In the past twenty-four hours, I have convinced various people that I am a fireman, that I make my own shoes, that I am a qualified pilot, that my middle name is Wenceslas, and that I have an inoperable brain tumour. Only one of these things is true.
This morning I am dressed in a sumptuous designer suit. The leather soles of my polished Italian shoes tip-tap across the marble floor of the corporate bank’s lobby. At the reception desk I shoot my cuffs to make sure the pretty girl sitting there gets a good look at my onyx cuff-links and silver Patek-Philippe watch. In one hand there is an expensive briefcase, and under my other arm a rolled-up copy of the Financial Times.
“Hello, my dear,” I say, in a well-practised drawl, “here to see the old man.”
“Excuse me?” she says, one eyebrow raised in confusion. I look back at her without saying anything.
“Do you have an appointment?” she asks.
I can see that she is caught off-balance from my unexpected manner, and by the smile which I flash at her.
I swing my briefcase up and onto the counter, my thumbs opening sprung catches slickly with a snick and a snap that makes her flinch ever so slightly in her seat. There is a stray lock of hair caught in her telephone headset. I make sure she sees the gold monogrammed letters on the side of the briefcase:
P.R.T.C.
I hand her a letter printed on heavily weighted paper, an official letterhead at the top and signed with a flourish and a fountain pen at the bottom.
“Bear with me, sir,” she says, her cheeks a shade or two pinker than when I walked in. I stand over her as she makes the call, and I can hear her heartbeat in her voice as she announces me. She nods at whatever is said on the other end of the line.
“Please go on up, sir,” she says, motioning towards the private elevator behind a velvet rope and a rather large security guard in a black suit. “Mr. Cooper will see you straight away.”
“I thought he might,” I say, trying not to smirk.
The psychiatrist at the last institution of which I was a resident told me that lying is not a compulsion for me. It is simply that I enjoy it so much. I tend to agree. I have never felt the need to explain it away with Freudian babble about parental relationships and ego versus id versus super ego. I just get a kick out of it.
The elevator is lavish. The carpet sucks at my shoes, running to teak panelling on either side of a mirror in which I admire my outfit, the slicked back hair, the tie pin with the exclusive gentleman’s club motif. There are no buttons to press as I rise towards the top floor of the building. I have to admit I am more than a little impressed with myself, and the ease with which I disarmed the receptionist, and her sentinel with the bulge of an automatic pistol under his left armpit. As always, it pays to look the part.
The doors swish open onto more marble and another receptionist, this one much prettier than the first. I ignore her completely and push through the double doors she is ostensibly guarding.
“Hey!” she shouts after me. “Hey! You can’t... Sir!”
Her voice is drowned out as the doors shut behind me, heavy and soundproof. More thick carpeting covers the floor, a deep burgundy colour from wall to wall. A window fifty feet or more across looks out over the city, auto-chromatically darkened to suit the mood of the office. The furniture looks German art-house, minimalist but expensive in front of the great slab of a desk, some kind of dark wood, one piece appearing to levitate on top of another which rises perpendicular to the floor. Behind it sits a man who is not used to being walked in on.
