August

Issue 47

"I want a new life."

"What is wrong with the life that you have, if you don't mind my asking?"

"I want to live in a world in which Christianity does not exist."

"I beg your pardon?"

He repeated his desire, and then briskly rubbed together his cold, blue hands, as if to warm them.

I looked around his Park Avenue office suite, and at the skyscrapers outside his window. He had framed photos of beautiful women on his desk and walls. These images were strangely disturbing, suggesting trophies in display cases or butterflies on pins.

Earlier, this self-made millionaire had made plain his core philosophy: money can buy anything.

I pondered his outrageous request, awaiting the snap verdict of my gut. But the jury down there was, for some reason, out.

"I know you can find that world for me," he said. "After all, you are the best in the business. You are"—he offered a lopsided grin—"The Finder."

Do you know what a Finder is?

A Finder is an agent who finds things that are usually unfindable, and sometimes, if he is unwise, he will undertake to find that which cannot be found. These rare goods or services (if they exist) cost fabulous sums. Thus, only the wealthy can afford them, and only the wealthy can afford the Finder's fee. I have made a fortune finding rarities for the rich. In all cases, my clients have sought their precious objects to fill holes in their hearts.

For one client, I tracked down and captured a rare Amazonian bird with two heads, soaring wings and green plumage: The Free Bird. That man now keeps the miserable, screeching beast caged. For another client, I trafficked in slaves; for still another I found the Zahir, which according to Islamic myth is an object that has the power to create an obsession in anyone who sees it. That client was obsessed by obsession, and the particular Zahir that I found for him was a vein of marble in a forgotten mosque sunk in the sands of southern Saudi Arabia, an uninhabited zone known as The Empty Quarter.

In the rarefied circles of the very rich and very unhappy in which I travel, my reputation as a Finder is sterling. If a Finder too often fails to carry out a commission, his reputation suffers and he has trouble finding more clients. Finders are few, competition is cutthroat and careers are often made or lost on the outcome of a single spectacular commission

I tell you now: I never fail to find that which I seek.