The Minimum Wages of Sin
by Edward St. Boniface
Even if you sell your soul at a discount like I did, the Devil always shows up to collect his royalties.
From the bestselling memoirs of international playboy publisher Heston Huner Vol IV: ‘How My Magazine And Video Empire Of Cleanswabbed Skin And XXX-clusive Lifestyle Consumer Advertising/Product Placement Financially Malfunctioned And Almost Totally Zonked Out’, Huner Enterprises Press, 1980.
Transcript-excerpt from Black Hand Incorporated company confidential archives, miscellaneous operation-related files, financial claims and expenses validation section. Original spoken audio dialogue captured using replica micro-miniaturised tape recording device once the property of the Central Intelligence Agency. All operations discussed in context with illustrated expense claims and supporting material are strictly classified, company archivist’s eyes only. Subject of following discussion: Operation A-71.
SEE ATTACHED FILE DOCUMENT:
COMPANY EXPENSE FORM (File to Ledger: Allowable expenses, Operation A-71)
Date: (classified)
ITEM: Negative Pressure Ventilator (‘PULMOTOR’) Mechanical Respirator unit
(x 1)
SUM CLAIMED (per item): $ 6200.00.
SUBTOTAL (all items): $ 6200.00.
(DISALLOWED)
ITEM: Second-Hand Ambulance Vehicle, Fully Fitted & Marked, with forged registration papers & license plates.
(x 1)
SUM CLAIMED (per item): $ 1600.00.
SUBTOTAL (all items): $ 1600.00.
ITEM: Portable Electrical Generator + Ancillary batteries
(x 1)
SUM CLAIMED (per item): $ 1275.00.
SUBBTOTAL (all items): $ 1275.00.
ITEM: Appropriate uniforms & forged credentials.
(x 3)
SUM CLAIMED (per item): $ 125.00.
SUBTOTAL (all items): $ 375.00.
ITEM: Gasoline for vehicle, 1 refuel
(x 1)
SUM CLAIMED (per item): $ 23.17
SUBTOTAL (all items): $ 23.17
SUMMARY:
All Receipts
TOTAL SUM CLAIMED: $ 9473.17 (SUBMITTED)
NOTES: Company Finance officer decision final, not subject to review.
(Sound of lever-arch folder being unlocked, papers removed and shuffled, prongs clicked back into place.)
GARY BANOMENA (Company president and team junior member for Operation A-71): (with incredulity) “…you’re actually disallowing the iron lung?...”
SURVIND JUGGERGHAZI: (Deputy President and company chief financial officer): “Regrettably so. Wouldn’t you say it’s more than a little counter-intuitive for us to be buying life-support systems than the more usual opposite we employ?”
DAG ULKÖLN (Team leader, Operation A-71): “It was an essential prop, Trucker. We were impersonating ambulance-men. If the target’s private doctor and surgeon didn’t see authentic functioning equipment he’d never have handed the old geezer over to us. Anyway, the manufacturers Emerson gave us a good cash discount for quick sale.”
SJ: “The charges imposed on us for uniforms and credentials from Polychrome Cross Medical Services also seem excessive. I believe they only charge employees forty-five dollars or so annually, and that for a set of three fatigues each?”
WARKENTIN WESTGATE (Team senior member, Operation A-71): “To be fair, that’s on a subsidised company plan for qualified staff. We had to directly bribe three of them to get the right sizes and for voluntary police statements saying they were all forcibly waylaid and abducted on the job and the vehicle stolen. Absolutely the three of us crewing had to look the part. Arrogant surgeon guy at the old man’s house looked us over with the beadiest beady eyes I’ve ever seen. Insisted on riding in the ambulance with us but we stymied him over a passenger liability insurance clause. Even so he practically tailgated us on the way to the supposed clinic destination until we lost him in traffic.”
SJ: “Adjusting by the described cost benefits of necessary purchase versus a thriving resale market in these machines, nevertheless I will have to enter it against our net profits for the operation. So it ultimately comes out of our own pockets.”
DU: “Not the capital reserve fund?”
SJ: “No. We have a difficult enough time with the Internal Revenue Service as it is.”
(Groans from team-members for Operation A-71.)
SJ (continuing smoothly): “Gary, you of course as company president have the option of veto.”
GB: “Nope, I trust your discretion, Trucker. Anyway, I was designated the junior team member. That said, I think a price tag of under ten thousand cartwheels for an operation like this is a purty good accounting for ourselves, so to speak.”
WW: “It did go flawlessly. Occupant exited said iron lung body and soul directly into the concrete foundations of the new Cosmo-Salamander development over in Bedford Stuyvesant. You know, that new egghead avant-garde concert hall and music conservatory? It was a Sunday, no work on, so we only had to drive into the site careful. Did the nefarious deed in broad daylight. There was even some cement in a mixer handy, so we made sure the target had a suitable concrete sarcophagus to keep the secret safe. Rest of the pit will be filled in Monday morning, and no one the wiser.”
DU: “We switched off the iron lung and portable generator, but on the way back I could swear I heard that unholy thing breathing. I think we were being haunted.”
GB: “Probably it just had mechanical asthma.”
(General laughter from all four participants.)
* * *
As previously, Subject: Operation H-71.
SEE ATTACHED FILE DOCUMENT:
COMPANY EXPENSE FORM (File to Ledger: Allowable Operational Expenses, Operation H-71)
Date: (classified)
ITEM: Specialist Freshwater Species Breeding Service Fees
(x 15)
SUM CLAIMED (Per Task): $ 1000.00.
SUBTOTAL (All Tasks): $ 15,000.00.
(QUERIED)
ITEM: Water Tanker Purchase & Special Conditions Adaptation Plus Additional fittings
(x 1)
SUM CLAIMED (per item): $ 19, 400.00.
SUBTOTAL (all items): $ 19, 400.00.
(QUERIED)
ITEM: Custom designed pressurised flush-pump with hydraulic feed unit
(x 1)
SUM CLAIMED (per item): $ 3,700.00.
SUBTOTAL (all items): $ 3,700.00.
(QUERIED)
ITEM: Custom Made Galvanised Rubber Hose, Triple-Segmented (x 3)
SUM CLAIMED (per item): $ 780.00.
SUBTOTAL (all items): $ 2340.00.
(QUERIED)
ITEM: Butcher’s Offal
(including refrigeration & delivery service) (x 25)
SUM CLAIMED (per item): $ 50.00.
SUBTOTAL (all items): $ 1250.00.
SUMMARY:
TOTAL SUM CLAIMED: $ 41, 690.00.
(All receipts subject to detailed review, enquiry pending, date TBA classified.)
(Humming sound of an office mimeograph machine, then the repeated hole-punching of documents, opening and closing of lever arch folder after document insertion.)
SJ: “Did we get the target?”
GB (long pause): “Eventually.”
SJ: “Over-elaborate far beyond the absurd. I was very much in two minds about us taking on the original commission. A simple seafood platter laced with an appropriate marine creature venom, or several to be certain, would have done far more simply and efficiently.”
WW: “Logistically and planning and coordination-wise though, it was good crisis training.”
DU: “Despite we had to go back to the same people more than twenty times just for the raw living materials alone, because they kept dying of one cause or another. One heck of an object lesson in never trusting the old wild kingdom to help you when you really need it.”
WW: “On the technical side with the aquarium vehicle and the pump and the pool delivery extension hoses, just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong.”
GB: “But the bait did end up as bait.”
SJ: “So we don’t have to write it all off as a loss.”
GB (uncomfortably): “His colleagues on the board won’t pay, though. They say we took too long.”
SJ (pause): “Is this the same board of directors who have a regular swimming club and rent isolated country resorts with indoor pools for private skinny-dipping parties, Dag?”
DU: “You got it.”
WW: “I have a working tap on their corporate secretary’s phone line as well as all their personal homes. The secretary makes all the group holiday bookings. They have one coming up in this place on Hecla Island in Manitoba, Canada. Isolated defines the joint.”
GB: “Sounds like our collision course is clear.”
SJ: “We cannot allow our clients to set payment terms and dictate contractual nuances under any circumstances. They wanted their corporate debt-ridden chairman devoured by piranha fish in his home swimming pool for whatever reason, and we delivered to that criteria despite numerous difficulties. If they subsequently renege on due remuneration, the natural justice of consequence should be the same.”
DU: “I’ll put it together operationally toot sweet, Trucker.”
SJ: “Thank you, Dag. Meantime, I will draw up a revised scale of final charges to present to our surviving recalcitrants in the aftermath. It will reflect these financial inconveniences with a certain emphasis in our penultimate ultimatum.”
GB (playfully): “Mebbe we should jest send them our pet Kraken?”
SJ (rejoinder in same tone): “…Black Tentacles Incorporated now as well?...”
(Uproarious general laughter from all four participants.)
*
As previously, Subject: Operation R-71.
SEE ATTACHED FILE DOCUMENT:
COMPANY EXPENSE FORM (File to Ledger: Allowable Expenses, Operation R-71)
Date: (classified)
ITEM: 5000-volt single discharge batteries, weatherproofed
(x 5)
SUM CLAIMED (per item): $ 320.00.
SUBTOTAL (all items): $ 1600.00.
ITEM: Radio-controlled circuit breaking trip switch + UHF transmitter unit
(x 1)
SUM CLAIMED (per item): $ 145.00.
SUBTOTAL (all items): $ 145.00.
ITEM: Auto repair shop conversion, painting, seat re-installation, Misc.
(x 1)
SUM CLAIMED (per item): $ 670.00.
SUBTOTAL (all items): $ 670.00.
ITEM: Thermoplastic recorders (musical instruments) octave-variable junior orchestral set
(x 4)
SUM CLAIMED (per item): $ 9.25.
SUBTOTAL (all items): $ 37.00.
SUMMARY: All receipts submitted.
TOTAL SUM CLAIMED: $ 2452.00.
NOTES: (discussion/review required)
(Shuffling of papers, tapping of fingers on desk surface)
SJ: “…Recorders?...”
DU: “To attract the mountain goats. The two-octave one worked best in the end.”
(Long pause.)
SJ: “I’ll take your word for it.”
WW: “Crazy as it sounds, that old-timer hunter we talked to in Utah just before recommended pipe music to attract and lead wild grazers and it worked just the way he said. I had my Leica and telephoto with me to show the slope before and after we started. Look at that.”
(Sound of large photographs being slid out of a case and flattened on desk surface.)
GB: “I was there too, Trucker. It was eerie how fast they turned up. Perfect for our purposes. We got that shooter party right up to the top of the mountain to blast the hell out of the things en-masse, then got into position ourselves to catch them as the bus came back down the same road.”
DU: “Looks more convincing if an accident happens on the way down.”
SJ: “What went wrong, exactly?”
WW: “Nothing operationally. The driver was a plant and the bus a mocked-up substitute. A specialist company in the nearby town uses old modified school buses for hunting parties. We just had their markings copied from photos in this garage outside Reno and drove it there ourselves. Thing was sabotaged to electrocute the driver by radio-tripped batteries we hooked up and concealed under the floor panels.”
GB: “Worked perfectly too. They went past us on the way down, I hit the transmit button and the dupe fried. Unfortunately instead of going over the precipice the bus ran into a wooden guide-pylon and slid right over it. Somehow the stupid cussed thang braced the bus from going down the way it should have and they were all rescued. We had to escape on foot down the mountain slope on the opposite side.”
SJ: “A debacle of bad luck, rather.”
DU: “We had to ride back in a boxcar until we could finally get off unseen past midnight at the Chicago marshalling yards, too.”
GB: “Remember that smell? It must’ve been a mobile abattoir or something.”
SJ: “Perhaps a couple of concealed thermite bombs attached to the gas tank activated the same way might have been more expedient.”
WW: “Well, crash and burn, even at those altitudes, is less easy to evidentially justify. Using that particular modus operandi again wouldn’t be a good idea though, law enforcement will latch onto it.”
SJ: “Leaving us considering the character of our next shot at this obnoxiously lucky group of company directors.”
DU: “The junior management who hired us are not happy. They want a fast result.”
SJ: “Do they hold ‘The Mighty Hunters Return’ kinds of celebration banquets?”
WW: “I think the juniors said the night after they all get back, usually. They get caterers into the corporate HQ for it and party in the boardroom with their latest trophies mounted on the wall.”
SJ: “We shall be the caterers this year. Roast mountain goat is a new dish to me, but I’m sure I can find something suitable to embellish it. Batteries not included.”
(Chuckling from all four participants around desk.)
*
As previously, subject: Operation X-71.
SEE ATTACHED FILE DOCUMENT:
ITEM: 2-inch steel ship’s rivet
(Wholesale, army surplus)
(x 1)
SUM CLAIMED (per item): $ 00.57.
SUBTOTAL (all items): $ 00.57.
ITEM: Box of elasticated rubber bands (office supplies, bulk discount)
(x 1)
SUM CLAIMED (per item): $ 00.15.
SUBTOTAL (all items): $ 00.15.
SUMMARY:
TOTAL SUM CLAIMED: $ 00.72.
NOTES: Approved without query.
(Sound of a single document insertion, decisive closing and locking of prongs on a lever-arch folder.)
SJ: “That, my friends and colleagues, is what I call a cost-effective operation.”
WW: “It’s terrifying what you can inflict with simple stuff like that.”
DU: “None of us ate lunch that day; I can tell you.”
GB (long pause): “Ugh.”
*
COMPANY ACCOUNTANT’S MEMORANDUM (added December 29, 1971):
At close of annual business, and adjusting for the ordinary Internal Revenue Service tax schedule for small-to-medium sized companies in our cover sectors, I can report to colleagues and fellow board-members our gross profits for 1971 are well in excess of two million United States dollars.
A full annual company statement for Black Hand Incorporated, giving fully-costed summaries of operations, gross and net profits, and parallel tax details of fund management will be confidentially distributed to board members on or before 07 January 1972.
Copies will be available on request from the chief financial officer. They will be ordinarily stored in the designated company records safe situated in the boardroom under floor panel 29. As per company charter, copies are not to leave the boardroom, or more generally floor 12 of the Iron Tourniquet Building, under any circumstances.
Company chief technical officer Warkentin Westgate has verified to me as of 22 December 1971 that the Thermite-based emergency incineration system linked to the safe’s locking mechanism is in perfect working order. Other records-security defences such as standard intruder alarms, explosives, contact poisons and lethal gas compound emitters are in place and similarly verified working.
Marked cabinets containing appropriate medical supplies, antidotes and one functional gas mask (regular testing recommended) have been installed in the kitchenettes of each suite of director’s personal quarters in floor 14 of the building. A duplicate larger cabinet containing four masks, aforementioned supplies and emergency portable surgical kit with defibrillator unit has also been installed in the company laboratory on Floor 13, fitted into the alcove to the immediate right of the pressurised punchcode-activated entrance door.
May I wish colleagues all best wishes for the coming holiday season. With regards!
Edward St. Boniface is Canadian by origin, permanently resident in London UK and writes across various genres from contemporary to crime and fantasy and science fiction. He is interested in offbeat and subversive scenarios, surprising and seemingly wrong-headed characters and the outright blatantly deranged.
