Sunday, November 2, 2014

The Dead Bank Diary


The Dead Bank Diary by Anna Schlegel
Paperback with summary and Biography http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Bank-Diary-1/dp/1502902338

This is not a robbery. A bank is taken with all its guts: accounts, debts, points of exchange, with the staff to the last secretary, and the building. This is a beautiful and clean fraud.
I was out of work while all around smelled millions, even the air outside. It was an unforgettable smell of public debt, oilfields, gold, bank guarantees, diamond ... I wanted to breathe in the air of easy cash Moscow, to revel and roll in this air. I can 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 grew rich again. It was going free across the wreckage of the sold out Soviet empire.
I was asked to help redeem the debts of the bank. The insider man in bank was on a post of the 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 any more. He was a financier, the 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 with the dust.
After his death I still have the right to sign.
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, diamond, and rare-earth metals. Light-as-air, fax sheets with lots of zeroes. They made me giddy, they made me drink. And I ran along with them, and easily foisted them for some middlemen – muddy middle-aged misters.
When some of the first deals failed, I went into hysterics. I wanted to throw everything up.
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. I changed. I became a con.
My life was changed. Sometimes it’s convincing and disgusting as a life of a whore. It’s also inaccessible as the man who despises you. It’s like vomit or sweat from the body like 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 nearby him. He is gray-haired and corpulent. He has a mocking look. And behind us there are towering white marble angels.
Website with interviews RobberMagazine.com

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