The Face

blue.
        Corky clenched. “What went wrong?”
        “Nothing. I’ve initiated the delivery of the package.”
        “How long’s it take?”
        Mick pointed at three words that had appeared in the center of the screen: GETTING IT ON. “When that changes, the job is done. You want a Coke or something?”
        “No thanks,” Corky said.
        He never ate or drank anything in the Sachatone house, and he tried not to touch anything, either. You had to figure that Mick had touched everything in the place, at one time or another, and you never knew where Mick’s hands had recently been. Actually, you pretty much did know where Mick’s hands had recently been, which was the problem.
        Most of Mick’s friends would have avoided shaking his hand if he had offered it; but he seemed to understand their concern, if only subconsciously, and never suggested hand-to-hand contact.
        Bart Simpson ran across a field of wrinkles, jumped in and out of folds of fabric, and made numerous faces as Mick got a Coke from an office refrigerator and returned to his chair at the computer.
        They talked about a rare adult video, supposedly produced in Japan, which was legendary among aficionados of sleaze; the film involved two men, two women, and one hermaphrodite, all costumed as Hitler. Mick had been chasing after this item for twelve years.
        The video didn’t sound all that interesting to Corky, but he didn’t have a chance to be bored by the conversation because in less than four minutes, the words on the computer screen changed from GETTING IT ON to the succinct SATISFACTION.
        “Package delivered,” Mick said.
        [443] “That’s it?”
        “Yeah. The seeds have been planted in the phone-company, cable-company, and security-company computers. Later today, just when you want it to happen, everything will go down.”
        “Without any more attention from you?”
        Mick grinned. “Slick, huh?”
        “Amazing,” Corky said.
        Mick tipped his head back to take a long swallow of Coke, and Corky drew the Glock, and when Mick lowered his head again, Corky blew him away.

CHAPTER 67
        
        THE PROFESSOR WHO HAD ORGANIZED THE one-day seminar on publicity and self-promotion was Dr. Robert Vebbler. He preferred to be called Dr. Bob, as he was known on the motivational-speaking circuit, where he promised to turn ordinary, self-doubting men and women into doubt-free dynamos of self-interest and superhuman achievement.
        Ethan and Hazard found the professor on the mostly deserted campus, in his office, preparing for a January speaking tour. The walls of the two-room space were papered with portrait posters of Dr. Bob in a size popularized by Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung.
        He had a shaved head, a handlebar mustache, a red-bronze tan that established his contempt for melanoma, and laser-whitened teeth brighter than irradiated piano keys. With the exception of his red snakeskin boots, everything he wore-as in the posters-was white, including his watch, which had a white band and a plain white face without any numbers or checks to indicate the hours.
        Dr. Bob managed so successfully to turn the answer to every question into a mini-lecture on self-esteem and positive thinking that Ethan wanted Hazard to arrest him on charges of felony cliché and practicing philosophy without an idea.
        [445] He was just as quacky as Donald Duck, but he was no more a murderer than was that excitable mallard. He hungered to be famous, not infamous. Donald had on occasion attempted to kill Chip and Dale, that pair of pesky chipmunks, but Dr. Bob would instead motivate them to give up their rodent ways and become successful entrepreneurs.
        He signed for Ethan and Hazard two paperback copies of his latest collection of motivational speeches and declared that he would be the first ever to pyramid a series of self-help books into a Nobel prize for literature.
        By the time they escaped Dr. Bob’s office, located a trash can in which to ditch the paperbacks, and returned to the Expedition, the instrument-panel clock and Ethan’s watch showed a synchronized 3:41.
        At five o’clock, the last of the household staff would leave for the day. Fric would be alone in Palazzo Rospo.
        Ethan considered calling the guards in the security office at the back of the estate. One of them could go to the house and stay with the