Still, this was not enough to let him push the button. The price remained before him like a bill sitting on a table. All he had to do was, pay the check, get up from dinner and go take over the world.
He thought of riches, he thought of power, he thought of how much better off everyone at Omdemnity would be with him running things. Still, his shaking hand would not drop. "Ah, Jesus," he sighed with a shudder that was dangerously close to a sob.
Then he thought of Edwin and the betrayal that this was. He banished the thought of his friend from his mind. Later, Topper would tell himself that it was the thought of what would happen to him if he failed in his coup that let him do it. But really, deep down, it was that he didn't want to find out what kind of a person he really was. Before self-knowledge could bubble up to the surface, he slammed his hand down on the button.
The Cromoglodon let out an unearthly wail as kilojoules of electricity were directed into his brain. The smell of burning hair and flesh filled the room. With a final, irrevocable snapping noise, the power went out and Topper was left in the dark with smell of murder, betrayal and electric chairs.
"Aw, shit," said Topper. "Now how am I gonna get out of here?"
For a man whose empire was crumbling down around him, Edwin was remarkably calm. He sat in the Omdemnity corporate jet, on his way back from an exceptionally trying negotiation for an insurance company in the Midwest. To pass the time he did something he had not done in many years. He read for pleasure.
As Edwin focused on the book in his lap, a volume of Thoreau, his back was to a wall of flat-panel screens. Nearby, one of the Adjustors sat before an open laptop and monitored all the things that might go wrong with Edwin's rapidly growing empire. They all went wrong at once.
Without disturbing his Master, the Adjustor placed a call and asked for a situation report. "What do they have?" He made a few notes on the pad in front of him. At the end of the conversation he said, "Wait for instructions," and hung up the phone. When he looked up from his writing, his eyes were drawn to a monitor on the far left. It was set to cycle through surveillance feeds inside the Omdemnity Corporate Campus. The fact that they were all dead was more disturbing than any images it might have shown.
"Sir," said Adjustor, "I hate to disturb you,"
Edwin, as serene as a monk, closed the book on his lap and looked up.
"We've had a…" the Adjustor blew air out, trying to stave off a flood of emotion.
Edwin turned to face the monitors and saw that the feed was out. Without looking at the Adjustor he said, "Calm yourself and report."
"Sir, what we know—wait, I've got a feed coming in from one of our units." The blank screen came alive again, showing a view of Omdemnity Building One. Police vehicles surrounded it and the scene was bathed in flashing lights. Confused actuaries and accountants were being rounded up and placed into transport vans.
"Ah," said Edwin.
The pilot's voice crackled over the cabin intercom. "We've been diverted to the nearest airport. I've got comm chatter on the military frequencies, they are scrambling an intercept."
"Very well," said Edwin as if these developments were all part of the plan, "it is time for me to disappear."
The pilot switched off the plane's transponder. It was an act that could result in his never being allowed to fly over any G-8 country ever again. But he was very, very well compensated. And this was why. This was it. What he had trained for and hoped would never come. His lips mouthed the prayer of all those who consign their lives to the wind, "God, I hope the wings stay on." Then he rolled the plane and pointed it straight at the ground.
Back in the cabin, Edwin endured the indignity of the five point restraint system that held him in place. This suit would surely need to be pressed, perhaps even replaced. How uncivilized. As they hurtled towards the Earth, he yawned to relieve the pressure building up in his inner ear. So tiresome, thought Edwin, so pointless, a world in which such games must be played. It’s a shame Topper can't be here, he thought, he would enjoy this.
As the plane leveled out perilously close to the ground, Edwin said, "Get me Topper," to the Adjustor, who was beginning to look a little airsick.
"Are you—urp—sure?"
Edwin's look answered all his questions and, in a few moments, Topper's voice came screeching through the phone.
"Edwin? Edwin! Are you okay? I just heard. Do you have any idea what happened?"
"Yes, Topper, I know exactly what happened."
"What? How? I mean, you do?" asked Topper.
"That's not important right now. I realize now that this was unavoidable and, as with all unavoidable things, necessary."
"Beanpole, are you feeling okay? The Feds just shut you down. As your lawyer, I'm tellin' ya, they've got warrants out. You're not safe anywhere. We gotta get a game plan together. Gotta arrange to bring you in safe so we can fight whatever this is without you getting hurt. Edwin, they're playing for keeps."
"Ah," said Edwin, "keeps, is it? My favorite stakes. No, Topper, I won't be turning myself in. I am going to ground, in the style and manner to which our good friend Dr. Loeb was accustomed."
"Good friend? What the...? You're going to Alabama? Edwin, pull yerself together!"
"No, I am not going to Alabama. Salvage what you can, Topper. I know you tried to warn me that this was inevitable. As shocked as I am, it does not change the fact -- you were right."
"What?!"
"Farewell, my friend," Edwin said.
On the other end of the call, Topper was overwhelmed by confusing and conflicting emotions. This was the first and only time that Edwin had called him "friend." It was all Topper had ever wanted. If there was one thing Topper was sure of at that moment, it was that he hadn't been a very good friend to Edwin Windsor.
All those years trying to pal up to him and now that he finally betrayed him, Edwin came around? Topper had no words to describe what he was feeling. He felt like his stomach was afraid the floor would run away and join the circus. Whatever this weird sensation was, he had felt it before, but it had been so long ago... ah, it was no good. Hours later he would realize that this rough beast was guilt, its hour come ‘round at last.
As his plane tore along the nape of the earth, eluding radar, Edwin calmly reopened his book and continued reading at this line: "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Topper followed a Sheriff down an industrial stairwell into the bowels of the county jail. As he walked, he twisted his short, powerful neck to an impossible angle, releasing a series of snapping noises from his vertebrae.
This is it, he thought. Go time. Show time. How could he have left trial work? This was what he was good at. For the first time in a very long time, he felt alive again. All the way alive.
They rounded a corner and he saw them. In their black suits, all crammed into the same holding cell, they seemed like a flock of caged, uncertain birds. And why shouldn't they be uncertain? Edwin, their god, had deserted them. What was left to them? How terrified were they really? What rescue could they expect?
"They ain't expectin' me," Topper muttered.
Their eyes were heavy on him as the Sheriff worked the key. Topper could feel their contempt pressing down on him, but he didn't flinch or turn away. Topper had never been the popular kid. He had spent so much time not being liked that the loathing of others actually made him more comfortable. And that threw a hostile audience more than anything.
Topper had given up on trying to get people to like him a long time ago. Now he just stood his ground and pretended that he liked himself. Sometimes, if you held up under withering contempt long enough, a hostile crowd would finally get curious and come around to your side. They'd think, maybe he isn’t such a bad guy after all, and that's when you got ‘em.
The Sheriff held the door open for Topper. He shook his head. "Nah, I'm going from right here." They were in the cell. Topper wasn't ready to set them
free yet. The man in uniform shrugged and closed the door with a dramatic clang. That was Topper's cue. He skipped the preamble and went right to the meat.
"There are some who've said that Edwin was ambitious. Absolutely. He worked harder than anybody should work and expected to you guys to work even harder. To be diligent and patient. To be good company men. To hold in," here Topper gyrated his hips obscenely, "all those beautiful, dangerous, sexy, destructive urges that I know you have in your black little hearts.
"I'm not here to ask you to do such things. Heavens, no. Restraint is not my strong suit. Neither is looking over people's shoulders. Literally or figuratively. I want you to be your own men. Not drones. Violent men. Bad men. The men I know you were born to be.
"Look, fellas, I appreciate loyalty as much as the next man, but the thing is, Edwin's time has passed. Sure, he was a brilliant man, and a good, good friend to me, but you have to admit, he wasn't the most passionate guy. And that's what I offer you. PASSION.
"There are those among you who are thinking right now that life has given Topper short shrift. The poor little dwarf, blah blah blah. But I don't need your pity. 'Cause I have something that you assholes forgot you had. Forgot was your birthright. I LOVE being alive. I squeeze the juice out of life like a defenseless berry crushed between my teeth.
"Edwin lied to you. We're not put on this earth to suffer. We're not here to follow the friggin' rules. When you die, nobody's gonna ask you to quote from some policy or procedure manual before they let you into Heaven. But I'll tell you one thing for sure boys, they're handin' out policy and procedure manuals at the gates of Hell."
Topper heard a few grunts of assent.
"Edwin used to say that Omdemnity Insurance was like a family. And maybe you made it your second family. He took you in. He trained you. You feel that he was good to you—I get that. But I'm also looking at a buncha guys who had the passion sucked out of their lives. The life sucked outta their lives. And what's life without life? It's nuttin'.
"I ask you, Gentlemen, what kinda life is that? Did you make a good trade, tradin' your whole life for a measly job?"
As several Adjustors shouted "No!" Topper felt his confidence swell to the point of bursting.
"Lemme tell you about family. Family sucks. Show me a family and I'll show you a group of people who are lucky if they can keep their shit together long enough to make it through a Christmas dinner. I don't want to work with my family, or anybody's family. You know who I want to work with? Genghis KHAN. 'Cause, if I'm going to show up every day and work hard then, in exchange, I want to take over the world.
“When people in other cities hear our name I want them to quake with the fear that we might show up and burn all their shit. I don't want to work with somebody's daffy, judgmental, Jesus-freak Uncle. I want to work with tireless, talented, unmitigated badasses. The kind of people who work together so well that if they ever took a vacation to Europe together they would scare other firms so badly that the Pope himself would proclaim them the scourge of God, soldiers of the Antichrist and a sure sign of the fucking apocalypse!"
Topper paused and mopped his forehead. He didn't need to, it was pure showmanship. Give it all a little time to sink in.
"It should be pretty obvious to you that I wasn't the popular kid in high school. College? Nope. They even tried to kill me in Law School. Right from birth I was boxed out from living fast, dying young and leaving a good-looking corpse. So, if I'm destined to die short and ugly, then I'm damn sure gonna be a rich badass. I don't care who I have to uppercut in the balls to get that money, you understand? And I want to do it working with people so talented and ruthless and dangerous that if I wheeled them through a parking garage when they were hot they would set off all the goddamned car alarms.
"Do you know anybody who wants to work with that kind of crew?"
The Adjustors, in spite of themselves, cheered as one, "YEAH!"
"Do you know where I could find people like that?"
"HERE! RIGHT HERE!"
"All right, boys, WHO'S WITH ME?!" Hearing his cue, the Sheriff threw open the cell door and scrambled backwards as the Adjustors ran down the hallway and up the stairs.
"GO! GO! GO!" cried Topper. He yelled at the top of his lungs. He whooped hysterically. It had worked, he had them!
Well, all but one of them. As the Sheriff started to swing the door shut he realized that one man still remained in the cell. In the back, on a bench in the shadows, sat Daniel.
"You want this one too?" asked the Sheriff.
"C'mon, tough guy. All is forgiven. We got some havoc to wreak," Topper said, trying to coax Daniel out of the cell.
Daniel just looked at the floor.
"Whattaya doin’? I know you don't like me, but that was an awesome speech. I even yelled, 'NOW WHO'S WITH ME!' and everybody cheered and we all ran out. Like in a movie. I figure, a speech like that, you gotta come. I mean, right?"
"I didn't cheer," said Daniel, with something like weariness in his voice.
"Yeah, yeah, okay, you made your point. Now let's go."
"I don't think so. Not with you."
"Well, why the hell not, sunshine? You got something better to do with your time?" asked Topper.
From the darkness of the cell Daniel said, "Are you out of your mind? Did you forget who you are dealing with?"
"Edwin? Eh, he's out. He's in exile. The whole world is against him. I'm in charge now. And if we can work to bring him back... well, maybe things will be different next time around."
"I know what you did."
"You don't know anything," said Topper, "you suspect. And your suspicions, whatever they may be, are incorrect. Besides," he added hurriedly, "even if I was at odds with my good friend, he's a fugitive. He's broke. On the run. Beaten. How could he strike back?"
"He's Edwin Windsor. Even the Devil owes him money," said Daniel.
"Enh henh? Whatever, yer bail is posted. Consider it your severance. Leave whenever you like, go wherever you want."
Topper turned on his heel and walked away with a confidence he didn't feel. He had gotten away with it, hadn't he? Then why had Daniel rattled him so easily?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Topper sat behind Edwin's desk and surveyed the office that was now his. The grey light of winter poured in through the windows and sank into the grey carpet to die a quiet, inoffensive grey death. The place felt cold and empty and...
"BORING!" Topper yelled at the top his lungs. Stevie burst into the office.
"Do you need something, sir?" With Topper's ascension up the ranks, Stevie had been promoted from chauffeur to personal assistant.
"Yeah, Stevie. I need action."
"I'm sorry? I don't understand."
Topper stood up from behind the desk. "Action, danger, juice, you know what I'm talking about, Stevie? This place feels like a tomb."
"Well, the company is in mourning for Mr. Windsor."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the problem. He's gone, but he's still here. Get me an interior decorator, we gotta liven this place up." As soon as he said it, Topper realized that the office wasn't the problem. It was the building. The corporate campus, the suburbs. The whole thing. He had captured the company, but he didn't want it.
Sure, he had all the power, it seemed like he couldn’t do anything with it. At least nothing that he wanted to do. Every second he sat there he could feel more responsibility settling into place on top him. Topper had never wanted a job, but now he was trapped by one? This was terrible.
And beneath all of his worries were the questions. What was that call with Edwin all about? Why did he try to tell Topper where he was going? Where was he? What was he up to? Did Topper know already? If he didn't he would certainly find out. Daniel's words from the jail hung over him. If Daniel was right, then as long as Edwin survived, Topper was living on borrowed time.
Style to which Doctor Loeb was accustomed? It was like a riddle. Didn't Edwin know how little patience Topper had for riddles? Is
that what he was counting on? Why couldn't Topper figure it out? Style? Doctor Loeb was a trust-fund kid from Alabama who shaved his head and wore Nehru jackets in an attempt to be an Evil Genius. Nehru? Did that mean Edwin had gone to India? Or Jawaharlal, Nebraska? Topper couldn’t make any sense of it.
"Ehhh, this is agony," he said to the grey, empty room. "I wish something would happen."
As if something had been listening, something happened.
The eastern windows exploded with a rush of cold wet air. Topper was knocked off his feet, bounced off the wall and deposited in a heap behind the desk. "Son of a bitch," Topper muttered as he struggled to regain his feet, "I thought those windows were supposed to be bulletproof." When looked up he saw Billy standing in the middle of the grey office. "Oh, that explains it."
Billy said, "You lied to me."
"And you take it out on my storm windows?"
"There was no gold."
"Whattaya mean, it's Fort Knox! It's full of gold, everybody knows that."
"I tore the door off. The vault was empty."
"Okay, okay, calm down. We can figure this out. Let's just take it one step at a time. Let's say you've got a shit-ton of gold. You want to keep it safe."
"But I don't have any gold. I told you," Billy said.
Topper held up the short, stubby finger of frustration and said "Shhhh, shhhh, shhhh. If you had gold, you'd want to keep your gold safe from people who want to steal it, right?"
"Well, yeah."
"Okay, so here's what you might do. You might build a giant building. And then you might make it really strong. So strong and impregnable that it would make the world believe it's the ONLY place you would keep your gold. So that anybody who wanted to steal it would go there and try to get through your impossible security."
"But there was no gooold," Billy whined.
Topper sighed deeply and dramatically, putting his hand to his furrowed brow. This Evil consultant crap didn't come easy to him. Topper was beginning to see where Edwin got his attitude. "Right. That's the point. You'd put your gold someplace else. Someplace nobody knows about. Because if nobody knows where it is, it's really hard for anybody to find it." Topper nodded, "Right?"
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