Chapter Twelve
The next day, Clarity made a few calls from work to the office managers of Bormbayle. The owner of the company was Emery Bormbayle, and he was in charge of buying, selling or licensing any patent or intellectual property linked to the company's shower designs. Intrigued by Clarity's request to negotiate the purchase of the Kauai Bianca design, he began asking questions, like who was buying the design. Stevenson garden products, said Clarity, a modest company offering gardening equipment and accessories.
"Come in this morning to the plant around eleven, bring in your lawyers," he said.
My lawyers, thought Clarity, where are my lawyers. She tapped on her teleoperator headset, knowing she couldn't call on Lareya for this, because she would never agree to buying someone else's technology, without Bill Stevenson's approval. She dialed Cynthia's number.
"I need you today," said Clarity, "Taimi is coming as well."
Clarity let her friend Charisse in charge of her office calls, and went out of her post at ten thirty, taking the elevator to get out into the parking lot area, telling Flake she'd be back after lunch. Taimi joined her in the parking lot, and they picked up Cynthia, who was dressed in blue skirt and white shirt.
"I have no clue about law Clarity," said Cynthia, "much less about patent law, not sure I can play the role of a lawyer."
"We'll be all right," said Clarity, "we know we're buying." She stepped on the pedal, driving towards Calabassas.
"What am going to do?" asked Taimi.
"You're the shower specialist," said Clarity, "maybe you'll have to do some shower testing."
"And you?" asked Cynthia.
"Biz dev and marketing, I'm the one who thinks strategically and understands why we want to buy this."
For five hundred thousand dollars, she sort of knew why they were buying, but she was doing it on a hunch. They walked together to the entrance of Bormbayle and the receptionist led them to a conference room which had a large cherry wood rectangular table in the middle. A few minutes later, Emery Bormbayle came into the room, followed by his lawyer Amstel Jarvis.
Mr. Bormbayle sat down and slid a pack of documents inside a plastic folder across the table, various blueprints of the shower design that Clarity wanted to buy.
"It's all there, you know this purchase entails only the Kauai Bianca patents? No messing around with the rest of our models, we want to keep selling those, they're profitable."
Clarity nodded and slid the folder to Cynthia, who began looking at the blueprints, showing some of them to Taimi. Clarity introducedd Cynthia as one of the lawyers of Stevenson, and Taimi as water advisor and shower specialist.
"I've bought pools before, it's not exactly like a shower, but it is related," said Taimi.
"Very good, well, one of your distributors, Le Water, recommended the design, so we're going to buy the right to use this shower design by purchasing the patent associated with it," said Cynthia. Emery Bormbayle nodded, and Cynthia signed the papers committing to pay the asking price of half a million dollars to Bormbayle, and to make a bank wire for the total within two days or so. She slid the agreement to Clarity, who placed her hand on the plastic cover of the folder.
"We'd like one of the shower samples which has already been manufactured, and the database that goes with it, the list of customers who have placed orders for this shower," said Clarity.
"No problem," said Mr. Bormbayle, "we have a design ready to ship in the warehouse area. A list of customers, all right, well, that's why we're selling, there's not that many customers, but we'll give you the short list."
"The short list?"
"Yes, we have one customer right now who is interested, it's a lead really, not really a customer."
Clarity hoped it was a good customer with five hundred thousand dollars worth of money or additional customers. She turned to Cynthia, who gave her a pen to sign the agreement.
"You're ok with it?" asked Clarity. Cynthia nodded and insisted on Clarity holding the pen.
"Got to sign as well, the company requires two signatures," said Cynthia, looking at Mr. Bormbayle, smiling. Clarity signed the agreement, hoping her intuition was right. The receptionist came into the conference room to speak with Mr. Bormbayle. Clarity overheard her whisper in his ear.
"Joe is looking for the shower tester."
Clarity eyed Taimi, and they got up for a few seconds to a table with some orange juice and water. Clarity made a call to Flake, which lasted a few minutes. She turned to Taimi, who was eating a muffin.
"Leave the meeting, go where it says no entry - warehouse and manufacturing area, meet Joe and tell him you're the shower tester."
"What exactly do I have to do?"
"Not much, you'll see, it's easy, sort of like a walk." Taimi nodded and excused herself, alledging a call from the office.
A few minutes later, Clarity shook hands with Mr. Bormbayle, agreeing to pay for the shower design with a single payment. Half an hour later, after a complimentary mid day snack, Clarity and Cynthia entered the manufacturing area, ready to pick up the shower design.
"How are we going to leave with this thing?" whispered Cynthia, looking at the shower stall.
"It's no sweat," said Clarity, "Flake is taking care of this."
As they walked between aisles of plastic and metal parts used in the manufacturing of the showers, Mr. Bormbayle spoke at length about the various quality procedures which ensured all of their designs worked well and pleased their customers. They turned a corner to the plant's exit and Taimi joined them, her hair wet and disheveled.
"Not bad, this shower testing stuff is all right, shower number two can get hot," said Taimi, "job is not bad though, got some good head from one of the guys in shower number four, he gave me a good lick for half an hour, I'm still dripping."
"You did better than me then," said Clarity.
They stepped out of the warehouse and manufacturing area, followed by several factory workers carrying the shower design with them. A few feet in front of them, Clarity saw what she had asked Flake to bring, a Mack Bruder loading truck, to load the shower. She saw the receptionist walking briskly towards them.
"A man named Flake told me the truck over there is to load the shower," she said, "he had to get back to work because there is some kind of inspection in your company, a police officer is there right now."
Clarity eyed the loading truck and hoped it would be easy to drive. Several workers loaded the shower on the truck. Clarity grabbed the door grip shaped as a chrome handle Lady, and stepped into the driving seat, with Cynthia and Taimi by her side. She turned the engine key and the motor began roaring.
"Do you know how this truck works?" asked Cynthia.
"More or less, I remember some reruns of the Movin On television series," said Clarity. She turned on the navigator placed below the rear-view mirror and set course towards the home of their single customer.