The clock struck ten and let out the ten-o’clock “ahh” chime,
which was supposedly what people said after sipping Biddenbrooks.
Other chimes included “Mmm,” “Mmm hmm” and the sound of lips
smacking. It was all so sexual. Liquids shared, caressed kissed and
ingested. Warmth, intensity, taste, aroma, visceral pleasure. Lots of
moaning and licking. They all knew it too, they just never
acknowledged it. The sublime often had to be sublimated to endure.
She stood up from Morris Bidden’s desk and strode down into
the executive conference room. They were waiting there. Clones and
drones. Cult members. Toadies. Barely alive. They would want
orders, decisions. They would want to know what Morris said. They
might even want to speak to him directly.
She sat down in Morris’ chair at the head of the table. Officially,
she wasn’t in charge. There was a cabal of so-called vice-presidents
who far over-ranked her, but they were accustomed to follow
Bidden’s whims, not create their own. He had especially selected
them to do just that. True to form, they followed his word blindly—
even if the word came through an intermediary.
Bidden, who hated people, had come to relay orders and
information almost exclusively through Leona, and the beaten-down
drones quickly grew accustomed to reaching Bidden through her.
Actually, this had been a welcome relief for them. Morris’ voluble
temper sometimes led to people being fired for wearing the wrong tie
or having bad breath. Leona was far kinder, considerate, often
motherly.
“Hello everyone. I’ve been on the phone with Morris and after
much deliberation he decided that we’re not going to give in to
terrorism. If we allow these punks an inch, they’ll take a mile. We’re
going to treat the threat as a hoax. We’re taking a wait-and-see
approach.”
There was a long, black silence as each of them took this in.
“I’m sorry,” said the vice-president of marketing, “What if it’s
real? What if they blow up one of our stores with people in it?”
“Look, these people may have something against Biddenbrooks,
but they’re not going to kill a crowd of innocent people.”
“How do we know that?”
“Statistics. It never happens. We’ve had nuts send us threats for
years. We shouldn’t worry, though. How are they going to plant a
bomb? We have security cameras everywhere.”
“Look what happened at that store on the Promenade,” came a
ABYSSINIA
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