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been a no show, the tutor paid Peter a visit. He said he understood Peter’s reluctance, and then got into the “you’ve been working on your PhD for seven years now” speech. Peter had heard it before, but the tutor was more persuasive this time. Peter
did
want to leave. He did want to see what it was like on the outside. He agreed to meet with Timmermans, but wouldn’t guarantee when.

The air was crisp when Peter arrived at the Amsterdam train station. He bought a Coke, threw his bag over his shoulder, and walked outside to the rack of white municipal bikes that the government provided to the city’s inhabitants free of charge. It was a clever way to deal with theft — give people free bikes that they can leave anywhere in the city, and they won’t have to steal.

“Kapitein Zeppos” was the name of the restaurant that Timmermans had written on the back of the business card. Peter knew the place. It had taken its name from a 60s Belgian TV series, but that’s not what Peter was thinking about as he pedaled. He was thinking of a youth hostel nearby. He had stayed there after a particularly drunken evening with buddies in the red light district. A bet had been put on the table that night which could not be resisted. One of his friends, who was trying to stop smoking, brazenly challenged the others that if he could go two days without a cigarette they would each have to eat 13 raw herring sandwiches with mayonnaise and pickles at the market in the morning. If willpower did not prevail and the friend did have a smoke, Peter and the others were to have the privilege of picking out the fattest, blackest Zairian girl dancing in one of the windows along the
Oudezijds Achterburgwal
to service their mate. Raw herring won. It had to.

The rich smell of rijsttafel loitered outside an Indonesian restaurant as Peter turned a corner. He was still vacillating between meeting Timmermans or bailing. It was pretty clear what the Belgian wanted. Profit is the only motive of the businessman species.
But this idea, it was all just a harebrained notion scribbled on some paper. Didn’t Timmermans realize that?
As much as Peter liked the idea, as much as he wanted to see it work, even he had his doubts about its viability.

Peter liked gliding through the narrow streets on the bike. There was an edge to Amsterdam that he appreciated. When Peter got to Zeppos, he parked the bike and had a quick smoke. From the street he could hear nothing, but suddenly someone opened a door and a flood of laughter, glasses, music and bohemia spilled out onto the cobblestones. It was his sort of place. Peter looked at his watch, checked the alley for Timmermans, stamped out his cigarette and stepped over the threshold into this pleasant world.

A jazz trio played Brubeck’s “Take Five.” No sign of Timmermans. Peter ordered a beer and scanned the room. A couple made eyes at each other in the corner next to him. He hated that. A table of plump Eastern European businessmen toasted each other with vodka and howled at something funny. A man in his late 40s ate alone — pheasant with raisins and sauerkraut.

Everything was normal, but something seemed odd. Then he spotted it. The drummer had one leg, the bass player was missing an ear, and the trumpet player had one hand.

“Peter, I’m glad you made it,” Timmermans said, walking up from behind, coat off, as if he’d been there a while. “May I join you?”

“Of course. Cool place,” Peter said, making stupid conversation.

“I thought you’d like it.”

Again, Timmermans pulled the silver cigarette case out of his jacket. It was clearly one of the Belgian’s props. “So, let us talk about this technology of yours.”

“You don’t waste any time, do you?”

“Why should I? It’s clear why we’re both here.”

“Is it?”

“Well, it’s clear to me. Why are you here?”

“I heard good things about the band.”

“I see. Why don’t you tell me a bit more about your idea.” “You seem to already know a lot about it.”

“Very little, actually. Your tutor didn’t break too many confidences. I did try to pry it out of him, but he wouldn’t budge.”

“I don’t even know you.”

“I thought we had established that back in Alexi’s office?”

“I know nothing of your business talent.”

“True, although I can assure you it is excellent.”

“I don’t even know your taste in women, and that explains a lot about a man.”

“True, as well, but once again, I can assure you that my taste is exceptional and my senses are keen. That woman over there with that man, for example.”

“Which one?”

“That one, there. She’s a fortuinzoekster (gold digger).”

“You know this, how?”

“She laughs at everything that ugly bastard is saying. I’m guessing she grew up near Alkmaar. When she was young, she worked for her father — a cheese man. When he died, it was odd jobs — cleaning houses, working at the fish market, that sort of thing. She never went to college. Her first sexual encounter was at 16 with the older brother of the boy across the street. It was enjoyable enough that she tried it with other boys. She soon discovered the power that sex had over men — a power that, at first, was difficult for her to harness, a power that she was surprised a girl like her was capable of possessing. But it was tangible, and good.”

Peter was impressed by the assessment. “Close,” he said. “But she’s not from Alkmaar. I’d say she’s from Hoorn. I used to spend summers there with my parents. Her accent is familiar. Her father was a fisherman.”

“Very well. He was a fisherman then.”

“Anyway, what’s your story?”

A waitress appeared. “Alstublieft.”

“Glass of Pinot Grigio,” Timmermans said.

“Beer,” said Peter.

“Well, Peter, I was born in Mechelen and raised in Antwerp. I studied medieval philosophy at Leuven, couldn’t feed myself, went to work in the construction business, made a lot of money, got married, got divorced ... got married again. It goes on from there. You?”

Peter looked surprised. He thought he was doing the interviewing. “My priorities are pretty simple. I would rank them as follows…”

“Let me guess,” Timmermans said, scrunching his eyes and taking a drag of his Dunhill.

“Knock yourself out.”

“I think your priorities would go something like: water, beer, football … women.”

“Damn close,” Peter said. “You forgot one.”

Timmermans nodded as if to say, “Go ahead then.”

“A 1974 Honda CR125M Elsinore motorcycle,” Peter said proudly.

“Of course. Now really. Let’s hear it – what’s your story?”

“Born near Assen, still at Groningen University. Never want to get married. Hate liars. Have been studying water for a long time.”

“What is it that fascinates you about water?”

“The fact that it’s taken for granted.”

The waitress returned with drinks. “Alstublieft.”

“Bedankt. Can I trouble you for a glass of water?” Timmermans said.

Peter smiled at the irony. The Belgian actually had a sense of humor. “Why do you like business?” Peter asked, sipping his beer.

“It, too, is taken for granted. Everything has a buyer and a seller. When we’re young, we bargain for approval. When we’re seventeen, we bargain with girls to see which one will take her clothes off. When we go to the market, we haggle for the tastiest piece of meat. When we marry, we do so with the knowledge that no one woman can fulfill our deepest needs. It’s a tradeoff between the 50,000 women out there you could choose from, and the one that comes into your life to whom you say ‘yes,’ or who says ‘yes’ to you. Sad thing is, most people don’t want to make choices. They stroll through life listening to the hymn of comfort — too afraid or too settled to abandon what they have for the risk of something more meaningful, more right.”

“Is that directed toward me?”

“Not unless it describes you. Does it?”

“What’s considered right?”

“For me, it’s having a feeling in your gut that is so right it hurts.”

“Is that how you feel about my idea?”

“Absolutely. I think you ... we ... could make a lot of money.”

“How?”

“I can’t help but think that money must have been somewhere in the back of your mind when you wrote your paper. Can you not see it?”

“Not really.”

“The world craved bandwidth before the dot.com meltdown and it craves it now. It’s like cocaine. Everyone is desperately trying to cram all those music CDs, Tom Cruise films, and endless lines of blogging through a pipe the size of a garden hose when what is needed is a fire hose at least.”

Peter nodded.

“What you’re proposing, Peter, if it works, is extraordinary, revolutionary. It was so obvious that no one saw it. My feeble brain isn’t smart enough to understand how someone can send an email through the municipal water supply, but I can smell a good idea when it’s put before me. I’m here because you’ve got the science and I have the contacts.”

“What kind of contacts?”

“Businessmen, bankers, the kind of people who say ‘I’ll send the car to get you.’”

A waitress brushed Timmermans’s back while balancing a plate of fish and potatoes with a warm buttery sauce.

Peter quietly played with his glass. “Maybe it’s just a silly idea,” Peter said.

“Doubtful,” Timmermans said, unflinching.

“Maybe I’m wrong.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Maybe I’m already working with another venture capital guy.”

“What’s his name? I probably know him. If he’s Dutch, good luck. You need American money, and even that’s hard to come by these days.”

“Maybe I just want to put my paper in my desk drawer.”

“That would be stupid. That’s what I’m trying to talk you out of. I knew guys like you in Leuven. Permanent students. Smart guys. They’re now world-class connoisseurs of late-night kebabs, beer, and 21-year-old language students. I want to save you from that, Peter.”

“What’s wrong with 21-year-old language students?”

“Listen, your idea is good, Peter. You owe it to the world not to keep this in your head.”

“I don’t owe anybody, anything, thank you very much.”

“Look. It’s as simple as this. Let me help you make a lot of money,” Timmermans said, staring deeply into Peter’s eyes as if he was trying to hypnotize him.

“And help yourself,” Peter said.

“And help myself. You’re 29 years old. Imagine retiring at 31. Imagine that. What would you do?”

Peter thought for a moment. “I don’t know.”

“Come on. You must have an idea.”

“Move to Wyoming, I suppose. Buy a lot of guns. Date women with big hair. I think I’d like it out there.”

“I can get you there, Peter.”

“How?”

“Patent the technology, form a company, bring in some gray hairs like myself to run the place.”

“You can make that happen?”

“Yes.”

Peter paused. The trio finished its set and made its way to the bar. The Eastern Europeans shoveled food into their mouths. Two women kissed. The scene felt right. They were his kind of people in his kind of place. But he suddenly felt overcome with a desire to say his goodbyes, as if he were going on a trip. He visualized Kapitein Zeppos twenty years down the road. He saw the same group of people eating, enjoying themselves, but not laughing as deeply. He saw older visages on the wounded jazz trio, and the same plate of fish and potatoes being served to the table next to him. Same waitress, same smell, same music. He remembered an ad for a dude ranch that he had cut out from the back of a magazine ...

“
There’s a place in the Wyoming mountains where time slows down, the air smells clean, the water runs pure and the people are down-home friendly. Boulder Lake Lodge is truly at the ‘end of the road,’ nestled in the foothills of the Bridger National Forest. Thick aspen groves and pine-covered hillsides set the stage for one of the finest vacations in the Wind River Mountains.”

Timmermans smoked his Dunhill.

Peter didn’t like this Belgian, but he was beginning to sense the man was for real. Peter began to speak, stopped himself, and then started again. “What would we call it?”

“What?” Timmermans said.

“The company. What would we call it?”

Timmermans paused for a moment to take a deep hit on the cigarette. “Whatever you want, Peter,” he said, smoke slinking out his nose.

“Cheyenne.”

Timmermans looked confused. “What’s that?”

“Capital of Wyoming.”

Aaron had read somewhere that the first mention of the Château de La Rochepot in Burgundy was in the 13th century. Once upon a time, it was probably used as a Gallo-Roman defense. Partially wrecked during the French Revolution, it was restored in the 19th century by Colonel Sadi Carnot.

But that’s not what Aaron Cannondale liked about the Château de La Rochepot. He liked it because it had a draw bridge and a watch wall and a Chinese room — all the things that reminded him of boyhood fantasies — battling forces of evil, crossing the water, storming the walls, saving the damsel in distress. He liked it because he could have it, or a version of it. He also had houses in Martha’s Vineyard, Osaka and Bermuda.

It took several hundred Mexican laborers four years to build Aaron’s replica of the Chateau de La Rochepot high in the Wasatch Mountains above Salt Lake City. He called it “Kshanti” — or “patience,” one of the six Buddhist paramitas that makes us one with who we truly are. Two workers had died during the construction, and Aaron had gotten badly beaten up in the press.

“Who doesn’t underpay Mexicans?” Aaron erupted in an aside as he dictated notes for an upcoming speech to Hayden in the chateau’s “China Room.”

“These guys want to work,” Aaron said. “It’s the American way ‘Give me your tired your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door…’ One group comes over en masse and works its collective butt off. Then another group comes over. The latecomers earn less than those who came before them. It’s the price of admission, for God’s sake,” Aaron said, pacing back and forth with a bottle of lemon-flavored Perrier in his hand.