"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?"
"I'm told there's a man from the sheriff's office with him."
"Sheriff's office? What do they think I am, some nickel-and-dime Savings and Loan?"
"What shall I tell the guard captain?"
"Don't let him in. In fact, have security throw them out on their asses."
Randal Rumpp severed the intercom connection.
A phone rang. At first, Rumpp didn't know which phone had rung. There were so many in the office it looked like an AT . A beeping red light on his desk cellular console began flashing.
It was his private direct number, available only to his main squeeze of the month and close friends. The number was changed often.
Smiling, he picked it up. "This is the Rumppster," he announced, primping the four and a quarter pounds of hair that squatted on his head like a startled sea anemone.
"And this is your ex!" a throaty voice purred.
"Igoria?"
"Of course, dahling. A little birdie tells me you're about to undergo foreclosure. I just wanted to be the first to say how very, very sorry I am."
"You're not sorry at all," Rumpp snarled.
"You know, dahling, you're right. And how is that little blond thing? The one with the inverted nipples?"
"How did you know about those?"
"You should never have canceled your subscription to Spy, dahling."
Randal Rumpp's simpering expression went prim. "Igoria, you know how you're going to end up? Like Zsa Zsa Gabor-your face stretched to the tearing point, slapping traffic cops to get ink."
"If you ever need a place to crash, dahling, I just bought this insouciant little Louis XIV couch. Bring your own bedding."
Randal Rumpp hung up. "Hag."
His face screwed up into his trademark scowl. He thought a moment. "I gotta get back. I gotta get back." Rumpp snapped his fingers. "I know. I'll leak the name of her plastic surgeon to Vogue."
He picked up the main phone. It was dead. He tried another. It, too, was dead.
"What's going on with the phones?" Randal Rumpp demanded of his executive secretary through the intercom.
"Sir?"
"I can't get a dial tone."
"Let me see."
Soon, it became clear that none of the phones in Randal Rumpp's suite of offices was working.
"Maybe . . . maybe the phone company cut service," Dorma Wormser ventured.
"They wouldn't dare!"
"They have been threatening to terminate if the bills weren't paid."
"Call them. Tell them the check's in the mail."
"How? The lines are all dead."
"Go down to the corner and use a pay phone. Get it done."
"Right away, Mr. Rumpp," said Dorma, hurrying into her coat and out the reception area.
Randal Rumpp threw himself behind his massive desk, which looked like a cherry wood pool table without pockets, thinking that if he docked the broad for her time out of the office he not only wouldn't have to reimburse her the quarter, he'd come out half a buck ahead. These days, a businessman needed every cent.
Dorma hadn't been gone long when suddenly every phone in the office began ringing. It was as if a starter gun had been fired. Every phone erupted into song at once. Some beeped, others warbled, and still others buzzed shrilly.
Seated at his desk, Randal Rumpp goggled, wide-eyed, at the banks of insistent instruments. They sounded angry. Like electronic rattlesnakes.
He decided not to answer any of them.
Then the faxes started emitting warning beeps and whistles.
"Incoming!" Randal Rumpp shouted, lunging to the table on which four fax-phones sat like circled wagons. Paper began rolling out in long white tongues. He hit the OFF switches. Just in time.
The exposed sheets were all blank. He didn't know if it was legal to fax foreclosure notices, but there was no sense taking unnecessary chances.
Back at his desk, the phones kept up their discordant accompaniment.
Randal Rumpp worked his way down the bank, picking up receivers and instantly hanging up again. This helped not at all. The phones continued to compete for his attention.