“Is because they think we pay more for white tornado recordings if we know computer uses human brain, Ivan! Or maybe don’t buy at all if we know it doesn’t, da?”
“So if you find brain, you tell us, if you don’t, you shut up, hah, Ramirez?”
Eric had never seen Eduardo Ramirez so discomfited. He sat there stonily under the angry glares of the Siberians saying nothing, no doubt because he could think of nothing to say.
The staring contest was broken by Ivan Marenko’s laughter.
“Smart strategy!” he said. “No hard feelings.”
“As godfathers say in old gangster movies, ‘just business’!” said Stella, and she broke up too.
What people! thought Eric. What people to have on your side!
Whatever side that might turn out to be.
Eduardo having imparted his information, the Marenkos, as was their wont, took over.
“Okay,” said Stella, “so is brain . . .”
“But live brain, maybe inside volunteer,” said Ivan. “Not as bad as Frankenstein games . . .”
“I beg to differ,” Eric found himself saying. “Speaking as someone who’s been there—”
“Not the point, Eric,” Eduardo said, cutting him off sharply.
“Da,” said Stella Marenko. “Point is, does not look as bad as using cloned brain or brain ripped out of body. Much easier to . . . how would Calhoun say it . . . ?”
“Deep sell,” said Ivan.
“Spin,” said Eric simultaneously.
“Whatever,” said Eduardo. “The point is that you can’t rely on what happens when Davinda puts on that helmet and runs his climate model to discredit Condition Venus or anything else . . .”
“Your argument for buying the tornado recordings from you for a lot of money and using them, da, Ramirez?” said Ivan.
“Da,” said Eduardo.
“Is good argument,” said Stella Marenko.
“But asking price is too high.”
“Asking prices are always too high,” said Eduardo. “That’s why they’re asking prices.”
“You come down?”
“A little . . .”
“How much?”
“Wait,” said Eric, his mouth running away from his brain again. “We had better think carefully before we close the deal. Something here just doesn’t add up.”
Eduardo glowered at him. “If you don’t mind, Eric—”
“Let him talk!” said Ivan Marenko. It came perilously close to sounding like an order. And no one gave orders to Eduardo Ramirez. Eduardo was far too urbane to show it overtly but Eric could easily enough feel the heat of his ire.
And realize that he was perilously close to a brink whose full nature he did not care to contemplate. And it was too late to step back.
“What I mean to say, Eduardo,” he said soothingly, “is we’re forgetting I’ve got Big Blue convinced that the mysterious Lao is some operation we’re running against them. . . .”
“So . . . ?” said Eduardo.
“So that they’ve bought it means that Lao can’t be some operation of theirs. . . .”
“So?” said Eduardo in quite a different tone of voice, his anger forgotten, his curiosity piqued.
Eric’s train of logic was running out fast. “So . . . er . . . if it isn’t our operation . . . and it isn’t theirs. . . .”
“Third Force?” said Ivan Marenko.
“Does not exist,” said Stella. “Not exactly.”
“Does not not exist, Stella. Not exactly.”
“Da . . .”
Although any number of personages and organizations owned to a belief in the vague constellation of even more elusive concepts referred to as “Third Force,” no syndic, corporation, or religious hierarchy had ever emerged from the virtual woodwork to claim philosophical trademark or corporate copyright of the free-floating aphorisms that were about all that Eric knew about this non-existent non-organization.
As such common sayings as “it ain’t over till the fat lady sings” or “it’s déjà vu all over again” were attributed to a legendary yogi called Berra, so were these crypticisms attributed to “Third Force,” the self-defining central doctrine of which was “Whenever two forces oppose, the Third Force emerges.”
All sorts of obscure cults left over from the twentieth century—Scientology, Sufism, Marxism, Social Entropists, Zen Vegetarians, whatever—claimed to be the ancestral roots of Third Force, and there was no reason Eric could see that they couldn’t all be right, since the central doctrine thereof could be interpreted to imply anything from the mystic notion that the interaction between matter and energy produced a Third Force variously called “spirit,” “soul,” “god,” “chi,” “prana,” “tao,” or “chaos,” to the proven culinary principle that the oversweet and the oversour combined to make an excellent sauce for Chinese food.
Or that the Hot and Cold War between the Blues and the Greens produced an intermediate state, namely the current planetary condition.
Or that any conflict between two opposing players would somehow conjure up a third player out of the smoke and mirrors of contention.
Which Eric had to admit seemed to apply to the current situation.
“So what are you saying?” Eduardo scoffed to no one in particular and/or everyone in general. “That disinformation that Eric fed to Monique Calhoun has somehow manifested a real ‘Lao conspiracy’ out of nothingness?”
Ivan and Stella Marenko eyed each other nervously.
“Stranger things can happen,” said Ivan somberly.
“With enough good vodka and bad mushrooms!” said Stella.
“You’re forgetting the obvious,” said Eric.
“Oh are we?” snapped Eduardo.
“Something called Lao was out there all along to begin with,” Eric pointed out. “We never knew what it was, and we don’t know now. The other side didn’t know what it was, and only thinks it knows it’s us now.”
“Da . . .”
“Da!”
“So, Eric, what are you saying that implies?” Eduardo Ramirez asked. And when Eric hesitated, he smiled encouragingly. “Go ahead,” he said, “you’ve been doing well so far.”
“It means we don’t know what’s going to happen when they run Davinda’s model with him in the circuit, and now they don’t think they know either,” Eric said. “And . . .”
“And?”
Eric shrugged, his brilliant deductions having reached their end point.
“The operational implications of which are . . . ?”
Eric shrugged again.
“We had better be very, very careful.”
“About what?”
Eric thought he knew the answer, but this time he also knew he had better think very, very carefully himself before he dared to utter it.
He thought about Monique Calhoun telling him that even if the white tornadoes were fakes, even if there was a disembodied brain in the computer it could be a terminal mistake to destroy the Big Blue Machine, unprincipled capitalist liars though they were, if the Davinda climate model nevertheless did prove that Condition Venus was inevitable without the swift application of their planet-cooling technology.
Or to do it without knowing one way or the other.
He thought about what he had felt when he had summoned up the manhood to make common cause with her in trying to find out. Which was not that unlike what he had felt when he had gained Eduardo’s admiration, had become a man of serious respect in the eyes of his syndic, by taking a grave personal risk to do the morally right thing.
And he remembered that, after all, it had been Eduardo himself who had told him that Bad Boys weren’t capitalists indifferent to all but the bottom line.
Of course Eduardo had also told him that if he guessed wrong and cost the syndic a large amount of money, moral righteousness would not allow him to escape the personal consequences.
“The buck stops with each and every citizen-shareholder,” Eduardo had told him.
Eric sighed, for in this moment he was all too keenly aware that it did.
“We had better be very, very careful about releasing the white tornado recordings to the media under any conditions,” he said.
“Oh had we?” Eduardo said darkly.
“Why?” said Stella Marenko.
“Because we might destroy the Big Blue Machine.”
“This is bad thing? To discredit capitalist liars who would turn Siberia back into winter wonderland to fill their own pockets?”
“It is if John Sri Davinda’s climate model really does prove the Earth and everything on it, us included, dies if we don’t let them get away with it.”
“Da!”
“Da!”
Eduardo Ramirez stared across the table at Eric, poker-faced, giving nothing away. “You do realize what you’ve just done, Eric?” he said evenly.
Eric met his gaze. “Yes, Eduardo,” he said.
“You have just given our Siberian friends here a most convincing argument for not buying the white tornado recordings. . . .”
“Da!”
“Thus costing Bad Boys a very large amount of money.”
Eduardo stared stonily at Eric. Eric gave it right back to him. What else was there for him to do now?
“I know, Eduardo,” he said.
“An argument so convincing that I believe it too,” said Eduardo Ramirez. “An argument I would hope I would have had the courage to make myself.”
Under the circumstances, it would have been asking far too much for him to crack a smile, but his glacial expression did melt, and that was enough to have Eric sighing in relief.
“And so,” Eduardo told the Marenkos, “I must withdraw our offer to sell you the recordings.”
“Oh no,” said Stella, “we buy!”
“But for reduced price,” said Ivan.
“I can’t let you—”
“What’s the matter, you don’t trust us?” said Ivan Marenko.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you—”
“Is good deal, Ramirez,” said Ivan. “We buy recordings now at big discount. Bad Boys gets a lot less money, but what did it cost you to make recordings, nothing, da, is still profit.”
“I don’t think I understand,” said Eduardo. “What do you intend to do with the recordings?”
“Depends,” said Ivan Marenko.
“On what?” asked Eduardo.
“If Davinda proves Condition Venus is real on Sunday, planet must be cooled, and we must shut up, hold noses, sit on recordings, pay lying unprincipled capitalist bastards to save collective planetary asses. But if is bullshit and he makes monkeys of Big Blue—”
“Ivan! If he makes monkeys of Big Blue Machine, is same thing as if we do! And if later, it turns out planet must be cooled anyway—”
“Stella!” shouted Ivan Marenko. “Shut up!”
Stella Marenko glared at her husband for a moment, as much in surprise as in anger, or so it seemed to Eric. But the desired effect was achieved. Stella did shut up.
“Now you will please let me finish?” Ivan Marenko said in as close an approximation of a conciliatory tone as Eric had ever heard him use. He paused to take the largest swallow of vodka he had taken all afternoon.
“Okay,” he said, “if Davinda’s climate model proves Condition Venus, is not good, but is simple, no choice, we do nothing. But if not, we use recordings as blackmail threat to make Big Blue turn off white tornado machines and behave like good little capitalist bastards or else. But not to pound them into filling for pilmenyi!”
“Ah!” exclaimed Stella. “Because maybe next week or next year or next century maybe we find we need Big Blue climatech after all!”
“Da,” said Ivan. “We must preserve Big Blue Machine like last polar bears in Siberia or remaining bits of Amazon rain forest or quaint folk music of Urals.”
“Even from own evil assholery!”
“Especially from own evil assholery. Considering that evil assholes are not so good at preserving themselves. Considering that is main thing that makes them assholes.”
“And how do you expect to do this?” asked Eduardo.
“We don’t do it, Ramirez, you do,” Ivan told him. “Is fair Bad Boys must do some little service to earn money.”
“Indeed,” agreed Eduardo, “but how do you propose we earn it?”
“Maybe we ask handsome prince?” Stella Marenko suggested. “Maybe today he proves he is not just another pretty face?”
And all at once, Eric was the center of attention. The Marenkos turned away from Eduardo to focus on him. And Eduardo himself was smiling thinly, as if he saw what was coming and found it both amusing and just.
And so did Eric. It was obvious.
“A contract?” he said. “On Davinda?”
The Marenkos nodded.
“A negative option contract? I verify that Davinda’s climate model will prove that Big Blue’s Condition Venus disney hides the real thing or I prevent the full catastrophe from happening by canceling the Sunday demonstration by . . . permanently removing their human central processing unit from the circuit?”
“Da,” said Ivan. “Either Condition Venus is proved on Sunday or demonstration is canceled and nothing happens. Big Blue looks stupid, but survives and we keep them on short leash like nice dancing bear. Next year, maybe even another UNACOCS. And we pay for contract either way. Better than poke in eye with sharp stick, eh, Ramirez?”
Eduardo pondered this. But not for very long.
“It’s your contract to accept or refuse, Eric,” he said.
“I made it, I’ll take it,” Eric said immediately.
After all, he had talked the syndic into this situation. And by making it a free choice rather than an order, Eduardo Ramirez had given him the opportunity to redeem himself. It was more than the right career move. It was doing well by doing good.
“Thank you, Eduardo,” he added upon this reflection.
Eduardo acknowledged his understanding with a mere nod of his head and a wave of his hand. But it was enough.
“Oobla di, oobla da,” Stella Marenko sang off-key, popping her fingers, “life goes on.”
And she poured them all big shots of pepper vodka.
What people! Eric thought again as they raised their glasses in a silent toast. What people to have on your side!
And now Eric Esterhazy was beginning to understand what side it really was. And that they were all on it together.
The fiery vodka slid down his gullet and ignited a warm glow of comradeship in his stomach.
Which did not sour until after the Marenkos had left, leaving him sitting there alone with Eduardo Ramirez, indeed not until Eduardo also got up to leave, and hit him with it as a casual parting afterthought.
“Oh, one more thing, Eric, should it come to pass that you must indeed remove Davinda, we obviously cannot afford to have the good deed credited to our account or that of the Marenkos . . .”
“Obviously,” agreed Eric blithely.
“So we should, as your mother would put it, pin it on a fall guy . . . or in this case girl, since no one else is available.”
Then it was that the pepper vodka, like Eduardo’s words, gave Eric a hard sour sock in the stomach.
“Monique Calhoun?” he exclaimed. “You’re ordering me to pin it on Monique Calhoun?”
Eduardo gave him one of those expressionless stone-faced looks that could mean anything. “Call it. . . . an operational suggestion,” he said. “A personal decision, Eric, not an order.”
“With personal responsibility for the results . . .”
“Exactly,” said Eduardo, and left it at that.
Nor did Eric wish to press him further as to exactly what would be the personal results if he. . . . opted to ignore such an operational suggestion.
When Avi Posner showed up unbidden at the Ritz instead of calling, Monique Calhoun did not expect him to be the bearer of happy tidings. She had been in the shower when he called from downstairs,
and while she told him she needed ten minutes to get herself presentable, his unexpected advent left her too apprehensively curious to do anything more than dry her hair, slip on a dress, and step into a pair of shoes.
When she opened the door to the suite, Posner barged in without a greeting, and sat down heavily on a sofa in the parlor. Only when she had seated herself in a plush velvet armchair across the coffee table from him did she notice, to her astonishment, that he had arrived bearing a large gilded cardboard box of fancy chocolates.
Posner? About to get romantic? At a time like this?
But the look on Avi Posner’s face was anything but hearts and flowers.
“First the good news,” he said grimly. “The principals have accepted your proposal. Tonight you take Davinda to La Reine de la Seine, you enlist Esterhazy’s aid, you get him into one of those bordello boudoirs, and you . . . ah, pump him. If you succeed in verifying that he is not a Siberian mole, your reward will be promotion to head of the Bread & Circuses’ Paris office after Mamoun retires next year. . . .”
“And the bad news . . . ?”
“I’m not through with the good news,” Posner said, though neither his expression nor his tone of voice made that contention credible. “The rest of the good news is that even if it turns out that you cannot exonerate Davinda, you still get Paris. Provided . . . provided you accept the bad news.”
And, fidgeting with downcast eyes like a shy teenage boy tremulously courting his heart-throb, he handed her the box of chocolates.
“But Avi,” Monique exclaimed in total perplexity, “I love good chocolates!”
“Open it,” said Avi Posner.
Monique did.
No chocolates.
Inside the chocolate box was a gun.
A gunmetal-gray carbon-fiber automatic pistol with a fat barrel heavily perforated at the muzzle end.
Monique stared woodenly at the gun, then at Posner.
“The bad news,” said Avi Posner, “is that they’ve given you the contract.”
“Avi! You know I can’t—”
“Yes you can,” Posner said in a voice that seemed made deliberately robotic as he fixed his gaze on a spot somewhere above her head. “This weapon fires a high-velocity cloud of spent-uranium flechettes. With it, a rank amateur such as yourself can blow the head off a bull elephant at any range within twenty meters.”
Greenhouse Summer Page 29