The Venture Capitalist (19 page)

“Do you know how many man-hours we’ve spent on the damn paperwork, not to mention the necessity your proposal now presents to secure a new facility for lease or purchase on the north side?”

“You’ve already approved them for half a million, what’s a quarter million more? And if I remember correctly you propositioned Keisha to get the current contract approved.”

“Only because this project is a sound investment, and you forget, I’m going to be the one who controls the interest in this venture, and who will be doing the actual work of guiding them toward profitability within the year? What role do you expect you’re going to take?”

He shrugs. “I’ll work alongside you helping them to stay in the black.”

“In what alternate universe is that going to happen, Nathan? I’m still making the major business decisions for your apparel business.”

“Listen, Tristan. I’m going to give them the money whether you like it or not.”

“Give? So you want me to handle this as a gift? I don’t think either of them will go for that scenario.”

“Then how about you change the terms of the contract to include this new infusion of capital and just consider me a silent partner.”

“Okay, if that’s what you want. But don’t think for a minute that you’re going to have the time or inclination to make any substantive business decisions for KSR.”

“You drive the business ship, and I’ll handle the relationships.” Nathan says sarcastically.

“You just told me she doesn’t want a real relationship. You think this investment is going to change her mind?”

“It might demonstrate to her how serious I am when the time is right.”

“At the end of the day, it isn’t about the money at all. I just don’t want you to be hurt.”

“Aw, brother, I didn’t know you cared so much,” Nathan teases.

“It’s your funeral,” I say, then immediately wish I’d used another idiom. If anything happened to Nathan, I’d never forgive myself, which is why I felt compelled to bust his chops about this spur-of-the- moment investment.

We return to the table, smiling, where Jada and Keisha are fidgeting, and Gibson has folded the corner of several pages on his copy of the contract in anticipation of making changes.

“My brother is bound and determined to fund another venue for KSR, which means, ladies, you will begin your business venture as a franchise.”

Keisha looks impassive, but Ms. Jameson squeals like a sorority girl.

“Are you sure?” Keisha asks softly.

“Absolutely. Nathan is a shrewd businessman in his own right. He’s free to invest as he pleases.”

Keisha looks worried, but I’m not about to have another side-bar at a meeting that was supposed to be a contract signing, which has gone seriously fucking sideways.

Ms. Jameson on the other hand looks as pleased as punch.

I’m left with no other option, so I make the obvious pronouncement. “Gibson will draw up an amendment to this contract immediately, but in the meantime we still have an opening in three weeks.” I hand Keisha and Jada each a Montblanc pen. “If you’ll sign by the red signature flags, I’ll countersign by the green ones.”

Keisha and I ride down on the elevator to the underground garage where Nathan retrieves his Lamborghini Veneno Roadster, squeals to a stop in front of Ms. Jameson and jogs around to open the door for her. Keisha waves to Jada until they peel out of the garage and disappear.

Moses has the limo parked in one of my reserved spots, and I guide Keisha by the small of her back to my smiling limo driver holding the door.

As we slide into the limo, Keisha asks, “Do you ever drive?”

“Yes, sometimes when I’m not working. I’m always juggling projects, so I use the drive time to work, usually.”

“I pegged you right, then.”

“How’s that?”

“You’re the king of multitasking.”

“I try to be. In everything.”

“So I noticed.” She takes a deep breath and continues. “I hope you didn’t feel pressured to add a new location to this deal. Jada can be pushy, and I don’t want you to think we’re some kind of gold diggers.”

I certainly called this one. I smile, having expected this conversation. “I’ve met my share of gold diggers, Ms. Beale, and you don’t have a gold-digging bone in your delectable body.”

“It’s just, I could tell you weren’t pleased with Nathan’s generous offer. I get that you probably want us to prove ourselves before any further investment is made.”

“Is that what you thought our little sidebar was all about?”

“Well, yeah.”

“It wasn’t. I just reminded my brother that he’s an investor, but I have the controlling interest in this venture. Nate has a tendency to flex business muscles he doesn’t possess nor has the time or inclination to hone, given his busy USABA career. I wanted to squash that notion in advance.”

“I wish you would’ve squashed the idea altogether.”

I raise my brow inquisitively. “Really? Are you getting cold business feet, Ms. Beale?”

“No. It’s just that now we have to hire more staff and divide ourselves between the two locations. That gives me precious little time to write my own music and be your beck-and-call girl at the same time.”

I smile. “My beck-and-call girl? That’s rich.”

“It’s from
Pretty Woman
.”

“What?”

She shakes her head. “Never mind.”

“I like the idea of you being at my beck and call,” I say.

“I’m serious, Tristan. I just don’t want to bite off more than I can chew.”

“Since you put it that way, I don’t want that either. We’ll hire additional staff. I’m sure we could lure a few record company executives away from the competition.”

“So, that’s your answer? To throw more money and personnel at us? At this rate, we may never be able to pay you back.”

“That’s not the attitude to have going into a business venture. Ms. Jameson’s rudimentary figures project a positive return-on-investment, even if you were to discover only a half a dozen new acts in your first six months. Given the plenitude of talent in Chicago, that shouldn’t be hard to do.”

“So you really believe in our concept?”

“Yes, but we have yet to see whether it will flourish.”

“We’re going to work hard.”

I think of the many ways I’m going to work her over in my Grotto. “Of that I have no doubt.”

Keisha makes extraordinary progress as a submissive in the three weeks leading up to the grand opening of Kente Studio Records. I convince her to spend the night at the condo the night before our meeting with all the key players to finalize the contract amendment. She and Ms. Jameson have been working twelve plus hour days on their business, and still somehow managing to accommodate Nathan and me on weekends.

Gibson, Nathan and I converge on KSR with the amendment in hand. This signing is less formal than the original, but it infuses KSR with the cash it needs to operate two locations transforming their little startup overnight into a chain. Keisha’s discomfiture with how she is perceived due to our arrangement is always in the forefront of her mind. I ride her as hard as I would one of my own employees to demonstrate to her, and especially her colleagues, that I am not playing favorites.

“Status update, Ms. Beale.”

“We’ve hired staff for the south side location, and put other staff on a waiting list for the north side location, although we will likely use them during the grand opening,” she says.

“Get together with Darryl. He has my list of contacts to include some local celebrities and the like. I’ll also talk to Danai and ask personally for her support.”

Keisha has an unfathomable look on her face. Most likely thinking of the altercation she had with Danai. Other than the remnants of a bit of ego on the part of Danai, Keisha has nothing to worry about on that front.

Keisha clears her throat. “Thank you. I’ll call Darryl and get that information this afternoon.”

“I’ll see which of my teammates are in town, and who’s around from some of the other Chicago sports teams that might be willing to make an appearance,” Nathan says.

“Between the two of you, we’ll have the best attended event this year in the city,” Jada says, saving her smile only for Nathan. She and I have butted heads on more than one occasion the past couple of weeks. Her snub does not surprise me.

“We should be careful with the guest list, though. Otherwise this grand opening and after-party could bankrupt us before the first sale,” Keisha says with a frown.

“Don’t worry about the cost,” I say. “I’ll have my finance department to open up some purchase orders to cover the opening and the party. You have to spend money to make money, and White Enterprises Holdings is your backer. This event will reflect the same caliber as one sponsored by my PR team.”

“What my brother is trying to say, is that we’re going big or staying home,” Nathan teases. “I’ll cover part of the cost and throw in some door prizes. You know, signed sports memorabilia from myself and the team.”

“Whoa,” Keisha says, throwing up her hands. “This is all too much.”

“Not really,” Jada says. “Nate and Tristan are right. These events will go a long way in establishing our presence early on, and the media coverage alone will be advertising we could never afford to buy.”

“If it makes you feel better, I’ll write it off as a tax deduction,” I say, not altogether sure if my association with KSR as one of its backers will even allow me to do such a thing. I’ll leave that detail up to my finance department to figure out.

Ms. Jameson gives me the side-eye, but she doesn’t say anything, because I’m sure she doesn’t want to bite off her nose to spite her face, so to speak.

After the amendment signatures have been obtained, Gibson takes his leave and Jorge Cisneros, who also happens to be Keisha’s cousin, joins us with a rocker-looking dude whom he introduces to us as Thomas. Jorge is here to discuss server size, bandwidth requirements, and other technical specifications which Keisha asked me to weigh in on. Even Ms. Jameson seems to be thankful for my fundamental expertise.

“Which application server are you going with? IBM WebSphere? JBoss?” I ask.

Smiling, Jorge answers me by making a jab at Keisha. “Nah. Since my cuz wasn’t willing to part with any of her startup capital—”

“No fair! I was willing to pay for what was necessary.” Blushing, she pushes back.

Jorge continues. “I decided to go with the Apache Tomcat, because it’s a commercially used but open-source,
free
application server which I configured in Eclipse.”

“Smart move,” I say. “It probably saved you enough to afford to go truly grand for your opening. However, as you grow, I’d like to see you eventually migrate to one of the paid application servers.”

“Are you a firm believer in ‘you get what you pay for,’ Tristan?” Jorge asks.

“Well, that and if KSR is to become as big as Ms. Jameson’s projections—”

“You wound me, Tristan,” Jada says, laying a hand on her flat chest. “My projections are iron clad.”

“I can vouch for her projections,” Nathan pipes up. “Since I have no earthly idea what the rest of this shit means you guys are talking about.”