style="font-size:15px;"> Both Basil and Star froze and stared back at him intensely, and then Star took a gamble. “Of course, it is,” she said. “But this is the kind of thing that pays—and pays big with the right customers. No one at all has cashed in on this. And we mean to do so.”
“And we’re looking for a partner,” added Basil.
There was a moment of crackling silence, and then Ismael Balenzuela laughed heartily. “And if anybody can pull this off and sell this nonsense to the spiritually confused, I think you two can.”
“Are you in?” asked Star.
“I’m interested. But, if I’m putting up the money, I’m not talking about 50/50.”
“We’re not greedy,” said Basil.
“But, we’re not stupid,” said Star. “If we’re taking the risks, we need a decent cut.”
“Like what?”
“60-40,” hazarded Basil.
“80-20,” said Balenzuela.
“Meet in the middle,” said Star, “70-30.”
“What is the outlay?”
“We need a place to bring folks to. A lot like a retreat center. Anywhere around the area will do.”
“I think I can do that, but it’s going to need advertising. Don’t these kind of things need a book to push them?” asked Balenzuela.
“I told you,” said Basil to Star and turned to Balenzuela, confiding, “I’ve already been drawing one up in my head: The Dynamics of Polarism, I’m thinking of calling it, but more a booklet than a book. Something we can bang out pretty fast and then distribute far and cheaply. We could make some kind of perk that every pilgrim to the magnetic pole receives the right to wear a small magnetic pin and to distribute copies of our ‘bible,’ which, of course, they buy from us at discount to them, but a good markup for us, and give away or resell at a profit. It makes them feel special, like a very spiritual state to be in.”
“I can see it would be,” smirked Balenzuela. “You know,” he mused, “we could charter a cruise ship wherever the idea took hold and bring it here to Barahona.”
“Sure,” said Star, “devotees would begin feeling more ‘polarized’ the minute they got off the ship.”
All three of them laughed uproariously.
“Do you imagine they’d think it’s a good thing to be polarized?” chuckled Balenzuela.
“Well,” said Basil, wiping his eyes, “Nobody wants to be ‘depolarized’ do they? It’s like being lost.”
“Yes,” jumped in Star. “Unlike most religions, we wouldn’t have a concept of sin and salvation, doncha see? Just polarization and depolarization. And all sorts of aids to help people get polarized.”
“Look,” said Basil, “We’re not idiots. We realize explaining it to someone means they could steal the idea and do it all themselves, but we’ve got the inspiration and the experience and the skills to pull this off.”
“I can see you do,” said Balenzuela. “I confess that did cross my mind, but it would cause problems with my company back home. This, however, if it were worked carefully would be an investment. With the right presentation, it would fly, or I could simply do it myself with my own money, but, if I invested, I would have to know it would really work.”
“Listen,” said Basil, “I envision a fine line of magnetic products people can place under their beds or in the boardrooms of companies to draw people into harmony with a leader’s vision. In fact, we could bang out another book, Winning through Personal Magnetism, about how to use it in business. . . .”
“Or in one’s personal life, like one’s love life,” said Star. “Oh, that’s good. I really like that.”
“Are you really brother and sister?” asked Balenzuela.
“No,” said Basil.
“I thought not.”
“So, are you in?” asked Star.
“I’m in,” said the daring, and also routinely quick to closure, heir of the conquistadores.
“You won’t regret this. It’s perfectly legal. We deliver what we promise,” said Basil.
“So, what’s the next step?”
“We need a dupe.”
“A dupe?”
“Yes, someone legitimate that we can sell on the idea and have them round up all their friends for us.”
“Ah, I see you really have done this before.”
“Many times,” said Basil, “but, I have to tell you, this is the best one yet.”
“So, where do we find this ‘dupe’?”
“Tonight, we’ll go shopping in the casino.”
“Isn’t it a little early to start?” asked Balenzuela. “We don’t have a center, any booklets, or magnetic bric-a-brac. We don’t really have anything yet.”
“It’s never too early to find a dupe,” said Star.
9
The “beach house” of Saul Inti Archer, or Uncle Sol, as his nieces and nephew called him, because they said he was so “big and bright” (and it was also the Spanish translation of his Taino name, Inti) was hardly a shack on the sand. It was a palatial two-story compound more reminiscent of a small hotel than of a getaway bungalow. The ground floor had a large dining room and living room that opened into each other to create a great room into which guests were welcomed through the main entrance. A bedroom for visiting dignitaries was hidden by a large mahogany door off the dining room toward the front of the house. It had its own private bathroom, and this is where James and Lea Archer stayed when they visited. A bathroom just to the right of the dining room served all three of these rooms, as well as the kitchen, which was as large as the dining room space and opened from the left into the combined public entertaining area. While visitors may have been puzzled at first why its kitchen was in the front rather than the back of the house, the observant noted that a porch in the left-hand corner had access to the kitchen alone, making a favorite place for meals to be served out in the air. Its access to the kitchen also served as its service entrance, thereby neatly sealing off the two back rooms that were not accessible from that porch. In that way, the house had front public rooms, but back private rooms. The very back corner of the house had become Uncle Sol’s own private bedroom as his heart condition worsened and he was no longer permitted by his doctor to use the stairs. The final room of the first floor was his private office. A personal porch that allowed him to enjoy the breeze of the trade winds and his own private view of the sea was also sealed off from the great porch to its right that spread all the way around the dining room and living room until it reached the front door, ensuring him that he could entertain many guests while his private space was protected.
The
