CHAPTER 1

Carlos Perks stepped out of his car and glanced down at his right foot. He cursed when he saw that he had stepped in a pile of dog poo. At least he thought it was dog poo. It could have been human excrement, since it was a pretty big pile, and no dog he knew produced so much of the stuff, even the big dogs.

He sighed deeply and tried scraping it off the sole of his shoe. He had a big and important business meeting scheduled and he didn’t want to be late. But neither did he want to walk into the meeting and soil the hotel carpet with a bunch of smelly stuff. It was a matter of respect for the cleaning crew who would have to shampoo the carpet after he had been through.

A woman walked up to him and touched his arm. He looked up in surprise, but then he saw that it was his fiancée, Mindy.

“I hate it when this happens,” he grumbled. “Don’t you?”

“I always make sure I look where I walk,” she reminded him tartly. He didn’t like it when she made these cracks, making him feel stupid. But then it was par for the course with Mindy. She did it with everyone she met, and by now it had become a habit that was hard to break.

“Must have been a big dog,” he commented as he glanced around for the culprit. He saw an elderly man walking his dog a little further down the street, but that dog was tiny and couldn’t possibly be responsible for the smear of doo-doo left on his shoe.

Mindy was checking her watch and making impatient noises. “Let’s go, Carlos,” she said. “We don’t want to be late for this meeting.”

She was right. It was a make-or-break meeting for their business. If they didn’t manage to convince the client to put down a big order, they might as well pack up and leave. After all, they had been in business long enough to know that you can’t force fate. You can try and make it go your way by making sure that all the elements are in place, but even then it’s impossible to predict an outcome. Especially in a business as fickle as the one he and Mindy were in. They had recently expanded their product portfolio to pet food and needed the capital to expand.

He gave his shoe one final scrub against the side of the pavement and then hurried after his fiancée, who was already setting a nervous pace in the direction of the entrance to the Star Hotel, where their client would hopefully be in a good mood—a spending mood. Bug spray had been done before, but their particular product was definitely very novel and could set the market on fire if they ended up bagging just another couple of big orders. Even though Prince Abdullah was a repeat customer that didn’t mean they didn’t have to fight for his business.

He hoisted his mock-up, up in his arms. The giant fly, which he had christened Virgil, never failed to impress, especially when combined with the PowerPoint presentation he had designed. As he lugged the giant thing into the hotel, he drew plenty of surprised and amused looks from the people in the lobby, who probably had never seen a man carry a giant fly in his arms before. Virgil was also the mascot of their company, which they had named Zap, Inc.

“Come on, come on,” Mindy urged as she pressed the elevator call button. The meeting wasn’t taking place in one of the conference rooms but in the client’s suite for some reason.

They arrived on the third floor, and Mindy traced a path to the door of the suite in question with her high-heeled Louboutins. If Prince Abdullah took one look at Mindy and liked what he saw, he might part with his money for the simple pleasure of being in the woman’s presence. He wouldn’t be the first man to fall for the peppy blonde and certainly not the last.

They paused in front of the designated door, and Mindy gave him a critical look. Then she got busy making sure that his hair looked just so, his shirt was buttoned up, his tie straight and his shoes spic and span.

“You need a personal stylist,” she said finally as she threw up her hands.

“I have a personal stylist,” he reminded her. “You!”

She half-smiled at this. “Funny guy.” She turned serious. “Let’s knock ‘em dead, Carlos.”

“Yeah, let’s,” he agreed. He applied his knuckles to the door, and they waited for Aladdin’s cave to open and shower them with lots and lots of money to make their dreams come true.

When after ten seconds there was no answer, he knocked again. And when there still was no sign that anyone was home, he exchanged a look of concern with his fiancée.

“Maybe he forgot?” he suggested.

“Impossible,” she said as she took out her phone. “He confirmed the meeting this morning.”

He hesitated. “Maybe he’s in the shower?”

“Let me try,” she said, and hit the door with her fist. The door rattled on its hinges since Mindy was a strong girl who loved her daily gym class and could bench press more than Carlos. He had never been one for physical exertion, preferring to spend his time on his creations. Like the innovative and revolutionary bug spray he had invented all by himself. Or the giant fly he was still holding in his arms. The creature seemed to be staring at him with its huge facet eyes, and even he got a little anxious when he looked into the big fly’s eyes. You could be forgiven for thinking it was real, even though it was all polyester and styrofoam.

“I hope he hasn’t changed his mind,” said Carlos. “We need this sale, sweetheart.”

“I know we need this sale,” she said annoyedly. “I’ll send him another message.”

She expertly and quickly typed out the message on her phone. Her fingers flew over the screen at a dizzying speed. Moments later, the message was sent and she was frowning at the device. “He’s received it, but he hasn’t seen it yet,” she announced. Then ten seconds later, “He still hasn’t seen it.” She lifted her eyes to take in his. He saw that she was starting to get seriously rattled now, which wasn’t like her. “Something is wrong, Carlos. Very wrong.”

“Maybe the prince changed his mind?” he suggested.

“But why? Half an hour ago everything was fine, so what changed?”

He shrugged. But since he was essentially a philosopher at heart, he didn’t think there was a lot they could do right now except accept their loss and go home. There would be other clients since essentially they had an excellent product to sell. Though Prince Abdullah represented their big break. If not for him, they’d never have cracked the Asian market in the first place.

Suddenly there was a sort of commotion on the other side of the door, and he placed his ear to the panel. “Did you hear that?”

“What?”

“Sounded like… a gurgle or something?”

“What gurgle? I didn’t hear anything.”

The sound had died away, but he had definitely heard it. He wore pretty high prescription glasses, and he’d once read that if you lose one of your senses, the others are all augmented, so his hearing was excellent and a lot better than Mindy’s, who never seemed to hear anything.

“There’s definitely somebody in there,” he said.

“Of course there’s somebody in there,” said Mindy. “Only he doesn’t want to see us, does he? Must have had a change of heart, just like you said. Come on. Let’s go. I’m starting to feel like a fool, and I hate it when that happens.”

And she started to walk away, with that same brisk pace that was so typical for her. But the gurgle had given Carlos pause. Was it possible that the prince was in some kind of trouble?

And so he decided to give it one final shot. He put his fist to the door and gave it a vigorous rap. And much to his surprise, he thought he could detect another gurgle. And so without thinking, he set down the mock-up of Virgil and put his shoulder to the door.

“What do you think you’re doing?” asked Mindy, who had retraced her steps.

“There’s someone in trouble in there!” he said, and took a step back, then assaulted the door once again, this time throwing all of his not inconsiderable weight into it. The door buckled under the pressure, and he flew inside, landing on the carpeted floor, right next to a person.

As he stared at the man, he found himself looking straight into the eyes of Prince Abdullah himself. And in spite of the earlier gurgling, it was undeniable that life was now extinct!

CHAPTER 2

Ihad been watching a little bird tweeting up a storm in a nearby tree when a voice rang out inside the house.

“Max! Dooley!”

I exchanged a look of understanding with my friend Dooley, who was studying an ant crawling over a blade of grass and trying its darndest to carry a large crumb to safety.

“Looks like it’s time for us to get off our butts and do some real work for a change, buddy,” I told him.

“Pity. I was just about to help this little fella here feed his family.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, little ant. Looks like you’ll have to carry that crumb over the hill to your nest all by yourself.”

“Who are you talking to?” asked Brutus, who had been sunning himself and lying on his back, all four paws dangling this way and that.