Opportunity Knocks

The car ride from their condo to Dulles airport was silent. Elizabeth was peeved at her husband. She had given him several rounds of great sex last night to send him off on his overseas trip but he always wanted more, and he was older than she was. She was also mad about this trip. It seemed so unnecessary. Was he being completely truthful about its purpose?

After sliding through several traffic lights as they went from yellow to pink her husband wheeled into the departures lane heading for his airline’s drop-off door she said, “You’re flying all the way to South Africa just to talk to this guy? Couldn’t you call him?”

“Elizabeth, don’t we want to grow this business as fast as possible?” Randall Clark exhaled. “This guy says he can help us make that happen, besides, he’s a face-to-face guy.”

“Who is this character?” Elizabeth asked.

“A South African…Tielman Parmalea, I used to work with him.”

As the crawling lane of cars inched ahead, Clark spotted a single open parking space, tromped on the gas, cut out of his lane and squealed into the space.

“Really?” Elizabeth groaned as exited the front passenger side, her abbreviated skirt riding up even further and walked to the trunk.

He leaned toward her, “When I get back, we’ll pick up where we left off last night.

“If you come back with some manners.”

He pulled his bags out of the trunk and handed the car keys to his wife. “By the way, I like that skirt, what there is of it.”

Elizabeth took the keys and rolled her eyes at him. Walking back toward the driver’s door, she called out, “I hope this trip is worth it.”

Clark continued walking without looking back.

<<< >>>

Randall Clark was the founder and President of Pyramid Software. Elizabeth Barrett Clark, his wife, was the Vice-President of Marketing.

They met at TechXchange, the software industry’s most important convention where vendors’ booths incubate gossip, job offers, and deals. At that time Clark was married to someone else, but anxious to, as he told it, ‘upgrade to a newer model.’

Elizabeth was the marketing director at a small software company called BlackCore. Unable to get attention for her product in the marketplace based on its technical merits, she had her photo taken in a little black dress and splashed it on every piece of advertising the company produced. BlackCore now had the busiest booth at every show. To her longtime friends this was no surprise. At Dartmouth, the brilliant brunette was called GT, for Good Times, Barrett.

When they married, she’d kept her last name telling Clark she’d built it into a brand, citing her many marketing awards. He figured it was a hedge in case things didn’t work out.

<<< >>>

Clark boarded his South African Airways flight to Johannesburg. Today, he was seated in the upper cabin of the 747 where there were only two seats in a row. Settling in, he put his larger bag in the overhead and kept the smaller bag under the seat in front of him.

“With the seasons reversed south of the equator, it’ll be great to have some relief from this Virginia heat,” the passenger in the window seat next to Clark said.

“Yes,” Clark answered, keeping it brief to discourage a potentially chatty row mate.

“May I hang your jacket?” Clark heard the flight attendant say.

Turning his head to look at her, he said, “Yes, ma’am.”

Taking it, she added, “Would you like a beverage?”

He smiled, eyeing her from head to toe, God how he loved a woman in heels.

“Double Dewers with a twist neat, please.”

Clark wanted to flirt, but for now, he needed to focus on his meeting with Tielman Parmalea.

Parmalea was a South African software developer that Clark knew from his days as the Name-IT Software territory manager for Africa and the Middle East. Parmalea had recently contacted him claiming to have developed technology that would make its owner rich. That got Clark’s attention.

The flight to Johannesburg connected with a flight to Mauritius. Parmalea had insisted they meet offshore, the secrecy both irritating Clark and heightening his curiosity.

Arriving in Johannesburg, Clark walked briskly to the boarding lounge for his connection. In the waiting area, he spotted Parmalea. Per Parmalea’s instructions, they didn’t acknowledge each other. When the flight was called, both boarded and sat several rows apart.

Landing at Port Louis, each taxied separately to the Paradise Cove hotel. They had agreed to meet in Parmalea’s room in an hour.

Clark called the front desk. “Would you please connect me to Mr. Parmalea’s room?”

“Yes sir,” the pleasant voice said, “right away.”

Several rings later Clark heard, “Hello.”

“It’s me Randall, what’s your room number?”

“214,” said Parmalea.

“See you in ten minutes.” Clark heard the phone disconnect. He picked up his room key and headed to Parmalea’s.

Clark knocked, and waited, sure he was being eyeballed during the long pause. Finally, the door opened.

Parmalea, holding onto the door handle said, “Welcome to Mauritius. It’s good to see you again, my friend.”

Clark stepped in. The room was warm. The air-conditioning had not done its job yet.

Parmalea closed the door, his shirt partially unbuttoned.

Clark walked toward a round table that faced the window.

Parmalea stepped over to a small desk near the wall opposite the bed. Clark’s eyes followed him. He pulled the silver stopper from an ornate dark blue bottle, spread open his partially unbuttoned shirt and splashed a few shakes toward each armpit. “I perspire a lot when I’m tense.”

Clark turned and looked out the window afraid he’d lose it and blow the meeting. He’d seen Parmalea do this before in a car, pull a cologne bottle from the center console, spread open his suit jacket and douse his armpits. Regaining his composure Clark turned around.

“It’s hot here,” Parmalea said, walking to a long narrow sideboard laden with two bottles of whisky, several glasses and a bucket of ice. “Drink?”

“We’re celebrating?”

“Maybe.”

“I hope this is worth all the secrecy.”

Parmalea put two glasses full of ice on the table. Then he poured whisky to the brim of each, sat down, took a long pull from his then clunked down his glass and rubbed his beefy palms together. “You know, I heard how you got the money to start Pyramid.”

“You did?” The statement made Clark uncomfortable.

“Selling the same software cartridge over and over to several companies when you weren’t supposed to be selling products in South Africa and using a pirated password to keep the software active.”

Clark was silent. For some reason, the truth bothered him.

“So you were the first one I thought of when I perfected this because you Americans always want the same thing… more.”

Clark’s head cocked, his back arched, his patience already tested. “In America we all don’t have swimming pools and live within five miles of Disneyland. My Dad was a milkman. I watched his route shrink every year no matter how hard he worked so… I’m not one to miss an opportunity.”

“This is an opportunity to be sure. One that comes along only once in a Blue Moon.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Not so fast,” Parmalea said, lifting his glass, taking another long pull, setting it down and looking out the large window toward the beach.

Clark looked in the same direction. “If we finish before sunset we can check out the ladies at the beach, it’s topless here.”

Parmalea wiped his brow with a napkin, the air conditioning not keeping his bulk cool enough. “You always used to say, ‘you have to make me the best deal.’ Now it’s your turn.”

“What am I buying?” Clark said.

Parmalea re-mopped his brow then folded over the napkin, “Remember during apartheid, when we South Africans couldn’t buy any technology products from the western countries?

“Sure. It was a profitable time for me.”

“We still had big businesses to run. So we’d deal with people like you, who’d steal what we needed.”

“I like to think I performed a valuable service to the business community,” Clark said.

“Service to yourself, lining your pockets,” Parmalea huffed.

“I started thinking that maybe there was a better way. And funny enough, one day I thought, what if I could find a way to take any compiled software program and reverse the compile so I could see how it was built and duplicate the functionality rather than creating it from scratch.”

“That’s impossible. You can’t read code once it’s been compiled. Everyone knows that.”

“Not any more. When I wanted to see how a program was built, I used my tool to look inside and see how it was built. It saved me lots of time. I used it a few times when I had big contracting assignments for South African banks, perfecting it a little more each time. They never knew.”

“You’re serious?”

Parmalea bit his lower lip and nodded.

Clark was doubtful. “Let’s see if I understand this. Using your invention, I could, say, look at a competitor’s product and see how it’s constructed, then duplicate it. Not exactly, but close and with almost identical functionality, just changing a few features to make things look a little different.”

“Exactly.”

“So just like that,” Clark snapped his fingers, “I’d be a serious player in the market.”

“You got it. But, you can’t license it. I intend to charge for each use of this service.”

He may be a slob but he’s not stupid, Clark mused.

“I can see how this could be useful,” Clark said. “With access to this, I could research which software product segment was the most profitable, then see who was the market leader in that space and go to work on making their life miserable and mine profitable.”

“It’ll be cash up front each time I run it, Parmalea said. No banks, no wire transfers, and no records. If you’re interested,”

“You’re not making this easy.”

“I’m going to make you rich, or some one else if you don’t take me up on this. I can afford to have conditions attached.”

“How do I know you won’t run it for other people? I’d want an exclusive on this.” Clark said.

“I won’t because I know you and no one else I know is like you.” He took a drink from his half-empty glass. “You look honest, but you’re not.”

Strangely, Clark felt complimented.

“It’ll make you all the money you ever wanted. Nothing like this has ever been done before, I’m sure.”

“How do we start?” Clark asked.

“Like I said, it’s pay-per-use. I keep the program here, so I have control. When you want access, you send me a copy of the cartridge you want,” Parmalea paused, “analyzed.”

“I like your choice of words,” Clark said.

“You’ll recoup my fees many times over.”

“That’s called return on investment,” Clark said.

“But,” Parmalea said, “This genie won’t go back in the bottle. That’s why I need to charge enough so I won’t have to work anymore,” he shook his head. “In fact, I won’t be able to work anymore.”

“Why’s that?”

“People will be after me. They’ll try to take it from me. I’ll have to disappear.”

Clark sipped his whisky. People after Parmalea? If anyone got close, they’d be cologne bombed. “I’m all for NOT sharing. Let’s talk price.”

“Ah price, that is determined by me, depending on the length and complexity of the software you want my little program to decode and my estimation of your profit potential. We both know the market leader can charge whatever they like because they have the product that people believe they have to have.”

Clark grimaced.

Parmalea took another long pull on his drink and still holding his glass said, “And remember, if I green light this and you get greedy, it’s over--for both of us.”