been replaced with blemish resistant polymer coating, and they're pecking at finger food and networking with the perky ferocity of a piranha school on Prozac; it's like the Stepford Business School opening day, and Ramona and I have wandered in by mistake from the International Capitalist Conspiracy meeting next door. I briefly wonder if anyone's going to ask us to announce the winners of the prize for most cutthroat business development plan of the year. But past the buffet I spot another set of open double-doors, at a guess the ICC meeting's going to be through there, along with the roulette wheels and the free bar.
**I'm going to go say 'hi' to our hostess,** Ramona tells me. **See you in a couple of minutes?** I can tell when I'm not needed. **Sure,** I say. **Want me to get you a drink?**
**I'll handle it from here.** She smiles at me then opens her mouth and gushes, 'Isn't this wonderful, Bob? Be a dear and circulate while I go powder my nose. I'll just be a sec!'
Then she's off, carving a groove through the little black dresses and plastic smiles.
I shrug philosophically, spot the bar, and go over to it.
The bartender is busily pouring glass after glass of cheap, fizzy white plonk, and it takes me a while to catch his eye.
'Service over here'
'Sure. What do you want'
'I'll — ' a thousand fragments of half-grasped TV movies take control of my larynx ' — can you make it a dry martini?
Shaken, not stirred.'
'Heh.' He looks amused. 'You're not the first guy who's asked me that.' He grabs a cocktail shaker and reaches for the gin, and in just a matter of seconds he's handing me a conical glass full of clear, oily liquid with a pickled sheep's eyeball at the bottom. I sniff it cautiously. It smells of jet fuel.
'Thanks, I think.' Holding it at arm's length I turn away from the bar and nearly dump it all over a woman in a severe black suit and heavy-framed spectacles. 'Oops, I'm sorry.'
'Don't mention it.' She doesn't smile. 'Mr. Howard? Of Capital Laundry Services?' She pronounces my name as if she's getting ready to serve a writ.
'Um, yes. You are ...'
'Liza Sloat, of Spleen, Sloat, and Partners.' Her cheek twitches in something that might be a smile, or just neuralgia.
'We have the privilege of handling the Billingtons' personal accounts. I believe we nearly met yesterday.'
'We did?' Suddenly I remember where I know her from.
She's the lawyer who was dogging Billington's footsteps, the one with the briefcase who went to see the casino president.
I smile. 'Yes, I remember now. To what do I owe the pleasure'
The twitch turns into a genuine smile, albeit about as warm as liquid nitrogen. 'Mr. Billington is running late today. He'll be along later in the evening, and meanwhile you're to make yourself at home.' The smile slides away, replaced by a stare so coldly calculating that I shiver. 'That is his prerogative. Personally, I think he is a little too trusting.
You're rather young for a bidding agent in this auction.'
The smile reappears. 'You might want to remind your employers of our history of successful litigation against individuals, organizations, and entities that try to interfere with the smooth running of our legitimate commercial operations.
Good day.'
She turns on one spiked black heel and clicks back in the direction of the inner room. What the hell was that about? I wonder unwisely taking a mouthful from my glass. I manage not to spew it everywhere, but it tastes even worse than it smelled: pure essence of turpentine with a finish of cheap gin and a tangy undernote of kerosene. 'Gah.' I swallow convulsively, wait for the steam to stop trickling out of my nose, and go looking for a potted plant that appears hardy enough to survive being irrigated with the stuff.
The salon next door is thickly carpeted, and curtained like an up-market whorehouse in a movie about fin- de-siecle Paris.
Most of the folks here are clustered around the gaming tables and while some of the ladies from Pale Grace (TM) Cosmetics have wandered in, it looks to be mostly Billington's court of louche shareholders and their anorexic, artistically inclined, fashion-model fuck-bunnies. I'm moving towards the baccarat table when one of the younger and pushier sales associates appears in front of me, smiles ingratiatingly, and holds out her hand. 'Hi! I'm Kitty. Isn't it great to be here'
I squint at her from behind my regrettably full glass, then raise an eyebrow. 'I suppose it is,' I concede, 'for some values of'great.' Do I know you'
Kitty stares at me, freezing like a rabbit in the headlights of an oncoming juggernaut. She's blonde, her hair lacquered into place like the glass fiber weave of a crash helmet awaiting the resin spray: she's pretty in a mascara'd and lip-glossed kind of way. 'Aren't you, uh, really famous or something'
she stammers. 'Mrs. Billington always invites famous speakers to these events — '
I force myself to smile benevolently. 'That's okay, I don't mind you not recognizing me.' I take a sip of the martini: it's revolting but it's got alcohol in it, so it can't be all bad. 'It's rather refreshing, actually, being a nobody who people overlook all the time.' Kitty smiles uncertainly, as if she's not sure whether I'm deploying irony or something equally exotic. 'What brings you here, Kitty?' I ask, putting on my sincerest expression.
'I'm Busy Bee Number One for the Minnesota sales region! I mean, I have a really great team and they're amazingly great workers but it's such an honor, don't you think?
And only last year we were sixty-second out of seventy-four regional teams! But I figured my girls just needed something to shoot for so I gave them new targets and a new promotional pricing structure with discount incentivization and it worked like crazy!' She half-covers her mouth: 'And the viral marketing thing, too, but that's something else. But it was my worker bees who did it all, really! There are no drones in my hive!'
'That's, uh, truly excellent,' I say, nodding. A thought strikes me: 'What particular products are doing well at the moment? I mean, is there anything special that's responsible for your sales growth'
'Oh, well, you know we've tracked the vertical segmentation of our region and different hives have different merchandise footprints, but you know something? It's the same everywhere, the Pale Grace(TM) Skin Hydromax(R) cream is, you know, walking off the shelves!'
'Hmm.' I try to look thoughtful, which isn't difficult: How the hell do you package a glamour in an ointment pot? I shake my head in admiration and take another sip of drain cleaner.
'That's really good to know. Maybe I should use it myself'
'Oh, of course you should! Here, take my card; I'd be happy to set you up with a range of free samples and an initial consultation.' Her card isn't just a piece of cardboard, it's a scratch 'n' sniff sample as complex as a Swiss Card survival tool — I manage to slide it into my pocket without getting any of the stuff on my skin. Kitty gushes in my direction, her eyes lighting up as she moves into the standard sales script, her voice softening and lowering with a compelling sincerity that is at odds with her natural bubbly extroversion: 'The ErythroComplex-V in the Pale Grace(TM) Skin Hydromax(R) range is clinically proven to reverse ageing-induced cytoplasmic damage to the skin and nail cuticles. Just one application begins to undo the ravages of free radicals and enhance the body's natural production of antioxidants and cytochrome polyesterase inhibitors. And it's so creamy smooth! We make it with one hundred percent natural ingredients, unlike some of our competitors ...'
I slip away while she's reciting her programmed spiel, and she doesn't even notice as I sidle up to a potted palm and take a last reflective mouthful of dry martini. My wards blipped slightly as her script kicked in, but that doesn't have to mean she's a robot, does it? We make it with one hundred percent natural ingredients, like the bottom tenth percentile of our sales force, the ones who don't get invited to this end of the marketing conference by the Queen Bee. Maybe Kitty's just a natural void, only too happy to be filled by the passing enthusiasm of the traveling salesman invocation, but somehow I doubt it: that kind of perfect vacuum doesn't come cheap.
I scuff my left heel on the ground. If I switched it on, the Tiilinghast resonator that Brains installed in my shoe would let me see the sales-daemon riding her spine like a grotesquely bloated digger wasp, but I'd just as soon keep my lunch — and anyway the first law of demonoiogy is that if you can see it, // can see you. But the small of my back itches as I glance round at the overdressed hedonists and the scarily neat saleswomen because
