Ultimate Severance

By James Baar

Flim-flam artists, captains of industry, Wall Street piranhas, impatient mobsters, spinmeisters and assorted mountebanks abound in Ultimate Severance, a highly satirical and imaginative novel that provides a public relations guidebook to the reality of spin and humbuggery in the 21st Century.

With the end of the War on Terror through the accidental launch of new liten kleen nukes, a culture of euphoria, ethical and social impairment and calls for numerous peace dividends is again in fashion. This is clearly an environment of business opportunity for financially-bleeding Trotter Pugg Mitchell, a world PR giant, and its clients such as Old Masters Originals, a maker of limited edition reproduction art. And when the agency teams up with Mob Boss Joey Lasagna to abet dicey corporate megamergers, they provide Wall Street raiders with a new quick-fix ultimate severance package: an innovative Corporate Governance Program powered by Trotters new language of happiness.

Cash flow gushes. Money is well laundered. Trotter President Marvin Runnymede sets up a European multi-use facility in a 500-year old chateau in Provence; plans to sell Instant PR Agency franchises to Third World countries, and hires has-been Greats to promote dubious products and ventures.

But fortunes smile becomes a sardonic grin. So many stubborn CEOs undergo fatal retirements in colorful circumstances around the world that a powerful US Senator decides to advance his presidential ambitions with the usual TV-circus hearings. Well-cooked dishes of suspicion, buncombe and open doubt are served to the media.

In the ensuing rush for strategic exits, winners and losers fake out, promote and wound each other in surprising ways; the faux rond wheels of justice grind and clank, and the language of happiness covers all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 27, 2005
• ISBN: 9781463497125

James Baar

James Baar is a writer, international corporate communications consultant, blogger, corporate communications software developer, former business executive and Washington journalist and sometime college lecturer. He is the author of an earlier satirical novel on business and public affairs, The Great Free Enterprise Gambit; Spinspeak II: The Dictionary of Language Pollution; four books on politics and technology; and a forthcoming collection of short stories, The Real Thing and Other Tales. He is editor of the Spinspeak Letter weblog www.spinspeak.com. Baar is a graduate of Union College where he majored in philosophy.  He and his wife and small dog, Fred the Affenpinscher, live in Providence, RI.

Book preview

ULTIMATE

SEVERANCE

BY

JAMES BAAR

Title_Page_Logo.ai

© 2005 JAMES BAAR. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author. Reviewers may quote brief portions.

First published by AuthorHouse 04/19/05

ISBN: 1-4208-3847-4 (sc)

ISBN: 9781463497125 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2005902026

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

Other books by James Baar

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Other books by James Baar

Fiction

The Great Free Enterprise Gambit

The Real Thing and Other Tales (scheduled: 2005)

Nonfiction

The Careful Voter’s Dictionary of Language Pollution (Understanding Willietalk and Other Spinspeak)

Spinspeak II: The Dictionary of Language Pollution

Nonfiction (co-author)

Polaris!

Combat Missileman

Spacecraft and Missiles of the World

This is a work of fiction. Although chicanery, mountebanks, greed, humbug and stupidity are indeed to be found in our world, any resemblance of the people, organizations and events depicted here to that world is purely coincidental and scary.

To Beverly, of course

i.

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The moment, as that great PR executive Marvin Runnymede was wont to say, was intense.

But, as it came to pass, not to worry.

On this particular morning on the 44th floor of the Zoom Computers World Building the offices of Trotter Pugg Mitchell, global public relations giant, were in disarray. At precisely 9 A.M. a major client, the World Association for the Total Elimination of Plastic Pollution (WATEPP), phoned to voice considerable dissatisfaction to Mandy Yen. WATEPP had just heard a report that Trotter Pugg Mitchell was working also for the International Disposable Diaper League. The League only two days ago had been indicted by the State of Michigan for polluting the groundwater supply in 14 counties with non-degradable diapers. The diapers were certified by the Environmental Protection Agency to have a half-life of 500 years. And WATEPP had been planning a news conference with the help of Trotter Pugg Mitchell to denounce the League.

Mandy Yen, a recent transferee from Trotter Pugg Mitchell’s Hong Kong Office, sat at one end of a long, reproduction Chippendale table. Grant Pinky, first executive vice president, sat at the other end. Despite his expensive suit, Grant looked like a tall, nervous, second string basketball player with a slight facial twitch and premature white hair. Hilda Schleswig, Grant’s censorious and irretrievably glum assistant, sat at the side of the table with a stack of files and computer green sheets. A China Trade rose medallion vase (fresh from the kiln) crowded with spring flowers (artificial) sat on the other side.

All sat at the side of a cavernous, sunken room called the Conversation Pit that included both the conference table and a nearby grouping of wing chairs in front of a non-working fireplace. Some dozen feet above them on a gallery approachable by circular stairs, Marvin Runnymede, Trotter Pugg Mitchell’s chairman and chief executive officer, monitored the meeting from time to time while he continued to make phone calls around much of the known world, dictate memos to a recorder and sign letters very methodically handed to him by the very methodical Mimsy Stoner, his aging assistant and dedicated guardian.

Marvin’s deputy assistant, Honoré Bordeaux, 102 pounds of blonde hair, legs and silk, from time to time refilled his glass of Pellegrino and smiled vacantly.

How serious is this? Grantland Pinky III asked for the fourth time. This is just steam. Clients like to gush steam. You can handle it.

He was very abusive, Mandy Yen said, affecting a prim expression that clashed with her green silk suit that stopped at mid-thigh.

Oh, come on, how abusive can he have been? Grant said. Clients are clients.

Mandy looked up at him from under her black bangs. For a moment her eyes seemed to search for help as they roamed over three photographic copies of Fra Lippo Lippis hung in gilded baroque frames and lighted by invisible baby spots. The paintings came from another Trotter Pugg Mitchell client, Old Masters Originals, a nationally franchised dealer of limited editions of art reproductions.

Fuck a duck for a dollar is one comment that comes to mind, Mandy said. The client suggested that was our corporate motto.

We don’t have to take that kind of stuff, Runnymede interjected from above with his hand over a phone. Henry Trotter would never have allowed his key executives to be talked to like that and I won’t either.

Runnymede angrily shifted his great, all but formless body and jabbed randomly at the buttons on one of his three phones. Henry Trotter, an early 20th century press agent and the founder of Trotter Pugg Mitchell, was a constant source of inspiration and supplier of apt quotations to Runnymede. Trotter had been an affable, reasonably bibulous ex-police reporter who did his best work from saloons and later from speakeasies frequented by the press of his day. He was never known to have written his memoirs or anything else once he had left the old Brooklyn Eagle. He transmitted wisdom for his clients to the press strictly by word of mouth until he departed this world for what he called that Great Neon-lighted Press Club in the Sky shortly after World War II. Subsequently, Runnymede seemed to have discovered a secret well of Trotter maxims and random wisdom and dipped a gilded bucket into it frequently, massaging or creating material as required. For example, there was the famous Trotter double thumbs up given by Marvin at the conclusion of most meetings. Henry Trotter actually was seen using this signal many times, but only in saloons when he wanted another round of doubles.

Thank you, thank you so much for your valuable time, they could hear Marvin salivate into the phone. I know you’re busy. But I just finished talking to our Washington Office after thinking about your problem. Look, Abdul, I can’t mention a name on the phone. I know you will understand. But our Very Good Friend says he fully appreciates and sympathizes with the difficulty that your country could face if that army moved across the border. He specifically told me to tell you not to worry. Tell His Highness that everything is fine. One thing though: Unfortunately, this could take a little more than we thought. I took the liberty of telling Our Friend that there would be no problem.

Grant reached for the green computer printouts in front of Miss Schleswig and spread one in front of him.

The League is paying $100,000 a month, he said. The Association pays us about $125,000.

Well, there you are, Runnymede said, raising his head from his recorder. It was a well-formed head but strikingly small for so huge a body. Office wits suggested that Runnymede was really a dwarf who had been grafted into a whale-size trunk in a back alley operation that had gone horribly awry.

Your course is obvious. They both need our help and they would be foolish not to get it. Just make it clear to them both that there is no conflict: That we are serving them with separate teams who don’t even know each other. They are on opposite sides of a Chinese Wall. Hell, that’s one of our great strengths. We have talent in depth. And we can put up a Chinese Wall anywhere.

Does that mean that I can’t be account supervisor on both accounts any more? Mandy said.

Well, Jesus! Runnymede shouted. Whoever let that happen?

I did, Grant said. We’re short staffed this month and Mandy is the only one in the office who knows anything about the plastics industry.

OK, OK, Runnymede said. I can see that. We always want to put the best person on the account. That’s Trotter policy! And when you have the right kind of integrity and you know how to be objective, it doesn’t make any difference if you are on both sides of an issue at the same time. Who would understand the issues better? Chinese Walls can just get in the way. But for the moment we better move someone else in here, right?

I don’t know who could do it., Grant said. We just can’t parachute Donald Duck into this kind of fire fight.

Well, Jesus! Runnymede shouted from the shadows. "You do it then. Tell them it’s so important that you are going to head the team yourself. Give ‘em our very top people. That’s what makes us great." And while holding a phone with his chin, he gave everyone a Trotter double thumbs up. Honoré, who was standing behind his chair, held her thumbs up, too.

Thanks, Marvin, Grant said with the conviction of the doomed. I’ll try to sell it. And he led Wendy Yen, Miss Schleswig and Honoré from the office.

Mr. Justin Probe, please, they could hear Runnymede saying with cheery unctuousness into a phone. Ah, Justin, hello. Of course, I recognized your voice. Just making sure; can’t be careful enough. Justin, how’s the take-over business these days? How can we help you grab a few more scalps or whatever it is you grab?

Then Miss Schleswig quietly closed the door.

ii.

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Grant Pinky sat alone in his office and stared out the window at a dead gull. It was more than a week ago that he first discovered the body on the sill. The gull definitely was dead. It had not moved. And apparently there was no way to remove it. The windows were permanently sealed. The gull clearly was rotting.

Grant had hoped that wind would have taken the gull away by now. After all, his office was 44 floors in the air. Somehow the gull had flown into the building at high speed; dropped to the sill, and been fried to the building’s hot metal skin. Grant felt let down, a feeling that he often experienced of late. Gulls were supposed to have great radar. How could it crash into the building? Nothing seemed to work.

Grant sighed and thought about his wife, Leslie, and his new house on the water in Rye and his condo on Martha’s Vineyard and his very adjustable rate mortgages and his two apparently adjustable rate daughters at Yale. He thought about his three expensive cars and his new power boat and Leslie’s continual shopping sprees. Again, as he did so often, he ran the numbers in his head. Each year that he had loyally followed Marvin around his salary increased but his expenses increased much more. Each year he hoped to come back to break even. That was what was important. He had to keep trying to break even. The gull probably didn’t have that as an objective. That’s why he was crazy enough to try to reach the 44th floor. Beware over achievement.

Ready to meet I assume?

A high-pitched sarcastic voice asked the question from the door. The voice, as usual, was decidedly nasty. It was Otto Spreadsheet Spreadman, chief financial officer of Trotter Pugg Mitchell. He did not wait for a response. He did not have to wait. He was High Keeper of the Numbers. He walked in and sat down.

Spreadsheet immediately began arranging papers on a small coffee table. It was a reproduction 17th Century Chinese tray that Marvin had purchased from the Gump’s catalogue. When Marvin had moved on from reproduction Chinese to reproduction Georgian, Grant had inherited all the Chinese furniture. Grant received a lot of things from Marvin that way. At full height, Otto was slightly less than five feet tall and sitting on Grant’s hand-me-down Chinese couch, heavily upholstered for the 20th Century Corporate Trade, Otto appeared to disappear into the cushions. As he moved his papers about, he looked like a well-fed but very unpleasant prairie dog peering from his nest.

Grant took a last look at the dead bird, sighed again, and walked over to the table.

There’s a dead bird on my window sill, he said. I don’t want to make a big deal out of it, but can’t you get the damn cleaning people to do anything?

.Probably a disgruntled client trying to get through to you and Marvin, Otto said. You can be sure he wasn’t trying to pay his bill. Take a look at these receivables. Some of these are right off the better vintage wine charts. You guys must think we’re in the Premier Cru Bordeaux business.

Grant sourly looked over the computer print out and put check marks next to several names.

Have you talked to Marvin about this bloodbath? Grant said. You know, some of these dogs are his personal accounts. Like King Lumumba. And the Free Kurdistan Committee. And, that jailed rap group, Double Bang Bang and the Squirrel, No one talks to those accounts except for him

You know better than that, buddy boy. Marvin only claims accounts strictly on the action side of the floodlights. Receivables are your problem. Marvin, no doubt, will remind you of that fact if it should slip your mind again. I suggest you look at the second page of the report.

Ten million more than 90 days! Grant shouted. His shout subsided into a whine. Gimme a break. Bad, yes, but not that bad.

Really worse. Take a look at the last column on the next page: The forecast for next month. It’s down four million. Unless we turn this around, the banks could have us sweeping floors by October. I talked to our banking friends again this morning. You’d be surprised how testy they become when they start worrying about getting paid.

Grant looked at the page and felt a current of nausea move through him. Then he looked toward the window and wished for a moment that he were outside with the gull. He also realized why the windows were sealed. He pretended to study the numbers in hope that he would spot some gross mathematical error but he knew that Otto didn’t make even tiny mathematical errors.

What the hell do we do? he asked finally. That’s the third month in a row that we’re down and the drop is bigger each time. This isn’t just a leak in the boat; we’re sinking at the stern.

Well, Otto said, a word he always accompanied with a meaningful shrug. The way I see it you do have some choices. We could sell some stuff. How about Marvin’s condo and the apartment in London and maybe a few other playtoys like the new Mercedes 600? Or, you could just fire a third of the staff right away. Or, of course, you could always go out and sell some more of our great services to our lucky clients or find some new ones.

I don’t know how we could goose sales more than we have. We picked up seven new clients last month. Marvin alone signed up four of them. Give him credit.

Yeah, but five old clients fired us. And I’m not even counting those diapers and plastics guys who I understand have us in the cross hairs. Probably we can count on being, shall we say, flushed by one or both of them momentarily. By the way, that is another option for you: Have you thought of trying to hang on to any account more than six months. Fifty percent turnover is not what I would call a vote of customer confidence.

That’s not Marvin’s style, Grant said. He believes in growth through sales. But I’ll tell you what: Let’s go and tell Marvin the good news and you can suggest it.

Three minutes. We’re due, Otto said and giggled wickedly. I told Miss Schleswig to make sure that we get in there to see the man before he escapes. He has an instinct for avoiding these things. I just thought I would give you the courtesy of seeing the numbers first.

A thoughtful prince, as always, Grant said.

On his way out, he walked over to his desk to pick up a yellow pad. He always took a yellow pad into Marvin’s office. It made Marvin feel good when he saw people making a lot of notes while he talked. Before leaving his desk, Grant also took a last look at the gull. It hadn’t moved. But, for some reason, it looked happy.

iii.

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Marvin’s office was dark. He was gone. Five minutes earlier he had made a final phone call and disappeared behind his desk into a private agency elevator that took him to the garage. There, Luther, the agency chauffeur, and the agency’s outsize Mercedes 600, known internally as the führerwagen, were waiting. Marvin squeezed himself into the back of the limousine, happily settled into the blue leather seat and inhaled the smell of old hides. .

Being driven through the treacherous New York traffic was one of the many pleasant day to day experiences of a life that Marvin kept using his special talent to invent for himself on a day to day basis. Marvin was in fact a great word magus, a spinner and weaver of illusions for his clients and most of all a spinner of illusions for himself. Moreover, because of what some might call a major flaw in his thinking process, he was unusually successful. The flaw was that Marvin always immediately believed his own illusions, a facility that made him highly credible to others. Even when his illusions had to be refurbished hourly, he was always the first to believe. It was a great strength. It was also, of course, a beneficence that the late Dr. Johann Faustus and his more dedicated followers would instantly recognize.

Six car phone calls after Marvin entered his limousine, he arrived at the Citibank Financial Center. His target of opportunity was a corporate fund-raising luncheon for Senator Tom Phaffner of Florida, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Social Reconstruction and, as the Administration of President Tennessee Lonnie Dee became increasingly mired in stupidity and smarminess, a possible candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

Tennessee Lonnie Dee, who claimed direct descendency from the late Rep. Davy Crockett and occasional ethereal contact with the late Rock-and-roll star Elvis Presley, had achieved occupancy of the White House as something of a political sport.

Surprisingly, the War on Islamic Extremists, aka the War on Terror, had concluded rather suddenly. In the last months of the second George W. Bush Administration, the new American ICBM defense shield was declared operational; then, quite by accident, a U.S. submarine on maneuvers in the Persian Gulf launched a number of Triton II missiles each carrying eight newly developed multiple lite’n kleen nuclear warheads. Again, by chance the spray of lite’n kleens was targeted with what weapon enthusiasts call down the pickle barrel accuracy on government buildings and government residential complexes in Damascus and Teheran; also all Iranian nuclear storage and production facilities, three new Iranian missile launch sites disguised as mosques, two disguised as madrassahs and one as an AIDS hospice. The next morning an Agence France Presse news story (never officially confirmed) reported that French security agents had apprehended at the Ritz Hotel in Paris a tall man purported to be al Qaeda Chief Osama bin Laden (shaved and wearing a silk Charvet dressing gown and heraldic slippers) and a gaggle of other Muslim terrorist leaders (all wearing cashmere business suits). Apparently, to the amazement of the hotel management and the security agents, the group had been living there undetected for a number of years. Unfortunately, the report said, all were shot in the head outside the hotel in the Place Vendôme when they tried to escape.

In the next 10 days, surviving Arab governments declared eternal war on terrorism, beheaded several thousand suspected terrorists and cut the price of oil in half. Vows of enduring friendship from heads of state throughout the world flooded the White House. The reputedly emotional Arab Street remained as peaceful as a country lane.

Within weeks, with all threat of random annihilation by Islamic terrorists evaporated and the return of a safe and comfy environment, there were numerous investigations of the lack of military controls and much finger pointing, ego gratification, compassionate posturing at the expense of others and clever exploitation of the unwary. Anti-war warriors and blame-America-firsters deplored collateral damage and the loss of innocents in terrorist-supporting nations. Many deep thinkers in the United States declared, as they had after the Cold War, that the end of history had again arrived, nuclear weapons should now at last be banned and scrapped, war was again clearly obsolete and a new peace dividend must be distributed. In the ensuing fog of spin that engulfed the presidential election campaign, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats could achieve majority support, opening the way for Lonnie Dee at the head of a new third party ticket.

Lonnie (born Leon Dodge) was the most popular guitar player and homespun TV talk-show host in America. Supported by independent groups of Crocketts throughout the country, he won the presidency for the newly-formed National Freedom Party with 35 percent of the total vote, taking most of his support away from the Democratic Party. The Democratic candidate, who in desperation announced a sex change during the campaign, received only 15 percent; the Republican, who still favored a strong national defense, held on to only 30. The remaining votes were split between two single issue parties: one, the New Whigs, advocating a portfolio of publicly performed corporeal punishments for most crimes; the other, the Human Rights Party, guaranteeing lifetime packaged vacation trips for the non-working poor.

President Dee made clear to most observers less than half way through his first term that he would rank in history along with Millard Fillmore, John Buchanan and Jimmy Carter. Despite the new peace dividend, crime was on the increase, the economy was stuttering and, with the evaporation of national purpose, social anarchists were crawling forth anew to bask in the sunlight. .

And so it came to pass on this day at the Citibank Financial Center that more than 200 wannabe close friends of Senator Phaffner should he run for President sat at round tables in a room looking out over the East Coast of America and waited for the Senator to arrive. The chair to the right of the podium was conspicuously empty. In the interim, the paying guests ate overcooked filet mignon and did their best to stay busy. A musical fighting unit from the United States Air Force, the Flying Strings, played a medley of Broadway tunes.

Marvin sat between Justin Probe, the venture capitalist, and Pierre (Pete) LeGroot, president of Old Masters Originals. They made an interesting grouping: Marvin, a huge blue pinstripe mound overflowing his chair on all sides; Justin Probe, a fit, elegant man with the face of a Medieval Jesuit advisor to the Spanish Court; and Pete LeGroot, a chunky Dutchman with thinning blonde hair and an innocent but clearly dissipated moon face.

The juxtaposition of Justin Probe and Pete LeGroot was causing Marvin a problem. Justin Probe always had his elegant fingers in an array of financial pastries any one of which Marvin would like to nibble. Accordingly, although Justin Probe was not particularly interested in talking to Marvin, Marvin was particularly interested in talking to him. On the other hand, Pete LeGroot, who already was a client of Trotter Pugg Mitchell, very much wanted to talk to Marvin about some of Old Masters Originals’ problems. In fact, he was being a nuisance about it because he recognized that his problems had decided terminal overtones.

Old Masters Originals initially had been something of a business skyrocket. Its marketing concept was simple. Using proprietary advanced digital techniques, Old Masters Originals made a somewhat limited quantity of sometimes alarmingly excellent reproductions of famous paintings, encased them in expensive baroque frames suitable for real old masters, printed numbered certificates on vellum and sold the elegant package at relatively high prices through a network of franchised dealers. The company was very successful, but it had become increasingly overextended. It lacked the managerial capability to control its franchisees and maintain what LeGroot delicately referred to as reasonable product integrity— a corporate euphemism for what even on good days was a process crippled by wretched quality control and limited edition creep, a tendency to expand a limited edition to meet demand. .

Today LeGroot deliberately sat next to Marvin to discuss what he correctly perceived as a potential disaster. However, Marvin, as always, was much more interested in soliciting new business than dealing with clients already in the fold.

Tell me some more about this company you mentioned this morning on the phone, Marvin said to Justin Probe. I think I know several members of the board.

I don’t think I mentioned any company names, Justin said. What company do you have in mind?

Well, maybe I have the wrong one, Marvin said. I thought you hinted that you were looking at retail supermarkets and I assumed from what you were saying that you were talking about Big Basket.

No, not really. But what do you know about Big Basket? Should I be looking at them?

Marvin, Pete LeGroot interjected. Have you read our new report?

What, Pete? Marvin said, turning to him. I missed what you said.

Our new quarterly report. Your people put it together.

Oh, certainly. What about it?

Well, what do you think?

I thought it was just great.

Didn’t it show a 20 percent loss? Justin Probe interjected. And a lot of new short term debt?

Well, yes, Marvin said. But I thought it was all well positioned, didn’t you?

I suppose. It’s still a little like saying that the corpse on the living room rug is well positioned because if isn’t bleeding a lot.

Exactly my point, Pete said. We’ve been getting a lot of calls.

Let’s talk about this later, Marvin said. I think our speaker has arrived.

The empty chair at the head table had indeed been filled by a tall, shiny faced man with much white hair boyishly coifed at considerable expense. As he shuffled through some pages of paper, a banker, who did a lot of government-supported business with Third World countries, provided a whipped cream introduction. The banker suggested that the Senator was not a stranger and disclosed that everyone in the room was truly looking forward to what the Senator had to say. The banker also suggested that everyone in the room would be truly pleased to know that the Senator in worthy pursuit of national healing was being considered for a higher office although the Senator certainly would deny it at this time. This last comment drew applause started by two of the Senator’s staffers who were standing near the back of the room.

I can’t tell you how pleased I am to talk to leaders of American business, the Senator said. You are the people who make this country what it is.

Then he went on to discuss his efforts to address new challenges in a time of lasting peace, the greatest being to rid American streets of the growing scourge of crime which despite various claims has not gone away. He said that crime was a disease inflicted on America by the combined forces of organized mobsters and poverty among underprivileged minority groups who admittedly in a few cases preferred welfare to work.

This generation of Americans demands solutions, he said, nodding emphatically but offering none at the moment. This generation of Americans will accept nothing less. We are in a new era.

In his conclusion, he also mentioned that he was firmly committed to hold down spending in the current fiscal year, keep a lid on various new tax proposals, invest the peace dividend wisely, fight for healing and democracy and, should we ever have to face a determined enemy again, support our troops.

I know you will understand that I have to be very careful about my efforts in some of these areas, he said and laughed stagily. Not all of my constituents are for large budget cuts, a little tax relief for the worthy, tougher penalties for criminals and a proper level of national defense. Some say let’s just have a new car in every garage. But what’s wrong with that, particularly if you’re from Detroit. (Pause for laughter.)

At no point did he mention President Dee. But