MDF III

We had a couple meetings with the new marketing consultant I had hired to help us. After the meetings, Zeke always had some remarkable things to say; for example once when the consultant wanted Zeke to write down something for him, Zeke was quick to talk about it with me, why was Chris so interested in getting a writing sample from Zeke? Must be a nefarious reason. Chris was with the IRS Zeke assured me, he seemed friendly to us now, but he was ready to nail us for tax evasion.

The problem of course with that theory, is that we were not evading taxes, we were steadily losing all of my $. Zeke started asking me if I was using the store to launder money. I explained to him that before you could launder money, there actually had to be money to launder.

One day we were supposed to meet at the store with Chris the marketing guy. Chris wanted to meet with me before the store opened, and told me that Zeke was under tremendous pressure, and needed a break. Something was really wrong with him. I agreed, but what could we do about it? Close the store? I wasn’t sure how to handle it.

Chris and I got to the store at the appointed time, but Zeke wasn’t there, even though the store was supposed to be open for hours. He clearly had been there recently, as there were some take out food remnants from that morning. We waited for about an hour, and then Zeke arrived. I can’t really describe how insane he looked. It was like he hadn’t slept in months, his physical appearance was really shocking, as if he had aged from 35 to 55 in one day. Now I understood what Chris meant.

He apologized for being late, apparently he had lost his car in a parking structure for a couple of hours. “that happens” we told him. He then looked at me and said, “Steve, I did something that I now know was wrong. I thought you were committing financial crimes with this business, so I went to the police, the financial crimes division, and asked them if you were committing financial crimes, would I be implicated? But now I know that was wrong, and I shouldn’t have done that.”

He was out of his mind. I told him that he had had a break with reality, and that I was going to call his mom and have her come get him (she lived in San Diego). For the next few minutes he spoke about some strange ‘coincidences’ that had happened; he had interviewed a potential florist, and her husband, a psychologist, had poked his head into the store, and he could tell something was ‘going on’, also someone at a liquor store the night before had lifted his shirt, and showed Zeke a huge scar.

I wasn’t sure what he thought these signs meant (there were others I couldn’t remember), but I told him that they were surely unconnected events, and that he just needed a rest. He cried, and said, ‘but what if these are connected, what if the 1% chance they are connected is true, isn’t discounting my story the cruelest thing you can do to someone?’

I called his mom. Something else must have happened earlier, because she didn’t seem surprised, and she immediately flew up to collect Zeke. The store was closed for a few days, I put an ad on Craigslist and found someone to take his place. I had no idea what to look for in a florist, I had no experience in the industry. I found a woman who seemed ok, could do the buying, etc, and she took over the store for a little while until I could figure out what to do.