Patrick McLean - How To Succeed in Evil

“E, ya got me to thinkin’ that day on the golf course. See my life isn’t like I thought it would be. I thought that being a lawyer would let you get away with stuff. That I would learn the rules and learn how to work them, y’know? I didn’t think you’d have to obey them. I thought I’d just get to stick it to the other guy. I didn’t want to play by somebody else’s rules. That just sucks.”

Edwin nods thoughtfully. He is gaining a new insight into his appetitive little friend. “So your caseload is manageable at the moment?”

“Manageable? I’m not the kind of guy who manages things. I make sure somebody else is there to catch the ball and then I feign total incompetence.”

“I respect the efficiency of that.”

“Yeah, so that frees me up to spend time on the really important things. Broads and Booze and all the little extras that make life worth living. That’s why I’m so relaxed and well-adjusted.”

Edwin says nothing. Not only is there no point arguing with his savage little friend, he has found that having the discipline to say nothing at all is a powerful conversational tool. It makes most people so uncomfortable that they all but give in. Besides, there is far too much useless chatter in the world.

“So,” Topper says, still struggling to keep up, “What’s the play? And how do I help?” Edwin explains Barry’s unique talents and his plan for them.

“So, we gotta find a somebody who needs a building knocked over,” Topper sums up.

Edwin waved a hand dismissively. “Merely an executional concern, I need someone to handle Barry.”

“Yeah, but it’s those executional concerns that bite you in the ass. Do you have a guy to pay you to knock a building down?”

“No, I generally don’t associate with the laboring trades. But there is someone out there.”

“En-henh. Well, I know a guy.”

“You see, the easy problems solve themselves. That’s why they are called the easy problems.”

“So aside from hooking you up with a demolition deal, how am I supposed to help?”

“As you may have noticed, I am far more cerebral than you are.”

“Dull is the word you’re looking for. Unless you just want to come right out and call me stupid. And then I’m going to reach up and punch you in your freakishly tall shins you lanky bastard.” Topper pants as he catches up with Edwin again.

“What I’m trying to say, with great patience, is that I live mostly in my head. Whereas you feel life mostly in your—”

“Balls!”

“Stomach. The word I was looking for was stomach,” Edwin says. “My point is that Barry is an appetitive creature. And as eloquent as I may be, I simply don’t speak his language. I think you will have better luck communicating with him. On an operational basis, I mean.”

“Okay, okay, I get it. And you’re right. But can we stop for a second?” Topper points to the bar that they have conveniently stopped in front of. They go inside and Topper orders a double scotch rocks. Edwin has a glass of soda water.

“You sure you don’t want a glass of milk?” asks the bartender.

“No,” says Edwin, not paying enough attention to him to register the attempted joke.

Topper slugs back half his drink at one go. “Look, and this is just me talking off the top of my head, here, but this scheme doesn’t seem like you. Seems too small.”

“Small?”

“Yeah, there’s no angle. Really, just straight ahead? Knock a building over? I mean they pay you to come up with that?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Well, nothing. I mean, it’s not that there’s anything wrong with it. It’s just not...”

“Ambitious?”

“That’s it. Ambitious. It’s not ambitious enough. I’m worried that you are losing your edge. I mean Alabama was weird. It affected you. You’re not as hungry as you used to be.”

Edwin sips his soda water. “It has very little to do with hunger. I am being somewhat more careful. But that is because I am not in a position where I need to take aggressive risks. This is a simple plan. And simplicity is genius. This plan should generate plentiful, regular cash for my firm and my client. What could possibly be wrong with that?”

“Ah, safe, regular. All that bullshit again. It’s like working for a living. Like all those stiffs out there.” Topper gestures contemptuously with his drink and sloshes some Scotch across the bar. “Ah crap. This one has sprung a leak. Bartender, bring me another.”

“Topper, you must understand. I enjoy my work.”

“You enjoy your work? ENJOY your work. I”m calling bullshit. You’re excited about this new client. But I predict, you’ll be just as miserable as you were. And the only reason you’re excited is conditioning. Conditioned thinking, you gotta see through it. Be your own man. See you’re only saying that because you can’t see your way through to the world being any different. But you gotta throw off your conditioning. You’ve gottta—” As Topper says this, a beautiful woman walks through the door. He stops talking and watches her sway her way through the high-topped tables and barstools.

When she has passed, Edwin asks, “You were saying?”

“Okay, okay whatever. I’m just saying I think we can do a little better.”

“You have an idea?”

“Ideas, I got millions of them. But it’s not just the idea. It’s the vision.” He slams his wallet down on the bar. “And I have a vision of money.”

“Money?” Edwin asks, deciding to give Topper his head for the simple enjoyment of seeing where he would run.

“Yeah, money. Makes the world go around, right?”

“I believe the Earth spins because the conservation of angular momentum, but keep going.”

“Okay, even if Angular what-ever-it-is makes the world go round, I’m pretty sure that money greases the wheels. So, you got this guy who can knock buildings over, right?”

“That is correct.”

“I mean he can knock any building over. And you want him to knock over old buildings with nothing in them.”

“For a price.”

“Yeah, for a price. And for finding you one of those deals, I want a cut of it. You understand?”

“Of course.”

“But what I really want is a bigger cut of a bigger deal.”

“What exactly are you getting at?”

“You see last night, I get home about 3 in the morning—”

“Topper, please.”

“—and Goldfinger is playing on some channel. You know, the James Bond movie.”

“I’ve never seen it.”

“NEVER SEEN IT!”

“I don’t really care for movies.”

“Oh, Edwin, how can you advise villains if you don’t understand the style and panache of one of the greatest villains of all time? Auric Goldfinger.”

“You are referring to a fictional character, are you not?”

“Yeah, but so what. I mean Jesus was a fictional character and look at the effect he had. And c’mon. The laser, the solid gold car. The ‘No Mr. Bond I expect you to die?’” Topper notices that the bartender is smiling. “See, see, this guy knows what I’m talking about.”

Edwin decides it would be best to try silence again. But it is to no avail.

“So in the movie, you think Goldfinger is gonna to rob Fort Knox.”

“Rob Fort Knox? Rob it of its gold?”

“Yeah, because his heart is cold and loves only gold and his name is friggin’ Goldfinger, right? But see he’s already got his own gold. So the theft is just a ruse. What he’s really going to do is take over and detonate a dirty bomb inside. Irradiating the ENTIRE United States gold reserve.”

“Hmmm,” says Edwin.

“Hmmm? How about hell yeah? Isn’t it a great idea?”

“Hmmm,” says Edwin again.

“So there’s one problem with his scheme. He gets caught.”