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contacts.”
    “What kind of contacts?”
    “Businessmen, bankers, the kind of people who say ‘I’ll send the car to get you.’”
    A waitress brushed Timmermans’s back while balancing a plate of fish and potatoes with a warm buttery sauce.
    Peter quietly played with his glass. “Maybe it’s just a silly idea,” Peter said.
    “Doubtful,” Timmermans said, unflinching.
    “Maybe I’m wrong.”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Maybe I’m already working with another venture capital guy.”
    “What’s his name? I probably know him. If he’s Dutch, good luck. You need American money, and even that’s hard to come by these days.”
    “Maybe I just want to put my paper in my desk drawer.”
    “That would be stupid. That’s what I’m trying to talk you out of. I knew guys like you in Leuven. Permanent students. Smart guys. They’re now world-class connoisseurs of late-night kebabs, beer, and 21-year-old language students. I want to save you from that, Peter.”
    “What’s wrong with 21-year-old language students?”
    “Listen, your idea is good, Peter. You owe it to the world not to keep this in your head.”
    “I don’t owe anybody, anything, thank you very much.”
    “Look. It’s as simple as this. Let me help you make a lot of money,” Timmermans said, staring deeply into Peter’s eyes as if he was trying to hypnotize him.
    “And help yourself,” Peter said.
    “And help myself. You’re 29 years old. Imagine retiring at 31. Imagine that. What would you do?”
    Peter thought for a moment. “I don’t know.”
    “Come on. You must have an idea.”
    “Move to Wyoming, I suppose. Buy a lot of guns. Date women with big hair. I think I’d like it out there.”
    “I can get you there, Peter.”
    “How?”
    “Patent the technology, form a company, bring in some gray hairs like myself to run the place.”
    “You can make that happen?”
    “Yes.”
    Peter paused. The trio finished its set and made its way to the bar. The Eastern Europeans shoveled food into their mouths. Two women kissed. The scene felt right. They were his kind of people in his kind of place. But he suddenly felt overcome with a desire to say his goodbyes, as if he were going on a trip. He visualized Kapitein Zeppos twenty years down the road. He saw the same group of people eating, enjoying themselves, but not laughing as deeply. He saw older visages on the wounded jazz trio, and the same plate of fish and potatoes being served to the table next to him. Same waitress, same smell, same music. He remembered an ad for a dude ranch that he had cut out from the back of a magazine ...
    “ There’s a place in the Wyoming mountains where time slows down, the air smells clean, the water runs pure and the people are down-home friendly. Boulder Lake Lodge is truly at the ‘end of the road,’ nestled in the foothills of the Bridger National Forest. Thick aspen groves and pine-covered hillsides set the stage for one of the finest vacations in the Wind River Mountains.”
    Timmermans smoked his Dunhill.
    Peter didn’t like this Belgian, but he was beginning to sense the man was for real. Peter began to speak, stopped himself, and then started again. “What would we call it?”
    “What?” Timmermans said.
    “The company. What would we call it?”
    Timmermans paused for a moment to take a deep hit on the cigarette. “Whatever you want, Peter,” he said, smoke slinking out his nose.
    “Cheyenne.”
    Timmermans looked confused. “What’s that?”
    “Capital of Wyoming.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

    Aaron had read somewhere that the first mention of the Château de La Rochepot in Burgundy was in the 13th century. Once upon a time, it was probably used as a Gallo-Roman defense. Partially wrecked during the French Revolution, it was restored in the 19th century by Colonel Sadi Carnot.
    But that’s not what Aaron Cannondale liked about the Château de La Rochepot. He liked it because it had a draw bridge and a watch wall and a Chinese room