by Ray Daniel
“And how did you get to be queen?”
Margaret was drinking port wine from a tulip-shaped glass. She sipped it now as she considered the question. “It’s very hard. Have you ever founded a company?”
“No,” I admitted. “I’ve thought of getting some venture capital money and starting one.”
“Ha!” Margaret’s laugh was sharp and unpleasant.
“What’s so funny?”
“People like you. The ones who think that VCs will line up to fulfill their dreams.”
“Well, I’d have a business plan.”
“A business plan? For God’s sake, everybody has a business plan. There are thousands of business plans. The key is to get those vultures to invest in your plan.”
“Did you get funded by VCs?”
“Of course not. Oh, I tried at first. I sent out hundreds of copies of my precious plan, which generated dozens of breakfast meetings. The breakfasts led to ten presentations, and I had two deals go all the way to where they turned over every rock in my life. But nobody funded me.”
“Why not?”
“Who knows? Each rejection had its own reason. In the end, I guess they just didn’t believe in my business. But one man did.”
“Who?”
“Roland Baker.”
“Roland? Roland’s an idiot. What did he have to do with your business?”
Margaret sipped some port and tipped the glass toward me. “You know, you keep saying that Roland is an idiot. But from what I see, Roland has been a step ahead of you at every turn.” She slurred a couple of her Ss.
“He’s an asshole.”
“He’s a sweet man. He saved my company.”
“How?”
Margaret gazed into her wine, recounting her story. “We met at a networking breakfast. I was desperately poor. I was down to one suit; my refrigerator was empty, and my cupboards were full of ramen noodles. I had paid my last fifty dollars to attend this breakfast, and I realized that everybody there had already rejected me.”
“You mean your plan.”
“Me, my plan, whatever. Getting your plan rejected means people are saying you don’t have what it takes to succeed. That seems personal to me.” Margaret sloshed her port a little. “Then Roland walked in.”
“Love at first sight?”
Margaret smiled with sad eyes. “I wish. I walked up to him, introduced myself, and started bawling. It was horrible.”
“What did Roland do?”
“He took me across the street for a cup of coffee. He listened as I told him about my business, and then he promised to help. The first thing he did was get me cheaper engineers.”
“How?”
“He had contacts in Russia. I got five Russian engineers there for the price of one American.”
“And look at you now. Drinking port in Mooo on the backs of cheap engineers.”
“No. That wasn’t what did it. I was still going out of business. I had no cash.”
“How did Roland help with that?”
“He got me some creative financing.” Margaret finished her port and ordered another, along with more Scotch.
I said, “Margaret Bronte, I do believe you are trying to get me drunk.”
She said, “All the better to proposition you.”
“An indecent proposition?”
Margaret smiled. “We’ll see how indecent you think it is. It all depends on how far you are willing to go.”
“After this much Scotch? Pretty far.” I sipped again. My worries were starting to dissolve into the alcohol. I settled into my plush seat and had a disturbing thought. “Does sleeping with a rich older woman make me a gigolo? Because if it does, I’ll need to update my résumé.”
Margaret’s smile vanished. “What makes you say I’m rich?”
“The fifty million dollars you’re getting for your company.”
Margaret sat back in her chair and took a deep drink. “That deal is dead.”
The news couldn’t get through my fuzzy brain. “What?” I said.
“The deal is dead. I’m not getting the fifty million dollars. And it’s your fault.”
“My fault? How is it my fault?” I asked as I drank some more Scotch.
“You fixed the code for Dana, didn’t you?”
Deep in my mind, a warning bell went off, but it was muffled and I ignored it.
“How did that screw up your deal?”
Margaret shifted gears. “What do you think of my software? Be honest.”
I was drunk enough to be honest. “I think your software is unoriginal and derivative. It looks exactly like the stuff I was working on at MantaSoft a year ago.”
Margaret arched an eyebrow.
I said, “I’m sorry, but that’s how I feel.”
Margaret smiled. “You are just so cute, I could eat you up.”
“What?”
Margaret shifted gears again. “Do you think that MantaSoft’s code was worth anything before you fixed it?”
I had no idea where she was going with this. “No. It was a mess.”
“What do you think it’s worth now that you’ve fixed it?”
“You mean software that can decrypt almost anything? I have no idea. The government doesn’t let MantaSoft sell it to most people, or even most countries, so the market is tiny. Maybe ten million?”
“No. I mean what if you could sell it to anyone—internationally. Without government interference.”
“Twenty million?”
Margaret sat back and took a deep drink of her wine. She muttered, “This is like talking to a child.”
“What?” I said.
“What do you think a country like, oh I don’t know, Russia, would pay to be able to decrypt any file? The Russians are incredibly paranoid. It kills them not to be able to read encrypted files.”
“MantaSoft can’t sell Rosetta to Russia,” I said.
Margaret drained her glass and waved the empty at the server, who jumped to get her another. She said, “You are right. A big public company like MantaSoft can’t get away with it. But a little company like Bronte Software can. Who pays any attention to us? How much do you think Russia would pay for Rosetta?”
“But it’s not legal, even for Bronte.”
“How much money do you think it’s worth?” asked Margaret, ignoring my point.
“Thirty million?”
“A billion!” Margaret said loudly. She caught herself and continued, “They will pay a billion dollars—that is a billion with a b—for Rosetta.”
“Oh my God,” I said. “You’re selling the Rosetta source code to the Russians?”
Margaret spread her hands. There you go. This was horrible.
My Scotch had been refilled. I hadn’t even seen it happen. I drank it too fast. It burned my throat. “But you can’t sell it. It belongs to MantaSoft.”
“It belongs to whomever has the source code. The working source code.”
I knew I should get up and leave, run, right now. But I couldn’t. This was it. This was the conspiracy that Kevin had found.
I said, “I don’t get it. What’s this got to do with MantaSoft buying your company? How could fixing the code have screwed up that deal?”
Margaret leaned in and said, “Remember when we were discussing financing? VCs want a return on their investment. They like to see five times their investment back in five years.”
“You said the VCs wouldn’t back you.”
“I’m not backed by VCs. When I couldn’t get funding from them, I had to turn to other financing. These people wanted to make more than five times their investment.”
“How much financing did you get?”
“Ten million dollars.” Margaret slurped her port.
“You borrowed ten million dollars from them?” I asked.
>
“Him. I borrowed the money from a man. A Russian. I was desperate,” said Margaret.
Even with Scotch gumming up the gears of my mind, I could still generate a flash of horrific insight.
I said, “You borrowed the money from Dmitri? Oh my God.”
Margaret said, “I took the loan a year ago. Originally it was only for a month. I thought I had a deal in the works that would pay him back. But the deal fell through.”
“He’ll kill you.”
“He’ll do worse. He’d already started. Then he came up with this plan to get Rosetta’s source code. We were to sell the software to Russia and split the money. Five hundred million was fifty times his investment.”
I emptied my drink as a big chunk of the puzzle fell into place.
“You were selling your company because the source code was useless.”
“Exactly.”
“You never wanted the fifty million dollars for your company because you weren’t going to see a dime. Dmitri was going to get it all.”
Margaret tipped her nearly empty port glass at me. “Very perceptive. I wasn’t going to see a dime, but I would be free. Dmitri would get his money. He said that would be enough to avoid continued consequences.”
I wondered if Huey’s porn site had a CougarCam.
Margaret continued. “But now that you fixed the code, Dmitri has gotten greedy. He won’t let me sell the company. He wants his five hundred million.”
My Scotch was empty. The server came over to pour more, but I covered the glass and shook my head. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because now I need you to maintain the code. You’re the only one who has managed it.”
“You want me to work for you?”
“Yes. Keeping the code ready for shipment. Easy work.”
“Is this why you slept with me? To get me to work for you?”
Margaret leaned forward and placed her soft hand over mine. A chill of remembered pleasure slunk up my spine.
“No, Tucker. I met you at the Thinking Cup because I wanted to partner with you once I was free of Dmitri. I slept with you because you have a great body.”
“How did you find me?”
“I’ve been following your Twitter feed for months.”
Failure of imagination.
I asked, “Why would I help you sell Rosetta?”
“The money, dear. One hundred million dollars. Just for you.”
“I don’t need a hundred million dollars.”
Margaret leaned forward and hissed, “Everybody needs a hundred million dollars! You could put it in the bank and live off millions a year in interest. Imagine the women you’d attract. Take it from me, money is even a better aphrodisiac than your fantastic ass.”
I stood up. “I won’t do it.”
Margaret said, “Sit down, you fool. Don’t be so dramatic.”
I sat and repeated, “I won’t do it. I’m going to turn you in.”
“You’re going to turn me in? And what will you say?”
“I’ll just tell”—I almost said Dana—“them about this conversation.”
“What conversation? You are obviously drunk.” Margaret indicated the empty Scotch glass. “I don’t remember anything about this conversation. I think the staff of Mooo will vouch for our being very, very drunk.”
I stood up again and said, “We’re done here.”
Margaret sat back in her chair and crossed her legs at the knee. She said, “Just like your foolish wife.” She reached into her bag and pulled out her BlackBerry. She started checking her messages.
I said, “What about my wife?”
Margaret ignored me and continued typing. The maître d’ walked to our table.
“Is there a problem?” he asked.
Margaret looked up. “No. Mr. Tucker was just leaving. Please show him out.”
The maître d’ made a little Nazi bow. “But of course, right this way, sir.” His light touch on my elbow steered me toward the door. I let him steer, but called over my shoulder, “We’re not done, Margaret.”
She looked up and said, “Yes we are. Goodbye.”
I was standing on Beacon Street in front of Mooo. The humidity had finally broken, and hard rain drove down on me and my expensive suit. Thunder boomed as I crossed the street and started walking down Beacon Hill toward my apartment.
The best way to handle being caught in the rain is to ignore it. You get just as wet, but you don’t look like an idiot trying to duck raindrops.
The alcohol swirled my brain. I needed to walk carefully. The sidewalk receded down a long tunnel of forced attention. It tilted, like a boat’s deck, and the uneven bricks tugged at my ankles. My hair was plastered against my skull. Lightning flashed and lit the statue of Mary Dyer, a Quaker woman who had been hanged by the good people of Boston for teaching them that they could talk directly to God. What would she have said about talking directly to one’s dead wife? Her statue inscription read, “My life not availeth me in comparison to the liberty of the truth.”
The liberty of truth wasn’t doing me much good. I had the truth. I knew who killed Carol, and I knew why. I just didn’t know what to do with the information.
I imagined Carol getting the same treatment when they tried to recruit her: the drinks, the flattery, and the proposition. Or maybe it was simpler. Maybe Dmitri just showed up at our house, stood in our kitchen, and made her an offer that she couldn’t, but did, refuse. He must have killed her then.
As I crossed Park Street, I considered taking a left and walking down to the T stop, but the thoughts of going underground and of being publicly drunk in such a small space kept me on Beacon Street. The entrance to the Boston Common passed. I ignored it because I didn’t want to fall down the shallow stairs. Kept walking forward, along the wrought-iron fence that bordered the park.
My stomach churned, not from drinking but from realization and self-loathing. I had missed clue after clue. I got Kevin killed, Dana tortured, and I had helped them steal my software. Mr. Coding Genius had been played. My phone rang. I leaned against the iron fence, my back digging into the metal, and looked at the caller ID. It was Jael.
I said, “Hey.”
Jael said, “Run!”
A black car roared out of Park Street and squealed toward me, the rear window lowering.
fifty-one
I ran, tripping and skittering on the uneven pavement. The car’s engine roared as I heard the same quiet popping sound that had killed Kevin. The air behind me whistled with bullets that clanged off the iron fence. I glanced at the street. The hood of the car blocked me in. I ran on down Beacon Street.
My toe caught on a brick and I lunged forward, falling down the street with long, loping steps. More popping, more whistling bullets. The nose of the car pulled next to me. The tinted driver’s window was black and reflected the streetlights. Over the rain, I heard Dmitri’s voice: “Goodbye, Mr. Tucker!”
Then came the gunfire, loud, and earsplitting. I winced and ducked as the car’s windshield fractured in spiderwebs of glass. More gunfire and the windshield was gone, the exploding safety glass splashing into the car. Thank God for Jael.
I reached the entrance to the Boston Common and turned into the park. The car stopped behind me, and the car door opened. I heard some yelling in Russian and another burst of sound from the machine gun. I ran toward the Frog Pond as bullets plowed geysers out of the shallow water.
I risked a glance over my shoulder through the pelting rain and saw Dmitri slip to one knee on the wet grass and mud. He raised the gun to his shoulder. I turned away and ran as pain ripped across the skin on my upper arm. The force of it knocked me off balance. I sprawled across the grass.
I scrambled to my feet and ran, dodging among the trees. Bullets splintered wood around me. Warm blood slicked my arm as I darted among the
uneven roots. I paused as the Common opened into a broad expanse in front of me.
The empty black lawn spread before me, offering me nothing in the way of a hiding place or help. The only break in the grass was a stone shed that led down to the underground parking garage. I ran for the shed, a plan forming in my mind. I looked over my shoulder and saw that Dmitri was getting closer. He had tucked the gun under his arm and was running full tilt, following me over the grass and paths as I cut across the open space.
I reached the entrance and pulled one of the doors open. Inside were a payment machine, an elevator, and a door leading to the staircase. I pulled on the staircase door. It was locked. A sign said something about using a parking ticket for entrance. I had screwed myself. I looked outside the kiosk. Dmitri was standing in the rain, his gun level with his gut. I flinched away from him and opened the other door. He fired, and the kiosk glass shattered. Bullets ricocheted, and something tore at my scalp as I ran back out into the rain. There was another burst of sound, but the kiosk was between me and Dmitri.
I lowered my head and ran down the concrete path, head down, arms pumping. I flew through the Common exit, and across the slick, empty street and into the Public Garden. I kept running straight and fast, no dodging, no hiding. But when I reached the bridge across the Swan Boat pond, drunkenness and exhaustion took me down.
I tripped, my foot hooking across the back of my calf, and sprawled across the rough concrete. By the time I had climbed to my feet, Dmitri was standing on the bridge, his machine gun swinging into position. He smiled and pulled the trigger as I bolted toward the low green fence that framed the bridge.
I heard bullets hit concrete and Russian swearing. I vaulted at the fence, kicked off of it with my foot, and threw myself into a long belly flop into the hard water. Water punched through my nose into my brain. I tried to gasp, filled my lungs with water, coughed, and dove. Bullets splashed around me as I swam along the bottom of the pond. Something cracked at the back of my head as a water-slowed slug hit me and bounced off. Then I swam up into darkness.
My shoulder grazed a pontoon. I was under a raft of Swan Boats that had been stored in the middle of the pond overnight. Gunfire burst from the bridge, chipping at the benches on the boats. Then silence and swearing. Dmitri was out of bullets.
