Dead Certain

judging from his expression, I guessed he’d never been inside a four-hundred-dollar-a-night hotel before. I sent Millman to the desk to have them call up to Hurt’s suite and did my best to keep Floyd from gaping.
    “I went to see Bill Delius this morning,” I said, walking Floyd slowly past the fountain and the indoor plantings of orchids toward the bank of elevators that whisked people silently between the fifth floor and the penthouse.
    “How’s he doing?” Floyd asked. Either he had some kind of weird speech impediment or all the moisture in his mouth had disappeared from nervousness.
    “He seemed much better than the last time I saw him,” I said truthfully, neglecting to add that the last time I’d seen him, he’d been clinically dead. “He was so relieved when I told him that you were going to be meeting with the Icon people,” I continued, passing with a tiny blip of guilt into the realm of pure invention. “He told me that you’d been with him right from VI,” I said, hoping I was getting the jargon right, “and that nobody understood how he coded things better than you did.”
    Floyd seemed to relax a little, or at the very least he seemed to be breathing.
    “I assume you’ve seen Star Wars,” I ventured, knowing it was like asking a priest whether he’d ever heard of a book called the Bible. “Then maybe you’ll remember that throughout the whole movie Luke Sky-walker never seemed nervous. Now I’m sure that there are some George Lucas fans out there who’ll tell you that it was because of the Force, that he knew what his destiny was and so he wasn’t afraid. But I actually think the explanation was simpler than that.”
    “Of course it was the Force,” protested Floyd, indignation overriding his nervousness. “That was the whole point.”
    “Maybe,” I replied. “Or maybe it was that Luke knew from the first time that he saw the message from Princess Leia that the Rebel Alliance was no match for the Death Star. It was hopeless. It was the classic David-versus-Goliath situation. He wasn’t afraid, because he had absolutely nothing to lose.
    “Now I’m just a lawyer, not a Jedi master. I can’t tell whether it’s our destiny to make a deal with Icon and go on to greatness. But what I can tell with complete certainty, is that, at this point in time, we have absolutely nothing to lose by trying.”
     
    A butler was summoned to the hotel lobby; he had a special key to the elevator that would allow it to take us up to the penthouse. Millman muttered something about feeling like he was in a James Bond movie, but when the doors opened, we stepped over the threshold of what looked like a very well appointed college dormitory on the night before exams. Icon had apparently taken the entire floor. Kids no older than Floyd, and some who looked younger, padded around in their stocking feet, talking on cell phones and babbling about bugs and beta versions.
    An acerbic-looking young man in a custom-made suit was waiting to receive us. I smothered my instinct to introduce myself and shake his hand. In Silicon Valley the rules of corporate behavior are the inverse of those in the rest of the universe. In the computer world, formality is the exception, and power rests with the least well dressed person in the room.
    We were escorted into the penthouse living room, which looked like a room in my parents’ house but with an even more spectacular view. With the city spread out in one direction and the lake in the other, it was easy to be distracted from the chaos going on all around us. Several people I recognized from the transaction team lounged around the room, either pecking at their laptops or with their cell phones glued to their ears. The wreckage of lunch was strewn over the coffee table. I eyed the cold shrimp as I scanned the room for signs of Gabriel Hurt. I spotted him in a distant corner of the room playing pinball.
    We waited, awkward and ignored, in the center of the room. I thought about Gerald Packman and his chess clock and realized that in his own way Hurt was every bit as controlling.
    “Well, hi there!” he announced genially once he’d finished his game and crossed the room to join us. “I’m trying to get back up to my old college score, but I must be getting old or something.” We all laughed dutifully. “Where’s Bill?” demanded Hurt.
    “He wishes he could be here, believe me,” I answered quickly. “Unfortunately he’s still in the hospital. He’s