Chapter 38
Dirk
Jamison’s lost weight. His smile is hearty enough – he’s pleased to see me, but whatever’s on his mind has not gone away.
This time, I insist we lunch at a place I know; less of a fish tank than his club. I’m determined to find out what’s on his mind, and if it takes a private booth in Baxter’s to get him to talk, so be it.
Walt took me here when he started his own campaign to get me to move back to the city. The beer’s cold if forgettable, and the ribs and hamburgers hot. Not a place for Dee. Nothing vegan here.
“Out with it,” I say, once our orders are placed and the drinks delivered. “And don’t you dare say ‘out with what.’ For starters, why don’t you want your car back?”
“Okay. I thought you might like to buy it.”
“But why?”
“Turns out I overspent on it, or at least the repayments are killing me.”
“A money man makes a mistake like that?”
“I’m not proud of it, Dad. I was expecting a raise, but Brent’s holding out on me.”
My boy’s lips are thin. He’s miserable.
“And?” I say.
“He says he wants more from me – ‘skin in the game.’ But I don’t have that kind of money. When I came in and set up all the IT, he said I’d make partner in six months – laid it all out for me on an invisible platter – the salary, the perks, the shares. But he reneged, Dad. Big time.”
“How can he do that?”
“My mistake. Nothing in writing. Plenty of fine print in our heads. All that candy was predicated on quotas, and nobody’s made quota this quarter, least of all me. I thought all I had to do was make the IT sing. Turns out I need to bring in capital, too.”
“Mighty expensive overheads in a set-up like that,” I say, and Jamison nods.
“Brent was great when we were at college, Dad. He had the vision, the examples of companies that did what we were about to do and made it big time. All I had to do, he said, was set up the systems.”
“But you’ve done that, haven’t you?”
“I have. Worked day and night on it for the first two years out of college, back when we worked out of a garage. But Brent wanted to go too big too fast, and I had no choice but to stick with him. I’d already invested so much time and come up with so many customized systems that will only work for his set up.”
Our food appears, but Jamison has no interest in food. Now he’s talked, he wants my input.
“What are your choices, son?”
“Take him to court for breach of promise, with money I don’t have.”
“Or?”
“Stick with him and hope we can turn the business around.”
“Or?”
“Convince you to invest in the business.”
“In a business with someone you no longer trust?”
“There’s that.”
