How To Succeed in Evil (21 page)

Selene had feared the worst when she had seen Edwin in the door way, but clothes? What is going on? She doesn’t understand at all.

“Now,” says Edwin, to a man holding a tablet computer, “turn it on.” The man taps the screen, Selene becomes scared again. She doesn’t like any of this. She wishes she could hide between the mattresses. Why doesn’t Barry wake up? Maybe that would make things worse.

Selene jumps when the garments make a high-pitched whine. “Can I go?” asks Selene.

“No,” says Edwin, not bothering to look at her. “We may need you.”

“Oh yes,” says Topper, “She is exceptionally talented.”

Barry’s shirt changes from black to white and back again. A flurry of images and logos tear across the fabric. A diagnostic runs on the pants and hat. The images sweep outward to glowing white and then condense into a white dot in the center of his chest. The white dot bounces around the limits of the fabric like a pixel ball in a game of pong.

“Is that all you came here for? Tuh, tuh, tuh to make him into a television?” Selene asks.

“Yes,” says Edwin. He turns and leaves the room.

From the hallway, Selene hears Topper ask, “Hey, Edwin what’s the C R O stand for?”

“Cromoglodon,” says Edwin, naming the awful thing he has just made.

Chapter Thirty-Five 

Taking a Meeting

Over the next few months, the Cromoglodon remains relatively calm. He destroys a few vehicles and breaks a few windows. He also tears down a statue of a Civil War general, but since nobody remembers who the statue commemorates, only the pigeons are put out.

In an unusual spasm of sensibility, law enforcement agencies are given a standing order to leave the Cromoglodon alone. Under no circumstances are they to attempt to apprehend him. Yes, he is bad. But he is so bad, that attempting to catch him will only mean more pain and destruction. So the Feds claim jurisdiction and do nothing.

But this does not mean that Cromoglodon’s life is peaceful. He has created new movements in the herd. Inexplicably, the Cromoglodon is hot. Hotter even than the heroes that have tried to stop him. Magazines pay top dollar to paparazzi daring enough to get a shot of the Cromoglodon in action. When a photographer captures an image of Barry tearing a tour bus in half over his head, t-shirts are printed with the caption, “Who says the big city isn’t friendly!”

The media has a field day. And why wouldn’t they? It’s been a slow news summer and the Cromoglodon is a ratings dream. The fearsome creature just keeps on giving. First, he’s disaster news, then he becomes human interest and finally he crosses over into fashion and style. He is a hit. It becomes impossible to have a first-rate party without the Cromoglodon in attendance. And if he wrecks the joint (as he does, twice) it only serves to give new meaning to the term smashing success.

When two news anchors are horribly injured trying to interview the Cromoglodon their ratings shoot through the roof. Talk shows resound with questions like: 

“How do you pronounce Cromoglodon?” 

“What does it mean?”

 “Why doesn’t he have a spokesperson?” 

“Do you know who’s he dating?”

In this strange summer it seems the world has lost sense of itself. And story after story is spoon-fed to lazy reporters and venial news directors by a well-oiled public relations machine. A machine that is designed, assembled and financed (through a dizzyingly complex structure of front companies) by none other than Edwin Windsor.

An op-ed piece in a major newspaper describes the Cromoglodon as “A superhero for the post-modern age. The ultimate deconstructionist.” Another ‘thoughtful’ journalist writes, “Who cares that he doesn’t have a concern about outdated conventions of mortality? He is a symbol to all the oppressed and disenfranchised. Striking at the system itself – the only hero strong enough to combat the real villain, instead of acting as a repressive extension of an oppressive consumer culture.”

And when the frenzy reaches its height, Edwin strikes. But strike is too severe a word for what Edwin does. Edwin taps precisely and with great effect. It all starts with a left turn.

“This isn’t the way to my hotel,” says the passenger. In the front seat of the town car, an Armenian kid pulls his chauffeur cap lower on his forehead.

“Is will be fine. I professionalism.” Vasak figures everything will be better if he plays dumb.

“Hey Goddamn it. That’s my hotel over there,” Mike Hainer isn’t used to the people who work for him, even the temporary help, making mistakes. He’s a busy man. An important man. One with no time to fix other people’s mistakes.

“Yehghvelch,” Vasak says.

“Yegwich? What the hell is a Yegwich? Look this is simple, I need to go to the Plaza. Sprechenzie habla Plaza hotel?”

Vasak nods and flashes him a moony grin. The hell with it, Hainer thinks. He’ll get to the wrong hotel, have this guy fired and take a cab to the Plaza. So he’ll be late for his next thing. It’s not like he’s never been late to a thing before. He returns his attention to the stack of papers in his lap.

For Mike, there is always a stack of papers or a person demanding his attention. Mike Hainer is in charge of a frighteningly large sporting goods conglomerate. And over the last 20 years, he has wrangled his company from an obscure manufacturer of running shoes, into the premiere athletic brand in the world. The logo on his hand-tooled leather briefcase is the same logo that marks more than 80% of the world’s finest athletes. From soccer to snowboarding, golf to gymnastics, Pysche has burned its brand on the world of sport.

But that’s something of a problem. Pysche has grown so fast and been extended so far, Mike isn’t sure that are any worlds left to conquer. The proposals in front of him include sponsoring tee ball leagues and hiring archeologists to forge his logo within the centuries old ruins of Mayan Ball courts. Mike doesn’t like any of these ideas. He is of the mind that it’s time to invent a new sport. One that is faster-paced, has frequent breaks for commercials and that will allow every aspect of the game to be sponsored by corporations hungry for a piece of the increasingly fragmented public eye. If he could just figure out a way to make the outcome of the game hang on how much fans bought during the game…

The towncar’s undercarriage scrapes along the ground as Vasak drives into a below-ground parking deck. Finally, thinks Mike, this waste of time can come to an end. On to the next waste of time. Growth is always an uphill battle.

Vasak stops the car in the center of an empty level of the parking deck. “Where is this?” asks Mike. Vasak does not answer him. In keeping with his instructions, Vasak unbuckles his seat belt and leans across to the passenger seat. He feels around for the seat controls. He moves the passenger seat all the way forward. “What are you doing?” Mike demands.

Vasak opens the car door. He turns to his passenger and says, “Mechshelevdevel.” Then he gets out of the car, locks it with the key fob and walks away with a happy bounce in his step.

“What is going on?” says Mike. It occurs to him that he might be in trouble. He tries the door. When it doesn’t open, he gets angry. “Oh you Slavic Son of a Bitch! I’ll have your job for this. When I get through you won’t even be allowed to drive an ox cart full of dung in your native CrushinglyFuckingPooristan!”

Vasak doesn’t break stride. He knows the angry man is right. He is going to lose his job for this. But a strange little man had paid him a lot of money to drive this limo. And the little man had promised a lot more when the car was delivered. What did Vasak care that Mr Hainer was upset? It was not like Vasak could afford to buy Psyche’s shoes anyway. Besides, he was through with driving angry, dull business men around.

Hainer looks around the empty parking lot. He still doesn’t fully comprehend what is going on, but he has seen enough bad in-flight thrillers to know that it might not be good. Is it the Russian mafia? Is this some kind of shakedown? He begins to get scared.

 He yells until he is red in the face. He pounds on the window with his fist and then his shoe. He is so worked up, he does not hear the car locks click open. A tall, elegantly dressed man bends down and slides into seat next to him. Now he understands why Vasak moved the seat forward. This man is very, very tall.

The man unbuttons his jacket and says “Mr. Hainer. I have a proposal for you.”

“And who in the hell are you?”

Chapter Thirty-Six 

The Pitch

“Mr. Hainer, please try to calm yourself,” says Edwin.

“Calm? I’ve been kidnapped! Evidently by you. Why would I listen to anything you have to say?” says Mark Hainer. He’s indignant and feeling his own self-importance.

“Actually, you were kidnapped by an easily bribed, underpaid Armenian driver. I am just a good Samaritan who happened by and took sympathy on your plight.”

Hainer’s eyes narrow. “You want money?” Edwin says nothing. “You don’t want money? How much money do you want?”

“All of it. But that’s the wrong question. The correct question is, what can I offer you in return?”

“This is bullshit.” Hainer tries to open his door again.

“Mr. Hainer, I have a business proposal for you. And I want you to understand that I am a serious man who has no time to waste. So please forgive me if I skipped the runaround from your secretary.”

Hainer narrows his eyes. “I’m listening.”

Edwin reaches forward and removes a stack of papers from the front seat. On the top of the stack is the justifiably famous picture of the Cromoglodon tearing a bus in half with his bare hands. “You are no doubt familiar with the Cromoglodon?”

“That freak? Yeah, my kid’s nuts about him. That’s why he wears black all the time. That’s why he threw a birdbath through my screened-in porch. Wife wanted to kill him.”

Edwin slips the photo to the bottom of the pile. The next page is filled with bullet points, a charts and a graph. Edwin hands it to Hainer. “This is the executive summary to a much larger scientific report I had worked up. It concludes that it may be impossible to measure the Cromoglodon’s physical capacity. If you must gorge yourself on the details I can get you the rest. The upshot is this, not only is he the strongest man on Earth, he is most certainly the strongest man that has been on earth.”

“Stronger than Excelsior? C’mon, nobody’s stronger than Excelsior. Everybody knows that.”

“If I could arbitrage everything that is known to be true but is actually false...” Edwin hands him a highly pixelated enlargement of a cellphone picture. It shows the Cromoglodon standing over Excelsior’s limp body. “Excelsior attempted to contain him and failed. The FBI is flailing about at the limits of their understanding. And right now, the entire law enforcement community is operating under a no pursuit policy. Why do you think this monster is still at large?”

“You certainly seem to know a lot about the Cromoglodon,” says Mark. He has no idea where this was going, but as master salesman, he enjoys a good pitch.

“I represent him.”

“Represent him!” Mark is unable to control his laughter. “You mean you are like his agent? He’s going to play football or something?”

“Not exactly. I am a consultant, an advisor.”

“Okay, whatever. How does this benefit me?”

“The Cromoglodon is simply the most powerful athlete on Earth.”

“What? To be an athlete, you’ve got to play a sport. What sport does he play? Destruction isn’t a sport.”

“Perhaps not, but it has the media coverage of a professional sport. Here is a listing of media exposure, estimates of cumulative viewership and readership and, of course, an estimate of what it might cost you to buy that kind of coverage.”

Edwin shows picture after picture after picture. The Cromoglodon emerging from the wreckage of a building, throwing a car, roaring pointlessly at the sky; and each one has the Psyche logo displayed on the Cromoglodon’s unique apparel. “All candid, all action and all prime placement.”

“What? You want me to sponsor this abomination?”

Edwin says nothing. Hainer is smart, Edwin knows he will put the pieces together for himself.

“What did you say you were? Some kind of advisor? That has to be the worst advice I’ve ever heard. Associating Psyche with that, that menace? How much negative publicity do you think I can take? You expect me to come out with a line of destruction boots? My customers, the serious athletes and those who aspire to be, would leave me in droves! I’d be out of business in a year. And people would flock to those bastards at Apedis in droves. I don’t even know if droves flock — but they’d leave us — hell, they’d run away from us barefoot. In my 35 years in the business, this is the worst idea I’ve ever heard. You sir, are an idiot.”

Mark lurches violently in his seat. He moves towards the door, but when Edwin raises his hand, Mark stops. Edwin has one last piece of paper. When he turns it over a smile spreads across Mark Hainer’s face. An evil giggle crawls out from the bottom of his bowels. “Oh ho. Ho ho ho, that’s good, that’s very good. Bravo.”

It is the picture of the Cromoglodon tearing apart the tour bus, but this time, blazoned across the middle of the Cromoglodon’s chest are the corporate stripes of Apedis.

“It’s reverse sponsorship,” says Edwin, “You pay me, and I put anyone’s logo you want on the Cromoglodon.”

“No, no, no. That’s the logo I want. That’s the one. How much, and how do I know that it won’t get back to me?”

“All of it. And I can provide complete deniability.”

“All of it? That’s rich. You get me a realistic number and you’ve got a deal. Now seriously, I’ve got to get to this dinner thing.” He snatches the picture of the Cromoglodon wearing his competitor’s logo from Edwin’s hand.

“Can I keep this?”

“If you want, but that may compromise your deniability.”

“You’re right,” Mark says with an air of disappointment. He kisses the picture and hands it back to Edwin.

Having secured one deal, Edwin makes his way across town. He has a similar meeting scheduled with the head of Apedis. There is nothing like a bidding war to add a little realism to a price.

Chapter Thirty-Seven 

Excelsior Speaks