Chương 6
“Nine.”
“Eight, after transaction fees.”
Grant leaned back. “The fees are part of the financing.”
“They reduce the amount available for care.”
“They make the financing possible.”
Naomi looked at Malcolm. “We’ve been asking for a full fee schedule for four months.”
Malcolm’s face tightened. “I was told it was still being finalized.”
Grant flipped open his portfolio. “It is standard for a project of this scale.”
“Standard isn’t the same as harmless,” Evelyn said.
He looked at her. “And suspicion isn’t the same as analysis.”
“Good. Let’s analyze.”
For the next two hours, they moved through the agreement page by page.
Grant was prepared. Evelyn had expected arrogance to make him sloppy, but it had not. He knew the projected revenue, the debt service, the management structure, the construction schedule, and the donor commitments. He answered most questions directly. When he avoided one, he did so elegantly enough that Malcolm often began nodding before the answer had arrived.
Evelyn kept returning to the same point.
The plan assumed the center would treat more people, in less time, with staff it had not yet hired, while paying rent to the investment partnership that financed the new building.
Grant called it scale.
Naomi called it a schedule written by someone who had never had a resident disappear for three days.
Vance called it robbery until Evelyn told him to stop.
At eleven fifteen, Naomi’s phone rang. She looked at the screen.
“I need five minutes.”
“What happened?” Malcolm asked.
“Resident refusing medication.”
“Is there danger?”
“There is a resident refusing medication.”
She left.
Grant watched the door close. “This is exactly why new systems are necessary.”
Evelyn looked at him. “A resident declining medication is evidence for your real estate structure?”
“It’s evidence of operational inconsistency.”
“It’s evidence that people are not machines.”
“I’m aware.”
“Are you?”
His mouth hardened.
Malcolm stood. “Can we all take a breath?”
Vance closed his binder. “I’ve been taking breaths since we started. It hasn’t improved the document.”
Grant turned to him. “Colonel, you asked my firm to find a way to fund this expansion.”
“I asked Malcolm to find funding.”
“And Malcolm asked us.”
“I didn’t ask you to own the roof.”
“No one is taking the roof.”
“You’re taking the building.”
“We’re assuming the construction risk.”
“And transferring the care risk back to the foundation.”
Grant’s voice remained level. “That is not accurate.”
Evelyn slid a page across the table.
“Section fourteen,” she said. “If occupancy falls below seventy-eight percent for two consecutive quarters, the management partner can require program modification.”
“That protects the project.”
“What qualifies as program modification?”
“It would be determined by the operating committee.”
“Which your firm controls.”
“During the stabilization period.”
“Seven years.”
“Up to seven.”
“Who can shorten residential stays?”
“The medical director.”
“Who appoints the medical director?”
“The operating committee.”
Grant glanced down at the agreement.
For the first time, he looked less than fully prepared.
Malcolm sat very still.
Evelyn waited.
Grant read the clause again. “Clinical decisions remain subject to professional standards.”
“That phrase protects a license. It does not protect a patient from pressure.”
“No responsible physician would shorten treatment solely for financial reasons.”
Naomi returned to the room in time to hear him.
She closed the door behind her.
“Responsible people get tired,” she said. “They get scared. They get told the center will close if the numbers don’t improve. Then somebody calls seven weeks clinically appropriate instead of nine.”
Grant looked at her.
Naomi sat. “The resident took his medication.”
Malcolm rubbed both hands over his face. “What are you asking us to do?”
Evelyn answered before Grant could.
“Pause the announcement.”
Grant’s head came up. “Absolutely not.”
“Then disclose the control terms before asking donors to fund them.”
“We are not asking donors to fund investors.”
“You’re asking donors to reduce the amount investors need to contribute while investors retain ownership.”
“That is an inflammatory description.”
“It is a mathematical description.”
Grant closed the agreement.
“The foundation has six weeks of unrestricted cash,” he said.
Naomi looked at Malcolm.
Vance stared at him.
Evelyn felt the room change.
Malcolm’s face went slack.
“Six weeks?” Naomi asked.
“It could be eight,” Malcolm said.
“You told the management team we had four months.”
“We expected the banquet to close the gap.”
Naomi pushed her chair back. “You expected a party to make payroll?”
“We raised over eight million dollars.”
“In restricted pledges for a building we haven’t approved.”
Malcolm’s voice rose. “We could not announce a crisis in the middle of a campaign.”
“You didn’t announce it to the people running the center.”
“I was trying to protect morale.”
Naomi laughed once, with no humor in it. “My nurses don’t need morale. They need to know whether they’re getting paid.”
Grant placed both hands flat on the table. “This is why the partnership needs to proceed. We can provide an immediate bridge facility.”
“At what rate?” Evelyn asked.
He named it.
Vance swore.
Malcolm looked away.
Evelyn removed her glasses and set them on the closed binder in front of her. The ring rested beside the page containing the default terms.
“You didn’t tell me about the cash position,” she said to Malcolm.
“I thought it would distract from the long-term decision.”
“It is the decision.”
“I was going to tell you today.”
“When?”
He looked at the clock.
Naomi stood. “I need to talk to my department heads.”
“Not yet,” Malcolm said.
She turned toward him.
“Please,” he added. “Give me until this afternoon.”
“For what?”
“To find a way to explain this without causing panic.”
“You mean without causing resignations.”
He did not deny it.
Naomi picked up her clipboard. “People with children and rent don’t owe you calm.”
She left.
Vance remained seated, but his face had gone hard in the way Evelyn remembered from command briefings after preventable casualties.
“You knew,” he said.
Malcolm looked at him. “I knew we were strained.”
May you like
“Six weeks is not strained.”
“I believed the financing would close.”
