Chapter 61: Hot for Teacher?

June 22, 2001, Chicago, Illinois

🎤 Steve

“Now that you’ve had a few days to think about it, what are you going to do?” Liz asked when I joined her in her office on Friday after lunch.

“Tell my sister. I’ve analyzed this six ways from Sunday and every thought leads right back to Volstead and Braun and EB Systems. I’m going to recommend a dual course of action - let Anne Nelson know we’re interested in settling, but also that to determine appropriate remedies, she has to lay out her entire complaint, and sign an NDA. And simultaneously, we’ll make a serious move against EB.”

“She’ll never agree to those terms.”

“No kidding. But what happens when she goes to court and we show we made a good faith offer? And a willingness to update our policy?”

“The courts look askance at litigants who reject reasonable settlement offers. But the PR angle is still there and it still hurts you.”

“If she goes to court and we depose Kaitlin and Mikela, and produce their files for discovery, she loses, badly. And then an exposé on her tactics runs in the Trib.”

“Your investigative reporter friends?”

“They like corrupt lawyer stories. A lot. Think about the groundwork that led to ‘Greylord’ and ‘Silver Shovel’?”

“But all of her clients will be under NDAs.”

“You mean a cover-up of a blackmail and extortion racket based on a string of NDAs? An accusation she is sure to make against us?”

Liz laughed, “You are an evil genius at times!”

“It won’t actually play out. All I really need for it to do is buy some time to hit EB, hard.”

“How?”

“Cindi has been itching for a bit of freedom with regard to negotiating deals in competitive circumstances. I came up with a way to do it that won’t hurt us financially, nor open us up to claims we’re negotiating price.”

“Which is even more of an evil genius thing, if true.”

“We offer a dollar for dollar, pro-rated credit for the remaining service contract to offset the conversion costs. No change in licensing or support fees. Yes, we’ll eat some costs, but it won’t expose us in any way. And I’m more than happy to see Hastings Mill or Chickasaw copy that plan. EB is already trying to buy the business, and they continue to give up revenue now in the hopes they’ll be around to collect it.”

“They’re offering free support! So you’re actually giving nothing!”

I shook my head, “No, I’m going to propose giving the client the value of that contract, even if they actually paid nothing for it.”

“Whoa!”

“And it would max out at whatever our installation fees would be, so again, no risk to licensing or support revenues.”

“But that doesn’t directly hurt EB?”

“Sure it does. They’re counting on revenue from those customers in the future. If we take them away, EB has literally nothing to show for it. The other component is that we’ll defend any EB Systems customer if EB tries to sue them or refuses to hand over the decryption keys.”

“That could get expensive.”

“That’ll be funded by SKJ Partners, with financing from Spurgeon.”

“You went to Samantha?”

“She’s protecting her preferred shares and her investment in the patent and copyright portfolio held by Patent Partners. Melissa and Mark are on board and in for a piece.”

“Isn’t that something your sister should have done?”

“She’s not part of any of the LLCs. I’m bringing her a plan. It’s up to her to implement it or not. Nobody knows about this except you and me. If she elects not to tell anyone, I’ll never say a word. She may have an even better plan, once I tell her about Volstead and Braun and EB Systems. And, if she goes for it, I have one other idea that will sink EB.”

“You better tell me.”

“Samantha is forming her own internal programming team to develop their own proprietary trading platform. She’ll make Nathan Edwards an offer he can’t refuse. And no, not out of line for what someone who runs a team of twenty-five highly-skilled software engineers with a background in high-speed, high-frequency trading. He doesn’t have that specific background, but he’s a very good programmer and was a very good development manager at Lone Star. He is someone I would have hired if he had been available.”

“If the job is legit, and the salary is in line, then there are no legal problems there. He’s not going to an IT company, nor competing with EB in any way, and there would be no trade secrets he could really bring along that would matter.”

“Exactly. Though, if things go the way I think they’re going with computerized trading and market simulation, most big investment firms are going to turn into IT firms that trade stock, not stock traders who have an IT department. The ‘quants’ and the software engineers are going to run the show, not money managers or brokers.”

“Interesting.”

“Samantha is out in front on this. And it would be an exciting job. Heck, I’d take it, if it weren’t for NIKA! Fortunately, we have a ‘no poaching’ agreement because of our financial relationship, so she can’t steal any of our people unless Stephanie approves. Which you know we would, if she asked.”

“I don’t see any trouble with that, as those kinds of agreements are part of our contracts and are enforceable, though if we had to do that, generally the employee is allowed to leave and the offending company has to pay significant monetary damages.”

“There’s certainly no way to order ‘specific performance’ in a case like that,” I replied. “The court can’t force the person to keep working for us.”

“Generally, specific performance is only applied to the transfer of a tangible good, property, or money. Courts can’t be in the business of ensuring that, say, a programmer does his job or that a garden is kept properly by the landscaping service.”

“I’m going to go lay all this on my sister and see what she has to say.”

“I have a personal question for you.”

“You have my blessing. He’s an intelligent, thoughtful, wise young man.”

Liz laughed, “I suppose that was the obvious question.”

“It was. I’m serious about what I said - I like Julius and he’s treated you the way I would want any man to treat my daughters. Let me know where you want to go on your honeymoon. It’s on me.”

“There’s actually a potential ethical problem with that.”

“I’d rant about government, but actually, given the city we live in, I’m glad there’s at least ONE person besides you and me who cares about ethics in government! I’ll make it a special, one-time bonus, at my limit. Go wherever you like.”

“As Consigliere, I’m declaring this room to be not NIKA!”

She got up from her desk, came around, and we hugged tightly. Liz kissed me on the cheek and, as I did with my daughters, I kissed her on the forehead.

“Thanks,” she said softly, staring directly into my eyes, conveying her love for me.

“You’re welcome,” I replied, pulling her tightly against me, conveying the same feelings for her.

I held her for a couple of minutes, and then she went back to sit behind her desk.

“Let me know the details, please,” I requested.

“Of course! You’re giving me away!”

“I’d be honored.”

She smiled and I nodded, then left and walked down the hallway to Stephanie’s office. I explained what I’d just discussed with Liz.

“Let me think about it,” Stephanie said when I finished. “It sounds OK, but I need to think it through. Do you have it written down?”

“I’ll print out the notes I made as I thought about it over the past few days. They’re on my personal laptop.”

“Are you SURE it’s them?”

“As I’ve said before, tell me a different story.”

“I don’t have one to tell. I’ll decide by Monday.”

“Sounds good.”

I left Stephanie’s office and went back to my own to get some programming work done.

June 23, 2001, Chicago, Illinois

“Steve Adams,” I said, answering my phone in my study early on Saturday afternoon.

“Steve! It’s Elena Altieri! How are you?”

“Very good! And you?”

“Fantastic as always! I’m going to be in Chicago July 19th and 20th. Are you free the evening of the 19th, say, after 8:00pm?”

“I should be, yes. Did you want to come to the house or meet somewhere?”

“I’m staying at the W. Come by around 8:00pm, we’ll have a late dinner and some drinks.”

“Sounds good! Where are you today?”

“London. I’m going to Buenos Aires the day after tomorrow, and then from there, to Bogotá.”

I opened my desk drawer and quickly flipped through the business cards.

“To see Paola Soto López?” I asked.

“How could you possibly know that? Are you spying on me?”

I chuckled, “It’s a small world! I met her on my flight to South America last October. I asked if she knew you.”

“We’ve never met, but she bought from me a few years ago. Did you get together?”

I chuckled, “She offered to have drinks, but I showed her my wedding ring.”

“Ah, a traditional woman.”

“Speaking of that, how is Beppe?”

“He has a pair of German girls at the house during this trip. Sisters!”

“Twins?” I asked.

She laughed, “Only in his dreams! I think he’s only with the younger sister. She’s in college and her older sister came to visit. See you in a few weeks!”

We said our ‘goodbyes’, then I hung up and made a note in my calendar.

🎤 Jesse

“Block, I don’t like your attitude!” Coach Greer said after another ridiculous game.

“And I don’t think it’s fun when the defensemen all play like they’re Mites who have no clue how to play hockey.”

“Maybe a Park District League isn’t the right choice for you.”

“It’s the only option for the ten weeks during the Summer. The other leagues require you to commit for the Fall to play in the Summer and I can’t do that because I’m the starting goalie.”

“Then you’re going to have to suck it up and deal with it. This is a fun league, not a competitive league.”

“And yet we keep score and they publish the standings every week,” I replied. “Why?”

“Because that’s normal.”

“So is being competitive! Do you really not care if we finish last?”

“It’s all just for fun!”

“Coach, I don’t agree. But I’ll stop complaining.”

“You need to adjust your attitude, not just stop complaining.”

I wanted to go ‘Rocket Richard’ on him, but all that would do is get me banned from hockey for life and likely arrested. There really wasn’t much I could do except just grin and bear it for another eight weeks. What bothered me was this was like the participation trophies, and the way things were going, some idiot was going to suggest that the school league be a ‘fun’ league, and I wanted no part of that. Hockey WAS fun, and even more fun when your team worked together to win.

“I hear you, Coach,” I said, trying to sound sincere, but wanting to tomahawk him with my goalie stick.

I left the locker room to meet up with my moms and Libby.

“What happened?” Mom Two asked.

“Apparently wanting to win is ‘unsportsmanlike conduct’ in Coach Greer’s puny little brain.”

Libby shook her head, “What a maroon!”

“I know. Eight weeks of pretending not to care, while trying to keep my skills sharp for the CPS league.”

“You can practice with me!” Libby offered suggestively.

“I think Jesse’s goal is to STOP scoring,” Mom One declared, causing Mom Two and Libby to laugh.

“Oops!” Libby giggled.

“I need a shower!” I declared.

“No kidding,” Mom One said, wrinkling her nose.

🎤 Steve

“I can’t remember the last time you saw Elena,” Jessica said when Kara and I met her at the hospital early on Saturday evening.

“The last time I saw her was in England, at Sweeney’s wedding, so four years or so. The last two times she was in Chicago, I was out of town. We keep in touch, as you know. I send her copies of the kids’ school pictures every year.”

“How’s her husband?”

I chuckled, “Still chasing college girls. He’s entertaining one, and her sister, while Elena is on her trip. She’s in London, then she’s heading for South America, and then she’ll be here.”

“And?”

I shrugged, “She asked me to have a late dinner and a drink. Nothing more was said, but then again, knowing her, nothing more needs to be said. If she wants to sleep with me, she’ll tell me; if she doesn’t she won’t. She actually didn’t flirt during the call, so I’d say the scale is leaning slightly to ‘not’.”

“But if her husband has his playmate...” Kara asked.

“Remember Elena’s rule and my rule don’t match - she’s OK with condoms at this point. So if she’s been with anyone since her last test, and she didn’t verify their test, then I can’t. Jess allows no exceptions and I agree completely with that rule.”

“Me, too!”

“The blood supply is very safe,” Jessica said, “but as we all know, it’s impossible to know if someone is engaging in risky behavior. That’s especially true with someone like Steve or Elena.”

“No arguments from me,” I replied. “Elena and Giuseppe are comfortable going with the statistics. We aren’t. All it takes is one mistake and that’s a risk none of us will accept.”

“I’m just curious,” Kara said, “but are you interested?”

“To my wives I’ll say something I’d never say to Elena - I could take it or leave it. I like her, and I consider her a friend, and the sex was good, but there isn’t the kind of bond I like to have with girls I’m with over a longer term. I’d say that’s because of time and distance.”

“What about your friend in South America or the one in Saint Martin?” Kara asked.

“Same thing,” I replied. “Though, that said, those two are distinguishable as well. For Annette, it would be two lovers reuniting for a last fling before she moves to Europe for college. For Estrella, I think she’s more interested in a long-term affair, and that concerns me at least a bit. I’ve done my best to keep our conversations via IM friendly but not overly so, if you get my drift.”

“So, leaving the Inner Circle aside,” Jessica asked, “back to ‘dalliances’ where they get one, or possibly two, times?”

“Possibly. I think it’s safer to say that I’m narrowing the field further, and girls like Annita or Nalani are going to be more typical. Or Audrey, if that happens. Basically, someone who, if circumstances were different, would be a potential member of the Inner Circle.”

“And the gaggle of young women?” Kara asked.

“I’ll worry about that when and if it happens. I’ll talk to Kristin sometime early next year, after I speak with Kathy, whom I’m positive is aware. And remember, setting that particular question aside, the rule of the girls being eighteen is otherwise inviolate.”

“And Saint Martin?”

“I’m going to spend time there with the Inner Circle. Beyond that, I have no specific intentions.”

Kara and Jessica both laughed.

“It’s never YOUR intentions, Tiger!” Jessica said. “It’s always the girls who make the first move!”

June 24, 2001, Chicago, Illinois

“Today,” I said at the beginning of Philosophy Club, “I want to talk about a project I’ve been working on for my entire life.”

“Getting laid?” Stephanie asked with a smirk, causing everyone to laugh.

“He doesn’t have to work for it,” Elizabeth declared mirthfully, causing more laughter.

“Not that!” I chuckled. “I’m talking about a search for meaning.”

“Seriously?” Elizabeth asked.

“You know you lose this argument every time because YOU act as if things have meaning, while insisting they don’t!”

“Oh, shut up!” she replied, shaking her head.

“For me, my eyes were opened when I spent five weeks in Japan during the Summer of ‘94. It was, if you’ll pardon the expression, an enlightening experience. An important lesson I learned there was, to use an old cliché, that you have to stop and smell the roses.”

Or, in my case, the cherry blossoms, both literally and figuratively. And I wasn’t the only one to think in a figurative way.

“I’ve never heard that euphemism for getting laid!” Nicole smirked.

“That is NOT what I’m talking about!” I protested as everyone in the room laughed again.

“You can’t be surprised at those comments given your history,” Patricia replied.

“No, I can’t. But let’s be serious, please.”

“Sorry,” Nicole offered.

“It’s fine,” I replied. “Anyway, it was on that same trip that I essentially flipped my agnosticism from negative to positive. Instead of saying that I wasn’t sure, I switched to approaching the world with wide-eyed wonder. It’s when my skepticism turned internal, as opposed to external. The real world is out there, but my own senses can deceive me about it. When I was in Hawaii, I spent some time thinking about two sayings which should guide us. The first is ‘Not knowing is the beginning of wisdom’; and the second is ‘Confusion is the beginning of clarity’. I put both of those up in my study here and in my office at work.”

“Are those supposed to be Zen?” Achara asked.

“They could be any of the ancient philosophers, and I think you could find those basic concepts in the Bhagavad Gita in the conversation between Krishna and Arjuna.”

“They seem contradictory,” Luisa protested.

I smiled, “Because they are; and yet, they are also true. Remember when we talked about the trial of Socrates? And about wisdom? That’s exactly what was being said - the wisest man is the one who admits he knows nothing. I might modify that a bit and add ‘truthfully’ before admits. But even that is not a denial of learning or knowledge, but an admission that, as Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians, we see through a glass darkly. Or, as a Buddhist monk in Japan suggested, we know the sun is there even when clouds obscure it. But what if we had never seen the sun? It’s still there, but obscured.”

“Like the allegory of the cave,” Sophie observed.

“As one example, yes. And the other point, about confusion being the beginning of clarity, is also true. If you know everything, and everything is clear to you, you’ve reached nirvana and at that point, you gain release and your being is diffused into the ether. So, to strive to be a bodhisattva, you must, logically, be in a state of confusion, or of ignorance, or of doubt. Perhaps not about everything, but about some things.”