The Far Side (8 page)

He walked out to his car and stared at the cards again.  He laughed, recognizing what this was.  Sure, it was something he’d dreamed of as well, being “discovered” as a go-to guy in Hollywood.  Who didn’t dream of that!  Still, given the choice of a go-to Hollywood guy or a go-to wherever Andie Schulz was going to take him, he’d be with her there if he could.  Still, it was an amazing rush to know that there were thousands of businesses in LA where he could hand that card to someone and get instant service.

The physics teacher had spluttered, pissed, moaned and whined.  The principal was coldly furious, because earlier it seemed, Kris had informed Mr. Marshall that if Andie had to take the test, she would too, since her average was five hundredths of a point less than Andie’s.  It wasn’t hard to drop a hint that Mr. Boyle’s displeasure might creep into Mr. Marshall’s employment records, when the other folded.

Kit was as cool as he could be.  “Mr. Boyle’s attorneys will contact you with the details in the next few days.  If you haven’t heard by Friday noon, call me, and I’ll get them on it.”

Kit reached the Schulz residence a little after two.  Being early, he didn’t know what to do.  After a moment, Oliver Boyle appeared at the front door and beckoned him inside.

Otto Schulz was a rather stout individual with a huge, blue-veined nose.  Kit knew enough to keep his mouth shut, while the other two talked baseball, a sport he had only the least knowledge about.

As three o’clock approached, Otto Schulz was getting edgy.  Oliver Boyle picked right up on that, and smiled.  “I’ll give Kris a ride home if you don’t mind me waiting here for her.”

“No, no, that’s fine.  Your ashtrays are nicer than mine.”

At first, Kit had no idea what the other meant, but then he realized that the Schulz house was not furnished with expensive items -- at least not visibly.  He remembered the Weatherby .460 magnum he’d left in the cave yesterday and knew that appearances could be deceiving.  He wondered what Oliver Boyle would have said if he’d been completely honest about how much he wanted to save his own personal ass -- and why.

Otto Schulz roared off in a car that had a “throaty roar” as Andie had described the day before.

Kit glanced at his watch.  It wasn’t even three yet, so he had a few minutes.  “Sir, come with me.”

He led Oliver Boyle back to Andie’s bedroom.  When Kit opened the door, Kris’ father said quietly, “You should know, I wouldn’t even do this to my own daughter.”

“Then close your eyes until I open the closet,” Kit told him.

“The closet?” his boss asked.  “She built it in the closet?”

“Yes, sir.”

Kit opened the closet.  Andie had cleaned up most of the mess, but there was still a lot of apparatus visible.  “And this is it?” Oliver asked, incredulous again.

“Yes, sir.  She must have bought most of the stuff online or maybe at flea markets.”  Kit gestured at the “vacuum pump.”  “That’s the compressor from a refrigerator, sir.  It’s a relatively easy task to make it into a vacuum pump.”

“It seems incredible,” Oliver told him.

“Yes, sir.  So is the idea of radio.  They first found that you could heterodyne key clicks, and just a few years later, voice over it.  Along came super-heterodyne and the quality of reception increased hundreds of times.  A hundred years ago, sir, you couldn’t have picked up anything from a cell phone if you used the largest antenna in the world on the most sensitive receiver.”

He gestured at the apparatus.  “This is early days, sir.  The most early of days -- think the Wright Brothers.”

They went back into the living room and an hour later the two girls arrived, laden with packages.

Oliver Boyle saw the distrust in his daughter’s eyes and knew right then that Kit hadn’t understated anything.  “Come in and sit down, you two,” he told them.

Andie glared at Kit.  “You are so dead, mother-fucker!  So very, very dead!”

“Andie,” Oliver said patiently, “I realize you know every goddamn thing in the universe, but could you hold your horses for a minute and listen?”

“What for?”

“So you can learn something.”

Andie sniffed.  “The last thing I learned in school was back in kindergarten, on my first day, when I found out I knew words that my teacher didn’t.  I may not know everything in the universe, but I do know a thing or two.”

“This isn’t school.  What’s wrong,” Oliver continued, tried to be patient, “with listening for a second, before you go down the wrong path?”

“What exactly do you want, Dad?” Kris asked.

“A lot of things.  Most of them I can’t get any more than you can get what you want.  What either of you want.  That said, there are some things within my grasp, and if you’ll listen, maybe, just maybe, we can help each other.”

He faced Kris.  “Your mother and I married late -- she didn’t want to affect her career with distractions -- that was me and you.  Particularly, you.

“Still, she knew I wanted a child and went along.  You were born rather late in our lives, Kris, much later than most kids.  I was forty-five when you were born, your mother forty-two.  We weren’t spring chickens then, and we haven’t been getting any younger.

“That said, I’m no more stupid than you are.  One thing I remember was the big controversy when they introduced ‘New Math’ in school.  Sets and number theory mostly.  One of the things I remember from very early in my school days, were Venn diagrams, showing what was in or out of a set or what belonged to more than one set.

“We have here a variety of sets of goals.  Yours, mine, your mother’s, Andie’s, even Kit’s here.  I know it is a truism at your age that our goals don’t overlap, but you’d be surprised.

“You are, Kris, eighteen.  Andie is nearly that.  Legally, you can do anything but drink, and that’ll come soon enough.  I, as your parent and father, want what’s best for you.  I want you to go to a good school, have a good life, and above all to be safe.

“You share some of the goals, but there is, of course, the problem of our different definitions of our various goals.  For instance, your mother is sure you want to go to Caltech to further her desire that you follow in her footsteps.”

“I don’t want to follow in her footsteps.  And I picked Caltech because that’s where I want to go.”

“It took me a while to realize that was the case, but I came to understand that more than a year ago.

“Now, I’ve learned about what you and Andie have been up to lately.  I’m positive that you think it will be my goal to thwart you at every step of the way.”

“Not all of them,” Andie interjected, “just most of them.”

“Andie, contemplate something for a moment.  Would you like it if I interrupted you talking?  How would you react if I assumed something you were thinking, without any basis for that assumption?  Would you, or would you not tell me to fuck off?”

Andie stared at him, her gaze hostile.

“Andie, fuck off!”

Andie’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“Let me finish talking before you go making your assumptions.  Please.

“You, Andie, have discovered a number of remarkable things.  Things that could easily be worth more money than Scrooge McDuck keeps in his vault...”

Kris couldn’t help it; she laughed.

“Yes.  There will be some blowback from that, I imagine.  Further, you have found a door that doesn’t open anywhere close.  At least, nowhere apparently close.

“Being young and adventurous and not in any financial pain you’ve started exploring that door, ahead of exploring the application that is worth serious money.”

Andie opened her mouth to speak, but was quelled by a nasty look.

“I was young once, and hey, I pushed the envelope of where I could go -- nothing like what you two are doing, but still, in my own way, I was way out there.

“There are two, maybe three of you.  You would be hard put to do any of the things you want with so few involved.  I peeked in your closet, Andie.  I know a mess when I see one.”  Andie gave him a finger.

He laughed.  “Sure, and I understand.  The first couple of times I was out there, I failed spectacularly.  But, I didn’t give up, and eventually I found things that worked.  And that led me to other things that worked, until I’m where I’m at today, considered a cinematographic genius.”  He made a gagging motion with a finger down his throat.

“I just kept at it, doing things I thought would work.  That’s what you’re doing.  I’m not about to knock you for doing something I’ve done.”

He regarded them for a moment.  “You need more resources.  Tell me true, Andie.  Of the things you need to do right now, can you do it all yourself?”

“I don’t want to get fuckin’ ripped off!”

“I can’t promise you that someone won’t try, Andie.  But I’ll promise you right now, that if it happens, I will give whoever tries a hell of a fight.  This is yours.  Not Kris’, not anyone’s.  Yours.”

“So would my old man,” Andie replied.

Oliver Boyle laughed.  “Sure.  Although I imagine the people I play golf with every week have more influence than your father’s friends at the sports bar.”

He gestured to Kit.  “I will make Kit my representative to you and give him nearly a carte blanche.  I ask three things of you in return.”

“We’re going!” Andie said, her voice bitter.

“We’re back to wondering how you’d react if I kept interrupting you, Andie.  Could you at least exercise some common sense for a few minutes and hear me all the way out?”

Andie nodded, but every sinew in her body spoke of her distrust.

“The first thing I ask of you is that, when you start making more money than you’re spending, you pay me back for anything I’ve spent on this, dollar for dollar.”

Kris frowned, her eyebrows furrowing.  “Dollar for dollar?  What about profit?”

He sighed exasperatedly.  “What is it with you two?  You want to kill the golden goose?  Shoot the messenger?  Can you button it up for another couple of minutes?”

Kris subsided, not used to her father in his angry mood.

“Second, once you’ve banked a few hundred million, I would be obliged if you would look over some of the projects I’m working on, and invest a little money in one or another.  Or several others.  As you may have heard, I actually return money to my investors.  This would help me and make you some money in return.

“And, last but not least, I will hire for you recognized experts in various fields, including weapons and personal defensive arts.  Experts of your choosing.  All I ask of you in that regard is that you listen to their recommendations -- not read the memo -- but listen to their briefings.

“That’s it.”

Andie reacted first.  “That’s it?”

“That’s right, that’s it.”

“And we can do what we please?” Andie asked, clearly not believing him.

“Kris is eighteen, Andie.  You nearly are.  I can’t legally make Kris do anything, and your father isn’t going to bother, is he?  And, in not very many days, you’ll be eighteen yourself.”

“And that’s all?” Andie said, highly suspicious.

Oliver laughed.  “Well, I just thought of another thing, and you’re right to be suspicious.  I want to be kept informed of your activities... before the fact would be ideal, but not too much after the fact will suffice.  I would like, on occasion, to be allowed to offer my advice, as today, with a minimum of interruptions.”

“And that really is the final requirement?” Andie asked, her voice filled with sarcasm.

“Sure.”

“You two,” she gestured at Kit and Oliver, “get the fuck out of my house.  Wait on the street.”

They went out the door and Andie looked at Kris.  “I don’t trust the fucker, no offense.”

“Andie, yesterday it was your idea to enlist his aid.  Now, he’s offering it on terms I wouldn’t have imagined possible.”

“He’s got a hidden agenda.”

“And you think he wouldn’t have an agenda if we’d hit him up like you asked yesterday?  My father is a businessman.  Contracts are his lifeblood.  We get him to sign a contract with these terms.  Slam dunk.”

“You really trust him?” Andie asked.

“He’s my father.  I understand about yours, but this is my father we’re talking about.  If I can’t trust him, my life is so screwed up I don’t even want to think about it.”

“You and I go to the same high school.  We know kids whose parents have totally fucked them over.”

“We do,” Kris told her.  “But usually they were blind to the clues.  I have no hint he would ever do something like what you’re saying, Andie.  Again, if I can’t trust him, I need to reevaluate how much I trust everyone in the world -- even you.”

Andie stuck her tongue out.  “Okay, I agree.  But Kit...  the fucker ratted us out.”

“He did,” Kris told her friend.

“On the other hand, Andie, my father has a saying he uses often, when someone on his crew makes a decision on his or her own that turns out to be right.”

“And that would be?”

“It’s easier to explain than to ask permission.”

“Undoubtedly that means something to you -- to me, it’s gibberish.”

“It means that sometimes if you have a good idea, you have to have the balls to get it done -- because if you ask if you could or should do it, the conservative line will be two thumbs down.”