The Perfect Plan
earranging her attire with a finger and thumb and considerable delicacy,
she gave that characteristic little shake of her rear as she walked
gracefully away. It is remarkable the way some people have about them. It
is not every woman who can adjust her knickers in public and make it seem
so elegant. She always left behind for me a veritable cascade of pungent
thoughts, stinging the nostrils of my mind and leaving me awestruck and
delighted.
It was the perfect plan. What a miserable result she had said, that this masterpiece of design would have as its only monument that we would be monumentally rich. It was true. Money seemed such an ephemeral reward for the intricate brilliance to be displayed. "We should donate it to the nation as a national treasure," she said.
"After the event, please," I say to myself pragmatically.
Despite the meagre nature of the reward, I always remember my father's favourite aphorism. "Son," he would say," It's always better to be rich and unhappy than poor and unhappy."
I said I knew it was a loss, but that we must take solace in our monumental richness as we grieved the passing of one of the greatest acts of creativity I am ever likely to know.
What a way to rob a bank! Not a threat made. Not a person hurt or even caused to perspire. Not an individual made to suffer, except as a participant in the corporate pain. And the crowning stroke of course was that we deposited the money into an account at the very same bank.
It is not my secret to tell, but the return was nearly one billion Swiss francs. And all this was possible without anybody realising that the money was gone until past the time our carcasses have mouldered into mulch. Long before that, we would be able to put the original amount back where it came from-a bagatelle compared with our expected total worth three years from now.
I suppose you would like to know what went wrong. Why am I here, a penniless fool, awaiting trial for the crime of the century. I guess that demanding money with menaces at the local supermarket is not exactly crime of the week, never mind crime of the century. Unfortunately, 'acting on information', they found evidence of the masterpiece at my apartment.
Nothing went wrong, though. The plan was perfect. I just hadn't been privy to the entire beauty of it. What I could not know (although perhaps I should have realised from her queenly mien) was that when she said 'we' it was the 'royal we'. How presumptuous of me, a mere small cog in the machinery of the plan, to assume that it included me. And how limited my imagination to think that she would deprive the world of the beauty and scope of her creation.
I can't tell you who it is, you know, and I can't tell you why. It was, after all, the perfect plan.
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