Lammele Dama kept offices in Kathmandu, Nepal; Paris, France and Archer City, Texas. Though not equidistant, with a northern latitude valence - at 81, Lammele was at peace with his world of minor importance. He had taken the long view when young, content with intermittent amusement that had only grown in complexity, consistency and polish. The practice of Law, however seedy and much-maligned of late, had retained more than a veneer of righteousness from its origins - this was the grain Lammele hewed for the arc of his career. Mr. Dama thrived on the chatter of his diffuse sources, where he settled in his seat of passing time and perused the news with calm and curiosity, searching for nexus from many loci. When the aged ring of his working relic beckoned, Lammele put down his 2nd double-Whiskey Sour and 1st Cohiba Short to answer the land line, “Yes?” he asked leaning into the phone as though he could hear better that way.
The crackled transmission meant his modem had been activated and a download had commenced. The trappings of antiquated technology, as Lammele practiced them would be the equivalent of fastening a Dodge Dart frame to a Lamborghini chassis, a sleeper. The quiet gong chimed, and Lammele went to his console to check the file - the demand for an encryption code was always fun, though he hated tracking passwords. The subject line simply read “Archdai Tryump - phone dump · 20042027.” Lammele was more than familiar with this nefarious character, and had no qualms about accessing his phone files - tit for tat. His cellular phone chimed, the most secure channel of his far flung interests and no more than a half dozen people with access to the constantly shifting number. “Hello,” he waited.
“Hello Mr. Dama, my name is Leslei Coerktern; I’m an operative for Mordecaise Liszt who gave me this number as well as your landline. I transmitted the file you received minutes ago. Mordecaise asked me to call you directly to provide context for its contents.”
“Yes Leslei, I know of you; thank you for following up. What should I know about these contents, including the circumstances for how they came into your possession; please be as honest and complete as possible.” Lammele flicked a switch on his console encrypting everything that followed:
Lammele Dama was a very young man in 1969 as the liberation of women was gaining traction, so he marveled at the bold ingenuity of Ms. Coerktern, not just for securing important intelligence, but also the subtlety with which she covered her tracks - from personal experience with his lordship’s amoral sexual history · Leslei’s story fostered an avuncular concern, and collegial respect. “Darlin’ child, you hoodwinked a lecherous fox, but you may have incurred the wrath of a sociopath from the peerage - always a delicate prospect. .. ”Lammele Dama was too old to insist on being understood and waited patiently while Leslei processed what would be understood by all parties concerned, consciously, or unconsciously. “. .. If I may suggest, it might be safest for you to wait on his lordship to make the next move. He has no way to know whether his data was compromised or whether you are anything more than a sophisticate sampling all that a partial-pandemic Provence has to offer. It may have been Machiavelli who first said, “keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. I don’t know, but that idea may useful to you.” Lammele knew that by advocating this course, he was jeopardizing a young woman’s life, “it could also be deadly.”
Leslei had had trysts of the May/December kind, and though she preferred the rutting stag to any long-on-the-tooth stallion she’d ever known, her multifaceted libido simply enjoyed all aspects of procreation, especially the more creative aspects - a not uncommon reaction to the massive death that had been spasmodically rippling across the surface of the planet since early 2020. “Mr. Lama, you are very kind and wise. I have only a cursory understanding of the file that I sent you and then deleted, but from a forensic standpoint what I saw suggests the lordship and myself are nosing the same path; assuming that there is a covert cache backed by gold bouillon many times the size of today’s world economy and your deceased clients - the Schmuck brothers were somehow at the center. What would you ask of me, in addition to holding his lordship’s dick in limbo?”
Their telephonic link broke and each looked into their handset for an answer; the same as they had done countless times since the telecommunication multinational’s opted to leave vacant Covid deaths - each thinking about the other, a brand new relationship less than !/2 hour old, yet 0tenderness for a stranger better described the break than any fleeting frustration about money, betrayal or fear · what a weird world the planet had become.
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Mordecaise considered himself a student of the fuck, but after 3 days in the company of Carina Abejas on the slopes of Monte Alban he began to see how little he knew about the carnal arts. He was semi-sober, sapped and mindful - direct results of sexual saturation. Comandante’s ayudantez had taken posts on both sides of the ridge line into and out of Buena Vista and seemed content to menace, no more. The signal strength in the Spanish enclave prevented anything but local cellular contact and so the internet was only sporadically available. There was no point in Mordecaise’ mind to speak into the tapped telephonic microphone to the authorities and so soaked in the art compound’s temescal; relearned the ageless miracles of mezcal while he and the Sra fucked until he nearly felt human for a youngster pushing 60 - life was so good, Mordecaise decided to have some fun.
At sunup, Mordecaise stepped out the smaller iron door within the iron car sized gate and began a leisurely saunter toward the local bodega he visited for an egg sandwich most days. His lumbering shadow to the West made little effort to conceal his surveillance, and waited for Mordecaise to finish his repast to take his own, but Mordecaise did not return to the compound of the rising sun and continued westward along the dusty ridge line. Waiting for the ayudantez to text that news to each other, so early in the morning as to be offensive; Mordecaise could feel the slowing at his back of one operative for the exchange to the other, when rather than continue West, he ducked into bushes next to a gate and pulled a mountain bike up under his lanky frame and peddled directly at the westward bound agent before his partner understood the quarry had reversed course on a bicycle heading eastward into the rising sun; they two had no choice but to give chase in their Ciudad de Mexico nightclub attire on the rapidly heating up dusty road back in the direction the suspect had began his early morning stroll - the gate was closed and there was only an eastern haze of unsettled dust suggesting where their prey had gotten off to, and so they trudged mindful mostly of the Comandante’s reflexive wrath.
Perhaps an half hour of trudging later the two resigned the loss and stood like two nicely dressed refrigerators waiting for a bus on a dusty ridge line of Buena Vista at the western slope of Monte Alban, Oaxaca Mexico. Mordecaise relished seeing the expression on their faces when he passed them westward bound in a tricycle taxi traveling at a good clip toward Oaxaca, but was happier still when he returned back up the hill from whence they all came - to offer the weary agents de El Comandante ice cold Agua de Coco to ease their long suffering. Nor could Mordecaise resist handing the two, along with the refreshment - a bill for “personal trainer services” in the amount of $500 MXN · and a blank line for Comandante Gonzalez’s authorizing signature. As Mordecaise approached the gated artist enclave, it was impossible in the shimmering heat of the noonday sun to know whether it was the feathers of a coyote’s tail flaying through the small iron door frame shimmering from the heat or closing on the hem of a native skirt kicking dust up behind its heel.
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Angela rose to a sun of portent - unable to distinguish misery from joy · she slipped her sandals on for a walk to a sandy stretch of the bay for her morning run. Guildern was thigh slumped over the long pillow, spittle dripped from the corner of his mouth onto the sheet from his focused sleep. The rising sun burst onto the ocean almost as she took her first stride onto the low tide shoreline for a loving run. It was no longer necessary to carry the artificial syncopation digital devices provided and within a few paces and as many breaths, Angela was in the “zone,” the only distraction being broken glass or hypodermics discarded in lieu of conscious disposal; barefoot running had its risks, little different than taking a metro cab just before midnight on a Saturday night anywhere on the planet; quarantine; a much diminished population skewed the odds in algorithmical fashion blunting reaction formation; hysterical substance induced escapade and/or nihilistic resignation.
She rounded the last mounded curve before the tide turned then began to run back against the rising tide; she saw a leathered shoulder flit into the pine trunk maliciously unafraid. She stopped, gazing slowly around the grove in front of her; pulled on her water bottle and joined her lithe frame back to a running cadence.
Instantly, “fight or flight” informed her pace and she flew past the startled figure of Tito holding a knife directly into a semi-circular corral of equally malicious expressions intent on stopping her. A corral of Lilliputians - its gate was closing off Angela’s exit until she was stalled in an uphill drift encircled by grins of vile leering ice.
Barefoot with running clothes, possessing nothing more than the dopamine from a half hour’s run, Angela calmed her breathing and assessed her assailants and the terrain they’d chosen for their mission of mayhem - clarity can be our friend in the most unexpected moments. The narrow sandpit was littered with bat-size branches and solid fist-size knobs of karst. Angela was blessed with a multiethnic upbringing which included adults teaching stick-ball to clusters of poor children in the dense confused demographics within which she grew; ipso facto, as though transported into the agile fearless girl-child she’d been in the mean streets in Tarzana, North of the Ventura Blvd of her youth - Angela, eyes to her feet, spied a suitable faggot, hefted it around the rotation of her wrists and turning to Tito tossed the knob of karst she’d invisibly palmed lightly into the air and THWACKED the projectile into the solar plexus of the thug at Tito’s right; pivoting 180 degrees on her heel she launched the second knob into the groin of the fool at her back.
After a low sweeping pirouette, she rose to display 3 more stones to Tito and his gang in her upraised palm; then thwacked a 3rd projectile hitting dead-center the heart of the man standing to Tito’s left. Holding two more stones high in her high hand, Angela rotated the bat-faggot into an upright position at the base of her spine and waited.
In the next instant, there was a spinning whoosh - a fat rat fell from the overhead branches with a thud to the ground between Angela and Tito, followed by the gentle patter of an aged barefoot Indian woman and her loaded sling; Looking neither left, right or backward; she bent over lifting her prey by its tail and ambled from the dappled grove and its stunned visitors.
A quorum of eco-tourists next arrived at an adjacent lot to the sand spit in an electric cart while its loudspeaker explained the local flora and fauna to Peruvian tourists - a lecture Angela joined quietly at a back seat, minus her club, clutching the last knob from her pickup game of “stickball does thug” as it was wheeled back onto the trails of coastal Uruguay.
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Angela arrived late back to the “Croc” and immediately folded herself into Guildern’s open concern; slowly recounting her misadventure as openly as she could & felt her mind open to the evil she’d just evaded, but powerful against its residue - a practice she and Pasqual had learned from Perma Cauldron to purge toxic events by embracing them fully while fresh in the psyche. Before she could finish, Guildern had loaded three clips and a round in the chamber of his vintage Colt 1911 from under the bar. Angela knew from a young age the arc of violence and understood both his fury and its futility. She determined the only path out would be to rein reason back into their lives - “breathe some more, I am unharmed and wish with all my heart for you to remain the same · do you understand what I am saying to you?”
Guildern stood rooted in murderous reproach toward an offense to his aging power to protect; resisting as much as she was imploring - breathing, music and a setting sun altered the course of the day · the resolve of the Crone in Angela murmured peaceful incantations, while the “Venceramos Brigade” bolstered the vibe without knowing why it was so important. “One Love, No Woman No Cry, Rise Up” wafted through the small Cantina and calm pulled through the throat of mayhem helped a planetary hunger for peace. At Guildern’s behest, Angela arranged a conference call between Mordecaise, Pasqual, Leslei and Lammele Dama on a platform which rendered the entire conversation invulnerable to surveillance and gone when disconnected, but which rendered much clarity to challenging developments that had grown increasingly dangerous to all concerned.
“Thank you for joining me here; we need to hold hands if we are to steer this beast to port.” Lammele greeted each and asked for frank discussion and open speculation from each - however farfetched:
Mordecaise leaned into the phone and queried “what the fuck is going on” not really expecting an answer. He knew of the assault on Angela from txt msgs, as had everyone on line, and they about the continuing challenges from official sources surrounding the disappearance of Domhall Schmuck’s corpse. “Carina Abejas, as near as I can figure, loved Domhall as well as she had each of her previous 5 husbands, and made no claim upon his intestate estate. I am currently liaising with the local constabulary about the two operatives who framed me for smuggling money, but the Comandante is extremely tight about what he has learned. There is nothing gained pressing jurisdiction and everything gained from patience. Sra Abejas, is hooked up with police headquarters; amiga de Guildern Abogada Sra Luz de Ley tiene es mejor usada tracking Domhall’s “paperless” corpse to Montevideo than ruffling plumas of the Oaxacan Policia.
“Please be careful boss,” Pasqual ventured into the call. “I may have been trailed from departure to Hoi An; whoever they are seem to favor pairs and are not restrained about their profile, nor is the local population particularly supportive of any stranger in their midst. Reynaldo had a low profile but visible, and was in frequent transit between his home and Hue; communicating with the the root pagoda of Từ Hiếu and the Bhikkhu, Thich Tok Longh. I had an uncle of mine, Jose Ortega, MIA during the Tết offensive of 1968, he had also been in contact with the Từ Hiếu pagoda concerning registering with the U.S. Government as a conscientious objector just prior to the offensive in ’68. I don’t know if this synchronicity will inform our interest about Reynaldo Schmuck’s close relationship to the pagoda. I will be traveling shortly to Hue to look further. PLEASE, We need to understand if Angela and Guildern figure in this case, it may be danger of our making.”
Leslei took her cue and described the ongoing curiosity about Demsford Schmuck’s habitation in Aix-en-Provence and the fervent interest a peer of the realm, Archdai Tryump, has in a property Demsford had leased for 10 years, now in Leslei’s name; a candid accounting of they possessed a “mirror” from the peer’s smart phone. She suggest that during his visit he had seemed too familiar with the layout of the residence for never having gained entrance. Leslei recounted the “tails” during her journey to France, now very low profile. Lammele interrupted asking if there was any indication that the peer was aware his phone had been compromised; Leslei returned a fact; “He is apparently secure enough to request more rendezvous; an understandable expectation given the apparently happy ending to our last encounter.”
A hush fell over the call as the three men silently “Groked” the courage she demonstrated in service of their common objective.
Lammele then asked if any had questions for anyother; he advised close cooperation as much as possible within a necessary communication blackout, and to wait for instructions from Guildern or Angela about when to confer next; he then pulled the rug out.
“We have apparently been presented an abandoned nest egg of unimaginable scope; so well hidden by unscrupulous cowardice and greed that when those cognizant of its existence perished due to Covid complications; all that was left of a vast conspiracy to hoard wealth on a scale never before conceived, remains an obscure thread somehow discovered happenstance by the Schmuck brothers. If their deaths can be attributed to that discovery none of us are long for the world; however, if as I suspect, our investigations are the only light yet shed on this cabal, then we are in a unique position to finance the perpetuation of our species - nothing short of that will gain my allegiance, or engage my assistance ·
“Take some time to evaluate the impact to your lives about what I have said. Nothing will move forward until we six are in complete agreement.”
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Reiman Curzewel drove his vintage M998 Humvee up the ramp out of his bunker in a former underground wine cellar outside of Healdsburg, CA. He’d bought the high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle while Chief Scientist at Googol Inc., and had it outfitted as an escape pod for events such as the 1st death wave from Covid-19 and its subsequent variants, which by 2023 had killed over one million Americans and rent the warp and woof of a collapsing empire without the singularity that this “prescient” futurist decried was needed. Never mind that his rapacious greed and algorithms resulted in a “downgrading” of a natural inclination of the species to seek stasis, and harmony but had been overwhelmed by the technical virtuosity of a gaggle of “eggheads,” - encouraged, enabled and commanded to “move fast and break things.”
Reiman was anything but a monster: educated, sensitive and ‘tuned in,’ circumstances simply swamped the homilies he’d been raised with and overturned the culture he’d been born to believe in at one time; nor could, or would he ever acknowledge a point when the manifesto he’d contributed and signatured ever morphed from “do no evil,” to its Faustian bargain “do know evil;” yet there he was driving South on the 101 in a military grade vehicle capable of surviving a nuclear blast and maintaining uplink capacity to any satellite-to-T1 connectivity surviving best-guess holocaust conditions. His mission, purely venal; his wife and family died between the Covid outbreak and the 2nd death wave, it’s curve just now flattening after 6 months of lockdown - he was alive, similar enclaves within +/- 18 miles from him had sustained 81% fatalities. He wasn’t running for his life, but searching for the “Holy Grail” of Digital Capitalism - a mythological glitch from Y2k which resulted in a reputed file containing access to many times the value of the world’s ‘economy’ in a single http:// location hiding in plain sight.
It was perfectly natural to call Zchnarkzy Marskburgh knowing that neither knew more than the other, but hoping between the two of them they might raise a clue.
“Hello Zchnark, am on the 101 headed South - any clues yet ? ” · Reiman had sold 3 businesses by the time Zchnarksky Marksburgh had dropped out of university with $3.5 billion USD in his pocket from the IPO of “Face Race,” an application for promoting “professional notoriety” when internet traffic was doubling every 6 months; each had a wary respect for the other with little interest about anything concerning the other except any advantage that could be taken.
Listening in on this conversation, Faik Bezos knew the “clues” Reiman was pumping Zchnarksky for. The three rose through bursting bubbles out of the hypertext cauldron long before Apple fought Xerox for the right to own the “feel” of a computer screen.
Faik Besos had been brokering “Toxic Mortgages” out of his Long Island basement when he got saddled with an upside down ‘merican institution. In a cash-lean startup fit of pique, he decided to leverage his newly acquired long on the tooth world famous brandname “Publisher’s Clearing House” into the rapidly expanding World Wide Web by drop shipping revistas sensuales de segunda mano to branches of PCH in the 12 largest Mexican Cities in the Western Hemisphere, Los Angeles, CA being the 2nd largest.
What rankled the still waters of these three was that someone had beaten them at their own game and allegedly accumulated many times their combined wealth located in an apocryphal digital file that their own COOs could not prove nor disprove.
jts 03/03/2021
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