Robert Asprin - E.Godz

"How do you do that?" Fiorella asked.

"Do what?" Peez was brought up short by the interruption.

"Talk for so long without stopping for a breath and without saying much of anything. It's half empty sentiment, half corporate claptrap, and all pure piffle." She helped herself to more tea. "Look, Peez, I know why you're here. As you said yourself, we're both businesswomen who know how to cut to the chase. You want to take over as the head of E. Godz, Inc. after Edwina's gone, right?"

"And why shouldn't I?" It was Peez's turn to sound testy.

"No, the proper question is why should you? Your mother always gave my people value for money—"

"I'll do that, too," Peez cut in.

"Easy enough for you to say. But how do you propose to do it? I don't know you, Peez; not the way I know your mother. I can't tell what your management style is or if it's what I want for my organization or even if you have a style worthy of the name. Are you going to let things coast, playing the 'If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It' card, or are you going to be so hands-on that you don't leave one corporate brick standing on top of another? And why should I assume that whatever your style, I won't like your brother's better?"

Peez's face hardened at the mention of Dov. "When did you talk to him?" she demanded coldly.

Fiorella shrugged her beautiful shoulders. "Does it matter? We both know he's out there. And since I was the one who had to mention him in the first place, I don't think that the two of you have any plans for a joint directorship."

"Do you seriously believe that Dov could steer this company by himself?" Peez snapped. "That mama's boy? He never had to take an independent step in his life! He's only a figurehead in the Miami office. How can he do something for the American wiccan population when he's got absolutely no experience doing anything for himself?"

"You seem to think that you know what American wiccans need," Fiorella remarked calmly. "But do you? Do you really?"

"I know that you represent more than talk-show fodder," Peez shot back. "I've followed your career, Fiorella. Every Halloween, just like clockwork, there you are on TV, in the newspapers, sometimes in those slick-and-sleazy gossip magazines: Fiorella, a so-called 'real' witch, fashions by Morticia Addams, props straight out of Stereotypes-R- Us, something for the rubes to gawk at and imagine they've glimpsed the Dark Side. And it doesn't hurt that the Dark Side shows a lot of cleavage. Am I wrong?"

Fiorella smiled and shook her head.

"But the reality is that you're just about as 'real' as this whole town. Salem, Massachusetts, home of the infamous witchcraft trials! There's a joke."

Fiorella stood up, no longer smiling. "Have a care what you say, woman," she intoned, her voice going deep and menacing. "Have a care, lest you summon up the shadows of vengeance! This ground is sanctified with the blood of our venerable ancestors, those women who gave their all, America's first wiccan martyrs who—"

"Oh, please." Peez dismissed Fiorella's outburst with an airy wave of her hand. "In the first place, this ground wasn't sanctified by any bloodshed: They hanged all the accused witches, except for that man who died under the peine forte et dure, crushed under a load of rocks when he wouldn't confess. You know, Giles Corey, Mr. 'More Weight'?" Teddy Tumtum's impromptu history lesson was coming in handy after all. "Second, none of those poor souls was a witch, and they'd probably look at you funny if you so much as mentioned the word 'wiccan' to them. And finally, Salem isn't even where most of the madness happened. Salem Village, now that's more like it! Only there isn't any Salem Village any more. They changed the name to Danvers because they had the good grace to be ashamed of the whole nasty business. Bad publicity and a load of embarrassment are very strong charms. They have the power to transform a place or a person or even a financial empire."

She leaned towards the still-bristling witch-queen and concluded: "Don't make me use them on you."

"Threats?" Fiorella raised one eyebrow. "Didn't take you long to reach that point, did it? Well, and how would your bad PR bugaboo touch me?"

"How hard would it be for me to set up someone else as a rival witch-queen, Fiorella? Some out-of-work model who's at least as pretty as you are, only younger and maybe with some connections to the music industry? I can help her tap into the earth magic just enough to give her that air of authenticity—my equivalent of start-up funds—then get her all of your old Halloween spots in the media. You may be the founder of several dozen covens, but can you hold onto your constituents in the face of some real heavy-duty competition?"

Peez held her hands up in front of her face, palms outward, thumbs touching, in the classic director-framing-a-shot pose. In the voice of TV hype artists everywhere she declared: "She's beautiful, she's a witch, and she's slept with rock stars! You, too, can share the glamour, the power, the six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon celebrity! It's not just witchcraft, it's cool!" She lowered her hands and gave Fiorella a hard stare. "And it's the same principle behind every cosmetics ad ever run. Rationally, women know that they're not going to look like Cindy or Naomi or Husker-du or whoever's the supermodel du jour just because they buy that brand of lipstick. Ah, but somehow, when they look at those ads, reason flies out the window. They're like your precious tourists: They believe because they want to believe. I'll just give them something to believe in that's a whole lot trendier than you. They'll flock to her in droves! Or drive to her in flocks! Who cares? Either put your power in my camp or kiss it good-bye."

By this time the fire in Fiorella's green eyes had escalated to the white-hot heat of fresh lava. "If you're trying to woo my support over to your side, you're going about it in quite the wrong way," she hissed.

"I don't woo," Peez said. "I win. And when I win, so do you. Or you can give your support to my baby brother, if you like. It's a free country. Then see where it gets you."

"Because you're packing a stealth witch-queen?" Fiorella pursed her lips. "Maybe I ought to be afraid. Maybe I ought to pledge my support to you right now ... but I won't. I like to review all of my options. I want to hear what Dov's got to say."

"Think he can protect you?" Peez laughed. It sounded a lot like Teddy Tumtum at his nastiest.

"You know, Peez, I'm still going to wait for Dov, but I think you just might have the right mix of gall and backbone to be a decent corporate harpy after all," Fiorella mused. "I don't like you, but I respect you."

"I'll settle for that," Peez said, grinning. But in her heart a lonely little girl hung her head and thought: I always have.

It was a well-documented fact, attested to by all the highest authorities among gourmets, gourmands, trenchermen, foodies, and just plain greedy-guts, that the only way to get a really bad meal in New Orleans was to search for it with all the fervor of a knight of old upon a holy quest.

But who would want to be fool enough to do that? Certainly not Dov Godz. He had a fondness for all of the best things in life, which included food. New Orleans would always have a special place in his heart, but his stomach infallibly came along for the ride. It was a pleasure undimmed by repetition to visit that storied city at the mouth of the Mississippi on a whim, but when he had the opportunity to justify his self-indulgence by coming to New Orleans on business— Ah, that was a thrill divine.

Now, ensconced behind a plate of sugary beignets, his third cup of chicory coffee readily to hand, Dov sat under the awnings at the famous Cafe du Monde and reviewed his game plan. He'd arrived the previous evening and enjoyed a sumptuous dinner, but apart from that, he hadn't accomplished a thing. There was something about New Orleans that told a body not to fret or fluster, because there was time for everything, and everything in its own good time.