“Oh my God never mind yes I am in.”

Charlie vs. the dongle for Eiger’s checking account: first to three falls.

One.

Two.

Three.

This is how truly modern bank robberies happen and it is the best way. You just steal a few cents from every account in the ledger and put it all into a new account, which transfers every month to another external account, which immediately forwards it to one of those banking jurisdictions which do not keep great records and then you spend it. Kids’ stuff.

Or you don’t steal anything because that was never what you were there for in the first place.

—

There’s one more thing that Hans Eiger does every day. He goes to a tobacco shop. It is not one of the grand ones it is quite small and even a little bit scruffy but even so when you go in there it smells of respectability. It smells of old men keeping secrets and it smells of government. There is a mezuzah on the door frame and a morbidly obese dachshund on a cushion by the till. Hans Eiger does not ever buy anything in the shop but every day he goes in and he inhales one cigar and then nods to this little guy and the little guy nods back.

So this time when Hans Eiger goes out I go in. I figure the little guy for maybe Armenian but when I wish him barev dzez he snorts and says his mama is Beta Israel so we talk coffee. Ethiopian coffee is serious coffee. Weak-ass North American barista brew is like a ballet shoe and Ethiopian coffee is like something handmade in leather for the president of a Russian bank.

We do not talk about Hans Eiger at all and still less do we talk about cigars even although these are some fine fucking cigars and they should be respected by the mouths of beautiful women because that is the best thing that can happen to a cigar. We talk coffee like two old men remembering great sex they once had with girls they wish they’d hung around for and fallen for and I wish Doktor Paul was here because he would love this.

We talk for like two hours and then the little guy says it is time now for me to go and I say thank you yes it is and I buy a cigar. I tell him give me his favorite and I guess that he does. I do not know what it is and he does not tell me. Doc will smoke it sometime Doc loves a good cigar and it is a good cigar.

Doc is beautiful when she smokes a cigar. It is a thing do not judge me.