|| Excerpt ||

Dear Reader: 

Once upon a time, in a magic kingdom, there lived a handsome prince. Prince Charming, he was called by one and all. 

And to this land came a gentle princess. You could say she was Cinderella. 

Magic kingdom? 

Well, okay, if you're going to be a stickler for accuracy, in this fairy tale the kingdom is Manhattan. But there's magic in The Big Apple, isn't there? 

Prince Charming? 

You've heard the rumors, I suppose. So, this fantasy calls for a little imagination. So, the prince is not-so-charming on occasion. So he sells shoes, not glass slippers. So he drives a pick-up truck, not a pumpkin coach. Big deal! He is handsome. 

A gentle princess? 

Picky, picky, picky! Who says a woman has to be soft and fluffy all the time? Haven't you ever heard of a royal case of PMS? And just because this princess is called "The Shark" doesn't mean she can't harbor some softer emotions inside. 

Cinderella? 

Geesh! Who's telling this story? She is Cinderella, all right...Wall Street Cinderella. This is the nineties, people. The feminist movement, I-am-woman-hear-me-roar, and all that affirmative action business. Remember, even Grace Kelly had a career before her prince came galloping down Sunset Boulevard. 

And, no, no, no, my lips are sealed over the glass slipper not fitting incident. You didn't hear it from me that the princess has a corn. 

Now, if you're done interrupting... if you've opened your eyes and ears (and your heart) to all the enchantment awash in this earthly realm...if you'll stand still so I can flick you with some fairy dust...then sit back and listen to the most fantastical story I have for you...

Elmer Presley, fairy godfather
(You-know-who reincarnated)

**********

CHAPTER ONE 

"THE PRINCE IS A ROYAL PAIN IN THE...FOOT."

Prince Perico Tomas de la Ferrama had just shimmied off his jeans and was pulling up his gray silk Armani slacks when he glanced out the shaded side window of the limousine and saw the sign wielded by a female picketer. He immediately did a double-take. 

A long-legged strawberry blonde on crutches brandished the ignominious placard. Although she leaned against a telephone pole, she was clearly the ringleader of the line of chanting women--at least a dozen--who paraded in front of the skyscraper housing his sixteenth floor offices. They carried similar messages: "FERRAMA IS ANTI-WOMAN." "WHAT'S SEXY ABOUT CORNS?" "PRINCE FERRAMA IS A FROG." "THE VAMP = CORNS." "DOWN WITH FERRAMA SHOES." "CORNS, BUNIONS, CALLOUSES...WHAT NEXT? WARTS?" 

"Maldito!" he muttered and quickly flicked a switch, speaking into the intercom, "Circle the block, Jake." With the usual noontime traffic congestion, that could take half an hour. 

"Sure thing, boss," his head designer, Jacob Beaunare, snapped back with childlike glee. Due to their ongoing financial crunch, Jake had been forced to double as chauffeur, but it was a role he enjoyed. The former MIT whiz kid whipped the leased stretch limo, with its detachable imperial crests, out into the bustling Manhattan street, oblivious to the honking horns and curses of cab drivers, not to mention the WBOT news van. 

Oh, great! Is that Diane Sawyer coming up the street, flanked by two ABC cameramen? 

"What the hell's going on, Dick?" he snarled, turning on his lawyer and figurehead CEO, Enrique Alvarez, who sat beside him on the other side of the limo's wide bench seat, sipping a Scotch and perusing a file of papers in his open briefcase with calculated coolness. Dick prided himself on his smooth composure under pressure. 

He was about to give Dick some real pressure...like a fist in his too-pretty face if he didn't cut the crap. He was sick to death of all the p.r. games Dick orchestrated, although, to be fair, he didn't know if Dick was responsible for this latest travesty. 

Peering up at him over a pair of wire-rimmed reading spectacles, Dick smoothed a hand over his long, slicked-back hair, which was gathered into a ponytail at his nape--a personally blueprinted facade. "Relax, P.T. I told you when I picked you up at La Guardia that we have a minor crisis. No problema." 

Uh-oh! Every time Dick said "no problema," he could be sure they had muchas problemas. P.T. mentally fortified himself for the worst, then lashed out, "No problema? No problema? You call a herd of...of Femi-Nazis circling my headquarters no problema? You call that Hard Copy vehicle on our tail no problema? You call this kind of publicity just before the Ferrama stock offering no problema?" 

"Don't get your laces in a knot, mi amigo. I'll handle it." 

"Carramba! Were articles of Incorporation filed today with the Securities and Exchange Commission?" he asked stonily. 

"S¡...of course. Now we have three weeks before Ferrama goes public on August sixteenth. Next starts the road show, taking our presentations to the brokerage institutions in the selling group. The lawyers are proofing the final prospectus as we speak." 

"And the opening price?" 

"Five dollars per unit." Dick beamed with satisfaction. He'd been afraid the initial offering would be set at a lower price, which wouldn't necessarily have been bad, but anything under five dollars smacked of penny stocks which he'd wanted to avoid. 

"So, with two million shares, we'll raise ten million in equity, as we'd hoped." 

"Yep. Man oh man, we landed in a pile of gold dust when we chose Donaldson & Donaldson for the managing underwriters, P.T. The fifteen securities firms they invited into the initial selling group are primo...the best in the business." 

"It was more of a coup that Donaldson chose us," P.T. pointed out dryly, but he couldn't help but smile at Dick's enthusiasm. 

"Dios, I'm so anxious, I wish we could hit the boards today, but the SEC demands this twenty-one day `cooling off' period. I can see that you're wired, too, P.T. So, why don't you take this time to cool off yourself. You're entirely too uptight." 

P.T. just realized that Dick had managed to divert his attention from the problem at hand...the picketers. "You dumb greaser!" 

Dick stiffened at his slur. "You pullin' rank on me, el jefe? Keep in mind, Mr. Perfecto, you're a greaser, too." 

They proceeded to rip out long spiels of chastisement at each other in Spanglish...a staccato combination of Spanish, the language of their common ethnic backgrounds, and English, their mother tongue. 

Finally, P.T. released a long sigh of exasperation. "Ah, Dick, you have to know that this is a delicate stage. News of our impending stock offering will surely hit the financial news by tomorrow." 

"Yeah. In fact, you have an appointment this afternoon with a Wall Street Journal reporter. And the `tombstone' ads to be run in the financial pages of all the major newspapers on the big day are ready to be sent out. They just need your final stamp of approval." 

He groaned. "So why are those women picketing our offices?" 

"We had no warning the crackpot would go this far. She and her cohorts weren't here when I left the building two hours ago." 

"You knew there was a problem? And didn't nip it in the bud?" 

"Hey, I had my hands full with your stepsisters. Those two blood-suckers would put the wicked stepsisters in Cinderella to shame." 

P.T. winced with foreboding. "What are Naomi and Ruth up to now?" 

"Same old/same old. Money, money, money...they just can't get enough. They're driving everybody at the office bonkers. Wait till the accountant gets a hold of you. Naomi bought five thousand dollars worth of power tools and fifty gallons of paint last week. Ruth ordered three Bob Mackie sequin jumpsuits for her boyfriend, Elmer Presley, for a cool ten grand." 

"Elmer Presley? He's still hanging around?" P.T. choked out, then waved a hand dismissively. "I can't deal with Naomi and Ruth now. Back to the picketers...what can we do to avert a disaster?" 

"Don't overreact. I'm sure it's just a tiny blip in the scheme of things." 

"Are you loco? I smell a lawsuit waiting to happen. Any negative publicity could deflate our opening stock price. So, don't jerk me off with this `tiny blip' garbage." 

"I said I'd handle it, man." 

That was the problem. He probably would. The question was how. 

Arching his butt off the seat, P.T. tucked his black tee shirt into the pleated slacks, then buttoned, zipped and belted himself in, the whole time scowling his displeasure at his colleague. As a final touch, and with a grimace of distaste, he draped the matching, double-breasted suit jacket over his shoulders like some freakin' Italian movie star...or prince. Who the hell ever heard of wearing a tee shirt with a suit? But that's what Dick proclaimed the hottest item in international men's couture, according to GQ. Dick knew that kind of useless crap. 

The persona finally in place, P.T. took a deep breath. "Let's cut to the chase and--." 

His words were interrupted by the screech of brakes and the sound of metal abrading metal as Jake misjudged a corner with the twenty-foot vehicle and side-swiped three trash cans. A bag lady gave them the flying finger salute, and a cop blew his shrill whistle. Jake could be seen in the rear-view mirror shrugging sheepishly and mouthing, "Oops!" 

P.T. braced his forehead with the carefully manicured fingertips of one hand--another of Dick's bright ideas to fit the image...clear nail polish!--and closed his eyes, counting to ten. Then he leveled a withering glare at Dick, who had the good sense to put aside his booze and briefcase. "Fill me in on everything." 

"She's Cynthia Sullivan." 

"Who?" 

"The redhead." 

Oh. The babe on crutches with the Rockette legs. "That wasn't red hair. It was blonde...well, reddish-blonde," he pointed out, having no time to wonder why or how he'd noticed such irrelevant details. 

"Oh, God!" Dick's mouth went slack-jawed with surprise before he hooted with laughter, shaking his head at him. "You dumb schmuck. What you need is a good f--" 

"Don't...go...there!" 

"Geez, I told you before you left for Paris to get yourself laid, good and proper, but did you listen to me? No. You're still coiled tighter'n a slinky...so horny you'd bang a ballbuster like Cynthia `The Shark' Sullivan. What you need--" 

"Knock it off," he sliced out. Dick had been a friend for more than a decade and a business associate for more than five years, but sometimes he went too damn far. 

"Take my advice. You need all your wits about you the next few weeks, and it's a proven fact that testosterone is a natural I.QI.Q. suppressant. I oughta know." 

"Damn straight you oughta know." Dick went through women like an amoral bee in a flower garden, flitting from one overblown posie to another. "Pre-emptive jiltings," he called all the meaningful one-night relationships he blew off. In truth, Dick had been burned by one bad marriage and had sworn "never again." 

"Believe me, this se¤orita is bad news...a pit bull in high heels." Dick was still rambling on about the knockout picketer. 

"I am not interested in the woman. I only commented on her hair," he protested. "Besides, my sex life is none of your business. You've been getting your jollies for years dictating this asinine royalty sham, but I draw the line at my personal life." 

Dick just grinned at him. 

He inhaled deeply for calm. "What do you mean by the shark remark?" 

"Didn't you see the Business Week article last year profiling Cynthia Sullivan, the Wall Street trader nicknamed `The Shark'?" 

P.T. rubbed his chin pensively. "I thought `shark' referred to a ruthless corporate raider or `Black Knight'." 

"It usually does, but in her case, she earned the tag another way. She's so aggressive on the exchange floor that some brokers refer to her as `The Irish Barracuda'." 

"Is she the kook who made network news when she told Alan Greenspan to eff-off?" 

"Bulls-eye! The Fed chief was giving a speech at the Forbes Magazine luncheon when she overheard him saying something about brokers taking voluntary pay cuts to help curb inflation." 

"Hmpfh! It's about time someone put Greenspan in his place." But then P.T. frowned. "I don't understand. We have a Wall Street trader leading a picket of our business? We're talking serious shit hitting the fan, then. And you say `no problema'?" 

"No, no, no," Dick corrected. "Her job has nothing to do with this campaign of hers...well, not directly. Don't you remember me telling you on the phone last week that some fruitcake had been calling customer service to complain about a corn she got from one of our shoes...`The Vamp'? You told me to ignore her." 

"A corn?" P.T. yelled. He felt a headache the size of his debit balance begin to pound behind his eyeballs. "I thought you were talking about some old lady with blue hair, not someone quite so...uh, young. And wipe that smirk off your face." 

"Oh, Cynthia Sullivan's not young," Dick said with a knowing snort. "She must be at least thirty." 

He slanted Dick a wry glance. They were both thirty-two. "That's young," he insisted. "Let me get this straight. We're being picketed because some chick allegedly got a corn on her big toe from one of our products." 

"Pinky." 

"What?" 

"The corn's on her pinky toe, not her big toe." 

"Mierda!" he murmured. 

"She claims her profession requires her to be on her feet all day on the exchange floor. Traders are those people you see on the evening news during the daily stock reports, standing around yelling out bids, like an auction. Anyhow, she says the pain of the corn kept her from doing her job." 

"Don't make me laugh." 

"Then, because she wasn't able to move quickly, one of the other traders stepped on her foot and broke that toe, along with two others. She lost her job...temporarily, at least. And she might have to default on the two million dollar apartment she recently bought at the Dakota." 

"Two million dollars?" P.T.'s jaw dropped with incredulity. Then he thought of something. "The Dakota? Isn't that the place where John Lennon was shot?" 

"Uh-huh. It's harder to get into that building than Fort Knox now--visitor or resident. Very ritzy place, like a damn castle. Believe me, she got a bargain at two million. And talk about elite occupants! Over the years it's been home to Lauren Bacall, Rudolf Nureyev, Gilda Radnor, Roberta Flack, some Arab princess, Boris Karloff. In fact, the movie `Rosemary's Baby' was filmed there." 

"What are you, a walking real estate encyclopedia?" P.T. snorted with disgust. "So, we've got some Boris Karloff Creature from the Black Dakota Lagoon, living in Rosemary's baby's co-op, about to put a curse on our company?" 

"I never said she lived in those particular apartments." 

"Whatever! A corn, Dick? A corn? Talk about frivolous complaints!" 

"That's what everyone said about that lady who sued McDonald's over a hot cup of coffee. She got millions." 

"I needed to hear that," he grumbled. "Dick, our shoes sell so well because they're sexy, but also because they're guaranteed to be ergonomically and orthopedically comfortable. Is it possible our product caused her...injury?" 

"I doubt it, but it doesn't really matter. We can't risk a court battle." 

"Okay, what's our happy picketer looking for...fifteen minutes of fame on the T.V. tabloids? An easy cash cow from us? Or is she just plain crazy?" 

"At first, I would have said crazy. Now I'm leaning toward `crazy like a fox'." 

"Or a shark." 

"Yep," Dick agreed. Then he added, "We need a plan." 

"Will our liability insurance cover this kind of injury claim?" 

"Probably. Even our bare bones budget isn't skimpy in that department." 

"So, the problem is publicity. We have to do everything to avoid publicity," P.T. concluded. 

"Exactamente. The bankers say we have every reason to expect Ferrama to be hyped as a hot issue. But what we don't want is a swooner...a stock that's volatile...supersensitive to news of any kind." 

"Like picketers," P.T. deduced. "Okay. You'll have to set up a meeting with Wall Street Barbie, a.s.a.p." 

Dick nodded. "And you're going to have to be her Ken. Lay on the princely charm with a trowel. Seduce her if you damn well have to." 

P.T. didn't even blink at the suggestion. They'd both done worse for the company in the five years since they began the blitz to change direction in the marketplace. Now the pot of gold was almost in their grasp, the end of the rainbow no longer an impossible dream. 

Besides, he'd never made it with a stock broker before. Maybe he could learn something new. 

Still, P.T. balked inwardly. "I've spent the past week dodging the bed of Countess Ariana," he complained. 

"That oversexed tart who owns a chain of European fashion mags? I read about her in the New Yorker." 

"One and the same," P.T. said tiredly. "I gotta tell you, I'm all charmed out. Why don't you do the seducing this time?" 

"Because you're so much better in the charm department. Because women...no matter how intelligent, no matter what age...still harbor this fantasy of Prince Charming coming down the pike on a white horse to carry them off into the sunset. Because the only horses I'm acquainted with are at the track," Dick answered with a grin. "Besides, hopefully it won't come to that. Maybe Ms. Sullivan will be reasonable." 

"A reasonable shark? Somehow, I doubt it." 

Dick tucked his pager and cell phone into his briefcase as the limo approached the front of the building again. 

P.T. slid on a Rolex watch and inserted one tiny gold loop earring--additional ostentatious props in their dog and pony show. On his neck, he squirted a minuscule amount of French cologne that cost an ungodly $500 an ounce. Then he wet his palms with water from a bottle of Perrier that Dick handed him and raked the fingers of both hands through his collar-length hair, pushing the long black strands back off his face in a style meant to evoke a casual cosmopolitan air--all window dressing to enhance the image of Ferrama, Inc. Thus far, it had worked. 

"Well?" he inquired finally. 

With a quick assessment of P.T.'s appearance, Dick nodded his approval. It was a silent ritual they'd replayed too many times to count these past five years, ever since he'd converted his stepfather's tacky Friedman's Wholesale Shoe Factory to the piss- elegant Ferrama, Inc. 

"Muy bien. Lookin' good, my friend," Dick commented with a playful poke in his arm. 

Dick knew much P.T. hated this playacting scam. Well, only three more weeks. Then he could buy out the interests of his greedy stepsisters, and he would be free, free, free. No more prince baloney. No more nonstop business pressures. He would become P.T. Ferrama, regular guy. "Chingate," he said with a laugh and poked Dick back, only harder. 

"No, thank you. You're not my type." 

"How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?" he asked, wanting to lighten the strain between them. He'd posed that same hackneyed lawyer riddles to Dick hundreds of times, often in situations far tighter than this. Hell, some men bonded by hugging, he and Dick bandied ridiculous jokes. 

"How many can you afford?" Dick shot back, bobbing his eyebrows at him. 

They exchanged smiles then. 

"None...if we go belly-up." 

"Hey, where's the kick-ass Norman Vincent Peale attitude that's carried us this far?" 

"I'm just tired, that's all." It was more than that, but this was not the time to open that can of worms. 

Donning his dark sunglasses, P.T. waited for Jake to come around and open the door for him. He closed his eyes briefly, willing himself into the suave, debonair guise that should have become second nature to him by now. He'd reinvented himself so many times he barely knew who he really was. Then, bracing himself for the gauntlet of reporters and picketers, he gave Dick one last meaningful look. They both knew the drill. 

"Well, hombre, let's launch this boat and make some waves." As much as his friend pissed him off, they were in this together, sink or swim. "Oh, and another thing," P.T. added. 

Dick's lips twitched with amusement, anticipating what he was about to say next. 

"Bring Ms. Sullivan up to my office," he said. "Let's show her how the big sharks play."

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