The VPs chuckled at the thought of the whole country wearing them. At that moment, Louis’ PA entered with the bottle of antacids. Ash-blonde with melons like Dolly Parton, and not an inch over five foot, even in sneakers, she made him feel like a giant cat about to pounce on an unsuspecting mouse. While she put the bottle of Kwel-Amities on top of the table, he maneuvered himself so that his elbow rubbed her breasts. Then, as she turned to leave, he let his hand fall to his side and brush her gorgeous ass. Running his forefinger across her skirt, he wondered how long it would be before she would give in to his advances. They always did, in the end.
She lifted her face to stare into his eyes. “Will that be all, Mr. DeVille?”
“For now,” he said, absently toying with the ring on his wedding finger.
Once the door had clicked shut, he opened the bottle of Kwel-Amities (one of his competitor’s products, ironically, but goddamn it they worked wonders) and took two of the little blue diamonds, chasing them down with a swig of milk. He then flicked the dossier to the last page: RESEARCH AND CLINICAL TRIALS.
“Your last suggestion is more valid than you think,” he said to the secretary. “Step Four is concerned with the scientific validation of DeVille’s Syndrome and its treatment. Probably the most difficult stage; the scientific community is as cynical as hell. Goddamn bunch of assholes if you ask me, but we need them. If we have to bin research that’s less favorable than others, then so be it. It’s common practice anyway. If we have to manipulate the statistical data in our favor, then we’ll do that too. Again, it’s common practice. In today’s world, clinical trials are nothing but marketing trials anyway. Every scientist knows that. As long as the data reflects positively in favor of Hypnocal, then we’ll do everything we can to push it into the public arena.”
Louis took another sip. Every face at the table was turned to him. He then held up the dossier, and said, “Deep down human beings are nothing but an organic process of chemical reactions. Chemicals determine how we feel, how we act, and how we think. Even love is nothing but a chemical reaction. Why not give the goddamn public what they want, control over their own chemistry? Surely we owe them the best possible life they can get. Because you know what, once the reactions stop, there’s nothing else.”
He felt like ending his talk with a big, hearty “amen.” Instead, he put the dossier down and returned to his chair, bringing his speech to a close. The next few minutes would tell whether he’d done enough.
“Well, I think that brings us to the vote,” the secretary said, standing and glancing around the table. Louis drew a deep breath, suppressing the urge to fidget in his seat. “I put forward the motion to keep Mr. DeVille as CEO. I need a second.”
The VP next to him shot his hand in the air before anyone else got the chance. “I second it.”
“Then lets call the vote.”
Louis kept holding his breath, maintaining an air of absolute seriousness. How long did he have to put up with this goddamn theatrical nonsense? Not long, it seemed. All thirteen hands shot up in unanimous agreement and it was done. As quick as that; a goddamn rubberstamp. Louis slowly released the air in his lungs and closed his eyes to collect his thoughts, barely heeding the call for votes on the remaining board positions. Should he really have been so worried? Maybe. Maybe not. Despite the feeling that everything was going according to plan, there was always a niggle of doubt in the back of his head. He guessed he had never truly recovered from that time he had almost lost it all in the early eighties, in this very same room, if you could believe it. That was a lesson he wouldn’t forget in a million goddamn years. No sir-ree. Nothing in life was a guarantee, except death and taxes, if you believed that horseshit. But what the hell, it was all in the past. He was re-elected as CEO and had survived another year. And, oh, what a goddamn year this was going to be.
After the vote for the position of secretary, the meeting was called to a close and the Vice Presidents slowly dispersed, patting him on the shoulder as they passed and telling him what a fine job he was doing; GRN was really going places. Despite the burn beneath his chest, he smiled and thanked them and said he hoped he could count on their support in the coming months. If not, they’d all be out the door so goddamn fast their feet won’t touch the ground.
Finally, the last suit and tie exited the boardroom. Louis opened the bottle on the table and took two more blue diamonds, thinking he had better get his PA to book him in for another checkup. He rubbed his knuckles up and down his chest, wondering what in hell had changed of late. The gastritis just wasn’t responding to treatment like it used to.
He let the thought slide. There were more important things to worry about, like how to get his PA into bed before any of the younger VPs beat him to it. He leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head.
Now that would be something, wouldn’t it?
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
Louis’ Problems
LOUIS DeVille sat behind his desk wondering just what to do. He wasn’t outraged. He wasn’t baffled. He just had a lot on his mind this morning. A lot on his plate, his wife would have said. Piled right up to the office ceiling, in fact. Piled like a mound of rotting garbage that had been dumped in the IN tray and marked to his attention. It was piled so high he could almost see it spilling against the bookshelves and the filing cabinets. Spilling, still more, out the tenth-story window onto the pedestrians scuttling along Broadway.
Good ol’ Lady Di, he mused. She might not be right about many things, but she was right about that; and wouldn’t she just love to rub it in? He could see her now at the Beeker Street penthouse. All five-foot two of leanness and exuberance in her leotards and legwarmers, pedaling on her Ezy-Cycle in front of some celebrity aerobics video or the Home Shopping Channel, burning off the calories in some vain attempt to defeat the aging process, stretching muscles and joints he didn’t even know existed. He could even hear her nagging at him while she did it.
“It’s your own fault. You’re a workaholic, Louis,” she would be saying. He hated the way she deliberately called him Lewis. It was Lewey, like Donald Duck’s three sons, Hewey, Dewey and Lewey. “You’re going to die at your desk one day, believe me.” She wouldn’t stop there either. “You’re never home before eleven. It’s not good for a man your age. You should be thinking of retirement, not expanding the business. Leave that for the younger men,” and she would say younger in such a tone that would make him want to throttle that slender neck of hers.
He clenched his fists and thumped the desk. The intercom jumped and the computer monitor flickered momentarily, then switched itself off. Retirement? Hells bells, he was too damn young to retire. He was only sixty-six, and as fit as a goddamn fiddle. Not quite what he was in his mid-twenties when he started the company, but who the hell was when they had been steering the helm for over forty years? Sure, he would pay the price for it one day. There was always a price. Cardiac arrest. Heart attack. Flat line. He had thought about it often enough, whatever name you wanted to call it. Hadn’t everyone his age? But he had no concerns except his goddamn gastritis. That was all. Got himself checked up every six months. Still had a good twenty years left in him before he had anything to worry about.
“Do you really think so, Louis?” he heard Dianne DeVille say in his head again. He could even see her taut legs pumping the Ezy-Cycle in a blur of pink and blue in front of the TV, her bouffant hair as motionless as her silicon breasts. “Do you really think you’ve got twenty good years left? I mean, look at your waistline.” It was always waistline, never belly, or guts, or stomach, words that were just too crass to ever spill out of her surgically perfected lips. “It’s not what it used to be, is it dear?”
He could feel the burn of his gastritis just thinking about her, like he had swallowed one of those stupid party candles that never went out when you blew on it. He rummaged through the top drawer looking for his antacids while Lady Di kept nagging in his head.
“Your poor heart,” she sa
id. “I’m surprised it hasn’t given up already.”
Ha! Really? he snapped back, vaguely aware that he was talking aloud. He had already outlived Peterson, that good-for-noth’n union slob, not to mention several others who she had thought would live to a ripe old age. So much for them, huh? Look who’s had the last laugh!
Lady Di had no reply. Her pedaling image began to fade like some overused videotape that could no longer record. Then she was gone and he was alone again, back in his office with his pile of problems stacked to the ceiling.
Walter Peterson, though, stayed fresh in his mind. The old toad who had stolen from the rich and kept every cent for himself, good old Mr. Fat and Ugly with a hairy wart on his right cheek (and probably on the cheek of his ass, too), always sticking his pug-nose in business that wasn’t his. Coronary got him a few years ago, no surprises about that. Only surprise was that it didn’t happen earlier. Would’ve saved GRN thousands in “charity donations” if he had croaked it when he should have. That chain-smoking scumbag had taken more money from his pocket than his yoga-stretching wife, and that was saying something. He was better off dead. Never did any good for anyone.
Like that rat from Morgan Divott. Another scumbag he had had the misfortune of sharing business intercourse. He had been the first to go. Now that was a surprise. Coronary, too, wasn’t it? Or was it the big CA? One of his clients once told him over lunch it was actually that faggot disease, the one all the heroine junkies were dying of too. Whatever it was, the end was sudden, that much he knew. Here one minute, gone the next. Almost too young to die really, still in his forties, but he had never forgiven the little vermin for trying to force him out in the eighties.
Damn near succeeded too. Had almost two-thirds of the board on his side. Bunch of backstabbing mongrels. They had ambushed him in the boardroom with a vote of no confidence and almost succeeded. Taken completely by surprise, too, he was. Hadn’t even the foggiest clue his own vice presidents were scheming behind his back. He had trusted them, he guessed. That was his weakness. Too much goddamned trust. Well, it was a hard earned lesson, but he was still here, and where were they? Gone to hell, as far as he cared.
“Ha!” he said. “There you are.”
Goddamn bottle of Kwel-Amities hidden right at the back of the drawer. About goddamn time. His gastritis was really fired up and frying the inside of his lower chest. He removed the bottle, unscrewed the cap and peered inside, then grunted and rolled his eyes. Wasn’t that always the goddamn way? Just when you really needed two or three, there was only one of the little buggers left. Just typical. Just goddamn typical.
Before he took it, he got up from behind the desk and lugged his hefty frame to the window. Horns blared somewhere downtown, the angry howls of New York’s mechanical wildlife. Directly below in the shadows of the high-rises and skyscrapers, grazing animals crawled along Broadway. Every goddamn creature in the jungle was down there. A cement truck bull-rhino charged anything that moved. Buffalo buses chewed the cud, not in any hurry at all. Yellow deer taxis moved in herds, nervous and alert, ready to dart away at any sign of danger. Even the monkeys of the jungle were there, scuttling along the sidewalk in office-wear, head down, briefcase in hand, not one of them lifting their eyes to see who was looking down on them.
He imagined a rifle in his hand, picking them off one by one. Not that he had ever shot someone before. God knew he had often wanted to. His wife for instance. Could do it too, and not so much as bat an eyelid. If he could get away with it, that was.
Ah, the perfect murder. Did it exist? Probably not. Everybody got caught at some point, usually when they bragged about it. Which was a bitch, because what was the point if you had to keep it secret? That’s what trophies were for, weren’t they? But if he could get away with it, ah yes, he had no qualms about picking someone off from his tenth-story window every once in a while, especially when his gastritis was playing up. Like that good-for-noth’n bum at the Metro corner always begging for money. He would be the first to go. Then that jogger who thought he owned the sidewalk. Then the hippies cleaning windscreens at the traffic lights, even when you told them you’d got no loose change to pay them. Ping. Ping. Ping. All three gone to meet their maker courtesy of Sniper Louis, the only CEO with big enough balls to rid the city of its filth.
He laughed a little. Sniper Louis. That was a good one.
While he took a couple more imaginary potshots from the window, the noonday sun peeked from behind a drifting cloud and shone directly into his eyes. He winced with pain. The burning from his stomach had turned up a notch like some goddamned internal boiler running on solar energy. Cursing, he yanked the drapes and tipped the remaining Kwel-Amity straight from the bottle into his mouth, then made his way back to his chair crunching the pill into sharp little shards that stuck between his teeth.
Goddamn it, he grimaced, these buggers tasted awful.
At the desk he chased the bitterness down with a swig of scotch from the bottom drawer, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He slipped his thumb between two shirt buttons to give his sternum a massage. The skin felt hot and sweaty, as if a boiler really had been fired up beneath it. Still grimacing, he took another swig of scotch for good measure, and as he tilted his head he caught himself staring back.
“I know, I know. It’s getting worse,” he said, thumb-massaging his sternum. He could still taste a lingering bitterness in the back of his mouth, so he took another swig of scotch. “I need to see the doc again.”
The portrait behind the desk kept staring its frozen accusation. The painter had captured all his best features (as he had been paid a goddamn fortune to) – his dark hypnotizing eyes; his broad shoulders; his expansive chest – and had managed to minimize his less noble attributes – his double-chin; his overhanging gut (Waistline, dear, it’s a waistline!); the thinning patches on his scalp. Done a pretty damn fine job, too, he might add. At the time he was posing for it though, he had reckoned the idea of wearing a laurel and toga was kind of prissy, but the painter had assured him that the Caesar look with the backdrop of ancient Rome oozed the essence of success and power he needed in his line of work. Louis had paid him cash straight away. Best goddamn five grand he had ever spent.
He tossed the empty drug bottle into the bin beneath the desk and took a final swig of scotch before putting it back. Just as he sat down, his secretary buzzed on the intercom. The image of her abundant cleavage drifted in front of his eyes like two un-tethered helium balloons. “What is it?” he said.
“David Epstein’s on line one for you.”
Goddamn it, he had told her he was busy. No interruptions. Wendy would have understood. Now there was a damn fine secretary. Damn fine woman too. Not keeping her at the firm was the only thing he truly regretted. These young women nowadays didn’t understand what a boss needed. He should have sacked Sarah ages ago, although he had to admit she was a hell of a lot better than the previous one. Frumpy bitch was nothing but trouble from the day she started. Stirred up all sorts of legal mess the company didn’t need, and was still stirring. Damn shame they didn’t make secretaries like they used to. In fact, you weren’t even allowed to call them secretaries anymore, were you? Personal Assistants, PA’s, or some or other bullshit term for someone who didn’t type or do anything of the “personal” nature Wendy used to provide.
The red light on Button-1 kept flashing. “What does Epstein want now?”
Sarah’s voice fluttered across the intercom: “Didn’t say. You know he won’t leave a message. He’ll only talk to you.”
Louis rolled his eyes and said, “Okay. Okay. I’ll take it.” He picked up the handset and punched the flashing red button. “This had better be good,” he said to Epstein. “I don’t wanna hear the contract hasn’t been signed.”
There was a pause on the line from the LA office. Either it was a bad connection or Epstein had taken fright. “That’s what I want to talk to you about,” Epstein said eventually. Louis had been about to growl at him to sp
eak up. “Collins wants another week to think about it.”
“Think about what?” Louis thumbed his sternum. “He’s had six goddamn months! We need that signature! We’re hedged to our teeth over here. If he doesn’t do it today, there won’t be any goddamned contract to sign. D’you hear what I’m saying?”
Epstein paused again. “I’ve been my persuasive best. The guy just won’t put pen on paper. I think he’s holding out for a higher offer.”
“What kind of bullshit is that? We’ve already doubled our original bid. We’re the only ones interested in his goddamned business and we’re not offering one more cent than what’s already been agreed. Tell him he can take it or leave it.”
“Do you really mean that? I thought…”
Louis rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth. “No, I don’t really mean that,” he said. “Of course we’re not going to let him go. We’re in too deep.” Still massaging his chest as he had, Louis could feel the thumping of his heart against his thumb. Then, remembering his favorite line from The Godfather, said: “Make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
Epstein paused again. “What does that mean?”
“Just do what you’re paid to do. Get the signature on the contract.”
Louis slammed the handset down and clasped his hands behind his neck. Tilting back in his manager’s chair, he released the pent up air with a long exaggerated sigh. Hells bells, he thought, the garbage was really piling up today. It was never ending.
Still, he had faced worst and gotten through in one piece, hadn’t he? He was a goddamn survivor. History had proven that.
CHAPTER TWO
Coup-d’etat
DeVille's Contract Page 2
