Chapter 5 - The Bellevue Audit
Seventy miles west of the cedar house, in a gleaming glass-and-steel high-rise overlooking Lake Washington in downtown Bellevue, the morning was progressing with catastrophic, unyielding violence.
Richard Vance sat behind his imported Italian walnut desk on the twenty-fourth floor of Vance Logistics & Development Consortium, his tie pulled down, his sleeves rolled up, staring at three computer monitors flashing red margin alerts.
His wife, Eleanor, paced the Persian rug in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, her camel-hair coat discarded on a sofa, a half-empty glass of dry vermouth trembling in her manicured hand.
"Call your brother!" Eleanor shrieked, spinning around to face him. "Call your cousins in Spokane! Richard, we have four hundred thousand dollars in balloon notes due on the Mercer Island townhouse next Friday! If Arthur's estate doesn't clear probate, the bank will seize our corporate line of credit before the end of the month!"
"There is no estate, Eleanor!" Richard roared, slamming both hands down onto his desk with a concussive bang that made his gold Montblanc pen jump. "Arthur set up an irrevocable trust twenty years ago! The title is completely severed from my name! The chancery court won't even grant us a hearing!"
The frosted glass door of his executive suite clicked open.
Arthur Sterling, the managing partner of the private equity fund that held sixty percent of Richard’s operating debt, stepped into the room. He was fifty-five, wearing a bespoke navy suit, carrying a black leather portfolio and an expression of cold, clinical detachment.
"Richard," Sterling said, not bothering with a greeting. "We received a certified notice from Vance, Sterling & Holt twenty minutes ago."
Richard’s heart seized. He scrambled to his feet, forcing a nervous, sweating smile. "Arthur! Good to see you. Look, there's been an administrative delay with my father's probate distribution. A minor clerical dispute regarding a secondary property in King County—"
"It is not an administrative delay, Richard," Sterling interrupted, opening the leather portfolio and laying a document across the walnut desk. "It is a formal acceleration notice on a three-hundred-and-forty-two-thousand-dollar promissory note, accompanied by a statutory lien filed against your personal partnership units."
Richard blinked, the blood draining from his face. "A... a lien? On my partnership units?!"
"Marcus Vance filed the notice with the Secretary of State at nine-fifteen this morning," Sterling explained, his voice entirely devoid of sympathy. "Under our operating agreement, any partner who incurs an unbonded civil lien exceeding one hundred thousand dollars is subject to an immediate mandatory buyout at book value."
Eleanor dropped her glass.
The crystal shattered against the parquet floor, spraying vermouth across her designer shoes.
"Book value...?" Eleanor gasped, her voice cracking into a high, terrified whine. "Book value on this firm is nothing! All the equity is tied up in the future development projections!"
"Precisely," Sterling said, looking at Eleanor with the unblinking pity of a banker foreclosing on a subprime mortgage. "Which means, Richard, that as of ten o'clock this morning, your equity in this consortium is valued at sixty-four thousand dollars. After deducting the legal fees incurred by our corporate counsel to handle this disclosure... your final severance check is approximately fourteen thousand, two hundred dollars."
Richard collapsed back into his executive chair, his mouth hanging open, his eyes glazed and unseeing.
Fourteen thousand dollars.
Thirty years of suits, thirty years of country-club dinners, thirty years of looking down on people who worked with their hands—reduced to a severance check that wouldn't cover two months of mortgage payments on his rented townhouse.
"Where is Brianna?" Richard whispered dully, staring at the floor.
"Brianna is in the lobby," Eleanor sobbed, sinking onto the leather sofa, burying her face in her hands. "Her university called twenty minutes ago. Her sorority dues bounced, and the registrar told her that her housing lease is suspended until the tuition arrears are cleared."
Sterling snapped his portfolio shut.
"You have two hours to clear your personal effects from this office, Richard," Sterling said calmly, turning toward the frosted glass door. "Security will provide you with four standard cardboard boxes. I suggest you use them."
The door clicked shut.
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In the absolute silence of the twenty-fourth floor, Richard Vance sat alone, staring at the reflection of the gray clouds in his imported desk, finally remembering the words his father had spoken to him on the porch twenty-two years ago before closing the door:
“A man who sells his daughter to buy a suit... will always end up naked in the winter.”
