CHAPTER THREE

Some people will swear life runs on coincidence. Is it true? If so,

here's one for the history books. It's the tale of an old flame. Before my
ex-wife Joanna, before my later ill-starred adventure with Donna Austen.
The lady's name was Tamara Richardson, and she was a professor at
New York University. When I knew her, though, she was merely an
assistant prof with a shiny new Ph.D. At any rate, she was fresh out of
Columbia's graduate school and very much starting out. I was too. Best I
can remember, we met shopping for green groceries at Balducci's, just
up Sixth Avenue from my place, and we saw each other a few times. It
had to be at least fifteen years (how time flies) since our brief episode.
Tam Richardson, however, was not easy to forget. There was a kind
of under-the-surface intensity about the woman that seemed always
close to the ignition point. When you were around her, you were always
worried somebody might accidentally light a match. However, she had
no shortage of men in her life, and eventually we each went our own
way. Ships that passed in the night. I never expected to hear of her
again.
Things didn't quite work out that way, however. She started getting
famous, as a thorn in the side of America's lackadaisical corporate
management. Somewhere along the line, Tam Richardson had taken it
upon herself to single-handedly kick some overpaid ass in America's
plush boardrooms, and she wasn't trying to win any popularity contests
doing it. She was the kid in the story who pointed out the emperor had
on no pants, while everybody else was claiming his tux was a great fit.
Guess you can't fire somebody in academia merely for saying what
everybody knows to be true but doesn't have the guts to verbalize.
Then about a year ago, I noticed a full-length profile of her
in an airline magazine spread about "America's New Achievers." No
escaping her. Between the lines, I got the definite impression she hadn't
really changed all that much over the years. She was around five seven,
high cheekbones, dark hair that looked like it could use a brush, and
eyes that made you think twice about giving her a lot of bullshit.
Reminded me of, say, the young Glenda Jackson with a heavy spike of
Debra Winger. For my money, though, she was just about ideal in the
female department. Trim bottom, nice little twist in her stride, just
enough cleavage to make you wonder. She didn't go out of her way to
advertise, but you figured the goods were on board. My recollection in a
nutshell? Tam Richardson was a better than average looker, damned
smart, and she knew no fear. None.
There was something about her, though, that always left people
puzzling. Where'd she come from? American, sure, but no way could
she have been corn-fed Midwest like her surname. The answer was, she
had a slightly more exotic, and probably painful, history than most of
us. Maybe that was part of the reason she always seemed to be a loner,
never went along with the crowd. The one time she'd tried that, it hadn't
worked. I got to know her well enough to hear a bit of the story, but I'd
sort of repressed the details.
Maybe I'd do well to come clean and admit I still thought about
Tam from time to time. What's more, I gleaned from the magazine piece
that she still lived right around the corner. Made me think briefly about
giving her a call, get together for a drink, the old days, etc. But I finally
decided I'd had enough high-spirited women for a while. Time to
mellow down. Why go looking for lightning in a bottle?
She'd always liked three things: good-looking men, telling the high
and mighty unpleasant truths, and interior design. Consequently it was
no great surprise that the magazine devoted a photo spread to her
rambling six-room apartment. The place was in one of those NYU-
owned buildings on the west side of Washington Square Park, and it
was definitely a knockout. She'd played off the old classic interior, a
generously proportioned thirties layout, turning it into an environment
that blended technology and design. Not for Tam, though, the utilitarian
"high-tech" look so trendy a few years back; no ugly "state of the art"
machines. It was eclectic—modernism here, deco there.
Take her library-office. I smiled when I noticed that next to the
latest IBM PC was a "streamlined" Raymond Loewy- designed calculator,
pure thirties. Same old Tam. On the other hand, just to keep it all from
getting too serious, she also had a collection of kitschy salt and pepper
shakers scattered among the books—a dog peeing against a hydrant, a
naked babe with spicy boobs . . . she told the writer it was her "tribute
to America."
The place was everything she was, a potpourri of the world, a
mishmash of styles, and she clearly loved it. I probably missed a good
half of the insider gags, this outrage up against that one, but I must say
she brought it off with appreciable elan. Truthfully the place was a
perfect reflection of the Tam I remembered—a woman who did her own
thing.
She was now, so it said, a full professor at the university.
Undoubtedly she deserved it. She was also director of their new Center
for Applied Technology, which she'd founded. When the interviewer
asked her which department the Center was under, she'd apparently
shrugged and said "certain people" at the university wanted to bring it in
under the School of Business. But the Center had outside funding, was
doing vital work, and she was darn well going to stay independent.
Whoops. That ballsy crack, although perfectly in character, meant
she was now giving the back of her hand to university politics.
Mouthing off in a national publication about some departmental power
play is no way to endear yourself to college deans. It lays bare all their
petty empire-building. Didn't seem to worry her, though; just like in the
old days, she said exactly what she was thinking and let the chips
tumble.
Her major occupation in recent years, as anybody who reads the op-
ed pages around the country knows, was to shame American executives
into getting off their duffs, to make them start diverting some of their
executive perks into the serious problem of getting this country
competitive again. She had plenty of ideas where the corporate-jet
money could be better invested. Over the years she'd knocked out half a
dozen books on technology and the American workplace—office
automation, computer-aided design in engineering, robots and com-
puter-integrated manufacturing, that kind of thing. Tam Richardson still
believed America could whip the world, but it would take more than
speeches and flag waving. Her latest expose of America's corporate fat
cats, which actually got a sidebar in the story, claimed they'd better start
cutting their million-dollar salaries and putting the money into creating
American jobs, or we'd all soon end up fetching coffee for the new
Pacific Rim dynamos and buying our goodies at East Asia's company
store.
Only she didn't bother to say it that nicely. Worse than that, the
book actually supplied a long list of America's more notoriously
overpaid CEOs. I suspect there were a lot of corporate contributors to
the university who'd just as soon seen her muzzled. Good luck, Tam.
Now the coincidence. The Saturday following my Friday night
episode with the inscrutable president of Nippon, Inc., an event
occurred that would soon bring Tam Richardson back into my life.
Random luck? Fate? Anybody's guess. As it turned out, however, while I
was on the phone leaving messages at country clubs for the building's
attorneys, a mere five blocks away from my place Dr. Tamara
Richardson was putting the final touches on preparations for an evening
dinner party—destined to throw us together again only weeks later.
The dinner was supposed to be strictly social, to celebrate the
beginning of her sabbatical—academic talk for a year off with three-
quarters pay. There were a few dinner debts to square away, so the
timing was perfect. She had several articles lined up; she'd finally axed a
stormy year-long affair with a colleague in Economics named David
Mason; and she was scheduled to begin a book on intelligent robots. She
was trying not to think too much about academic politics and the real
possibility her department chairman might consign her to some kind of
academic hyperspace, there to teach freshmen for the rest of her tenured
days.
By mid-afternoon she was down to the last-minute refinements on
the evening's plans. Since the overnight rain had purged the soot from
the air, she was feeling great. She put on a new Vangelis CD, worked a
few modern-dance moves into her routine as she cleared the loose books
out of the living room, and continued trying to convince herself that
breaking off with Dave Mason had been a smart move. After a while,
though, she wasn't humming anymore, just thinking. Okay, it had only
been a week, but why had she invited him to come to the dinner? Just to
be a good sport?
The thing about it was, they'd actually had a more or less
unspoken understanding not to inquire too closely into each other's
occasional little diversions. They were both adults, right? This time,
however, Dave had pushed it too far. He'd finally broken the rules,
bringing one of his admiring grad students up to the apartment—her
apartment. She bumped into them coming down in the elevator, and
this one was a prize—stage makeup, bleached hair, the works.
Out of bounds. She'd nailed him right there in her marble lobby:
you want to bang some Queens debutante, you'd better not be doing it
here. This place is my home. She then told him to pack. The apartment
was hers, and she wanted all signs of him out by Monday.
Then she'd invited him back for the dinner. Why? Could Humpty-
Dumpty be put back together again? Crack eggs, make an omelet . . .
she half smiled at the odd way your mind connects absurdities when
you're a little overworked. . . .
That was when the phone rang.
Was it Dave, dropping out at the last minute to prove he could still
piss her off, one more time? She headed for the kitchen, so she could at
least chop some veggies while they argued for half an hour on the
phone.
It wasn't Dave. Instead it was a scratchy old voice, one she loved.
Shouting into a cell phone at Kennedy was Allan Stern, who announced
in his staccato tones that he'd just stepped off a JAL flight fresh from
some conference in Tokyo. He had to see her tonight.
"Tonight?" When it rains, it pours, she thought. "Allan, I'd love to,
but I'm having some people in from school . . . What? . . . Well, sure,
nothing that special . . . Allan, I adore you dearly, but you wouldn't
know any of the . . . Okay, okay . . . Can you get down by eight?"
"See you then, Tamara. You're a dear."
Stern was an old, old friend, and a guy everybody in the country
had probably heard of vaguely. Any freshman in computer science could
tell you he was one of the unofficial founders of the field known as
artificial intelligence, now usually shortened to "AI." As it happened, she
had convinced him the previous spring that they ought to collaborate on
a book about the growing use of smart robots in the workplace, but for
some reason his input had never made it past the talking stage. She'd
decided just to go ahead on her own with the writing.
Well, she thought, maybe he's decided to pitch in after all. Great.
That would mean it might be adopted for a lot of college courses. Allan
had plenty of respectability with the establishment.
 He was probably the closest friend she had, her mentor almost.
They went back to a Denver conference fifteen years agp, when he'd
stood up in a session and challenged the conclusion of the very first
paper she ever gave, though he'd come in midway through. Even then
he had been a powerhouse in Washington, chairing one of the technical
committees that reviewed federal grant applications submitted by
university researchers. The inside talk on campuses was: love him or
hate him, but think twice before you cross the opinionated bastard.
She was so mad she didn't care. She had sidled up to him at the
coffee break and introduced herself, saying what an honor it was to meet
a scholar so highly regarded, a man whose reputation was so well
established. He nodded in absent acknowledgment, sipped at his
Styrofoam cup, and stared over her shoulder. She then proceeded to
advise the celebrated Allan Stern that he'd missed the whole thrust of
her talk, which she'd explained in the introduction, and furthermore—
judging from the data at hand—he struck her as a pompous asshole.
Such forthrightness, which was entirely new to Dr. Allan Stern's
sheltered existence, so astonished him he apologized on the spot. By
week's end he was trying to recruit her out to Stanford. He still was.
Allan was always punctual, to the minute, and that Saturday night
was no exception. The doorman downstairs announced him at eight
sharp. When she met him at the elevator, her first impression was he
looked a trifle worn down. America's foremost futurist was gaunt, as
always, but his trademark shock of white hair streamed over a lined face
that was more than usually haggard. His hard eyes, which could bore
through screw-off Congressional staffers like a pair of Black & Decker
drills, were actually bloodshot. In short, the man looked awful. Then
she remembered he'd just come in on the 747 directly from Narita. Into
the teeth of the latest baggage-handlers' slowdown at Kennedy. Give the
poor old guy a break.
She made him a drink and then asked, "Okay, Allan, what's up?"
"Later, Tamara. It's a long story." With which he lapsed silent. Very
out of character.
About then everybody else started coming up, reasonably on time
since Tam was known far and wide to hate the concept of "fashionably
late." Also, she was a great cook. Bottles of bargain wine with the prices
scraped off collected on the table in the foyer, and coats amassed in the
second bedroom. Given that everybody knew everybody, it was mostly
elbow patches and open collars. Only the women had bothered to dress.
Simpson from Computer Science, whose wife worked in Admissions;
Gail Wallace from Business, whose pudgy, skirt- chasing husband had
guided two companies into bankruptcy; Alice and Herman Knight, who
both taught in Economics (she was dean of the undergraduate college)
and published as a team; Kabir Ali from Mathematics and his
browbeaten little Iranian wife Shirin who seemed frightened of the
world—and her husband. Only Dave had the nerve to be late and hold
things up.
While they waited, they knocked off a little Scotch and white wine,
trashed the administration, and complained about all the committees on
which they were being pressured to serve. Around a quarter to nine
Dave finally appeared, sandy curls askew to let her know where he'd
been. She didn't even bother offering him a drink, just announced that
everything was ready so let's adjourn to the dining room.
There're two kinds of dinners: ones that follow the rules, and ones
that break them all. Tarn's were the latter. This time it would be real
tallow candles and everybody's wine, including her own. Somehow her
craziness always seemed to click; they inevitably came back for more.
This time she'd decided to pay an offhand tribute to autumn and
American cuisine. Cheddar cheese soup, marinated Ottomanelli's quail
broiled with fresh sage, sweet potato fritters and baby peas, homemade
corn bread, and then, as a change of pace (keep 'em off balance), an
endive salad spiked with coriander. Dessert was an apple- walnut
casserole, washed down with pots of McNulty's dark Haitian coffee. At
the end she produced an ancient cognac you could inhale forever. By
eleven-thirty everybody thought they'd just ascended to paradise.
She ordered Dave to take care of the dishes (since he'd
been acting as if he owned the place, let him help), then led everybody
back into the living room. In the park below the weather was perfect,
and marijuana sales were in overdrive. A couple of joints also appeared
around the room, accompanied by withering glares from Allan. Then,
while Ed Wallace was chatting up Shirin and everybody else was
drinking and smoking, Allan picked up his cognac and motioned her in
the direction of the study.
Finally, she thought. This must be some story.
She was right.
It wasn't her book he wanted to discuss. Instead, he wanted to tell
her about what he'd just seen, and not seen, in Tokyo.
"Loved dinner." He settled into a leather chair, the one next to her
long bookcase, and drained his snifter. "I was afraid I was turning into a
fish over there." He laughed, but only briefly. Social hour was over.
"Tam, I wanted to ask you if you could maybe help me out with
something."
"What do you have in mind?"
"Well, you know I've always thought I was on top of what Tokyo is
doing, but now I'm not so sure anymore. I'm afraid things are starting to
get away from me."
"Such as?"
"Okay. Now, it's no secret I've been to Japan a lot. I've got my share
of friends over there, people I respect and admire very much. But this
trip started to get very strange. It's as though I'm suddenly an outsider.
Just another gaijin. I'm puzzled, and I wonder if maybe I ought to be
worried."
Gaijin. That sounds familiar, she thought. But it wasn't something
that usually bothered Allan. She brushed her brown hair back out of her
eyes and studied him. He'd never been more serious.
"What happened?"
He paused. "You know about their big artificial intelligence effort,
called the Fifth Generation Project. If it goes the way they're saying,
before too much longer they'll have programs, software, to design the
next generation of computer technology. "
This was supposed to be news? Come on, Allan. Everybody knew. It
was the talk of the industry. Japan's goal was computer logic capable of
replicating human thought processes, a monumental, maybe impossible,
undertaking.
"Allan, don't you remember we discussed doing a chapter on it in
the robotics book? And if you—"
"Tamara, bear with me. You also know very well that project is
Japan's attempt to leapfrog American technology. Added together with
all their R&D on chip technology. In my opinion, by the way, our
response is definitely too little, too late. More and more we're having to
buy essential components for missile guidance systems from Japan. The
Department of Defense is already nervous, but not nervous enough. We
may have dug our own grave. And now I think our worst fears may be
about to come true. Something funny seems to be happening, only I'm
not sure what."
"What do you mean?"
"Let me close that door." He got up and did so, then turned back.
"Maybe first I ought to tell you about the odd experience I had last
week."