Erotic Refugees (34 page)

Rob shook his head. “Thanks,
but he's not in there, is he? It's just beta testers and
journalists and people looking for a free night out. Nobody else.
Plus I've been keeping an eye out for him, I'd have noticed.”

She gave him a doubtful look.
“And how do you know what Linus looks like, may I ask?”

“
Well I've seen his photo
on Facebook—”

“
Facebook! Rob, that's
years old. Take away about ten kilos and add a moustache and a
haircut. Think Rhett Butler, I always tell him he looks like that
now, and he hates it. Go look, he's in there and you'll find him.
And good luck. With all this and … everything.”

She turned and had taken a
couple of steps before Rob managed to blurt out, “Wait!” She turned
back and looked at him expectantly. Rob licked his lips, unsure of
what to say.

“
Um, thanks for telling
me. I know ye didn't have to.”

Kajsa nodded, her gaze
lingering for longer than was necessary. She turned around once
more and hurried off.

“
This,” Ellinor said from
behind him, “is probably the time to run after her and say some
clichés.”

“
Oh, ye think?” Rob
watched as Kajsa crossed the street, turned left and disappeared
from view. He shook his head.

“
Well, maybe another
time. Right now I've got other problems. Do ye have that photo of
the guy we were supposed to be looking out for and didn't
find?

Ellinor ripped it off the table
and handed it to him. “He's not here though, I did check.”

“
Well what about guys
with moustaches?”

Ellinor nodded. “A couple.
What, is he in disguise?”

“
Something like that.
Look, let nobody leave, especially people with facial hair. It's a
full facial hair lockdown, got it?”

She confirmed her instructions
and Rob hurried off with a determined look, holding the crinkled
page like a treasure map in his hand. He hadn't gone ten steps when
somebody tapped him on the shoulder. He looked around in surprise
and saw nothing less than a moustache, with a man attached to
it.

“
Was that my sister?
Didn't you invite her in?”

Rob stared at him, checked the
photo, and stared again.

“
Look,” he said, “I don't
know how you got in here, but—”

“
I'm a beta-tester,”
Linus said, in a voice that seemed far too deep to belong to that
skinny body. “I can show you my invitation, if you like. And I've
done my beta-testing and now I'm here.” He looked around. “Nice
spread, the smoked salmon is great. You're the one in charge, I
take it?”

“
Well, one of
them—”

“
Good enough. Let's talk.
Somewhere quiet.”

Rob swallowed. Here it
comes—the axe suspended, about to drop. “I suppose we could go to
the kitchen?”

“
Lead on. Let me grab a
couple of these sausage rolls and I'll be right behind
you.”

Andy and Alice were sitting in
the kitchen, gazing at each other over a bottle of wine. Alice
turned and looked from Rob to Linus. “Oh. Should we vanish?”

Rob nodded. They picked up
their glasses and left, closing the door carefully behind them.
Linus sat down with Rob across from him and they stared at each
other as Linus tapped his fingers on the table.

“
You know, it feels like
you were expecting me.”

“
Well,” Rob said, “I had
a feeling. Since ye seem to know a lot about what we're up to. I
mean, the kid-week thing was our first hint.”

Linus gave a look of angelic
innocence. “I'm sorry, the kid-week thing?”

“
Oh come on, don't be a
tit. I know ye swiped the idea from us, I just wasn't sure how. But
it was Helena Sandqvist, wasn't it? Hah, I saw that, I saw the
twitch, so don't try and deny it!”

“
Well I won't deny I know
Helena, but otherwise I don't know what you're talking
about.”

“
Sure ye don't.” Rob
sighed. This man wasn't giving much away. “I'm having wine, want
some?”

Linus made a “whatever” gesture
and Rob took two glasses from the cupboard, filled them and set
them down on the table. Linus took his glass and wiped some drops
from the rim with his finger.

“
As a beta-tester,” Linus
said, “I have to say your site's not too bad.”

“
Good,” Rob said. “We
know. But how the hell did ye get to be a beta tester? I thought we
were filtering the applicants.”

“
Not well enough,
obviously,” he said. “You should have a word with the person in
charge of that part. But anyway, Rob … you realise we can't have
you using the Diamond Date user base in your site?”

“
Why not? It's just a
mash-up. We're using profiles from lots of sites, not just yours,
that's the whole point. And it's hardly illegal—”

“
Well”—tap, tap went the
fingers—“to be honest, I have no idea, and that's why I have
lawyers. They tell me what's illegal and what isn’t. And they can
usually find something to be illegal if I want them to. Plus we
have the time and money to look. Do you?”

Rob swirled the wine in his
glass. This was turning bad very fast.

“
So what, we close the
site? Just like that?”

“
Not at all, I can't make
you do that. But I can ask you to not link to user profiles on
Diamond Date, even indirectly. And I can ask you nicely and if you
don't do it nicely then I can ask you legally.”

“
But then it's bloody
useless, the whole thing! Diamond Date is the biggest site, and if
we don't have any profiles from there, we're finished!”

“
Of course you're not.
There's other dating sites, in Sweden and in other places. There
is, actually, an American site doing the same thing you're doing,
but for the US market—”

“
Is there?” Rob said in
amazement. “But I looked—”

“
It's not very big.”
Linus tried the wine and winced. “And not very good either. Yours
is much better. So that could be an option. But I agree, doing the
Swedish market without Diamond Date is sort of
pointless.”

“
We could give ye free
advertising, lots of banners—”

“
It's not about
advertising or money, it's about … wait, I had the legal people
write it down for me.” He fished in his pocket and took out a slip
of paper. “It’s because you are infringing on the anonymity and
integrity of our users. And since we can't control what you do with
that information, we have to stop you.”

Rob sat back, with his arms
folded, and glared. “All this, after nicking our kid-week idea.
It's bloody bad style, if ye ask me.”

And it was. Why did Rob have to
give up all his hard work because of this guy and his stupid
moustache? It was like being fired all over again. The site was his
future, his ticket out of being a bloody code-monkey forever, but
now everything was about to go pear-shaped for the second time in a
year. It wasn't bloody fair.

Linus shrugged. “We have to
protect our business, what can I say? But, you know, you did a very
good job on that site. I'm impressed, and people who can pull that
kind of thing together are hard to find.”

He straightened the cuffs of
his shirt and leaned forward.

“
So I was thinking, why
don't you come and work for us? Seriously, we need Flash and PHP
people now, and I think you'd fit in well.”

Rob's mouth locked in the open
position as he stared furiously at Linus' moustache. It took a few
seconds for him to remember to blink and take a breath.

“
So what, yer offering me
a job to kill our site?”

Linus smiled. “You'll be
killing your site anyway, I thought that part was clear. But at
least now you'll get something out of it. You've shown you
understand the online dating market, and Kajsa has said a few good
things about you. Not very good things, mind you, but good enough.
So I don't think you'll be a big risk.”

Rob looked away, trying to pull
his thoughts together. This was a great offer, and to be personally
recruited by one of the founders of Diamond Date was huge. The
timing couldn't be better either, as he had only one month left on
his unemployment insurance. And all he had to do was kill Dating
Dirt, or at least cripple it so it was pretty much useless.

But that was the big problem,
because there was also Eoin and Karen and Milly to consider.
Between them they'd poured months of work into this project. He
couldn't just sell them out to save his own arse.

Or could he? Well, why not?
They all had jobs (except for Milly who had Ellinor to pay the
rent) and they didn't have the threat of poverty hanging over them.
They'd understand, right? Sure they would.

“
Well?” Linus said. “I
don't think I need to throw in a company car, but your wages will
be at least what you had earlier, I promise you that.”

“
Look,” Rob said. “Give
me a day or two to think about it. But yeah, I'm
interested.”

“
Great. Just get back to
me,” Linus stood and produced a card from his wallet. “My private
mail. Don't wait too long though. And don't forget to remove the
Diamond Date profiles from your site, pronto. I'll be checking up
on you.”

“
Fine,” Rob said as Linus
made for the door. He didn't look back once, leaving Rob in the
empty kitchen with a half-filled glass of red, a pile of bruised
dreams, and a brand new future to consider.

One thing was clear. He was
going to need a lot more wine.

Eoin stepped into the kitchen
and came to a halt when he saw Rob sitting there morosely with two
glasses in front of him.

“
Ellinor told me
something was up. So who was that leaving? Was it Kajsa's brother,
the Diamond Date guy?”

Rob nodded and told him what
had happened. Eoin groaned and dropped into a chair. “No, he can't
just shut us down. Can he? I mean, all the work—”

“
You want to fight
lawyers Eoin, fine, off you go.”

Eoin grabbed the unfinished
glass of wine and swallowed half.

“
But he could just be
bluffing, right? As long as we're not doing anything illegal, we
could just keep going and see what happens. Of course it was smart
of him to offer you a job, because if you're working for him, then
it's probably in your contract that you can't have any interests
that clash with Diamond Date.”

“
Buying my silence, I
suppose ye’d call it.”

“
Right. Damn it, all that
work. Milly won't be happy.”

“
Well fuck it, none of us
are happy, but think about it. We can't fight Diamond Date, can we?
I turn thirty in a few months, and this is a good job—”

“
A job with the bastard
who stole your ideas.”

“
Yeah, there is that
part. But I don't ever expect to like my boss, so why start now?
Look, I'll have a think about it, and I'll talk to him in a couple
of days.” He fell silent and stared into his glass for a while. “I
just wish I knew what to do.”

Eoin fell suddenly sorry for
him. He sipped some more wine and spoke softly.

“
Look Rob, don't beat
yourself up over it. If the site's dead anyway, there's no point in
throwing blame around. I mean, I know how horrible it is to have no
job. If you say yes to Linus, it's fine with me. I'm behind you.
Just so you know that.”

Rob nodded, mumbling his
thanks. “The party,” he said. “How's it going?”

“
It's going well. Most of
the guests are still here. And Andy and Alice … well maybe you
should ask Andy about that one.”

Rob’s interest perked. “Oh? So
the chances of her whackin' a bottle over his head have been
greatly reduced?”

“
It looks that way.” Eoin
picked up his wine glass and pushed back his chair.

”
Look, we'll talk to
Milly and Karen tomorrow, just don't make any decisions about this
tonight, okay? Get out there and drink and eat and enjoy your
success. I mean, this is your project, you started this whole
thing. And whatever way it goes, you should celebrate getting it at
least this far.”

Rob nodded. He sat up,
straightened his shoulders, and tucked his shirt in. Then, with
everything in place, Eoin led him out into the noise and bustle of
the party to celebrate both the birth of Dating Dirt and its sad
and unnecessary demise.

And they saw to it that no
website had ever received a finer send-off.

Chapter
37

Eoin pushed his way through the
revolving door of the ugly building that housed his office and
shivered. Winter was getting close and before they knew it there'd
be frigid air and muddy slush and days that were just a slightly
brighter version of night. At least four months of it, and that’s
if they were lucky.

Eoin adjusted his scarf and
hurried towards the subway. It had been a very dull day at work and
his thumping hangover from the launch party hadn't helped either.
It would have been nice to spend the evening in his flat, eating
the leftover sausage rolls and reading a good book.

No such luck though. He was
going over to Rob's to perform the post-mortem on the project.
Nobody was pretending any more that it wasn't dead, what with Rob
going to work for the enemy and the site pretty much crippled. But
they needed a final chat so no feelings were hurt. Or at least no
more than necessary.