with art papers. Mostly he has time on his hands. Banjo lets it be known he will walk the streets of Bern and travel the train network. He will touch the truth of the country he is visiting. Ambiguitionism—Banjo says—requires knowledge of an underlying truth that critically speaking does not exist but which in the everyday is all the real that there is. You can only know a nation by its roads and rails Banjo says. By eating in its roadside cafés and listening to the voices of post mistresses and bus drivers.
Banjo talks a lot of shit but that much is true.
While Banjo goes on his little spiritual journey between the cheese maturation huts—that is an actual thing—between the cheese maturation huts and the light industry all along the valley floors, I watch Hans Eiger.
I watch Hans Eiger for three days. It is very boring.
I watch him and think I should have shot him by now.
Pop.
Zing.
Splat.
But then what?
Then he’s just the guy who killed a Demon and got shot in the head. And that is fine.
But it’s pedestrian and he will still have won and that is not allowed.
Hans Eiger must be inundated. He must be drowned on his mountaintop in a sea of Demons.
People have to wince when they say his name.
They have to say: “Hans Eiger O SHIT that Hans Eiger O SHIT that guy is—WOW HAS ANYONE EVER BEEN MORE DEAD?”
They have to feel his death as a tenderness in their crime vaginas and crime testes and whatever else these people have.
Like what you feel when you see a guy hit himself in the eye with a hammer and you hear something go crack and just for a moment you feel that crack in your face and your nethers get that feeling of ice water like an electric shock of sympathy.
If someone has a name that is just a little bit similar—like to say like I don’t know like Franz Peyser—that should be enough. Franz Peyser should be out of a job in organized crime in Europe in the whole fucking world and no one should ever know exactly why but they just know in their fucking souls you can’t be near that guy or your eye will explode.
Like that.
So I don’t shoot him not that I would personally shoot him I’d find someone who knows how to use a long gun and
Pop.
Zing.
Splat.
But I do not do that instead I watch and I remember that I am very bad at waiting.
Hans Eiger goes to one menswear shop actually a tailor and he buys bespoke menswear. He takes meetings in hotel conference spaces. He has calls in the business suite. He knows people and people know him. He is a face.
Whatever man he is a dandy of some sort no doubt.
Evil Hansel’s mother lives in a duplex on the river she is legit and she is married to a guy from Gibraltar and she sees her father but it’s not like they’re close.
Eiger drives a German automobile with a customized engine. When he is at Die Festung he stores it in a secure garage by the cable car. In town he parks it at the Commodore Hotel.
He eats at a particular table at a particular restaurant where they know him. They know how he takes his coffee.
He has an apartment in Doha on the sixty-first floor of a steel-and-glass tower called Karlsbad House.
He does his high-street banking at a Swiss private bank that is designed to look like a small family firm and has branches in 101 countries. Every week of his life is defined by a schedule that is insofar as he can make it exactly like the last one.
I know how to do this.
I know.
“Hi I am Banjo Telemark hi I—yes the artist THAT’S RIGHT gosh I am so flattered that you—oh in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung right yes that photo OMIGOSH that photo is so embarrassing—what is it you say here HERR GOTT NO’MAL—aha hahaha ahah—yes anyway my GOSH what they did to my chin in that photo no really I am shy oh then just one selfie just one but just for your personal site—hi yes this is my manager Dr. Brunhild Hexenjammer—listen I—well thank you I would like to order suits for all of my team yes also the women but in the men’s style—yes—yes—well I appreciate both the—no the timing is important it must be immediately but I appreciate—yes here is a check by way of persuasion—yes that really is a lot of money it was paid to me by the sultan of—yes he very much is a collector. Yes so I would like them all to have something a little special I leave that to you and them there are five of us in total but as I say—”
And that is Eiger’s suit delayed until after the fair.
It doesn’t matter at all he has plenty. It doesn’t matter at all. It’s not substantive.
But it is the world come calling.
“Good morning sir.”
“Good morning Mr. Telemark.”
“Good morning.”
“Yes you have said.”
“Indeed so well to business then. I wish to open an account.”
“Very good here are the forms. You will also require certain—oh I see that you have prepared well—”
“Yes I like to be expeditious in financial matters—”
“That is excellent but we will also require one—”
“Yes here and also I think recently there has been added a—”
“Yes indeed thank you that is most efficient I do respect such—”
And so on.
Because when Charlie fakes your existence you do not just get a little book with a picture in it. There are people in Valletta who will swear they went to school with me. There is a construction company on Gozo where I did my first job during the summer vacation there is a girl there who broke my heart and has always regretted it.
You can go and ask them. They’ll tell you all about me. No ambiguity at all.
“Thank you so much I have one question can you provide digital account access?”
“Oh yes of course that is just modern. You also will need this it is called an American name quite unusual they say: a dongle.”
“Excellent.”
I cannot go to the school because the lady has seen Banjo and Banjo is hard to forget. Charlie cannot go ditto. Doc does not want to go but I put it on my section of the HOMER board so she goes.
Horrible fucking revenge.
“Welcome to the Dorfschule Kircheisen how splendid you are coming here to live that is excellent.”
“O yes we are very excited our employer is proposing to invest in the region. We are so to speak the advance guard.”
“Ah an invasion!”
“Oh yes quite so an invasion from St. Gallen!”
“The worst kind my God!”
“Yes you shall be quite overrun!”
“Ahaha!”
“Ahahahah!”
“Ahahah!”
“Ah.”
“…”
“…”
“Perhaps you might wish to see the school?”
“Oh yes indeed it looks quite perfect on the website—”
“And how many children—”
“Four—”
“Four my God such riches congratulations—”
“O yes we are quite entirely fecund.”
“…”
“…”
“Gosh well yes. Anyway here we are this is the classroom and—oh how pleasing here this is Erna she is teaching here as an interim measure she is quite elevated we are always delighted to have teachers so qualified—”
She is Hans Eiger’s daughter is what. Agent Hannah’s friend.
Evil Hansel’s mother.
Erna is a researcher. She has just divorced a ne’er-do-well husband and is considering her options. In the meantime, of course, she is teaching, because she does not like to be idle.
She is delighted to meet us. She is the more astonished to learn that Doc is a research scientist by training and that she is looking on behalf of a colleague for someone with—well how remarkable—with exactly the kind of experience Erna has herself.
For a post in Sydney.
Six months with the possibility of tenure thereafter. It is all very short notice but it’s a dream job. Erna must consider carefully of course. Take all the time she needs.
So long as it’s less than a week.
Lindemann Auto is the Swiss version of one of those places where they take street cars and turn them into race cars. They will put skis under your running boards so you can drive your SLK across a lake. They will turn your Bentley into a boat they will—they will secret agent your shit right up. But they will also just maintain your nice car for a lot of money. Hans Eiger brings his car here because it is the best engine place in Europe and only Magnus Lindemann himself is permitted to work on it.
Turns out Magnus has a son and the son is called Otto and Otto is a solo cellist.
And by end of day Otto has just been booked to play a single concert in Beijing but there is a requirement that his father personally introduce him on the stage.
Magnus doesn’t have to be asked twice because family.
Gosh this would just be an awful time for Hans Eiger’s car to break down.
“Hello Mr. Telemark welcome to the Commodore how can we assist you?”
“Well to be honest—to be honest I have been sleeping in the Black House and at an agricultural building I have recently acquired and it feels—how can I put this—it feels obvious.”
“I see.”
“It is obvious because I am a countercultural person. I am an Ambiguitionist I specialize in tearing down the world’s certainty.”
“Yes quite so.”
“I am concerned that I have—to be candid—that I have allowed people to become comfortable with who I am to think that they know me by my dress and style by my very disrespectability. And so…I am going to change my mode.”
“And you wish—”
“I wish to stay here at the Commodore for the next two weeks. I will require accommodations for five persons two of whom will share a suite.”
“That is quite in order—”
“I also have some vehicles we will need to park here and—how are your relationships with local restaurants?”
“They are excellent—all this is quite—perhaps you could provide me with—”
“Ah of course let us say a cash payment in advance and of course here is a credit card for your security—”
“Oh I note that it is—”
“Yes indeed there is in fact no limit on that one.”
“Welcome to the Commodore, Herr Doktor Telemark, and may I say I have always admired your unique and penetrating formulation of the artistic experience please inform the staff of any requirement you may have.”
“Herr Telemark?”
“Yes what can I—oh.”
“Herr Banjo Telemark of Valletta, presently resident at the Black House and the Bauernhof Müller?”
“Well gosh you gentlemen are strikingly official.”
From behind me Agent Hannah says: “That is because they work for me Mr. Telemark.”
“How excellent madame but I do not believe we have—oh wait you are friends with the mother of the sex-pervert child?”
Agent Hannah twitches just a little.
“The boy is blameless, Herr Telemark, as you must be aware.”
“Madame I know nothing of the matter I was not witness to it but I do eagerly await its fullest explanation to the satisfaction of all parties concerned now if you will excuse me—”
“I would really like to talk to you, Banjo Telemark.”
“Well that would be lovely I am sure but I am working right now.”
“This is how artists work?”
“Yes my practice is of its nature quite ludic.”
“Does the name Jack Price mean anything to you Herr Telemark?”
“Why yes of course he is a renowned international criminal terrorist famous for cunnilingus.”
“I—what?”
“What what?”
“You said he was famous for what?”
“Cunnilingus. Apparently it is a thing with him. I read where it is all he does when he is not engaged in acts of terroristic mayhem. He is obsessed with the act with the close engagement of lips and sex organs with the whisper the moan the gasp the slow gathering rhythm and the exhortations and the grip of hand in hair and shoulders on wide thighs. It is his calling, his service, his hunger for the sudden unexpected wonder at the edge and then the thrashing and engorgement and the gathering thunder of the heart and the fractured awareness of inexorably approaching climax and finally with the absolute rigidity of ecstasy and the single poised moment in which all things are beautiful. In that way as with his horrible acts of senseless violence for money he is an artist.”
“…Oh.”
“Yes.”
“Where ahem where did you read this precisely?”
“I frequent the Internet madame it is known.”
“It is?”
“In certain circles insofar as one can believe anything.”
“Is there ah is there any more information? Of a useful nature?”
“I despise utility I am an artist.”
“Of course.”
“However I believe it is possible that his lover the Professor is—”
“The Doctor—”
“Is that not a character in a bourgeois British television program?”
“That—no—well—I quite like—”
“The Doctor then as you say she is apparently possessed of deviant attitudes and strange lusts also involving drugs and electricity. Certain of my colleagues speculate that they take lovers together I believe the term is delta. But it would almost certainly be fatal to be the amusement of two such people.”
“No doubt—”
“Fatal but I venture delicious thus caught between fear and anticipation in an arena where shared pleasure is life. The desperation. The permitted and desired violations of norms. The slow galvanic spark. The—”
“No thank you I—no I am sure I can read that later not that I will require that detailed a—”
“One never knows what may be critical in a work of art, madame. Thus you may profit by knowing of the vile yet astonishingly accomplished sexuality of these monsters, just as I have made it a practice to meet denizens of the demimonde where I can find them and it may not surprise you to know that such folk gossip like old people at a café table. Thus the cunnilingus of Jack Price is a topic of endless fascination of course but—I mean for example did you know that the head of the FIS’s illegal assassination section is presently having an affair quite unsanctioned and unprofessional with the Dutch ambassador to Madrid?”
“No! I know Madame de Jong from her time in Bern that is quite remarkable—you’re not serious—”
“I assure you it is the talk of the underworld this season and has been since the pornography festival at Cannes when they were caught on a certain yacht—”
“O I believe I heard something about that but I had thought it was just a rumor—”
“I KNOW it’s so completely—”
Agent Hannah draws closer and her hand lands on my shoulder like old friends like confidential chat like that. I take a breath and I can smell her. The vinyl holster the automatic the herbal deodorant and sweat the whisper of lipstick grease. I know what she would taste like if I put her in my mouth. I know because these tiny particles I am smelling are also on my tongue we are within one another now already as we have been since the fight.
I hear her breathe in and I know she is tasting me too.
I do not randomly lick the agent of the Swiss Federal Investigative Task Force known as the Einsatzgruppe JONAS because that is not how professionals do.
One of the other agents makes a little noise like are we interrupting his fucking important thoughts and Agent Hannah scowls at me like this whole thing is my fault.
“Herr Telemark that is not germane. What of substance do you know of Jack Price?”
“Nothing of substance, I suppose. He was reported dead a few days ago I saw it in the paper.”
“I believe you are lying to me.”
“Then you too are living in my art. To be honest it can be lonely.”
“Jack Price is not dead.”
“Found art. Ambiguity is wonderful.”
“I know that he is not dead because I saw him alive. I almost captured him but he escaped me. Now I am to believe he subsequently bled out.”
“But you don’t?”
Agent Hannah says: “Be seeing you—Herr Telemark.”
“And may I know your name?”
Agent Hannah looks into my eyes and then away and she says:
“Yes. I think you may. And if it should turn out that you see Jack Price—if he is alive—do be so kind as to tell him to get out of my country or I will put him beyond the opportunity to practice his skills. All of them.”
Agent Hannah turns and walks away into the Bern evening and the flunkies go with her.
Well shit.
The next morning is golden in Bern and the natural world sings in the trees and although the anarchists have done their thing the cycle of life continues because in the pits on the far side of the river the bears are fornicating as bears do. They are not real discreet about it.
GNARR! GNARRK HRONK! WHUF WHUF WHUF HRONK!
Go at it bear fuckers. Raise the roof.
The world turns and no doubt that is nice but I am working. I am working with my modern butchered consumer electronics and my anarcho-socialist ice kobold security to do crimes.
There are places on the interwebs where good children do not go. One of these places is called G-Bread. Do not ask me why it is called G-Bread. It is because of the witch’s cottage in the fairy tale. These people are deep into their dark-fantasy-lifestyle choices much of their technological security revolves around magic circles and naked chanting. Mr. Friday and Mr. Dory look at this place the way a consultant ENT guy looks at you putting a paper clip in your ear to scrape the wax out.
No but seriously do not put that shit in your ear it is not okay.
So in consequences of some poor admin decisions and a lack of basic competence, G-Bread is where you commission bored Chinese kids to run DNS attacks on your neighbor’s email and then because the whole place leaks like a slug’s asshole you go to jail. No sensible criminal person would ever go to G-Bread but I guess not every terrorist is a fucking ghost mastermind like in the movies so maybe they do.
Never do crimes on G-Bread.
But just like a nude masterpiece hidden under a crappy picture of a vase, so there is something under G-Bread. If you enter the wrong password three times and you remove the numbers from the end of the resultant URL you get sent to another place and if you enter the right password there you’re in Halcyon, and Halcyon is the place where your ENT guy goes to get laid with ophthalmologists.
Dirty dirty dirty ophthalmologists.
Not literally but that could also be arranged on Halcyon.
On Halcyon I have posted an offer: If you commit any serious crime anywhere in the world and publicly identify yourself as Jack Price you can claim an extra ten thousand dollars.
If someone is arrested in the commission of such a crime and you free them with violence you can claim one hundred thousand dollars.
If you are a member of the law enforcement community and you free them you can claim seven million four hundred and eighty-one thousand nine hundred and forty-one dollars from a total remuneration pot of one hundred million dollars.
If you can supply evidence of someone gaming the system you get a full ten million dollars on presentation of their polished skull on a stick.
I did not want to be too forward about this so I have used Sharkey’s login information and his bank account that seems only fair because I did try really hard not to explode his balls and it’s not like he had any descendants other than those formerly resident as potential in said balls. At least not that I know of but actually he probably did and I make a note to put someone on that.
Then I get up and jump in the river instead of showering and I discover that the river is glacial meltwater and my penis is very unhappy with me.
Lucille swims for half an hour he is secretly made of walrus. When he emerges his walrus man parts are like sweet potato. Doc looks at him through infrared goggles and says his groin is actually two degrees warmer than the rest of his body. This is autonomous urogenital thermogenesis and very interesting scientifically speaking. Doc says I should really look. I tell Doc she is a genius and a woman of tomorrow and I do not look at Lucille’s appalling nethers through high-tech surveillance gear that is not my jam. I go and make art.
But on second thought I do make Doc take pictures because art is where you find it and the more mysterious and horrible the better and if there is anywhere in the universe more mysterious and horrible than Lucille’s sweet potato walrus lovesack I do not know where it could be and I do not want to.
“Boss it is impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible.”
“Actually boss—”
“Yes all right lots of things are impossible what impossible thing is this?”
“The thing.”
“What thing.”
“The thing that you said.”
“What—”
“The guy in the marina. Boss he is not there. There’s pictures of the back of his head and like that. But he does not want to be seen.”
“Is there a picture of his ear? I read where they can do ID now with just ears—”
“Boss. I am the nerd in this conversation. There is no good picture of his ear also the availability of ear comparison data is not great.”
“So we have just his back?”
“Yeah shoulders head and butt—”
“How are there pictures of his butt?”
“Like in his suit from behind? The bellhops in the marina hotel wear body cams—”
“Oh so not like his actual butt—”
“No not his actual butt that would be weird—”
“If we had his actual butt could we identify it?”
“If we had his actual butt we would have the rest of him or else I guess it would not be so much an issue anymore boss.”
“But if we just as a matter of curiosity if—”
“No.”
“Seriously?”
“Boss—”
“Yeah okay. It’s just he worries about his body mass index so—oh.”
“What oh?”
“Soup.”
“Soup?”
“I am going to kill him with soup Charlie.”
“Um okay?”
“Not with soup maybe but definitely because of soup.”
“Yes?”
“Soup and emeralds Charlie. These are the key things here. I must go now.”
“Where?”
“Bogotá.”
Some things you got to do in person. There’s no phoning it in there’s just showing up. Often they’re little things like this but you still got to go and it can only be you.
Can’t take the Demon plane they will be watching that. Gonna be some guy named Urs in the bag-handling line who has a friend who has a friend who works for Eiger. A woman called Charlotte who works passport control. Someone.
Happily I have close relationships in the international pilot community I can draw on so I will just go now and fly fly fly—
“Price.”
“Hi Doc I am just going to Bogotá—”
“Yes no doubt whatever but you also have a thing for me.”
“I do it is—”
“No Price not that thing.”
“Always that thing.”
“Eh-eh Price no now is not the time.”
“You brought up my thing and my thing is partial to you so—”
“Well yes I too am partial to that thing.”
“O ARE you o good let us repair to a bedroom and—”
“…This will not get you out of doing that other thing I was talking about.”
“There are no other things there is only—”
“Price.”
“No indeed quite understood.”
“Excellent bring the klister I have an idea—”
“…”
“Do not say anything about finding the klister.”
“No ma’am.”
Klister is a kind of ski wax for when you want to go real slowly and no of course that is not what we do with it you are an idiot. But if you put klister on your skin you can lean on a wall and not slip down it even when normally you would slip down it and with the right understanding of sexual physics and good core strength Doc is correct that you can have basically hot spider lady sex.
She puts my back against the wall walks up it holding my hands. She stalks me as if she is going to eat me. It is the most fucked-up appalling thing I have ever seen.
She puts one foot on my chest and flips through the loop of our arms and slides down. I can smell the wax and the sweat on her spine. She puts both her palms flat on the wall and I cradle her as if I’m a chair. She rolls her head back to bite my neck and I feel the agony of the stress position and then the first touch of—
Amnesia.
It’s quite a long blackout and when I remember myself again she’s still kissing me and I realize that this time she didn’t take any and she knows exactly what she did and I hear her chuckle in her chest and she—
Amnesia.
“Doc—”
“Yes yes—”
“Doc I really got to go—”
“I said yes I KNOW—”
“You are not helping you are—”
“Fine but you also have to do that thing.”
“Tell me.”
“The Kircheisen system runs on some ancient bullshit code it is security by obsolescence.”
“Charlie cannot break it?”
“She can but not until she understands it and it will take too long. She needs a manual. Or better I think it is customized so the fastest thing is if we just ask the coder.”
“Well we can totally do that why—”
“We do not know who that is it is part of the obfuscation—”
“I am not—”
“Price! I put it on the board.”
“Yes?”
“That is how it works I did the school you do this. Fix it.”
“I am not a computer person!”
“Speak to Friday.”
“But—”
“Board.”
“But—”
“I am right now buying a dozen military-grade plasma cutters for rescue work we will not be doing under an oil rig. Speak to Friday. In person he will like that you are flying anyway doing your whatever.”
“It is not nearly in the same direction Doc—”
“It is on the board Price. Look there is Jack written underneath it is a Jack thing.”
“I—”
“The board says so Price it must be true.”
“…Yes ma’am.”
“Good.”
“Can we do the amnesia thing and this time you—”
“No. But I will tell you what I will do.”
“O yes?”
“I will show you what I remember.”
“O will you?”
“Yes. First you see there was—hhhhhsssst. Yes. There was that.”
“And now this?”
“Well—w—welllll no no last time we first did—”
“Hnnnn yes I see—”
“Not yet but now—”
“O o o”
“In-o o indeed o hoo o O”
“O”
Amnesia.
“Hey Mozart!”
“Fuck off Jack it is Rossini.”
“Is that like a religious holiday in Assholia?”
“And when you get to Fuckoffistan just keep right on fucking until you come out the other side.”
“You want to earn some money real fast?”
“I won’t have sex with you Jack.”
“Eight million seven hundred and five thousand five hundred euros untraceable.”
“…”
“…Mozart are you there?”
“…”
“…”
“…Ten million.”
“Fine.”
“Fifteen.”
“What?”
“Fifteen million you said yes to ten real fast.”
“Twelve.”
“Done. Get in here and take off your clothes.”
“I do not want to have sex with you.”
“You’re a fickle bitch Jack I hope you’re still going to pay me.”
“I want you to fly me to Bogotá.”
“For twelve million dollars?”
“Yes.”
“Do we have to bomb it or something?”
“Would you do that for twelve million euros?”
“Sure why not.”
“Huh.”
“Now why the fuck do you look like I shat on your puppy?”
“I feel like you massively overestimate how awful it would be to have sex with me.”
“Yeah I’m sure you do get in the plane I’m supposed to drop orphans on emergency medical equipment in seventy-nine hours.”
“I think you have that the wrong way round.”
“Yeah I’m sure you do get in the fucking plane.”
Because this is the world now this is the thing: everywhere is just a few hours away. Mozart’s plane is not super-duper fast but it is fast enough. It has nasty military seating the way they make seating by averages and that way it never actually fits anyone in particular it is always averagely uncomfortable for everyone. She has bolted some sort of stereo system onto the back of the flight deck and there is an actual hammock and an espresso machine where the forward galley would be on a commercial flight and otherwise the whole thing is just a heavily armored cigar of metal without windows. It’s like a submarine for air. The instruments are all like science fiction advanced and no doubt Charlie would be super excited but I do not really care about that stuff and all I can see is the little cubbyhole with the hammock and the books and even there are pictures on the ceiling and this is about the loneliest little mobile house I have ever seen.
“This is the loneliest mobile house I have ever seen.”
“I’m an introvert I do not like people very much.”
“I hear that and I respect it do you want me to go sit in the back?”
“…No.”
“…”
“…”
“…So how did you get to be like this rebel pilot lady?”
“…”
“…”
“…Bad timing I guess.”
“What bad timing?”
“Are you always like this?”
“Like how?”
“Like chatty.”
“Well we have hours right?”
“We do I was thinking we would spend it in tranquil contemplation of the majesty of the earth from altitude.”
“…”
“…”
“…So now that we’ve done that—”
“O God I’ll tell you when we pass over Iceland.”
“Are we going to pass over Iceland?”
“Absolutely not.”
“So you will never tell me.”
“Nope.”
“And we’re not passing over Iceland at all that was like pilot humor?”
“Sure whatever.”
“O because I have friends there.”
“…”
“…Whom I will not wave at as we do not pass over Iceland.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…So how—”
“O my God—”
The thing is that lying is hard and truth is easy and there is this idea in the world that the best lie is the one that is close to the truth and that is beautiful bullshit and I will tell you why. That kind of lie is the most usable lie. It is easy to remember because most of it actually happened just like that and for most people in most situations that is all you need. But in any professional situation where a lie must be sustained in the long term where it must conceal a truth from a person determined and capable in the field of finding that truth then the lie must touch the real world exclusively at those places where the interface can be controlled. Deep lies are all about control and you cannot control a hybrid lie because any time you need to give further detail you risk giving detail which can be used to penetrate the lie.
“O hi Richie I saw you out with a blonde last night—”
“O hi Jack yeah my cousin Anna was in town from Potsdam—”
“O that is lovely have you been out there to visit?”
“Yes I have it was great Anna is like a tour-guide-type person and we stayed in this really terrific hotel—”
See what just happened there is that Richie fucked-up. Anna really is a tour guide from Potsdam and he is sticking as close to the truth as he can but oops his cousin is from Potsdam so why was she staying in a hotel with him there?
So if you are telling a lie that matters you do not want to be retrofitting it to the truth on the fly, which is what you will have to do if it touches the truth all along its length and now this feels dirty anyway ANYWAY you cannot do that you are not that smart and you think you are but you’re not. You will get busted because you will say something like:
“I recently had excellent ajiaco in its native setting.”
Did you now? Well that is interesting because ajiaco is a delicacy much favored in Bogotá like if you were to look at any tourist guide it would say try the soup and do you know what else is in Bogotá? No not cocaine that is a fucking stereotype. What is in Bogotá is the Emerald Trade Center, and if we think back we find ourselves saying: What was it that Mr. Client wanted us to steal but emeralds?
Now it is possible that that is all so much bullshit but I am willing to bet you that when Mr. Client said the word emerald his entire fucking soul was wearing the same dopey grin as poor dumb Richie staring up in his mind’s eye at whatever he and Anna-not-his-cousin did in the Alimony Auberge.
I will bet you enough money to pay Mozart for sex that Mr. Client was here in the last month talking to people in or near the big sandy building with the green glass frontage.
Bogotá is a kind of a triangle running along one side of a bunch of high bits and there are rivers and a road that runs north–south through town and it’s a city like any city you would know it’s got ten million people and skyscrapers rising out of neoclassical cement construction like World’s Fair stuff like LA. There’s some old old Bogotá too like colonial and the thing you need to get right now is this is a fucking. Capital. Of the world. It’s Paris it’s Madrid it’s Hong Kong it’s not some fucking stage set for your personal narrative and it is complex as shit. I have been here before when I was in coffee because have you met coffee of course I fucking came here. And the thing that you do not do when you are approaching a capital city with its own way of doing things is blow into town like a giant hornet and land on everyone’s food and scare the shit out of the tourists because even a hornet eventually outstays its welcome and gets blatted under someone’s boot heel. That is why I am not here with Saul who has some employment history in the region or Rex and his explodophilia or even worse with Lucille who just likes to slice things up very small with his love. It is also why Doc and her I Will Kill All The Cows are presently chillaxing in the spa pool at a hotel in Zürich sourcing whatever thief shit she requires and Motor Oil Charlie is working on Eiger’s dongle—
Yes yes she is and she is not happy with my dongle humor—
—so that leaves me to hitch a ride with Mozart and be real calm and conciliatory and not get neck-deep in shit in a place where they do understand appropriate responses to freelancing plus also too not everyone here was a huge fan of the management structure around—i.e., me being the only shareholder in—the Pale Peruvian Stallion and that is not stereotyping that is commerce.
So softly we go.
“Hi I’m Jack Mahboubian hi.”
“Hi Mr. Mahboubian welcome to the Zebedee how may we assist you—”
The Zebedee is a luxury hotel and also a festival of Daliesque architectural batshit whose website features a digital composite image of that woman from the American Gothic picture holding a board meeting with men in episcopal purple one of whom has the head of a snail. For some reason I cannot place at all it is very clear they are all about to have sex and they will then all die of her appalling children hatching from their heads. The presence of this image is never explained and probably never should be but I just totally wanted to stay there. I even created Jack Mahboubian as a bespoke Zebedee-friendly cover identity because Persian New Zealand casino entrepreneurs are exactly the kind of person you can imagine staying at the Zebedee. Mozart is also staying at the Zebedee and in fact she is even more appropriate to the place than Jack Mahboubian, and several of the weird naked rock-climbing videos and collage art pieces viewable in the bar area look like she could be in them.
“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.