Volume 4: White Devil Chapter 301: The Reason Why Kanefan Converted to Buddhism
After Jason received a call from Tommy informing him that Charles was coming, he hurried over and opened the door of the conference room, but was hugged tightly by Ted and Tommy who were hiding behind the door. Then, Charles, who had just been sitting at the conference table in a graceful manner, stood up, straightened his suit, and moved his two palms. Finally, he put his palms together, raised his middle finger and index finger, and poked Jason's buttocks which were pressed on the table:
"Long live Sparta!"
It was said that the entire WinStar company heard a wild beast-like howl that day.
After chatting and laughing with Ted and Charles, Jason sat down next to Tommy with his numb buttocks. He looked at Tommy, who nodded slightly. After receiving Tommy's signal, Jason looked at Charles sitting opposite him and said with a straight face, "Whatever you want to talk about, Tommy knows nothing. Whether it's AmigaOS or some recent public relations activities about Stanford, if you want to know, ask me. I'm the boss."
"Are you sure?" Charles looked at Jason, raised his left index and middle fingers and shook them at him, and asked with a smile.
Jason shrugged, leaned back in his chair and said, "As sure as you are of my rectal temperature with those four fingers, Charles."
"OK, so actually in May, when Gorbachev and his wife Raisa Gorbacheva visited the United States, we arranged a meeting with his wife as part of a separate itinerary, and you were going to talk to her, right?" Charles looked at Jason and said.
Jason was stunned for a moment, then turned to look at Tommy and said in a low voice, "Didn't you say you had handled some PR for AmigaOS when the Soviets came to Stanford?"
"It's done. Professor Condoleezza did it, and Dennis also helped a lot." Tommy said to Jason.
Jason frowned. "Then why the hell did Charles tell me to go chat with Gorbachev's wife? Haven't you seen Hollywood movies about the Soviet Union? The KGB is omnipotent. I don't want to be involved in some weird spy incident, nor do I want to have an affair with the Soviet president's wife and then be silenced by KGB agents who can crawl out of sewers, vents, or even fucking shoes."
"Jason, the direction of your anger is off." Tommy said helplessly.
Jason picked up a cigarette and lit it, then looked up at Charles and changed his tone: "You are here to collect the benefits, right? I don't understand, don't your father-in-law and the president have any salary to collect? They always look for opportunities to take advantage of us small businessmen! We have already paid a large sum for Dennis, and he seems to have done a small favor for the president. I thought you were here to show the president's return for our kindness."
"It's right this time." Tommy nodded with relief.
Charles opened his hands and gave Jason an innocent look in response. "That was just the entrance ticket. Now is the time to talk business. Gorbachev will mainly take a quick tour of Stanford University's infrastructure, give a speech at a dinner for American politicians on the West Coast about the politics and cooperation between the two countries, and then go to the next place. His schedule in the United States from late May to the first week of June is very full, and it is unlikely that advertising salesmen will find much time to sell him products."
Gorbachev's visit was a way for the United States to show goodwill and values to Gorbachev, and to convey an idea that even though some of the Soviet Union's member states now seemed to have problems, the United States absolutely did not want to see the Soviet Union disintegrate.
Of course, it is not wrong to say so. The disintegration that America hopes to see is that the entire huge country will come to a complete standstill, ethnic hatred will be aroused, and war will break out between those Soviet republics. Because in that kind of disintegration, no matter what reason America chooses to use to intervene, it will be the real decision maker. But now, although the various Soviet countries seem to be clamoring for independence, the army, factories, and intelligence agencies are still working normally. If the Soviet Union disintegrates peacefully in an orderly manner, it is definitely not the best answer that America wants to see.
This is why the United States invited Gorbachev to visit the United States, to support him in withstanding the pressure and to expand his freedom as much as possible. If he needs it, the President does not mind visiting those member states to help Gorbachev.
Once the United States is sure that it is ready for full intervention and is able to create a sufficiently strong anti-Soviet democratic wave in the major Soviet republics, it can then disintegrate more freely.
Therefore, the United States attached great importance to this invitation to the other party to visit the United States. At this time, the Secretary of State had already flown to Moscow in person to discuss and finalize the details of the visit with the other party. After the other party arrived, all the beautiful things in the United States that were born out of the free system were presented to the other party for their appreciation. Wherever he went, he could see the smiling faces of Americans, making him feel that the free world was ready to accept the Soviet Union.
"So we want to negotiate business with his wife?" Jason exhaled a puff of smoke. "How? How about I ask her to be the vice chairman?"
Charles smiled and said, "Compared to Gorbachev, his wife Raisa is obviously a more suitable business partner. Born in the Soviet Union, as the first lady of the Soviet Union, she longs for the high profile and freedom of the first lady of the United States. In fact, she does so. Her life is very luxurious and extravagant. During her previous visit to London, the first lady of the Soviet Union bought luxury goods worth hundreds of thousands of pounds at Harrods and wore them the next day. She didn't care about being photographed. The first ladies of the Soviet republics were like her maids. If she wanted, she could call the first lady of Ukraine or Romania at three o'clock in the morning, wake them up, and chat with them on a high-level encrypted direct line, just to let them help her analyze which dress was more beautiful."
"She had a pretty relaxed schedule while she was in the United States, right?" Tommy sighed and asked Charles.
Charles didn't nod, but looked at Tommy with a smile in his eyes: "It depends on the situation. It can be very lenient, or the other way around."
"Like what?"
"We are considering it. Judging from the date, we can arrange for the first ladies of the United States and the Soviet Union to attend the graduation ceremony of a university's women's college at the same time and give speeches. After the ceremony, the university can also have representatives talk with the two first ladies about the status and development of women in modern society for the next four hours. I think you will be interested. That's four hours, four hours without interruption."
Tommy nodded. "Well, if I want to be a gigolo and give oral sex to two old ladies for four hours, what's the price?"
"AmigOS has some interests in Europe and the Soviet Union. I mean, if you agree, Ms. Barbara Bush is willing to continue to help WinStar promote some projects in Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union outside of four hours. She is very willing to do that."
"That thing hasn't been launched on the market yet. Who told her that it will make money?" Jason interrupted in dissatisfaction.
Charles looked at Jason and tapped the brooch on his suit with his finger. "I, I told her, it doesn't matter whether it makes money or not, the money-burning stage has been completed anyway, and we can't miss the money-making stage. It's just the difference between making more and less money."
"Why don't you just have the President and his wife send a team of movers to move everything back home, Charles."
Charles took a sip of coffee and said in a relaxed tone, "If you really can decide everything as you boasted just now, you can just say No to me, Jason. As far as I know, Microsoft is very interested. If it weren't for the Murdoch Group that made them feel happy to cooperate, I wouldn't be here."
"Tommy, what should we do? This is quite different from what we concluded during our previous internal discussion." Jason didn't bother pretending that he was the boss who could decide everything in front of Charles. He turned to look at Tommy next to him.
"KeyBank and the Peace Corps, you didn't mention it, right?" Tommy rubbed his face hard and looked at Charles.
Charles nodded slightly: "Of course."
"Thank you, I mean it's no problem." Tommy breathed a sigh of relief after hearing what Charles said: "AmigOS will be released before the Gorbachevs visit the United States. As for which university's graduation ceremony will be lucky enough to have two first ladies in attendance, do I know now?"
"For the moment, consider Wellesley College in Massachusetts."
"You're a fucking teasing bastard, Charles. Your girlfriend must be dying of pleasure in your hands!" Tommy grinned and raised his middle finger at Charles after hearing him say the name of the school. Then he turned his head and said to Paige in the corner:
"Paige, go out and ask Sophia to find out what projects Professor Robert Keohane of the Hoover Institution for International Political Economy at Stanford University has recently needed funding for. Ask him how much research funding will allow my pregnant girlfriend to have some legal title at Wellesley College... Wait, don't disturb Otilia, switch to Ms. Delia Keyes. I won't let my angel ruin the good mood of the two old women with her young, beautiful face and smooth skin."
Paige, who was leaning against the wall, stood up and walked out of the meeting room.
Tommy watched Paige leave before turning to Charles and Jason. "So, we must have some old men like Paige and old women like Delia around us. I like Delia. She's in her forties, but she still has charm in bed. If I want to do it, she will definitely find a way to make my golf club stand up, and it won't cause too much hostility from the president's wives. Just change her into some old-fashioned clothes, stay up for two nights, and show up without makeup, and she will immediately become the kind of harmless same-sex friend that the president's wife likes the most. By the way, I will also let VOX broadcast the speeches of the two first ladies live worldwide, for free."
"What's the connection between a women's college and a professor at Stanford?" Jason asked Tommy in confusion.
Charles said, "The professor's wife also worked at Stanford University before, serving as the chairperson of the university's Faculty Senate. Eight years ago, she was solemnly recommended by Stanford University to serve as the president of that women's university. In the American university education community, she is considered a true Stanford faction."
"mean?"
"It means that if you donate to Stanford University, you can also make that university feel good about you."
Charles didn't have much time to stay in Stanford to reminisce about his campus life. After getting a reply from Tommy and Jason, he left and returned to Washington. After seeing Charles off, Tommy continued to meet with Jason, Susie and Ted to discuss the subsequent release of the operating system. Jason was still dissatisfied with Charles's big appetite:
"Shareholders may be unhappy, Tommy. I mean, if one day you can no longer raise money, they can use this as an excuse to kill you. If AmigaOS is successful, it will be a huge profit, so big that everyone who likes money will be heartbroken."
Tommy held a cigarette between his legs. "We can make it back, Jason. The only difference between me and ordinary people is that I can excrete money 24 hours a day if I want to. If Stephen, Benjamin and others really come to us, it's very simple. Just tell them to reduce the cost of computer hardware they sell to Europe and the Soviet Union a little bit, such as replacing Intel 386 with AMD386, and you can easily save a lot of money."
"But AMD's 386 chip is not strictly legal and may be recalled at any time. Its lawsuit with Intel has not yet been concluded," Jason said to Tommy.
"The whole world knows that AMD will win, and Intel knows it too. Let's get back to the topic, the AmigaOS launch conference. Susie, what do you think?" Tommy looked at Susie and asked.
Susie spread out the document beside her and pushed it in front of Tommy. "According to what you said before, this is the plan and general process that I and others designed. The key words are probably women, user-friendly interface, fighting against tradition, breaking order, and new world."
Tommy took it and flipped through it, saying, "We need to slightly adjust the scale of the press conference."
"Like what?"
"Treat the press conference as part of the product and take it seriously. Don't do as you thought before, where you stand on the stage and say a lot, then have the big screen show photos and the paid audience take the lead in applauding. If you need to add more budget, the company will agree, but your proposal had better be really attractive. If the press conference can make the Soviet couple Gorbachev feel surprised and respected, that would be even better. Do I want too much?"
"Since you mentioned the additional budget first, I think it's very reasonable." Susie smiled at Tommy and said, "Then I'll go have a meeting with them. I can see that you are in a hurry."
After saying that, Susie stood up and walked out.
After seeing Susie leave, Tommy whispered in Jason's ear, "Jason, when you feel the time is right, have Susie release a few of the Microsoft system vulnerabilities she previously discovered to help Microsoft increase its visibility. The best outcome would be that a large enough company would suffer losses because of using the Microsoft system. She's just a part-time employee of the federal security department, right? It's normal for leaks to occur during the process of reporting security vulnerabilities."
"My beautiful girlfriend might lose her job because of this."
"Of course, I understand what you mean." Tommy nodded in agreement: "So what would you do if Suzy lost her job?"
Jason sighed and looked at Tommy. "Maybe, I would say we should get married?"
"Correct answer." Tommy looked at Jason and smiled. "This unemployment compensation is not bad for her, right? It's good for you too."
After finishing speaking, Tommy looked at Ted who was almost dozing off across from him:
"Ted, Jason will contact you when he's done. Then you need to send your most reliable reporter to follow up on the vulnerability news Jason provided, and look through the scandals or negative news about Microsoft over the years. You're not trying to cause trouble for Microsoft, but the purpose of the news is to tell everyone what happened. Report it truthfully. If you get sued, don't worry, Jason will generously pay for it. You know what to do, right?"
"No matter which country Gorbachev visited, he always had people buy the top-selling local newspapers and check which page the news about his visit was on." Ted yawned and said weakly:
"In short, tell him that Microsoft is a pile of uncomfortable shit that just happened to fall on his head."
Tommy nodded. "Yes, that's it."
Ted slapped the table with his hands a few times, shrugged, stood up and walked out.
When Jason was the only one left in the room, Tommy leaned back in his chair tiredly and breathed a sigh of relief: "Don't say anything, let me enjoy the rare quiet time, Jason."
"But Stephen called us before and invited us to attend the premiere of his new movie, which is the movie that records the holiday activities of a group of high school students. Are you sure you can enjoy the quiet for a long time? Susie and I have both received invitations, and I guess you should be among them." Jason said from the side:
"And Charles..."
"Don't discuss Charles's problem, Jason. Charles has done a lot for us. Believe me, he didn't seek profit for himself, nor did he exploit us in exchange for the respect of those big shots. He tried his best to provide us with the best solution." Tommy rubbed his eyebrows. As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw Paige walking into the meeting room. He cursed in frustration and slowly stood up from his seat:
"I guess I have to deal with the old woman first before I go to the premiere of a bad movie."
…
Delia Keys pushes open the door to her suite at the Four Seasons Hotel.
Then she threw away her handbag, kicked off her brand-name high-heeled shoes, and slumped down on the living room sofa without any elegance. She put her feet directly on Tommy's thighs and turned her head to look at the turned-on TV. A small movie from a pay channel was playing on the screen. It looked like a crudely made soft comedy science fiction film.
"I'm not in the mood, Tommy." Delia retracted her gaze and closed her eyes and said, "And looking at the picture quality, it's terrible, but the male lead has nice muscles."
"Of course it's good. The male lead is Lustful Man. The movie cost $470,000 and earned $5.3 million at the box office. The name of the movie is 'The Adventures of the Space Shuttle'. Can you imagine that? You definitely don't want to watch this movie just by hearing the name. There aren't any famous movie stars, but it sold more than five million at the box office and made the company a lot of money. That was in 1974. In fucking 1990, my dear friend Stephen spent more than thirty million to make a biopic, and invited Hollywood stars like Matt Dillon and Dane Lane, but the first week box office of the movie was estimated to be even less than that of this crappy movie." Tommy also looked tired, and said with his eyes fixed on the picture on the TV.
"What do you want to say?" Delia stepped on Tommy's leg muscles with her feet and smiled with her eyes closed.
Tommy looked at the TV screen: "I want to say, just a movie with a bunch of amateurs showing their muscles and tits can make more than five million. How stingy is Stephen to the audience? If Diane Lane showed her skin, it would definitely be more than five million, right? Don't show the American fans shitty artistry and try to make their money, just like this great "The Adventures of the Slingshot", showing the tits of the blonde beauty."
Stephen's Hollywood career is still going on. Although the movie is as bad as ever, the ratings of "The Apprentice" are very good. This is thanks to Tommy, Jason and Belt, Stanford alumni who contributed a lot of shameless jokes in the show. The audience did not think of them as really starting a business, but more like watching a sitcom. Turner Television Network is even preparing to discuss the possibility of producing a second season with Stephen's company. The current difficulty is where to find the three Stanford highly educated talents with no bottom line and strong action in the first season for the second season.
Stanford University is said to be preparing to send a formal letter to Stephen's company to express its dissatisfaction. Stanford University supplies a large number of high-quality talents to the society every year, but Stephen, as an alumnus, deliberately vilified Stanford graduates. The school believes that Tommy, Jason and Beltre performed that series of actions at the request of the program. If they encounter troubles after the program is broadcast and need legal assistance, Stanford Law School is willing to open its doors.
Even though he was about to be blacklisted by Stanford University, Stephen was still complacent. He even called Tommy happily to tell him that his company had made a profit thanks to "The Apprentice", which showed that he was born to be a film and television producer.
Tommy was too lazy to remind that idiot. That was because he had never thought of paying the three leading actors, so the account books showed a slight surplus.
"Sophia called me and told me that you were going to let me chat with the two first ladies at Wellesley College, so I came all the way here. Otherwise, I would have had a few glasses of whiskey and gone to sleep by now."
Tommy picked up a file bag on the coffee table and handed it to Delia: "The information is in there. It's okay to take your time to read it after you have rested. It's not too much, only about a hundred pages."
Then he moved Delia's feet off his legs, stood up and prepared to walk out.
Delia saw Tommy preparing to leave and asked, "Where are you going?"
"I'll go to Los Angeles as the prototype of the character to attend the premiere of Stephen's shitty movie and hypocritically praise him for his great filming. After that, I'll return to Stanford University to stay for a while. I probably won't show up before AmigaOS is on the market. After all, I still have a lot of work to do, such as treating my classmates to takeout pizza or playing games with professors? Make sure they feel respected by me so that they can work better for me."
"I said I was tired." Delia said emphatically.
Tommy frowned in embarrassment: "I'm not disturbing you. I was just about to leave, ma'am."
"I think you might want to take a shower." Delia winked at him.
Tommy said in a somewhat dissatisfied tone: "Hey, you said you were not in the mood to exercise, Ms. Case. You said on the phone that you were not in the mood to exercise, so I felt relieved to come to see you."
"When I said I wasn't in the mood to exercise, I meant that you exercised in bed, and I tried to stay as still as possible. The doctor said that my menopause was approaching and I needed solace urgently."
"Now I understand why your assistant, Mr. Kane Fan, converted to Buddhism at the age of thirty."
