Warren Murphy: Ghost in the Machine

As long as Randal Rumpp got publicity, he knew he would eventually come out on top.

Yet the debt continued to mount and mount, until one day his accountant-the best number-cruncher money could buy-took him aside and whispered, "You're broke."

"Broke!" roared Randal Rumpp, in disbelief. "How can I be broke? I have assets of over two billion dollars."

"It's very simple. You have a combined debt of three and one half billion."

"So? I'll sell off a few trifles. That white elephant of a yacht. The Florida dump. It's no fun since the divorce, anyway."

"In today's market, Mal-de-Mer is worth half what you originally paid for it."

"We'll subdivide. That ought to piss off those Palm Beach jerk-offs who wouldn't let me join their private club, even after I gave them some of my beach frontage as inducement."

"You don't understand. In today's market, your current holdings won't fetch back the outlay."

"It's a temporary phenomenon. The market will bounce back. I'll call a press conference and announce I'm buying something big. Word will get out that Randal T. Rumpp is bullish on the economy. That should kick-start the commercial real-estate market just long enough for me to sell off a few soot-catchers and make a fast buck or two. Then I'll retire and leave the suckers holding the bag."

"There are no profits out there, Mr. Rumpp," the accountant said morosely.

"No one with assets of more than two billion dollars can be broke. Get real."

"Mr. Rumpp, let me explain this in simple terms," the accountant said carefully. "If you had seventy cents to your name, but you owed a dollar twenty, how would you describe yourself?"

"A pauper."

"A kinder term would be 'over-leveraged.' Which is what you are. Your acquisition debts exceed your assets by almost two-to-one. And the debt service on outstanding loans is costing you a healthy six figures a day."

Randal Rumpp paused in his pacing. "You're not listening to me, Chuck. I have assets of two billion. You said so yourself. I can't fall. No one is going to let me fall. What are the banks going to do-foreclose?"

"They could."

"Ridiculous. Nobody forecloses on multimillion dollar skyscrapers. My Atlantic City casinos alone are going to put me back in the black. Shangri-Rumpp is gonna bounce back."

The accountant shook his head sorrowfully. "The numbers just aren't there. I'm sorry."

"You're not sorry!" Randal Rumpp snarled back. "You're terminated! You just don't understand how business works! I am the economy!"

Slowly, the accountant got to his feet. He closed his briefcase gently. "I will submit a final bill for services rendered."

"Submit all you want!" Randal Rumpp snapped. "I'm not paying."

"And why not?"

"Take your pick," sneered Rumpp. "Either you're right, in which case you're way at the bottom of the creditor list. Or you're incompetent, and don't deserve to be paid. In fact, I should probably sue you for trying to pass off this garbage as accounting. You're a cheap fraud. Get out of my sight."

Stiffly, the accountant retreated to the door.

After he had gone, Randal Rumpp buzzed his executive assistant.

"Yes, Mr. Rumpp?"

"Have maintenance shut down the elevators. I want that fraud to walk all twenty-four stories to the ground."

"Yes, Mr. Rumpp."

Satisfied, Randal Rumpp hit the telephones. The world was full of businessmen who thought they were smarter than anyone else. Randal Rumpp had two PR firms working round the clock promoting the notion that Randal Rumpp was the man to beat in business. That always brought out the climbers. They were the easiest to fleece. They walked in the door with a chip on their shoulders-and usually left without their shirts.

It took only an hour to discover that none of the usual fish were biting.

"What the hell's going on here?" Randal Rumpp shouted into the telephone.

The voice at the other end of the line said in a cool, detached matter, "I read your book, Rumpp."

"The Scam of the Deal is earning me thirty grand a month in royalties!" Randal Rumpp snapped back.

"It has also shown the world how you run your shoddy business, you simpering egotist."

"Listen, Chuck. Randal Rumpp has the biggest ego money can buy, and don't you forget it!" shouted Rumpp, slamming down the receiver. But in the vast emptiness of his palatial office, the self-styled Rumpp-ster made a rare admission.

"Okay, so maybe the book wasn't a good idea. I'll transcend this."

But mounting debt, he soon found, was not so easily transcended.

The holdings of the Rumpp Empire may have been as solid as the materials they were built of, but they were static. Debt, on the other hand, although as insubstantial as electrons in a bank mainframe, grew inexorably.

One by one, markers were called in. One by one, his trophy assets had to be sold off at fire-sale prices. After each sale, Rumpp put the word out that he had gotten the best of the buyer. But this time, not even Randal Rumpp believed his own PR.

Randal Rumpp was forced to hire the second best number-cruncher that money could buy, hoping to consolidate his affairs. After a month's time, the accountant broke the bad news.

"You're hopelessly in debt."

"I own the biggest yacht in the world," Rumpp retorted. "The owner of the biggest yacht afloat cannot possibly be broke."

"According to my records, you sold the Rumpp Queen three months ago."

Randal Rumpp's bee-stung mouth pursed. "I did? Oh, right. I forgot. I hardly go near the thing anyway. I'm allergic to water, or something."

"Your interest payments alone obviate any hope of recovery, Mr. Rumpp. I recommend Chapter Eleven."

Intrigued, Randal Rumpp picked a copy of The Scam of the Deal off his desk and began leafing through it, saying, "Now you're talking my language."

When he came to the right chapter he looked up, scowling.

"My football league scam--I mean, deal? How will that help?"

"That's not what I meant," the accountant said dryly.

"Oh, right," said Rumpp, dropping the book and grabbing the sequel, People Hate a Winner. He had written it before his fortunes had changed, and now it was an embarrassment. Still, if Chapter Eleven got him out of this mess, it would have been worth it.

"What's this? Chapter Eleven is about that has-been boxer, Tyson."

"I meant," the accountant put in, "declaring bankruptcy."

Randal Rumpp clapped the book shut, his eyes glittering. "No chance. I just won't pay my creditors."

"The banks will have to foreclose."

"Then they'll be foreclosing on their own future," Rumpp snarled. "I'll drag them down with me."

"That doesn't change your bottom line."

"The hell it doesn't! All my life I've been playing financial chicken with the old-money crowd, the banks, the insurance companies, speculators. Well, now I play for keeps. From this day forward Randal Tiberius Rumpp pays out no money. Not one red cent. Let's take this to the edge. Let's see who swerves first."

Within a month, the bankers had started foreclosure proceedings. First it was the Florida estate. Then the surviving casinos. Then they came after his Manhattan holdings. Each time another trophy was seized, the phones lit up. For a day. But when the Rumpp organization put out the word that its CEO was no longer giving press interviews, even those flurries of interest ceased.

On the day the phones fell totally silent, Randal Rumpp was down to the Rumpp Tower and his Rumpp Regis Hotel.

"There's gotta be a way out of this black hole," he muttered. "Maybe I'll buy Russia on credit and rename it 'Rumpponia'."

The intercom buzzed.

"What is it?" demanded Randal Rumpp.

"There's a representative from Chemical Percolator's Hoboken Bank down in the lobby asking to see you."

"Is he alone?"