Page 159 - Just Deserts

Scrubbers

twister on the nation’s lips: ‘pick a pack of pestled pesto.’ Don
Frijole, the Man of La Munchie, symbol of Reheato Burritos and
Sesame Mucho—he was my creation. Remember ‘Yangtze Noodle:
Dandy!’? That was mine. So were the ‘Yogurt and Your Gut’ upscale
cable TV infomercials. Before Wolfdown came to Bodkin/Thomler
he was dying on the shelves: same old lasagna alfredo, chicken pot
pie and fish sticks. Look at him now!”
Wells listened to the response, a sneer temporarily straightening
his lopsided features. Ha! I’ve got the son-of-a-bitch now, he
thought. Nothing smells sweeter than a miraculous ad campaign.
He’s hooked, and all I have to do is reel him in.
“Okay, Walter: if you insist. I’ll be in your office at nine o’clock on
Monday morning with a complete presentation. You’re going to love
it. Cocker and Philpott will have another winner on its hands, and
we’ll both look good—right?”
The conversation concluded with the usual round of humorous
insults and insincere flattery. Earl immediately stood up and began
pacing. He had, as a matter of fact, not the barest shred of a clue how
to meet this new challenge. He tried, to salve his ego, to come up
with something for about five minutes. Then, graciously admitting
defeat to himself, he punched the intercom number for the mail
room.
“This is Earl Wells,” he boomed, striking terror into the vagus
nerve of whichever clerk was unlucky enough to answer the phone.
“Send Billy up here to my office. Now.”
He hung up, confident that the word of a junior partner was still
law among the lower orders. Billy Rubin’s peers would be grimacing
and giggling, twitching vicariously in expectation of the dressing-
down for some minor infraction of office policy the hapless errand
boy was about to receive. Certainly young Rubin’s habits and
character merited such disciplining; indeed, many wondered how he
had survived this long in the buttoned-down environment of
Bodkin/Thomler.
But nobody in the multi-floor rabbit-warren of cavernous carpeted
executive suites, bullpens crammed with desks and easels for writers
and designers, secretarial alcoves and converted closets piled high
with office electronics and coffee machines—nobody working in the
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