Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

— Touchy.

— It’s one motherfucker of a February in case you haven’t been paying attention. Everybody’s touchy.

— What do you want, Adler?

— What makes you think I want something?

— Aw, honey, you called because you’re all lonely?

— Never met a guy in the field who wasn’t, Diflorio. Then again, you’re an—

— Accountant. You know, if we’re going to be friends, you really have to stop calling me—

— Accountant?

— No, Diflorio.

— Don’t be so smarmy, Diflorio, it doesn’t suit you.

— If you knew what suited me you’d call me Bar, or Barry, or Bernard, like my mother-in-law. Now for the second time, what can I do for you?

— Did you see all that stuff about Iran?

— Does disco suck?

— Just making chat.

— No, you’re making small talk. I heard John Barron’s writing a sequel to his KGB book.

— Might as well, Lord knows we have to ferret out those KGB sleeper agents.

— And the traitors who support them.

— Who would that be? The Bill in his book? I read that I’m an alcoholic skirt chaser who’s constantly broke.

— So you’ve read it?

— Of course I’ve read it. I’m surprised that you’re taking this wannabe agent so seriously.

— His book is at the very least as entertaining as yours.

— Fuck you. Have another book coming, by the way.

— Of course you do. You have at least a thousand more lives to fuck up. By the way, how’s your buddy Cheporov?

— Who?

— Nifty. Very skillful. But shit, Adler, even the Daily Mail knows you’ve been talking to Cheporov.

— Don’t know who—

— Edgar Anatolyevich Cheporov, Novosti News Agency in London. He’s KGB. Go ahead. I’ll just sit here while you act all aghast that you didn’t know. Mind you, aghast is hard to pull off without me seeing your face.

— Cheporov isn’t KGB.

— And I wear briefs, not boxers. You’ve been in contact with him since 1974 at least.

— I don’t know anybody at Novosti News.

— My dear Bill, you will simply have to do better. First you say you don’t know him, then you say he isn’t KGB. Should we pause while you get your thoughts together? If you didn’t know Cheporov was KGB, you’re either very stupid or very gullible, or maybe you just need some money. How much did Cuban intelligence pay you? A million?

— A million? You don’t know Cuba.

— Lord knows you do. What do you want, you fucker?

— Information.

— How much? A treasure trove? Wasn’t that your exact words to the KGB when you tried to whore yourself out?

— I’m not asking for information, prick, I’m giving it. Some of it might even concern you, fucking Yale boy.

— Hey, don’t shoot me because you swam out of Tacoma, Florida. Whatever you’re selling I’m sure as hell not buying. This conversation is being recorded.

— We’ve already established that.

— No worries, it’ll all be evidence for later.

— For when I turn myself in?

— For when we fucking catch you.

— You accountants can’t catch a breath.

— This from the case officer who got caught trying to bug an embassy at five a.m.

— Did you know you were in the Horrors book?

— What’s the Horrors book?

— Can’t confirm that’s what they’re calling it, if they’re calling it anything at all. My biggest regret in life, I swear, is to have put my book out before this shit broke.

— I don’t know what you’re talking about. And one day we’re gonna find your fucking leak.

— One day soon?

— Sooner than you think. This is an awfully long phone call. You sure you can afford it? I really have to close up shop, Bill.

— Oh yeah, all that packing and saying goodbye. Wonderful. Poor President Ford. He was on the fucking Warren Commission and didn’t know we didn’t tell him everything.

— What are you going on about now?

— The Horrors book. Who gave it that name? You gotta wonder.

— No I don’t. I swear sometimes, Adler, you’re not talking to me at all. It’s like we’re two girls and you’re talking about some boy just so the boy can overhear you. Few years out of the Company and you’re like those crackpots thinking aliens abducted you just to stick a dildo up your ass. Jeez.

— Maybe it’s not a book exactly. Maybe it’s a file.

— A file. In the CIA. The CIA has a file, and top secret to boot. How did you ever get this job?

— Don’t insult my intelligence, Diflorio.

— I don’t fucking have to.

— I’m telling you about a file Schlesinger compiled for Kissinger, the same report he presented to Ford on Christmas Day 1974.

— You’re talking to me about 1974. Dude, I hate to break it to you, but we’ve got a new President, and even he’s not going to be President much longer if today gets any worse. Iran’s blowing up all over the world press and poor William Adler, just now passing shit that everybody else shat in 1974.

— Kissinger presented a version that dressed up the really juicy stuff. Schlesinger’s original file is still floating out there and I hear it’s a doozy.

— Well, you’ve already had my opinion on your opinions, Adler. Running out of writing material, buddy?

— You’re a garbage man, Diflorio. The only reason you’re not interested is that you’re not high enough to be interested. Schlesinger’s little memo has it all: all the little things that the average American thinks some spy novelist cooked up. The breakdown of Tom Hayden’s last shit. Who Bill Cosby’s fucking. Mind control after LSD. Assassinations all over the place, Lumumba in the Congo, for example, lots of stuff on your buddy Mobutu—

— Correction: Frank’s buddy.

— Well, you, him and Larry Devlin are interchangeable, you Latin American African boys.

— The number of assassination attempts on Castro authorized by Bobby Kennedy himself.

— Did you know that Haviland’s being pushed to retire?

— Who?

— Haviland. The man who trained you and me. Sorry, I forgot you trained yourself.

— You realize if the American public or even Carter got hold of that book it would be the end of the Company? Your job would go down in fucking flames.

— I swear at times I don’t know if you’re a fucking idiot or if you’re just pretending to be one on TV. What kind of world do you think this is, Adler? You are the one agent who doesn’t seem to know what’s going on on this fucking planet. You think your buddies in the KGB are on some humanitarian mission, is that what you think?

— Ex-agent, remember. And you don’t know what I think.

— Oh, I know exactly what you think. Originality is not one of the things you got going for you.

— I should have known you wouldn’t have given a shit about this Horrors book. You’re the worst of the lot. It’s one thing if you approved of what your government is doing, but you don’t even care. Just punch the clock and cash the check.

— I love how you assume you have me figured out. It’s one of your worst shortcomings, Adler, thinking you can read people when you can’t read shit.

— Oh really?

— Yes really. You know why? Because in all this talking about your Horrors book, in your breaking it to poor me that my government has been engaged in all sorts of fucked-up shit, in all your failure to spark my interest even once, it never occurred to you that maybe I’m not interested because I wrote the motherfucker.

— What? What did you say? Are you fucking shitting me?

— Do I sound like I’m remotely interested in shitting you? Yes, you fucker, this little bookkeeper wrote it. What, you think the secretary of defense wrote the damn thing himself? You know, at first I felt kinda slighted that I didn’t appear in your book even once. Then I realized you really don’t have a fucking clue what I do, do you? You have no fucking idea. Because if you did, you wouldn’t have wasted my time for the past six and a half minutes. Instead you’d have fallen out of your fucking hammock and while you’re on the floor, thank your commie God that I’m not the son of a bitch they sent after you. By the way, your Sunbeam Coffeemaster’s broke and the view from your new apartment fucking sucks. Tell Fidel you want an ocean view.