“I’ve got two choices for you.” Howie didn’t bother with hello this time.
“Hi Howie! How are you?” I could still be polite and he might learn something. Nah. It was Howie.
“I got a guy who’ll print for you at two and a half dollars a page and a guy who will do it for free.”
“What’s the catch on the second guy? As my grandpappy used to say, ‘There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch’.” My southern drawl needed some work.
“You never had no ‘grandpappy’, Abby! You were put on this earth to try my patience and so were sprung full grown from the ground.” Now that was a southern drawl. I wonder where he grew up. It sounded authentic.
Howie continued in his normal voice, “You’re right about the lunch. He wants you to invest in his printing upgrades to handle the metallic ink, among others. In exchange for seventy-five thousand dollars, he’ll print all the books you’ll want for free and cut you in for twenty-five percent of his profits.”
“Wow. That’s weird. Shouldn’t he be getting a loan from a bank or something?”
“Most of my contacts can’t get bank loans and wouldn’t take them if they could get them. They’re paranoid of the government and big corporations. They live their lives off the grid and have almost no social media footprint. They just want to be left alone to do what they want to do and they don’t want the taxman knocking at their door.”
“That makes things difficult for me though. How would I pay him the money? If he made some profits, how would I know that he was giving me the right amount? How would I enforce the twenty-five percent if he changed his mind? How would I explain where the profits came from if he did send them to me?”
“Bitcoin and trust. I can sell you bitcoin for at a good exchange rate and you’ll have to trust me that he’s a good guy that won’t screw you over. I won’t tell you that he’ll make any money, but assuming you need enough books, you’ll get your money’s worth.”
“If you vouch from him, I’ll take his deal. I have access to bitcoin, but it’s not money that’s earmarked for my personal use. Withdrawing so much money from my personal account to pay you would set off alarm bells somewhere. Howie, in your underground, off-the-grid, darkwebby world are there any auctions? I have some diamonds and gemstones that I’ve found.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“When you say found, do you mean found in the possession of someone else and liberated or found while you were digging?”
“Found while digging and the finds are unknown to anyone but me. No one will come looking for these. They’re raw and uncut. Some are decent sized and a few are world class. I’m planning on shipping the larger ones out to Europe for auction next year, since I don’t need the funds now. I’d be willing to part with the smaller ones though.”
“How small is small?”
“25 carats.”
“That’s a good size. After it’s cut, it won’t be too flashy. You’ll get at least enough at auction to cover your investment in the printer. Here’s my offer, Abby. I’ll send the printer, Gerry, the money. You get me the stone and I’ll put it up for auction. The auction guy takes five percent of the fee and I’ll take a two percent finders fee for all the money above what you need for Gerry. Sound fair?”
“Well, it’s less than what Christie’s charges in fees, so that part sounds fair but I’ve heard that because of the…uhm…illicit nature of these sales, the prices are deflated from their actual values.”
“You heard half right. Stolen goods are sold at a steep discount to their full value. Some of that has to do with not being able to openly show what you’ve purchased to most people. Some of it has to do with the fact that someone might come looking for it. Your diamond though should get a premium in this type of auction, because you’ll be the one what can’t use the money openly, while the buyer doesn’t have to worry about anyone coming around looking for their diamond back. Some buyers may also be using this purchase as part of a money laundering scheme and they’ll pay even more because of that. For those reasons, and the fact that these types of diamonds don’t show up too often, you’ll get a lot of interest and could very well double the value that you’d get at a regular auction.”
“I’m sold. Just let me know where to drop off the diamond. Anyways, I’m sending you the list of the books I’m looking for. You should have it in a few minutes.” I hung up. Yes! Point for me.
A few minutes later, I sent him the following list:
Atlas of Human Anatomy, by Frank Netter
Gray’s Atlas of Anatomy
First Aid for the USMLE, Steps 1, 2, and 3
Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine
Medical Physiology, by Guyten and Hall
Pocket Medicine: The Massachusetts General Hospital Handbook of Internal Medicine
The Anatomy Coloring Book
Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine
To these medical textbooks, I added several of my school textbooks, two general language learning books and two of the most highly recommended German Language Learning books that I could find on the internet. The medical textbooks were all recommended reading or reference books for medical students and they were going to be my first steps in learning how to better use the medical applications of my field. The German books were to learn German. I hoped to be fluent by the time of the ceremony with the German ambassador.