back of his mind.
What had really happened in that meeting back at the office? And what might still be happening there now?
Noah’s father had built an empire in the PR industry based almost solely on his reputation as an unrepentant firebrand, a ruthless hired gun for any cause with the cash to buy his time. He went wherever there was a fortune to be made, and those opportunities were everywhere, in good times or bad, provided a person could maintain a certain moral flexibility when scrolling through the client list.
Survey the landscape, identify the players, pick a side, build a battle plan, and execute. That’s the game, and old Arthur Gardner had always played it to win. A huckster of the highest order, he could make a do-or-die conflict out of thin air and then cash in selling weapons of mass deception to either side, or, more likely, to both.
And it had long ago gone beyond Coke versus Pepsi. Pseudoliberal Democrats versus faux-conservative Republicans, union versus management, pure-hearted environmentalists versus the evil corporations, oil versus coal, rich versus poor, engineered problem/reaction/ solution schemes to swing elections, manipulate markets, and secure the dominance of the superclass at home and abroad—these were world-spanning issues he exploited, whether real or manufactured, from global cooling in the 1970s to global warming today. Right versus wrong didn’tmatter to the bottom line, so it didn’t matter to him, either. War and peace and politics had always been a part of the business because that’s where the real money was.
But money alone wasn’t the key motivation. Not money at all, really, not anymore. Arthur Gardner could burn through $30 million a week for the next twenty years before he even came close to clearing out those offshore accounts. The goals and rewards had gotten steadily larger over the years until they’d gone far beyond the merely financial. Today it was only power and the wielding of it that could still fascinate a man like him.
In his distraction Noah had drifted close to the curb on the sidewalk, an error no seasoned pedestrian should ever commit when it’s been raining. Right on cue a city bus roared by,
shooshed
through a sinkhole puddle the size of Lake Placid, and a rooster tail of oily gutter water splashed up and soaked him to the waist. As the bus rolled on he could see a bunch of kids in the back pressed to the windows, pointing and hooting, absolutely delighted to have played a part in his drenching.
Perfect.
Noah stopped under an awning and took stock of himself. Now he’d reached a milestone: head to toe, there wasn’t a single square inch that didn’t feel soaked to the skin. He checked the street signs for a gauge of his progress—just a few more blocks to go.
As he walked he thought back to that meeting with the government reps at the office. Maybe he was overthinking it. Over the years he’d heard his father give a similarly passionate call to action many times, hawking everything from a minor come-from-behind congressional campaign to some spin-off brand of laundry detergent. Whether it was a revolutionary new choice in artificial sweeteners or this afternoon’s so-called fundamental transformation of the United States of America, it was all just the same empty carnival-barking the clients loved to hear, and the old man loved to deliver.
That sounded good enough to ease his mind, at least for the time being. Besides, what was that old saying?
Don’t ask the question if you
don’t want to know the answer.
Noah most certainly did not want to know the answer. It was far easier to follow orders and cash the checks if you honestly had no idea what the consequences of those orders were.
According to the flier the location of tonight’s all-American shindig was the Stars ’n Stripes Saloon, a charming, rustic little dive down here in Tribeca. Noah had been there a few times before on downtown pub crawls with clients. The Stars ’n
What had really happened in that meeting back at the office? And what might still be happening there now?
Noah’s father had built an empire in the PR industry based almost solely on his reputation as an unrepentant firebrand, a ruthless hired gun for any cause with the cash to buy his time. He went wherever there was a fortune to be made, and those opportunities were everywhere, in good times or bad, provided a person could maintain a certain moral flexibility when scrolling through the client list.
Survey the landscape, identify the players, pick a side, build a battle plan, and execute. That’s the game, and old Arthur Gardner had always played it to win. A huckster of the highest order, he could make a do-or-die conflict out of thin air and then cash in selling weapons of mass deception to either side, or, more likely, to both.
And it had long ago gone beyond Coke versus Pepsi. Pseudoliberal Democrats versus faux-conservative Republicans, union versus management, pure-hearted environmentalists versus the evil corporations, oil versus coal, rich versus poor, engineered problem/reaction/ solution schemes to swing elections, manipulate markets, and secure the dominance of the superclass at home and abroad—these were world-spanning issues he exploited, whether real or manufactured, from global cooling in the 1970s to global warming today. Right versus wrong didn’tmatter to the bottom line, so it didn’t matter to him, either. War and peace and politics had always been a part of the business because that’s where the real money was.
But money alone wasn’t the key motivation. Not money at all, really, not anymore. Arthur Gardner could burn through $30 million a week for the next twenty years before he even came close to clearing out those offshore accounts. The goals and rewards had gotten steadily larger over the years until they’d gone far beyond the merely financial. Today it was only power and the wielding of it that could still fascinate a man like him.
In his distraction Noah had drifted close to the curb on the sidewalk, an error no seasoned pedestrian should ever commit when it’s been raining. Right on cue a city bus roared by,
shooshed
through a sinkhole puddle the size of Lake Placid, and a rooster tail of oily gutter water splashed up and soaked him to the waist. As the bus rolled on he could see a bunch of kids in the back pressed to the windows, pointing and hooting, absolutely delighted to have played a part in his drenching.
Perfect.
Noah stopped under an awning and took stock of himself. Now he’d reached a milestone: head to toe, there wasn’t a single square inch that didn’t feel soaked to the skin. He checked the street signs for a gauge of his progress—just a few more blocks to go.
As he walked he thought back to that meeting with the government reps at the office. Maybe he was overthinking it. Over the years he’d heard his father give a similarly passionate call to action many times, hawking everything from a minor come-from-behind congressional campaign to some spin-off brand of laundry detergent. Whether it was a revolutionary new choice in artificial sweeteners or this afternoon’s so-called fundamental transformation of the United States of America, it was all just the same empty carnival-barking the clients loved to hear, and the old man loved to deliver.
That sounded good enough to ease his mind, at least for the time being. Besides, what was that old saying?
Don’t ask the question if you
don’t want to know the answer.
Noah most certainly did not want to know the answer. It was far easier to follow orders and cash the checks if you honestly had no idea what the consequences of those orders were.
According to the flier the location of tonight’s all-American shindig was the Stars ’n Stripes Saloon, a charming, rustic little dive down here in Tribeca. Noah had been there a few times before on downtown pub crawls with clients. The Stars ’n
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