Nightlife by Thomas Perry Read Free Book Online Page A

Northeast. “Originally I’m a Connecticut girl.”
    They had to devote some attention to the menu, because the waiter had begun to hover nearby. Larson ordered salmon, and Rachel decided her first compliment to him would be to order the same entrée, the same salad.
    He ordered a good bottle of wine without any consultation that would have forced her to acknowledge his extravagance, and she liked that. When the waiter had departed again, he said, “What brought you to San Francisco?”
    “Business,” she said.
    “What sort of business are you in?”
    She devoted a half second to the thought that she should have said it was a vacation. He was obviously a businessman, and now she was going to have to talk about a subject he knew. All she could do was try to sound sensible. “I’m trying to start a magazine. This is a good place to do that. There are plenty of artistic people who will work cheap on the speculation that when the magazine takes off, so will they. There are almost too many good technical and business types who used to work for deceased Internet companies. There are lots of printers and good shipping facilities.”
    “What about the rents?”
    “They’re expensive, but not like New York, and I can work out of my apartment and my post office box for a long time before I need to expand,” she said.
    “I can tell you’re a practical businesswoman,” said Larson. “And I know a little about that. What’s the title of your magazine?”
    “I’m calling it
Singular Aspects.
It’s going to be about alternative lifestyles.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means nothing and everything. Americans love to think they’re special. Every last one of them, no matter how much of a conformist he is, wants to believe he’s a maverick, an innovator. What people want to believe is what they’ll buy, and lifestyle is everything. So I can do clothes, furniture, houses, music, books, movies, art, food, relationships, and say it’s about them. It doesn’t take much of a pitch to get them to buy an attractive version of themselves. They already like themselves.”
    “And you think San Francisco is a good place to do this?”
    “Not just a good place,” she said. “The very best place. More huge fads have come out of San Francisco than anywhere, block for block. This was the place to be a beatnik in the fifties. Practically the whole hippie movement in the sixties came from the corner of Haight and Ashbury. The food-worship fad came from restaurants like Chez Panisse in Berkeley in the seventies. The computer revolution came from just down the road in the eighties. It’s wave after wave. Not only will fad watchers pay for the latest from here, but advertisers will pay to be part of the next wave before it leaves here.”
    He laughed. “Well, that’s just great. I like everything about it, and I think it’s a good bet to succeed.” He stared at her for a few seconds. “I think it’s the best idea I’ve heard this trip.”
    She saw her chance to move the conversation onto him. “You’ve heard others?”
    “Well, yes,” he said. “I feel so comfortable talking to you that I keep forgetting that we don’t actually know each other yet.” He took out his wallet—she caught a thick sheaf of green bills and a platinum card—and slid a business card out with his thumb, then handed it to her.
    There was a logo with a pair of longhorns, and a business address in Austin for David Larson Ventures. She held it out for him to take back, but he said, “No, please hold on to it.”
    She slipped it into her purse. “So what are David Larson’s ventures?”
    “Oh, I make investments.”
    “In what?”
    “Young companies, mostly start-ups. Anything where I can evaluate the product, the market, the competition, and the costs. I came to meet some people and hear some pitches.”
    Rachel Sturbridge let the topic drop to see whether he was going to be a bore who didn’t talk about anything but business.