Dialogues with a Garden Gnome

A very elaborate scheme to pull off the biggest heist ever goes off with barely a hitch.

Harvey hosts the “Banker of the Year” event, where the most ruthless bankers are commended for the best netting and most unscrupulous transactions of the year. M3 takes first place—as the most obnoxious character too—before everything goes awfully wrong. Harvey takes the top twenty guests hostage and demands “donations” of them to the tune of a quarter of a billion. They all pay up thanks to the persuasive properties of the “knee warmers”, guaranteed to surgically remove your knee from the rest of your body at the press of a button.

In the meantime the FBI and local police find themselves conversing with a garden gnome in what seemed to be the home of a convicted fraudster. They are baffled by the technology employed by the hostage takers and the precision of their activities. Despite tampering with Harvey’s “requests” they don’t get anywhere close to defeating the “gangsters” or even finding out who they really are.

Using a confetti parade of dollar bills and gold coins as cover, the gangsters make their getaway—without Harvey, who chooses to stay behind to have tea with Doug, the lead agent on the case. But Harvey must have himself had a master who decides he’s no longer required.

The brains behind the operation meet up at their lakeside hideaway and toast the billions of dollars they have managed to make in “fear” money with a ’21 Dom Pérignon before going their separate ways—on vacation.