Fifty Degrees Below - Kim Stanley Robinson [83]
Yann had suggested a restaurant nearby as a place to meet. Frank remained stuck before his hotel bathroom mirror. He found he really didn’t want to go. He was almost afraid to go. He looked neon pink in the mirror, somewhat boiled by the shower. He looked like he was wearing a costume signifying “academic at lunch.” Best give up on appearances. Marta knew what he looked like.
As did whoever was spying on him. And spying on Yann and Marta as well! This would be a red-blink situation, presumably: three of that market’s commodities getting together.
He left the hotel and walked to the restaurant Yann had suggested, called Manuel’s. It was a sultry night, a wet wind pouring like syrup through the streets. Marta had sent him directions in an e-mail that had no personal touches whatsoever. Not a good sign.
Manuel’s turned out to be an old-fashioned saloon, thick with the smell of old cigar smoke and machine politics. Wooden beams crossed the ceiling in Tudor style, dividing the space into small rooms. Sports paraphernalia, TVs overhead. A perfect place to spy on someone. The walls of the entryway were covered with black-and-white photos of groups sitting at the biggest tables, men in vests. Campaign buttons surrounded the photos. It was hard for Frank to imagine Marta even entering such a place.
But she was there already, it turned out, seated in a booth at the back with Yann. “Hi Yann, hi Marta.”
Yann rose and shook his hand; Marta didn’t. After one charged look Frank avoided her gaze and sat down, trying not to cringe. He thought of Caroline, brought her deliberately to mind; the look in her eye; then by accident thought of Diane too. Francesca. Caroline’s touch. He knew some powerful women. Too many one might say. He met Marta’s eye again, held his ground. Ooooop! Oooooop!
They made small talk of the how-have-you-been variety, ordered drinks. It was early, and Frank and Marta declined food, while Yann ordered French fries. When they arrived Yann downed them like popcorn, bang bang bang.
Silence inevitably fell, Yann being so busy. “So what brings you here?” Marta said.
“Well, I’m still at NSF.”
Frank knew that Marta thought he had gone to NSF to escape her, back when they were breaking up. So this also might be construed as saying he had had other reasons for going there.
She wasn’t buying it. “Why would you do that?”
“Well, I’ve gotten interested in things NSF can do that UCSD can’t. National policy, and some big new programs. I was offered the chance to help with some of them, so I decided to give it a try.”
“Uh huh,” Marta said. “So what are you doing?”
“Well, a number of things. But one of them is looking into trying to start up some institutes, like the Max Planck Institutes in Germany, that would focus on particular problems. And, you know, one of the obvious things to look at would be the stuff you guys were doing out in San Diego. You know, trying to do a really robust proteomics, with the idea that if we got that going properly, it might lead to some really important advances. So I came down to see, well, you know—to see if you’d have any interest in joining something like that.”
Well, if spies were listening in, then they knew all. Frank shuddered at the idea that he had ever tried to rig this game with his Thornton-in-the-panel.
Headhunting, however, was standard practice.
“It’s going fine,” Marta said curtly. “Small Delivery is part of Bizet.” One of the Big Pharms, as Edgardo put it. “We’ve got a budget bigger than anything NSF could offer.”
This was not true, and Frank longed to say I’ve got two billion dollars to spend, does Bizet have two billion dollars? He clamped his jaw shut; his jaw muscles would be bunching in a way she knew to notice. She knew him. He tried to relax. “Well . . . so, you’re still working on the same stuff you were in San Diego?”
The French fries were gone, and Yann nodded. “The algorithm is working