Page 71 of Skins Game

“Yes.”

Nicole very gently and carefully set her mug on the coffee table and stared at the blue-painted swirls on the white ceramic. “You aren’t spying on us for them, are you? Listening to our meetings—like the sales meetings and our employee meetings about the change—and telling the new owners what’s going on?”

“I’m not a spy. I’m not some low-level grunt reporting what you say to a boss at Last Chance, Inc. Indeed, I’m not telling anyone at Last Chanceanythingabout what’s happening at Sidewinder.”

That last part had an angry ring, a frustrated energy that said he was telling the truth but that more truth was hiding behind it.

But it was the truth.

Okay, Nicole was pretty sure Kingston wasn’t a spy.

But—

“So, you obviously aren’t just a sales guy. Everything about you says you’re not just cannon fodder to take to the summer golf trade shows. Why are you really at Sidewinder?”

Kingston sucked in his lower lip and bit it while regarding his coffee.

That much introspection before an answer might be due to deception or incoming bad news, and Nicole braced herself.

Maybe she shouldn’t have asked.

“Last Chance, Inc. gets its name from its mission,” Kingston said. “It’s the last stop for companies before bankruptcy. They buy companies for pennies on the dollar and turn them around, or they don’t.”

Her breath choked her. “How much of a chance do we have?”

“Not good,” he said. “Flanagan withheld information about an additional lien on Sidewinder’s business operations.”

“So there’s another outstanding loan? Can’t Last Chance just pay it off? That’s what venture capitalists do. They’re just a big pot of money that pays things off.”

It sounded stupid even when she said it. Vultures were not charitable.

“Last Chance overpaid for Sidewinder. Sidewinder is farther in the hole than it was purported to be, and they’ll have to work harder to get out of the hole and return it to profitability.” He looked up at her. “This is really bad, Nicole.”

“So, that’s your job, to evaluate Sidewinder, then? You’re like the trauma surgeon, seeing how bad the damage is?”

He shook his head. “It’s my job to turn Sidewinder around, to do anything necessary to get the ledgers in the black by the end of the year.”

“You can’t flip companies around to making a profit like that,” Nicole scoffed. “Businesses are like aircraft carriers. Changing the direction of that much mass takes a lot of energy. I don’t care about the operations side, and even I know that.”

“We have to,” he said. “It’s not an option or a hope. Sidewinder must make a profit by New Year’s Eve, or everything falls apart.”

“But venture capitalists invest money in companies,” she argued. “They don’t just close them.”

“If Sidewinder doesn’t turn around, Last Chance will try to sell the company for whatever they can get for it. They’ll likely just close the company and sell the equipment.”

“I knew it. When a VC bought us, I knew Sidewinder was going down. Maybe I should have taken that job at EB. Nuclear war is always a growing sector.”

“A large profit by December is the only way to save it.”

“It’s not possible,” she told him. “Not with our business model. We’re a luxury brand, selling a few units for high markup. I mean, you’d have to double our salesandprice sets ofclubs for a hundred thousand dollars each. No one’s that dumb, even golfers.”

Kingston huffed a sarcastic chuckle. “Yeah, a few billionaires would be dumb enough and have the poor taste to buy gold-plated golf clubs, but most billionaires aren’t stupid. The materials cost would eat into the profit, anyway.”

“But you have a plan to save Sidewinder Golf, don’t you?” Nicole asked. “That’s why they sent you.Right?”

He frowned. “I’m in sales. I wasn’t lying about being the new sales guy. I am an employee of Sidewinder Golf, on the HR org chart, and drawing a salary, but there will have to be changes.”

“You mean cuts,” she said. “People are going to lose their jobs.