This is not a robbery. A bank is taken with all its guts: accounts, debts, points of exchange, the staff to the last secretary, the building. This is beautiful and clean fraud. I was out of work, while all around you could smell millions, even in the air outside. It was an unforgettable smell of public debt, oilfields, gold, bank guarantees, diamonds... I wanted to breathe in the air of easy cash Moscow, to revel and roll in this air. I could feel the smell of money in the wind on my face. This air was used to make up funds overnight, to make a fortune, to go rack and ruin and then grow rich again. It was going free across the wreckage of the sold out Soviet empire. I was asked to help redeem the debts of a bank. The insider man at the bank held the post of Vice President. A bit of danger and a bit of love. This novel is not based on real events, but you will feel the reality in every word. Book One Of The Dead Bank Diary Series ABOUT SERIES These are stories about a man who is not alive anymore. He was a financier, a retired intelligence officer. I had the good luck to arrange a couple of financial frauds. We bumped into each other before the recession, in the flood of shit, together in the dust. After his death I still had power of attorney. Of course, Victor knew I wouldn't be able to work on his contacts. I had tried. Now it's funny to think of it. I am, and always have been, a go-between, a rat. Nobody needs middlemen. They get rid of them; they send them to Hell. But I had a white shirt with a necktie, and copies of million-strong contracts for oil, gas, diamonds, and rare-earth metals: light-as-air, rolled fax sheets with lots of zeroes. They made me giddy; they made me drunk. And I ran along with them, and easily foisted them for the middlemen: muddy, middle-aged misters. When some of the first deals failed, I went into hysterics. I wanted to throw everything in. Once I had a dream. In my dream, I heard a telephone call, - Miss Schlegel? We need your signature to extend a contract concluded by Mr. ... I woke up scared; something turned over inside of me. I realized that I was spending my life waiting for such a call. It didn't matter where it caught me. But there was no going back. Once you've taken a step forward, you realize you can't turn back anymore. Why did he leave all this to me? I looked the papers over, recalling past years, deals, people, talks: everything from the first meeting to the last minute. And I couldn't find anything for me; because it wasn't for me, actually, for the old me. So I changed. I became a con. My life was changed. Sometimes it was as convincing and disgusting as a life of a whore. It was as inaccessible as the man who despises you. It was like vomit or sweat from the body from heavy hangover shivers. You wish to run, and there's no place to run to. It's a cold stupor. So it's stupid to look at the smeared corpse on the road, and it's impossible to regain consciousness to look away. This passion nests in the heart, and you don't know what is it. I have his photo, the last one, taken at Arkhangelskoe hospital. Summer. We're sitting on the edge of a dried-up fountain. He embraces me with one arm, and I'm lost next to him. He is gray-haired and corpulent. He has a mocking look. And behind us there are towering white marble angels.
