Accelerating Returns

  Chapter 10. Recon

  "Julia?  Is that you?"

  Standing with her back to the voice, Judith slowly turned around.  She squinted to see across the bar, through the cool blue neon lights that provided the martini-bar ambiance. 

  "Dr. Lopez?" she said, pretending to be surprised.

  Robert Lopez smiled back at her, with drooping eyes from martini consumption.  Judith looked up at him in disbelief.  "Robert, what are you doing here?"

  "Having a drink...like you."  Robert bobbed his head and looked away every few seconds, into his glass or the corner of the room.  Because of this shyness, Judith maintained a direct stare to establish a precedent for the night, like a master to her dog.

  "Do you mind," he stammered, "if I join you for a bit?"

  "Not at all.  Please do."

  Robert beamed as he rounded the bar.  In his tight brown pants, now two sizes too small, he resembled a sugar cone with an oversized scoop of ice cream.  Sloven Robert, he poured out the sides of his button-down shirt, his tie was crooked, and he looked wrung out and un-ironed, much worse than at the last lab picnic she attended. 

  He said, "So good to see you again.  I haven't seen you in a long time, but I remembered the tattoo!  How is Chase Manhattan?"

  "Wonderful."  She laughed at Isaac's final lie to Robert about her career.  "I'm in IT though, you know.  I'm not a banker."

  "Oh, my apologies."  Robert laughed and used his hand wiped some sweat from his brow.  "And how is Isaac these days?"

  "Oh yes.  Isaac."  She paused.  "That seems like a long time ago."

  "Why?  He only left Talbot a few months ago."

  "Well, he and I..."  Judith looked away.  "We kind of fell apart." 

  "No!"

  "The divorce was finalized six months ago."

  "I'm so sorry.  He never mentioned that you guys were having problems."

  "Well Robert," Judith said, leaning toward him so that he could see her cleavage, "it's not something we shared with many people."  She bit her lower lip and shifted the weight on her hips.  She had tight black pants on and high heels, both of which she made sure Robert could see. 

  "I'm sorry.  I'm really sorry to hear that."

  "Why?"  She nudged him.  "I'm not.  Buy me a drink and help me forget about it."

  For the next few hours, money almost leaped out of Robert's wallet.  He kept her drink full.  They sat together at the end of the bar, away from the crowd and the piano, and reminisced about the past, about their gains and losses.  Judith laughed at all of his jokes.  She put her hand on his shoulder or his knee, just for emphasis.  When Robert drank too much he began talking about his family and his job, which he described as an ongoing crisis.  She took up his hand, once, two times, and held it like a bird between her palms. 

  "Oh, Bobby, it's hard, I know!"

  "It is."  He nodded and bowed his head. 

  Judith let him take a long look at the V in her shirt while she caressed his bruised ego.  "It's too bad.  At least you know you still have some friends, Robert."  She touched his hair and his neck.

  "Thank you," he said. 

  They drank until the lights came on, and then tippled their way toward the door.  In the foyer, they bumped into one another, and Judith, hapless, fell toward him, caught herself on his shirt and waited for him to react with his arms, so that he would think he caught her, and producing the desired state, she looked up at Robert's chubby cheeks and his ruddy, untrimmed nose.  For a moment she made no expression, other than giving him a hero gaze, but then she slowly smiled and bit her lip again. 

  She said, "These damn heels," and then pulled herself upward, near his face, staring into his eyes during the approach, and she felt his pulse quicken as she performed a near-miss of his lips. 

  He said, "That was close."

  "Good thing you caught me."

  She hugged him, pressed herself against him, and then leaned her head over his ear and haunted him.  "I owe you one, Bobby."  She looked at his neck.  Below his ear lobe, Robert Lopez had gone from light Hispanic to chicken skin.  She touched his forearm and felt goose-bumps. 

  Robert started to speak but stopped.  "Do you want to..." 

  "Do I want to what, Bobby?"  She suspected crossing the first threshold might be hard for him.  He needed a prompt.

  "I was going to ask if you, ah, need a lift.  A ride somewhere?"

  "Oh, I'm glad you asked, but I don't need one.  Actually, I'm staying at the Best Western all week."

  "Really?  Which one?"

  A yellow light shined in the street behind Robert.  Judith turned his chin with one index finger, and with the other index finger she pointed into the night, tapping as gently as a fairy, showing Robert the Best Western sign. 

  "I'm in town on business."  She laughed and leaned toward him.  "But business is slow, hence the Best Western and not downtown.  I don't have to be anywhere until eleven o'clock tomorrow."

  Robert laughed and leaned toward her. 

  She said, "I should go.  I'll be back here tomorrow night."

  "Wait!"  Robert stepped over the threshold.  "Maybe we could hang out yet tonight.  For a bit."

  "I don't know."  She had to end the night prematurely before he did.  "Let's just meet here again tomorrow night."

  "Are you sure?"  He adjusted his pants with one of the side loops.  "Don't you need someone to...walk you home?"

  "Hmm..." she wondered.  "Oh, why not?" 

  They walked toward the sign.  She took his hand in hers and asked questions about Talbot, all of which he answered half-heartedly.  When they reached the hotel, he stood like a puppy at the entrance. 

  He said, "I should go." 

  "Yes, you should," Judith said.  "But meet me tomorrow night at the bar again, ok?"  She leaned forward and kissed him, slowly and on the lips, which shattered whatever willpower remained in poor Robert Lopez.

  "Ok."

  As Judith walked away, she imagined Robert rushing home, high and confident as a twenty-year-old, crawling into bed to seduce Rachel.

   

  The next night played out calmer, with more talk about real topics.  Judith led him down the garden path into relationship talk, letting him think she was interested, and then she drilled him with questions about Talbot and the projects going on within its walls, siphoning as much insider information as she could.

  "Restaurants," Robert said. 

  "Restaurants?"

  "From the mouth of Marcus Jovan himself," Robert said.

  "What the hell would Talbot want with restaurants?"

  "He's a wily old man yet.  It's a venture capital thing.  He wants a high-tech restaurant, to be built from the ground up.  In two months, there's a committee gathering at Talbot.  Everyone in the restaurant business will be there to sell an idea."

  Judith touched Robert's leg.  "Is there...a list of requirements?  A goal sheet?  Maybe a format for submission?"

  "Why, do you have an idea?"

  "Hey!  Are you saying I can't run a restaurant?  I'm just curious.  It sounds interesting."

  "I'll send you the info.  I have access."

  "You have access to everything, don't you, Robert?"

  He looked at Judith's legs.  "Not everything."

  "Is that right?"  She invited him to come back to the hotel for one half-hour. 

  He loped alongside her like a Saint Bernard.

   

  Every night of that week, he stayed at the hotel a little longer.  Judith plied him with liquor, asked about Spiro Ling, Marshall Ploof, and learned details about the defection to Pelius.  Night after night, Robert reiterated his hatred for Marshall Ploof, calling him a grandstanding buffoon, and Judith noted that hot energy for future plans.  The only mission of the week was to hook Robert without killing him, to bleed him without eating him.  Everything Robert knew about Talbot, he divulged to
Judith, all without ever reaching third base. Of course he tried, but was called out both times.  At two o'clock in the morning, she sent him away from her door with kisses, like a mother sending her toddler off to school. 

 

  Judith returned to Spain to rendezvous with Isaac, where they could regroup and process the latest information. 

  After a morning of study, she went to her favorite location on the beach for lunch.  While she ate, a bearded man walked up and down the beach, drowning in baggy clothing, wearing sunglasses, trudging through the sands of Cadiz in dirty old tennis shoes.  He was a strange sight for such a beautiful day, looking more like an American bum than any Spanish wreck that Judith had seen pass by the tiki bar.  She looked up several times at the vagrant and returned her attention to a book in her lap.  She was reading a light topic, an e-book about gaming foreign exchange currency markets.  But she was not able to read for very long because the shadow of the bum fell over the book, and the aura of fear hovered over her. 

  She did not look up, but became hyper-alert and slowly squeezed her hotel keys between her fingers, making herself a set of metal claws ready to lash out, should the bum make a move.  The fear of getting nabbed by an undercover agent gripped her, although she expected that someday it would happen.  It was too soon for someday.

  The bum lifted one of his layers of clothing, reached inside, and moved his hand around.  Judith did not wait to find out what his hand searched for.

  She lunged forward, swinging her keyed fist toward the man's crotch.  Before the keys could strike, he stopped her hand, but she pressed the threat further against him. 

  "Don't move your hand another inch," she commanded, "or I'll puncture you."

  "Ay de mi!  Tengo un mensaje, Señorita!"

  Judith asked, "You have a message?"

  "Si!  Yes.  Por favor, no!"

  "Ok, move slow.  Keep your free arm straight out, with your palm facing me, or I'll cut your balls off."

  From under his clothes, the bum pulled out a dirty envelope.  He handed the message to Judith.  She snatched it from him and removed the keys from his midsection.  She kept the keys in her hand at the ready position. 

  "Puedo salir?  I go away?"

  "No, don't leave yet.  Sit down.  I'll buy you a drink." 

  The bum sat down at the table.

  She tore open the envelope and read the message.

   

  "Recall your Longstreet: 'An old man's leg goes bad, and he begins to lean on the other leg.  From overuse, the good leg gets worse, so he seeks an artificial prop - a cane.  He intends to lean on the cane to restore his balance.  Now this old man deserves to suffer; he has led a sinful life.  Although he is weak and is now an easy target, the best way to hurt him is to help him.  Earn his trust.  Sell him the cane.  He will lean heavily on your ware.  Help him fall.  It will snap where you have filed the wood away, and he will fall on his face - all because of his own carelessness.'

  "Dear associates: old Talbot is shopping for its cane right now, in a venture cap, one that is not yet defined.  This is an expensive cane, and your commission is 10%.  Find some enterprising friends.  Then afterward, dissolve, disappear.  Goodbye."

   

  It was a job from the Broker with a ten percent tip for a Block, plus retirement orders, all in a single paragraph. 

  Judith said, "Is this a joke?"

  "Man just say I give you."  The bum shrugged.  He showed Judith a one hundred Euro note, indicating that he received the money for the delivery. 

  "What man?"

  "Yesterday, strange man.  I go now.  Adios."

  The bum stood up and turned to go.  Lost in her thoughts, Judith ignored him.  After going only five steps, the bearded vagrant turned around and said, "Jesus, Judith, didn't you even recognize me?"

  She shook out of a daze.  "What?"

  Isaac pulled the beard off.  "For crying out loud.  I can't believe that worked.  You're getting soft."

  "Isaac?  You moron.  What are you dressed up like that for?"

  While peeling off layers of clothing, Isaac said, "You've had one too many days in the sun.  Listen, I'm only here for a few days.  Pelius Research is a murderhole.  There's something strange going on there.  And this restaurant thing..."

  Judith said, "I already know about it."

  "What?"  Isaac stopped undressing.  "How could that even be possible?  It's inside information that I gave to the Broker after Robert told me about it."

  Judith said, "And I told you I was starting my own network.  I don't know what the restaurant has to do with us, other than retirement.  Sounds like a lot of money."

  "More like a crap shoot."  Isaac shook his head and pulled his wig off.  "I don't know about this.  The motives are getting weird.  I pulled two jobs alone over the past three months and they both had to do with Talbot."

  "And now this," Judith said.  "Why does everything have something to do with Talbot?"

  "That's what I don't understand."  Isaac looked out at the water and smiled.  "Don't even tell me."  He stood up and shielded his eyes.  "Is that really the same surfer dude?"

  Judith sighed.  "Yes, it is."

  Isaac laughed and sat down again on the edge of a chair.  "Holy shit.  Look at him.  Look at him out there."  Isaac laughed, clucking his tongue. 

  The surfer rode on a tiny wave until it lulled and flattened.  When he fell into the water, Isaac giggled. 

  "A Smurf would have trouble with a wave that small."

  "I'm glad that you enjoy the surfer," Judith said.  "I have to read this note again."

  Isaac asked, "Did you have to sleep with Robert Lopez to get the information?"

  "No."

  "Hey, it's cool with me.   Just thought I'd ask."  

  "I didn't, thanks so much for asking."

  "No need to get defensive."  He laughed and complimented himself.  "Where did my girlfriend go?  The topless one? That's why I was asking. Just wondering if we had an open relationship now." 

  Judith ignored him.

  Getting no answer, Isaac yelled out, "Waiter, mojito!" and then watched the surfer.

  "The little surfer that could. God am I glad to be out of the Bay Area..." 

  He continued rambling, and it became obvious to Judith that Isaac had been working far too much.  He could not stop talking. 

  In the few days they had together, Judith and Isaac managed to outline several plans and cancel others.  They agreed to stop communicating for a while, that he should keep working inside Pelius while she took on the restaurant job.  Isaac went back to San Francisco.  Judith decided to start in Manhattan.

   

  Pinned and hemmed in a New York shop, Judith stood on a stepstool and looked down at a notebook in her hand.  The tailor, kneeling at her feet, measured fabric for business suits.  The shop was her last stop on a busy first day.  In preparation for her campaign, she spent the afternoon in a salon getting a new hair style and a manicure.  By nightfall, she was flawless, lint-free, without a wrinkle on her skin or clothes, shining from her hair to her shoes.

  The notebook in her hands contained the rough draft of a proposal, one that she expected to commit to memory by the time her plane landed in Chicago, and when she arrived, she needed to look sharp, successful, impeccable.  She needed everything to be in order for hobnobbing with the venture capitalists.  Her first goal was to find a supporting cast to help her run the greatest pigeon-drop con in history.  Down to the buttons on the shirts, she insisted on finalizing the selection for every item that she and her team would use in the campaign.

  But having no team, buttons mattered little.  She had two months to prepare a presentation for Talbot, to glom onto an aspiring company, to get estimates on construction contracts, and to make partners with key firms to back up her proposal.  Then she also needed to verify a fence for moving the money safely, even though the Broker usually w
orked those things out for her.  However, this would be the largest transaction of her life and she used extra caution. 

  The itinerary for the next sixty days included hitting every venture capital meeting and restaurateurs' convention in North America.  It meant flying cross-country every day, doing business on the plane, recruiting and selling an idea, all without her usual sidekick, Isaac, who could not find time to escape the drumbeat of the Pelius laboratories.  She contracted others to work with her instead, business headhunters who located chefs and industry insiders with big dreams of becoming dining magnates.  Most importantly, she needed to partner up with the tech firms to supply the networking and display equipment, which meant making six trips to Austin, Texas to pump the ego of a small company, work them into a fever pitch.  From them, she got a signature on a tentative contract for a few thousand initial units, pending success in winning the deal, as well as the phone number of a bright-eyed executive who was passionate to answer any technical questions that Talbot might have. 

  The entire project amounted to herding cats, chasing diverse persons down and convincing them to do something they would otherwise rather not, persuading them that an opportunity existed beyond working nine-to-five and rushing home to space out in from of the home entertainment system.  She put dollar signs in their eyes.  They had to be wooed, and then flipped over and dominated by an ultimatum.  "Unfortunately, I need an answer by tomorrow," she would say.  "I have other interested vendors, parties, clients, bankers, etc."  She winced, "No, I'm sorry, Thursday will be too late." 

  Before Judith left the hotel each morning, she practiced her sincerest expressions while applying her make-up.  Her father wore that face every day of his life.  He was one of them, the greatest of actors, the natural type, who could not wake up without something to sell, born to smile and offer tilt, cruise, and up-sell the protective undercoating for just a little extra.  Judith wasn't certain that she was a salesman.  She had to work at it, practice her comebacks, her parting shots, how to show restraint, and how to smile at "no" and keep selling. 

  Twenty-hour workdays were boosted by ephedrine and nootropics, milder brands of speed, and it strung her out.  After thirty days she started feeling haggard, and finally had to crash on a Saturday night for a full day of recuperation.  She woke up at midnight on Sunday, shocked by the time, and went back to work, making notes for Monday morning, calling Europe, securing bogus references for her work history, and reading leads handed to her from headhunters.  One of her references was the esteemed Robert Lopez, who gladly vouched for "Julia Bentley-Blackwell," her operating pseudonym.  Along with her pseudonym, she practiced speaking intensely articulate sentences, creating her own American version of the Queen's English.  During several anonymous phone calls, she leaned on an accent to impress less-traveled Americans who considered England exotic, and she would introduce herself in an English accent, then pause, and use her actual voice, as if Ms. Bentley-Blackwell has just joined the call, and as if it was an honor to be on a call with Ms. Bentley-Blackwell. 

  When her team seemed to be coalescing, it fell apart before congealing.  At a convention she met a couple, a husband and wife, who ran a restaurant on Long Island with a unique business plan.  The husband was the chef, the wife the financial whiz.  Judith struck up a conversation with them by lying about growing up in Niantic, directly across Long Island Sound from where the diner sat. 

  "Small world, huh?" 

  By the time Judith unveiled her addition to their plan, the couple didn't know what to say.  The spikes in her charts sloped too sharply for their taste.  They wanted to go big, but stay home.  They were thinking ten or twenty restaurants, and Judith added three zeroes to everything, sometimes nine.  She scared off the small fish, but in some ways admired their cowardice because it saved their lives.

  The next group she gathered together hoped to ramp up a coffee franchise called Pippin's Kona. Initially, the bankers couldn't hide their excitement at what Judith offered, but in a backroom, through a window she watched them huddle up in a counting room.  They flicked off earnings percentages with their long fingers.  Watching their lips, Judith swore she saw one of them say, "We can patent that ourselves..."  That's when she pounded on the glass, startling them, and shook her head.  The three men looked at Judith and she saw their answer.  It was no good.

  An offer always lurked in her email from some small-timer, a dreamer who had caught the scent from one of her headhunters.  Wide-eyed pitchmen contacted Judith with a grandiose plan, but never explored anything beyond their single poorly constructed paragraph sent from a cubicle on a whim.  These dreamers were cast out, but now and then she spent several hours reading a business plan from a seemingly responsible source, only to run a background check on the owners' names and find out how much baggage came with them.  Her frustration with her fellow countrymen became a real problem, as not one of them in the younger generation seemed to have a clean past.  Then again, neither did she.

   

  Nor did Ben Longstreet.  On a Sunday, Judith was in Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan, at a restaurant chain called The Raclette, which had five impressive locations.  The company had existed for thirty years.  With a terrific and easy menu, they ran their operation like a Fortune 500 company.  Their inventory and accounting practices in place that rivaled the efficiency of Wal-Mart.  Using the Six-Sigma management approach designed by Motorola, they streamlined the restaurant, improving service times, customer throughput, and still managed to give everyone an enjoyable eating experience.  They had plans drawn for expansion, including distribution centers, trucking, and real estate.  The instant rapport between Julia and the owners made a partnership seem imminent, but no promises were made, despite her dire need for an agreement.  She was three days away from the vital preliminary meeting at Talbot, which she was starting to think of as her arraignment.  As the day neared, if there was no contract with anyone, she would be forced to entice the Talbot brass with pure fiction. 

  She dined with the Michigan men and women at The Raclette restaurant in Sault Saint Marie.  Halfway through the meal, Judith noticed several pictures hanging on the wall. 

  She asked, "Are these celebrity photos?"

  "Sort of," one of the owners said.  "Local celebrities.  Mostly hockey players.  There's Phil Esposito and his brother, Tony.  Gretzky ate here once.  There's our skier, Brigitte Acton, who went to the Olympics.  They were all born across the border, but you know...we think it's close enough to claim.  We talk the same, ya know?"

  Judith said, "Yoopers."

  "Proud to be Yoopers."

  Judith looked around.  "And who's that over there?  Edmund Fitzgerald?"

  "I wish," the man nearest the picture said.  "Probably nobody you've heard of.  He used to come in here from time to time, but we haven't seen him in years.  He's a writer.  Ben Longstreet?"

  "Oh?"  Her heart jumped.  "You mean, he lives nearby?"

  "He lives about thirty klicks into the woods, southwest of here.  Pardon my saying so, but he's off his rocker.  The last time we saw him, he came in wearing a surgeon's mask, worried about the SARS virus.  Supposedly he has some germ phobia, or fear of the outdoors, one of those deals."

  "Interesting."  Judith stirred her Coke with a straw.  "Does anyone ever go see him?  I mean, like reporters, or...fans?"

  "I don't think he has any fans.  Did he ever?  I don't think he's published anything for a long time...fifteen years or more. Maybe he has, but he is more of an embarrassment around here after he turned radical."

  Judith nodded. 

  "He's our U.P. Unabomber," another owner said.  "I wouldn't want to go into his house.  They call his house Hatter House. He named it that."

  During the remainder of the meal, Judith itched to leave and drive out into the woods to find Hatter House and Ben Longstreet.  After parting from the entrepreneurs on good terms, she drove her rented Lexus southwest from
the diner as far as the roads took her.  She stopped at a country gas station for directions, where she got the third degree and confused looks before getting an answer.  Clearly, Longstreet hadn't hit it off with the locals, nor would Judith, nor did she care to, because they, like everyone and everything else in her path, were stepping stones for the cause. The people did not understand anything yet, which is why she dedicated her life to helping them realize the stakes.

   

  In the deep woods, where mosquitoes thickened, Judith parked the car in front of a dingy cabin.  Bugs swarmed the light bulb that hung over the door, but through the darting shadows she read a wooden placard that had the word "Hatter" crudely chiseled on it.  She approached with caution and knocked three times.  A loud stumbling sound came from inside, but was followed by silence.  A long silence.  When she pressed her ear to the door, she heard a clicking, a whirring, even a two-toned hooting that sounded like a toy train or an intermittent tea kettle, all coming from inside the house.  Standing on her tip-toes, she tried to look in through the small window on the door, but a curtain blocked her view.  Voices started to murmur, and soon they rose in volume until it sounded like a full-blown argument had erupted inside.  She started backing away from the door, when suddenly it burst open, and there stood a grizzled man in a bathrobe, holding a drink, and scratching his rear.

  She said, "Are you...Ben Longstreet?"

  "Jeremy Gaveston.  Who the hell are you? What government agency?" 

  Before she could answer, another head appeared in the door, peeking underneath Gaveston.  A hand appeared with a Popsicle and it went into the head's mouth.

  "I'm Longstreet.  Are you with the FBI?"  He looked into the yard.  "No, you're dressed too nice and driving too nice of a vehicle for that.  You're someone else.  Lost, perhaps?"

  "I'm KillJoy," Judith said.

  "Ow."  The Popsicle fell onto the dirty stoop.  Longstreet's tongue lolled out of his mouth.  "Ow.  Oh Jesus.  I bit my tongue."

  "Who's this?" Gaveston asked.  "One of your casual encounters?  Wrong sex, no?"

  "What?"  Holding his tongue, Longstreet mumbled, "Who's she!"  He let go of his tongue.  "Get out of the way, Gaveston, you bag of waters.  Have you read nothing I've written?"  Then to Judith, he said, "Come in, my dear.  Oh, you must be a spy, no?  Did Pazzo send you?"

  "Pazzo?"

  "Yes, he's a strange-looking fellow.  Looks like a beaver.  Every time I see him I want to put a piece of wood in his mouth and take a picture.  Sound familiar?"

  "I don't know," Judith stammered, unsure about how to reply.  "I've never seen a beaver..."

  "Well, that sounded convincing!" Longstreet said.  "Good enough for me.  Maybe you aren't a spy."

  Entering Hatter House, Judith looked around like she had entered St. Peter's church, in awe because this man wrote the most influential book of her life. But awe quickly degenerated into confusion.  The whirring and hooting she heard through the door came from an overabundance of cuckoo clocks that covered every wall from floor to ceiling. The clocks made a maddening sound within the house, as one bird cuckooed every ten or fifteen seconds.  None of the clocks appeared set to the correct time, nor specific to any time zone. 

  Longstreet said to Judith, "You've noticed the clocks.  eBay.  I love that site."

  She asked, "You collect them?"

  "That's right.  I bought every one that I could.  Careful!  There's broken glass on the floor over there.  Gaveston refuses to clean up his errant tosses.  I refuse to clean it up, and so does he.  It's been a year since that bottle broke.  Yes, my clock collection grew slowly at first, but then a German souvenir collector sold all of his clocks in a Dutch auction on eBay.  I didn't know that I was supposed to wait to bid because the price falls until some sucker jumps in.  I bought everything at the opening price.  Gaveston keeps reminding me of the royal screw, but look at this place now.  Isn't it fantastic?"

  Judith nodded.

  Longstreet said, "It's done wonders for my anxiety.  I can't even think while these clocks are running.  My daughter said I needed to stop thinking.  Now I can't concentrate on anything."  A cuckoo sprung out near Longstreet's face.  "Bless your little wooden heart, friend."  He stroked the bird twice before it was sucked back into the clock.  "Can I get you something to drink?"

  Not wanting to consume anything in the house, Judith said politely.  "No thank you."

  "Popsicle?  I only have grape flavor at the moment."

  "Tempting, but I'll pass."

  Gaveston sat down in front of a small black and white TV.  Whatever he watched, the reception was terrible.  Wavy black lines blocked most of the screen, but he sat in front of the TV unbothered by the static.

  Longstreet offered Judith a chair at the table.  "Let's talk.  Speak quietly, dear Blocker.  Are you a real-life Blocker?  I've never met one, you know."

  She whispered, "I've memorized and followed the book my entire adult life, Mr. Longstreet.  My partner and I."

  "You work with someone?"

  "Usually.  Not now."

  Longstreet grabbed her hands.  "Are you the ones?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I won't make you say anything.  You have enough regret by now, I'm sure."

  "Not really," Judith said.  "Regret has never been a problem for me.  Not since the first time."

  "Spoken like protocol.  Amazing."  Longstreet squeezed her hands.  "To think that you exist at all is like watching a cartoon character come alive.  And you look so nice, just like you should.  What kind of Blocker are you?  You're an operator, yes?"  He looked her up and down.  "Obviously not the familial Blocker.  I know you don't have any replicants with that figure."

  They sat at the table and spoke for several hours, amid the cacophony of clocks and Gaveston's snoring.  The answers she gave to Longstreet's questions skirted the truth, but she could tell he read between the lines.  In subtle ways, he mentioned San Francisco, Brio-Nano, and other places where she carried out jobs, but she held off from admitting her involvement.

  At the end of the third hour, Longstreet asked, "And what are you working on now?  You could just whisper it to me."

  "I'm not sure I can do that."  The invitation to talk tempted her.  With only three days to go before the first meeting at Talbot, she still had no entourage enlisted to present to the panel.  She thought that maybe the old man had his own network of contacts, something for her to tap into for the project.  Perhaps the cuckoo clocks affected her, but she began to tell Longstreet about the plan, all of the details, from start to finish.  While she spoke, he looked like a child hearing his favorite storybook.  Not once did he interrupt or show any expression but listened with utter fascination.  She almost laughed at his wide-eyed gaze.

  "You can practice your pitch on me."  He nodded with bright, moist eyes.  "I would love to hear it.  I would love to. You can speak here - we just had the house cleared of bugs and microphones. But do it quietly."

  At the table, she performed her entire pitch to him, and when she finished she realized that she now had the entire speech memorized.  Longstreet stood up and applauded, hooted along with the cuckoo birds, and sat back down with his hand on his head. 

  "It's brilliant.  It's terrific!  I think you can get them to bite.  It will be a headline, a shameful, shameful headline.  What a way to retire.  It's brilliant."

  Judith nodded half-heartedly.  "Thank you.  But there's a problem."

  "Of course.  Of course there is."

  "I need people to go with me on Wednesday.  I need a presence in the room.  If I go alone, I'll feel like I'm going to my own execution.  The Raclette might be my best shot..."

  Longstreet again grabbed her hands.  "The Raclette?  You mean...the one up the road?"

  "The same.  But they are not on board yet.  I have two days to convince them."

  Longstreet rocked in his chair.  He
looked determined, or perhaps like he was passing a stone.  "I will help you."  He peered over his shoulder at Gaveston, now passed out in the chair.  "The Doctor will help, too."

  Judith looked at Gaveston.  "Mr. Longstreet, no disrespect, but I'm not sure that you..."

  "Tut!"  He waved a hand around wildly.  "Contact us as a last resort.  We can be what a politician might call a stop-gap solution.  Just in case, I will book tickets to Chicago."

  Judith said, "I thought you never left the house anymore."

  He stood up, looking regal in pajama bottoms and a frayed t-shirt.  With a bare Popsicle stick waving in his hands, he said, "For the cause, I will go outside."  He threw the stick at Gaveston, where it struck his forehead. 

  Gaveston woke up and turned his head.  The coaster that served as his pillow was stuck to his face.  "Wha...?"

  "You can count on us."  Longstreet extended his hand to Judith. 

  "Thank you."  She shook his hand.  "If I can't get The Raclette to sign, I will call."

   

  In the following two days, she did everything but offer her body to the owners of the Raclette.  They were gracious businesspeople, good people, too good and too prudent to rush in.  They were cautious, sensible, hard-working people, not quick to sign anything, happy to discuss things for too long, and get approvals from spouses and kids before taking on anything big.  The whole culture of Sault Sainte Marie had this reasonableness that made Judith twice as desperate to get them in the room with her at Talbot.  They were the perfect background wallpaper for her pitch, especially once she dressed them in the suits she expected them to wear.  Were it not for the accent, they spoke well, and she considered training them to say a few words without the northern concavity.  It was a nice accent, fine for conversation, but she knew that some people would reject it on first sampling, simply because of its flavor.  

  But they did not sign. 

   

  They said, "There is always time," and told Judith about how their parents started the restaurant and took time to raise the business properly.  Judith smiled at their polite way of declining.  The answer was still no, which forced her to contact her last resort, the woodland freaks of Hatter House.