The Term Sheet: A Startup Thriller Novel (15 page)

D
avid typed furiously
on his laptop. Palio was empty except for an old man reading a book near the entrance. As usual, David sat in the back. He didn’t notice Andrew walk up behind him until he whispered into David’s ear in a terribly cockney Blackadder
impression: “Don’t be mistaken about this appointment. I’ve always despised you.”

David jumped a bit and turned around and smiled.

“What was so important that it couldn’t wait until the weekend? You know I have a day job now, right?”

“Not for long you don’t,” said David excitedly. “I did it.”

“Did what?” asked Andrew.

David hit return and triumphantly grinned at Andrew from his chair.

“There, it’s launched. Cryptobit Email is now released. In a few hours, I’ll finish inviting about three hundred thousand new people into the system.”

“Holy shit. Won’t that crash the signup process?” Andrew grabbed David’s laptop and sat down in the open seat next to him. “Damn. That’s a good-looking new website, too. Since when can you afford a designer?”

“I’ve hired a few people and bought a few more servers with the money I got from selling the Jellyfish website.”

“You can’t afford that much money. Shouldn’t you be using it to pay off the credit cards anyway? It’s not like new money—it’s money you’re borrowing on credit.”

“I won’t need to.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I landed an investment. From venture capitalists.”

Andrew pushed the computer away from himself.

“No. Way.”

“Yes.”

Andrew stood up, raised his arms, and gestured with his hands to have David stand up too. David stood up and Andrew bear-hugged him.

“I’m so happy for you. I knew you could do it,” said Andrew as he put David down. “This is amazing. I’m at the best job of my life, I found the love of my life, and now my best friend isn’t going to be homeless anymore. David, we have to remember this moment. We need to take a picture and hang it up on a wall to remind us that things can work out for the best, even when they seem their worst. Let me buy you a coffee. What are you having?”

Andrew went over to the counter and ordered a few drinks. David pulled out some paperwork from his bag and looked it over. Andrew came back and put a steaming hot black coffee in front of his friend and smiled. David didn’t smile back.

“There is just one catch,” said David. “The venture capitalists want you to come back to Cryptobit before they give me the money.”

“What do they want with me? You’re the evil genius behind it all anyhow. I just pushed you into committing.”

“They liked what they saw of you on
Pitch Deck
. You are more talented than you give yourself credit for. And…it’s their policy not to invest in companies with a single founder. They don’t want me to partner up with a random MBA out of college who I’ve never worked with before.”

“David, buddy. I want to help you out, I really do. But my startup days are behind me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s amazing what you’ve done with Cryptobit and I applaud your courage to stick to it when things got rough. But frankly, I was glad when you sent me packing. I was thrilled actually. The biggest thing I learned with Cryptobit was that I don’t have what it takes to do startups. I am happy at MochaToca. Very happy. They treat me great, I get a paycheck every other week, and I have health insurance. I finally got my tooth filled. See?” Andrew pulled back his cheek and David saw a piece of silvery metal near the back.

“I didn’t realize how much I would enjoy hanging out with Jeni all day. I have never been this happy at a job, ever. I don’t want this to come across the wrong way, so don’t take it personally, but there is no way in hell I would give up what I have going right now. Life is too good. Opportunities like this don’t come along every day for someone like me.”

David stared at the paperwork. He looked up at Andrew slowly.

“This is not a nice thing to have,” said David with a long pause. “It’s a requirement. I have the papers here. I need you to sign and say you are coming back full time or this whole thing falls apart. The venture capitalists made it clear that this is non-negotiable. It’s the last thing I need to do to close funding.”

“I’m sorry, David. I really want to help, but I can’t.”

“You got me into all this, and now you won’t help me get out of it?”

“You fired me, David. You. Fired. Me. Forget it.” Andrew stood up and grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair. He whispered under his voice: “I shouldn’t have come. Jeni said it was a bad idea.”

“Jeni? What has Jeni been telling you?”

“Forget it. This isn’t her decision, it’s mine. But for the record, Jeni thinks you are a dreamer, and I am starting to wonder if she is right.”

“That I’m a dreamer? You don’t seem like the same Andrew I know anymore. That girl is changing you, and I don’t recognize you.”

“Jeni is the best thing that has happened to me and you had better get your head on straight. If you talk about her like that one more time, it will be the last time we speak. Maybe if you’d spent half as much time working on your relationship with Megan as you did on all your crazy startup dreams, you would know what I’m talking about.”

Andrew stormed out of the café. David watched him leave, then started banging away at his keyboard again.

D
avid decided
that Heather was just the person to pick up his mood for the day. He wanted to surprise her, so he hopped into his Camry and drove across the river to the home. Despite his self-admonishment to visit more often, it had once again been a while since he had seen her, and with everything going on recently, he wanted to catch her up.

“Well, well, well. Look at you. I barely recognize you without the beard,” said Belinda. “Still handsome though. You never called last time, honey. You still owe me that date.”

David was always amazed at how gracefully she handled her wheelchair. It was like watching a hippo dancing as elegantly as a ballerina.

“I know, sweetie,” said David with a smile. “Things have been so crazy at work, all the ups and downs. I intend to make good on my promise.”

“Typical excuse. You men are all the same. You tell us that we’re your entire world, and then spend more hours with your buddies in the office than you do with us. Your sister always tells me about how much you work, and how hard you work. She is proud of you, you know. But I tell her that being a workaholic is nothing to be proud of. I’d take a professional failure of a man who is devoted to me over Donald Trump any day of the week. I bet you are a devoted boyfriend though, aren’t you?”

David let out a single belly laugh.

“Where’s Heather anyhow? I wanted to surprise her and take her out to lunch.”

“Heather? I thought she was with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Heather checked out a week ago and told everyone that you had worked things out so you could take care of her.”

“Why would she say that? You can’t just check out of here. Can you?”

“It’s not a prison. I don’t know, she said that work was going great for you and you could afford her care now. Isn’t work going great for you? Didn’t you start your own company?”

“Well, yes, I did, but no. I can’t even afford rent.”

“She said you were going to take care of her.”

“Well, I can’t. Not yet, at least. Why would she say that?”

Belinda looked down at the sidewalk.

“What?” asked David.

“Well, she was so stressed about running out of money...”

“What are you talking about? My mom left plenty of money from life insurance in a trust that was supposed to take care of Heather’s expenses. She was supposed to be able to live off of it for years. What happened?”

“I don’t know, I know some of the patients have been complaining about cost of living increases lately.”

“Where’s the head doctor? Who’s in charge here?”

“Dr. Abington. He’s usually in that corner office.” Belinda pointed to the window in the corner of the building.

David stormed in and rushed into the nurses’ room. This should not have happened. Everything had been carefully arranged. Everything had been taken care of. Of course he hadn’t double-checked those details. Why hadn’t he? He felt like throwing up.

He approached a thick-necked woman with flushed red cheeks and a gold cross necklace on her chest. “Excuse me, do you have an appointment?”

“I need to see Dr. Abington. It’s urgent.”

“Dr. Abington is with a patient right now. If you have a seat I can—sir, you can’t go in there…”

David pushed open the door. Inside, a middle-aged man full of wrinkles and skin far more tan than the sparse Portland sun could justify was examining a young boy’s leg. The young boy looked up at David and cocked his head to the side. The young boy’s mother let out a yelp.

“Excuse me, I’m with a—”

“Where’s my sister?” demanded David.

Dr. Abington stood up. He looked infuriated. At the sight of the two angry men, the young boy began to cry.

“Young man, please. I am with a patient right now. This can wait.”

“No, this can’t wait. My sister. Heather Alexander. You let her leave. Someone said she was supposed to go into my care, but I haven’t seen or heard from her in a week.”

The mother came over to comfort the young boy. She stared daggers at the doctor.

He shook his head, then looked down at the boy. “I’m sorry, Jessy. Please don’t cry. Everything is okay. I’m just going to talk to this young man for one minute in the hallway and I’ll be right back.”

The doctor patted his patient’s head and the boy calmed down. He and David moved to the hallway and closed the door.

“Heather? Yes, of course. Ms. Alexander was discharged last week. Angie, can you please look up Ms. Alexander’s records?”

The secretary scowled at David and opened a file cabinet beneath her computer.

“Records show that she was discharged last Monday. Are you David Alexander?”

“Yes.”

“It shows you as her legal guardian.”

“But I didn’t pick her up.”

“It says in the record that you were running late to pick her up and she took to take a bus to meet to you downtown.”

“And you believed her? What kind of place is this? I’m going to sue you all for everything you have. Where’s all her stuff?”

“Sir, this is a self-check-in facility—our patients are free to come and go as they please. I’m surprised you don’t know that already. She said she would come back to pick up her things once she got settled.”

“Didn’t that seem a little odd to you? If she said she was coming to live with me, why would she leave her things here?”

“Well, let’s be honest, you haven’t been the most…predictable visiting relative around here. Sadly, that’s all too common. So of course we didn’t think that was odd. We take people at their word.”

“So you just let a chronically ill patient walk out of here on her own? Are you fucking kidding me?”

Angie frowned and her face flushed bright red. “No, you let her out of here. It’s not our fault you didn’t show up on time…”

“She never told me she was leaving!”

“She couldn’t pay,” said Dr. Abington as if that was the end of the subject.

“What do you mean she couldn’t pay? My mother left her a trust.”

“The trust ran out a year ago. Heather took out a loan with us in order to extend her care, and I know she was looking into options with insurance and disability. But she has been overdue with us for months.”

“How much does she owe?”

“To bring her account back in good standing and ensure she keeps her room for the rest of this year, it’s two hundred forty thousand.”

David went white. “Is that with insurance?” he asked.

“Insurance will pick up some of that, but until we have details we can’t tell you how much exactly.”

Angie jumped in. “Look, all this can be worked out later. Right now, let’s just all focus on finding Heather. I’ll start calling local hospitals.”

David stormed out of the room. Why didn’t she ask for his help? How could she have deceived him? David sprinted to his car. He turned the key and it wouldn’t start. He took a breath and turned the key again. Nothing but a couple clicks. He looked down at the dashboard. He had left the headlights on.

He slammed his head on the steering wheel and closed his eyes. He turned the key once more. A couple clicks and he could hear the engine trying to turn. He held the key just a second longer, and the engine finally started.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” David yelled.

The closest hospital was Legacy Good Samaritan. David pulled up to the emergency area and jumped out of his car, leaving it parked diagonally between two handicapped parking spots.

“Hi,” said David, out of breath. “Is there a Heather Alexander here?”

“Are you a family member?” said a lanky young man with a slight stutter.

“Yes, I’m her brother.”

“Let me ch-check.”

The young man stared at his screen.

“It’s loading.”

David wondered how a hospital hired someone with a stutter this bad to man the front desk.

“Yes. She’s in room, f-f-four nine two.”

David ran to the elevator and pressed four. When he got to the room, he saw his sister with an IV, wires coming from various parts of her body and an oxygen mask. He ran up to her.

“Heather! What happened? Heather!”

A nurse saw him run into the room and followed him in. She was young and slender with the body of a runner.

“Are you family?”

“Yes, I’m her brother. What’s wrong, why isn’t she awake? What happened?”

“She had a fall and hit her head pretty badly. We have put her in a medically induced coma to let the swelling go down.”

“How long has she been here?”

“Six days.”

“Six days? How long until she wakes up?”

“Let me get the doctor.”

“How long?” pleaded David.

“We don’t know. The body takes time to heal.”

David bowed his head and began to cry.

A
ndrew walked in quietly
. “I came as soon as I got your message,” he whispered.

“You don’t have to whisper, she can’t hear you. She’s in a coma,” said David.

“So how is she?”

“Apparently people saw her getting out of a bus downtown. She must have had a muscle spasm as she was stepping off the bus because she fell like a log, headfirst, and smashed it right into the curb. Doctors say they won’t know the extent of the damage until she wakes up, but they’re hopeful that there won’t be any permanent damage.”

“Fuck.”

“Thanks for coming.”

“What are best friends for?”

“I didn’t know if we were still friends after yesterday.”

“Pfff. You know what. I was thinking last night, replaying what happened over and over. I think I overreacted. I mean, you just sprung it on me without any preparation. It was like, hey sign this paperwork, you don’t have a choice in the matter. Jeni just wants to see me happy, and if Cryptobit falls and burns, at least I’ll know I gave it everything I could.”

“What are you saying?” asked David.

“I’m saying I’m in. Let’s do this. Let’s get the funding, save the world, and get you some health insurance so you can pay for this goddamned hospital bill without going bankrupt.”

David went up to Andrew and gave him a huge bear hug.

“That’s enough, kemosabe. The hard work is still in front of us. Let’s just focus on your sister for now. And for god’s sake, get that beard back as quickly as possible. You look terrible. You look older without it than you do with it.”

David smiled.