After eleven o'clock he left the ICP headquarters building for a ten-block ride to an exclusive men's athletic club whose clientele consisted entirely of high-level executives. Typically, the club arranged rotating squash and racquetball matches between executives in similar positions from different companies and industries. A president of an insurance company, for example, might be paired with a CEO from an advertising agency; a TV executive with a restaurant magnate…or the chairman of the world's largest computer manufacturer with chairman of the world's largest food manufacturer.
Waiting for his technical and business advisers to arrive for their two o'clock meeting, William stretched and considered the soreness in his arms. They felt now as they had after his match with Rolland Worthy, chairman and CEO of International Foods, a little over two years ago. During that match, he mused, he had felt as though he'd been punched in the stomach midway through the game.
"What do you know about Wallaby?" Worthy had asked him.
The hard rubber ball struck the wall with solid force and rebounded toward William.
His concentration and judgment were wrecked by Rolland's question; his racquet overextended. The ball hurtled past him.
"What, I hit a nerve?" Worthy laughed, arming his sweating wrinkled forehead with his shirtsleeve.
William crouched. "Wallaby is a small company in Silicon Valley that manufactures portable computers and those new small wonders referred to as PIAs, which stands for personal interactive assistant," William said flatly. He bounced on the balls of his feet, anticipating Worthy's serve.
Worthy tossed the ball in the air and pounded it with his racquet, then dropped to a defensive footing, his actions fluid and youthful.
William smashed the ball and they played out the serve, and he ultimately gained the ball after Worthy crashed into the wall.
"You okay?" William huffed.