Chapter 12

Sunday evening I was a single man living alone, but generally I was feeling a whole lot better than I had four months earlier. Thinking about Helen still hurt but I could now, somewhat, imagine a life without her. What hurt me most was her inability to admit her mistakes, and the fact that it had turned my own sons against me. I knew that my mother would probably never accept what I'd done, but to her I had always been a lost cause ... something that she could not control. Since I now had the time, I decided to check if I could get my sister online. As Mina had forced me to install Skype I might as well try to use it.

She surprised me by answering almost immediately.

"Damn, little brother. I blame myself for creating a pervert."

Yeah, good to hear from you, too, sister. However, because of the video connection, I could see the mirth in her eyes, even if her voice had been deadly serious.

"You are quite correct, sister. After all, a horny teenage boy is hooked forever if he has a hot sister he cannot have, but has to unleash his frustration with her hot friends."

She actually blushed before she burst out laughing.

"I take it, Sis, that you have talked with Mina?"

Once she had herself in control she nodded to me.

"Yes, I have. In fact, I talk with her quite often. Much more often than with you. I guess you must have been too busy with your college girls."

I could not help it, but her accusation felt quite unfair, and she must have seen it on my face.

"I'm sorry, little bro. That wasn't nice. You know that Mina has been telling me about Helen, and even if she hasn't said so, she knows now that Helen has had her affair going for some time. Maybe years. But I guess you knew about it."

I could only nod and she sighed.

"Since you have not given your number to our mother, I have been the one who has had to listen her wailing. The last time she did it, I just snapped and asked her why she could not believe anything good about you. She could just say that you had always been like that."

"To tell the truth, Sis, I have just about given up with her. But I have to admit that it hurts me that my sons do not want forgive me for abandoning Helen. They even refuse to believe Mina when she has tried to explain that things aren't that simple. But, I just can't make myself tell them what really happened, and I certainly won't show it to them."

"Oh, my! You even have some videos of her, bro?"

Shit. Now I just blew it.

"I'm sorry, Sis. I should not have said that."

"Listen bro. Maybe you should just show it to everybody. You have always been too good to all women. You always made my friends feel good after they boyfriends had dumped them."

"Sis, back then my objectives weren't always all that honorable."

She giggled at that.

"Bro, I can assure that they knew that very well, too! But, I also know that at least two of them faked their breakup just to get you to make them feel good. Sometimes I was more than a bit jealous."

After that I decided to guide the discussion to her family, and she fished for some details about Liz and Carol. After we had said our goodbyes, I wondered how much it might take to correct my relationship with my sons.

Even if there was no need to go downtown any more, I decided to prolong the tradition I had generated. I mostly worked from home, but I updated my blog from some of the cafés with wireless Internet connections. It was after the middle of March when I got the call I had been expecting. After a moment of thinking, I agreed to meet them in the afternoon in one of the cafés I liked to visit. I called the café and made sure that they had a good table reserved for four people.

I had my coffee in front of me, and my laptop and some of the papers ready as I sat in a separated booth, in the café I visited probably once a week. Guessing the identity of my guests wasn't a problem since they both looked exactly like the government officials they were. I welcomed them and asked if they preferred coffee or tea. They accepted the coffee, and once we all had our coffees and they had shown me some IDs, we were ready to start.

"Thank you Mr. Olson for agreeing to meet us. I'd like to point you that SEC does not suspect you of anything, but there are some things that have raised our interest. We would like to ask you some questions regarding your own company and your employer."

There had been a significant pause between the words 'anything' and 'but'. Almost long enough for word 'yet'. OK, I got the point. I smiled to the man and the woman opposite me.

"I have to admit that I was expecting your visit, but first I would like to update some of your facts. You said 'my employer', but they fired me almost five months ago. I have been self-employed ever since. It is true that I owned a part of that company until recently, but according to my original contract I had the option of cashing in my ownership any time within a year of them firing me."

At that point I picked up two copies from the pile of the documents I had and gave it to them. The woman looked at me.

"Can we keep these?"

"Like I said, I was expecting you. Yes, you can keep those."

The woman continued.

"This says that you were fired because you refused to invest in a particular group of companies. What was your reasoning?"

"Two out of those three were hoaxes. The third may be successful in the future, but it's also going to take a hit, because of those other two. Its stock will still go down for a while."

"But how did you know those two were hoaxes?"

I smiled at her.

"Because I do my own research, and because I look at much longer than a quarter of a year's history."

They continued to look at me. I sighed.

"It seems that I have to reveal to you some of my 'deep dark business secrets'. If something looks too good, the first thing that happens to me is that I become suspicious. Especially if it still looks good after a thorough investigation. Most new businesses don't look all that good. They usually have problems ... even serious ones ... but they also have some ability to solve them or work their way through them. I do not believe in miracles. I believe in hard work. That's also is true in my own business."

Then I went on to explain to them how all of those businesses looked like that they had some good inventions and ability for growth - or at least for selling the business at a good price, in the future. They had some new patents and even more applications which all looked like something that might bring them a fortune in the near future, in the new fields of biochemistry. So, all the prospects looked good. Too good. It took many days of digging to find out that there was more or less the same group behind the two companies that were the most promising. Okay, that wasn't that odd. But why did they hide it? Both companies already had some patents in the field of biochemistry which made the new applications to look very promising.

But when you looked at the details, there were some disturbing items. It seemed that some of the owners had retained a possibility to cash out their initial investment after only three months. Why was it like that, when it looked like the company would make a fortune in the near future? That would be even before the first hearing on the applications. The applications themselves looked very promising to someone who did not understand biochemistry, and looked good even to some people who believed that they understood biochemistry a bit. I didn't, but I knew business. Patenting a new method to create medicine looks great. But then, maybe not. After a quick but careful review from two experts, it seemed that one third of the applications would not go through. Okay, that wasn't too bad. What was bad, was that all the applications that would probably go through, would be the almost worthless ones.

To make it short. The guys who started this did not make a big fortune, but they still made a small one. The investors who put their money into these companies found out that the hype was much greater than the business, and the value of those two companies was now about a tenth of the original value. The third company was somewhat better because they were actually doing something, while those other two mainly owned some nice patents with no real value. I was able to make some money by playing against the markets, but there's not anything illegal about that. What remains to be seen is if the group behind the original plan wittingly misled investors or officials. However, proving that out may turn out to be quite hard.

I could see that the woman and the man on the other side of the table weren't happy. The man looked at me sternly.

"How come you noticed this, but the others did not?"

"That is not quite true. I think that there were several companies who did not invest in them, plus once they found out something odd about them, they just forgot them and looked elsewhere. I just happened to be in a position to make use of it, myself."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I'm recently divorced."

"I don't understand."

I sighed again.

"To put it bluntly. My wife helped her lover to see some of the business I was doing. He ended up investing in those companies, and my new boss kicked me out as my old company failed to invest to them."

"Quite a coincidence."

Was she really smiling? Smiling or not, I smiled back at her.

"It is, isn't it? Whatever. I was so messed up after our breakup, that I couldn't really get back to work until our divorce was final. She got our debt-free house, and half of our assets in the divorce."

They kept on grilling me for a while, but I could see that their heart was no longer in it. I answered them the best I could; I knew that they also were just doing their job. Finally, they thanked me and left.

I sighed and decided to have one more cup of coffee. While trying to make my intentions known to the waitress, I noticed that one woman also looked curiously in my direction. It was difficult to guess her age, but she certainly was older than my previous girlfriends, and she certainly had class. In fact everything about her looked classy. I smiled quickly to her before ordering my second cup of coffee. After that I decided to take a look at my blog, and some comments that were waiting. As they were good ones I accepted them and also wrote an instant reply.

Approximately a week later I was in the same café once again updating my blog, when I saw my 'classy lady' there. She seemed to remember me too as she smiled back at me. Now when I looked at her I noticed that she looked about my age, but I knew well enough that I could be several years off either way. I noticed that she also had a small elegant laptop with her which she seemed to use without problems. However, I wasn't here to look for company, but to update my blog.

I posted a new entry which I had already written at home. I just uploaded it to the remote host outside the country, and posted it from there. Once it was there, I started enjoying my coffee. I had sipped only third of my coffee when the remote machine informed me that someone had commented my blog. I read the comment and smiled. Whoever wrote the comment knew the business, even if his opinion about the ethics of the business was more positive than mine. Once I was logged in, I accepted the comment and prepared a quick reply with some examples from the near past. As soon as I pressed enter, I heard a chirp on the other side of the café. I looked at the lady, and she looked at me. She had been following my blog! Maybe the 'he' wasn't he at all, but a she!