The Savage Girl - Alex Shakar [90]
Couch nods, says nothing.
“He’s depressed. He’s a total mess. He’s been sitting around playing computer games. He just talked nonsense.”
Couch scratches his head, indicating contemplation. “ ‘A conspiracy against the children,’ ” he repeats. “Hmmn. The phrase has a certain . . . ring to it, a certain sonority, don’t you think?”
“You’re putting me on, right?”
He smiles brightly, as if to say he is, or as if to say he isn’t.
The buzzer sounds.
“The geeks!” he shouts, and runs to the intercom.
“The geeks!” Ivy shouts, abandoning Sonja and running up behind Couch.
“Come on up,” Couch says to the intercom. He slides open the metal door.
“ ‘The geeks’?” Ursula asks.
“The website guys,” Couch says.
Four skinny young men enter the loft, carrying boxes.
“Ivy’s room is right over there,” Couch says, while Ivy peeks at them over his shoulder. “I’ll be right with you.”
They trudge across the room and through Ivy’s door, and Ivy follows them in. Sonja watches her leave a little dolefully.
“What are they here for?” Ursula asks.
“To set up the computer and all the cameras.”
“You mean she’s going to do the website from here?”
“Of course. How else could people get to watch her take a shower?”
“What?”
He covers his smirk with his hand, as though he’d just revealed something he didn’t mean to.
“James,” she says. “Let me just ask you one thing, OK?”
He shrugs. “OK.”
“What do you think of this whole Lite Age idea, anyway?”
Couch smiles. “Well, Ursula, I’m glad you asked, because, you know, I’ve actually given the matter some thought, and I’d be delighted to share my conclusions with you.”
He falls silent, waiting to be prompted.
“Well?” she finally says.
“Conclusion number one. . . .” Couch smiles demurely. “Chas is a loon!” he shouts, waving his fingers in the air. “The sahib has finally lost it. Gone nutso! Deranged! Unhinged! Sans marbles!” He widens his eyes at Ursula.
“That’s quite a theory,” she mutters.
“Thank you!” He blinds her with a flashbulb smile. “So you like it?”
“I don’t know,” she says.
Couch grins. “Certain conclusion number two: Our generalissimo may very well be driving our profitable little company into the ground. He’s scaring our clients, Ursula. As if that demented Trendpak he insisted on weren’t bad enough, he had to follow it up with that gloom-and-doom lecture. And the ordeal doesn’t even end there for our poor clients. No! Once they finish their community service, it’s off to Treblinka! They have to go home and read the trendbook! And they thought the lecture was dark. I mean, come on! The part about unhealthy citizens’ being good for most blue-chip investors? The part about destroying nature to ensure imaginative control of the population? The part about voting based on the number of shares you own in the country?”
“It’s pretty over the top, I guess,” Ursula says.
“Jesus! I’ll say.”
“He’s got a pretty morbid imagination, I guess,” Ursula says.
“Doesn’t he? Doesn’t he? I tell you, Ursula, our prime minister’s got the morbidest mind on earth!”
Ursula laughs, a wave of relief washing over her—and coming from this unexpected quarter, no less. Couch is the only sane one left around here.
“What marketer in his right mind,” Couch goes on, “would want to go and say something so nakedly, obscenely, pornographically true-sounding?”
“ ‘True-sounding’?”
The wave of hope crashes.
“I mean, what corporate executive is going to want to read ‘The Truth’?’’ he says, forming the derogatory quote marks with his fingers. “Even if he believes it’s true deep down, he’ll never admit it to himself in a million years. Now, Javier,” he continues, waving a finger in the air, “there’s a guy who knows how to deal with clients. He can lay it on with a trowel.”
“He’s not laying anything on,” she says quietly. “He believes what he says.”
“Well, whatever works. . . . I just wish he were here to go around and smooth things over. And as for the Virtual Ivy thing,” he says, “all I can say