Robert Asprin - E.Godz

"Why not?" she replied. "The business is all I've got to care about. You just proved that yourself. And it's the only reason anyone on earth ever cares about me. A kiss is just a kiss, but if all I can hope to get are kiss-ups, I'm willing to settle for that."

The bear pretended to wipe a tear from its green glass eye. "Ah, my child, you have learned your lesson well. You can leave the monastery. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars, do not let the doorknob hit you in the butt on your way out."

"Would you just shut the hell—?"

Peez's exasperation was cut short by the hum of the fax machine in the corner. The silver amulet affixed to the front of the machine added its two cents to the interruption by announcing: "Personal message from Edwina Godz for your immediate attention and reply, Ms. Peez."

Peez cast a jaded glance at the fax machine. "Isn't that just like Mother? Probably just some stupid little nitpicky reminder for me to update the client database when she knows that I do it automatically twice a week without being told. I'll bet she never bothers Dov with this kind of garbage, even though he's the one who could use the nudge. Well, this time she can wait." She sounded as sulky as a two-year-old on a naptime strike.

"No, she can't," said the fax machine amulet.

Peez leveled a warning finger at it. "Don't you start with me. I'm not in the mood."

"Who's starting?" the amulet argued. "I'm just doing my job."

"By enforcing my mother's bidding? By making sure I jump high enough when she says 'frog'?"

"By making sure you don't get turned into one," the amulet snapped back. "There's a whole lot of things your brother could do with all that power."

A suspicious look crossed Peez's face. "All what power?"

"Oh, so now you're interested? Well, you'll find out soon enough." The amulet was gloating. "That is, you'll find out the hard way if you don't get off your ass and read this message right now, before I invoke a self-destruct spell on it. Hmmm, how did that go again? Rama-lama-double-slamma ..."

Peez was out of her chair and across the room so fast that the force of her takeoff knocked Teddy Tumtum backwards off the desk and into the wastepaper basket. Grabbing the fax from the machine, Peez skimmed her mother's message quickly. With every line she read her face grew paler, her eyes grew wider, and her brows rose high enough to apply for membership in her bangs.

At last she was done. The hand holding the message dropped to her side and slowly began crinkling the paper into a tight little ball. Without thinking, she crammed the wad of fax paper into the pocket of her dowdy ankle-length skirt. It was made of wrinkly black cotton, like her blouse, and the whole ensemble made her look like a much-abused umbrella, but if she'd ever cared about being a fashion plate before this moment, she certainly didn't care now. She was too angry to care about anything but the obnoxious possibility of her brother Dov taking over the entire company and most of their inheritance. The knuckles of both fists turned a livid white and there was a tiny vein just under her jaw on the right side of her face that was twitching in flamenco tempo.

"No."

That was all she said. She didn't shout it, or shriek it, or moan, groan, or whine it: She merely said it. She sounded perfectly calm when she said it, too, and yet Teddy Tumtum, who had almost succeeded in hauling himself out of the wastepaper basket, took one look at her and promptly dropped back down to safety. He had been with her a long time, long enough to recognize all the signs that pointed to storms on the horizon. He didn't need the Weather Channel to tell him that when this one broke, it was going to be a doozy.

Peez Godz strode out of her office and confronted her secretary. Wilma had finished the filing and was now working diligently at her terminal.

"Wilma, I'm leaving," Peez announced. "Now. I'll be going on an extended business trip and I don't know when I'll be back. I'd like you to call my place and have Delilah pack my bags. Tell her to allow for a minimum of one month's absence, to provide clothing for a wide variety of climates, and to have everything ready to go within fifteen minutes. Also, tell Frederick that I'll expect him here with the luggage within the half hour, and that he's to use the town car to take me to the airport."

"Yes, Ms. Godz," Wilma said, her square hands poised just above the keyboard. "Which airport?"

"Um ..." Peez's air of stone-cold efficiency abruptly deserted her. She looked a little confused.

"Maybe if you told me where you're going?" Wilma suggested. "I have to order your tickets, after all."

"Uhhh ..." Peez gnawed her lower lip in thought, then brightened. "Call up the company records. Make me a list of our top ten power bases derived from cross- referencing income, population, and demographic impact."

"Impact?" Wilma echoed, puzzled.

"Loudness. Boldness. In-your-faceness. Annual amount of media coverage. It doesn't matter if a client unit has ten thousand members if they don't do anything, or if they do it so quietly that hardly anyone knows they're there. Drama counts. Flash works. That's the sort of thing that attracts new custo—seekers. If the ancient Romans would've left the early Christians alone, would so many people have become aware of their existence so fast? A few, sure, but without the Imperial persecutions to keep them in the spotlight, they probably would've gone the way of the Yellow Turbans in China."

"The what?"

"My point exactly. Instead of ignoring the Christians, those fool Roman emperors set them on fire, gave them to the gladiators, tossed them to the lions. You can't buy that kind of publicity! And any fool knows that showmanship always equals money." As usual, when she spoke about the family business, Peez was transformed from a droopy, rather nondescript young woman to a soul possessed. There was a fire in her eye that didn't come from any martyr's pyre: It was all her own inner flame.

Wilma Pilut was the sort of person who knew where all the fire extinguishers were kept and who had the ability to take them out and use them calmly, where and when needed. Peez might be swept away by the power of her own oratory, but Wilma wasn't going anywhere.

"Uh-huh," was all she said in response to her boss's impassioned speech. There was a momentary blur of flying fingers over the terminal keyboard. "Done," she stated. "You're booked for a six-stop itinerary that will cover all major power bases within the company."

"Only six? I asked for ten."

Wilma tried to shrug and couldn't. It was a gesture that required having a visible neck. "That's all there are, according to the search parameters you gave me. I could attach the next four hits, but as far as income and impact go, they'd just be time-wasters. However, if you insist ..."

"Hmmm. No, no, don't bother. I guess six will have to be enough."

"Enough?" Wilma repeated. "Enough for what, may I ask, Ms. Godz?"

"Enough for me to put my darling baby brother right where he belongs: out of the Miami office, out of the company, out of my hair. Plus, if I'm lucky, out of my life." Her smile was amazingly like Teddy Tumtum's most gut-chilling grin.

Wilma remained indifferent to her employer's diabolical expression. No doubt if Peez had burst into a melodrama villain's Mwahahahahahaha! the stoic secretary would have likewise maintained her composure.

"Very good, Ms. Godz," she said. "I've downloaded all the pertinent information to your laptop and palmtop. Have a nice trip."

Peez snapped her fingers. There was a papery rustling from the inner office as Teddy Tumtum came floating out to her hand, a few scraps of torn-up phone memo slips and a used tissue clinging to his fur. He was followed closely by Peez's laptop and palmtop, both of them among the most recent influx of up-to-the-minute cutting-edge office equipment that Edwina had given her daughter.