by Don Potter
“Hate the place. Fat people from Minnesota wandering around in shorts and tank tops getting sun-burnt while they bitch about the lines.”
“What can I do for you, Trip?”
“What can I do for you?”
“There seems to be an echo on the line.”
“You’re an amusing chap, Rob. I have an offer.”
“No.”
“I didn’t make the offer.”
“I was just saving time for both of us.”
“I hear that Carlson is resigning fast food accounts like they’ve all got salmonella.”
“Who told you, a piccolo uccello?”
“A what?”
“That’s a ‘little bird’ in Italiano.”
“Pardon me?”
“Answer’s still no.”
“What if I were about to offer you the world?”
“I’ve already got one that I like living in.”
“The moon and the stars, then.”
“I would never have guessed you were the poetic type, Trip. Always saw you as the type who pretended the Playboy articles were serious literature. I really have to go. Sorry, busy. Ciao.”
After I hung up something started to gnaw at me. Something was wrong. But what? The office had been decorated for Halloween and witches and demons and black cats were hanging all over the creative department, with tombstones and ghouls pinned to the walls. They suddenly looked so damn sinister.
The intercom buzzed and my secretary said, “Mister Fleming, I have your wife’s caregiver on the line. Your wife is missing.”
51
American Bandstand, which first aired on television in 1952, is cancelled. Boxer Mike Tyson is arrested for raping a Miss Black America contestant. Fires in Oakland, California kill twenty-five people and destroy thousands of dwellings. And life is closing in on Rob.
* * *
When I got home the house was decked out with crepe paper and glowing pumpkins and cardboard skeletons were scattered between cobwebbed gravestones in the front yard. Ginger’s caregiver was waiting for me at the front door. She looked frightened.
“What happened, Maria?”
“I was folding laundry in the back when I thought I heard the front door close. Before I could check, the phone rang. I answered it and spoke for just a few minutes. When I hung up, the house seemed very quiet so I looked for Miss Ginger, but she was gone.” Maria fought back tears. “I called the police.”
“You gave them a description?”
“Yes. She was a witch.”
“What?”
She pulled a Polaroid photo from her pocket. “See? A witch.”
“Oh, I see, she is dressed as a witch for Halloween.” I wanted to cry. In the Polaroid Ginger had on a witch’s costume, but her expression was that of an innocent child. I fought back a sudden surge of anger. Not fair, not fair. Why Ginger?
“You told them about her Alzheimer’s?” Her Alzheimer’s? No, that was wrong. Ginger didn’t have Alzheimer’s, Alzheimer’s had her.
“Yes, Mister Fleming. I told them.”
Think, Rob, think. Come on! “Is anyone we know having a Halloween party?”
“There may be some around the neighborhood, but I don’t know if she was invited to one.”
“Okay, stay here and call our friends and neighbors. Tell them to look out for her. She can’t be far away.”
I drove slowly up and down the neighborhood streets. There were witches galore, and ghosts and vampires and zombies, as well as a plethora of superheroes. It took me an hour before I found Ginger. She was walking happily down the middle of the street, carrying a plastic pumpkin filled with candy, accompanied by a French maid and a tiny Frankenstein’s monster. She seemed disappointed to see me.
I reached for her hand.
“No.” She jerked away, clinging to her stash of candy as if I wanted to take it away from her.
I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or collapse on the ground. Instead I thanked Ginger’s young companions for taking care of her. Neither of them knew there was anything wrong. We said goodbye and I drove my witch-wife home.
I needed the first martini and deserved the second one. The third was a bonus just for the hell of it. Ginger was in bed, although she refused to remove her witch outfit and makeup, the house was quiet, and I was getting gently smashed. The day was, thank God, blessedly over. The phone rang and I let it ring. It stopped and rang again. A cautionary voice in my head warned me not to answer, but the alcohol dimmed my resolve and I picked up the receiver.
“Rob?” Vince’s voice clattered in my ear.
“What the hell are you doing up so late, Vince? Out being a vampire this Halloween night?”
“We’re screwed, Rob. We have to talk.”
“Go ahead and talk.”
“Not on the phone. In person. We are so incredibly screwed.”
52
The Republic of Georgia declares independence from the Soviet Union. Jesse Jackson decided that Blacks should now be referred to as “African-Americans”. Hip-hop group NWA releases Niggarz4Life. And for Rob it’s the night of the long knives.
* * *
I took an early flight out in the morning to New York, which with the time change got me in the city in time to meet Vince for dinner at La Spezia restaurant in Little Italy. He suggested, no, insisted we meet there. He was already sitting at a table when I arrived. It was a small place with a dozen tables; rectangular ones along the sides, circular ones in the center, all with white tablecloths and bentwood chairs beneath a long mural of Castello San Giorgio in La Spezia, which had probably been painted by the owner’s teenage grandson who considered himself an artist. He wasn’t, not even close.
I sat opposite Vince at one of the middle circular tables. He looked as though he hadn’t slept since the Mets last won the World Series. I had never been here before, but a half-memory of this place echoed in my head. I glanced around and immediately understood why.
“So, you’re Michael Corleone,” I said.
Vince looked completely baffled. “What?”
“I said you’re Michael Corleone.”
“Are you drunk? I’m Vince D’Angelo.”
I shot nervous glances left and right, picked up a breadstick and pointed it at him. “There are just the two of us here, no Sollozzo, and I’m not police captain McCluskey, capisce?”
“Rob, what the—?”
“All I’m saying is, you try to head for the bathroom to get a gun taped under the toilet, and I’ll jam this breadstick right through your eye.” I leaned back and waved the breadstick at the restaurant interior. “This place is a double for the restaurant murder scene in The Godfather. Although, I think that one was in the Bronx.”
Vince sighed so hard I thought he would deflate. “Just what I need, a damn sense of humor at a time like this.”
“Sometimes it’s good to open things up with a little humor to take away the sense of impending doom. You were so allusively secretive on the phone, maybe we ought to start with a prayer. Short of that, let’s start from the beginning, in sequence, so I can take fully understand the problem.”
“Michael Hunter is in jail.”
“That you told me last night, but it’s the end. I said start at the beginning.”
“He was arrested for having sex with a minor.”
“Keep going.”
“The girl was fourteen, and the act was videotaped by her fourteen year-old boyfriend who happens to be Hunter’s son.”
“Let’s hear it for those good old family values, huh? Rah rah. Keep going.”
“It gets kinda fuzzy from there because nobody’s talking at Burger King’s headquarters, nobody. I finally managed to squeeze some information out of a detective friend of mine. He said there are lots of photos and tapes of similar encounters. And, since Hunter mailed copies of this crap across state lines, the FBI is in on the investigation. Needless to say, he’s toast.”
>
“And Burger King’s response?”
“As I said, nothing right now, unless you count sheer panic. No one knows who else is involved in this stuff. It could be people he works with, it could even be us-”
“Us?”
“Guilt by association.”
“We’re not even working for them. It’s a bit of a stretch.”
“Yeah, but expect Burger King to neutron bomb this mess. They will undoubtedly implement a scorched earth policy to cauterize the wound, and we’re gonna fry along with anyone who ever said Mike Hunter’s name. That’s why when I called you I said we’re screwed.”
“But so far there’s been no news release?”
“Not yet.”
“Who knows about this?”
“Outside of the cops and Burger King, no one. What do we do?”
“Not a lot we can do. The Carlson Board meeting is tomorrow. It should be a real hoot.”
“Are you going to tell them?”
“I don’t know. It’s still a mystery.”
“But not for long. You almost seem like you’re not all that upset about this, Rob. Are you?”
“Hell no, I’m just jet-lagged, deep in denial, and would kill for a glass of Chianti. Or something stronger if they have it.”
53
Christian singer Amy Grant has a crossover pop hit with Baby, Baby. Boris Yeltsin is elected President of Russia. Twin Peaks ends its television run. Life, as Rob knows it, comes to an end.
* * *
The board room went graveyard silent the moment I walked in and that was not a good sign. Or perhaps I was being just a shade paranoid. I nodded to everyone, sat at the head of the table and searched their faces for signs of mutiny as the secretary went through the preamble and read the minutes from the last meeting to make it official. I was sure some of them knew something, but what and how much? And the jerk who would be the first to send the big demolition ball swinging at me would be my old pal Jerry Madsen.
“What about these numbers?” he asked, waving a sheet of paper at me as if I were responsible for the national debt.
“And what numbers would those be, Jerry?”
“The fast food accounts you resigned. All the money we’re giving up because we think Burger King is coming onboard.”
So at least one of them didn’t know about Mike Hunter and the Burger King debacle. And since they all loved chattering to each other, perhaps no one knew anything, yet. “You know the deal, Jerry. An agency cannot servic more than one client in the same category.”
Jerry grumbled something I didn’t catch.
“What was that, Jerry?”
“I said we could give it a try,” he answered. “No harm in trying.”
“If we did it would be considered an ethical breach that would damage the company’s reputation,” I said but some part of me wanted to say, “Oh, by the way, we’re doomed.”
“What about Burger King?” Jerry asked and for me the world went quiet. I faintly heard him say, “I wanna know about the Burger King billions coming our way now that we’ve given up millions.”
I glanced across the table to Vince. He looked frozen, trapped. I never saw him like that before, but he’s only human. Then I slowly inspected each one of them. All of them, every single man sitting there, had done well thanks to this agency. Their stock investments had been returned many times over. More ungoverned thoughts filtered into my mind. We had worked hard under great pressure to build this agency. We had taken gambles and lost; we had made desperate bets and won. Through it all I along with most of the people of Carlson Communications have given the agency everything we had. We’ve done very good work.
But I don’t remember any of those sitting around this table ever offering congratulations for our endeavors and successes, only complaints if their financial returns dropped a dollar. I watched Jerry Madsen scowling at the sheet of figures. Jerry had millions. How much more did he want? Was he going to make the jump from buying a big yacht to a container ship? Would he be satisfied then? Would he ever thank me for my effort or shake my hand and say, damn, you’re doing a great job, Rob Fleming? No, he wouldn’t, not in a million years.
I shot a quick look at Vince who was trying in vain to become invisible. It was nerve wracking, but for some reason I had a feeling that everything was going to work out as it should. How, I had no idea, but it would. And I thought of my lovely wife, the woman I loved more than anything else, although my frequent absences would deny that; the woman who, day by day, was cruelly going down a long, dark hall and I could do little to help her.
“We are not getting Burger King,” a voice said and it paralyzed the room. It was me, my voice, firm and clear. I said it and there was no taking it back. Silence, absolute, bottom of a deep, deep mine silence, and then noise, bedlam.
A secretary slipped in and whispered in my ear. I excused myself, saying the Acura client was on the line, and followed her out and into a side office where a telephone line was blinking. I picked up the receiver and tapped the blinking light.
“Rob Fleming.”
“Rob, it’s Arnold Binder.”
This was it. Cosmic forces were moving, escapements were turning, springs uncoiling, cogs clicking one tooth at a time, and Robert Fleming’s fate was making itself present. Arnold Binder, the American who had taken Jim Hanson’s place at Acura. The Arnold Binder who gushed about the quality of our work and how much he wanted things to stay just-as-they-are.
“Arnold, how are you?”
“Fine, fine. Rob, I just came from an executive meeting. All Japanese but me. You’ll understand.”
“I do.” And I did. I knew exactly what had happened and what was coming. But I did not know why.
“They want to consolidate the business at one agency. The Honda agency. Sorry.”
It hurt less than I thought, but still it hurt. The LA office’s Fort Knox ransacked and all the gold gone.
“Is it something we did or didn’t do?”
“No. They wanted me to express their appreciation for all your work. Inscrutable Japanese, you know that really should be one word. We need to wrap things up by the end of the month. Okay?”
I exhaled and stared out the window beyond Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle to a spot on the horizon far, far down the Ohio River and realized this was not the end of the world. It just felt that way. Now, how do I turn this into something positive?
“Arnold, would you do me a favor?”
“If I can.”
“Can you give me a little breathing space and hold off announcing this for twenty-four hours?”
I heard his sigh of relief. “I can do better than that. The weekend’s coming up, so I can hold off until Monday. All right?”
“Perfect.”
“Sorry about this whole thing.”
“Nothing to forgive. Thanks for everything. It’s been a pleasure. Sayonara.” I hit the button to disconnect, took a deep breath and called another number.
“Trip Wilson’s office,” the secretary’s cheery voice warbled in my ear.
“Is Trip there?”
“Who may I say is calling?”
“Rob Fleming.”
“One moment, please.” She clicked off the line and canned music cut in. I hate canned music, but this was different. It wasn’t the usual fuzzy, crappy instrumental cover versions of hits of yesteryear, Deep Purple neutered for the neutered masses, it was an actual recording. I was listening to Sh-Boom a song first recorded by a Black group, The Chords. This version was being sung by the Crew Cuts. They covered the song back in ’54 when that was the popular thing to do. Their version was the big hit the summer that rock and roll came on the scene. Hearing it brought back fond memories of my late teen age years. I half-whispered, half-sang to the music while I waited. It ended, and a different song started to play only to be interrupted by the man I called.
“Rob Fleming,” Trip’s voice boomed as it banished the music
to wherever it goes when you’re not listening. “What a lovely and unexpected surprise. And what may I do for you this fine day?”
“Oh, no, it’s what I can do for you, Trip.”
“And what would that be?”
“How would you like it if I were to give you the moon and the stars?”
54
Nirvana releases Smells Like Teen Spirit. Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton defeats incumbent George Bush for the US presidency. LA Lakers star, Magic Johnson, reveals he is HIV positive. Rob channels Mary Lincoln.
* * *
I once drove past Solar Two, a solar energy plant way out in the Mojave desert. It’s a vast array of mirrors in concentric rings, all focused on a central tower. The intense light is so hot on the tower it heats up molten salt which produces steam which spins turbines which create electricity. Which is a long, roundabout way of saying I felt just like that tower when I walked back into the boardroom, although it was anger, not light or heat, focused on me. And good old, predictable Jerry Madsen was focusing the hardest.
“None of this Frank Capra God and country and how much I love Carlson Communications speech nonsense this time, Fleming. What in the hell is going on? We’re going to lose a fortune.”
I bit my lip because I felt a smile coming, and after that smile there would be a chuckle and then a laugh and I would be uncontrollable. Odds were, once started, I would die laughing right then and there. Me dying would be just fine with Jerry.
“Well?” he said.
“Where were we? Oh, yes, we just lost the Acura account,” I said in a voice that was remarkably calm. It was calm enough to shut up Jerry Madsen — but only for a moment. He recovered.
“This is an absolute disaster! When word gets out we’ll lose most all of our clients. The agency will go right down the tubes along with the value of our stock. This is Armageddon.” He glared pure rage at me. “What do you have to say?”