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Isla Malhaldo, that was Galveston's first name, you know.
Isle of Bad Luck."
"Why?" Laura's mother said obligingly. She was humoring him.
"Cabeza de Vaca called it that. His galleon was ship- wrecked here in 1528. He was almost eaten by ca
Karankawa Indians."
"Oh? Well, the Indians must have had some name for the place. "
"Nobody knows it," David said. "They were all wiped out by smallpox. True Galvestonians, I guess-bad luck."
He thought it over. "A very weird tribe, the Karankawas.
They used to smear themselves with rancid alligator grease- they were famous for the stench."
"I've never heard of them," Margaret Day said.
"They were very primitive," David said, forking up an- other scop pancake. "They used to eat dirt! They'd bury a fresh deer kill for three or four, days, until it softened up, and--
"David!" Laura said.
"Oh," David said. "Sorry." He changed the subject.
"You ought to come out with us today, Margaret. Rizome has a good little side, biz with the city government. They condemn it, we scrap it, and it's a lot of fun all around. I mean, it's not serious money, not by zaibatsu standards, but there's more to life than the bottom line-"
" `Fun City,' " her mother said.
"I see you've been listening to our new mayor," Laura said.
"Do you ever worry about the people drifting into Galves- ton these days?" her mother said suddenly.
"What do you mean?" Laura said.
"I've been reading about this mayor of yours. He's quite a strange character, isn't he? An ex-bartender with a big white beard who wears Hawaiian shirts to the office. He seems to be going out of his way to attract-what's the word?-fringe elements. "
"Well, it's not a real city anymore, is it?" David said.
"No more industry. Cotton's gone, shipping's gone, oil went a long time ago. About all that's left is to sell glass beads to tourists. Right? And a little, uh, social exotica is good for tourism. You expect a tourist burg to run a little fast and loose."
"So you like the mayor? I understand Rizome backed his campaign. Does that mean your company supports his policies?"
"Who's asking?" Laura said, nettled. "Mother, you're on vacation. Let Marubeni Company find their own answers."
The two of them locked eyes for a moment. "Aisumimasen."
her mother said at last. "I'm very sorry if I seemed to pry. I spent too much time in the State Department. I still have the reflexes. Now that I'm in what they laughingly call private enterprise." She set her chopsticks across her plate and reached for her hat. "I've decided to rent a sailboat today. They say there's an offshore station-an OPEC, or something like that."
"OTEC," David corrected absently. "The power station.
Yeah, it's nice out there."
"I'll see you at supper then. Be good, you two."
Four more Canadians came in for breakfast, yawning. Mar- garet Day filtered past them and left the dining room.
"You had to step on her toes," David said quietly. "What's wrong with Marubeni? Some creaky old Nipponese trading company. You think they sent Loretta's grandma here to swipe our microchips or something?"
"She's a guest of Rizome," Laura said. "I don't like her criticizing our people."
"She's leaving tomorrow," David said. "You could go a little easier on her." He stood up, hefting his tool chest.
"All right, I'm sorry," Laura told him. There wasn't time to get into it now. This was business.
She greeted the Canadians and took the baby back. They were part of a production wing from a Rizome subsidiary in
Toronto, on vacation as a reward for increased production.
They were sunburned but cheerful.
Another pair of guests came in: Senor and Senora Kurosawa, from Brazil. They were fourth-generation Brazilians, with
Rizome-Unitika, a textile branch of the firm. They had no
English, and their Japanese was amazingly bad, laden with
Portuguese loan words and much Latin arm waving. They complimented Laura on the food. It was their last day, too.
Then, trouble arrived. The Europeans were up. There were three of them and they were not Rizome people, but bankers from Luxembourg. There was a banker's conference in the works tomorrow, a major do by all accounts. The Europeans had come a day early. Laura was sorry for it.
The Luxembourgers sat morosely for breakfast. Their leader and chief negotiator was a Monsieur Karageorgiu, a tawny- ski
His crisp, precise, and perfect shoes were like objets d'art,
Laura thought. Shoes engineered to high precision, like the power plant of a Mercedes. It almost hurt to see him walk in them. No one at Rizome would have dared to wear them; the righteous mockery would have been merciless. He reminded
Laura of the diplomats she'd seen as a kid, of a lost standard in studied elegance.
He had a pair of unsmiling companions in black suits: junior executives, or so he claimed. It was hard to tell their origins; Europeans looked more and more alike these days.
One had a vaguely Corte d'Azur look, maybe French or
Corsican; the other was blond. They looked alarmingly fit and hefty. Elaborate Swiss watchphones peeked from their sleeves.
They began complaining. They didn't like the heat. Their rooms smelled and the water tasted salty. They found the toilets peculiar. Laura promised to turn up the heat pump and order more Perrier.
It didn't do much good. They were down on hicks. Espe- cially doctrinaire Yankees who lived in peculiar sand castles and practiced economic democracy. She could tell already that tomorrow was going to be rocky.
In fact the whole setup was fishy. She didn't know enough about these people-she didn't have proper guest files on them. Rizome-Atlanta was being cagey about this bankers'
meeting, which was most unusual for headquarters.
Laura took their breakfast orders and left the three bankers trading sullen glares with the Rizome guests. She took the baby with her to the kitchen. The kitchen staff was up and banging pans. The kitchen staff was seventy-year-old Mrs.
Delrosario and her two granddaughters.
Mrs. Delrosario was a treasure, though she had a mean streak that bubbled up whenever her advice was taken with anything less than total attention and seriousness. Her grand- daughters mooched about the kitchen with a doomed, submis- sive look. Laura felt sorry for them and tried to give them a break when she could. Life wasn't easy as a teenager these days.
Laura fed the baby her formula. Loretta gulped it with enthusiasm. She was like her father in that-really doted on goop no sane person should eat.
Then Laura's watchphone beeped. It was the front desk.
Laura left the baby with Mrs. Delrosario and took the back way to the lobby, through the staff rooms and the first-floor office. She emerged behind the desk. Mrs. Rodriguez looked up in relief, peering over her bifocals.
She had been talking to a stranger-a fiftyish Anglo woman in a black silk dress and a beaded choker. The woman had a vast mane of crisp black hair and her eyes were lined dramati- cally. Laura wondered what to make of her. She looked like a pharaoh's widow. "This is her," Mrs. Rodriguez told the stranger. "Laura, our manager."
"Coordinator," Laura said. "I'm Laura Webster."
"I'm the Reverend Morgan. I called earlier."
"Yes. About the City Council race?" Laura touched her watch, checking her schedule. The woman was half an hour early. "Well," she said. "Won't you come around the desk?
We can talk in my office."
Laura took the woman into the cramped and windowless little suboffice. It was essentially a coffee room for the staff, with a data-link to the mainframe upstairs. This was where