Inital Public Offerings Ch. 04

'Well, I'd like my wife and company back, but both have been tainted by a low piece of shit backstabbing asshole. So that is off the table. How's the share price?"

"You fucker! I'll see you in court!"

"Ah. You rub the very nub...which seems to be all you have to offer sexually. Alliemust be doing this for the money from what I saw."

"Saw?" his voice was even more guarded.

"Enough of that. Past history. If all the lawsuits are dropped by you and the venture capitalists, I think we could come to a reasonable fiscal accommodation."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"How did you talk my wife into bed? You'll think of something."

"I can't control the underwriters."

"I didn't mention the underwriters." I said reasonably. "I'll have to deal with them myself." It was time to twist the knife. "One more thing. You need to talk your fucktoy into not contesting the divorce agreement."

"I don't want to get involved in your marital..."

My mocking laughter cut him off midsentence. I noticed that he didn't defend Allie's honor. "Youmade yourself involved, and if California had alienation of affection lawsuits, you'd be staring down the barrel of one of them,with video."

"She isn't going to go for that."

"That isn't my problem. If you don't, we're talking injunctions for fair use...AFTER my divorce is settled. She isn't seeing a dime of that. It wasn't mentioned in her divorce settlement." Allie was in a bit of a bind. She had demanded that assets be frozen in her settlement. Each of us could only gain access to small amounts of money. I got more because I was maintaining a house and she wasn't. Since she maxed out her credit cards, she needed money. And if this put a nice wedge into their fuck fest or their nice couple hood, well, I felt justterrible about that. As for me, I was having a blast on E-Bay selling off the pieces I didn't like and was appalled at some of the prices I was getting. I'm sure I'd hear about it legally later, but at this point, I didn't care and she didn't know.

"Why are you being this way? If you wreck the company, you're going to hurt a lot of people, not just us two."

"Funny how you never thought about that when you started this. Don't play the sympathy card, Andy. You can't pull it off. I'm not interested in debating this. You have my letter. Think real hard about that."

***

Operator Error

So far, I've had my share of fun. Yes, they stabbed me in the back, but I hit them hard financially and emotionally. If Andrew wanted to save his company, he had to get Allie to agree to her financial screwing. If she wanted the shares she fucked to get to be valuable, she needed to make sure the company was actually worth something. But she just got publicly savaged and wanted to be paid. I couldn't see Andrew being particularly sympathetic to her plight. From what I understand, there were a couple reporters taking pictures of them all the time. Just to get her goat, I mentioned to her in an email that I was being approached for movie rights. No, it wasn't true, but what did I care? You can imagine her response.

My perspective started to change when I had a surprise visitor. I had just gotten back from my morning run and sipping some fresh squeezed watermelon juice as Tripti was making some Idali for breakfast and Swati was enjoying the first of many tea breaks.

The doorbell rang and we all looked at each other. Was it another process server? Swati got up frowning to go get it. "Mister REEnalds...It's a Mister Low-ub."

Harry Loeb, my erstwhile business partner walked into my kitchen. He was in a Polo shirt and slacks, not his normal business ensemble. "Hello Harry. To what do I owe the honor?"

He looked a bit subdued. "Jim."

"Shouldn't you be at work, writing proxy documents, shuffling our corporate structure, or something?"

He winced. "We missed you at the last couple of board meetings."

I laughed at him. "Fat chance." I paused, curious "What do you mean?"

"I mean that you were never formally removed from the board."

"I can't believe that wasn't your first order of business after I got served."

"I came here to hear your side of the story. When Schwartz told me that you sold us out, I was pretty pissed at you. You violated lock out and exposed the entire company legally. I'm the one who drew up those motions and I planned on skinning you." He fell silent.

"I hear a 'but' coming."

"But then I saw the news with Allie on it. And that raised a few questions. Andrew told us that the two of them were attracted to each other and that you flew off the handle at their friendship."

"And you believed that of me?"

"I had a hard time believing it, but I also had a hard time believing that you would choke Hector and throw him out of your office. Anyone can crack."

I considered this. 'You have a point. It was a stressful couple of days."

"Why don't you tell me about them?"

I told him my story. I told him about people knowing things they shouldn't know, about people approaching Karl to finish Ryleh, about catching Allie and Andy boy fucking. I offered to show him the video, but he declined. I showed him the proxy vote card and he read it silently.

"This looks like Jenkins's work. I always figured him for a weasel. I never signed off on this and I didn't know about it. When I saw those shows with Allie and those tape excerpts, I asked Andy a few questions, but I really didn't need to because Allie answered his home phone."

"So what are you going to do about Jenkins?"

"Hmm? Nothing."

"Nothing? Why the hell not!"

"Because as soon as I heard her voice and listened to his half assed rationalizations, I quit as chief counsel for the company. I'm not going to work with a person who acts like that."

When I heard this, I put my glass down and covered my face as I tried to get a grip. It was...humbling, truly humbling. Did I have that much character? Nothing I had done so far had required any, only needing me to respond. I was fully aware of my character flaws.

Once I felt I had enough control not to embarrass myself, I reached over and hugged him. "Thank you." I said over his shoulder.

"Hey! Don't get all girly on me. It's not like I sold my shares or gave up my board position. I am a lawyer. Besides, I wanted to work harder on my golf game."

"Would you like something to drink?" I finally remembered to offer.

***

It was an informative conversation. It seems that Ryleh had to be delayed, and the income stream that they guessed would be available, wasn't. The programming department was up in arms. Hector never got over the humiliation of me slamming him out of my office and his sudden elevation rubbed people the wrong way. They weren't working as efficiently. Besides that, it seems that Karl quit too. Before he got Sheila, he was an animal, cutting code for hours. A couple of corporate officers went to Ohio to try to talk him into staying with a SERIOUS salary increase.

"Does your friend's Tourette's include an uncontrollable use of invective?" Harry asked me. They had a general idea of his problems, even if they hadn't met him.

"No. Just twitches and growls." I said confused.

"Then it wasn't Tourette's." Harry said dryly.

"Poor Karl!" I said, feeling low at dragging my friend into this.

"Poor Karl? Joel and Mark said they if it wasn't for his girlfriend, they weren't sure they were walking out of there and they refuse to go back!"

"And Gordon?" I asked.

He looked at his diet coke. "Gordon...is in a hard place. His wife was a bit of a spendthrift like yours. And he didn't rein her in as effectively. He's young like you and a bit more emotionally invested. I know for a fact that he didn't know about them sleeping together until after things started to blow up." He winced once again. "And he choose sides too."

"So it's Gordon and Andy running the company?" He nodded.

"And they are having financial and personnel problems."

"What?"

"A number of venture capitalists have been asking pointed questions. If they could get out of their holdings, they would. Phil Turner is leading that group."

"Phil?"

"Yes. I'm not sure he gives a rat's ass that Andy is screwing a married woman. He strongly cares that Andy was willing to do that to one of his closest business partners. The fact that he also has a pretty little wife probably isn't coincidental. Let's just say that Andy's parties are a lot less well attended by his business partners. If the men don't disapprove, their wives certainly do and from what I understand are being quite vocal on that point. In fact Marge," Harry's wife, "is fully behind my decision regarding the job. She wanted you to know that if you need anything at all, she's more then happy to help."

"Tell her thank you for me. What's this about personnel?"

"A few people left the company over all of this. Not sure about their motives. Because of the lack of income and a few vendors quietly moving to our competitors.." he gave me a look of askance, but I shook my head," well, things haven't been rosy and they let several people go."

"That's terrible."

"It is. But what are you going to do? They want to staunch the bleeding. I'm not blaming you for this. But it's still happening."

We promised to keep in touch and he left, apologizing for the mess he really wasn't responsible for.

I sent Karl an email thanking him for his support.

He sent one back:

Don't worry. I'm not working for them again! And I can't believe the awful lies they are telling about you in the news. I'm working on fixing that. Karl

What the hell was he planning? I was getting a sick feeling in my stomach and it wasn't just Karl. I started to not sleep well. You would think with a bazillion lawsuits, a divorce, betrayal and bankruptcy that it was amazing I was sleeping at all, but so far, I'd been able to avoid most of it. There were a few stressful nights which requires a bit of Southern Comfort to take the edge off, but lately it was getting worse, so much so that Prathee started to show up again and they switched me to decaf. These girls didn't miss a trick.

So it was that Prathee called to me one day "Mr. Reynolds. You're on You Tube." she said, looking up from my laptop where she was supposed to be working on homework. I came over and looked over her shoulder.

On the screen was Karl. He was obviously stressing hard. His tics were pronounced and every third word seemed to be a yip, but he had made a video excoriating the press, Andrew, Allie and telling everyone what a prince of a guy I was, not only giving him his first job, but introducing him to his fiancée. His fucking FIANCE! My best friend in the world, who hated to ask a woman for money when we were shoveling sidewalks, was putting himself out there publicly and offering to give media interviews!

"Prathee...why don't you go outside and play." I said huskily.

"Mr. Reynolds, I'm not done with my homework."

"Prathee!" She scurried.

I lost it. Karl hadn't told me he was engaged, and yet here he was, quitting his job and garnering media attention on my behalf. ME! The guy who left him alone during Homecoming because I wanted to nail Rebecca Goldstein. The guy who was frequently embarrassed by him with Allie. The guy who used him to help build this company with free labor.

And it wasn't just him. He lost his job...and so did Gloria, a single mom with a kid. Mindy. George from security who was supplementing his pension. Fully a dozen people or more from our company and from the sounds of it, the rest were on the edge. They had gone into business with us and we, as employers, had an obligation to them as well. Yes, I wasn't the prime mover, but my actions had more then contributed to their woes. Just because I was the victim of Andrew and Allie didn't give me license to victimize other people.

I recalled what Judith had told me a month or so ago: But if you pick a pit bull, you better be ready to bleed yourself. They are fighters. It's all they do. It's all they know HOW to do.

I had gotten so focused on winning and causing the most damage, that I forgot there were a lot of innocent victims out there as well. Andrew, that cocksucker, was right, even as he was only using it for a manipulative ploy: A lot of people were getting hurt by my actions.

It was up to me to change all that.

***

My first action was to send another letter of intent to the company stating that I had no intention of seeking any fiduciary recompense for my copyright royalties for the next 18 months. I didn't give up my rights, but I didn't see how tying up their finances right now would be good for the people who would get hurt the worst by my actions.

We had gone public to raise cash and had spent a good half mill or more to go public in the first place. The stock price had sunk and Andy boy was having a hard time getting more investors.

It seems that businessmen value honesty and are married. Neither of these lent themselves to trust him in any kind of relationship. Those that weren't married were divorced...and Andy was a divorcee nightmare.

As for Allie, I sent her a personal email telling her I'd go for a 50-50 split if she unfroze our assets. I even offered to sign a document to that effect. Needless to say there was a lot of suspicion, but I tried to reassure her to the best of Thurman's ability.

Lastly, I got a list of names from Human Resources and checked my company directory. Mindy was a lot of help as we started my new project.

The first thing I did when they unfroze was to cut a check for Karl for the two years of work he did for me which he wasn't getting paid. Yes, he wasn't very good back then, but I made it a substantial lump sum and tried to add as much inflation as humanly possible to make sure he got the most money possible. If nothing else, I wrote, he should take it as an early wedding present. I also told him to seriously reconsider taking them up on the job offer. Karl is a proud guy, which was why he was so angry for so long. I'm guessing that Sheila was pragmatic enough and persuasive enough to get him to do the smart thing, because I was happy to see my check cleared pretty quickly. Suddenly, sleeping wasn't a problem anymore.

I sent an email to every fired person from the company and offered anything within my power to help them find a new job. Needless to say, I took a lot of shit from a lot of angry ex employees.

Many of them wanted nothing to do with me. I made sure they had my email and phone number and bid them luck. Others were happy to take my help. I called every programmer, vendor, client and personal friend to find them a job.

In a lot of cases, that wasn't enough. The economy in California sucked that badly. At this point, I bit the bullet and started to pay some to relocate. George wanted to go to Florida where his social security might be enough to live. Gloria wanted to be closer to her mother.

I only used my half of the money.

What were my motives? I'd hurt a lot of people and I wanted to make it right. I couldn't control what people like Andy and Allie did to me, but I could control how I acted afterward. Frankly, they were beneath me. They'd gotten hurt already and I had nothing more I wanted to do to them.

***

So it came as a huge surprise when I got a phone call from Allie.

"Hi...Jimmi...Jim?"

"Hello Allie. How are you?"

"I'm okay. Thank you for asking. I wanted to know if I could meet you. Maybe for a drink somewhere. Frank's? It was a bar we went to occasionally.

"Our lawyers wouldn't like us talking together."

"Forget our lawyers. This isn't about our divorce. It's about something different."

"When and where?" She gave me the relevant information and my schedule was pretty wide open of late. I said goodbye and put the phone in it's cradle. "You can come in now." I said to the door.

A sheepish Mindy and Swati came in. "I assume you heard everything?" I had long since given up on trying to keep secrets from these two. They nodded. "What do you think?"

Swati looked at Mindy, giving way to her. "You should go." Mindy said "You need closure. I'm not sure what this is about, but it doesn't hurt to listen."

Swati nodded in agreement. "But be careful Mister REEnalds. She's a tricky one." Always good advice.

***

I got to Frank's and she was already in a back booth, dressed very well. Not overly sexy but attractive. I slid across from her and ordered a drink. This was her show and I figured she should take the lead.

"You're looking well." She started.

"I've had a lot of free time, so I've been exercising. What do they say: It takes a divorce to get a man into a gym."

"It's working for you." She fidgeted. "I'm in an apartment now."

"Oh?" I waited.

"Yes...well...the thing with Andy didn't work out as well as I thought it would. I'm not blaming you for it. I blame how we got started in the first place. You didn't help with those paparazzi camped on our doorstep, but we sort of brought it on ourselves."

"Sort of." I agreed placidly.

"I've heard what you're doing with the ex employees and I want to help out."

"Help out?' I was puzzled. I doubt she knew one in ten of our workers.

"Yes. I want to contribute some money and some time. Make a phone bank, network. You have to admit I know a lot of people and you're probably running a bit low by now. But this was a brilliant idea. It has great optics. I could get People Magazine lined up to help us..."

"Optics?" I sighed.

She could sense my sudden change in tone. "Of course it's the right thing to do. But it's brilliant on your part because not only does it help out a lot of people, but it also has the added benefit of rehabilitating your image."

And the image of anyone else working with us who had taken a beating. I could see the wheels spinning in her head.

"Allie..." I said, trying for a soft let down.

Her shoulders slumped. "You aren't going to let me help, are you?"

"No. I'm not. I'm not doing this because of optics. I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do." I shrugged. "Of course, one of the people I'm going to help get a job is me, so don't give me a halo. How did you find out about it anyway?"

"That little secretary of your's is feeding information to the press. One of the reporters is a friend of mine and told me about your project." Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You're sleeping with her, aren't you?"

It was my turn for a little smile to curve my lips. "Do you recall 'The Bob and Tom Show' back when we were in Ohio?"

She was baffled at my sudden change in subject. "Vaguely. They were funny in a weird way. I know you loved it." My entertainment choices again.

"Bob had a saying: Show me a beautiful woman and I'll show you a guy who's tired of fucking her."

She gasped. "Excuse me? What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that if you had asked me for a divorce before you had started fucking Andy, if you had been open and honest, we wouldn't be here today. I'd have given you a fair divorce. Did you think you were the only person dissatisfied?"

"But but but...you never let on!" Her ego had a very hard time accepting that I had any reason to be dissatisfied.

"No. Because, as you so poignantly put it, you chose who you love. But what you forgot was that you need to make that choice every day. Even when your wife is a snob. Even when she spends too much money. Even when she can be an annoying bitch."

"You hypocrite! You're doing the same thing! Looking at that little secretary as a replacement!"

I shook my head again. "No. I wasn't. Yes, I took a shine to her months ago, but at worst, I was window shopping. Thinking what that new coat would look like on me. I never expected you to steal my coat so I needed another. So we aren't fucking. But that doesn't mean I'm not seeing what might be down the road."