was smarter, better connected, more likely to end up in a corner office with the historically significant antique desk. The only edge I had was that I was a male in a seller's market. It was enough.
'This is a business dinner, Donald,' she said, 'nothing more.'
I favored her with an expression of polite disbelief I knew from experience she'd find infuriating. And, digging into my pheasant, murmured, 'Of course.' We didn't say much of consequence until dessert, when I finally asked, 'So what's Loeb-Soffner up to these days?'
'Structuring a corporate expansion. Jim's putting together the financial side of the package, and I'm doing personnel. You're being headhunted, Donald.' She favored me with that feral little flash of teeth she made when she saw something she wanted. Courtney wasn't a beautiful woman, far from it. But there was that fierceness to her, that sense of something primal being held under tight and precarious control that made her hot as hot to me. 'You're talented, you're thuggish, and you're not too tightly nailed to your present position. Those are all qualities we're looking for.'
She dumped her purse on the table, took out a single folded sheet of paper. 'These are the terms I'm offering.' She placed it by my plate, attacked her torte with gusto.
I unfolded the paper. 'This is a lateral transfer.'
'Unlimited opportunity for advancement,' she said with her mouth full, 'if you've got the stuff.'
'Mmm.' I did a line-by-line of the benefits, all comparable to what I was getting now. My current salary to the dollar—Ms. Soffner was showing off. And the stock options. 'This can't be right. Not for a lateral.'
There was that grin again, like a glimpse of shark in murky waters. 'I knew you'd like it. We're going over the top with the options because we need your answer right away—tonight preferably. Tomorrow at the latest. No negotiations. We have to put the package together fast. There's going to be a shitstorm of publicity when this comes out. We want to have everything nailed down, present the fundies and bleeding hearts with a
'My God, Courtney, what kind of monster do you have hold of now?'
'The biggest one in the world. Bigger than Apple. Bigger than Home Virtual. Bigger than HIVac-IV,' she said with relish. 'Have you ever heard of Koestler Biological?'
I put my fork down.
'Koestler? You're peddling corpses now?'
'Please. Postanthropic biological resources.' She said it lightly, with just the right touch of irony. Still, I thought I detected a certain discomfort with the nature of her client's product.
'There's no money in it.' I waved a hand toward our attentive waitstaff. 'These guys must be—what?—maybe two percent of the annual turnover? Zombies are luxury goods: servants, reactor cleanups, Hollywood stunt deaths, exotic services'—we both knew what I meant—'a few hundred a year, maybe, tops. There's not the demand. The revulsion factor is too great.'
'There's been a technological breakthrough.' Courtney leaned forward. 'They can install the infrasystem and controllers and offer the product for the factory-floor cost of a new subcompact. That's way below the economic threshold for blue-collar labor.
'Look at it from the viewpoint of a typical factory owner. He's already downsized to the bone and labor costs are bleeding him dry. How can he compete in a dwindling consumer market? Now let's imagine he buys into the program.' She took out her Mont Blanc and began scribbling figures on the tablecloth. 'No benefits. No liability suits. No sick pay. No pilferage. We're talking about cutting labor costs by at least two-thirds. Minimum! That's irresistible, I don't care how big your revulsion factor is. We project we can move five hundred thousand units in the first year.'
'Five hundred thousand,' I said. 'That's crazy. Where the hell are you going to get the raw material for —?'
'Africa.'
'Oh, God, Courtney.' I was struck wordless by the cynicism it took to even consider turning the sub-Saharan tragedy to a profit, by the sheer, raw evil of channeling hard currency to the pocket Hitlers who ran the camps. Courtney only smiled and gave that quick little flip of her head that meant she was accessing the time on an optic chip.
'I think you're ready,' she said, 'to talk with Koestler.'
At her gesture, the zombie boys erected projector lamps about us, fussed with the settings, turned them on. Interference patterns moired, clashed, meshed. Walls of darkness erected themselves about us. Courtney took out her flat and set it up on the table. Three taps of her nailed fingers and the round and hairless face of Marvin Koestler appeared on the screen. 'Ah, Courtney!' he said in a pleased voice. 'You're in—New York, yes? The San Moritz. With Donald.' The slightest pause with each accessed bit of information. 'Did you have the antelope medallions?' When we shook our heads, he kissed his fingertips. 'Magnificent! They're ever so lightly braised and then smothered in buffalo mozzarella. Nobody makes them better. I had the same dish in Florence the other day, and there was simply no comparison.'
I cleared my throat. 'Is that where you are? Italy?'
'Let's leave out where I am.' He made a dismissive gesture, as if it were a trifle. But Courtney's face darkened. Corporate kidnapping being the growth industry it is, I'd gaffed badly. 'The question is—what do you think of my offer?'
'It's . . . interesting. For a lateral.'
'It's the start-up costs. We're leveraged up to our asses as it is. You'll make out better this way in the long run.' He favored me with a sudden grin that went mean around the edges. Very much the financial buccaneer. Then he leaned forward, lowered his voice, maintained firm eye contact. Classic people-handling techniques. 'You're not sold. You know you can trust Courtney to have checked out the finances. Still, you think: It won't work. To work, the product has to be irresistible, and it's not. It can't be.'
'Yes, sir,' I said. 'Succinctly put.'
He nodded to Courtney. 'Let's sell this young man.' And to me, 'My stretch is downstairs.'
He winked out.
Koestler was waiting for us in the limo, a ghostly pink presence. His holo, rather, a genial if somewhat coarse-grained ghost afloat in golden light. He waved an expansive and insubstantial arm to take in the interior of the car and said, 'Make yourselves at home.'
The chauffeur wore combat-grade photomultipliers. They gave him a buggish, inhuman look. I wasn't sure if he was dead or not. 'Take us to Heaven,' Koestler said.
The doorman stepped out into the street, looked both ways, nodded to the chauffeur. Robot guns tracked our progress down the block.
'Courtney tells me you're getting the raw materials from Africa.'
'Distasteful, but necessary. To begin with. We have to sell the idea first—no reason to make things rough on ourselves. Down the line, though, I don't see why we can't go domestic. Something along the lines of a reverse mortgage, perhaps, life insurance that pays off while you're still alive. It'd be a step towards getting the poor off our backs at last. Fuck 'em. They've been getting a goddamn free ride for too long; the least they can do is to die and provide us with servants.'
I was pretty sure Koestler was joking. But I smiled and ducked my head, so I'd be covered in either case. 'What's Heaven?' I asked, to move the conversation onto safer territory.
'A proving ground,' Koestler said with great satisfaction, 'for the future. Have you ever witnessed bare- knuckles fisticuffs?'
'No.'
'Ah, now there's a sport for gentlemen! The sweet science at its sweetest. No rounds, no rules, no holds barred. It gives you the real measure of a man—not just of his strength but his character. How he handles himself, whether he keeps cool under pressure—how he stands up to pain. Security won't let me go to the clubs in person, but I've made arrangements.'
Heaven was a converted movie theater in a rundown neighborhood in Queens. The chauffeur got out, disappeared briefly around the back, and returned with two zombie bodyguards. It was like a conjurer's trick. 'You had these guys stashed in the
