Better Than This (24 page)

“You haven’t seen it then?”

“I’m completely in the dark. You, on the other hand, have had an opportunity to study it I presume?”

“We’ve seen enough to be convinced it lives up to your client’s expectations,” I said. “With two million dollars’ worth of advertising behind it I think you can expect it to sell well in excess of a million copies in the first year. Perhaps a lot more.”

Brinkman absorbed this fact silently. “You truly believe that?”

“I don’t see why not.”

He shook his head slightly bemused. To be frank with you I wasn’t certain that everything Mr. Hoffman claimed about his program would be borne out in reality. He’s an unusual character,” he added tactfully. It was clear that Brinkman had entertained the same initial misgivings as we had. “It just goes to prove that we shouldn’t judge by appearances,” he remarked. “Nevertheless, isn’t it true that this program competes directly with another? One that belongs to a company with, by comparison, almost infinite resources.”

“Spectrum Software are planning to sell their version for two hundred and fifty dollars. Against the five Hoffman is asking, that’d be a tough sell even if Hoffman’s wasn’t the better of the two.”

“And the one belonging to my client really is better in your opinion?”

“By a wide margin,” Marcus said, making his first contribution.

Brinkman digested that, appearing thoughtful. I had the impression that until now he hadn’t taken any of this completely seriously.

Over the next half-hour he went through the main points the agreement would cover. It was pretty straightforward and there was nothing there I didn’t already know. He reiterated that our fee was fixed at a million in the first year and five hundred thousand thereafter which was all to come from sales, and that the remaining money would go to the trust for distribution to his client’s nominated charity.

“Which charity?” I asked out of curiosity.

“Cancer research.”

When we were finished Brinkman rose from his desk and walked us to the door. “By the way,” he mentioned casually. “I meant to ask. I assume my client chose your company for this project because you’ve had previous dealings together?”

“No, but he knew we were involved with a bid for the Spectrum Software account recently,” I said. “I guess that gave us an advantage.”

“I take it your bid wasn’t successful then?”

“No. It went to KCM.”

“KCM? I’ve heard of them I think.”

“They handle all of Morgan Industries’ business.”

“Really?” He held out his hand. “Well, I’ll see you again no doubt. If you leave the name of your lawyer with Carol I’ll have something for him to look at in a few days.”

We shook hands and he opened the door for us. “You know, it’s really such a shame isn’t it? If my client wasn’t terminally ill he would soon be a very wealthy man. I mean if this program is as good as you say, and I’m sure you’re right, he could have marketed it legitimately at a competitive price.”

“I suppose that’s true,” I said.

“Still, I suppose that money isn’t his motivation,” Brinkman mused.

Once we were in the elevator I thought about Brinkman, and though his manner was generally easy going and pleasant, I decided there was something about his seemingly casual questions that didn’t ring quite true, and I made a mental note to tell our lawyer to check the agreement he received very carefully.

Nothing good lasts for ever, so they say, but I’d hoped for a little longer than a week. Copies of the contract that formed our agreement with Leonard Hoffman had been shuffling back and forth between the lawyers, both sides making alterations to the other’s amendments and arguing about interpretation. They were doing their best to make a decent fee out of what amounted to a straightforward deal, but nothing is ever easy once lawyers are involved. I spoke to Hoffman several times over the phone and he sounded as frustrated as I was.

“I told Brinkman I’m not going to live for ever,” he said one morning. He wanted to move things along, impatient to see his program available on the Internet and the first stage of our advertising campaign up and running so that he could confront Morgan.

“I want to see his face when I tell him I just cost him fifty million dollars,” he said with grim anticipation. He broke off then, coughing so badly I had to hold the phone away from my ear until he was finished. I winced as I imagined the damage being inflicted on his tattered lungs and when he came back on the line he sounded exhausted. His voice had grown so weak I had to strain to hear him.

“I heard Spectrum are launching their program in August,” he said.

That was just a couple of months away. We needed to go out around the same time to maximize the free amount of publicity we’d get on news websites devoted to this kind of thing, and hopefully that would lead to regular press coverage in the financial media. Time was getting short. We couldn’t do a thing until we had a signed agreement to take to the bank so they would give us the short-term operating finance that we needed to cover our initial costs.

I was getting worried about Hoffman. Every time I spoke to him he sounded worse and sometimes I thought it was only his burning desire for revenge that kept him going. Finally our lawyer gave us the green light, and Brinkman’s office called to set up a meeting for the morning when all parties would sign.

That night I called Sally and told her I would take care of dinner. On the way home I stopped by an Italian deli in North Beach and picked up a few ingredients. I planned to wilt some baby spinach leaves through linguine and then finish the dish off with the deli’s own homemade pepperoni which I’d fry first in a little garlic and oil. To wash it down I splashed out on a bottle of ‘96 Australian Merlot.

“To us,” I said later, when Sally and I sat down to eat and we touched glasses.

“To us.”

When I went to refill her glass she covered it with her hand. “Uh-uh. That’s enough for me.”

“What’s wrong? Don’t you like it?”

She smiled a secretive smile. “I just don’t think I should.”

It took a moment for the penny to drop. “You don’t mean… ?”

She shook her head. “No, I’m not pregnant. At least if I am I don’t know it yet. But, well, we have been doing all the right things.”

I felt a lurch in my stomach, but if it showed in my expression Sally didn’t notice. I reasoned to myself that it was a natural reaction, the small shock of coming to terms with the reality that if it hadn’t happened yet, sooner or later it would. As Sally said herself, we’d been doing all the right things. I looked at her across the table. She appeared happy, her skin glowing in the soft light. I hadn’t seen her this content in a long time. As I cleaned up after our meal, I thought to myself why shouldn’t it happen right now? We were ready to sign the deal with Hoffman in the morning. Everything was coming together.

When I went upstairs Sally was wearing a nightdress, sitting in front of the mirror brushing her hair. I watched her as I got undressed and she smiled at me when our eyes met in the mirror.

“You’re beautiful, you know that.”

I went over and kissed the back of her neck. She put down her brush and closed her eyes, smiling to herself. When I took her arms she stood and I lifted her nightdress over her head. From behind I laid my hands on her belly while she leaned back into me and we looked at our reflection. My hands strayed to her breasts.

“I guess we should have another go.”

“Do we have to?” she asked with mock resignation.

“Oh yes,” I said, pressing my erection against her buttocks. “We do.”

She grinned. “Well, since you insist.”

Our meeting was at ten-thirty in the morning, and by ten-forty everybody was assembled in Brinkman’s office except for Leonard Hoffman. Brinkman checked his watch again and asked us for the third time if we had any questions about the contract. We didn’t. Our lawyer had gone over it with us and we both had copies.

We had coffee while we waited, and as time dragged on Marcus got up and went over to a bookcase to examine Brinkman’s library. Brinkman watched him as he took out a volume and started flicking through it. Marcus had dressed for the meeting in an old grey “I-shirt and faded khaki cargo trousers

“They’re all law books I’m afraid,” Brinkman said with a faintly patronizing air. Light flashed on Marcus’s glasses and he put the book back, then went on to examine some prints on the wall.

“I hope my client hasn’t had a change of heart,” Brinkman joked.

Even though he hadn’t been serious I thought it was an odd comment. “Why would he do that?” I asked.

“No reason,” Brinkman said, but he quickly looked away. Marcus glanced at me from across the room, a little puzzled. I didn’t say anything, and in the silence Brinkman smiled nervously. “I did suggest he reconsider some of the terms he stipulated,” he confessed.

“Oh?”

“Nothing that directly affected your position,” he added hastily. “But after our last meeting I did some research. It seems to me that if my client’s program is as good as you believe it to be, then to sell it for five dollars is ridiculous. I suggested he might like to reconsider.”

“What did he say?”

Brinkman frowned. “He wasn’t enthusiastic.”

I wasn’t surprised. Hoffman would give the program away for nothing if he could. The five dollar tag was only to cover advertising costs. “You have to remember,” I pointed out, ‘he’s not interested in making money. He wants as many people as possible to know about his program so they’ll download his instead of buying Morgan’s. He wants revenge.”

“Yes, that’s what he said,” Brinkman mused.

He took a sip of coffee from the china cup that was part of the service his assistant had served us from, then he got up and went to the window and gazed out over the streets below.

“Can I ask you something?” he said suddenly. There was a distinctly casual note in his tone that sounded entirely artificial. As if he wanted to give the impression that something he’d been considering for some time had only just occurred to him. “What do you make of Leonard Hoffman?”

“Make of him?”

“His… state of mind?”

“He seems rational,” I said cautiously. I wondered where Brinkman was going with this.

“He’s very ill, as you know.”

“He has lung cancer. As far as I know that doesn’t affect a person’s brain.”

“No. Well, perhaps not the disease itself. But the medication? I don’t know. You have to admit what he’s doing is a little unusual.”

“Perhaps.”

“Did you know that Morgan Industries paid forty million dollars for Spectrum Software?”

“Yes, I knew that.”

“Interesting man, Nelson Morgan. You know that of all the companies he’s bought, their value has increased by an average three hundred and fifty per cent during the first five years. Of course one of the things Morgan does is bring investment funds to cash-starved companies, but it’s his ability to spot potential that’s remarkable.”

I wondered what Brinkman was leading up to. Even Marcus was listening now, and he came back over and sat down.

“Of course you know quite a lot about Spectrum don’t you?” Brinkman said. “How much, in your opinion, do you think they will spend marketing their program?”

“I don’t know exactly,” I answered.

“A guess.”

“Ten million perhaps. Based on what Morgan paid for the company, he must be prepared to invest at least that much.”

“Yes,” Brinkman agreed thoughtfully. “You know I did some rough calculations, just for interest. Morgan will invest fifty million dollars, let’s say, all told. If his expectations for Spectrum are in line with past history, he must be expecting this program to reach sales of anything upwards of a hundred and fifty million dollars.” He paused, smiling. “Remarkable.”

“What is exactly?” Marcus asked.

Brinkman shrugged. “I was referring to my client’s motivation, I suppose. Revenge as Mr. Weston pointed out. It struck me that this only goes to prove that we’re not always a logical species.”

“Is that why you mentioned the medication Mr. Hoffman is taking?” Marcus questioned. “You’re wondering if what he’s doing is logical?”

“Perhaps rational is the term I would use.”

“He’s dying,” Marcus said. “Revenge isn’t an unusual motive for anything and never has been. The only difference here is the way it’s applied. Your client has no use for money. It seems rational enough to me.”

“Yes. Of course, you have no reason to question his actions do you?”

I didn’t like what he was implying. “Meaning?”

“I understand that this contract comes at an opportune time for you.”

I wondered how much research he had done, and what exactly he knew. Before I could ask him his phone rang and he picked it up and listened for a moment. When he put it down he said his assistant had tried Hoffman’s number but there was no answer.

“He must be on his way,” Brinkman said. He shot his sleeve and looked at his watch. “Unfortunately I have another appointment. I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave you with Carol for a little while, but by the time I’m done, he ought to have arrived.”

“That’s fine,” I said, getting to my feet. “But actually we have another meeting of our own, so what we might do is come back in say an hour?”

“Of course. That’s probably a good idea,” Brinkman said.

Marcus shot me a puzzled look but had the sense to know I must have a reason for inventing another meeting and he waited until we were in the elevator before he said anything.

“What meeting?”

There’s no meeting, I just have a feeling that something’s wrong.” I looked at my watch and then took out my cell phone and tried Hoffman’s apartment, but I got no answer.

“What was he angling at in there do you think?”

“Brinkman? I don’t know. But I don’t trust him.” I thought for a moment then I said, “I think we should go out to Hoffman’s apartment and make sure everything’s okay. This time of day we can be there in thirty minutes.”

“What if he turns up here?”

“If we don’t find him, we’ll call and see if he’s arrived and say we’re on our way. No harm done.”

*