Death Comes Calling

Jones obeyed.

The man nodded.  “Good,” he said.  Jones noticed he was wearing fine leather gloves, but otherwise was dressed casually—jeans, pull-over knit shirt, light canvas jacket with lots of pockets.  He smiled, but it didn’t quite make it all the way up to his warm, brown eyes.

“Now see here!” Jones said.  The man shook his head and Jones stopped.  There was something about his expression . . .

“Just shut the fuck up, you mercernary asshole,” the man said, with no particular anger or force.  Jones opened his mouth, the man raised an eyebrow, and Jones subsided.  His cigar, forgotten in his hand, continued to smolder, some ash dropping to the expensive dining room Axeminster.

“Good,” the man said.  He walked around the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.  “You’re a thief,” the man said to Jones, leaning forward and putting his elbows on the table.

“I beg your pardon?”

“No, not a chance,” the man said, disagreeing.  “You’re not getting a pardon.  Or mercy.  Or any of that shit.”

“I’m afraid I don’t . . .”

The man put up his hand again and once again Jones stopped.

“You have stolen money, millions, from folks that couldn’t afford it.  You’ve used that money to buy congressmen, state legislators, and influence the governor, various law enforcement folks, bribe SEC investigators, and probably lots of other stuff my research and the New York Times hasn’t shown up yet.”  He took a breath, cocked his head to the side and fixed Jones with a look that was simultaneously sad and angry.  “You’re a fucking asshole, Mr. Jones.  You are genuinely evil.”

“I use my money to create jobs!” Jones said.

“Bullshit.  You use your money to buy Axeminster carpets and cigars and lots of other shit you don’t need and probably don’t even want.  That you may have created some jobs is practically an accident.”  He looked around the dining room, at the chandelier, the silver flatware, the gold-edged plates, the crystal glassware, the Monet on the wall, and shook his head.  “If I sold the shit in this room, I could fund 500 average income workers for a year.  So don’t give me that bullshit about ‘job creators’.”

“But I have created jobs!”

“Pfft,” the man said, snorting.  “Baldwin-Marks Investments, on annual income in access of $12.4 billion per year, has a total of 150 employees, mostly management.  Your company produces nothing, nothing at all; no cars, no planes, no furniture, no drugs; nothing.  All you clowns do is move money around, put companies out of business or up for action, and skim a percentage off the top.”  He paused for a breath, and Jones didn’t interrupt.  “A big percentage.  I’d say that you guys were as bad as Vegas, but even in Vegas the house gets less than $10; Baldwin-Marks hauls in way more than that.  You guys are fucking thieves, no more.”

“Now just a moment!”  Jones said.  “The government investigated, so did a number of Attorney Generals!  We’re clean!”

“Attorneys General,” the man said.  “I bet you say ‘court-martials’ instead of ‘courts-martial’, too.  Lucky you had a rich papa to help you get into and through Harvard; you’re too fucking stupid to do something that requires actual brains, like fixing cars or designing bridges or something actually useful.

“We both know you’re a fucking thief.  That you’ve managed to stay out of jail is a function of how much money you have, how much influence you can buy with it, and that’s all.  The people you’ve stolen from—people who can’t afford a Monet for their walls, who can barely afford to pay their electric bills and can’t pay their medical bills—they don’t have that influence.  They’re totally fucked by the likes of you.”