“Other than my feminine wiles?” She bats her eyes at Edwin in a hideous fashion, “I have no scruples. But I do have tremendous amount of money. Surely that is as thorough an ingredient list as you need for evil. And I am bored Mr. Windsor. Terribly bored.” She holds up her hands. “These are far too idle. Be the devil for my playthings won’t you?”
Edwin can’t help himself. Distaste wells into his face like a bruise. Iphagenia does not react well to this.
“Alabaster! See that he has what he needs.” The large black man moves to Edwin’s side. “And relieve him of his cellphone. We wouldn’t want him to have any distractions.”
Edwin unbuttons his coat and produces his cellphone. “I have never cared for the devices,” he says, as if all is right with the world.
As Iphagenia watches Edwin leave the room, there is no question in her mind that she has done the right thing. If her idiot son can be a villain, then she can be ten times the villain. This Edwin Windsor will merely be the tool, a technician in her employ. Besides, she does so enjoy making him uncomfortable.
Chapter Thirteen. Following the Protocol
Topper is missing his tall friend. Perhaps, friend is not the exact word we are looking for here. Edwin doesn’t seem to have friends in the usual sense of the word, but Topper likes him all the same. There is no denying that Edwin is a source of fascinating clients.
What Topper can’t understand about Edwin is how a guy who is surrounded by such interesting people and opportunities can be so dull? Edwin never lets himself go. Never lets it all hang out. Surely Edwin must have urges? Topper has urges. And if there is one thing that Topper believes – one firm principle amid the shifting quicksand of the little lawyer’s moral life – it’s that you have to enjoy yourself. Topper believes that repression causes thin lips, sexless women and cancer.
Topper doesn’t think it’s wrong that Edwin pours so much of himself into his work. It’s good to like your work. In fact, Topper is having a great day at work. As a negotiation tactic, he has just thrown a chair through the side of a 500 gallon reef tank. Clearly, Topper enjoys his work. But at the end of the day, when the work is done, a man needs something else. A man needs vices.
The way Topper sees it, that’s how the whole system works. If you don’t have vices, then you save money. And a man who saves money – who doesn’t gamble or drink or do drugs or spend money on professional female companionship – well, in Topper’s mind this is a man who will always be less creative and productive than a man who is profligate in his ways.
Why would a Puritan need to work hard? Early to bed, early to rise. Whatever. But get yourself on the wrong side of a loanshark or develop a serious jones for real high-quality, first-class expensive bender these are the urges that inspire a man to greater efforts. You work hard to have the expensive extras. And you work even harder to pay them off before your legs are broken. This is the spirit that has made America great. This and the time-honored principle of sticking it to the other guy.
As Topper enters the lobby he says to Agnes, “Hey toots, how’s tricks?”
Agnes does not look up from what she is reading. “Deceptive, I should think. And no substitute for a sound strategy.”
“Work, work, work. That’s all it ever is up here. C’mon, what say you and me take a break? Hit the strip club for lunch?”
“I am afraid I will have to politely decline your revolting invitation.”
“So, is he back yet?”
“No,” says Agnes, she still hasn’t looked at Topper.
“When is he coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Topper asks. “You know everything about him.”
“He hasn’t called,” Agnes says with an air of great boredom.
“He hasn’t called?”
“Ah, there is an echo in here,” she says, looking into the high corners of the room.
“What do you mean he hasn’t called?”
“Perhaps a rug would dampen it.”
“He hasn’t called? Is he in trouble?”
“Or some tapestries.”
“He’s in trouble. He’s got to be in trouble.”
“Ah, but I fear Edwin would not care for tapestries. Perhaps one of those newfangled white noise generators?”
“YOU CRAZY BROAD EDWIN’S IN TROUBLE! ANSWER MY QUESTION!”
Agnes pauses to let Topper complete a twitching and cursing fit. Once again she has reduced him to a state of apoplexy. Mission accomplished, she thinks to herself. But she cannot not resist one last dig. “Quite enough noise in here already.”
Topper sucks air into his lungs in preparation for a full-on tantrum. Agnes decides it best to cut him off, “I have not attempted to call him because we have a protocol.”
“Protocol? What’s this protocol?” asks Topper.
“It’s a set of rules that we have agreed to use when facing such situations.”
“Arrrrrrrrrrrgh! I know that. You don’t think I could pass the bar without knowing what a protocol is?”
“Pass the bar? Why I always assumed you had merely walked underneath it.”
“Ah, cheap shot you old bat. Tell me what’s what or I’ll let everybody know you’re the reanimated mummy of Mary Poppin’s grandma.”
“If Edwin does not make contact in 36 hours, there are a series of steps that I take to resolve any untoward situation and recover him.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
“There are still five minutes remaining in the waiting period.”
“Five minutes. FIVE MINUTES! You’ve got to be shitting me. We gotta go. We gotta go right now.”
“Go whither and do which?”
Topper paced the wide marble floor furiously as he tried to piece a plan together. “We gotta go get him. We gotta get a shitload of guys. C’mon, this has to be in the plan, the protocol, whatever. Edwin’s good at this. Guys, guns, some dynamite. A bulldozer to knock in some walls. Hell, an armored bulldozer. Yeah, yeah. And a Cadillac. A big friggin’ Caddy to use as a getaway car. And make it a convertible ‘cause Edwin’s so tall.”
“Truly, you think of everything,” Agnes says as she calmly picks up the phone.
“Yeah, yeah. So that’s in the plan. Right?”
Agnes shakes her head.
“Then who are you calling? Somebody with a crapload of Ninjas in black body armor or something? Oh, oh, it’s gotta be somebody badass. Like a guy who farts laser beams out of his ears. A guy who can blow the side of a house in just by thinking about PEACHES!”
“No,” says Agnes, “This is far more important.”
“Who? Who is it?”
“I am calling Edwin’s tailor.”
Chapter Fourteen. Just a Consultant
