Victor sighed. “Russ, this cop’s playing you. He doesn’t have any authority to use what you say.”

“I think I gave Ben everything I owe him.” Russell faced Frames. “Okay, here’s Ben Thackrey. Graduates Stanford in three years. Starts a company called StreetBox—grows 600 percent in two years—sells it for forty million. Starts another company, BluFish. Runs a public offering in the middle of the 2002 recession, when no one is putting money anywhere, finds a pool of investors. That’s where Vic and I come in.”

“You worked for him?” Frames asked.

“Work?” Russell laughed. “We’re running fifteen, twenty hours a day. Sleeping on cots in the break room. Pizza for breakfast. But it’s worth it to be around Ben. He’s in his element. He’s this kid, literally a kid, in front of a roomful of programmers, drawing diagrams on a whiteboard. He’s got…vision. The product launches massive. Everybody wants a piece. Three years in, and the company’s got fifteen hundred employees, offices in Milan, Beijing, Mumbai. But Ben’s bored. Makes one call to Yahoo and sells the whole thing. Turns twenty-four, he’s worth four hundred million. Flies us to Macao for his birthday.”

“I get it, the guy’s rich.”

Russell shrugged. “The thing is, it’s not really the money. Ben’s fun to be around. He can make stuff. You say, it’d be cool if we could do something, a couple days later he has a program. It’s like he invents his world. And he could be the sweetest, most generous guy in the world. Four years ago, he helped me out of depression. Literally kept me alive. I owe him everything for that.”

Holland looked across the room, focusing on Frames. “What the fuck?”

Frames saluted him. “Russell here coldcocked you. Take a few minutes. It’ll all come back.”

“So here’s a question.” Frames sat back on his stool and looked at Russell. “How’d your boy Thackrey get from doing startups to carrying a dead body through a park?”

“After BluFish, there’re more companies—NetPort, Stinger, Drift. All of them hit big. At some point, Ben’s no longer just an entrepreneur. He’s the face of something. People in Silicon Valley discover it’s good to have Ben on your side. He’s invited everywhere. He’s a celebrity, known for just being Ben Thackrey.”

“That’s when women play a larger part in his life. Thackrey always dated beautiful girls, even at Stanford. Once he becomes a celebrity, he moves in a new orbit. He meets wealthy women, a lot of them smart in their own rights. But Ben’s easily bored. He’s already smart. Why’s he need more smartness? He’s always looking for something else. Something he can’t find. He’s addicted to adrenaline. He’s like a shark moving through the water, picking up women, dumping them.