He waited until the door had shut, then slumped in his seat and put his face in his hands. God, and shit, and damn. How did it all go so crapola? How did he end up with a theme-area that was half-shut, record absenteeism, and even a goddamned *union organizer* just the day before, whom he'd had to have security remove. Florida laws being what they were, it was a rare organizer brave enough to try to come on an employer's actual premises to do his dirty work, no one wanted a two-year rap without parole for criminal trespass and interference with trade. The kid had been young, about the same age as Death Waits and the castmembers, and had clearly been desperate to collect his bounty from SEIU. He'd gone hard, struggling and kicking, shouting slogans at the wide-eyed castmembers and few guests who watched him go away. Having him taken away had given Sammy a sick feeling. They hadn't had one of those vultures on the premises in three years, and never on Sammy's turf. What next, what next? How much worse could it get? "Hi, Sammy." Hackelberg wasn't the head of the legal department, but he was as high up in the shadowy organization as Sammy ever hoped to meet. He was old and leathery, the way that natives to the Sunbelt could be. He loved to affect ice-cream suits and had even been known to carry a cane. When he was in casual conversation, he talked "normal" -- like a Yankee newscaster. But the more serious he got, the deeper and thicker his drawl got. Sammy never once believed that this was accidental. Hackelberg was as premeditated as they came. "I was just about to come over and see you," Sammy lied. Whatever problem had brought Hackelberg down to his office, it would be better to seem as though he was already on top of it. "I expect you were." *Were* came out *Wuh* -- when the drawl got that far into the swamps that quickly, disaster was on the horizon. Hackelberg let the phrase hang there. Sammy sweated. He was good at this game, but Hackelberg was better. Entertainment lawyers were like fucking vampires, evil embodied. He looked down at his desk. "Sammy. They're coming back after us --" *They-ah comin' back aft-ah us*. "Those ride people. They did what we thought they'd do, incorporating into a single entity that we can sue once and kill for good, but then they did something else. Do you know what they did, Sammy?" Sammy nodded. "They're countersuing. We knew they'd do that, right?" "We didn't expect they'd raise a war-chest like the one they've pulled together. They have a *business-plan* built around suing us for the next fifteen years, Sammy. They're practically ready to float an IPO. Have you seen this?" He handed Sammy a hardcopy of a chic little investment newsletter that was so expensive to subscribe to that he'd suspected until now that it might just be a rumor. HOW DO YOU GET RID(E) OF A BILLION?