Broken Piano for President (33 page)

Deshler’s desk phone rings with a flickering red light atop.

He swears the blue goo just slithered toward him. Dean takes a breath, knowing any second this globby monster might begin gnawing a knee.

Still ringing, the phone reminds Dean he still hasn’t called the number on the record contract. He hasn’t confirmed there is an Antonio McComb or even a Moral Compass Records. After checking his bank account, he’s positive there is no five hundred grand. Dean wants to wait for his bandmates before moving forward.

Deshler walks around the desk. The Caller ID says it’s the CEO. With one eye on the mutant hamburger and a boulder of anxiety in his throat, Dean lifts the receiver.

“Surprised?” Roland says.

“Many times over.”

“Come on up to my office, buddy. We’re knee-deep in it today.”

“
It
?”

The CEO gurgles a laugh. “Don’t worry. We’ll talk about the Flu Burger prototype, too. It’s just the whole cosmonaut mess is really…” the CEO sighs. “It’s,
you know
.”

“What mess, Roland? What prototype? I thought I was fired.”

His boss slashes in: “Don’t you watch TV? What mess? Deshler, I really need a chuckle today, but not now, not about our poor Cosmonauts. Get your ass up here.”

Deshler kicks around the possibility of a trap. Corporate espionage. He bites his lip, waiting for the poorly disguised hamburger to blow up like the plastic explosive it really is.

There is no big boom, so Dean hangs up and concludes he simply imagined everything from that disastrous Friday. It’s entirely possible he hallucinated that morning: the furniture movers, Lepsic’s threats, the
Nightbeat
program and Moral Compass Records.

Deshler calculates his odds at about fifty percent.

Dean rests his elbows on the desk. The surface has been freshly waxed with a piney smelling something. A gag slithers up the back of his neck after inhaling medicinal stink from the sandwich mixed with wood polish.

His phone rings again. The Caller ID says Bust-A-Gut.

“Hello?”

“Brilliant,” a grumbly low voice says. “This thing is going better than we could have hoped. You, son, are a homerun, three-pointer and a touchdown wrapped into one.”

“Hello?”

“Dean…Dean? It’s Clifford Findlay,
your boss
.” The final two words sizzle. “This Space Burger crisis, wow. Talk about guerrilla marketing. Jesus shit, man.”

“Seems like it’s all anyone can talk about.”
So
this
is Findlay?
Dean thinks, half-disappointed the voice isn’t more…exotic.

“You shouldn’t be talking about it on this phone, I understand. I do. We’ll be brief.”

Deshler runs his tongue over aching gums. Findlay’s voice sounds familiar. It sounds like Lepsic holding a handkerchief over the phone.

“Back to business. I mean, wow. Cosmonaut Terrorists. Diarrhea-publicity for old Winters. Two dead…”

Dean’s brain is break dancing. He needs to sit. He needs more lies. Suddenly, too many people are listening to him.
There’s only one place to turn
, he thinks, and summons his inner-Gibby. “What is…public opinion looking like, exactly?” He hopes this leads to clues.

The man on the phone runs through what the news has told the nation thanks to exclusive and bloody footage. Focus groups say to run the Tribute to Christopher Winters spots nonstop. This, Mister Findlay’s voice explains, will remind customers what innocence Olde-Tyme burger lost. It’s no longer the same company loyal diners remember. A ground rule double, a free throw, just an extra point. You know, nothing too impressive.

“Also,” the man says casually. “We’re going ahead with the mozzarella campaign. The climate is right, thanks to you.”

“The climate, yes,” he says.

“Wow, compadre,” Findlay’s hefty voice gropes for air, sounding more familiar, and less impressive, by the minute. “We had no idea this was up your sleeve. Look, I don’t want to know how you ruined Winters by setting this up. I don’t want to hear another word about it, okay?”

“Uh.” Stress splinters Deshler’s vision into a thousand needles. “Yes, I think that’s best.”

“All is forgiven, let’s have a meeting tonight. Lay low, Desh.”

“Wait, wait…have we met? Mister Findlay, you and I haven’t
physically
met, right? Shaken hands, grabbed a drink, that kind of thing.”

“Goodbye, son. If you can’t reach me, call Lepsic, that guy’s a genius. And funny, too.”

Dean hangs up and chews on that last line.

One thing Deshler isn’t chewing is the bun soaking up blue cold syrup sauce. Five crippled strips of bacon droop and fade into blueberry taffy. Lettuce spoils brown at the edges. He plucks the wax paper under the burger and slides it across the desk toward the trash. It wiggles like a gelatin mold.

The burger is a few skids from the empty morning garbage can when the phone buzzes alive again.

There’s a neck cramp as he lifts the receiver.

“I know I’m not supposed to do this,” a woman’s smoky voice says. “Not supposed to contact you. I know we agreed on
total radio silence
.”

“Malinta?” he asks, knowing that’s not her tender whisper.

“I don’t have long, the others will be back. I just want you to know the train is on the tracks.”

Dean’s patience broils, burns and blackens to ash. “Oh Jesus Christ,” he howls, voice rising a panicky few registers. “What is with everyone knowing my business but me?”

“Listen. I assume you’re taking care of that business.”

“Tell me, please tell me,
Mysterious Voice
, what am I doing? What do you know that I don’t seem to have figured out?”

The voice breathes into the phone, her lips smack together. “I hope Malinta wasn’t wrong about you. Just focus,” the last word explodes.

Dean tugs his tie, his face hot with frustration. “Au revoir, Miss
Mystery Voice
.” He hangs up.

Dean yanks the Flu Burger into the trash with a papery thump.

It’s ten at night and the familiar theme music for
Nightbeat
begins. Our anchorwoman, Sharon Smalley, layers her voice atop the images. “Tonight, exclusively on
Nightbeat
: the Moscow Two speak. We have the first and only footage of the Russian terrorists after their frightening reign. Hear what former hostage and
Nightbeat
cameraman, Donald Dumford, has to say about his ordeal.” A quick headshot of the squirrely bald hostage pops up.

“Then,” Smalley says, “a super volcano brewing under one of America’s largest cities? When will it erupt and where?” The theme music flows for a few notes. “And finally, part two of Leah Pullem’s investigation into the hazardous effects of hamburger consumption.” Bloody text superimposes over a golden shot of a burger with a crusty-looking bun:
Death Burger…Part Two
.

Commercials begin: Cholesterol medication. Luxurious cars at frighteningly low prices. Prescription drugs for blood pressure. Sunday night movie preview. Medication for anxiety. And one more before the show kicks in:

The commercial focuses on a cocksure teenage fry cook in a Bust-A-Gut uniform dunking a batch of cheese sticks in oil. It cuts to a sexy young waitress carrying a stack of hamburgers through the kitchen. The boy whips a hot batch of mozzarella around and slams into the girl. At slow motion speed their food flips through the air together.

Cartoon voices pipe in: “
Hey, mozzarella stick, lookin’ gooooood
.”

“
Burger, my man, we should get together sometime
.”

“
Oh, yeah, I’ve been dreaming of working with you guys forever!”

The scene cuts to the boy and girl, knocked to the floor, rubbing their heads and smiling. A hefty Mozza-Burger lands, fully evolved, in each of their laps.

A remake of the Village People’s
Macho Man
thunders in. This version is called
Mozza Man
.

A warm, trustworthy voice thunders overhead: “Bust-A-Gut is proud to serve you a Mozza-Burger tonight. It’s the only sandwich combining the world famous flavor of a Bust-A-Gut burger with the ooey-gooey yum of mozzarella sticks. Mmmmmmmmmm.”

The commercial finishes on the boy as he pulls out of a hearty bite. “Hey,” he says with a smile and a dollop of marinara on his nose. “This bun is made of
cheese!”

With all the horrible Winters publicity from the nightly news magazine, Bust-A-Gut strategically launched this new campaign tonight. However, the blue and yellow dome-lovers didn’t research what topics are covered in this evening’s
Nightbeat
episode. Our producers happily cashed their check, knowing it would probably be the last they’d see from the restaurant.

“You may remember Leah Pullem’s report on the dangers in Winters Olde-Tyme Hamburgers,” Sharon says. “Tonight, she takes a look at the other side of the coin in the next chapter of her series,
Death Burger
.”

Standing with an Olde-Tyme Victorian restaurant to her right and a Bust-A-Gut dome to her left, Leah says, “While America’s oldest burger chain is clearly cutting its caloric brake lines, Winters Olde-Tyme Hamburgers is not alone. Rival Bust-A-Gut appears to be nipping at our ever-growing waistlines with equal recklessness.”

This half of the story focuses on the Monte Cristo Burger’s rise to rock star status. Statistics suggest the calories in one deep-fried sandwich is equal to the weekly dietary needs of an entire pygmy tribe. Leah shifts focus. She has obtained top-secret documents about Bust-A-Gut’s plans to counter the runaway success of the Space Burger. In a dramatically lit shot, she holds a basket of crispy brown mozzarella sticks in one hand and a hamburger in the other. She waterfalls cheese rods over the burger. “By stacking America’s two most fattening dinner foods on top of each other,” she says. “Bust-A-Gut plans to finish the burger wars.”

Sadly,
Nightbeat
producers didn’t view the Mozza-Burger commercial before cashing Bust-A-Gut’s check and this moment falls a little flat.

The remainder of the piece wanders the same path as the Winters episode. People died with their hearts waving white flags, fingers greasy with ground beef. “Truly,” she concludes, “there is no safe haven from bypass surgery.

“Or is there?

“Stay tuned.”

Quick commercials for anxiety meds and cars cut the segment into easily digested fifteen minute bites.

“Did you know,” Leah says with a library as background. “That America has only elected one obese president?

“And if you’re like millions of Americans, you’ve probably asked yourself if there is a connection between calorie counting and success. Well, the answer might surprise you. Certainly, America has featured several overweight leaders, but only William Howard Taft got stuck in a bathtub. An embarrassing feat, which never happened to the svelte Abraham Lincoln. Remind yourself this: Abe freed the slaves, but what did Taft ever do?” The screen pans to a tight shot of meat. “To top it all off, it’s rumored Taft was eating a juicy hamburger when the bath-time boondoggle occurred.”

A stock shot of a claw foot tub gets a camera flyover.

“One woman,” she says. “Wants to prove being healthy is unquestionably the path to success—whether you are aiming for the presidency or just to shed a few pounds. She is Willamena ‘Wally’ Dayton.”

Footage of a teen girl in a fast food uniform, braces and a name tag that says
Summer
,
cuts in: “Welcome to Healthy Wally’s, can I interest you in our baked polenta cakes? Only seventy-five calories!” She flashes a shiny grill of teeth across the screen.

According to the show, Ms. Dayton wants to fix America’s hearts by way of its stomach. She is reversing how this country eats. Her small empire is expanding and charging into a town near you. Healthy Wally’s fast food restaurants offer revolutionary items like grilled portabella burgers and teriyaki tofu fries while her competition still serves red meat and milkshakes.