Part 76 (2/2)

”I'm sorry,” Perry said.

”About Hilda? About the lawsuits? About skipping out?”

”About everything,” he said. ”Let's fix this up, OK?”

”The ride? I don't even know if I want to. Why bother? It'll cost a fortune to get it online, and they'll only shut it down again with the lawsuit. Why bother.”

”So we won't fix the ride. Let's fix us.”

”Why bother,” Lester said, and it came out in the same mumble.

The watery sounds of the room and the smell and the harsh reflected rippling light made Perry want to leave. ”Lester --” he began.

Lester shook his head. ”There's nothing more we can do tonight, anyway. I'll rent a pump in the morning.”

”I'll do it,” Perry said. ”You work on the Disney-in-a-Box thing.”

Lester laughed, a bitter sound. ”Yeah, OK, buddy. Sure.”

Out in the parking-lot, the hawkers were putting their stalls back together as best they could. The shantytown was lit up and Perry wondered how it had held together. Pretty good, is what he guessed -- they met and exceeded county code on all of those plans.

Hilda honked the horn at him. She was fuming behind the wheel and they drove in silence. He felt numb and wrung out and he didn't know what to say to her. He lay awake in bed that night waiting to hear Lester come home, but he didn't.

Sammy loved his morning meetings. They all came to his office, all the different park execs, creatives, and emissaries from the old partner companies that had spun off to make movies and merch and educational materials. They all came each day to talk to him about the next day's Disney-in-a-Box build. They all came to beg him to think about adding in something from their franchises and cantons to the next installment.

There were over a million DiaBs in the field now, and they weren't even trying to keep up with orders anymore. Sammy loved looking at the online auction sites to see what the boxes were going for -- he knew that some of his people had siphoned off a carload or two of the things to e-tail out the back door. He loved that. Nothing was a better barometer of your success than having made something other people cared enough about to steal.

He loved his morning meetings, and he conducted them with the flair of a benevolent emperor. He'd gotten a bigger office -- technically it was a board-room for DiaB strategy, but Sammy *was* the DiaB strategy. He'd outfitted it with fan-photos of their DiaB shrines in their homes, with kids watching enthralled as the day's model was a.s.sembled before their eyes. The hypnotic fascination in their eyes was unmistakable. Disney was the focus of their daily lives, and all they wanted was more, more, more. He could push out five models a day, ten, and they'd go nuts for them.

But he wouldn't. He was too cunning. One model a day was all. Leave them wanting more. Never breathe a hint of what the next day's model would be -- oh, how he loved to watch the blogs and the chatter as the models self-a.s.sembled, the heated, time-bound fights over what the day's model was going to be.

”Good morning, Ron,” he said. Wiener had been lobbying to get a Main Street build into the models for weeks now, and Sammy was taking great pleasure in denying it to him without shutting down all hope. Getting Ron Wiener to grovel before him every morning was better than a cup of coffee.

”I've been thinking about what you said, and you're right,” Wiener said. He always started the meeting by telling Sammy how right he was to reject his last idea. ”The flag-pole and marching-band scene would have too many pieces. House cats would knock it over. We need something more unitary, more visually striking. So here's what I've been thinking: what about the fire-engine?”

Sammy raised an indulgent eyebrow.

”Kids *love* fire trucks. All the colors are in the printer's gamut -- I checked. We could create a Mickey-and-Friends fire-crew to position around it, a little barn for it.”

”The only thing I liked about firetrucks when I was a kid was that the word started with 'f' and ended with 'uck' --” Sammy smiled when he said it, and waited for Wiener to fake hilarity, too. The others in the room -- other park execs, some of their licensing partners, a few advertisers -- laughed too. Officially, this was a ”brainstorming session,” but everyone knew that it was all about getting the nod from Sammy.

Wiener laughed dutifully and slunk away. More supplicants came forward.

”How about this?” She was very cute -- dressed in smart, dark clothes that were more Lower East Side than Orlando. She smelled good, too -- one of the new colognes that hinted at free monomers, like hot plastic or a new-bought tire. Cat-slanted green eyes completed the package.

”What you got there?” She was from an ad agency, someone Disney Parks had done business with at some point. Agencies had been sending their people to these meetings too, trying to get a co-branding coup for one of their clients.

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