“When I was ten years old,” said Beatrice, “my father got it into his head that it would be fun for me to ride a roller coaster. We were summering on Cape Cod, and we drove over to an amusement park outside of Fall River.
“He bought two tickets on the roller coaster. He was going to ride with me.
“I took one look at the roller coaster,” said Beatrice, “and it looked silly and dirty and dangerous, and I simply refused to get on. My own father couldn’t make me get on,” said Beatrice, “even though he was Chairman of the Board of the New York Central Railroad.
“We turned around and came home,” said Beatrice proudly. Her eyes glittered, and she nodded abruptly. “That’s the way to treat roller coasters,” she said.
She stalked out of Skip’s Museum, went to the foyer to await the arrival of Kazak.
In a moment, she felt the electric presence of her husband behind her.
“Bea — ” he said, “if I seem indifferent to your misfortunes, it’s only because I know how well things are going to turn out in the end. If it seems crude of me not to hate the idea of your pairing off with Constant, it’s only an humble admission on my part that he’s going to make you a far better husband than I ever was or will be.
“Look forward to being really in love for the first time, Bea,” said Rumford. “Look forward to behaving aristocratically without any outward proofs of your aristocracy. Look forward to having nothing but the dignity and intelligence and tenderness that God gave you — look forward to taking those materials and nothing else, and making something exquisite with them.”
Rumfoord groaned tinnily. He was becoming insubstantial. “Oh, God — ” he said, “you talk about roller coasters —
“Stop and think sometime about the roller coaster I’m on. Some day on Titan, it will be revealed to you just how ruthlessly I’ve been used, and by whom, and to what disgustingly paltry ends.”
Kazak now flung himself into the house, flews flapping. He landed skidding on the polished floor.
He ran in place, trying to make a right-angle turn in Beatrice’s direction. Faster and faster he ran, and still he could get no traction.
He became translucent.
He began to shrink, to fizz crazily on the foyer floor like a ping-pong ball in a frying pan
Then he disappeared.
There was no dog any more.
Without looking behind, Beatrice knew that her husband had disappeared, too.
“Kazak?” she said faintly. She snapped her fingers, as though to attract a dog. Her fingers were too weak to make a sound.
“Nice doggy,” she whispered.
chapter three
UNITED HOTCAKE PREFERRED
“Son — they say there isn’t any royalty in this country, but do you want me to tell you how to be king of the United States of America? Just fall through the hole in a privy and come out smelling like a rose.”
— NOEL CONSTANT
Magnum Opus, the Los Angeles Corporation that managed Malachi Constant’s financial affairs, was founded by Malachi’s father. It had a thirty-one-story building for its home. While Magnum Opus owned the whole building, it used only the top three floors, renting out the rest to corporations it controlled.
Some of these corporations, having been sold recently by Magnum Opus, were moving out. Others, having been bought recently by Magnum Opus, were moving in.
Among the tenants were Galactic Spacecraft, Moon-Mist Tobacco, Fandango Petroleum, Lennox Mono — rail, Fry-Kwik, Sani-Maid Pharmaceuticals, Lewis and Marvin Sulfur, Dupree Electronics, Universal Piezoelectric, Psychokinesis Unlimited, Ed Muir Associates, Max-Mor Machine Tools, Wilkinson Paint and Varnish, American Levitation, Flo-Fast, King O’Leisure Shirts, and the Emblem Supreme Casualty and Life Assurance Company of California.
The Magnum Opus Building was a slender, prismatic, twelve-sided shaft, faced on all twelve sides with blue-green glass that shaded to rose at the base. The twelve sides were said by the architect to represent the twelve great religions of the world. So far, no one had asked the architect to name them.
That was lucky, because he couldn’t have done it.
There was a private heliport on top.