“Mr. Hainer, please try to calm yourself,” says Edwin.
“Calm? I’ve been kidnapped! Evidently by you. Why would I listen to anything you have to say?” says Mark Hainer. He’s indignant and feeling his own self-importance.
“Actually, you were kidnapped by an easily bribed, underpaid Armenian driver. I am just a good Samaritan who happened by and took sympathy on your plight.”
Hainer’s eyes narrow. “You want money?” Edwin says nothing. “You don’t want money? How much money do you want?”
“All of it. But that’s the wrong question. The correct question is, what can I offer you in return?”
“This is bullshit.” Hainer tries to open his door again.
“Mr. Hainer, I have a business proposal for you. And I want you to understand that I am a serious man who has no time to waste. So please forgive me if I skipped the runaround from your secretary.”
Hainer narrows his eyes. “I’m listening.”
Edwin reaches forward and removes a stack of papers from the front seat. On the top of the stack is the justifiably famous picture of the Cromoglodon tearing a bus in half with his bare hands. “You are no doubt familiar with the Cromoglodon?”
“That freak? Yeah, my kid’s nuts about him. That’s why he wears black all the time. That’s why he threw a birdbath through my screened-in porch. Wife wanted to kill him.”
Edwin slips the photo to the bottom of the pile. The next page is filled with bullet points, a charts and a graph. Edwin hands it to Hainer. “This is the executive summary to a much larger scientific report I had worked up. It concludes that it may be impossible to measure the Cromoglodon’s physical capacity. If you must gorge yourself on the details I can get you the rest. The upshot is this, not only is he the strongest man on Earth, he is most certainly the strongest man that has been on earth.”
“Stronger than Excelsior? C’mon, nobody’s stronger than Excelsior. Everybody knows that.”
“If I could arbitrage everything that is known to be true but is actually false...” Edwin hands him a highly pixelated enlargement of a cellphone picture. It shows the Cromoglodon standing over Excelsior’s limp body. “Excelsior attempted to contain him and failed. The FBI is flailing about at the limits of their understanding. And right now, the entire law enforcement community is operating under a no pursuit policy. Why do you think this monster is still at large?”
“You certainly seem to know a lot about the Cromoglodon,” says Mark. He has no idea where this was going, but as master salesman, he enjoys a good pitch.
“I represent him.”
“Represent him!” Mark is unable to control his laughter. “You mean you are like his agent? He’s going to play football or something?”
“Not exactly. I am a consultant, an advisor.”
“Okay, whatever. How does this benefit me?”
“The Cromoglodon is simply the most powerful athlete on Earth.”
“What? To be an athlete, you’ve got to play a sport. What sport does he play? Destruction isn’t a sport.”
“Perhaps not, but it has the media coverage of a professional sport. Here is a listing of media exposure, estimates of cumulative viewership and readership and, of course, an estimate of what it might cost you to buy that kind of coverage.”
Edwin shows picture after picture after picture. The Cromoglodon emerging from the wreckage of a building, throwing a car, roaring pointlessly at the sky; and each one has the Psyche logo displayed on the Cromoglodon’s unique apparel. “All candid, all action and all prime placement.”
“What? You want me to sponsor this abomination?”
Edwin says nothing. Hainer is smart, Edwin knows he will put the pieces together for himself.
“What did you say you were? Some kind of advisor? That has to be the worst advice I’ve ever heard. Associating Psyche with that, that menace? How much negative publicity do you think I can take? You expect me to come out with a line of destruction boots? My customers, the serious athletes and those who aspire to be, would leave me in droves! I’d be out of business in a year. And people would flock to those bastards at Apedis in droves. I don’t even know if droves flock — but they’d leave us — hell, they’d run away from us barefoot. In my 35 years in the business, this is the worst idea I’ve ever heard. You sir, are an idiot.”
Mark lurches violently in his seat. He moves towards the door, but when Edwin raises his hand, Mark stops. Edwin has one last piece of paper. When he turns it over a smile spreads across Mark Hainer’s face. An evil giggle crawls out from the bottom of his bowels. “Oh ho. Ho ho ho, that’s good, that’s very good. Bravo.”
It is the picture of the Cromoglodon tearing apart the tour bus, but this time, blazoned across the middle of the Cromoglodon’s chest are the corporate stripes of Apedis.
“It’s reverse sponsorship,” says Edwin, “You pay me, and I put anyone’s logo you want on the Cromoglodon.”
“No, no, no. That’s the logo I want. That’s the one. How much, and how do I know that it won’t get back to me?”
“All of it. And I can provide complete deniability.”
“All of it? That’s rich. You get me a realistic number and you’ve got a deal. Now seriously, I’ve got to get to this dinner thing.” He snatches the picture of the Cromoglodon wearing his competitor’s logo from Edwin’s hand.
“Can I keep this?”
“If you want, but that may compromise your deniability.”
“You’re right,” Mark says with an air of disappointment. He kisses the picture and hands it back to Edwin.
Having secured one deal, Edwin makes his way across town. He has a similar meeting scheduled with the head of Apedis. There is nothing like a bidding war to add a little realism to a price.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Excelsior Speaks
“Ladies and Gentlemen, the Heroes of Business World Economic Summit is proud to present a man, well… certainly a man who is more than a man. One who is a hero to us all. The one and only Excelsior!”
A follow-spot illuminates a podium that stands all alone on a bare stage. On the front of the podium is the official logo of the event, an ungainly conglomeration of initials that read HoBWEC. Dramatic music, filled with strings, rolling tympani and augustly muted French horns pours from hidden speakers. On some undetected cue, the spotlight rises. Slowly, the circle of illumination climbs the heavy back curtain. Up, up, up, impossibly up, as if the operator has suffered a stroke and is slowly crumpling to the floor, still clutching the handles, unwilling to loose his grip on the wheel even in the face of certain death.
The light comes to rest on an open hatch in the center of the auditorium’s ceiling. The music swells in crescendo. The crowd sees feet drop into the auditorium. They go wild. The rich and the powerful, men of consequence and accomplishment, are cheering their heads off like little boys. As Excelsior descends, the cheering becomes louder. As if the crowd has suddenly doubled.
Excelsior waves down the applause and cheers. Shaking his head as if to say, No, no, not for me. You shouldn’t. He does not betray how much he hates this kind of thing. How close he was to skipping out on the entire circus. In the dressing room he had argued with Gus. “It’s stupid. Having me fly in through the ceiling. It’s demeaning. It’s like having me jump through a hoop.”
“Ah Bullshit. I can’t even walk down a flight of stairs without my hip going out and you’re bitching about being able to fly? Candy Ass. Just calm down,” said Gus, “Just go out there, make your damn speech, and we’ll get out of here. And whatever you do, let’s not have another Munich.”
