"Do I?" Grom asked.
"What the hell you all smiley about?"
"I just made a big score," Grom explained.
The teenager looked around. "Oh, yeah? So where's she now?"
"Not a woman. Business. A deal. I just closed a big deal, and I made a hell of a lot of money off it. Buy you a beer?"
"Oh. Sure. Yeah." It was hard to stay antagonistic to a guy who paid for your brew.
"Give this man a beer!" Grom shouted at the bartender. He slapped a twenty on the counter. The twenty made the bartender his friend, too. "What the hell! I want everybody to celebrate-give everybody a beer!"
He thrust a few hundreds at the happy bartender and the party started. Word spread throughout the place and the dance floor emptied as the patrons crowded in for the free drinks. "Let me give you a hand," Grom shouted, and the bartender had no objections when Grom stepped behind the bar to help him man the tap and shove beer mugs across to the eager customers. The bartender never noticed that Grom's beer mugs received a quick sprinkling of white powder before they were rotated under the open taps.
"This is party night!" Grom shouted. "This is the most fun we have ever had! We need to keep dancing all night long!"
The bartender gave him a bemused smirk, but Grom thrust several more hundreds at him. "That should cover things for a while."
The bartender quickly estimated it would cover every customer's bar tab for the whole night and maybe the next. "The rest is yours, friend! Keep 'em coming!" Grom shouted, "This is the best night ever! We want to celebrate all night long!"
He sounded like an ecstatic idiot drunk, and that was perfectly okay to the Big Stomp patrons. The bartender figured he had to be some sort of foreigner. The guy didn't talk right, sort of. But the bartender wasn't about to upset this apple cart.
After the first free round was distributed, Grom slapped the bartender on the shoulder. "Thanks, friend! I need to step out for some fresh air-"
The bartender just grinned and kept pouring.
"Hey, you're the greatest, businessman!" shouted the acned teenager, waving his free beer at Grom. Other patrons came at him, shaking his hand, offering compliments. Grom was careful not to say anything more. One careless suggestion could ruin everything.
Every batch so far had technically worked. The formula he was searching for-the perfect formula-would be the one without side effects.
The original formula of GUTX, derived from nature, had no side effects. But there was no more natural source. Grom had one alternative only: a synthesis. It had cost him serious cash to have certain laboratories synthesize versions of GUTX, none of which perfectly replicated the natural substance. They were close, but, so far, not close enough.
Tonight he was taking a different approach to his suggestion-making, too. All positive statements. Have fun! Be happy!
Greg Grom had not even reached the door when he heard the sounds of violence. A stomp dancer had been jettisoned off a raised section of the dance floor into a table below.
A livid couple stomped off the lower-level dance floor. "You spilled my beer!" screeched the plump young woman. "His, too!" she added before her plump young boyfriend could add his two cents' worth. They started stomping all over the offending beer-spiller.
Their victim twisted free of the bruising boots just long enough to stab one finger viciously skyward. "'Twarn't me!" the poor man yelped. "Johnny Ogden throwed me!"
Suddenly the plump couple and their heavily stomped victim were at peace with one another and forged an instant alliance against a common enemy.
"Johnny Ogden, you sheep-fucking son of a swine!" The woman had a piercing quality that cut through the disco-country soundtrack. Everybody looked at her. Nobody stopped stomping. The fallen man, one arm hanging limp, struggled to his feet and even he resumed stomping.
Oops, Grom thought. He'd suggested something about dancing all night long, hadn't he? And this was what these people called dancing.
The music stopped. The stomp dancing continued, but it was now the march of soldiers into battle, filling the vast saloon with the clomp-clomp rhythm.
The woman and her pair of male followers stomped up the ramp to the upper-level dance floor.
Other patrons stomped out of their way.
The plump young woman stomped at a big stomping man that could only be Johnny Ogden.
Greg Grom noticed the bartender. The only non stamper in the place. He was punching numbers into a cell phone and looking frantic. Calling the cops. Time to go, Grom decided.
The bartender looked right at him.
Grom's heart sank.
The guy would remember him. Recognize him. He would be lucid enough to give the cops a description. That would ruin everything.
Grom felt foolish. But he couldn't stop to berate himself now.
He had to solve the problem. "Stop!" he shouted.
They stopped fighting, Johnny Ogden and his three attackers. Everybody in the bar turned to Greg Grom, still stomping. The grinned and waved at their good friend, the guy who bought them the beer.
"Johnny Ogden is not a bad man." Grom declared. "Johnny Ogden is your friend! But there is someone else here who is the enemy! Someone you all hate!"
The stomping grew furious as fifty-three enraged beer-swillers craned their necks, trying to find the enemy. "Who?" squealed the plump lady. "Who is it?"
"It is-" he paused, just for the drama "-the bartender!"
The bartender looked stricken. He didn't understand why this was happening, but suddenly, with perfect clarity, he knew how it was going to end.
Grom left as the stomping became deadly.
He pulled out his little black book. With regret, he found the entry for that night's batch and penned in next to it, "Imperfect."
Chapter 9
The quartet of sky marshals scowled at Remo Williams. They scowled at the nervous young lady at the checkin desk. They scowled meaningfully to one another to make it appear they knew what was going down.
But they didn't have a clue.
"You sure there's no problem here?" the head sky marshal asked the airline ticket puncher for the third time.
"They say everything is fine," she protested.
"What about the complaints?"
"The passengers issued an apology through a spokesman," she explained reluctantly.
"Since when do a bunch of passengers have a spokesman?" the sky marshal demanded.