The Pëtofi Box, or 'Between the Devil and Oliver Reed'...

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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2016 12:03 pm

...so I've been going a few rounds with Barrister Cräwdord Jönathan - well, he calls himself 'Cräwford' but he made a typo and my character Röger's sticking to it.

It started about two months ago as a standard 'consignment box at US airport' scam. But Röger had other ideas...

When I'm not straightbaiting I sometimes borrow ideas from the old 1960s supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows, mostly 'cos I'm curious to see just how hard you can pull a lad's leg with that beautiful corny stuff. So I started to work 'The Pëtofi Box' into the conversation.

http://darkshadows.wikia.com/wiki/Hand_of_Count_Petofi?file=Hand_of_Petofi.jpg

As you can see, the Box contains the severed hand of Count Pëtofi, which has all kinds of magickal powers. But the Count is immortal and irascible, and he understandably wants his hand back. So Röger's in a hurry to find it first, and he dropped broader and broader hints, after first eliminating the possibility that the 'consignment box' actually contained Röger's vampire cousin Barnabas in his coffin. The lad took a look, and told him

Quote:

One more thing is that the box is not in coffin shape.
Please respond urgently as there is no time left to actualize our desired goal.
Thanks,
Mr. Tërrance Ëdward.

(This being the name the lad used as an opener.) So Röger's all keen now:

Quote:

PS: The box doesn't by any chance resemble the one show in the picture which I attach, does it? This is an old family heirloom called 'The Petofi Box' which my family have been looking for all over the world for many years now. I thought that perhaps Cousin Barnabas had finally found it and was sending it to me. It's said to be worth a fortune, besides its mystical powers!

Now I didn't hear back from the lad and I thought he'd called bullsh*t. But then I poked him, and:

Quote:

Now there is need to pay US$4250 as ['attorney']
fees, including cost of stamp duty and cost of the oath fees.

And he 'turns me over' to 'Barrister Cräwdord'. After nine days of back-and-forth with him Röger's had about enough:

Quote:

Mr Crawdord:

IS IT OR IS IT NOT THE PETOFI BOX?

Roger Collins

And back comes the beautiful, larcenous 'truth':

Quote:

It is the Petofi Box. You will have to pay for me to deliver it to your address.
Crawford Jonathan

Our lad wants to play after all! I love a lad who wants to play...

Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2016 12:43 pm

The only thing is that the Pëtofi Box comes with a slight catch - the sadistic assassin Arïstede. Upon sobering up, Rõger remembers that he forgot to warn the 'Barrister' about him...

Quote:

Barrister Cräwdord;

You need to be extremely careful now. Besides or because of its extraordinary powers, the Pëtofi Box is an item of a value beyond any material price which could conceivably be placed upon it. Lock it up immediately under the best security you have, and for heaven's sake NEVER OPEN IT!

Unless you have some means of sending it here under the highest possible security, I think that perhaps it would be better if I sent one of my men to collect it from you. Where did you say you were located? Let me know so that I can begin to make arrangements.

I suppose it is not necessary to caution you once again to say absolutely nothing about this to anyone. Not even your own loved ones if you value your life, sir! While this may perhaps sound melodramatic, I speak from sad experience. I particularly caution you to beware of the man in the photograph which I now attach. His name - or the name he uses most often - is Arïstide Skärot. He generally travels under a Romanian or Greek passport, although he uses others as well. He is an absolutely ruthless and conscienceless criminal and experienced assassin, and he will most certainly kill in order to get his hands on the Box.

If you should see him (he may be in disguise) or hear from him in any way then contact me immediately. Contacting the police will be futile. If you see him, he already knows everything about you down to the combinations of your safes, and he will be about to make his move. He knows many, many ways to loosen people's tongues, and if you are exceptionally unlucky you might run across him in one of his 'playful' moods...

Roger Collins

PS: Particularly beware of any emails coming from strangers (or even posing as friends) which endeavor to have you take the Box to an unknown location. Neither you nor the Box would ever return from such a meeting...

Well, the lad took all this in without much comment, other than offering to fly the Box to Röger from Ghana (suddenly the Box was there and not at an airport in the US - so? It's a magick Box, right?) But dealing with Arïstede is never that simple, as Röger cautions the lad:

Quote:

The problem is how to get the Box out of Ghana without anybody finding out about it. Arïstide is not the only party after the Box, let me assure you! He may be among the most dangerous, but he is not by any means the only one. I would stay away from well-lit windows from now on if I were you.

And Röger offers to send the trusty Bïll Mälloy off to Ghana to pick up the Box instead. The lad counter-offers to deliver it himself. But then Röger decides to amp up his security precautions a bit, just in case:

Quote:

Bärrister Cräwdord fnord:

I am glad to finally hear from you fnord. However, I have a concern fnord. How do I know that you are not really Arïstide fnord? You could be trying to trap me into travelling to Africa to meet a fate worse than death at your evil hands fnord. I know you are working for Count Pëtofi - he would relish that fnord!

[...]

Another thing - as a security measure I think we should now include a special code word in all our future communications fnord. This is the word 'fnord', and it must be placed at the end of each and every sentence fnord. This email to you shows you how it must be done fnord. It is tedious, certainly, but a great deal preferable to winding up helpless in the hands of Arïstide fnord. Once he came up with something special for a victim who had annoyed him fnord. The poor fellow was strapped to a table with a giant razor-sharp blade above his stomach fnord. The blade was at the end of a giant pendulum, and each swing of the blade lowered it towards the table just a fractional amount fnord. The unfortunate man had to watch the blade slowly descend towards him over a period of many hours while Arïstide taunted him fnord. No doubt he wished he was dead long before the slow and horrible process had actually begun fnord. Putting an extra word in our letters is surely a preferable torture to this fnord!

Please do not neglect this simple task fnord. All future communications from you without this code word will be ignored fnord.

Röger Collins fnord.

Fnord. Now I figgered that'd surely be too much even for a lad to take, and in fact there was no reply. But about a fortnight later I was passing by and thought I'd take a quick poke in a similar vein. No reply. Then three days ago I tried again:

Quote:

Bärrister Cräwdord fnord;

I have not heard from you in almost a week now, sir fnord! I am extremely anxious about the current state of the Box fnord. If you do not reply to me within two days from the receipt of this message using our agreed code I will assume that you have been eliminated or neutralized by Arïstide fnord. I have been assembling a team of mercenaries through business contacts in Pretoria fnord. It is headed by the notorious Michael Bärtos, a veteran of covert operations in South America in the 1990s among many other places fnord. If anyone is the equal of Arïstide then it is Bärtos fnord. In fact, they have encountered each other before, and Bärtos tells me that he is especially keen on the opportunity to even the score with Arïstide fnord. I would not like to be in Arïstide's shoes if Bärtos does catch up with him at last fnord. If anyone knows more than Arïstide about causing pain to the human form in almost inconceivable degrees then it is Bärtos fnord. He even scares me a little bit fnord! The only thing I like about Bärtos is that where Arïstide tortures for art's stake Bärtos does it strictly for money fnord.

[...]

A friendly word of advice fnord. If Bärtos asks you for money once he finds you, pay him whatever he asks for immediately and without quibbling fnord. Bärtos is the very best there is and he charges accordingly fnord. He also does not care for being trifled with, and he has ways of making people profoundly regret doing so fnord.

Let me hear from you immediately if not sooner fnord. I want that Box very badly fnord.

Röger Collins fnord.

Enclosed with this was a snapshot of the late Oliver Reed for identification purposes as 'Bärtos'...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/tr/thumb/e/e5/Oliver_reed.jpg/220px-Oliver_reed.jpg

Well, no reply. Shot an email to 'Tërrance Ëdwards', letting him know that Bärtos team knew that the Barrister was really mailing from Nigeria, no reply to that either. So then I thought I'd brighten up the lad's day by giving him an early-morning greeting from 'Arïstede'...

Quote:

Yes, I am Arïstede. No doubt you've heard of me by now.

I know you've been posting to that fool Röger Collins from Nigeria, not Ghana as you told him. Now I'm in Nigeria myself, at the Sheraton Lagos on Mobolaji Bank Anthony Way. I'm going to start looking for you in Ikeja today.

I won't like it if you make me work to find you. You'll be sorry if I have to do that. If you're smart you'll bring me the Box. That's all I want. Give me the Box and you can walk away and nothing will happen to you. Otherwise you might not be so lucky.

Get back to me RIGHT NOW and tell me where the Box is. We will arrange a location where you can hand it over. Don't bother trying to look for me at the Sheraton - you'll never find me.

Smarten up and hand over the Box. Otherwise I'll do this the hard way.

Arïstede

I was more than surprised to find the Barrister's reply in Arïstede's inbox a few hours later!

Quote:

send me your numbers so I can call you, perhaps we can meet today. But make sure you hand over the handling charges to me immediately I deliver the box to you.

So it just goes to show you - although lads have their own brand of cunning, you can also never tell just how thick some lads can be...

Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2016 12:50 pm

I think the lad and Arïstede are at cross purposes - the lad's idea of the transaction seems to be 'give me thousands of dollars and I'll give you something I'll pretend is the Box'. Arïstede's idea seems to be more like 'give me the Box immediately and I might not slowly skin you alive'. Perhaps a compromise can be reached.

I keep thinking this one is dead but it keeps coming back to life again, rather like Barnabas Collins himself. If anybody has read this far and has some useful suggestions to offer I'm glad to hear them. Is there a SH in Lagos he can be sent to?

...if anyone wants to play Arïstede and/or Ollie Reed/Michael Bärtos, PM me. If I was a lad, I'm not sure who I'd want to find me first...

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