twenty-three

The SecureCon trade show was a madhouse of carnival barkers. The lights were up, the demos were cranking, and the booth babes were waving. More than a hundred companies were represented at SecureCon, and they were all trying to snag IT geeks.

Every year, thousands of geeks pack up their things, kiss their loved ones goodbye, and fly to SecureCon to see demonstrations of the latest network security software. However, once they get here, they develop cold feet about meeting a salesperson. They walk through the trade show focusing on the blue carpet, carefully avoiding eye contact for fear of being hypnotized, sparrow versus python fashion, into buying expensive new software.

The software companies need to get eyes off the carpet and people into their booths. They use a variety of girls, gadgets, and gimmicks to attract attention. Once in the booth, most geeks are happy to watch a software demonstration and drink a free cappuccino. This bizarre dance turns the show floor into a zoo.

The booth nearest to the front door had a Star Trek Vulcan in a blue shirt standing on a box. The Vulcan would gather a crowd with a variety of mentalist mind tricks, then send them into the booth to see demos. At another booth, poker dealers did a booming business. IT geeks watched demos to get poker chips. Then they played Texas hold ’em, and the winners traded poker chips for T-shirts, toy helicopters, or iPods.

The show had its traditions. A small but persistent company hired the same Elvis impersonator every year. The guy would stand on stage, gyrate, and sing hacked Elvis songs such as “Hard Drive Hotel,” “Don’t be Phished,” and “You Ain’t Nuthin’ but a Virus.”

Another booth had women in bikinis standing under fake palm trees. No pitch, just the women. The male IT geeks swarmed around the booth and were drawn into the demonstrations. The female geeks rolled their eyes and went to listen to Elvis.

MantaSoft marketing had gone all out on the Bostonian theme of “Revolutionary Security.” To complement the Minuteman Statue, they had forced all the booth personnel to wear eighteenth-century garb with breeches and triangle hats. In a nod to political correctness over historical accuracy, the women also wore long coats, breeches, and triangle hats. I thought this was a shame. I find women in bonnets quite fetching. I headed back to Margaret’s aquarium.

The sharks had changed direction and were swimming clockwise today. Their tails moved in short strokes as they lived up to the booth’s “Move or Die” slogan. I watched the sharks out of the corner of my eye as Kurt Monroe, still wearing his shark-bite T-shirt, gave me a demo of Bronte’s software. The shirt was jammed into his chinos to make a gut-restricting sling that kept Kurt’s sizable belly from introducing itself. I was bored. The software was as original as a Gilligan’s Island episode. Kurt had obviously memorized his demo and was charging through it with gusto.

“Here’s the dashboard. Bronte’s unified …” My mind wandered as Kurt bombarded me with a blizzard of marketing fluff. The sharks drifted back into my vision. I wondered who fed them. I fiddled with Kurt’s business card in my pants pocket, and it reminded me that he was talking. I refocused.

Kurt was blathering on and spitting marketing terms like “platform independent,” “Web 2.0,” “cutting-edge technology,” blah, blah, blah. I grimaced to stifle a yawn. My mind drifted to memories of my night with Margaret and the feel of her skin against mine. The memory shifted into fantasy as I thought about Dana, but the fantasy faded into a question about her role in the office last night. She was on someone’s side. I just wasn’t sure whose.

“This is the fun part.” Kurt interrupted my thoughts. He was still giving his demo. “This is the résumé-catcher. If some guy in your company is looking for a job, you’ll know about it before his headhunter.” Kurt snorted a laugh at his little joke.

I decided to see if he had any game. “Does the résumé-catcher use Bayesian filtering?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, come again?” he said.

“Bayesian filtering. Does it use Bayesian filtering to catch the résumés?”

Kurt started spouting from the marketing guide. “The software uses advanced pattern-recognition algorithms to—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what kind of pattern-recognition algorithms does it use?”

Beads of sweat formed on Kurt’s forehead like dew on a windshield. “I think it looks for phrases. Like, it will find ‘employment history,’ and so it knows the email has a résumé.”

“Phrases. Not individual words?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“So it’s not so much Bayesian as something like CRM114?”

Kurt’s eyes drifted longingly to his screen and his memorized script. Gears chunked away behind his pudgy cheeks as he tried to figure out how to get me back on his happy path. I let him sweat and said, “OK, try this one. What if the employee encrypts the résumé? Can you catch it then?”

Kurt’s face brightened, and he started to answer. His eyes widened as he looked behind me. I felt a soft hand on my shoulder turning me away from Kurt. It was Margaret. “Kurt, I’ll help Tucker.”

“OK, Ms. Bronte.”

Margaret steered me away with a little push. “Come with me.”

I said, “OK, Ms. Bronte.”

Margaret headed back through the curtain behind her booth and ushered me through the gap with a right this way gesture.

I walked past the curtain and the show disappeared. We were alone, standing on the shiny concrete floor behind the curtain.

“It’s a pleasure to see you,” said Margaret.

“Same here,” I said. Margaret was wearing a black business suit with a blue blouse open at the throat. She had simple diamond stud earrings on silver settings that complemented her short salt-and-pepper hair.

Margaret stepped closer. I could feel her aura as she invaded the edge of my personal space. She was a tall woman and almost came up to my nose. She looked up at me and asked, “What do you think?”

My chest clunked. “What do I think about what?”

Margaret laughed and stepped a little closer. She put my hands on her hips, with my fingertips resting on the top of her ass. “What do you think of my software?”

I thought her software was banal and derivative. I thought that it offered nothing new or state of the art to the industry. I thought the user interface looked like something that had been put together as a college project.

I said, “It’s very nice.”

Margaret’s perfume wafted around me. I stayed in place, quietly taking it in. The feeling in my chest moved downward through my gut. I reveled in the attention.

“Well, you know,” she said, “your opinion means a lot to me.”

She kissed me. Her tongue danced on the tips of my lips. I said the first thing that came into my head.

“That Kurt guy is an idiot.”

Margaret leaned back, her brow knitted. “Why do you say that?”

The spell broke. My hands fell to my sides. “He couldn’t tell the difference between Bayesian filtering and a zit on his ass. What a marketing dweeb.”

Margaret crossed her arms and looked at me with deep blue eyes. “Did you get to talk much technology with Kurt?”

“Well, no, I had just started.”

“I doubt you’ll get the kind of information you want from him.”

“Really? But he’s your—what is it?” I took out Kurt’s card and examined the title. “Director of Product Engineering.”

Margaret stepped close and took the card out of my hand. “His skills are more in people management. I know a better way for you to get the information you need.”

“What’s that?”

“Talk to me. Alone. Tomorrow.” She tapped the card on my chest where it left little pools of warmth. “Have fun at the show, dear.” She turned and went back through the curtain. Her perfume lingered as I stood on the concrete and blinked.