There was a murmur of excitement. “You’re sure this is going to happen?” asked the ever morose vice president of accounting.
“It is happening, within the hour,” Saward assured him.
“You sure it’ll get coverage?” asked the guest director from an Oklahoma cattle conglomerate.
“With Michele Rilli’s name behind it, it will get huge coverage.”
The cattleman’s doubt reflected on his face. “I’m trusting you on that. Never heard of this Mr. Michele.”
“He’s the biggest star in the world of grand prix racing,” Saward said impatiently.
“Which don’t hold a candle to NASCAR,” the cattle executive grumbled.
“Outside the U.S., people care about grand prix,” Saward said in a firm voice to settle the argument. “Milkie Queen must penetrate Europe if she’s going to keep growing.”
“And Milkie Queen Must Enlarge, gentlemen. Remember our mantra.” He thrust a hand at the banner that hung like some Roman drapery over the wall, above the screen. “Milkie Queen Must Enlarge.”
The swathe of fine silk was handwoven and hand-dyed, using natural pigments derived from creatures that should have been on the endangered list. The color was milky yellow, a color belonging to human illness. The handmade embroidery used a variety of rare threads. The fringe was silk spun with gold filament. Every detail of the banner was intended to increase its cost. Only by making the object outrageously expensive would it have an impact on the men whom it was designed to impact. Their logic went this way: we invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into it; we had better pay attention to it, or the money was wasted.
Oddly, the high-priced message was designed to focus their attention on increasing profits.
The banner was necessary, because these were men who had failed before. The banner was their penance and their punishment.
Shareholder Profit Is The Only Purpose was one of the smaller messages stitched in the rising and falling folds of the banner.
Dividends Or Termination was another.
At one time this board of directors was satisfied to keep the chain of soft-serve restaurants floating along without appreciable growth. There was a little profit made; there were a few stores opened every year. The product line might go unchanged for three or four years at a stretch.
For years Milkie Queen was the target of critics in every facet of the food-service business. “Management without ambition,” the financial journals reported. “Goin’ Nowhere Fast, Not Carin’ Much” was the title of mockumentary on the company. The company executives seemed not to care. Since they were the majority shareholders, their attitude festered at every level of the Milkie Queen management structure.
In the early years of the twenty-first century, Milkie Queen was briefly held as an example of a “civil” corporation, in which profits could be made without resorting to ruthless tactics.
The backlash was immediate and vicious. “A scandal on league with the Enron fiasco,” spouted critics from other retail giants and the financial media—all of whom depended on ruthless tactics to keep their companies functional and reporting on them interesting enough to be readable.
“They’re trying to bring back hippie culture,” decried an op-ed piece that was reprinted in a thousand newspapers. “They’re lazy and proud of it. The Age of Aquarius school of management didn’t work in the late 1990s, and it won’t work today!”
Seething with contempt, the big business lobbies paid millions to quietly purchase an obscure amendment to the anticorruption rules being put in place by the Federal Trade Commission. They timed the law to go into effect the week before the death of Farris Milkie Jr., CEO of Milkie Queen and son of the dairy farmer who started the business. The rule forced the sale of one percent of Farris Milkie’s stock.
The result was catastrophic. With fifty-one percent now owned by nonfamily, the company experienced a traumatic shift in culture.
No more Mr. Nice Firm. No more Our Company Is Okay, Your Company Is Okay. Milkie Queen became a backstabbing, soulless greed machine with one overriding purpose: to make profits for shareholders.
“Now they’re one of us!” proclaimed the financial journals ecstatically.
Now, Milkie Queen’s directors had to slash costs and payrolls and absolutely had to grow. Fast. Which meant growth outside the United States. Which meant Europe.
“You sure they’re gone watch an exhibition race that hasn’t been promoted ahead of time?” asked Director Farris Milkie III, who had become fantastically wealthy in the last year even as he began experiencing depression and anxiety attacks.
Burt Latch, treasurer, shrugged it off. “They’ll watch it. Think of it not as a promotional sporting event but as a news item. That’s how it will play—on every news channel, over and over. We’ll be front and center for every broadcast.”
“What if something goes wrong?” Milkie persisted. “They haven’t planned for this. What if some locals get hurt?”
“Won’t matter,” Latch stated. “It’s Africa. Nobody cares much about Africans.”
“Burt, you’re black!” Milkie exclaimed.
“Hey, I do care,” Latch assured him. “But nobody else would.”
Milkie sucked on his steroid inhaler. “What if something big goes really really wrong?” he whined.
“It won’t.”
Chapter 10
Shund Beila, prime minister of Ayounde, raised his hands. “Who among you can confirm the identity of the man in the leading car?”
His hastily assembled cabinet of ministers all began talking over one another again.
“Enough. Fudende, what’s your assessment?”
Minister of Internal Security Antoine Fudende was attempting to get his arms into his uniform jacket, but every time he stuck an arm in, it was pierced by one of the medal pins. There were countless medals on the jacket and he couldn’t find the open pin. He helplessly sat down with one arm in the jacket, another arm not. “My people say it is the genuine Michele Rilli in the car, Mr. Prime Minister. For one thing, the cost and resources that went into staging this demonstration must have come from someone very wealthy and with very strong ties to grand prix racing.”
“Or one of a hundred wealthy, insane individuals known to us in Europe, Australia and Latin America,” added the minister of foreign security.
“Also, the coverage of the event by the media is tremendous. We estimate there are more video news production crews inside Ayounde at this moment that there has ever been.”
“Ever?” the minister of foreign security demanded. “I know for a fact that your media-activity records only date back to the 1950s.”
“Since the 1950s, then,” Fudende stormed.
“Enough. Fudende, how are we preparing for this ‘spectacle’?” the prime minister asked.
“All our troops are standing by. None is deployed.” Fudende looked nervous, but no one was alarmed by this lack of readiness. Even the exterior security minister nodded with his eyes.
“My honor guard?” the prime minister asked. “They’re in full dress and ready for any call to duty.” The prime minister sighed. “We should arrest him and put him in jail.”
The ministers murmured in alarm.
“That would be disastrous,” said the minister of tourism gently. “He’s a star in every corner of the world except the States. The networks claim the demonstration is intended to bring a grand prix into our country. To arrest him would be to shoot ourselves in the foot.”
“I know that!” The prime minister was scowling. “So how should we respond to this reckless display?”