I pay cash. Subtext: your pathetic bill means nothing to me! Bwahahaha! Libby Lloyd flutters. It’s a large bill; if this is just walkingaround money where I come from, then she really does need to know me better. I hesitate going out of the door. Libby Lloyd preens. This is where I ask her if she’s busy later, because I’m going to this party and I don’t know anyone in town.
“I wonder,” I say brightly.
“Yes?” Subtext: anything at all.
“Who makes the best suits in Haviland these days?”
Disappointment tempered by patience. Subtext: you will be mine.
“Royce Allen,” she says firmly. “He’s just across the street. Come in and see me when you pick it up.” She smiles and bats her lashes at me. I swear I feel a breeze.
THE BAG FROM Libby Lloyd’s is a passport to greatness. It has a gold colophon on a shiny white background, and with it under my arm scruffy clothes are simply not an issue. I have already bought. I am spending. I have money. Respectable clothing is what I will come out of Royce Allen’s with, not what I need going in. The door across the road opens before I can knock.
I spend five minutes pottering around admiring Royce Allen’s off-the-peg stuff while his nervous assistant follows me to and fro, nodding when I make little noises of discontent and explaining that (while everything I see is of the highest quality in all respects) the bespoke work is vastly superior. I try on a shirt. It makes me look like a god. I suggest that it’s a little tight under the arms. Yes. Definitely pulling . . . what sort of thread does Royce Allen use in his seams? It feels coarse. The assistant assures me that the thread is the finest baby hair and angora rabbit, the softest known to man. I sigh. It must be the fabric then. A pity. No, no, the fabric is a cotton picked by child slave labourers who wash and moisturise their hands every hour so as to prevent their fingers from roughing the fibres. They bleed, of course, but their blood contains chemicals (owing to a strictly controlled diet) which actually add to the luxuriant mellowness of the weave. The blood is as a matter of course hygenically bleached out with a mineral cleaning agent made from crushed diamond and virgin’s saliva, which adds lustre and radiance, and also gives the finished shirt the toughness of ballistic nylon.
I explain sorrowfully that all this discussion has left me with a dry throat. It is now my intention to return later, or possibly next week, having refreshed my mucous membranes. I am politely disinclined to discuss the matter further. I am so polite as to be almost rude. I cough gently, to remind Royce Allen’s assistant that the absolute last thing I want is further chat, because—possibly owing to the amount of time I spend on the phone firing people and arranging the fate of millions—my larynx is in such terrible agony. He summons a minion (Royce Allen’s shop is awash with minions coming and going clutching swatches and fabrics, and occasionally, from the fitting rooms, there comes the voice of the great man himself: “Freddie! Get the blue flannel for Mr. Custer-Price, please, he needs to see it against the checks,” and Freddie—or Tom, or Phylis, or Betsy, or someone—scurries over and looks the other way so that Mr. Custer-Price is not embarrassed in his partial nudity) and the minion brings a tray of drinks. I hover over the expensive Scotch and then the Armagnac, but finally settle on a glass of rich red claret. I put it near my nose and nearly pass out. It smells of old houses and aged wood and dark secrets, but also of hard, hot sunshine through ancient shutters and long, wicked afternoons in a four-poster bed. It’s not a wine, it’s a life, right there in the glass. I sip it. Fire and fruit wash over my tongue.
“Oh, that’s actually not bad.” Calumny. I sit. The assistant relaxes a little and asks if I would mind waiting while he fetches Mr. Royce Allen, in person. I decide that I wouldn’t. I sip again. I really wouldn’t.
Royce Allen is a hearty fellow with sausage fingers and the obligatory tape measure around his neck. He is not so much unctuous as balsamic. He eels out of the fitting rooms and gladhands me and confides that he’s been hoping I’d come by ever since he heard I was coming to Haviland. He was concerned that I’d been seduced by that clothbutcher, Daniel Prang. I swear that the false glamour of Prang never appealed even for a second, and he adjudges me not just a powerful man but also—and this is rare, sir, very rare—a man of taste. Daniel Prang (confides Royce Allen) began as a very excellent cobbler; had he stuck to gentlemen’s shoes and boots, all would have been well. The original Prang shoe was a splendid thing, a brogue with fine slim lines and a steel and silver slash across the back of the heel, with a unique crest designed for each customer so that a gentleman’s footprints were instantly recognisable to his friends. Sadly, after a few months, the cleats tended to come loose, and one was forever stopping to examine one’s sole (ahaha, just my little joke, sir, but you see, yes, well of course you do).
In those good old days Royce Allen himself bought shoes at Prang’s, and his crest was a camel passing through the eye of the needle, very droll indeed. Alas, Mr. Prang has upset the natural balance of things by venturing to make gentlemen’s clothing, and it is not a task for which life has equipped him. Royce Allen is delighted that I have the natural acuity and good sense to reject the Prang suit with its modern lines, and determines that I shall have only his best work. He thus dispenses with all the moderate fabrics (read: cheap) and whisks me straight to the last table by his den where he keeps the ones which empty banks and consume the wealth of nations. I ponder, he measures. I cannot decide between the alpaca and cuttlefish (honestly) and the Mylar-silk (very good in summertime), and—since I’m never going to wear them—I order one of each. Royce Allen licks his lips and applauds my boldness. The first fitting will be in three weeks. Royce Allen’s assistant brings me another glass of the red lest my throat should again be giving me trouble after this exertion, and hovers with the bottle in case I need to make any more difficult choices regarding shirts. While we’re in the mood, I toss a couple of the superb off-the-peg jackets on the pile (for casual wear, Mr. Allen) along with some At Work By Allen jeans and some slacks and a pair of Foot By Allen shoes. Royce Allen is so delighted that he throws in a pair of socks. I give him my entirely fictitious address in the nice part of the city and ask if I can pop back in later to pick up the off-the-peg stuff. I’ve got squash in an hour at the Club (I don’t know which club yet, but everyone else obviously does, they nod and bob reverently) and Royce Allen says of course. We shake hands, for which I put down the glass on the sales counter, and the assistant moves forward to grasp it before it can become a hazard. Alas, alack, how do these things happen? I have stepped back into the space he was intending to occupy. Silly me. Perhaps I am clumsy, or supremely confident, or drunk. Certainly, I couldn’t have intended this outcome: the remainder of the bottle (I will linger in the oenophile’s Hell of Corked Vintages for a thousand years) glugs massively over my shirt and down my back.
There is absolute silence. I worry for a moment that the assistant has actually died or gone mad; he’s frozen in place. Then he straightens, murmurs “I’m most terribly sorry” and walks into the back room to gather his things. He does not wait to be told that he’s fired. I hope it’s a drill. I hope he’s going to go and sit in a bar until Royce Allen calls him and tells him to come back to work, the client is gone. I doubt it.
Royce Allen sighs.
“What a muddle,” he says. “Going to the Brandon Club, you said?”
“Yes,” I tell him sadly, “I was.”
“Well, you can’t go like that,” says Royce Allen. He shrugs. “Take the casual now,” he says. “You can pay for it when you come for the first fitting. If you don’t like it, we’ll shove it on the dummy and you can call it a loan, all right?”
I couldn’t possibly, but you must, no, Mr. Allen, sir, I insist, blah blah. We out-polite one another for a while until he puts his foot down and I walk out of his shop wearing a fortune and carrying a change of clothes, and with two glasses of his wine inside me. I’d feel guilty, but he’ll be fine, and he’ll make an extra 5 per cent this year just tell
ing the story to gentlemen in the fitting room. How I Was Took by a Felon, by Royce Allen, and I’d do it again, sir, because that’s how we are in this shop. Oh, no, sir, to be honest, I think we’ll have to go up a grade, that fabric doesn’t do you justice.
I get in a taxi, and tell the driver to take me to the Brandon Club.
BUDDY KEENE lends me a racquet. He has five, in a thick sack, and he uses a different one depending on mood. His name (Bartholomew Keene) is printed in gold on the bag. Tom Link and Roy Massaman put me on to him by the water fountain: Buddy has too many damn racquets, man he’ll set you up. And he will, because Royce Allen’s craft is all over me, and that’s as much a passport as Libby Lloyd’s whites. The stripes cause a bit of a murmur when they come out.
I stand in the gallery and watch, and chat. The Brandon Club gallery, overlooking the courts, has ferns and fig trees in little pots at inconvenient intervals, and supremely uncomfortable chairs made from bamboo. Anyone spending any significant amount of time here will develop expensive back pain, and the club has a health spa which is particularly good at dealing with injuries sustained from sitting all day in a lounger. The walls are painted off-white (because true white makes the guests look ill) and there’s a great deal of glass. The point appears to be that you could only possibly pay what you pay to be a member here if you are very rich, because anyone with less money would demand better service at the price.
From Buddy and his friends—who rotate on and off the court, so that one of them is always talking to me in a somewhat wheezy voice and mopping his underarms—I learn that Haviland City is filled with excellent bars; that it is (like ancient Rome) constructed on a string of hills, the precise number of which no one can quite recall. I learn that the market (this being the stock market, not the local produce market, although in fact the produce market is of course a subset of the other) is low at the moment owing to a string of vanishings and the recent fire on the Pipe (Old J.P.), but that certain people confidently expect it to rise shortly when these matters are resolved. (Resolved how? Just resolved.) I learn that Haviland City is now the centre of operations for Jorgmund, although the old head office remains out along the Pipe (the Silver) a way, where it all began. These things are moderately interesting, but not what I came here for. I wait. Sooner or later, they have to ask me to join the game. And they do. Buddy Keene, red from the neck up and dripping sweat from his earlobe, gets down on one knee. Would I like a shot at the title? I give Buddy a bit of polite surprise. Oh no. No, I’m waiting for Someone. Buddy catches hold of the capital S. His eyes light up. Is it a babe? Babes who play Brandon Racquets (the club’s own variant, which has few or no rules about physical contact) are hot. They are hot racquet babes. They get physical. Yeah!
“No,” I murmur, infinitely bored, “I’m here to see Richard.”
“Richard?”
“Washburn.”
“You mean Dick?”
“I call him Richard.”
“He prefers Dick.”
“How ambitious.”
This is easy. No one here is telling the truth. Every single one of them is living for every other. They do things because they must be seen to do them. These are type D or even type E pencilnecks vying for an upgrade. They’re here to lose a bit of identity, to become more the Right Kind of Guy. The rules they know are their own rules, and someone who breaks them without fear must be playing on the next level up.
I look at my watch. It’s not expensive. They stare. I tap it.
“Piece of crap. Won it off a guy.”
“You bet for that?”
“That . . . and his job.” They all suck air sharply, and Roy Massaman takes a little step back.
Yes, tiny men. I eat what I kill.
“Anyone know where Richard is? I’m due on a call at five. I’ll see him later.”
“He’s going to the party this evening.”
“Good. I’ll see him there. Is that the board thing?”
“Uh, no. There’s a board thing?”
“If there isn’t, I’ve come a long way for nothing. So where’s Richard going to be?”
And of course they tell me. Anything to help a fellow out. Particularly if you suspect he may be your next boss. Buddy Keene is looking at me, little wheels turning in his head. Think, Buddy. Take a risk. Grift.
I toss Buddy his racquet. We’ll do drinks, okay? And yes, they all say happily, we’ll do drinks. I step out into the corridor, and I walk away. He might not come. He might not have anything to offer. And then, heavy footsteps, the flat clatter of someone trying to lose speed in training shoes.
“Hey,” says Buddy Keene. “Wait up.”
Goodness me, whatever can it be?
“You’re coming to our office? Here in Haviland?”
“Seems that way.”
“Well . . .” Buddy Keene smiles an ingratiating smile. “There’s a meeting of the Planning Horizons Committee in an hour. Would you like to sit in, unofficially?”
Yes, Buddy. That would be just ideal.
JORGMUND has the big building on the left, with the annexe. The big building on the right belongs to the mayoralty. It is not as big as the big building on the left, which is topped with the circular snake logo, and has a couple of extra floors to drive the point home. The mayoralty had permission to go taller, but since Jorgmund was doing the construction, they somehow never got around to asking for those extra levels.
We are on one of the middle floors, and Buddy Keene has explained to everyone that I am absolutely not here, and given them to understand that I am a bigwig from back along the Silver. He says this with the absolute conviction of someone who wants to be first in line for promotion when I ascend, and his avarice is incredibly persuasive.
Buddy Keene, with a smile on his lips, opens his first red folder and slaps it down on the table in front of him. “Right,” he says. “Let’s rule the world.” Everyone grins. I assume that he is joking. A few minutes later I realise that he is not, or not entirely. They aren’t actually ruling the world, but they’re planning for Haviland City, and what goes for Haviland goes everywhere else in Jorgmund’s domain, which is everywhere.
Everything in Jorgmund is governed by the Core. The Core is the final authority, the yes or the no. Naturally, everyone wants to get into the Core. This is made more difficult by the fact that no one knows who else is in it. (Buddy Keene is almost 100 per cent certain that Humbert Pestle is in the Core. That means Dick Washburn has the ear of the Core—if such a thing can be said to exist—and hence that I am going around telling everyone that I’m one better than the guy who knows the guy who is almost certainly one of The Guys.)
Between us in this room and them in whatever corporate Olympus they occupy, there is the Senior Board. The Senior Board is composed of people who would very much like to be in the Core, and who therefore go out of their way to demonstrate how ruthless and commercially minded and efficient they are by going through the proposals of the Planning Horizons Committee and kicking out the weak, kittenish ideas and retaining only the fanged, pitbull ideas. Everyone here (except me) can name the Senior Board, list their hobbies and their weaknesses, knows how they like to be called and what their favourite drink is. Dick Washburn is tipped as surefire Senior Board material, as long as the Lubitsch Project comes out well.
“That was a bold initiative,” I murmur, and there’s a great deal of nodding and harrumphing. “Did anyone see the projections?”
“They’re huge,” says Buddy Keene.
“Really major,” says a woman named Mae Milton.
They look at me to see if they’ve said the right thing. I realise they have no idea what it is.
The Lubitsch Project. I turn the words over in my head. I don’t like them. I don’t like the fact that it has a name rather than an incident number or a nickname, or that they’ve heard about it in a place with the word “planning” in the title. I don’t like it that the name attached is Gonzo’s, in particular. This wasn’t about the Free Company.
It wasn’t about Jim Hepsobah and his expertise, or Sally Culpepper and her negotiator gong fu. It was and is about Gonzo, in person. You were set up. Yes, Ronnie, we were. And yes, indeed. Who profits?
Buddy Keene is talking about house prices. Apparently, they’re on the rise, and many employees are asking for higher salaries to cope with the difference. Buddy Keene suggests that Jorgmund encourage them to move to the fringes of town where property is cheaper. This will entail new construction ( Jorgmund has a large construction arm) and better transport (supplied by Jorgmund Rail & Road). The longer commute will take a chunk out of employees’ days, of course, but this will leave them with more disposable income during their remaining leisure time. The alternative is to pay them more, have them live in a more expensive neighbourhood and feel underpaid, beginning a cycle of disaffection which can only be bad for the company. Additionally, people who spend more time with their families develop attachments and retire early, sometimes have children, and require day care and leave, whereas people who work long hours do not develop such strong outside attachments; they swim in the company water and think it’s the whole world. Day care and recruitment are expensive, and thus to be avoided. Since it is the major real-estate owner in Haviland City, Jorgmund could lower rents and sale prices, but this would mean taking a loss in a sector which is at present growing well. That kind of option is available to the Senior Board, but not to Planning Horizons.