"Not all of it. But you might have to start being more careful with how you spend your money. Sell off a few of your islands. Maybe unload a couple dozen sailboats. You crashed seven seaplanes last year alone, Bobby. Now, that's an expense you won't be able to afford if your finances keep trending like they have."
The prospect of even having to think about living within his means was too terrifying for Bobby Bugget. He downed the remainder of his drink, immediately summoning the nearest of three hovering topless waitresses to bring him another.
"Keep them coming," he snapped through his bristly gray mustache.
"You need something that will get you attention above the Panhandle," Jude Weiss insisted. "Something that will keep you in people's minds during the winter months when you're hibernating down here."
"Like what?" Bugget slurred, sucking down another drink.
Jude Weiss smiled. "Ever hear of Green Earth?"
"The big environmental group? Of course I have. Everybody has."
"Well, what everybody hasn't heard is that Green Earth has got a new cause it's supporting. There's a species that's being threatened with extinction. Right now it's only gotten some local support-a few protests, some write-ups in the regional weekly paper. But with Green Earth's involvement, it's going to go national. Maybe international. And they're offering the plum celebrity spokesman spots to clients of the Jude Weiss and Associates Agency."
"Wait, wasn't Green Earth in trouble a month or two back? Something about a stolen Russian submarine in South America?"
"Of course not," St. Jude promised. "That was a rogue organization member acting entirely on his own. He did not have the approval of the Green Earth hierarchy in San Francisco. Now, what do you say, Bobby? I'm offering you a chance to be out front on an issue of vital importance. The extinction of a species. Face time like that'll buy a whole fleet of seaplanes."
Bobby Bugget wanted to say no. He didn't like to change latitudes until the rest of the contiguous states shook off every last vestige of winter. But he had a mental image of an endless line of little dollar bills marching off a gangplank into a rising tide of red ink.
Swallowing the last of his margarita, the singer had reluctantly agreed. To jump-start his flagging career and preserve his fifty-million-dollar-a-year empire, he would have made a deal with the devil. Unfortunately, he'd done worse than make a pact with Satan. He had signed on the dotted line with a double-crossing Jewish-Buddhist-possibly-Hindu- Catholic saint.
"This is not what I agreed to," Bugget groused to Jude Weiss.
It was two weeks since their poolside conversation. They were in a package store in rural Maine. "What are you talking?" Jude said. "This is exactly what I told you it would be. You're saving a species."
Bugget almost dropped the second case of beer he was pushing up on the checkout counter.
"Worms," Bobby Bugget snarled.
"Leeches," Jude Weiss corrected. "Specifically, the Reticulated New England Speckled Leech. They've become very rare in these parts."
"Who gives a Havana hang? No one cares if an insect gets squooshed."
"Leeches aren't insects," Jude said knowingly. "At least I don't think they are. Anyway, who says an animal needs to be cuddly to merit saving? Ever hear of the kangaroo rat? Of the snail darter?"
"No," Bugget said glumly.
"Well, neither did I till I read this." Weiss slapped a shiny pamphlet on top of a case of beer.
On the cover were pictures of insects and animals only a Mother Earth could love. In the corner above the recycling stamp was the familiar Green Earth logo, a green-and-blue planet Earth. In a semicircle around the top-from equator to equator-was the legend It's Your Planet, People!
"Everything you need to know is in there, so read up," St. Jude said. He waved to the beer. "I'll pay for this. Lemme have your credit card."
Two minutes later they were back out in the street, each lugging a case of beer.
Some men were waiting curbside near a rusty old school bus. One of them opened the rear emergency door as Bugget and Weiss approached.
"And this is another thing I didn't sign on for," Bugget complained as they dumped the cases into the rear of the beat-up old bus. "You've got me touring with a freak show."
"Hey, they're clients, too," Jude Weiss said defensively.
Bugget glowered at Weiss as he tore open one of the cases and helped himself to a can. The two men went around to the front and climbed up inside the bus. As the door closed, dozens of faces looked up.
Only three were Weiss and Associates clients. The rest were rank-and-file members of Green Earth.
As the bus pulled away from the curb and Bobby Bugget popped the top on the first beer of what he hoped would become a short and forgettable bender, he scanned the three familiar faces.
The first was a famous movie actress who, though in her early thirties, looked all of thirteen. Erratic behavior off-screen had culminated in her most widely viewed performance-that of videotaped Rodeo Drive shoplifter.
Beside her was a hulking, potbellied brute with an angry, dead-eyed stare. The former heavyweight champion's career had been troubled by teensy little problems such as rape charges, prison stays and his tendency to bite off the body parts of opponents whenever a fight was not going his way. With Weiss and Associates' crisis management, he hoped to have a second career in film and TV.
Finally there was the home-decorating and housekeeping guru, a soft-spoken woman who on her TV show and in her magazine told America to iron its underwear, build a Japanese garden out back near the trash cans and to always trim the toilet paper into decorative shapes just in case another country dropped by unexpectedly for brunch. What she didn't suggest was that America engage in insider trading with a resulting scandal that would rock its media empire and send it scrambling to the one agency that might be able to revive its tarnished wholesome image. That would be a bad thing.
The decorating expert sat in the corner behind the driver, trimming artificial roses from red felt. When she offered one to the boxer, he ate it. When she went back to her felt, she found her scissors had been stolen. The waifish actress had a guilty expression on her pale face and a scissor-shaped bulge in her Dockers khakis.
"Two cases ain't gonna be enough," Bobby Bugget said morosely, going back to get more beer. The run-of-the-mill members of Green Earth were already delighted to be among such glitterati. They began to grow even more giddy as they approached their destination.
Bleary-eyed and slightly more than three sheets to the wind, Bugget was supremely indifferent. "Aren't you excited?" enthused a young man.
"Sure thing, son," Bugget said. "Gotta save them worms. Some of my best friends-and agents-are worms."
"It's not just the leeches," a college-age girl insisted. "It's the water. The reason they're dying out is because they've tapped the water source."
"Honey, I'm all for preserving water, too," Bugget said. "People can do great things just stirrin' some hops and barley in a little cold Rockies springwater."
"We're not saving the water for people," the girl said. "Man treats the freshwater supply as his alone. He cages it up in reservoirs, harnesses its power to create dangerous electricity and drains streams, killing off beautiful, docile, harmless indigenous leeches."
"I agree wit you, little girl," the boxer interjected, his voice surprisingly high and feminine. "The man has done many bad and terrible things. Like prosecute and imprison innocent men who would never had done the lugubrious and ripricious malfeasance that they were unrightly accused of in court of doing by lying bitches who was only asking for it in the first place." He nodded deep understanding.
"Thank you, Mr. Armour."
"You're very welcome, young lady," the boxer said.
"Could you please stop squeezing my thigh now?" the girl asked, wincing.