by Brian Hodge
Survival was out of the question. The only variable was how long. Resolution came sooner than expected when Eel saw a long, deceptively calm form cruise across the water from between a pair of large rowboats. Olive in color, lots of bumps. Lots of teeth.
Finch was still alive when the alligator latched on and pulled him under. A red burst of bubbles marked their progress underwater. The thrashing renewed, and a foot momentarily kicked clear of the surface. Then a hand. Then…
Calm.
They resurfaced several yards out, and Finch had stilled, a little more tattered for the wear. The gator’s tail swept an easy swath across the water while dragging Finch in its jaws. It wouldn’t eat him right away, Eel knew. It would wedge him underwater somewhere, maybe between a pair of sunken logs. Let swampwater bloat the corpse, soften it up before mealtime. Nature’s tenderizing action.
So much the better, really. A stroke of good fortune. No body at all was preferable to one that decayed in its own sweet time.
Eel holstered the pistol, then reached into another jacket pocket for a small plastic travel bottle of Maalox. He grimaced while uncapping it, then tipped back a couple of healthy swallows. Chalky, but much better. The acid factory down below was in high gear.
He headed back along the path for Bayou Rouge and drank a little more for good measure. Of course, there were Finch’s clothes to consider. But they had looked to be cotton, and those, too, would rot.
Chapter 2
Envoys
Ideas were a lot like children. Sometimes you just had to turn them loose in the world to learn which were the geniuses and which were the dullards. Justin Gray had heard this plenty of times, but hadn’t witnessed such a vivid demonstration for years.
Todd was scarcely two minutes into his presentation, and it was painfully obvious to everyone in the room that Todd Whitley had just spawned an imbecile. Had he been a comedian, his audience would already have been bombarding him with cut-rate produce.
Justin felt the shrinking stature of embarrassment by proxy. Still, Better him than me, the survival mantra of the business world, couldn’t help but cross his mind.
To be fair to Todd, this presentation to the top brass of Mullavey Foods, Inc., hadn’t been scheduled for more than another month, in late August. But enter an urgent phone call from Andrew Jackson Mullavey yesterday morning, and five of them — envoys from Segal/Goldberg Advertising — had caught a red-eye commuter flight this morning from Tampa to New Orleans. Todd was chugging on caffeine and adrenaline after an all-night session in Creative, with a chilly shower pinch-hitting for the freshness of a night’s sleep. The only thing scooting Justin’s neck off the chopping block for this morning’s debacle was last night’s unshirkable commitment to another client. Anyway, he was merely the junior copywriter on this assignment. Todd was senior.
So much for fair. In truth, he found a petty thrill in watching Todd’s flopsweat negate his shower. Didn’t like him, never had, and — open mind be damned — surely never would. Justin made a habit of avoiding most things annoyingly trendy. Todd, on the other hand, coyly gave his age as thirty-something, and frequently referred to his Phil Collins hairstyle, merely a face-saving way to admit that monthly time-lapse photography would show a steady progression of gleaming forehead. Justin had heard via agency grapevine that Todd’s most memorable feat had been inspiring a threatened trademark infringement lawsuit should the agency proceed with some videogame-hyping characters he’d created: Teenage Mutant Ninja Terrapins.
As Todd began to resemble a doomed man poised on the gallows’ trapdoor, the other four coworkers squirmed as one organism. Justin, also from Creative. Nan Blair, the graphic artist, who’d burned midnight oil with Todd. Allison Hunter, from Media. Leonard Greenwald, the account exec who baby-sat the entire Mullavey gold mine, nurturing it over the years even more attentively than he did his own children.
The conference room was low ceilinged, much wooded, masculine, the architectural equivalent of a power tie. A combat zone of multimillion-dollar decisions and ideas. Anodized windows looked out over a skyline of New Orleans office towers, and it was against these that Andrew Jackson Mullavey sat framed, backlit by morning sun. He was seated at the apex of a squared horseshoe of tables, everyone else radiating away from his left and right in apparent descending order of importance.
Justin sat at the opposite end. Nowhere to go but up.
Mullavey’s first order of business had been to apprise them more fully on what had prompted yesterday’s summons. He’d paced before them, a man of about fifty who used ramrod posture to overcome average height. Tailored suits hid the prosperity paunch well enough; the double chin was more difficult to conceal. The pinkie ring was impressive without being ostentatious.
“I do apologize for this time crush I’ve put you under,” he’d said, and you couldn’t hate him for it, not with that voice of smooth Southern gentility. “But I’m feeling it too, now. Reason why being a man named Christophe Granvier. Anyone ever heard of him?”
No one from Segal/Goldberg had.
“I’m not surprised,” Mullavey had continued. “He’s just now starting to wet his feet in the national food trade. But Christophe Granvier’s a colored fella, an immigrant from Haiti, and he runs a business down here called Carrefour Imports. He’s mostly a wholesaler, imports fresh produce and sugar up from the Caribbean and South America.”
Mullavey had shaken his head sorrowfully and sighed. “Well, now he wants to butt heads with me. Which is quite all right, I enjoy a good scrap as much as the next fella. But I’m a son of New Orleans, I was born and bred here, and I intend to win.
“You already know that Folgers took some of the wind out of me on this coffee bag idea. I wanted to be the first in the nation out with a coffee bag, and they beat us to it. Now, I can live with that, because Folgers is Folgers, and our Magnolia Blossom is positioned as a premium instant. We’ll still be the first out for the premium market, and that’ll keep me happy. Except two days ago I found out that Christophe Granvier is planning on hitting the market with a coffee bag called Caribe. He’s shooting for the same time as we are: October.
“I want to beat him to the shelves by at least six weeks, which means early September. I nearly gave myself a cauliflower ear from all the phone time I spent, but it can be done. Our plant can handle the production and packaging, the truckers can move it, the wholesalers can stock it, and retailers can shelve it. All I need now is for you to get the ad campaign rolling early.”
Sure, Justin had thought. How ’bout we part the Red Sea while we’re at it?
The man’s nerve was great. He’d already put them on an accelerated schedule. Ordinarily, test market to national distribution took a year. Mullavey had compressed it to eight months, and was now halving it. This in addition to wanting a completely new ad campaign from the test marketing done in Evansville, Indiana. But the client was always right: Mandate One.
There had been some debate over media buying, to which Justin had been mere spectator, the agency position upheld by Allison Hunter, with input from Leonard Greenwald. National media campaigns were no bonanza for last-minute shoppers. Magazine deadlines were often months in advance, and network broadcast time could be gobbled up nearly as early. This Mullavey understood, and countered by giving his okay to cannibalize print space and airtime already allotted for other Mullavey Foods products. Plus they could go heavy on newspaper coupon ads for the initial national intro; no deadline headaches to fret over there.
So far, so good. Next on the agenda was to see what advertising hoodoo Todd Whitley had concocted to plug into the media holes.
Todd’s proposal centered on an easily identifiable, not-quite-human character to be featured in the various media. Time-honored tradition: Speedy Alka-Seltzer, Dow Bathroom Cleaner’s Scrubbing Bubbles, the California Raisins. There lived enough such hucksters to populate their own little town.
Todd and Nan had rendered a slick compugraphic creation who resembled some bizarre mu
tant hybrid between KFC’s Colonel Sanders and a Mr. Coffee machine. In a pair of mock-up print ad samples and a storyboarded thirty-second TV spot, this as yet unnamed spokesman bemoaned obsolescence and unemployment now that Magnolia Blossom Coffee Bags had hit the marketplace, yielding true fresh-perked premium flavor with the convenience of instant. As Todd read his character’s dialogue he supplied a painful Southern accent that surely grated on the ears of anyone who spoke the real thing.
His presentation finished, Todd stood by his easel between the two ends of the horseshoe table. Samson between the pillars. With a newly shorn head.
The silence was funereal. Justin slid fractionally down into his chair, chillsweat breaking beneath his suit and tie. He sneaked a peek toward Mullavey and his execs — VPs in charge of Marketing and Promotion, and the director of the Beverage Division. They sat at their neat little workstations, folders and notebooks and pens carefully arranged before them, hands composed and still. Judge and jury, each dour man an executioner.
Maybe we’ll get lucky, Justin thought. Maybe a hurricane will hit.
Andrew Jackson Mullavey sighed. Laced his fingers before his face and contemplated them for several eternities.
“Please sit down, Mr. Whitley,” he said softly, and Todd looked only too happy to obey.
Mullavey half turned to one of his VP’s. “How much did Mullavey Foods contribute last year to charity organizations?”
The marketing man, a stout guy with the ruddy-nosed look of a whiskey priest, flipped through several pages in one of his binders. Stopped, scanned, nodded to himself.
“Local, state, and regional, just over twenty-six million.” The binder snapped shut. Very officious.
He knew, Mullavey already knew, Justin decided. He just wants to stress the point.
“Twenty-six million,” Mullavey echoed, then swiveled his attention toward the lineup from Segal/Goldberg. “From the very first day I assumed control here from my daddy, I have wanted Mullavey Foods to behave in a manner that suggests we actually give a damn about the communities around us. We have one of the best environmental ratings in the state. We contribute to more charities than I could name off the top of my head. We founded Dream Wish, a local organization that grants requests made by terminally ill children.”
Leonard Greenwald leaned forward. “Sir, I don’t see how Todd’s proposal conflicts with any of that public perception. It’s just in rough form, we’ve got time to polish it up quite a bit.”
Mullavey sighed again, shook his head. Massaged the bridge of his nose. “You can polish a turd all you want — pardon my French — and you do know what you’ve still got when you’re through?”
Two seats to Justin’s left, Todd sounded like he’d just swallowed his tongue.
Mullavey began to recite, a wise orator to idiot pupils who were missing a vital point. “Louisiana state unemployment rate, 1985, eleven-point-five percent, second highest in the nation only to West Virginia. 1986, thirteen-point-one percent, highest in the nation, nearly double the U.S. rate. 1987, twelve percent, highest in the nation, nearly double the U.S. rate. 1988, ten-point-nine percent, double the U.S. rate.” Mullavey paused, and the air was electric with fresh sweat and nerves. “In the years since, we’ve kept it under nine percent, but it’s still above the national rate, and still among the highest in the country. My point is, unemployment is no laughing matter in this state. Nor in our neighboring states. The entire Mississippi Delta area is the most economically disadvantaged region in the United States. It’s even worse off than Appalachia.
“And you,” he said directly to Todd, “you would have my company and my new product represented by something that turns unemployment into a big joke?”
Two seats to Justin’s left, Todd digested his tongue.
“I,” said Mullavey, “am not laughing.”
Justin gave silent thanks to the gods of schedule conflicts that he had no part in this. This was a complete abortion.
“Sir, could you possibly give us, say, another forty-eight hours to revamp our concepts?” Greenwald asked. Veins were starting to throb in panic on his high forehead; his collar seemed suddenly too tight.
Mullavey appeared uncertain. “I don’t know, Leonard.” He looked at this three VPs, then back to Greenwald. “Excuse us for a few minutes, would you? We have some reevaluations to consider.”
“Twenty-four hours? Twenty-four?”
“Please excuse us.”
Andrew Jackson Mullavey rose and led the way, while the other three fell into step behind him. Justin thought of ducklings following their mother. They disappeared through a single ornately carved door instead of the double set leading in from the hail. Probably some inner sanctum where corporate beheadings were planned and scapegoats selected.
“Well, this is just fucking wonderful.” Leonard reached around Allison to whack Todd on the back of the head with a flat hand. “You stupid weenie! How could you?”
Todd appeared not to notice. “I’m dead. I’m dead,” he droned.
“ ‘Reevaluation.’ You know what that means, don’t you?” Leonard cried. “There’s a very real possibility they could drop us.”
“I’m dead…”
Beside Justin, Nan the artist dug into her purse and fired up a clove cigarette. She held it with fingers whose nails were already gnawed to the quick. She puffed lustily, blowing rushes of smoke up through the bangs of her dyed-black, postmodern pageboy hair.
“I’m dead…”
Allison Hunter, statuesque on high heels, went striding across the conference room to pour an iced mineral water at the wet bar. Cubes clinked and jittered in her glass as she leaned back against the bar.
“I’m dead…”
“Oh Todd, just shut up your whining, would you?” said Allison.
“Hey!” he cried, trance broken. “If we don’t turn this around, as soon as we get back to Tampa, my balls are going into the vise over this!”
“If you don’t stop whining, your balls aren’t going to make it back to Tampa.”
Leonard shoved away from the table and stood, shrugged off his suit jacket to strip down to vest and shirtsleeves. The vest was too tight, snug over a stomach that once-per-week racquetball failed to counteract. He ran his hands through his hair, wandered to the window. Hermetically sealed; at least he couldn’t jump.
Todd pecked Nan’s shoulder with one finger. “You’re still in therapy, aren’t you? Do you have any Valium?”
She snubbed the half cigarette and lit a new one. “No, Todd.”
“Librium?”
Leonard spun at the window. “I think you’re avoiding the more urgent issue here.”
“Any tranquilizers at all? Please, I’m one white knuckle inside.”
Justin popped the tabletop with his palm. “Leonard’s got a point, Todd. Why don’t you chill, so we can try pulling this out of the dumper.”
Todd snapped up, scenting fresh blood. “Oh, finally! He speaks! He speaks!”
Here we go…
Todd aimed a rigid finger of accusation. “You just sat there like some kind of fungus, you let me die right here in front of God and everybody.”
“Leave him out of this,” said Nan. “We blew it, okay?”
“Fuck that! He didn’t contribute one single line of copy to this presentation.”
“Yeah. Right. Because I was locked into doing those last-minute revamps for the Hirschfelder HMO account. So sue me.” Justin fumed, and then the imp of cruelty got the better of him. “No, better still: Why don’t you just sic your Teenage Mutant Ninja Terrapins on me?”
Todd surged to his feet and elbowed Nan in the chin to lean across and throttle Justin by the throat. Eyes suddenly wide, Justin gripped his wrists while Nan rhythmically swatted Todd’s shoulder with a hardbound folder. Todd smelled as if he had marinated in Brut, and this was worse than the choking. Behind them, Allison sagged against the bar in hopelessly fatalistic laughter while Leonard waded in to pry them apart, crying, “Children! Child
ren!” Combatants were separated and seated, admonished, and made to promise to play nice.
Justin coughed, cleared his throat, remolded his battered collar and tie. As Leonard gathered everyone for an emergency brainstorm — leave your seat under penalty of bodily harm — Justin’s mind had yet to focus. He coughed again and Allison slid her mineral water to him, and he gulped it with gratitude.
And then it came: the idea. Maybe he should try a few moments of asphyxiation more often.
Justin glanced at Todd, in the hot seat. See if I share this with you, asswipe. He would sink or swim on his own merits. So what if it wasn’t a team player attitude. There were worse sins.
Little headway had been made by the time Andrew Jackson Mullavey led his entourage back in. A somber-looking lot, a Greek chorus to herald only tragedy.
At his center spot, Mullavey was tight-lipped. “All right, Leonard. You’ve got your forty-eight hours. But be forewarned: If I don’t see something I love, I will be on the phone with Mr. Segal and Mr. Goldberg.”
Leonard looked as if he could have tumbled to the floor and puckered right up to Mullavey’s shoes.
Justin leaned forward, ticked one finger in Mullavey’s direction. “May I interject something?”
“Well, well,” Mullavey said, feigning surprise. “You have a voice after all. Mister…”
“Gray. Justin Gray.” He cleared his throat. Still felt a little rusty, thanks to Todd. He tossed back the last of Allison’s water and was on his own. “The problem with the proposal you saw wasn’t just the copy. The whole approach was wrong.”
Justin pushed back from the table and stood. Superiority by elevation. He looked down at Todd, empathetic enough to feel pity, vindictive enough that it didn’t matter. Oh go on. Forgiveness was the greatest weapon of all. It could be so condescending.
“The unemployment theme was an unfortunate faux pas. Understandable, though, in Todd’s defense.” Justin gave him a wink. “Florida employment has been booming for years. We have a completely different frame of reference down there.
