Measure Of Darkness. Chris Jordan
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to his diminutive size and the slightness of his build, and the second-generation Chinese-American billionaire looks like an eager teenager, but Jack happens to know that he’s in his late thirties. Bing’s slightly mischievous expression is more welcoming than might be expected, considering the high-altitude circles where he flies, or, more accurately, cruises. Jack has met his share of the super wealthy, and usually finds them guarded with strangers, or at least more outwardly canny. Jonny Bing looks like a boy who has just come down to Christmas, found everything he ever dreamed of under the tree and is willing to share his new toys with anyone who comes in the door. Or hatch, or whatever it is. Notwithstanding the fact that he’s a native of Gloucester, Jack’s experience with boats is somewhat limited—an endless summer when he was sixteen, toiling on his uncle Leo’s leaky, smelly scallop dragger as penance for various infractions, and the occasional striper fishing with a Marblehead cop-buddy who married money, and therefore can afford a nice thirty-foot center cockpit with twin outboards. The striper boat, which is Jack’s idea of rich, would fit comfortably in the far corner of the Lucky Lady’s main salon, with plenty of room left over for a bowling alley.
“Sorry about the lack of fawning servants,” says Jonny Bing, lounging back in his throne, which threatens to engulf him. “In ten days Lady heads for Bermuda, so the crew is on furlough through the weekend. We have the place to ourselves. There’s a full bar, or I could manage a juice or a coffee or whatever. Sparkling water?”
“I’m good,” Jack says. “This chair is so comfortable I may never get up. What kind of leather is this?”
“Sick, eh? It’s made from the skin of young virgins.”
“Excuse me?”
“Kidskin. Young goats,” Bing adds impishly.
“Ah,” Jack says, a little relieved in spite of himself, visions of billionaire psychopaths receding into bad movie land. “Obviously you heard about Professor Keener.”
For the first time Jonny Bing breaks eye contact. He sighs and drums his fingers on the arm of his chair. “I couldn’t believe it. Who’d want to kill poor Joe? It doesn’t make any sense. You know how they always say ‘he didn’t have an enemy in the world.’ Well, Joe really didn’t.”
“He had at least one,” Jack points out.
Bing shudders. “I keep thinking it was a mistake. Like they went to the wrong address, or mistook him for someone else.”
“I suppose mistaken identity remains a possibility, but it doesn’t look to go that way,” Jack says. “More like a professional hit.”
“That’s insane.”
“I think Dane mentioned we’re looking for background on Joseph Keener. Your name came up.”
“Whatever you need.”
“It’s usually best to start at the beginning. How did you happen to invest in Professor Keener’s company?”
Bing touches his slender fingertips together as if making a steeple. “How it usually happens. He was brought to my attention by one of my researchers.”
Jack has his reporter’s notebook open on one knee, ballpoint pen in hand. “In what context?” he asks.
Bing seems amused by the question. “You know how it works in the game of venture capitalism, Mr. Delancey? No? Why should you, you’re a man of action, am I right? Not a banker. So I could bullshit you about computer modeling and try to make it sound all scientific, but the truth is, what I do is gamble on brilliant people. And to do that I have to know about them. As you may be aware, my investments are in emerging technology. That’s my area of expertise. I made my first three hundred million betting on video streaming software while I was still at the B School. I heard about a couple of BU geeks who had an interesting idea and I backed them with money from my parents’ restaurant, and we all got very, very rich. But you can’t rely on the grapevine to bring you opportunity. You have to be tuned in. You have to find the next new thing and make your own luck, which, believe me, is not so easy. What happened in this case, Joe published a paper in a scientific journal that caused something of a stir, and we decided to meet with him and see if he had any ideas for practical applications. He supplies the ideas, we provide finance and structure for the business model. I’m an entrepreneur, not a physicist, and I do not pretend to understand Joe’s theories about gated photons, but I understood immediately that he was a genius.”
“How so?”
Bing smiles, as if at a pleasant recollection. “You and I look out this window and see a beautiful scene. Joe looks out and sees how light works, on the very smallest level. What happens when an individual photon, the tiniest component in a beam of light, is either absorbed or reflected. Joe saw and understood the energy within waves: waves of water, waves of light. At first he didn’t even want to talk with us, and swore he had no interest in founding a private research lab, but my instincts told me otherwise, and so I persisted, and finally he began to talk about light, and that’s when I knew. That’s why I succeed where others fail, Mr. Delancey, because I am tenacious by nature. I fasten my teeth on the ankles of genius and I won’t let go.”
Jack looks up from his notebook. “Strange way to put it, Mr. Bing.”
“Call me Jonny. No, not strange at all. I know exactly who I am, okay? I’m a little bulldog, I don’t give up. I keep fighting. And believe me, Joseph Keener was worth fighting for. And not just because of the financial opportunity. His ideas, the particular way he thought about things, it’s a privilege to know a person like that, because there are only a handful alive in the world at any one time.”
“So what was he like on a personal level?”
Bing chuckles, sounding surprisingly girlish. “Joe didn’t really have a personal level, not one he could share. Do you know what Asperger’s is, Mr. Delancey?”
“Not really. I’ve heard the term. Something to do with autism.”
“That’s right, and at the moment it’s a very trendy diagnosis. There’s been a lot of nonsense talked about Asperger’s syndrome, mostly by pop shrinks who should know better. They’d like us to think that every creative and difficult person suffered from a mild form of autism, from Leonardo to Einstein. It’s become the excuse for behaving like a selfish asshole. Sorry, my Asperger’s made me do it! Asperger’s means I can be rude and it’s not my fault! But I think Joe really did have some form of the disorder. He struggled mightily to deal with us mere humans, if you know what I mean.”
“Don’t think I do,” Jacks says. “What was he like? Personally, I mean.”
“Difficult to describe. It’s as if Joe wanted to connect with people but didn’t quite know how. Early on I mentioned his shyness and told him that it wouldn’t be a problem, he didn’t have to meet or talk with anyone who made him uncomfortable, and he told me the most remarkable thing. He said he wasn’t really shy, but that he had learned to mimic shyness because it’s more socially acceptable than explaining that he prefers to be alone because the only place he ever felt comfortable was inside his own head.”
“That may be helpful,” Jack says, making a note. “Did he ever mention growing up in foster care?”
“Mention it?” Bing shrugs. “Not directly. I know his parents died when he was an infant, and that he was raised by a succession of foster parents. I asked him what was that like once, he said it was adequate.”
“Adequate? A strange way to put it.”
“That was Joe. He once told me his real father was the public library. That’s where he discovered who he was, by looking in books and finding math and physics and so on.”
“What was the connection to Caltech, do you know? How he happened to go there at such a young age? To the other end of the country?”
Bing smiles. “Again, it was light. He read an article by someone who taught at Caltech and decided he had to go there. Distance from home didn’t matter,