Part 95 (1/2)

Hilda grinned. ”Oh, this part I like.”

Suzanne laughed. ”Yeah.”

”What?” Perry said.

”Freddy's good at intelligence gathering, but he's not so good at distinguis.h.i.+ng truth from fiction. In my view, this presents a fascinating opportunity. Depending on what we leak to him and how, we can turn him into --”

”A laughing stock?”

”A puddle of deliquesced organ meat.”

Perry began to laugh. ”You're saying that you think that we should do this deal for *spite*?”

”Yeah, that's the size of it,” Suzanne said.

”I love it,” he said.

Hilda laughed too. Suzanne extended her hand to Perry and he shook it. Then she shook with Hilda.

”Let's go find Lester.”

By the time the call came, Sammy was ready to explode. He got in a golf cart and headed to the Animal Kingdom Lodge, which backed onto the safari park portion of the Animal Kingdom. He snuck himself onto the roof of the grand hotel, which had a commanding view of the artificial savanna. He watched a family of giraffes graze, using the zoom on his phone to resolve the hypnotic patterns of the little calf. It calmed him. But the sound of his phone ringing startled him so much he nearly did a half-gainer off the roof. Heart hammering, he answered it.

”Is this Sammy?”

”Yes,” he said.

”Landon Kettlewell,” the voice on the other side said. Sammy knew the name, of course. But he hadn't been expecting a call from him.

”h.e.l.lo, Mr Kettlewell.”

”The boys have asked me to negotiate this deal for them. It makes sense -- it'll be hard to make this happen without my contributions. I hope you agree.”

”It does make sense,” Sammy said noncommittally. This wasn't the best day of his life. The giraffes were moving off, but a flock of cranes was wheeling overhead in quiet splendor.

”I'll tell you where we're at. We're going to do a deal with you, a fair one. But a condition of the deal is that we are going to destroy Freddy.”

”What?”

”We're going to leak him bad intel on the deal. Lots of it. Give him a whole story. Wait until he publishes it, and then --”

Sammy sat down on the roof. This was going to be a long conversation.

Perry ground his teeth and squeezed his beer. The idea of doing this in a big group had seemed like a good idea. Dirty Max's was certainly full of camaraderie, the smell of roasting meat and the chatter of nearly a hundred voices. He heard Hilda laughing at something Lester said to her, and there were Kettlewell and his kids, fingers and faces sticky with sauce.

Lester had set up the projector and they'd hung sheets over one of the murals for a screen, and brought out a bunch of wireless speakers that they'd scattered around the courtyard. It looked, smelled, sounded, and tasted like a carnival.

But Perry couldn't meet anyone's eye. He just wanted to go home and get under the covers. They were about to destroy Freddy, which had also seemed like a h.e.l.l of a lark at the time, but now --