Corvallis took a sip of the expensive wine that Gerta had ordered from the sommelier. “But according to the itinerary your assistant forwarded to me, you flew in direct from Berlin on a private jet. You’re staying in the best hotel in Seattle, dining in the best restaurant, ordering the best wine. Am I picking up the check for this dinner?”

Gerta laughed and shook her head. “I am suddenly rich,” she said. “Two weeks ago I was on public assistance, living in a pension. Now money is flowing into my bank account. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a day.”

“From where?”

“From you, my friend. Don’t you ever audit your books?”

“Me personally or—”

“No, no, from your foundations and whatnot.”

“Why are we making payments into your bank account?”

“It’s all automatic,” Gerta said. “It’s the system that tracks music downloads. That pays artists like me whenever someone listens to their songs. Someone or something in your cloud is downloading my stuff like crazy. I am suddenly rich. And so—” Pompitus Bombasticus raised her arms, dragging electrical leads and IV tubes along with them. “I intend to die like a rich woman, with a fine dinner in my belly. And I want to have my corpse scanned like your other rich clients. And I want to go to this amazing place where everyone apparently listens to my music.”

Corvallis found time to audit the books a few days later, and found that Gerta was right about the downloads and the money. Pompitus Bombasticus had taken in more revenue during the last five weeks than during the entire preceding decade. To the living, she was still an obscure has-been, but to the dead she was bigger than the Beatles.