Chapter 33
Trouble in Tallahassee
The phone rang. A quick check on the caller ID showed me it was the company's former in-house legal counsel. I didn't want to answer it. It had been a busy holiday season and I had just got my son settled into the park swing for the first time in quite a while. Heck, it was probably the first time in a couple months that I had felt the sun's warmth on my face instead of watching it come and go through my office's Venetian blinds. During this time of year, though, I have to answer the phone. Holiday pleasantries are a superficial necessity and a quick “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Hanukkah” was not going to kill me.
“Hey, Ben. What's up?” I answered.
“What's going on in Tallahassee?” he started. Hmm . . . this was different. Usually when he calls we spend the first few minutes throwing around innocuous, machismo-laced jokes. Not today.
“What do you mean?” I asked while letting my subconscious rhythmically push the swing.
“Jim's been fired. Haven't you heard?”
“News to me. What for?”
“I thought you'd know; that's why I'm calling you . . . .”
James Young, known to his friends as Jimmy and his colleagues as Jim, appeared to be a guy who had it all together at the age of 27. A father of three little girls, he had been married to his trophy wife for seven years and lived quite the lavish lifestyle. I mean, why not? At 24 years old, he founded the latest Internet darling, PayYerWay.com, an online payment processor that was going to revolutionize ...
