The Price You Pay Read online

  Thanks for that Leo that’s real constructive.

  I’m pretty sure is what I’m saying.

  Okay well I’ll be sure and look that up later but let’s just assume for a second that even if on this issue you’re right it’s maybe not the most important aspect of the narrative I’m giving you right now. Is that hard for you Leo?

  No Jack.

  Thank you Leo so to resume. Ma Park—thank you Leo—Ma Park is saying Child! What the actual fuck? Is it possible your dickless friends and you got all up in someone’s shit without first asking if that person was a person of consequence? Is it—my beloved son who did after some considerable delay in youth eventually learn to tie his own damn shoelaces—is it possible that you and your five demon friends and the Russian try-out are right now getting into it with Mr. Ballistic, the Bad Hand Clapping, the Butcher of the West Austin Marriott, the vast and borderline psychotic wrecking balls of the swinging scrotum of Jacob motherfunkin’ Morgenstern Price himself?

  And Li Dong-ha is all no Ma it ain’t like that Ma, it’s just a passing misunderstanding is all. And Ma Park says you better hope Mr. Price knows that, sonny, because I’m fond of you and no doubt you’re a terrifying force of nature at your natural level and everything but that fucker is craycray like Richard Milhous Nixon smoking toad, and he will fuck your shit up. You want I should call him and fix this right up? No Ma it’s okay I swear! Well just you be polite to Mr. Price.

  That’s how it’s going Leo, is what I’m saying, and the fact that they’ve gone cop on you—that they would bring actual law and order down on you in your own place of business the fucking tax people I mean what the shit? The fact that they would do that just to get to me, that is just exactly the kind of unnecessary I have been seeing a lot of in the course of this sorry affair Leo. And I mean to discuss it and I mean to have words. I have views and opinions Leo. I have views and opinions. But I got to apologise to you Leo because you’re a casualty of fucking inappropriate behaviour here and that is on me. I did not choose to make that happen but it is on me. These guys are really pissing in the jacuzzi I guess. They are just unreasonable. I am running a business here in a completely natural way and I am a man following his natural inclination and they have to get all unreasonable. Clause four man I hear you. So do you got a preference of where you go?

  Where you got?

  I got Canada if you want it, Vancouver, but you’d gotta get a different face and that is forever. Plus with North America I have to say there’s an element of risk even with the best will in the world. I got island paradise coming out of my ears like Bermuda or maybe Turks and Caicos yes Leo that is a real place. I got Iceland you want a change of pace, real social democracy. Leo I tell you, that is a fucking amazing place and the women are hot like the geothermal power, hot all the way down.

  How about Sicily I hear Sicily is nice?

  Yeah I can do that but there’s a language barrier plus obviously you going to set up a business there are local negotiations. You consider maybe China? I know I know it sounds crazy but hear me out…

  And so on. Leo and I we’re talking, and he is enjoying planning his future but obviously you have to be thinking what I’m thinking that if we just for a moment remove my longstanding promise to my friend from this calculation and if we once recognise that from this point out his life is nothing but downside for me, you got to ask if it’s worth it. Leo does know things. Leo knows I am still in the city. Leo knows my mood and what you call it he knows my disposition. My personal way of being in the world and in a small way he knows me. Plus I mean there was that look when I kidded him about his phone I mean you got to ask is Leo getting paid on both sides? Well in a way that does not matter. None of it matters because like I said: a man stands by his promises or the world burns that’s just how it is. The whole of life on this planet now is digital text which is to say rewritable and if you don’t hold the given promise then where are you you’re just in free fall and then who are you?

  I am a fucking asymmetric criminal startup. I got limited expertise in criminal strategic warfare. I hotdesk and I outsource and I franchise but what I mostly have is a core concept, forward momentum and the unassailable fact that I’m crazier than a fibreglass hairball. I don’t give a shit for territory. I don’t care if the world burns. I’m a rapidly escalating nuclear temporary autonomous zone.

  Hey Leo what about Brazil man? What about motherfucking Rio man?

  Big shit-eating grin from Leo: Is it true that’s where the wax comes from or is that just marketing?

  No Leo that’s true, that perfect landing strip for the pudendum that is absolutely Denominazione di Origine Controllata.

  That’s Italian man.

  Pussy is international Leo.

  Ain’t that the truth brother?

  Yes it is Leo.

  So that’s how we are together in this critical moment, this crisis moment. We make jokes and we know that we’re crossing the Rubicon and what lies before will be different from what is past. We are brothers.

  We hug. And then I shoot him in the face. Small caliber goes phht and one of his eyes goes red and that’s it. Sorry not sorry.

  SECURE CALL—

  Charlie it’s me.

  Hi boss I thought—

  Yeah I completely am but—wait are you gone yet?

  Totally.

  You are?

  Totally gone. I am the night.

  You’re still here.

  No?

  Get gone Charlie.

  Yes boss.

  Charlie get gone. Wait don’t go I got a question about Korean nomenclature.

  Boss this is awkward but I gotta ask you know I’m not Korean right?

  Jesus that was insensitive of me. Sorry Charlie yes I do know that, it’s just actually, it’s just I got no one else to ask right now. Actually no one in the world.

  …Shit boss.

  Yeah that is fucking existentially challenging.

  Yuhuh.

  Shit.

  Well okay can I ask you this question totally not because you are of Asian descent but because you’re the only person in the world I am able to talk to right now?

  Yeah that’s totally legit.

  (It turns out Leo was absolutely right about Korean names. I swear you learn something every day.)

  DELIVERY, WITH INSTRUCTIONS. Porter brings it up. Tip the guy and say thank you. This is the world now: people perform to specification and not beyond. Beyond is curiosity is initiative and these things can lead to ethics and corporations do not pay people for ethics. Employees do not get paid for beyond and they do not get thanked. The porter doesn’t ask what’s in the heavy box because rich people are weird and the tip says fuck off and don’t talk about it and he speaks that language. We’re all hotel people now. What’s in the box? Sundries man. Client stuff. Could be a robot, could be a girl in a cake. Don’t give an actual fuck. If it scratches the paint the hotel will bill the client and the client’s credit is good. That being the case: who cares what’s in the box? Satisfaction guaranteed is what, and no one needs to know.

  What’s in the box? Compressed air and metal pipe you don’t want plastic because it can burst. Safety valve set high. Good welding. You got yourself a world-class grapefruit cannon. These days you can just fucking Acme one up if you’re prepared to pay. Call the concierge service: Hey man, frat reunion and I need a fruit cannon by tomorrow morning can you oblige? For money of course they can. Not an issue because I’m delocalised. My slush fund right now comes from the Belize accounts, good for a few days. When I leave here I’ll empty them. I haven’t even bothered to liquidate the ones I was using until yesterday, just left them there. Cops will watch them for months because they cannot imagine you would just leave that much money behind. Seven Demons will do the same. Huge waste of everyone’s time, which is fine. I’m spending that money: paying
for them to watch it rather than look for me.

  Even Tucker doesn’t understand about this. Tucker lives for money but he doesn’t get this because money is how he measures worth. Money is capability is access but it’s not the only form in which those things exist and as long as you have them money comes to you.

  I have ghost money for operational expenses. The whole entire point of being illegal is to be disconnected from the mundane requirements of taxation and liability and so forth. The difficult part is at the interface between the two worlds of white and black economics but these days it’s easier than you might think because everything is ghosted now. Everything is cloud. That’s the modern condition. Plus frankly after the sub-prime thing so much bad money sluiced into the apple pie economy that half the world’s oh-so-chaste banks are pregnant with dirty, dirty cash babies.

  If you go online you can actually find out about the Seven Demons because they have a website. Grant you it’s technically Dark Web which only means that it’s hard to take down but it’s entirely fucking revealing about what they do and for how much and they have this whole cult of personality going on that’s really pretty major. They have like a million followers on Twitter and they post to Instagram a half dozen times a week, party shots mostly but very occasionally something like an infrared goggle shot of some compound in Bogotá going up in smoke, whatever. Celebrity assassins. I can see why Karenina isn’t sure about the gig, they’re real loud, not her thing at all.

  This grapefruit cannon is actually more pomelo grande, done to my spec. Pomelo gun. Bolts to the floor of this flatbed truck. Hydraulic WYSIWYG aiming system. Conveyor-belt feed with a chopper and a hopper, so you can basically put a ton of fruit in one end and just let rip.

  Park and wait.

  The Instagram feed had only a few face pictures on it but these days you’ve got all sorts of massively powerful ID recognition programs kicking around just waiting to match for you. What once was a major intelligence undertaking is now a half day for a bored kid who would otherwise be serving at the local diner or working a sex cam because did I say gig economy yes yes I did. Even an outfit like the Seven Demons cannot buy or intimidate them all because there’s just too damn many and they are too damn dumb. So I gave ShermansMarch6969 the picture of Johnny Cubano, who is the Rat Pack–imitating muscle for the Seven Demons whose name is not Cubano but Wexler and who is from fucking Michigan so he’s a fucking white guy pretending to be a Hispanic guy because he thinks that’s more fucking gangster and that is just straight out racist, and a few hours later ShermansMarch6969 gave me in exchange for ten thousand in cryptocurrency the name of the hotel and here I am.

  The hotel is one of the new ones: called the Yohji, cool Asian modern, uncomfortable chairs in the bar. And look there—there’s Johnny Wexler-Cubano coming out the door with a gaggle of party people young and pretty. Johnny’s celebrating, a little bit careless but he knows I’ve gone to ground in Paris. Blue silk shirt like ooh la la say ooooh Johnny ooooh la la.

  Low angle, near flat trajectory. Pluck him out of the pack like the pip out of a five of hearts. Fucking surgical strike, seriously, not what I was expecting at all. Pomelo gun makes a noise like THWUCH.

  Johnny’s last words are: Wha—

  Not much for posterity.

  Leo’s head smashes through his chest halfway like if you imagine a golf ball driven into wet plaster at ten paces by Tiger Woods if Tiger Woods was on a fucking appalling combination of steroids and crystal. I keep my finger on the red button and other bits of Leo paint Johnny to the wall of the Yohji. Party kids are definitely not stupid, they’re lying on the ground which makes it easy to miss them. Johnny slides a bit and then a couple leg bones right up nail him to the façade. Evidently the Yohji’s frontage is covered in some kind of eco-felt that encourages plants to grow. It works like a pinboard.

  I know it’s a little much but we’ve definitely been suffering from a lack of communication. It’s like they don’t see that I’ve got a legitimate point of view here and that point of view needs to be factored into our discussions before we can get past this blip and move forward together in a new harmony.

  VOIP ENCRYPTED CALL: DIALLING. Call accepted.

  Hi Karenina.

  Hello Jack.

  How’s it going over there?

  I cannot discuss, would be in violation of terms of partnership.

  Is it an embarrassment to you that I’m calling?

  Is weird Jack but you want to talk that’s okay. You have something in particular you want to say to us?

  It’s us now is it?

  I am Seven Demons now Jack. That’s like passport. Not undertaken lightly and not easily put aside.

  Your English is improving.

  Is quote. They got PR guy.

  Yeah that would be Fred, he’s like the number one of the whole thing right? I read where Fred was like some kind of sniper back in the day.

  Is what I read also.

  So who would you say was the toughest of them like hand-to-hand?

  Jack you tell me. You been reading obviously website.

  I’m gonna say Johnny Cubano. I read where he was the king of some kind of unregulated fight scene in Cape Town for a little while. On the website there’s a really gnarly montage of a few of his wins. One time you know he actually gutted some guy from Lvov with his fingers?

  Is what they say.

  Would that be the same Johnny Cubano that’s staying at the Yohji or is that some assfuckingly unlucky bystander?

  Jack you’re not in the league with Johnny Cubano. You want to surrender, work something out, that’s cool let’s do that. Be better for everyone. Maybe I can broker. You maybe get to live even live pretty well.

  I read where the Seven don’t make deals.

  Client can always make deals, Jack. Is full service not some cowboy outfit from Kentucky.

  Yeah, well.

  Stay away from Johnny Cubano, Jack. Stay in Paris or wherever.

  Karenina I’m gonna level with you. I’m not in Paris. I just needed a little breathing room. I’m in a bar like a block over from the Yohji and I’m thinking about walking on over there. Rumour is the sushi is to die for.

  Yeah well is possible you do die for it.

  Oh, what’s that? I’m just watching the news in this bar, Karenina, seems like someone was—wow, that is outré is what that is—some guy was well there’s no gentle way to express this…he was apparently killed in the chest by a flying decapitated head. Man, somehow they got footage of the attack and I have to tell you fuck me Karenina, it is ugly. It is the worst thing I have ever seen happen to a body in all my life and I am from a town where they do cow-tipping and I worked in a slaughterhouse when I was sixteen. And fuck me again if the dead guy who is like flypapered to the wall there, fuck me sideways if that is not Johnny Cubano, I’m pretty sure I recognise his perfect model brownface motherfucker hair. I guess this was probably a gang initiation, Karenina. Drive-by grapefruit mortaring with a human head. That is some outré fucking gang thing, right? Johnny Cubano, that guy must be the unluckiest man on the face of this Earth. Unless he had enemies. You think he had enemies? Because I fucking think he had at least one that I can think of.

  Hold please.

  You there, Mama Bear?

  They are really pissed at you right now Jack.

  Oh fuck are they? Damn that is disappointing. I figured they might be fucking enraptured at my welcoming manner and effusive people skills. Do tell them I’m as sorry as they can imagine I am.

  Seven Demons not something you fuck with Jack.

  Oh, man, I know. Except…well, that’s embarrassing, but I guess it’s Six Demons now?

  Fucking fuck Jack.

  Or should I maybe say Five Demons and One Reserve?

  Fucking fuck Jack I—

  Gotta go Karenina that sushi ain
’t gonna eat itself.

  TIME TO SAY GOODBYE TO PAOLO CAZAREL. Bye bye Paolo bye bye. These are shirt-front identities like those white paper dickeys you see in westerns: you put them on over whatever you’re already wearing and lickety split you’re somebody new—tuxedo guy. Yes I said lickety split, what? It’s western like authentic. And yes it may also be the title of an adult movie, in fact no doubt it is and shame on you for noticing that.

  Dickey IDs. When you take them off, they just stop existing. You’re gone.

  Bye bye Paolo, hello Gottfried. Losing track of where I’m from, doesn’t matter no one asks. No one cares in the city. Take a bus, take a cab, fucking cycle: Airbnb is a fucking oubliette, you can just push a button and be gone. No receptionist to sell you out no hotel porters no lobby cams. Not gonna get me like I got Cubano. Going dark in the biomass like a whale in the plankton like a submarine in a movie. Thermocline is what. Going dark now. I’m always dark but this is the darkest. Look here’s what it is: you’re imagining me with stash houses right and container storage with those rolling doors that go up and they cut the padlock off in cop shows? I don’t have those because that’s how everyone thinks it works including cops and judges and what all because TV is a virus that gets in your head and people get assumptions from it about things they know don’t work like that. Like people think fights are all swoosh chah zap and they’re not they’re like thump gouge roll on the floor someone loses an eye. No fucking Jean-Claude Van Ballet. Just pain.

  So fuck photogenic container storage and fuck safety deposits. Fuck systems managed by people who know what happens in their system. That is not security that is stewardry and stewards can be paid off or tortured. That is the middle fucking ages and you might as well have a moat with alligators.