Professional

Wladi barked at me "Don't touch your computer again. What is there?"

"Nothing."

Dear reader, please understand that I, otherwise an always law and social order obeying citizen, did not disclose the full truth in this particular difficult and stressful situation.

In fact, I had just collected my documentation of Davalka's business model, the names of the clients (from her computer and mobile phone), the questionable tax behaviour and a few other things. Being a bit devious, I used Ilona's business mail address and sent the information to Sergej.

No real harm done, right?

Well, there was some more information in the BCC address field (blind carbon copy - as if carbon would still work with digitalization). It contained the mail addresses of our police, the local public prosecutor, a state attorney (he seemed to have a branch in the states there as well) and a crown prosecutor (where the company was registered) and the tax authorities as well. I may have added one or the other newspaper reporter as well.

Right then, I saw coloured lights blinking outside and I smiled and waived to a point behind Wladi.

Wladi looked at me and shouted "What are you doing?"

"I am waiving into the second camera. Smile! There it is, right on the windowsill."

Wladi reacted exactly like he had done before.

I had mistakenly left an old camera earlier on the windowsill and could only hope that Ilona did not see it. I would be in serious trouble then.

Wladi did not aim long, he just shot. Impressive, another success and the camera parts flew through the window glass outside towards the street.

Unfortunately, for him, the police outside felt a bit threatened and shot back.

Fortunately, for me, they were not American police, so they only shot 3 times and only through the window. One hit Wladi's shoulder, one his leg. Sufficient. He cried let the gun drip to the floor.

Meanwhile I had decided to test the safety of our kitchen equipment and had put myself bravely behind it. Test successful! Or not, because I had banged my head a bit during my heroic dive.

As soon as the police entered our house, Ilona appeared from the bedroom, still mostly unclothed, looked at the bleeding Wladi and cried "Get him of the house! Take Wladi outside! Oh my god, the blood will be such a mess to clean. This will take hours to remove!"

When she started dragging the moaning and bleeding Wladi to the front door, the police intercepted and held her, just when two paramedics entered the house. On checked Wladi, the other one the naked Ilona. He certainly knew how to professionally assess a situation. Eyes first, of course, they were still wonderful, then her boobs, which were still uncovered and easy to check whether they may have become unhinged and then his gaze was drawn lower.

And then, just before je could start his manual examination of the inflamed area, he yelled "Oh shit. She's got AIDS!"

Which triggered the first paramedic to jump back, frantically trying to wipe the blood off his bare hands.

A policeman, who had not seen the tattoos yet, asked, stunned "Since when do we have instant AIDS tests? I thought that this still takes weeks?"

The second paramedic just pointed to where half an hour ago a band-aid had sat on Ilona's stomach.

The policeman knelt down and warned Ilona "Don't touch me or..." and then remembered to put on gloves first, before he read loud :

"Property of Davalka PR.

Inform lostgoods @ davalka. com immediately.

Reward!"

He shook his head, looked up at Ilona and shook his head again. And then continued

"Voided because of AIDS"

He gulped "Oh shit."

The latter text was very nicely written in bold red letters. It was a bit blurry, still, so we had to experiment with the laser parameters a bit more. I decided to address this the next day with my colleagues.

Natasha tried to help "But it is not her blood, it is Wladi's blood."

Natasha's eyes widened and she look terrified towards Ilona. "But then you got AIDS from Wladi and then I also got it! Our lives are destroyed!"

Her eyes fell on Wladi's pistol, and she dived for it, but was stomped on her hand by a police officer with heavy duty boots before she reached it. I did not like the sound of it. That meant operation and eight weeks of plaster, at least.

She cried out in pain and howled "I only wanted to die...".

Not exactly the reaction you would expect from a professional, would you?

The next day, I told Ilona to make a proposal for our split in the divorce. Call me a bastard, but I did not object when she made the division based of what she 'knew' about our assets and our respective incomes. Why should I start to contradict her now? She was a professional, was she not?

Considering the whole mess, I understood that nobody really wanted to understand how the additional tattoo was done. However, a large number of people, some in quite exposed positions, where asked to undergo an AIDS test. Just in case. I have no idea who leaked the topic to our local newspaper.

Even better, one of the tests was positive. Later it was found out to have been a false result, but everybody got tested again.

Two years later a patent for our sustainable food marking was granted and soon after I got a decent second income from that. And no, it was not subject to the divorce settlement.

Monica became a VP secretary some months later. She grinned when she told me that the CEO had been discretely informed by his secretary who had kept his name out of the mess. He always treated me with a lot of respect which did not go unnoticed. And Monica started to hint that she might be interested in becoming a senior vice president assistant before she retired. She even took me took me to a first league woman basketball match once and invited me and the team captain to dinner afterwards. Her daughter and I enjoyed the dinner a lot, and not only because of the food. But that is another story.

Only 4 years later, Ilona appeared on my doorstep, a butternut pumpkin in her hand, frowned at Monica's daughter who had her arms around me, then showed the marking on the pumpkin to me and said "it looks quite similar to my tattoo, does it not?".

I shrugged my shoulders and smiled, then thought of older, better times and said "Probably yes, my dear. Must have been done by a professional."