The Private Diary of Rayne Maker: "The Pecker Proposition"

I'm sitting at my desk, dreaming out of the window at the Citgo sign and the gray Charles River, empty desks around me from fired mid-level consultants ("high cost, big attitude, minimal value," according to Ken Armadillo), when the phone startles me awake. It's Pippa Pecker, newly separated from The Armadillo Group and from Ken himself (and his smashed Ferrari Modena as her parting gift — that'll teach him to fire his flame). Pippa wants to meet. Won't speak on the phone — as if it's bugged, I tease her, and then realize that Ken is entirely capable of such a thing. Furtive assignation set for tomorrow evening …

Spend much of the afternoon in a Du Rite team review with my mind on Pippa. Nancy Nebraska having departed with the rest of the deadwood, new team leader is greenhorn Mark Wahlberg, who claims to be unrelated to the underwear model turned film star but actually looks unnervingly like him. I keep thinking of Boogie Nights. He ought to change his name if he expects to be taken seriously as a master strategist. Marky has a touching enthusiasm for my old specialty, segmentation. Try to redirect him towards the "save us a million bucks every month and we might pay your outrageous fees" attitude of our nasty client EVP Angus Stamp, who describes his tough-talking management team as a gang of electric eels. (I'm not sure why. Shouldn't it be a shoal, anyway?)