by Aidan Truhen
But I have just been shot at and my friend is dead so I see—
The interior of the mail van—
“Price I got to go now. Okay I go but you just—”
“Don’t leave me here you Soviet prick I am stabbed—”
“I got to go now—”
“You live an untidy life—”
Agent Hannah bears down on me I am thinking about sex—
Bunnyboner—
“Wash me—”
“I am Banjo Telemark I am Banjo Telemark I am—”
I’m fine I’m just a little shook up is all it’s—
Then WHAM again but this is a different not just impact but weight. That’s not a hallucination that is something around my neck and it is heavy and I fall—
“You are him,” Evil Hansel says. “You are the man.”
There is just no way a kid Evil Hansel’s size can tackle a guy like me I mean NO WAY so he hasn’t. He has tied a curtain rope around the nasty enormous ornamental vase on the wash table and thrown a noose over my head and kicked the vase on the floor. Now I am lying on the ground and looking up at him and he says:
“You are him.”
“What the fuck kid what—”
“You are him. I see you.”
“Of course you do you’re fucking nine.”
“Yes. I am.”
And he is nine. I mean that’s the point isn’t it kids do not see the world the way we do. They see clearly because they don’t have that thing telling them impossible things are impossible. He just saw me and now—
I’m lying on a men’s room floor tied to a stoneware vase with a chipped base and he’s got the fucking oyster knife again JESUS FUCK this is embarrassing I will get cut AGAIN—
I could die here. I mean it’s not likely I can still probably—
Get dead of infant.
Dead of oyster knife.
Dead of being too fucking stupid to stay alive.
“YOU YOUNG MAN ARE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE RIGHT NOW COME OUT OF THERE.”
O God bless you Charlie you are o GOD BLESS YOU—
Her hand comes in through the door—
“EXCUSE ME SIR I DO NOT MEAN TO INTRUDE—”
Rex comes in like a wall and bundles Hansel out and then I’m standing and it’s all done it’s done but fuck
Fuck
How careless can one guy get—
I am doing this like I used to and it is not working and I—
Fuck this needs to shift to paradigm shift or I will get all of us dead.
Outside Charlie says, “I WILL BE SPEAKING TO YOUR MOTHER ABOUT THIS. WHERE IS SHE—OH IT IS YOU IS IT MADAME—YOUR SON—YOUR SON IS A SEX PERVERT MADAME HE TOUCHED MY—HE—YES HE TOUCHED MY BOOB—NO HE ABSOLUTELY REACHED RIGHT UP AND IN WHEN I WAS LEANING DOWN TO SAY NICE THINGS ABOUT HIS LITTLE SUIT—LIKE A FUCKING OCTOPUS MADAME—”
She keeps saying boob over and over again.
“BOOB yadda yadda yadda BOOB! And furthermore blah blah BOOB blah ALSO I THINK HE TOOK A PICTURE WHERE IS HIS PHONE—”
Evil Hansel is a psychopath. He is terrifying and short and totally dangerous as shit. That with the vase was fucking golden. He’s a godhead genius fucking horror show.
He is also nine.
If there is a hell for nine-year-old boys, it involves being accused of being a sex pervert by a lady with whom some part of you would really like to be a sex pervert but you do not entirely know what that is.
(BOOB! and la la la)
So that’s great that’s just perfect Charlie is a fucking rock star. I am not dead and then I go outside and I see Evil Hansel looking at me like the end of the world and that is perfect too.
I see his mother making her apologies and she is not alone she has a friend with her a member of her I do not know what let us say cookery club?
And the friend is perfect too but not in a good way. No no not at all.
“I am so sorry about this,” Evil Hansel’s mom says, “I will speak to him about it but I am quite sure it was a misunderstanding. Or perhaps it was not and he will require therapy and so on. In that case as his parent I am at fault. But please lower your voice it is not appropriate to shout he is a child.”
That is quite a speech and I have to be a little respectful of Hans Eiger’s daughter here she is quite a lady and I wonder how much she knows about her old man but I do not wonder very hard because I am looking elsewhere.
The cooking club buddy of Evil Hansel’s momma is a fine figure of a woman and someone has done a really excellent makeup job for her but if you know what to look for you can absolutely see she has bruises around her nose and eyes where some shit-heel criminal hit her with her own handcuffs. She looks away from what is no doubt a maternal nightmare to gather strength and her eyes skitter across the room and—
And—
And across my face—
And they stick—
Just for a second they stick and even though she doesn’t get right now who I am. My altered face will stick in her mind and worry at her and sooner or later she will know.
It’s definitely time to leave this party.
* * *
—
We could not entirely stay at the Black House forever because it is full of anarchists and they have no sense of boundaries anyway even if Flavia had not shot the wall with a stinky hand cannon. Also with the best of goodwill it has to be said that not every anarchist is a committed son or daughter of Kropotkin some are just your average screwhead with a fondness for piercings and cheap drugs and if confronted with the opportunity to earn large sums of money by trading information with the evil global corporatists they would take the money and laugh all the way to Coachella that is just people.
And soon we will need to start doing the kinds of things that leak and whisper and get back to places you do not want them to be.
So I have bought a pig farm and that is where we are going now after the party. Like a big version of Martin’s shack up the mountain it is totally authentic wood-frame construction Rex is professionally intrigued. Dark wood with lines on it. Smells of years. Shaped like a T with room for all of us albeit little rooms like cells. Firepit and a stove for cooking and really good water pressure coming down the mountain from the Kircheisen peak and we can look up and see Die Festung and know we are going to fuck it up.
All mod cons because this is Switzerland you can go off-grid here if you want to but you never have to they will bring the grid to you so we have Internet and three-phase power.
And pigs.
Doc and I have the bedroom on the end of the T and we sleep and listen to the sound of the river and the rain on the roof and in the morning early we wake to livestock and the natural world and I could stop here. I could just stop and be this person forever. I have a bajillion squidzillion euros and a new identity and a new face and why the fuck not who would look for Jack Price here now that he is dead?
Volodya would, I guess. But even he—I mean sooner or later you leave business undone.
He’d get it.
I wonder if Doc would—
Oink snuffle. OINK.
Sidebar I bought a pig farm. You will recall that Doc requires pigs for her evil plan and it is not easy to buy pigs individually just for shits and giggles especially in Europe where they care about the welfare of animals—
OINK snuffle oink OINK—
They say Hey Jack why do you want this pig? And you say that you want to use it to rob a mountain fortress and if you grant (what is obvious) that you do not know but it does not seem impossible that the pig will get exploded or liquidized (because: Doc) then they say you cannot have the pig in fact you cannot have any pig ever.
But if you say you want to buy a pig farm that is different because then it is obvious that the reason you want to buy a p
ig farm is that you want to farm pigs.
Oink snuffle oink.
Oink oink.
ZNNNEEEEzzzznaaaarrrrRRRR—
Oh yeah I also—
Oink snuffle oiZZZZORCH—
SQUEEEEEEEEE—
I also bought a—
ZORCH SQUEE ZORCH squee ZORCH gggggtttgg—
I have—
ZORCH splat.
…
…
…
I have also bought a hyperviolent Kircheisen door through a shell company in another shell company in another shell company and lalala. So now we have both pigs and robot death door.
Oink snuffle—
It turns out these things should not be stored in the same room.
SQUEEEEOINK SPLAT—
“Price!”
“Sorry Doc.”
“Stop killing my fucking pigs!”
“It was not me it was the—”
“Stop THE DOOR killing my fucking pigs—”
“You have A BAJILLION of them Doc plus also too they actually make more if you just leave them—”
“Not as quickly as you are nuking them—”
“I am not nuking them the door is not my responsibility I AM BANJO TELEMARK I do not sully myself with mere robbery for hire—”
“You are now also my pigman. Stop nuking the fucking pigs—”
“I really want a nuke like an actual nuke by the way—”
“NO we have discussed this. Also IF we had a nuke, which we will for many good and sufficient reasons NOT, do you think for one second you would be allowed to have the codes does that strike you as a good plan?”
“No now that you say it kinda not I guess I am not the guy you would—no basically you are the guy for—”
“I AM and I do not want one and do NOT change the subject my PIGS—”
“Bajillion pigs—”
“I have—I had—twenty-four Price now I have nine I need at least three at this rate I will have to buy more and people will fucking notice if we are getting through twenty-four pigs every three days that is—”
“It is the door Doc it is super-duper sensitive—”
ZORCH SPLAT—
“PRICE!”
“Charlie shut the door down for now just let the pigs eat.”
“All eight of them.”
“Sorry Doc.”
The X8 does not like Doc’s pigs at all.
Bad door.
* * *
—
Breakfast bacon. Not our bacon. Do you know nothing there is a whole curing technique this is bacon from—also too electrocuted pig is not always all that tasty there are hormones—
Bacon and fresh juice and horrible UHT milk in coffee and—
VoIP Incoming call.
For Doc.
Because I am dead.
Accept y/n?
y
Speaker on.
Doc says:
“Go ahead I am listening.”
“Doctor. It is Ottavio Leopold Calvanese.”
“A pleasure to speak to you.”
(Doc is looking at me because this is totally my fault.)
“Indeed so Doctor and yet you have presented me with something of a problem.”
“I have?”
“It does appear that you have murdered Mr. Sharkey.”
“I understood him to have exploded.”
“He did.”
“In fact our express preference was for a resumption of normal business practice after a lapse in his professional judgment. What happened is a matter for regret. I have no idea what exact chain of events might have precipitated such an outcome.”
“It is an interesting happenstance that he was somewhat at odds with you.”
“Correlation is not causation of course.”
“But you do possess a demolitions expert.”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
(Doc mutes the phone.)
“This is your fault.”
“Don’t give a fucking inch Doc.”
“I thought conciliatory.”
“No Doc not conciliatory fucking full force forward. If you blink he will fuck us.”
“I do not think so.”
“I do it is old-school alpha-male stuff I swear I swear I—wait okay—okay what would Volodya do if he was Calvanese?”
“…”
“…”
“Fine.”
(Unmute.)
“…Doctor…I was under the impression that this was to be a quiet venture.”
“So were we, Mr. Calvanese.”
“Let me be clear I will not tolerate further outrages.”
“I see.”
“You will restrain yourselves until you can decently depart the country.”
“I’m afraid we have business here.”
“You do not.”
“We do.”
“Regrettably Doctor I must insist.”
“Must you.”
“I must.”
“Since we are speaking in terms Mr. Calvanese I must ask you an indelicate question.”
“Please if it will clarify matters for you—”
“Were you involved in this?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I believe I was clear but in case I was not: my companions and I have recently lost a good friend to what we now know was a setup. We were brought here with an eye to our elimination. We take this very much amiss Mr. Calvanese and of course we do not imagine you would involve yourself in something so…low…but since we are now speaking without restraint—”
“O but we are not—”
“That is not an answer—”
“Well then no I was not involved but it occurs to me as the smooth flow of business is perturbed that I understand the urge—”
“It is not the urge that is the problem it is the indulgence.”
“Do not make this more difficult than it must be for either of us, dear lady.”
“…Ah?”
Well now it turns out I didn’t need to say anything at all. You do not do Dear Lady at the Doc and keep all of your body parts. Now I am waving at her to calm it down and she is not interested. I am a little concerned. If it was anyone else like Charlie maybe I would ask Doc to maybe tranquilize her but Doc is the person I would ask so—
Maybe we should just knock her on the back of the head before this goes any further.
Calvanese is still talking he has literally no idea the shit that is about to fall on him—
O my.
Fall on him.
Huh.
That is—wow. That would be a thing. Inappropriate of course in the circumstances but…wow.
I stare into the sky outside the window and see universes of crime.
O my.
* * *
—
While I’m distracted, Calvanese says:
“I regret to remind you Doctor that we are on my home ground. Resistance would be met with overwhelming force. You are remarkable people. You are not gods.”
“No.”
“I am glad we understand one another.”
“Do we.”
“We do.”
“I am considering my response Mr. Calvanese.”
“Excellent.”
“I do not wish there to be misunderstandings between us.”
“That is perfect Signora—Dottore—I am so glad.”
“…”
“…”
“Do you eat beef Mr. Calvanese?”
“…What has that—”
“I promise you will shortly see.”
“Then yes. I do.”
“And a
s a man of commerce and culture you are no doubt also aware of the formidable power of European beef agriculture on the formation of global affairs?”
“I am.”
“Then let me in turn be quite clear: if you ever attempt to instruct me again Mr. Calvanese or if the expression Dear Lady so much as occurs to you in my connection you will wake the following morning to the news that Italian, French, and Spanish cattle are falling victim to an appalling infection: a hacking cough which grows so powerful that the bones of the chest are snapped by the muscles and by the end of forty-eight hours the heart gives out. The animal dies and the meat is polluted with bile and stress. The global freight system will abruptly be subject to scrupulous checks. Individual travelers will be banned from entering or leaving certain countries without a quarantine period to prevent the spread. In fact it will be much too late. By the end of the week every continent and country will be affected as it emerges that the condition is airborne and almost impossible to detect during an early, notable infectious stage. Life will become vastly more expensive and annoying for everyone until a cure is found, and of course all and any contraband operations in any field will become almost impossible. The global economy will be plunged into a recession. International commodities crime will be drastically affected both by the increased difficulty of operations and by the decline in disposable income among most demographics. My kind of crime of course will be facilitated. That is to say that both radical medical research and bespoke political, economic and personal violence will be in great demand. In addition there will be a measurable decrease in carbon emissions as beef farming effectively ceases to be a viable undertaking, which I regard as a long-term benefit to the human species as a whole. Pro bono if you like. But like many large banks and some nations your organization will be unable to withstand the stress and will dissolve into warring factions and effectively cease to exist. Before it does so however your brothers will receive information from me to the effect that all this is your fault and I imagine they will kill you quite thoroughly but also knowing the stylings of your microsociety also any family you may have. So by all means Mr. Calvanese do take a few hours to consider your position. And please understand that the scenario I have described to you is only one of my options and you will notice it is remarkably devoid of human casualties. You are not my enemy Mr. Calvanese and therefore I use a light touch. Do you see?”
