Chapter 51 - 50 : The Long Table

Chapter 51: Chapter 50 : The Long Table

The carpet in the hallway was thick enough to swallow their footsteps.

A dozen steps out, they could already hear voices. Through the glass wall, a few people sat around a long table. The one leaning back and talking was Ryan Cho. Somebody beside him was laughing, and somebody else tapped the table twice with one finger, the way people do when they’re adding something up.

Rhett pushed the door open, and the talking stopped.

Three heads turned at once. Four, actually. Beside Ryan Cho sat a man Rhett had never seen before, fifty or so, gray suit, a black leather folder squared in front of him. He didn’t get up. He didn’t smile.

One side of the long table was full. The other side was empty except for two chairs. Three companies, an hour early, all on the same side of the table. Rhett knew a hearing when he saw one.

None of it reached his face. He walked over smiling and shook Ryan’s hand first. "Ryan. Last time, you said we’d make headlines together. I didn’t think you meant this kind."

Ryan smiled and let that one go.

The Wells Fargo man stood. Early forties, every hair in place. "Greg Lindqvist. Retail marketing, Southern California." His handshake was dry and firm and over in one pump.

The Red Bull man was the youngest of them, early thirties, a black shirt and no tie under his suit, sleeves shoved up his forearms. "Marco Brandt." He looked Rhett up and down. "You’re skinnier than you look on video."

"That’s Dom’s lighting. He’s generous with me." Rhett shook his hand and half turned. "This is Claire. Everything you’ve ever seen run on our site, she built."

Claire nodded once, sat down with her laptop, and didn’t say a word.

Rhett looked over at the gray suit. "And you are—"

"Richard Haas. Legal, Sony Computer Entertainment America." He didn’t offer a hand. He opened the folder, took out a document and slid it down the table. It stopped right in front of Rhett’s empty chair. "Have a seat, Mr. Delaney."

Rhett sat and looked down. The heading read NOTICE OF TERMINATION.

"Under section twelve, paragraph three of our agreement," Haas said, unhurried, every word clipped clean, "if the licensee’s conduct causes material harm to the licensor’s brand, Sony may terminate unilaterally and recover all fees paid.

"Yesterday’s article was read in Foster City. It was read in Tokyo. The PlayStation 3 launches in thirteen days. Our product cannot share a page with the words ’money circus.’"

He checked his watch. "Headquarters wants an answer by noon. Between now and then, you can sign this with some dignity, and both sides put out a short joint statement. Or—" He capped his pen and left it there.

Greg adjusted a cufflink. Marco leaned back in his chair. Neither of them looked at Rhett, and neither of them said a word. They were waiting.

So that was the plan. They’d already compared notes. Sony would swing first, and the other two would watch whether he could take the hit. If he folded here, every one of them would start cutting from that price.

He also knew something else. Sony wasn’t going to terminate anything.

He flipped the document open, skimmed the first page and tossed it back onto the table. It hit the wood with a flat slap.

Then he looked at Ryan. "Is this Sony talking?"

"Rhett, a company has its procedures." Ryan’s voice was all warmth. "When a paper runs something like that, legal has to do things by the book. Personally, I’ve always believed in what we’re doing together. You know that."

That was what he said. Inside, he was shaking his head. Eighteen years old. One piece of paper, and the kid had already lost his cool.

Rhett smiled. "Sign? Sure, I can sign." He took a pen from his inside pocket and pulled off the cap. "But once I do, what happens to Sony?"

Ryan and Haas frowned at the same moment. "What’s that supposed to mean?" Ryan said.

Greg’s hand stopped on his cufflink. Marco, who’d been lounging, sat up a little and watched with open interest.

Rhett tapped the Sony logo at the top of the page with the tip of his pen. "In August, Dell recalled four million batteries. Yours. Ten days later, Apple. One point eight million. Also yours. Last month, you recalled close to ten million yourselves."

"That has nothing—" Haas began.

"And the PS3," Rhett cut in. "Six months late. You sure you can actually ship it this time?"

"Rhett." Ryan stepped in. "I know you’re angry. But everything you just said is behind us. The PS3 launches this month."

Rhett leaned back in his chair. "Behind you? Have you looked at your own stock price lately? Sure, it’s coming back. Want to check which day it started?"

Nobody answered, so he answered for them. "The day my video went up, and from then on every college kid in America started treating you like the coolest company on earth. Go ask your people how many Sony Ericsson phones and PSPs you’ve moved since."

Then his voice went hard. "We’ve been in the same boat for a month. You’ve been feeding off my fucking traffic this whole time, and the second some local paper takes a bite out of me, you come at me too?"

He took a deep breath and set the tip of the pen on the notice.

"Fine. I’ll sign. And this afternoon, I call Microsoft. Gears of War comes out Tuesday, and they’d love to know how to get college kids looking at an Xbox. If Microsoft doesn’t want me, Nintendo will. The Wii hits shelves two days after you do.

"From today on, MrPelican never touches anything with Sony printed on it again. I’ll even write Tokyo’s statement for you."

The pen made its first stroke on the paper.

"Rhett." Ryan Cho reached over and laid his hand flat on the page.

Haas turned to look at him. Ryan ignored him and gave Rhett a smile in a different key. "You’ve got the wrong idea. This came from some nervous people in Foster City, and it doesn’t speak for me. I came here to hear your new plan, so let’s put this aside."

He slid the notice back, folded it shut and pushed it across to Haas. Haas looked at the folder, then at Ryan, and kept his mouth shut.

Rhett gave a short laugh and capped his pen. Claire glanced at the hand he’d kept on the table the whole time. It hadn’t shaken once.

Greg Lindqvist took a second look at the eighteen-year-old across the table. He’d walked in expecting a formality. The kid was a lot harder to handle than he looked.

"We’ve read the proposal." He opened his own file. "Student loans, pay-per-click, professors writing the questions, and honestly, our marketing people like it.

"So I’ll be direct, Mr. Delaney. You’re on the front page, your own school is looking into you, parents are calling you a menace, and every morning show in the country wants somebody on to talk about you. Say you shoot this. Then what?"

He let that hang a second. "And now that we’ve seen the idea, well, we’ve got an agency we’ve worked with for fifteen years and a branch in every college town in California. Why wouldn’t we just do it ourselves?"

Marco didn’t wait for Rhett to answer. "I’ll be direct too. We came because of the battle royale you pitched us. A hundred kids, one map, last one standing. That’s Red Bull."

He tapped the new proposal on the table. "Now you’re handing me a quiz? We sell extreme sports and energy drinks, and you want my logo next to a desk? Honestly, man, I think you’ve hit the end of the road."

That was three. And all three of them were looking at him now.