persona of the writer Tom Wolfe. The only thing missing was the cane.
'Yes,' Pierce said. 'I hit a wall.'
'When did this happen? Where?'
'Sunday afternoon. Here in Santa Monica.'
Pierce needed to change the subject. He was uncomfortable skirting the truth and he knew Goddard's questioning wasn't casual or concerned conversation. The bird was thinking about ponying up 18 million worms. His questions were part of the due diligence process. He was finding out what he was possibly getting into.
'Had you been drinking?' Goddard asked bluntly.
Pierce smiled and shook his head.
'No. I wasn't even driving. But I don't drink and drive anyway, Maurice, if that's what you mean.'
'Well, I am glad you are okay. If you get a chance, could you get me a copy of the accident report? For our records, you understand.'
There was a short silence.
'I'm not sure I do. It had nothing to do with Amedeo and what we do here.'
'I understand that. But let's be frank here, Henry. You are Amedeo Technologies. It is your creative genius that drives this company. I've met a lot of creative geniuses in my time. Some I would put my last dollar behind. Some I wouldn't give a buck to if I had a hundred.'
He stopped there. And Bechy took over. She was twenty years younger than Goddard, had short dark hair, fair skin and a manner that exuded confidence and one-upsmanship.
Even still, Pierce and Condon had agreed previously that she held the position because they believed she had a relationship with the married Goddard that went beyond business.
'What Maurice is saying is that he is considering a sizeable investment in Amedeo Technologies,' she said. 'To be comfortable doing that, he needs to be comfortable with you. He has to know you. He doesn't want to invest in someone who might be a risk taker, who might be reckless with his investment.'
'I thought it was about the science. The project.'
'It is, Henry,' she said. 'But they go hand in hand. The science is no good without the scientist. We want you to be dedicated and obsessed with the science and your projects.
But not reckless with your life outside the lab.'
Pierce held her eyes for a long moment. He suddenly wondered if she knew the truth about what happened and about his obsessive investigation of Lilly Quinlan's disappearance.
Condon cleared his throat and cut in, trying to move the meeting forward.
'Justine, Maurice, I am sure that Henry would be happy to cooperate with any kind of personal investigation you would like to conduct. I've known him for a long time and I've worked in the ET field for even longer. He is one of the most levelheaded and focused researchers I've ever come across. That is why I am here. I like the science, I like the project and I'm very comfortable with the man.'
Bechy broke away from Pierce to look at Condon and nod her approval.
'We may take you up on that offer,' she said through a tight smile.
The exchange did little to erode the tension that had quickly enveloped the room. Pierce waited for somebody to say something but there was only silence.
'Um, there's something I should probably tell you then,' he finally said. 'Because you'll find out anyway.'
'Then just tell us,' Bechy said. 'And save us all the time.'
Pierce could almost feel Charlie Condon's muscles seize up under his thousand-dollar suit as he waited for the revelation he knew nothing about.
'Well, the thing is… I used to have a ponytail. Is that going to be a problem?'
At first the silence prevailed again but then Goddard's stone face cracked into a smile and then laughter came from his mouth. It was followed by Bechy's smile and then everybody was laughing, including Pierce, even though it hurt to do so. The tension was broken. Charlie balled a fist and knocked on the table in an apparent attempt to accentuate the mirth. The response far exceeded the humor in the comment.
'Okay, then,' Condon said. 'You people came to see a show. How about we go down to the lab and see the project that is going to win this comedian here a Nobel Prize?'
He put his hands on the front and back of Pierce's neck and acted as though he were strangling him. Pierce lost his smile and felt his face getting red. Not because of Condon's mock strangulation, but because of the quip about the Nobel. Pierce thought it was uncool to trivialize so serious an honor. Besides, he knew it would never happen. It would never be awarded to the operator of a private lab. The politics were against it.
'One thing before we go downstairs,' Pierce said. 'Jacob, did you bring the nondisclosure forms?'
'Oh, yes, right here,' the lawyer said. 'I almost forgot.'
He pulled his briefcase up from the floor and opened it on the table.
'Is this really necessary?' Condon asked.
It was all part of the choreography. Pierce had insisted that Goddard and Bechy sign nondisclosure forms before entering the lab and viewing the presentation. Condon had disagreed, concerned that it might be insulting to an investor of Goddard's caliber. But Pierce didn't care and would not step back. His lab, his rules. So they settled on a plan in which it would appear to be an annoying routine.
'It's lab policy,' Pierce said. 'I don't think we should deviate. Justine was just talking about how important it is to avoid risks. If we don't -'
'I think it is a perfectly good idea,' Goddard said, interrupting. 'In fact, I would have been concerned if you had not taken such a step.'
Kaz slid two copies of the two-page document across the table to Goddard and Bechy. He took a pen out of his inside suit pocket, twisted it and placed it on the table in front of them.
'It's a pretty standard form,' he said. 'Basically, any and all proprietary processes, procedures and formulas in the lab are protected. Anything you see and hear during your visit must be held in strict confidence.'
Goddard didn't bother reading the document. He left that to Bechy, who took a good five minutes to read it twice. They watched in silence and at the end of her review she silently picked up the pen and signed it. She then gave the pen to Goddard, who signed the form in front of him.
Kaz collected the documents and put them in his briefcase. They all got up from the table then and headed toward the door. Pierce let the others go first. In the hallway as they approached the elevator, Jacob Kaz tapped him on the arm and they delayed for a moment behind the others.
'Everything go okay with Janis?' Kaz whispered.
'Who?'
'Janis Langwiser. Did she call you?'
'Oh. Yeah, she called. Everything's fine. Thank you, Jacob, for the introduction. She seems very capable.'
'Anything else I can do?'
'No. Everything is fine. Thank you.'
The lab elevator opened and they moved toward it.
'Down the rabbit hole, eh, Henry?' Goddard said.
'You got that right,' Pierce replied.
Pierce looked back and saw that Vernon had also held back in the hallway and had apparently been standing right behind Pierce and Kaz as they had spoken privately. This annoyed Pierce but he said nothing about it. Vernon was the last one into the elevator. He put his scramble card into the slot on the control panel and pushed the B button.
'B is for basement,' Condon told the visitors once the door closed. 'If we put L in there for lab, people might think it meant lobby.'
He laughed but no one joined him. It was a nice piece of worthless information he had imparted. But it told Pierce how nervous Condon was about the presentation. For some reason this made Henry smile ever so slightly, not enough to hurt. Condon might lack confidence in the presentation but Pierce certainly didn't. As the elevator descended he felt his energy diametrically rise. He felt his posture straighten and even his vision brighten. The lab was his domain. His stage. The outside world might be dark and in shambles. War and waste. A Hieronymus Bosch painting of chaos. Women selling their bodies to strangers who would take them and hide them, hurt and even kill them. But not in the lab. In the lab there was peace. There was order. And Pierce set that order. It was his world.
