Michael Connelly - Chasing the Dime

"Right, right. This the reason why?"

"You don't give up, do you? No, it's got nothing to do with her."

Pierce finished his beer. He didn't want to hang around, because he wanted Zeller to get to work on the assignment he was giving him. But Zeller seemed in no hurry to start.

"Want another beer, commander?"

"Nah, I'm gonna pass. I've gotta get back to my apartment. I have my assistant babysitting the furniture movers. Besides, you're going to get on this thing, aren't you?"

"Oh, yeah, man. Right away."

He gestured toward his work area.

"Right now all my machines are booked. But I'll get on it tonight. I'll call you by tomorrow night."

"All right, Code. Thanks."

He got up. They pumped each other's hand. Blood brothers. Doomsters again.

By the time Pierce got to his apartment the movers were gone but Monica was still there.

She'd had them arrange the furnishings in a way that was acceptable. It didn't really take advantage of the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows that ran along one side of the living room and dining room, but Pierce didn't care all that much. He knew he'd be spending little time in the apartment anyway.

"It looks nice," he said. "Thanks."

"You're welcome. I hope you like everything. I was just about to leave."

"Why did you stay?"

She held up her stack of magazines in two hands.

"I wanted to finish a magazine I was reading."

Pierce wasn't sure why that necessitated her staying at the apartment but he let it go.

"Listen, there's one thing I want to ask you before you leave. Come sit down for a second."

Monica looked put out by the request. She probably envisioned another phone call impersonating Lilly Quinlan. Nevertheless, she sat down on one of the leather club chairs she'd ordered to go with his couch.

"Okay, what is it?"

Pierce sat on the couch.

"What is your job title at Amedeo Technologies?"

"What do you mean? You know what it is."

"I want to see if you know what it is."

"Personal assistant to the president. Why?"

"Because I want to make sure you remember that it is personal assistant, not just assistant."

She blinked and looked at his face for a long moment before responding.

"All right, Henry, what's wrong?"

"What's wrong is that I don't appreciate your telling Charlie Condon all about my phone number problems and what I'm trying to do about it."

She straightened her back and looked aghast but it was a bad act.

"I didn't."

"That's not what he said. And if you didn't tell him, how did he know everything after he talked to you?"

"Look, okay, all I told him was that you'd gotten this prostitute's old number and you were getting all kinds of calls. I had to tell him something because when he called I didn't recognize his voice and he didn't recognize mine and he said, 'Who's this?' and I kind of snapped at him because I thought he was, you know, calling for Lilly."

"Uh-huh."

"And I couldn't make up a lie on the spot. I'm not that good, like some people. Lying, social engineering, whatever you call it. So I told him the truth."

Pierce almost mentioned that she was pretty good at lying about not telling Charlie at the start of the conversation but he decided not to inflame the situation.

"And that's all you told him, that I had gotten this woman's phone number? You left it at that? You didn't tell him about how you got her address for me and I went to her house?"

"No, I didn't. What's the big deal anyway? You guys are partners, I thought."

She stood up.

"Can I please go?"

"Monica, sit down here for one more second."

He pointed to the chair and she reluctantly sat back down.

"The big deal is that loose lips sink ships, you understand that?"

She shrugged her shoulders and wouldn't look at him. She looked down at the stack of magazines in her lap. On the cover of the top one was a photo of Clint Eastwood.

"My actions reflect on the company," Pierce said. "Especially right now. Even what I do in private. If what I do is misrepresented or blown out of proportion, it could seriously hurt the company. Right now our company makes zero money, Monica, and we rely on investors to support the research, to pay the rent and the salaries, everything. If investors think we're shaky, then we've got a big problem. If things about me -true or false -get to the wrong people, we could have trouble."

"I didn't know Charlie was the wrong people," she said in a sulking voice.

"He's not. He's the right people. That's why I don't mind what you said to him. But what I will mind is if you tell anybody else about what I am doing or what's going on with me.

Anyone, Monica. Inside or outside the company."

He hoped she understood he was talking about Nicole and anybody else she encountered in her daily life.

"I won't. I won't tell a soul. And please don't ask me to get involved in your personal life again. I don't want to baby-sit deliveries or do anything outside of the company again."

"Fine. I won't ask you to. It was my mistake because I didn't think this would be a problem and you told me you could use the overtime."

"I can use the overtime but I don't like all of these complications."

Pierce waited a moment, watching her the whole time.

"Monica, do you even know what we do at Amedeo? I mean, do you know what the project is all about?"

She shrugged.

"Sort of. I know it's about molecular computing. I've read some of the stories on the wall of fame. But the stories are very… scientific and everything's so secret that I never wanted to ask questions. I just try to do my job."

"The project isn't secret. The processes we're inventing are. There's a difference."

He leaned forward and tried to think of the best way to explain it to her without making it confusing or treading into protected areas. He decided to use a tack that Charlie Condon often used with potential investors who might be confused by the science. It was an explanation Charlie had come up with after talking about the project in general once with Cody Zeller. Cody loved movies. And so did Pierce, though he rarely had time to see them in theaters anymore.

"Did you ever see the movie Pulp Fiction?"

Monica narrowed her eyes and nodded suspiciously.

"Yes, but what does it -"

"Remember it's a movie about all these gangsters crossing paths and shooting people and shooting drugs, but at the heart of everything is this briefcase. And they never show what's in the briefcase but everybody sure wants it. And when somebody opens it you can't see what's in it but whatever it is glows like gold. You see that glow. And it's mesmerizing for whoever looks into the briefcase."

"I remember."

"Well, that's what we're after at Amedeo. We're after this thing that glows like gold but nobody can see it. We're after it -and a whole bunch of other people are after it – because we all believe it will change the world."

He waited a moment and she just looked at him, uncomprehending.

"Right now, everywhere in the world, microprocessing chips are made of silicon. It's the standard, right?"

She shrugged again.

"Whatever."

"What we are trying to do at Amedeo, and what they are trying to do at Bronson Tech and Midas Molecular and the dozens of other companies and universities and governments around the world we are competing with, is create a new generation of computer chips made of molecules. Build an entire computer's circuitry with only organic molecules. A computer that will one day come out of a vat of chemicals, that will assemble itself from the right recipe being put in that vat. We're talking about a computer without silicon or magnetic particles. Tremendously less expensive to build and astronomically more powerful -in which just a teaspoon of molecules could hold more memory than the biggest computer going today."