Free How To Succeed in Evil by Patrick E. McLean Page B

rules that we have agreed to use when facing such situations.”
    “Arrrrrrrrrrrgh! I know that. You don’t think I could pass the bar without knowing what a protocol is?”
    “Pass the bar? Why I always assumed you had merely walked underneath it.”
    “Ah, cheap shot you old bat. Tell me what’s what or I’ll let everybody know you’re the reanimated mummy of Mary Poppin’s grandma.”
    “If Edwin does not make contact in 36 hours, there are a series of steps that I take to resolve any untoward situation and recover him.”
    “Then what are you waiting for?”
    “There are still five minutes remaining in the waiting period.”
    “Five minutes. FIVE MINUTES! You’ve got to be shitting me. We gotta go. We gotta go right now.”
    “Go whither and do which?”
    Topper paced the wide marble floor furiously as he tried to piece a plan together. “We gotta go get him. We gotta get a shitload of guys. C’mon, this has to be in the plan, the protocol, whatever. Edwin’s good at this. Guys, guns, some dynamite. A bulldozer to knock in some walls. Hell, an armored bulldozer. Yeah, yeah. And a Cadillac. A big friggin’ Caddy to use as a getaway car. And make it a convertible ‘cause Edwin’s so tall.”
    “Truly, you think of everything,” Agnes says as she calmly picks up the phone.
    “Yeah, yeah. So that’s in the plan. Right?”
    Agnes shakes her head.
    “Then who are you calling? Somebody with a crapload of Ninjas in black body armor or something? Oh, oh, it’s gotta be somebody badass. Like a guy who farts laser beams out of his ears. A guy who can blow the side of a house in just by thinking about PEACHES!”
    “No,” says Agnes, “This is far more important.”
    “Who? Who is it?”
    “I am calling Edwin’s tailor.”

Chapter Fourteen 
    Just a Consultant

    Edwin is taken to a large room with good light. Once upon a time, an attempt had been made to make this room into a kind of conservatory for the musical edification for young Eustace. When Eustace had shown no interest or aptitude for music, the attempt had been abandoned. All that remained was a grand piano. 
    A guard is placed on his door, but to everyone’s surprise, Edwin makes no attempt to escape. He hangs his jacket over a chair, rolls up his shirt sleeves and goes to work.
    From Edwin’s point of view, escape attempts are pointless. To begin with, he’s not exactly sure where he is. And when you don’t know where point A is, it’s almost always impossible to get to point B. That makes any “heroic” effort a foolish risk to one’s person and one’s health.
    Besides, Edwin has a problem to work on. Edwin is never so happy as when he is faced with an intricate and potentially lucrative problem to solve. He thinks it unlikely that this entire escapade will wind up being anything other than a waste. But, for the moment, this is out of his hands. So Edwin ignores everything that is beyond his control and does what he does best. He thinks.
    For the first two days, Edwin’s requests keep a team of assistants working around the clock. They gather information, collate data and print documents. Edwin is computer illiterate. Of course, that’s not the way he says it. He will tell you that he is not easily fooled by computers; or seduced by any of the attendant fetishes of the cult of data. Data, in itself, is meaningless. For data to be of any use at all it requires a mind. A mind that, working from a coherent theoretical framework, can draw inferences, see patterns, use logic, overcome the narrow-minded thinking that infects a world of specialists.
    Computer screens are too small for non-specialized thoughts. Edwin prefers to organize information in physical space. Tables, floors, walls. He has all the furniture removed from the room except for several large tables and a grand piano. While he thinks he constantly rearranges papers, books, pictures. He often changes where he stands or sits. Even the sweep of sunlight across the room