Rule Number
Three
by Laura Loomis
“Rule Number
Four,” Robert Merlin told a half-filled conference room,
“figure out what you don’t need.” He was going too fast;
he’d finish early and would have extra time for questions.
A listless heat filled the stuffy room, making Robert feel
like his head was poached. From the look of them, his
audience felt the same way. “I used to say
Rule Four was to prioritize, but that’s being too nice.
Wussy. You need to be ruthless. Those five dollars you
spend on a double cappuccino every day? Think about how
much money you would have if you put that into your
investments instead. And you wouldn’t believe how many
people tell me they don’t have time to build their
business, when they always have that hour to watch TV at
night.”
A rustle of whispers went through the room.
Right then, he
realized he’d forgotten to do Rule Three. He’d gone through
Rule One, know what
you want, Rule
Two, know what
your customer wants, and somehow
skipped to Rule Four. Not that any of the losers in this
little strip-mall town would care. If they’d had any
brains, they wouldn’t be here getting a motivational talk
from a self-described “Bad Boy of Wall Street” that they’d
never heard of.
There was nothing to do but finish up Rule Four and
continue. “Rule Number Five: there is no such thing as a
crisis, only an opportunity. In fact, the Chinese character
for crisis is a combination of the ones for danger and
opportunity.” He’d have to stop using that chestnut pretty
soon; everyone had heard it, and he wasn’t even certain it
was true. One of these days he’d get shot down by some
audience member who was fluent in Chinese.
He finished Rule Five on auto-pilot. Playing the Wall
Street businessman brought decent money, if less than he
pretended, but it was losing its charm. He needed a new
challenge, and he’d already decided what it would be. If he
could just escape this mindless seminar before the
collective stupidity in the room throttled his brain.
“Now, if you were paying attention, you may have noticed
that I skipped Rule Three. There’s a reason for that.” He
took a long drink of bottled water, to create suspense and
to get his patter down. Improvising helped him stay on top
of his game. “I call it Rule Three because it was the third
one I discovered, but I save it for last because it’s the
most important and powerful rule, the one that can really
change your life.” Actually Rule Three was
Plan your
time, and he kept it
sandwiched in the middle because he didn’t have anything
particularly colorful to say about it. Certainly it wasn’t
going to live up to an intro like that.
The whispering had stopped. He opened his mouth without
knowing what he was going to say. “Rule Three is to live as
if you’ve already succeeded. You want to be a CEO? I don’t
care if you’re the intern, you show up in a CEO suit, you
talk like a CEO, think like a CEO, and oh yeah, work like a
CEO.”
Now that he knew where to take it, the words rolled along
like the Porsche he rented for these speaking
engagements. “A few years
back, there was a con man named Marlon Roberts who printed
up a fake medical diploma and opened a clinic specializing
in weight loss. He had hundreds of patients, and some of
them still swear he did more for them than any other
doctor. Not one of them guessed he’d never been to medical
school. Why? Because he acted more like a doctor than a
doctor does.
“Now, I’m not suggesting you go that far.” He got a few
chuckles from the audience, so apparently some of them were
still awake. “But that same guy, he went on to impersonate
a psychiatrist and even a Catholic priest, and no one ever
suspected, because he lived as if he were already a success
at both.” Until that devout young couple discovered that
they weren’t really married, and hired a detective to track
him down. He’d wound up doing a nickel in Huntsville Prison
on an assortment of fraud charges. Personally, Robert
thought his homily at their wedding had been excellent,
five simple rules for a happy marriage.
The question-and-answer period was usually Robert’s
favorite part, especially when the audience had some
energy. Today it was excruciating. After a few variations
on “What was Rule Two again,” a curly-haired man raised his
hand.
“Your whole thing about finding a nicer name for a crisis
seems like a lot of hokum,” he said in a Deep-South drawl.
“I had my own clothing business in Biloxi, and we lost
everything when Katrina hit. You can stand up there in your
knockoff suit and call that an opportunity, but I can’t get
it all back with wishful thinking.”
“That’s not wishful thinking, that’s winner thinking. And
what you’re doing is victim thinking. We’re all going to
hit challenges in our businesses. The question is, are you
going to handle them like a loser, or like a winner?”
Robert flashed an ingratiating smile before adding the real
stinger: “And by the way, your business will do a lot
better when you learn the difference between a knockoff and
the real thing.”
There was a clumsy silence; no one wanted to be the next to
feel the wrath of the Bad Boy of Wall Street. Finally a
heavyset woman offered a simpering smile and said, “I just
want to tell you that your program is wonderful, and I
think it will really help me.”
He got out of there as quickly as he could. His malaise
went deeper than the challenge from the hurricane guy, or
the kiss-ass woman who was probably trying to get laid.
Robert knew the symptoms when he was getting tired of his
current persona. He was starting to take risks, daring
someone to catch him, like when he mentioned a con man with
a name oddly similar to Robert Merlin. He’d been caught at
the priest gig when he got his face on TV at a charity
fundraiser, and someone recognized him as the fake doctor
Marlon Roberts. He might still have gotten away, if that
couple hadn’t been so outraged to learn that they’d been
living in sin three months after the wedding.
Robert drove back to the rental agency and traded in the
Porsche for a Crown Vic, then returned to his hotel to
change costumes for his new gig. He removed the knockoff
suit and put on a realistic-looking police uniform with
badge, handcuffs, and a gun that he kept unloaded. He’d
gotten his hair cut extra short this morning, and he
completed the look by gluing on a thick moustache, the
color of a German Shepherd.
Robert—or as he now thought of himself, Officer Robert
Merle—cruised around town for the next couple of hours,
looking for someone to pull over. At first he couldn’t find
any speeders worth bothering about. Finally, as it started
to get dark, he came across a battered red pickup weaving
erratically in and out of its lane. Drunk or high, for
sure.
Robert put the light on top of his car and cranked up a CD
with a recorded siren. The truck jerked from side to side,
then pulled over. Something—a baggie, maybe—flew out of the
passenger side window, into the bushes.
Normally Robert pulled over speeders, gave them a lecture
and then hinted that he’d forget about it for a twenty. It
didn’t make enough money to be more than a sideline, but
the rush was incredible. The best cons were the ones he
shouldn’t have been able to pull off.
Excitement raced through him. An intoxicated driver would
be worth more than a twenty. How far could he take it? For
a crazy moment, Robert considered hauling the driver down
to the police station and pretending to be a new rookie
cop. No, that was ridiculous. All the cops in this town
probably knew each other. Hell, he didn’t even know where
the police station was.
One thing at a time. He’d give the guy a field sobriety
test, make him walk a straight line and recite the alphabet
backwards. Afterward, he’d figure something out.
He approached the driver’s side window and barked, “License
and registration, please.” The driver, a rangy young man
with a scraggly beard, handed over his ID. Willis
Thorndike. What the hell kind of name was Thorndike for a
druggie in a Southern cow town? Thorndike was a name Robert
would use if he was impersonating a high roller at some
upscale casino.
Thorndike’s hands kept twitching. Robert had assumed it was
marijuana in the hastily thrown bag, but the man looked
like he was on something stronger.
“What was that you threw out the window?”
“I didn’t throw nothing.” The driver leaned out the window
and squinted at Robert’s flashlight. His reddish-blond
beard was in desperate need of a decent barber. “Don’t I
know you?”
Oh. No. He’d been at the seminar, sitting in the back with
a vacant look on his face. Probably looking for pointers on
increasing his drug business.
Robert tried to make his voice sound deeper. “Step out of
the vehicle, please.”
Thorndike opened the car door, and—it happened so fast
Robert had no chance to react—he was pointing a gun in
Robert’s face. “Guess this changes things, don’t it,
officer,” he said with a wheezy laugh.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Robert heard his own
voice in its most mocking tone: There is no
such thing as a crisis, only an opportunity.
It took a lot
of effort to inhale, as if he had to pry open his
lungs. Rule
One, he reminded
himself, know what
you want. What he wanted
was to be out of here, away from any drug-dealing psychos,
alive and preferably with no holes in him. Somehow he would
have to reason with a man too tweaked to think about the
consequences of shooting a police officer.
Rule Two:
know what the customer wants. “I know you
don’t want any trouble. And I’m not sure I saw anything get
thrown out the window. Even if you did, no one can prove
it’s yours now. Why don’t you just go about your business.”
Another wheezing laugh. “Yeah, right. I leave, and you’re
on that radio telling your buddies at the police station
that I held a gun on you.” Thorndike shifted from one foot
to another, clearly unsure what to do next. If he’d wanted
to shoot, Robert would already be dead.
Rule Four:
figure out what you can let go of. The whole
business of living as a cop wasn’t looking so good anymore.
“You were right, you do know me. I’m not a real cop. I’m a
con. You were at my seminar earlier today: Five Simple
Rules Millionaires Don’t Want You to Know.”
Thorndike squinted again and frowned. Slowly, avoiding any
sudden moves, Robert peeled away the fake moustache.
“Well, I’ll be gol-damned.”
Robert’s heart started beating again. “So what do you say
we just forget the whole thing, you put that gun down and
we both walk away?”
“Not a chance.” Thorndike used his free hand to pull out a
cell phone. “There’s gotta be a reward for your ass.”
Rule Number
Three, Robert
thought bitterly, plan your
time.
Another nickel
in Huntsville.
Copyright 2007 by Laura Loomis