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was told) to get in on the ground floor of Feniro Wireless, the new brand from GlobalInterLink. A combination wireless phone andGPS satellite system, it would allow family members to stay in touch with one another, let parents track their children’s whereabouts, and enable them to set spending limits on texting and downloadable content. It would be a boon to worried mothers and fathers.
    Unfortunately, it was the single un-coolest phone in the short history of mobile communications. To America’s youth, it screamed, “I’m on an electronic leash, and my parents won’t let me off it.”
    It lasted eighteen months on the market.
    Seventeen months into the phone’s life, Bob sat alone in his distressingly empty store when the phone rang. Hope used to spring in his chest every time the phone rang—would it be a potential customer asking for directions to the store? Someone calling to reserve a phone? Now, he knew it would be a wrong number or a prank call. They were all he ever got.
    â€œBob Steinkellner? Stanley Trask here.”
    And it was. Bob knew that voice from innumerable appearances on Larry King and that one time when he was a guest fire-er on Celebrity Apprentice . Bob’s heart leapt to his throat—the Great Man was actually calling him.
    â€œI need your help, Bob. And you need mine.”
    All he was asking for was a show of faith. If Bob would order as many phones as possible to help the company through the next fiscal year, then they would prosper together. “You have two choices, Bob,” Stanley (for they were on a first-name basis now) said. “Youcan either help this company we’ve built together, or you can help destroy it.”
    Bob looked around the store at the walls full of cell phones, many of which had sat there for months. Could he afford to double that inventory? No, he could not.
    â€œI’ll do it,” Bob said. How could he say anything else to Stanley Trask?
    So he ordered the phones, doubling his inventory; he showed the world that he still had faith in Feniro.
    One month later, the company went bankrupt.
    The press termed the telephone calls that Stanley Trask placed to all his distributors “channel stuffing.” This is a practice in which the seller forces as much product possible into its distribution channels. Coca-Cola has done it. Sunbeam has done it. Even Chrysler did it. It wasn’t strictly illegal. Not strictly. It was a simple strategy for survival—better someone else gets stuck with inventory than you.
    The Feniro bankruptcy was the first failure of Stanley Trask’s career. He took it philosophically. “It was a bad idea, badly executed and badly marketed. To be honest, I took my eye off the ball. But I’ve learned from my mistakes. I assure you, it won’t happen again.”
    And he went on to mounting success.
    Bob Steinkellner? Not so much. He lost the store—but not the phones. He was forced to go back to live with his mother. And worse than that, far worse, he had to return to magic. But in the new economy—when parents stopped throwing lavish birthday parties fortheir kids, when companies stopped hiring entertainment for their corporate retreats, when the competition for gigs grew greater and greater—there just wasn’t much room for a self-hating magician.
    So with his money running out, with his mother weeping in the next room, Bob Steinkellner watched a news report on Stanley Trask and his growing empire. Feniro Wireless was mentioned in passing, humorously, as his one misstep.
    Bob Steinkellner decided, then and there, that he had to make a statement.
    He went to the library to go on the internet (his home connection was cut off due to lack of payment) and did his research. He learned how to make a pipe bomb from watching videos on YouTube. He found out about Trask’s yacht from TMZ. He located it on Google Earth and got directions to it from MapQuest. All in an