Better Than This (27 page)

Alice made a snorting sound of derision, as if this was no surprise to her. She said, “Brinkman must know you have the program anyway. Somebody must have seen you go to Hoffman’s apartment.”

“He might suspect, but he doesn’t know for sure,” I said. “If he did the police would have been all over us by now. I parked a few blocks away to make sure we weren’t seen.”

Sally stared at me. “You mean you planned this?” Her voice became leaden with understanding. “You knew he was dead.”

“I didn’t know. When he didn’t show up to sign the contract I thought there was a chance, that’s all.”

“No. You had this all figured out,” Sally said. “You went there because you knew Hoffman was dead and you intended to steal that program.”

There was silence while everyone, it appeared, contemplated the depths to which I was prepared to plunge. Was it true, I asked myself? Perhaps. Partly. In so much as I was already suspicious of Brinkman, and maybe it had occurred to me that Hoffman was dead. He was a sick man. I looked at the others, who were all staring at me.

“For chrissakes,” I protested. “It isn’t like I killed him. You think that what Brinkman would do if he gets his hands on that program is any better? He’ll steal it from us. Without that deal Carpe Diem is finished. We’re broke. Is that what we all want?” I appealed to Sally. “Is that what you want? We’ll lose this house, everything. We’ll have to start all over. I don’t even know if I could get a job in this town now.” I discounted Dexter’s offer, which was beyond contemplation. “Do you really want that to happen, Sally, right now when everything is going well for us again?” The implication was clear. The family she wanted, our future happiness, it was all at stake.

I could see she was thinking about it, but there was a look of faint condemnation in her eye. She seemed to resent what I was saying, as if she thought I was using a not very subtle form of blackmail. I might as well have waved one of those baby magazines she was always reading in her face.

“Hoffman chose us to market his program,” I said, calmly, reasonably. “Let’s not forget that. He didn’t know he was going to die before he signed the contract. We’re not actually doing anything morally wrong here. Technically maybe we are, and Brinkman would argue that for sure, but who believes lawyers are the moral guardians of the truth?”

There was a short silence, then Marcus spoke.

“Aren’t we forgetting something here. Even if we kept the program, what can we do with it? Brinkman would know we stole it.”

I was conscious of them all looking at me, but mostly Sally who was staring as it dawned on her that I hadn’t brought them all together without having an answer to this very obvious and problematic question. I avoided her eye. “It’s true there’s no way we can sell the program the way Hoffman intended. If we do Brinkman will jump on us. But the fact is if we hand it over,

we get nothing, but Brinkman will make damn sure he profits from it. That can’t be right can it?”

I wanted them to agree, so at least they were partly on my side but they just stared back waiting for me to get on with it.

“So, I think we ought to sell the program to the one other person who will want to buy it.” I paused. “Nelson Morgan.”

There was silence in the room for several seconds as they each thought about what I was suggesting.

“Hear me out,” I went on. “If the deal had gone ahead as planned, who was going to be the big loser? Spectrum Software, which is in effect Morgan Industries. It would cost them millions of dollars. Tens of millions. Their stock would take a beating. Which of course is exactly what Hoffman intended. So, think about what Morgan would pay to prevent that happening. What would you pay if you were him?”

Abruptly Sally turned and started for the door. “I don’t want to hear any more of this.”

“Wait a minute. Shouldn’t we at least discuss this before anyone makes up their mind. That can’t hurt can it?”

She stopped and looked back at me. “For God’s sake, Nick. You were talking about what was right and wrong before. You claimed there was nothing morally wrong in taking the program. But now you’re suggesting doing something that is the exact opposite of what Hoffman intended.”

“I know that,” I said. “And if there was a way we could go along with the original deal, I would. But that isn’t an option.”

“Would you?” she asked me, her eyes searching mine. “Is that really true?”

“Of course,” I replied but I could see she didn’t believe me. “Look, if you think about it Hoffman’s plan wasn’t exactly born of altruism. The man was bitter and twisted. What he intended would have damaged Morgan’s stock and probably been the end of Spectrum. People would lose their jobs, and investors would lose their money. Not just Morgan but the little stock holders as well. The innocent guy on the street who plays the market with his savings. How can that be such a great thing?”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. You’re trying to justify your self. You’re turning things around to suit you. It doesn’t matter what Hoffman wanted, or that Morgan would be ruined, or that you couldn’t trust Brinkman. This is about you, Nick. It’s about what you want.”

I always knew that trying to convince Sally on the moral front was going to be a long shot, so I abandoned that idea. “The fact is we have a choice here. Either we take our chances with Brinkman, and I believe if we do that we lose everything, or we sell the program to Morgan. That’s what I want, and why not? You think Brinkman is such an upright citizen, or that Hoffman was a terrific person, or that Morgan would care about the ethics? This is about saving everything we have, and it isn’t going to hurt anybody. So why not?”

“Because it doesn’t belong to us.”

And there it was, a dividing line which separated us. For Sally it all came down to that one simple fact, unsullied by whatever muddy waters my rhetoric stirred up. She looked at me with silent appeal. I envied her in a way, because she could cut through all the pros and cons and see to the heart of the issue. I knew deep inside that she was right, but I simply couldn’t accept it. Several seconds passed.

“This isn’t about me,” I said finally. “Whatever we do, it has to be something we agree on, a majority decision.”

“And if we decide against it?” Sally asked.

I hesitated, but I knew this was the only way I could hang onto whatever respect she still had for me. “I’ll go along with it,” I agreed.

She turned to Marcus, and suddenly the pressure was entirely on him. “What do you think?” she asked.

As I waited for Marcus to answer I knew I was lost. I didn’t even consider Alice. Her vote was certain to be against anything I was for. I suddenly wondered why I’d ever thought I could persuade them.

But it was Alice who spoke first, not Marcus.

“How much do you think Morgan will pay?”

It’s not an exaggeration to say that the change in the atmosphere was immediate and electric. The implication of that one question and the strange intensity with which she looked at me was clear to us all.

“It’s hard to say,” I managed to answer at last.

“You’ve thought about this, Nick. You must have some idea.”

And she was right. I did. “Morgan Industries stock is valued at almost a billion dollars,” I said at last. “He paid forty million for Spectrum, and I figure he expects to get that back five fold.” I took a breath. “I guess he wouldn’t mind paying another, say, thirty million dollars to protect his investment.”

Nobody spoke, nobody breathed. It was Alice who finally broke the silence.

“I think Marcus and I need to talk alone.”

We gave them five minutes, which is all it took. Sally and I waited in the kitchen where she gazed out the window and refused to look at me. I tried talking to her, but when she refused to reply I gave up. When we went back through it was Alice who did the talking.

“Marcus and I agree that we should do as you suggest, Nick,” she said calmly.

I thought it was a joke. I looked at Marcus but he wore a heavily resigned expression as if he had switched off from what was happening.

Only Sally, when I looked at her, showed no surprise.

Nelson Morgan lived on the peninsula near Woodside in the hills above Palo Alto, in a house from where I gathered he spent much of his time running his empire. Getting to see him proved to be about as easy as making an appointment with the President. It took several calls to Morgan Industries’ headquarters before I was finally able to persuade somebody to give me the number of one of Morgan’s assistants, and then it took several more calls after that to get through to the keeper of his diary. I imagined that was her title: Keeper Of The Diary. Like some handmaiden to a god. When I spoke to her she sounded like somebody whose last job was with the security police in some totalitarian state. I envisaged an uber efficient assistant, with severe unsmiling features. She demanded to know my business and when I told her it was of a personal and confidential nature she curtly informed me that Mr. Morgan was unavailable.

“Then I’ll leave a message,” I said. I told her that I had something belonging to Leonard Hoffman that I was certain would be of interest to her boss, and gave her my name and number. She called back within the hour and gave me an address where she said I would be expected the following morning at ten. Then abruptly she hung up.

The following day I took the 280 freeway to Woodside, and then headed towards La Honda until I found the turnoff that led up through canyons of tall trees and wound in meandering curves through the hills. Every now and then the woods gave way to broad open vistas of the ocean on my right, the distant sea cobalt blue in the sunshine. I passed the occasional turnoff which invariably led to a gate set back from the road a discreet distance and flanked by a fence on either side. This was real estate for the seriously rich, many of them people who’d made their money in Silicon Valley. As I slowed down, looking for 2026 Ocean View Road, I wondered about the people who lived up here in their mansions that lay tucked away among the trees, hidden from prying eyes, with the views of the ocean and the wooded hills all around. The suburbs and the freeways that were clogged with traffic during the early and late commuter rushes belonged to another world. These people lived lives completely foreign to the rest of us. I tried to comprehend how it would feel to never have to think about money again. For most of us balancing the budget to pay the mortgage, household bills, taxes, insurances, vacations, the kids’ education and all the hundred and one other expenses that suck up every cent we earn is a lifelong struggle. It never ends, and making the money to cover it all occupies the greater part of our waking hours. There is almost nothing that we do, or think about doing, or wish that we could do, that is not affected by our ability to pay for it. But the people who lived up here were free from all of that.

I drove slowly, both because I didn’t want to miss Morgan’s house and because I was caught up in my own thoughts. At one point I glanced in the mirror and saw a car on my tail about a quarter of a mile back. As I rounded the next bend I started looking for a place to pull over to let it pass. I stopped and waited, but the car didn’t appear, so I figured it must have turned into one of the gates. The road to the bend behind me remained empty, so after a couple of minutes I started off again.

My thoughts drifted back to money and what it really is. Freedom from everyday financial constraint is a difficult concept to grasp until you really start to think about it. I wasn’t under the illusion that money automatically makes people happy, but I did believe it releases us from a hell of a lot of the strains and pressures and frustrations of everyday life that are a hindrance to happiness. I likened it to for ever climbing a hill, and the going is tough. Sometimes you come across a part where the slope isn’t as steep, and you can even take a moment to enjoy the view, but a lot of the time you’re breathing hard and your head is down watching where you put your feet in case you stumble and fall, and sometimes the cloud gathers around and the wind gets up and tries to whip you off the hillside altogether and the rain lashes down. Then you get through that and the cloud parts and you’re in a patch of sunshine for a while and the going is a little easier. And so it goes, our lives an endless struggle upwards with brief interludes of sunshine. But for the very rich things are different. They have reached the top, clambered over the ridge, and they find themselves suddenly in a for ever sunny meadow filled with wildflowers and humming insects and pleasant breezes, and they can stop and look around, enjoy, wander aimlessly, lie down and take a nap beneath a shady tree.

Rounding another bend in the twisting road I found myself on a ridge where the road straightened out for perhaps three quarters of a mile. Halfway along I glanced in the mirror and there was a car behind me again. I wondered if I should pull over, but it appeared not to be getting any closer, even though I was crawling along at no more than twenty miles an hour. I didn’t have time to be more than mildly curious about this because a hundred yards ahead of me a broad turnoff led to a massive pair of double gates set thirty yards back among the trees. A discreet sign announced I’d reached 2026 Ocean View Road. I pulled in and got out of the car. A security camera was fixed on the wall above an intercom device. I pressed the button and waited. The air was still and quiet. Beyond the gate a road vanished among the trees through which far below glimpses of the ocean were visible. From here I could be back on the freeway within twenty minutes, and in downtown San Francisco in less than an hour, quicker into San Jose, but it could all have been a million miles away. The intercom crackled into life.

“Yes?”

I announced myself, and was asked to wait for a moment, then I heard an electronic whirring and when I looked up the camera pointed at me. It was disconcerting to look into the lens and see nothing but my own refection in miniature, knowing that I was being scrutinized. It was like looking back at somebody wearing dark mirrored shades. Maybe Morgan was there, getting a first look at me. I returned its stare without blinking, and after a few seconds the electronic lock buzzed and the gates started to swing smoothly open.