SELENA ENTERPRISES, Toronto, Canada. All rights reserved
The novel first published in the magazine THE NEWS OF THE NEW WORLD, North Carolina, USA, 2001/2002
Reprinted with permission
Despondency and dejection were scattered all over the cell. Nick silently lay on his bed while Jack sat in the armchair sucking a peach pit. It looked like Adjutant did not notice that he had already finished the fruit and still moved his lower jaw up and down.
"Esquire, maybe it"s you who has to see a doctor?" Commandante asked, finally breaking a dreary silence in the room. "After a famous bank robbery when a spade fell on your head, have you ever noticed any problems with your memory?"
"Why?"
"Maybe you put the card in some other place rather than in the flower pot? Like in a pot with French onion soup you had for dinner. So it has already been digested by you and turned into chemical-free, environment-friendly fertilizer."
Jack waved both hands rejecting even a chance of a possibility to recycle ten million dollars in such a way.
Nick smiled and said:
"Just kidding. I also don"t have any desire to see our family magician again. Since I laid an egg twice in a row, now you won"t weasel out of naming the next candidate. But let"s take a break today. It"s so sticky outside that I don"t feel like leaving our air-conditioned pen for the lost sheep at all. Let"s inspect whether water in the pool is clean and steam in the sauna is dry. By the way, don"t forget that we have to talk to some parishioners and let them air their grievances. Otherwise our hospitable bull Mr. Bull will think that we"re not doing our job right."
The inspectors spent half an hour in the pool, whirlpool and sauna. Comandante became convinced that the water in the pool was crystal clear and the steam was dryer than the best Brut Champagne. Then he said to the warden:
"I have to admit that we have found living conditions in Green Acres do meet all the standards of the Proud Prisoner Association. Now we want to talk to your guests directly. You know, it"s always worthwhile to hear a judgment from experts who have done a little bit more time here than ourselves."
Commandante decided that the inspectors should start interviewing the parishioners. The warder knocked on the door of the neighboring room and asked in a obsequious, overpolite tone:
"May we come in, Frank?"
"Get lost, nuisance," the discontented voice behind the door snapped.
"I have important guests who want to talk to you and see whether you are happy with everything in Green Acres. Please, Frank. Don"t set me up. I"ve always been good to you."
"Okay, come in," the convict showed mercy and added as the warden opened the door. "You have five minutes only. I"m not in a mood today. Leafs are losing again. Look, how they"re chasing the puck! Sleepy flies in a hot kitchen move their asses faster!"
The warden and inspectors entered a private cell. It was difficult to see anything inside it through a bluish cloud of cigarette smoke filling the entire room. A huge tattooed thug was watching color TV. Dressed only in faded jeans, he was sitting in an arm chair with his bare feet on the coffee table. The letters tattooed on hairy toes of his feet read: "Beat it bull."
"Good morning, Frank. You are not going to work today again, are you?" the warden asked, opening the window to ventilate the room.
"Still not feeling well," the convict replied and yelled. "Why the hell are you bossing around in my private cell? Close the damn window!"
"You know I can"t stand drafts because I have a weak chest," he added and lit another Cuban cigarette one drag of which could easily kill a buffalo.
The warden quickly shut the window, coughed as he inhaled cigarette smoke and said:
"Let me introduce you to our guests from the Proud Prisoner Association: Mr. Van Leebrook and Dr. Lee Vanbrook. They are inspecting our facility. They want to talk to you, Frank. Please, answer their questions and be objective."
The convict grinned, put his mug-sized, hairy fist with upright middle finger on the zipper of his jeans and chuckled:
"I swear to tell truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Good enough for you?"
"Mr. Bull, I believe we have already been convinced that this gentleman is treated here with all the respect and dignity he deserves," Commandante said quickly and backed away to the door as he was afraid that any minute he could choke on the pungent smoke filling the room.
When all three returned to the corridor Nick asked:
"Why is this well-behaved gentleman a guest of your facility?"
"Double rape and triple murder. Poor thing! He was so shocked by the court hearings that he gets a special relaxation treatment in our guest house."
"Perish the thought to meet such a poor thing on a new-moon night on a deserted street," Commandante thought. "Lifetime stammering is guaranteed."
"And who is our neighbor on the right?" the senior inspector asked. He was also very glad that they finished interviewing their sickly neighbor so quickly.
"A very nice gentleman. A former taxation lawyer. He helped his clients to hide five billion dollars from Revenue Canada that was equated by the court to the first-degree murder of the national economy. That"s why we are honored to have him as a guest of our house. He is a very modest gentleman. He was leaving only ten percent of the saved money for himself when most take a quarter! He"s probably in the lounge now. Do you want to talk to him?"
"Sure we do!" Commandante exclaimed. "It"d be an honor for us to talk to such a distinguished and modest citizen."
Since rosy childhood, the lawyer Robert Krook proved to be a very smart individual. In junior school his classmates jeered him and called Boob instead of Bob. It hurt his ego and little Bobby decided that he would prove to everybody that he was much smarter than his peers thought.
Little Bobby invented his first taxation trick when he was ten years old. Every weekend his grandmother babysitted him. The old lady assured her only daughter that Bobby was the best child on earth, that she loved him, that to spend time with her favorite grandson was the greatest pleasure she could wish for herself. Nevertheless, every time on leaving the house, she checked whether the check signed by her daughter was filled out correctly. Since the caring grandmother was a very generous lady, anytime Bobby got sick, could not attend school and required extended hours of baby-sitting she made five percent discount from a regular price.
One day Bobby offered his mother and grandmother a good deal. On her tax return attachments a granny could claim that she provided fifty percent discount as a token of her strong love for her only daughter, get the rest in cash and not pay taxes on those earnings. Being an honest boy, Bobby suggested that they divide saved money between his grandmother, his mother and himself equally. His mother punished the future talented lawyer for dishonest intentions, canceled all his desserts for three days and . . . did exactly as he advised, sharing saved money between herself and her mother only. Since that time and till the rest of his life the future famous tax fighter remembered the law of smart being number three: never do any business with your relatives.
After the gifted youth graduated from law school, his innate talent was reinforced by profound knowledge of jurisprudence and the legal system. This combination in the long run brought him nation-wide glory of the "Tax Fighter F-5B" (Federal 5 billions) and opened unlimited possibilities on advising his clients how to put into practice the law of smart being number two: paying taxes is an art that reminds one of running in front of a car - you never can run away, but you can dodge.
Mr. Krook"s first client was a farmer breeding pigs. During a private consultation, the poor farmer complained that after he paid all associated with his business taxes, he got an amount of money that made even his grunting ward laugh at him.
The brilliant lawyer suggested that the farmer on paper transform his farm into a pig-manufacturing corporation with a R&D department and launch a research and development program containing so many scientific terms in its description that for Revenue Canada it became more costly to bring experts who understood what it was all about than to take his word. For example: An influence of an hour-long hog tickling session on its reproductive functions under the extreme conditions of stochastic season-dependent ultraviolet turbulence.
Since money invested in R&D was tax-deferred, the farmer could claim that every year he invested all his income in tickling his favorite pets until eventually one of three involved parties died: pigs, himself or the exorbitant appetites of Revenue Canada.
Encouraged by success in his first tax-fighting mission, Mr. Krook established his own law firm named The Tax Pastor. Offshore accounts and real estate investments in distant tax havens, beating GST by registering Toronto companies in addresses and names of aboriginal people who are exempt from paying the Great Slavery Tax, setting up charity funds to help residents of Atlantis suffering from severe flood (the clerk registering this fund decided that Atlantis is the name of a new province in North-West Territories) and other breath-taking tricks he invented saved millions of dollars for his clients who generously shared a portion of their unexpected wealth with the kind pastor.
There is a general rule that all great spies and criminals stumble on some minor trifles they could easily avoid. This unfortunate rule worked for the outstanding tax fighter too. An attempt to save several hundred dollars in addition to millions he made in his The Tax Pastor firm was fatal and put an end to his patriotic attempts to turn Canada into a new tax heaven .
In his tax return Mr. Krook claimed a tax deduction on the carpet he bought to replace the old one in his in-home office. A meticulous lady from Revenue Canada noticed that the claimed square footage of the carpet allegedly bought for an office only was greater than the square footage of the entire house. Such a math paradox aroused her curiosity and this small discrepancy in two numbers started an investigation that finally brought famous F-5B to the Lost Sheep Guest House.
When the inspectors entered a nice lounge furnished with walnut arm-chairs and sofas of Italian Renaissance style, they found the celebrity guest playing chess with another parishioner. A short glance at the chess board provided a clear understanding that the lawyer"s situation was hopeless.
"Good morning, Mr. Krook," the warder greeted his distinguished guest. "Sorry to bother you, but will you be so kind as to answer the questions of these two gentlemen as soon as you are finished playing?"
"Of course, Mr. Bull! No problem! My pleasure! Any time!"
The lawyer jumped up from his chair, shook hands with the warden and both inspectors, produced a lot of noisy fuss and, taking advantage of this, substituted his partner"s queen for his own in such a brilliant manner that his opponent noticed it only after a couple of moves when he lost the game.
"Wait, wait!" his partner exclaimed. "But it was my queen that was supposed to be here!"
He gazed at the chess board like an employee of a booming company who only yesterday signed up a huge mortgage for twenty five years would look at an unexpected lay-off notice.
"Gentlemen, I wonder why some people are not able to lose a game without losing face?" the lawyer asked his interviewers and invited them to the far corner of the lounge closer to the beautiful stone fireplace.
(TO BE CONTINUED)
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