TUNA LIFE (10 page)

Mark shrugged his shoulders. “I guess not. By the way, are you coming to the press conference later?”

Scott laughed. “No, I’ve got better things to do. I’ll save you the trip as well. They’ll tell you that they have found some unidentified body parts, and will get back to media outlets with more information when it is available.”

23

A sixty-foot Riviera chugged slowly past Roman Bezhrev’s mansion at the Sovereign Island. He had owned a similar yacht a few years back. He never liked it. The Rivieras didn’t break the water properly. They were ok when you only puffed around the Broadwater, as the guy outside Roman’s house now did. But as soon as they hit open water, or a bit of speed, they were almost like driving a floating tub, a very expensive floating tub.

Roman had been offered to buy the Riviera brand and factory, which was located just a few miles north in Upper Coomera, a few years back when the Australian boat sales had almost come to a halt overnight. He had toyed with the idea - to own a boat factory. Roman had always bought and sold stuff, ever since he was a small kid. Cars, medicine, oil, gold. You would struggle coming up with an item Roman hadn’t bought or sold at the Moscow markets back in the former Soviet Union. As a young med student he had started selling cheap wooden toys at the local market. He had taken the profits and bought a car in Europe, and then driven the car back to Moscow and sold it with a handsome profit. In fact, it had been such a good deal that Roman had decided to leave med school, and make selling cars his profession. He had realised that he preferred making money to carving up corpses. And for a while it had all been good. But eventually he had realised that you sometimes had to cut up bodies to be successful in the Moscow business world. Roman probably knew more about the human body than most trained doctors. What a human’s pain threshold was, how long you could live without certain body parts. Specialist knowledge for Australian surgeons. Ordinary business knowledge in Russia.

The owner of the Riviera waved. Roman reluctantly returned the nod, before he finished his first vodka of the morning.

“When do you take delivery of your new yacht?” Richard asked. The managing director of Y-Bator had taken the trip out to his boss to discuss Andrew Engels’ concerns.

“In six months. They’ve started on the interior. A Turkish wharf is doing the job.”

“Are you excited?”
Roman didn’t know what to answer. He genuinely looked forward to getting the new yacht, but he wasn’t excited. To him it wouldn’t be a special day when the yacht arrived. To buy and sell yachts was something he did. Something one was expected to do in his position. It was as rudimentary as eating dinner.

“Yes, it will be nice to see the finished result. Now, tell me Richard, what problems do we have with young Mr Engels?”

“No problems. Andrew has however expressed some concerns regarding his co-founders, Ken Speis and Frank Geitner. He feels that they, how should I put it; are not serious enough, and that this lack of professionalism may hurt the company as it grows.”

“And your opinion?”

“My opinion is that Andrew is the odd one out. The CTO, Frank, is simply a genius. Unfortunately he is also an asshole, but I can live with that. The software he has developed is extraordinary, and he has done it in record time. Several of the best engineers in the Y-Bator system have reviewed his coding, and they were all blown away. He’s very old school, and some of the code he writes doesn’t immediately make sense, but it works. It works exceptionally well. My engineers tell me that they don’t understand how he’s doing it. They say he is some kinda Mozart of coding.”

“And Mr Speis?”

“He’s not as important as Frank. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good designer, and he scored very high on the psychology test. More than thirty points. According to the test; he’s CEO material.”

“And Mr Engels, what is he?”
“Not CEO material, that’s for sure. Andrew Engels is the weak link in this whole equation. He’s had luck, that’s it. Piggy backed on the right people. He’s got limited tech-knowledge. He’s not a natural leader. I can go on if you want, but the bottom line is that he is not the right person to lead this company as it grows.”

“You mean you’re the right person, yes?”

“That’s not what I said, Roman. But I’m sure I can find multiple candidates who are better suited than Andrew.”

“Andrew Engels runs the company. That’s not up for discussion. And I’m not so certain that this personality test you use is the best tool to select CEOs of our companies. Andrew Engels remains CEO, and it is your responsibility to ensure that he succeeds. If he fails, you fail, yes.” Roman brought the empty glass of Vodka back on the table with a bang.

Richard Smith wiped a sweat pearl away from his upper lip. It was muggy and humid. They needed a big storm, that’s what they needed. “If that’s what you want,” he said.

“It’s what I want. And keep me updated about these two other guys. I want to know if they ever do something that could hurt the company.”

Richard Smith rose from the wicker chair, nodded to Roman, and walked into the house where one of Roman’s bodyguards escorted him to the front door. Richard never felt safe around Roman Bezhrev. He had started to leave messages for his wife every time he visited Roman at his house. He should probably find himself a new job. Even though he was handsomely remunerated, it wasn’t worth it. If Roman found it necessary to surround himself with bodyguards 24/7, what did that tell the people who spent time with him?

A car bomb could kill them all.

It wasn’t only Roman who was at risk.

24

“I thought you were supposed to interview the founder of Tuna Life,” Vesna Connor said.

Scott Davis was seated in one of the office chairs in the meeting room. He was staring at the wall.

“Something came up.”

“Something for our crime desk?”

Scott glanced over at her. He studied the picture-pretty face. Not so much as a wrinkle. Not a trace of a life lived. “As you know the paper, in its infinite wisdom, has put me on Performance Review. One of the objectives in my Performance Review Plan is that I must improve my interaction with other staff and colleagues. So I’ve taken the liberty of doing just that. I’ve decided to become a mentor for young Mark Moss. Help him in establishing himself as a crime reporter.”

“Ehhh…” Vesna Connor didn’t know how to reply. It all came as such a surprise. “Super. Good initiative,” she said, pulling herself together. “But don’t let it interfere with your normal job. I need more articles about
the new economy
. It’s starting to get traction now. We have gotten the mayor’s attention.” She turned to leave. But just before she closed the door she stuck her head back in. “I want it documented. All the time you use mentoring Mark has to be documented. We can go through it in our weekly Friday meeting. Good initiative.”

Fuck,
Scott Davis thought. He had impulsively blurted out what he had thought was a brilliant excuse for looking into matters he wasn’t supposed to meddle in. Instead he had now made it official. He now had to help Mark. He even had to document it. He was far from certain that all these missing women cases were criminal cases. Mark Moss had awoken the old journo instinct in him, but it was limited how enthusiastic it was. Fucking Friday meetings. Scott Davis had never understood the reasoning behind these Performance Improvement Plans. If a worker struggled in his job, if he was not quite reaching his budgets or quotas, not performing as expected, the last thing such a person needed was to document everything he did. To spend half his work week documenting that he struggled to perform. He needed more time to do his job, not less.

Scott needed to find a way to get Mark to write that report for him. He opened Google Images in his browser. He had seen that tattoo before. Mark’s friend in the police had given Mark a picture of the arm that had been found at the Spit. It had unofficially been identified as belonging to Marissa Soo, so Mark Moss had most likely been correct there. But it had also had a new tattoo not mentioned in the missing persons report. It had been relatively small and insignificant compared to the large snake curling down most of her arm. But Scott Davis had still noticed it – a circle with a dot in the middle. Three small dots, neatly placed around the circle with equal distance in between them. Where had he seen it before? He found many strange tattoos on Google Images, but not the one he was looking for. He decided to visit an old friend.

PT was busy tattooing a young woman when Scott entered his store. PT turned off the buzzing tattoo needle, and peeked over his shoulder when the doorbell warned someone had just entered his store.

“Scott Davis. Finally decided to get a small masterpiece on your body?” PT hollered.

Scott Davis laughed. “That day will never come. My body is my temple.”

PT returned the tattoo needle to the young girl’s back, and continued on something that appeared to be an eagle covering most of her backside. She hardly looked like she was twenty, an innocent young girl with long blonde hair and a giant eagle on her back. Scott Davis was glad it wasn’t his daughter. He was glad he didn’t have any kids at all. Too much responsibility. He pulled out the picture of the tattoo, on what was presumed to be Marissa Soo’s arm, and held it up in front of PT’s face. “Seen this one before?”

“Isn’t that the new logo for the City Council?” PT asked.

Scott laughed. “This is a dot and a circle. It would probably have cost the suckers a million bucks.” He sat down on a stool next to PT, who continued to maul the young girl’s back. “Good one. But seriously; have you seen it before?”

“Not my work. The circle is granulated. Not the best work I’ve ever seen. Cheap tattoo parlour in Kuta or Phuket, I would say.”

“Come on. Show some interest,” Scott said. “You hardly looked at it.”

“I’ve seen it before,” the blonde girl in the tattoo chair said. “Or at least something very similar. Some of the girls at Crazy Kangaroo have it.”

“There’s your solution. A strip club. A circle with a dot inside. It’s a nipple,” PT said.

The girl in the tattoo chair laughed. She squeezed her left hand down the way too tight pants pocket, and wriggled out two flyers. She handed them to Scott Davis.

“Free entry. Stop by one night. We’ve got a good show going.”

“Are you a stripper?” Scott Davis asked bluntly.

“No,” she laughed. “Too small tits. Work behind the bar. Not paid as well, but at least I feel better in the morning.”

Scott Davis thanked her for the tickets, and left for the door.

“Come again,” PT hollered with a made-up Indian accent as Scott exited the door.

25

The smoke hovered as a thick layer of clouds just beneath the ceiling. Nora Jones’ velvet voice streamed out of the oversized subwoofers Frank had installed in the basement.

“Isn’t it damaging for the servers?” Andrew asked as he arrived next to Ken, who was seated in front of his iMac screen working on the user interface.

“No, the grass Frank gets from Nimbin is of such a high quality that it isn’t dangerous. Purer than oxygen, he claims.”

“Where is he, by the way?”

“Inside the lab,” Ken said, nodding towards the basement’s kitchen.

The previous owner had used the basement as a bachelor pad; home cinema, snooker table and a bar. Frank had turned most of it into a data centre; the Tuna Life part. Servers stacked up to the ceiling, connected via several kilometres of cables. The residual part of the basement, the part that consisted of the kitchen, he had converted into a small lab. Andrew didn’t really know what he was experimenting with in there, but he assumed it was something illegal, something drug-related. They had to get out of the basement as soon as possible. If the police raided the place they would all be facing prison terms.

“Come, come,” Frank hollered as he noticed Andrew. “Taste this one.”

“What is it?” Andrew asked.

“It’s the world’s best French fries.”

“They bloody better be good. You’ve been in there for more than two hours,” Ken yelled out.

Andrew studied the chip. It didn’t look dangerous. “Are there any drugs in it?” he asked.

“Are you insane?” Frank replied. “Don’t get me wrong. I like your thinking, but that would totally ruin the taste. This is the world’s best chip. I’ve only used the best potatoes from Nimbin. Cut them into strips, rinsed them, vacuumed them in water, heated it all to 212 degrees for fifteen minutes, before I bombarded them for another forty-five minutes with ultrasound to get rid of the water. Then five minutes in the oven at 212 degrees, three minutes submerged in oil at 338 degrees. And when they turned cold I fried them, dried off the extra oil with a paper towel. And voila; the world’s best chips.”

“Voila? It’s taken you two hours,” Ken hollered across the room.

Andrew took a bite. It was amazing. The outside of the chip almost exploded when his teeth chewed through the crust. Once through, they met an almost perfect soft inside. Was there anything Frank Geitner didn’t know how to do to perfection?

“It’s not my recipe,” Frank said. “It belongs to Nathan Myhrvold.”

“Who?” Andrew asked.

“Nathan Myhrvold, used to be CTO in Microsoft. Retired and decided to dedicate his life to making food based on science. Marvellous cook book; 2,400 pages of exciting dishes.”

“Wonder how long it takes to make a stew.” Ken laughed at his own joke.

“Quality takes time,” Frank snapped back.

“We need to talk,” Andrew said, sneaking himself another chip.

“Why? Is there a problem?”

Andrew nodded. “Sort of. We are in a very vulnerable position. Almost overnight we have become a sensation in the tech industry. Our app has more 5-star reviews than any other app in the iTunes store at the moment. That sort of success means attention.”

“Isn’t that good? Our users love our product. Nothing is better than positive reviews.”

“You’ve done a great job, Frank. Nobody is disputing that. We just need to be aware that with success comes scrutiny. You can’t walk around naked in your garden smoking pot anymore. Someone may snap a picture of you.”