Prince of Thieves

If you have seen any of the James Bond movies you know that he is always faced with super villains like Ernest Blofeld. People who were fabulously wealthy. Villains like this are not always fictional.

The Guardian featured an atmospheric piece on how the Prince of Marbella, Monzer al-Kassar, a man on the "Most Wanted" list of Iraq, lived. You could do worse.

The Observer tracked him down to his lavish, 15-suite residence, designed like a Renaissance palazzo overlooking Puerto Banus. Guards swing the gates open to allow guests into the estate, where there is a swimming pool built like a four-leaf clover. Three Spanish mastiffs prowl during the night to deter uninvited guests.

Inside the palace, a grand piano is showcased at the bottom of a marble staircase under a domed skylight. In the grand salon, silk flowers are arranged in a giant Chinese vase in front of a marble fireplace. Statues of servants holding lamps stand before the massive drapes, and on the wall are murals of African servants in turbans, carrying platters of fruit.

Not bad for a man associated with the Achille Laura shipjacking, whose walls are adorned with photographs of him shaking hands with Uday Hussein, members of the Somali Aideed clan, Abu Abbas, up on hashish smuggling charges in the UK, mentioned in connection with Iran-Contra, said to have sold anti-ship missiles to Teheran, and with supposed side businesses supplying terror groups in Latin America and Iran-backed militias.

There is something morally repugnant over private evil so richly rewarded.

What, you say? Private Evil? Well, yes. We have learned to understand princes, kings and dictators; heads of countries or empires whose evil and opulence were legend. But the privatization is this persona seems somewhat more sinister, and more ... slimy.

But there is some saving grace in this:

Part of the dark glamor of the Low Life is that what it lacks in class it makes up for in grotesqueness. Les Fleurs de Mal. But it's only glamorous from a distance. Up close you get to see the gore, the grue and the spittle. And then you might want out. But it's like the Roach Motel or the Hotel California. Easier in than out.

The boundary between the civilian world and the underworld is more mental than physical. A killer is physically just an ordinary man whose mind is remarkably uninhibited. I think Monzer would approve of my choice of words. Anyone who reads Tolkien's account of what happens when you slip on the Ring will instantly recognize the altered consciousness of someone in the Life, where the world looks the same but is different. Everything acquires a second color. Jokes take on an edge; "friendships" a menace; even the sweetness is sickly.

Precisely.