and I have spoken of it and we find him aesthetically appropriate also he shares the babysitting.”
“What baby—oh. Oh haha okay we will ignore the unkind implication that I am an infant. And proceed show me your stuff.”
“Aw boss I am moved but I think Doc would object—”
“Charlie—”
“Hey you are all embarrassed by the sexy talk that is sweet—”
“Doc help me—”
“She’s right Price it is kinda sweet—”
“Thank you Doc I think it is sweet that you think it is sweet—”
“Come ON man that is literally what I said but you guys are bumping uglies so—”
“Hush Charlie your crime parents are talking—”
“Ew no I do not want to have come out of Doc’s crime vagina—”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…If anyone ever mentions even the notion of my possessing such an organ again that person will immediately die is that clear?”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…Yup crystal.”
“Yup.”
“Yup.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Lucille.”
“Then I will proceed.”
Three large pigs (live)
Neo-scopolamine (Belgian Heverlee variant) 200 doses
Aerosol dispersal unit
Tranquilizer guns
Gun guns
One Festung security employee (high rank) to be secured before visit
Others to be acquired on-site
And one helicopter
Supercomputer time
Detailed base code for Die Festung
Caffeinated beverages
Alcohol
Cocaine
Water bed
Norwegian men’s biathlon team
Supercomputer time
Trunk broadband access
Fast car
Awesome dress
Casino chips
Walther PPK with silencer
Custom genetically tailored MDMA variant
Eye patch
Snakes
Supercomputer time
Lightsaber
X-wing
Droids
Metallic swimwear
Supercomputer time
Hot tub
35 mm film projector
35 mm print of Koyaanisqatsi
Moty’s auto hyper lubricant (Thailand)
Romy Tarangul
Supercomputer time—
“Charlie I sense your attention is straying—”
“No boss my plan is just real baroque is all—”
“Okay carry on—”
“Naw I guess that’ll do it.”
“…Ewwkay.”
Eight times Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP)
Eight times Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB)
Eight C-130 Hercules aircraft for delivery
Marshmallows
“Rex I am not certain that the contents of the vault will survive your plan there. Also the marshmallows will burn. A lot.”
“Oh I was not going to cook them sir I like them as God intended.”
“Okay but how do we complete the mission Rex?”
“I figure we just get this stuff then tell them we have it and what we’re gonna do with it and they can either open the fucking doors or we’ll do it and then go with Saul’s exit plan.”
“…”
“…”
“That is the most grown-up thing anyone has said Rex and that is alarming.”
“Yes sir.”
“Seriously Rex I got to respect this approach it is real Demony.”
“Thank you sir.”
“I am not sure that it meets our present needs Rex but I think next time we will start with you.”
“Thank you sir.”
“…Carry on Rex.”
“Yes sir.”
LUCILLE!
“…”
“…”
“…”
“Yeah who knows actually that might do it.”
“…”
“…”
“What about you Price?”
“Naw Doc I am still collating our many options.”
“Well get it done. In the meantime I have a thing.”
“Yum yum—”
“Silence!”
She does not look jokey so I silence.
We sit in the long room and Doc says to everyone: “Do not be like Jack.”
That seems harsh to me but Doc is speechifying and I do not want to be rude.
Doc says: “We already have Jack we do not need everyone to be Jack. But we are the Demons now and not anything else. That is the only thing that matters in this moment. Where we are? Who we were? These things are not relevant anymore. This job needs to be everything and I’m telling you how you get there. You do not choose to be like Jack. You choose to be like you as if you were hopped-up on appalling Jackness like fucked-up on a toxic testosterone psychotropic methamphetamine Jack serum.”
Rex puts up his hand. “Um I do not know how to do that.”
Doc nods.
“Open your eyes and look at the ceiling fan I will administer it now.”
“What—”
“I cultured this out of Jack’s blood this morning. That means it also contains Volodya. Look upward Rex you will feel a slight pressure as the needle goes in.”
“Uh-oh gosh well uuhhhhhttttt oh gosh I feel sick.”
“Rex it is only a needle. There. Now. Who’s next?”
“There. And there. And here—”
Doc. Injects. Her own. Eyeball.
That’s my girlfriend right there.
“…You are populated with Jack’s microflora. With Volodya’s. You are a little bit them and so am I.”
Charlie wants to know if that will actually do anything.
“I have no idea. Perhaps. There is an element of magical thinking. But you will feel different and you are different. The degree of difference is unknown. You are all, biotically speaking, Jack. Except you, Price. There is obviously no point giving you a serum of yourself so I have made this one for you.”
“What is that?”
“It’s us.”
“…It’s a big one ain’t it?”
“Don’t be a baby.”
“I am just saying Doc everyone else got a little tiny poke and that is like something you would use to make a cow pregnant and we all know how I feel about cows.”
“Jack?”
“Doc?”
“Jack.”
“Doc?”
“This injection contains all of us who are alive. I cannot give you Volodya because he is dead. But you do not need me to do that because he is already in you because he gave you his blood when he knew he was dying. He knew he was dying and he chose that and I do not think you thanked him.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“I am not crying.”
“I know.”
“Into my fucking eyeball Doc I am ready!”
“In fact this injection goes in your gluteus muscle.”
“What right here in front of the anarchists?”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“Of fucking course it does, typical log-cabin motherfucker, all right you guys fuck off to work while I drop trou for the dead Russian asshole. Jeez Doc you just had to didn’t you. I mean where’s my fucking dignity in all OW OW OW.”
So what do I do now?
I have like a mood or a modus: I’m Jack. I’m the Price you pay.
That’s it.
(Wow. Little head rush there. Demon juice got some kick I guess.)
I mean Lucille doesn’t really have skills either he just hugs people and they die of his giant knifepuppy affection but somehow that does not bother him. Well I say somehow…it’s because I burned out his brain using drugs and electric shocks and turned him into a giant knifepuppy because I wanted to.
That’s my modus in action right there I guess and now here is Doc and she says I am the guy to make the appalling shit happen.
That’s my modus too I guess.
I mean it’s not what I want. I am just a guy trying to get along.
I sit by and my leg hurts and I wonder what I am going to do.
Stabbed in the fucking leg by a fucking kid.
Stabbed with a fucking oyster knife like a fucking joke criminal.
Stabbed by a child.
What am I?
I’m a guy without a log-cabin motherfucker to my name is what and I don’t know who to talk to about it. Like who to make representations but also like who to talk to.
I’m the first of the Seven Demons. I have all of them in my blood right now. I think you could cook an egg on my balls. Volodya would do it he would stake me out and cook an actual fucking egg and he would claim it wasn’t weird just some old Ukrainian survival thing.
When man is losing that much heat, is no alternative in cold night.
(Head rush.)
Fucking post-Soviet log-cabin motherfucker I think he just made that shit up. Fucking universal donor bullshit.
I leave the coffee and I go and stand behind the awful bar and stare into the stupid mirror between the Japanese whisky and the French vodka.
“My name is Jack Price and I am the Price you pay.”
But I’m just not feeling it. Who the fuck is that in the mirror? Got some crime face going on but who the fuck?
“My name is Jack Price.”
“Hi, I’m Jack, and I’m—”
I mean the thing is it was funny one time but once you pay a price it is paid and that’s it. Otherwise it’s a subscription.
I am not a fucking subscription.
Looking at that face. I dunno man who the fuck owns that face? Some guy. One time was a coffee guy. Then he was a smartass coke guy. Then he killed a bunch of folks. Some stuff happened in between whatever. Then his friend died his employee and he was evidently not ready for that to happen.
How is it he was okay with his lawyer that he was actually a little bit in love with how is it he was okay that she got shot in the side of the head and he was fine with that but this is not okay? Who thinks that way?
Who?
“My name is—”
I’m not feeling it.
Yeah well Jack would you like to phone a friend?
Sure why not I got lots.
Lots of friends.
Only want to talk to one of them.
“Hallo yes this is a post-Soviet log-cabin motherfucker and I am a little bit dead forever right now please leave a message beep.”
“O you’re deceased? Well gosh that’s embarrassing I forgot—man is my face red—”
Face arms legs fuck I was fucking covered in blood so—
(Head rush. I think I may be high. Demon juice high.)
Okay come on come on my name is—
“MY NAME IS”
“My name is FUCK IT”
What am I ever supposed to do with this?
You know what Jack why don’t you call someone who isn’t dead?
Outgoing VoIP call:
“Hi It’s Barton hi I am VERY RICH in a water bed right now who’s this?”
“Hey Barton it’s Jack Price.”
“Jack Price?”
“Jack Price, Barton.”
“Jack who?”
“The guy with the plane. The bad guy, Barton. I have had a not good day do not make me come over there and murderize you for being you.”
“O Banjo Telemark? The artist sir?”
“…Yes. Yes I am an artist Barton.”
“Okay sir.”
“…”
“Sir?”
“…I am thinking Barton. I will require your input shortly.”
“O. O okay just uh—that’s a little tricky right now sir there is stuff going on—yowow mama Calliope—I’m just a little distracted sir—”
“…”
“…”
“Fog of crime.”
“O my saints and kittens—yes sir fog of crime sir—”
“…did you say saints and kittens?”
“…um yes sir I was greatly moved—oh my—now I am a little self-conscious sir—damn it I will beat you like a four-egg omelet—not you sir I am talking to Calliope—”
“Barton I would send you more money but you cannot possibly spend what you have.”
“Oh thank you sir I guess.”
“Is there anything revolting you need that I can arrange or pay for you seem like a nice person there are certain aspects you might balk at.”
“No sir I’m real contented right now sir you see—oh—oh YEEEebob be a little kind there—I’m fine sir—just a little matter of—”
“Barton I do not think I need to know what you are doing and I fear you are about to tell me so I am going to go. Call me if anything comes up.”
“Oh very good sir okay O yoooyooHOBA—”
“Bye now Barton.”
Call disconnected.
See there’s two ways of doing something so that no one knows it’s happening. There is the one where you walk on tiptoe in the dark and if the lights come on you have a problem like—
Well I guess you get stabbed in the leg with an oyster knife.
But then there is the other way of doing something that no one knows is happening. Fog of crime. That is when you fill a room with light and noise and women in sequins and men in top hats and ten thousand elephants and while all that is happening and everyone is staring at the show—
You stab someone with an oyster knife.
Sometimes it’s about the modus and that is good. Sometimes it is all about process. But other times you fucking mainline your Ukrainian and the blood of your criminal associates and you just fucking do it. That is also some kind of truth.
Sometimes it is about the vision and my vision right now…
(Wham.)
That was more than a head rush. I think I just exploded out of my own face and—
I can see worlds of crime. They are all around me and I am them. I am space and time I am coffee I am cocaine I am universes. I am gods and I am—
I am Demons.
“My name is—”
Yes.
“My name is—”
Say it.
“My name is Banjo Telemark.”
Let me show you my art.
Ringedy ring.
I am busy being full of worlds of crime so I let it go to voice mail.
Ringedy ring.
Voice mail.
Ringedy ring RING RING RING okay fine FINE what—
O it is Sharkey.
It probably is not the ideal moment to take this call because I do not feel diplomatic and Sharkey, well you know: Sharkey has cause to be a little annoyed. In fairness—well if I had it to do over—
Naw I guess it would go exactly the same.
VoIP encrypted: accept y/n
“Hi it’s Jack I’m a little busy right now but go ahead.”
“Jack it’s Sharkey.”
“Hi Sharkey I am glad to hear you well. I am right now doing a thing so I cannot undertake any new work if that is why you are calling also I am stoned out of my gourd on Demon juice—”
“You’re a dead man you fuck.”
“Okay well that is disappointing I was hoping we could move past this Sharkey and go back to being friends?”
“Friends you shit you wanna be FRIENDS now?”
“I can’t say it’s like my dearest wish man but yeah that’s where I was heading I mean we gotta work together and it’s basically my default like, you know, a stranger is a friend you haven’t—”
“You put DYNAMITE ON MY BALLS—”
“In fact it was not technically dynamite. That’s like that stuff in cartoons. This was way more, you know, professional and grown-up. And I gather from the fact we are talking that the service have, you know, I guess unlimbered your scrotum. So—”
“Dynamite. On. My. Balls.”
“Okay I get where you’re coming from but you know Sharkey I was real upset and I needed your attention and you got this attitude like you’ve seen it all and done it. I figured that actually had not happened to you before. And see here we are and it is fine and we can work together. I was upset with you over you know your client betraying me and killing my friend but I have moved past it and you still have your moving parts so—”
“You’re gonna put dynamite on my balls you fuck? You’re a dead man I am going to kill you with my own hands. KILL YOU and I will juggle with your fucking balls and I will have dogs and the dogs will—”
“Sharkey I have to say your timing is not great we are right now holding a sort of a wake for a colleague and I feel like your mood is a little disruptive maybe even disrespectful.”
“FUCK YOU—”
“Okay man I’m kind of done with this little chat let’s talk again when you’re more even tempered—”
But la la la Sharkey is angry. The dogs will either eat me or fuck me or both I really have no idea I am not listening. I mean honestly how are you gonna do both at once? Hello: SPINE?
“Sharkey it is Jack have you killed me yet or am I still screaming?”
“You’re fucking dead right now Jack. I am connected you know who I am connected to? To fucking Ottavio Leopold Calvanese you fuck you remember him—”
“That is a real elegant fellow there Sharkey.”
“Yeah you tell him that see what it gets you.”
“Sharkey.”
“Yeah you walking dead man piss-pot motherfuck?”
“Sharkey are we not going to do business together anymore?”
“FUCK YOU JACK I am coming for you I am gonna come for you Jack you’re dead D E A D is what you are you COME TO MY HOUSE—”
“It’s really more of a duplex but anyway you’re saying I should count you as an active like enemy like even if I had some massively financially rewarding thing coming I should not come to you and cut you in that would not make it better. We’re just enemies now over this whole thing? Because man I thought we were bigger than that.”
“Dead Jack. Dead.”
(Mute call.)
“CHAAARLLLIIIIEEE?”
No answer so I go back in the room with the board, which I will not call the board room.
“Charlie Sharkey is calling and he is pissed.”
“Oh dearie dear.”
“Also he is—I got to say this man I feel like he’s mostly coming from a negative sort of place and—did I say I was basically high on you guys like your mitochondrial sexy hormones—”
“Price that is not a real thing JESUS you’re burning up what the—”
“I am filled with worlds of crime Doc.”
“Yes I imagine you are—”
“I see paradigms. Socially.”
“Price—”
“But that is not the point I cannot keep Sharkey on hold forever he is going to become unreasonable well no actually he is already—well never mind that I mean but professionally speaking for a moment Sharkey is aware of my continued being aliveness and I do not think he is our friend. Like he is now officially a loose end. Charlie I wanted to ask you is he—”
“Yes boss.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes he is.”
“The stupid on this guy Charlie it burns.”
“I know boss we should have factored that in to our decision making.”
“Yep no question that was an operational flaw will you mark it down?”
“Yep already done. You wanna explain to him?”
“Yes please—Sharkey? SHARKEY. Sharkey.”
“Yeah the fuck dead man?”
“Could you schschfffp ffkkkffsch I cannot hear you?”
“IS THIS BETTER YOU FUCK?”
“Yes it is thank you.”
“YOU ARE GOING TO BEG ME JACK.”
“I am genuinely saddened by this turn of events man but I got to ask although I already know the answer: Is it possible that you are so appallingly dumb you are calling me on the actual phone I left at your place as a detonator?”
“Wha—”
SNAP.
Because once the phone has exploded the rest of the pretty enormously loud bang noise does not get transmitted. It is safe to assume that although Sharkey’s balls are completely preserved from this sad sequence of events his brains do pass through his other ear at something approaching the speed of sound.
I mean it’s not like we didn’t all know this was coming, but I tell you I am seriously concerned that the legacy crime world is woefully slow on uptake of the digitally mediated workplace environment.