Millennium - 24. Chapter 24

December 1, 1999

Luke and I were sitting in the bar, drinking vodka tonics, and waiting for Stef so we could go up to the ballroom for the banquet. “I’m so glad that we’re done with these Y2K deals,” Luke said.

The last three expos had been full of companies seeking funding, all of them with the sure-fire cure for the impending Y2K disaster. It got a little old, hearing the same story over and over again. “You’re not stocking up on canned goods for when the world ends?” I joked.

“I’ll be in Malibu at your house, too drunk to give a shit,” he said, cracking me up. “I’m not saying it’s not a problem and we shouldn’t be making sure it’s fixed, but I’m just getting sick of hearing about it.”

“It’s all the hype,” I agreed. “It’s people taking things to extremes.” I couldn’t quite see how having computers thinking it was 1900 instead of 2000 would cause the apocalypse.

“Being an alarmist can get your book sold,” Luke observed cynically.

Just then Stef came strolling up to our table, about 15 minutes behind schedule. “You’re late,” I said with a grin.

“You must have priorities in life,” he said. Luke shook his head while I rolled my eyes. “However, since I was detained, twice, I think we should go.” We went upstairs to the event. It was a standard business meeting, where there was a cocktail party in the beginning, then a banquet with reserved tables, and finally a presentation to launch the meeting.

I walked into the room with Stef and Luke, and then we split up, working the room singly. I knew many of the people here, since they were our competitors and I’d seen them at these meetings before. I didn’t know many of the people soliciting funds, and it was unfortunate that we were only pretending to be interested in these deals. That meant that all three of us had to look very interested in meeting these people, and my fuck with Dan had already stretched my acting skills to the limit.

I saw Mr. Lu’s grandson and headed for him. “I understand you spent some time with Stef?” I asked, smiling.

“It was one of the better experiences I have had,” he said, smiling back at me cutely.

“Sadly I will never know, since we are related.” He laughed as he was expected to. I saw eyes flicker toward us, wondering at my seemingly tight relationship with this man who was part of the team sent to raise money for Go Chang.

“It truly is your loss,” he said. “I hope you did not take my interest in him to mean I did not find you interesting as well.”

“I took no offense at all. He is wise and experienced, and his mind is a sexy thing.”

“It is,” he said, grinning. “Still, if an opportunity presents itself, perhaps we could get to know each other better?”

“I would like that,” I said, smiling. I headed off to meet with the Alphalogic people, and then I headed to the restroom. It was rare for the bathroom to be empty during one of these things, but it was. I went into a stall and enjoyed the break from talking to people. I gave myself five minutes to pull myself together, then stood up and pulled up my pants. I was just about to leave the stall when I heard voices as the door to the restroom opened. I recognized one of the voices as Dan’s. I thought quickly and stood on the toilet so no one would be able to see my feet under the stall.

“Are we alone in here?” Cary Chase asked.

“Let me check,” Dan said. He must have made a cursory check, since he didn’t see me through the cracks in the stall. “We are.”

“So you think you’re in with Brad?” Cary asked excitedly.

“He fucked me twice,” Dan snapped. “I saw his notes on the Go Chang deal. They’re pretty excited about it.”

“He could have left them out for you,” Cary said suspiciously.

“Don’t be a dumb ass. He didn’t know I was coming up to his room. It was spontaneous. If I’d been expected to be there, you may have a point.”

“So how are we going to play this? Our plan was for us to try to scoop up the deals here, including Alphalogic. You tack this one on, a $250 million dollar commitment, and that’s way beyond our resources. We don’t have that much cash.”

“We will. I called in and got the authorization,” Dan said dismissively. Who did he get authorization from? Who else was in on this?

“So, you having a good time? Isn’t this your big dream, being with him?” Cary asked, being a smart ass.

“Fuck you,” Dan snapped. “You’re out of line.”

“Whatever,” Cary said dismissively. “It’s a fair question. You going to get so close to him you lose your objectivity?”

“I’m fine, and don’t you dare question me again,” Dan said. He was getting pissed off.

“Maybe I should ask the question higher up if you can’t give me a straight answer?” Cary asked, the threat obvious.

“Alright, I’ll answer it for you,” Dan said, the fury in his voice was palpable. “I’m going to let him fuck me as much as he wants. On Friday night, after all the deals are done, Lark is going to show up for the farewell dinner.”

“So?”

“Brad and Lark were best friends in high school. Brad loved him completely, lusted after him forever. And now I have what he always wanted. So not only am I leading him on, making him think I’m available, but when he sees me with Lark, he’ll have a double-whammy. He’ll see that he lost me, plus he’ll see that not only did he lose all of the deals here, he lost the guy he’s always wanted,” Dan said with satisfaction. I almost laughed my ass off.

“What if he doesn’t give a shit?” Cary asked, being a smart ass.

“He does. I know he does. But if he doesn’t, he’ll still be freaked out by it, and he’ll still know that he’s lost all the deals. That’s the beauty of this whole plan. If one thing fails, another one works.”

“All this personal shit, breaking him and Robbie up, fucking with his mind like this, that’s all your deal. I think it’s stupid. The only thing that matters here is business.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re not calling the shots?” Dan asked, and I could feel his sneer even when I couldn’t see it. “Because you don’t look at the whole picture.”

“Fuck you,” Cary said, and stormed out. Now it was just Dan in the bathroom, with me hiding in the stall. I wondered how long he’d wait to leave, or if he’d do a more methodical search now that he was alone.

I was saved when I heard footsteps outside the bathroom, then I heard the door open. A bunch of guys came in, and I heard Dan say “hi” to some of them, then they left and it seemed that there was no one there. I waited, sensing that there was danger.

The door opened, I heard just a few footsteps, and then Stef’s voice. “Why Dan, how nice to see you after all these years! I hear we are to be honored by your company at dinner.” Dan must have been standing by the door, waiting to see if there was anyone in here after all. A good precaution. If I’d have come breezing out of the stall right after I thought he’d left, I’d have been busted.

“It’s good to see you too,” Dan said. “It’s been way too long.”

“It has,” Stef said. “It seems to me that when we went to Paris, you promised to go to the bathroom with me. You have not made good on that. Yet.”

“Yet?”

“I was thinking that here we are, in a bathroom.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Dan said nervously, even as I heard footsteps. I heard them heading to the last stall, a handicapped stall that was its own world, with floor to ceiling walls and door.

“What if Brad finds out?” Dan asked, pretending as if he gave a shit.

“He will not,” Stef said. “Let us not worry about what may happen when it clearly will not.” I smiled, wondering how Stef figured out I was trapped in the bathroom. He had to know, otherwise he never would have been so cavalier about my feelings. I’d had some serious problems with trusting people, but Stef was one of the guys I could always rely on. Always. I heard zippers, smiled, and dashed out of the bathroom as quietly as I could.

“Did Stef save you?” Luke asked.

“You knew I was in there?” I asked.

“I saw you when I went to pee. You were pretty hidden, but I was trying to avoid talking to Dan so I was looking around carefully.”

“Bullshit. You were just cruising the bathroom,” I teased. He rolled his eyes at me. “Do you think he saw me?”

“Unlikely. It was tough to see you. The only thing that gave you away was those cufflinks. They flashed briefly in the light, and they’re so unique, I knew it was you.” So Robbie’s cufflinks had saved me.

“I overheard a very interesting conversation,” I told Luke. “We’ll have to find a chance to meet after the banquet.”

He nodded, and we headed back into the hall and found our table. About ten minutes later, Dan and Stef joined us. “You look flushed,” I teased Stef. “Who were you with?”

“I never kiss and tell,” he said as always.

“As long as you weren’t with this guy,” I said, putting my arm around Dan and making him sit next to me. “He’s off limits.”

“Of course not,” Stef said dismissively. “Not that he is not tempting.”

We bullshitted, with Stef dropping some tasty tidbits of info about the people he’d talked to. It was funny, but he was acting like a dilettante, and since few people ever saw the hard-core business side of him, it seemed completely natural.

As dinner wound down, Stef poured on the charm with Dan. “This has just been delightful, spending time with you like this. It has been much too long since we have seen you. I do not even remember seeing you at Mouse’s funeral.”

I saw a flash of anger on Dan’s face, but he regained his composure again. “I didn’t go. I should have, but it was too painful to even think about.” He dabbed his eye with a napkin, as if to wipe away tears, only his eyes were clearly not wet. He must think we were complete idiots. He and Mouse had severed their friendship when Mouse started seeing Gary Englin, back when we were all in high school. Dan was as pissed at Mouse as he was at me, but Mouse was in his grave, and I was here.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, may I have your attention? I’d like to welcome you all to Texpo,” Roger Elsie said. He was the president of our trade group, the group sponsoring this meeting. Texpo was the lame-ass name they’d given these meetings, devised by combining the words Tech and Expo. He was a sycophant and worse yet, he was boring. He introduced the keynote speaker, a guy who gave a short brief on the tech markets and how there was almost no way they could crash and burn. He gave the standard diatribe on Y2K and how we were nobly working to avert the end of the world. He talked about the “new paradigm” and about the strategy of incurring losses while building market share on the web. It was stuff we’d all heard before, and it was just a rah-rah speech to get us in the mood to cut loose with some serious cash.

He finally finished and Roger Elsie took the stage again. “As is our custom, we hand out the Venture Capitalist of the Year award at these functions,” he said. This was the award for the person, not the firm. The firm award came at the end of the meeting, to presumably encourage members to bid and win. Stef had won this award several times in the past, but not last year. Last year he’d lost to Richard Giddons of Tri-Mark. Stef had shown the world what a gracious loser he was by making a point to congratulate Richard and fawn all over him. It really wasn’t hard for him to do. He and Richard were good friends.

“This year’s award goes to a relative new-comer. As companies have sought more and more funding, we’ve been lucky to attract firms with capital to help those small businesses realize their full potential. Rarely do they come into this market with such a bang as Amphion has done. New firms have never placed as much money in such a short period of time as Amphion has. That’s why this years’ Venture Capitalist of the Year award goes to Cary Chase, the dynamic leader of Amphion, whose broad vision and hard work is building a venture capital powerhouse.” The audience responded with a loud ovation as was expected.

Cary stood up from his table, smiling at his friends, and began walking toward the podium. We clapped formally, trying to fake the outrage none of us felt. I stood with the others and watched Cary make his way past me. He winked and gave me a sneer as he did, and that helped me out enormously by making my blood boil for real. I glanced over at Dan who was trying not to beam with pride at this award that he should have won. If he’d been allowed to take a visible lead role in Amphion, the award would have been his and not Cary’s. We sat down as he mounted the podium.

“Thank you for that nice introduction, and thanks to the Board for selecting me,” Cary said. “It has been a lot of work to get to this point. Funding projects is easy. Anyone can give money away to desperate start-up firms. It’s finding the good projects, the good firms: that’s the challenge. That’s why I’m so proud of what Amphion has achieved, and why I’m so proud to accept this award to celebrate my achievement.” What an arrogant ass, I thought.

“We started with a basic premise for funding, and we’ve stuck with it relentlessly. It has worked in the past and it will work in the future. I’ve spent time tonight meeting with those companies who are seeking funding, and I’ve never seen such a quality group before. I am confident that most, if not all of them will go away with a signed agreement with Amphion as their new partner. To my competitors, I say that we will try and leave you a few scraps.” I scanned the room and saw our competitors, guys like Giddons, balk at that. What an idiot. Cary had just pissed off the entire industry. Everyone would want him to fail now.

“That’s quite a showing,” Dan said, fishing.

“He is an arrogant ass, and a parvenu. We will see how much staying power he has over the long run,” Stef said dismissively.

“He’s going to be embarrassed as hell on Friday when he misses the two biggest deals here,” Luke said confidently.

“He has to miss them,” I said. “They don’t have that kind of money.” I watched Dan try not to show smugness when I said that, to show how he had already solved that problem.

“We need to have a brief meeting after this dinner,” Stef said, pretending to be all upset. “If any of you have plans, postpone them.”

I looked at Dan and he nodded slightly. “Done,” I said. We finished up our dessert, and then headed up to Stef’s suite. He led us out onto the patio, and I pulled out a joint to relax us.

“Well this has been an eventful evening,” he said.

“You fucked around with my man,” I teased. He laughed.

“I can’t believe what an arrogant ass Cary Chase is,” Luke said. “Man, he just burned every fucking bridge out there.”

“He is egotistical, and his ego is based on nothing. They are the worst kind, because they grasp at any achievement as a manifestation of their brilliance. It will ultimately end up crashing in flames,” Stef said airily.

“I overheard Cary and Dan talking in the bathroom.”

“I gathered that was why you were trapped there,” Stef said.

“Cary’s focused on beating us in our business dealings; Dan wants to fuck up my personal life.”

“What a lovely pair they make,” Stef commented.

“That matches their personalities,” I said. “Cary isn’t all that concerned about other people, while Dan is a perpetual victim.”

“So how are they going to get you?” Luke asked.

“Dan talked about getting a look at my Go Chang brief, but even more interesting, he talked about funding for all these deals. Dan told him that he’d already gotten approval. So that means Omega has opened the coffers and let them have the open checkbook they need.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s all the substantive business talk they had. The rest was all about Dan’s plans to lead me into emotional oblivion. He’s all ready to break my heart. He gloated about breaking Robbie and me up. His plan is to show up at Friday’s dinner with Lark.”

“And he thinks that will bother you?” Stef asked.

“That’s the weird thing Stef. Lark must not be telling him much about us. Dan talked like I’ve always had this massive crush on Lark and I’m frustrated because I’ve never been able to fulfill it.”

“You have had sex with Lark multiple times,” Stef observed.

“I know, but to hear Dan talk, we never did anything more than shake hands. It’s really strange. I’ve been thinking about it, and I have a theory on it.”

“Go on,” Luke said.

“It doesn’t surprise me that Lark isn’t really talking too much about his past, about sex with guys. He’s always maintained that he’s barely bisexual, so having him talk about me, or Max, or anyone else would create a track record that makes that a lie.”

“But that is not what is causing him to play it this way,” Stef observed. “Do you think he has residual feelings for you?”

“No, I don’t think so. I think he’s playing Dan as much as Dan’s playing him. Lark’s painted this picture of unrequited love, while Dan’s using him as bait to get at me. If Lark had been honest with Dan, Lark wouldn’t have been nearly as valuable as he is now. It would have meant that seeing them together is just seeing two guys I don’t like together, no big deal. The way Lark has it set up, it seems like he’s this unobtainable god I’ve lusted after and never had. That means that I’ve lost again. I’ve lost at business, I’ve lost Robbie, I’ve lost Dan, and I’ve lost a chance to have Lark. From Lark’s perspective, it would be perfect. Lark’s a mooch. He’s bleeding those guys for everything he can get.”

“So what’s their plan?” Luke asked.

“They’re going to try and deliver the coup-de-grace at the end of the meeting on Friday. They’re going to wind up all the deals, you heard Cary, and they’ve got Omega’s money behind them. Dan will show up with Lark and dump me, after building me up. So I’ll be there, a bunch of business losses on the table, my boyfriend gone, and the new relationship I just fired up destroyed because that guy just ran off to be with a man I’ve lusted after for more than half my life.”

“You know Brad, they’re about as stupid as they come. All they have to do is look at you to see the grim determination and resolve on your face. All they have to do is talk to you to realize how smart you are. And all they have to do is stand next to you and feel your inner strength. They missed all of that,” Luke told me lovingly. It was really touching.

“I could not agree more,” Stef said.

“Thanks guys,” I said, trying to keep my voice from breaking. We sat there for a bit and smoked another joint. “So how should I play this?”

“We’ve got the business side all lined out. You’ve got your notes on Go Chang in your top desk drawer, right?” Of course, Luke would be focused on that part of it, on the business part.

“I do.”

“We’ve got your plan to make sure we don’t get stuck with Alphalogic all set up,” he said.

“Excellent,” Stef said. “So all that remains to do is plan how you will handle the closing reception.”

“We’re going to fire Brandon on Friday afternoon?” I asked.

“It may not be smart, it may be better to drag this out, but I cannot abide a traitor in my midst,” Stef said.

“So they’ll know we found their leak,” I told him. He nodded. “I think it’s important to make them feel as if they’ve won anyway. I don’t want them holding back on any of these deals. I want to see them invest their bucks as quickly as possible.”

“So to do that, they have to think that we’re pissed off about Brandon but that we just found out about him,” Luke said. “I think that Alphalogic deal should do it.”

“What about Lark’s appearance?” Stef asked.

“I have a couple of options. I can go and be all upset, but like you, I’m kind of tired of faking it. I’m not sure how much good it would do anyway. If we’re going to fire Brandon, and Robbie fires Carson, they’ll know the deal on those two fronts is dead anyway. They might suspect I’m faking it. Lark’s a manipulative son of a bitch, but if they tap into him, he’ll let on that I’m not being genuine. He’s pretty good at reading me.”

“Even after all these years?” Stef asked.

“I really haven’t changed all that much. I’m pretty much still 18,” I joked. “Even Robbie bitched at me because I never seem to age.”

“What a horrible problem to have,” Luke said, giving me a dirty look. It was funny how this time it seemed pretty real. “So what are your other options?”

“I can go and be polite and congratulatory, and be glad to see Lark. Take the high road. They’d know it was an act, but they’d just think I was being stoic, channeling JP,” I joked, getting a giggle from Stef.

“He will be here, by the way,” Stef said. “He is coming up to escort me to the party.”

I really smiled at that. JP would be like a rock for me. With him there, any of the strategies in my mind would work. “The only problem with being polite is that it may make them suspicious. They may not realize how good I am at hiding my emotions.” Stef and Luke both laughed. “What?”

“You sound almost as delusional as Cary Chase,” Stef joked.

“Fuck you,” I said, flipping him off for emphasis.

“See!” he said, and that really irked me, but only made them laugh harder.

I ignored them and went on. “The other thing I could do is go there, act all calm, and then make it clear to Dan I’ve fucked around with Lark a lot in the past. I’ll make it clear that even if Lark is available, I don’t want him. Been there, done that.”

“That would seem to cut off Lark’s source of mooch money,” Luke said. Mooch money? I chuckled at the term.

“Lark is a useful person in this,” Stef said. “He has a price, and he is willing to sell to the highest bidder.”

“You’re saying we should turn him?” They thought about it, as did I. “I don’t know. I don’t want him to know what we’re up to.”

“Well those are all viable options,” Stef said.

“There’s one more.”

“What?” Luke asked me curiously.

“I can bring Robbie as my date. I can ask him to fire Carson at the same time we fire Brandon. Then Robbie can show up to the party and we’ll be there together, a couple, no worse for the wear.” That would still require a lot of acting, I thought sadly.

“But that will blow the roof off of Dan’s strategy completely,” Stef said. “He will know he has failed.”

“I’m wondering what the benefit is to us, playing them out longer on that?” Luke asked. “I’m not sure it’s worth it to us to keep that going. They’ll know Dan failed, but they’ll know he also won, by getting the deals.”

“You’re saying that by doing that, we’re leaving him a bone, something to save face?” I asked. He nodded. “That might be true. In the bathroom, Cary told Dan he was sick of all this personal bullshit anyway. Dan told him to fuck off, that the beauty of all these strategies to ruin us is that one is bound to work.”

“With Cary’s ego swelled up, and with Amphion taking the firm award on Friday, he’ll be convinced he doesn’t need all that bullshit, and he’ll be convinced that he was right,” Luke observed. “That actually might work out better. He’ll start posturing upstream, to the mysterious leader of Amphion. He and Dan will have a fun power struggle with that one.”

“There’s another thing,” I said. “I’m really sick of all this shit revolving around my personal life. It pisses me off that they brought all this into the equation in the first place, and it pisses me off that it’s a big topic we have to discuss.” I saw them look offended. “Come on guys. I rely on you for all kinds of things. I don’t mind telling you what’s going on in my life. But to have it in the spotlight, to have my personal life as a central theme, that’s driving me fucking crazy.”

They pondered that. “I can see your point,” Luke said. “I get it.”

“Why don’t we think about it tonight? We can digest all this shit and come up with some ideas, then talk about this tomorrow? I want to go fuck Dan and then get to bed.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Luke said.

I got to my room and took a quick shower, then changed into boxers and a T-shirt. These meetings were so draining all I wanted to do was climb into my bed and embrace the oblivion that sleep offered. I sighed and called Dan’s room.

“Hey,” he answered, trying to sound sexy. He’d been waiting for me. He picked it up on the first ring.

“Hey. You want to come up?”

“I’ll be right there,” he said cheerfully.

I looked around the room and the thought of being with Dan revolted me. He was such a two-faced little shit. I thought about the game I was playing with him, this plan to take his feelings and trounce on them, and I began to feel really bad about it. Not because I didn’t think he deserved it. He did. He had attacked me at a core level, and tried to ruin my entire life.

I wondered if I was making too much of that. Could he have really ruined my whole life? I tried to think about how he would hurt my family, and I had a hard time visualizing that. I could see that it might have been possible for them to hurt our business, but our net worth was too extensive for them to cause life-changing harm. They didn’t have the power or money to cause the kids problems, and they wouldn’t do that. Even the Mafia had a code that left kids out of it. No, they’d managed to get to Robbie because they’d tapped into a couple of his flaws, his weaknesses.

In the end, I decided that I wasn’t guilty about what I was doing to them, and I wasn’t guilty for hurting them, but I was really unhappy about the person I was turning into. On Friday, this was over, and Dan, Cary, and Amphion were not on my front burner any more. I’d have to shift my attention to a much bigger problem: Robbie.

The doorbell rang and I went to answer it. I opened it up and got a huge surprise. “What are you doing here?” I asked Robbie, and not in a nice way.