Herbie Fisher sat in his office, speed-reading files. His secretary buzzed. “Mark Hayes on line one for you.”
Hayes was one of Herbie’s clients, an important one. He ran High Cotton Ideas, a hot software company.
“Good morning, Mark.”
“Good morning, Herb. I have a problem I haven’t been faced with before, and when I have a problem like that, I always come to you.”
“How can I help, Mark?”
“One of my top programmers has disappeared, and I’m concerned.”
“Concerned for his safety or concerned about the work he did?”
“He didn’t show up for work for a couple of days, and he wasn’t responding to phone calls or e-mails, so I sent somebody to his apartment to see if he was there. It was empty, and there were painters at work. Turned out that his lease had expired and he had moved out, but nobody knows where. This morning I got an e-mail from him. It reads: ‘I resign. I’ll let you know where to send my final paycheck.’ That’s it.”
“You didn’t respond to my question about the work he did. Are you afraid he might have gone to a competitor and taken your intellectual property with him?”
“That’s a possibility.”
“Did he have a contract?”
“Yes, I recently promoted him and gave him a big raise. You wrote his contract.”
“What’s his name?”
“Jimmy Chang. He’s Chinese-American, born in this country.”
“Hang on a second,” Herbie said. He pressed the hold button and buzzed his secretary. “Please bring me the executed contract for a Jimmy Chang, at High Cotton.” He pressed line one again. “How long did he work for you, Mark?”
“Nearly three years. He was one of the first dozen people I hired. At first, he was just writing code, but he moved up quickly.”
“Did he have any company stock?” High Cotton was about to go public.
“He did, but like a lot of employees, not as much as he thought he was entitled to.”
“What will his stock be worth at the opening of your IPO?”
“About a million and a half dollars, but who knows? It could double that day.”
“How much was he being paid?”
“He started at seventy-five thousand. He was making half a million when he resigned.”
Herbie’s secretary walked in and handed him the contract.
“I’ve got the contract,” Herbie said, leafing through it. “I remember this one. His attorney asked for some minor changes that you agreed to, but if he leaves the company, he has to give you three months’ notice, and if he leaves during that time and you continue to pay him, he can’t work for anyone else. He also has a non-disclosure clause that prevents him from divulging any of your proprietary information to a new employer. How do you pay him?”
“All salaries are electronically transferred to employees’ bank accounts.”
“Then continue to pay him, to hold up your end of the contract. I’ll write to his lawyer and ask him to remind his client of his contractual obligations and to go and see you immediately. I think we should also start trying to locate him now.”
“Do you know someone who can do that?” Mark asked.
“I do,” Herbie said, “someone very good. I have to divulge to you that I have a personal relationship with this woman.”
“I’m not troubled by that,” Mark said.
“All right, I need you to e-mail me his original employment application and any letters of recommendation you received.”
“It wasn’t much of an application at that time, but you revised it, and I asked everybody to complete the new form, so I’ll send you both.”
“Was he married?”
“No, but he had a girlfriend who seemed to be living with him.”
“Her name?”
“Jasmine. I can’t remember a last name.”
“Okay, shoot me the information I asked for, and I’ll get the investigator on it right now. She may need to get in touch with you. Her name is Harp O’Connor, and don’t call her Harpie or Harpo.”
“Thanks, Herb.”
“Glad to be of help. I’ll get back to you as soon as I hear something.” Herbie hung up and dialed Harp’s cell number.
“Speak to me, Herb,” she said.
“I’ve got you a skip tracer job for a very important client. Can you start right now?”
“I’ll have to make a few calls, but I can start in half an hour. Give me the rundown.”
Herbie described his conversation with Mark Hayes. “I’ll e-mail you his employment application, any letters of recommendation, his contract, and the name and address of his attorney.”
“What do you want me to do when I find him?”
Herbie liked it that she said, “when,” and not “if.” “If he’s in town, I want to see him, face-to-face, at the earliest possible moment. If he’s in Silicon Valley or anywhere else, I’ll send you to talk with him. At the very least, I want to talk to him on the phone.”
“Gotcha. As soon as I make my calls and get his documents, I’ll hit the pavement. See you tonight?”
They had seen each other nearly every night since they had met, and she had slept at his apartment most of them. “You may be too busy,” he said. “We’ll talk. Bye.”
“Bye.”
They both hung up. Now, Herbie thought, I’m going to find out whether she’s as good as she says she is.