My VP is a world-weary guy, with travel bags under his eyes dark enough to hide a Samsonite Pullman. There's the Status Symbol Factor. All the other CEOs at the club have high-priced consultants. You can't admit you don't even have one. There's the Ponzi Scheme Effect.
Consultants advise a company.
As long as the money circulates, everybody's happy. I turn and look at the grill in the middle of the room. The spy is a novelist living in the Pacific Northwest.