E. Godz (11 page)

He got out of the Jeep and walked a little way into the roadside scrub. Dov followed
him, not really understanding why he felt compelled to do so. When the shaman had gone
far enough away from the car for his liking, he tilted his head back and began to chant.
Dov listened, and something inside him stirred, something told him that this was not the
same sort of flimflam that Sam fed to his willing marks. This was the real thing. This
came from the heart, from the soul, from the earth itself. Dov didn't know the words, but
he could pick up the tune, and he did his best to hum along. He didn't feel stupid for
trying.

When Sam finished his song, he looked at Dov. "Here," he said, reaching into the
small leather pouch that hung from his belt. He pressed something into Dov's hand.
"Charms to guard her. Send these to your mother, since you can't be bothered to bring
them to her yourself. Tell her that Sam Turkey Plucker sang for her spirit and also sends
her his promise that he will perform a healing ritual for her body."

"Sam, you know what the company means to Mom—" Dov began.

"Kid, if you're fishing for my endorsement to have you take over E. Godz, Inc., forget
about it."

"You mean my sister already saw you?" Dov silently cursed Peez for a shifty-souled
varmint.

"I mean I'm not saying yes or no to you or your sister or anyone until I have to. Your
mother's still alive; don't be in such a rush to divvy up what's still hers."

"I didn't mean to—"

"Hey, spare me the speech about how you're really doing all this for her, okay?" Sam
started back for the Jeep. "My people have a long history of white folks telling us how
whatever they do to us, with us, at us, it's all for only the best reasons. You know what
they say about the road to hell being paved with good intentions?" Dov nodded. "Well,
look around you." Sam's gesture embraced the endless miles of glorified goat tracks
crisscrossing his home turf. "Not a lot of paving done out here at all."

* * *

"Ahhhh, decent air conditioning at last!" Ammi rested on the armrest tray of Dov's
seat and basked in the blessed coolness of the L.A.-bound jet's first-class cabin. "No
offense, boss, but your pants pocket was starting to smell like a prairie dog's armpit."

Dov said nothing. He was gazing out the window, watching the blood red mountains
slip away beneath them.

"Hello?" Ammi probed. "Earth to Dov! Please tell me you're not deciding to go off on
one of those cockamamie Vision Quest scams yourself! I can come up with about twenty-
seven better ways to drop five grand over a weekend, and I'm just jewelry."

"It's not always a scam," Dov said absently. "He can do the real thing, but that's not
what the customers want. They'd throw a fit if you served them coffee that wasn't hand-
picked, hand-roasted, hand-ground and hand-brewed, but when it comes to spiritual
fulfillment, they want it instant or not at all."

"Whoa. Sounds like he got to you big time." Ammi clicked his nonexistent tongue.

"I think he did." Dov pressed his forehead against the window.

"So does that mean we're heading back? Going to visit Edwina, see how she's doing?"

"And give Peez a chance to snatch the company right out from under me?" Dov sat up
straight and knocked back his glass of single malt. "No way."

Peez stared out the window of her hotel room at the prospect of downtown Seattle. To
the north, in the distance, the unmistakable shape of the Space Needle towered over the
many and varied attractions of the great metropolis on Puget Sound. Flowers bloomed in
a riot of gay colors in the city parks, museums bided patiently as drowsing dragons over
their treasure troves of art and artifact, and if you listened really, really hard, you could
swear that you heard the strains of all the different kinds of music that the city nurtured
and enjoyed. Had she taken the trouble to go up to the rooftop restaurant, her journey
would have been rewarded by a view of Mount Rainier, so far away yet somehow
seemingly so close.

Peez did not bother. She had other matters on her mind.

"It's raining," she said.

"Gee," Teddy Tumtum said, trying not to sound too sardonic and failing miserably.
"It's raining. In Seattle. In the springtime. Color me shocked. My gracious goodness me,
what were the odds? And this just in: It is somewhat dry in the Sahara Desert."

"There's no need for you to get sarcastic with me." Peez scowled at the small stuffed
cynic.

"Someone better," Teddy Tumtum countered. "It's the only thing that ever seems to
motivate you.'

"How the hell is sarcasm a motivational tool?"

"Simple: You piddle around a task, not really doing anything about achieving it, I
sneer that you'll never get it done because you haven't got what it takes, you get all hot to
prove how wrong I am, and that's when you put your butt in gear and actually get the job
done! It's been this way since you were in grade school, missy. I know; I was there, and
what a long, boring trip it's been."

"That's not true!" Peez objected. "I'm a highly motivated self-starter."

"Buzzwords, bah! Then why have you been hanging out in this hotel room for the
past twenty-four hours instead of going out there and making your next business call?
Don't bother to answer, you'll only waste more time trying to come up with a lot of self-
justifying blather. I'll tell you why: It's because Fiorella shot you down in flames and
you're afraid that this next guy—whatzisname—is going to do the same. That'd mean two
strikes on you, and you're totally convinced that your baby brother's been batting a
thousand in the meantime."

To Teddy Tumtum's surprise, Peez didn't jump back at him to point out that Fiorella
might have snubbed her, but Ray Rah and the Chicago mob had given her their
wholehearted support. Instead she subsided into a hunched-over knot of glumness and
muttered, "Yep. You're right, Teddy Tumtum. That's exactly why I've been putting off
my next call. Sure, I told myself it was just because I was jet-lagged, but I couldn't even
fool me with that one. Not when I've known how to do a Jet-lag Begone spell from the
time I was twelve."

"What?" Teddy Tumtum's glass eyes almost bugged out of his head. "I must have a
really big ball of loose stuffing in my ears. I could swear I just heard Peez Godz
admitting defeat. That's not the girl I sleep with talking! So the witch-queen blew you off;
so what? You've got those Egyptian guys on your side."

"Oh, please, that bunch of idiots?" Peez sighed. "That's not a religion, it's an extended
frat party, a bunch of Baby Boomers trying to hold onto their youth with both hands and
no holds barred on looking ridiculous. Why follow the Grateful Dead when you can
mummify them?"

"Now who's being sarcastic?" Teddy Tumtum asked, folding his chubby arms.

"Doesn't it bother you, Teddy Tumtum?" Peez asked.

"Doesn't what bother me?"

"The fact that the Chicago group is about as spiritual as a sack full of tacos. At least
Fiorella seems to believe that what she does is something more than just an excuse to
wear funny costumes, get together with her old college pals, and party."

"Right, because she's got an excuse to wear sexy costumes, get together with a bunch
of new people, and party."

"Oh, come on!" Peez exclaimed. "You know that's not true. She really does care
about raising the power of the old earth magic. I can't vouch for her followers—for some
of them, it probably is just an excuse to let it all hang out—but for Fiorella— It's not like
that for her. I can tell. For her it's about real power, and she didn't want to have anything
to do with me. I'm not worthy."

"And Dov is?" Teddy Tumtum snorted, then melted into more of his stomach-
churning baby-talk mode. "Duzzums Peezie-pie need a dweat big warm mooshy dollop of
self-esteem, hmmmm? Izzums all droopy-woopy 'cause 'ums t'ink dat nasty ol' baby
bruvver got the chops an' 'oo doesn't?"

Just as Peez felt drops of syrup crystallizing on her eyelashes from all the sweet talk,
the bear did an instant presto-changeo from goopy guru to boot camp drill sergeant and
barked: "So ****ing what if he does, woman? He does not matter! Repeat: Dov Godz
does not matter, what he may or may not be doing does not count, as far as you are
concerned he does not exist from this second until the glorious moment of triumph when
your mama passes full and complete control of E. Godz, Inc. into your hands. Do you
copy that, soldier?"

"Soldi—?"

"I said, do you copy that?!"

"Sir, yes sir!" Peez barked back.

"I can't heeeeearrrrr youuu!"

"Sir, yes sir!"

"Now you rise up, you get some coffee into your sorry gut, and you march yourself
right out of this hotel room and off to your next battle. And that is a battle which you will
win, is that clear?"

"But I—"

"I said, is that clear?"

"Sir, yes sir!"

"Good. Now move 'em out!"

Fully under Teddy Tumtum's control, Peez snapped to attention, slapped the bear to
Right Shoulder Arms, and marched out of her hotel room on the double. Just as the door
swung closed behind them, she shook off his charismatic spell long enough to say,
"Coffee's not a bad idea. Know where I could get some?"

"You want to know where you can get coffee in Seattle?" The sound of a teddy bear
plotzing from shock echoed through the hotel corridors.

* * *

Martin Agparak was not having a good workday. Because of the nature of his craft,
he labored in a more-or-less open-air situation. The tools of his trade were sheltered from
the weather in a series of watertight cupboards that were in turn mounted on the back
wall of a large shed. The shed itself looked as if it had encountered a giant with a
chainsaw who had sawed it neatly in half, right along the rooftree, leaving it with the
same three-wall construction favored by dollhouses everywhere. Martin's actual
workspace was outside the halved shed, a suitably huge open area roofed only by a tarp.
It was just what he needed.

The problem in general was, when you worked out in the open like that, some people
considered it to be a likewise open invitation to no-holds-barred kibitzing. They refused
to understand that you could be distracted and that you did not want to listen to their
ongoing stream of unwanted conversation.

The problem at the moment was that not all such clueless people were, well, people.

"So then she says to me, she says, 'Do you know where I could get some coffee
around here?' and I say to her, I say—"

"Teddy Tumtum, shut up." Peez picked up the garrulous bear and tossed him back
over one shoulder. He landed in a big pile of sawdust.

Sawdust, like rain and coffee, was everywhere.

Martin Agparak watched the bear's trajectory and ultimate soft landing
dispassionately. "Sounds like one of Edwina's creations," he remarked. "Same kinda
pushy."

Peez felt her face color up. "That's not how I would describe it," she said.

"Sure. She's your mother." Martin leaned back against the trunk of what had once
been a towering pine tree. When Peez had first come into the glorified lumberyard that
served as his studio, he'd been in the process of removing the last of its bark. Her visit
had forced him to put off beginning the real work. He wasn't too pleased by the
interruption and he didn't mind showing his displeasure by being rude.

"If you find her style to be so abrasive, why have you signed on with E. Godz, Inc. in
the first place?" Peez asked somewhat sharply.

Martin shrugged. He was a young man in top physical condition, and the Mariners
singlet he wore to work in showed off his muscular arms to advantage. A simple shrug
from him should have been poetry in motion, but his attitude reduced the poetry to a
men's room wall limerick.

"Because I can use the contacts that membership gives me," he said. "You know the
old saying about us Eskimos: We got thirty-seven words for snow but not one for
networking."

Peez's brow creased. "I thought you called yourselves Inuit. I thought that Eskimo
wasn't—"

"Was, wasn't, was again, who cares?" A pair of safety goggles was perched atop his
head. Now he pulled them back down over his eyes and turned his back on Peez, the
better to study the log before him. "That's the sort of thing that bothers the folks whose
ancestors were actually native to this place; not me. As an Eskimo, I'm a real out-of-
towner. I'd call myself Tinkerbell if it gave me a bigger market share."

He pulled a piece of chalk from the back pocket of his skin-tight jeans and made a
few preliminary markings at one end of the log. Peez recognized the stylized face of
Raven. Moving down the log, Martin Agparak sketched in quick succession the images
of Bear, Wolf and Salmon, then paused for a moment at the bottom of the severed trunk,
thought long and hard, then added the final face.

"What—?" Peez peered at the chalked lines, trying to recognize which spirit the
young Inuit artist had chosen to invoke for his totem pole in the making. Try as she
might, she couldn't figure the last one out at all. "What is that supposed to be?"

"Huh?" Having finished the drawing, Martin was now over at his workbench,
selecting a chainsaw of the proper size with which to begin the actual carving. "Oh. I
guess you don't have kids." He popped on a pair of soundproof earphones. "If you did,
you wouldn't just recognize that one, you'd probably be trying to kick the crap out of it."
He found the saw he wanted and revved it up. "Don't worry; it'll look much more familiar
once I paint it purple."

Peez stood there dumbstruck, staring at the now-recognizable face that would be the
base of Martin's totem pole. "Purple ..." she repeated, locking eyes with that vapid,
grinning, irrationally irritating icon of toddler TV. Martin ignored her and began to carve.

"Yow!" said a voice by her ankle. It was Teddy Tumtum who had managed to pull
himself out of the sawdust pile and across the floor to rejoin his mistress. "Am I seeing
things? Do my glassy eyes behold that heinous purple blobosaurus on a totem pole?
Naaahh, can't be. I must be hallucinating. I blame myself for chug-a-lugging that
quadruple espresso before we came in here. Those lemon twists will get me every time."

Martin stopped his chainsaw. "What did you say?" Amazingly enough, he had heard
Teddy Tumtum's words even through the earphones. Or perhaps it was not so amazing
after all: Peez had lifted the A.R.S. on the little bear when she entered Agparak's open-air
studio. As heir presumptive to the E. Godz, Inc. empire, Peez could tote Teddy Tumtum
along as a bespelled Object of Great Power, but as a plain old ordinary-looking
teddybear? No. Not if she wanted to maintain her credibility with her potential supporters
as a serious contender for the corporate throne. Teddy Tumtum's ability to talk was the
gift of magic, and as such, stronger than any sound-blocking device available to mere
mortals.

"I said that anyone who'd put that thing on a totem pole is probably wanted by the
FBI for a slew of lesser crimes against nature and humanity," Teddy Tumtum replied
sweetly.

Martin set down the chainsaw and took off his earphones. "Look, I'm doing this job
for a big computer company exec who does have children. If I showed you the down
payment check, you'd choke on your own stuffing. How about taking a look around,
seeing some of my other pieces before you get all bent about this one?"

He gestured at the small army of finished and half-finished totem poles standing
guard at various points under the big tarp. The timeless features of Bear and Whale, Wolf
and Raven shared poles with the leering features of sports stars, politicians, pop idols,
and other celebrities. One pole featured none of the old spirit animals. After Agparak had
carved in all the members of one particularly testosterone-challenged boy band, there
simply wasn't enough room.

"This is what you do?" Peez gasped. "But—but I thought your carvings were intended
to raise the power!"

"I'd rather raise the rent. Hey, there's all kinds of beliefs in this world, all kinds of
totems. Who are you to judge?"

"You mean we came all this way across the country to talk to a sellout?"

Agparak gave her a hard look. "No, you came to talk to me, the representative of one
of E. Godz, Inc.'s most profitable subsidiaries. I happen to know that my contributions
account for a major chunk of your yearly income, with unspecified significant growth
potential predicted within the next fiscal year. Translation: I'm teaching my little brother
how to use a chainsaw without cutting his foot off."

"Thank you," Peez said coldly. "The translation was not necessary. Neither were the
financial buzzwords. I studied the reports: I know what you're worth to the company on
paper."

"Same way I know what I'm really worth to you, right now." Martin Agparak had
large, perfect teeth. When he smiled it was like facing a friendly grand piano. "Too bad
about your ma, but that's the way it goes, sometimes. She was one sharp cookie. I guess
you have to forgive a little pushiness if it gets the job done. So—" He tilted his safety
goggles back up, then removed them entirely and twirled them around one finger by the
elastic. "You want something from me, I want something from you, I'm on deadline with
that totem pole and you probably have another plane to catch: Let's talk."