Smashwords Edition. Electronic edition published by Flying Raven Press, December 2010. Copyright © 2011 by Tim Tracer. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction, in whole or in part in any form. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. For more about Flying Raven Press, please visit our web site at http://www.flyingravenpress.com. A Foolish Consistency A Short Story Tim Tracer Reverend Harry Lochsteed had just managed to unclasp his secretary’s tricky, double-latching silk brassiere when he felt a curious tingling sensation in his legs. He was no stranger to curious feelings — he often told his worldwide viewers on his hit weekly television sermon, God’s Servant Speaks, about the sensitivity he had to all things spiritual — but this was a new one. He was losing all feeling below. This could definitely pose a problem with his amorous secretary, a busty brunette laid out like a Thanksgiving turkey on his desk, eyes pasty, face expressionless like so many of his loyal congregation. Worse, the feeling was spreading up his body. “Something wrong, Reverend?” the woman said. “They’re not fake, if that’s what you’re thinking. I mean, I did have one simple operation, but it was . . .” While her lips continued to move, Harry couldn’t hear a word she was saying. The room went dark. His whole body was now tingling. He felt warm then cold, as if he was passing through a current of hot air. Blue stars flashed in front of his eyes, and then his senses came back to him. He could hear and see. And what he saw nearly made him wet his pleated pants. On the other side of a sheet of transparent glass was a spindly, chocolate-brown creature with three legs and no arms, wearing what resembled a Hawaiian straw skirt. It looked like a broomstick with legs. Its head was shaped like a football, adorned with a single yellow eye. Harry opened his sound to scream, but before he could the creature let out a squeaky gasp. The eye blinked rapidly, then the creature stepped up to the glass. When it lifted its head back, Harry saw that it had a small, triangular mouth. "I am very sorry, zalzan," it said. When it spoke, it sounded and looked like a cat coughing up a hair ball, jerking its head back and forth, splattering spittle on the glass. “Very sorry for my reaction,” it continued. “I have only seen a few of your kind up close, and I forgot how hideous was your appearance.” His tripple-bipassed heart thundering away, Harry took in his surroundings. He was evidently in the middle of some kind of glass bubble. When he touched the glass with his hands, it was firm and unyielding. A stream of cool air was blowing up his pants from a vent in the floor. Surrounding the glass bubble was a cramped room filled with blinking electronic displays and monitors showing various television channels. His latest show, taped last Sunday, could be seen on one of them. "Where am I?" he said. "You are on my faceship, of course." "Spaceship?" “Precisely.” Harry started to hyperventilate. He reached for his inhaler, then remembered he had left it in his desk. "What’s wrong, zalzan? Your tiny eyes grow in size." "My—ashthma—can't—stop—" Harry managed. The creature stepped over to one of the consoles, and, reaching up with one of its legs, tapped a button. After a few moments, Harry could breathe easier. "How did you do that?" he asked. "Simple. Increased oxygen in air flow. Help you heave." "Breathe?" "That too, zalzan." "Why do you keep calling me that?" The eye blinked rapidly. "Well, because that's what you are. You are zalzan. Oh, well, of course you don't know what that means, being zalzan. It is our word for beings who are not yet worthy of contact." "Are you going to kill me?" "Of course, shot." "What? Oh, my father, who art in heaven . . ." "Not. Of course not. That's what I meant to say. Although I think I have a fairly good understanding of your language, I sometimes say the wrong word. My English, it is not always so good." "No, it isn't." "Well, you try learning thirty six languages and see how well you do," the creature said indignantly. "I think I speak well considering I had only one leer to learn." "You mean, one year to learn?" "Yes, yes." "If you're not going to kill me, are you going to perform weird sexual experiments on me?" "No. Your sex is far too boring for us. It would only be useful for sedating prisoners." "Oh." Harry couldn't help but feel disappointed. Although he hadn't believed in aliens up to this point, the weird sexual experiments they were rumored to perform had always piqued his interest. "Well, I've got to do my show in less than twenty minutes. What is it you want? Are you here seeking your salvation?" "No, I am here on—what can I call it?—a critical appraisal. Although my name is unpronounceable for you, I have selected the name Roger. It is my job to determine whether your kind is ready to move from being zalzan to oxyzan. Worthy to contact." "And why do you need me?" "Call me Roger, please. I enjoy hearing the name. It sounds a lot like our word for flower. You have been chosen to represent your feces." "Species?" "Right." Harry straightened, sucking in his somewhat ample gut. "Well, then, Roger, I'm proud to—" "You have been chosen because you are the most despicable human my superiors could find." "What? How dare you—" "You see, we only communicate with species who have developed some consistency in their belief structure. We do not tolerate inconsistent thinking, especially of the moral kind. Your species has been most perplexing. You often say one thing and do another. Take your religions, for example. While we are atheists, we tolerate religions in ozyzan as long as they are consistent. They must believe in one religion and adhere to it accordingly. But your kind not only has an apparently endless number of religions, but you seldom behave in accordance with the particular religious pimples." "Principles?" "As I said." "I still don't see how I fit into this." "I have reached the third phase of my appraisal. The first phase is silent reconnoitering. I watch and evaluate from a distance, then transmit my report. Some species are approved just based on this phase. If not, I move to the second phase—abduction. I capture and more closely study the thinking of a random sample, returning them with their memories erased when I'm finished. I report these findings, and if still my superiors are not satisfied, I move to the third and final phase." "Which is?" "Rehabilitation. My superiors select one individual, one who is the purest example of inconsistency we can find—in this case, yourself—and see if he is capable of developing consistent thinking." Harry bristled. "I don't know why you've selected me—" "Does your religion not have the Ten Commandments which all followers are required to obey? We have found that you break most of these rules on a regular basis." "What?" Harry exclaimed. "You're mistaken! While I'm far from perfect, I set the highest example for my followers as possible." Roger scurried over to a console, tapped a few buttons, and an image of Harry appeared on the screen. It was from less than an hour before, when he was in a somewhat compromising position with his secretary. Harry felt a warmth spread across his face. "Oh, that." "She is married, I believe" "Well, yes, technically, but she has been separated from her husband for over a year." "It is only one of your many indiscretions," Roger said. "No! I admit I was wrong in that case, but I am a man who is much admired, I assure you." "It is not difficult for an inconsistent being to be idolized by other beings of equal inconsistency. But you are a leader in your religion! Surely you should be held to a higher standard?" "Yes, but usually I am a man of high moral fiber." "Really? Must I show you other tapings?" "No, no, please." Harry sighed. "All right, I admit it. I'm far from perfect. What is it you are proposing?" "We give you one month to demonstrate improvement. If you can maintain your principles—practicing what you preach, so to speak—we will visit your species. You will have much to learn from us, and both sides shall rejuice." "Rejoice?" "Yes, hallelujah." "And if I fail?" "We will leave your world and never return, marking your species as primitive and unworthy of interacting with other races. While this may not seem that bad—things will appear to go on with your world as before, and with your memory erased, not even one of you will know the difference—you must understand that there are other races in the universe who are not so benign as us. There are those who routinely plunder and ravage other worlds, unless we intervene. We are a formidable protector, but we only intervene if you are declared oxyzan." "Worthy to contact." "Exactly. You never know when one of these races may appear. It could be centuries, or it could be weeks. But your radio waves are reaching farther and farther into space even as we speak. We discovered them and traced them here. It's only a matter of time before someone else does too." "I'll do my best," Harry said. "At least all I have to worry about is losing your protection." "Well, there is one other possibility . . ." "What's that?" "Oh, I'm not even going to mention it, the possibility is so remote. It's never been used before, and we've visited hundreds of populated worlds. Listen, this is what we'll do. After I return you, behave as well as you possibly can for the next thirty Earth days. We will monitor your progress. At the end of the time, I will bring you back here and let you know of my superiors' decision. You can't tell anyone about us, or we will simply leave and never return. Do your best, Harry. Your world is counting on you." Harry felt the same tingling sensation from before, creeping up his legs. When the dizziness passed and his sight returned, Harry again stood in his office. His secretary, who had dressed in his absence, was turned away from him, admiring his painting of the Virgin Mary. "Janice?" he said. "Oh!" She turned, a hand to her throat. "Oh, Harry, it's you. Where did you go? You just vanished!" "I . . . spoke to God, my dear. He wanted to counsel me." Janice sidled up against him, suggestively brushing his thigh. "Well, I wish you'd counsel me, my dear. I get so incredibly lonely in your absence." Harry grabbed her hand and pushed her away. "Not now, my dear. I must do my show in ten minutes." "But that's always been enough time in the past," Janice protested. "The past is the past, my dear. I'm a new man now, and you're a married woman, even if it is only on paper. Our sinful ways will have to stop." Janice pouted. Harry held firm. Janice screeched and tore at her hair. Harry ignored her. Janice said she loved him. Feeling his moral strength growing, Harry told her that love was for God to decide. And while she wailed and balled, Harry remained resolute, and left her to do his show. It was one of his best ones ever. Full of fire and conviction, he railed against those who were not consistent with their moral beliefs. He preached about integrity and values. The studio audience gave him a standing ovation, and he was sure that his ratings had received a great boost. The next two weeks went as well as he could have hoped. He maintained a life consistent with what he preached. In the third week, however, the temptations grew too much. Needing to fix a dent in his BMW, he pilfered the cash donations that came in the mail, rationalizing that he would pay it back later. A few days later his secretary cornered him in one of the broom closets, and, his sexual urges nearly at overload, he gave into her. But in his own mind it was she who forced him. In the fourth week, a caller on his show asked him if he'd ever done drugs, and he said no, knowing full well that he'd smoked plenty of weed when he was younger. It was a bold face lie, to be sure, but he couldn't shatter the poor person's faith. He had to present himself as a paragon of virtue. He knew full well that he had let down his fellow people, but it was so hard to change so many years of habit. Oh well, Harry thought, perhaps these evil alien races Roger speaks of will never find us. The thought comforted Harry, and when he was walking back to his office after one of his shows and felt that familiar tingling in his legs, it was that thought he repeated to himself. When he appeared back in the glass tube, Roger was already shaking his narrow head at him. "You've really flown it," he said. "Blown it?" "Right. Kaboom." "I know, I know. I just couldn't help myself. I guess we're not worthy of becoming oxyzan. We'll have to do without your protection." "Oh, it's much worse than that. I transmitted my report and my superiors were quite disgusted. Revolted, actually. They decided that you are not even worthy of being zalzan. You are zal only." "What does that mean?" "It means," Roger said, "that instead of merely marking your species as unworthy, they are going to take an action they have never had to take before." "And that is?" "Eradication." "What? You can't mean—" "I'm afraid so. A species classified as zal is one having contaminating potential. Ability to infect other races with their revolting ways. As self-proclaimed protectors of the universe, we could never let your race affect others. Your planet must be destroyed." "No, please," Harry begged, feeling his breathing becoming ragged. "You can't. Do this. Please. Have mercy." "Calm yourself, zal. Remember your asthma. Since eradication is a step we have never before taken, we are going to give you one last chance. One more month to prove that we should not destroy you. You must show some improvement, however small. You must show that you can develop at least a rudimentary form of consistent thinking. Your actions must match your beliefs. The future of your planet depends on it." "I'll do my best," Harry said. "I hope that's good enough," Roger said. Once back on Earth, Harry endeavored to live as pure and noble a life as the one he espoused on his television show. He shrugged off his secretary's advances. When a reporter asked him if he'd ever been arrested, he said yes, many years before, for assault and battery on one of his ex-wives. He reported the actual amount of income on his taxes. He even donated money to various charities, instead of just claiming he was going to do so. When Roger brought him back to his ship a month later, he felt altogether good about his behavior. "So?" he said. "Did I save the planet?" "Hardly," Roger said. "Your performance was wretched." "What? But—but I thought I did well. I didn't do anything wrong—" "Oh, yes, but you did, and your ignorance of the fact only makes you look worse." "But what?" "In your efforts to be consistent with your beliefs, you still managed to break five of the Ten Commandments." "Impossible!" "Let's review. You took the lord's name in vain three dozen times over the past month. You did not call your mother in the nursing home on Mother's Day, thereby not showing her the proper honor. You stole your bank teller's ballpoint pen, knowing full well that you were not taking it by accident. When your neighbor asked you who crushed his azaleas, you told him it was the skateboarders from down the street instead of you with your lawnmower. You told that same neighbor that you wish you had his roses, showing that you coveted them. I believe that's five." "I guess I didn't realize what I was doing," Harry mumbled. "Exactly. You are incapable of changing. I will be so kind to erase your memories of these events before returning you to Earth, so at least you will have a few ignorant hours of peace before we eradicate your planet." Roger skittered over to one of the consoles, tapped a few buttons, and Harry immediately began to feel dizzy. "Wait," he said. "Don't speak," Roger said. "You'll only cause yourself brain damage." "But I have one final request. I want to speak to your superiors." "Why?" The room was spinning. He was sure to pass out at any moment. "I have an argument they may not have considered," he said. "Please, give me that, at least. You said yourself that you've never destroyed a species. Don't I deserve every chance possible?" Roger's stared at him for what seemed the longest time, then, finally, he clicked a few buttons and the dizziness Harry felt went away. "I'll give you that chance," Roger said, "but it could get me into a lot of trouble." "Thank you." "You better have something good to say." Roger pecked at the consoles until all the screens went dark except one. That screen showed nothing but static, but then three creatures like Roger appeared. Roger spoke to them in an odd series of clicks and hisses. The creatures spoke back. Roger spoke again, louder this time. There was a moment of silence, then one of the creatures clicked once. Roger turned to Harry. "They will hear what you have to say. I have turned on the translator so they will understand you. Make it kick." "Quick?" "Right." Harry took a deep breath. It was time to draw upon all of his experience as an orator. He knew he had to deliver his most powerful speech or the whole planet could be destroyed. His impromptu persuasiveness had always been one of his greatest strengths. "I am not going to deny to you that we are an inconsistent bunch," he said to the faces on the screen, faces so impassive they could have been painted there. "We do not always do what we say, or say what we do. I suppose that I represent the epitome of that fault. But what I argue now is that inconsistency is not a fault at all, but a strength. It is part of our essential character. Ralph Waldo Emerson, a wise man among us if there ever was a wise man, one said, 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.' It is our inconsistency that makes life worth living. It is our inconsistency that makes us unique. If you destroy us, that uniqueness will be lost. I suppose what it boils down to is this, the crux of the matter: if it is consistency you are after, then we are the most consistent of all, because we are consistently inconsistent." When he finished speaking, the creatures on the screen turned to one another and clicked and hissed vociferously. It went on for some time, and it was all Harry could do but hope his message had gotten through to them. Finally, the creatures stopped. One of them clicked a few times at Roger, then the monitor returned to static. "Well?" Harry asked. Roger shook his oval head and stepped up to the glass. "I did not think it possible," he said. "They changed their minds. They are not going to destroy you." "Then I did it! I convinced them! I always knew I had it in me." "Calm yourself. They did not change their minds for the reasons you think. Your argument only convinced them how right they were. You are still zal." "But why did they let us live?" "More than let you live, they have decided to protect you from aggressive races. You see, your absurd argument proved to them that yes, you are unique, uniquely perverse. They want to use your planet as an example of what not to be. They think that by studying how backward your world is other species might benefit. They could change their minds, however, so I would suggest that you be as perverse as you can manage to be. You must set the tone for others." "You mean they want me to preach high morals while cheating, lying, coveting, and having as much sex with married women as possible? Roger had returned to one of his terminals. He tapped a few buttons and Harry felt the tingling in his legs. "That's right," Roger said. "Do what you were doing before only worse. One last thing. I can erase your memory of this or leave it intact. What do you want?" Harry smiled. "Leave it. I wouldn't want to forget my extra motivation." And with that the esteemed Reverend Harry Lochsteed, a little dizzy but altogether in one piece, found himself back in his office. The first thing he did was buzz his secretary. ~ | ~ About the Author Tim Tracer lives in Oregon. To his knowledge, he's never been abducted by aliens, but his wife often suspects otherwise. If you enjoyed this story, please consider buying his collection, Strange Tales, which includes 10 stories very much like this one. A free preview is below. STRANGE TALES Tim Tracer Weird. Provocative. Bizarre. There are a lot of words that could be applied to the ten tales found in Tim Tracer's debut short story collection, but perhaps they could best be described as strange. A young lawyer is asked to give his idol, a master magician in his day and now a corporate giant, the pink slip – and he discovers that the "Magic Man" has one more trick up his sleeve . . . A couple with a strained marriage encounters some unusual "Road Hazards" while driving the Oregon mountains and finds something that may just save their marriage – or end it forever . . . A young sorcerer is approached by two computer scientists from a software giant in a faraway land who need a little "Magic Code" on their programming team, but it's not quite the easy path to stardom he's been promised . . . Dark and light, long and short, brooding and whimsical – there's a lot of variety to be found among these ten stories, but they have at least two things in common. They're delightfully entertaining. And they're very strange. If you're a reader looking for both, you'll find them in abundance in these tales. STRANGE TALES by Tim Tracer Smashwords Edition. Electronic edition published by Flying Raven Press, June 2011. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction, in whole or in part in any form. This short story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. For more about Flying Raven Press, please visit our web site at http://www.flyingravenpress.com. Table of Contents The Magic Man Three Views of the Wolf Electing Daren Pharl Swatting a Pest Magic Code First Contact with Bonnys Five Make the Grave Deep Road Hazards In the Shadows of the Trees Snowflakes in the Moonlight The Magic Man Five minutes into my day, my boss squeezed into my office, his breath reeking of garlic. If not for the expensive Valentino suit, he looked like he should have been behind the counter of a pawn shop: greasy, slicked-back hair, amber-tinted bifocals, and a layer of fat around his neck that was like the hose to a vacuum cleaner. I had been with Biggs Enterprises four days, but it had taken me only one to despise Norman Gordal. It had nothing to do with his appearance. It had everything to do with him sticking me in a basement closet full of boxes of HR files when the rest of Legal was on the thirty-second floor. "H. William Ivanlone," he said, reading the replacement nameplate I received that afternoon. When he spoke, there was a faint whistle between the words, so it came out H. seee William seee Ivanlone seee. "Well, you got what you wanted, Harvard. No first name on the nameplate, just that lonely little initial. Now that you've got that important business straightened out, maybe you can do a job for me." Beneath the desk, my index fingers twitched, itching to give him a double bird. My real first name was Harvey, but ever since I told him I preferred my middle name because it was classier, he had taken to calling me Harvard after my alma matter. It didn't help that I mentioned I graduated summa cum laude on a full ride scholarship. If I had known he put himself through night school at the City University of New York, and that it had taken him seven years to get the position I landed straight out of college, I never would have said it, but there it was. "The name's William," I said. "Oh, right, right." He picked up my nameplate and squeezed it like a stress reliever. I imagined the obsidian rock screaming for mercy. "Look, I hate to do this to you, it being your first week and all, but the Board wants somebody in Legal to take care of this." Behind the yellow lenses, his eyes glinted, and I could tell he was suppressing a smile. "Well, I'll do whatever I can, sir." "Oh, I am sure you will, Harvard. I'm sure you will. And this isn't a job I relish giving to anyone, but someone with your talent, well, I thought it would be a good test." It took all of my willpower to sit there calmly. Since I started, Gordal had been doing his best to bury me with a series of tests. My first day he had me delivering two dozen time-sensitive legal documents all over New York even though I had only lived there two weeks. I got it done. The second day he gave me a thousand pages of a recent lawsuit and told me there was something missing, and that they needed to know what it was by five o'clock. I found the memo with three minutes to spare. The third day he didn't see me at all, and let me smolder in the basement by myself. I didn't make a peep. I would suffer any indignity he could throw at me because I knew one day soon, if I played it straight and narrow, I would be Gordal's boss because I had more talent in the cuticle of my pinkie than he had in his entire sauerkraut body. I had a future, a future of prestige and power, and I wasn't going to let some pork chop with a weakness for Italian food make me lose sight of it. At least that's what I thought until he told me what I had to do. "It's like this," he said. "The Board wants to give the old man his pink slip. And they want you to do it." I must have looked like a man who just found out his 401K had been reduced to zero due to a computer glitch, because Gordal chuckled. "They want . . . " I began, and then, shaking my head, said, "You're talking about Rodney Biggs?" "That's right, Harvard. El supremo. The head honcho. The Magic Man himself." I couldn't believe it. Biggs was the reason I had chosen to work for the company. I had always admired him. "Why?" "Oh, come on, kid, you know why. The old man always makes an ass of himself with his stupid magic tricks and his crude jokes. They've let him float along for a few years in his big office up there while he slowly goes senile, but the suits from Japan want a fresh start." "Can they do that?" "Can they do that? You did go to Harvard, didn't you?" I didn't answer. The truth was, I knew Rodney Biggs currently owned only thirty-five percent of Biggs Enterprises. He had owned fifty-one percent a few years earlier, but when he reached the age of eighty he started liquidating his shares. He had done it to give the money to charity, but there had been an unintended side effect: a massive Japanese conglomerate had seen a way to pick up a bargain. It hadn't taken them long to buy a controlling share from people wanting to make a quick buck. Now Biggs, who once performed to packed theatres under the headline of The Magic Man, was out. And I was going to tell him. "I'm not sure about this," I said. I was going to say I'm not sure I can do this, but I knew that's what Gordal wanted me to say. He leaned forward, his tongue flicking out and wetting his bottom lip. He leered at me like some juvie fresh out of prison who just found another cat to douse with gasoline. "Are you saying you refuse?" he said. I could see it clearly in his ravenous expression: he desperately wanted an excuse to toss my Ivy League derriere in the street. The truth was, I wasn't squeamish about delivering the bad news because Biggs was boss, although I should have been. Lately, from what I had heard, he had been the king of pranksters, always with a buzzer on the hand and a gerbil up his sleeve. And when he was mad, he was known to set fire to the object of his wrath's clothing, especially the parts that left the most embarrassing areas exposed. But the real reason for my reluctance was because at one time, before Advanced Placement classes and SAT scores in the Kansas plains, before long nights in the Harvard library memorizing case histories so boring they could turn anyone into a narcoleptic, before interning with some of Boston's best attorneys and having every one of them tell me to give them a call when I graduated, and long before I had taken to reciting key passages of Think and Grow Rich in the shower like some kind of Wall Street mantra, Rodney Biggs had been my hero. More than a hero — my idol. Because when I was twelve, a good fourteen years earlier, I thought I wanted to be a magician. In fact, I wrote it on a three-by-five card and stuck it to my bathroom mirror: Harvey Ivanlone, World's Greatest Magician. My three younger sisters were my audience. I pulled their stuffed animals out of a hat, and since they were young, they clapped even though my hat was a mesh-backed baseball cap that couldn't hide a thing. I progressed to card tricks, pop-out bouquets, disappearing coins, and smoke bombs. At some point during all this I turned on the television and saw Rodney Biggs, the world's most renowned magician up to that point, and a man who would have owned Copperfield if they went head to head, give a rousing final performance at a sold-out Forum in Los Angeles. At the end of the show, Biggs floated across the stage and disappeared in a burst of fireworks. As the stage went dark, and applause rained down on his absence, I knew that's exactly what I wanted to do. Because Biggs was the first magician who made me want to believe that magic was real. And if it was real, I desperately wanted to be part of it. But instead, I grew up, as everyone dies, became convinced that magic wasn't real, and that if it wasn't real, I didn't think it wasn't worth doing. So I became a lawyer — a lawyer sitting across the desk from a man I wished I could make disappear at that very moment. "I'll do it," I said reluctantly. There was a flicker of a frown, as if it was a subliminal message spliced into a filmstrip. "Good, good, I knew I could count on you," he said. He dropped a manila envelope on the desk. Neatly typed on the front was the old man's name. "Give him that," he said. "He's up there now. Get it done in the next hour, capish?" He tried to throw in a Marlon Brando sneer, and I nearly burst out laughing because he did look like Brando — not the one from Godfather, but the overweight version in the twilight of his career. "No problem," I said, bolting to my feet. I snatched up the envelope and marched out the door. It was scripted well: two secretaries from the mailroom got off the elevator and I stepped inside. As I turned, I saw Gordal filling the doorframe of my office with his bulk. I punched the top floor and gave him a thumbs up. When the doors closed, I changed my thumb to my index finger. "Capish?" I said. I remembered then there was a camera inside — when I started, a guy from security joked not to have sex in the elevator as some fools from Marketing did — and so I changed my gesture into a brush through my hair, scolding myself for letting Gordal get a rise out of me. The elevator stopped four times on the way up, people ferrying in and out. My collar was damp and tight. I felt like a condemned man riding up to the top of a towering scaffold. I had not even met Rodney Biggs, and I had no idea what I was going to say. When the doors opened on the executive level, I stood looking out on what some guys in the mailroom called Kiss Ass Lane — a long hall paneled in maple and trimmed with gold molding. A gray-haired receptionist sat behind a counter right at the front, and she smiled at me. I told her who I was and waited while she called him. She laughed at whatever he said, then nodded for me to pass. I walked down a hallway that smelled like freshly stained wood, and, after taking a few deep breaths, tapped on the glass door. I couldn't see anything inside but shadows. I expected the resonant voice of a southern preacher, the one I heard boom at the audience from a Los Angeles stage, but the voice that came back sounded tired and perfunctory. "Come in," he said. When my trembling fingers made contact with the polished brass door handle, one that stuck out to the side like a blade, I felt a surge of electricity rip up my arm. I howled, swallowed a few choice words, and danced around shaking my fingers. Purple stars flashed in front of my eyes. From inside the room came a devilish cackle. "Sorry, son, couldn't resist," he said. "Got to do that to everybody once. " Again I reached, again my hand burned, and this time I didn't hold back the swear words. His cackle became a roar of laughter. "Special people get it twice," he said. "You can come in now, I'm finished." I hesitated. "Come on, son. I've had my fun, and I won't do it again." "Promise?" "I swear by the ghost of Houdini." Like a fool, I reached for it again. Like a fool, I was burned again. His laughter was as loud as before, and this time I heard a fist banging against wood. Seething, I held my stinging fingers between my legs. "Care to try for a fourth?" he said. Instead of answering, I balanced on one leg and raised my other foot, pressed down on the door handle with my rubber-soled shoe, and pushed the door open. There was a haze in the air, and the room smelled faintly of cannabis. A pair of black wires threaded from the door along the taupe carpet and underneath a wide mahogany desk. Behind the desk sat Rodney Biggs. He was only a shadow of the man who flew across the stadium in Los Angeles. I had seen pictures of him on the company website, of course, but somehow my image of him as a tall, suave gentleman with a Hawaiian tan had remained indelibly imprinted on my mind. Now, confronted with the truth in the flesh, I saw he was half a step away from a nursing home, his body like roped together kindling in his black, three-piece suit. His skin was liver-spotted. His bald head had only a few patches of hair. His red bow tie, perfectly dimpled, was patterned with the Jack of Hearts. A pavilion of entertainment covered his desk: a magic wand, two top hats, a crystal ball, numerous decks of cards, several toy rabbits, a magic eight ball, and other colorful objects I couldn't identify. Posters of him as a younger man, topped with the banner The Magic Man, decorated the walls. In the wall-size window behind him, the length of Firth Avenue stretched out like a five-star meal. He clapped as I entered. "Good show," he said. "You've got Harvard brains after all." I saw on his laptop screen behind him the unmistakable blue border of a personnel file. I cleared my throat and looked at the envelope in my hand. My fingers had left sweat stains on the paper. "Sir," I said, "this is not something I take pride in doing —" "Oh, it sounds important," he said, and motioned to the chair across from him. Of course I should have expected it: when I sat, the cushioned chair emitted a grating fart. He laughed until his eyes watered. "Oh, god, I know it's crude," he said, "but it still gives me such immense joy." "They're going to let you go, sir," I said. Just like that, the words were out. No lengthy preamble, just the truth, plain and simple, right out in the open. He was inhaling to laugh again, but this time it came out stillborn. Shock registered for two heartbeats, then his face underwent a swift change that under other circumstances I would have found fascinating. His complexion reddened, his eyelids twitched, and a vein along his neck pulsed like a tapping finger. "They're what?" he said. His voice had dropped to a whisper, and it seethed with rage. "Well, sir . . ." I began, feeling as if someone had opened a door in my throat and stuffed in a bag of ball bearings. "It's . . . the Board. They've . . . asked me . . ." "They've asked you?" he said. "Yes, they've asked me . . . to let you know . . . " "So instead of doing their own dirty work, they asked a wet behind the ears pipsqueak to do it for them?" When I didn't answer, he went on: "Did they hand out straws, or did you have the stupidity to stand still when everyone else stepped backward?" His voice rose, and now, finally, I was hearing a man accustomed to projecting to a crowd. "Just who the hell do they think I am? I built this company and now they're trying to give me the pink slip?" He stood, and though he was rail-thin, he was still an imposing figure. "Let me tell you something, just let me tell you—"and he came around behind the desk, glowering, pointing his finger in my face while all I could do was stare and wonder if the glass behind him was shatterproof. "Let me tell you what I really think . . ." And then he doubled over, hooted, chortled, chuckled, and guffawed. I thought he'd flipped. "Sir?" I said. "Oh, the look on your face," he said between breaths. "Oh, it's priceless. I really had you going, didn't I?" I glanced at the door, wondering if he would try to grab me if I ran for it. He leaned against the desk, hand on his chest as if he had never laughed so hard in his life. "Who sent you?" he said. "Well, it's not really one person, it's just . . . just . . ." "Be so kind as to give a man on the gallows the privilege of knowing who played him this last joke." "Joke, sir?" He frowned. "They really didn't tell you, did they? I'm sorry someone put you up to this, son, but the Board told me three hours ago in a conference call." The first image that popped into my mind were my fingers wrapped around Gordal's neck. He'd sent me into the lion's den for no other reason than to humiliate me. Murder seemed proper retribution. If it wasn't premeditated, I could probably get out in ten. I must have muttered his name, because Biggs nodded sagely. "Should have known," he said. "That flabby fool has hated me since that Christmas party when I painted the seat of his chair a matching color of red. His wide butt was like a moving stop sign that night, halting people in their tracks whenever he passed." I let out a sharp laugh. "Ah, so you do have a sense of humor," Biggs said. "Good. The Ivy League can't take everything from you, can they, Harvey?" "I prefer William, sir." I regretted it as soon as the words were out of my mouth. But he smiled as if I had opened up the vault to all my secrets. "Of course you do," he said. "Of course you do." ...continued... To read the rest of this story, plus nine others, please visit your favorite online retailer and purchase the ebook.