The email arrives without warning on a Tuesday morning, perfectly polite but as foreboding as a death sentence: Sage Clinic wants to look at his books.
Townsend skims through the message once, twice, and then a third time, just to make sure he’s not overreacting ...want to perform due diligence as part of our new partnership and potential equity investment ... preliminary list of documents and information needed for review ... includes, but is not limited to, user metrics data such as monthly recurring revenue per user, customer lifetime value, retention rate, origination sources ... please provide at your earliest convenience.
Sage Clinic isn’t accusing him of anything, Townsend tells himself. In fact, the company is offering to invest in AutoInTune, to help it grow for their mutual benefit. He’s merely being asked to hand over some documents. The problem, of course, is that the real documents will demonstrate that he’s been providing false information about the size of his company’s user base. And if he doesn’t start increasing membership (and stop inflating his numbers in the meantime), he’s going to be in deep shit ... if he isn’t already.
Sage Clinic could rescind its offer. Worse than that: He could go to fucking prison.
As reluctant as he is to do so, he knows who he must call. He sighs, thumbs through his contacts, and then selects the name of his dad’s old college roommate, Carter Bonier.
He answers after the first ring. “You got Carter.”
“Carter, hi.” Townsend forces a smile, hoping it may inject some more enthusiasm into his voice. “This is Townsend, Randolph Fuller’s kid.”
A phlegmy cough erupts in Townsend’s ear, likely the result of those Nicaraguan cigars that he and Townsend’s dad used to smoke like fiends. “Of course, of course. It’s been too long. How are you holding up, son?”
“I’m good.” Townsend pauses, reconsidering his lie. If Carter—a former federal prosecutor turned partner at Rutland & Wiles—is going to help him, then he should probably start with the truth. “I’m okay. I’m in a bit of trouble, actually.”
“Ho, boy.” Carter chuckles, probably expecting Townsend to regale him with tales of some low-stakes boyish antics—hitting a mailbox with his car or knocking up a girlfriend, perhaps.
“Like,legaltrouble.”
Too long of a lull follows. “I’m free after four,” Carter says at last. “Come by the office.”
Townsend hasn’t been to Frost Bank Tower in months, not since Dad died and he quit his job at Bonnell Trust—where he’d worked alongside his father—to dedicate more time to AutoInTune. The old office is only a few floors below Carter’s, and Townsend thinks about stopping by, but instead, he rides the elevator straight up to the Rutland office. Surely there aren’t many people (if any) who miss him at Bonnell, if he’s honest with himself. It’s tough to make friends when you’re the boss’s son.
After weaving through a maze of beige cubicles and closed office doors (including the office of someone named William Dupont—why does that name sound familiar to him?), Townsend finally happensupon Carter Bonier’s corner office. Then he wipes his sweaty hands on his chinos and knocks with as much authority as he can muster. When the door swings open to reveal his dad’s old friend—just as pear shaped, ruddy faced, and beady eyed as Townsend remembers—he plasters a shit-eating grin on his face and offers his hand.
“Carter, thank you for—”
Before he can finish, Carter clasps his hand and pulls him into a bone-crushing embrace. “Nonsense, nonsense. Anything for Randy’s boy. So sorry I couldn’t make the funeral, by the way. You know how it is.”
Townsend didn’t even notice Carter’s absence from his dad’s funeral; the whole day was a blur, made blurrier by the bottle of scotch he downed to self-medicate.
Once Carter settles behind his desk—and Townsend in the much smaller chair facing it—he gets right to business. “Who’s the trouble with, son? A girl?”
If only a girl were his main issue. “No. It’s with some documents requested by a potential investor.”
“Ah, shit.” Carter cranes back in his chair. “What’s going on?”
Making sure to give no more information than he needs to, Townsend tells Carter about his new partnership with Sage Clinic and its due diligence request. “Financials, audits, prospectuses, investor presentations, communications—they want everything.” Townsend runs a hand through his hair. “And I have to give it to them, right? Including user metrics?”
Carter gives him a cryptic look. “Is there a reason you wouldn’t want to?”
Is he really going to make him say it? Carter isn’t representing him yet; he has no idea whether there’s any attorney-client privilege at work here. But surely his father’s memory will at least grant him Carter’s discretion. “I used synthetic data to get the offer.”
Apparently, this isn’t the right thing to say. Carter groans. “Synthetic data? You mean fake data?”
“The data makes it appear as though my company has over two hundred thousand members. In reality, I have fewer than twenty-fivethousand.” Saying it out loud makes it seem so much worse than it does on paper.
“Have you talked to your CFO about the request?”
“I ...” Townsend’s face burns. “I don’t have a CFO.”
“How about a CIO?”
“I plan on hiring those roles once I secure more funding.”
“You’re telling me AutoInTune is just you?”
