A younger man who had been waiting at the back of the small stage came forward, took the handoff of the microphone with a flourish, and started the bidding. “Thanks to the generosity of the San Francisco 49ers organization, and our longstanding friendship with the coach, we're auctioning off a full game day, including access to the field and locker rooms, access to the press box, and dinner and photographs with the team. Bidding starts at $5,000!”
The bidding moved rapidly around the tent with hands gesturing eagerly. At the side of the stage, an older man in tie and blazer-the headmaster, Seeley concluded-watched intently, as solemn and self-possessed as the prime minister of a small country, his eyebrows rising at each $500 increment. Seeley saw Renata, her arm linked with Leonard's, behind the raised arm of a bidder. When the arm lowered she saw him and tipped her wineglass in his direction.
At $18,000, the bidding slowed, and when it reached $22,000, it stopped. The coach came to the auctioneer's side-Seeley saw at once that this had been planned; it was an act-and leaned into the microphone. The crowd was going to have to do better for the kids, he said, and, just to make it more interesting, he was throwing in travel to the game on the team's private jet, lodging for the night at the team hotel, and all meals with the team. “But,” the coach said, “I don't want to hear any bids unless they go up a thousand dollars at a time.”
A few feet from Seeley, just inside the entrance, a man's hand shot up. “Twenty-three thousand!” Under the youthfully cut gray hair, the man was red-faced and glassy-eyed, and it didn't surprise Seeley to see a large tumbler half filled with whiskey and ice in the other hand. The woman next to him, jewelry flashing, rubbed his back vigorously.
“Twenty-four!” The bid came from closer to the stage. The bidder rose from his chair and repeated, “Twenty-four!”
The bidding moved even more quickly than before, to twenty-five thousand, then thirty. The other bidders dropped out at thirty-five, and it became just the two men trading bids. The auctioneer turned to one man, then the other, before his rival even shouted his new bid. With each bid, the coach punched the air.
The bidder close to Seeley said to the woman, whose hand was still on his back, “I can't stop him. I knock him down, he just gets up.” His face was bloodred. “Forty-two thousand!”
“Forty-three!”
“Well, just keep getting up and you knock him down!”
“Forty-four!”
The bidding stopped at $45,000 and the buzz in the crowd height-ened. Faces turned to the man by the entrance. “Go,” the woman barked into the man's ear. “Go! Go!” He wouldn't look at her, but just shook his head.
The coach stepped forward and this time he took the microphone from the auctioneer. His voice still mild, he said, “I want twice this money for the kids. I don't want to hear fifty thousand, I want one hundred thousand, and I know one of you men has it in you to do it.”
There was a collective hum before the crowd went silent again.
“For my part of the deal, I'll double the pot: whoever wins gets to take his best buddy on the trip with him. But this time, the bids go up five thousand dollars.”
“Fifty thousand!” cried the bidder by the entrance.
A heavy hand clapped Seeley's shoulder. “If he was smart,” the voice said, “he'd offer to take the other bidder to the game. They could split the bid and the auction would be over. They'd each save themselves a bundle.”
Seeley turned and at once recognized the face, pale and moonlike behind rimless glasses, from the cover of a business magazine. Joel Warshaw's only arresting feature was his melting, almost liquid brown eyes, the kind that gets beagles extra pats on the head.
“Fifty-five!” came the cry from close to the stage.
Warshaw said, “You know the Bible story, half a baby is better than none.”
“If I remember right,” Seeley said, “it's half a loaf.” How deformed was the man's character that he would so profoundly mangle the point of the Old Testament story? “It's for charity.”
Warshaw shook his head. “Charity's no excuse for stupidity.” His hand touched Seeley's elbow. “Take a walk with me.”
Seeley followed Warshaw down the gravel path. It had grown dark while he was watching the auction, and spotlights mounted in the trees now illuminated the sculptures and the grounds. The saxophone was gone, and the only sound was an occasional roar from the auction tent. Warshaw bent to adjust a pink-ribboned stake, one of dozens planted every twenty feet or so along the periphery of the property. He was a round man, and the effort of bending and rising showed in his face. The business magazine story put Warshaw in his late thirties, but the unlined face made him look younger.
“Deer,” Warshaw said, wiping his hands on his trousers. “They knock the stakes over.” He continued on toward the trees, not turning to see if Seeley was following, but speaking to the void in front of him. “You're thinking, it's been five, ten years since this property was developed, why does he keep the construction stakes?”
Seeley had worked for self-absorbed men like this before, but never comfortably.
“If you don't mark your boundaries,” Warshaw said, “before you know it, you've lost your property lines and your neighbors are parking on your front lawn. Until the town fathers change the zoning and let me put up a fence, I have the gardener tie on new ribbons every spring.” He prodded a stake with a toe to straighten it. “Leonard tells me you think my patent claims are too broad.”
His claims, Seeley thought, not Vaxtek's or even Steinhardt's.
Warshaw said, “The claims are fine. St. Gall copied our invention. What's your assessment of the case?”
“Do you want my opinion, or are you going to tell me what it is?”
“I thought a lot about those claims.” They had arrived at the wooded edge of the property and Warshaw walked along it, checking the stakes. “Everyone thought I made a big jump, going from electronics to biotech. What they don't understand is, it's all the same: you build a company and you sell it. The AV/AS patent is what makes this company valuable, and the broader that patent is, the more I can sell the company for.”
The air was still, but there was a rustling in the shrubbery beneath the trees. Black eyes looked out and Seeley sensed, more than he saw, the presence of deer.
“You mean you want a monopoly.”
Warshaw turned and looked at Seeley.
“Call it whatever you want. It's my property. It's why I made the investment.”
“Broad claims are risky,” Seeley said. “Juries don't like monopolies.”
“Risk never bothered me. It's competition I don't like. If I wanted to compete, I'd be over there in the tent.”
A gust of air blew past them and a pair of arch-backed dogs, anorexically thin, flew into the trees. The deer scattered. When the dogs returned, they went to Warshaw's side.
“Your brother's a better listener than you are.” Warshaw bent to pet the dogs.
“Leonard's a fine salesman,” Seeley said.
“Let me show you my sculptures. Leonard tells me you represent artists.” Warshaw didn't wait for an answer but, as they walked in the direction of the house, lectured Seeley on each of the half-dozen pieces they passed. By the time they reached the terrace, guests were streaming out of the tent.
Renata was waiting for Seeley on the terrace, a full wineglass in her hand. “Asperger's syndrome,” she said when Warshaw was gone. “High-functioning autism. People like Joel are usually brilliant at one particular thing, but they don't have what the psychiatrists call social pragmatics. It's the only disease known to medicine whose symptoms are being rich and powerful.”
“And amoral.”
Renata thought for a moment. “I suppose that, too.”