by Jim Lombardo
Although Hannah’s questions had nothing to do with StarPros directly, each one did have a business purpose. The child measured every word that Kip uttered, every nuance. Who really is Kip Becker? she pondered. Is this someone I can trust as a partner? Can this man deliver? Will he be fun to work with?
Brian bluntly asked Kip about StarPros’ competitors. He wanted to know what made StarPros the better choice.
“There are some good companies out there for sure, but also some not-so-good ones. I’ve seen people taken advantage of too many times. I’ve seen promising careers destroyed, usually because of greed. Frankly, I don’t believe those big firms with hundreds of clients would ever be able to provide the personal touch that I pride myself on.”
“How many clients do you have?” asked Brian.
“Oh, I’ve had thousands over the years, too many to count.”
“But how many right now?”
“Right now?” Kip paused for a long time. “Well…I don’t actually have any active contracts right now, but I’m very busy consulting and assisting, mostly friends and associates from over the years.”
Kip poured himself some water and downed a few gulps. Hannah noticed that his hands were covered with age spots, and were noticeably shaking. It occurred to her that during their entire time in his office the phone had never rung a single time. There was a long deathly quiet, and Kip was eager to find a way to keep the conversation going with a few questions of his own.
“So, getting back to Hannah here, what do you dream about when you think about your future?”
The group discussed a number of well-orchestrated public engagements, involving charity work and sponsorships, along with some amusing and interesting ideas that Hannah and Kip each had already considered, as she moved toward becoming a more prominent public figure. They also discussed the manner in which contracts in the industry were typically drawn up between manager and client. It was clear to Hannah that Kip was not keen on rushing or trapping anyone into a deal.
“I have a personal policy that I never ask anyone to sign any contracts on a first meeting. I would probably have failed as a used car salesman. But this is Hannah’s life. Your lives. Enjoy the city, head home, talk, and think about what I’m offering. Do some shopping around, and let me know if you’d like me to represent you out there. Feel free to call or even send an email. Ace can give you the email address. On second thought, I’ll get it for you. If it’s not meant to be, no need to explain. A simple no is fine. In any case, cash the check, and I will continue to admire you, and wish the best for all of you in the future. Oh, and let me reassure you, I love my son, but all of those so-called products Ace came up with…those will be staying in the box.”
“You have a very creative son, Kip,” said Hannah, “and I already know you love him. You love many things.”
After Hannah had taken a try at hoisting the hanging weights in the clock, and Kip had given them a tour of the Empire State’s observation deck, the family was finally saying goodbye to him at the elevator.
The instant the doors shut, Brian shook his head. “Oh, man, was that nutso or what? He’s completely washed up. His company is sunk.”
“But not if we don’t cash his check right away, and sign an agreement with him, Daddy. Then his ship is sailing fine. I’ll earn lots of money, and he’ll get 10 percent.”
“You can’t be serious, Hannah,” said Brian. “Why do you think everyone left him? There has to be a reason. And Ace, is he looney or what? I think it’d be a huge mistake to go with those guys.”
“So, if it didn’t work out then we could switch to someone else,” Hannah said. “We could terminate a contract with him anytime at all with no penalty. He would be at our service until the minute we change our minds. I think we should give him a chance. What do you think, Mommy?”
“Well...chance?…maybe?” she replied hesitantly.
“Oh, come on,” Brian said. “You guys just feel sorry for him. It’s time for him to retire. It was time years ago. He’s just barely hanging on. I don’t know what for. Isn’t he eligible for social security? If you ask me, I think it’s time for him to turn off the lights and exit stage right.” Brian wrapped up his diatribe with an exaggerated impersonation of Kip. “Ha!...Ha!...Ha!”
“Daddy, Mommy, let’s go see the Statue of Liberty, then talk about it after that.”
**************
To: [email protected]
Subject: Working together
Dear Kip,
Thank you so much for meeting with my parents and me to discuss potentially working together.
So, I’ve been doing some thinking. One of my primary concerns was trust, and on this issue I have formed a very high opinion of you. Not everyone is trustworthy, of course!
Yesterday, I considered your vast industry experience and legal background as well as my belief you would be loyal to the virtuous principles you conveyed to me. When I put my signature onto a contract with my agent, I want to be confident we share the same worldview, and both have a knack for improving our world.
As far as financial aspects, I don’t need an Infiniti luxury car to be happy in life. Trust me on that. I simply want a fair and straightforward arrangement, without the need for excessive negotiation.
Finally, I would love for my agent to have outstanding sensibilities. So, if you can ferret out the special location secretly coded into this letter, I’ll sign a contract with you there. Can you sleuth it? Hopefully this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, just like the ending of Casablanca. (Hint 1!)
Sincerely yours, H. Blake (Hint 2!)
Chapter Thirty-Three
The Greatest Chess Move
Ever Played (5 years old)
Grandmaster Anatoly Shirov sat red-faced with droplets of sweat rolling down his forehead as the position on the chessboard now seemed to be gripping him by the throat. He was trying to make sense out of the beautiful novelty Hannah had just devised, in what up to that point had been a fairly balanced game.
Shirov was 27 years old, born in the capital city of Elista in southwestern Russia. His father suspected his brilliance early on, recounting a story for the media of when Anatoly was only three years old and they were driving down a road, the boy had questioned why the house numbers on one side of the street were always even, while on the other side they were always odd.
He had experienced a difficult childhood growing up, as both his parents had suffered from alcoholism and had fought with each other almost constantly. An only child, he had no true friends and so had struggled with loneliness. Also, given his slight build, he had failed miserably at team sports, and had been bullied mercilessly. But as he got older, he discovered that with his special talents on the chessboard, he could command the respect that he so desperately craved. Using the chess pieces, it was he who could now assume the role of tormentor for a change. His energy and ambition to succeed at chess were unrelenting, and he vaulted to the elite of the chess world, reaching grandmaster status at the age of only 14.
Shirov had been the new reigning World Chess Champion for only about three months when he had been publicly challenged to an exhibition match by agent Kip Becker, on behalf of Hannah. The Mayor of Montreal, in the Canadian province of Quebec, a chess enthusiast himself, though admitted patzer, had been persuaded by Kip to host the event to promote tourism. The Mayor’s original offer was a winner-take-all prize of $500,000 in United States dollars. But emboldened by the staggering amount of publicity that was being generated, Kip had managed to negotiate the prize money up to $1,000,000 for the winner and $100,000 for the loser. The proposal was that the two would play one game a day, but in a sudden death format—until someone won a game, with draws not counting toward the result.
GM Shirov had hedged on accepting the invitation, submitting a contract listing numerous stipulations that had to be agreed upon, and signed by Hann
ah, her parents, and the Mayor. The contract read like a constitution, with 24 individual articles dictating the world champion’s demands. These included precise measurements for the height, width, and length of the table, a board made of marble from Russia, and chess pieces of Staunton design. There would have to be an anteroom just off the game room offering a variety of fruit juices, peanut butter, and crackers. Exactly 75 fresh bananas would be made available to the players for each game required for the match. The list went on and on.
After much haggling, Anatoly finally relented to reducing the time control to two hours each for all of each players’ moves per game, down from his initial mandate of three hours each. Shirov also reluctantly agreed on a coin flip to determine who would play with the white pieces to start off the match. Playing as white provides a slight advantage because that player moves first. But all his other demands were agreed to, and the contract was fully executed. The event was scheduled with international fanfare.
Hannah had become an instant media darling from the moment she arrived in Montreal. Not only was she fluent in French, but she had mastered the Quebec French dialect and accent specifically for this trip. Her first meeting with the Mayor of Montreal and the press was a home run over everything. When asked if she was nervous about playing against the world champion, the diminutive youngster flippantly replied, “Je serais, si nous allions jouer au basketball.” [I would be, if we were going to be playing basketball.]
Interestingly, Hannah had never even played in a single sanctioned chess tournament. Playing the game casually was simply something that Judy, her psychologist, had suggested as a means of absorbing her boundless mental energy, and to relieve the frustration she experienced when not actively engaged in learning. Though the rules were remarkably simple, she quickly realized that chess yielded a game of boundless complexity, dubbing it, “Tic-Tac-Toe on steroids.” She had begun pouring over chess strategy books and puzzles, and had rapidly gained strength on the board. Her incredible performance playing on an online chess server against worthy competitors as well as strong computer software programs had given Kip the idea of having her compete in a simultaneous blindfolded exhibition in Atlantic City. At that event, Hannah had sat confidently in a fancy chair in a hotel ballroom surrounded by a large ring of tables with 25 chessboards and opponents. Around her head, covering her eyes, was a black scarf.
Hannah: “Board 15, please.”
Opponent #15: “Bishop d8.”
Hannah: “Queen takes d8, check.”
Hannah: “Board 16, please.”
Hannah: “Board 16, please?”
Opponent #16: “Sorry, I need more time.”
Hannah: “Okay, I’ll come around again….But I’m announcing mate in 3 moves. Board 17, please.”
The notoriety she had received from her domination at that competition led to an offer from the creators of Magnum, the world’s most powerful chess supercomputer for a six-game match, which she won, crushing the machine with four wins and two draws.
As she played Shirov in the first game, Hannah sat on an elevated chair so she could reach the chess board. She was dressed in a delightful pink frilly dress with a black bow in her golden hair to match the black pieces she was playing with. At age five, her face was still angelic, and now had a smattering of light freckles, one area of which she was proud to point out was remarkably similar to the constellation Ursa Minor, the Little Dipper. She wore white lace socks and shiny black leather dress shoes with buckle straps shaped like flowers. Her feet dangled in midair as her legs were too short to reach the ground. At times she would begin playfully kicking them up and down out of boredom as she waited for her opponent to move. Occasionally she would conduct a mental review of The Encyclopedia of Chess Openings, which she had committed to memory, even though in her opinion it was brimming with mistakes, and faulty advice. She sat viewing an imaginary screen in her mind’s eye as the moves and annotations swiftly whizzed by her like cars on a freeway. She went over Shirov’s games again. But to Hannah, reviewing his games was now providing diminishing returns. It felt like overstudying for an exam.
The child looked over at the wooden chess clock sitting to her left. The world champion had insisted on this old-fashioned clock, presuming that Hannah would only be accustomed to the new digital clocks used in chess. It had two small clock faces set side by side, one showed the time she had left—1 hour, 35 minutes—and the other showed the time her opponent had remaining, which was about 13 minutes. A red plastic warning flag hung down limply at the 12:00 position on each clock, waiting for the clock’s long hand to reach it. In time, the clock hand would eventually force the flag slowly upwards as time ran down, with the flag finally falling back down as the hand reached a totally vertical position, signaling the expiration of time, and defeat for that player, regardless of the situation on the board.
As Hannah waited her turn, she marveled over the passage of time. What was time, exactly? It was more than a concept; it was as real as the moving metal hands. But it was untouchable, something mystical. She wondered how time could ever have an end, and if eternity was possible. At the end of time, wouldn’t there always have to be another minute? On the other hand, how could time have ever begun? There had to be a minute before any time in the past.
After frolicking around this conundrum, she considered similar questions regarding space. If a rocket ship blasted off in a straight line into space, wouldn’t it eventually have to reach an end? But how could there ever be an end? There would always have to be an area beyond that. Although Hannah knew that time and space were two very different things, she found it interesting that these baffling questions were almost identical in nature. Could time and space be related somehow? Could time and space share the same explanations?
The child knew that there were perfect answers to all of these enigmas, of course, but no human had figured them out yet. I’ll have to get back to that later, in another time and space, she thought. Hannah turned her thoughts back to the game, noticing that Shirov still had not made his move. She closed her eyes, leaned back in her chair, and let out a long, full-throated yawn, her face contorting and mouth fully agape.
“Excuse me,” she said, jerking herself back up straight with a mischievous grin.
Anatoly scowled at her because she was breaking one of the rules of the contract. It strictly forbade Hannah from speaking at all during play, except to say “check” (an attack on the King), “I adjust” (requesting the opportunity to touch a piece without playing it, just to center it better on the square it was resting upon), or “I resign” (which the grandmaster was positive, when he drew up the contract, that she would need to say at the conclusion of their match). No other words could ever be uttered. He now wished he had included contractual stipulations on how pieces could be moved, and he wished she had been refrained from making any sounds at all. What a disgrace this shameless runt is to the game of chess, he thought. Shirov shuddered again at the vulgarity of 17…Ne5!
Earlier in the game, instead of simply picking up and placing the Knight on the destination square, Hannah had playfully lifted the horse into the air, galloped it around, up and down with her tiny fingers, imitating the clicking sound of a horse’s hooves with her tongue, before finally resting it on the destination square. But she wasn’t finished yet. With the tip of her index finger still in contact with top of the Knight, and with the steed’s flaring nostrils pointed directly at her opponent, she had tipped the piece backwards, while letting out a protracted, high-pitched neighing sound that sent the gallery of onlookers sitting in stands behind thick glass shrieking with laughter. The crowd’s uproar had made its way through the glass into the grandmaster’s ears, and the fact that it was muffled didn’t mitigate his personal humiliation whatsoever.
Anatoly shook his head at the recollection and went back to the board, searching in vain for any chink in the fortress that Hannah had built around her King, any way to es
cape the gridlock he found himself trapped in. He thought back to an earlier point in the game, cursing himself for 25. Rxg5. Why did I take that poisoned Pawn? Hannah had offered the brilliancy 24…g5!! Leaving the Pawn vulnerable with strategic intent, calculating that if taken by Anatoly, the capture would prove costly to him later in the game. Occasionally he glanced over at the clock, which showed his time was dwindling. Why did I agree to a two-hour time control? he thought. Should I just try to force a draw? At one point, one of Hannah’s feet that she was kicking up and down accidentally struck the underside of the table with a knock, shaking the pieces slightly. Shirov glared at her.
“Excusez-moi, s’il vous plait.”
Hannah continued to wait, her eyes alighting on the miniature Russian flag posted at the edge of the table next to her opponent, juxtaposed with a United States flag aside her. She wondered why there wasn’t a flag for the planet Earth, then everyone could fly that one along with their own country’s flag, to celebrate our connection as humans, instead of our differences. The Olympic flag served that purpose wonderfully, but it was only unfurled during the Olympic Games.
She then zeroed in on Anatoly, and began studying him carefully. He had a scar on his forehead just like her father, but in this case, the stitching had obviously been performed sloppily. Hannah could hear the occasional gurgle of Shirov’s digestive system from the acid that was roiling in his stomach. Perhaps he could now use one of those bananas he ordered, she thought. It was clear to her the game was taking a toll on him. He looked like someone facing the gallows, and it appeared tears were welling in his eyes. She scrutinized the slightly worn cuffs on the sleeves of his suit jacket and studied his tie, black with cute gold chess pieces on it. The tie knot was sadly skewed to one side from trying to loosen it, rather than proudly centered between the lapels of his shirt as it should’ve been. She wondered if he was feeling as suffocated as his position on the board.
