Jerry parked Bal-Simba by the bandstand and set out to work the room in search of Taj. Trying to look inconspicuous, he jammed into the crowd around one of the buffet tables and scarfed a handful of shrimp. The crab claws were already gone he saw, so the party had been going on for a while. Meanwhile he scanned the crowd, hoping to see Tajikawa, or at least a friendly face.
He couldn’t see either and the more he looked the less likely it became. This wasn’t the right kind of party. The ratio of suits to ponytails was way too high and there was hardly a laptop open anywhere.
He was still scanning, looking for technical types amid the noise and chaos, when a perfectly coifed woman in a blue suit slid in next to him.
The woman smiled brightly. “Snarf mafoozle gleeber justik,” she said.
“I beg your pardon?”
She leaned closer and raised her voice to be heard over the din. “I said what did you think of the big announcement?”
It occurred to Jerry that he was laboring under a severe disadvantage here. Not only didn’t he know what the “big announcement” was, he’d never even heard of Mauve Technology. And hadn’t the faintest idea what— if anything—it made. He thought about opening the press kit and actually reading it but he discarded the notion instantly. For one thing the light was so poor he wouldn’t be able to read anything and for another it would make him suspicious. He decided to play it safe.
“Really something. Pretty ambitious, isn’t it?”
“We have to stay on the leading edge. I’m sorry I don’t recognize your company name. Are you a distributor or a VAR?”
“Uh, we’re kinda a technology partner. Actually I was hoping to meet someone here. E.T. Tajikawa.”
“Oh, is he with our West Coast sales office?”
“Uh, not exactly. Your software people know him.”
“You wait right here and I’ll go see.” With that she turned and dived into the crowd. Jerry made to follow her but before he could take a step, a large man in a suit stepped in front of him and stuck out his hand.
“Perry Jacobs,” he boomed, “vice-president of sales.” It was both a greeting and a challenge and Jerry was acutely aware of how little he fit with the business-suited crowd swarming around them.
Jerry smiled brightly. “Cantraf colgain esper jokake jon,” he mumbled, as if it meant something.
“Glad you’re enjoying it,” the other boomed. “Here let me give you one of my cards.”
Jerry extended one of his. “Meeper gleeble ranamuck shusur.”
“Yeah, I’ve gone through a pack of them, too,” Jacobs boomed.
Meanwhile, Bal-Simba was enjoying himself, in a bemused sort of way. The singer, a Judy Garland impersonator, was taking advantage of his size and appearance by playing off him, flirting with him as he sang, flicking him with his silk scarf and vamping outrageously. When the number ended the singer blew Bal-Simba a kiss and scampered offstage. That was the cue for the band to take a break, and for the first time in several minutes Bal-Simba could hear himself think.
“I said, quite a show isn’t it,” said a voice at his elbow.
The wizard turned and saw a small man in a bad toupee standing beside him.
“It is indeed,” Bal-Simba agreed, which seemed safe enough.
“They’re going all out,” his new acquaintance said. They missed the top of the IPO cycle, their quarterlies are off and if this doesn’t fly big they’re probably going to have to gobble up a couple of startups with good stories to save their offering.”
Bal-Simba nodded sagely.
The man extended his hand. “Peter Saperstein, of the Saperstein Group. You know, the Saperstein Technology Letter.” Bal-Simba nodded again.
“So, who are you here for?”
Bal-Simba took the first name he could think of. “IBM.”
“That’s not what it says on your badge,” Saperstein shot back.
Bal-Simba realized he had blundered.
“You weren’t supposed to say that, were you?”
If there was one thing the big wizard knew it was when to keep his mouth shut. So he just smiled slightly at his new acquaintance.