Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil (80 page)

Laura didn’t stop. I called back a hello, my feet sliding on the marble floor as I tried to catch up to her. We turned at the corner directly into Copley’s outer office, Laura’s lair. She gestured to a black leather couch and sat at her desk.

She glanced at her phone, told me he was on a call and would see me shortly. Did I want coffee or something else to drink? I declined all hospitality. The waiting didn’t bother me. Not since the summer I graduated high school had I been in my current situation. I had all the time in the world.

At long last, Laura said, “He’s free. You can go in.” How she knew for sure was mysterious: her phone hadn’t beeped or rung.

The mahogany-colored door sealing Copley off from his assistant was roughly eight feet high and at least four feet wide, almost a moving wall. Its handle was a thick brushed-steel bar, about a foot long. The gigantic door created an illusion: my brain assumed that opening it would require a strong effort, so I stumbled when only a slight push was required. Rattled, I didn’t close it behind me, moving straight at Copley. He rose from behind a country French table, bleached white and marked by long use, that he used as a desk. No files or papers were in evidence. A black computer terminal was rigged on a black stand to one side of his antique desk. He greeted me as he did at the hotel, courteous, not friendly. There was the same firm handshake that waited for me to let go first. “Excuse me,” he commented and looked over my shoulder as he made a maneuver with one of his feet.

I heard a whoosh and turned to see the massive door shut by itself. I looked back and noticed his right foot lift off a button almost flush with the floor. “Cool, right?” he mumbled, gesturing for me to sit in a square black leather armchair positioned opposite his tall-backed swivel chair, also black leather, of course. “Did I forget we have an appointment?” he asked.

“No. I’m only in town until the weekend and I had a thought. I was hoping you would be kind enough to see me today so I could ask if it was all right. Only take a minute.”

“Great. Shoot.” His lined starved face was still while he waited for me to talk. I was reminded of Mount Rushmore.

“My little talk with Halley was very helpful. It’s obvious that Gene was fooling himself about their relationship. So now I suspect everything he told me. Clearly, I took in his version of events too uncritically. I wanted to check on his claims that he was very important here.”

“He was. He was vice-president in charge of product development, the heart and soul of the company. That was his job for the last year, year and a half. And before that he was project director of Black Dragon, our biggest success so far.” Copley pointed to the terminal beside his country French table.

“Is that Black Dragon?” I asked eagerly.

“Not really. That’s just a terminal connected to Black Dragon. It’s a midsize mainframe—” He interrupted himself, leaned his head against the tall chair, and asked, “Do you know much about computers?”

“No. Nothing. That’s one reason I came. I couldn’t understand half the things Gene was telling me when he discussed his job.”

“Isn’t that a problem?”

“A problem?”

“I mean, treating someone whose work you don’t understand?”

“Obviously. Look at the result.” I laughed bitterly.

A faint beep came off the rectangular black phone on his desk. He looked at it without making a move to answer. He appeared to be reading something. From my position, I noticed a raised ledge at the top of the phone; on it was a liquid crystal display, but I couldn’t see if anything was written there. “Excuse me,” he said. “I need to take this call. Only be a second.” He lifted the receiver and said,
“Bonjour, Didier. Ca va?”
He chuckled.
“Oui.”
He listened somberly for several seconds. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll give them a week. Gotta go. You’ll be at home later?
Au revoir.”
He hung up. His fingers intertwined. He looked thoughtful. I expected him to crack his knuckles. Instead, he said, “I only have time for another question or two. Where were we?”

“You were explaining,” I said, pointing to the black terminal beside him, “that really isn’t Black Dragon.”

“Right. This is just a station to access it. The mainframe is down the hall.”

“Gene designed Black Dragon, right?”

“Well, he supervised its design and the production of the prototype. Actually, a brilliant kid I hired, Andy Chen, really designed its guts.”

“Oh, sure. Gene talked about someone named Andy. I don’t think he ever mentioned his last name. Said he was a genius.”

“He is. Excuse me, Dr. Neruda. But I don’t really know what we’re accomplishing. Gene probably exaggerated his importance a little. We all do that, don’t we? But he was very important here. And he was a valuable employee, until the last year, year and a half, when he just burned out. To be honest, that’s a hazard of our business. Building computers is a young man’s game. The competition is ferocious. Every year MIT and Stanford graduate a new crop of geniuses. Every four months somebody invents a new chip. Practically every day there’s new and hungrier software. To survive in this business, someone in Gene’s position has to get out of the trenches and make the transition to management. I gave him that opportunity by promoting him to vice-president. He couldn’t hack it. He wasn’t leadership material. He hit the wall hard. Some people bounce off and sink peacefully to a lower place. Some people pick themselves up and, I don’t know, buy themselves a cabin in Vermont or a hammock in Tahiti and enjoy the rest of their lives. Gene imploded.”

“Gene worked very hard and long hours—”

“All the engineers do,” Stick interrupted, impatient.

“Maybe that’s why they burn out.”

“Maybe. But there’s no other way to get it done. Work a forty-hour week and you fall two years behind. Ask IBM.” He sat forward, as if about to rise. “Sorry, but I really have to …”

I interrupted him. “Just one more favor. May I speak with Andy Chen? If I remember right, he worked closely with Gene.”

Copley snorted and shook his head. “Dr. Neruda, I really can’t have you wandering the halls.”

“It’s almost lunchtime. If he’s free, I could buy him …”

Copley cut me off, “I doubt Andy eats lunch. He’s project director and he’s got a brutal deadline.”

“This is my last request. My final imposition. I’m grateful for your patience. You’ve been very helpful, just as Edgar said you would be. Talking to Andy Chen would wrap it up.”

His reaction to my cornering him was interesting. He smiled. Just as Halley had seemed pleased when I guessed correctly that she and Stick were going to consult later about our dinner, he took defeat (albeit a minor one) not only with surprising grace, but with amusement. The lines of his gaunt face multiplied as his smile widened and he did something that was just lovely. He winked at me. “Okay, Doc, you win. Would you wait outside while I check with Andy? Believe it or not, I can’t order him to have lunch with you today. He has a crazy idea his job is to build machines for me, not have lunch with VIPs.” He pressed the button on his black floor. I heard the whoosh of the door opening for me to leave.

Rejoining Laura in her office, I got a good look at her phone as she asked me, “Would you like something to drink while he talks to Andy?” Copley hadn’t said a word to her, but I understood the mystery of their clairvoyance by now. In addition to the LCD display, there was a small keyboard to type messages to send to the other phone. I said no thanks to the drink and complimented her, using Copley’s nickname. “Stick told me you were the best assistant in the world and now I know your secret. It’s that amazing phone.”

Her tone was skeptical,
“He
said I was the best?” But she flushed with pleasure. I nodded. She touched her phone. “Well, you’re right, this is my secret. It’s great, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Stick said you can tell him who’s on and he can tell you what to say while he keeps talking to someone else.”

She glanced at the massive door, although it was shut, before saying softly, “Exactly. It does a lot of amazing things. You know, someone here invented it, but we decided not to market it ourselves.”

“Oh. So it’s available to the public?”

“Not really.” Again, she glanced at the door and spoke in a half-whisper, “They made a stupid, simple version. This is our prototype, the only one in existence. I’m terrified it’s going to break.”

“But you’ve got two buildings full of repairmen.”

“The man who designed it doesn’t work here anymore. And with these nutty guys, you give them something to fix and who knows? It could come back as a blender.” Her magic phone chirped. She answered. She said, “Hold on, please,” as she pressed keys—they made no sound, not even a faint clack—with astonishing rapidity. Hardly a moment passed before she told the caller, “Mr. Copley won’t be able to speak to you until tomorrow. But he’s read your memo and he’s interested. Okay? Great. I’ll tell him.” She hung up and pointed to a cabinet beside her computer terminal. It housed a printer that whirred softly. “A log of the call, and my notes on what was said, comes out automatically. Saves me hours of work,” she commented as she reached for the sheet of paper. Something on the phone’s display caught her eye. “Mr. Copley wants to talk to you on that phone,” she pointed to a plain extension by the couch. It wasn’t beeping or ringing, but I picked up. Copley spoke without introduction, “Andy said he’s got a half hour. He’ll meet you on the basketball court. That’s behind the main building. Laura’ll tell you how to get there.”

“Thank you. And when should I call to give you a report?” I asked.

That earned me a moment of silence. “A report?”

“Well,” I lowered my voice, although it wasn’t quiet enough to prevent Laura from overhearing. “I assume you’re interested in knowing what Andy tells me. I owe you that much for all your help.”

There was another silence before he conceded, “I would be interested. I may be out by the time you’re done. Why don’t you call from reception and Laura will figure it out?”

Following Laura’s directions, I took the mirrored elevator down to the lobby, walked around it to unmarked double doors and stepped into the backyard of Minotaur. There was a halfhearted attempt at a garden amounting to four wood benches arranged around an abstract black metal sculpture. The bushes were scraggly. No flowers were in bloom. A path led away to the right, turning behind one of the beige concrete lab buildings. Making the turn, I came upon a basketball hoop attached to the back wall. It was the sole recreational structure. The path did continue toward the pond, as if it might be used for running, but there was something improvised and tired about the basketball hoop, as if it were attached to a suburban home to amuse the kids years ago, and they were now grown and gone away.

I found Andy Chen there, in dungarees and sneakers, his shirt off, wearing big round glasses with gold-colored frames. He stood to the right of the basket, taking twelve-foot jump shots. He missed one as I approached, gathered the ball, and missed another. He noticed me as he caught the rebound.

“Hi,” he said. He was nearly six feet tall and painfully skinny. His chest was a boy’s, hairless and flat. His large oval face needed his frail neck and skinny body to fill out to be proportionate. “You’re Dr. Neruda?”

We shook hands. “Thanks for seeing me.”

“No problem.” At most, he was twenty-four years old. His voice was high and sweet, as if puberty still awaited him. “Okay if I keep shooting?”

“Sure. I’ll rebound.”

“Pessimist,” he commented and took another shot.

The ball bounced way off the rim to the left and I had to trot to fetch it. I passed it to him. I introduced myself briefly, explaining I had been Gene’s shrink, that I hadn’t seen him for the last year—my usual version. He listened while concentrating on his shooting. He missed each time, often coming close, and always reacted calmly. Even when the ball spun all round the inner lip of the rim and popped out, he showed no frustration.

“Gene was my boss,” he said. He held on to the ball to talk for a while. He kept his eyes on the basket, though. “I was the youngest on the Black Dragon team, but he put me in the fire right away. Gave me a lotta responsibility. I owe him a lot.” He shot and missed everything.

I chased the ball, threw him a long pass. I called out, “Why don’t you try from a different angle?”

He smiled, ignored my advice, and shot again. Another miss. He got the rebound this time; I was still off the court.

“Gene told me …” I had to pause for breath as I returned. It was hot in the sun. My hair was damp. Not Andy’s. His mop of straight black hair was as unaffected and unmoving as a wig. “Gene used to say,” I continued, “he wasn’t all that great as an innovator, that his real skill was managing all the geniuses who worked under him.”

“Don’t know what that means.” He shot. The ball thudded off the backboard right into my hands. Andy turned away from his target to look at me. “We’re not inventing microprocessors. We just assemble what the geniuses invent. He was as good at that as anybody.”

“But how you assemble them amounts to inventing them, doesn’t it?”

He asked for the ball with his hands. I passed it. He measured another shot. “Maybe. I don’t think that’s genius anyway.” He shot and missed again. The ball hit the side of the rim and returned to him in two bounces. “Gene was pretty good at basic design. As good as me. Maybe less sure of himself.” He lifted the ball to shoot, then lowered it. “Yeah, that’s the difference. He was a little slow to make a leap. Like with Centaur. He had the first instinct for Centaur and kind of let it go. Somehow it became Stick’s …” Andy cut off that thought and covered the interruption by dribbling.

“What’s Centaur?”

He returned his attention to the basket, raising the ball. “Our portable PC. That’s what I’m working on. I can’t talk about it much, but that’s what Gene put me in charge of after Black Dragon. He concentrated on Unicorn, our mainframe. That was a disaster. I told him it was going to be a disaster.” He shot. The ball thudded on the front of the rim and fell off lamely, as if it weighed a thousand pounds. “What a brick,” he commented.