Spoils (13 page)

“Did you ever find out who accused you?”

He shakes his head.

“Isn't that unconstitutional or something?”

He laughs hollowly again. “I didn't go to jail, I was kicked out of school. I doubt a school's honor code falls under federal jurisdiction.”

“It should.” Gavin's story reinforces my belief that he was framed by an expert, the best of the best. What did Natasha's charmer promise his dupe at Tech? And how much is it biting him on the ass now?

Gavin puts his arm around me like a pal giving me a one-armed squeeze for my loyal support. I shiver at the sudden warmth of his arm. To mask it, I fiddle with my purse and pull out a pack of gum.

“Professor Isakson left school after that, you know,” he says, accepting a piece of gum. “In his interview with the school paper, he said he was ready for a new opportunity but I always felt like it was my fault. Like, if it wasn't for me, he'd still be teaching.” He's trying to be flippant, but it's obvious how much those words still hurt. It's that hurt that worms its way through my defenses.

“So we have to figure out how to get your business plan to the professor, convince him that you were framed and that you're not the embodiment of the self-entitled, lazy future of America.” I blow a bubble and it pops loudly. “Easy.”

Gavin laughs and hugs me to him. He was always easy with his hugs at school, always physical with everyone, like a big puppy. I don't take it personally.

“Sure,” he agrees. “Easy as pie.”

“It's your business plan that could do it,” I say earnestly, pushing out of his arms. “You can't cheat your way into an idea like that. That company, what does he call it?”

“AlgaeGo.”

“That's a stupid name,” I say, “but whatever. AlgaeGo is his baby. Right now, it's failing. If you do something that gets his company really going, that lets people see how beautiful his baby really is, then he's going to love you. And since it's not something you can copy or steal, it'll prove what you're capable of. He'll be forced to reconsider.”

“It's not that easy,” Gavin says. “He doesn't even want to talk to me—why would he listen or believe anything I say?” Even though Gavin is arguing against me, there's a spark of excitement in his voice.

“Because you come with hard numbers,” I say. “You track down the landowner of a flooded farm, you dazzle them with your charm, you negotiate a fantastic deal on behalf of AlgaeGo and then you present him with the figures. No one else knows enough about the company, or cares enough, to do it. Once you have the deal worked out, it'll speak for itself.”

“Dazzle them with my charm?”

“Don't make me repeat it,” I laugh. “The fact that you're taking the time to pull this deal together is going to change everything for Isakson. I'm assuming the land will be cheap?”

“That's a safe assumption,” he says with no false modesty. We share a grin.

“All teachers dream about the student that goes above and beyond the basic assignment,” I argue. “Here, you're not only doing that, you're making an assignment where none existed. And you're only doing it for the success of his company. How could he not be impressed? How could he not reevaluate his opinion?”

“And what, I negotiate as AlgaeGo's agent? I don't have that authority.”

“Gavin, seriously? You say you're the company's agent but that you have to present any final offer to the owner himself. It's not that hard.”

He angles his head away from me, hiding his face. That amazing brain of his is firing, looking for holes in my argument, following my logic to its conclusion.

After a moment, he nods.

“Maybe you're right.” He shrugs coolly. “At this point, there's not much I could do to lower his opinion.”

“First thing to do when you're in a hole is to stop digging.” I echo my dad's folksy truism. “Next is to figure out how to climb out.”

“Is that so?” There's amusement in his voice and if nothing else, I've given him the needed nudge away from morose depression and toward constructive action.

Michael,
I think as I glance up at the starry skies,
I hope this works for you.
I'm sure it's only atmospheric changes that make the brightest star in the evening sky look like it's winking at me.

We linger there at the edge of the pier, the briny air blowing possibilities and ideas our way.

In two hours, it will be five days until my birthday.

I skip school on Monday morning—a first for Goody Two-Shoes little me. As I ride my bike in the quiet downtown streets after rush hour, I half expect some responsible citizen to call in a truancy officer to haul me back to school.

The start-up office is located on the third floor of a nearly vacant office building, one of the older ones that manage to be both stately and dilapidated. It's on the unofficial border between the new, shiny high-rises, galleries and boutiques that stay empty all day, now that the economy has turned and no one wants to spend three hundred dollars on a strange-looking vase, and the part of the city that even during the boom years refused to spruce up and ditch its quick marts selling pressed Cuban sandwiches and cheap beer (ice cold!). Where weirdos loiter and the homeless, grungy and disgruntled sprawl on benches in the middle of the day. I lock my bike to a lamppost and hope it'll be there when I return. The heavy leaded-glass door to the building isn't locked.

The office suite has a stained, threadbare carpet, windows so smudged they barely let in light, and office furniture that looks like it was picked up off the curb on Big Trash Day. There's a main reception area with dusty fake plants, a framed poster of the company logo, and a big messy desk with no one sitting behind it. Of the two doors off the reception area, one is open to an empty room. Muffled sounds come from behind the closed door.

I walk over and knock loudly.

The muffled sounds cease immediately and after a short pause, the door opens. Isakson looks at me quizzically, apparently unable to place me.

“Yes?” he asks.

“I'm Leni Kohn,” I say. “I'm here to help you.”

He invites me into his office and I sit on a hard plastic chair, fighting nerves, trying to sound like a confident investor instead of a nervous teenager taking a huge gamble. Isakson wears a light blue collared shirt and pale, narrow jeans that somehow don't look American. There's a large carafe of French-press coffee sitting on the ledge of the dirty window, which strengthens my impression that he wasn't raised in the States. Europe or maybe the Middle East, though when he spoke on Saturday, he didn't have an accent, just a slightly different way of pronouncing some words, putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable.

I spent all of Sunday learning about business models and angel investors from Delaney Cramer, a businesswoman and family friend that my parents helped out a couple of years back. She was the one who helped them set up my trust fund in the first place. She's always been fond of me and several times has tried to talk me into studying finance when I go to college. We spent two hours on the phone while she gave me a crash course in successful start-up business models. Angel investors bridge the gap for a small company that has tapped funds from friends and family but is too small for venture capitalist firms to bother with. Because there's such a high risk that all their investment money will be lost if the young company doesn't make it—which I know very well from my parents' unfortunate investment experiences—angel investors usually require terms that give them a very high return on their investments. Which gave me an idea of how to pull this off.

“If you're looking for investors, you're wasting your time talking to my parents,” I begin. “It's not their money. It's mine.”

The professor's eyebrows rise as he looks at me like I'm a puppy claiming to be Napoleon. One office wall is lined with cheap bookcases bending under the weight of dozens of huge binders full of papers. Stacks of papers in various heights have been placed on the floor, like a child's model city. It's the office of a busy man who doesn't have time or money to waste. Sure enough, he lets me know it.

“Why would a young woman want to spend her money on a start-up that has a seventy-five percent chance of failure?”

I knew this question would come and I was prepared.

“Would you ask my parents that? Would you question any other investor that wanted to join the company? Because if
that's
your strategy, you need to increase your chances of failure. Ninety-nine percent sounds more likely.”

He looks stunned and a hurt look flashes in his eyes. Crap. Not the way to win him over.

“Believe me”—I grip the nubby fabric–covered armrests of the cheap office chair—“I may be younger than most of your investors, but I've seen what money can buy and what it shouldn't. I don't need more clothes. I don't need to try my luck in the stock market. I don't need a trip around the world.” I pause. “I'm not saying that one wouldn't be nice, but I don't
need
it.”

“Yet you ‘need' to invest in my company?” he asks skeptically. “I do not mean to be looking a gift horse in the mouth, and I do not usually try to talk investors out of investing in my company”—here he shoots me a look—“but you have to admit, viewing it from my perspective, this all sounds remarkably fishy. I have the feeling there is a giant catch in there somewhere.”

I nod. “You're right. There is a catch.”

He raises a single eyebrow. The phone rings. He glances over at it but doesn't answer. I take it as a good sign.

“Before I tell you what the catch is, I have some questions for you. I was very impressed with several things during your presentation.” I mention the research-based breakthrough he had with algae and fuel production; brackish-water production is an amazing development that he's engineered. His expression changes as he listens to me, clearly surprised that I followed what he lectured on. “But there are a few issues that you didn't address. What's your financial longevity?” It was one of the first things Delaney Cramer grilled me on when we talked. Without deep pockets, he'll be out of business in weeks, no matter how great his ideas.

I can see him make the switch, actually see him stop looking at me as a punk kid and start talking to me like an investor.

“Between a couple of government grants and three principal investors, the company has held its course,” he says, clearing his throat. “The company was formed eight months ago and it has enough capital to last another six, but that's assuming I stay on a shoestring budget.” He waves a hand to indicate the shabbiness of his office. As if I haven't noticed.

“What are your future financial needs?” I ask from a list of questions I prepared ahead of time.

“In order to grow, we can't realistically stay at this level. But we need to find the perfect combination of algae and output, the proverbial needle in a haystack. That takes time and money, two things that are in short supply.”

The knot around my heart, the nervous cramps in my belly fade at this. I want to jump out of my seat with joy. The professor notes my relieved expression and the poor man looks both annoyed and puzzled as he sits back and crosses his arms. His eyes are dark and liquid and I'm gambling everything I've got that there's a kind soul behind them.

“What you're describing, your major obstacle to success, I know someone who could help you with it. That's the catch. My friend, the one you met the other night, he's been working on a business plan to help you get past some of those hurdles.”

The astonished look on his face would be comical, if only it weren't followed by a look of visceral disgust.

“Your friend? Gavin Armand?” He shakes his head. “You know he was expelled from Tech? For cheating?”

“It's not what it seems,” I quickly say. “He didn't do anything wrong.”

“I will not be a part of this,” he says, cutting off all discussion. My stomach twists in disappointment. Some of what I feel must show on my face, because his face softens a bit. “In my experience as a professor for many years,” he says, not unkindly, “once a cheater, always a cheater. I do not need that kind of person here. I have two part-time employees. We do not have room for the deadweight or the liability of a cheater. My God, the last thing I need now is a lawsuit for patent infringement, or industrial theft or who knows what!”

“He's not a cheater! He won't steal or lie or cause you any trouble.” He's clearly not convinced, and why should he believe me? I change tactics. “What have you got to lose here? He can't cheat to help you. He can't steal the business plan because it doesn't exist. Either he can pull one together or he can't. He shared some of his ideas with me and they're great. So here is the final part of my offer.” Standing up, hands shoved in my pockets, I play my last card. “I'm not offering to invest a million dollars in your company, I'm offering to give it to you. A donation. Nothing in return. Not shares, not profit, not future royalties. Nothing. I don't even want my name mentioned, not to Gavin or anyone. All I ask in return is that you look at Gavin's plan. If it's not good, if it's not what you need, then you can say no thank you, and keep the money. But if it's good, you hire Gavin.”

The offer shocks him.

“Why would you do that?”

I'm not ready to answer that question. “It's my money. It's my decision.”

The phone rings again and this time he doesn't even glance at it.

“You're busy,” I say. “I know you need to get back to work. Do we have a deal?”

The phone rings over and over. His computer beeps with incoming messages. A plane roars overhead, heading for the nearby St. Pete/Clearwater airport. I stand like a soldier, holding my breath.

“I don't accept ultimatums,” he says flatly. “And I don't give second chances.”

Disappointment is like lead in my veins. He won't consider looking at a business plan for a million dollars? Humiliating tears rise along with a lump in my throat. If this doesn't work, I don't know what I'm supposed to do, where I should go. I only have four days left to figure this out. For a moment, the ground yawns open under me and I sway, gripping the edge of the desk for balance.

“But,” he says, and I stop my circling panic and force myself to listen, “I pride myself on having an open mind. I do not give second chances but since you claim he never cheated in the first place, I will take a look at his business plan. But do not think you can scam me, young lady. I have been teaching for fifteen years. I have seen over seven hundred students try every trick in the book.”

“It's not a trick,” I say stiffly. It's not Gavin he's insulting now. He's implying that I cheat too.

“Fine,” he says. “But he needs to finish it soon or it's moot, regardless of our mutual misgivings,” he adds, almost reluctantly. “A former ‘esteemed' colleague of mine has announced he's giving a talk at the Symposium on Biofuels, Bioenergy and Biotechnology.”

I look at him blankly.

“His topic is algae as fuel, and his specifics are remarkably similar to mine. He's recently formed a company called EarthFuel.”

“Good name,” I mutter.

“He's an idiot,” Isakson says crisply. “But he's savvy, and as it turns out, investors are bedazzled by a slick website and glossy four-color brochures. EarthFuel is expected to announce that they have successfully grown algae in brackish water. The sudden research breakthrough is identical to mine. Apparently, one of his students has been copying my files.” He presses his lips together. “So, while your infusion of cash is much needed, and your intentions seem honorable, you might as well know that in three months this company could be rendered obsolete.”

Funny how he didn't mention that little gem during the fund-raiser.

“Why don't you file for a patent right now?”

“I filed for a provisional patent.” He rises to face the dirty window looking out on the quiet street below, his hands on his slim hips. “It's a place holder, if you will, while I work out the exact details for the official patent. There is a one-year deadline to complete it with the exact details. My year is about to expire, right around the time of the symposium. Once it expires, everything I put in the provisional patent is public knowledge and fair game. I believe Professor Parks is simply waiting out the clock and then he will file for his own patent. But I cannot file the patent yet. It's taken me longer than I originally planned to finalize my numbers.”

“Gavin's proposal can do that.”

“I find that unlikely.”

I hate that Isakson's bad opinion and rigid thinking about Gavin could ruin my whole plan. He's probably thinking something along the same lines, resenting a young person like me who has so much money (and therefore has power over his company) that she can dictate his actions. He must be bitter that after all his hard work, someone is about to swoop in and steal it. But, I remind myself, I might be able to fix that. I came here to buy Gavin a chance to prove his innocence to the one man whose opinion he values, and in doing so, I could save Isakson's company as well.

“You'll hear from me by Friday,” I promise. It seems cosmically aligned for everything to fall into place, or fall apart, on my birthday, the day of the week that God created man.

“I look forward to it,” Isakson says.

He watched her enter the building, looking so scared that he wanted to call out: “Ain't nothing gonna bite you, girl!” just to make her smile. But girls today, they didn't smile when you thought they would. They glared at you, or pretended they never heard you. Some of them yelled nasty, awful things. And there was nothing you could do because you were dirty and they were clean. So he kept his mouth shut when she walked by—she never even noticed him—but he decided, as a favor, to keep an eye on her bike.

Time had stopped having meaning for him, so he wasn't sure how long he stayed there, leaning against the wall with a clear view of the bike and the street. It couldn't have been that long. Unless he'd fallen asleep. Lately, he kept losing time. He'd have no memory of getting to a place. Be holding an empty burger wrapper with no memory of eating the burger. Sometimes he wished it were a sign that things would be over soon. Other times it scared him. A man like him can't lose track of reality like that. He had to be on guard. So he gave himself missions, like an undercover superhero. Captain Homeless. He sniggered to himself. No one ever knew they'd been protected, that they'd huddled under the shelter of his watchful eye. He chased away a car thief once. And there was one time he was sure he'd prevented a mugging. Not that anyone said thank you.