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Hayden walked slowly. There was an apricot tree, which, as Aaron had once explained to him, was thought by some scholars to have been the fabled fruit that Adam ate, not the apple. There were figs, which Adam and Eve used to clothe themselves when they were embarrassed by their nakedness. There were lentils, which Jacob used to swindle his older brother Esau out of his birthright as oldest son. There were onions, garlic, coriander, tamarisk, sage, globe thistle, and castor beans.

Hayden remembered somewhere that Isaiah declared judgment upon those who fashioned idols out of the wood of the bay laurel tree. Sure enough, there was bay laurel. There was also barley to represent the loaves that Jesus converted, along with fish, into a meal for the multitude. There was a good looking palm tree to represent Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem as the Messiah. There were centaurea plants, relatives of the thorns that were made into Jesus’ crown. There was aloe that was used to anoint Jesus’ body after the crucifixion, and finally there were poppies, the same kind that grew outside of Jesus’ tomb.

Hayden’s favorite plants in the garden were hollyhock and mallow. They harkened back to Job. Satan had tested Job. Of the many hardships that Job endured, one was the loss of appetite. In Job’s time, hollyhock and mallow were used to flavor foods. The modern descendant of hollyhock and mallow is the marshmallow.

Hayden walked through the courtyard into the room where Aaron was entertaining. Aaron loved having people out to Kshanti. His parties were legendary. One Christmas, he’d had a heated big-top tent raised on the property and flew in one of Spain’s top matadors, who successfully felled a bull.

When it came to the guests at his parties, Aaron amused himself with a game he called “Guest of Honor.” It had become a bit of an Aaron trademark on the soiree circuit. He would designate someone to be his guest of honor for that particular evening, only he wouldn’t tell anyone. They all had to guess. Aaron’s criteria for being considered an honored guest varied. Sometimes it was about social position. Other times it was about intellect. Sometimes it was a person who made Aaron laugh. Sometimes it was about clinching a deal. Other times it was about sizing up an enemy.

Aaron beamed as soon as Hayden walked in, throwing up his hands as if to say, “Where ya been?” He motioned Hayden to come over to a circle of people.

“Hayden, I’d like you to meet some folks. This is Emily Van Horn, Utah’s first female senator.”

She was in her mid-50’s.
Hmm, a senator
, Hayden thought to himself.
Good candidate for guest of honor.
Van Horn had the same safe, durable coif that most female American politicians resort to at some point in their careers. She also had a particularly strong voice on the U.S. Senate’s Commerce, Science, and Transportation committee. Aaron liked her because she liked him,
and
because she was his most influential unpaid lobbyist in the Senate.
Nope, she’s not it.
Hayden decided.

Aaron made a few more introductions, then excused himself to take care of another group. Hayden found himself shaking hands with a local businessman named J.D. Langhorn, a man who had managed to make millions during the dot.com boom, lose it, and then make a bundle selling coffins fashioned from chicken feces.

“Chicken shit, who woulda thought?” Langhorn bragged, chewing a large, unlit cigar. “I got the idea from something I read. A couple of Germans had tried to do the same thing. Naturally, the German government got involved and put all kinds of restrictions on them ‘til they suffocated the business.”

Gotta love American luck and pluck,
Hayden thought to himself.
This guy had all the markings of guest of honor.

“How do you sell people on the concept?” Hayden asked, incredulous. “I mean, given the choice between pine and chicken feces, isn’t it kind of clear which one most people would prefer to bury Uncle Fred in?”

“Uncle Fred has left the building, know what I mean, Bo?” Langhorn said, grinning. “What does Fred care? And if Fred gave one red cent about the environment, he’d pick chicken shit, I guarantee it. You know how much chicken shit this country produces each year?”

“Nope.”

“A lot. Stuff’s like nuclear waste. They don’t know what to do with it.”

“Who are
they
?”

“Federal government. They want to have their cake and eat it, too.”

Hayden couldn’t believe that he had uncovered the mystery guest so quickly. “What do you mean?” he asked, entertained.

“They encouraged people to eat chicken because it was healthy. Spent all kinds of money on advertising, gave subsidies to the chicken farmers so they could put birds on everybody’s kitchen table, but they don’t have a clue what to do with the waste. They don’t want to think about it. They tried to sell it to the Peruvians or some such place last year - very hush hush - but those guys didn’t even want it. That’s when I swooped down on this idea to sell my coffins on the Web.”

“Do you sell many of them?”

“Forty-five a week.”

“What?” Hayden said loudly, surprised.

Aaron returned and whisked him away to another group. “Enjoying yourself, Hayden?” Aaron asked, taking him by the arm.

“It’s a good party, Aaron.”

“There’s a ton of book material at this gathering tonight, Hayden

– loads. Make sure you take good notes.”

“Will do.”

“Chris, I’d like you to meet Hayden Campbell, my speechwriter. ‘Mr. Original,’ that’s what I call him. The guy has a river of ideas. Hayden, this is Chris Babcock; he’s one of the survivors. Started three successful dot.coms. The guy knows how to write a business plan, and how to raise money. I’ll leave you two.”

“By the way, Langhorn isn’t it,” Aaron whispered in Hayden’s ear as he moved on.

“... so then I decided to sell that start up and move onto this one,” Babcock babbled as Hayden refocused his attention on the conversation.

“What kind of start up?” Hayden asked, sipping a bourbon and ginger, filling the dead air, not hugely interested.

“It’s not that sexy, really.”

“Try me.”

“Well, it helps dot.com meltdowns sell their office equipment. Someone’s got to do the clean up, know what I mean?”

Nice,
Hayden thought, smiling at Babcocks’ charitableness. The guy even looked like a carrion eater - bloodshot eyes, a beakish nose, and bad posture that made him appear as though he was hovering over you.
Guest of honor? No way.
Babcock reminded Hayden of a turkey vulture he’d once seen on the side of the road in West Virginia picking at a deer that had been hit by a car.

“You ought to meet that gentleman there,” Hayden said, raising his glass to point to Langhorn. “Will you excuse me?”

Hayden made his way to a table of hors d’oeuvre. A short guy with a bad tie was shoving a piece of pita bread covered with hummus into his mouth. The paste oozed onto the back of his hand. He licked it off. The man smiled, cut off a hunk of paté, grabbed a gherkin, dumped the concoction onto a sesame cracker and jammed it in his mouth. Hayden wondered whether or not the hummus had fully made it down the hatch before the paté was introduced. It was as if the man hadn’t eaten in three days. Noticing the horrified look on Hayden’s face, the man took a napkin, wiped his hand and extended it. “Tom Feegan.”

“Hayden Campbell.”

“You a friend of Cannondale’s?”

The question made Hayden think. “I suppose you could say that.” “Kind of a whack job, don’t you think?”

Hayden was amused. “How so?”

“This house for a start. Who builds something like this in Utah? What the hell is Utah, anyway? You know how freaking hard it is to get out here?”

“How do you know Aaron?”

“I don’t. He just invites me to these things every once in a while to ply me with imported beer and chicks in hopes that I’ll write good things about him.”

“You’re a journalist?” Hayden said, slightly surprised that Aaron would invite the media to such an event.

“Yes,” Feegan said, manhandling a hunk of Stilton onto a piece of toast. He spoke with his mouth full. “I freelance. I’ve been trying to do a piece on this Dutch company that Cannondale is trying to buy — pending regulatory approval, of course.”

“I see.”

Aaron appeared from nowhere behind them.

“Ah, I see the two men of words have met.”

Feegan looked puzzled.

“Feegan, you’ve got a ways to go before you hit this guy’s level,” Aaron said, slapping Hayden’s back.

“Hell of a way to flatter a reporter, Aaron.”

“Oh, I’m not worried about that. Somehow you always seem to find the good in things, Feegan. Has Hayden introduced himself? He can be bashful.”

“We were just getting to that,” Hayden said.

“What did he tell you he did for a living, Tom? I’m curious.”

“I just got his name, that’s all.”

“What kind of reporter are you, Feegan? I thought it was ‘who, what, when, where, why and how’ within the first 30 seconds?”

“Must be off my game.”

“Hayden here is my Director of Communications, and also my speechwriter. ‘Mr. Original,’ that’s what I call him. The guy has a way.”

“Interesting.”

“Anyway, you guys probably have a lot in common. I’ll leave you to it.”

Leave us to what exactly?
Hayden wondered.

“Oh, by the way, Hayden,” Aaron said in a hushed tone. “I’ll talk to you about that ‘thing’ later.” Aaron gave Hayden a devilish look as he left.

“So you play Cyrano to Aaron Cannondale, huh?” Feegan said, somewhat sarcastically. “What’s that like?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is he an asshole? I’ve heard he can be. A lot of these guys like him can be. You know, this could be an interesting story in itself – the voice behind Aaron Cannondale. The guy who keeps him on cue. Whadya think?”

“Not a good idea,” Hayden said, annoyed that for one, Aaron would even invite this guy to his party to pick over random conversations by some pretty high-level people; and two, that Aaron had opened the door to this kind of scrutiny. It was reckless, and Aaron knew it. But what galled Hayden most was that Aaron seemed to have done it deliberately.

“So what’s this ‘thing’ Aaron just asked you about?” Feegan asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, guy. You’re his speechwriter. I know you don’t know me from Adam, but throw me a bone here.”

“I’m serious. I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

Feegan gave Hayden an incredulous smile. “Okay, pal, I can respect that, but if you ever want to talk, give me shout. Here’s my card.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

Feegan walked away to eavesdrop on another conversation. Maybe Feegan was a plant. Maybe Aaron staged the whole thing to assess Hayden’s loyalty. If so, Hayden was not happy. Life was too short for those kind of games. Hayden didn’t like feeling like he was some sort of pawn.

He made his way to the other side of the room where a portion of Aaron’s art collection hung on a burgundy-colored wall. A Chinese oil painting caught his eye. The subject was a solitary, rural Chinese farmer with a puffed-up face. He wore a black peasant outfit. His hands and feet were tiny. The plaque on the wall next to the painting read: “Youth.”

“I like it,” a man standing next to Hayden said. “Grotesque, yet funny in a way. It’s one of his better works.”

“Who?”

“The artist, Pan Dehai. He spent ten years painting farmers like this. They were people he knew when he lived in Kunming. A lot of people compare him to Botero.”

“Youth?” Hayden said, looking at the painting. “I suppose he’s saying that it’s all been sapped out of this guy.”

“That’s probably the general idea. Who’s to say?”

“You know a lot about art.”

“I should, I’m surrounded by it every day. I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Thomas Mason. I’m the guest of honor,” Mason said with a wink. “You thought it was chicken man over there, didn’t you? Legitimate mistake.”

Hayden laughed. Mason’s name sounded familiar, as if he should know it. Just then, Aaron walked up and gave Hayden a wink.

“Ah, Hayden, I see you have met possibly the world’s only remaining Renaissance man. Thomas has the best job going. One of the best kept secrets.”

“What do you do?” Hayden asked sheepishly, feeling that he should already know.

“He’s the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican,” Aaron volunteered.

“I wouldn’t mind being that when I grow up,” Hayden said. “What do I need to do now to prepare?”

“Go to church, give money, write a couple of books, be a Eucharistic minister, I don’t know. In my case, the current administration didn’t know where else to put me. Somebody found out that I could sing the words to Nessun Dorma in Italian, and I guess it was settled. Will you excuse me for a moment? There’s someone I must say hello to.”

“Good man,” Aaron said of Mason. “And modest. I meant it when I said the guy is a Renaissance man. He paints, writes, and is a leading authority on the Etruscan language. He managed to do all that while making a fortune on Wall Street trading derivatives.”

“And he’s the guest of honor.”

“Good man, Hayden. You figured it out.”

“Not really. He told me.”

“I’ll have to reprimand him.”

“Aaron, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“What was that over there a moment ago with Feegan?”

“What do you mean?”

“Was that some sort of test?”

“Test?”

“Feegan grilled me. What did you expect him to do? If you doubt my loyalty for some reason, Aaron, then we’ve got a problem, and this isn’t the place to talk about it. I’ve told you before that ‘kiss and tell’ isn’t my game.”

Aaron let Hayden vent.

“Two things, Aaron. If it was a test, I don’t appreciate it. If it wasn’t, you still shouldn’t have done it.”

“Point taken, my friend. Won’t happen again.”

Somehow Hayden doubted Aaron’s sincerity. Aaron took Hayden by the arm to introduce him to others.

“One more thing, Aaron.”

“Jeez, I said I was sorry, Hayden.”

“No, not that. Do you ever get tired of all this?”