Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Benson could throttle Joyce for tearing him from Luka, but when he got into his office, and she was there, he didn’t have the time. “He’s doing it. He’s willing to merge.”
By him, he assumed Joyce meant George Regal, the head of his biggest competitor. If they were to merge, he’d corner the market on computer security. “Wow, really?”
“We’ve beat him. We’ve done it. Now, you can buy him out and crush his company.”
Benson shook his head, as he did not know what she was talking about. “He wants to merge, Joyce. How does that translate to killing off his entire company?”
Joyce’s eyes were frenzied, like a shark sniffing blood in the water. “The computer security system, the best and only one. This company will be bigger than either of us ever dreamed!”
“Joyce, no,” he said, then smiled as Luka’s face passed through his mind. “It’s not the day to kill off anything. Let me talk to the man. There’s got to be something we can do, so he can keep his dignity, and his employees can keep their jobs.”
As her eyes narrowed to slits, she whispered, “What the fuck, Benson?”
It was true; she’d mentioned something about it before, but Benson never took her seriously. He never in a million years thought Regal would sell. He’d been the biggest name in security for twenty years, a name trusted by home computer owners and entire companies.
Sure, if they were wiped out, it was likely Benson’s company could take those slots, but why? They were already huge. Government contracts, big businesses too. And his share of people’s personal computer needs as well.
Besides, the thought of tearing something down instead of building something was foreign to him that day, what with the sweet feeling of Luka still all over him.
“What the hell are you smiling about? What’s happening here?”
“I’ve met someone, Joyce, and…and I am too happy right now to think of putting hundreds and thousands of folks out of a job. I think we can do better. We can always do better.”
He could see her fuming, how she’d had it all planned from the second she heard the company was in trouble. He wouldn’t back down, not like that. Not to hurt families just a couple of months from the holidays.
“Benson, listen, I get your need to be the good guy, but this company is failing. To do a merger, we’re spending our money on a company that couldn’t make it. We should cut it up and sell it off, keeping the name alone for some division, if that’s how you want it.”
“That’s not how I want it, Joyce. I want the company to be intact. I want the employees to enjoy stability and safety in their future careers. I want them, like our own employees, to be happy. Happy employees make better products and services, and you know that.”
Joyce took a deep breath and then nodded, steeling herself before she left the office.
“I’ll tell Regal we’ll discuss it another day.
You think about it further, Benson, think about how much money our employees will make, being they are shareholders because of another great idea you had.
If you don’t make them money, they won’t be happy, and we’ll have two rotting companies. ”
Benson stopped her by standing between her and the door. “Either you call him to meet with me now or I will. I’m not thinking about this, Joyce. I’m not giving in to this.”
“You get your dick sucked and suddenly you’re even more generous than you already were. You’re not thinking, Benson.”
“I am thinking, Joyce. And I’m also thinking that if my assistant can’t respect my wishes, maybe she needs to find an employer that doesn’t mind her thinking she has the right to call the shots.”
“You’d fire me for looking out for your bottom line? Who is this guy?”
“Why do you insist on blaming someone else for the disagreement you and I are having? You know me, Joyce. I won’t take a hatchet to a company that has served people well for over two decades.
Just to, what? Make another hundred million, or more?
I don’t need more money. My shareholders don’t need more money.
The last quarter has them all doing very well.
Go call Regal and have him meet me here, or I’ll go to him.
I don’t care. I’m not trying to lord over him either. ”
“Fine, Benson. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
When she was gone, the room warmed considerably.
She could frost over a tropical island given the chance.
He got himself a drink, then realized it wasn’t noon yet, and drank it anyway.
The owner of a vast company, and he still hated confrontation.
Especially her. He understood that she was looking out for him and his company, as she had from the minute she was hired.
He’d wanted her for that reason, because he knew he could be too generous to the point of hurting the people he meant to help.
Still, there was not a chance that he’d put so many in danger of a heartbreaking new year, or the possibility of losing pensions, health insurance and more for entire families.
He sat at his desk and smiled again, as he thought about Luka and all the things he could give him that had nothing to do with money.
Never had he connected so quickly to anyone.
Not once in all his life had he thought so quickly that a guy would be the one.
That one person that could change everything for the better.
So, he sent Luka a text because he just couldn’t wait to call him.
How about we go out on the town tonight?
Expecting to wait hours for a response, he was surprised when it happened right away.
I’d love it. What is the time and place?
Benson read that and laughed. “Okay, I hadn’t gotten that far.”
After a few moments, he typed, I’ll surprise you. Actually, I will surprise us both. I just had the idea this minute.
There was a laughing emoji then. Okay, well, just let me know. Talk soon.
Butterflies were going haywire in his gut, and he smiled like his face could split in two.
A call came to his office phone, and he placed it on speaker, “Yes, Carol?”
“Sir, Mr. Regal is here to see you.”
“Where is Joyce?”
“She was in her office, sir. Do you want me to call her?”
He almost said yes and then thought better of it. “No, not yet. Let me speak to him alone.”
“Of course, Mr. Carter. I’ll send him right in.”
After rising and buttoning his suit coat, Benson started for his office door, arriving just as George Regal stepped through it.
In his late fifties, he looked twenty years older, and his hair, and turned from salt and pepper to fully white since the last time Benson had seen him. He was thinner as well, all marks of the stress he’d been under.
“George, good to see you again, only I wish it were under different circumstances,” Benson said as he proffered his hand.
George scowled but did shake his hand. “I’m sure,” he said sarcastically, not even trying to hide his disdain.
“Come, sit. I know it’s early, but I’ve already had a drink. Would you like one?”
“Scotch, please.”
George took the seat in front of the desk, and Benson fixed the drinks and took them both in his hands, giving one to George before he took his seat behind the desk.
“George, I’ve heard you’re in trouble, and before we get into any negotiations, let me tell you, it doesn’t make me happy in the least. Competition is good for a company.
It keeps us on our toes. No monopoly is good.
I truly believe that. What can I do to help your company? ”
George downed his scotch quickly and set the glass on the desk hard. “Who do you think I am? Do you think I believe you’re not sitting here with plans to break up my company?”
“I don’t. Believe me, don’t believe me, that I have no power over in the least. I know you have a lot of employees who are likely as stressed as you are right now, wondering about their futures. I know you proposed this merger hoping to save their jobs, even if it meant losing face.”
After sitting back in his chair and scrubbing over his face with his hands, he almost choked on the words, “Yes. All of that, yes.”
Benson took a sip of his scotch and then moved from his chair to sit on the corner of his desk near Regal. “What can I do to help? Maybe a merger would work, but maybe, just maybe, I can help you get back on your feet.”
Regal’s eyes met his, and they were pleading. “You cannot be like this.”
“Sorry that my assistant would disagree. She wants me to chop you up into bits. And I suppose, the smart thing would be to do just that. But I’m not always smart in business.
I tend to think about little kids who have no gifts under the Christmas trees or food in their bellies as they go off to school.
That was me. Oh, I’d have a few presents, socks and things I needed, and maybe a toy, if my mom could afford it. ”
He got up and went back to his seat. “I have been recently reminded of the trauma that comes with living in poverty. Here, especially in the richest county, to wonder if dinner is coming, or if I’d have to recycle my school clothes one more year, though I’ve grown out of most of the articles.
It makes a person untrusting, cautious, scared all the rest of their lives that they’ll continue to live in that poverty, or they’ll go back to it.
We work harder, longer, giving up our lives just to make sure we have a meal for our families.
I don’t want that for my employees, and I don’t want it for yours. ”
George stared as if Benson had grown a second head. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
He didn’t flinch as he said it, because it was true.
George’s eyes welled with tears that the stubborn man refused to shed.
“I’ve heard things about you, ya know? I’ve heard you were this uber-nice guy who just happened to make his own fortune.
I think that is the only way a person could be this rich and not out for themselves.
I wish I could make my kids see that, but…
thank you. If you’re being sincere, if you’re willing to work with me, I have seven thousand employees that will be as grateful as I am. ”
Joyce showed up an hour after the meeting had begun, but she stayed quiet and listened to the negotiations.
George was a proud man, and wouldn’t hear of a handout, or any form of charity, so he handed all of his own shares of the company over to Benson as a gesture of goodwill.
Benson already knew what he’d do with them. They’d be spread over seven thousand employees.
When George left, Joyce sat in the chair he’d just abandoned and crossed her legs daintily, though she was anything but dainty. “So, you made out well and still kept all the employees.”
Benson was proud of himself as he said, “I did. Taking part of his company and bringing it into the merger while letting him keep the rest, upgrading and renovating it, well, seemed like a good way to go about it.”
“He can keep the original works, improve upon it, and you all come out ahead. I stand corrected, Benson, but…that doesn’t mean we couldn’t have made out much better my way.”
Benson knew she wouldn’t back down from that. “Maybe, but now, Christmas will be happy for the families of his employees, and I can sleep at night.”
“I sleep just fine, Benson.”
That is one thing that bothered him most about her. “I know, Joyce.”
She rose and started to exit the office before she turned back to ask, “Whoever this guy is, I hope he’s worth it.”
“He is. Believe me. He is.”