True-Life Adventure

Stanley Cohen, another protegé of Berg’s, stayed on at Stanford.
    That is, Koehler did until the fall of 1980, when he and his brother Steve founded Kogene Systems.
    They went into business just about the time Genentech, then four years old, offered its stock on Wall Street. You remember that. The offering price was $35 a share and within a few minutes it went up to $89. Brokerage houses ended up having to ration the stock. And Genentech didn’t even have a product on the market.
    The voice read me a little yarn about the formation of Kogene Systems, which said Steve had ponied up the money for it.
    So I asked for the clips on Steve Koehler.
    Steve sounded like a man for the ages— or at least the decades. In the seventies, he made money in microcomputers, which were about as high tech as you could get at the time. In the eighties, he’d apparently cashed in his chip money and put it on the come line. I liked his style.
    I thanked the nice librarian and rang off. It was just after five o’clock by that time, but who knew how late geniuses worked? I called Jacob Koehler at Kogene Systems.
    A female voice answered and I very distinctly asked for Jacob, but somehow I got Steve. What the hell, I needed to see him, too; so I told him what I wanted— or rather I didn’t, exactly, on the theory that I didn’t yet know either of the brothers well enough to broach the subject of whether one of them had killed Jack.
    “This is Charlie Haas at the Wall Street Journal ,” I taradiddled. “We’d like to do profiles on you and your brother for a little story on genetic engineering.”
    “I see. You’re doing a general story on the whole field?”
    “Actually, we’re sort of concentrating on Kogene. The newest of the highest tech— state of the art and its future. That sort of thing.”
    “A science story?”
    “Mostly a business story, really.”
    “I see.” He seemed to perk up a little. “When would you like to meet?”
    “How about tomorrow morning?”
    “Eleven o’clock?”
    “Great. Could I see both of you at the same time?”
    “I’m afraid it’ll just be me. When we started Kogene, we decided I would be spokesman for the company.”
    “That’s fine. You can speak for the company. All we want from your brother is a personality profile. He’s a pretty well-known guy, after all. It wouldn’t look right to do a whole story on Kogene and not have a word from its principal asset.”
    “I’m afraid he won’t agree to it, Mr. Haas. It’s not really his policy to talk to the press.”
    “Okay. We can talk about it tomorrow.”
    I guessed Jacob had good reason to be allergic to interviews— he’d gotten a bad marriage out of one once.

CHAPTER 5
    Kogene is out by Cetus in Emeryville, a weird little town tucked in a corner between Berkeley and Oakland. Emeryville has a population of something like 4500, a little over half of whom live in sauna-infested condo complexes. That half tends to be white and well off. The other 2000, who tend to be poor and parti-colored, live in tiny houses on tiny streets surrounded by windowless industrial caverns that hover nastily. Cetus sprawled through several of the caverns; Kogene was squeezed into one. A small one.
    Someone had made a genuine effort to class up the reception area, which was all white and plant-filled. But no one had soundproofed it; I heard voices from somewhere in the recesses as soon as I crossed the threshold.
    “We’ve got to get another one. I’ve got to have her back.” A male voice, upset. Then footsteps; someone walking even deeper into the recesses.
    “Is anything wrong? With Lindsay?” A female voice, slightly alarmed.
    “No, no, of course not. The cleaning lady just quit, that’s all.” A different male voice, reassuring.
    “Have you got enough material?”
    “Sure. I’ll call you later in the week.” The female voice again, and then a female— presumably its owner— stepped into the reception room.
    She was tall, but not too tall, and thin but not skinny. She had soft, regular features, except for a square jaw; thick, shiny light brown hair; great legs. She looked like a nice girl from a good family. She just missed looking like a WASP princess ex-cheerleader post-deb preppy powder puff, and the reason she did was that she looked smart. Something about her bones or the line of her cheek was her saving grace— I couldn’t tell just what, exactly. But I could tell she was not only no dummy but also somebody who was