Rough Trade

cover more of me. “I didn’t realize that you would be coming in today.”
    “We were just in the neighborhood, as it were, in a meeting with the investment bankers,” said Avery with a toothy grin no doubt meant to be charming. I knew immediately that something was up. Until now both Brandts had treated me like hired help.
    “So how’s everything with the bank?” I asked.
    Grisham & Polk were the underwriters for the deal. They were a shady outfit with a reputation as the hyenas of the financial world, feeding on scraps and making their living from marginal, cast-off deals. Every time I thought of them performing due diligence or maintaining a fiduciary relationship, I got chest pains.
    “They say everything’s still a go on their end,” Avery assured me smoothly. “They’re just waiting for SEC approval so that we can close.”
    “That’s what we’re all waiting for,” I replied, thinking of all the things I should have been doing instead of sitting locked in a conference room restating the obvious.
    “So, I guess the $40 million question is when?” demanded Colin anxiously. “According to what Stuart was just saying, we should be hearing practically any minute.”
    “I’m afraid that the government never moves that fast,” I replied, silently wishing Eisenstadt dead. So much of getting a client through the IPO process was just managing their expectations. “Even if they don’t hit us with another comment letter, it’ll be at least another five or six days before they sign off.”
    This is not what the Brandt brothers had come to hear. One look at their faces and I knew that Avco must be having cash-flow problems. Not that there was anything unusual about that. As a rule, companies go public because they need to raise money; unfortunately the costs associated with an IPO usually did a pretty good job of depleting whatever cash reserves they might have had. Although Callahan Ross and the investment bankers would take their fees out of the proceeds, there were plenty of upfront costs to be paid. In Avco’s case I knew that the bill from the legal printers alone was more than $200,000. No doubt the fact that the SEC had dragged out the process to more than four times its usual length had taken its toll, as well. The Brandts were probably over the same kind of barrel as Jeffrey Rendell and the Monarchs, though I suspected that the Brandts’ lender might be the kind who starts breaking legs when his customers defaulted—at least, I secretly hoped so.
    “It won’t help us to go public if we go bankrupt first,” complained Colin miserably.
    It occurred to me that this was probably what the SEC had had in mind all along, but I didn’t say so.
    “Perhaps you should sit down with your investment bankers and see about setting up some kind of short-term bridge loan,” I offered, not eager to get into a discussion of Avco’s cash-flow problems.
    “That’s exactly what we’ve just been discussing,” Avery assured me. “But afterward, talking to Stuart here, my brother and I had a little thought. You see, all we really need is a small bridge, somewhere in the neighborhood of a million dollars, just to get rid of some long-running payables and meet our payroll until we close the IPO. Grisham and Polk say that naturally they’d be happy to raise the money, but their fee is fifteen percent right off the top. Do you have any idea how much money that is?”
    “A hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” I replied, pleased to be offered this opportunity to show off my mastery of simple arithmetic.
    “But don’t you see? If we’re really just a week or ten days away from SEC approval, then we’ll end up paying a six-figure fee for a ten-day loan.”
    “Very few people have the liquidity to write that kind of check,” I said. “That’s what you’re paying for.”
    “I bet you do,” said Avery.
    “Pardon?”
    “I bet you could write that size check.”
    For some reason my thoughts immediately turned to the apartment renovation—probably because that’s what the plumbing contractor thought about my checkbook, too.
    “I’m afraid that I’m not in a position to do that,” I said. It was horribly inappropriate for them to even ask, and I was furious that Eisenstadt had let them put me in this position.
    “Oh, I’m sure for someone with your background what we’re talking about is pocket change,” pressed Avery.
    I wanted to tell him that no matter what anyone’s background was