Mr. T showed up at the mall in work clothes, a tall stocky blond with a beer gut and work boots. As Karp remembers it, he was filled with apologies. He'd never liked Carol, he explained, but he'd been forced into it for the money -- money he needed to pay for treatment of his daughter's spina bifida. The stolen files were in Carol's basement, he said. Then he disappeared, Karp's cash in hand.
As you might expect, Karp's is not the only version of these events. Brothers admits to engaging the services of Mr. T, but denies that she instructed him to use strong-arm tactics. "I hired him to follow Lynn Karp and see what she was up to," she explains. Whatever her intent, however, the effect was disastrous. She had succeeded in putting the fright into both Kane and Karp, making them only more determined than ever to face her down in court. Still worse, she had not really figured out what to do with Mr. T, who would soon appear at her doorstep again, in broad daylight, demanding more money for the services he had rendered.
His real name was Earl Hersman, an "A Team" fan and former Columbiana police officer who'd first showed up at the Pop-Ins office to install an air conditioner. Brothers makes no apologies for hiring Hersman, but says he went off on his own. "The guy is nuts," according to Brothers. "He came back to me and said, 'If you don't give me $10,000, I'm going to go to Lynn Karp and tell her you paid me to rob her."
Brothers said she was shocked by Hersman's approach, but she was determined not to bow to extortion. After checking her office to make sure that Hersman had not planted any stolen files, she says, she filed a formal complaint with the Columbiana police.
Columbiana police chief Mark Shaffer remembers the incident well -- "the alleged $10,000 extortion," he calls it, breaking out in a grin. Carol Brothers never filed a complaint, by his reckoning, and no formal action was ever taken. "I could not determine for sure who was telling the truth," says the chief. "I won't say she was attempting to cover any tracks, but it was certainly within her ability to do so."
For his part, Mr. T still feels he got the short end of the stick. "Carol's a real conniver," he muses, sitting glumly in his chilly living room, a baseball cap on his head, sipping Pepsi and watching game shows with his daughter. "She claimed franchisees were ripping her off, and she asked me to go check things out. She said she wanted them scared so they'd come around. She told me to threaten them."
The break-in, he claims, was Brothers's idea, "but that was over my head." He took no money from Karp -- "or maybe a couple hundred," now that you mention it. He says he never tried to extort money from Brothers, either.
"I told her, 'For the work I've done, what you've paid me has been peanuts.' I said, 'If you don't give me the money that's due me, I'll tell your husband.' Not that her husband would ever have believed me, he was so crazy over that woman."
Hersman still believes Brothers ripped him off. The sum total of what she paid him, he says, was a $700 check that she gave him before he left to shadow Jim Kane out in California. It was only after he had called home to Columbiana that he discovered the check had bounced.
CONNECTIONS IN HIGH PLACES
EVEN AS THE FRANCHISE REVOLT WAS THREATENING Pop-Ins from within during the spring of 1983, Carol Brothers's public star was rising. Although royalty payments had been cut in half, Brothers continued to hopscotch around the country in the private plane, staying at the best hotels, prospecting for fresh publicity and new franchisees. The very month Lynn Karp broke away, Brothers wrote an upbeat letter to her remaining franchisees announcing that Pop-Ins had been awarded Leader in the Industry honors at the International Franchise Association (IFA) convention. Even the U.S. Department of Commerce had taken an interest in the company's success, she gushed, having offered to help "take Pop-Ins quickly throughout many major foreign markets."
In fact, there was no award, nor any realistic prospect of overseas expansion. But Brothers had discovered networking, and it inspired her to raise her sights and stretch her dream. She now envisioned Pop-Ins as a model growth company, one with patient investors, respected lawyers and accountants, experienced managers, and knowledgeable directors. These were the people who could help her propel Pop-Ins to the magic 1,000-franchise mark, and give it the class she had always wanted it to have.
Nobody seemed more suited to networking than Carol Brothers, and no network seemed more eager to receive her than the franchise industry establishment at the IFA. Bouncy and flirtatious, always ready to have a drink or share a joke with president Bill Cherkasky, Brothers soon became one of the boys. Her fellow franchise CEOs understood her dream of building a national chain and sympathized with her frustrations with franchisees and their lawyers. They congratulated her on her concept, admired her determination, applauded her energy -- and when she asked for advice they offered to help. Consultant Don Boroian, active in IFA programs, agreed to work on a new Pop-Ins sales package. Attorney Lew Rudnick, special counsel to the IFA, agreed to handle the court battles against Karp and Kane.
