The sun was just painting the eastern horizon Wednesday morning when I settled behind the wheel of my rented Tahoe. The sun had lost its rosy glow by the time I was skirting the northern edge of the Mohave Preserve at 90 mph, and it was still a ways short of midday when I slowed to 70 to negotiate the transfer to U.S. 395 at Barstow.
I found gas and a bathroom at Bakersfield on ‘The Five,’ as most Californians say it, and at Los Banos, made the turn on State 152 to ‘the one-o-one.’ It was just after noon when I arrived in San Jose. My first stop was for lunch, and I found a fast food joint attached to a gas station and topped off all my tanks.
For the first time ever, I wished I had a smartphone that would provide me instant access to the Internet, but then I shrugged it off and bought an area map in the gas station. With a borrowed phone book, I found The Silicon Valley Intelligencer was listed under “multi-media publications” in the Yellow Pages.
I studied the map while I munched on a salad and a tasty chicken wrap, and then went looking for a place to sleep that night.
I found a reasonable hotel on South First Street, near enough to the Intelligencer’s offices, and, ironically, close by the Tech Museum of Innovation. I thought the nice, tree-lined street full of hustle and bustle might be near the epicenter of the mythical Silicon Valley.
“The Intelligencer,” the receptionist’s voice was cool and crisp. “How may I help you?”
“Is Craig there?”
“I’m sorry, sir; Mr. Craig is away from the office at the moment. May I help you or would you like his voice mail?”
“I’m not sure. I was hoping to make an appointment to speak with him in person. He doesn’t know me.”
“I don’t have his calendar in front of me, but I do know that he has a 4 p.m. meeting here that he won’t miss. Perhaps you could leave him a number to call?”
I left my cell number with her.
“Can I tell him what this involves?”
I thought for a moment, “It’s a story idea that I think he’s interested in already.”
I knew she was typing that into a message on her screen. “Would you care to add anything to that?”
“I don’t think so. I’ll look forward to meeting him.”
I needed to stretch my legs, so I double-checked the address of the newspaper, and went for a walk.
I was eating sushi down the street from the hotel that afternoon when my phone chirped. “Stanton here.”
“Mr. Stanton, this is Wilson Craig, from the Intelligencer. I received your message, as cryptic as it is.”
“Could you see me this afternoon or evening?”
“What about? I mean you told Margie that you thought you had information on a story I’m already interested in?”
“Aldo Frank?”
The silence dragged on to the point where I looked at my phone to see if I still had a connection.
“Where would you like to meet?”
“Your office is fine with me.”
“Six-thirty? I have a meeting that will be over by then.”
“Works for me.”
“You can find us?”
“I’ll be there.”
I had strolled past the Intelligencer’s offices earlier that afternoon, planning to arrive at the door just on time. When I arrived on the dot, I found the place dark and seemingly empty.
The sun was on the verge of setting, but dusk was in full force in the downtown area. Street lights were just popping on along with the glow from other windows where night life was just getting started.
I was turning in a circle, looking to see if I had missed something, when I heard a lock rattle behind me.
Wilson Craig was a tall, gaunt, sandy-haired man with glasses slid down his nose. His tie was undone at the collar and the tail tucked into his shirt. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbow as if he’d been washing dishes.
“Mr. Stanton?”
“Jim,” I said, extending my hand.
He shook it, “Sorry about the wet, but I was cleaning up after a staff meeting, and didn’t realize that staff had locked up on their way out.”
“No problem. You still want to meet?”
He gave me a bright smile, “Great first impression, right? I call it the ‘scullery maid approach,’ you know, ‘Cinderella Before the Big Dance?’”
I laughed with him. He backed away from the door, and I followed him into the office. He flicked a switch and lights came on, and I could see the desks and layout of the office. “We can talk back here,” he said leading the way.
Here was a nine-by-twelve space with a kitchenette at one end, and a conference table and chairs taking up the rest of the area. “Have a seat. Want some coffee? I haven’t thrown it out yet.”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“Let me finish up here while you talk. So, what makes you think I’m interested in Aldo Frank?” He resumed washing the dishes left over from his meeting.
“Let me tell you another story, first,” I began. “I have a friend from way back when we were youngsters; his name’s Charley Delp. Seems Charley and his partner – a nice lady – decided in their later years to start robbing houses for fun and profit.”
I talked without interruption as he tidied up, poured himself a cup of coffee, and then, unrolling his sleeves, took the seat across from me. I brought him up to date on my quest through my brief meeting with Mrs. Leech.
I didn’t go into any details, really; just an overview that I’d rehearsed since making the appointment. I felt it put him in a position to understand my visit without imparting anything that could complicate matters for others if he was somehow involved in Charley’s disappearance.
He absorbed my story gazing into his coffee cup.
He finally looked up over his glasses and stared into my eyes, “And you think your friends stole something from Aldo Frank in that robbery, and that led to your friend’s disappearance?”
“It’s a possibility I’d like to confirm or rule out, yes.”
He gave a deep sigh. “As much as I wish I could, I can neither rule it out nor confirm it, but disappearing seems to be a thing when Aldo Frank’s name comes up.” He went off into his cup again; I sat and waited.
“When we started the Intelligencer, I never dreamed I’d be sitting here talking to a stranger about something like this, but I’ve really had nothing else to touch or cling to for so long.”
I still waited.
“Perhaps I should tell you about me and this operation. I don’t want to bore you.”
“I’m never bored when people tell me the truth, no matter how they arrive at it.”
“You have the interviewer’s gift. You in the media?”
“Retired. Community newspapers for most of my adult life.”
“Investigator?”
“General reporting, editing, photography; moved on and up, editor, publisher – a newspaper career.”
“No, I mean now; you a PI?”
I shook my head. “No way. I’m just a guy who has been asked to help. I’ve had some experiences, and I try to help is all.”
Then he started talking, only rarely looking up at me, mostly just talking to the dregs in the bottom of his cup.
“I always knew I was going to be in the news business. My mom was a career AP staffer out of the L.A. bureau. The First Amendment, public’s right to know, and the thrill of the scoop were part of my DNA.
“The summer before I started at Stanford, I applied for and was hired as a part-time reporter for the ‘Peninsula Week,’ a small newspaper focusing on the Palo Alto scene. I worked for the ‘Week’ throughout college. By the time I was a senior, I was carrying a full academic load and working 40 hours a week for the newspaper.
“I spent my last spring break hand-delivering a packet containing a letter of introduction, resume, and a writing sample to every newspaper between here and San Francisco. My sample story was my favorite. A straight news story that scooped all the large papers calling Palo Alto their turf.
“Two weeks later I interviewed at the San Francisco Chronicle. My final day of classes was May 12; started at the Chronicle on May 15.
“In November I remember half-listening to an assistant city editor go over my six-month performance evaluation, but I was already dreaming of starting a publication business that would put digital first and print second in the 24-hour news cycle.
“One of my friends in college was Eric Landis. I ran into Eric at a New Year’s Eve party back on campus; hadn’t seen or spoken to him since I’d left. We weren’t all that close in college. Friendly acquaintances was more like it. I was wrapped up in news. He was something of a phenom when it came to finance and sales.
“The following year, at the same party, they were also celebrating Landis’ master’s degree.
“Of course I congratulated him on his MBA, with a teasing little jibe, ‘Now that you’re grown up, what are you gonna do?’
“He seemed to take the question seriously, shrugging and grinning, he said, ‘I don’t know. I’ve been looking around and listening, you know; and my dad and his brothers have been contacting people in their industry who might need a young number cruncher, but,” and here he kinda winced in advance at what he was going to say, ‘It’s not like I have a bunch of debt. I don’t really want to have anything to do with the family business.’
“I asked him what business his family ran. He said, ‘Sand and gravel.’
“I was half-joking when I asked, ‘That’s a business?’
“He had been all shucks and darn, you know? Then he goes all serious, like protective, ‘Try building anything – from a condo to a road, without it. My dad’s favorite story is how after the war he bought a farm outside of Fresno. Thought he’d be a gentleman farmer, you know?’
‘“Couldn’t grow anything on that ground – probably because it and the adjoining 80 acres his brother had bought at the same time – held the state’s single largest concentration of available gravel.’
‘“By the time I was old enough to work with them, they had a thousand tires a day delivering their sand and gravel to work sites as far away as Santa Barbara, Sacramento, or San Francisco.’
“I asked him what he had done for them when was young, and he cracked me up with his answer, ‘Learned how important my college education was going to be. At the end of a shovel, you quickly come to the conclusion that if you don’t want to be doing that the rest of your life, you better use your brains rather than your back.’
“We had a good laugh at that, then he asked me how life was going in the news world, and one thing led to another and I ended up telling him of my dream to start a business that covers Silicon Valley for the people who live and work there – you know, tech-savvy readers who need to know what their neighbors and schools are doing, and at the same time have it delivered in a way that fits their lifestyle and needs.”
“He picked up on my thought, ‘That would sure be a change from the way they treat the Valley today, wouldn’t it?’
“I went off on a rant, talking about how most newspapers – even the ones that recognized how vital digital news would be to their future – were just using it to repeat stories that they broke in print first. How on top of that, there’s no real understanding of the unique community that the Valley represents. How they all used the lines on a map rather than the boundaries of shared experiences and interests to describe their market. I told him, if you’re a part of the Silicon, your zip code is meaningless to your news needs.
“I remember his reaction when I finally ran out of gas and went back to my beer. ‘That’s as animated as I’ve seen you, Will. It’s a good look on you.’”
“So you guys teamed up and built this?” I spread my hands to encompass the office in which we sat.
“Yeah, pretty impressive, right?”
“I wasn’t demeaning it, but you two are partners, right? This is a going concern, right? I would think you’d be pretty proud of it.”
“I am, Jim.” He nodded and thought again. “You wouldn’t believe how that happened.”
“I’m listening, go ahead.”
He looked up with a sheepish grin, “This kind of talk should be reserved to old guys like you, looking back on their successful careers, you know? I don’t want to sound like it’s over for me or even happened or anything. I really want to try to explain my other stuff, but I don’t think you’d understand without some background.”
“Share. I don’t mind. I’m sure we’ll end up back to the nut of my visit when it makes sense to you.”
He sat back in his chair. I could see him evaluating me, then he produced a “Here goes” sigh, and picked up the thread.
“I didn’t give it a thought until the following June when I was invited to spend a weekend with Eric’s family at their summer home at Tahoe.
“After dinner on Friday night, Eric and his father, Bruce, and his uncles, Nate and Sam, went out to what they laughingly called the ‘Conference Dock,’ in front of their home.
“I was in a real relaxed mode. I figured this was just a social outing. ‘This is a real treat for me,’ I remember saying to Bruce as we all strolled down across the expansive, manicured lawn to the lakeshore.
‘“I’m glad you could be free, Will,’ he said to me. ‘but this isn’t just a long weekend at the lake for us or you.”’
“I remember thinking, ‘What the hell?’
“He explained, ‘We call this the Conference Dock because this is where the Landis family convenes to air grievances, consider opportunities, and forge plans for our future. We’re in need of your special expertise for just such a conference this evening.’
“When we gathered at the dock, Nate busied himself handing out coffee or bourbon as each made his choice known. I could see no sign of tension or apprehension on their parts. Then I saw the Landis women, the sisters-in-law and their daughters, making their way down to the dock. Eric had a sister and three cousins in that group, and they were taking their time, chatting and chuckling, seemingly totally relaxed as they made their way.
“You can’t really imagine this scene. The traditional dock that graces most lake-front homes is a walkway to boats or swimming ladders. This dock led to a 20-by-25-foot deck on pilings. There were two sailboats and a runabout moored to the edges of the deck, and a cabana offering protection from the sun or rain if there were any. The rest of the space was occupied by a 6-foot fire pit and an eclectic collection of chairs, lounges, swing seats and tables arranged in seemingly haphazard manner around the pit. I’d never seen anything like it, much less found myself in such a scene.
‘“We all here?’ Bruce asked at large, bringing the murmured chatter to a halt. ‘I see that we are, so, to business. The question before the family tonight is simple: What are we going to do with Eric?’
‘“He doesn’t want to be part of the Landis Sand and Gravel empire; his mother needs to know that he has a purpose in life, and his uncles and I need to know that he can buy his own biscuits before we can consider him a grown man. Tonight we have with us Will Craig, a journalist in San Francisco who has been building a fine reputation for his work, but who harbors a dream of starting his own publishing enterprise. He shared that dream with Eric last winter, and Eric, as he is wont to do, started investigating if that dream had any long-term potential for success. So, without further ado, Eric?’
“I was just flabbergasted, I had not even remembered my rant from the party. Then Eric stood, finished his drink, took a folder up from the table near his chair, and spoke quietly to his family. ‘You’ve all had a week to go over the prospectus I developed; are there any questions at this point?’
“His mother spoke up, ‘It doesn’t fully address the content of this publication or how that content will be delivered, E.’
“He answered, ‘I know that part is pretty vague, but if you turn to the appendix B you’ll see the breakdown for the capital needed for server, Website operation, and digital publishing. Those costs may seem exorbitant at first, but they are critical in distributing the news and advertising that our subscribers and readers will learn to count on. The numbers in the print-cost column are for the traditional newspaper that will be distributed on Thursdays to every home and apartment complex in the targeted startup core.’
“His uncle Nate interrupted, ‘That’s a big number, E.’
“Eric was prepared. ‘It’s based on a profitability model that has served newspapers for generations, Uncle Nate. The advertising revenue we’ll receive for the print edition – with us maintaining a strict 50-50 news-to-paid advertising lineage ratio – will pay for the printing and distribution.’
“One of his aunts asked, ‘And the profit? How can you be sure that you’ll make a profit?’
“Eric gave a twisted smile, ‘That’s why it’s called risk. We’ll make apparent profit: Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization from day one or we won’t be around long. What we’re hoping to achieve from this meeting is the family’s financial investment to give us enough wiggle room to learn as we go things we as yet don’t know. But everything you see in this report indicates that if we don’t launch the Intelligencer this year, somebody else will be harvesting that opportunity.’
“Eric’s sister, I remember it was Linda, but I hadn’t memorized all the names yet, interrupted, ‘What do you think of this, Will?’
“Bruce stepped in. ‘Will has not had the opportunity to review this prospectus. If you have specific questions as to the need for or ability to provide specialized news targeting the Silicon Valley population, I think that would be fair and appropriate to ask at this time. Will?’
“I looked at Eric and saw that little grin of his forming. He knew he’d put me on the spot. I looked down at the sister and she was sharing that same smart-alecky grin, ‘Are the techies out there chomping at the bit for a news source like this?’ She asked.
“I looked around again and felt like I was standing at the ten-meter board, ‘If that publication is well-written, tightly edited, precisely focused, and presented in a free-flowing digital manner that is only backed up and supported by a print product that focuses on the ‘so what, and here’s where and how’ kind of news presentation. Yes, I think that would be welcomed and appreciated.’
“Eric took over, ‘Are there any other questions?’
“His mother stood up, a broad smile on her face, ‘I think just the one you have to ask, E.’
“Eric was all smiles by then, ‘Will, want to be my partner in this enterprise?”
“I felt a rush like nothing I’d ever experienced, but I finally managed to croak out a ‘When do we start?’
“Eric waited on his father and uncles. The brothers shared a smile, and then Nate said, ‘Will? How much notice will you want to give the Chronicle?’
“I said, ‘I wouldn’t consider less than two weeks, and, because of a project I’m actually heading up right now, I think a month would be more appropriate.’
“The brothers shared another look, and then Bruce said, ‘Let’s aim for a launch on the Tuesday after Labor Day.’
“As one voice, the family then erupted in what seemed to be an impromptu ‘hip, hip hooray!’ shout followed by all of them rising as one to hug and congratulate each other.
“My surprise must have been registering on my face as Nate came to me, hand out and a broad smile on his face, ‘We do take some getting used to, Will; but there’s nothing as uplifting as arriving at consensus, and that’s what our family demands every time we convene on the conference dock.’”
“That’s a hell of a story, Will,” I said with admiration. “So how has it worked out?”
“With the financial backing of the family and with Eric and I plying our training and skill in fanatical fashion, the Silicon Intelligencer Co. burst on the high tech hub scene in the fall of 1992, and was an immediate success.
“We started with three reporters, a photographer, a Webmaster and an editorial assistant in news and five commissioned sales representatives in advertising and one assistant in the business office. We were trim and agile enough to survive and grow.
“We were able to report the day-to-day events of the high-tech community on line and through an e-mail bulletin three times a day.
“On Thursdays the print edition hits the streets full of weekend previews on anything and everything of interest to the techies and their families. A centerfold calendar of events, and its digital counterpart on our site, with reviews, art and links to the Web was a smash hit.
“The rest of the edition is comprised of commentary on all aspects – most of it written by experts in their fields. By the end of 1993, university professors were hanging framed presentations of their work as it appeared in the Intelligencer in their offices alongside their degrees, research grant awards, and other benchmarks of their careers.”
I watched him turn back in on himself, and figured we were getting to the nub of the issue.
“So where does Aldo Frank enter this success story?”