"Yes. Because I expect you to know how to say no."
That seemed a tad unrealistic but I didn't insist. Instead, I said, "Uh-oh," with very little regard for Tinnie's opinion.
Kayne Prose had arrived. Making a grand entrance, just ahead of Cassie Doap, who seemed to have adopted a flamboyantly flirtatious personality for the evening. Tinnie stomped a foot. She wasn't used to this level of competition.
In fact, she was rather exceeded.
Mother and daughter wore newly made gowns. Their creation must've required the needles of all Kayne's cooperative sisters. Both gowns flattered outrageously what begged for very little flattery in the first place.
Slack-jaw disease raged among the menfolk in Morley's private dining room.
Even Dean's imagination seemed to come to life.
Rhafi came in behind his mother and sister, rendered almost invisible by their glory.
As happenstance had it, Lister Tate was the only married man in the room. The bachelors and widowers all looked ready to revel in their status.
When time and doom catch up with me and I have to slough off this mortal realm, I mean to thank the gods for having blessed me with the chances I've had to get to know so many comely women. I expect to start working on my speech about ten thousand years from now.
Manvil Gilbey caught my eye, projected the unspoken question: Was this something I'd laid on for Max? Max could not seem to stop staring at Cassie Doap.
I shook my head, mouthed, "But if it'll help... "
Puddle showed the newcomers to their seats, near Playmate and Kip. Even he was having trouble breathing. There were far too many beautiful women in that room, each of them trying to one-up the others.
Tinnie let me have an elbow, putting plenty of force behind it. "That's for what you're thinking."
"I apologize. I'll never think of you as an object again. From now on it's nothing but business. From now on you'll be Mr. Tate in my every act and thought."
That earned me a repeat stroke of the elbow. "I'd better not be." The fickle woman.
Alyx said, "Look at Dad! I think the old bull's in rut."
Tinnie muttered, "Alyx, sometimes you're too juvenile even to amuse me."
I moved up to my place beside Dean, which was my signal that the evening was about to become serious. Those who weren't in their official seats found them. Once everyone sat down there was very little room to spare. Morley had another place setting on each long side but it would've taken a shoehorn to get anybody in. I introduced everyone, including Morley as host, then Evas and Singe as they took their seats to the left of Dean and to the right of me, without explaining their presence. I thought they ought to stay mysterious. They drew stares but not even Lister Tate was gauche enough to demand information about them.
I let Morley know that we were ready to be served.
Kayne and Cassie both managed admirably during dinner. Tinnie was not amused by the regard they received. She was used to being the center of attention. But all the men at this banquet were related to her or had known her since she was a pup. Except for me and Dean and Kayne's drooling baby boys. And she already had Dean on a leash and me wrapped around her finger.
Alyx was amused. She liked seeing Tinnie have to take second chair. Just to rub it in she kept right on flirting with me. Her father wasn't worried about her anymore.
71
I tried not to cry when I thought about how much this evening was costing me. I tried to forget the fact that, if it didn't work out, I might end up spending several years working fourteen-hour days just to get back to the point where I could afford to save money buying beer by the keg.
As a business convocation the sequestered evening at Morley's place had to be some sort of precedent. The gang of us came out of there having created a company dedicated to the creation, production, and marketing of the fruits of the imagination of Cypres Prose, ingenious boy inventor. The Weider brewing empire would provide financing. The Tate family would handle the actual production. Kayne Prose and all her offspring would move into the Tate compound, where they would live much better than ever they had before, with no requirement that they do anything but be Kip's support and inspiration. I myself would be the genius who held it all together. Having been the genius who had gotten it all together.
I had a feeling Kayne Prose wouldn't have much attention to spare for industry. Not for a few months, at least.
When Kayne Prose met Manvil Gilbey it was lust at first sight both ways. All the rest of us had to be grateful that they didn't jump on one another right there in the banquet room.
Kayne's behavior wasn't exactly a surprise. I had a feeling she seldom met a man she didn't like. But Manvil Gilbey is as reserved as a wine butt normally.
The absolute absurdity of the universe is declared, in a bellow, once again, by the fact that Max Weider, age sixty, became infatuated with Cassie Doap, a completely ridiculous eventuation not unilateral in nature. Nor did either of those two seem conscious of the fact that Cassie was three years younger than Alyx Weider. And Alyx was the baby of Max's five children.
Max told me, "Of course it's stupid. But she's a dead ringer for Hannah when I first met her." And he was willing to play delusional games with himself in order to defy his pain.
More or less. Nobody cons Max Weider for long. Not even Max himself.
Cassie's positive response, wholly genuine, was a good deal more puzzling. We knew already that neither Cassie nor her mother were out for the easy ride, bought with their looks and bodies.
There're times when people do, honestly, connect on something besides the physical level.
That became one of the fine evenings of my life. One of those times when everything works out even better than you'd dared hope.
Sometime during the socializing, following the creation of the Articles of Agreement encompassing the founders of the new company, my good pal Morley Dotes and the silver elf Evas disappeared.
I suspect that couples who do that tell one another no one will notice but, secretly, don't give a rat's ass if anybody does because their minds are fogged by anticipation.
The capper came when Lister Tate proved he wasn't a complete waste of flesh by, belatedly, providing a device for getting around the legal age problem, as well as the potential problem of a fatherly return. "Willard Tate can adopt the boy. The device goes all the way back to imperial times, when the emperors wanted to handpick their successors. It's not much used anymore, except on the Hill, but the tool is there. Mrs. Prose can allow it. If nobody challenges right away only a Royal proclamation can reverse it. And we could argue against that that only an imperial edict is valid since the adoption went forward under a pre-Karantine law. I believe there are precedents."
I told Tinnie, "Promise me you'll keep Kip away from Rose."
"I plan to keep him for myself. He has good prospects."
"He'll be your cousin."
"Spice is nice but incest is best. Ouch! You meanie. I'll bet he's got stamina, too."
"My prospects are looking up, too. I won't need a business excuse to get my foot in the door at the Weider place anymore. Ouch! Alyx. She's hurting me."
72
Do you feel like a captain of industry? the Dead Man asked.
I waved a hand in a dismissive gesture he couldn't possibly see. "What I feel like is a guy dancing six inches above the ground because I have completely, thoroughly, irrevocably nailed Morley's mangy hide to the wall. I have hoisted him on his own petard. I've spent months and months and months trying to map out some absurdly complicated revenge scam to get even with him for the Goddamn Parrot. And in the end a better answer just dropped her bottom into my lap. I just had to introduce Morley to Evas, let Morley be Morley, let Evas be Evas, and let Deal Relway be his own suspicious self."