Don’t Ask
Page 32
‘We’re a low-lying island nation,’ J.C. explained; ‘you have no idea how low-lying. Like Holland, we want to expand our landmass, build acreage out into the sea. We’ll buy your rocks to build up our coastline. What you do, you put together a proposal; you inflate the price a little so I can skim for myself; I put it together with my proposal for new acreage; I take it to one of the development commissions, maybe straight to the IMF. We do feasibility studies—’
Dortmunder said, ‘Don’t they go look at the place?’
‘They look at me,’ J.C. said. ‘I’m a registered lobbyist for the nation of Maylohda; I already took care of that. I show them pictures, I write up my proposals, I talk cute, I cross my legs, I say we’ve almost got malaria licked out there, and dengue fever, and when would you boys like to go visit. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ Dortmunder said.
Zara said, ‘But if you work the deal, and you buy the rocks, what then?’
‘You deliver.’
‘Ve’re landlocked,’ Grijk pointed out. ‘Ve god no ships.’
‘Good,’ J.C. said. ‘We’ll find a country with ships and some economic problems of their own. One of the Baltics or the Balkans, maybe. There’ll be one official that’ll be happy to go along with us, and now Maylohda must be real, it’s dealing with two other countries.’
Zara said, ‘But where do they deliver the rocks?’
‘To these certain coordinates in the ocean.’
‘And just dump them?’
‘Who knows,’ J.C. said. ‘With enough deliveries, maybe we’ll make an island there. Anyway, it’s a start.’
Zara looked at the brochures. ‘This is exactly what such paperwork looks like,’ she said.
‘Naturally.’
‘Only … If you don’t mind.’
‘Productive criticism from a real country,’ J.C. said, ‘can only help.’
‘This state seal here,’ Zara said. ‘It’s nice, with the lions and all, but shouldn’t it say something on this ribbon across the bottom?’
‘That’s what I said, too,’ Tiny agreed. ‘Liberty and truth, or one of those.’
‘I don’t like any of those mottoes,’ J.C. said. ‘They don’t seem to cover the situation.’
Kelp said, ‘What about that line from John’s family crest? John? How’d that go?’
‘Quid lucrum istic mihi est?’ Dortmunder quoted, and explained to J.C., ‘It means, “What’s in it for me?”’
J.C. smiled. ‘Can I use it?’
‘Be my guest.’
Tiny said, ‘Dortmunder, I’ve just got to ask you this.’
‘Yeah?’
‘You were an orphan, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Brought up in an orphanage in Dead Indian, Illinois, right?’
‘Right.’
‘What was it, an orphanage run by the Bleeding Heart Sisters of Eternal Misery, am I right?’
‘You’re right, you’re right,’ Dortmunder said. ‘So what?’
‘So what are you doing with a family crest?’
Dortmunder looked at him with disbelief. He spread his hands. ‘I stole it,’ he said.
* Optional – historical aside – not for credit
* A temporary structure, commonly one story in height and containing shops of the most ephemeral sort. Constructed by the owners of the land when a delay is anticipated, sometimes of several decades’ duration, between the razing of the previous unwanted edifice and the erection of the new blight on the landscape. Called a ‘taxpayer’ because that’s what it does.†
† Didn’t expect a footnote in a novel, did you? And a real informative one, too. Pays to keep on your toes.
* Optional – historical aside – not for credit