Better Than This by Stuart Harrison

Author:Stuart Harrison [Harrison, Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780006514572
Google: Cfppf90NS8UC
Amazon: 000651457X
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Published: 2002-10-06T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Nothing good lasts for ever, so they say, but I’d hoped for a little longer than a week. Copies of the contract that formed our agreement with Leonard Hoffman had been shuffling back and forth between the lawyers, both sides making alterations to the other’s amendments and arguing about interpretation. They were doing their best to make a decent fee out of what amounted to a straightforward deal, but nothing is ever easy once lawyers are involved. I spoke to Hoffman several times over the phone and he sounded as frustrated as I was.

“I told Brinkman I’m not going to live for ever,” he said one morning. He wanted to move things along, impatient to see his program available on the Internet and the first stage of our advertising campaign up and running so that he could confront Morgan.

“I want to see his face when I tell him I just cost him fifty million dollars,” he said with grim anticipation. He broke off then, coughing so badly I had to hold the phone away from my ear until he was finished. I winced as I imagined the damage being inflicted on his tattered lungs and when he came back on the line he sounded exhausted. His voice had grown so weak I had to strain to hear him.

“I heard Spectrum are launching their program in August,” he said.

That was just a couple of months away. We needed to go out around the same time to maximize the free amount of publicity we’d get on news websites devoted to this kind of thing, and hopefully that would lead to regular press coverage in the financial media. Time was getting short. We couldn’t do a thing until we had a signed agreement to take to the bank so they would give us the short-term operating finance that we needed to cover our initial costs.

I was getting worried about Hoffman. Every time I spoke to him he sounded worse and sometimes I thought it was only his burning desire for revenge that kept him going. Finally our lawyer gave us the green light, and Brinkman’s office called to set up a meeting for the morning when all parties would sign.

That night I called Sally and told her I would take care of dinner. On the way home I stopped by an Italian deli in North Beach and picked up a few ingredients. I planned to wilt some baby spinach leaves through linguine and then finish the dish off with the deli’s own homemade pepperoni which I’d fry first in a little garlic and oil. To wash it down I splashed out on a bottle of ‘96 Australian Merlot.

“To us,” I said later, when Sally and I sat down to eat and we touched glasses.

“To us.”

When I went to refill her glass she covered it with her hand. “Uh-uh. That’s enough for me.”

“What’s wrong? Don’t you like it?”

She smiled a secretive smile. “I just don’t think I should.”

It took a moment for the penny to drop.

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