The Deal Maker

Welcome to another tale from the Owenverse! It has been a while, I know, but Owen remains an influential character in what I am planning for future stories. While Owen is in this story, he is not the narrator this time around.

If you don't know Owen, don't worry. The main Owenverse stories are all standalone tales and can be read by themselves.

A couple of my multi-chapter series are part of the Owenverse, can you tell me in the comments which ones they are?

As for this tale, enjoy, and as always, remember that it's just a fun yarn and not meant to be realistic. I aim for the plausibly ridiculous.

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The Owenverse: The Negotiator

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"I hate to mess up your morning," I said apologetically, yet not, "but this menu won't work. Your people are going to have to hop to it to fix it."

The catering manager started to object that eight am was too late in the process to alter a luncheon menu, but I cut her off. "It is also late for you to finally give me the menu for approval." I reached into my briefcase that doubles as an over-the-shoulder purse and power accessory for my folder with our contract, written correspondence, and printouts of our email chain.

All of it. I like to be prepared.

You have no idea how small and light electronics are going to get soon, but for now, at 5' 2" tall, I am much too small to carry around a 'portable' computer. I just keep printouts of what might matter for the day.

"Mr. Walton is vegetarian, as I wrote you on... April 5th, see?" I said, handing over the relevant email.

"And we have a vegetarian entree! We always do," objected Jessica defensively.

"You have one," I said. "Our contract," I went on, producing said document next, "specifies two."

"Oh. Um, well, it is still a little late for me to... can I simply have a special plate..."

"No, you cannot," I interrupted, looming over the woman. That was a neat trick to pull off, considering that she was five inches taller, and had sixty pounds on me at least. But I managed. "Alan Walton is one of my two best potential sources of funding on this deal, and he's damned near a billionaire. He is a sweet, polite man... who never forgives a thing. He and I get along," I added significantly. "I will not have him feeling singled out as unusual. Two dishes, in equal quantities and presentation as the others, as contracted. One with asparagus," I added, stabbing the line in the contract that Jessica or her kitchen staff had ignored.

"Asparagus?!?"

The meeting ended with me getting what I wanted. My meetings like that usually do, which is why I have them.

I am not one to ever leave things to chance. Well, not when it comes to business. While I am not so aggressively free-wheeling in my personal life as in my college days, I still like to take advantage of spontaneity when it presents itself. Today was not a day for such thoughts, however. I had a deal to midwife, and I was on the hunt for hidden speed bumps.

I had already spent the extra fifteen minutes on my appearance that I always did on important days. I sported the better of my two Alexander McQueen double-breasted suits, the one which fitted me to the nines. I am not one of those severely styled women who wears ties like a man (unless it suits my purposes to look insecure), and my open-collared, silk ecru blouse had the collar points resting along my lapels.

I never have and never will use sex to make a deal happen. That is just simple principle. But I don't ignore it either. This outfit shows off my figure just well enough to ensure I can capture most men's attention easily, but is in no way explicit enough to distract them once they focus on what I'm saying. Business first. Always.

I can certainly dress distractingly while still being professional, of course. I'm not ashamed to say I have done so on occasion when I wanted to deliver bad news and have it be absorbed... incrementally. But today I intended for there to be no bad news for anyone.

To that end, I poked my head into the Ashethorpe Room of the hotel, where the presentation and demo were to take place, just to ensure no one had stolen any of my chairs, and that the tables for breakfast were laid out properly, in readiness for the pastries, coffee and so on.

I know it may sound as if I am some executive secretary or something, fretting about danishes and asparagus. I am not. I have an assistant, I am not one. I had already spent the last month, especially the last week, doing all the work to make sure the business done today went the way we wanted it to, and I was satisfied with my efforts, and those of our client in that regard. But I did not get where I am, at my young age, by letting the little things go unaddressed.

Little things like some guy lying on his back in the room, fucking around with the metal structure of my raised platform which was there to support the apparatus that was the point of today's demonstration and hopefully eventual deal.

"Excuse me? Excuse me," I said, slipping swiftly into the room and advancing on the man. "What are you doing? That platform has to be rock-solid for a demonstration we have going on in here today."

"So I've heard," the guy said back drily. He twisted smoothly out from under the platform and looked at me. I watched that flash of expression my appearance and dress were supposed to get, but it quickly faded to a serious look. He didn't get up from the floor, he just sat up. "I thought I had better see for myself if the crew had assembled it properly."

"Which I confirmed for myself. Yesterday," I said irritatedly. I did not want to waste time on this issue. I had to still check several more details. But Roger Evans, the CEO of my client who was seeking funding, had been most explicit that no vibration was permissible in the platform. This chucklehead with the hotel was going to fuck up my demo if he didn't cut it out with that wrench I saw beside him.

"Good," he said simply. "But I figured I'd check too, just to make sure. This is a good platform, and they were more careful than usual putting it together." Damned right they were. But Wrench Boy went on calmly. "Unfortunately, it seems that there is a low spot in the floor under the left rear segment. Put enough weight on it, and it will sag. That means it will vibrate."

"What?"

"I tried just tightening up everything, but that was not enough. It will work its way loose again pretty quickly when there is weight on it again," he said calmly.

"That's not acceptable," I worried.

"Mmmm. That is why I am jamming a large wooden box under there in just the right place. It will be sturdy enough to prevent that initial sag and everything will stay rock solid," he said. Then he proceeded to ignore me, lie back and slide halfway under the platform again.

I considered him with irritation. He was not dressed in the hotel's maintenance staff uniform of khakis and blue polo, but in a baggy pair of dress trousers and a white business shirt with the cuffs rolled up. Probably someone in the hotel's back office management team, doing his own due diligence, and handy enough to fix a problem himself.

I heard two grunts and bang from underneath, and he called out, "I think that should be good now."

"Mind if I check it myself?" I asked, becoming moderately less irritated at his delay in my morning. I grudgingly took him off my nuisance list, and began to worry instead that I was going to have to write a thank you letter to the hotel GM about him the next day.

"Please do. Though you checked it yesterday, didn't you?" I heard him say with amusement in his voice. I went back to irritated with the guy. But I stepped up onto the platform, which moved not a hair.

"Can I jump on it?" I asked, remembering a lack of movement the day before as well. I got a grunt of assent. I slipped off my shoes and jumped twice. I noticed nothing. He sounded satisfied as well. I was briefly aware that I was jumping up and down in an above-the-knee skirt directly over this guy. I swiftly gave thanks for the solid black platform and its lack of gaps between panels.

Slipping on my pumps again, I stepped back down off the platform. The heels were low enough, at only a little over two inches, to not look distracting in the short skirt, but tall enough to keep my lack of height from making me look like a kid at the adult table.

"Thank you!" I called out over my shoulder toward the long legs still sticking out from under the table as I rushed on my way.

Cute guy, I realized on further consideration as I headed for the business center to grab the hand-outs. He seemed a bit callous and rough around the edges though, for a service industry worker. I supposed they put him in the back office for a reason.

Everything else was in order, and I slid easily into my relaxed, 'everything is perfect' persona as people began to filter into the room. I moved from funding sources to startup employees, making introductions. The principals already knew each other from months of meetings of course, but if today was to turn into the wedding I damn well intended for it to, the families needed to get to know each other as well, so to speak.

Investment capital has been pretty plentiful lately, though most of it is flowing to internet commerce sites right now. The money that was at this meeting was the kind that was still focused on physical products, rather than new ways to sell existing products. I personally liked that kind of money, and now that I had begun to actually accumulate some meaningful funds of my own, I tended to follow its moves with my own funds, rather than join in with the currently more profitable dot com worshippers. It was going to be easy for websites to make huge money, but I reasoned that patents and products would have an easier time fending off competition in the long run.

"Sophia!" I heard from behind me. It was my client Roger, he of this company with an actual product... and a desperate need for capital. I was slow to answer, because I had to disengage from one of his potential funders that I was reassuring about Roger's Y2K readiness. "I want you to meet Dr. Owen Voss, who will be running our demo today," Roger went on, before I could even turn around.

"We've met already, actually," I heard another voice say behind me.

That voice...

I winked at my funder and turned smoothly around.

The 'back office hotel accountant' who was good with his hands was Dr. Owen Voss!

But who the fuck was Dr. Owen Voss?

I was going to kill Roger. Where the fuck did he get off, springing a presenter on me that I had not been informed of, and more to the point, vetted?

Ah. The loose-fitting, awkward trousers he had had on this morning were suit pants, not slacks. Most men's suit pants look stupid with no jacket in the picture. His shirt was buttoned neatly now, with an oddly expensive tie, given the off-the-rack nature of the suit.

Dr. Voss extended his hand smoothly. "I am sorry, Ms. D'Abruzzi. When we met this morning, I thought you were with the hotel!"

I snorted. "No apologies necessary. I thought you were with the hotel too!"

"Neither of you are remotely hotel employee sort of material," Roger declared firmly. "Sophia, I was excited to find that Owen was available today, so I threw him on a plane."

I looked at the scientist, who appeared bemused.

"I assume one of your insights is responsible for this apparatus?"I asked the unreasonably attractive (for a scientist) scientist in front of me.

"Hardly! The actual theoretical insights that are critical to the product were proposed by Dr. Hyung Shey a decade ago. Roger just thinks I am Mr. Wizard reborn for explaining what looks like black magic."

"Well, despite Roger springing you on me at the last moment," I glared at Roger, who did not look nearly contrite enough, "If he says you have the gift of gab, he is probably right. Knock their socks off."

And the fucking scientist did.

Roger was right, he had a silver tongue. I had spent months trying to satisfy myself how this product worked, and had nervously never totally been convinced. I am very well-educated, with a healthy amount of physics in my transcript, and Owen Voss effortlessly made me understand everything I had remained stubbornly confused about, while demonstrating the product seamlessly, in less than two hours.

More importantly, he made a bunch of finance geeks with billions under their control understand.

By the time that big, good-looking dweeb was done, the only work I had left was playing the investors off each other to see how much more money than I had hoped, for how much less ownership, we could get out of them in this round.

Roger just fucking grinned at me across the room. Now I was mad at the man because he did not have this friggin guy under some kind of retainer at the very least. I would fix that before I left town.

Mr. Wizard sought me out rather obviously after the presentation.

"As usual, Dr. Voss, Roger is right about people," I told him, as he approached.

"Please call me Owen," he said, with a pained expression. "My mom calls me Dr. Voss."

I started to laugh, but quickly realized that the poor bastard was serious.

Owen then asked me, "I don't suppose I could buy you dinner, or at least a drink, and we can discuss what hotel jobs we each thought the other had?"

Asshole thinks he can work fast, does he?

"Sorry, Owen," I said with a glum expression. "I have a big dinner with the key investors in about half an hour. You have made my job much easier with them."

He shrugged, accepting the brush off with more aplomb than I liked. Especially since I already had my follow-up ready. "But they do tend to be done early on this sort of thing. They always want to head back to their own hotels to pay attention to either their money or whatever hired entertainment they have contracted with for this trip. If you can be patient, I think we might squeeze in a drink later..."

Owen was endearingly surprised to hear his obviously scurrilous hopes resurrected.

I reflected on my part that his hopes, while still faint, were better than he had any business enjoying. My day had gone extraordinarily well, which always puts me in an... expansive mood, and that surpassing of expectations was all down to Owen.

And he did fill out that lame-ass Hart, Schaffner, and Marx suit pretty well...

By the time dinner was winding down, I had decided that Dr. Voss by no means had a sure thing... but if he played his cards right, I might conceivably let him make me happy.

Maybe.

I called him after wrestling the check from Franklin Walsh. A year or so ago, Franklin had finally given up on trying to wrestle me personally, and I was not going to give him any new, false hope by letting him buy me dinner.

Besides, I'd be charging it back to him in our consulting fees anyway.

Which he knew damned good and well.

When Owen answered his portable phone, I drawled, "Still interested in that drink in the bar?"

I could literally hear him forcing himself not to ask who was calling. The smug weenie. "Yes I am!" he said instead. "But the hotel bar is unacceptably lame. I heard about a place with supposedly competent barmen. Sound good for you?"

He emailed me the address.

I asked, and it was walking distance from the hotel, so I let him con me into it.

I should have asked more questions.

The bar was small, and cozy... and lit all in red. There was lurid, but not explicit artwork on all the walls, and the staff all wore either clergy collars or nun's wimples... and not much else. My Italian grandmother (either one of them) would have had a heart attack upon seeing the ten-foot high pieta mural on one wall with a bikini-clad, buxom, blessed mother cradling the body of an insanely buff Jesus who weirdly wore sunglasses.

Doctor Smug Bastard waved at me cheerily from a small booth to one side as I entered the den of iniquity. Grimacing, I approached.

I was massively over-dressed for the place, both stylistically and, um, coverage-wise. At least Owen, in his suit, was too. He even still had his tie on. Maybe he realized it was the only thing he wore that belonged on the same plane as my outfit.

I slid into the booth next to Owen and we were approached almost instantly by our server.

Just my luck, instead of getting the extremely hunky shirtless black guy with the Roman collar and rosary around his neck for our server, we got the lanky nun with the bustier that barely covered her nipples. Bitch was even a foot taller than me... almost.

Owen's chances seemed to be circling the drain at this point.

"That is unquestionably the most amazing business suit I have ever seen," Sister Tits said, with an open and honest admiration on her face that surprised me. "Are you a CEO or something?"

"Nah," Owen interjected before I could speak. "She's just the woman that tells all the CEOs what to do."

He was trying to be complimentary, and I briefly appreciated it, before Sister T turned his words on their head. "Ooooh! I like," she cooed in perfect character. "If you want to borrow my whip when you give some orders, just let me know." With a sweeping gesture, she indicated the vinyl, costume cat of nine tails on her over-generous hip.

I briefly considered reaching out my hand for the cat and giving Owen five or six swift strokes for bringing me here to this mortifyingly egregious place, but I did not know him well enough. He might have liked it.

Instead, I just smiled as best I could and she handed us menus, running over the highlights for us as we examined them. She swayed off to another table, leaving us to puzzle out the honestly amazing-sounding offerings.

"So you thought that this would be a good bar for a casual, after-dinner business drink?" I asked acerbically.

"One of Roger's engineers recommended it to me yesterday," Owen shrugged. "In retrospect, her nose ring should have led me to check it out more closely." I began to realize that he was a little embarrassed too, and was leaning into the experience as a defense mechanism.

"Roger has a senior engineer with a nose ring?"

"If she didn't have one, she would probably have been giving the presentation instead of bringing me in," Owen shrugged. "She's actually pretty brilliant." He was completely matter-of-fact about that point.

You don't often encounter men who are so off-handed about being second choice, particularly to a woman. But then you also don't see a lot of successful professional consultants who take off their ties, roll up their sleeves, and crawl around a dubiously-vacuumed hotel ballroom floor with a borrowed wrench to fix a serious problem either.

Doctor Owen Voss was a modest man. And it was the kind of modesty that arose from utter, completely internalized self-confidence. His chances were improving again...

We chatted about the drinks. The menu was large, appealing, and in some cases the cocktail names were downright obscene. Owen swiftly focused on one drink, which irritated me because I had been considering it also. But damned if I was going to order the same thing he did. That brought my preferences down to two others from which to choose.

Sister Tits, who claimed her name was Mary, returned and leaned low toward Owen as he ordered, directing quite the show his way. I rolled my eyes when she wasn't looking. I was hardly jealous over this casual... whatever it ended up becoming with Owen. But really, it is kind of a bitch move for a girl to flaunt her assets so blatantly at a guy when he is sitting there with another girl right beside him.

If you are going to do that, at least wait until the girlfriend goes to the ladies' room. It's common courtesy.

But then our waitress turned and directed the same blatant show my way as she took my order with a huge smile. They honestly weren't that amazing, but they were big. And she did know how to display them to best effect.