Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2020 04:05:53 +0000 (UTC)
From: John Gerald <connectwriter@yahoo.com>
Subject: Mickey 32

Mickey and his local team were gathered around the dining room table,
looking at the individual folders that Marty had put in neat rows, arranged
alphabetically from A (Acme Brake Systems) to W (Worldwide Healthcare.)
Maryam and Parker's disembodied heads were on the Zoom screen of Bik's
laptop at the end of the table.

"Best case, we have a 10% chance of salvaging the bulk of the
companies. Worst case? Which is more like a 50% chance, we barely cover our
cost, and even 50% might be pushing our odds," Bik announced to the team.

"Is it that bad?" Mickey asked. Sitting next to him was Mr. Patterson. His
father-in-law didn't say a word, but out of the corner of his eye Mickey
thought that he looked more slumped down against the rigid lines of the
chrome and leather chair.

"Like I said, I think I'm being a little optimistic, actually," Bik
replied.

"He's right," Mr. Patterson whispered, then sighed.

Bik, Robert and Marty laid out the financial situation at each of the
companies, starting with history and then giving a synopsis of the current
situation at each.

"If you had to identify a common cause of the problems...um...what do they
all share?" Mickey asked.

"After all this work, in the end it's not so hard to identify," Marty
replied.  "First of all, the difficulties of every one of them started at
the same time," he said. "Before then, this was a rock-solid operation."

"Before when?" Mickey asked.

Marty was about to answer before Mr. Patterson spoke.

"Before I let my stepsons run the companies," he answered.

Marty paused for a moment before picking up his earlier statement,
"Well...yes, that is the common problem," he answered. "But mismanage is a
probably a kind word. The only term that really describes what happened at
these companies is that they were looted."

"Would you say it was criminal?" Mickey asked.

"For the public companies, I happen to think so. For the private ones,
well, if the behavior wasn't criminal then it should be," Marty replied.

Mickey didn't act surprised or react positively or negatively. He just
asked questions, as did Maryam and Parker.

After turning control over to Mickey, Mr. Patterson didn't have much choice
in the matter.  He wasn't sure if he could salvage much of anything no
matter who was in charge. It was not questioned that his son-in-law was
quick and sharp.  But being around Mickey and Drew the last few weeks, and
seeing the obvious gentleness and affection between them, he could only
hope that Mickey had a tough side to him, too.

And he saw glimmers of that toughness start to emerge, especially how
Mickey asked questions and learned from each answer, whether he liked the
answer or not. As Mickey was daily confronted with issues that affected his
livelihood, and by extension the livelihood of his family, Mr.  Patterson
could discern a certain strength and determination start to emerge.

						*** "There is one more
thing that I wanted to mention," Mickey said to Mr Patterson as they all
worked together to bankers-box all of the financial documents that Bik and
the others had spread out on the desk.

"I don't know if I can handle another issue, Mickey" Mr. Patterson chuckled
as he helped the guys sort the folders into the correct boxes.

"Most to this business needs to happen in New York," Mickey said, "and I
understand that. But staying there for weekends is not an option for any of
us. We'll lose time on Mondays and Fridays as travel days, but we all have
families and need to keep being parents and spouses. In some emergency
situations, of course, we'll do what we have to do. But staying in New York
is not going to be a regular thing."

"Hmmm..." Mr. Patterson murmured as he paused for a moment.  Putting his
hand over his face, he studied the stacks of binders still on the table,
each one of them a company in desperate need of salvation.

"There are billions of dollars at stake here. I really don't know how much
we can recover, but we will need every second of your time and the time of
the rest of your team, too."

"I know," Mickey replied, "I've been thinking of getting extra batteries
for the plane rides, maybe getting some kind of annual membership for the
wifi in the air.

Smiling only very slightly, Mr. Patterson replied, "Going through airport
security and lining up to get onto commercial planes will take way too much
time. You'll all will need to devote every spare second to understanding
and working on these problems, Mickey."

"What other choice do we have?" he replied.

"Mickey, at this level, and with this much at stake, we need to put you
guys on a private jet. And you'll also need a driver to take you to and
from the airport. It would not be productive for any of you to be driving a
car or waiting in lines. You'll need to be on this 100% of your working
day, and that's the minimum.

"This is how things operate in the big leagues," he continued as he resumed
putting away the documents. "It may initially sound kind of exciting, and I
do hope that you get some enjoyment out of it. But you all are going to be
so busy that you'll hardly even notice what's happening around you and,
pretty soon, the jet won't be much more than a glorified taxi cab."

"Do we have money for that?" Mickey asked.

He sighed. "Well, not really.  But I don't see a choice, we've got to risk
it. Every asset we have has to support you and your team and to recover and
rebuild as much as you can. If we succeed, it will have paid for itself a
thousand times over," Mr. Patterson said.

"But if you fail it will be..." he continued.

"We won't fail," Mickey replied, tersely. He just hoped that he sounded
more sure of himself than he actually felt.

						***

It didn't take long for Mickey to get over the novelty of flying in a
private jet, even if it was to New York.  The four of them were talking
about the company from the moment they stepped into the limousine to when
they were dropped off at the airport runway gate and finally to when
stepped up the small stairs into the plane. Mickey hardly realized that he
was even in a plane until the pilot told them that they were crossing over
the Pennsylvania border.

Another limo picked them up at the airport in New Jersey and drove them
into the city. He always liked the monumentality of the New York skyline
and took a moment to glance up at the view of Manhattan before they dove
into the tunnel beneath the river.  During his years in law school he had
always approached New York from the Connecticut side, so the New Jersey
panorama, with the new World Trade center and other downtown buildings, was
a new perspective for him.

The only relaxing thought he had, and it was only for a fleeting moment,
was that it would be so much fun to this with Ellen and Carl and Drew,
maybe even Nate and Midori and Kenzo, and his mom too. Someday, he hoped.

After the one-hour ride in bad traffic, with the honking horns and smells
of car fumes followed by an amusement park-speed express elevator ride,
they found themselves in the `War Room' that Maryam had set up in their
litigation attorney's midtown office. Like his brief view of Manhattan
coming into town, he only momentarily looked back at New Jersey from the
40th floor office before they all went to work.

The first two days was an almost non-stop grind of research, strategy, role
playing and anything else that he could think of to get ready. The `other
side,' Mr. Patterson's erstwhile stepsons, were sure to be readying
themselves, Mickey thought. And the only way he knew how to approach
something like this was to be as prepared as possible.

A great lunch was the only major lifestyle indulgence that Maryam, as the
host, wisely insisted on for the team. As almost everyone had a family and
saved dinner time for calls home, lunch was really the only opportunity
where the whole team was together and could talk about a few things besides
work.

Drew encouraged Mickey to keep up his workouts, even in an abbreviated
form, as a way of dealing with the stress.  Repeating his exercise routine
from back home, with the order and reps exactly as he was used to, let him
feel a bit more control than the strategy sessions. It was the opposite of
their strategy sessions, where, if they were to learn and refine and
develop their strategy then no one could ever quite be in control.

Each night when he got back to his room, he opened up the laptop and Face
Timed Drew and the kids. By the time Wednesday night came around, when all
the prep was done for the next day's encounter, Mickey had worked out the
absolutely shortest sequence of steps to open the door to his hotel room,
hang up his jacket, kick off his shoes, sit down, open his laptop and look
for Drew and the kids to pop up on the screen.

On top of everything else going on in their lives, they were on the verge
of again becoming parents.

"How Nikki doing?" Mickey asked, referring to their surrogate as they
connected on his third night away.

"Slow and steady again today," Drew replied. "Let me show you a pic."

Hearing clicks on the other side of the screen, a picture came up of a
20-something woman with a very big stomach.

"Wow! She really is getting big," Mickey exclaimed.

"Yeah, she said she feels big, too," Drew chuckled. "But the little guy is
getting really active so she doesn't get bored."

Mickey sighed.

"I really hope I can be back there when it happens. This is one more reason
we have to win these battles, to make it worth the time away," he
said. "But the most important thing is that the baby is safe and healthy,
and Nikki, too. If those two things happen I'll be happy wherever I am."

"Yeah, the timing really sucks, I know. Unless you are really in the thick
of something it would be great if you could come back."

"I'm going to try, and if I can I will. But, like the baby, this legal
stuff will soon move fast and unpredictably. But I know he'll be in good
hands," he replied looking into Drew's eyes.  Even on the screen, Mickey
thought the he looked just so beautiful.

`What A guy,' Mickey thought to himself. `I am so lucky.'

A not insignificant part of their savings went into the whole surrogacy
process, but neither one of them ever thought of it as an `expense.' It was
just something they had to do. Maybe they'd come out of this whole
Patterson Enterprises episode with a bit more money than they had now, or
maybe nothing and Mickey would need to go back to a regular legal job, but
in any case they would figure out how to support their family, no matter
what.

"Any news today?" Drew asked as he closed the video window of Nikki and
again appeared on the screen, this time with Carl in his onesie lying with
his head on Drew's shoulder.

"It was our last prep session," Mickey replied. "I just don't know where
it's going to go, which is, I guess, the nature of the beast. But Brad made
what I thought was a risky strategy suggestion that we all agreed would be
our best chance."

"What was that?" Drew replied, adjusting Carl to his other shoulder.

"He said the we should lay out our demands in a logical and business-like
way, as if we're having an intelligent discussion with other adults over an
understandable business dispute. We may not get everything we want, but if
there is a rational voice controlling the other side of the table and
something concrete can be achieved. So it's just another day at the office,
more or less."

"And what's the risky part?" Drew asked.

Mickey sighed. "This is our one shot to lay this all out, so we need to
make it count. So If it doesn't look like they are taking this seriously,
or are dismissive or hostile in any way, we go nuclear. Which means that
this escalates from a business dispute into criminal activity which we are
prepared to expose. And when I say this it means that we will use all
methods at our disposal to get back control of the companies and recover as
many assets as possible and use whatever and whomever we need to achieve
that goal."

Drew asked, "So how do you make that judgement?  How do you decide, so to
speak, to `pull the trigger?' "

"There often isn't time to huddle on this stuff, but it can't be
unilateral.  So one person will ask at least one other on the team if they
agree with, as we say, `going nuclear.' And they might only have the person
on their right or left to ask. So trust is really important," Mickey
replied.

Carl was getting fussy so Drew moved him back to his other shoulder and
then answered him.  "That's where the art comes in and not the science, you
know. Like you say, you really have to trust each other to make that kind
of strategic decision. But if any group can do it, I think that you guys
can."

"I hope so," Mickey answered. "If we don't get this right we can look
foolish or incompetent and then it all goes down the drain."

						*** At precisely 10
a.m. they arrived at the lobby of the opposition's law firm.  Mickey and
his team introduced themselves to the receptionist, who promptly called the
partner's executive assistant to lead then into the adjacent large
conference room.

"Can I get any one drinks, soda anything else?" she asked, There is bottled
water, here of course," she said nodding at rows of bottles lining the
center of the long, polished wood table."

"Thank you, and yes, there are a few more things," Maryam responded as she
asked several questions about where the team could find printers, private
conference rooms, etc. She even mentioned dietary restrictions for several
members so that they could be prepared for lunch.

Even though Mickey had spent the last few weeks huddling with her and
Parker and the rest of the team, it was the very first time where he had
seen her in a truly professional setting with other lawyers and the
opposition. He was immediately taken by how professional she sounded and
how she commanded the room, setting things up for him to lead the team. It
gave him even more confidence in her abilities and, just maybe, in their
chances to pull this off.

						***

The stepsons let them wait a half hour before the embarrassed assistant
came back and told everyone that her bosses would `be right in.'

As she left the conference room the assistant looked at her watch and shook
her head, then headed over to the receptionist's desk.

"What's keeping them?" she asked.

The receptionist pursed her lips. "I don't know this legal stuff and all
that," she answered, "but these brothers are a bunch of a-holes. They come
in here like the own the place, they just walk in and say where's Matt or
where's Claire, and don't even say hello, like I'm just an answering
machine."

"And whatever they got happening, they think it's all a big joke. I swear,
they're high half the time they come in here," she said, shaking her head.

"Yeah, I know the partners have a hard time managing these two. A couple
know-it-alls.  But they're a big client so we all deal with it," she said
as she answered a buzz from the senior partner in the case.

"It's Claire," she said, covering the phone with her hand.  "I guess that
they're finally ready to come down."

						***

As the other side filed into the room, Mickey's team got a good look at
Drew's erstwhile `stepbrothers.' While most people were dressed
professionally in suits, these two were looked more like they had just left
a disco, or a bar.

With shirts open practically to their navels and clanging gold jewelry
hanging loosely from every appendage, it appeared that they didn't care at
all about where or why they were there. As he shook hands with them, Mickey
couldn't help but see how each of them stared at the side of his face and
seemed to snicker. It was about the only time ever that he was glad that
Drew wasn't around.

Mickey was going to chair the meeting, leading off with a broad review of
their issues, tracing the rough chronological path that had brought them
her to discuss the current precarious financial state of the various
companies.  Maryam and Bik were then going to elaborate on that timeline,
Bik focusing on accounting, and Maryam on the legal issues. They sat next
to each other on one side of Mickey, across from the brothers.

Mickey had just turned to Brad, who was seated next to on his left, while
Bik and Maryam and Parker were on his other side within earshot of the
brothers' murmurs.

None of them could tell exactly what the miscreants were saying. But Bik
and Maryam heard one word conspicuous from all of the rest.

"...pizza face...'

Neither Bik nor Maryam betrayed any reaction at all, they merely looked at
each other. Maryam didn't think that Mickey heard it, or at least hoped
that he hadn't but she leaned in close to Bik's ear.

"Remember the `Line in the Sand?'" she whispered.

"Uh huh," he responded with a slight nod.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Yeah..." Bik answered. Even from just one word, she could sense the anger.

Her voice was unequivocal. "We launch now."

He looked at her again and ever so slightly nodded his head in agreement.

						***

"So what did you all do today? Mickey asked as his screen booted up.

" `Can you both tell Pop how you had a great time today eating and pooping
and peeing?' Drew replied, looking down at the kids, who were off-screen
until he moved the camera to the left and Mickey could see them in their
cribs."

He smiled. Seeing them on the screen, Drew and the kids, renewed him every
evening. After so much artificial adult stuff during the day he loved to
hear about all the little bits and pieces of his family's lives. It all
seemed so much more important. And tomorrow he would see them again in the
flesh!

They chatted for a few more minutes about the day back in Lakewood before
Drew asked him about the big meeting.

"The fireworks came a lot sooner than I thought," Mickey answered, with a
half smile on his face.

"Fireworks?" Drew responded as the picked up Ellen and put her on the desk
in front of the screen for a better view for her Pop.

"We talked a lot about how to approach these guys, whether they were
serious, or really understood anything about what we wanted," Mickey
answered,.

"In the end, my team all knew where we want to end up of course, with
re-establishing control of the companies and some semblance of their assets
intact. And we have what we think is a path. And we do know that it could
move very fast, and as I mentioned before, we'd have to make strategic
decisions on the fly," he started,

"Maryam and Bik, of course had discretion about when to bring out the heavy
artillery," Mickey responded. "But I was surprised at how soon they
attacked. His first sentence included the words `misrepresentation and
`fraud.'

"So they didn't even give those guys a chance?"

"Not one bit," he answered. "Later, I asked Maryam and Bik what made them
decide, and Bik just said, `Their attitude was obviously bad. So there was
no use in wasting time."

"I can say the the body language certainly said that, but, you know, you
can't always judge people by first appearances. But Bik and Maryam
definitely got their attention."

"By the way, I'm glad that those two are on my side. I had no idea how
viscous they could both be."

"What do you mean by `vicious?' Neither one is a shrinking violet, but I
also wouldn't associate that word with them, either."

Mickey paused for a moment. "Even after asking them, I'm still exactly not
sure what triggered this whole thing, but I saw them talking or signaling
each other right before we started. I couldn't tell exactly what they were
saying, I saw it out of the corner of my eye, But when I heard the first
words out of Bik's mouth I knew that it was total war."

"Oh wow!" Drew replied, reaching over bringer Ellen's brother onto the
table. "You've got to hear this, Carl."

"Between the two of them, It was a three-hour long indictment of every
action that the brothers took with each company, including purchases,
sales, marketing contracts, employment promotions, you name it and she had
an objection, with constant repetition of words like `criminal' and
`illegal.' Bik was just like her, but his operative words were `fraud' and
`embezzlement' and he didn't hold back on `jail' and `arrest,' either.

"I've never seen either Bik or Maryam act like they did in there. Maryam
could talk for a half hour without looking at notes, but quoting the letter
and article of every crime that they had committed against the
companies. And Drew supported it with graphs and spreadsheets. It was
fierce and brutal but in a very methodical way. I've never seen either of
them act with such vehemence to get their points across," he said. Then
added, "they would have scared the shit out of me had I been on the other
side of the table."

"Do you think it had any effect?"

"Seeing these two guys in the flesh for the first time, I can't say for
sure. But what I can say is they weren't laughing and joking on their way
out the door like they were in the morning.  But there is still a really
long way to go.
						***

When the limo dropped off Marty, Peter was on the doorstep with the girls,
one in a stroller the other, who could barely walk, was helped down the
stairs by her `Peep' before running out to meet `Dado.' It was already
dark, and a bit past their bedtime, but the older one was so anxious that
Peter gave up trying to keep her in bed.

Mickey and Bik opened the window and waved goodbye as Marty scooped her up
and had her wave back to the car as it moved out of the driveway.

"This is the best part of the trip," Bik said. "I loved seeing Robert's
kids run out to him. We're all so exhausted, but seeing the kids and family
really gets me going again."

"Me, too." Mickey added. Like on the trip out, he hardly noticed that he
was in a limousine, between watching the homecomings and talking about the
job ahead. He hoped that every week wouldn't be as draining as this one,
but at least he was almost home.

He insisted that Bik be dropped off first, and was tempted to get off with
him and walk through the back yard to get home, but he was sure that Drew
would be waiting at the front door."

Sure enough, as they pulled in the driveway, he stepped down the front
stairs, a kid in each hand. As Ellen was the first one to reach out, he
gave her to Mickey after they kissed. Mickey nuzzled both of their faces as
he told them how much he missed them.

Carl just gurgled, but he looked happy, too.

Now with a free hand, he reached over and put his fingers around Mickey's
neck before he pulled him close for another kiss.

"Wow, you feel really tense," Drew remarked as he massaged the strained
muscles. "Are you OK."

Pushing his head back into Drews' hand, he sighed for a moment. "Oh god,
that feels good. So good..."

Drew smiled, then pulled him toward the front stairs. Mickey was about to
pull open the door when both of their phones made a distinctive buzz.

It was a text from their surrogates husband.

`IN LABOR. ON WAY TO HSPTL.'