Millennium - 27. Chapter 27

December 3, 1999

We walked into the ballroom and I felt like I was at a debutante ball. Dan certainly had a big mouth, because there were lots of people staring at us, nudging each other. They were all clearly surprised to see us walking in together as a couple. “Come on,” I told Robbie, and led him over to our table. The first thing I did was take my coat off.

“Showing off?” he asked, grinning. Without the suit coat, my wrists sparkled. The cufflinks glimmered prismatically as I moved beneath the recessed spotlights in the ceiling.

“Yeah, I am. But if I really wanted to show off and make everyone jealous, I’d make you come with me nude,” I teased.

When we went to Hollywood parties, I stuck with Robbie to show that I was his partner, to show loyalty. When he came to these parties, he stuck to me out of discomfort. He didn’t like most of these people, and he didn’t like this event. “Thanks for doing this with me.”

“It’s a pretty special event,” he said.

“Yeah, but you would probably have gone with me even if it was a run-of-the-mill thing.”

He grinned at me. “Yeah, I would have.” I pulled him in for a nice kiss, nothing too heterosexually-threatening, at least not for San Francisco, but nice enough to send a message that we were together. Not that that was required. A simple observation at the way we looked at each other and it would have been obvious that we were in love.

When I first get to a party, I’m usually nervous. I try to find someone I know and start there, looking for that life preserver, that friendly face in a social storm. I scanned the crowd and saw Richard Giddons talking in a large group of people. Richard was a big player in this field, so he always drew a crowd of ancillary people around him. I led Robbie over there and elbowed my way in. As soon as Richard saw me, he ignored the others to talk to me.

“Well hey there Brad, Robbie,” Richard said in his friendly way. He gave me a nice hug and shook Robbie’s hand. I wondered if that made me the wife, I pondered playfully.

“How are you doing, Richard?” I asked.

“I’m just fine, but I’m surprised to see you two together and happy. Rumor was you had a big fight.”

“You know better than to believe those rumors,” I said, smiling. “They’re usually about as accurate as the financial statements we look at.”

He laughed at that, a big belly laugh. “What about you Robbie? When you gonna find us some choice movies to sink our money into?”

“I thought you were only into porn,” Robbie said, giving him shit. More laughter.

Suddenly there was tension in the group, and it wasn’t coming from us. I looked to my right and found that Dan and Lark had joined our circle. I plastered a fake smile on my face and shot it at both of them. I saw Robbie watching me, waiting to see how I handled them, and letting me take the lead and set the tone.

I’d actually spent a reasonably large amount of time thinking about just that, about how to handle the two of them. Part of me, a big part of me, wanted to grind it into Dan’s face that he was an asshole. I wanted to tell him that there’s no way I’d pick him over a stud like Robbie, no way would I trade that hot body for his flabby spare tire. No way I’d take his scheming twisted mind over Robbie’s loving and caring twisted mind. No way would I choose someone like him, who was a good but unimaginative lover, over someone like Robbie who ignited me, who pushed our boundaries. I wanted to rub it in his face, to hurt him in front of all these people and send him running from the room in tears.

But wanting to do something and actually doing it were two different things. I’d decided to be painfully polite. Part of the reason for that was how I was raised. Isidore, my mother, is one of the classiest people around. To her, good manners are simply the only acceptable guideline on how to treat people. JP felt the same way, although his emotions sometimes overruled him. Another part was the thought that I was dealing with a seriously fucked up person. Dan had hatched this plan because of a grudge he’d nursed along for years. Fueling it even more could possibly force him off the deep end. And finally, this was a business setting, and my conduct reflected on our company and on me professionally. If I were to cruelly humiliate Dan in front of them, it would damage my reputation in their eyes, and damage my credibility with future clients.

“Hey Dan,” I said pleasantly. “Hey Lark! It’s been a long time!” They both looked at me, surprised. They’d been expecting a volcano. I watched Lark get there first; he figured out that I was going to be nice, probably because he knew me better.

“Hey B!” he said. He moved forward and took my hand, and I pulled him into a man hug. When I pulled back and looked at him, I was glad I was handling him this way. He’d been the most important friend I had before I met Robbie, and he’d been there for me in high school when I was outed. Even though he’d really fucked Max over, his earlier actions still carried some bonafides with me. Some guys aged badly, like Dan. Not Lark. He looked much different than he did when he was in his 20’s, only his “different” was actually better. He seemed more substantial, more solid than when he was younger, and even classier and sexier.

“Where you living these days?” I asked. I’d ignored Dan beyond that initial greeting, which was obviously bugging the shit out of him, but I wanted to catch up with Lark.

“Up here,” he said, meaning the Bay Area, and probably meaning that he lived with Dan.

“You need to come visit the land of big waves,” I joked. After that, our discussion devolved into surf talk, a sport we were both passionate about, and which we always had as a bond in the background. The others had moved away from us subtly, leaving Dan, Robbie, Lark and me in our own little world, while Lark and I talked about our latest surfing successes.

“So you surf alone B?” That was his nickname for me: B. He’d used it since high school, as if he was too cool to say a longer name. “No offense Rob, but I know you’re not as into surfing.” That was remarkably polite of Lark, to acknowledge Robbie like that.

“No offense taken. I could never keep up with you boys out in the waves. I stand back in awe,” Robbie said with a smile. I grinned at him, not at the compliment for me, but at the compliment for Lark. Lark was a whore for surfing praise.

“I usually surf with Will,” I told Lark. “He’s good. Real good. Better than we are.”

Lark raised an eyebrow. “Better than us?”

“You know how it pains me to say that, even if it’s my own kid,” I joked.

“I may have to come down and watch his moves,” Lark said.

“Do it. Call me when you’re in town and we’ll hit the waves,” I said. I made sure he had my phone number, and programmed his in to my phone.

“I heard you had quite the eventful day today,” Dan said coldly.

“Busy times,” I said pleasantly. “We found out that we had a leak in our operation and we plugged it up.” I let him keep up his façade that he didn’t have direct involvement with Amphion. “I need to talk to Stef. Will you excuse us?” I gave Lark one more hug, this one warmer, as Dan watched. I tried to look like I was really enjoying it so I didn’t blow Lark’s cover with Dan, then I led Robbie off.

“You’re amazing,” Robbie said. “Sometimes when I watch you it’s like I’m seeing your mother in action.”

“You mean like when I blow your dad?” I joked.

“That’s gross,” he said, and twisted up his face. I laughed. I found Stef with Richard, talking to the same people I’d been in but had worked my way out of. I smiled when I thought about group dynamics. It was almost as if Dan had arrived with his killjoy attitude, and Robbie and I had peeled off from everyone else to drive the menace away like a couple of Spitfires. And now that we’d done that, the group welcomed us back gratefully. JP had joined him.

“Hey Dad!” I said enthusiastically.

“It’s good to see you,” he said somewhat stiffly, since we were in a public social setting. “Your wrists are sparkling.”

“Pretty cool, huh?” I said.

“It is not just your wrists that are sparkling,” Stef said.

“I’m effervescent,” I said, smiling.

“Well well well, if it isn’t Amphion’s warrior,” Richard said as Cary Chase came over to talk to us.

“Yep, and I’m winning all the battles,” he said with a self-satisfied smirk.

“Those are pyrrhic victories,” Richard said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I guess they didn’t teach the classics at San Jose State.

“A pyrrhic victory is where you win a battle, but you’re so damaged that you might as well have lost,” Richard said. He liked to pretend to be an intellectual. “Isn’t that right, Professor?” He asked JP.

“A good description,” JP said, validating him.

“That’s just sour grapes on your part, Dick,” Cary said. No one called Richard ‘Dick’, it wasn’t his nickname, and he was a man who had earned the respect of his competitors.

“What was your bid on Alphalogic?” Richard asked Carmella Watkins. She was a partner in Watkins and Broadhead, another competitor. She was a nice enough lady, and a total slut. We’d lost deals not to her, but to her pussy. There were a lot of firms represented here, probably close to 50, but the people in this crowd represented the bulk of the power and success. At prior conventions, it was rare for Carmella, Richard, and Stef not to walk away with 80-90% of the deals between the three of them. It was funny to watch the others crowd around them, wanting to be near these icons of success.

“I do believe it was around $80,000,000, give or take a couple of million,” she said vapidly, as if it were chump change.

“I was willing to go as high as 85 mil,” Richard said. “What’d you take it down for?”

“We don’t talk about our bids,” Cary said.

“It’s a source of embarrassment,” I said, with a smile that did nothing to diminish the jab.

“$120,000,000, smart ass,” he said to me. “What did you bid?”

He’d started out right, refusing to divulge his bid, but I’d prodded him and he’d let his emotions overrule him. He wanted to show that he’d bid well, that he’d just aced us out by a small amount and that he was just as shrewd as Stefan was. “We did not bid,” Stef said. It was hilarious to watch Cary’s eyes bulge.

“So you see, you’re winning because your bids are about 50% higher than the rest of us are willing to spend. That doesn’t make you a victor. When you win all of them, it shows no planning; all it means is that you’ve got a big checkbook. I’ve been around long enough to know guys like you won’t be around in a year or two. We’ve seen them come and go, haven’t we Stef?” Richard liked to play the role of the old sage.

“I have definitely seen my share of men cum and go,” Stef said, cracking everyone up.

“Pretty cufflinks,” Cary said, switching targets. “Lead crystal on sale?”

Carmella took my right hand in hers and pulled my wrist up. She had such a sensuous touch, such a smoothness to her movements, it was enough to send a bolt of electricity through my system, and I’m a gay boy. “Stef and I argue over who knows men better,” she said, getting a laugh from all of us, “but when it comes to diamonds, I know my stuff. They are a girl’s best friend.”

“As a team, we offer something for every man,” Stef joked with her. They weren’t good friends, but they enjoyed each other.

“These look like they’re bigger than ten carats, but that’s only because the cut is shallow, short and wide. Demerits for that. But the stones themselves have almost perfect color. I don’t have my loupe, but they look flawless too,” she said.

“You really do know your diamonds,” Robbie said, hitting her with his adorable grin.

She smiled back at him. “What about you? You have any diamonds?” she asked Cary.

“Diamonds are for girls,” he snapped.

“Diamonds are a gift of love,” she said calmly.

“Then you’d have to buy yourself some,” Richard said to Cary. We all laughed at that.

“A bunch of sore losers,” he groused, and stormed off.

“I wonder why he bid those deals up so high?” Richard asked Stef with an evil grin.

“He must have made his decisions based on unreliable information,” Stef said.

“You want to expand on that?” Richard asked.

“He had a mole planted in our company,” Stef said. “My personal assistant.”

“That’s despicable,” Carmella said. We would compete like angry Vikings for a good deal, but that kind of underhanded maneuver was outside, far outside, our code of conduct.

“It is,” Richard said sadly. “He was that handsome young guy you had working for you that was around here this week?”

“Perhaps you are playing for both teams?” Stef teased him. Richard shook his head and laughed, then gave Stef a warm hug by wrapping his arm around Stef’s shoulders. Jeff was standing over in the corner, looking unbelievably handsome in his dark suit, and I watched him tense up. Stef didn’t like it when people hugged him unless he really liked the person. I shook my head slightly to tell him it was OK. Stef really liked Richard, they were old friends. Jeff gave me just as slight of a smile to thank me.

“Quit making eyes at Stef’s hot bodyguards,” Robbie said softly in my ear.

“I only have eyes for one man tonight,” I said to him lovingly.

“Tonight,” he said sadly, and pissing me off. He realized his mistake and smiled quickly to try and make amends, and I went with it because I wanted to be happy. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a buzz kill.”

“Dumb ass,” I said. I pulled him off to the side. “Look, I’m really enjoying you. We’ve got a lot of ground still to cover, but I think we’ll get there. We need to focus on the positives, not the negatives.”

“I know. It was one of those moments when I let my thoughts come out of my mouth unfiltered,” he said.

“You’re really handsome, you know that?” I said. I put my arms on his shoulders and linked my hands behind his neck, pulling him to me for a nice kiss. I felt his hands on my waist, then my lower back, as he pulled our bodies together.

“Yeah, I know that,” he said, pretending to be cocky and cracking me up. People were sitting down now, so I led Robbie to our table. It was customary to invite people who we’d come to funding agreements with to join us for dinner, but since we hadn’t come to any agreements, we’d invited some of the staff people that worked the show, Jeff, and the two sound engineers to join us. It was good that we did, because none of the others had thought of that. Cary Chase had a huge group at his table, while the rest all had a small showing. Cary had succeeded in making everyone else look somewhat pathetic. Richard had snagged Roger Elsie as one of his guests, so that gave him some panache. Carmella had achieved a similar coup by hosting Bainbridge, although he was such an ass she’d have to endure his inane conversation all night.

I watched Cary as he sat at the head of his table, acting the part of the King who had vanquished all before him. It would make his inevitable demise all the more satisfying to the people in this room. The big winners were the clients at his table, who had ended up with much sweeter deals than they’d otherwise have gotten. The big losers were the deals that came next. Amphion had to be almost out of cash, which meant they wouldn’t be fronting new money anytime soon. The rest of us weren’t willing to even come close to their terms. The next companies seeking money would expect that Amphion’s bids were the norm, and they’d balk at lower terms. It would make for a lot of unpleasantness in the future between our clients and us. Cary Chase was popular at his table, but beyond that, he was reviled.

Dinner was a pleasant affair. The sound engineers were total dorks, and they spent most of their time flirting with the two staff people we’d invited to join us, who were both quite attractive. I tried not to laugh as the guys tried desperately to impress the women, dropping the names of stars whose voices they’d worked with as if it meant they had a personal relationship with them. Still, the guys were cute in a dweebie kind of way, and these girls were pretty easy (or at least they had that reputation), so they might get laid after all.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Roger Elsie said from the podium. “I have a few comments to make, an award to hand out, and then I’ll let you get back to your dinner.” I was glad we’d finished the main course before this. I knew the award would spoil my appetite for dessert.

Robbie nodded meaningfully to the engineers, who excused themselves to go to the bathroom. Jeff waited a reasonable period of time and went off too. The girls didn’t seem to really notice. They were focused on their boss on stage.

“This has been the most successful convention we’ve had. We’ve seen more than half a billion dollars contractually pledged to help technology companies move to the next level. Some of these companies are start-ups, some are seasoned veterans who were seeking funds for new ventures,” Roger said, nodding to the Alphalogic group. “Some were local folks, while others came from overseas.” He nodded to Mr. Lu, who nodded back. I looked over and caught his grandson’s eye and winked at him. He winked back.

Roger paused for effect. “Over half a billion dollars. That’s impressive, amazing even. That money will create new jobs and fuel the technology of the future. Those of you in this room aren’t just the cutting edge; you’re the machine pushing the cutting edge forward!” He liked flowery speeches like this. They were usually the same, where he’d pick something and use it as an analogy throughout his talk. Tonight it was the cutting edge. Last year it had been trains. Before that, it had been the solar system. We all listened patiently. “We have with us tonight one of our Board members, Mr. John Bainbridge. I’d like to ask him to come up on stage to help present the award for Venture Capital Firm of the Year.” The applause he got was so underwhelming that Roger looked embarrassed.

“This year’s choice was easy,” John said. “Of the money committed, all of it came from one firm. This is the first time in the history of Texpo that’s happened. Never before has one firm so dominated the field.” I watched as Richard rolled his eyes, and Carmella stared off vapidly, pretending that even being here was an incredible inconvenience. “This company came from almost out of nowhere and has made a huge splash, largely due to the tireless effort of its CEO.” My eyes shifted to Cary, who was basking in the limelight, in the glow of success. He was nodding and smiling to people, his clients who were congratulating him for giving them so much money.

“So without further ado, I’d like to announce this years’ Venture Capital Firm of the Year: Amphion.” When Richard won last year, there had been rapturous applause from everyone, a standing ovation for a man who knew the industry, played the game well, and sat on well-deserved laurels. This year, the applause was loud at Cary’s table, very lackluster at the others, and non-existent at ours, save for the two staffers who would feel obligated to clap. We sat there, Stef, Robbie, JP, Luke, and I, with our hands folded in our laps.

Cary Chase had mounted the stage and was surveying the audience. It was fascinating to watch the glee on his face as he observed the cheers from his table, then the gradual fading of that glee as he surveyed the other tables, until it turned to cold fury when his eyes got to our table and we weren’t clapping at all.

“I’d like to thank Roger Elsie and the Board for this well-deserved award,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that others who failed so miserably this year can’t respect our solid achievements.” He glared right at me, while I just looked at him with a blank stare. “That’s why Amphion is the best company out there: The best for clients, the best for the economy, and the best for its own employees. That’s why….” And then his microphone went dead.

He stared at it and tapped it, then looked around, irate that his moment in the sun had been marred by faulty technology. The staffers got up from our table and started to scramble around, while Roger looked around as if wondering what he could do to help. Suddenly, we all heard Cary’s voice through the speakers, only Cary wasn’t talking.

I looked at Robbie and he winked back. The sound engineers had made a CD; the same CD Stef had taken to Elsie this afternoon, a CD with choice excerpts of Cary’s conversations with Brandon. Then they’d tapped into the Ballroom’s sound system and had switched the input to their own CD player. They were locked in a room behind the stage, with Jeff there to dissuade anyone but the most resolute of people. Meanwhile, the CD boomed out relentlessly, damning Cary with his own words.

“How can we bid on that deal if we don’t know what Stef’s going to do Brandon? I told you that we need bid info,” Cary said.

***

“We need better information than this. What am I paying you for if you can’t get copies of their bids to me?” Cary’s voice again.

***

“I got their latest bid on Coldstream,” Brandon’s voice said. “It’s all here, with complete terms.”

“That’s great work Brandon!” Cary said. “You’ll find an extra $5000 in your envelope. That’s for the last one, not this one.”

***

“You should have seen the look on Stef’s face when we aced them out of the Genesystems deal,” Brandon gloated.

“Stupid fag,” Cary said.

It was refreshing to watch the collective outrage of the crowd at that last comment. How far we had come in just a few years, at least in the City, where his pejorative use of the word ‘fag’ was almost as bad as saying the ‘N’ word. The CD played on for another few minutes, with wonderful, juicy tidbits from Cary’s conversations with Brandon over the last two days. Cary stood up on stage, fuming, while Elsie and Bainbridge scurried around, desperate to shut off the sound.

Then the voices stopped, and so did Elsie, Bainbridge, and Cary. They just stared at the speakers, relieved that it was over. Only it wasn’t.

“I appreciate that you shared this information with us,” Roger Elsie said.

“While that type of business dealing isn’t what we’d encourage, it’s not sufficient for me to take this to the board and have the award taken away from Amphion,” Bainbridge said.

“I expected nothing less from you than the response I got,” Stef’s voice said.

Now all eyes turned to Stef. He just sat there with a straight face, staid and upright.

“There are ethics and guidelines that we in this business adhere to,” Stef continued. “Yes, we compete, we compete ferociously, but to plant a mole in someone else’s company is unconscionable. I have always respected the people we butt heads with, people like Richard Giddons and Carmella Watkins. When I lose a deal to them, I smile and know that next time, I’ll win, but in the end, we’ve competed honorably.”

“It is not the role of this body to police the ethics or morals of its members,” Bainbridge said, his sneer coming through in his voice.

“You are not policing, you are giving an award to a firm that has acted dishonorably and despicably. That means this organization condones and endorses their actions. And that is why Carruthers and Schluter will be withdrawing its membership in the Technology Funding Association.”

“Stef, don’t do that,” Elsie pleaded.

“This organization will survive without you. We won’t submit to blackmail.”

The sound stopped then, and the room was completely silent. Everyone looked at each other, amazed at what had just played out in front of them. Then without a word, Stef, JP, Robbie, Luke, and I stood up and walked out of the ballroom. I walked to the side, and then back, catching the eyes of some of the members. When I turned to make the final move to head to the door, I saw Richard Giddons and the people at his table (except Roger Elsie) stand up and follow us, and shortly after that, Carmella Watkins and her group (except John Bainbridge) followed us out as well. There were approximately 50 Venture Capital firms represented at the meeting, and of them, 43 had walked out of the meeting.

Cary Chase’s moment in the sun had burnt him pretty badly.