I shook myself to clear my head of his missionary message. "You want to kill elves so you can taste-test chocolate bars in the sprawl?"
"Crudely put, but I believe you have a grasp on reality."
"Oh, I've got more than a grasp on reality, chummer." I pointed back toward the flashing red numbers. "You're trying to lower the river when what you need to do is raise the bridge!"
He shook his head. "I tried that. I paid the Ancients to take more territory outside Denny Park. It would have created a more even distribution, but they failed."
"No!" I slowly started drifting toward his silicon altar. "Have you seen what TAB did on Westlake?"
Benbrook paused as if unable to remember the project or unable to comprehend why I would mention it. "That was the construction division. They are not my concern. Irrelevant."
"Very relevant, Mr. Benbrook." I channeled the Old One's growl of outrage into my voice. "You are seeking to destroy something when you could make it all so much better. You are blowing a perfect chance to do more than just develop one new division."
His hawk-stare bored in at me as he slowly sat. "Explain."
As he called my bluff I panicked for a half-second. The Old One came to my rescue as he translated all the demographic statistics into his own view of the world. Suddenly I saw Seattle as it must have been before men set foot on the continent. The Old One and his brothers knew where the deer would drink. They knew what plants would flower or bear fruit when-attracting animals for the hunt. Had it been in their power they would have created more tree stands to keep their animals safe in the winter and more meadows to feed them in the summer.
"It's fairly simple, really," I said. "You can rebuild sections of the Denny Park area. Encourage people who will even up the demographic mix to move in. You'll have your own little population from which to draw focus groups. You can have your own stores where you can test product placement. You can employ some of the people and raise or lower their income to levels appropriate for whatever you want to test. You can create your own little world and it will pump out streams of data for you to analyze, all the while saving money."
His face had begun to become positively animated as I started to talk. I thought I almost had him with the "streams of data" line, but something changed. The light in his eyes died. Settling his angular, skeletal body into his chair, he became an electronic spider again.
"Projections show the cost of building up that area will be more expensive than wiping out the Ancients."
I drew the pistol. "Factor in the cost of your own funeral."
He slowly shook his head. "Employee contract, page two, section six, paragraph three prohibits one employee from threatening another with deadly force."
"I quit."
"Now that I think of it, your suggestion has some merit."
I nodded solemnly. "Those expenses can be charged back against the fees of clients who use your market testing. And you can make the changes through the construction divisions, guaranteeing the head of that division a tidy profit on the construction work, while the work is done at a below market rate for you."
Benbrook's head started bobbing in time with music that I could not hear. "Yes, that could work. As you said, I would have focus groups and store fronts to test product placement." His eyes flicked up at me. "These people would have children and I would have to educate them, correct?"
"You better believe it."
"Excellent. We diversify into children's products."
I winked at him. "You build schools and sports facilities. You improve Denny Park and…"
"And we create sports leagues for employees. We get them exercising, which will cut health insurance costs. And they will all be wearing clothing they buy from us that has our trademark names emblazoned on them."
"Now you're cooking."
He stopped hearing me. "And we create Brandname Loyalty Indoctrination Centers. We inculcate the children in the ways of only buying our products. We can wire every home for closed-circuit televisions that will display our ads…"
His eyes started to glaze over orgasmically, so I cocked the pistol and brought him out of it prematurely. "Hey, Sparky, you also have to pay the Ancients to patrol the area so no one can infiltrate it, right?"
Benbrook hesitated, then nodded. "We can get them uniforms…"
"Do you really want to see what they would do with uniforms?"
"No, perhaps not. Plausible deniability can cut liability." His eyes went blank for a moment, then he smiled. "Yes, I think this has a higher profit potential because of the retail sales and the information development angles. It will work."
"Good for you." My eyes narrowed and became the same silver shade as the wolf's-head pendant I wear at my throat. "Listen, Moses, there's only one more thing you have to do before you can lead your people to the promised land."
"And that is?"
"You want to adjust the environment of a profit center because the psychographics are set to take it into a negative growth curve." I gave him a smile that was all mayhem and arson.
"That sounds unsatisfactory. I'm sure, in return for your service here, I can do something about it." His hands hung in space as if poised over the keyboard. "Explain."
I smiled. "Ever heard of a place called Jack O's Lantern?"
I breathed in and got a nose full of noxious vapor that convinced me someone was burning tires for warmth in the middle of the Jackal's Lantern. Of course I couldn't see that far into the place, but I felt happy enough that I was willing to stumble blindly toward the back. Lucky for me, a blond waitress name Pia saw me groping about and slipped her arm through mine.
"The elves said they were waiting for you, Wolf." Despite the black makeup turning her face into a nightmare pumpkin mask, the smile she gave me made my socks roll right up and down. "I can be softer than she is, and I'm much prettier than he is."
"No disputing that." I returned her smile. "It's business with them, darling."
"All work and no play will make Wolf a dull boy."
"And you're the whetstone that will sharpen me up?"
"We can rub our bodies against each other and see." She laughed lightly as we reached the back of the bar. "A Henry Weinhard's for you, Mr. Kies?"
"In the bottle, no glass." I slid into the booth across from Sting and Green Lucifer. "Anything for you?"
Sting shook her head and Pia vanished into the billowing cloud of smoke. Green Lucifer wrinkled his nose, looked around, then snarled at me, "Why did you demand we come to this dump?"
"I wanted to see you in your natural habitat."I glanced over at Sting."Here's the deaclass="underline" TAB is going to rebuild some housing in your turf and generally upgrade the Denny Park area. They'll pay you to keep things under control. The new housing will go half to folks already there and half to people they bring in."
As Sting considered what I had told her and Green Lucifer practiced his "I'm mean and nasty" look on me, Pia arrived with my beer. I saw she'd written her number on the napkin she put beneath the sweating bottle and I gave her a wink. I twisted the cap off the bottle with my left hand, drank, then set the bottle down again and frowned at Green Lucifer. "Well, pay her." He blinked his big elf eyes at me. "What?" "And tip her well, too. I'm a big tipper." Pia smiled and gave me a wink. "Thank you, Mr. Kies." Green Lucifer became obstreperous. "If you think…" Sting nudged him with an elbow. Grimacing, Green Lucifer pulled out a couple of credsticks and started to sort through them for one sufficiently big enough to pay for my beer. A light cough from Sting added a pair of twins to it and all three ended up deposited on the tray Pia carried. With a broad smile and a nod of thanks to Sting, Pia retreated from sight. I drank a bit more. "What do you think?" Sting's eyes narrowed into lifeless amber wedges. "Do you think the deal will be honored for a long time?" I shrugged and my left thumb traced the letters of my name in the table. "If they invest in the project as they are supposed to do, yes, they will stay there for a long time. If not, we'll know soon enough to forestall more trouble of the type you've been through. It's chancy, but if Raven thought it was going to blow up in our faces, he'd not have asked you to meet me here. Is it a go?" Sting nodded her assent.