Paul Melko - The Walls of the Universe

There was a bowl of crap on his kitchen counter, next to his keys and his wallet. He dug through it, tossing aside receipts and pieces of paper.

“Here it is,” he said. The business card was crumbled and folded, but the name and number were still visible.

“What?” Henry said.

“What if we got an investor?” John said. “What if someone would fund us?”

“You want to bring someone else in?”

“They have money, and we don’t.”

“Yeah, but…” Henry seemed to consider it.

“We’re not only going to lose it all,” John said. “We’re going to lose it to Ray Paquelli.”

Henry gritted his teeth, as if he found the idea abhorrent. “I dunno.” He glanced at the bathroom door.

John picked up his phone, then put it back down.

“Should I call?” he said. “Should I find out if they’re still interested?”

Henry shrugged.

John felt a moment’s anger at Henry’s ambivalence. He picked up the phone and dialed the number.

“Mr. Visgrath’s office,” a male voice answered after the first ring.

“This is John Wilson. Mr. Visgrath gave me his number…”

“Ah, yes, the Pinball Wizards,” the voice said. “Just a moment.”

“They remember us,” John answered.

“Why would they remember us?” Henry asked.

A deeper voice spoke into the phone. “Mr. Wilson, so good of you to call. What can I do for you?”

“You-You said you’d be interested in financing our pinball machines.”

The door to the bathroom opened and Grace came out looking perplexed.

“Who’s he talking to?” she whispered.

“Investors.”

“Yes, we’re interested, though your circumstances have changed, have they not?”

“How so?” John asked.

“The lawsuit, of course, by Raymond Paquelli,” Visgrath said. “And the problems with the city of Toledo.”

How could everyone know their business so easily? John wondered. How had Typhoon Gold and Ermanaric Visgrath both learned of it?

“Those things will go away in no time.”

“So you say.”

“They will,” John said. “Paquelli is grasping at straws and the city thing will be cleared up next week.”

“But orders are down,” Visgrath said. “And time is short for you.”

“Are you interested or not?” John asked.

“We are.”

“On what terms?”

“For fifty-five percent of the stock of the company, we will give you capital of two million dollars,” Visgrath said.

Two million!

“Hold on,” John said. He set the phone down on the back of the couch and motioned Grace and Henry over. “He’s offering two million for fifty-five percent of the company.”

“That’s a majority,” Henry said loudly.

John shushed him. “But two million is huge!”

“We could do everything we wanted,” Grace said.

“But we’re giving up ownership.”

John realized Henry was right. He picked up the phone.

“We don’t want to give up ownership,” John said.

“That’s not negotiable,” Visgrath said.

“Why not?”

“Look at it from our perspective,” he said. “We are investing a huge amount of cash in a company run by three teens without college degrees. We must maintain control of the company in case the situation deteriorates.”

It made sense, but John was reluctant.

“I don’t know.”

“We have no interest in running the day-to-day aspects of the corporation,” Visgrath said. “You have shown remarkable capability so far, but we must have assurances, and a minority share for us is not any assurance.”

“We’ll want more cash,” John said.

“We’re willing to raise our offer to four million, but no more.”

John raised his eyebrows. “We’ll have to think about it.”

“Of course. I’d expect no less.” Visgrath cleared his throat. He seemed suddenly distracted. “You have my number. Of course, the sooner the better, for you as well as me. Money makes a lot of problems disappear. Good-bye.”

John hung up the phone.

“Who was that?” Grace demanded.

“You spoke with him,” John said. “Visgrath. Ermanaric Visgrath. He was at one of the tournaments. You sent him my way, and he gave me his card.”

“Yeah, just to get rid of him,” Grace said.

“What kind of name is that?” Henry muttered. “Visgrath.”

“We’re not taking any offer!” John shouted. “We’re just looking at options. We can walk away, we can fight city hall on a shoestring budget, or we can take their four million and hire the big guns.”

“Four million!”

“It was just two million,” Grace said.

“The fifty-five percent is nonnegotiable,” John said. “But the cash part wasn’t.”

Grace sat down on the couch heavily. Her shoulders sagged. “This is all too much in one day. Too much.” Her eyes were still bloodshot. John almost went over to her, but he recalled suddenly the drunken revelation of her feelings. And before he did, Henry took a step, stopped, then stepped toward her to place a hand on her shoulder. Grace suddenly sobbed and grabbed his hand.

“What should we do?” she said, her voice breaking.

John shrugged heavy shoulders. “I dunno.”

Henry just shook his head.

“I don’t-,” John started to say. He stopped, swallowing. “I don’t want to lose it all. And if that means asking for help from, from… professionals, so be it. We’re just kids. We don’t know how to run a company. Ermanaric Visgrath does. So they want something in return. So be it. But we’ve gone from nothing to four million dollars in four months.”

“So you want to do it,” Grace said.

“I don’t want to lose it.”

“I don’t either!” Grace cried. “But… but…”

They were silent for a while. Finally, Henry said, “Let’s do it.”

“What?” Grace said.

“How often does a chance like this come along?” he said. Grace shook off his hand. A stricken look passed across Henry’s face, but he continued, “Four million dollars to build a company. We can do… everything we want to do.”

Grace grabbed her coat.

“Fine,” she said.

“I’ll drive you home,” Henry said.

“No, I want to walk,” she said. The door slammed behind her.

John shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll call him tomorrow and arrange it.”

…

“It’s like this,” Kyle said. “You have three people on the board, and they have four. They can fire Grace as CEO any time they want and elect one of themselves to the position. But the day-to-day stuff they aren’t involved in.”

John and Henry were in the basement of the law building again, where Kyle was examining the investment agreement Ermanaric Visgrath had sent over. Again the Bench was filled with law students. John wasn’t sure if they ever took a break.

“So they ultimately control it all,” Henry said.

“No, they control fifty-five percent,” Kyle said. “All that means is that if they wanted to they could force a new chairman of the board and a new CEO. You see, investment companies like this don’t want to run your company if it’s doing well. They want to make money. But they want the reassurance that if you screw it up, they can step in and take over.”

“That’s why they won’t budge on fifty-five percent,” John said.

“Exactly.”

“So,” John said. He glanced at Henry, who shrugged. “So, what do we do?” John finally said.

“John, you know I can’t offer legal advice,” Kyle said.

“Yeah, but what do we do?” Henry said. He sounded as desperate as John felt.

Kyle sighed. “There’s nothing in here that looks outrageous,” he said. “And…”

“And?”

“And it’s four million dollars. Jeez!”