further research-and-development funds were secured.
There was a photo of Dr. Palmetto standing in front of an array of wind turbines in the California desert and the caption beneath it said: “Dr. Palmetto expects the deserts of the world, both the arid and the frozen, with their potential for wind harvestation and lack of architectural impediment to be ground zero for a new technological boom.” Other photos showed Dr. Palmetto in Paris, Dubai, New York and what appeared to be Antarctica.
There were other photos of scientists, various vice presidents and CFOs, men and women working diligently in front of computer screens and outdoors.
“Who are all of these people in the pictures?” I asked.
“Just photos I found online of people,” he said. “I doctored them up to suit my needs. I’m pretty much a master at Photoshop.”
“What about Dr. Palmetto?” Fiona asked. “You have dozens of photos of him.”
“Oh, no,” Brent said. “That’s my grandfather. He’s dead, so I figured he wouldn’t mind. Plus, he always wore a lab coat on account of being a pharmacist, so it was easy to make him look right. Pretty cool, huh? What do you think of the name-pretty cool, too, huh?”
“Chester Palmetto?” Fiona said. “Sounds like an English cigarette.”
“It’s the name of my dog and the street I grew up on,” Brent said proudly. “If you combine the two, it’s supposed to be a badass name for porn. I think it makes for a cool-sounding scientist, too.”
Fiona regarded Brent with something near disdain. “When do you study?” she asked.
“You know, it’s not about studying. You can totally game a lot of the classes if you’re smart.”
“And you’re smart?” she said.
He shrugged. It was his default body motion. A series of shrugs that stood for hundreds of emotions. “I got into the U. And I’m a pretty good game designer. You ever play any games?”
“No,” Fiona said.
“Not even like first-person shooter games?”
“Not for sport, no,” she said.
I kept clicking through the Web site until I got to the contact page. Each of the main players in the company had an e-mail address and there was a general phone number, too. “These e-mail and phone numbers actually work?” I asked.
Brent nodded. “That was part of the assignment. It’s what got me in trouble,” he said. “I used to get e-mail from people all the time asking for more information, or for scientific data, or for a quote-people doing stories on bandwidth for magazines and newspapers would contact the press agent e-mail at least twice a month. And sometimes I’d get e-mail or phone calls from people interested in investing, which I thought was crazy, because I just made up all the science on here. I just thought ‘kineoptic’ was a cool word, you know, like combining ‘kinetic’ and ‘optic,’ so, like, there it was.”
“This phone number,” I said. “Where does it ring?”
“Nowhere,” he said. “It’s an Internet number. It just records voice mail online.”
“Smart,” I said.
“Yeah?” he said.
“You survive the next two weeks of your life,” I said, “you should look into whether or not Langley is hiring.”
“I’m pretty much a pacifist,” he said.
“Well,” I said, “too bad. So people would contact you and you’d do what?”
“I used to just say stuff like, you know, ‘A major announcement will be made next year in Zurich and we’ll be able to provide you with more information at that time.’ But then I kept getting messages from this Russian technology import-export company that was very persistent in their desire to help fund my venture. I mean, I did my Googling, so I knew they were legit. I went through and looked at the coding on their Web site and all that. Even had a friend of mine who reads Russian read all the foreign stuff on them and, like, it sounded like some big faceless company, you know? Like some big asshole company that would screw the little guy. I mean. Yeah. That’s what I thought, you know?”
“Even though you built a Web site just like theirs, but probably even more sophisticated, in your dorm room?” Fi said.
“Well,” he said, “yeah, but, you know, I’m an American, so, yeah. And for a long time, like, it was a big joke with my classmates. If someone needed rent money or couldn’t make their car payment or whatever, they’d be like, ‘Call the Russians!’ So when my dad disappeared and the bookies started leaning on me, that’s what I did.”
“When did your dad go missing?” I said.
“Two months ago,” Brent said.
“You have any idea where he might be?”
“No,” he said. “He’s left before, like when I was a kid, but then it was only for like a week. He’d go get money somewhere and come back. He’d hook up with a bookie in some other city who didn’t know him and then he’d show back up when he could pay off his debt. Stupid.”
“How much does he owe?” I asked.
“I’ve already paid off sixty-five thousand bucks,” Brent said, as if it was nothing. I didn’t say anything. “But he’s got big tabs with guys all over town. Every week, a new guy shows up asking for his money. I’m supposed to meet a guy named Big Lumpy tomorrow to pay off part of a debt my dad has to him for fifteen large.”
“ Fifteen large. Really.”
“That’s how they talk,” Brent said. “That’s how my dad talks. I’m just telling you everything.”
“How do you know you’re not getting shaken down?” Fiona asked. “I don’t want to be morbid, but your father could already be dead.”
“He’s not,” Brent said. “Because I know he’s still betting. He took money out of a shared account of ours a week ago. It’s this old Christmas club account my mom gave me when I was born. He drained it.”
The problem with degenerate gamblers is that it’s never about winning or losing; it’s about the rush of playing. It blinds your ability to make good decisions. It ends up putting everything you have in jeopardy… like your son’s life.
“Okay,” I said. “So these guys come and demand money or they’re going to kill you, am I correct?”
“Me,” he said, “and everyone in my family. They gave me MapQuest directions to my aunt Jill’s house in Austin, my cousin Matthew in San Francisco and they even showed me a picture of my mother’s grave. They said they’d dig her up and kill her again. And when they find my dad, they said they’d kill him, too, but they’d do it slowly.”
“Here’s the thing, Brent,” I said. “If they kill you, they won’t get any more money. Do you understand that?”
“Yeah. So, great, I’m paralyzed or something instead. I’d rather be dead.”
“Why didn’t you just go to the police in the first place, Brent?” I said.
He got up off of the bed and began to pace my loft, much like Sugar had, much like half a dozen other clients had when faced with the one question that should be the easiest to answer. It portended extenuating situations, which I presumed would lead to the Russians.
“They told me not to,” he said.
“Right. Of course,” I said. “But was this before or after you contacted the Russians and took their money for a device that doesn’t exist?”
“How did you know?” Brent asked.
“Because I’m a spy,” I said. “And because you’re smart and did the only thing you could to save your father’s life. And I don’t know any other way you’d be able to get your hands on sixty-five thousand bucks. That nugget of information didn’t elude me, Brent.”
“Thanks. For the smart part, I mean.”
“But being smart is also the one thing that could likely get you killed,” I said. “How much did they send you?”
“Which time?”
“ Which time? How many times have there been?”
“Well, they asked to invest in the project and so at first I kept shining them on, just like all the others, until this all happened and I said, okay, they could get in on the Angel level for seventy-five thousand.”
