Who: Orin and Thomas What: Playing hardball Where: Thomas, Inc. boardroom When: Monday Warnings: None
The board room was loud, though Orin wasn’t participating in the argument taking place. He was listening, instead, which he found too few people did in business. His representative from H&M seemed exceedingly pleased with himself at the proceedings, even more pleased that Orin was sitting there like a good boy and not becoming involved in matters that ‘weren’t his specialty.’ He’d shaved that morning, and it made him look younger than the stubble-turned-beard he liked to sport when he went missing from the office for days, which he supposed to added to the impression of incompetence in the eyes of his financial adviser. He grinned, thinking he’d have to give Adam shit about it later on. The man needed to learn not to put so much stock in appearances.
The discussion taking place involved a joint project with Thomas, Inc., which Orin wasn’t as interested in as he was in seeing how one of Seattle’s main players conducted himself in a board room. Orin’s parents had ruled over the Musings version of Seattle, but things were different here, and he was the new kid on Brandon’s and Sparke’s block. The offer on the table was for a micro-transmitter geared for use in Monarch’s newest line of high-end defense software. The transmitter was good - the best Orin had seen schema for yet, but the price was high, and the battle going on was a nickle-and-dime war, and Orin was just watching the man at the other end of the table, waiting to see what piece he played on the board.
Thomas Brandon wasn’t watching anything. It wasn’t because he wasn’t paying attention; no, he was listening, a slight furrow in his brow that deepened or lightened depending on what was being said. Sometimes he’d turn his head slightly toward one speaker or another, but he wasn’t watching anyone or anything. The slightly vacant blue gray stare was sobered, rather than enhanced, with a trim dark suit of indeterminate color, and the silk tie was a confusing pattern of clean ripples. He leaned forward on the table, fingers interlaced, eyes slightly hooded, and the fact that he wasn’t looking at anything was far lessened by the thick blinds casting shadow into the board room. A glass of water was at his elbow, untouched.
So far Thomas had been able to hide the damage to his sight relatively well. He had been sitting in the board room before everyone came in, and he would be sitting there when everyone left. An office assistant, the same one that picked out his clothes and answered some of his more private calls, was present in a discrete corner, ostensibly writing notes. She kept glancing at him, however, and to a pro, she was a far easier read than Brandon; she was concerned about the situation, relatively new to it as she was. She, like the rest of Thomas, Inc., was used to Brandon as a supremely capable, almost inhuman robot of efficiency, and though she was careful and helpful to him (and therefore trusted with the situation), she was obviously uncomfortable and uncertain.
This deal would go a long way toward recouping some of the losses Thomas had taken when Luke was kidnapped, and it would go even farther to reassure underlings and investors that he was perfectly capable of running this company, despite a landslide of misfortune and changing personal situation. The general thought was that he should get married if he was going to live with Max, and that he was unstable in some way in the wake of Penelope Worth’s death and the rushed adoption of Luke Henry. Despite what the tabloids said, Thomas Brandon was not a celebrity, he was a businessman, and these things hurt him in business more than they should.
“If you’re looking for more ways to cut corners,” he said, interrupting at least three people without raising his voice, “don’t bother. We’ve already looked at it, and looked at it hard, and our production cost is fixed. If you want a cheaper version of this transmitter, we have a previous model, but I think you just told me that you need a higher rate of transmission, and if that’s the case, then you’re going to have to pay for this one.” It was an extraordinarily blunt thing to say. It wasn’t even clear who he was addressing.
Jackpot. Orin sat forward in his chair, khaki pants and casual white polo making him look like he had a boat to sail somewhere, platinum blond hair just adding to that illusion, and he rested his elbows on the table and looked at the man on the far end. All the cool grays in the world couldn’t hide the fact that he didn’t focus on anyone the way such a man would when making that kind of statement, but Orin didn’t really care about that at all.
“How about we clear some folk out of this room and have us a chat?” Orin asked down the table, and there was no indication of what kind of answer he expected to the request. In fact, his voice which sounded like it should have been from the South but came with no accent attached, sounded perfectly at ease. He knew Thomas Brandon, being enough of a businessman to amass enough wealth to build the tallest building in Seattle, knew his past. He was sure the man knew about the island and everything the press said afterward - after all, the island was just off the shore, but he didn’t sound like he was looking for any sympathy for that, either.
With his vision impaired, Thomas had to operate on a crowd’s knowledge of the world around him, particularly in business. The reaction of the men at the board table to Orin Monarch meant that they either underestimated him or dismissed him entirely. Since many of them had not met him, that told Thomas he was either casually dressed (for the situation) or wore some kind of bored or stupid expression. He didn’t draw any further conclusions from this, however, and he was able to adjust his perspective to reflect the sharpness of Orin’s words, which indicated that whatever his appearance might be, he was not to be underestimated.
There was an uncomfortable silence after this proposal, and after a few moments’ thought that seemed three times as much, Thomas let his hands drop away from his face and sat back. “I think we’ve reached the end of our allotted time, anyway.” With this effective dismissal everyone at the table looked around, and then slowly rose. When Thomas didn’t move, his negotiators hesitated, but when he turned his head and addressed the assistant over his shoulder, requesting she move the meeting he was meant to be in, they all shuffled their papers and filed out. The assistant hovered worriedly, but Thomas gave her a little shake of his head, and with an anxious look at Orin, she moved out and shut the room door behind her. She could be seen sitting down in a nearby lobby in sight of the door, obviously to wait.
Orin didn’t move through all this, not wanting to waste good observation time on standing and shaking hands or moving closer. He found the assistant especially interesting, because her demeanor spoke of uncertainty. She was either new, or something strange was going on. Once the door behind him closed on the woman, he leaned forward on the table. “Not often a business man of your standing’s willing to send his lawyers out of the room,” he said, respect in the words, because they were true. The higher men climbed, it seemed, the less they did themselves. Orin knew his father had been the same way, and he viewed himself as an aberration.
Orin stood, then, because there was nothing to be lost in doing so, and he shoved his hands into his pockets as he walked to the windows lining the board room, rocking on his heels as he looked out at the Sound. “You been having a rough spell lately,” he said knowingly, because a man didn’t walk into business without knowing who he was dealing with. “I’m looking to change public opinion,” he said just as frankly. “We could help one another, if we spend less time bitching about money. I’m offering you a hefty profit, even at the price we put on the table. More than that, I’m offering you a chance to take back some ground.” He expected a counter.
Thomas thought that lawyers could be more of a problem them problem-solvers, but he was joined in this opinion by almost everyone he knew, so he didn’t point it out. By the time the assistant was gone, Thomas had his elbows back on the table and his hands folded again. His eyes tracked Orin’s movement around the table, even if he didn’t react to which way he was facing or the slow casual movement of his weight on his heels.
“As charming as public opinion is, I’m still not going to sell you that transmitter under the manufacturing rate. It cost too much, and neither of our reputations are worth that many figures.” He didn’t speak to his ‘rough spell,’ but he doubted very much that Orin Monarch knew the half of it. It didn’t make Thomas feel particularly superior in the knowledge, but it made it easier to move past the comment. “You can make your reputation on this software, and probably annoy Anton Sparke, but you’re going to need to pay a fair price for it.”
Orin grinned, his attention still on the water as if it was the most compelling thing in all the world. “Drop it 5 percent, and I’ll let your company’s name be 10 pixels larger on the final product,” he said, an almost-chuckle in the suggestion, letting Thomas know precisely what he thought about the business world and the ridiculous haggling that took place there. “We both know you aren’t offering me anything at cost. These shiny windows don’t come from selling things at the manufacturing rate,” he said knowingly. He turned to Thomas, then, watching the other man with a curious sort of interest that, he suspected, was lost on the other man. “You need fanfare more than you need money, no matter what you say. And you’re playing hardball when you’re still looking at a decent profit, even if we meet in the middle between my proposal and yours - why is that?”
Ten pixels was a lot. It didn’t seem like a lot, but when the final product could fit in your hand, it was a lot. Thomas envisioned the device in his mind, not having the specs to work from any longer, and added the fraction of an inch to the piece. Investors would see that a lot easier, and it might be worth the comparatively little 5%. He was thinking it over, expression blank, eyes blank, thoughts hidden, when the next question managed to sink through. “We’ve never done business before, Monarch. You’re not your father. I want to know who you are.”
Orin thought about his parents with too much regularity for his own comfort, and taking the reins of the business only made it happen more often, but hearing other people mention them always had a gut-punch sort of effect, and his shoulders straightened a little in response to the comment. “My father’s been dead too long for you have known who he was, so there’s no telling if I’m him or not. Even I don’t know that,” he said, which was a bluff, but a sure sounding one. “Monarch was based in Seattle, and I’m trying to take back a bit of my own from Sparke Industries, but not at the price of inferior goods or clearance aisle transmitters. That tell you what you need to know?”
A pause. Thomas heard the tension and acknowledged that other people had problems with their parents too, and he didn’t have the right to bring them into the conversation about something petty, like a sixth figure here or there. Thomas took in a preparatory breath through his nose, and then let go of his hands again. He leaned back. “Ten pixels?”
“Ten pixels,” Orin said, stepping away from the window and, on a hunch, holding out a hand for Thomas to shake. His palm was calloused from bows and arrows, but he had no reason to think Thomas would recognize the roughening. After all, he suspected the man couldn’t even see him very well, which would explain the way he looked in the right direction without the sort of sharpness of normal seeing people.
“For five percent,” Thomas agreed, finally. He suspected Orin’s movement without really seeing it, and he understood the purpose, just like he knew how important a handshake was to seal a deal or make a friend. It was the worst time to show weakness--especially if you felt you come out ahead, the connection was important. He knew it the way American businessmen had to learn how to bow in Japan. He hesitated a moment, then he put his hand out too. He didn’t take Orin’s, but he held his out to match the gesture. Orin would have to take it. He didn’t say anything, because he couldn’t think of anything to say.
Suspicion confirmed, Orin closed the distance without any noticeable hesitation, and he shook Thomas’ hand firmly, careful not to weaken the grip because of any perceived disability. “For five percent,” he said, dropping his hand. “If I’d wanted it for something offensive, would you have budged?” he asked, because he wasn’t going to come this far and not take the measure of the man.
Thomas was not going to fall into the kind of trap that would get his words in the Financial Times, but he still wanted to give Orin an honest answer, particularly because he had calloused hands and they weren’t callouses that resulted from hand-to-hand, boxing, or firearms. “You would have had a more difficult negotiation than what you experienced today,” he said instead, with a very small, but detectable, smile.
Orin took that response, and he rolled back on his heels and shoved his hands in his pockets again. “Want to let the men pacing outside the door know, or that worried looking assistant? I’d hate her to fret her pretty little head off.” He added, knowingly, “you do better at a distance. You just zoning in on sound?” he asked frankly, no holds barred.
He wasn’t good at controlling his expression when he couldn’t see people watching him. He broke the calm enough to turn toward the door and see if there was anyone actually out there moving. “And colors and shapes. I’m probably asking too much of her.” The blank eyes returned. “I should probably be trying to vaguely word a press release.” There was something of a question there.
Orin didn’t ask about potential cures, because he could estimate the number of zeroes in Thomas Brandon’s checkbook close enough to know that if there was a cure money could buy, he would have bought it. “Most folk I meet with these days do teleconferencing,” he said, instead. “Probably easier to focus on a camera that you got marked than people in a room,” he offered, glancing back toward the door. “As for your assistant, she’s the type a smile goes a long way with,” he said knowingly. “It’ll make her less nervous. She gives you away more than you do, with all that fretting.”
“I’m less effective on the phone,” Thomas said, frowning. This was obvious. He used to glower at people, and that was very effective indeed. He wasn’t doing glowering at the moment. Of course, it might be even less now. He pulled at his collar and sank a little deeper back into the chair. He was that in-between hungry that he kept ignoring, the one that made people put things like “lunch, 12:45 to 1:10” on his calendar. “You’re probably right about her, though. She acts like I’m going to fire her if she drops something. Even before this.” He lifted a hand and swept it over his left eye and temple.
“Replace her with someone you trust, even if they can’t file or organize worth a damn. You’re already running at less than full potential. Someone covering your ass wouldn’t hurt,” Orin said, watching Thomas frown and sink deeper into the chair. He had expected a powerful business tycoon when he walked into this boardroom, and he knew sympathy had no place in their world. He knew, too, this man wouldn’t want his sympathy, and so he didn’t give it to him. “It helps if they look good in a short skirt, too. Might want to have someone with better vision help you figure that out. Distracts men like me in meetings if there’s something nice to look at.”
That particular comment got Thomas’ spine in line, and he sat up. He remembered where he was, and who he was talking to, and in a quick flicker of expression, it was obvious. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Someone he could trust would be a good idea. Maybe the trust could supervise the organizing. “You can let the lawyers in now.”
Orin grinned. “I know a blue-haired courier that might be interested,” he said, joking and chuckling at the suggestion as he walked to the boardroom doors and pulled them open. As expected, the men were all collected beyond the door, and he clasped his H&M representative on the shoulder. “Don’t panic, son. I didn’t give away the farm,” he said, enjoying the look on the man’s face.
Thomas’ was almost a match. The assistant slid in and whispered something, which made him shake his head sharply, still distracted by the image of Audrey delivering God-knows-what to Orin Monarch. “Monarch. Call my office before you get that contract finalized.” Delivery, right. Courier, right. Someone he could trust, better. None of this delivering things to Orin Monarch.