Business Secrets from the Stars

by David Dvorkin

  Deflated only slightly, Malcolm stood up, then leaned on the desk so that he could look down on Jimmy Earl. “What you’ve admitted, Jimmy, is that you don’t have anyone in your organization, including you, who can do what I do. You need me for the sake of your future survival. However, I don’t need you, do I? So I guess I’ll be leaving now. Miss Weng, would you be so kind as to drive me to the nearest airport?” He headed for the door, delighted with his own bravado.

  “Guess it really is time for Plan B, Shirley,” Jimmy Earl said with patently false sadness.

  Malcolm stopped at the door and turned around. “That’s where you declare bankruptcy before your whole ministry fades away?”

  Jimmy Earl giggled. “No, that’s Plan C. Plan B is where we offer you the chance to become a subsidiary of the Children of God, and if you turn the offer down, we take you waterskiing in the Atlantic Ocean. On cement waterskis.”

  “Oh.”

  “So maybe you might want to weigh the pros and cons a bit longer. We’ve got a real nice suite set up for you to do the weighing in. One of the Goliaths is right outside the door. He’ll show you the way.”

  Malcolm tried to think of a courageous exit line, but even if he had been able to come up with one, his mouth had become too dry with fear for him to be able to utter it. So he settled for a glare, instead, and stalked out of the room. In the hallway, a monstrous hand landed on his shoulder and steered him away. He didn’t bother trying to turn around to see the monstrous hand’s owner. He was sure that when you’ve seen one killer Goliath, you’ve seen them all.

  * * * * *

  When Malcolm had been led away, Jimmy Earl said to Shirley, “I have to zip up to Washington and meet with that creepy little guy.”

  Shirley shivered. It took a lot to make her shiver. “It’s really necessary?”

  “Gotta keep all the options covered. And that’s a major option.”

  “Be careful, Reverend.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve dealt with creepier guys.” He paused than said, “Actually, I guess I haven’t. Anyway, I don’t know how that’ll work out, and as I said, I want to keep all the options covered. That brings us back to your spineless little friend, Erskine. You know I’m not going to let that much money and the future of my organization slip away that easily.”

  “Easily is right. You’ve softened Plan B considerably.”

  Jimmy Earl shrugged. “Well, you know, disemboweling him while he’s roasting over an open fire would have been very satisfying, but in the end it wouldn’t have done us any more good than the quick cement waterski solution. What I really need is him alive and unharmed and cooperating willingly. Which is why I’ve actually decided to follow what I’m calling Plan A Point Five.”

  “Plan A Point Five?” Shirley stared at his smiling face. “Oh, Reverend. No.”

  “Yep. I can’t think of anything that would do a better job of keeping a guy like that under my control than letting him have sex with the girl of his dreams.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Shirley muttered.

  “Tsk, tsk, profanity,” Reverend Jimmy Earl said with an avuncular chuckle.

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  O, tall trail rider! O, metaphorical cowboy silhouetted heroically against the purple-red sky of sunset as your horse passes clippity-clop over the top of a ridge, taking you on your solitary voyage through wastelands and wildernesses that you singlehandedly civilize and make productive! O, noble creator of wealth, mighty mind, great heart! It may happen from time to time on your hero’s voyage that you will find yourself isolated and surrounded by relentless and heartless enemies, with your glorious six guns completely out of bullets. In that day of peril, you must remember that your destiny is both mighty and long term. The loss will be the world’s if you let yourself be destroyed. How shall a man make profits if he has lost his head? Therefore, adopt the guise of thine enemy. Become as one of him. Hide your hero’s light under a bushel. You will live to fight another day. In the meantime, hold onto your hat. Hold onto your head.

  — Lukas of Aldebaran, Merskeenian pragmatist

  In Los Angeles, Gloria Pacifica was putting on her usual act. Gloria had taken over the channeling of the one-time Atlantean warrior Mellabenth after the mysterious disappearance of Mellabenth’s first channeler, the famous Atlantica. Not much had changed, really. Gloria looked a lot like Atlantica, and the act was very much the same.

  So there Gloria was, doing her shtick before an auditorium full of entranced and well fleeced sheep, when something went very wrong.

  The first stages progressed as usual. She swelled, foamed at the mouth, spat, gave forth oracular pronouncements in a deep, male voice. But the swelling didn’t stop. Her eyes bulged, her torso ballooned, her voice changed to a very feminine shriek, and Gloria Pacifica exploded.

  The audience awoke from its trance and ran screaming for the exits. Once they were outside the building, quite a few regained their presence of mind sufficiently to return to the ticket office and insist on a refund. Then the ones who had been in the first few rows hurried home and showered vigorously.

  Fortunately for television news organizations, the auditorium had been supplied with video cameras. Gloria, tiring of these live appearances and annoyed with the inherent income limitations enforced by auditorium size, had decided to start selling video recordings of her sessions. She had anticipated high sales. Indeed, the video of her exploding became the highest grossing item on the underground market. The television network news shows began the trend by repeatedly showing the bloodiest part of the explosion on their nightly broadcasts — after, of course, warning their audiences that the upcoming scenes contained graphic matter that might disturb those of a sensitive nature, thus ensuring that no channels would be changed.

  While Gloria Pacifica’s demise was the most spectacular and the most widely publicized, she was not the only channeler or psychic or astrologer to change planes of existence violently. From California to New York to Florida to Texas, Malcolm’s colleagues died from suspicious fires, unknown but quickly deadly diseases, strokes, heart attacks, drownings, collapsing buildings, exploding eggs, vicious crystals, and in one case apparently from having sex with a prostitute equipped with a poison-injecting device in a most unsuspected place.

  The earthbound manifestation of the Channeled Entities of America was being snuffed out of existence.

  The credulous were sure that all of these catastrophes were visitations from the astral plane, that spirits long dead were displeased with their earthly mouthpieces. To Malcolm, who knew just how silly the idea of astral spirits was, the string of horrible deaths smacked unsettlingly of James Bond. “Unsettlingly” because he was supposedly under the protection of people who spent a large part of their agency budget inventing James-Bond ways of killing people. When was his turn coming?

  Shirley laughed when he finally expressed his fears to her. “Think you’d still be alive if that was the case? Can’t you see what’s happening? It’s your competition that’s being eliminated. And if anyone else is bothering you that we don’t know about, just tell me.”

  Malcolm’s spirits rose immediately. He had been pinning the blame on the wrong organization. This was better than the little box in front of the Palace of Justice into which informers could slip pieces of papers bearing the names of future headless corpses during the French Revolution!

  In Washington, meanwhile, armed troops filled the streets. Since it was Veterans’ Day and the troops were the aged survivors of past wars, staggering under the weight of their unloaded rifles, this was not a threat to the Republic.

  Someone invited Gone and Fancy to join the Longlegs clan on the reviewing stand, where Mr. and Mrs. Away easily stole the limelight. The Great Encumberer grinned vacuously and waved, while beside him the former First Puppeteer waved, pretended to be enjoying herself, and prompted her husband. The television cameras zoomed in on them and ignored the official President and his relatives.

  D
uring breaks in the ceremonies, the television commentators chatted about the truly unusual aspect of this visit by the former President to the present one. Gone and Fancy had been invited to move into the White House, in a guest suite, where their advice, support, and telegenic presences would always be available to the current Chief Executive.

  Malcolm, watching all of this on television at his home in Piketon, to which he’d been allowed to return after his whining had worn Shirley down sufficiently, was intrigued. Every now and then, the camera would tear itself away from the beloved faces of the former First Mummy and his wife and pan across the reviewing stand. Always at the side of the present President and his father were Zip Muchley and Jerry and Al.

  “My old buddies are sticking close to the wimp and the chimp,” Malcolm said to Shirley, who for the moment shared his house, his bed, and his daily decision making.

  “Of course,” she said. “History’s on the move.”

  “So whose side are you on?”

  Shirley grinned at him. “At the moment, yours. Aren’t you lucky?”

  Malcolm forced a laugh and returned his attention to the television screen. Now the similarities with revolutionary France were making him uneasy.

  The parade coverage ended, and a local newscast got underway. The screen filled with the Five’s Alive! logo of Channel Five, which in turn gave way to a beaming clone in a suit who said, “Good evening, Piketon! And welcome to the Five’s Alive! news at five on Channel Five! We’ll be back in a moment with all the news, sports, and weather we think you need to know, after these messages.”

  Big Bob Buckle in a Hollywood-western cowboy suit speaking in an embarrassing television-western accent, advertising the pickup trucks for sale in his giant lot. “Whadda deal! Whadda steal! Trade in yore raffle, yore dawg, heck, even yore waff. We don’ mahnd. We’ll deal!”

  “First Arapahoe Savings and Extortion, oodles of bucks to lend. You’ve got a house, right? You’ve got future earnings from your job, right? You have a firstborn, right? Say, now, those are collateral! Put that house and career and fertility equity to work! Forget all that bunk about the economy. We’re here for you. Come in and borrow!”

  “ColossoVerse Corporation regrets to announce an increase in rates, recently rubber-stamped by the Arapahoe Public Service Commission, which also rubber-stamped our acquisition of all the cell-phone and cable-television companies serving this area. But because we believe in giving you, our customers, a choice, we’re reminding you that you don’t have to buy your phone service from us. You can try doing without. Snicker.”

  “Arapahoe Natural Gas, Electricity, and Radiation Company, here, just to say that the preceding message applies to us, too. Most especially so because we’ve just been acquired by ColossoVerse Corporation.”

  Anchorman reappeared, his face somber. “Tragic news in our city today. We go live to Mort out at the Pony Dome. Mort?”

  The scene switched to an outside shot of the covered stadium in which Piketon’s professional football team wasted time and money, then switched again to show the grim-faced Sports Guy sitting behind a desk. He had removed his jacket, had loosened his tie, and had rolled his sleeves halfway up his forearms to show that he was broadcasting live from the scene of the testosterone display itself. The room’s walls were purple — Pony Purple, the team’s colors.

  “Thanks, Hank. In the worst disaster Piketon has ever experienced in its history, our own Piketon Ponies were defeated today in a National Football League game by the visiting Houston team, who took advantage of prejudiced refereeing, a prejudiced crowd, and prejudicial weather and field conditions. The final score was... high for Houston, low for Piketon.”

  “How high and how low, Mort?”

  Flicker of annoyance. “Very high and very low, Hank. Let’s just leave it at that, okay? You can read the paper tomorrow, too, just like everyone else.”

  Indulgent laugh. “Well, hey, Mort, you know, that’s why people watch us in the evening. They want to get the important news right away. So, how high and how low?”

  Open anger. “One thousand and three to zero, Hank. Satisfied?”

  Hank whistled. “Wow. That sure is high and low, Mort.”

  Mort grunted something below the level of audibility.

  “But at least you got to watch the Ponytails live, right?”

  Mort brightened and grunted more enthusiastically at the memory of the Ponies’ high-stepping, slutty cheerleaders.

  Back to Hank. “In other very important local news, Federal banking officials today concluded a lengthy investigation of a Piketon institution, First Arapahoe Savings and Extortion. First Arapahoe has been placed in receivership. Mr. Fred Seicht, the Assistant Comptroller at First Arapahoe, has been notified that he will be taken into custody as soon as he has had enough time to settle his affairs and transfer his assets to Rio and get the hell out of the country. Seicht, who was not available for comment to your hard-driving investigative reporters at Five’s Alive! news, has also been dismissed from his job. His position will be filled by a Ms. Marlene Erskine, formerly Seicht’s assistant, who is said to have cooperated fully with Federal officials in their investigation.”

  The sober expression gave way to a warm, friendly one. “I’d just like to add a personal note, here. Marlene Erskine is a great favorite with all the guys at the station, and we’d all like to wish her the best of luck in her new position. Go for it, Marlene!”

  Sober again. “Sad news from Washington. Yesterday, we reported on the passing of Vice President Howard Philips Moon, whose body was found severely decomposed in the master bedroom suite in the vice presidential residence some hours after the suite’s refrigeration unit had failed. Now we’ve been informed of the death of Junior Partridge, who served as Vice President during the Daddy Longlegs administration and was being talked about as a possible running mate for Jibber Longlegs in the upcoming election.

  “We’re told that Mr. Partridge died from kidney failure. Apparently, Partridge was a secret alcoholic for decades, consuming a minimum of a gallon of high-test every day of his life since his teens. It’s a wonder he lasted this long.

  “Partridge died in the White House guest suite now being occupied by former President and First Lady Away. Partridge was visiting the former President and First Lady to ask their advice about various foreign policy matters in case he was chosen to run for Vice President again. The announcement about his death and its cause was made by former First Lady Fancy Away, who expressed her and her husband’s grief at the loss of so energetic and irrepressible a young man. Mrs. Away said, and I quote, ‘He could have been President some day, but it looks like the stars were against it.’ Mrs. Away also announced that Mr. Partridge’s body was cremated early this morning in order to spare the nation a prolonged and damaging period of mourning.”

  Anchor Hank, knowing nothing about it, did not report on the turmoil in the residential quarters in the White House, far away from the guest suite now occupied so happily by Fancy and Gone.

  Daddy Longlegs was in a panic. To him, the death of the Vice President wasn’t just sad news, it was a disaster.

  Daddy had worked it all out. Moon’s refrigeration unit was not supposed to have been turned off until Jibber’s second term was almost over. At that point, with Moon out of the way, Jebber would be put forward as the logical next Republican presidential candidate. His campaign slogan would be, “Continue the policies of Jibber! Policies that have made our nation feared again all over the world!” Or words to that effect.

  It would have worked. Daddy was sure of it. The Longlegs dynasty would have continued without a pause.

  But now? It was too soon to bring Jebber into the picture. You couldn’t have two brothers running for the nation’s top two offices! For all Daddy knew, there might even be a proscription against that in the Constitution. True, the original copy of that document was unreadable, but he believed there were duplicates somewhere. In any case, he was sure it wasn’t politically feasible to m
ake Jebber the running mate.

  Moon had been a placeholder. He had been a good placeholder. Now Daddy had to come up with a different placeholder.

  Turning from news of the deaths of Americans, Hank brightened. “Here’s the latest news about the earthquake in Mexico. According to observers in —” frown of concentration “— Kye-yew-dad True-zhee-low, the death toll from yesterday’s trembler is at least 3,000.”

  “Temblor, damn it!” Malcolm shouted. He jumped to his feet, leaped across the room, and switched the set off. “Yeah, go for it, Marlene. Go right down to Kye-yew-dad True-zhee-low and get squished by a falling building.”

  “Could be arranged,” Shirley said.

  For just a moment, Malcolm had forgotten her presence. He shivered. “No, thanks. Don’t do it on my account. You know, I still don’t understand why you are doing all of this stuff on my account.”

  “Don’t you remember that meeting Zip took you to in California a few months ago? You prescribed a course of action to a certain great lady, as Zip would say. You told her what path to follow.”

  “Jesus!” His words, a few phrases invented in desperation, in fear for his life, had led to so many murders and even, perhaps, to a silent coup in Washington? It was hard for Malcolm to believe.

  What was even harder to accept was that his conscience was back, revived from seeming death. “I don’t want to be responsible for any more of this, Shirley. Lukas just evaporated, and I’m going back to being a novelist.”

  Shirley looked sad. “Oh, Malcolm, don’t start displaying strength and courage and conscience. I really hate that in a man. Haven’t you been having a good time with me, especially at night? If you back out, I’ll have to go to a great lady for a decision about what to do with you.”