A Message From the King

[Nentsia]

The Liquor Store

Isabel Fuglsang slammed her laptop down on her desk, got up from her chair, and corrected her lipstick in the reflection of her telephone.
‘I’m grabbing a lunch,’ she grunted to a colleague.

She reached for her coat and headed out of the office, striding through the corridors of the Oslan Foreign Ministry in her high heels. Outside the building, Fuglsang walked around the bloc and double-checked a message in one of her mobile phones. A text message, sent the evening before, read ‘12.30 – 50 year old Baillieu’.

After a ten minute walk through the historic centre of Herlev, the Oslan capital, Fuglsang stood before a small liquor store. She took a deep breadth, checked her watch, adjusted her raincoat and entered the store. A characteristic bell announced that a customer had entered the store. The store seemed completely abandoned. Its dusty wooden ranks with bottles and liquor reached up to the ceiling. The only light came through the window, and the interior was made out of dark wood.

An older woman responded to the sound of the bell. She came out from the back of the store, looking through her dusty glasses to see who had entered.
‘Yes, hello. Can I help you?’
‘I believe a package has been delivered for me here,’ Fuglsang replied.
‘Package? What package?’
‘I’ve come to collect a very rare wine. A Baillieu, aged 50 years.’

The woman came closer to take a look at Fuglsang. She observed her for a while and then, as if she suddenly remembered, turned around. ‘Ah yes. I probably put that in our safe. Let me collect it for you.’

While the woman returned to the back of the store to look for the rare wine, Fuglsang walked slowly past all the bottles of liquor. Each one had a fancy design that would make the most repulsive drinks look tasty.

‘Do you need a bag with it?’ the woman shouted from the back end of the store.
‘Yes please,’ Fuglsang replied with a high-pitched voice.

Eventually the woman returned with a rare bottle of wine packed in a paper back with the store logo on it. ‘Your package will cost 600 Vrun,’ she mumbled as she checked in her computer. With a friendly smile she handed Fuglsang the package. Fuglsang had reached for an envelope in her bag and handed that to her.
‘My credit card is in there.’

The woman took it to the back again for ‘verification’, and returned a minute later. In reality the envelope had contained no money at all, but a micro SD card. Fuglsang put the emptied envelope back in her bag.

‘Enjoy! Have a lovely day.’

Fuglsang smiled back and left the store. Just as the envelope had not contained any money, so did her Baillieu wine bottle not contain any wine at all. Instead it contained a new SD card, a piece of paper, and some cash money.

Maybe an hour later, a short, chubby, balding man arrived at the liquor store. Again the bell rang, and the woman came out from the back again.

‘Ah its you mr. Arrighetti! How nice to see you!’ the woman exclaimed.
‘I always love to come and visit you, Alma,’ Arrighetti barked. ‘I hope you have some nice wines for me today!’

Alma, the woman, smiled. ‘Of course, dear. Something came in today, I’m sure your customers will love it.’

The woman went out to the back and came back with a crate full of wine bottles. One of the wine bottles was in fact empty, and only contained a micro SD card. Arrighetti smiled in his characteristic manner, paid Alma in cash, and walked out of the store with the wine bottles to his minivan. With the van he drove back to his Lomarran restaurant, Arrighetti’s.

That evening, Fuglsang did not drive directly home from work. She made a little detour passed an old industrial area of the city, where she parked her car near an abandoned factory. After having made sure she was alone, she got her ‘expensive wine’ from the trunk of her car, and in one smooth motion smashed the bottle to pieces on the ground.

Carefully, she quickly collected the banknotes, the piece of paper, and the SD card that were scattered among the glass shards. Fuglsang put the money and the SD card in her pocket, but she read the letter. It was a list of instructions. She took a few minutes to memorize the instructions and then destroyed the letter with a lighter. Then she got back into her car and drove home, to cook dinner for her family.