Seer (3 page)

“Oh, Dolores,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“Maybe this is a bad idea. I’m your client, after all. But…”

I made an instant decision. I smiled. “Do you like to play cards?”

“I do,” she said.

“I host a card club once a month. We usually play five-hundred.”

“I love five-hundred,” she said. “I’m good, but I’m not a shark.”

“That’s okay. We’re sort of serious about it. We kind of toss out the ones who come to jabber.”

“I’m not afraid of jabber, but I know how to count cards.”

I smiled. “We’re short one on Saturday. We play two tables, and I haven’t called any of our alternates yet. I don’t know that I could invite you every month, but if you’re free Saturday, we have dinner and play cards afterwards.”

She smiled broadly. “What can I bring?”

“That depends,” I said, returning her smile. “The rule is this. I start cooking at three. Dinner is at six. If you arrive after five, you’re obligated to bring a quality bottle of wine. But you can come any time after three if you want to help cook.”

“
I like to cook,” she said.

“
Excellent. I find something for everyone to do, even if it’s just to keep me company. Cooking should be a social event, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Then I’ll be there at three. How should I dress?”

“It’s usually pretty casual,” I said, “but not tee-shirt casual.” She nodded understanding. “One more thing.” I paused. “Some of the people in our group are gay. Not everyone. But Dean is pretty flaming, and a couple of the women are a little militant. If that’s going to be a problem…”

“Absolutely not,” she said. She smiled. “I work in marketing. Don’t take this literally, but half my coworkers are gay.
”

I laughed. “You should have my address,” I said. “It’s on all my invoices and in my email signature. Do you need me to email directions?”

She shook her head. “I may be helpless with programmers, but I know how to operate the GPS in my car.”

“Excellent. When you come, park in the driveway. There will be plenty of room. I’ll see you then.”

She smiled. “Thank you, Sidney.” She reached over and squeezed my arm. “For everything.”

* * * *

I wore my best business suit to my lunch with Dolores, and I had ordered lunch carefully so as to avoid spilling, but I had a spare hanging up in the back seat just in case. I arrived at the Eden Prairie office complex where Ed’s business was based. I was twenty minutes early. I used half the time to check my appearance then used my iPad to check my mail. I headed in, presenting myself to Ed’s receptionist ten minutes early.

“Ms. Welsh,” she said. “Let me show you in.”

She came around from her desk and then gestured. I followed her to one of Ed’s conference rooms. I could have found it myself; I’d been here before, after all. But I thought perhaps she was new. I didn’t recognize her.

“Coffee and hot water for tea are there,” she said. “There is water in the refrigerator.” There was a small dorm-style fridge under the counter. “If you prefer a soft drink, I can retrieve one for you.”

“Water is fine,” I said. “Thank you, Cora.”

Cora disappeared, and I took a place at the conference table.
I made use of the time while I waited.

It was promptly at two when there was noise at the door. I looked up in time to see Ed walk into the conference room, escorting several other people. I was pleased that Kirk McGuire wasn’t one of them.
I rose from my chair.

“Sidney!” Ed said jovially. He crossed around the table. I found my hand held in his while his other clasped my shoulder. “Thank you for coming. I really appreciate it.”

“Only for you, Ed,” I replied.

Ed introduced me to the other people. I met
Warren Sutton, Ed’s CFO. Warren was mid-fifties and fit, and he had the look of someone who thought he was good with the ladies. But if he worked for Ed, I was sure he knew his job.

Justine Adkins worked for Warren. She was a mousy-looking woman, and I could have guessed “bookkeeper” just by looking at her. She was a walking cliché. From the cat fur on her suit, I thought perhaps she had at least as many cats as I did.

Bliss Chandler was my age, mid-forties. Ed introduced her as “my best business analyst”. With her was Uriel Love, a young man somewhere in his twenties. He was underdressed for the company, but over time, I would learn he was a brilliant analyst. I had never judging someone’s professional abilities by attire, so his clothing didn’t matter to me. I wasn’t sure if they mattered to Frank.

The last person was Felix
Shin. Like Justine, I could immediately tell what Felix did: he was a programmer. “I did not know Felix was a Korean name,” I said.

He smiled hesitatingly. “My mother is a musician and named all her children after famous composers. I am named after Felix Mendelssohn.”

“Ah, of course,” I said, returning his smile.

“The legal team is running a few minutes late,” Ed said. “They just called and are five minutes away. We’ll wait until they arrive to get started, but we can get to know each other a little better. Perhaps we should engage in one of those ice breaker games they’re constantly trying to teach me at all those management seminars I never attend.”

We laughed politely for his joke. Ed really was a good guy, though, and I remembered how much I enjoyed working for him. He was a solid businessman, and demanding, but I loved clients who knew what they wanted.

“So, how about we each take one minute to say something personal about ourselves. Justine, you can serve as our timer. Cut us each off at exactly one minute.”

Justine, I would discover, would take Ed’s directions to heart.

“I’ll go first. Hmm. When I was twelve, I thought I wanted to be an actor. I spent the summer in a community theater production of
The Sound of Music
. I fell completely in love with the actress who played Maria, even though she was at least twice my age.” He explained how he auditioned for every role he could get well into college, but his father insisted he take business classes. “The rest, as they say, is history. Justine, how long?”

“Forty-eight seconds,” she said.

Ed looked around the room, his gaze settling on Bliss. “Bliss, you’re next.”

“All right,” she said. “Speaking of
The Sound of Music
, I played the role of Liesl, the eldest daughter, in my high school production.” Ed lifted his hand, and she high-fived him. “I don’t know what Mrs. Cambridge was thinking, as I was a horrible actress. I struggled to remember my lines, and I was so nervous opening night that I could barely sing the songs. I don’t know whatever possessed me, but it may have been a belief that acting would make me popular.” She paused. “It didn’t.” She talked briefly more, and then Justine told her, “Five seconds,” so she said, “I guess that’s it.”

“Pick someone, Bliss,” Ed directed.

“Um. Uriel, I guess.”

“Me?” the boy squeaked. “Um. I wanted to be a soccer star. My dad was totally into sports, and my older brother played football. I’m not big enough for football, so much to my father’s chagrin, I played another type of football.” He smiled at his own play on words. “My father didn’t think soccer was a real sport. I wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t great, either, so by the time I got to college, I knew I’d need something to fall back on.” He laughed nervously. He looked at Justine.

“Keep going,” she said. “Another thirty seconds.”

“Oh my,” he replied. “All right. I still play soccer, and I help coach for a community league. I’m the only non-parent involved, but I love helping the kids.” He looked at Justine, and she nodded.

“Pick someone, Uriel,” Ed aid.

Uriel
turned to Felix, who talked about the Koren traditions in his household. I thought it was fascinating. “I’m third generation American,” he said, “and my mother rebelled quite a bit from my grandmother’s rules, so now we follow a fusion of Korean and American traditions.” He smiled. “Except grades. Both my parents pushed me very hard on grades. But I would have gotten good grades, anyway.” He started to say something else, but Justine cut him off.

Felix turned to me. “Um.”

“Sidney,” I helped. Felix smiled, perhaps a little embarrassed at forgetting my name. I’d been wracking my brain to decide what I’d say. I couldn’t talk about past boyfriends; I never had boyfriends, after all. I wasn’t in the closet, but I didn’t shove my choices in anyone’s face, either. I couldn’t talk about my dreams; they would all think I was crazy. So I talked about the Iron Man. Ed already knew about it, but I could tell the others were impressed. I was actually pretty pleased with myself. I’d always liked to bicycle, but it had only been recent years I had taken to riding so far. I explained how next year I hoped to do the long route, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready. “I’m not getting any younger,” I admitted, and that was when Justine cut me off.

I handed it to Warren, who used the time to talk about his son, and then Justine went last. She was just getting started when four more people stepped into the office, but I continued to pay attention to Justine talking about her collection of little bells. Hey, everyone needs a hobby, right?

“Well, the legal team has arrived,” Ed said. Ed introduced Solange Casper, the head of Casper and Associates, along with her colleagues, Aubree, Enzo and Bronson. Solange worked her way around the room, shaking hands.

When she got to me, I froze, staring at her.

Solange was the vampire from my dream.

I clasped her hand and stared into her eyes, not moving, my mouth slightly slack.

She smiled hesitatingly. “Have we met before,
Ms. Welsh?”

Her words shook me out of my shock. “Um. I’m sorry. You surprised me. You look like. Um.” I shook my head. “I’m sorry. No, I don’t believe we’ve met.”

My “vampire” was indeed, a blood-sucking lawyer. And I could tell she was “family” besides. Oh, most people couldn’t tell, and normally I was pretty poor at telling, as well. But somehow I knew.

Solange Casper was a lesbian.

Even better, she was a stunning lesbian, tall, slender, well put together, clearly successful, undoubtedly brilliant, and once upon a time, I would have thought she was out of my league.

But I was a business owner myself, and that would give us something to talk about.
I was sure my dream was telling more than, “You’re going to meet this woman.” There was a lot more to it than that.

I intended to see it through. I was helpless to do otherwise, after all.

“All right,” said Ed. “Let’s take seats.” I had learned that Ed liked to be amongst the action, so I wasn’t surprised when he took a seat right at the middle of the table. Solange moved to take the seat next to him, and the rest of us sat in predictable groups. Felix sat next to me furthest from anyone of power. Warren sat to the other side of Ed with Justine past him. Bliss sat next to me, with Uriel past her. The rest of the legal team sat to Solange’s right. I found myself seated directly opposite her, and we smiled again before she dug through her briefcase and pulled out several file folders. She took the first and slid it to Ed.

Ed looked across the table to me. “Sidney, I’m sorry. The NDA has changed.”

My face clouded.

“Wait,” he said. “Read it before you say anything. I told you I wouldn’t let an NDA get between us.” He slipped a copy of the contract across the table to me. It was brief, but I read it thoroughly. I saw that he had shorter copies for his employees. I presumed he already had an agreement with Solange and her employees.

I finished reading it and looked up at her. “Did you draft this?”

“Aubree,” Solange said.

“It’s good,” I said. By that I meant it was fair. A lot of contracts come with the expectation there will be some back and forth negotiations. For instance, I could find myself signing a contract that forced me to indemnify Ed’s company, but there would be no similar clause for me. This one was fair from the beginning. That spoke well. I read it through once more carefully before signing it two copies. Ed signed them and gave one back. I slipped it into my briefcase.

Then Solange slipped another contract to me. This one told me
for one year from the last time I worked for any of them, Hazel Software Services — my company — was not allowed to hire any of the employees of MetaWolf Technology, Ed’s firm, Green Gulch Software, or Casper and Associates. I presumed Green Gulch was the company Ed wanted to buy. I’d never heard of them. This wasn’t all that unusual a contract, and I didn’t mind signing it. I had no intention of hiring anyone. This time there wasn’t a reverse agreement, but if Ed wanted to throw enough money at me, I’d let him try to hire me. I had no employees for him to lure away, so I wasn’t worried about it. I signed the contract, Ed and Solange signed both copies, and I received another one to keep.

“All right, we can get started,”
Ed said.

“Almost,” I replied. I sent my own contract across the table to him. It was a generic contract specifying the bill rate we had agreed to, requiring a single sheet of paper. He glanced at it and picked up a pen, but Solange took it from him, glanced at it,
then slid it over to Aubree. From Aubree’s expression, I could tell she wasn’t impressed.

“I only use those because I don’t like disputes about the bill rates,” I said. “I only do a statement of work when I think we need one. I wouldn’t expect this from Ed, but twice I’ve had clients insist I had quoted a significantly lower rate than I billed them.”

Aubree looked at Solange, who nodded to her. Aubree then looked across the table at me. “In this day and age, we strongly encourage proper contracts. This is not a proper contract. You are leaving yourself open to litigation. We can draft something for you to use in the future, if you like.”

“I have contracts for that,” I said. “But if I had come in here with one, you would have looked at it and immediately begun negotiating with me over everything in it. I’d have had to come with my own lawyer, and then we would have gone back and forth for three days working out tiny details until everyone was almost satisfied.”

Solange smiled wryly.

“Ed knows my work,” I added. “Ed, do we need a statement of work and a contract?”

“Who has time for that?” he asked. “Moving on, Solange.”

“Of course,” she said agreeably, but she turned to me. “Initial consultations with our firm are free. When this project is over, I strongly encourage you to spend an hour with Aubree.”

I shrugged again but nodded. It wouldn’t hurt.

“Let’s get started then,” said Ed. “Bliss, if you would.”

Bliss had a stack of folders with her. She passed them out, ensuring everyone had her own copy. I opened it to see what was there.

“Green Gulch Software,” Bliss said. Green Gulch operated a software service designed to evaluate the security of iPhone and Android software. Bliss explained the product and how it fit into Ed’s plans for
MetaWolf. I had to admit: the software sounded really good.

She spoke for perhaps twenty minutes. By the time she was done, I thought I had a pretty good idea what the software did and why Ed wanted it. She took a few questions,
then passed the baton to Warren for the next part.

Warren talked about the numbers. “This is preliminary. We have their basic financial statements, but we haven’t had access to their books or bank statements yet. During negotiations, they were pretty shy about sharing even the basic financials, and they haven’t given us a client list yet, only mentioning a few reference clients.” He talked a little further, then said, “We’ll see more when we dig in, but I think we’re going to find the books are a mess, and their financial status is shaky.”

I looked at Ed. “You’re buying the tech far more than the client list?”

“They have sales,” he said. “But other than the reference clients, we’re not sure to whom. But we really would like access to the
few clients they were willing to tell us about.”

I nodded understanding.

Warren finished and sat down.

“That’s what we know,” Ed said.

“Wait. Do we know anything about the guts of their technology?”

Ed answered that. “Their production servers are running Linux, and when I visited, everyone I saw had a Mac. Beyond that, no, we don’t know. You’ll be getting our first look at the guts next week.”

Linux servers was good news, at least, and Mac desktops even better. I didn’t do Windows.

“All right,” I said. “I can handle that. Ed, you know I’m not qualified to evaluate their existing physical infrastructure.
I won’t be able to tell you if their network security is up to snuff.”

“I’m not worried about that,” he said. “That’s basically boilerplate, and even if their security sucks, it won’t change my mind whether we move forward with the acquisition.”

“If their security is poor enough,” I pointed out, “They could have already been hacked, and all their secrets sold to the ten highest bidders.”

“We are not concerned about that possibility,” Solange declared.

I was a little surprised to hear that coming from the lawyer, but Ed didn’t contradict her, so I decided to let it slide. I nodded understanding. I thought perhaps the lawyer knew something I didn’t, but they weren’t offering to tell me. It was none of my business, not after I expressed the possibility and let the client evaluate the risk. However, if I found signs of lax security, we’d be having a second conversation about it.

“All right,” Ed said. “Solange is in overall command of this team. You will all coordinate with her and share preliminary results with her, but we’ll all meet again in a few weeks. Solange?”

“We fly to Salt Lake City early on Monday morning. I will coordinate transportation for each of you. We have three basic teams: financial, business, and technology. Someone from my team will be with you at all times we are on Green Gulch property. Mr. Sutton, Enzo will assist you and Ms. Adkins. Ms. Chandler, Bronson will be helping you. Ms. Welsh, you get Aubree.”

We each nodded, and I smiled briefly at Aubree. She seemed very professional, and I thought she’d be easy to work with, although perhaps a hard ass. I could deal with that, too.

We discussed things for another hour and a half. Finally Solange turned to Ed. “I believe we can release the financial and business people, but I would like to continue the conversation with Ms. Welsh.”

We offered pleasantries to the people who were leaving, including two of the lawyers. Solange looked at Felix with speculation then said, “Mr.
Shin, unless Ms. Welsh objects, I believe we are done with you until Monday as well.”

I held up a finger for a moment, considering what she said. “I’d like ten or fifteen minutes with Felix. But I could call him tomorrow.”

“Do you need me further, Solange?” Ed asked.

“Only if you want,” she replied. “Perhaps Ms. Welsh can have her fifteen minutes with Mr.
Shin now, and we could move this meeting to dinner after that.”

She looked at me, and I nodded agreement.

“Well then,” Ed said. “Sidney, thank you. I’m sorry for the short notice.”

“Quite all right, Ed,” I replied. We both stood up, and he reached across the table to shake hands with me. Then he and the two remaining lawyers stepped out.

“Find us in the reception area when you’re ready, Ms. Welsh,” Solange directed.

Once we had the room to ourselves, I turned to Felix. “Have you ever done this before?”

“No. Ed told me I’m to do whatever you tell me to do. I think that means do whatever the lawyers tell me as well.”

I smiled. “All right. Spend a couple minutes telling me about your technical background.”

He didn’t even hesitate. He may have been socially unsure, but when it came to technology, he was confident in his abilities. By the time he’d given me an overview of his skills, I thought I had a good feel for his mettle. I asked a half dozen questions, then I told him how I expected us to do our jobs.

“But here’s the thing,” I said. “They may want to hide everything from us. That can happen for a variety of reasons. Their product may be poorly designed or implemented, and they may hope to obscure that from us. Or the programmers may assume they’re all going to be fired, and they want to undermine the sales process.
Or I’ve seen places where the programmers just don’t like to share. If you run into any of that, you tell me, and you let me deal with it.”

And if I couldn’t deal with it, I thought perhaps Aubree could be
tough and stubborn. I wondered if that was why she would be assigned to my team.

“Questions?”

“What are we going to do if we get there and we discover the software is in some weird programming language?”

“Learn what we can then call Ed and tell him to find us two experts in the technology.”

We talked for another few minutes. I thought I had a pretty good idea what Felix could do when we were done.

“Felix,” I said at the end. “I think they’re going to be difficult. If so, you shut
up and let the lawyers, Ed and me handle it.”

He nodded. “What do I call you? The lawyer kept calling you ‘Ms. Welsh’.”

“I prefer Sidney,” I said. “She seems very formal, though. Maybe she’ll relax over dinner.” We both stood up. I collected my things, and we stepped out into the hallway. I shook Felix’s hand, then asked him to point me towards the restrooms. He walked me down the hall, and we offered another moment of pleasantries.

* * * *

Five minutes later found me in the receptionist area. Solange and Aubree were already there, talking quietly.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” I said.

“Not at all,” Solange said. “I made reservations. I do hope you are not vegan.”

“Shameless carnivore,” I admitted.

“I’m not taking you from other plans, am I?”

“No, Ms. Casper,” I said. “I cleared the entire evening.”

“Excellent,” she said. “The restaurant is about a twelve-minute drive. Why don’t we ride together, and we can return you to your car later.”

“Perfect,” I replied.

It was Aubree who led the way, and then who drove. Solange gave me the front seat, then during the drive, asked me the same sort of questions that I had just spent asking Felix. My answers took somewhat longer than it had taken Felix. We arrived at the restaurant, and she was still asking questions.

Her questions were astute and penetrating, and I decided if I ever needed to interview someone for a job, I’d want her help. I mentioned that, and she laughed lightly. She gave me a break as we climbed from the car and headed inside.