The 2084 Precept (5 page)

Chess is unquestionably a good
character-trainer. You can be in an inferior position for a
prolonged period of time before it turns into a losing one and you
can be in a losing position for another long period of time before
it becomes a lost one. As my father and plenty of others used to
say, losing is part of your education and it is good for the soul.
Whatever a soul is, I haven't a clue, perhaps you know.

And no, we chess players have nothing to do
with those ghastly characters in novels who capture one, two, or
even more of their opponent's pieces and then are actually allowed
to continue until they checkmate him, upon which the opponent
topples his king down onto the board. I will permit myself to say
that such characters and their authors produce in me a strong
desire to vomit, profusely indeed.

I handed him the money, wished him a good
day, accepted his grunt in return and went down the stairs and out
into the fresh air.

Fresh air, but the sun was gone and the rain
was here. No umbrella, I should have known better, good evening
England. I ran around the corner to a steakhouse, ordered a meal, a
filet steak well-done (I know, I know, but that's how I like it).
The wine was good, a simple Côtes du Rhône, a wine I always order
if not wanting to spend too much; it is one of those rare
wine-growing areas that seldom produce a bad bottle. It was dark
when I came out of the restaurant and it was still raining, but I
got lucky and found a cab to take me back to the hotel. I was no
longer hungry, but I was tired. I had worked a lot of hours this
week and today's four hours of chessboard concentration plus the
wine had not changed things much.

Into the hotel, checked the foyer for women
on the way through, uninteresting, only one nice one sitting there
with her husband (actually, it had to be her boyfriend, married
people don't look at each other like that) and two other old ones
painted up like red Indian squaws gone berserk.

I also decided to give the hotel bar a miss.
An early night was called for. Up to my room, teeth, shower, and
into bed with my book of the day, a collection of James M. Cain's
legendary novels. I was reading one of the short ones,
‘The
Postman Always Rings Twice’,
and managed to finish it before
falling asleep.

The room service trolleys and other
miscellaneous hotel noise pollution woke me at the fairly
reasonable Saturday morning hour of 08.30. Nothing to do, no work,
a piece of fun awaiting me in the early afternoon, and I would
decide on the evening later. So I languished in bed for a while
before getting up and commencing the shit, shave and shower
routine.

I looked out of the window, still raining,
either that or raining again. I decided that the brown-check jacket
and casual shirt would be good for the so-called meeting, brown
slip-on shoes, relatively new like all my shoes and, also like all
my shoes, size 48 or size 13 depending on where you come from in
Europe, and possibly some other number in the USA.

Why can't the human race standardize
something as simple as that? Well, the answer is that it can't.
That would not only require a certain modicum of intelligence, it
would also mean they would have to actually agree on something, a
rarity on this disordered planet as I am sure you agree. We can't
even assent to driving our cars on the same side of the road. As
you probably know, there are 72 countries in which you drive on the
left and 125 countries in which you drive on the right. The only
good thing is that no country has decided to drive in the middle.
Tribal behavior. Amazing.

I had my favorite breakfast of poached eggs
on toast, more toast with butter and Chivers orange marmalade, and
a cup of coffee, great stuff at this hotel, Lavazza. I finished at
around eleven o'clock and went back to my room to collect the
umbrella and fish out one of the copies of my résumé, always have a
couple of pre-printed copies with me when travelling, you never
know. I took the elevator back down, lit up a cigarette and set off
in the direction of St. James's Street.

Now that I had my umbrella, the rain had
stopped. So much the better, I would walk the whole way. I turned
into Pall Mall, walked along past the clubs to the end, past
Trafalgar Square, Nelson's Column, bought the IHT at the Charing
Cross kiosk and found a nearby café in which to read it. Only two
major bombings today, thirty dead, add to that the deaths in seven
other minor wars which continue to pursue their diversified and
mysterious goals, more vehement anti-Jewish threats from Iran and
so on and so forth, and it's still boring. Boring because such is
our planet and it certainly doesn't bother me, there is absolutely
nothing I can do about it.

The coffee in this place was American-style
revolting, colored dishwater, so I finished the sports section
without ordering a second cup, paid the waitress who had mistakenly
sauntered into my area en route to the toilet, and—unhindered today
by any additional survey-takers—I lit up another cigarette and set
off along the Strand, so named, by the way, because it used to
border on the river Thames until, as with many other things, we
cemented everything up.

I arrived at the Towers with fifteen minutes
to spare and wandered around for a while before entering the
building, it being just as bad to be more than a couple of minutes
early as it is to arrive late. The ground floor reception area was
unmanned today, and so I just took the elevator up to the Obrix
Consultants' suite on the first floor (second floor if you prefer),
and pressed the buzzer.

Jeremy Parker himself opened the door.

"No staff today, I'm afraid," he said, same
pleasant round face, same pleasant smile, "come in, come in. I'm
glad you could make it. Let's go through to the meeting room."

He was dressed as formally as he was
yesterday, suit and tie, blue tie today. He was obviously taking
this thing seriously. He led me past an expensive looking reception
desk and down a corridor, pristine white walls, office doors
opening off it, also white walls, white furniture too, laptops and
papers on the desks, lots of files, it certainly looked as if there
was plenty of activity during the week.

He showed me through a double door into what
was a relatively large meeting room with a boardroom table, eight
well-spaced leather chairs on each side of it plus one at each end,
a presentation screen and the other paraphernalia you expect to
find in a meeting room. The walls and the furniture in this room
were also white. It looked good, Jeremy certainly had a taste for
style. Or maybe he had merely retained a liking for the white walls
of his room at some psychiatric institution or other. Whatever.
Water, soft drinks and glasses stood on a table in one corner. The
view was not great, it was the building opposite, but there was
plenty of light.

All in all a pleasant room, a room
generating confidence and seriousness for the sacrificial victims
of whatever frauds were put into motion here. And if he wasn't
insane, then frauds it must be. Surroundings such as these
precluded the option of it being a bad joke.

Jeremy motioned me to take a chair at the
head of the table, and himself took a chair at the side, leaving
one chair empty between us. Good practice, I thought to myself, we
are not directly facing each other, which can be viewed by some as
being somewhat confrontational, nor are we sitting side by side,
which I don't like anyway, need my space.

"Drink?" he asked, "I can make some coffee
if you prefer."

"No thanks, Mr. Parker, water will be
fine."

He fetched a large bottle and two glasses
and I handed him my résumé, which, in my view, he read pretty
quickly. Maybe he was a speed reader, why not?

"So, Mr. O'Donoghue…first of all, thank you
for coming. You will, I believe, be more than happy when I explain
to you how easily you are going to be able to earn your fee, the
fee I mentioned to you yesterday. But there is one major problem I
have to deal with. It's my problem, not yours, you don't have
anything to worry about from your end. The problem, to put it
frankly, is that I haven't the faintest idea as to whether or not I
will be able to convince you to take on the assignment, no matter
how easy it is.. You will see what I mean when I start to explain
things, and I may as well start by trying to do that right
now."

"Please do," I smiled, "I have a reasonably
open mind, I can assure you."

"Ah," replied Jeremy, "and precisely that is
what worries me. You are going to find that reasonableness and
rationality are in extremely short supply here. However, there is
no doubt that I need your services, no doubt about that at all. And
as we briefly mentioned yesterday, we are both reasonably
intelligent people, and it is therefore perfectly clear to me that
you consider me to be either insane or to be attempting some kind
of fraud here. If you thought any differently you would either be
stupid yourself or at best only mildly intelligent, and either of
those categories would preclude a business relationship."

He paused and looked me straight in the eye.
I looked straight back. Let him waffle further. I am not one of
those people who feel they have either a need or an obligation to
fill in conversation gaps.

"You are therefore here for the money," he
continued. "So what I have decided to do, I have decided to
transfer the €100,000 I mentioned yesterday to your bank right now.
As I mentioned, you get to keep it, no matter what. This is a risk
for me, a gamble, but one I can afford to take. There are no
conditions attached, but I hope it will keep you here for what to
you, no doubt whatsoever, will seem to be a meeting with a
fraudulent or, alternatively, totally deranged person. Initially,
that is, as I shall at least be making the attempt to convince you
otherwise before you leave here today. Now if you would kindly let
me have your international bank account number, I'll fix the
payment now."

Oh man, is he weird. Demented. Fully
deranged. Maybe dangerously insane, you never know with these
people.

But he doesn't look it and he doesn't sound
it, he might be one of those easy-going kinds of lunatic. But, like
many lunatics, he is not stupid. He realizes I think it's a fraud
and he is preempting my reaction to whatever weird argumentations
he has up his sleeve by telling me that I might also think he's
deranged. So, he's not stupid, but he's not particularly
intelligent either. He should know that it is unlikely that any of
this is going to wash with a person of normal intelligence. But…now
this is
real
fun,
and sure I'm going to stay and hear
what his crazy or dishonest scheme is, and then I'm going to check
my bank account in a couple of days' time. The money won't be there
of course but…I
am
a member of the human species, and so I
will
be checking the account.

I gave him the information and he took a
laptop from one of the cupboards and tapped away on it. When he was
finished, he looked up and said, "I would appreciate your sending
me an invoice in due course, Mr. O’Donoghue. Please bill Obrix
Consultancy Partners at this address. Simply describe the charge as
'consultancy services provided' for whatever period of time you
deem to be proper and acceptable. In view of the remainder still to
be paid, should you decide to continue that is, you may perhaps
wish to have this first invoice cover a prior year period. For tax
purposes. Instead of having it all in one year, you understand. Up
to you, of course."

"Sure…fine…, Mr. Parker," I said, "Good
idea. Judicious." Play the game, enjoy it. There won't be any money
and there won't be any invoice, so no problem.

"O.K…I'm hoping for your patience now," he
said. "You really aren't going to believe a word of what I
say…impossible I would think…although, as I've said, I hope that
you will by the time we part company today. First of all, let me
tell you that I own this company and all of its subsidiaries. What
they do is unimportant, but I would be happy to explain them to you
on another occasion, should you be interested. At the same time, I
am a student. I am performing research for my doctorate. I have to
write a dissertation. And part of the research for the dissertation
is required to be supported by interviewee input. And this,
hopefully, is where you will be able to be of some considerable
assistance to me."

"Exactly what will I be doing? That is a
large amount of money you're offering, Mr. Parker, you know." Play
the game, play the game.

"Yes, I do know. And as I obliquely
indicated to you yesterday, you don't have to do that much to earn
it. In fact, all you have to do is to answer certain questions I
will be putting to you in a series of meetings over the next three
months—perhaps even less than three months depending on how we
progress. A maximum of twelve meetings, perhaps fewer. That is all.
Nothing else."

"So why pay such a large amount? You could
get someone else for a fraction of that kind of money, no
problem."

"Yes, I know I could. Obviously. But only if
the subject of the thesis were a normal one. Which it isn't. And I
also have a need for a person of a certain level of intelligence, a
requirement you so far appear to fulfill by the way. At the same
time, the problem with a person of a certain level of intelligence
is that he will be convinced there is something fraudulent about
this whole scenario. Not that he would be able to determine what,
or how, or in which way, but he would definitely be of that
opinion. And, in addition, he could also classify me as being a
person in dire need of psychiatric assistance."

Repeating himself. Boring. And no way is it
going to increase his chances of reeling me in to whatever this
peculiar scheme turns out to be.