“Who’s the tycoon?”
“Better you ask who the prime minister is because we have some Dutch lady handling the CEO. No, you’ll be handling the prime minister. The woman prime minister.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Not at all, Noa. You told me you like getting into character, so, here you go. The prime minister of Australia can be your mark.”
“I don’t get it. How am I supposed to catch her by the balls, then?”
“You won’t catch her by the balls. You’ll catch her somewhere else.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“She’s a dyke, Noa.”
“What? You expect me to…?”
“Exactly. That’s exactly what I’m expecting you to do.”
“You are mentally ill.”
“I’m really not. And it actually sounds interesting, though I can’t say I’ve ever seen her. The prime minister or president of Croatia I’ve seen, and if they’re anything alike, then it’s still relatively interesting. But, no, Noa. I’m not interested in that. I’m not even jealous.”
“Why should you be? Do you think she’ll make me switch teams?”
“No. But she will take away time I could have had with you. And every moment that passes can’t be taken back.”
“I’ll make it up to you, I promise. Fifteen million, though… are you serious?”
“As a heart attack. And it’s all coming from Timothy. He’s the brains behind this whole operation. Oh—by the way, the General Security Service has put you under surveillance to make sure there aren’t any unknown visitors coming around. So, don’t go around meeting anyone new.”
“Tell me, what makes you so sure Miss Kangaroo will cooperate with this?”
“Because she’s still well in the closet, and despite everything, her husband is still firmly unaware. They’ve been married pretty much since Australia was founded. It’s a mess. What don’t you understand, you dummy? She’ll be told that if she leaves one closet, she’ll be going into a different kind.”
“How are these two so key to stopping the whole industry? I’m guessing it’s a whole lot of pressure… threats…”
“It will eliminate all of the interested parties thanks to the generous help of oil shales.”
“What? Oil what?”
“Oil shales, Noa. Solid oil found in the ground. It’s ten times more common than the liquid oil we use. To turn the shales into liquid we need quite a bit of energy—and that costs money. With the current conditions being as they are, it’s cheaper to buy the oil that’s not made from the shales. So, why complicate things? Seriously, you know, in Jordan, there are more shales than all the oil in Saudi Arabia and Oman and every other place they wear shmattes on their heads.”
“What?”
“That’s how my grandmother used to call Arafat. The guy with the shmatte on his head…. The head scarf, Noa. The head scarf.”
“Oh… well, yeah. You also told me she had posters of Madonna on her walls at the old home she lived in when she was one-hundred-and-eighty, right?”
“Ninety-five, not one-hundred-and-eighty,” he replied, as if still thinking about her… his grandmother. He told me once that she’d begged to teach him German.
And that she used to dance on tables with her big boobs on display.
Just like me.
“Hey, have you heard David Gilmour is performing now?” he asked.
“Who’s David Gilmour?”
“David Gilmour is Pink Floyd’s hottest guitar player—basically the hottest guitar player on Earth. You told me you loved them, didn’t you? We listened to all their songs practically on repeat—are you kidding me?”
“I don’t check out their biographies. I only listen to their music.”
“So, what? You don’t know who the singer who sings your favorite songs is?”
“No?”
“And that doesn’t interest you?”
“No.”
“You’re really fucked up, you do know that, right?”
“Yes. And that’s why you love me, Mr. Idiomour.”
“True,” he surrendered.
I smiled. I liked seeing him defeated. He’s usually capable of taking on a windmill. I’m not kidding. Like Don Quixote—only he’s also Rocinante. Rocinante is the ass. This particular ass will adapt himself to whatever is needed—even taking down a windmill. He’d come up with a way to renovate the old Montefiore flour mill—I love that place. It’s on the outskirts of the Jerusalem walls. And that’s how it all began. The country of Israel. A philanthropist. He saw all the people here without anything, figured they still had some kind of a chance, and started giving out Pounds. I’m pretty sure he was English. Either way, it’s a little like my deal with Timothy, so it’s symbolic. I know… the long and the short of it is, Eran is pretty damn perfect. Though he is still an ass.
“Right, so, to conclude, Noa, the Weizmann Institute and the Biological Research Center are about two years away from finding a way to significantly lower the process of producing oil from shales. As it is now, it’s forty dollars a gallon. So, if the oil isn’t as pricy, it makes the issue a complete non-issue. It also badly pollutes the environment. When you dig up the oil shales—it’s dozens of earth layers down, you know, and you have to dig all those dozens of layers to reach the one you want—you’re left with huge reservoirs of rainwater. Anyway, cleaning up after themselves doesn’t really happen because it’s not entirely possible. There’s a whole geological map of pretty much the whole planet. People know where what is located. Even in large areas of ocean space. Jordan, for example, is perfectly geologically mapped. Those stats I gave you about it are spot on. No doubt about it.
“To the point, though, they discovered some bacteria and another chemical agent that cause fermentation, turning it into a liquid. It’s green, pollution-free, and super cheap. Even the material needed is cheap. It’s unbelievable. When it’s out, it won’t be profitable to use coal because of the sheer amount of shales everywhere. It’ll give us fuel for the next millennium. Even give us enough fuel to escape to a different planet. In space you’re in neutral, you know. Sort of. Space lady.”
“So, why not
