"It's still down there between South Carolina and Alabama," Randal Rumpp said.
"I am not meaning U.S. Georgia. I am meaning Georgia in Soviet Union."
"Search me. I can't keep track of what's left of Russia."
The thing's bladder-like face regarded him. "It is gone completely?"
"Yeah. Yeah. Completely. And good riddance."
"I am homeless expatriate," it said, cabled shoulders falling. "Without family."
"Look," Rumpp said sharply, "we have some business to conduct here. Let's leave sentiment out of it."
"I am man without country, and you are without human feelings," the thing blubbered. "After all I have done for you."
"What have you done for me?"
"I have restored your building."
It was Randal Rumpp's turn to appear startled. "You have? Are you sure?"
"Am positive. If building were no more, I could not be standing on floor as I am now. Would fall through to death."
"Why not?"
"I am vibrating normally. Therefore, floor is vibrating normally."
Randal Rumpp raced to a window. He took up the Frank Lloyd Wright chair and started banging it against a big bronze solar panel, splintering the legs of the eighty-thousand-dollar original. But Rumpp didn't care.
The glass cracked and shattered, and pieces fell out.
He stuck his head out and watched them fall.
The largest pieces shattered into a million golden shards when they hit the pavement below.
At that moment, the electricity returned.
"It's true! It's true!" Rumpp said distractedly. "Not now! I haven't closed the megadeal of the century yet!"
He grabbed the slick creature and said, "Make it go back to the way it was."
"I cannot."
"Then tell me how it got that way in the first place."
"I am not sure. Was sucked into telephone, but number I dial did not pick up. I think I was tricked by American agents. I have been trapped in telephone system since I do not know how long ago. I think I became trapped in your building, and somehow it became as I was. A ghost."
"You're no more a ghost than I am," Rumpp insisted, giving the thing's arm a hard squeeze.
"True," it gasped, grabbing its shoulder.
"Explain it again. You got sucked into the phone?"
"Da. I mean, yes."
"Show me."
"Why should I?'
"I'll give you this Rolex if you show me."
The faceless thing hesitated. He accepted the watch, put it to the side of his head where his left ear should have been, and listened curiously. He brought the watch face up to what passed for his own.
"Is fake," he said, returning it disdainfully.
"How do you know?"
"True Rolex has smooth secondhand movement. This jerks. Is no good. Cheap copy."
"Show me how you did it," Randal Rumpp said quickly, pulling out his ace in the hole, "and I'll let you have this entire building."
The thing moved its smooth head around like a curious radar dish. "Worth how much?"
"A quarter billion."
"Is deal. But I must have safe number to call."
"I got one. Dial 555-9460."
"Where is that?"
"My Florida summer home. The weather's great right now."
"Hokay. I go there," said the thing, picking up the receiver and stabbing the key pad with a flexible white finger. As he dialed the number with one hand, he squeezed the handset between his lifted shoulder and his head, and reached down to his circular belt buckle.
He gave it a twist. Instantly, his outline became a kind of fuzzy nimbus of light. Randal Rumpp blinked as the details of the creature's outer skin grew indistinct.
Then, like a cloud that was being sucked into a cave, the creature collapsed into the mouthpiece.
There was no sound. Just a quick inhalation of glowing white smoke. The deformed head was the last to go. It was drawn into the receiver, which hung in the air a brief moment, then hit the hardwood floor.
"Damn!" said Randal Rumpp, racing back to his office, yelling, "Don't answer that phone! Don't answer that phone if you value your fucking job!"
The ringing was coming from down the corridor, from his office.
He sprinted past his shocked assistant and to his office cellular phone. It was ringing insistently.