3

Hank arrives in Switzerland. He's a man on a mission. He likes being in his man-on-a-mission mode. He can wear sunglasses with reflective lenses and his facial expression never changes. He'll remain steadfast no matter what obstacles he encounters -- you can see this on his face and in the way he walks. He likes picturing his own face and the way he walks, and the way he runs through the burning wreckage of helicopters, carrying an unconscious woman in his arms, or jumping out of a car, taking out his handgun in midair and shooting a moving target as he rolls when he hits the ground. Most of these scenes are no more than moving mental pictures.

He knows a man in Berne who knows a woman who lives in a basement. She never stops smiling and she's cross-eyed. The constant smiling makes Hank wonder about her mind, but appearances can be deceptive. She has a hand gun strapped to the inside of her thigh. Hank keeps picturing this long after she shows it to him. He tries to marry this image with the one of the cross-eyed smile, but they don't belong together, like him and his wife. Chloe is a jigsaw puzzle with pieces from a different jigsaw.

This woman takes him to another man, a man who looks normal in every way, who lives in a house that looks like any other suburban house, but there are weapons concealed all over the place, which makes Hank wonder about what's concealed in the man's head.

Hank buys one of the guns. This enhances his man-on-a-mission look, the one he sees in his head, the one that no one else can see because he keeps the gun concealed. When he walks down a crowded street he knows he's probably the only one who's armed. It enhances his self-image and the bulge in his trousers will enhance his image in the eyes of anyone who looks closely enough. He hopes that anyone who looks closely enough will be someone that he'd like to look at too.

No one looks, but that's okay. He'd blur his self-image if he got too distracted by the women. He's an arrow and he's heading straight for a barn behind Mooney's house.

In a barn behind Mooney's house, Maria sits on a chair. Her hands are tied, but the gag has been removed. Mooney paces from one end of the barn to the other, telling her his theories on life. "People are always saying one thing and then doing the other. Not that there's just a choice between one thing and the other. There are normally lots of things. But they say one thing, and they can't say any more than one thing, and they do another. And they can't do any more than one thing, that one thing being the other thing. But there could be ten things. Eight of them will remain invisible because only one thing and the other thing will be brought into being. So in every action there are so many possible actions that are cast aside, like people who audition for a part in a film, and they don't get it. They're invisible. I thought I was invisible once, but I wasn't really. I had drunk too much and I looked down at my hand but it wasn't there. It was up the sleeve of my coat. When I saw nothing coming out of my sleeve, I thought, 'Hmm. I'm invisible now. I was wondering when that would happen.' When you're invisible you could try every action. You wouldn't need to say you're going to do anything, and you could do everything. But I'd probably just eat and drink and look at women when they can't see me, and I'd be too lazy to do anything else."

The tears return. Maria is glad she isn't gagged, but she'd like something to cover her ears, or something in her head to stop Mooney's theories from setting up home.

He starts whistling as he paces. Pacing and whistling suddenly cease when he hears a noise outside.

Hank has reached the end of his journey. He's been walking for the past three days, camping at night. He could have just taken a car, but the mountain trek fits in with his mission. Stealth is important. So are the sunglasses.

Mooney stands completely still. He listens. He hears the silence of a silent starry night on the mountainside. He walks on again. "But anyway, Big Bird..."

The silent night is shattered into thousands of shards when the window is broken by an airborne brick that hits Mooney on the back of the head. He falls to the ground. A man jumps in through the window and kneels on Mooney's back. "I've come to pay," Hank says, "but it won't be in money."

"Typical. You've travelled all this way just to steal from me again, just like you stole from me before."

"I didn't steal anything. How was I to know we'd strike it rich."

"You knew perfectly well that 'we' wouldn't strike it rich. You were too cunning to let that happen."

"You need to play out these fantasies in your head to keep the place from falling to pieces, but that doesn't justify kidnapping an innocent woman."

"What justifies conning your best friend?"

"If that's what you want to think, fine, but I'm never going to pay you a cent."

Hank ties Mooney's hands behind his back and then he un-ties Maria. She puts her arms around him and holds on. He lets her.

Mooney says, "If I'm interrupting a party, just say the word and I'll leave."

"You won't be going anywhere," Hank says. He takes out his gun and shoots Mooney in the foot.

Hank and Maria leave. He wishes he'd brought a car now. "I suppose we'll have to walk," he says.

"What are you going to do about Mooney?"

"I passed a hospital on the way here. I'll call them."

Mooney in the hospital. He plays with three words for hours: 'my', 'foot', and an F word in between. He forgets about his foot when he notices the nurses, and notices them noticing him. It doesn't take long before he's able to chase the nurses down the corridor. They run in slow motion so the hobbling man behind them can catch them. They have picnics by the pond. They play croquet in the garden. They organise balls in the ballroom.

He finds out that they've had practise with Murphy and the prince. One of the nurses has a very vivid memory of her time with them because she's recorded everything in her diary.

When Mooney disappears they wonder why he left without saying goodbye. They wonder why he'd want to leave at all. A nurse screams and they all run to her room. Her diary has left as well. They wonder why her diary would want to leave at all, and then they put two and two together.

The nurse is determined to get her diary back.

It's two o' clock in the morning. She's dressed all in black and she's standing outside Mooney's house, looking in through a window. There's a full moon above. Complete darkness would normally be helpful on missions like these, but then she wouldn't have enough light to read. She consults a book called 'The Idiot's Guide to Stealing What's Rightfully Yours'. She'd be happier if the title didn't contain the word 'idiot'.

She puts the book back into her black bag and she takes out a glass cutter. She cuts a hole in the window pane and she reaches in to open the window.

She steps into the room and looks around. A rectangle of moonlight reaches in to illuminate a table and the diary on top of it. She can't believe how easy this is.

A bit too easy. The door opens and the light comes on. She's holding a diary. Mooney is holding a gun. "I bought a gun," he says. "I wondered how I ever got through life without a gun before. There are so many more actions that are brought into being when you have a gun. There are so many more things you can say to other people, and make them do all sorts of actions they'd never dream of doing in a dream..."

While he's becoming immersed in his theory he doesn't notice when she takes out a cigarette lighter and sets the diary on fire. Her firey diary drops to the ground. He jumps up and down on it to put out the flames, but it's too late. The diary is destroyed. She smiles. So does he. "It's action time," he says. He ties her to a chair, takes a photo and sends the ransom demand to Murphy and the prince.