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always suspected that Joe wasn't right, even for a third son.
"Big guy!" Joe shouted. "Workin' hard?"
George said, "Yes." He stood, patiently, waiting for Joe to give him the cloth back.
Joe held it over his head like a standard, dancing back out of reach, even though George hadn't made a grab for it. George waited. Joe walked back to his counter and gave it back.
"We're dozing the FreakZone," Joe said, in a conspiratorial whisper. He put a spin on We're, making sure that George knew he was including himself with the Island's management.
"Really," George said, neutrally.
"Yeah! We're gonna flatten that sucker, start fresh, and build us a new theme land. I'm a Strategic Project Consultant! By the time it's over, I'll be an Imagineer!"
George knew that the lands on Pleasure Island were flattened and rebuilt on a regular basis, as management worked to stay ahead of the lightspeed boredom-threshold of the mainland. Still, he said, "Well, Joe, that's marvelous. I'm sure you'll do a fabulous job."
Joe sneered at him. "Oh, I know I will. We all do just fabulous jobs, brother. Just some of us have fabulous jobs to do."
George refused to rise to the bait. He could always outwait Joe.
Joe said, "We're thinking of giving it a monster theme -- monsters are testing very high with eleven-to-fourteens this year. Dragons, ogres, cyborgs, you know. We may even do a walk-through -- there hasn't been one of those here since the sixties!"
George didn't know what Joe wanted him to say. He said, "That sounds very nice."
Joe gave him a pitying look, and then his chest started ringing. He extracted a slim phone from his shirt-pocket and turned away. A moment later, he turned back. "Gotta go!" he said. "Meeting with Woodrow and Orville, down at Ops!"
Alarm-bells went off in George's head. "Shouldn't Bill go along if you're meeting with Orville?"
Joe sneered at him, then took off at a fast clip down the midway. George watched him until he disappeared through one of the access doors.
#
Bill was clearly upset about it. George couldn't help but feel responsible. He should have called Bill as soon as Joe told him he was meeting with Orville, but he'd waited until he got home.
He'd been home for hours, and Joe still wasn't back. Bill picked absently at the dinner he'd made and fretted.
"He didn't say how Orville found out?" Bill asked.
George shook his head mutely.
"Why didn't he invite me?" Bill asked. "I always handle negotiations for us."
George couldn't eat. The more Bill fretted, the more he couldn't eat. It was long dark outside, hours and hours after Joe should've been home. Bill fretted, George stared out the window, and Joe didn't come home.
Then, an electric cart's headlights swept up the trail to their cabin. The lights dazzled George, so he couldn't see who was driving. Bill joined him at the window and squinted. "It's Joe and Orville!" he said. George squinted too, but couldn't make anything out. He took Bill's word for it and joined him outside.
It was indeed Orville and Joe. Orville was driving, and Joe was lolling drunkenly beside him. Orville shook hands with Bill and nodded to George, who lifted Joe out of the cart and carried him inside.
When he got back, Orville and Bill were staring calmly into each other's eyes, each waiting for the other to say something. Orville was dressed in his working clothes: a natty white suit with a sport-shirt underneath. His bald head gleamed in the moonlight. His fleshy, unreadable face was ruddy in the glow from the cabin's door. George bit his tongue to keep from speaking.
"He's drunk," Orville said, at last. Orville didn't beat around the bush.
"I can see that," Bill said. "Did you get him drunk?"
"Yes, I did. We were celebrating."
Bill's eyes narrowed. "So you know."
Orville smiled. "Of course I know. I set it up. I thought you'd approve: Joe clearly needed something to keep him out of trouble."
Bill said, "This will keep him out of trouble?"
Orville leaned against the cart's bumper, pulled out a pipe, stuffed it and lit it. He puffed at it, and watched the smoke wisp away in the swamp breezes. "I think that Joe's going to really like life with the Imagineers. They're Management's precious darlings who can do no wrong. Anything they ask for, they get. There won't be any more discipline problems."
Bill said, "Why not?"
Orville grinned without showing his teeth. "Where there's no discipline, there're no discipline problems. He can work whatever hours he wants. He'll have access to anything he needs: budget, staff, an office, whatever. It's his dream job."
Bill said, "I don't like this."
George wondered why not. It sounded pretty good to him.
Orville puffed at his pipe. "Like it or not, I think you'll have a hard time convincing Joe not to do it. He's sold."
Bill