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The Life and Times of Nigel Prescott Caldwell

a "little black book" story

By Alex GroffPublished 3 years ago 10 min read
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The Life and Times of Nigel Prescott Caldwell
Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

Normally, I can pass it off as a magic trick. That’s the only reason I’m still alive, really. Because people are gullible.

Or maybe gullible isn’t the right way to put it. What is the opposite of gullible? I don’t know, either. But we live in a world of science and technology. People believe there is a logic underlying the universe, even if they can’t explain it.

God works in mysterious ways.

Magic’s just science that we don’t understand yet.

Do the research.

That kind of thing.

We built skyscrapers and landed on the moon because we learned the rules: physics, chemistry, maths. I mean, I don’t understand any of those things. I don’t really remember my school days, to be honest. But all I have to do is look out the window to see how I benefit from this knowledge right now.

Thirty-five thousand feet is a long way to fall if the science doesn’t work.

I spend most of my time in the air. It’s a surprisingly easy way to remain anonymous. Expert tip: fly economy. When you’re in first class, businessmen strike up conversations, give you their cards, promise to call when they’re in town. I started collecting business cards so I could give them out to other businessmen. It helps me keep a low profile. That trick will come in handy for you, too.

It’s not just the other passengers, either. Some brash flight attendants will ask about your destination. You want my advice? Don’t admit you’ve never been there before. Suddenly, they offer to show you around town. They know people, people who can hook you up with whatever you want. They’ve got a place to stay nearby. But they always want something from you. Don’t trust any of them.

I stopped flying first class after one of my incidents.

No, Istanbul is just a layover.

I’m actually headed to Singapore. I need a place to rest, and figure some things out. When I need a break, my go-to place is Jewel Changi International Airport.

It’s labeled as an airport, but it’s actually a tiny city, right in the middle of a tiny island city-state. Not content with just shops and restaurants, the architects included a dozen walking gardens and art installations, as well as arcades and two movie theatres. There’s no better place in the world to kill time.

I can tell you more about Jewel Changi International Airport, if you’d like?

The size and layout will help you if you ever need to get away from people. For a while, there were some people who, well– let’s say they thought I owed them something, and I disagreed. That’s why I travel so much. I got really good at disappearing.

Those hedge mazes and rope bridges? Tourists look at them and see something to pass the time while they’re waiting for their next flight. Do you know what I see? Exits. Escape routes. One time, there were five guys after me: I lost them all in the Mirror Maze.

Yes, there’s a Mirror Maze in Jewel Changi International Airport.

Learning the layout of an airport has saved my life I can’t tell you how many times. Wherever you land, take a minute and study the terminal maps. If they have physical copies, take one. That way, you can add security cameras and police patrol routes to the map. If there aren’t any copies, take a picture.

I’ve flown through these places enough that I don’t need maps. It’s all in my head.

Avoid small airports or airports that are fragmented into small terminals, like Heathrow or Dulles. There is nothing worse than getting trapped on a shuttle bus surrounded by tourists, and then you see one of them. You know who I mean.

What is my affliction? I thought you might ask. You seem perceptive.

I cough up coins.

Yes, really. Whenever I sneeze, or cough, or burp, there’s a coin. Kids think it’s hilarious: they ask me to do it again, and then they want me to do other tricks. I actually learned some sleight of hand, so I can put on a simple show. Nothing fancy, some card tricks, some coin tricks– now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t– that kind of thing.

Most parents roll their eyes and think, What is this grown man doing; others are as fascinated as their kids. I’m happy either way, as long as they think it is an act. That kind of subterfuge can help keep you safe, and it’s easy to learn. I can teach you, if you want. Do you want to know more about subterfuge?

That’s fine. The offer is still available. If you want to know later, just ask me.

No, I’m not making it up. I can’t cough on command– it doesn’t work like that– but I promise you that I’m telling the truth. Here, let me show you something.

See that? That’s about two hundred dollars, entirely in coins. Some of the coins are basically worthless– like this Serbian dinara. I think a hundred of these are worth one U.S. penny. But then you have these: these are Kuwaiti fils. Each one of these is about thirty cents U.S. Altogether, if we get a good exchange rate, this will earn us two hundred dollars U.S. I always deposit the money as soon as I land. Otherwise, I’m carrying bags of coins around with me everywhere.

No, these are all from this flight. I ate something that didn’t agree with me, so I pulled out the air sickness bag and this is what I got. Since this affliction started, I’ve made $20,000. If you help me, that $20,000 can be yours.

Yes, I remember the first time it happened. It’s not actually a story I like to tell, but you’ve earned it, putting up with me this whole flight.

I was at Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram. You may have heard of it– it’s pretty famous in certain circles.

Do you want to know more about Padmanabhaswamy Temple?

Thiruvananthapuram is a city in southern India. The name means the City of the Divine Serpent. In Hinduism, there are creatures called Nagas– half-gods, half-serpents– who can transform into people and hide among us.

Padmanabhaswamy Temple was built by Naga-worshipers. Unimaginable treasure was hidden in the temple’s three vaults, but each vault was sealed by a curse. Vaults A and C have already been opened, but no one has entered Vault B. No one except me.

I was hired as part of a crew to break in. It’s not something I’m proud of. I used to be a different person.

Back then, I was part of a team that planned and pulled off incredible heists. The more security, the more notoriety, the better. Other people did the planning: I was the labor. I’m also an expert at safe-cracking, if you ever need help.

Normally, Hans led the mission and I followed him. Hans is an expert at optics: he knows how to manipulate lasers to avoid detection. But at Padmanabhaswamy Temple, Vault B had been closed for centuries. No lasers, so no Hans. I took the lead.

That’s when it started.

As soon as I stepped inside and took a breath of the stale, cold air, it was like I’d inhaled the curse. I started choking. The curse sank down to the bottom of my lungs, letting nothing else in or out. I thought I was going to die. The two guys who came with me wouldn’t even step into the chamber. They just watched me writhing around on the ground, surrounded by mountains of gold and gemstones. And then they ran.

Finally, I got up on my knees and started coughing. Instead of air, I spit out a pile of rupees. I couldn’t stop dry-heaving. Liras, pesos, thebes, milliemes, avos, centavos– every coin imaginable just poured out of me, until I finally passed out from exhaustion.

When I woke up, I was alone. The crew was gone, the base we’d set up was abandoned, and as far as they knew, I was dead. I felt like I had died, but there I was, walking out of the temple and back into the world.

I swore I would never go back, but that treasure is still there, waiting for someone to claim it. Whoever can figure out a way to sneak in and break the curse will have more wealth than most countries. It is a dangerous mission, expert level only.

But that’s not the mission I wanted to talk to you about.

I woke up on the plane. I don’t think it was this one, but after a while, they all look the same. You all look the same. I was flying to Istanbul. From there, I was going to transfer to Singapore, to lay low for a while.

It was a long flight, so I struck up a conversation. Don’t take this the wrong way, but he was a lot more talkative than you are. If there’s one thing I’ve learned to appreciate since I left Thiruvananthapuram, it’s good conversation. Living this way, always on the move, it’s lonely. This guy, he was a fount of questions.

Are you still an expert at breaking into safes?

Which airports are the best for exits? Which ones should I avoid?

Do you have a way to get a hold of Hans if I need a lasers expert?

While we talked, he took pages of notes. There’s this feeling I would get, whenever I cracked a difficult safe. This sense of power and... importance. Watching him write down my words, I felt that again.

He wrote everything in this little black notebook. And then he disappeared.

I don’t know how you disappear on a plane, but he did. He left to go to the bathroom, and never came back. I grabbed a boxed meal for him when the flight attendant came through with dinner, and then another one at breakfast. It didn’t matter.

When we landed, I didn’t know what to do. The plane was empty. The overhead bins were empty. The only things left were his notebook and the boxed meals I’d saved for him. I combined the meals into one box and saved the notebook for when I saw him again. The notebook had a strange heft to it. It was beautifully made– the elegant cover, ivory-colored pages, held together with an elastic closure– but that didn’t explain its weight, its presence.

Maybe that’s what the truth feels like. It has a weight, a power, to it.

I changed flights at the last minute. He knew where I was going, and now he was gone. I had to be somewhere else. On the way to Kuala Lumpur, I read the entire book, front to back. As soon as I finished, I read it again. I’ve read this book a hundred times now, but it still doesn’t make any sense.

The first chapter is just a list of random words and phrases. “Cheat codes,” it says. But that’s not what bothered me.

I read the story of my life. Fifty pages under the heading “NPC.”

He knew things about my life that I’ve never told anyone. I read about missions that I’d thought about doing, if the right crew came along– but they never happened. Those missions happened in his book. How did he know these things?

Not only that, I read about my death. I died at least a hundred different times, a hundred different ways. Sometimes it’s violent, sometimes it’s whimsical– funny, almost. But death is always there, just around the corner.

And it always starts right here. Every version of this story begins with you and me, on this plane, talking. I don’t remember you, this conversation– but it’s all here in this notebook. And now you’re back again. Tell me, what’s going on?

I will give you $20,000. I will tell you every secret I know.

Tell me the truth.

Tell me.

humanity
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About the Creator

Alex Groff

Historian. Educator. Traveler. Dilettante.

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