Straussian Distribution
Chapter VI
(ὁ ἀναγινώσκων νοείτω)
From his position forty-one places behind the front of the line for the cocktail hour, von Pfiff peered in the vague direction of a dark alcove festooned with Solo cups where a narrow variety of inebriants was being prepared with more enthusiasm than speed. In the dim light of the walnut-paneled ballroom the chalkboard menu was barely legible, especially given his growing suspicion that the mixologist had chosen experimental recipes.
He reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of adjustable binoculars assigned by the Austrian security services, carefully engineered to look like a normal pair of reading spectacles. Von Pfiff loathed them. In addition to looking hopelessly old-fashioned, opening the frames switched on an audio-visual recorder which, he had discovered while surveilling a suspected Russian honeypot in the Algarve to pad his timesheet, was prone to underestimate its remaining battery life and erupt without warning into a shrill and indiscreet chirp. Owing to the device’s geriatric appearance, Vienna had always strongly recommended the use of a decoy paperback or newspaper. Von Pfiff checked his outer linen suit pockets and suddenly remembered that the copy of The Harvard Business School Introduction to Andorran Tax Law he had picked up on a layover for this purpose was back in the AirBnB. He looked around as suavely as he could muster, muttered a brief excuse to the others in line, and walked over to an ill-stocked bookshelf on the wall to retrieve a slim volume titled Group House to Sex Cult: A Guide for Beginners. Strolling back to the cocktail line, he furtively pressed a button on the frames to switch the glasses from reading to binocular mode and opened the book to chapter one.
The pickings, he was dismayed but not surprised to learn, were slim. All four cocktails on offer appeared to contain an ingredient called ‘Faygo’ with which he was entirely unfamiliar but was clearly carcinogenic. The least unappetizing, a ‘Violent Cal’, combined the Tonic! flavor of this degeneracy with gin of an unknown brand. He was not sure whether to hope the gin was quality (in which case the concoction might be plausibly drinkable) or schlock (lest a perfectly decent bottle of gin be wasted).
Minute by minute the line staggered closer to the bar. From time to time a cheap, tinny pair of speakers in the far corner of the ballroom ejaculated lyrics about clowns, then simmered down to an incomprehensible burble, as if plunged underwater.
“Whoop whoop,” said a most peculiar bartender when von Pfiff finally reached the front of the line. Five feet and ten inches of his six-foot-six figure were enveloped in a bright orange robe embroidered with black paisley and gold trim, swept with a mop of straight brown hair down to his back. His hands, bony yet strong, sported a collection of ostentatious rings. Black and white makeup had been applied to a boyish face to create the permanent illusion of a rather devious smile. “I am…Preserved Gaylord.”
“Preservèd,” von Pfiff repeated, finding the third syllable not entirely natural.
Preserved Gaylord chuckled. “An old family name. What can I get you?”
“I will have the…the Violent Cal.”
“An excellent choice for a fellow aristocrat of the soul,” responded Preserved, picking up a red Solo cup and combining equal measures of Tonic! and a draught from—oh, God, von Pfiff thought. Nolay’s Reserve?! High-fructose corn syrup adulterating a perfectly fine measure of Nolay’s Reserve. The mind boggled. He muttered inaudible nonsense about American degeneracy and shuffled away from the bar to look for that damnable econ twink to discuss the matter of Belgium. The bird costume was not difficult to find. He eavesdropped from three paces away and waited for an opportune moment.
“Do explain,” von Pfiff overheard a girl asking him, “exactly how it is that the econ department at Governeur Morris is so loaded. Nearly a billion dollars in endowment is...unheard of.”
The econ twink took a sip of coconut water.
“So,” he said, “the original endowment was fifty million.”
“That is...still a lot.”
“I think it was originally part of a copper-mining fortune. It was going to go to Chicago but the donor decided they were already well-regarded enough and picked us instead. The fun part was that the gift stipulated that the department chair had to actively manage it and that they could not just stick it in an index fund.”
“That sounds like it would violate SEC rules.”
“There was an interesting court case about it, actually. They ruled on the basis of statements from the donor—they had to pause his trial in the Netherlands at the time—that the gift would not have been made if he’d let us do something boring like stick it in a Vanguard fund. So if the alternative is that there is no fund, then a fund actively-managed by the department is a Pareto improvement over no fund—if only because ruling otherwise would mean fewer charitable donations going forward.”
“But then you went from fifty million to nearly a billion.”
“The department chair saw the writing on the wall in February 2020 and bought short positions on a number of nursing-home providers.”
“How ethical.”
“Is shorting stocks ever unethical?” asked the econ twink.
The woman stared at him with a mixture of fascination and disgust.
“You’re destroying—”
“No, you’re just sending better price signals. It is February 2020, the world is about to get hit by a massive pandemic that will wallop nursing homes. Their stocks are trading as if nothing is happening, you are drawing attention to it.”
“I am appalled!”
“Do you arrest people who pull fire alarms for arson?”
“Not to butt in,” von Pfiff interjected, “but I was wondering if I could borrow you to discuss…”
“Oh, yes,” the twink replied. “Yes. Arugula, this is…remind me your name again.”
“Mehmet von Pfiff.”
“Charmed. Allow me to introduce you to Arugula Clay. Mehmet is playing England in a game of Diplomacy hosted by Telemachus Clockjob.”
“Good evening, Arugula. Indeed. I was just thinking…”
“Before anything else, have you bought positions on your own moves?”
Von Pfiff’s train of thought came to a screeching halt at a station he did not much like the look of.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Oh, you haven’t checked the prediction markets? There’s a board up there.”
He gestured to a series of flat-screen monitors on the far wall from the bar. A billionaire shows up: 97%. Alex Scoot funds a startup: 74%. An undercover journalist is unmasked: 83%.
France takes Belgium as a build in 1901: 92%.
“They’re selling dollars for 91 cents if you’d like to go for Norway or Holland instead,” the econ twink remarked.
“Small markets are very inefficient,” von Pfiff said, at a loss for other words.
“Check again,” said his opponent. Von Pfiff took out his spectacles and discovered that the volume on this market totaled to nearly $1.6M.
“Nobody told me we would be on camera.”
“I don’t think we are. But word gets around. The volume of the market is one of the reasons so many people think there’s a billionaire here.”
“Isn’t Clockjob one?”
“Not officially.”
“Do you know what he’s doing with Moscow?”
“Not a clue,” said the econ twink. “You’ll have to talk to him or maybe to Comstock or Winty. Norway’s just lovely this time of year, you know.”
“So’s Iberia.”
“Mmm, but I can get there just fine from Marseilles. It’s the English channel I’m worried about. Shall we leave it as a DMZ in the understanding you’ll certainly be in Norway this winter?”
“I think two supply centers for everyone in 1901 is more than reasonable,” said von Pfiff. “Except, of course, for Italy, but we all knew that. Is Paris off to Burgundy?”
“It might be. I haven’t decided. Portugal—”
“An old English ally which we’re more than happy to lease out to the French for a year or two, so long as the English Channel remains English,” von Pfiff said warmly. “Your support in the fall with the matter of Belgium would be appreciated. I will of course try to see to it that Italy leaves you alone.”
The econ twink weighed von Pfiff’s proposal.
“I’ll consider it.”
“It would be appreciated.”
“Would you have any interest in underwriting an appropriate position on the market and splitting the proceeds?”
“Don’t push your luck.” These fucking economists.
“Winty is over there if you want to talk to him,” said the econ twink, pointing at an angle of about seventy degrees counter-clockwise from the screens. “He’s recruiting for his new organization. I’ve already gotten my official gear.” He unbuttoned his bird costume to reveal a T-Shirt featuring the faces of Robert Peel, Nelson Rockefeller and Margaret Thatcher, surrounded by golden halos and saluted by a teeming crowd of white-collar professionals. The scene was ringed by the motto The True Administration of Pigouvian Taxation is the Firmest Pillar of Good Government; underneath it the shirt identified the wearer as a member of The FWB Society.
Indeed Katzbube was over there, standing on a chair with a Solo cup—clearly not his first of the evening—in hand, cheerfully addressing a pair of very similar-looking women (twins, perhaps?) in matching shirts that read Text and Subtext.
“The FWB was the backbone of abolitionism, the Reform Act and the battle against child labor,” Katzbube proclaimed, his r’s even more conspicuously absent than usual. “In Current Year as in 1843 he fights for free trade, fiscal probity, a strong foreign policy in the humanitarian as well as the national interest.”
“Winty!” said von Pfiff, trying to attract his attention.
“FISCAL PROBITY! FISCAL PROBITY! The prudent use of public money for the public welfare! The FWB must be restored–” RESTOAHED— “to his rightful place as the guardian of good governance. HE MUST YET AGAIN serve as the eternal watchman against the parasites of graft and avarice that from time to time infect the body politic. The—”
“Winty, what on earth are you on about?”
“I am recruiting,” Katzbube thundered, “for the First-World Bourgeois Society.”
“It’s an interesting idea,” said Text.
“Truly a nuanced ideology,” Subtext added.
“When the FWB buys tchotchkes on Amazon,” Katzbube continued, “he turns on lights in a dozen factories and pays their workers’ bills. When he saves for retirement, he provides the capital to build roads, hospitals, schools. He underwrites the insurance policies that turn hailstorms and floods from harbingers of starvation to crappy luck. He is—”
“Winty, can we discuss—”
“IN EVERY WAY ACROSS THE CENTURIES THE FWB IS TRULY A FRIEND WITH MYRIAD BENEFITS TO ALL MANKIND.”
Text and Subtext clapped.
“We’ll consider it,” said Subtext.
“We read The Economist every week cover to cover,” said Text.
“All sorts of intriguing ideas in there,” Subtext agreed.
“Who are those two?” von Pfiff asked.
“We’re Text and Subtext,” said Text.
“Or Subtext and Text,” said Subtext. “And Metatext is around somewhere.”
“She comes and goes,” Text explained.
“They’re Straussian e-girls,” said Katzbube. “Very perplexing.”
“Gulf Coast Straussians,” added Subtext.
“Most perplexing indeed,” von Pfiff remarked.
“There’s a guide available,” said Text.
“A guide to?” von Pfiff asked.
“To being perplexed,” said Subtext. “Some men understand.”
“Others dey don’t.”
“And what are you here for?” asked von Pfiff.
“Looking for Straussian e-boys,” said Subtext.
“Not much luck,” Text added. “It’s hard to get laid as a Straussian e-girl.”
“Affirmative consent under California statute—”
“Leaves no place for Subtext,” said Text, completing her comrade’s surface reading. “Or for subtext. Nobody can figure us out.”
“We’re being persecuted.”
“BELGIUM,” von Pfiff insisted at last, dragging Katzbube off his chair and shooing away the Straussian e-girls. As they scurried away into the dimness of the ballroom he could read If You’re Reading It, It’s For You printed on each of their matching pairs of booty shorts.
“Can you assure me that France won’t be going into Burgundy?” asked Katzbube.
“I’ve done my best to send him to Iberia. Frankly I think Clockjob is much more dangerous. Better to keep him out of Sweden.”
“You might bounce me out of Holland.”
“Assuring myself Belgium is more valuable than denying you Holland. You have my honor on this. At least until 1902.”
Katzbube mulled this over in a thoughtful haze.
“And your preferences for Munich?”
“I’d prefer a bounce in Burgundy if you can arrange one with the econ twink. Does he have a name?”
“I’m not aware of one. His nametag just reads ‘The Econ Twink’. Plenty of pseudonyms here. I, of course—”
“Munich,” von Pfiff insisted.
“I’ll consider Burgundy but can’t promise anything right now.”
“Good enough. Are you enjoying your, ah…”
“Cocktail? After a fashion,” said Katzbube. “It seemed a bit low-rent for you.”
“Yes, I left my case of—”
Von Pfiff looked in the far corner of the ballroom where he had left his case of Château Houellebecq the previous evening, lest he be mugged for it on the walk to the scullery. It was not there.
“...I did leave my case of wine over here, but someone seems to have moved it.”
“Ah, well,” said Katzbube, his voice tipsy with optimism. “I’m sure it will show up. If you’ll excuse me I’m going to go find Austria…”
He strolled off, in a floating zig-zag, into the darker corners of the ballroom.
Continue to Chapter VII.