“Gentlemen,” Voss said, “this can be saved for another time.”
Mercer turned toward the lawyer. “I didn’t call you here about the Eckert matter, but we might as well address it. It seems every time I turn on the damn TV I see his face.”
“That’s because the boy’s syndicated. He does one show a day and it’s farmed out to local stations all over the country. The local station managers plug it into a slot where they think they’ll draw the most eyeballs.”
“I can’t believe people watch him day after day. He’s got one goddamn issue and he beats it to death.”
Voss shrugged. “Them Bible humpers’ve had it in for you two since sim one. Eckert is just more aggressive in grabbing the reins of that wagon.”
“And he’s been riding it for all it’s worth ever since.” Mercer rapped his knuckles on his desktop. “Can’t we get anything on him?”
“Tried that. Took a look-see into his business affairs and personal life. Lives high but not too, too high. No bimbos, or if there are, he hides ’em well. On the surface he appears clean. No obvious belly-crawlin like Swaggart or Baker. Sockin away all those contributions until he’s got enough to set up his own satellite network to—as he likes to put it—‘spread the word to the world about the sin of sims.’”
“So let’s probe a little deeper,” Mercer growled.
“Gotta be careful with that sort of thing. The Rev’s got a bunch of real loyal eggs around him. You try to crack one of them, you could wind up with yolk on your face. I’m talkin a tar-and-feather overcoat in the PR department. I say give it time. These preacher boys, most of them got this sort of arc, y’see—they rise fast, then they fall back. And meantime, if he’s like most other preacher boys I’ve seen, all that money he’s pullin in will somehow find its way into his own pocket instead of being used to mess with us. You just be patient, son.”
Usually Mercer didn’t mind when Voss called him “son”—just one of the man’s Alabamisms—but today it irritated him. With his mother dead since his Yale days, and his father DOA with a cardiac arrest two years ago, he was now no one’s son. His own man, answering to no one.
“Patient! Do you know he’s scheduled to be on Ackenbury tomorrow night?Ackenbury at Large ! Millions who’ve never even heard of the creep will see him do his anti-SimGen rant. What’s Ackenbury thinking? Don’t we buy enough time on his lousy show?”
“Hey, it’s all show biz, you know that. That boy gets hold of the most controversial folks he can find. That’s why he’s rackin up better numbers than Leno and Letterman. I know we got a buncha cow flop flyin at us at once now, what with Eckert, the unionization thing, and havin to open our doors for an OPRR inspection, but I wouldn’t let this rattle you.”
“I’m not rattled,” Mercer said.
But he wasn’t particularly comfortable either. He didn’t mention his growing uneasiness, a sense of malevolent convergence. If he believed in fate or astrology, he might have said he felt the stars aligning against him.
Utter nonsense, of course. You made your own destiny. You grabbed what you could and then did your damnedest to keep it. And if you lost it, that was because someone else outsmarted you. Flaming gasballs floating millions of light-years away had nothing to do with it.
But if the stars weren’t aligning against him, then who?
“Good,” Voss said. “Glad to hear it. ’Cause there’s nothin here to get rattled about. Take this damn fool unionization thing, for instance. You have to be human to be in a damn union, sores ipso loquitur , the suit can’t succeed. It’s a sham, a PR stunt for this nobody shyster who—”
“PR,” Mercer said. “That’swhat I’m worried about. PR that’s good for him and bad for us. We can’t have people thinking of sims as anything more than brighter-than-average animals. Nobody talks about unionizing race horses or seeing-eye dogs. But start connecting the word ‘union’ to sims and you open a Pandora’s box. I can just see this shyster—what’s his name?”
“Sullivan,” Voss said. “Patrick Sullivan.”
“I can see this Sullivan character portraying sims as some poor mistreated underclass, when it’s just the opposite. We’ve never sold a sim, we lease them. Why? So we can limit how they’re used and oversee how they’re treated.”
“And, coincidentally, maximize profits,” Ellis said acidly.
“Nothing wrong with profits,” Mercer replied through his teeth without looking at his brother.
“You’re preachin to the choir, son.”
“No, I’m telling you the message we need to get out: We are a humane corporation that looks out for these creatures. We created them and we feel responsible for them.”
“Humane,” Ellis said in that same tone. “Now there’s a concept.”
Mercer wheeled on his brother. “Are you going to contribute something or just sit there and snipe?”
“Thatwas a contribution, Merce,” Ellis said, leveling a soulful gaze at him. “A very relevant one.”
Mercer turned back to Voss. He couldn’t stand Ellis’s holier-than-thou stance. “We can’t take any chances with this, Abel. I’ve heard of crazy things coming out of these NLRB hearings—especially where the regional office in Manhattan is involved. The wrong kind of decision and you’ll be using your stock options for toilet paper.”
“Don’t have to worry about no labor relations shenanigans. Sullivan thinks he’s got an edge because the director of NLRB’s Region 2 is a maverick. Well, I’ve already seen to it that he never gets to the NLRB.”
Mercer abruptly felt his mood lighten. “How did you manage that?”
“Had myself a talk with Beacon Ridge’s attorney—bright kid named Hodges—and told him to seek a declaratory judgment in Federal court. He’ll argue that since Congress has designated sims as property, they cannot be humans. And if they’re not humans, then they’re not employees, and therefore not protected by the statutes of the NLRB.”
“Ilike the argument,” Mercer said. “But what if the judge doesn’t?”
Voss puffed out his chest. “He will. I’ve seen to it that the case comes up before Judge Henry Boughton.”
“Is he one of ours?”
Voss shook his head. “We don’t own this one. Don’t have to. He’s our kinda guy—least so far as this union thing goes. Conservative with a capitalC . Hates unions. Probably one of Reverend Eckert’s loyal listeners to boot. He’ll toss this case in two seconds flat.”
“Abel…” Mercer shook his head, grinning. “You are amazing.”
“That’s what you boys pay me for—to be amazin.”
“That leaves the OPRR inspection.”
“We’ve been discussing that,” Luca Portero said.
The sound of the security chief’s soft voice never failed to rattle Mercer. “Really. All by yourselves?”
Portero went on as if Mercer hadn’t spoken. “We decided that I’ll be the tour guide.”
Good idea. OPRR would get nothing out of Luca the snake.
“Excellent choice.”
Voss rose and straightened his suit coat. “Knew you’d like that. Matter of fact, Mr. Portero and me are gonna have us a little sit-down right now in my office. I’m gonna lay out the legalities we’re up against, and how we’re gonna slide around ’em.”
“What about my lab?” Ellis said. He’d come out of his crouch now, sitting up with a rigid spine. “I won’t allow them in my lab. And as for the sealed section—”
“Hey, ain’t no one from OPRR or anywhere else gonna be anyplace we don’t want ’em to be. Mr. Portero will see to that.”
Portero only nodded.
“Thank God,” Ellis said.
Voss and Portero headed for the door. “Talk to y’all later,” Voss said.