The Beggar's Bowl

ar’s Bowl

  By Gerald Rice

  Copyright 2011 Gerald Rice

  The Beggar’s Bowl copyright © 2011

  Written by Gerald Rice. All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, places or events is purely coincidental and unintended. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical or written, without express permission from the author.

  For more information about the author, please visit his website: www.feelmyghost.webs.com

  The Beggar’s Bowl

  “She was a virgin,” DeGere bragged. “It was simpler than I expected.” Manson was uncertain if the man meant the treasure setting in front of them or the poor girl’s virtue. The twinkle in his eye could have meant either or both. “When you called I was already in country, so I had time.”

  “So why did you take so long?” Manson asked, letting a false tone of disappointment creep into his voice.

  DeGere waved him off. “Expectations. The faster I bring it to you, the faster the next client will expect delivery. I have a reputation, you know. If I am too efficient you will think my work too easy. My work must be perceived as difficult in order to be valued properly.” He picked up his glass and downed the considerable amount of wine left in one gulp.

  “Where next, my friend?” Manson asked. He envied the Frenchman. His was a life of unencumberances. No family, no children, no borders. Manson was the one with considerations.

  “Well, I think I’ll see Connecticut.” DeGere spoke in accentless English. Well, not accentless, but not French. He had taken on a distinct southern drawl. DeGere was a chameleon. That was why he was so good at what he did. He could blend in anywhere.

  “Connecticut?”

  “Yes,” he said, his slight French accent back in place. “I need a holiday. I have not been and it is my intent to see all fifty-two of your United States.”

  “Fifty.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You said fifty-two. There are only fifty.”

  “Ah, yes. I suppose I have just five to see.”

  It was almost impossible to tell when DeGere joked. He was so knowledgeable about the world, but then he recklessly said things like that with complete seriousness. It kept Manson uncertain of a true opinion of the man. Perhaps that was the way DeGere preferred it.

  “What was she like?” Manson said, pouring him another glass.

  “Pardon?” DeGere looked up at him. “What was who like?”

  “The girl.” Manson gave him a playful punch in the shoulder. DeGere sat motionless on the leather couch as if he hadn’t heard or Manson had asked him to describe the migratory habits of the common grackle.

  “There is nothing to tell. I’ve done nothing I’d not done before.”

  “The viper strikes again!” Manson laughed, kicking back and swatting his knee. He and DeGere rarely met in person; perhaps only three times in a year. His business had grown to the point where he had people working for him that the Frenchman met to exchange. But occasionally he wanted to be hands-on. When his obsession to submerge himself in the stream of the other man’s life had built to an almost audible scream. In these times, it almost pained him not to know what DeGere was up to. Manson typically took him out to dinner and brought him back to the hotel to ply him with wine so he could wring as much out of him as possible; perhaps keep him up late enough and get him drunk enough to where he’d stay the night. Then Manson could bathe in even more of his ventures over breakfast. DeGere’s stories, particularly the conquests, were as valuable to him as the units he had him acquire.

  Terms like thief and front man weren’t used in the industry anymore. Now Manson was in Redistribution Management and DeGere was an Acquisition Specialist. It sounded a lot more official than thieves ought to be. Sure it felt good to take works of art painted by slaves from the descendants of their masters, but if the money was right Manson would contract a specialist to take candy from a baby.

  DeGere cocked an eyebrow. “Many times before.” That set Manson off once again, this time reddening his face for a full minute until he was able to bring himself under control again. If his wife were to see him she would say he had a schoolgirl crush. Manson assumed at least some of his tales had to be exaggerations—he’d done so much in the time they were separated. How could any one person’s life be so full to bursting? But so what if DeGere were lying. In fact, good if he were. It would be far easier these spin yarns and Manson could listen to them over and over. Just the way DeGere told them, it painted vivid pictures in his head as if he were there himself.

  He supposed there was a certain danger in the man. Not violence, no, but there was risk when one involved himself with a man such as DeGere. Manson had fancied himself such a person in his younger years, but after a spill down a fire escape that left him with a broken eye socket and a dragging sort of limp whenever he tried anything above a light jog, he realized it was not the life for him. Shortly after that he became a Plan B man, working for a middleman setting up fake passports and other alternate routes of escape for thieves his boss had contracted. Manson had proved very adept at this, coming into his own as a go-between in a few short years. He knew officials he could bribe in two dozen countries to ensure safe passage in case his man had difficulty escaping.

  Manson eventually married and had children; a life anyone should have wanted. And despite his yearning for the life of the man in front of him, did appreciate the one he had. He never took it for granted, never wished to trade it. For the most part of his workday Manson didn’t contend with specialists or claimants. He sat in an office for about five hours a day engaged in various cover businesses, legitimizing the wealth he’d amassed for the last twenty years.

  Manson took his family on vacations around the world and they did and saw whatever they pleased where ever they were. It was in these moments when meeting with a specialist, particularly this one, when his envy bubbled over like a whistling teapot at the life he’d had to surrender. DeGere was the rockstar of their business, but his pull was much more than that. He was undoubtedly attractive; beautiful, tall, lean, dark-haired with naturally bronze skin and dazzling green eyes. His features were so broad he could have been from anywhere, Manson wasn’t even certain he hailed from France. His only physical fault was the knot at the top of the bridge of his nose that twisted everything beneath it slightly but even that only served to enhance the beauty of the rest of his face. Manson was short and squat. He’d been able to put together somewhat of a muscular frame once upon a time, but it took a tremendous amount of effort and the older he got, the more his will had waned to maintain it until he’d attained the shape of a sack filled with really pudgy fruit.

  Manson worried more for his family than himself. A statuesque wife he had no misconceptions about how he’d won and three daughters who were near mirrors of her and still in impressionable teenage years. DeGere’s danger was that he could probably have any of them and Manson wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. So as close as he liked to keep him when the man came around, Manson still kept him at bay.

  “About the girl, though. Go on.” Manson had always wanted to catch him in a lie, but DeGere had always been too slick—too consistent. Not that he’d say anything, of course he wouldn’t, ruining the man’s tales would be the true spoiler of his illusions of the Frenchman’s life. DeGere rolled his eyes at his insistence and lifted his head off the L of his thumb and index finger. The lids of his eyes were slightly past their usual halfway place—if Manson could keep him talking for another twenty minutes or so he would fall asleep.

  “If you force me to
tell, it will lose all its poetry,” DeGere said. Manson froze the expression on his face, not intending to be denied. DeGere nodded and cleared his throat. “She was black—African—from Burundi, if I recall,” he began, waving his hand and speaking with a flat, no-accent accent like a Californian. “I found her in the village. The way she walked, I knew she’d not experienced a man. We were well met, I spoke with my rapid French—you know, to hurry away unimportant things like introductions. She’d been educated in the States and was working with the native peoples in a half-dozen countries, doing… something with archaeologists.

  “You know Manson, I’m upset with you. I recall much more of her than I should have.” DeGere’s speech thickened and the consonants sharpened as he put on a German accent as he pointed. “By now even her name should be…