“I’ve good news,” she said. “My brother is delighted with the idea of paying tenants in the old mill building, but he insisted that we will not pay for any improvements. That will have to be up to Omni.”
“Fair enough,” Edward said. He picked up his glass in preparation for another toast. He had to nudge Stanton, who was momentarily lost in thought. “To Omni and to Ultra,” Edward said. They all drank.
“This is how I think we should set the company up,” Stanton said as soon as he put his glass down. ‘ We’ll capitalize with four and a half million and value the stock at ten dollars a share. Out of the four hundred and fifty thousand shares we’ll each hold one hundred and fifty thousand, leaving one hundred and fifty thousand for future financing and for attracting the best people by offering some equity. If Ultra turns out to be anything like it’s been described tonight, each share of the stock will end up being ungodly valuable.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Edward said, raising his wineglass yet again. They all clinked their glasses and drank, particularly Edward, who found himself enjoying the wine selection he’d made. He’d never had better white wine, and he took a moment to savor its vanilla bouquet and slightly apricot finish.
After the dinner was over and goodbyes had been said, Kim and Edward climbed into Edward’s car in the restaurant’s parking lot.
“If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to skip the walk in the square,” Edward said.
“Oh?” Kim questioned. She was mildly disappointed. She was also surprised, but then the whole evening had been a surprise. She’d not expected Edward to have been willing to take an evening off, and on top of that, his behavior had been exceptional from the moment he’d picked her up.
“There’s some phone calls I’d like to make,” Edward said.
“It’s after ten,” Kim reminded him. “Isn’t it a little late to be calling people?”
“Not on the West Coast,” Edward said. “There’s a couple of people at UCLA and Stanford who I’d like to see on the Omni staff.”
“I gather you are excited about this business venture,” Kim commented.
“I’m ecstatic,” Edward said. “My intuition told me I was onto something important the moment I learned we’d stumbled onto three previously unknown alkaloids. I just didn’t know it was going to be this big.”
“Aren’t you a little worried about the participation agreement you signed with Harvard?” Kim asked. “I’ve heard about similar situations leading to serious trouble in this town, like during the 1980s, when academia and industry became much too cozy.”
“It’s a problem I will leave to the lawyers,” Edward said.
“I don’t know,” Kim said, unconvinced. “Whether lawyers are involved or not, it could affect your academic career.” Knowing how much Edward valued teaching, Kim was worried that his sudden entrepreneurial enthusiasm was clouding his better judgment.
“It’s a risk,” Edward admitted. “But I’m more than willing to take it. The opportunity Ultra offers is a once-in-a-lifetime proposition. It’s a chance to make a mark in this world and to earn some real money while doing it.”
“I thought you said you weren’t interested in becoming a millionaire,” Kim said.
“I wasn’t,” Edward said. “But I hadn’t thought about becoming a billionaire. I didn’t realize the stakes were that high.”
Kim wasn’t sure there was that much difference, but she didn’t say anything. It was an ethical question that she didn’t feel like debating at the moment.
“I’m sorry about making the suggestion of converting the Stewart stables to a lab without discussing it with you beforehand,” Edward said. “It’s not like me to blurt something like that out on the spur of the moment. I guess the excitement of talking with Stanton got the best of me.”
“Your apology is accepted,” Kim said. “Besides, my brother was intrigued with the idea. I suppose the rent will be helpful in paying the taxes on the property. They’re astronomical.”
“One nice thing is that the stables are far enough away from the cottage so the lab’s presence won’t bother us,” Edward said.
They turned off Memorial Drive and headed into the quiet, residential back streets of Cambridge. Edward pulled into his parking spot and turned off the engine. Then he hit his forehead with the palm of his hand.
“Stupid me,” he said. “We should have driven back to your place to get your things.”
“You want me to stay tonight?”
“Of course,” Edward said. “Don’t you want to?”
“You’ve been so busy lately,” Kim said. “I didn’t know what to expect.”
“If you stay it will make heading up to Salem in the morning that much easier,” Edward said. “We can get an early start.”
“You definitely want to go?” Kim asked. “I had the sense you won’t want to take the time.”
“I do now that we are siting Omni there,” Edward said. He restarted the car and backed out. “Let’s go back and get you a change of clothes. Of course that’s assuming you want to stay-which I hope you do.” He smiled broadly in the half-light.
“I suppose,” Kim said. She was feeling indecisive and anxious without knowing exactly why.
8
Saturday, July 30, 1994
Kim and Edward did not get an early start as Edward had suggested the night before. Instead Edward had spent half the morning on the phone. First he’d called Kim’s contractor and architect about expanding the work at the compound to include the new lab. They’d agreed with alacrity and offered to meet at the compound at eleven. Next Edward had called a series of representatives of laboratory equipment manufacturers and scheduled them to show up at the same time as the contractor and architect.
After a quick call to Stanton to be sure the money he’d promised would be immediately forthcoming, Edward phoned a series of people whom he wanted to consider recruiting for Omni’s professional staff. Edward and Kim did not get into the car for the drive north until well after ten.
By the time Edward parked in front of the stables in the Stewart compound there was a small crowd of people waiting. They had all introduced themselves, so Edward was spared the task. Instead he waved for them to gather by the padlocked sliding door.
The building was a long, single-story stone structure with infrequent windows set high under the eaves. Since the terrain fell off sharply toward the river, the back was two stories, with separate entrances to each stall on the lower level.
Kim tried multiple keys before finding the correct one to open the heavy padlock. After sliding it open, everyone entered what was the ground floor from the front and the second story from the rear.
The interior was a huge, undivided long room with a cathedral ceiling. On the rear side of the building there were multiple shuttered openings. One end of the room was filled with bales of hay.
“At least the demolition will be easy,” George said.
“This is perfect,” Edward said. “My idea of a lab is one big space so that everyone interfaces with everyone else.”
The stairway leading down to the lower level was constructed of rough-hewn oak and pegged together with dowels an inch in diameter. Downstairs they found a long hall with stalls to the right and tack rooms to the left.
Kim tagged along and listened to the plans to convert the barn rapidly into a state-of-the-art biological and pharmacological laboratory. Downstairs there were to be quarters for a menagerie of experimental animals including rhesus monkeys, mice, rats, and rabbits. There was also to be space for tissue-and bacterial-culture incubators along with containment facilities. And finally there were to be specially shielded rooms for the NMR and X-ray crystallography.
The upstairs would house the main laboratory space as well as a shielded, air-conditioned room for a large mainframe computer. Every laboratory bench would have its own terminal. To power all the electronic equipment a huge electrical service would be brought in.