'Yes, and if you find her, tell her I'm getting real short about now. I'm real low. I had to give a lot of what I had to Mr. Glass.'
'Who is Mr. Glass?'
'He's the private detective I hired. But I don't hear from him anymore. Now that I can't pay him anymore.'
'Can you give me his full name and a number for him?'
'I have to look it up.'
She put down the phone and it was two minutes before she came back and gave him the number and address for the private investigator. His full name was Philip Glass. His office was in Culver City.
'Mrs. Quinlan, are there any other contacts you have for Lilly out here? Any friends or anything like that?'
'No, she never gave me any numbers or told me about any friends. Except she once mentioned this girl Robin who she worked with sometimes. Robin was from New Orleans and they had stuff in common, she told me.'
'Did she say what?'
'I think they both had the same kind of trouble with men in their family when they were young. That's what I expect she meant.'
'I understand.'
Pierce was trying to think like a detective. Vivian Quinlan seemed like an important piece of the puzzle, yet he could not think of anything else to ask her. She was three thousand miles away and was obviously kept literally and figuratively distant from her daughter's world. He looked down at the phone book on the desk in front of him and finally came up with something to ask.
'Does the name Wainwright mean anything to you, Mrs. Quinlan? Did Lilly or Mr. Glass ever mention that name?'
'Um, no. Mr. Glass didn't mention any names. Who is it?'
'I don't know. It's just someone she knew, I guess.'
That was it. He had nothing else.
'Okay, Mrs. Quinlan, I'm going to keep trying to find her and I'll tell her to call you when I do.'
'I'd appreciate that and make sure you tell her about the money, that I'm getting real low.'
'Right. I will.'
He hung up and thought for a few moments about what he knew. Probably too much about Lilly. It made him feel depressed and sad. He hoped one of her clients did take her away with a promise of riches and luxury. Maybe she was in Hawaii somewhere or in a rich man's penthouse in Paris.
But he doubted it.
'Guys in tuxedos,' he said out loud.
'What?'
He looked up. Charlie Condon was standing in the door. Pierce had left it open.
'Oh, nothing. Just talking to myself. What are you doing here?'
He realized that Lilly Quinlan's phone book and the mail were spread in front of him. He nonchalantly picked up the daily planner he kept on the desk, looked at it like he was checking a date and then put it down on top of the envelopes with her name on them.
'I called your new number and got Monica. She said you were supposed to be here while she waited for furniture to be delivered. But nobody answered in the lab or in your office, so I came by.'
He leaned against the door frame. Charlie was a handsome man with what seemed like a perpetual tan. He had worked as a model in New York for a few years before getting bored and going back to school for a master's in finance. They had been introduced by an investment banker who knew Condon was skilled at taking underfinanced emergingtechnology firms and matching them with investors. Pierce had joined with him because he'd promised to do it with Amedeo Technologies without Pierce having to sacrifice his controlling interest to investors. In return, Charlie would hold 10 percent of the company, a stake that could ultimately be worth hundreds of millions -if they won the race and went public with a stock offering.
'I missed your calls,' Pierce said. 'I just got here, actually. Stopped to get something to eat first.'
Charlie nodded.
'I thought you'd be in the lab.'
Meaning, why aren't you in the lab? There is work to be done. We're in a race. We've got a presentation to a whale to make. You can't chase the dime from your office.
'Yeah, don't worry, I'll get there. I just have some mail to go through. You came all the way in to check on me?'
'Not really. But we only have until Thursday to get our shit together for Maurice. I wanted to make sure everything was all right.'
Pierce knew they were placing too much importance on Maurice Goddard. Even Charlie's e-mail reference to the investor as God was a subliminal indication of this. It was true that Thursday's dog and pony show would be the dog and pony show of all time, but Pierce had growing concern about Condon's reliance on this deal. They were seeking an investor willing to commit at least $6 million a year over three or four years, minimum. Goddard, according to the due diligence conducted by Nicole James and Cody Zeller, was worth $250 million, thanks to his getting in early on a few investments like Microsoft. It was clear that Goddard had the money. But if he didn't come across with a significant funding plan after Thursday's presentation, then there had to be another investor out there. It would be Condon's job to go out and find him.
'Don't worry,' Pierce said. 'We'll be ready. Is Jacob coming in for it?'
'He'll be here.'
Jacob Kaz was the company's patent attorney. They had fifty-eight patents already granted or applied for and Kaz was going to file nine more the Monday after the presentation to Goddard. Patents were the key to the race. Control the patents and you are in on the ground floor and will eventually control the market. The nine new patent applications were the first to come out of the Proteus project. They would send a shock wave through the nanoworld. Pierce almost smiled at the thought of it. And Condon seemed to read his thoughts.
'Did you look at the patents yet?' he asked.
Pierce reached down into the kneehole beneath his desk and knocked his fist on the top of the steel safe bolted there to the floor. The patent drafts were in there. Pierce had to sign off on them before they were filed but it was very dry reading, and he'd been distracted by other things even before Lilly Quinlan came up.
'Right here. I'm planning to get to them today or come back in tomorrow.'
It would be against company policy for Pierce to take the applications home to review.
Condon nodded his approval.
'Great. So, everything else okay? You doin' all right?'
'You mean with Nicki and everything?'
Charlie nodded.
'Yeah, I'm cool. I'm trying to keep my mind on other things.'
'Like the lab, I hope.'
Pierce leaned back in his chair, spread his hands and smiled. He wondered how much Monica had told him when he had called the apartment.
'I'm here.'
'Well, good.'
'By the way, Nicole left a new clip in the Bronson file on the Tagawa deal. It's hit the media.'
'Anything?'
'Nothing we didn't know already. Elliot said something about biologicals. Very general, but you never know. Maybe he's gotten wind of Proteus.'
As he said it Pierce looked past Condon at the framed one-sheet poster on his office wall next to the door. It was the poster from the 1966 movie Fantastic Voyage. It showed the white submarine Proteus descending through a multicolor sea of bodily fluids. It was an original poster. He had gotten it from Cody Zeller, who had obtained it through an online Hollywood memorabilia auction.
'Elliot just likes to talk,' Condon said. 'I don't know how he could know anything about Proteus. But after the patent is granted he'll know about it. And he'll be shitting bricks.
And Tagawa will know they backed the wrong horse.'
