The Big Boom by Domenic Stansberry Read Free Book Online Page B

“Tell Gucci no. Before we sign a release, we’re going to Columbus Station. We’re making sure the cops do their goddamn job.”
    Barbara put her hand over the receiver.
    “We have an appointment at the mortuary,” she said.
    “To hell,” he said.
    He stomped away. Outside, in the backyard, the cat was back on the diving board, eating some food Barbara had set out. Then the fool beast curled itself out on the edge, over the water, as if it were the most natural place for a cat to be.

NINE
    S olano Enterprises was in the Jackson Cannery, down in the flats below Telegraph Hill. There had once been a beach here beneath the cliff face, and a shallow inlet, but that inlet had been backfilled long ago. The cannery had been built sometime in the twenties, and it stood against the sheerness of the cliff, a red brick building where the Calabrian women had worked the lines once upon a time, in their black dresses and their hairnets, sorting and stewing and packing. A different kind of work went on in the building now, though the nature of the produce was a bit harder to determine.
    Solano’s company had two floors, in the far wing, but Solano himself was a somewhat vaporous presence.
    Like a number of young men who headed up the small companies that had suddenly taken up residence beneath the Pyramid, he was often referred to as a visionary. But like a lot of these new visionaries, Solano could be hard to locate. He had many responsibilities, many places to be.
    He was in Los Angeles for the day, his secretary said.
    No, no, plans had changed. He was meeting with the technology team in San Jose. He was teleconferencing with Japan. On his cell to New York. In his car. In the conference room with the designers. He would be back this afternoon. Perhaps. Down the hall. In his dusk-gray rayon shirt. Smiling. His presence rippling the air.
    Everywhere at once. Nowhere.
    The rainmaker. The magnet. The one who brought it all together.
    Solano had a number of gurus on his advisory staff. These included a businessman who wrote self-help books. A television producer. A stock market analyst. A political consultant who worked for Senator Feinstein.
    These people were his brain trust. Their pictures were on the company Web site—with sayings, aphorisms, quotations from their columns and their books. For a fee, their collective wisdom would be streamed over the broadband network and delivered via proprietary software to the desktops of employees whose companies were insightful enough to connect to their services.
    But, likewise, their presence was elsewhere.
    Not here exactly. But not there.
    Certainly not in the building.
    There were people in the building, though. More and more these last months. Too many, in fact, for the small quarters in the cannery’s old wing. Information designers and video techs, artists and computer programmers, personnel and marketing people. The employees had meetings, and if at times the meetings were vague—if at times it was not clear the exact nature of their enterprise—if the proprietary software system did not launch and the technology staff backpeddled—if their pay was low and they could not afford to participate in the general hilarity of the streets at the night—if attimes they grew skeptical and sardonic and suspicious—they still had their stock options. Not worth anything yet, but they would be, you could count on it. When the company went public, all their work, all their patience, would at last pay off.
    M ichael Solano at the moment was in his office. He had not been there long, and there was someplace else he had to be in another minute. Meanwhile, he had a million messages on his cell, a million more on his e-mail. He had too many places to be, and for a second he felt as if everything were getting away from him. In many ways, it wasn’t his company any more. He was working for the venture people now. For Smith. Smith himself was a cipher, a voice over the wire. This was the way of