The Ayatollah's Money

by Richard Dorrance

  Chapter 21 – The Flunky

  The Ayatollah lay on his bed and watched the flunky water the orchids on the window sill. The guy had been his flunky for four years, and he didn’t even know his name. When he needed something, the guy just seemed to be there and know what it was. The flunky felt the burn of The Big Guys eyes on his back. What now? The Aya’d just had a so-so session with a new virgin (weren’t they all new, ha ha), and lately that had left him irritable rather than relaxed. And guess who usually is the target of the irritability? What was it gonna be this time?

  For his part, the Aya didn’t know what to demand of the flunky. He did feel irritable rather than relaxed, and that pissed him off, and increased his irritability even more, ad infinitum. It didn’t used to be that way. After romping with a virgin, even a terrestrial one, and then thanking Allah for such a wonderful, though imperfect gift, he always felt great. One more down and hundreds to go. What a life. And then after this life, the real game began, with the celestial ones, numbering in the thousands. For that as a future he would battle the Western infidels morning, noon, and night. He closed his eyes and tried to relax, envisioning all types of virgins, all shapes and colors, heights and weights, large and small, and from all nationalities, except of course America, where he was quite sure females were born soiled, in this particular department. Well actually all departments: artistic, moral, intellectual, emotional, everything. They came out bad bad bad. But that still left a lot of nationalities from which to choose his virgins, didn’t it, which was a satisfying thought but not really relaxing. He couldn’t let go of the tension.

  The flunky turned around with the watering can in his hand and looked at his boss, who was staring at him in a strange way. What’s up now? He thought of offering him a hit on the bottle of cognac he kept hidden in a closet for medicinal purposes, but his intuition told him this wasn’t the right solution to the problem. He puttered around the suite, picking up the clothes The Big Guy had shed during the romp, straightening the furniture, and still felt the eyes on him, which made him nervous. And then a new thought came into his mind which made him more nervous. A lot more nervous. What if The Big Guy was so dissatisfied with the virgins the flunky had provided that he was thinking of trying out boys? That never had happened, but what if? He didn’t know anything about boys. Where to get them, what condition they needed to be in, etc. How did you prove to your boss that a boy was a virgin, not that the boss ever had required him to prove anything about the female virgins, thank Allah. Now the flunky was just as irritated as The Aya. Or more precisely, fearful.

  But it wasn’t boys that were on The Aya’s mind, it was his money, or lack of it. What if he had to get out of town on short notice? Dictators didn’t always have a lot of notice when things were going sour. Usually they did, but not always. What if the fucking Israelis did send their bombers over and flatten the nuke sites? Then what? That might very well be the time to say Adios to good ole Tehran, and let some of the younger guys deal with it. He’d done his duty over the years, and that was why he had, with such brilliant foresight, scammed the $100 million and gotten it stashed on ‘St.’ something island in the Caribbean. Except now it wasn’t there, and he had no one to track it down. He wondered if planting the guy who had engineered the theft ten years ago out in the desert in the well had been the right decision. He sure could use his services now.

  All these thoughts swimming around his mind were what had led him to stare at the flunky. Could this guy do it? Save him? Find his money and get it back in the Carib account, safe and sound?

  The flunky finished cleaning up the mess the two love birds had made and was looking to get out of there; out from under the burning gaze of The Big Guy. He turned to the bed and said, “Anything else, Your Holiness? A little medicine from the closet, perhaps? Another friend to visit the suite, of a different persuasion, perhaps?”

  The Aya didn’t follow either of these two leads by the flunky, he just said, “You know how to turn the computer on, right?” The flunky nodded, fielding this unexpected curveball. “Do you know more about computers than just that?” Shazam nodded, wondering if he should admit he knew a lot about computers, or not. These were unknown waters. “Do you know a lot about them?” This was the crucial decision point. He hesitated, and then nodded, yes. “Do you know anything about banks and computers?”

  Banks and computers. Banks and computers. Money. Middle Eastern money. Oil money. Lots of oil money floating around. What was The Big Guy up to? Am I in this or not. Risky. Risky. Very risky, getting involved in money matters. The desert was sprouting flowers in new places where people like him now fertilized the sandy soil. It used to be that farmers buried fish in the soil to grow things. No need for fish anymore. Plenty of human body parts around. Am I in this or not? He decided and said, “I don’t know a lot about banks, but I can learn. I know how to get around the internet”

  “The what?”

  “The system that lets computers in different places talk to each other. Like one bank talking to other banks. I can figure that out.”

  “I need to think. Come back in an hour.”

  “Yes, Your Holiness.” The die was cast, for better or worse.