Makers Part 95

Hilda grinned. "Oh, this part I like."

Suzanne laughed. "Yeah."

"What?" Perry said.

"Freddy's good at intelligence gathering, but he's not so good at distinguis.h.i.+ng truth from fiction. In my view, this presents a fascinating opportunity. Depending on what we leak to him and how, we can turn him into --"

"A laughing stock?"

"A puddle of deliquesced organ meat."

Perry began to laugh. "You're saying that you think that we should do this deal for *spite*?"

"Yeah, that's the size of it," Suzanne said.

"I love it," he said.

Hilda laughed too. Suzanne extended her hand to Perry and he shook it. Then she shook with Hilda.

"Let's go find Lester."

By the time the call came, Sammy was ready to explode. He got in a golf cart and headed to the Animal Kingdom Lodge, which backed onto the safari park portion of the Animal Kingdom. He snuck himself onto the roof of the grand hotel, which had a commanding view of the artificial savanna. He watched a family of giraffes graze, using the zoom on his phone to resolve the hypnotic patterns of the little calf. It calmed him. But the sound of his phone ringing startled him so much he nearly did a half-gainer off the roof. Heart hammering, he answered it.

"Is this Sammy?"

"Yes," he said.

"Landon Kettlewell," the voice on the other side said. Sammy knew the name, of course. But he hadn't been expecting a call from him.

"h.e.l.lo, Mr Kettlewell."

"The boys have asked me to negotiate this deal for them. It makes sense -- it'll be hard to make this happen without my contributions. I hope you agree."

"It does make sense," Sammy said noncommittally. This wasn't the best day of his life. The giraffes were moving off, but a flock of cranes was wheeling overhead in quiet splendor.

"I'll tell you where we're at. We're going to do a deal with you, a fair one. But a condition of the deal is that we are going to destroy Freddy."

"What?"

"We're going to leak him bad intel on the deal. Lots of it. Give him a whole story. Wait until he publishes it, and then --"

Sammy sat down on the roof. This was going to be a long conversation.

Perry ground his teeth and squeezed his beer. The idea of doing this in a big group had seemed like a good idea. Dirty Max's was certainly full of camaraderie, the smell of roasting meat and the chatter of nearly a hundred voices. He heard Hilda laughing at something Lester said to her, and there were Kettlewell and his kids, fingers and faces sticky with sauce.

Lester had set up the projector and they'd hung sheets over one of the murals for a screen, and brought out a bunch of wireless speakers that they'd scattered around the courtyard. It looked, smelled, sounded, and tasted like a carnival.

But Perry couldn't meet anyone's eye. He just wanted to go home and get under the covers. They were about to destroy Freddy, which had also seemed like a h.e.l.l of a lark at the time, but now --

"Perry." It was Sammy, up from Orlando, wearing the cla.s.sic Mickey-gives-the-finger bootleg tee.

"Can you get fired for that?" Perry pointed.

Sammy shook his head. "Actually, it's official. I had them produced last year -- they're a big seller. If you can't beat 'em... Here --"

He dug in the backpack he carried and pulled out another. "You look like a large, right?"

Perry took it from him, held it up. Shrugging, he put down his beer and skinned his tee, then pulled on the Mickey-flips-the-bird. He looked down at his chest. "It's a statement."

"Have you and Lester given any thought to where you're going to relocate, after?"

Perry drew in a deep breath. "I think Lester wants to come to Orlando. But I'm going to go to Wisconsin. Madison."

"You're what now?"

Perry hadn't said anything about this to anyone except Hilda. Something about this Disney exec, it made him want to spill the beans. "I can't go along with this. I'm going to bow out. Do something new. I've been in this s.h.i.+thole for what feels like my whole life now."

Sammy looked poleaxed. "Perry, that wasn't the deal --"

"Yeah, I know. But think about this: do you want me there if I hate it, resent it? Besides, it's a little late in the day to back out."

Sammy reeled. "Christ almighty. Well, at least you're not going to end up my employee."

Francis -- who had an uncanny knack for figuring out the right moment to step into a conversation -- sidled over. "Nice s.h.i.+rt, Perry."

"Francis, this is Sammy." Francis had a bottle of water and a plate of ribs, so he extended a friendly elbow.

"We've met -- showed him the bicycle factory."

Sammy visibly calmed himself. "That's right, you did. Amazing, just amazing."

"All this is on Sammy," Perry said, pointing at the huge barbecue smoker, the crowds of sticky-fingered gorgers. "He's the Disney guy."

"Hence the s.h.i.+rts, huh?"

"Exactly."

"So what's the rumpus, exactly?" Francis asked. "It's all been hush-hush around here for a solid week."

"I think we're about to find out," Perry said, nodding at the gigantic screen, which rippled in the sultry Florida night-breeze, obscured by blowing clouds of fragrant smoke. It was lit up now, showing CNNfn, two pan-racial anchors talking silently into the night.

The speakers popped to life and gradually the crowd noises dimmed. People moved toward the screen, all except Francis and Perry and Sammy, who hung back, silently watching the screen.

"-- guest on the show is Freddy Niedbalski, a technology reporter for the notorious British technology publication *Tech Stink*. Freddy has agreed to come on *Countdown* to break a story that will go live on *Tech Stink*'s website in about ten minutes." The camera zoomed out to show Freddy, sitting beside the anchor desk in an armchair. His paunch was more p.r.o.nounced than it had been when Perry had seen him in Madison, and there was something wrong with his makeup, a color mismatch that made him look like he'd slathered himself with Man-Tan. Still, he was grinning evilly and looking like he could barely contain himself.

"Thank you, Tania-Luz, it's a pleasure."