This is the second episode of our book club on Lee Child's first novel Killing Floor, the novel that introduced Jack Reacher. As always with the book club, there will be spoilers and it probably makes most sense if you have read as far as we have. I will also be reading some quotes I highlighted from Reacher Said Nothing by Andy Martin, a book I'm reading in parallel in which Andy Martin watches Lee Child write a Jack Reacher novel.
For this series, I'm joined by Koen Frolichs, fellow PhD student in the same lab that I'm in.
Timestamps
00:04: Beginning discussing chapters 15-21
58:23: Beginning discussing chapters 22-26
Podcast links
Website: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcast
Koen's links
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=E65Fv74J0ywC
Twitter: https://twitter.com/koenfused
Ben's links
Website: www.bjks.page/
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJ
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bjks_tweets
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[This is an automated transcript with many errors]
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: [00:00:00] If I'm counting correctly, this is now the third episode of our book discussion of Lee Child's Killing Floor. Um, trying to think of something weird You did last episode so I can make this a common thing. Uh, a book that not only introduces jack creature, but also made cool and want to wear someone's face.
Is that what happened? If I remember correctly,
Koen Frolichs: only in Germany to hide my crimes.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, that's fine
Koen Frolichs: then. That's
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: fair. Right Then that's fine.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And as last time, if that doesn't make any sense to you, maybe we listen to the last one or don't. Yeah. It's your choice. It just might make less sense, but at the very least, uh, we'll assume that you've read until page, oh, until chapter 21, which is page 322.
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: In the Bantham Books series. Like the paperback version. It's orange anyway. Um,
Koen Frolichs: it is, that's why we chose it. Is that why you chose it To like, make me feel at home?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh, in what home? [00:01:00] Uh, no, I actually didn't. I I didn't even consider that. Um, cute
Koen Frolichs: coincidence, huh?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think the last book I had of his was Blue.
Koen Frolichs: Could be. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So we we're getting into the Dutch, uh, the Dutch flag. I just need to find a white cover. Then. I've got, I've got it all. Anyway, so I think we'll start as always with a brief summary of the chapters. I wrote this all down, but I feel like with this book, pretty long, a summary. Like there's always, always lots and lots of plot points that kind happen.
Yes. Cram in
Koen Frolichs: there, right? Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. So like it's, it's, it's one and a half pages now. You know, I'm only basically using half the margin, but it's still a page basically of text anyway. So here's pretty summary.
Koen Frolichs: You just take care of yourself. Talk.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean, what you think this is for good. That's the whole point.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, that's, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just figured it out. Three episodes in.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, exactly. Uh, anyway,
Koen Frolichs: go ahead. Go ahead.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Chapter 15, Richa threatened Spivey with Morrison's knife, but Spivey [00:02:00] doesn't say anything. Richa and Roscoe spend a fun night out of town when they return the next morning. Roscoe's place has been broken in.
Nothing is missing or broken, but Richa thinks it's the same people who killed Morrison. Chapter 16, Richard promises to protect Roscoe. They briefly meet old man Kleiner, Morrison's wife at a husband stick and bulls. Um, sorry, that's the plot point. Uh, Sherman's dollar seems to have been an out of work truck driver.
Rich's brother worked on fighting counterfeiting money or counterfeit money. I never, how did I say it? A slightly demented barber tells richer he gets a thousand dollars a week for, from the Kleiner Foundation. Chapter 17 Richer finds out that Hubber was let go from his job as a currency trader. 18 months ago, Sherman Sto was a truck driver with excellent legal help.
Reacher gets a big gun from Roscoe, the two Hispanic men who were at Hubble's house and asked around town [00:03:00] for reacher. Watch him at the police station and follow him by car. Chapter 18, the two men keep following reacher, so he kills them. In the trunk of their car, he finds Spivey dead. Richa thinks Spivey was not one of the 10, but outside.
Help. Rich's brother tried to stop foreign counterfeiting of US dollars. Richa and Roscoe visit Judy Sherman's girlfriend STO got rich. Working for Island Air Conditioning. His possible hobble,
dramatic turn of the page.
Koen Frolichs: Dramatic.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Chapter 19, the photo of Sta and hobble was taken on Kleiner's warehouse. Bika finds out where Richard's brother stayed. The room was cleaned and some Latino guy picked it up, but they find something in the nearest dumpster. Chapter 20 Rich's Brother's shoe. Oh God, my handwriting is so bad.
This is also the thing I wrote [00:04:00] this morning in bed. Ah, yeah, just like, uh, lying down. I just missed a word. In Rich's brother's shoe, they find the rest of the piece of paper that said Pluribus with Hubble's phone number on it. There are more initials and phone numbers on the rest of the piece of paper.
Two seem to belong to professors of modern History. The other two, the New Orleans Police Department at the airport, Reacher sees a black pickup for the second time. Richa, Roco and Finlay. Go to the airport to pick up Molly Beth Gordon. Molly Beth Gordon is murdered at the airport before she can provide important info about Reacher's brother.
God, I really cut. Read my handwriting. Um, anyways, so I think
Koen Frolichs: yeah, a lot of happened, huh
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: uh, a lot of stuff happened and I think, uh, last time we guessed what was gonna happen next. I don't think any of this was in there, really.
Koen Frolichs: No, no.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Although, I guess we were kind of open about what was gonna happen next, but I, I don't think any of this was really part of [00:05:00] the
Koen Frolichs: No, no.
It's basically like another like. I expected us already destroyed to go more towards the end, but I feel like more has just opened
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: up.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, so you know, we've, we've, we've still got 200 pages almost exactly to go.
Koen Frolichs: Sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So there's still, I guess you can't go too early, but
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. With last,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, I was a bit surprised too.
I thought there was gonna be something a bit more revelatory or something. I mean, I guess we just had, we just finished on. What's her name? Mely Beth. Molly Beth Gordon dying.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So that's like a major problem now. Yeah. Because I guess they can't, she was, she was kind of their person who helped them out, figure out what drove reach was up to.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, so that is in a way, like a major plot point, because now it's gonna get really hard to figure out what drove reach was up to.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah. Basically
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I die. We have some,
Koen Frolichs: yeah, yeah. No, I think, okay. I think, sorry, I, I have to admit, yesterday when I read it with her dying, I was a bit frustrated.
I was [00:06:00] like, come on, you know, don't kill all of them mob like this. So the Pyy warden, he died right before he could talk and then she died. How actually
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: hasnt appeared?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: actually on ho in the entire
Koen Frolichs: No.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Last hundred pages,
Koen Frolichs: I mean, information. Right. He, he hasn't been a banker for the past 18 months.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh, sorry.
That's, oh, sorry. That's true. Yeah, yeah. Right. Of course. Yeah. We learned a bit of background. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. So the idea is, I mean, that's what Researchings now is that he's been a criminal for the past 18 months, basically. Right.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, it seems like he, you know, was the boss of that.
Koen Frolichs: Air
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: conditioning. The truck driver, Sherman's, I keep forgetting it's Sherman's dollar.
It's such a random name, but yeah, I know. I guess like it's starting to become. Somewhat obvious what was going on and what the plot was. Yeah. Or what's, what the criminality is, I guess. Um, I mean it's, I'd be very surprised now if it wasn't also, they keep being Hispanic people there, so you'd assume that they were counterfeiting US dollars in Cuba or whatever.
Koen Frolichs: I think actually it's in, they're doing it in Venezuela, right? Because the kliner [00:07:00] have the, the cotton company there.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Ah,
Koen Frolichs: right. I didn't, I forgot
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: about that.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. The US dollar, I think it's, I looked it up. It's either 75% cotton and 25% linen, or the other way around.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh, I didn't know.
Koen Frolichs: Oh, very good. So it's, I mean, thank you.
And I think, okay, so this is something I know. Random facts,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: investigative journalism from Kon.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I read a batting cat once.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Um, no, I think the issue with the US dollar, um, is that all the. Dollar bills are the same size. So what you could do is if you have a $1 bill, you wash off basically the ink or whatever's on there.
Right. And then you print on, you know, a hundred on there and then at least like the, the one identifier, which is the paper is correct still.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Right. I see. But that's probably the least important, uh, what did you call it? Identifier?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I
Koen Frolichs: don't
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: know. 'cause I guess like the, I dunno, like I've never been to the Yes.
And I've never [00:08:00] had a, but I'm assuming it's gonna be roughly similar to the euro where you, on the notes, you have lots of like, shiny things and things you can only see from certain angles and blah, blah, blah, blah. Right.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. I wonder, I don't, I don't know. I mean, I, yeah, I didn't look this up this far, but, um, I think, yeah, I don't know.
I think counterfeiting is, is a difficult business.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But I guess the, the whole thing that. Molly Beth Gordon said at the phone. Was it her? I can't remember that. Someone said on the, to reach it is that they don't really have to be great because the plan isn't really to get them into the US anyway.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Only the best ones. Yeah. Which seems to be that the best ones get transported via the air conditioning boxes, right?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Maybe
Koen Frolichs: like the air conditioning company.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean, yeah, it was possible. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: When they were in like, uh, Sherman's Flats, like the, his girlfriend Judy showed them the garage and then they found like two empty boxes and it smelled, um, a bit sour.
I think he said. Or
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: did he can't remember.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. And I think that [00:09:00] could be the ink or something like that. Right? I mean, why wouldn't air conditioning smell sour? I dunno.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I, I don't remember that description. Okay. Um, I guess if that's, if, if that is in there and not just your imagination going wild, um, I'm pretty sure then.
Yeah. But why would ink smell sour? It was ink smell sour if you.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. I dunno. I mean dollar in didn't Google
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: that classic,
Koen Frolichs: classic
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: dollar. Your dollars are famous for this, I smell.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah,
Koen Frolichs: yeah. I dunno, I mean that might also be too obvious of a, you know, it could be like some, um, money laundering thing, right?
That they use these fake dollars to buy air conditions. And then
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I was gonna say that seems better. Yeah,
Koen Frolichs: yeah, yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But I don't know. So, okay. So we know that it's from the air conditioning thing and that holds, they have at least some presence of Florida. Right. And [00:10:00] she said in Atlanta they were right.
That's where she said there's a guy who looked Cuban. Now Cuba is of course, just off the coast of Miami.
Koen Frolichs: True.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So I wouldn't be surprised if, yeah, maybe they make the air conditioners in Cuba. I dunno. Import them into the US and then. The money that they bring into Cuba, that fake dollars or something?
Yeah, that could be, and then they can distribute it. But wait, no, sorry. That makes, does that make sense? I guess the dollars was supposed to be printed outside of the US anyway.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I don't know. But yeah, it is good that you mentioned the Venezuela I thing because I forgot that I've completely forgot that they had a cotton plantation in Venezuela.
Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. And then not just a cotton thing. They even mentioned something about they have like a new chemical process of, okay, now I'm gonna say cleaning the cotton. And I'm pretty sure they don't say cleaning the cotton, but like they have some new like recliner, old man kliner. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: They weren't allowed to do it here.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Because they killed the fishes in the US. Yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: exactly.
Koen Frolichs: Um, but like it seems like, you [00:11:00] know, if you are good with cotton, you can clean it or whatever. Some chemical pro, you can probably do the same with the dollar bills. That's seems to me very, very obvious.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Um, I don't know, maybe too obvious.
Yeah. To
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: be like a red. I think it is also, I'd imagine. Yeah. I think it's more that because if you have lost lots of money, you can probably get something that looks like ink. Like you don't need to produce it in-house. Right. You can.
Koen Frolichs: What do
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you mean? You know, like just because just because they have a chemical that is bad for the environment doesn't mean they do chemicals themselves.
Right. I think that's just a
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, sure. But like, I mean, it's not about, it's about using the chemicals, right?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah. But you're just gonna buy, like, the point is just like a fertilizer or chemical or whatever it is. Just something you can buy and you can also buy everything property you need to make.
Yeah,
Koen Frolichs: sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Fake dollars. That's what I mean. Sure. Like they, they have money, they can just buy it from wherever. And I think, I'd imagine the, the whole them using chemicals that they weren't allowed to use in the US and then moving to Venezuela. I'd imagine that that's more the [00:12:00] reason of why they initially left maybe, or how long ago did they leave?
I can't remember.
Koen Frolichs: Five years ago.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh, okay.
Koen Frolichs: And that's, and that's when they started and that's when they moved to Margrave. Like the little The little town.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. And started giving everyone loads and loads of money.
Koen Frolichs: I
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: thousand dollars a week is so much. I
Koen Frolichs: mean, that's the next thing, right? Could be money laundering.
Right? They're using the city as a big, big money laundering thing. I don't know exactly how.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah,
Koen Frolichs: because like Richo went to the barber shop, right? And then they said like, yeah, we get like a thousand bucks a week. Right? A thousand dollars a week.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: And I was thinking like, how could you, you know, could they get something out of that?
You know? You know, clean cash basically at the bottom.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Um, I mean, what you could, yeah, I don't know.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Wait, if it's a foundation, then it's a nonprofit, right? So you can probably write that off as donations.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, that could be, it could be tax. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. So
many
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: options.
Koen Frolichs: So many options.
Yeah. I [00:13:00] dunno either.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And we seem to know a bit. Too much. A bit. We seem to know. We seem to have too many thoughts about how to commit a crime, but we also don't have enough to really make sense here.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah. True. I mean, there's still the Sunday thing. That's the last thing Molly, pat Gordon said right before she
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: left.
Right. Which is like the least important thing she could have said, because everyone knew that. Like, thanks, Molly.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: It's like give us a, like who should we talk to? Or whatever. Not just get it done fast. Yeah, of course. By Sunday specific. But yeah. I, one question, did you understand what was going on in that scene when you read it initially?
No, because I was super confused by the whole scene.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, me too.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. Yeah. I was like, why? I mean, in part I was just really confused by the like, why doesn't she just wait for them?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: It's not like she's a secret agent. If you have, if she has her initials on the bag.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Right. Like she's not like, it's not like they're pretending, like, you know, drop off the bag [00:14:00] behind the thing there at this time.
Then you pick it up. Right. They're supposed to meet her. Why didn't she just. I dunno, I guess it was so full that she couldn't just, you know, she was, I dunno, I found it really confusing and it took me a while to figure out like, wait, what, what is going on here? Like, why is Reacher so desperate to reach her quickly?
I, I still don't really get it.
Koen Frolichs: No, I had to say I was, yeah, I was, I guess maybe like the, the way it was written was very hastily, you know, like, and as in like, it was a very like, um, tense scene. But I also, yeah,
this
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: supposed to be, but
Koen Frolichs: yeah. Which is,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I didn't realize this was supposed to be a tense scene.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, no,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: to me it just seemed like, okay, they're gonna meet her and then she's gonna say something or whatever, and then suddenly it got really hectic. I was like, why is, why is it so hectic?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah. No, yeah. I had to say, yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Also, you reckon that a secret agent or someone who works for the FBI or wait, was FBI.
Koen Frolichs: No treasury, right. State Treasury department.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Ah, okay. So she's not actually [00:15:00] a Oh, okay. Okay. I was about to say that. Like someone who works for the, I should probably manage not to get killed at an airport, but I guess if she's not actually, I mean, you should still kind of, I'm still sur like, yeah. Why did, how did she Yeah, I, yeah.
Koen Frolichs: And how did they get, how did
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: no one see this? There were like hundreds of people around.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. And they were dragging her into the, the baggage bay, right through one of those Yeah, that's what
I
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: sent
Koen Frolichs: holes where the bags come out. Yeah. I was, all I could think is like pre nine 11 airports, I heard they were like basically like Disneyland, like not Disneyland, but like everything was way lax.
Like also with the people, because like at airports nowadays you have to be, you are quite far away from, from the terminal. Right. You don't just wait, like if your family can't wait at the baggage claim even, right. I think,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think it depends on the airplane.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Okay. Or the
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: airport.
Koen Frolichs: But I feel like everything's way more separated now.
I dunno. Yeah. You can't get a murderer in there unless he flies with you, I guess, from Washington. [00:16:00]
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No, I think I, I think I remember being at an airport where you could, where the baggage area was pretty open.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But that also seems really, then you could just have people who just go there and collect shit.
That doesn't sound Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Uh, but you're right. I forgot that this is of course before 2001, so the airplane security was a lot less. Funnily enough, I heard, um, I can't remember who this was about, but there's a podcast called Behind the Bastards where they talk about like, horrible people.
And I can't remember which episode it was about. There was one episode where they had a bit of an aside about plane jackings.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So where people steal a plane. And apparently it was pretty common at the time, like in the seventies or whatever, like it was, it wasn't that, and especially to Cuba actually.
I mean, this is just coincidence probably. Um, but apparently it was pretty common that. That they would just land in Cuba and like apparently it was so common that they were like, you know, someone would wanna steal a plane into, I dunno, do some sort of political protest or get some money out of it or whatever.
Yeah. And [00:17:00] they like, yeah, it was so common that they had procedures around it and that kind of stuff. But they didn't have, but they didn't have the security so you could, I think back then, like you could just walk in with a gun onto a plane or whatever, you know?
Koen Frolichs: That's crazy.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Anyway, I think, I dunno whether what it was like in like in the mid nineties then with this place, but you're right, it is, this was before, I guess everything got crazy at airplane, at airports.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah. I guess so. I guess that plays a part. Um, there
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: still must have been loads of people. It wasn't like she was like 300 that the whole point right in front of everyone else.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: How did there must
Koen Frolichs: no one see this woman get dragged into a drug, into a, a baggage bag. Dragged. Dragged,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. Drug is something else
Koen Frolichs: maybe that happened to her.
Maybe the drug,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: but there would still have been lots of people. Yeah. I found that scene that that was really the first time that it properly went, went. This is not clearly written. I dunno what's going on. This is just confusing.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. I have to [00:18:00] admit, I had, I was a little bit confused there as well. Um, and then a little annoyed at the end when she just dies.
It's like, come on, don't kill off another one. I guess that's just part of the story, right? That's what it's re is about. Yeah. But,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: but who is, I mean, so wait, who has died? So Pyy died. Um, Molly, Beth Gordon died.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I guess the, the police. She and his wife.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Both. And Sherman Sto of course.
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, who else has died?
Koen Frolichs: I mean, Richard killed the two Latino
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: guys. Oh yeah. Those two guys. That's okay. Who are currently at six. But like, in terms of people who could give information,
Koen Frolichs: I mean, Hubble, Hubble is left, I feel.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah. He is not dead yet, so I'm assuming. Well, he hasn't been confirmed dead, so he must
Koen Frolichs: be, I think he's more of a ringleader.
That's what I, that's my guess now. Because we, we realize like he's
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. That's something they said, right?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Isn't that, isn't that something that Richer said or something like
Koen Frolichs: that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's been a criminal for, he's been a professional criminal for 18 months or something like that.[00:19:00]
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. He's not just an innocent bystander who Yeah. Kind of got blackmailed into this or something.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. No, it doesn't seem like it. Right. And
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: also it's either, so, you know, last time we had this question about exactly how much his wife knows, so either she's in on the whole thing or even she doesn't know, like, or Hubble lied to her for a year or something.
Yeah. And has been going somewhere every day.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Pretending and to
go
Koen Frolichs: to Atlanta. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Exactly. Here's an interesting thing. If Hubbel's wife is in on it, then I think she did something really smart, which is to give richer the Bentley.
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm. Yes. People
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: keep track of, because he's always identifiable.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah's
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you always, no way. He is. Right. Who, who drives around the agree Bentley?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So like, I, I, I, you know, it's. Like, for example, when the two, uh, Hispanic guys were following it or something like, it's, it's so easy to know where he is basically.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. 'cause that, that very rare and easy identifiable car.
Koen Frolichs: You're right.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's driving around everywhere.
Koen Frolichs: You're right. [00:20:00]
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Whereas, you know, all the other cars here are like generic cars.
Koen Frolichs: You're right. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So if she's in on it, that was a pretty smart move.
Koen Frolichs: You're right. Yeah. That is a smart move. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder now those Hubble.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: I mean, and that
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: and the kids.
What do the kids know? What did they do?
Koen Frolichs: I would say nail 'em to the wall. I bet
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: they they were the leaders.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Okay. So, and there's one more thing, right? Because there's, there does seem to be a mole because how, who knew that Molly, pat Gordon would come, right? There's only like three or four people who knew that like Findlay Roscoe richer.
And I was thinking maybe the FBI agent, I forgot his name. Pika. Pika. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But he didn't know about that or did he?
Koen Frolichs: He didn't. Yeah. See, I I,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I, I'm getting slightly confused now. There's, there's so many people in so
Koen Frolichs: many connections. He, there's lot going on. Yeah. Like who's, who knew Molly Pat Gordon was coming except for the three of them. [00:21:00]
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, technically they, they called her from the office, right.
From the police department. So if the police department has been corrupt from the head down, then I wouldn't be surprised if they have some sort of, I mean, you just need a microphone in an office. Right?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, that's true. That's true.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's, that's fairly, yeah. That shouldn't be too difficult. Then of course, the people who killed Joe Reacher probably know who he is and know where he worked and maybe, I dunno, figured, figured out that she has some, she knows something or whatever.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But wait, but let's, okay, let's, let's clarify this because I'm not quite sure now. I think Picard doesn't know anything about her. Uh, so if I'm correct, so Finley contacted Pika right? And said get mm-hmm. Take care of the hobbles.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Or the, the wife and the children. And then Picard did that. And then they asked him for, what did they ask him for again?
Did it happen in this part? He gave them something, yeah.
Koen Frolichs: [00:22:00] Um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: who gave them the hotel? Where?
Koen Frolichs: I think that was him. The car? I think he did the car, didn't he track? Oh, no, no. See, yeah. No, I confused, confused, confused. Yeah. Actually what I, what I just thought about actually something a little
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh,
Koen Frolichs: different.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Good.
I was just about to say, I don't think I can randomly find the page where we'll find the relevant information. I flick it up in here and the first sentence I looked at richer Finlay said, Pika got what we need. He traced the car.
Koen Frolichs: Ah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So I guess I can randomly find the exact sentence we need.
Koen Frolichs: That's a very good skill to have.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. It doesn't apply to scientific research though. Too bad.
Okay. So Picard does PI load
Koen Frolichs: Pi? Okay. He does something. Actually, what I was just thinking about, right? 'cause everyone's talking about Sunday, right? Sunday something happening in the beginning.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So what day is it? Just briefly. Is it like Tuesday, Wednesday something?
Koen Frolichs: Tuesday Wednesday? Yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, yeah.
Something
Koen Frolichs: like that. So in the beginning there was always this, um, the president, right? Could it be like [00:23:00] some voting thing?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: The president?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Like the, the p the elections. The president was doing something to get elected again,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: right? Oh God. I could,
yes.
Koen Frolichs: Especially because like Joe, Joe Richard turned around the American, like the, the motto like the pluribus unum.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Name Pluribus Unum. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: So out of many one, right?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: And then, but he turned around. So one out of many could be, could be the president. Just totally making this up at, on the spot.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Wait, why? Out of one many, but why,
Koen Frolichs: like, the president gets chosen, you know, from all the people. He's the one to like represent the American people, right?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Just making it up on the spot. I don't know. Okay. Yeah, I mean, it's just that, that, I mean, I didn't think about this, um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Much more than just now. But there's something going on on Sunday. In the beginning of the book, he talks about some elections.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh. But [00:24:00] in America, they don't vote on Sundays.
Right. That was the last, they, at least the presidents elections. I mean, maybe there's some local elections, but they, they're not on Sundays.
Koen Frolichs: Well, that sound,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: um, but that would be too big, I think. But you are right there, there was always talk about the elections. Now you have the US motto. Uh,
Koen Frolichs: well, and he was taking money away from people, like he was taking money away from what the Coast guards.
Giving it somewhere else. Yeah. Coastguard. I dunno.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: God, if that's correct, you have a very good memory. I, I remember there being something about this, but I, I don't remember what, what the talk about the president was about. I just remember Rich ignoring it. That's,
Koen Frolichs: yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: All I remember.
Koen Frolichs: I shouldn't have you, you should have, you know, he got to plot Right, right in the beginning of the book.
Richer Could finish. Shorter book.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Shall I try to see if I can Yeah. Open it. Find book. Okay. Okay. I have no idea where this was, but it was pretty early. Let's see.
Koen Frolichs: It was early. Yeah.
Okay. We'll
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: keep cutting it until you find it. I meet to Finley for the first, oh. I found at least the [00:25:00] United States motto. I said I was, so I managed with the second look to at least find vaguely the topic we were talking about.
Koen Frolichs: Okay. I'll give you one more shot. I'll give you
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: one more shot. Okay. I have no idea.
I, I put up page 24 5. Um, okay. One more. Let's see. Nah, I didn't get it. Oh, did I wait? Nope, nope, nope. Sorry.
Koen Frolichs: No.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Ah, should have stopped.
Koen Frolichs: If
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you randomly get something correct, just stop. Yeah,
Koen Frolichs: yeah. Okay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Now I don't have a skill anymore.
Koen Frolichs: Well, that's out of the window, but I am like, I'm, I'm doing like some very, very big guesswork, trying to connect very loose dots.
Um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah,
Koen Frolichs: I
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: think, okay. Yeah, no, go ahead. It seems li unlikely right now, right? Or
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Oh, actually one, one more person who might notice this gray, um, this detective, the former detective who hung
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: himself Oh, of course. The files. Yeah, the
Koen Frolichs: files.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: He'll have some files. Yeah, [00:26:00] exactly. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And also, oh, this is actually, here's the thing, right?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: He killed himself.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Unexpectedly.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Very unexpectedly.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Well,
Koen Frolichs: did he or was it like a Russian suicide where like Yeah. He shut himself in the back twice.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Exactly. No, I dunno. But he, I, I. Uh, when was that? I can't remember.
Koen Frolichs: Five. Was it also five years ago? Oh,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: no, it was less. I thought it was, was way less
Koen Frolichs: three years.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Was it? I
Koen Frolichs: can't, no. Three months? No, it was a couple months. You're right. It was a couple months
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: ago. Yeah, I think it was months.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah. Three months I think.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So if he, okay, so we can then basic. So basically what we're assuming right now is that he found something on them, then they killed him. So, which means probably in the next part they're gonna look through the files and then find a page missing.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like annoying shit like that.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Exactly. That's gonna happen, isn't it?
Koen Frolichs: Come on, Mr. Child.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's my prediction. That's gonna happen next. Uh, I mean, not next, but in the next a hundred pages.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. [00:27:00] Actually I had a. I had, I thought I had like a, a, a clue figured out. And I then, like, I read on and I, um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah,
Koen Frolichs: I realized it didn't, but I'm still gonna think, um, say what I think.
I mean, the rest is all, like the counterfeiting happening in Venezuela still think that's good.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah,
Koen Frolichs: that makes sense. But I actually, I, I actually thought like, because the Kleer kit, the steps on set, like he waited for Roscoe for five years. I was like, oh, maybe 'cause it, because it, okay, here's my thinking.
Roscoe has like a, like a gun from gray, right. The old detective will killed himself. Yeah. I was like, who would you trust with a gun except for someone you might be dating, right? So I was like, oh, dec.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But they were just, I mean, he, mm. Okay. Yeah. Continue
Koen Frolichs: with this. I only hide guns for people who I'm dating.
That's the
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: thing. I haven't seen you hide any gun.
Koen Frolichs: Wow.
That's Jesus. That's a bit of a bird.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Sorry.
Koen Frolichs: Sorry. Um, yeah, that's just gonna take some
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: time. Sorry, your theory. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. My [00:28:00] theory, um, excuse me. So the Kleiner kid said he wait for like five years to you, by the
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: way, just quickly. Kun is very good at reading through tears you wouldn't even notice from his
Koen Frolichs: voice.
Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. I'm very good at hiding it. Um, the kind of gets said, he waited for five years to be with Roscoe, and I was like, that, you kind of say that as in like, you know, but now she's mine. And if Gray like, kind of killed himself, if they were dating and he killed himself, he could be like, ah, you know, but like bros could deny it later on, so it's not happening.
Um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: what did she deny
Koen Frolichs: that they were dating? Right. She just said like, he was a very, um. Like she was close to him. Well, she, she didn't say they were dating, but I, I, I think that's kind of hard to order now,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: but maybe she wouldn't wanna say it.
Koen Frolichs: That's true.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Right? I mean, she didn't like explicitly say I didn't date him.
She just said we were clo or whatever.
Koen Frolichs: You were very close.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: At least I don't remember her denying it, so. Okay. I never thought of that.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, but didn't they just have the same office also?
Koen Frolichs: Well, he was detective, right. So I guess he had like, he was the [00:29:00]
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, well it's a small police department, so they Yeah,
Koen Frolichs: I think they share, shared the ground floor.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. It is weird that the Klan kid would say, I waited five years. I mean, I guess since they arrived, right? I mean that's, you know, that's, that could be beginning as well. The beginning is obvious since he arrived.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But why would he wait? I mean, I guess did he try and she just said no. So he is like, okay, I'll wait, I'll wait, I'll wait a bit and then,
Koen Frolichs: yeah, I don't know.
I don't know either.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Mm-hmm. So many plot points. Um,
Koen Frolichs: yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. So you, you mentioned there might be a mole.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So let's say they didn't just, you know, tap the phones or whatever, that would be a bit boring.
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, so let's say there's a mole. So we already, I, you know, I guess we, I already opened that question last time of basically saying Wonder Finley or Rosco.
So now the question is who, and the interesting thing is both kind of have good points is, I mean, well I guess we mentioned [00:30:00] last time, like the motive versus not, and that kinda stuff.
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And that it maybe went very fast with Rosco, whatever. Uh, but one interesting thing is that they both have different kinds of power in a way here.
So Finley has the power that he instruct. He's the only one talking to Pika.
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And so even if Pika is completely clean and everything, right?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Then at least Finley can tell him what to do, and. Yeah, keep him line. And, and he's usually the guy who transmits information from Picard to the others and that kind of stuff.
Right. So, um, there's a, he, he can kind of manipulate quite a bit there.
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: The other thing that's interesting is that, of course now reacher confess to murdering two people to Roscoe and Roscoe has the gun.
Koen Frolichs: Oh.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So they have, so now she basically as a, as [00:31:00] a, as a police woman, has a confession. I guess they don't, they haven't found the victims yet, but she has a confession and the murder weapon.
So that's also a potential source of, um, and, and a weapon that's very rare also. Right. Yeah. Is that like, it's such a big thing, like it's pretty unique.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I guess either one of them is someone who reach, really wouldn't want to be a mo.
Koen Frolichs: True.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um. But then again,
Koen Frolichs: yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I guess the, the big question is though, I guess, is that if, so I, Roscoe seems less likely now it seems to me because number one, she had plenty opportunity to kill Rich if she wanted to.
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Which is what it seems like the two Hispanic guys wanted. Like they seem to want to kill Richa.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And she could have easily done it already.
Koen Frolichs: True.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, so that seems less likely.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Also the break in into her house could of course have been staged because Oh yeah, that's the [00:32:00] thing. So, you know, there was the break in into a house.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Where, you know, it seemed like it was the same people, but then again it happened when they weren't there. Which of course Rosco could have told them if she's in on it.
Koen Frolichs: Well, yeah. But it did, did go on a whim. Right. Kind of Did it leave like kind like
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, but she could have like just texted them, right?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah. True, true, true.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Like it, they could have done it a worst case scenario. They could have waited two days and done it during the daytime, whatever.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, like she could have, well. Dunno. Was texting common in the nineties? They didn't even have, they didn't even have mobile phones in the book, right?
Or did they have mobile phones?
Koen Frolichs: No, I think, um, Charlie has a mobile phone and she turned it off.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, okay. Oh yeah, of course, of course. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: But they were probably a lot less common. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But the point is she could have, you know,
Koen Frolichs: yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Some at some point probably
Koen Frolichs: told them she Yeah. Or even said to Richa, like, no, I don't wanna go to a hotel, let's stay here.
Right. 'cause richer kind of said like, wanna go to like Atlanta, go to a bar. Yeah. Actually it wasn't [00:33:00]even their plan to stay in a hotel. They were just too drunk too. Drive home.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But not drunk and still not drunk enough to drive to a motel. Roscoe's letting Rich get away with quite a lot of crimes here.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah. The things you do for love, huh?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. But, okay, so let's say it's not her, if it's Finley, I guess we said he has a motive potentially with financial problems.
Koen Frolichs: Financial problems, yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, he has the connections. Yeah, he has, he has the weird way in which he arrived in this random place after being in Boston.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And some information seems to be getting leaked.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And he's at a good point to do it.
Koen Frolichs: I mean, they did talk about his baker, this other cop.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Who's that? Because I was, and there's like Stevenson, there's another way I keep, they come up like once or twice and I keep forgetting who they are.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
I mean, they were just the cops [00:34:00] who together with Finlay arrested Richer. Right.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh, were those ones okay. I can't
Koen Frolichs: remember.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: And they think they're clean, but.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But they never really investigated this. Right?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. I mean the, the reason why they think they're clean is because, um, they didn't get promoted to be like, what is it?
Like superintendent or something like that, which is like, not chief,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think
Koen Frolichs: Police chief. Yeah. Which is not the most,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: it's, it's not solid logical thinking because you have one position and of course you might want to hire like, so what's the word? To give someone a better job?
Koen Frolichs: Promote,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: promote, thinking.
You might want to promote someone from intern internally. Mm-hmm. But just because they didn't do that doesn't mean they're clean.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's not, it's not solid. But yeah, I don't know. Yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think that's kind of, but it's okay.
Koen Frolichs: Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, I just wanted to like start fig going through again who the 10 people could be.
Koen Frolichs: Got it. Yeah. Come on.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. Actually, [00:35:00] the 10 people, wait, who? Who said that there were 10 people? Because the first of was Hubble and I guess we can't really trust anything he said.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So. Maybe there's not 10 people.
Koen Frolichs: Mm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Right. Un But unless we've heard that from somewhere else.
Koen Frolichs: No, I think it was Hubble.
Hubble in jail.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. It's tricky. Hubble. So, so here's, so here's one important thing, right? Is that we're basically assuming right now that Reacher is good at telling whether people are telling the truth or not
Koen Frolichs: true.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's kind of what a lot of our interpretation hinges on here. Yeah. Because we have, uh, the way Charlie acted, the way Hubble acted the way, Roscoe's acting, Finlay's acting, you know, all these people, we only see them through Reach's lens.
So right now he's basically taking everyone at face value. But for example, at least with Hubble, in a way that can't be the case. I mean, I guess he could still be worried for his life in prison and they could still try to have killed him.
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But see, here's the weird thing though. If Hubble is like one of the leaders, then why?[00:36:00]
Did he then confess immediate, like he, you know, he generally seemed scared. Scared of them, right?
Koen Frolichs: Well, it's, well from the word pl pluribus, right? It was the word pl pluribus that that set him off, which is so funny. Why that word? Right?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. And it's also not clear whether, so right now we know that whether, you know that it comes from the US motto, but that it's potentially turned around.
Mm-hmm. Because of what Joe Reer wrote.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But we don't know whether it was turned around, for example, by Hubble or whoever else was inside of the thing.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's
true.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And we dunno whether they even used that. It might just have been the code word within the whatever agency. Again, treasury department.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Treasury department. Yeah. So we don't really know whether they even, I guess they must have, because Hubble started acting differently once that came out. So I guess, yeah. It must have been some sort of internal
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, he must have known. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, I really, it could of course be that the treasury [00:37:00] de treasury Department is in on it.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Everyone, the president is in on it.
Koen Frolichs: The president is a criminal. Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: The president in the nineties was Clinton. Seems about right.
Uh, I think he was, I don't know. Yeah, I think he was in 19 94, 5, 6, whenever this was, I mean,
Koen Frolichs: after Bush came after and that was like 2000
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: and before,
Koen Frolichs: I assume Bush then got present like 98 or something. That's my guess.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Wait, let's see if I can get my US history right. No, actually. Okay, ko, if we can do some math, we can do it.
So the last election was in 2020.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. So 16
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: every four years an election. 12. So 2000, oh, it was 19. 19. The 2000.
Koen Frolichs: Two 16, there was Trump's first year.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No, but sorry, 2000 was the one with Al Gore. Right. Where he, where they had to like count something in Miami like several times. And Bush won by a few votes.
We should probably [00:38:00] stop talking about things that happened when we were eight, when
Koen Frolichs: That is true. That is true.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: As as if we know anything about this.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, we do.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Whilst living on a different continent in a different language.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. And getting all my info from like Reddit actually not, it's now The Guardian, which is like fair I think.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Moving up a step.
Koen Frolichs: Moving up a step,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. Anyway, um,
Koen Frolichs: yeah, I mean it's, it's probably not the president, it's probably not the Treasury department. Um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, that seems unlikely.
Koen Frolichs: Okay. So here's, I think, I
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: mean also, sorry if it's the Treasury Department, they got two of their own people killed.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. They could have just, yeah.
Yeah, you're right. Um. It could still be that Charlie is in on it. You're right. Actually, with the Ben, you gave me a good clue, especially because she's so composed and she said, no, he's not dead. Right. And then if she's talking to PIKA and like,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: want some of this money, [00:39:00]
Koen Frolichs: yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: maybe Phil, or
Koen Frolichs: even if
Pi,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: maybe it's Pika.
Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: No, no. I think even PIKA could be straight. But um, if he's telling her like, oh, they're doing this now and she's got a mobile phone, she's texting it through, through Hubble.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Ah, I see.
Koen Frolichs: You know. I would say Neil, one of the kids up on the wall. Okay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: You make a
Koen Frolichs: talk.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: You know why PIKA has to be one of the bad guys?
Koen Frolichs: No. '
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: cause he is bigger than richer, which makes for a good fight scene.
Koen Frolichs: Oh, that is.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: He's trained and he's bigger than richer. So that would make for a good fight scene.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. And then Richer has a knife hidden in his shoe and he just fucking shanks him. Yeah, that's true. Hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Or he takes the big gun and shoots the car and nothing happens.
'cause the guy's so big he doesn't even care.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. He's like,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: doesn't even notice. Yeah. I don't know. But yeah, so it's, oh God, so, so this is really, yeah, it's very complicated, isn't it? Because you have, so basically you have now this chain of people from. Hubble Hub's wife who may or may not be linked right now in terms of like information [00:40:00]exchange.
Then you have Hubble and his wife and Pika who uh, it seems definitely linked in terms of information. Then you have PIKA and Finley who are definitely linked information and then Finley relays everything to everyone. So somewhere along that chain.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, there seems to be a mo or, or like, or like, or like just like major Thiel, mayor Thiel.
I'm sorry.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Mayor.
Koen Frolichs: Um, mayor Thiel. Um, tapping.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: He's not the army.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I dunno whether for anyone listening who knows about military grades, I don't dunno whether majors in the Army or Navy, whatever should have said military, not army.
Koen Frolichs: Is that a difference? I thought they had like the same ranks, but then like Navy.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No, I looked this up once. I looked up like what the different ranks were and they have different names because like you can't, it doesn't make sense if you are like a 'cause Navy in theory, I guess you're like a, I dunno what the words are. You are, you are in charge of a ship or boat. Right. It doesn't make sense to call someone from the army like a captain or whatever.
Koen Frolichs: Ah, yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. [00:41:00]
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But I dunno what, what the correct terms are anyway. Um, and I forgot how we got here.
Koen Frolichs: Um, because it's that major, major instead of mayor.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Um, yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: it's a relevant point
Koen Frolichs: or tangent. Yeah. I mean, I feel like we kind of went through the book now, like, or like to the, to these chapters.
I think we kind of, are we missing something big?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So there's of course the black pickup truck that's,
Koen Frolichs: yeah. That's constantly kind of following them towards the airport. So that kind of like shows you someone's up to date on, on Richer and Roscoe. Right.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Well, but I mean they killed Molly Beth Gordon, so
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: True. That really, right?
Yeah,
Koen Frolichs: true. I mean the black, so we know that kind of shows that it might be the liners, right? Because the liner kid is
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: wonder, I'm wondering, okay, here's a quick question. So maybe it's okay. New theory. New theory. It's more than one group. That's the bad guys.
Koen Frolichs: Oh.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Because I'm wondering right now.
So they just set the two Hispanic kids. [00:42:00] Oh, men on reiterate. That was like a day before.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: he killed both of them.
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I dunno. So maybe, so the theory was this, so if they just set someone up to intervene there, why would they do it again the next day? The only reason why I think of is either because it's more than one group or something, or because those two people were supposed to report back at a certain time and didn't, and I guess, yeah, I guess they, well they definitely want to make sure that nothing happens till Sunday.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. That's
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: so, so maybe time is urgent, so you might just send two people anyway. Yeah. But you know, it seems slightly weird that they send two different people after him.
Koen Frolichs: Well, they could just be contract killers or something. Right. Just 'cause they were not
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: part
Koen Frolichs: of
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: the
Koen Frolichs: 10. Sorry, if you Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. But like if you, if you hire someone to kill someone, like you don't hire a group to do that.
Right? [00:43:00]
Koen Frolichs: Sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Like you, you know, if you assume that your contract killer can kill someone, right. That's why you're hire them. You don't,
Koen Frolichs: yeah. It's
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: contract. It's two people and then they both say, oh yeah, we killed him, and then you have to pay twice. Like that doesn't make sense. Yeah. But maybe they were supposed to report back at some point.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I just don't know if it's like, I don't, I also don't know, like, 'cause nowadays you would just have like, you know, WhatsApp, I guess as a contract killer. You don't use WhatsApp, um, use
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: signal.
Koen Frolichs: Exactly. No. But you use something and say like, you know, deed's done. But like, maybe in 97 or when it was, you would say like, okay, I'll call you at to payphone.
Right. That's my movie knowledge in like a week.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Or you just send them the head in a box.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah. Something like that. Yeah. So that could be that there's like the, the transfer of information is just a little slower. That's why he can get a richer, can get away with like shooting them, basically shooting their chest up.
Yeah. Um, and then being okay for a while still. Right. Maybe the people are not sure, like, are like, okay, [00:44:00] like the two Latino guys are still on his tail and they're gonna kill him at some point. Um, I don't know.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. So we've, we have now kind of three people who've tried to kill Richard. The first is the people at Roscoe's place.
Koen Frolichs: Well, prison first, right? Oh, no, I guess, no, that was Hubble. Sorry. Yeah. Roscoe's Place. Yeah, you're right. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So then Roscoe's place, then the Latino guys, and then this black pickup truck. And somehow, I'm not entirely sure that these are the three same people, right?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, you're right. But I think the black pickup truck, I, I always, so I actually assumed the black pickup truck was, you know, I mean, kind of, you know, I guess it's a false trail, but like, uh, could be recliners, right?
'cause he, the kid drives a black pickup. Um, but I thought he was there at the airport to kill Mary. Be Gordon.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: The Kleiner.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Because they're not gonna it themselves.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah. Well that's the thing, right? Um, it could be that you give someone your pickup truck. I don't know. But I thought he wasn't there to kill Richa, but he was there to kill [00:45:00] Mary.
Be or not Mary. Be Molly.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Sorry. You're right. Yeah. But it's okay. Yeah, you're right. They, they didn't actually try to kill Richa you. Right.
Koen Frolichs: That's probably why Richa was panicking. 'cause he saw the black pickup
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: and he was like,
Koen Frolichs: ah, fuck. They're coming for Molly. I think it's Molly
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Beth. That's right. Yeah. It's Molly, Molly, Beth Gordon.
I had to write that name down. So I remember. It's the handy thing of actually these summaries. I have to remember everyone's name.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. The name
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: is, and I have to look up stuff like, oh wait, what? Did they do this? Or did they do not do this? Yeah, no, you're right. Of course. So they could have hired two people, one to kill Modi, Beth Gordon, and one to
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Like one group of people to kill her and one group of people to kill Richa.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But then again, they were following reacher though.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, that's true.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So that's interesting. Right. They were following Richa. If they wanted to kill Molly, Beth Gordon, they could have just waited at the airport. Because they clearly knew who she was.
Right. Because it's not like Richard said, oh, hall, hello Molly. Beth Gordon, here you are. And then they abducted her, murdered her. They hadn't really met yet. They just like did. They knew who exchanged glances. She was, they knew who she was. [00:46:00]
Koen Frolichs: That's weird actually. That's weird actually, because even Richa didn't know Right.
It they couldn't have like,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. And then there's actually one more loose point we haven't talked about. Um, Joe, Joe Richer had two phone numbers. Like from like history professors,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: modern history. Yeah. That I had to look that up 'cause like, 'cause I first I wrote in art history, but no, there were two professors of modern history.
One at Columbia and one at, can't remember Princeton. Something like that.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, something like that.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um,
Koen Frolichs: why is that? Like, what does that have to do with it?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Exactly. That was, and also why did Richer just hang up so quickly?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. It's richer.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And then there's, there's the New Orleans Police Department, which is also weird because New Orleans.
Is in Louisiana, which is neither in Georgia, nor in Florida. So we've now got a third state.
Koen Frolichs: When's Mardi Gras?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I dunno.
Koen Frolichs: It's done a Sunday.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I'll look this up. We have the internet. I still don't actually know what it is. Isn't it just carnival?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, it's like [00:47:00] a carnival where you,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: well, Tuesday.
Koen Frolichs: Fuck.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, I guess that makes sense.
Otherwise it'd have to be on Easter Sunday for it to be a Sunday.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, that's right actually. Ah, yeah. It's, it's like the same,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: it seems to be
Koen Frolichs: it's from
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: there. Uh, but I, I'm not gonna look too much into this, but anyway, so it's not that. Uh, but yeah, so we have, wait, I need, I, I roughly know where the states are in the US but I don't know what exactly the, well, let's look at New Orleans.
Koen Frolichs: Is it quite close to Florida?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No, it's not even close to Georgia.
Koen Frolichs: Hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean. Depends what your frame of reference is, but so Florida is the southern most, right? The one that
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. With little appendix basically, right?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, exactly. Then north of that is Georgia actually thought it was west of it, but north of Florida is Georgia.
Koen Frolichs: Okay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, on the eastern side, north of it. And Atlanta is actually [00:48:00] fairly north in Georgia also. So we're almost talking, doesn't look that far from Tennessee there. Anyway, then you've got Georgia, then west of that you've got Alabama.
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: West of that Mississippi and west of that you've got Louisiana.
So it's actually Oh wow. Ways removed.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: exactly. It would take quite a bit. It would take, well, let's see. How long would it take to drive to Atlanta from New Orleans? Um,
Koen Frolichs: bit badly.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Well, okay, so my mine is still set to, uh, walking initially. So it would take six days and 18 hours to walk at reacher speed.
But your drive would be six hours. It's actually not that. Okay. I thought it would be less, uh, more actually.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, me too.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um. 'cause the US is so big anyway. Uh, so yeah. So New Orleans does not, it's not directly located
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Next to Georgia and Florida. Sure. So it's also a bit off. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Shall we make some, um, educated guesses for next, um, basically the part four out of five, right?
The next a hundred pages.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Exactly. Um, so the [00:49:00] next, so, uh, just to clarify, the next time we're going to read until page 419, which is the beginning of chapter 27. Uh, so this is gonna be the shortest part we're gonna discuss because it's only gonna be 98 pages. Um, but still,
Koen Frolichs: yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, okay. So I think we have to hear from hobble again.
Koen Frolichs: We have
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: to directly Yeah. He can't just, I mean, of course we knew learn something about him, but Yeah. He has to, at least either him or his wife have to make some sort of appearance.
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, yeah, so I, I already made my. Prediction that they are going to look into the, into gray's files and find a page missing.
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm. Okay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Or, you know, something to that effect. I'd be so annoyed if that actually the case and I predicted it so disappointed. Then I think reacher has to start questioning who he can trust, whether Finlay and [00:50:00] Roscoe, because as we said, there's some sort of information is leaking somewhere and mm-hmm.
He has to start questioning that. Yeah. Um, especially like the, the, the Molly Beth Gordon. How did they know? That she was even gonna be at the airport. Yeah. And that she was gonna give them information like, so Yeah. So I think that's gonna happen. Maybe your thing about Venezuela and Cotton, maybe that's gonna play a bit of a part.
I never thought of that. Um,
Koen Frolichs: okay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So maybe it's, it's gonna be brought a bit more into attention. Yeah,
Koen Frolichs: yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Like that, like what the client, what the clients are doing, because they kind of, very much in the background, they appear like every 50 pages for two sentences or something
Koen Frolichs: like
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: that.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um,
Koen Frolichs: yeah, you're right.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, do you have anything more or I'll think of some more, or whilst you're speaking?
Koen Frolichs: No. Yeah. I, I think also, I mean, I would like to know what's, what the criminal activity that is that's going on. Like what's happening in a warehouse, I guess. Like, you know, these air conditioning, that, that's kind of what I talked about.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. [00:51:00] Some kind of money laundering, I feel like. Yeah. In Venezuela they're making these fake, you know, the counterfeit dollars. Um, and some of it are, I. To this foundation is something they're getting some of the best counterfeit dollars into, into the states. Yeah, you're right. But you're right.
Yeah. I feel like we're missing something. We're missing like a person, like a, a connection. Sorry, go ahead.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No, you continue. Yeah, I was gonna say something slightly. Next topic.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, no, no. I mean, just that I feel like, you know, either in these grace files, which I hope are not empty 'cause I'll be frustrated.
Um,
I
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: mean, they might still find something, right? Yeah. But they might not find the most crucial thing. Yeah,
Koen Frolichs: true. Yeah. No, yeah. I, I feel I'm, I'm drawing some blanks from, basically what I've said is, you know, as far as I can go,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: so one thing also I said, you know, like maybe they're giving money to the town for tax reasons because they can deduct it for whatever.
That seems too lame. Yeah. I [00:52:00] hope it's not that there has to be something more also like, you don't also, like, let's, okay, here's the thing, right? They're giving a thousand dollars a week. Which is $4,333 a month on average.
Koen Frolichs: Nice.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: To a barber shop. Mm-hmm. That's one place.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Right. They're spending, uh, yeah, they're spending $50,000 a year on a barber's place.
Like that's a lot of money. Considering it's only one place in the entire town, it seems too much money for tax deductibles. I dunno. Maybe, I guess if you, if you have lots and lots of money, maybe it is, but um,
Koen Frolichs: yeah, there's something going on there. I feel like this, this town is being used for some
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: something.
Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Money laundering, evasion. I mean, even Roscoe is getting like, uh, some benefits on her house, right. Like some,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: uh, oh, yeah. She said she was getting, she was earning way more than a truck, and as far as I understood, truckers don't earn bad.
Koen Frolichs: Well, she said she could afford the house only because she got like an extra thingy from the Kinder Foundation again.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Exactly
Koen Frolichs: right. [00:53:00] Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Or yeah, whatever. Yeah. So there's, there's, there's a lot of money going around that town. Yeah. And it was just chosen as this random place. Georgia close to Atlanta? Um,
yeah, I don't, I don't know either. Um, I have to admit, the geography now is slightly throwing me off. I thought Georgia was somewhere else. I thought it was on the South coast. Like I thought it was like between Louisiana and Mississippi or something. I didn't, I didn't know it was, um, that far north. And somehow that changes it a bit to me.
I dunno exactly know why.
Koen Frolichs: Okay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Somehow think about that, but somehow it seems, it seems like a random place now to transfer stuff. Like, because if you're in Florida, you've already got it in the us, right?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: You've already done your thing.
Koen Frolichs: That's what you want, right? You want some, somewhere, you know, like it's a small town where no one will complain.
That's all the thing. You're probably buying silence, right? No one talks about declines. That's what they want, right? So you're buying silence. Like, dude, if you, if [00:54:00] Ben like this one, if you pay me 2000 a week. Or 2000. 2000.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: You want more than a barber shop? Okay.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm more, I talk too much, Ben.
It's, it's more of a, more of a hassle for me to shut up. Um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: okay.
Koen Frolichs: Rights. I mean, if, if I can live my life very comfortably and, you know, in the same town I've always lived, you know, I, I won't talk about you. Right. That's kind of, I think that's what you're doing. They're buying silence.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think $2,000 a week is gonna get you pretty fine.
Sitar.
Koen Frolichs: I live like a king. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Straight corners from sitar. For those who don't know, just
Koen Frolichs: people, they're
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: like, why? They're talking about, what is that even? Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Look it up on YouTube.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Um, yeah. So I dunno either what exactly the thing is, but it seems like. Yeah. I mean, well, we have to learn a lot next time because we can assume that like the last 20 pages or whatever are gonna be a, a bit of a cool down, you know, everything settles down. [00:55:00]
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Then there's gonna be a big, like, final fight scene or whatever before that.
So we pretty much have to know what's, what's up in after know almost everything in the next part.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. I hope so. Yeah, I hope so. I mean, I have to admit, like I'm, every time I have to stop reading basically, because, you know, I can't go on, I'm like, God dammit, I wanna know. So in a way, he's doing his thing, right?
Like, Lee Child is writing, he's drawing me in.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: He's drawing you in? Yeah. Okay. I st I've still continued reading the other book and there's some interesting quotes I picked out from that, but I think we've already done the time today, so I, maybe next time there'll be less to talk about because it will, the mystery will clear and it's also less, less material, less pages, fewer pages,
Koen Frolichs: yeah.
Probably less speculation.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah. Anything else?
Koen Frolichs: I don't think so. I mean,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you haven't really said anything super weird now.
Koen Frolichs: No.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Do you?
Koen Frolichs: Hey.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Huh? You've kept it together?
Koen Frolichs: I kept it together.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, for a second, when you said, Hey, Ben, if you're gonna [00:56:00]give me $2,000 a week, I was like, where's this going? But then you said you'll just keep quiet.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, no, I did it. Um, and I feel like this is the first time we actually talked about the, you know,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. We really talked about the content.
Koen Frolichs: We really talked about the content. Yeah. Just to show everyone, I mean, everyone stopped listening anyways after like half an hour of the first one. So Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No one started to begin with, so.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, that's true. I think, I mean, I think, um, Lisa, such Lisa Amana said they, they listen.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh no.
Koen Frolichs: So, hi.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Hello. Hello, Liza. Uh, Liza. Um, if you are listening, then uh, I guess you have to let us know. If you don't let us know, then we'll assume
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: You are lying to us.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, you're lying. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: We're gonna ask you whether you, how, how are you?
Koen Frolichs: Oh, let's give him, let's give him a code word. What's the code word, Ben?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I was gonna say Pbu.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, pbi. What's the German pluribus? What's the German motto? Do you know?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, [00:57:00] I don't dunno. Just Germany have a motto. I don't know. Be on time is probably the German motto.
Something like that. It's
Koen Frolichs: fine.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Don't be late. Um, yeah. Anyway, I don't know. Um, this is enough.
Koen Frolichs: This
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: is
Koen Frolichs: enough? Yeah. Okay. They'll figure it out
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: because after we pretend no one's listening, but, you know, give it a few years that we, millions of downloads of people who are very frustrated right now that we're talking about someone else.
Koen Frolichs: So, yeah. I'm sorry, those people. We, we also like you guys.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. We just don't wanna set you up for failure the way we wanna set up Anna Lisa.
Koen Frolichs: Exactly.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Anyway, we've been going on it for too long, so I, that next week we're gonna read until page
Koen Frolichs: treat.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I say Cool.
Koen Frolichs: Four 19.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. 419, the beginning of chapter 27.
Don't look at the chapter because it says something about Charlie Hobble.
Koen Frolichs: No,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I just, I dunno what though. I just saw her name. I just saw [00:58:00] Charlie Ho on, uh, you know, the, the beginning of, of, not this time, but Yeah. Of 20, chapter 27.
Koen Frolichs: Okay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But then again, I, we assumed she was gonna be alive or something. Right?
Like,
Koen Frolichs: yeah, she's doing something. Okey doke.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So I'm afraid I don't have a fun way to introduce the book today because you didn't say anything weird last time. So I have no, the book that introduced Jack Richer and made Gordon whatever. There's nothing. I don't have anything.
Koen Frolichs: There's nothing,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: shit.
Koen Frolichs: Okay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Anyways, I guess I'll just start by saying this is the fourth part Yeah.
Of our discussion of Lee Child's first novel Killing Floor, the book that introduce this Jack Cher and
Koen Frolichs: mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's it.
Koen Frolichs: That's your intro. [00:59:00] I, I really, I'm really, I'm really sorry. Um, I didn't give you any, any food.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: There's no, I guess, I guess I could say the book that introduced Jack Richer and Made Koon behave normally for an hour.
Maybe, maybe that's it.
Koen Frolichs: From pages three to 400, he could act like a human.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Exactly.
Koen Frolichs: Sorry to anyone still listening.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yes. In general.
Koen Frolichs: In general. What's wrong with you? Um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: we're sorry for what you're going through.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. What's, what went wrong in your life? That's what I want to know, that you're still listening to us.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, it must be substantial.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: It's not just one thing.
Koen Frolichs: No. Yeah. Yeah. It's exactly.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: There's like a, there's a list of things.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. It build up, you know, it started with like a rough childhood and then things never got better.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. You always thought maybe they would get better. They didn't.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And they never went. Probably. This is actually, this might be the most fun you'll ever have. Um,
Koen Frolichs: jeez.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Anyway. Yeah. [01:00:00] But anyway, thank you for listening.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. You hope Ben gets a bit of ad revenue?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Maybe I should. I don't even know whether I want to have ads. Ah, that was so annoying.
When people have ads.
Koen Frolichs: Oh, you can PayPal ban some money if you want to.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yes. I just need to set up a way to do that, which I probably won't by the time this comes out, but, you know.
Koen Frolichs: True.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, you know, my, you can probably Google my work address and send me, uh, cash, um, via mail. I just put it in a letter. Send it to me.
Yeah. Um, and you can
Koen Frolichs: love letters.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Watch, watch this transition.
Koen Frolichs: Oh,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I wouldn't mind if it was real money and not fake money.
Koen Frolichs: Oh yeah. Speaking
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: of fake money.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Very good. Wow. It's almost as if we thought about this. We didn't actually. That's so good, Ben.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No, I think if you's such a
Koen Frolichs: professional.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I know.
Thank you. I think if anyone is still listening and has been listening to the last three hours, they know that we didn't plan this or anything [01:01:00] else.
Koen Frolichs: Yes, yes. That's very true. We did read the book.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yes. We read until page 419, which is the beginning of chapter 27. Uh, the beginning of the 3D
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, you'll
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: do your summary.
Yeah. So your summary. Yeah. Okay. Once again, my handwriting is atrocious, but I can take out the pauses. Um, chapter 21, Richa, Roscoe and Finley search gray's files without success. Richer, finds a key in gray's gun box or whatever it's called, which opens a cabinet with three files. Rosco thinks that the client has printed counterfeit money in Venezuela, shipped it to Mulgrave and distributed it throughout the US.
On Sunday, their stack pile runs out and there's no evidence. Chapter 22, Richard Roscoe visited the doctor who did the autopsy on gray. Gray was probably murdered by Teal Morrison and someone else, and then framed like a suicide. Richard tells Roscoe it's important to stay together for [01:02:00] safety because having some problems.
Monitoring Charlie and the kids Roko leaves with pica for a day.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think that was supposed to be a subtle hint right there that he said that and the like licks page, that doesn't happen. Mm-hmm. Anyway, this is a summary, not a discussion. Uh, chapter 23 Richer gets tinted windows on the Bentley and switches cars.
He observes the Kleiner's warehouse. A confused hobo confirms that a short, fat cop killed Joe Reacher. Jack Reacher follows a truck that comes out of the warehouse. It's driven for many miles by the Kleiner son and it's completely empty. Chapter 24, Roscoe has to stay another day with Bika, uh, OL's House burnt down.
The Princeton professor. Of modern history was murdered and the Columba vessel is about to be murdered, or at least has a, has an arra, has a visit arranged with uh, the same two people or whatever who'd been following rich around town. Richer. Thinks [01:03:00] that Margrave is where everything is brought not from, where everything is disposed across the US Chapter 25 Richer Flies to New York to meet the Columbia professor.
The professor had been working with Joe Richer and the Princeton professor on figuring out how the Kleins got perfect paper for their counterfeits. The professor doesn't think that the Kleins are storing paper in Kleiner's warehouse. The two Hispanic guys want to abduct richer, but he flees back in Mogra.
Reacher tells Baker that Finley is in Florida and richer will stay at Hubble's house that night. I think I forgot to mention earlier that. They already figured out that Baker
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, copied the things and is in on it.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Baker seems to be the, the mall, right?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. That was somewhere before in this part that I didn't, yeah,
yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Chapter 26 Richer sets. The Trapper Hobble's House, five men, including the Kleiner kid, tried to torture and murder him, but Richard, ridiculous them all. That's the happy ending, I guess. That's a good
Koen Frolichs: ending, huh? Yeah, [01:04:00] exactly.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Um, and it was a, yeah, and it was a fairly richer, typical way of dealing with physical combat by just killing everyone.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No questions asked. Just breaking necks left and right.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yep.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, no, it was good.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. So thing is, I didn't write down what our predictions were from last time, but I think most of 'em were wrong. Right.
Koen Frolichs: Well, I think a lot of them, or like some of them were actually right. Um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: were they, I can't remember.
I remember, so I, you know, I said like the. Uh, so I'm positively surprised with the Gray's file thing.
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Because I said, you know, I said that
Koen Frolichs: true,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: they're gonna go and someone took them out and that's kind of what they thought. But then they went, actually, maybe not. So, you know, he out tricked me there.
Uh, so that was, that was nice.
Koen Frolichs: Sure. I mean, it had to happen at some point, right? You had to get info at some point.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. They have to get it somehow.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, maybe not, they could have just all gotten killed by the people. Right.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, I guess this is the kind of book where Rich wins in the end.
Koen Frolichs: I mean, I hope
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: so. And interestingly, I think he [01:05:00] also restores justice in every book I've read. You know, he could just flee. Right, right. Like he doesn't have any
Koen Frolichs: Sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Real history and any place he could just go whatever, I don't care. Uh, but yeah, no, these books are the kinds where each, uh,
Koen Frolichs: happy ending
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: not exactly solves the case.
Probably kills the bad guys. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Leaves.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. I mean, I think the, the big lines, I think we were pretty spot on, but like the counterfeiting, you know, that was like,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah,
Koen Frolichs: yeah, yeah. Really revealed
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: actually. Yeah. No, you, yeah. You were very good with the Venezuela thing that I'd completely forgotten.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. And I think even the Coast Guard, I mean, I guess it was a bit of a lucky Oh
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. The, yeah, yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Lucky connection for me. But yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No, I mean, you remembered all the things that I forgot and it turns out they were all important.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So well done. You
Koen Frolichs: Thank you. So what did more, yeah, you thought, like you, you actually thought, um, either Roscoe or, um, Finlay would be the mall, right?
That's what you, I, I thought, or you, you expect one of them could be.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Well, I, I kind of expected one of 'em has to be, but [01:06:00] right now it could still also be only pick up.
Koen Frolichs: Sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, right now it's still open. I mean, we've actually, it was ney was barely in this part, which was interesting. But I mean, it was basically all reach actually was
Koen Frolichs: richer.
Yeah. Richer. Even going to like New York and stuff like that. That was a whole chapter, I think, right?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yep. Yep. That was richer
Koen Frolichs: killing recliner kept. That
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: was all richer.
Koen Frolichs: Oh, richer. The, the
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: last two chapters were all richer.
Koen Frolichs: You're right. Given, I guess
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: in the beginning, but Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Staking out, uh, the Warehouse.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. And it was all, yeah, you're right. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, it's interesting, like, I, I guess what I wanted to say is that, so the question is who is the more, and I wondered, is Baker actually enough of an explanation?
Koen Frolichs: I would think so.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Or do we need someone of them actually to have, yeah. I wonder right now maybe that actually is enough, because I guess they kind of just trusted him.
So he overheard like he was just like a fly on the wall kind of person.
Koen Frolichs: Right? Yeah. Yeah. He knew enough to kind of be a [01:07:00] step ahead of him, I think.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, may, may. Maybe that is enough, but I don't know. There was, there was actually one thing that made me, um, question Finley. It's the part where he just randomly, not randomly, but he just gives Richard $700 to fly to New York and have money for that.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. And
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I thought, so 700 is, I dunno where there has a credit card and that kinda stuff, right?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But it's the kind of money that, didn't he have financial problems or potentially,
Koen Frolichs: I think he put it on his credit card. I think they said he put it on his credit card.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. But there was a moment where I'm like, it's not that much that it's really su suspicious.
Koen Frolichs: Sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But it's also enough that. If you have financial problems, you don't have it.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot of money to have just in your pockets. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. If you don't,
Koen Frolichs: yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean,
Koen Frolichs: well, but they kind of gave the explan, like they gave an alibi, right? For, for Finlay. So the Gray was the, the last detective, right.
Um, before Finlay and Gray got killed, committed suicide. Right. We don't know a hundred percent, [01:08:00]but he probably got killed by,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: uh, I think it's,
Koen Frolichs: he got, yeah. I mean it's pretty obvious. I think that's very
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: clear. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: By, um, teal, um, what's his name? Morrison, and then third guy
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: maybe. Yeah. I mean, it could be any of them.
There's lots of people involved here who could
Koen Frolichs: then richer, questioned himself, I think going like, but why? Or like, richer and Rosco, I think. Like, but why would they hire a guy as smart as Finlay, right?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh, that whole thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Koen Frolichs: yeah, yeah. Right. Because then you he'll figure it out again that something's wrong in this village.
Um, but then like there was this story that Finlay told Richer. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Right.
Koen Frolichs: That he messed up his job interview. Right. He, um.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah,
Koen Frolichs: definitely. Because he, you know, he went through the divorce and everything and he sounded like a complete idiot. That's why they hired him. That's what they think.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. And that was also in part like one, I think or something.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah. Right in the beginning.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I skipped it. Of course. I mean, no, I skipped it, but like I,
Koen Frolichs: oh, in
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: your summary, I didn't seem worth mentioning at the beginning. Yeah,
Koen Frolichs: yeah. Fine. Seemed
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: like it's fine. Random background. So, I mean this, this way, I mean, let's put it this way. I don't know whether I, so, I dunno whether Richa had that thought or whether Rich and Roscoe discussed this, but [01:09:00] let's say even if they, the two of them discussed it just because there's a valid explanation for why they would hire Finley.
Number one, they got this information from Finley. Let's start with that.
Koen Frolichs: Sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Number two, just because there is a good reason for why he isn't, that doesn't mean he isn't. Right. Like it is basically, this could be like a kind of a sense of full security, right? Where we think, okay, it's not Finley because uh, well he got this job through this thing and whatever, right?
But
Koen Frolichs: mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: They could be kind of independent, right? Like, I mean
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, could be, of course. But I don't think, I think also the book is too short for him to like be completely bad.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Well, we've got a hundred pages. I mean, it doesn't take that much to reveal that.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, sure. I mean, like it could be just a quick shot in the back, right?
Yeah. I dunno.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean, for me, the most suspicious thing right now, I don't know, PIKA is, that's a weird one.
Koen Frolichs: Ika with Roscoe, right?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, exactly. And like, [01:10:00] no informa, I mean, I guess it didn't have mobile phones, or at least Richard doesn't have one.
Koen Frolichs: They're not using it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So there is a case of there's been complete silence for two days, right?
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm. Yeah, you're right. And it's actually right after reaches said, we're gonna stick together. It was like,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Oh, by the way, can you leave for like a day? Yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. Exactly.
Koen Frolichs: I wonder now, 'cause I, I said, I think in the last session, I said, what about Charlie? Right? Is she in on, in, on this?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Koen Frolichs: Is she like, you know, being a, the puppet master over there playing Pika, trying to get Roscoe out of there, you know, maybe trying to kill
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: her. Oh, you mean, oh, you're right, right. That Pika actually is,
Koen Frolichs: is still good,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: but
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah.
Koen Frolichs: But like Charlie is like playing over there,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: right? Oh, she's just messing with him a
Koen Frolichs: bit.
Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Or the kids are, or whatever. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Something like that. I mean,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: hmm. Yeah, it's possible.
Koen Frolichs: I don't know. I mean, I, I was also thinking like, you know, if this has to go on for 27 more books or how, however many there [01:11:00] are, like richer, can't find the love of his life in book number one. Right. Either she has to, she has to die.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Let's put this, he is gonna find more loves of his life for a book. Um, but for the length of a book.
Koen Frolichs: For the length of a book. Okay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But, uh, so I mean, she could die though.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. I, I think that, I think she's gonna die.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Do you think she is already dead?
Koen Frolichs: Could be. Because, because Finlay said Pika like called him and said, Roscoe's gonna stay longer.
But she send her love, like no one. Finlay didn't even talk directly to Roscoe, which I find weird.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, exactly. That's what I mean. Yeah. It's always this indirect.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. It's very, very indirect. Um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: that's what I find weird about Richa, that he just accepts this, you know, after the whole, like, let's stay together for safety.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Then it's just like, oh, you have to go somewhere else for day. Okay, cool. Oh, for another day. Okay, cool.
Koen Frolichs: He could, he's he's a little preoccupied, right? He, he just, he is killing some people left and right. Um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: his brother died and apparently [01:12:00] shock of whole shocks, his brother liked him. Oh
Koen Frolichs: yeah. So, God, that was a bit much, huh?
I don't need that. I don't need that kind of emotion in my life.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Sorry, Kun. I didn't, I didn't mean to give you this kind of sentimental story.
Koen Frolichs: Jesus. I just need him to break. So this is one thing, right? So I looked up, did you look up what a blackjack is? Like the weapon he's using?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No, I did actually not.
Wait, let me do that
Koen Frolichs: now. Yeah. Have a quick Google. I don't, I can't see how you can break a neck with this. Like, I don't know how easy it's to break a neck. I've never done it before, like my own or someone else's.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I'm assuming you also just looked at the first images that came up.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, of course.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, what doesn't, so like a black check to find out right now how long they are, like what the dimensions are
Koen Frolichs: because they describe it as like this kind of like a very um, big spring, right?
Like a plumbers spring that they used to bend pipe. So I assume something that's like a spring that's like a width of like [01:13:00] three centimeters or something, like with big thick wire. Like gauge of wire, and then you have a heavy thing on the end of it. So you basically like use the momentum kind of to like wax someone.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: But it doesn't seem like neck breaking material to me. Like I think like a baseball bat. That's what you use to, I guess you bash someone's head. I don't know. I was just curious.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah,
Koen Frolichs: like I would think you would break someone's skull with this, right? You would just like penetrate the skull with the, with the heavy end.
I don't know. I mean,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: and I'm looking at them right now, but I can't really, yeah, they do look a bit short.
Koen Frolichs: Right? Like how, how tall would you think they are? Like 15 centimeters? 20?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No, no longer but
Koen Frolichs: longer.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: They, I'd say they're probably like the length of a, of a, of a lower arm kind of thing?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
That's quite big.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But they're not, you know, they're like half the size and like a quarter the width of like a baseball badge basically.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Made out of some weird material.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, I think it's like, 'cause [01:14:00] he said his, in his, at least there was like a spring in the middle, like a very heavy spring. And I've heard this before and for some reason that like can transfer more.
I also find it hard to imagine how this would work.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Makes vague, but yeah, I dunno.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. I
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: mean, it doesn't matter to me. I didn't really, um, read too closely on what the weapons were. I just, he killed them. That's, uh, he likes stabbed them and drowned them. And
Koen Frolichs: yeah, he did a lot of things,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: but, uh, but actually did he, did he break their necks?
I remember him kicking their necks in, he hit, oh no, sorry. He hit them on the head.
Koen Frolichs: He hit them on the head. And that would break, that would break their neck, I think.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No, no. And then he kicked them on the neck.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That was how he broke
the
Koen Frolichs: first one. Yeah. The first one. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And I think the second.
Koen Frolichs: Okay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Anyway, if you doesn't matter, whatever you have, you can hit, you can break someone's neck with a pencil. As long as the pencil doesn't break first, just hit half enough.
Koen Frolichs: That's the thing.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think you or I don't do it. I mean, again, we don't endorse violence here unless absolutely necessary and or [01:15:00] fun.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
I think also the thing is, Ben, I dunno if you ever did any martial arts, um, like, like
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: actually once I did do something with sticks, but yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Uh, Aikido,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: no, something
Koen Frolichs: like that. Some
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: people sticks where you have like these short, like basically I anchor that thing, but just like a small wooden stick.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, like a bamboo rod kind ofish.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. It was a bit, it was more, it was almost like a, like a drumstick, whatever it's called.
Koen Frolichs: Oh, okay. Okay. It
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: was more like it was that kind of.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Weight and the dimensions.
Koen Frolichs: But the thing is, once you do, like, you know, a bit of, you know, I did like a student course in my, like, you know, once a week for six weeks.
So, you know, I'm pretty, I'm pretty trained. Okay. So
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I'm pretty afraid right now, you know?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah. No, no. But the thing is then you realize you don't even want to hit people. So as soon, like, 'cause then you go sparring, right? You hit them in the face and you're like, oh shit, I'm sorry. And it's like, oh no, this is what I'm supposed to do.
Right. It's also just like, just going for it. Right? Just trying to hit someone as hard as you can. That's also already like, you know, I think it takes [01:16:00] some,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: well, I think Rich has what takes, he's
Koen Frolichs: okay with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: To hit someone as hard as he can. Yeah,
Koen Frolichs: he does. He does.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean, this is actually one point I wrote down is, I think I mentioned sometime in the beginning probably that Richa is a bit of a psychopath.
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And I think this one. I think not exactly in this one, but I, you know, sometimes you feel like he gets a sense of enjoyment out of it.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Or like having, I mean, I guess in this case, he actually, it was very much a mission and he had to kill them quickly and efficiently to mm-hmm. You know, knock, kill himself.
But I mean, yeah. In some other, the other books, he does kind of use violence sometimes when it, you know, everything's solved and then he just punches someone again or something.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah. Like a final shot.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But again, here you, I at least he's done it a lot. This is what always happens.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's what you expect. Right. Kind of like the, the action movement movie ending. I mean, the, the one thing, what he did say, which I thought was funny, is like, you know, kind of talking to himself, right? When he's [01:17:00] talking the, the Kleiner kit, the last one basically, last one alive, and he's like, you know. When you read movies or see in books, um, geez, other way around.
See in movies, reading books, you
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: hear a book.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. You
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: feel a movie,
Koen Frolichs: you feel Yeah, exactly. Um, that you, that he's supposed to take revenge for his brother, so he would like you do it. You know, mano, I manano like square up with the kind of kid and he was like, nah, nah, nah, I'm just gonna, just gonna take him from the back and just kill him.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Um, if he
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: kind of, and then he still messed, maybe he should have done it properly.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. He just, yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Then he would've gotten shot with a shotgun, but
Koen Frolichs: yeah. That's, that's
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: another thing.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Anyways, apparently, um, I just thought that was funny. Right. That makes it a little bit more like this true badass or or something
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: like that.
Yeah, exactly. You know what I mean? He doesn't, I mean also he doesn't play by most rules. Right. He just, well, you try to survive Right. On this case.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Some mixture of Avengers brother's death and not get killed himself.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. I guess. Okay. So last [01:18:00] thing for me then. Um, another thing that makes him kind of human, then what, what I think is kind of funny is that he's, when he was staking out a warehouse, he was under this bridge or like on this off ramp on ramping.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: He, um, that he starts to sing to himself. You know, that's kind of funny, like rambling on.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I didn't look up what the song was like, how the song sounds like, uh, maybe I should have done that.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I wonder like what kind of, but I guess a traditional song. Yeah. I mean, actually what made me more hu what I thought made him more human in this one is something, again, I don't think I've seen in the three other books I've read, is that at some point, I don't remember what part this is, he said something like, oh no.
Yeah. When the, when the, the professor claps his hands to show like, this one how this particular kind of money is made or whatever, he clapped his hands loud, and then it's like, I jumped.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. '
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: cause he was so, I've never seen him have this kind of like, startled reaction to something like, sure. He, uh, in, I feel like in the later [01:19:00] books I've read, he would just say he, he just wouldn't, he would just,
Koen Frolichs: yeah, he would, yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: This wouldn't
Koen Frolichs: be a thing. Yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. Sure. Exactly. So that actually made him more human than I feel like he is in most of the later ones.
Koen Frolichs: Got it. Okay. Yeah. So he becomes more polished towards, you know, the, in the later books like this, polished, bad, badass kind of.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, exactly. Whereas here he's still a bit, yeah.
As I said before, like he's, he's talking more, he is trying to be a bit of a, not trying to be a smart ass, but he mm-hmm. Has to solve a case that's difficult.
Koen Frolichs: Sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Conceptually, rather, in the other ones I've read, it's usually pretty clear what's going on and he just has to use this like, military training to get in and outta things.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Like situations or places or whatever. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But yeah, so, okay, so cool. The big question. Yeah. What's in those warehouses?
Koen Frolichs: Well, I think I, do you have an idea or do you have an
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, I don't think so. No?
Koen Frolichs: Okay. 'cause I think I alluded to this last [01:20:00] time and I'm, I was actually last evening, and this morning I was thinking why I am, why I'm thinking this.
So, so the the big issues now, they can't get the real paper, right? You can get to ink. You can get the plates. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Um, you can't get to paper. The paper is the hardest part about the dollar because it's like this combination of linen and cotton. I actually think it's it's dollar bills. Real dollar bills, but like $1 bills and $10 bills.
'cause the, that's what I said last time, because the size of the dollar bill is the same. So if you just wipe out the paper, they're using actual paper. Yeah, they're using the actual paper. But they're, um, they're using this chemical process maybe to bleach the paper again and then print real. Like a hundred, a hundred dollars on there instead of one.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So you think, uh, they're basically taking $1 bills, cleaning them, repainting them, and then
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh yeah.
Koen Frolichs: I think they're putting [01:21:00] the $1 bills in the warehouse right now. When it op, when the Coast Guard gets like defunct or whatever, right. Or defunded, they'll export all those dollar bills to Venezuela and then like get a hundred times back, clean bear, print them, print them there, and then bring some back.
Yeah, that's what I expect.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Hmm. Okay. That sounds like a, yeah. I can't right now, immediately see a fault with that.
Koen Frolichs: Okay. So, so do you wanna know how, I think I got this information. '
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: cause that's what you do.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah. No, it's deduction. Ben. It's deduction.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No, you do with euros. Just so they're not the same size.
It really
Koen Frolichs: messed up your
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: whole scheme.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah. Cost me a lot of money. Um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: and you also, you have to start with five euros. It's less.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, exactly.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: You make Yeah. Less anyway.
Koen Frolichs: Sorry. Yeah. Um, because so, so I mean, so I'm pretty sure my dad once told me when I was like, fucking 12 or something. It's like, that's what people, you know, that's an issue with the dollar, [01:22:00]um, is that it's the same size everywhere.
And I remember that like, you know, since like 20 years or whatever now. But now I wonder, is it my dad ever read Jack Reia? You know, because he would read those books right when I was younger. Yeah. And I, I have to ask him. I have to, uh, send him a message, let you know next week. Yeah. Um, or next, next session.
It's like, did you ever read this? You know, I'm, did you tell me then, um, or did you just like watch Discovery Channel? I dunno.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And you don't think this has anything to do with your dad's 15 year prison sentence?
Koen Frolichs: No, I don't think so. No. That was not, it was not for money. It was not for counterfeiting.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh, that was for unnecessary violence.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay, good. Um, yeah. Yeah. That's interesting actually. I guess maybe your father spoiled the book for you 10 years ago, or 20 years ago. Or
Koen Frolichs: 20 years ago. I think. Yeah. I, I think, I mean, I think it's like. I know sometimes you have these memories, right? Where you're just like, I'm pretty sure, like I remember the day, you know, I remember where I sat when I heard [01:23:00] this or something.
Yeah. And I'm pretty sure my dad just once told me a dinner or so, you know, it's like, you know what, she with a dollar.
What
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: dad?
Koen Frolichs: What is a
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: dollar?
Koen Frolichs: Don't you wanna hear how school was No, no, no. Fuck that. I've got real issues down here.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's also a great stereotypical dad way of, uh, finding problems in the world by reading a thriller book and then recounting it as if they like learned it themselves somehow.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah. You know, the other day I saw $2 bills and I thought like, Hmm, I don't know. I didn't, yeah, I'll, I'll message him. See if he, um, see if he, he can remember. You probably can't remember.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But he'll know whether he read the book, right?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, probably. Yeah. So we'll see.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I mean, so as I said, like I'm trying to think of what the problem would, I mean, in a way it's perfect because number one, it's not illegal to store dollars in a warehouse.[01:24:00]
I think, I don't know, maybe it is. I don't know whether it's illegal to ha carry a certain amount of money with you.
Koen Frolichs: I mean, abroad definitely. Definitely, yes. But not
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: having, yeah, I was gonna say you're probably not allowed to export millions of dollars at once.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But like in terms of at least like if, you know, if the warehouse gets busted, so this, okay, let's say that's the case, right?
Let's say your theory, um, is correct. They have no evidence, they just have a warehouse with dollars in it. That's not a crime.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, I guess so.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. And transporting it to the border's not a crime either. So there's literally only one point where it's a crime that's Yeah. As soon as you loaded
Koen Frolichs: on the board.
Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So once they've crossed the border, the US probably can't do anything. Right. Like the US police force or whatever.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um,
Koen Frolichs: yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I course then you have the difficulty of, you know, transporting a shitload of money twice to another con continent, which is its mm-hmm. A problem in its own, in its own.
Right. Right. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So, but like, in [01:25:00] terms of legal stuff, doesn't,
Koen Frolichs: yeah, I don
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: know. I, it sounds pretty good. It sounds like a pretty good scheme. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: I mean, if I was richer, I would just torture a place. Right.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. But you think it's gonna, like, if it's stacked really closely Right. That doesn't burn very well if you
Koen Frolichs: Yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: probably not.
If you, you know, if you have, you need some air
Koen Frolichs: to get into it. Yeah. Like, like, uh, books. Books don't burn usually in houses even. Right. Or like, not, they're quite good.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But yeah, that's kind of thing. I mean, like, it's too dense almost to start, but, but I don't know, I guess, yeah. You could still put petrol over it or whatever.
Yeah,
Koen Frolichs: yeah, yeah. I mean, you, you could, you could damage it quite, quite well, but yeah. I don't know. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Or you could just kill all the people involved, which is also a rich, pretty fun.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. And then you just grab all those dollar bills, find yourself a new Roscoe.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's so annoying though, right. If you like, it's a great business scheme, but if you just have like a million dollars in $1 bills, that's kind of annoying.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Makes a lot of dollar bills. Get rid of that again.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah. [01:26:00] God, ask that guy again.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, exactly. Gonna buy another TV in $1 bills. Yep.
Koen Frolichs: Yep.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Tomorrow I'm gonna buy a car.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: I mean, it must be a market for that. I, I think actually, uh, probably companies of, uh, like businesses are quite happy with, with small denominators of cash to trade you in.
Right. To a
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: degree.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But I guess also you could just hand it into a bank because it's not illegal to. Gary? Yeah, you can just skip. Yeah,
Koen Frolichs: you could, you could change it probably. Yeah. But like, I mean that might be, I,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, I wonder whether they might be allowed or just do it anyway to enfor to call the police if you suddenly Exactly.
Back up your car into the bank with like a, a truck full of $1 bills.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, that's the thing. I wonder if there's like, 'cause I think it could even be like some law, you know, maybe Dutch law. German law, where you, you have to, um, how do you, how you call that? Um, when you have like a, like a certain amount of money, which you, you need to like, above a [01:27:00] certain amount.
You need to be able to tell where it came from. And if you can't, you know, really they become repossess. I don't know if that's true. I can imagine it is like, why would you need 20,000 euros, you know, in your back
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: pocket. In $1 bills.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Even in $1 bills. That's even,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I, I don't know actually how much. I'm wondering, so like, I'm just wondering out the dimensions right now, right?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: If you have like say a suitcase, like, you know, the standard office case, kind of that kind of thing, full of, how much would that be?
Koen Frolichs: With $1 bills?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, yeah. Like how many bills can you fit in there, basically? Is it like 10,000? Uh, I have no idea like how many you can stack on top of each.
Koen Frolichs: What I did hear once, um, is that, you know, when you've got like a suitcase in the movies, a suitcase with money, when they say like, this is like a million.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: A stack of like million in the stack of hundreds is not that much. I guess. It's like, yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: 10,000, I guess that's still quite a lot, huh? 10,000 bills.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah. But [01:28:00] still, but 10 thou, I mean.
Koen Frolichs: How much is one of those stacks of a hundred bills? Is that a hundred times a hundred?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I dunno, that's, is that 10,000 bucks?
I dunno how many those, those are. But anyway, I guess there's still, if you have an entire truckload and times a hundred, then that's,
Koen Frolichs: yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of money. Oh, what? Of course. But like, that's the thing probably if banks are on this, are onto this like, like, um, what's his face? Hubble?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: If banks are illegally storing their money in that warehouse, that's super illegal.
Of course. Right?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But why would banks store it there illegally?
Koen Frolichs: I guess that's, you know, that would be part of the deal kind of, right? Hey, we get you, you know, you get like a cut and we get like your dollar bills. How would you get truckloads of dollar bills?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I see. Yeah. That was another question I had.
Right? I mean,
Koen Frolichs: you probably need to get it from banks in like,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you could probably easily get, I. Like, you know, those like rolls of dollars?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you can probably get that. Yeah. I mean, they got it from [01:29:00] Hubble, let's just put it that way, right?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's pretty clear. He has at least some people here are there who get,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: the interesting thing is maybe, maybe he, that's how he got into it, right?
Like he found out about it.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So like where all these dollar bills, like I need to get this for the bank or whatever. And then
Koen Frolichs: yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: that's probably how we got into it or something like that, but
Koen Frolichs: probably, yeah. Then demanding a cut or something like that.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, but getting like $1,000,001 bills. Um, but I would imagine you can probably get like a thousand just at a regular bank,
Koen Frolichs: dollar bills.
I think that's a lot. Yeah, no, yeah. I, we have no idea. I mean,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I can Google this. I mean, like, let's put this way, like if you, if you go, you could go like to your bank in, you know, in Germany and you can get like rolls of coins, right? No question asked.
Koen Frolichs: Sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: You can easily get, like, I did that for like when you have experiments with participants or something, right?
You need to pay them like 11 euros or.
Koen Frolichs: Sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, so you can easily get, let's say the two Euro coins and there's 25 in there or something.
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm. Yeah. [01:30:00] 50 bucks for a roll. Yeah. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think I did that once for two euros, one Euro 50 cents or something. So that's easily like 120 euros or 150 euros or whatever.
Yeah. But
Koen Frolichs: if you go above a certain amount, you have to start paying for it. Right. You also have to like pay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. But my point is just like that was so easy to get right. Sure. No one asked no one, like you just, it's a routine transaction.
Koen Frolichs: Sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So what I mean is if they have lots of people who do this regularly, you know?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. That
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: could be once a week at different banks, whatever, then
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah. You just, on Mondays you make a, you know, a root route. Banks
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you get like five, a hundred, $500 out or something.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But,
Koen Frolichs: but still filling a truck,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, it's on one truck. Right. That's the whole thing. It's a warehouse. That's the
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, that's, that's what I mean, right.
That's the thing.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Filling a truck, you know, in California alone, like that's a lot already, let alone like doing it everywhere. I dunno, I, I assume some banking people are involved.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean, it has to be helpful. Right. It
Koen Frolichs: has to be helpful.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, that's, that, that's the very obvious thing. Yeah. He's involved in it and he has all the access and knowledge, so Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Sure. So [01:31:00] that's probably how they get it. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: I mean, we're going out of, of my theory, that might be completely wrong, right. There might be something else in the warehouse.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. We're, we're, we're basing our entire theory on,
Koen Frolichs: on
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: my 20-year-old, that childhood memory you have. Um, that for some reason was a flashback memory that you never forgot.
Just your dad going good. You know, what's the problem with the dollar?
Koen Frolichs: Oh yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Much faster.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, you know, there's these moments you never forget. Right. Your, your first child getting born, your, you know, love of seeing the love of your life. Your dad telling you the issue with the dollar.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Exactly.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I'll have to ask him. I'm, uh,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: it'd be so, so great if he, uh, if he hasn't read the book.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah. It could be. I dunno.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But the thing is like, you know, as I said, and you know, if we've been talking for about this for like 10 minutes now, I still don't see a problem with the theory.
Koen Frolichs: [01:32:00] Sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: It seems like they have the resources to do this.
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Through Harbor or even through like lots of individual people.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Banking contacts could also be like
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: they have Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: You can, you can, you can probably make this happen.
Koen Frolichs: Strippers, they have got a lot of $1 bills.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Actually, sorry, one que Go ahead.
The thing I wanted to say, um, do you think they give the the thousand dollars a week in one and I Sure they want to keep the $1 bills. They wanna keep the one bills. That doesn't make sense. Yeah. No, no, no. But that's how they get rid of the a hundred dollar bills then. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. They're fake. They fake.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: They give them 10 a week and then. Yeah. Although that also seems too suspicious, right? Because like these bank notes I'm assuming are numbered, right? They have like a serial number. Yeah,
Koen Frolichs: serial number. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And I'm assuming you can't just use the serial number of the $1 bill for the a hundred dollar bill.
I'm assuming they're like serialized separately or differently, so
Koen Frolichs: I assume so. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I'm assuming. I dunno. But let's say that is the case then the police must at some point realize that a lot of fake serialized numbers are [01:33:00] coming out of this like one, you know, there's like a hot spot where it emanates like radially from, right?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. But if no one checks, right, and that's the thing, right? That's also what they say in the village, right? In Margrave, no one wants this to be
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Wrong, right? I mean, 'cause if this is wrong, I'm not getting my thousand dollars a week, I'll just shut up and get the money. Right? Yeah. Find it with me.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's
Koen Frolichs: true. So right, that's what they said, right? They built you, you buy silence. So.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And I guess if a lot of money could, can, could actually also stay within the community. Like people just using it back and forth and Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, probably. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, to be fair, if there's only like a hundred people, then it's not gonna be that much they're gonna spend on a regular basis.
Um, yeah.
Koen Frolichs: It makes you wonder, right? Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But I guess it could give it to a bank. They don't, but the bank prop, I dunno. Yeah. I dunno whether they have to check or whether they can check even or whatever.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Or the bank, you know, there's a bank in, in Margrave. I, I didn't read that
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: check. I mean, I guess they need to, I mean, I guess because this is the thing where all they need to do [01:34:00] is get the money into the Kleer Foundation and once it's on their bank account, then they can, you've got digital money, right.
Then you can send it anywhere then, then it's easy. Sure. So I guess they just need a few banks or contacts or whatever to not care about this too much. About checking their notes and then you're, you're finished.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Then you go them. Yeah. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Although, I mean, I guess they, you can still trace where the money came from probably right.
Yeah, I don't, I don't know how closely the banks monitor these things.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. I wouldn't know either. Especially, you know, early two thousands kind of, or late nineties probably was harder even. Right? Yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: that's true
Koen Frolichs: to, to like check these streams. Yeah. I dunno. I really dunno. Um, but I guess if a whole village is paying with like counterfeit money, it's really easy to trace, right?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's what I mean. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. You're right. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So they have to kind of distribute it at least in a way that you have to. [01:35:00] Yeah, yeah. Or I mean, you have to distribute the fake money, at least in a way that it's not this one hotspot in the US from which fake money radiates, but that you at least have other hotspots.
Or just, I mean, you can also, I guess you could also like make the hotspot somewhere else, right? You like Atlanta, right. Which is a much bigger city. Mm-hmm. Or something like that. And then,
Koen Frolichs: yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, Margaret isn't the center of it anymore.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Or of course, I don't know if this works, but you'll just, if you get it in a bank and like you have one corrupt higher up who just accepts it or agrees to it.
Right. Knowing it's fake and the bank starts to distribute it, you know, the bank doesn't do its checking.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. But they still kind of do it in the same area. Right.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, I guess with lan. Yeah, that's
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: what I mean. It's still kind of like,
Koen Frolichs: you're right.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: If the people use it and give it to banks locally, it's, it's, of course it's gonna distribute, but it's gonna distribute.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. All exponentially less. Yeah. It'll be very easy to trace. Yeah, you're right. Right. I guess that would make [01:36:00] sense then, that they get the, the dollar bills, a single dollar bills, if that's true from banks and they also distribute it back, you know, sell it back to the banks with, you know, the bank's taking a cut.
Of course, then it could make sense. But yeah, I don't know.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I mean that's, yeah, that's what Hubble did, right? He got currency from different
Koen Frolichs: Exactly. Yeah. And if he, yeah, I don't know.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I wonder though whether he maybe got fired because they realized he's not good at his job because he's buying all these $1 bills.
He must, you know, he must have, have really weird buying patterns.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. I don't know. I guess that's where the whole difficulty comes in, right? Like, you know, planning it out. So it's, you know, so it's only like. You know, a little stream of $1 bills more or something that, I don't know, the, the guy said he was really good at his job.
I don't know if that really, if that's really true or not.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I dunno. Yeah. But, okay, so that's, I mean, yeah, I like the theory. I is there, do we have another theory? Because I did, I really didn't have one.
Koen Frolichs: What's in the warehouse? Let's just a [01:37:00] general plot.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, yeah. What's, what's there basically? Like what, what is the, in a way it doesn't matter.
I guess it's in a, a bit of a red herring. Especially because for richer now it's about avenging his brother more than like solving the case. You know, the solving the case is more to get to, to revenge. Aven his brother,
Koen Frolichs: he needs to, he needs to reason to kill these people, basically.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And not a reason, but he needs to figure out what's happening, so, so he knows like who the players are and that kinda stuff.
Right. It's more that
Koen Frolichs: Sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't know. I mean, I think it's just, yeah, it's probably just counterfeit money. Maybe we got some details wrong, but it seems too obvious to not be.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Or maybe they just have a very, very profitable air conditioning, export. Import, business input export business.
Yeah. Could be. I dunno.
Koen Frolichs: That could be, that could
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: be. Maybe they're just very good at haggling deals with the air soft, the air conditioner company and people that could be Florida sell them. They sell a huge markup.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Who knows? I mean, I think Florida has a pretty warm [01:38:00] state.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, that's what Rich just said, right?
Yeah. It's the perfect cover because they
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Need this kinda stuff.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Why? But there's nothing weird going on there. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: It'd be so great if the, if in the end it had nothing to do with the counterfeit money. Really. Like the, the whole counterfeit money was just like a trap to distract from like the actual crime they were doing.
Koen Frolichs: That would be pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. I dunno. I think, but
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah,
Koen Frolichs: I think it's pretty, pretty Joe. Joe was a very good, smart guy who loved his brother,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: even though Jack Richard didn't think about his brother.
Koen Frolichs: It was a bit harsh, huh? Yeah. When he is like, the professor was just like, oh, yeah, he talked about you a lot.
You said like, you always took care of him. You were such a great younger brother, or something like that.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: What really, I didn't think about you at all.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. And I, yeah, actually,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I, I did wonder maybe the, the professor just made something up, but I dunno.
Koen Frolichs: That could be Yeah. That he was just trying to be nice.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Exactly. Yeah. You know, like a thing like, oh, I felt so much about you, you know? [01:39:00]
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah. True. Like, what was your name again?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, yeah. Okay. So I'm, I'm, I think I'm fine with that theory.
Koen Frolichs: Okay. Very good. 'cause we talked about it for quite a while. Um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. Better be right. Kun
Koen Frolichs: better be right. Okay. Okay. So let's make some predictions for the last part.
Shall we
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: actually, shall I, I'll see whether I have some kind of, uh, interesting quotes from the book about
Koen Frolichs: Oh yeah, sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Give that just about, give thing and then for like five minutes or so, and then Yeah. Then we do predictions like
Koen Frolichs: Sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: As the last bit.
Koen Frolichs: Sure. Enlighten us with your quotes.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So again, this is, you know, now we're kind of zooming out of the whole story.
You know, again, this is the book where for the book Make Me, Andy Martin was kind of watching Lee Child write the whole thing and mm-hmm in the book, he then also describes a lot of more general things about reacher in particular. Also it started. Mm-hmm.
Koen Frolichs: Um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: so here's an interesting one I find about how a Lee child also doesn't always think things [01:40:00] too much through or was under false impressions.
So here's the quote. He, sorry. He being Lee Child, he lit a cigarette. We started where he started with killing flaw. I was laboring under misapprehension Lee began, I'd written the first half. I thought it would take months for an agent to get back to me. I'd heard that on the mythic grapevine. So I sent it off saying I'd finished the novel and here's the first half.
What do you think? I picked him outta the writers and artist yearbook. He was the only one who said he made money for his. The agent got back to me in a few days. He actually wrote me a letter, which shows how long ago this was. He read it straight off. Then he says, I like this summary, the rest. So I had to reply something like, just fine tuning.
The last chapter we'll send soon. Completely caught me out. Anyway, he agreed to represent me, so I go and see him in London. How much are you looking for? He says, I'm out of a job. I said, I need to replace my salary. Aim High. How about the Prime Minister's salary? I can't get you that. He says, I can get you more or [01:41:00] less.
There's no middle ground. Okay. Make it more than I said.
So I guess you can be the, the starving artist or the bestseller.
Koen Frolichs: That's crazy. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. And I find it funny how, um, I mean how basically his first half was so good that it almost backfired.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I guess if it's that good, it doesn't matter right then it's just,
Koen Frolichs: yeah, you can finish it up, you know, polish
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: it up.
If, if an agent is that interested in, in the first half of your book, then yeah, it doesn't really matter. But yeah. Um, so, so here's a bit of biographical background about Lee Child as a kid. Okay. And, uh, what kind of, uh, maybe some parallels to reacher here. Be
Koen Frolichs: child to child.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Exactly. He is, again, describing Lee Child, he was a great scrapper as a kid, just like richer, always getting into fights.
He came from a rough neighborhood, but won a scholarship to the [01:42:00] Classy Grammar School on the other side of town, king Edwards, he had to wear dark blue blazer with complicated badge on, so he had enough trouble walking through his own neighborhood where the blazer was abnormal. But when he got to school, he assumed that having arrived at a bigger school, the fights would be bigger too.
So on the very first day he picked a fight with some passing kid. Didn't just punch him to the ground, but gave him a good kicking what he was lying there to really worked him over. The other kids were appalled. I destroyed him. I thought that was what was needed. But I had the logic or wrongly said there was no real fight imperative, no need to pick on anyone and especially I need to go in hard.
They all thought I was a barbarian, which is how he got the nickname on his very first day at school. Short. Sorry. Uh, before that he said, I think they said like his short, his nickname was grievous or something.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So which is how he got the nickname on his very first day at school short for grievous bodily harm.
Basically, Lee said, reaches me aged nine.[01:43:00]
Koen Frolichs: Oh god. Poorly child. What's grammar school? Is that like elementary school?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh, I keep forgetting. I think, no, I think grammar school is. Uh, I mean, I guess it was nine, right? So I think, yeah, it's more like, I guess secondary school. But I think in the UK you have, I, I keep, I'm also confused always with the names and that kinda stuff, but you have, you know, you have your A Levels, which is the equivalent to like the last two years of high school or your IB tour in Germany, that kind of thing.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Okay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, so I think grammar school is between primary school and that or something like that.
Koen Frolichs: Okay. Okay. Lee Child, I mean, there's pictures in the back. He looks like quite a friendly guy actually. Ah, he looks a little mad,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: but he is very tall.
Koen Frolichs: He is, and he is got very blue eyes, or at least the, the photoshopped it on the back cover.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. So, um, he is something interesting. So, I mean, I am not gonna read most of the stuff before this because it's a bit too long. Uh, but there was a bit of a comparison between, uh, the outsider by Camu and richer in the sense that he's [01:44:00] also an outsider, that kind of stuff. Mm-hmm. Okay. The language is.
Yeah, I think the, the comparisons may be a bit strong. So Lee Child also smokes a lot, and he also seems to smoke a lot of weed, which somehow surprised me.
Koen Frolichs: Oh, really? Okay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, it's fairly o like they're very open about that in this book. Um, anyway, so, uh, about the whole like comparison to Camu. Lee agreed that he liked camu, especially the smoking.
They all had cigarettes stuck to their lips in those days, probably his interpreter, Helena, who used to live in Edinburg, was pregnant with her first child and had given up smoking. Lee said when his daughter was born, even the doctor who was looking after was a smoker. I was smoking in the delivery room.
Everybody smoked. Lee had even given a cigarette to President Obama one time when they happened to be standing out around together outside of Hotel New York, and he was on the campaign trail. He had said he wouldn't smoke during the campaign, but he really needed one. No smoker ever quits for sure. End richer.
Used to smoke, but doesn't now. Not for health reasons, but because he doesn't want to carry [01:45:00] stuff. So, yeah, I like the idea of of, of tempting Obama to start smoking again.
Koen Frolichs: Start smoking you. Fuck.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Just like that guy. Looks like he needs one. Here you go. Barrack.
Koen Frolichs: I didn't even know Barack Obama smoked. Actually, I never seen him smoke.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, it's, I think I've heard it before, but I, it was vaguely surprise too.
Koen Frolichs: There's this movie, it's called, I think it's Meru. It's like some climbers climbing a mountain and then, you know, they're stuck in this little tent up there and they're like climbers, right?
High altitude. And then they're stuck in this tent during a storm. And then they start smoking. And I always wondered like, why a, would you smoke if you're like a professional climber? BY here? Yeah. Right. Like in high altitude you don't want smoke on, you know, because I don't know, I never got it, but I guess it's,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: well, I guess if it relaxes you, whatever.
I dunno. Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: I guess that's it. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, no, I mean, I'm still just click, like I, I highlighted a few things, but they're quite long, so I [01:46:00] can't read all of them. Yeah. I mean some of the stuff was interesting, but yeah, that was it. Anyway, uh, yeah, the other quotes are too long and they're all about writing and it's maybe not that relevant right now.
Koen Frolichs: Sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, so yeah, that's, that's, I guess that's all we're getting. Uh, three quotes. It was I think, right, one about him attempting Obama to smoke again or making him smoke again. One about Lee Child beating the shit, absolute shit out of a kid while he was nine.
Koen Frolichs: Imagine being that kid now, right? And then the guy who beats you up gave you lifelong traumas, becomes a successful author.
Yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: exactly. And actually makes some money off of that behavior.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Like
Koen Frolichs: just
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: describing that behavior.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah. What, what do you, what can you do about this? Right. Nothing.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I dunno. And yeah, I forgot what the first quote was.
Koen Frolichs: It was, I think,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: oh yeah. Was him with the, no, the first quote was, uh oh Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Sending off
to
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: manage agent. And so, yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Anyway, so, uh, predictions. Okay. So, uh, I guess I'll ask because then I don't have to think. Good. Do [01:47:00] you think, do you think Roscoe or Finlay is in on the deal?
Koen Frolichs: No,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: as in bad. Okay. I
Koen Frolichs: think they're clean.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Do you think PIKA is
Koen Frolichs: Uh, no. I think PIKA is also clean. Yeah, I hope, because you want Pika to fight with richer, right?
That's what you expect. Which that
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: last time kind of, because he's the only guy who's bigger than richer. Yeah. So it would be like a dramatic, they'd probably like, you know, it's, if it has to be dramatic, it also has to be the top of a mountain. So they'd probably like climb to the top of a mountain, then they just bare knuckle, fight out, rip
Koen Frolichs: your shirts off.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, exactly. Then just beat the crap outta each other.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um,
Koen Frolichs: yeah, that's true. No,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I don't think so. It at least the kind of ending I could see Lee child writing, but mm-hmm. Um, not on a mountain though. Be in some wheat field in Iowa or something.
Koen Frolichs: Sure. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I think your idea that Charlie got picard to, to feel like he needed help.
Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm. Uh,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: that's an interesting idea. We, we now have kind of, [01:48:00] so apart from like the fact that she's, you know, the wife of the guy who is definitely in this stuff.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. And.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Maybe that you think she's, she was too composed, which I'm not sure about exactly, but we still had, you know the thing I said last time about that she gave Richard the Bentley and made him very recognizable as long as he used the car.
Sure,
Koen Frolichs: yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's one thing. And now also someone there got out of the situation. Right, yeah. Which also made it easier to kill Richa, right. If he's on his own.
Koen Frolichs: Sure. Yeah, definitely. Definitely.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, of course he, I dunno whether they planned to do it because he baited Baker right? By saying like, oh yeah, I'll be all on my own in that flat.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, sure. That's
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: what
Koen Frolichs: he Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But maybe they would've tried to do it anyway, like that's, could still have been the case.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. It's weird. We just haven't heard anything of Roscoe for like four chapters now or something.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah,
Koen Frolichs: yeah. It's true. Okay, so I'll ask a question.
Who all is gonna die? What do you think in the [01:49:00] end? If the book, who, who will still be alive? Guess, you know, one minus,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: uh, yeah. Richer.
Koen Frolichs: Richer. Yeah. Okay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: He's gonna be alive. Uh, I think Roscoe's gonna be alive.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Okay. Okay. So we definitely that
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: one. Um, wait, so we know they're obviously not gonna stay, they're not gonna live happily ever after.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, together. And the thing is, Roscoe can't really stay in that place afterwards. Right. Like, true. Yes. That's not the town you want to stay in, so.
Koen Frolichs: Well, the town is going like, if, if they roll up, well, there's recliners there, there's nothing left, right? Yeah, yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: exactly. Yeah. And, um, and if they don't, if they're unsuccessful, then she's left as the person who tried to fight, you know, so she can't
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
She has to move,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: continue living there. Yeah. And right now it seems kind of random that she say, oh, whatever, I'll just go to Atlanta and stay there. Mm-hmm. Because, you know, I know she's not going with Richard. Right. So it would see a bit random if she just, you. I mean, like, you know, of course you, no, no one [01:50:00] really wants to live the richer lifestyle and just have a toothbrush and just walk and hitchhike through the US randomly.
Koen Frolichs: Sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But it would seem a bit random almost for her to survive, to reset it to a new city and yeah. I dunno. It seems a bit random, so maybe, yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe she will die. Um, okay. Okay. Let's put it this way. I think Finley's gonna survive.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Okay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: He's just gonna go back to Boston or whatever and or whatever, start a new life anywhere.
It doesn't matter.
Koen Frolichs: Or like become had in, um, Margrave
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Koen Frolichs: Head detector or like, um, had um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. Chief or chief, yeah. What the terms are, who's gonna survive. So
Koen Frolichs: Hubble, is he alive still?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I was wondering. I mean, he is definitely still alive,
Koen Frolichs: right? Yeah, I think so too. I think he's definitely alive, but richer in the end will probably like, you know, break his arms and like.
Slap him to that with his own arm or something,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you know? Honestly, I don't think so. I think ho's gonna survive because Hubble's not a physical threat [01:51:00] to anyone. He's just the kind of middle guy who made it work. Yeah. But he never, and he has a family. I don't think Richard
Koen Frolichs: wants. Yeah, that's, he just, he he got into far, basically
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: it sounded, yeah.
I think ho's all gonna survive.
Koen Frolichs: Ah, dammit. Okay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Sorry. Uh, I think they're all gonna survive and probably move somewhere else.
Koen Frolichs: Sounds like a plan. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, in there, two Bentleys.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. It's enough to move in. Probably. Um, baker the corrupt, who seems to
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: be Yeah, he's gonna die.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Okay. Because yeah, he's gonna
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: die.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, I think so. Klein Teal, uh, or Kleiner, sorry. And Teal. Oh, I think there's that. Teo is gonna live.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, he's old. Right? That's kind of your Yeah, that's a good one. What you said. Yeah. He's not no threat. He's not fun. It's no fun to beat up an old man.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Kleiner. No. Kleiner has to die, right?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. And he was, Klein
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: is the bad guy who has to die.
Yeah. Whereas Teo is the bad guy who has to survive.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. True. He has to tell the story [01:52:00] for the rest of his, you know, to the next generation.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Well, he's just like the, the, the not too big to handle, but he's like the, just the kind of corrupt politician kind of thing that just always gets away with it.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, you're right.
And um, Kleiner was also described as like a physical, like strong man. Right. He, like, he was in his sixties, but still like described like strong, tough guy.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, his kid is huge also. Yeah. So
Koen Frolichs: yeah. His kid, well
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: not huge, but a bit gangly I think. But at least very tall.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Gangly. But like broad shoulder, something like that.
I think,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think the professor's gonna survive.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. I hope so too.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, because he
Koen Frolichs: lost nothing. Yeah. He already lost a friend.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Although I didn't seem to care too much.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, who else is there in this week?
Koen Frolichs: That's
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: who's still alive?
Koen Frolichs: I mean, there's like the barber shop and all those, but I think these people are just kind of like, not relevant.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: They're just gonna be fucked for the rest of their lives because poor and now they have nothing.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Or
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Hmm. Who takes over the Kleiner Foundation if the Klein is all dead? Well, [01:53:00] nothing. K Kina Foundation has a lot of money. So unless someone stops those regular payments, the city is rich forever.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
But it's
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: forever. But,
Koen Frolichs: but if it's illegal money, like it's, would kind of fit money. Like it can't stay in the Kleiner Foundation, right? Oh, the, the, the wife can survive. The wife can survive. Who's so sad? The wife, the, the, the sad sick recliner wife.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I've forgotten about her completely.
Koen Frolichs: He reached her matter in the, in the general store when he was drinking coffee.
Oh,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: she, yes,
Koen Frolichs: of course she can. She can be happy again. Yeah. She can get a relationship with Roscoe or Finlay. Yeah. See I, yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: all of them.
Koen Frolichs: All of them.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Richard, does everyone teal everyone go, go and get in there.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No, but yeah, so, so maybe she'll survive and continue like the police is not gonna like take the money because she's going to continue paying the city or whatever.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah. Some kind of like weird justice.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah,
Koen Frolichs: exactly. That we're all kind of okay with. Yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: we're like the [01:54:00] barbershop guys and Okay. Here's the most important plot point. Do you think Rich's gonna meet the barber sister and talk about the music?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, that's true. I don't even sure if his sister's still alive.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I'm not sure either.
Koen Frolichs: I don't think the guy knows for sure. Um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, no. So I think those other, the main ones, right?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, you're right. Yeah. So you only disagree I sco,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean independent of whether he is a good guy or not. Yeah. Do you think he's gonna survive?
Koen Frolichs: I think he will. Like, 'cause he's the connection to the FBI and they're gonna need the FBI to come and swoop in and clean up basically.
Right.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Wait, so, okay. Let me just see how many chapters there are so we can like roughly estimate like, um, 34, there's seven more chapters, there's eight more chapters. Um, 27 inclusive, 34. There is eight chapters.
Koen Frolichs: Very good.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, yeah, but they have to go to Atlanta, right? Like it would be random. Uh, okay. [01:55:00] I'd be a bit disappointed if Roscoe just returns and nothing happened.
Koen Frolichs: True. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Like that would be really lame. Right. If Roscoe, just so I feel like they have reacher has to go to the laptop.
Koen Frolichs: Something. Yeah. She, she didn't, yeah. Something has to go, he has to go and save her or whatever. Yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. Or just, just doesn't hurt back and he's confused and I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.
Something, yeah. It would be really disappointing if she just returns them away. Like, oh man, those kids really need a lot of attention.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Or Roscoe runs off with Pika.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Maybe that's it.
Koen Frolichs: Maybe that's it. And that's why she has to stay another night.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Maybe that's why.
Koen Frolichs: Oh God.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And then Richard is heartbroken.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: One guy who's bigger than him.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. And then he takes his, takes his ground and Richard can't do anything. Can't beat him up.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
He's
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: also FBI. You can't,
Koen Frolichs: yeah. You can't beat a Yeah. I mean, you can one,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. I mean,
Koen Frolichs: oh, I hate Roscoe already. Yeah. Okay. Um, okay, so we disagree with [01:56:00] Roscoe. I think she's either gonna die, gonna run up with bca, you're gonna take, you think she survives?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I, I'm right now failing to imagine a scenario where she survive. Like what, what she would she do if she, I don't know. I mean, like, it would just, like, of course, like she could just go up and, you know, go to a different police station or whatever and live her life. But it seems a bit boring, like for the end of a book, right?
Yeah. Like the, this character just like resettled to New City. Yeah, it sounds a bit random and boring. Yeah. So yeah, I, I think I agree. Some sort of big dramatic something has happen, fight scene, explosion. Yeah. Something. Yeah, I think that's gonna happen.
Koen Frolichs: Okay, cool. And I think Charlie might still be bad, so We'll, but we'll see.
I think she's been like,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. Yeah. I dunno
Koen Frolichs: playing around a little bit in the background, but we'll see.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I mean, the big question, right, is that kind of, I mean there are a few big questions, but one of them to me is still, where is hobble and under what circumstances?
Koen Frolichs: Exactly.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Again, it would be a bit boring if he was just hiding [01:57:00] somewhere.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah, I don't think so.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, no, I, he has to be like held captive or someone has to save him or whatever. That would be more interesting.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So I think. Maybe, I don't think Charlie's bad per se, but I think she's just trying to get her husband out of it or something.
Koen Frolichs: Could also be
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, sure. And maybe something like that.
Yeah,
Koen Frolichs: yeah. Yeah. Could
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: be. Uh, yeah. So I agree still with your theory about the counterfeit $1 versus a hundred dollars.
Koen Frolichs: Yes.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, I mean, it didn't say, that's still not be true, but
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I can't think of anything better.
Koen Frolichs: I convinced you to think that, um, that's good enough for me.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I think that's it, right?
Koen Frolichs: I think so. Yeah. I think that's it. I think we've got about a hundred pages left and then we'll know. Yeah. About 105,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: by the way. Sorry. Is Stevenson still alive? I forgot.
Koen Frolichs: I think he is, but I think he's a minor. He'll die. He'll die.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I feel like all those people are all gonna die.
Koen Frolichs: That's true. Kill him off.
Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: You know, like there's gonna be a fight scene with Baker and [01:58:00]Stevenson and whatever, and Rich's probably gonna like rip their throats out or something. Brutal.
Koen Frolichs: Something nasty. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Something unnecessarily brutal.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. It gives you like half a second to think about, you know, how it ends for you.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
I think, uh, that's all we have. I think we've run out of things to say and out of time.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah. And you know what a great thing is? Nothing weird again. Huh? I'm improving.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I'm sure I can rephrase. You think your theory into something that you would do? No, I can, I can make your, your dad telling you that story.
I can. I give, give me a week. I'll think of a weird way and I'll, I'll find a way to turn your story with your dad. Weird.
Koen Frolichs: Okay. Not too, not too weird. Please.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No, no. Like within what you told me, I'm not gonna like add stuff just slightly rephrasing it.
Koen Frolichs: Good. I'll ask my dad if he ever read the book if he remembers talking to 9-year-old me.
That's all. That's all.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Hey Dad, do you remember my childhood? No.
Koen Frolichs: No.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Why would [01:59:00] I?
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Start texting me.
Koen Frolichs: So texting.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I'll block you.
Koen Frolichs: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. And yeah, I guess the next week will have, we'll talk about your childhood. Yeah. But my childhood and how my father never spoke to me about US Dollars when I was nine or any other age, actually.
Koen Frolichs: No.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay.
Koen Frolichs: Telling. Telling.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Anyway. So next week until the end. Next
Koen Frolichs: week, right? Yeah.