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He informed us in a matter true to his personal style, transforming the dining room into a multimedia presentation area with a few spoken words. Screens dropped into place in response to the voice recognition technology, the room darkened, and Bro. Gemini then told us that although he would bear the cost of the wines and spirits, which amounted to well over a quarter million dollars (a bargain, he claimed, considering the short time in which his staff had to gather them), the shared cost of the dinner itself amounted to eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars each.

At the gasp from the Signs, Bro. Gemini inquired of Bro. Capricorn the cost of the previous dinner, which he had solely borne, and was told the amount was seventeen thousand dollars, not including the wines. Bro. Gemini admitted that there was quite a difference between seventeen thousand dollars and over ten million, but that his fellow Signs would understand when they realized just what it was of which they had partaken.

The presentation began then, a combination of video and still photography that showed in detail the process of harvesting the meat, with sections entitled “On the Hoof,” “Making the Purchase,” “The Butchering Process,” and finally “In the Kitchen.” Much of the material was more graphic than several of the Signs cared to see, your secretary included, and Bro. Cancer and Bro. Libra wasted both the meal and the wines by disgorging the entire contents of their stomachs into thoughtfully provided plastic-lined silk bags.

Still, no one left their seats, and at the end of the presentation, Bro. Gemini gave an eloquent defense and rationale for his menu selections, by the end of which nearly all the Signs were in agreement with him, and checks for each Sign’s share were promised.

Bro. Aries was named the caterer of the next dinner, and assured his brother Signs that he would continue in the tradition established by Bro. Gemini.

Adjourned.

Capricorn, Secretary

… Cubicle steak. Ed Devore and John Thornton, my old friends, actually laughed at that ghastly pun. Perhaps New England inbreeding has softened their brains so that they can find such a thing funny. Although Devore vomited at first, along with Levine, I think it was because of the graphic elements of the presentation rather than the knowledge of what they had ingested. They probably would have gotten sick at the sight of a steer being butchered, let alone a human being.

Cubicle Steak and Champion de Virginie, Chambers’s dreadful wordplay. Champion for Jambon, and it happens that Kevin Dupree, a purchasing agent in Chambers’s company, was indeed the Virginia state spelling bee champion when he was in middle school, as his projected résumé told us.

And what awful detail Chambers went into to carry out his parallels to the raising and purchasing of stock. We saw footage of Dupree “on the hoof,” both at his job and with his family; we saw the chilling purchase, Chambers himself offering the man ten million dollars for his family if he would vanish forever; then Dupree’s slow breaking down as the realization dawned that he was Chambers’s body and soul, and that if he refused he and his family would he ruined, both financially and in other ways that only a man with a vast fortune might accomplish.

The butchering itself was numbing, nearly as deadening to me as it must have been to poor Dupree; then seeing the meat cooked and prepared for serving, and most coldhearted of all, seeing us eating it in footage that had been shot by hidden cameras only an hour before and then assembled by Chambers’s flunkies.

By the end, some Signs looked sick, some merely uncomfortable, and some were smiling as though they were boys who had been caught stealing candy. But when Chambers began to speak, their faces changed. Though the man can be as coarse as a line worker, he can be as eloquently silver-tongued as the devil when required. He talked about the twelve of us as the true leaders of the country,