The Last Equation of Isaac Severy(25)

“I’ll try better next time.”

Philip was wondering if he was about to be suckered into explaining his work to an inquisitive dilettante, when she stuck out her hand. “Nellie Stone. I work for Mr. Lyons.”

“Lyons.” Caught off guard, he took her hand. “You work for P. Booth Lyons?”

“That’s right. He sent me to make sure you received his note.”

“Maybe he should have come himself.”

She turned her head so that she eyed him through a single teardrop lens. “Mr. Lyons is very busy.”

“Naturally.”

“And he hates telephones. He prefers in-person introductions.”

“Phone Booth hates phones, huh?” he said, but added quickly, “I didn’t realize I had so little time to respond before he released the hounds.”

“Just one hound.” She attempted a smile again, but it looked like a grimace.

“It’s just that Lyons was very aggressive in trying to get ahold of my father. And now that my father’s gone, I’m not looking to inherit your employer’s enthusiastic attentions.”

She produced a card from her case. “We’re based back east, but we have feelers out here. I’ve written our California contact on the back—my direct line. Mr. Lyons would like you to join him for lunch on Sunday.”

Philip looked at the card, which featured their logo, the familiar brain-spiral.

“I’m afraid I’m busy.”

“I understand you don’t work Sundays.”

“I’m not a schoolteacher, Ms. Stone.”

“I was only suggesting—”

“—and I don’t plan on meeting your boss for lunch,” he said, handing back the card. “If I did, it would be at my convenience.”

“Keep it,” she insisted. “Do what you like with it.”

Philip slipped the card into his pocket. “Look, I know you’re doing your job, but I’m not all that eager to meet someone who’s looking to profit from my father’s death.”

“So you’re saying there might be something to profit from?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

Her face relaxed for a moment, losing some of its sharpness. “I realize your father only just passed away, Mr. Severy, and I apologize for the graceless sense of urgency here, but—”

“Graceless is a good word.”

“—but Mr. Lyons would like to meet you for lunch all the same, after which you may cut off all contact. I should add that he has excellent taste in food. You won’t be disappointed.”

“And can I ask what it is Mr. Lyons does?”

“Government-scholar relations. It’s on the card.”

Philip tried to keep a straight face. “Sounds a bit vague, doesn’t it? Like the Institute for Progress or something.”

“I’m not familiar with that organization, but I’m sure Mr. Lyons can address all your concerns.”

Still wanting a straight answer, Philip said, “He’s a kind of intermediary, then?”

“That’s right.” She gave him a wink and neatly swiveled on one heel. “Hope to hear from you soon, Mr. Severy. Have a good night.”

Philip was too annoyed to respond. It seemed yet another small humiliation that someone had come to his lecture only to seek out some phantom project from his departed father. As he watched her tip-tapping to the exit, he felt an intense craving for a cigarette and a martini. He was just thinking he might indulge in the latter without any serious repercussions, when he turned around and saw Anitka standing there.

*

The Hayman Lounge was Philip’s go-to watering hole, which, aside from the game room in the basement, was the only place on campus to get a real drink. The lounge occupied a single room on the Athenaeum Club’s main floor, and was tastefully decorated with framed portraits of Caltech’s Nobel laureates. Philip had long ago picked out the spot on the wall where he decided his own picture would appear—between physicist Richard Feynman and quark pioneer Murray Gell-Mann—and he habitually glanced at the space every time he entered the lounge. But one wins a Nobel Prize for measurable results, not pretty math, and it was going to be some years before a string theorist was invited to dine with the king of Sweden.

The lounge was empty when Philip and Anitka sat down at the bar at six thirty, but within an hour, the surrounding tables had filled with club members and a group of employees from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who were loudly discussing a NASA budget crunch. The more Philip drank, the louder the JPL people became.

Anitka suggested they move to the quieter end of the bar. Philip agreed, though he tried not to look too disturbed with the intimacy of their new spot. He had spent the last hour trying to talk Anitka out of her anti-string crusade, warning her that she was on her way to career suicide with zero hope of a postdoc if she insisted on following her own underdeveloped theories instead of the one she had been trained to explore.

“Keats was not a physicist, Philip,” she responded, using Philip’s given name for the first time since he’d known her. “Beauty does not equal truth. And if we continue to operate in this mystical fairyland, we might as well jump right into bed with those intelligent-design crazies, where they’ll turn to us with their idiot grins and say, ‘See, told you it was magic.’?”