Today at Manhattan Infidel is I believe a first.  I am pleased to interview a fictional character.  And a dead one at that.  I  present to my readers the dead investment banker Carl Bruner.

MI:  Carl, welcome to Manhattan Infidel.

CB:  Thank you.  It’s nice to be here.

MI:  Tell us about yourself.

CB:   Well I’m an investment banker.  And a crooked one at that.

MI:  Surprise surprise.

CB:  I was running a scam at work and taking money from several accounts.  Millions actually.  One day my best friend Sam discovered the discrepancies and  told me about them.  I promised I would investigate it.  Funny story there.  I actually had placed the money in an account under Sam’s control and I needed his access codes so I could transfer the money to another account so I hired this guy Willie Lopez to get the information and he ends up killing Sam.

MI:  Wow.  So you’re a real scumbag.

CB:  Well, like I said I am an investment banker.  And it’s not like I knew Willie would kill Sam.

MI:  Isn’t Willie Puerto Rican?

CB:  Yes.  I believe he is.

MI:  So how did you not know he wouldn’t kill him?

CB:  That’s quite a racist statement.

MI:  Yes, but I’m a liberal so I can say things like that.

CB:  Touché

MI:  So what happened next?

CB:  Well I was at the office one night trying to access Sam’s account but I couldn’t because I still didn’t have the access codes.  And I’m starting to freak out.

MI:  Well why didn’t you just ask the I.T. department for it.  I mean the guy’s dead.  Just tell them you are in charge of his accounts now.

CB:  [Pause]  Um.  I didn’t think of that.

MI:  So you’re not only crooked but you’re apparently an idiot as well.

CB:  Well, I am an investment banker.

MI:  So you couldn’t get the codes?

CB:  No and then something really freaky happened.  Sam’s computer started to type by itself.  It must have been Sam as a ghost coming back to haunt me.  That’s the only possible explanation.

MI:  Not necessarily.  It could have been someone remoting into his computer with a software program like DameWare.

CB:  [Pause] Um, I didn’t think of that either.

MI:  Man you really are an idiot. So what happened next?

CB:  To make a long story short I chased his girlfriend and this very ugly black woman until a shard of glass fell on me and killed me.

MI:  Tough way to go.

CB:  Yeah, and then these howling demons showed up.

MI:  How did you know they were demons?

CB:  They were evil.  And cold.  Very cold.  I’ve never sensed such coldness and evil.  So they must have been demons.  There’s no other explanation.

MI:  Not necessarily.  They might have been from the TSA.

CB: [Pause]  Um.  I never thought of that.

MI:  God you are such an – you know I’m not even going to go there. So what happened next?

CB: Well these howling cold things said that they were going to drag me to a place of no hope.  A place of despair and eternal torture.

MI:  So they took you to hell?

CB:  Actually no.  They took me to Poughkeepsie, New York.  That’s where I’ve been spending my afterlife.

MI:  How’s that working out for you?

CB:  The competition is cut-throat.  Lots of investment bankers there.

MI:  Really?

CB:  It seems the afterlife for the damned is mainly filled with investment bankers and bloggers.

MI:  Um.  Bloggers?

CB:  Yes.  Where did you think bloggers go when they die?  Certainly not heaven.

MI:  [Pause]  Um.  I didn’t think of that.

CB:  God you are such an idiot.

And so went my interview with the guy from Ghost.  No, not Patrick Swayze but the other guy.  The one who was killed by a shard of glass.  Now if you excuse me I have to find a loophole in this whole “bloggers go to hell” thing.

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