The Mark

Walking around with my hands in my pocket. I stopped to admire my shoes. I looked around to see who was watching, not spotting anyone, I proceeded to draw attention to my Bruno Maglis’ by stumping my foot hard on the floor like I was trying to kill a an armored plated roach. I smiled to myself as if enjoying a private joke, tugged on my Evisu jeans to better display my Lacoste belt, yes I was dressed to the nines and feeling myself like you would not believe. I walked into the bar, tossed my Armani jacket on the back of the chair next to mine, loosed my Oxford old school tie and asked the bar lady for a double shot of Remy Martin Louis XIII. Heck, you only live once and I knew how to do it in style. I checked my Tag Heuer, I still had about fifteen minutes to kill before my mark got here, I thought about messing with the bar lady but she was kind of plain, so I decided that it is a bad idea. I pulled out my Blackberry, checked to see if I had a strong enough WIFI signal, and started tapping on the screen with my stylus. The Mark walks in all shifty eyed and swivel headed, he does a quick scan of the room and begins to head in my direction, this was going to be easy. A smile like the rising of the sun spreads across my face as I extend my hand and in my best Barry White baritone I introduce myself, “Prince Clairplate Nwachopchop”, I say, “glad to finally make your acquaintance in person after these months” “ I feel like we are practically friends” “What is your poison?” Remy? Scotch? He swallows hard and in a thin voice, declines my invitation. He seemed to be in a hurry to get it over with and I could not be happier. I order two more cuts of the Remy, I pulled out a wad of $100.00 bills and with great theatrical flair proceeded to overpay and over tip the bar lady, out of the corner of my eye I could see his eyes bulge at the sheer size of my stack. We retired to a secluded part of part of the bar, I quickly go over the story once again with him, explaining about the trust fund and the difficulties I was having with coming up with the full actualization and monetization fees. I reassured him once again, that with our 60/40 split he could be sitting on a beach in Ibiza, sipping on Pina coladas by this time next week. He appeared to calm down a little, he told me he had heard about all these Nigerian scam artists duping people out of their money but he could tell that a royal prince such as myself was the real deal and he felt privileged to have this opportunity. He started to go into a monologue about his family, his pregnant wife and how he had to mortgage everything to come up with the funds but I was barely listening. I smiled broadly and made sympathetic noises and I tell him that his bravery will be rewarded, “imagine the smile on the missy’s face when you come home with a string of pearls?” I say to him. I was getting impatient, I ask him if he has the bank check we had talked about, he said yes. I ask to see it, he fumbles about in his breast pocket for a second and hands me the check. I look it over, it appears to be in order, I begin folding the check and his next words had me sitting stock still, every single muscle frozen in place. With heart pounding and mind racing, I try to decide if I really heard him right, I beggg your parrrdon? I stammer, “Mr Chopchop, you are under arrest” he said, in his left hand he was holding an FBI badge.