Are You Embezzling?

"The man had no use for lies or evasion, non sequiturs or dishonesty. Alan sat down to Flynn's right and asked, 'Flynn, are you embezzling?'"
--pg. 45

Yes. I am embezzling The Truth. I store it in concrete lead-lined vaults far below the surface of the earth. Goblins and trolls slobber against the bars. The truth angers them, you see. Makes their skin bubble like holy water on a vampire. And the smell-- don't get me started on the smell. In the vaults, The Truth multiplies due to the Awesome Power of Compound Interest. Start with a small amount of The Truth and watch it grow in tiny increments like a snowball rolling down a hill, gathering mass flake by flake. Skimming off the cream of The Truth and placing it in nondescript canisters. Hidden in plain sight inside a Mr. T thermos from an eighties lunchbox.

Man, if I had only kept all those classic metal lunchboxes from my childhood. The 'Masterpiece Theater' lunchbox with Alistair Cooke sitting in his armchair by the fire. The lunchbox with the picture of Tom Brokaw looking up Connie Chung's skirt. All that shit's worth a fortune now. Yeah, going to school with a bologna sandwich on whole wheat with French's mustard and a handful of carrot sticks wrapped up in plastic wrap. Whole Milk in a cracked thermos. Are you guzzling? Yeah-- gulp down that milk and run outside to play. Years flash past: calendar pages ripped off the wall and smoked Rastafarian style. Shit, I been Safari-ing since before you were born. Guzzling beer by the bucketful. Glint of green glass."

"You're evading the question. I didn't ask about Guzzling, I asked about Embezzling."

"Pull down that cornet from its glass case and we can go Em-Mezzling. Remember that time I went trick or treating as Mezz Mezzrow? 'Who are you supposed to be, little boy?' 'I'm Mezz Mezzrow, Louis Armstrong's pot dealer. The bringer of the Mighty New Orleans Gold Leaf up to Harlem. Slingin' happiness by The Tree of Life.' That tree's not there anymore, did you know that? Chopped down to make wooden shoe-horns for Bill Clinton. It all depends on what the meaning of 'meaning' is. I hear he has to wake up early in the morning to polish his wife's brass ovaries."

"I hear the same thing."