I'm in a team of reporters investigating a cult of investment--wealth worshipers. We tag along with an older woman who praises the cult leader for not drowning her in pesky numbers and jargon like most investment advisers. Instead he showed her a feel-good video.

She plans to invest her life savings.

The video puts all but me in a nearly sexual fever. Yet all it shows is a baker finishing a chocolate cake. Slathers on an "extra layer of frosting..."--the voice as buttery as the topping--and they all go "Oooh", awash in food-lust. I don't get it, myself. But I'm a genetic freak lacking a sweet tooth; maybe I'm metabolically immune. I can see it works on most; they're ready to invest all they've got, on the spot. Their futures for cake!

Our team feels it too. But we're forewarned, so we fight it; some recall we came to spy. A slender brunette--oh, those frosting-smears fooled me, that's Silky, my spirit wife--raises a brow at me; I shrug to indicate I'm not swayed so far. Her tiny headshake warns me to fake intoxication. So I crumple to the floor and lean on a woman's leg as if shaky, but also indiscriminately horny... by the Power of Cake. The scammers look pleased.

I eavesdrop while gawking at chocolate, and collect information.

At last I slip out. Seek Silky's car, down the hill, parked on a curve. But she's not there. I wait, uneasy. Did she get caught? Wait as long as I dare, then flee on foot, alone. Cross town... walk endless blocks through hills. Detour three blocks around one mansion I think is cult-owned.

You know, most of the cultists seemed sincere; I'd swear only a small core knows it's a pyramid scheme. Yet it's no secret; I've heard of it often. You may have, too. The Food Pyramid.

NEXT NIGHT

On the BBC series Sanditon, three girls try to expose the redcoat regiment whose dinner parties and balls wow the local aristocrats while stiffing the town's caterers. "They give such great parties! How could they be cheats?" Easy! Amuse the rich, rack up IOUs with suppliers, and then skip town juuuuust ahead of the lynch mob... and over in the next county, do it all again. After all, in Napoleon's day news spread at three miles an hour--if it did at all.

Thank God we're better informed. You can't scam us with "Let them eat cake." Right?

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