The branch manager paused briefly. He blurted out that they could no longer fulfill my payments to Russia. At least, not just the way I like it.
“Government agencies have been monitoring these payments,” he says. What? My good slime, that won’t do at all, we can’t stop doing business like that just so it pleases them. Don’t we pay them enough already?
This is pissing me off.
I must pay for my stuff.
The world wouldn’t be right.
I need to have my stuff.
He jotted down a number on a piece of paper and slid it toward me on the table with a faintly underhanded motion. No one is watching, princess, and even if they were, you would have made no difference with your fruity little movement. He says I should go to the Grand Bazaar. Sure… Fucking slime. And then from there, I traveled to a bar called “Elephant” in Yabaolu, Beijing.
The Russian stole a punchable amount of time to assure us that the caviar was the real deal, they “always made sure it came straight from Russia”.
It’s just fish eggs, man.
Otherwise, reasonable folks. They want 0.5%. That’s not much more than what the bank charges. This might come in handy, really, later too. 0.5%? If these guys turn out to be reliable, why should I work with the bank at all?
Russia was recently cut off from the global economy. Iran and North Korea were cut off for decades. They are on the brink of total collapse.
Why won’t they collapse?
Does China sustain them? Or perhaps we have some bad actors on our side? Hungary? Turkey? India? Wait, were they not collapsing as well?
Probably. Anyway, who are you? I hate you already. I hate you so much. Fucking slime. It is my destiny to make sure you get nothing.
I have always done everything I possibly could so that I can never be compelled to give you a whiff of what I have. What did you do to deserve it? Nothing. Do you know how much work was put into this? The history we made. Who is this “Russia”?
Russia was not even a thing when I was born, and back when the Grand Bazaar was built, America was not a thing either. They come and go, fantasies people find themselves in, they will find themselves anew in the next one, too. What seldom changes, however, is where the stuff is found.
I know. I am not blind, of course, I see why the rules were made… All good reasons. So, I guess I sound evil, but it’s just how it works. I mean, everyone does it.
Are all of us evil?
That’s nuts. I think this just happens to be the natural order of things, nature too always finds its way, and all the animals eat their babies.
To not do this would be unnatural. The world wouldn’t be right.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/10/14/the-middleman
