Ghost in the Machine

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Randal T. Rumpp lived by the telephone.

The lowly telephone was the symbol of his empire, his great fame, his vast wealth. In his hands, it was transformed from a mere instrument for idle conversation into a lightning rod for raw money.

Randal Rumpp was never far from the telephone. A bank of them sat on his office desk. Cellular units filled every car and yacht he owned. When the maid set his table, there was a cellular handset where the salad fork should be. In restaurants, the maitre d' would see to it that Mr. Rumpp's special table-and he had special tables in restaurants throughout Manhattan, Paris, and other world-class cities-was set with a telephone to the immediate left of the dinner fork.

For alleged billionaire Randal Tiberius Rumpp was a maker of deals. And deals were best made by telephone.

On the day the telephones stopped ringing all over the Rumpp Tower, Randal T. Rumpp, for the first time in his life, lived in fear of their clarion call.

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