fifty feet from me, a man in a blue blazer removed his jacket, placed it on the back of his chair, and sat down. The jacket wasn’t quite right, but it would do for the few seconds I needed it. I put down my drink and started heading his way.
* * *
I am incredibly indifferent about money. I know that as a person who has a tremendous amount of it, I can afford to be indifferent—and really, most of the people I have ever met who claim not to care about money already have more than they could ever need—but I have been poor many, many different times and really don’t have a problem with it.
What I think people forget is that money isn’t a real thing. It has value only in relation to other things—like how many actual real things it allows you to acquire. We got along fine without anything like money for a long time, is what I’m saying. Influence, for example, worked just as well for titled lords in the feudal system. And fifteen hundred years ago, you could live a fine life with a fortune made up entirely of bolts of silk.
One of the good things about money—and why I’m glad not everyone shares my perspective—is that people act predictably when in the presence of it. For instance, from the moment I left the bar to the time I reached the table with the blazer, I had been pulling cash out of my money belts and dropping it onto the floor.
* * *
The place was elbow-to-elbow when I began dropping cash on the floor, which was fantastic because nobody identified me as the source, and I was a good distance away before anyone saw the money.
What happened next was pretty close to that riot I told Mike I was hoping to start. Surprisingly, though, it took a little longer to catch on than I had anticipated.
Crowds can be odd. I’ve seen plenty of crowd-panic and mob-rule moments—the French Revolution comes to mind—and it’s very difficult to anticipate when and how things will turn from order to chaos. In this case, everyone around me was dressed in their finest Saturday night clothing and there were loose piles of large bills at their feet. To pick them up, someone was going to have to make the decision to forego propriety, surrender to the possibility that their nice clothes were going to end up looking not-so-nice, and get down on that floor.
I expected it to happen all at once, but instead the half-dozen people aware they were standing on money had to first look around and see if anyone else was going after it. Nobody was. And then, all at once it seemed, everyone was. Five or six people dropped down at the same time. The people around them looked down to figure out what they were doing, saw the money, and dropped down as well. The effect cascaded.
And since I’d left a trail that circled around the table with the blue blazer, the mayhem that followed cascaded in my direction.
These sorts of things grow exponentially. The floor, already packed to begin with, got denser and tighter as more people pushed in. It drew the attention of casino security and—I assume although I couldn’t see most of them anymore—my many FBI friends.
I had dropped a particularly large supply of one hundred dollar bills on the floor next to the gentleman in possession of the blazer, and stood to one side of the table until he noticed. It didn’t take long. Then I snagged the jacket, dropped to the floor, and crawled until I was under the lip of another of the blackjack tables. This was the best I could hope to do when it came to avoiding the cameras for the few seconds it took to remove the loud Hawaiian shirt and slip on the blazer.
This is an old trick. I think the first time I saw it was onstage in Athens. I loved going to the theater then, much as I enjoy movies now despite all of the explosions. The story required that the main character vanish at the end of the play, so at the critical moment the entire chorus surrounded him until he was obscured from view, and when they parted he had disappeared.
Of
* * *
I am incredibly indifferent about money. I know that as a person who has a tremendous amount of it, I can afford to be indifferent—and really, most of the people I have ever met who claim not to care about money already have more than they could ever need—but I have been poor many, many different times and really don’t have a problem with it.
What I think people forget is that money isn’t a real thing. It has value only in relation to other things—like how many actual real things it allows you to acquire. We got along fine without anything like money for a long time, is what I’m saying. Influence, for example, worked just as well for titled lords in the feudal system. And fifteen hundred years ago, you could live a fine life with a fortune made up entirely of bolts of silk.
One of the good things about money—and why I’m glad not everyone shares my perspective—is that people act predictably when in the presence of it. For instance, from the moment I left the bar to the time I reached the table with the blazer, I had been pulling cash out of my money belts and dropping it onto the floor.
* * *
The place was elbow-to-elbow when I began dropping cash on the floor, which was fantastic because nobody identified me as the source, and I was a good distance away before anyone saw the money.
What happened next was pretty close to that riot I told Mike I was hoping to start. Surprisingly, though, it took a little longer to catch on than I had anticipated.
Crowds can be odd. I’ve seen plenty of crowd-panic and mob-rule moments—the French Revolution comes to mind—and it’s very difficult to anticipate when and how things will turn from order to chaos. In this case, everyone around me was dressed in their finest Saturday night clothing and there were loose piles of large bills at their feet. To pick them up, someone was going to have to make the decision to forego propriety, surrender to the possibility that their nice clothes were going to end up looking not-so-nice, and get down on that floor.
I expected it to happen all at once, but instead the half-dozen people aware they were standing on money had to first look around and see if anyone else was going after it. Nobody was. And then, all at once it seemed, everyone was. Five or six people dropped down at the same time. The people around them looked down to figure out what they were doing, saw the money, and dropped down as well. The effect cascaded.
And since I’d left a trail that circled around the table with the blue blazer, the mayhem that followed cascaded in my direction.
These sorts of things grow exponentially. The floor, already packed to begin with, got denser and tighter as more people pushed in. It drew the attention of casino security and—I assume although I couldn’t see most of them anymore—my many FBI friends.
I had dropped a particularly large supply of one hundred dollar bills on the floor next to the gentleman in possession of the blazer, and stood to one side of the table until he noticed. It didn’t take long. Then I snagged the jacket, dropped to the floor, and crawled until I was under the lip of another of the blackjack tables. This was the best I could hope to do when it came to avoiding the cameras for the few seconds it took to remove the loud Hawaiian shirt and slip on the blazer.
This is an old trick. I think the first time I saw it was onstage in Athens. I loved going to the theater then, much as I enjoy movies now despite all of the explosions. The story required that the main character vanish at the end of the play, so at the critical moment the entire chorus surrounded him until he was obscured from view, and when they parted he had disappeared.
Of
Similar Books
