“Just Wiz, please.”
The other smiled and nodded. “Very well, Wiz. And I am Rolf Rannison, head of the cloth merchants’ guild and president of the Guild Association.” He favored Wiz with an especially sunny smile. “I was hoping you could be my guest for lunch at the Guild Hall.”
“Well . . .”
“Please accept,” his would-be host urged. “Finest food in town, I can assure you.”
Wiz knew he was being hustled, but he also knew that was part of a consultant’s job. So he nodded and smiled as best he could. “I’d be honored.”
The Guild Hall was a massive stone-and-timber building across the main square from the Town Hall. The private dining room on the second floor was paneled below and decorated with murals above. The paintings showed muscular folk going about the business of commerce in a style that reminded Wiz of WPA post office art.
The table was just a little bit too small so the two were forced close together. Not close enough to be uncomfortable but enough to encourage intimacy. The linen was starched and perfectly pressed, the liveried waiters were expert and unobtrusive and the food was very good, if rich.
It was all so well handled that it took Wiz a while to figure out what it was about the place. It wasn’t just that it was old: The room and the Guild Hall felt, well, faded, like some once-great old downtown hotel. The murals were dulled with time and lack of cleaning and the paneling below them showed wormholes here and there. Like a lot of other things in this town, the Guild Hall obviously wasn’t what it once was.
By the end of the first course Rolf was on a first-name basis with Wiz. Once or twice in his career in Silicon Valley Wiz had been wooed by some very high-powered headhunters. That was what this meeting with Rolf was like. The man was working on him, trying to bring him around to-what?-and in spite of his cynicism, Wiz found himself responding to the man’s charm. If Dieter was born to sell used cars in San Jose, he thought, Rolf could sell bonds on Wall Street. Wiz smiled, pleasantly, tried to enjoy the meal and waited for the shoe to drop.
“I noticed you’ve already met Dieter,” Rolf said casually as they worked their way through a dessert that was mostly berries, whipped cream and some kind of strong liqueur.
“After a fashion. He came to see me the first day.”
Rolf smiled knowingly. “He is dynamic, isn’t he?”
Wiz put down his spoon. “He is also about as subtle as a hand grenade in a barrel of oatmeal.”
Rolf chuckled. “I think I understand the reference, but what is a ‘hand grenade’?”
Wiz thought about how to explain high explosives to a culture that didn’t even have gunpowder. Then he thought about what Moira said about his explanations. “Let’s just say it’s something that doesn’t belong in an oatmeal barrel.”
Again that engaging toothpaste smile. “You know one of the things I enjoy so much about you, Wiz? Your outlook is refreshing.” He gestured from the wrist. “Like a breath of clean air into a musty closet that has been closed up too long.”
Considering his performance this morning a breath of hot air was more like it, Wiz thought. But he made an appropriately modest reply.
“Refreshing nonetheless, Wiz. We have been a backwater for too long. It has narrowed us, cramped our vision.” He leaned forward over the table. “Wiz, we need to change and I think you are going to help us make the changes we need so badly.”
He used my name twice in two sentences, Wiz thought. Here it comes.
“Wiz, that is one of the reasons I hoped we could meet. I wanted to offer you my support in your program. You’re going to do great things for us, I know. In fact I’d go so far as to say your coming marks a new beginning for this town and its people.”
Great, Wiz thought. I am not only supposed to slay dragons, I’m supposed to work bloody miracles.
“You understand I have a very limited brief. I am a consultant on dragon problems, not a general management consultant.”