And with that everything seems settled and fine, until Dime speaks up and spoils it.
“What makes you think you can?” he asks, taunting, jeering, lifting his chin as if dismissing some object of contempt. Someone gasps, or so it seems when Billy later recalls these moments. Skip turns from his computer, slowly folding down the screen. Todd stares, fingers poised over the keypad of his phone. F-bomb executive has paused in midchew.
“Pardon?” Norm’s dazed smile makes a pudding of his face.
“Can you do it, can you deliver. You want to buy our story for fifty-five hundred bucks, that sure sounds like chump change to me. We could sell it to pretty much anybody for that, hell, my granny could swing that deal with a trip to the ATM. With all due respect, Mr. Oglesby, sir, show us you’re serious. Show us you’re a player.”
Still with that knocked-wonky smile, Norm sits back and carefully crosses his arms. He turns to his sons, then to the two executives, and as if cued by some mysterious signal, they all bust up laughing.
“Look around you, son,” Norm says, regarding Dime with a warm, pitying cast to his eyes. “Look around and think for a moment about everything you see. Then you tell me, am I a player?”
Billy knows if it was up to him, he would fold right now. It’s too strong, the dark mojo of these rich, powerful men operating in the comfort of their home turf, and Norm above all with his kindly blue eyes, his fatherly patience, the paralytic force field of his mesmerizing narcissism. Billy wishes Albert would speak up and pull them back from the brink, but Dime presses on.
“Sir, may I speak frankly?”
Norm smiles, shows his palms. “Why stop now?”
More yuks from the cheering section. The small of Billy’s back is a peat bog of sweat. Does Dime plan these things or just wing it? Wings it, he decides with a fierce burst of pride. He’d follow his sergeant through forty hells.
“I’ve been told it’ll take a budget of around eighty million dollars to get our movie made — am I correct on that, Albert?”
“Ideally,” Albert intones from somewhere south of the Bravos. “Sixty to eighty million to make a first-class war picture.”
“That’s a lot of scratch,” Dime says, turning back to Norm.
“It is,” Norm agrees.
“So where’s it coming from?”
“Ah.” Norm chuckles, looks to his son. “Skip, remind me again, where does the money come from?”
“Capital markets,” Skip says briskly, only slightly condescending as he turns to Dime. “Banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, pension plans, there’s always plenty of money out there looking for deals. Assuming the economy cooperates, we think we can get Legends fully funded in the three-, three-hundred-fifty-million range with a series of private offerings, roll them out over a period of, say, eighteen months. Then with additional funding to come as needed, maybe on a per-project basis.”
“GE Capital’s been begging to put some money with us,” says Todd.
“That’s right. And that’s not counting individual investors. Just with our friends next door”—Skip nods toward the main suite—“I bet Dad could step over there and have commitments for twenty, thirty million by the end of the game.”
“We have access,” Norm says patiently to Dime. “We have ample experience raising capital. I think you could even call us”—he pauses and smiles—“players.”
“Yes sir, I sure hear you on that, sir. Those are some stout numbers you’re talking about, but with all due respect, sir, fifty-five hundred for each of my Bravos just seems kind of… small.”
“Albert, they understand how we need to structure this deal?”
“I explained,” Albert answers in a studiously neutral voice.
“So you know”—Norm turns back to the Bravos—“your fifty-five hundred is just an advance, correct? We could buy you out with a big lump sum, sure, but that makes it harder for us to get your movie made. We need maximum flexibility to put this package together, and what we’re asking from you, what we need from you, is in the nature of an in-kind equity contribution. In exchange for the rights to your story you’ll have a vested interest in the project, which means you share with us in the upside—”
“And the downside,” says Dime.
“Sure, sure, and the downside. There’s going to be risk, just like with any investment. But it won’t be any greater for you than it is for any other investor, myself included.”
“Mr. Oglesby sir, with all due respect, sir. We’re soldiers. We feel like we’ve already got enough risk in our lives.”
“And I’m certainly sensitive to that, but we’re talking about an entirely separate arena here. If we’re going to sell this project to potential investors, we’ve got to show them a solid package. We can’t afford to be cutting sweetheart deals here.”
Norm swivels his chair for a look at the field, and Billy realizes that their host was hoping to close the deal before the fourth quarter began. Too late; the players are taking the field. “You do understand, I trust,” Norm says, turning back to the Bravos, “this is about a lot more than just money. Our country needs this movie, needs it badly. I really don’t think you want to be the guys who keep this movie from being made, not with so much at stake. I sure wouldn’t want to be that guy.”
“We understand, sir. And I can assure you sir, if anything terrible happens, Bravo is ready to take full responsibility.”
Norm cuts a glance at his execs. He’s almost smiling, Billy sees. He’s enjoying this. There is a vast asymmetry in the dynamic here that Billy can’t quite put his finger on, even though it’s the elephant shitting all over the room.
“Sergeant,” Norm says, “that’s our offer. Based on what I’m hearing, it’s the only offer you’ve got, and now, well, you’re going back to Iraq. Wouldn’t you like to have something before you go? Something to show for all your hard work and sacrifice, the magnificent service you’ve given the country? Maybe it’s not as much as you were hoping for, but I think most people would agree, something is better than nothing.”
“Something would be nice,” Dime says. “Something would be great. But it’s”—he breaks off with a choking gasp—“it’s just, I don’t know, it’s just so sad, sir. We thought you kind of liked us.”
“But I do!” Norm cries, lurching upright in his chair. “I do like you! I think the world of you fine young men!”
Dime clasps his hands to his heart. “See?” he gushes to Billy. “He does like us! He likes us so much he’s going to fuck us in the face!”
In a second Albert is on his feet, chousing the Bravos out of their chairs with a bright furious smile and asking Norm for a place where he can talk to his “boys,” and though the Oglesby team takes it all more or less in stride, Dime has offended, clearly. He has crossed the bounds of couth. A very curt Mr. Jones leads them down the hall to a small, windowless room with a half bath attached, a kind of massage and decompression chamber, Billy gathers, furnished with a heavily pillowed daybed he would describe as “French,” a couple of leather and steel-tube chairs, a massage table, and a deep-pile Persian rug. The ubiquitous TV is mounted high in a corner, the first they’ve seen today that’s not switched on. Mr. Jones ducks into the bathroom and has a look, then walks a circle around the massage table. He seems to be doing some sort of security sweep.