Now Topper carries his double scotch (neat) from the bar and climbs up into the waiting Town Car. Inside, Edwin scans a dossier on Dr. Loeb. Edwin is looking for handles. Anything he can use as leverage. It’s a very, very old game. Edwin is very, very good at it.
Topper is bored. He searches the backseat. He finds no television, no mini-bar, no heavily medicated women of questionable virtue. These are just a few of the reasons why he prefers to travel by limousine. But Edwin is a point A to point B kind of guy. All Topper cares about is the ride. And now his drink is empty. Great, Topper thinks, what a barren form of amusement this is going to be.
And then something remarkable happens. Edwin laughs. This laugh is not the rich laughter of strong men drinking lemonade and playing horseshoes on a summer afternoon. Nor is it the sharp, clear laughter of children on a playground. This is laugh that managed to be sinister, sane and free from irony. It scares Topper.
“E, what is it?” Topper asks, not sure that he wants to know the answer.
“Do you know the problem with money?” Edwin asks.
“I know my problem with money. I don’t have enough of it.”
“The problem with money isn’t making it. The real problem is keeping it.”
“Yeah, well...”
“Let’s say you amass a sum of money.”
“Say it? Let’s do it. Let’s amass a large sum of money. A couple million dollars.”
“No, no,” Edwin says with an air of disappointment, “Not a dentist’s retirement fund. I mean Money. Several billion.”
“Okay. Okay. I like the way you think.”
“What would be the first thing you would do?”
“I’d get a proper limousine so I could freshen up this drink.”
“You would buy a limousine?”
“And a driver. No, wait, I’d buy the limo and rent the driver. You know, slavery’s against the law and all that.”
“There’s more than one way to own a person,” Edwin observes coldly. “But after the limo, a house or two? Few parties?”
“And a yacht. A great big one.”
“And so on, and so on. Now people imagine it takes a great deal of time to fritter away a great fortune, but, in fact, it usually happens within two generations of the fortune being made. Because, the qualities and characteristics of people who make a great deal of money are rarely passed on to their children.”
“I gotcha, rich kids ain’t hungry. But I’m not a rich kid. I’ve got nothing but appetites.”
“That’s the point. The human condition actually.” Edwin says ‘human condition’ as if it applies to someone else, “For all but a very disciplined few, no matter how much you have, there’s always something else that would make you happier.”
“A bigger yacht?”
“And after that an island. And after that a bigger island. And a bigger island.”
“And then Australia, I get it.”
At the mention of Australia, Edwin winces. He never wants to hear Australia mentioned in a scheme again. “The thing about wealth is it only stays wealth if you continue to make money. Resources have a way of migrating to the people who are most productive.”
“Hunh?”
“The people who do something with them. In a free, or free(ish) country this happens because the children of the people who built the fortune spend all the money on yachts and islands.”
“And parties. Don’t forget the wild parties.”
Again, Edwin’s patience is tested. At least Topper wasn’t talking about a wild party in Australia. “Yes, well, my point is made.”
“Point? What point? What are we even talking about here?”
Edwin removes a picture of Dr. Loeb from the folder. One of the “doctor’s” eyes is half-closed. His shaven head and prominent ears complete the general theme of lost and confused. “This is Eustace Eugene Rielly the Third. aka Dr. Loeb.”
“Is that a Neru jacket?” Topper asks.
“I believe so.”
“Wow, I thought those were extinct.”
“Yes, his horrible taste in suits nonwithstanding — ”
“What? It’s the first thing I noticed,” says Topper.
Edwin wonders if Topper’s ability to derail a train of thought is somehow instinctual, or perhaps glandular. Edwin shakes it off and presses on. “These are the pictures you should be looking at.” Edwin holds up two more portraits. “Eustace’s father and grandfather. Seems the great-great grandfather founded the LAP.”
“Lap. So, big deal. If he had founded the lap dance, that would be something.”
“Lower Alabama Power.”
“They have power in Lower Alabama?”
Topper has done it again. He has managed to irritate Edwin. Edwin is not aware that Topper lives for this. That Topper believes he is loosening up his overworked friend. “Please Topper, this isn’t a cross-country trip. If you keep interrupting me…”
“I gotcha, I gotcha, the family made a lot of money in power.”
Edwin flips to the last page of the file. “Take the idea of a lot of money and then double it.”
“I bet their car has a minibar,” says Topper.
Still Edwin bravely soldiers on, “The father continued to build on the fortune—”
“Edwin, my liver is shrinking. You can’t imagine how painful it is.”
“—Father deceased, mother, and only son surviving—”
“A sad tale,” says Topper, as he eyes his dry glass mournfully.
“And within two generations, this fortune will be gone. A large portion will be absorbed in taxes. The rest will have found its way into the hands of people who use money as a tool. A tool to make more money.”
“Yeah, yeah. So why were you laughing?”
“I was laughing because I realized, that we don’t have to wait. We can liberate that useful money right now. No reason not to make an efficient process, more efficient.”
“You’ve got a strange sense of humor, E. So how are we gonna do it? We gonna steal the money?” Topper is genuinely excited by the prospect of some action.
“You mean like a smash and grab job?”
“Yeah, yeah! Smash and grab. Squealing tires. Mini-bar in the getaway car.”
“No Topper, no smash and grab job. No squealing tires. How do you get something you want from someone?”
“Take it!”
“That’s usually difficult, expensive—”
“And FUN!” Topper jumps up on the seat, unable to contain his excitement.
“And there is always a chance, usually a good chance that a robbery will fail. It’s much easier to figure out what someone wants — really wants, deep down in those places people don’t talk about — and then sell it to them.”
“What if they want the money?”
“Rich children only want the money when it’s gone.”
“Well, how do you figure out what they want?”
“You ask them.” Edwin laughs again. This one is scarier than the first. For all the chit-chat, Topper still doesn’t understand what’s going on. But he knows Edwin well enough to know that somebody is in trouble.
And with that the conversation is finished and the sound of the car rolling over the road fills the space between the two men. In the silence, Topper wonders what it is Edwin really wants, deep down in those places people don’t talk about.