Swindler's Table
Chapter 12
Interlude
I was enjoying a little solitude in my apartment when John interrupted a very nice meditation on snowflakes.
“I thought you were on the flight back to Quintana Roo,” I said.
“Quintana Roo has already been cleared of pandemic police; it's a free zone now.”
“What's all the gear?” I wondered. John had entered my secret door laden with his usual account books and a large, elongated cloth sack.
“Well, first of all, here's your bank statement.”
Apparently I currently had 2.3 billion dollars in my account. I couldn't understand why I had so much money; I didn't really want to be a billionaire like the swindlers at the round table. John explained that each nickel I had put in the bank was worth 432.9 million dollars.
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“I'm rich,” I said.
“Well, perhaps,” said John, “do you have a vaccine passport?”
“No.”
“Are you exempt?”
“No.”
“Then you're really not rich.”
“Why?”
“You can't buy any real estate or anything else sold by pandemic stores without a valid vaccine passport. You can't travel, you can't go to the doctor, you can't do anything without a valid vaccine passport.”
“I bought a phony; here it is.”
John turned my passport over, held it up to the light, took some kind of odd pen out of his pocket and put a small mark on it.
“It's a poor counterfeit. I can get you one that can't be
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distinguished from the real thing. Of course there's a small fee.”
“I've been buying all kinds of things from stores without a passport.”
“Yeah, but all the stores in this area belong to us.”
“So I really am rich,” I said.
“So what? That's not the point.”
“Oh Yeah?”
“The point is power, the point is control!”
“O.K. What's in the cloth bag?” I said.
John unzipped the bag and brought out a lethal looking rifle, which he said had all the latest refinements on both the AR-15 and the AK-47, famous military rifles. He also proudly boasted that my gun could fire 800 rounds per second. However I pointed out that it really wasn't my gun. He said it was a gift from the anti-lockdowners since I had joined them by planting the chips in the swindler's food.
“What am I supposed to do with that thing?” I asked.
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“Aren't you interested in going out on patrol with us? This area is infested with pandemic police and special forces.”
“While you're lollygagging around on some Mexican beach with Rosie?”
“We're even giving you 100 bullets.”
“And this thing fires 800 rounds a second?”
“Yes.”
“Well that's really generous, giving me a chance to get my ass shot off and only enough ammo for one eighth of a second. I don't want this thing!”
“You've got a good chance of getting your ass shot off just riding the bus, you know that!”
“I'm not interested in your militia.”
“You have to join!”
“No I don't.”
“You can't be neutral, you have to join one side or the
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other; and you've already joined us by helping us.”
“I don't want to join; I'll help you when I can. But that's it!”
“It's impossible to be neutral in times of war, you have to pick sides.”
“No thanks.”
“Would you give us a complete transcript of the swindler's meetings?”
“I can't; I promised my employer, the Oracle, that only he would have a transcript.”
“Don't you have a perfect memory?”
“That's a lie,” I lied.
John scowled at me, zipped up his marvelous machine gun in its cloth bag, scooped up his account books, and left me in peace.
(Continued 8/30/2021)