A Debt is Forgiven
Valeri Gratus, the Grand Exalted Patriarch of the Church of Reaffirmed Apostolic Principles, looked his part. And his part was that of a retired Russian Mobster who had found religion. And he had found it to be immensely profitable. His Supreme Holiness had been forced to retire from his previous career due to a misunderstanding concerning someone else's wife. When he fled to this side of the curtain a decade ago with just the clothes on his back, twenty-six dollars in his pocket, and vast sums of stolen money in a numbered account somewhere back home, he knew he had to go legit or the wrong sorts of people would come after him. Going legit meant finding some way of being much more useful to certain elements alive than dead. And what could be more useful than an inexpensive way of cleaning otherwise unsanitary money. "Cleanliness is next to Godliness." he had heard somewhere, and that gave him the germ of an idea. What this idea turned into was a vast global enterprise, the Worldwide Church of Reaffirmed Apostolic Principles, which offered fire and brimstone salvation for a tithe of your earnings. Cash only, please. But a lot of the people needing salvation got it backwards. Instead of giving the church ten percent of their money, they gave the church all of their money, and the church gave it all back minus ten percent. Same thing, really. Except for some reason, the church didn't just write you back a cheque; you could pick up your money through several church-related businesses spread all around the world. Ten percent was a lot better than the twenty-five or even thirty-five percent that some other people selling fiscal salvation were charging. Valeri was very useful indeed, and he continued to live, and live well.
But being incredibly successful brought its own problems. Foremost was the increasing complexity of shepherding billions of dollars through the convoluted world-spanning chains that made the very numbers on the bills fade into the mists of accounting obscurity. The world, it turned out, is not enough. But what to do about it? And then, the people from Tier Two phoned. Of course, they didn't phone Valeri, they phoned his assistant, Podkhalim, who then summarized the call for his holiness.
The summary was that the Tier Two people needed a large wad of cash for whatever one does with a large wad of cash when one is going to Mars. For this large wad of cash they were willing to give one ticket, a golden ticket if you will, to whomever the Church wished to send on a one-way trip to Mars. And they would be willing to let Church people handle all of the bookkeeping involved. As for the person to take a one-way seat to Mars, well, as it happened, Valeri had just such a person. He picked up his phone and instantly Podkhalim was on the other end.
"Dobroye utro, Podkhalim, get me blagochestivyy trakh on phone... Da, Art, that pompeznyy khuyesos. Vernyy, I wait... “
Valeri tapped his fingers on the table. He amused himself by imagining Art being crucified. Was that blasphemous? Niet, this was Art we were talking about. He lit the cross on fire in his mind.
“Hello, Art, you are still wait for Rapture? Is not come?... Da, I agree, should come by now. Oh well, be patient moy syn. You do that thing you say, you max out credit cards and stuff?... And how about big poker game with friends from old country, how that goes... now, Art. What we say about yelling blasphemies? You are not on TV at the moment. Inside voice, please. So how goes big poker game?... oh, not so good... you lost big time? Oh well. When rapture come is no problem... Yes, until rapture come is very big problem... Oh no, they are just joking. No one does that kind stuff anymore... Pretty serious you say?... Well I might have idea. You keep head down for now. Don't go out in public. Talk to you soon... And God be with you too."
Valeri let loose with a barrage of Russian bad words that would have peeled the paint off his walls if they understood Russian. After a while he felt better. Talking to Art always made him like this, Art just had a way of pushing all of your buttons the wrong way. Hard to say how he managed that.
Valeri was sitting at the immense Oak desk from which he organized his mighty empire. His desk was under the one decoration on the walls in an otherwise spartan office. The decoration was a needle-point from one of his many adoring gray-haired church-goers, and it was the unofficial slogan of the church from its early days. "Sawbuck, Sawbuck, Greenback, Fin." which was a reference to the twenty-six dollars Valeri had when he arrived from the old country and with which he started his mighty church. That and the millions in a numbered off-shore bank account, of course, but that was not widely known. Valeri still cherished the slogan now long after its original meaning was forgotten by most because it seemed to capture the spirit of the Church - vast numbers of sawbucks coming in one door, turning into greenbacks miraculously, and then leaving via another door as fins. And no way to track anything. Valeri picked up the phone again.
"Podkhalim, get me Arch Deacon Schetovod on phone... Da, is no emergency. Just important. I wait." Valeri knew he would not be waiting long. The Arch Deacon would excuse himself from his own funeral to take a call from Valeri.
Within seconds, the Arch Deacon was on the line. "Schetovod, old laska moshonka. Does it hang to your satisfaction?... I am hanging sufficiently as well... yes, it is also pleasure to speak to you. Schetovod, look. I am talking to peoples from Mars trip. They want money. Lots of money. But they have idea. They will let us send one person. It is not return flight. One person who will be as if dead and yet making possible other idea. This one mine. Takes lots of money for trip to Mars. Hard to say where it all goes. Some maybe comes back somehow. The world is strange place, two worlds twice as strange. You see where I head?... Da... Da, that govnyuk is perfect, I had exact same thought. I just talk to zadnitsa on phone. He is anxious to be somewhere else. Some of old friends are not friends not so much now. Not after poker game... Da, they make good argument when someone should disappear... Da, you talk to Plokhoy Chelovek, I get number. You tell him we found money. Tell him problem is going far far away. Tell him patience is virtue... Da, you too Schetovod."
This was working out well. Very well indeed. In the entire power structure of the head office of the Church, there was really only one person who had an ounce of faith that didn't center on transferring money from this hand to the other, and that was Art Grayson. For some reason, he was a True Believer. He must have gotten it from his father, who was something somewhere on the ladder of power leading to the top. The father kept a low profile and did his job, whatever that was, but seemed to be afflicted with actually believing the cover story that made this whole enterprise a charitable organization. And he seems to have infected his son, who did not keep a low profile. In fact he had Fire and Brimstoned his way into the hearts and souls of the multitudes who followed the church on TV every Sunday. The preaching end of the business was a vitally important façade. So Valeri had no choice but to appoint Art the sort-of “high priest” of the enterprise, only one step below Valeri’s own position as far as the public knew. As the effective face of the Church he was always in the public eye, but of course had some idea of what was really going on, just not the magnitude of it. So he always seemed to be one step away from blowing the whistle on the enterprise, either in a completely stupid manner, or, possibly, in a fit of religious fervour. In any event, he had to go. Valeri, of course, knew lots of people who knew lots of ways to make someone go away. But Art was too much in the public eye for anything suspicious. Or anything suspicious in any way linked to Valeri, in any event.
So Valeri started working on Art. He didn't really have a firm plan in place, he just knew how to uncover and exploit a person's weaknesses. Art's only real weakness was that he believed emphatically in the hereafter, and that the here-and-now was really someone else's problem. So it was easy to talk him into getting into the worst kind of financial mess by assuring him that he would get raptured out of it. And then when some truly nasty people were in town for a high-stakes poker game, Valeri managed to convince Art that while poker was a sin, bilking bad people out of all their money was a holy endeavour and it would after all settle all of Art's debts, and even if he lost, there was still that rapture thing. So Art went and of course he lost a great deal of money that he didn't actually have. Valeri was now content to sit back and let nature take its course. But this Mars thing was too good an opportunity to pass up. It was even worth covering Art's chits. He could gain access to this incredible laundering opportunity, keep the face that the public loved against all odds while simultaneously getting rid of it, and who knows? Maybe they would strike gold on Mars. Could happen.
Valeri picked up the phone again. It’s amazing how much stuff you can cause to happen just by talking to people, he reflected. But in Russian.
“Podkhalim, one more call. Get me lawyer Akula on phone. Da, ring him through when he is free. Blagodaryo vas.”
Valeri amused himself pretending his hand was a spaceship and he flew it through the air on its way to Mars to make him money. But then he noticed a fly on his desk, and he squashed it with his hand before thinking about the bad juju connotations that had. No matter. He wasn’t going himself. The phone rang.
“Akula, my ulybayushchiysya rosomakha. Still sue mother?... pravil'nyy, she had it coming. Say, Akula, I have idea. Need details. Not a detail person. You are details person. So give me details. Idea is fly to Mars and start new country with very specific banking laws… No, never touch drop before lunch. Is not lunch. Soon maybe, not now… Da, quite serious. Mars people, Tier Two people, they phone and sell ticket to me. So now we are sending our favourite mudak Art to go live on new planet which has no countries as of yet. How do we make countries?... Da, is gray area. You make white or black… Niet, sole ownership not going to happen. Only have one seat, two other people going… Da, is very dangerous flying to different planet... Anything could happen… Soglasovano. You work on details, I work on sole ownership thing. Together we make country. Then we make laws. Very confusing laws. Proschay, Akula.”
Yes indeed. This was working out just fine. But how do you make two people disappear millions of miles away when all you have to work with is a born again dingus like Art? It is true that Art has an infectious personality… some might say a highly contagious personality…
“Podkhalim, phone call again. Get me Doctor… no, is not for me. I believe Art is getting sniffles. Get me Doctor Smert on phone… Da, I know is not real doctor… Niet, I do not want real doctor. Get me Smert.”