Stranger than appearance

                                          Stranger than appearance
                                                    Malenkov

Jane brushed away a white-gold lock, gulped a pinkish cocktail, then dragged an erect, cliff shouldered, man by his platinum cuffs into the ring of socialites milling around a champagne table in the Conference room of the Hilton hotel, Berlin. "Darling, you really ought to meet these nice gentlemen!"
    Frederick chuckled, beamed then strode into the ring as if he were a matador accepting the applause before the fight. "Pleased you can meet me. I'm a key note speaker by trade."
    "He's so good." Jane's silver bracelet punctuated jagged gestures as she clutched Fredericks hand. "Freddy gets invited to all the big dos." Doe blue eyes fluttered. "Don’t you dear?"
    Frederick beamed Colgate-white enamels at the man next to him. "Darling, you know how I just hate … exaggeration."
    The Little man slumped almost among the folds of the velvet curtains muttered into the beer glass he nursed between puffy hands. He was spindly, owlish glasses draped on a wedge of a beetroot nose, and a shabby blue V-neck hung from a frame that would have shamed an Ethiopian.
    A business man in a crisp pin stripe suit, box chinned and with a languid drawl, extended a hand to Frederick. "Wow, that’s interesting. I'm Bill, here on business."
    Hands shook and Bill fished a bright white card from within a gleaming chrome case, slipping one to Frederick as if it was the opening ceremony to the Olympic games.
    "I wouldn’t call speaking an art, but they say you've either got it or not - guess I'm lucky." Frederick said.
    "Comes with experience, no doubt," a soft smile danced on the Little man's face.
    Frederick scrunched his brows. "It's normally used for big speeches, but I used it on a video conference once."
    "Ingenious of you, no doubt."
    "And how did you come to be here?" Frederick turned to Bill.
    "Well sir, you see I'm over here executing a significant transaction, to be clear," Bill tapped his nose significantly, straightened his parrot red silk tie that ballooned out across his shirt. "Iraqi pipeline project, a great and challenging project for the company I work for, Enron.” He glanced at Jim, nodded at the slight flicker in the other mans eyes. “Naturally, for the states too."
    "Oh! Just think what you'll be able to buy with your bonus.” Jane twisted around on her stilettos, facing Bill. "I do love these little cherries. What's this cocktail called again, darling?"
    "Sex on a beach." Frederick rolled his eyes to the ceiling and tilted one sharp fingered hand in an exaggerated flourish of an opera singer. "Goes to show”, he drawled slowly, holding the pause the way actors do in soliloquy , “our values are going to pot."
    "Perceptive of you, no doubt. It’s how you say it, not what you say, that counts." The little man’s smile flickered like a little candle about to snuff out.
    "Oh that’s so sweet of you." Jane fluttered her darkly mascared lashes at Frederick. "Isn't that true, Darling?"
    Frederick's Ferrari headlight smile, clouded into a thin snake.
    Bill preened his brilliantine hair, "And as I was saying, If we clinch this deal, we stand to make …”, he glanced at Jim, who dutifully raised his eyebrows, “billions. Value is what Enron's about."
    The Little man looked up at a little point somewhere on the ceiling, key hole lips looked silently whistling. "And where indeed, my fine gentlemen, would we be without the Enron’s of the world?"
    Jane's forehead creased, trying to catch a thought that slipped like steam before she could utter it.
    "Personally,” Frederick held the pause, “I think it's an achievement of great merit that a company takes upon itself the grand duty of, “ the voice rose to a crescendo, beat word for word like a musical score, “rendering a honour, service, fortune for our great country. As I always say," Frederick swept the audience with his eyes, hands wide open in supplication, "ask not what you can do for your country, but what your country can do for you."
    The little man coughed, or rather wheezed. It was difficult to say, in any case it was a whispery, reedy thing that sank as soon as it arose. Frederick glared at him, Bill narrowed his yes, Jane raised her brows. The Little Man nudged his glasses up on his nose, "I seem to recall it was the other way around."
    “What?” Frederick scrunched his eyes the way you look at frog entrails in a biology class.
    The Little Man’s soft brown eyes sunk to the warm brown liquid swirling n his beer glass, which he now sipped. “You meant the other way around surely, ask what you can do, not your country wasn’t it? Kennedy I thought.”
    Frederick hardened that craggy, maginotl-ine jaw, into a viperish smile. “Of course - so, it was.” The eyes darted up to the sky, swooped upon an answer then settled back upon the Little Man. A boyish giggle, a tint of red on the check. “I was just testing.”
    Jane flashed a goofy smile at Frederick.
Frederick shot a look that a Basilisk would have been proud of. Jane dropped her shoulders. He bunched his fists and stepped a half foot forwards towards the little man. "Say, my dear fellow, what is it you do exactly?"
    "I'm not what you could call a career man." The Little Man smiled weakly, shuffled his scuffed Dr. Martins.
    "Oh? You mean like a taxi driver?" Bill chortled, searched Frederick's eyes, and was answered by a wry smile that you’d expect an anaconda to sport.
    "No, not exactly." said the Little Man.
    "Frederick always says, 'no career and you’re a loser'". Jane cupped her hand over her mouth, "Opps!"
    "I make a living as I can."
    Frederick moved forward and the group advanced with him, as hounds surrounding a fox that has bolted into a burrow.
    "Well seing as a fella like you could do with a career, we might have some space for a resource in Enron. Project in Turkmenistan. Though I need to clear the financials first and dialogue that with the VP. But it might be executable in this quarter. Let's see now." Bill pulled out a Black-Berry and peered sideways at Jane who goggled at his fingers gliding and punching away on the calculator pad. Bill’s smile broadened into an answer. "How about some time next Century?"
    A voice pierced the still that descended around the group.
    "Oh! Is that you? Really you?"
    A large matronly woman, ample bosoms swinging under a double string of white pearls, panzered through the cauldron of figures that recoiled like the breach in bent poises and hands to mouths.
    "Oh!" the Matronly woman fumbled a pad and pencil from a black leather handbag. "I am such a fan of yours. I have all your books. May I trouble you for an autograph?" she thrust a pad and biro into the Little man's face.
    "It would be my pleasure", said the Little Man. And turning to the figures he bowed low, and laid his glass carefully by the fizzing Champagne clustered on the table.
    "Gentleman", the little man bowed. The words dropped into silence like ink in an ocean.
As the shabbily dressed man wandered off to the side with the woman, the others stared into their glasses.