“I mean we're going to play hardball, Barry.”
“They put people in gas chambers for that sort of hardball, Beatrice. Why not cut your losses and run? You'll still have plenty of money, especially if you sell this estate you won't be needing. Considering the appreciation of your money— if you sell the estate you'll come out of jail set for life. No more cult business, just beautiful peaceful wealthy retirement.”
“For the two to three years we would have left to live, Barry? No deal. I didn't crawl up from a stinking attic dragging Rubin with me because I am a quitter. You think Rubin is some great genius? He was just another hack science-fiction writer. He believed Poweressence. He was trying to help people when it began. Do you realize that? He actually believed people could cure headaches by finding the moment in their lives they couldn't let go of. I had to stop him from treating cancer patients before they sued us into penury. No, Mr. Glidden, I am not copping a plea.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“Escalate.”
“You already tried to kill one columnist and have threatened the President. Where do you go from there?”
“If you don't make good on your threats, no one will believe you,” said Beatrice. Today she wore purple lipstick with purple eyeshadow. She wore a white peasant blouse embroidered with flowers. She looked like a middle-age woman who had lost her own clothes and was borrowing those of a twelve-year-old daughter.
It was obvious to Barry why Beatrice always seemed to dress so inappropriately. There was no one brave enough to tell her she did not look good.
Beatrice glanced at her watch.
“We can't wait forever,” she said. She went to the door and screamed out into the hallway.
“Get Rubin. We're tired of looking for Rubin.”
“He's writing the founder's day speech for the faithful,” came a man's voice. It was one of her bodyguards.
“Use last year's. Tell him to use last year's,” yelled back Mrs. Dolomo.
“He says he can't. It's a new speech about the persecution of the righteous.”
“Persecute his duff up here to the south meeting room,” screamed Mrs. Dolomo, and then she returned to the table where Barry Glidden was desperately figuring out ways to sever relations with this client. He knew what was coming.
“Barry, we're going to make the President pay for this. We are going to make America pay for this. That guilty verdict was kangaroo justice inflicted upon us from the very top. All my life, I have respected the top too much. Well, Barry, I'm not taking it anymore. The President goes. Off with the top.”
“Mrs. Dolomo, as an officer of the court, I am not allowed to hear this without reporting you. I am a lawyer, I have taken an oath. So I would suggest you keep whatever plans you have to yourself. Leave me out.”
“You're in, Barry,” said Mrs. Dolomo.
“I'm not good at these things. I'm just a lawyer.”
“You'll learn. Rubin!”
“He's coming, Mrs. Dolomo,” came the bodyguard's voice.
Someone was shuffling down the hall. It was Rubin. He came into the room with a cigarette dangling from his mouth at just the right angle to make his eyes water. He had not shaved for two days and he wore a bathrobe. From the bathrobe came a light tinkling, the sound of plastic rubbing together. It was Rubin's pills. He put them on the table, his hands shaking.
“Do you want to hear the message to the enlightened? It's truly beautiful,” said Rubin.
“No,” said Beatrice.
“Not really,” said Barry.
“It's about religious persecution. I think it's the best thing I have ever written.”
“We have business, Rubin,” said Beatrice.
“It's especially meaningful in the light of our convictions, and appeals. The franchises will like it.”
“No,” said Beatrice.
“Legally I shouldn't be here,” said Barry. “I wish you luck in what you're going to do.”
“Enlightened ones,” Rubin began to read as he put a hand on Barry Glidden's shoulder, seating him back down. “Times of trial are nothing new. Each of us has faced them in daily life. They are but small obstacles in the path of enlightenment, only pebbles under the feet if you are going somewhere, but boulders if you are not. Your faith has made you free. Never let your new strength fail before some minor tribulation. Know that all blocks are only temporary and that you are the children of the good forces of all being. You will prevail. Let power be in you.”
Rubin rubbed a tear from his left eye with his bathrobe sleeve.
“You done?” asked Beatrice.
Rubin nodded, swallowing hard. He was deeply moved.
“Very nice, Rubin, and I will be sending you both my bill. I have to go now,” said Barry.
“We haven't planned on how we are going to get the President yet,” said Beatrice. “Sit down, Rubin, the President is not taking us seriously. What shall we do about it?”
“I don't know how we can get an alligator into the White House. We're going to have to do something else. What did you think of the speech? Do you think it was better than the Larkin king saying good-bye to the Dromoid mercenaries who had come to love him?”
“It's wonderful, Rubin.”
“As an officer of the court I will be forced to report anything I hear of a criminal nature.”
“Don't worry, Barry. There won't be any problem with that. You help us now and I guarantee you will have no problem with telling everything you know to the authorities.”
“You said that the alligator witness would turn also.”
“A little mistake. The President's. Now, how do we get the bum?”
“You don't,” said Glidden. “He is always surrounded by bodyguards. They are called the Secret Service, and they are prepared for everything.”
“Not everything. There's been one President killed and one wounded in my lifetime alone,” said Beatrice.
“They have electronic sensors. They have men who will shield him with their bodies. They have everything they need to catch you. And then they're going to put you in jail for a very long, long, long time. Longer than the alligator thing, Beatrice Dolomo.”
Barry Glidden felt the rage rise in him. His hands tapped the table. She had gone too far, and he knew what he would do to stop her. As soon as he got out of here, this responsible officer of the court would report this plan to harm the President of the United States. And he would forgo any fee. He would, for the first time in his glorious career, live up to that precious oath he had taken years before when he graduated from UCLA Law School. Then, once the Dolomos were safely in the slammer, he would make his move for the rolling lands of the estate and bring his children back from Switzerland.
The estate might be held against uncollected taxes. It might even be a steal.
“The President can't be reached through any girlfriends. He's faithful to his wife. You can't poison him,” said Barry, “because he's got tasters. Those cobras you snuck into someone's bed won't work, and boiling oil could never get near him. You might try to plant a sniper on a roof with a rifle, but the Secret Service would spot him. I guarantee it.”
“Does the President read letters?” asked Beatrice.
“Of course he does,” said Barry.
“Then we'll send him a letter. Meanwhile, we want you to speak to the Vice-President. He, after all, is going to be in charge, after the current President is lost. Tell him to lay off Poweressence.”
Beatrice nodded at the reasonableness of her own suggestion.
Barry gave only a polite smile. He wondered if he should drive directly to the Federal Bureau of Investigation or run. As Rubin escorted him to the door, Beatrice issued a particularly strange good-bye:
“Give him just enough for now,” said Beatrice.
“What is she talking about?” said Barry.
“Nothing,” said Rubin. He invited him to the lounge bar downstairs.
