In Love by Christmas: A Paranormal Romance (20 page)

25

The Speech

L
e Meu
rice was
as elegant and impressive as it had been the night before. The menace posed by the demons was gone, replaced by the menace of the richest men in the world.

Leroy stalked down the hotel’s wide foyer with Will and Hannah. Hannah looked nervous, stripped of her soldiers. He felt loose and relaxed; a predator who was afraid of
nothing
. Will seemed the same.

The meeting used all three of the hotel’s conference rooms. The main room was set up with tables with pristine white cloths to the floor arranged in a circle. They held pitchers of water and baskets of snacks. Each chair was equipped with a microphone and speaker. The mics and recording equipment fed into the neighboring hall, the tech’s kingdom.

Hannah may have lost her troops, but Numenon/Europe supported Will to the max. There were more techs in that room than fleas on a hound dog. Will barely had time to walk around the room shaking hands with his employees.

“This is a situation where nuclear-sized hanky-panky may occur,” Will said. “Guard those recordings with your lives. We’ll need documentation.”

The third banquet space was a dining room set with lovely tables seating eight waiting for the lunch break.

A gong rang and the meeting was on.

“As the old man here, I’ve been elected to give the keynote speech.” Will had elected himself, but he was so senior no one would dispute it. “This big guy,” he indicated Leroy with his head, “isn’t my bodyguard. He’s my language coach. You know how handy those are.”

Will spoke into the mic with the practiced modulation of a professional actor. “What are we going to talk about today? What we do we talk about every year? How to make ourselves richer than we are? Not this year.” He said it in a joking tone, but a ripple went through the crowd.

“I’m going to teach some economics. A little economics doesn’t scare us, right? We’re grown-ups and can stand thinking a bit.” He raised his eyebrows, posing a mock question. “A long time ago, a gloomy preacher named Parson Malthus looked around his world. In 1798, England didn’t offer much of a life for the average man. It offered
death
by starvation to the average man.

“Malthus made what he saw into a doctrine: if the masses had more to eat, they’d have more children, eating up the surplus food, and putting themselves back to the edge of starvation. The common man would live in misery and famine, forever.

“It didn’t turn out that way, exactly. Malthus didn’t realize how much the engine of capitalism could raise the standard of living. How much the free market could raise incomes, for
those who fit into society
.

“Everything that Malthus predicted didn’t happen for the First World, but it certainly did for the Third World and anyone disadvantaged in the market. The disabled and ill, those with low IQs.” Slides appeared on a screen on the wall opposite Will. “This map shows annual per capita income by country. A lot of the world doesn’t have enough to eat.

“Liberals have boo-hoo fits over this, thinking about the
poor
poor people and how to save them. But we don’t. We’re capitalists. We hold the reins and keep the engine going. We’re so good at what we do that we control most of the wealth on the planet. Who cares about losers?

“There’s
no limit
on what we can earn. The more we produce, the less it costs to produce, forever. That’s the learning curve, documented by the BCG, the Boston Consulting Group, one of the best in the world.

“Our techs and engineers can figure out how to make more stuff, better and cheaper, with no limit. If the price stays sort of steady, what does that mean? More profit. What does that mean?
We
get to keep the change—
forever
.”

Will reached up plucking something invisible from the air. He put it in his jacket pocket. “Who gets the profit of the colossal engine of capitalism?” He kept pulling invisible money from the air and putting it in his pocket.

“
Who gets the profit?”
Will half-shouted. “
We
do, the owners of the companies making the goods
.

“What do we do with the money that keeps piling up around our feet? Do we share it with the poor? Build things that people need that the government doesn’t have the chops to do? Give it to our employees? Fix things like the health care system?

“Hell, no! We’re capitalists. We put everything into our own pockets. I sure do. You know how I live. I
think
I’ve got sixteen houses all over the world. I’m not just
one
of you,
I’m the richest.”
He smiled and held out his hands, as if offering jewels. “Not only am I rich, I intend to get richer.

“What I’ve talked about isn’t the whole story. The things people say crack me up. Conservatives in my country get infuriated about poor people feeling
entitled
to the miserable dregs our welfare system gives them. But that’s barely enough to keep us from having dead bodies lying in the streets. Some people throw fits because the poor feel
entitled to the worst shit of the richest country on Earth.”

Will slammed his fist on the table. “They aren’t the ones who feel entitled,
we are.
I know am entitled to
everything
. And you do too.
”
He looked around the table, making eye contact. “Don’t you think you deserve it all? That you should get it all?” He raised his eyebrows and nodded like crazy, grinning. Some of the others did too.

“Malthus was wrong about what capitalism could do. And he was wrong about where the wealth it produced would go: not to make babies.
It goes to us
.”

Will looked around. “I’m not saying it shouldn’t. Maybe yachts and show horses are the highest and best use of wealth. Private islands. Private armies. Dresses that cost fifty grand.” The crowd sat; a group of almost all men, still and silent, with their mouths hanging open. Will felt like laughing.

“What is the point of this?”

“Every year, we come here and talk about cooperative ventures that will make us even richer. Us. Not our societies, and sure as hell not the people who work for us. We talk about cooperation, but the talk doesn’t get as far as that door.” He pointed at the exit. “We can’t cooperate enough to deliver a carton of eggs to a single poor family.

“This year we’re going to talk about
really
making the world better. We’ve got the money to do it. If I gave tenth of a thousandth of what I’ve got to help people, it could change the world. A friend of mine, Elizabeth Bright Eagle, spends her extra salary helping her People on the reservations. She’s a doctor; they don’t really make that much. Elizabeth has saved lives with the little she can give. Her People treat her like she was Mother Teresa.

“How would you like people worshiping you because you gave them a chunk of change so they could survive, instead of buying another airplane? How would you like to do something that mattered while you’re on this planet?”

A surge went around the room as the attendees scrambled to leave. Leroy stopped them and settled them down, singing a few syllables in his language and casting energy to the people in the room.

Oh, good people, he thought, you are so good. You can see the wisdom of what Will is saying. You have known him so long.
He is just like you: rich.
He has great ideas. Accept them and do what he says.

His energy surged around, just as it had touched the demons the night before and changed them.

“How are we going to change things? Let’s talk about it after lunch.”

“Why you don’t like rich people? We do not create the bad in the world, as you say we do. We make jobs and good lives.” The follow-up discussion didn’t wait for lunch. As they were leaving the room, an Asian potentate whose name was known and feared around the globe bustled up to Will, pointing a finger and speaking very accented English.

Leroy realized that most of them spoke English in at least a rudimentary way and could probably participate in the meeting without translation. Why the interpreters? So their employers couldn’t be blamed for mistakes if things shook out badly. The interpreters might have an agenda too. From their bosses in the room, and forces outside it. This was a complicated game.

“Sir,” Leroy said in almost perfect Mandarin, “If you will forgive me, Mr. Duane did not say he hated rich people. He said,
‘I’m one of you.
Not only am I rich, I am the richest and I intend to get richer.’” He gave a few other examples of Will identifying with the rich, all in Mandarin.

“But my interpreter said that he said he hated rich people.”

“Did your interpreter tell you what he said about his houses all over and the way he lived? Listen to our interpreter’s recording. We’ll translate it right.”

The potentate glared and walked out of the room, presumably to castigate, or kill, his interpreter.

Leroy didn’t know Mandarin. What happened made him catch his breath. Grandfather said he would be with him and protect him. He didn’t realize that included teaching him an exotic foreign language.

After that, Leroy was besieged with questions about what people had heard, or what their interpreter had said. Often the differences between what Will said and the interpreter reported were subtle twists of meaning and shading. Just enough to distort what Will said so it meant something else.

Grandfather and the ancestors didn’t let up; he could speak any language that was thrown at him. More than that, he heard strains of Latin chanting and knew God,
all
of God, loved him. At the end of the questioning period, the meeting participants looked at Leroy with awe.

“It’s amazing what can be lost in translation,” Will quipped. “Are we going to eat lunch, or what?”

With all the triumph, Leroy could feel the withering hand of Donatore all over the meeting. In angry glances and whisperings between hostile people.

“Say Will, we heard that you’re going to step down.” An English Lord approached, his face a mask of sophistication that didn’t quite hide his enmity. Leroy gasped when he saw who it was. Dashiell Pondichury, the ninth Duke of Lancature, the man who’d tried to kill him with a crossbow at Lord Ballentyne’s home and wounded little Allie, the Lord’s son. Tall, handsome, ruddy as ever. Evil through and through. How had he gotten invited?

“I’m not going to step down, Dashiell, I’m going to get fired,” Will shot back, raising his voice so everyone could hear. “The Feds may come after me too. But I’d say that’s a rather personal question from a man of your stature.” The crowd spun to follow Will’s words. “What are you doing here, anyway? You aren’t a member of the group.”

“A friend pulled up sick. I’m sitting in.” Leroy knew who it was. Diego Donatore was sleeping under some bush in the Tuileries Garden. “But I’m concerned about you, Will. The rumors are true? You’re about to be …”

“I just told you that, Dashiell. I’m getting fired.” Everyone in the place was listening. “I’m sure you’re wondering if I’m going to be ruined by leaving Numenon. No. I’ve got so much money that I could lose half of it and have more than all of you. I’m thinking of starting a new corporation.
Really
high tech. It will shake up the world.

“Let’s get to work.” He led the others into the meeting room.

“More than one third of children who die under five die within the first month of life,” Will took up speaking as though he hadn’t stopped. “About seventy percent of those deaths could be avoided by simple, cheap programs. Water, maternal care … Sleeping nets treated with insecticide …” He pulled out one proposal after another that would bring food and water to hungry people, vaccinate kids, build dams; provide projects for every level of involvement.

“Here’s a list. Pick a project and take it home. Tomorrow we’ll work on actualization plans. And then we’ll go home and do them.”

He had specially prepared packets for each participant, outlining projects appropriate to their country, cost estimates, plans to stage phases of the projects.

“You guys know you can set up these programs so they give you ten times the PR value of the program itself. And when they pay off, with more crops, less disease, and fewer deaths, you’ll have workers who will bring every dollar you spent back to you.”

Rather than start a riot as he had feared, Will’s plan was a success. He picked ventures that were big enough to have an impact, but not too big to change the balance of power. They didn’t change anything, and they did. He looked at Leroy, sitting next to him and realized why everything worked. Leroy’s jacket was sweat through and he trembled as though he’d used a pick and shovel all afternoon.

“Leroy, that was fantastic,” Will said as Leroy dropped him off at the private international terminal outside Paris. “What you did was beyond amazing.”

Leroy hadn’t realized what it meant to come into his own. He was a powerful warrior, not a joke. He was going to be a great person. The realization was terrifying. He jerked as he realized Will was talking to him.