“Completely at random?”
“No,” Richard said, “I think that there is a selection mechanism and that it’s based on…”—he was about to say color, but again, he didn’t want to tip Corvallis off—“taste.”
“Okay,” Corvallis said, stalling for time while he thought about it. “So your fifty-five to sixty rich farmer with college degree who reads lots of books by Don Donald … he’d be on one side of the taste line.”
“Yeah. Who is on the other side?”
“Not hard to guess.”
“Bring me hard facts though, once you’re done guessing.”
“Any particular deadline?”
“My GPS tells me I’m two hours from Nodaway.”
“De gustibus non est disputandum.”
Day 0
SCHLOSS HUNDSCHüTTLER
Elphinstone, British Columbia
Four months later
“Uncle Richard, tell me about the…”—Zula faltered, then averted her gaze, set her jaw, and plowed ahead gamely—“the Apostropo…”
“The Apostropocalypse,” Richard said, mangling it a little, since it was hard to pronounce even when you were sober, and he had been hanging out in the tavern of Schloss Hundschüttler for a good part of the day. Fortunately there was enough ambient noise to obscure his troubles with the word. This was the last tolerable week of skiing season. All the rooms at the Schloss had been reserved and paid for more than a year ago. The only reason that Zula and Peter had been able to come here at all was that Richard was letting them sleep on the fold-out couch in his apartment. The tavern was crowded with people who were, by and large, very pleased with themselves, and making a concomitant amount of noise.
Schloss Hundschüttler was a cat-skiing resort. They had no lifts. Guests were shuttled to the tops of the runs in diesel-powered tractors that ran over the snow on tank treads. Cat skiing had a whole different feel from Aspen-style ski areas with their futuristic hovering techno-infrastructure of lifts.
Though it was less expensive and glamorous than heli-skiing, cat skiing was more satisfactory for truly hard-core skiers. With heli-skiing, all the conditions had to be just right. The trip had to be planned out in advance. With cat skiing, it was possible to be more extemporaneous. The diesel-scented, almost Soviet nature of the experience filtered out the truly hyperrich glamour seekers drawn to the helicopter option, who tended to be a mixture of seriously fantastic skiers and the more-money-than-brains types whose frozen corpses littered the approaches to Mt. Everest.
All of which was water long, long under the bridge for Richard and for Chet, who, fifteen years ago, had had to suss out all these tribal divisions in the ski bum market in order to write a coherent business plan for the Schloss. But it explained much about the style of the lodge, which might have been flashier, more overtly luxurious, had it been aimed at a different segment of the market. Instead, Richard and Chet had consciously patterned its style after small local ski areas of British Columbia that tended to be more rough-and-ready, with lifts and racks welded together by local people who happened to be sports fanatics. It was designed to be less polished, less corporate in its general style than south-of-the-border areas, and as such it didn’t appeal to all, or even most, skiers. But by the same token, the ones who came here appreciated it all the more, felt that merely being in the place marked them out as truly elite.
In one corner was a group of half a dozen ridiculously expert skiers—manufacturers’ reps for ski companies—very drunk, since they had spent the day up on the high powder runs scattering the ashes of a friend who had ODed on the same drug that had killed Michael Jackson. At another table were some Russians: men in their fifties, still half in ski clothes, and younger women who hadn’t been skiing at all. A young film actor, not of the first rank but apparently considered to be really hip at the moment, was taking it easy with three slightly less glamorous friends. At the bar, the usual complement of guides, locals, and cat mechanics had turned their backs on the crowd to watch a hockey game with the sound turned off.
“The Apostropocalypse is to the current realignment in T’Rain what the Treaty of Versailles was to the Second World War,” said Richard, deliberately mocking the tone of a Wikipedia contributor in hopes that the others would get it.