compelling one.
And yet, for a quote monkey of such brilliant success, Andrew is relatively sparsely quoted. He’s picked his spots carefully. Perhaps not surprising, though. The biggest venture capitalists and others here follow a predictable course in their relationship with the press: they court journalists when it serves their ends in growing their first businesses, grow bored and squeamish of the relationship with media when their businesses boom and when reporters start asking tougher questions, and then, when they are so big that media can no longer harm their efforts, reestablish ties with a few reporters they trust.
It’s this last bit of the evolution that fascinates me; they establish close ties with the media again because they want, more than anything else, a legacy. The riches-the stately house in picturesque Atherton, the $140,000 electric car, the co-owned jet kept at the Palo Alto Airport-all start to feel empty and they chase instead history’s stamp of approval.
But Andrew is so infrequently quoted that I wonder if he’s the rare success story who doesn’t want or need ultimate validation from the media. Or maybe there’s some other reason he’s cautious about having intimacy with the press.
Outside the cafe, Faith sits in the car, talking animatedly on the phone. I’ve let her waltz into my life-rather, I’ve pulled her without reservation onto the dance floor-and aside from her beauty, she’s a blur.
Across the street from the cafe, two moms and their toddlers file into a bookstore. A cutout of Winnie the Pooh hangs in the window.
I glance down the list of Google hits and something catches my eye. It’s a reference to Andrew Leviathan and the China-U.S. High-Tech Alliance. It’s a press release from four years ago announcing that Andrew has taken a board seat on the alliance, which, the press release explains, is aimed at “fostering ties of mutual interest.”
The China-U.S. High-Tech Alliance-the placard on the outside of the building in Chinatown. Right before I got slugged in the face.
Back to Google. I try various other ways to connect the lines between the Chinese alliance and Andrew. I get one hit. It’s another press release-from a year ago. It’s just one paragraph that notes Andrew has resigned his board seat. The release reads: “Mr. Leviathan has been replaced by Gils Simons, a prominent angel investor who provided key early funding and counsel to eBay, Google and PayPal.”
Gils Simons. Andrew Leviathan’s early right-hand and operations man, the bland bean counter who had been at the awards ceremony. Interesting. Maybe. I wonder why the press release doesn’t mention the connection between them.
Maybe a subject I’ll ask Andrew about when we meet for coffee. I look at the clock on the computer and realize I’ve got twenty minutes to get to the nearby Peet’s to see the programmer-turned-entrepreneur-turned- billionaire-turned-mystery man.
Into Google, I try one more search: “Andrew Leviathan” and “charity” and “school.” Up pop tons of mentions about his investment in a half dozen well-regarded schools in the Bay Area that help low-income kids. It’s all part of the man’s vibrant philanthropy, hailed by educators and parents and scholars. But rarely by Andrew himself. The few stories I call up make note that the genius philanthropist prefers not to comment but, rather, to let his charity speak for itself. And, the articles note, the charity speaks loudly to a single point: Andrew, the immigrant genius, has become the champion of American children, committed to world-class education.
I’m trying to make sense of any of it. Andrew builds his school just a few months after Kathryn Gilkeson, his administrator’s daughter, walks into the street and gets killed. Sounds innocuous enough. He found a cause, became wildly acclaimed for it-big deal, right? So why the dead man from the subway, and the bizarre Chinese connection, and the weirdo reality-show contestant? Why won’t my brain work? Why can’t I piece any of this together? Does it fit together?
And Jesus, that girl, that poor, poor Kathryn, who impulsively ran into the street and turned her mother into a shell.
I look up and out the window.
Then I see it. Or, rather, him.
Across the street, on the sidewalk in front of the bookstore, stands a boy. He wears overalls and a jockey cap.
Not just any boy. It’s not possible.
He takes a step toward the street.
“No!”
I scramble to my feet. It cannot be. I’m at the doorway of the cafe. I’m on the sidewalk. The boy takes a tentative step off the sidewalk, into the street. Not just any boy.
“Isaac!”
A car comes screaming from the right. It’s heading toward my son.
I sprint across the street. I fly. I’m practically in midair, my feet only touching the ground, my vision narrowed to a point, head screaming. I hurl myself in the path of the car; it screeches, swerves. I lope and gasp toward Isaac. I scoop him up with one arm.
He screams.
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” I cradle him. I look into his face. I see blue eyes filled with terror, quivering lips, the round heaving nostrils filling with snot bubbles. Tender features, innocent and beautiful, but not ones I recognize.
“Henry. Henry. Come here. Come to Mamma.”
It’s a quavering voice pushing the limits of the vocal cord, a protective lioness poised to pounce.
“What’s wrong with you?” she accuses me.
“He. .” I start, then pause, then see Faith approach, quickly, darting from across the street.
“Your son looked like he was going to walk into the street,” Faith says to the boy’s mother.
“I had him under control.”
Faith takes my hand and leads me away. Before we reach the car, I withdraw from her, willing myself for objectivity and clarity, about her, about everything.
30
I slip into the driver’s seat and coax the keys from Faith.
“It’s off-limits.”
“What’s off-limits?”
I don’t answer as I take a left from El Camino Real onto University, a swanky commercial strip. Here, entrepreneurs with full hearts sketch business plans to fill garages first with start-ups and then with BMWs those start-ups eventually afford. Back-of-the-napkin central.
The energy here is so vibrant and so enervating. The entrepreneurs reject propositions that aren’t “game changers” or aren’t “fundamentally disruptive,” then turn ones and zeroes into dollar signs, then, upon realizing their dreams, settle into a stifling and predictable suburban lifestyle; they raise children who can feel like failures if they don’t take full advantage of the advantages. At the main high school in Los Altos, there was a suicide and two copycats by accomplished students, all heading to the best colleges. Now I remember. When their peers were asked why, they responded: every time we accomplish something it feels mostly like a doorway to the next test.
“What’s off-limits, Nat?”
“Isaac. My family, such as it is.”
“Okay, but. .”
“No.”
“We already talked about him.” Muttered.
I assume she is referring to the idea that we, apparently, spoke about Isaac during the blur that was last night. No more-no more blur, no more offhand or concussion-fueled personal revelations, the information exchange now goes in only one direction. I’m laser-focused, I tell myself. I’m in total control of the only thing I’ve ever been halfway decent at, pulling up rocks people don’t want unearthed. My personal rocks will remain entrenched.
