steering wheel.
I tried to sound optimistic. 'There's one definite customer, if we can get the money.'
'We'll get the money,' Craig said, more as an article of faith than as a forecast.
He drove on. 'I have to make this work, you know,' he said.
'I know.'
'No, you don't. This is just another deal for you,' he muttered. 'If it blows up, there will be others that come along. But I've put everything into Net Cop. I'll have to make it succeed. The alternative… there is no alternative.'
'You could get a job easily,' I said.
'Huh. I'm unemployable. I worked my ass off for Gary Olek. I'm not doing that again.'
Gary Olek had made tens of millions through the sale of his software company a year before. Craig had been the technical genius behind the firm. Olek, with his MBA, his charm, his financial acumen, had been CEO and major stockholder. Craig had made some money from the sale, all of which he had ploughed into Net Cop. Olek had made a fortune.
'Olek took my ideas and made millions out of them. That Net Cop switch is mine, and I'm gonna make the money this time. I'm not gonna let no banks or venture capitalists stop me. Of course Luxtel's going to buy our switches. So's every other motherfucker in the market. You hear what I'm sayin'?'
'I hear you.'
He relaxed a touch. 'I'm sorry, Simon. I know you're trying to help. But at the end of the day it's all down to me. I'll get the money. I'll sell the fuckin' switches. I'll make Cisco and 3Com and all those other fuckers sit up and take notice of Net Cop. Don't worry about it.'
I did worry about it. All the way back to Boston.
I didn't get back to the office until mid-afternoon. Daniel was out, something was hotting up at BioOne. I wasn't sure where John was. I surveyed the pile of papers screaming at me from my in-box. Tetracom. Net Cop. A former McDonald's executive who wanted to set up yet another chain of coffee shops. A proposal for a Swedish- goods-by-mail-order company. All needing urgent attention.
I pulled out the Tetracom pile. The deal was shaping up well. Diane was in Cincinnati, without me, visiting the company. I'd told her I didn't want to travel overnight because I ought to stay with Lisa, and she had understood.
I had been working for about a quarter of an hour when John burst in.
'Man, these quilt guys are something else!'
I looked up. 'Board meeting?'
'Yeah. Plus some kind of brainstorming session. It was wild.'
'What happened?'
The National Quilt Company was an ailing manufacturer of high-quality quilts that had been bought by a marketing man named Andy McArdle with the backing of Revere. His idea had been to turn the company round by realizing the potential of duvets, or 'comforters' as the Americans called them, for merchandising. Art had done the deal with John, and put John on the board.
'You know I told you about those merchandising deals they'd signed last spring for the fall season?'
'Yes.'
'It turns out some goon somewhere ordered a few hundred thousand Mutant Turtle comforters that no one wants to buy. Warehouse full. Lots of inventory. Big problem.'
'Sounds like it.'
'So, I suggest maybe they ought to go back to making comforters with cute patterns on them. Flowers and such like.'
'Radical.'
'Not as radical as McArdle. He's done a ton of research on the number of single-person homes, and the lack of comforters targeted at the under-thirties, and his conclusion is…' John looked at me enquiringly.
'I give up.'
'Go naked.'
'Go naked?'
'Yup. Go naked. Dump the turtles. We spread naked women all over these quilts. They get bought by the millions of young men out there who are sick of the choice of flowers or turtles on their comforters. National Quilt makes out like bandits.'
'Jesus. What did you say?'
'Why not naked men? I mean, single women buy comforters too.'
'Er. True. What did McArdle say to that?'
'He said that was an interesting idea, and he'd look into it.'
'Oh, dear.'
'Yes. Oh, dear.'
'Did you let him do it?' I asked.
'Yeah. On a small scale. The company's screwed anyway, and I'm curious to see what happens.'
'Have you told Art?'
'No point. He's lost all interest in this deal. He just doesn't want to know. It's my baby now. Tea?'
'Thanks,' I said, and John left the room to get it. A couple of minutes later he came back with tea for me and something brown under white foam for himself.
'Don't you think you should do something more positive?' I asked as he returned.
'I thought about it, but I don't see the point. I figure if this company goes down the toilet, then it's McArdle's fault, not mine. And that's the way I'd like to keep it.'
I wasn't convinced, but I let it pass.
Sergeant Mahoney came to see me that afternoon, accompanied by another detective whom he called a trooper, but who didn't look at all like the troopers I was used to. I took them into a small meeting room.
'How are you getting on?' I asked Mahoney.
'Slow but sure. Slow but sure,' he said. 'It's the best way, I find.'
'Do you have any suspects yet? Apart from me?'
'We're not quite at that stage yet. But we're making progress.'
There was clearly no chance of Mahoney telling me who he thought had killed Frank, even if he knew. I was curious to see where I stood in his list of possibilities.
'We have been able to narrow down the time of Mr Cook's murder. The phone records show he called John Chalfont at three twenty-four that Saturday afternoon. They spoke for only a couple of minutes. Mr Chalfont recalls the conversation. So we know he was alive at that time.'
'I had definitely left by then,' I said.
'Now, Mr Chalfont says he called Mr Cook back later on that afternoon. They were talking about a deal they were both working on, and Mr Chalfont had some responses. Mr Cook didn't answer the phone, but his answering machine did. The call was timed at four thirty-eight.'
'I see.'
'So where were you between three twenty-four, and four thirty-eight?'
'Walking on the beach. I told you. Actually, by four thirty-eight I was probably on the way to Net Cop.'
'Yes, you did tell us that,' said Mahoney. 'Trouble is we haven't found anyone who saw you down there. We did find a couple of people who said they were walking on Shanks Beach on Saturday afternoon, but neither of them remembers seeing anyone who fits your description. Nor the description of your car, which is quite distinctive.'
'Oh,' I said. Damn! Someone should have noticed the Morgan. Dark green, long and low, it looked like a roadster from the nineteen forties, although in fact it was only ten years old.
'Can you think of anyone else who might have seen you? Did you stop for gas? Go into a store somewhere?'
'No,' I said. 'I'm pretty sure there was no one manning the booth at the entrance to the beach…'
'There wasn't,' said Mahoney.
'Are you sure no one saw my car? You'd have thought they would have remembered it.'
