Red Meat Cures Cancer (24 page)
35
Sales Job
Macrocock.com
was up to $73.50 three weeks after its IPO. Ethan assured me that, in between runs on his new Hyperlite 142 Project Honeycomb wakeboarding plank (I’m told the swallow-tail shape allows you to catch something called big air), he was working hard to maintain the stock’s momentum. This was a pretty cavalier attitude considering his father’s
fuck you
money was riding on the outcome. We were in this together though, and, having come this far on blind faith and a closed kimono, I figured I may as well go the rest of the way with him.
Annette and I were closer than ever, thanks to my rectal cancer. She marveled at my upbeat attitude and took me to a wig shop in anticipation of my hair loss. When it didn’t come, despite regular radiation treatments at a local bar called Hoot’n Nanny’s, she marveled at that, too. Better yet, thanks to my beloved’s position of influence, the Crooked Creek candidacies of Ned, Ted and Fred Fanoflincoln were moving forward. Now the only obstacle to getting my pension back was my lack of the Muffet Meaney videotape. After attending to King for a few days, I called my tormentor at SERMON.
“You know your henchmen almost killed my brother.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“I’m a very busy woman, Sky, so if you have anything worthwhile to say, I suggest you spit it out.”
“Now there’s something you’ve never done.”
“You know what your problem is?”
“I don’t know how to have fun?”
“No. You’re a bad loser. And you’re also a lousy lay.”
“Well, why don’t we let others be the judge of that? I’ve got plenty of copies of that tape you stole from me, and pretty soon your ass will be spread across screens from Westwood to Washington, D.C.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“Oh, am I? You wish I was bluffing.”
There was only one problem with my puffery: I was bluffing. I never bothered to make a copy of the tape because I never imagined that Muffet would actually send someone into my home to steal it.
“Sky, I think we’ve said everything there is to say.”
“No, we haven’t.”
“What else is there?”
I paused for a moment.
“You’re a bitch on eighteen wheels.”
I was left with limited options. I could try to steal the videotape back, but, considering my upcoming court date and lack of heavy weaponry or a Humvee, it probably wasn’t a realistic possibility. The tape could be anywhere. Alternatively, I could find a new source of leverage over the Fanoflincoln brothers to get my pension back. This made infinitely more sense, but what more did I have to offer? Nothing. Even the impending Crooked Creek club memberships had required me to contract terminal cancer. At this rate, I’d be dead before I received my first retirement check. Out of desperation, I enlisted Cal to pay a visit to my old boss and his idiot children at the hospital. Cal wanted to get his wife, Jenny, back, and I had a plan.
The Link was still comatose at St. Mary’s, and his sons, between rounds of golf, Crooked Creek membership mixers and trips to the driving range, were maintaining a constant bedside vigil. When we entered, however, the peaceful scene I anticipated was under assault from a heated debate.
“Fred, you are so full of shit!” Ned’s voice was raised.
“All I’m saying is I heard it on the Discovery Channel.”
“Lincoln was
not
gay. He had four kids, for God’s sake,” Ted followed.
“I can’t believe you’d say that within earshot of Dad. Shame on you.”
“They found these letters to his lover, though,” Fred persisted. “They say he was flaming.”
“Shut up! Just shut up! He was not flaming. You’re talking about the Old Railsplitter. The Great Emancipator. The man our whole family is named after. I don’t want to ever hear you say that again.”
“All right, but I think he was splitting more than just rails.”
“Shut up, I said!”
As soon as they saw my face, the brothers clammed up out of apparent embarrassment. Relations, though not friendly, were more civil between the Fanoflincolns and me since we’d struck our deal. To their credit, after blood work revealed the Link’s cholesterol level was 880 and his body fat percentage was 98, they grudgingly backed off their position that I was the only party responsible for their father’s demise. I didn’t gloat over the admission, however, hoping that on some level, my approach would improve my bargaining position.
“Sky Thorne. What brings you here?” Ted inquired upon spying me.
“Well, I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d say hello.”
“Did you bring the videotape you’ve been promising?”
“Not yet. It’s being edited.”
“Edited for what?” Ned asked.
“Edited to eliminate my white ass. You don’t want to see that, do you?”
“Hell, no,” roared Ted.
“How are the Crooked Creek cocktail parties going?”
“Okay, I guess,” Ted replied. “Why do we have to go to so many?”
“It’s just standard procedure. You’re required to meet a certain number of members.”
“Well, it’s a pain in the ass,” Ned opined. “And I don’t like the people I’m meeting.”
“Neither do I,” Fred added.
“Then you’ll fit right in. Most of the people there hate each other anyway. It’s part of the place’s charm.”
“So if you didn’t bring the videotape, what are you doing here?”
Ted didn’t like to make small talk.
“Believe it or not, I’m here about a business proposition.”
“What do you mean?” Ted asked, a confused look on his face.
“Let me introduce you to Cal Perkins.”
Cal stepped forward from the sterile hallway where he’d been lurking and waved nonchalantly at the brothers.
“Hello.”
“Who’s this mope?” Fred asked with scorn, putting me on the defensive immediately.
“This mope, for your information . . .”
“Wait a minute. Is this the guy who did PR work for us?” Ted suddenly recognized Cal’s name.
“Wait, is this the porno guy? What’s he doing here?” Ned was displeased. “You’ve got some nerve showing up here.”
“Now, hold on a second, Ned. Cal’s here with an offer you can’t refuse.”
“Oh, yeah. Just watch us,” Fred spewed.
Cal, infinitely more skillful and savvy than he appeared, knew to tread gingerly as he made his pitch.
“First of all, I’m very sorry for your father’s condition. I’m really hoping he pulls through.”
“Yeah, yeah. Right. Now out with it. What’s this offer we can’t refuse?”
“Okay. I’ll get to it. How would you gentlemen like to own a business with a 3,000 percent profit margin?”
“What? The porno business?” Ted scoffed.
“Not quite. The adult entertainment business. Video, Internet, telephone, mail order, retail and wholesale. Chat lines. Love lotions. Vibrators. I could go on and on. If you don’t know, it’s one of the fastest growing businesses in the world.”
“You must be joking. Do you really think we’d willingly enter the very industry that nearly killed our father and shamed Tailburger?” Fred thought he spoke for the whole family, but was wrong.
“Fred, will you please put a sock in it? (Pause) Cal, if this business is so profitable, why are you selling it?”
Just as I expected, Ted was interested.
“Personal reasons. Some of them related to unwanted publicity. Let’s just say I’m ready to get out.”
“Ted, this is the guy who was responsible for the Nail Some Tail contest.” Fred was indignant.
“I know that, but just give him a chance. Cal, what’s the business worth?”
“I’d say about fifteen million.”
“And what are you asking for it?”
“Eight.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all. (Pause) Plus Sky’s pension. Payable immediately.”
Ned, Ted and Fred looked at each other, suddenly suspicious of our entire visit.
“Why are you asking for the pension? We’ve already struck a deal for that.” Ted looked at me. “What’s going on here, Sky?”
Cal stepped in.
“Sky’s not asking for it. I am. My reasons are my own. I want to make sure my friend here gets his retirement money no matter what.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you saying here? Are you saying there’s a problem with our club memberships going through? Sky, is there a problem with our club memberships at Crooked Creek?”
Just as I’d hoped, the brothers’ pathetic need to belong to a stupid golf club threw them off the scent of the missing videotape.
“Guys, as far as I know, there’s no problem. Your candidacies are on track. But I can’t guarantee anything. Somebody could blackball any one of you and you’d be done.”
“That’s bullshit. You never talked about blackballs before. You said we’d be members.”
“And you will be. (Pause) So long as you don’t get balled.”
“Who’s going to ball us?” Ted asked nervously.
“Nobody in his right mind. That I can say for sure,” I answered with confidence. “But, then again, you just never know.”
The brothers seemed staggered by the mere possibility of exclusion, having come this far in the process.
“Sky, you titfucker, you’re changing the deal.” Ted was animated now.
“I am not. This isn’t my deal. It’s Cal’s deal.”
“Then Cal is the titfucker, and you both can go to hell. The only deal is the first one. Club memberships and the videotape in exchange for the pension. That’s it. Now get the hell out of here.”
“Just think about buying my business, Ted. A better offer will never come around again. Do you have any idea what it costs to get a million cock rings made in Malaysia? Pennies, I’m telling you. Talk about markup.”
“I said get the hell out of here,” Ted barked as he pushed us out the door of his father’s room.
Cal and I left, justifiably worried (particularly me) that our calculated risk had backfired. Cal asked me if I’d expected the backlash and, of course, I covered and said yes. Secretly, though, I wondered if I’d misjudged the Fanoflincoln brothers, the same anthropoid apes I’d been observing in boardroom captivity for years. Was it possible their lingering deathwatch changed them as human beings for the better? Perhaps it had. They say that can happen to the worst of men. But to the Fanoflincolns—men whose redeeming qualities were so well masked you’d need Rick Baker and an industrial-size vat of Noxzema to try to find them? It was hard for me to believe. If true, the result for me was disastrous. Without the videotape to bribe Muffet Meaney into pulling Tailburger out of the SERMON suit, I was entirely reliant on Plot “Back in the League” Thickens to do the deed. Only one problem: I’d promised Cal I wouldn’t use the information about our perverted attorney general and his victory in the Nail Some Tail Sweepstakes to do anything other than help us escape prosecution in our pending criminal suit. “Just secure a short probation term for each of us,” Cal insisted. “The most important thing to me is my marriage.” His words left little room for equivocation.
And so I was stuck. Placed in the unenviable position of lying to my best friend or, alternatively, losing my last opportunity to capture my pension. What Cal didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, I tried to convince myself. On the other hand, if the whole thing cratered, I might have his broken marriage on my conscience for the rest of my life. I had something to lose here, too. A jail term of any length could end the last remaining hope either of us had for female companionship for a very long time. We’d be dating men named Bubba and trading cigarettes for protection. What a way to spend our golden years. It wasn’t, however, just about our love lives. The bottom line: I didn’t want to break my promise to Cal. Whatever progress I’d made as a person had been largely obliterated by my lies to Annette and others, and now I risked snuffing out my self-worth and the last scintilla of my integrity by breaching the unbreachable and putting Cal and his marriage in jeopardy by my actions. Why did my desires and basic needs continually put me at odds with the truth? There was no time to answer this question. Albany awaited.
36
Plea Bargain
ALBANY, NEW YORK
Plot Thickens was a moth who wanted to be a butterfly, or, to be precise, New York’s next governor, but the immutable laws of nature dictated he would always be a pest and never part of the Papilionidae. I reminded myself of this as I walked into Valentine’s, a nondescript watering hole packed with people who calendar ten-cent-wing night and leave their government jobs at 4:15 P.M. every day. As a state employee and a bit of a boozehound, the attorney general would be found under the bar’s black spray-painted ceiling, somewhere in the vicinity of the big-screen TV located in back (this information courtesy of the attorneys in his office still working well after 5:00 P.M. when I called). Sure enough, as I made my way through the crowd, I saw his unmistakably thick neck and heard his vexing laugh issuing forth from a booth loaded with legal interns whose collective love for Thickens was probably second in quantity only to his own. It bothered me to interrupt what I’m sure was a fascinating lesson on the finer points of civil procedure, but I forced myself onward.
“Hey, Thickens, shouldn’t you be home with your wife?”
To put Plot back on his heels, I asked about his new bride, a legislative aide and former lap dancer, according to published reports. The directness of my question and a large handful of Cajun-flavored CornNuts caused him to choke and then begin coughing. With his eyes watering up from the continual hacking, he looked at me like he’d seen a ghost or, more accurately, a guy he’d screwed over and then promptly forgotten about.
“What the hell are
you
doing here?”
Plot’s tone was hostile at first, but, cognizant of his subordinates, he regained his composure and proceeded to politick me as he had countless others. He couldn’t quite remember my name, but that didn’t stop him.
“Why don’t you join us for a drink?”
“All right. I think I will.”
Plot’s mental Rolodex (picture a torturously slow-moving device) was working overtime to pinpoint our last encounter. Oh, yeah. Now he was starting to get it. I was the guy from Tailburger. But what else? Uh-oh. I was the guy he said he’d help with the SERMON suit until Burton Roxby and Tailburger’s campaign dollars became expendable. The whites of his eyes widened the moment it all registered.
“This is such a surprise, Sky.”
Plot was now painfully aware of my identity.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends, Plot?”
“Well, sure. Uh . . . these are some of the law students who are working for me this summer in the office. This is Caroline. And that’s Rebecca.”
Thickens pointed toward two attractive, stylishly dressed females—Kate Spade bags hugged to their hips.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, returning the nods and smiles of acknowledgment that greeted me.
“And that’s . . . that’s . . . I’m sorry. What’s your name again?” Plot asked the ugliest of the bunch.
“Heather.”
“That’s right. That’s right. Heather. I dated a Heather when I was back in the League. She was a Buffalo Jill, you know, one of their pom-pom gals. Real nice. I think she was from Lackawanna, which is where Ron Jaworski’s from, you know, the Polish Rifle? Took the Eagles to the Big Dance in ’81?”
Although Thickens’s story was met with blank stares by the entire group, my nerve-inducing presence made him prattle on more brainlessly by the second.
“Anyway, nice gal. (Pause) Huge taters. (Pause) No offense to anybody here, but boy, could she fill out a singlet, if you know what I mean. Looked great in horns, too. I’m really digging myself a hole, aren’t I? Hoo boy. We need another round.”
While Plot signaled for a waiter, his group of interns remained silent, politely sipping their Seabreezes and waiting for the awkward conversation gap to be filled.
“I need to speak with you alone, Plot.”
“Okay. I think I can arrange for that. Girls, would you mind giving us a few minutes? (Pause) Make sure you come back,” Plot added desperately.
With the law students gone from our booth, Plot embarked on still more small talk.
“What’s your poison, pal?”
“Plot, I know about the Tailburger contest.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Nail Some Tail Internet contest? Ring any bells?”
Thickens finally flagged down one of the servers.
“What are you drinking? How ’bout Pete’s Wicked Ale? Nothing better with wings. Waiter, can I get two more Pete’s here and two plates of wings?”
“I’m really not hungry, Plot.”
“I insist. It’s on me. Hey, what’s the money for if you can’t share it with friends? That’s what I always say.”
“Very generous of you, but I’m here to talk about the Tailburger contest.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t?”
“Nope. Never heard of it.”
“I see. (Pause) Well, that’s too bad, considering you won the grand prize.”
Plot’s face, hardly poker to this point, lit up.
“I did? I won?” he asked excitedly. “You’re kidding me. The trip to the Lust Ranch?”
“Yup.”
“With my choice of hookers for a weekend?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And free use of a Tailmobile for a year?”
“It’s a four-wheel-drive SUV. Orange and purple. All yours.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“You bagged the big burrito.”
“Hot damn . . . !”
Plot’s undoing was his uncontrollable need to talk strategy.
“. . . You know, I figured if I just entered enough times . . . oops.”
The attorney general knew he was caught.
“All right, what the hell do you want?”
Plot Thickens wasn’t a bright man, but he was savvy enough to know public disclosure of his involvement with Tailburger’s contest would cost him the upcoming election against Governor Puma. Plot’s crusade against porn was the cornerstone of his campaign, and despite revelations about the incumbent’s transsexual wife, Joey, Plot saw things from the voters’ perspective—better the sick, twisted pervert you know than the one you don’t.
“I want you to talk to Humpy Wheeler.”
“Humpy Wheeler? Is he on your ass? That crazy injun tried to prosecute me for child support. (Pause) Twice. There’s nothing I can do for you there.”
“Listen to me. Cal Perkins . . .”
“Who’s that?”
“He owns the Lust Ranch.”
“Good man.”
“Listen! He also ran the Tailburger contest promotion. (Pause) He and I have been indicted on a couple of charges. They’re minor felonies, but they carry time, and Wheeler wants blood.”
“Sky, I told you. Wheeler hates me. And even if he didn’t, I don’t know what I’d be able to do. Crazy fuckin’ humpbacked injun,” Plot added disparagingly.
“Don’t screw around here, Plot. People always want something they can’t have. An Achilles’ heel. Your job is to find out Wheeler’s weakness, his fondest unmet desire, and then cut a deal to fulfill it. Cal and I will take short probation terms, but that’s it.”
“And in return?”
“Your contest victory will disappear under a pile of paperwork, soon to be shredded and lost forever.”
Thickens leaned back in the booth and pondered the proposed exchange.
“Can I still go on the trip to the ranch?”
“I think that can be arranged.”
Thickens thought about the situation for another fifteen seconds.
“Okay. You’ve got a deal.”
Plot reached his hand across the table to shake on our agreement. I began to do the same out of habit, but stopped short of his grip.
“There’s one more thing.”
Plot pulled his hand back.
“What do you mean? What else is there?”
I fell silent for a moment, engulfed by the cacophony of smoky conversation. My body and soul wanted to leave the topic of the SERMON suit alone. My heart. My head. My sense of right and wrong. My word. My loyalty to Cal. Only the money troll wanted to come out and cross the bridge. And admittedly, my surging self-preservation mechanism, the part of a person that allows him to turn cannibal on a deserted island, had been tripped. Sure, the risk of raising the SERMON suit ran high, and if the conversation boomeranged on me, I would place myself and others in jeopardy, legal and otherwise. But the Fanoflincoln brothers had been clear about the deal. The video and the Crooked Creek membership in exchange for my retirement money. Without the video, I needed something big, like Tailburger’s exclusion from the impending legal class action, to secure my pension.
“Sky, I said what else is there?” Thickens repeated his question. (Pause). “Sky, are you listening to me? (Pause) Sky?”
I made the long drive west along Route 90 listening to news radio. An E. coli outbreak at a Sizzler in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, had caused the owners to voluntarily shut the place down. Somehow the bacteria leapt from the meat to the melon, and now fruit lovers were dropping like fruit flies and regretting their decision to belly up to the enticing Sizzler salad bar. Though I’d once been numb to reports of foodborne illness, my experience with Cal’s son forever altered my attitude and reaction to such stories. Now I empathized and genuinely commiserated with the people affected. In sympathy, I even assessed the energy necessary to get involved somehow in fighting for food safety. And although I knew I was an unlikely activist, I was glad to be free from my association with Tailburger. Well . . . almost free.
