As long as he was the beneficiary of that abuse, Malcolm would play along. He was already thinking ahead, planning ways in which he could benefit from this odd experience despite Muchley’s warning.
The limousine took him and Zip to a rambling ranch house, Hollywood rustic outside and in. His two hosts were waiting to greet him: the woman aging but still fashionable, a hard, strong person; the man tall, prunishly wrinkled, affable, expectant. They greeted Zip first, using his first name. The Secret Service man licked the great lady’s shoes and the great man’s cowboy boots and rolled over onto his back for his tummy rub, his tail thumping madly against the entranceway’s stone floor.
Then the great lady and the great man turned their attention to Malcolm, calling him “Mr. Erskine” and looking genuinely awe struck.
Malcolm smiled condescendingly and greeted both of them by their first names. “Hi, Gone. Hi, Fancy.”
Zip was scandalized, the great lady looked disturbed, but the great man chuckled and said, “There you go again!”
At first, the conversation was general, dealing with Malcolm’s supposed conversations with Lukas of Aldebaran. The great lady wanted details, partly because of curiosity, Malcolm gathered, but partly to reassure herself that it had all really happened. This put Malcolm in a fairly uncomfortable position, because of course it had not happened. He had to invent new details quickly in answer to each of her questions.
What sort of clothing did Lukas’ wife wear to big state occasions?
“Robes,” Malcolm said immediately. “Purple, I believe. With gold earrings. Long robes. Kind of like a bathrobe.”
The great lady frowned in disapproval. “Well,” she said uncertainly, “I suppose if that was the approved style of the time, she had no choice. What about her coloring, though? Her hair, her skin.”
“Oh, you know, Fancy, just like yours. Um, she colored her hair a lot, and Lukas said she’d had a facelift or two.”
“Fascinating! Now, about her shoes —”
“Say,” her husband broke in, “did I ever tell you about the welfare queen who had a whole floor of a fancy hotel in New York City and fifty-four kids and expensive liquor and everything?”
“Why, no, not that I recall.” Saved by the bell, Malcolm thought.
Fancy said sharply, “Shut up, Gone.”
With a sunny smile, he did so.
She turned back to Malcolm. “Let’s forget about Lady Lukas’ shoes for now. I’d like you to tell me more about the enemy race. What was the name, again?”
“Oh, the Marlingas. Yes, the Marlingas. Unimaginably evil, destructive, greedy, nasty little creatures.” He felt on safer ground with this topic. He felt he could invent malicious details about the Marlingas for as long as his hostess wanted. A deeper question was why he was here, but he was prepared to play along for a while. “Capable of appearing to be human, though, even deceptively attractively human. They looked particularly good in, uh —” Panties, he had almost said. “Human clothing. Merskeenian clothing, that is. But they were evil, terrible, the Marlingas.”
“Malingerers!” Gone cried out. “Sitting there in their Temple of Gloom! But I got them off everyone’s back, didn’t I?”
Fancy gave Malcolm an apologetic look and said to her husband, “I’m not going to tell you again. I want you to behave yourself and sit quietly, or I’m just going to have to give you another shot, and you don’t like those, do you?”
Gone’s lower lip trembled. “No, Mommy.”
“All right, then.” Fancy turned back to Malcolm, looking quite satisfied with herself. “Please continue.”
Malcolm did so for some time, describing Marlene’s soul. This was a description of an individual Marlinga, he explained, but they were all identical, every member of the race — their souls, their bodies, even their possessions. Which, he added, they held in common, having stolen them from real human beings.
“Collectivists!” Fancy said with a shiver.
“Communists!” her husband cried.
“Acquisitivists,” Malcolm corrected them.
He was about to continue, for the terrible nature of the Marlingas was a topic of which he never tired, but Gone seemed to be suffering some sort of negative effects from his loud yell. Malcolm noticed him bending over, turning his head to one side, and hitting it on the back with the heel of his hand.
“Are you okay?” Malcolm asked.
Gone managed a chuckle. His voice was muffled but still understandable. “Oh, don’t mind me. Little problem from falling off a horse and getting shot in the head. Or maybe it was the other way ’round. Anyway, got to drain the extra fluid every now and then.” He kept pounding on the back of his head.
“Gone,” Fancy said warningly. “I’ve warned you to do that in the bathroom.”
“Almost got it, dear.” Suddenly, a spurt of dark, old blood shot from the side of his head and splattered on the carpeted floor. “There. Much better.”
Fancy turned red with anger. She stood up and called out a couple of names. Two men appeared, the first one immense and the second even bigger. They dwarfed Zip Muchley, who looked peeved at being dwarfed. It was probably a rare experience for him, Malcolm thought. Fancy gestured imperiously toward her husband, and the two giants stepped over to him, grasped an arm apiece, and carried him off, his heels dragging on the carpet, his eyes swiveling from side to side in confused alarm.
Fancy called out after them, “Give him everything that’s left in the little blue bottle. Intravenous.”
The giants nodded, and they disappeared around a corner with their famous burden. The last word Malcolm heard from the ex-president was a long, drawn-out “Mommy-y-y!” that was suddenly cut off. A door slammed.
“Now we can talk without interruption,” Fancy told Malcolm. “Zip, go outside and walk in the rose garden, would you? It’s right outside the back door.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Zip stood up. “I remember. Just scream if you need protection.” He marched away in the same direction the two giants had taken. On the way, he paused to give Malcolm a don’t-try-any-funny-business-you-little-creep look, then continued.
“He’s so devoted to us,” Fancy said.
Malcolm was amazed that he had never before realized what a dangerous place the world is.
“Okay, Erskine,” Fancy said, “let’s get down to brass tacks. What I really need is some direct advice from your spirit guide, Lukas. In fact, I’d prefer to talk directly to him. I’ve always hated dealing with underlings.”
“Let’s say ‘middlemen,’ shall we? Anyway, Lukas speaks to me, not through me. I’m not that kind of channeler.”
“Hmph. You probably just need a shot of the right stuff in your system. Do you wonders. Look what it did for my husband for eight years.”
She seemed to be about to raise her voice again, and Malcolm envisioned her calling for the two giants and giving them instructions concerning his blood chemistry.
“I’ll give it a try,” Malcolm said quickly. “Ask me a question, any question.”
“That’s more like it. All right, then. Get me Lukas of Aldebaran.”
On line two, ma’am, Malcolm thought, wondering what he ought to do next. He could run for the front door, but even assuming he could outdistance the various goons the house seemed filled with, what would he do once he got outside? He was somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and all the transportation was under the control of others. Clearly, it was time for Lukas of Aldebaran to speak.
Malcolm closed his eyes, squeezed his mouth into a thin line, and exerted force as though he were sitting on the toilet. He could feel his face growing red. Not too much, he told himself. You don’t want a hernia or a stroke. He opened his eyes wide and staring, and then he opened his mouth and spoke in a raspy, husky voice that he imagined was appropriate for a stellar corporate executive who had died 30,000 years before. “Who calls? Who wishes to speak to me? Who disturbs my rest? And why didn’t you go through my answering service?”
�
��That’s me,” Malcolm added in his normal voice.
“Shut up, Erskine. Lukas, I am the wife of a man who was until recently the most powerful man in our world. But now he’s nobody, and he’ll never have that power back again. I miss that power, Lukas, and I want it back. How should I go about doing that?”
Oh, my God, Malcolm thought, and he again considered a dash for the door. “Among my people,” he said, assuming again the husky, rasping voice, “we had a saying that applies in this case: ‘Let George do it.’”
Fancy’s face began to grow red, even redder than Malcolm’s had been.
“Of course, that is a loose translation,” Malcolm added quickly. “I chose a human name at random, so as not to confuse you with the unfamiliar sounds of our names. Perhaps a more accurate translation would be: ‘Things take time.’”
But Fancy’s face grew even redder. “How much time do you think I’ve got?” she snarled.
That was a good point, Malcolm had to admit. “All right, all right. Here’s one of my all-time old Aldebaranian favorites: ‘It is often most successful to be the successor to the successor.’”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Malcolm had no idea. For a scary moment, it really had seemed that someone else was speaking through his mouth. He supposed that his unconscious or subconscious or preconscious or one of those things had been suggesting a way out. But now he had to interpret it with his plain old conscious. One thing was certainly clear to Malcolm, and that was that he couldn’t continue with the medium act. It was too great a mental strain, and it was hurting his throat.
“Hello?” he said in his normal voice. “Hello? Gee, I’m sorry, Fancy, we seem to have lost the connection. I think there’s a lot of etheric interference around right now. Something to do with that big solar flare I was just reading about, I suppose.”
“But what am I going to do?” Fancy wailed. “All I’ve got from your damned Lukas is something oracular that I can’t make any sense out of.”
“It is often most successful to be the successor to the successor,” Malcolm repeated thoughtfully. “Let’s think about this for a moment. We all know who the successor to your husband is: Daddy Longlegs. Now who’s his successor?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know? Whoever wins the election after the next one, of course.”
“Mm. Could be the current Vice President, Junior Partridge, right? It so often is.”
Fancy shuddered. “And people thought that Gone had the IQ of a garbanzo bean.”
A split pea in Malcolm’s opinion. But no one could say that about the IQ of Malcolm Erskine, whom inspiration had just struck. “Now, let’s just suppose that when the next election comes up, the handsome boy Vice President is seen as a major liability. The president might decide to turn to someone else, someone with a place in the public’s manipulable heart.”
“Gone?” Fancy said uncertainly. “Isn’t that unconstitutional?”
“I don’t know. But, anyway, that wasn’t what I meant. You know, the Democrats might try something underhanded again, a running mate with some kind of group appeal.”
“You mean someone who isn’t white?” Fancy cried.
“Possibly. I didn’t think of that. I was thinking they might try a woman again. So what’s a good response to that?”
“Yes!” she shrieked. “Yes! You’ve done it! You’re wonderful!”
Zip Muchley stuck his head around the door and asked if everything was okay.
Fancy waved him away. “Yes, yes. Go back to the rose garden, Zip. Cut a couple for your wife.”
“Sure. Thanks.” He disappeared, muttering, “Sounded like she was coming, or something.”
Fancy had already forgotten him. She was nodding, saying, “Right. Right. So all I have to do between now and the nominating convention is somehow get the young wimp to step aside so that the old wimp will start looking around for a replacement. And I’ll make sure the word gets out that it should be a woman, because of my inside info about the Democrat ticket. Preferably me. And then...” She smiled. “Successor to the successor.”
“I’m sure you can take care of the rest easily,” Malcolm told her, wondering if he would end up having to leave the country in a few years. “Do you think I could, um, get back home now?”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Her eyes filled with dreams of near-future glory, the once and future queen shouted for Zip, who came back into the room at a run, one hand holding two yellow roses, the other against his mouth because he was sucking at a deep thorn puncture on his index finger.
“Yeth, ma’am?”
Fancy jerked her head Malcolm’s way. “Take Mr. Erskine back home. Then I have another job for you. Mr. Erskine, I might want you back here at a moment’s notice for more consultation. And in just a few years, I might be wanting you regularly in... Well, you know where. Otherwise, mum’s the word. Got that?”
“Yes’m,” Malcolm muttered.
Success was having some very unforeseen complications.
* * * * *
CHAPTER SEVEN
Each of us has a god or goddess within him or her or it or them, and we are each the descendants of star kings and queens, and so we have each inherited the great powers of those ancients and can use them to shape our own reality. Everything is plastic. Shape the universe as you will. Never say die.
— Lukas of Aldebaran, as reliably reported by Malcolm Erskine in Business Secrets from the Stars
The most he could make out of the entire experience was to bill himself, in subsequent advertising for his book, as a “respected consultant to former presidents and their wives.” Even that made him uneasy. He kept expecting the two giants from the California retirement retreat to show up at his doorway and remove his limbs. But they didn’t, and for all he knew, the blurb did increase the already staggering sales. Money, Malcolm thought. Lots more money. Other than sex and eternal youth, what else is there?
His mind was taken off the whole subject when he received a fan letter from an overnight millionaire.
He was receiving a flood of letters now from all over the world. Most of them were passed on to him by Mammon House. Some of them were addressed to the house Marlene now owned and were sent on by her in an obviously conciliatory act. Isn’t money wonderful?
Some of the letters were bizarre ramblings. Most of those were written by hand and few of them were entirely legible. Some were typed surprisingly well, fooling him for the first few few words into thinking that they were sane letters from sane people. And many were indeed quite sane, written by earnest seekers after wealth who were following the absurd principles in Malcolm’s book and who owned their own typewriters or computers to write their letters on.
This one, he could see, was one of the last variety. It certainly held his attention all the way through.
Dear Mr. Erskine:
In one week, by applying your enlightened knowledge, I made one million dollars. In the second week, two million. Last week, it was ten million. Mr. Erskine, I bless you nightly in my prayers. I owe all my success to you. I only wish I could think of some way to repay you.
Malcolm glanced quickly at the signature at the bottom of the page. Nope: a man. Too bad.
Then he checked the name again. Jimmy Flicker. Why, he knew that name. He had been seeing it lately in the business section of the Chronicle. This was a rapidly up-and-coming young fellow who was being touted as very likely to become Piketon’s next billionaire, joining the current two, Norris Marvins and Ed Hite. If Flicker’s earnings continued to increase at the rate his letter claimed, that should happen in only a few months.
And he owes it all to me, huh?
Surely Flicker had been speaking figuratively. But just in case Flicker was a literal kinda guy, Malcolm called the number on the letterhead. Never pass up a chance to get some of someone else’s money, he reasoned.
* * * * *
Malcolm and Jimmy Flicker had dinner together at a very expensive and exclusive rest
aurant in one of the downtown towers, so expensive that Malcolm felt guilty eating there despite his swollen bank account and certainty of huge royalty checks in the near future, and so exclusive that it never advertised itself and had no sign outside to announce its presence, depending entirely on the word of mouth of its wealthy clientele.
The dining room was small and occupied by only about a half dozen customers. At first Malcolm wondered how the owners could afford to pay the rent and the presumably high salaries of the help, who outnumbered the diners by perhaps five to one. Then he glanced at the prices on the elegantly lettered menu in front of him and knew the answer.
It was fortunate that Jimmy Flicker was paying. How much had Flicker made since he’d written his letter to Malcolm? Another twenty million? Keep eating in places like this, my boy, Malcolm thought, and you’ll need every penny of it.
Above the elegant, subdued clinking of the elegant, subdued, obscenely expensive silverware, Jimmy Flicker said somewhat too loudly, “Save some room for the ice cream, sir. It’s really great. You know, Mr. Erskine, sir, I was really blown away that you called me up. I just wrote you that fan letter because I was so grateful to you for putting me where I am today. I’ve tried Shirley MacLaine’s stuff, and it never worked. But when you said, ‘Each of us has a god or goddess within them, and we’re each the descendants of star kings and queens, and so we have each inherited the great powers of those ancients and can use them to shape our own reality. Never say die.’ Well, you know, when I read that, it just about blew me away. I nearly lost it.”
Malcolm winced. Had he really written that drivel? Money, he reminded himself. Think of nothing but the money. Ethics are worth little when you’re poor. “Call me Malcolm, and I’ll call you Jimmy. All right?”
Handsome young Jimmy Flicker shook his head, laughing in amazement. “It’s true, what I’ve read: the great ones are always modest!” The plain, non-prescription lenses of his glasses flashed in the subdued, elegant, should-have-been-brighter light, his red tie glowed against his pale blue shirt, and his expensive gray suit impressed the subdued, elegant, condescending-only-to-Malcolm waiters. His razor-cut hair was, of course, perfect. “I’m over here going, like, ‘Wow, this is just blowing me away,’ and you’re over there just being like an ordinary guy.”
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