Dead Certain

the company, was considered deeply odd. To Bill, technology was his religion and the compromises of business were a painful anathema. On the other hand, his partner was purely a money guy. Mark Millman was a pragmatic opportunist who, if pressed, might confess to a certain faith in the free market, but whose more immediate concern was turning a profit.
    For both men, Icon’s interest in Delirium’s technology was a dream come true. The only problem was that for each of them it was a different dream.
    Founded by Silicon Valley legend Gabriel Hurt, Icon was the eight-hundred-pound gorilla of the computer industry. Its founder was Bill Delius’s idol. To Delius, Hurt was an imagined soul mate, someone capable of understanding and sharing his vision of the world—a world in which information would soon replace money as the currency of power. However, Delius’s partner was less interested in Gabriel Hurt’s genius than in his bank account. Millman was a gambler, a man who saw his long shot approaching the finish line in the lead. The day Delirium and Icon signed a letter of understanding, the document that signaled the beginning of negotiations in earnest, Millman went out and made a down payment on a Ferrari.
    As their attorney, my job was to lead them onto common ground, a task for which I’d begun to suspect a therapist might be better suited. As we neared the deadline for making a deal with Icon, I was beginning to feel like a realtor charged with selling the dream house of a couple now in the midst of an acrimonious divorce. My goal was to get the deal done and, if possible, avoid getting hit by the cross fire.
    Contributing to an even greater than usual sense of urgency was the knowledge that I was dealing with quirky people in an idiosyncratic industry. Bill Delius might be weird, but Gabriel Hurt was arguably the world’s most famous eccentric—probably because he could afford to be. Even though I’d spent the last three days in round-the-clock negotiations with Icon’s handpicked transaction team, I had no idea of whether we were any closer to a deal than when we’d started. Gabriel Hurt might run an $800 billion company, but he still made decisions the same way he had when he was writing code in his parents’ basement—alone.
    I glanced at my watch and mentally cursed my mother’s timing. Hurt was on his way to Chicago for COMDEX, the week-long computer industry expo held every year at McCormack Place. The Icon jet was due to touch down at Meigs Field any minute, where a limousine was waiting to bring him to Callahan Ross for lunch (a tuna fish sandwich and red Jell-O served on a plain white china plate per instruction) and hopefully the final round of negotiations. As I turned the corner to the conference room I rolled my head to relieve the tension in my neck and reminded myself that this is what I lived for.
    I knew there was trouble the minute I pushed open the door. When I’d left the room in response to Cheryl’s summons, there had been nineteen people at the table: myself, three other Callahan Ross lawyers, Delirium’s two principals, and the thirteen attorneys, investment bankers, and officers that made up the Icon transaction team. Now there were only enough people to fill five seats. There was not one face from Icon to be seen.
    Making matters worse, Mark Millman was pacing along the far end of the room as quickly as his ample bulk allowed. A fleshy man with thinning hair and flapping jowls, he’d obviously been at it awhile, because there were dark rings of sweat under the arms of his suit jacket and his face was a damp and unhealthy shade of red. By contrast, Bill Delius, wraith thin and dressed entirely in black, stood motionless at the opposite end of the room, staring out the window. I stole a quick glance at the trio of Callahan Ross associates who’d been working with me on the deal, but they were all too busy studying the surface of the table in front of them to catch ; my eye. Not a good sign.
    “Where did everybody go?” I asked as I set down my legal pad and took my seat at the head of the table.
    Mark Millman stopped pacing and slammed his meaty palms down on the polished mahogany of the table. The three associates actually flinched.
    “They left,” he growled. “Hurt called and said he wasn’t coming.”
    “Why not?” I asked, saying a silent prayer for a benign explanation, like a plane crash.
    “Nobody knows,” reported Jeff Tannenbaum, the as- , sociate on