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, since he didn’t think of himself as having a home in the usual sense. I believe his high school principal made a few calls. Everybody knew he was special, you knew it the moment you met him. Different, but special. I can’t really explain it, but he was.”
“You’re doing fine, Mr. Bing. I’m getting the picture. The victim—excuse me, Joseph Keener—was brilliant but socially inept.”
Jack has been waiting to drop a particular bomb ever since he heard from Alice, earlier in the day. Good stuff, and he happily decides to make use of it. “How did he happen to meet that Chinese girlfriend of his, do you know?”
Bing appears stunned by the question, maybe even a little hurt. As if he’d been under the impression that he and Jack were becoming quite chummy, and a question like that was simply out of bounds.
“Chinese girlfriend?” Bing says. “No, I don’t think so. I seriously doubt that. Joe didn’t have a girlfriend that I know of. Chinese or any other kind. No, no, no.”
“I thought maybe you put them together.”
Bing puts a small hand to his heart. “Me? Why would you think that?”
“You know lots of beautiful women, Mr. Bing. Maybe Joe was at one of your, um, gatherings, and you introduced him to a lady, something like that.”
“Because you think he had a Chinese girlfriend, I had to be involved? I’m insulted.”
“No insult intended. I mean, where else would Keener have had the opportunity to cross paths with such an exotic beauty? I’m sure it was quite innocent. A social occasion, two people meet who happen to have you in common. No big deal. Not insult worthy.”
Bing keeps shaking his head, disturbing the emo bang, and looks, for a brief moment, something like his age. “No, no, no. Never happened.”
“So you wouldn’t know about the baby they had? A five-year-old?”
“Definitely, I am now insulted.” Bing studies his small hands, examining his beautifully buffed nails. He seems to have recovered his aplomb. “Someone has given you bad information, Mr. Delancey. That is the only explanation. As far as I know, Joe Keener never had an actual relationship with a woman, or with anybody, really. Not that kind of relationship.”
“It doesn’t take a relationship to father a child,” Jack points out.
Jonny Bing laughs, a little too sharply. “Believe me, I know that! But seriously, someone has been pulling your leg. Not Joe. No way.”
“Okay,” says Jack, letting it go for the time being. “What about enemies, threats, anything of that nature? Something connected with QuantaGate, perhaps?”
Bing thinks about it. “I’m the prime investor, but that doesn’t mean I have anything to do with the day-to-day operations. Quite the opposite. Still, I would know if there was anything to be concerned about. Corporate espionage is always a worry, but those types steal information—trade secrets and so on—they don’t kill.”