My Business Partner Sold Our Company Behind My Back. He Didn’t Know I Owned the Building.

Part 3: Forty-One Days

The money hit my account on Friday morning at 10:14. I stared at the balance on my phone for a long time. Two million four hundred thousand dollars and change. In my life I had never seen a number that big attached to my own name.

Marcus called me that afternoon.

“Del. I saw the wire went through. I’m glad you took the deal.”

“Yeah.”

“Listen. I know you’re angry. I know this feels like a betrayal. But in six months you’ll see it differently. You can retire, man. You’re fifty-eight, you’ve got the money, you can spend some time with Karen, you can do the fishing thing you always talk about.”

I do not fish. I have never fished. I mentioned once, at a Christmas party in 2011, that I might like to learn to fish. Marcus had built an entire imaginary version of me around that one sentence.

“How was San Diego,” I said.

There was a small pause. I hadn’t asked him where he was. He’d never told me.

“How did you know I was in San Diego.”

“You said you’d call me this afternoon. That was Tuesday morning. Boarding announcement in the background. I figured west coast.”

“Del. Please don’t be weird about this.”

“I’m not being weird, Marcus. I’m just making conversation. When are you back.”

“Sunday. Prescott flew me out to meet the executive team. They want me on as a consultant for the transition.”

Of course they did. Because Marcus was the one who was going to hold the door open while they walked in.

“That’s great, Marcus. Really. I’m happy for you.”

“You’re being weird.”

“I’m being polite. There’s a difference. Have a good flight.”

I hung up.

Then I called Ronald and I said, “We need to file the paperwork for the new LLC on Monday.”

The next forty-one days were the strangest of my life. I still went to the shop every day, because the Prescott transition team had asked me to stay on through the handoff as a paid consultant at four hundred dollars an hour, and I said yes, because I wanted to know exactly what they were planning.

They were planning exactly what I thought. Consolidation to Ohio by the end of Q1. All fourteen employees would receive sixty-day notices in early January. The client list would be absorbed into Prescott’s national accounts group. The Heidelberg press would be sold at auction. The building lease would be renewed on a five-year term “at the current favorable rate.”

They said that last part in a meeting on day nineteen, and I nodded and took notes and said, “Sounds smart.”

On day twenty-two I took Denise out to lunch at the diner across the street. The same diner that had paid Marcus and me in pancakes in 2002. The owner, Gus, was dead now, but his daughter Marta ran it and she still made her father’s blueberry pancakes on Saturdays.

I did not tell Denise the plan. I asked her a question instead.

“Denise. Hypothetically. If somebody started a new print shop in this town, would you go work for them.”

She set down her coffee. She looked at me for a long time.

“Del. Are you asking me hypothetically.”

“I’m asking you hypothetically.”

“Hypothetically, would this new print shop be in a building I already know how to find.”

“Hypothetically it might be.”

“Hypothetically, would the twelve other people I work with also have jobs there.”

“Hypothetically, thirteen. I’d want Tommy too.”

She looked down at her pancakes. She was quiet for a while.

“Del. My husband got laid off from the plant in September. We’ve been living on my paycheck. I’ve been putting a resume together at night and I have not told anybody.”

“Denise.”

“Just tell me it’s real.”

“It’s real. But I need you to sit on it for nineteen more days. I need you to keep smiling at those men in the suits. I need everybody to walk out of here in January thinking they’re losing their jobs, and then I need to be able to call them the next morning and tell them they’re not. Can you do that.”

She wiped her eyes with a napkin. She’s a tough woman. I had never seen her cry.

“Del. Why are you doing this.”

I thought about it.

“Because my mother left me a building in 1998 and I’ve spent nineteen years not knowing what it was for. I think this is what it was for.”

She nodded. She didn’t ask about Marcus. She didn’t have to. In a shop of fourteen people, everybody had known for months that something was wrong between us. I was the only one who hadn’t seen it coming.

On day thirty-four I met with Ronald and we formalized the new company. Parkway Print Co. LLC. I was the sole member. The operating agreement was two pages long and there was no section nine.

On day thirty-eight I sat in my kitchen with Karen and told her everything. She had known about the buyout, obviously, and she had known I was angry, but she had not known about the building. I had not told her, because I had not wanted to think about it until I had to.

She listened while I explained. She poured herself a second glass of wine. She is a quiet woman, my wife. She was a librarian for thirty years before she retired and she has the gift of listening to people without interrupting until they run out of words.

When I was done, she said, “Delbert. Are you doing this because it’s the right thing for the fourteen people. Or are you doing this because you want to hurt Marcus.”

I did not answer right away. That was one of the things I loved about Karen, she asked the questions I did not want to answer, and she waited.

“Both,” I finally said. “I’m doing it for them. But I want it to hurt him. I want it to hurt him a lot.”

She nodded slowly.

“Okay. As long as you know which one is which.”

That was all she said. She got up and put her glass in the sink and went upstairs to read.

I sat in the kitchen for a long time.

On day forty, I drove to the shop early, before anyone else was in. I walked the floor. I put my hand on the Heidelberg press, which was older than my marriage, and I said goodbye to it, because Prescott was going to auction it and Parkway Print was going to buy a smaller, newer one. I walked through the bindery, where Miguel had left his coffee cup on the shelf the way he always did. I stood at the front desk where Sarah had a framed picture of her grandson.

I went into my office. I sat down at my desk. I opened my laptop and I drafted the letter.

*To: Prescott Media Group, Legal Department*

*From: Parkway Property Holdings LLC*

*Re: 4400 Industrial Parkway — Lease Non-Renewal*

*This letter serves as formal notice that the lease agreement for the premises at 4400 Industrial Parkway will not be renewed upon its expiration date of [date]. Tenant is required to fully vacate the premises, including all equipment and property, no later than that date. Please contact the undersigned to coordinate a walk-through and return of keys.*

*Sincerely,*

*Delbert Lynch, Managing Member*

Four sentences. Twenty-two years reduced to four sentences.

I saved the letter. I did not send it yet.

Then I called Marcus.

He picked up on the second ring, cheerful.

“Del. Good to hear from you. You still coming to the closing dinner Thursday.”

“I’m coming, Marcus. I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Great. Karen coming too.”

“She’s coming.”

“Perfect. Look, I know it’s been rocky. I want to make things right between us. I’ve been thinking. Once the dust settles, maybe you and I go somewhere. That fishing trip you always talk about. Alaska, maybe. My treat.”

I closed my eyes.

“Alaska sounds great, Marcus.”

“Good man. See you Thursday.”

I hung up. I sat there. Then I opened the letter again and I hit send.

The email went to Prescott’s legal department at 8:47 a.m. on a Wednesday, one day before the closing dinner.

Ronald had timed it that way on purpose.

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