There wasn't a whole lot of that confidence to spare, especially in light of Pannell and St. George's vacation plans. "We're a small company," Eisenberg notes. "It leaves too much of a void."
Eisenberg apparently felt no void during that particular holiday. "Arthur would say, 'Hey, this place is running just fine without them,' " recalls Brent Anderson, then a designer there. Eisenberg seemed to be rediscovering his love of creative; nobody, he suddenly remembered, goes into design to become a salesperson. "My heart is in creative," he says. And there was no need, he determined, for two hearts.
As they rounded a corner toward home, coming back from their vacation on a Sunday night, Pannell turned to his wife and said, "I'll bet Arthur has been having a ball without us." He was joking, mostly. But as soon as he walked in Monday morning, he says, "I noticed he was absolutely not pleased that we had come back." On Thursday Eisenberg invited them to a meeting to discuss some business issues.
When they got there, he and Brinkman were waiting. Eisenberg began abruptly and honestly; he already felt he had been discouraged from being as forceful as he wanted at the earlier meeting. "Since you've been gone," he started, "I've been happier than I have been in a long time." It took only another sentence or two to get to the last line: "I'd like to discontinue the relationship."
There was too much to talk about; there was nothing to say. Everyone sat quietly for another moment. "If you don't want me around," Pannell said, "I don't want to be around." Added St. George, "I guess you are firing us" -- still, Eisenberg thought, sounding nothing like a partner.
"No," Eisenberg said, "I'm not saying that." After all, a partner can't fire a partner, he told himself. "When do you want us to leave?" St. George asked. "I don't know," said Eisenberg, sounding nervous. He worried they would ask him if there was any way to work it out. "No," he'd say, "I've made up my mind that after two years of trying, it is over with."
Now, looking at Pannell's face, he wasn't sure he could go through with that. He didn't have to. Pannell, who "didn't start getting mad until later," got up and left.
"I was afraid I might lose my temper or something," Pannell says. "This is the second time this guy has pulled the plug on me. Twice I've had to reorganize my life and my business. The second time wasn't equitable at all.
"It was humiliating. We had to pack everything we had ourselves. Everybody was watching us, all the employees. He didn't offer us anything. I can't bring myself to think we were treated right.
"My mistake was that I didn't act the way he acted when he was concerned about a client. He expects everyone to be like him. Arthur never takes vacations.
"A lot of people loved Arthur and not me, or vice versa. It was a very nice combination. When Arthur ran out of steam at a presentation, I could pick right up. The business always did well. I don't understand this breakup, and I do not like him at all."
* * *
There was a chance that Eisenberg and Pannell's breakup could have remained civil.
If they'd started out with a signed contract resolving some tough but necessary questions about their partnership (see "Popping the Big Questions," page 6), the breakup might have been amicable. They did work on a contract, but in vintage Eisenberg/Pannell style, it simply wandered aimlessly between their advisers for nearly two years. There was always something not quite right with it. For example, Pannell's adviser, Joe Glover, a local businessman, felt uncomfortable with the formula that explained how Pannell would earn up to 49% equity from the 10% he received at the outset. "As long as we had no contract, I wasn't obligated to do anything," says Eisenberg. "I don't know Cap's motivation for not wanting to sign it." Neither, apparently, does Pannell. "I got the distinct impression we were being put off," he says.
There, in a nutshell, is the dynamic that destroyed Eisenberg/Pannell/St. George: Eisenberg's lack of clarity versus Pannell's passiveness.
Hoping to avoid litigation, Eisenberg offered a settlement a few days after their talk. The numbers so offended Pannell that he went out and hired a lawyer. "After that, Arthur stopped talking to us," complains Pannell. Back and forth the numbers went. "It got crazy and abusive and vengeful," recalls Eisenberg. When the agreement was signed, on September 14, 1990, Pannell still wasn't happy. He was low on savings, he says, and "it got to the point where they were starving us out." Though both signed a paper agreeing not to disclose the final settlement, no observer would characterize it as an overly generous sum -- especially considering that revenues rose 50%, to $1.8 million, between fiscal 1988 and fiscal 1990. "As far as I'm concerned," says St. George, "we were used and then discarded."
The couple has run up about $34,000 in debt establishing their new home office. "This is a lot harder," says Pannell, a ceiling fan whirring above his head, soft jazz coming from the radio. "But I'm going to be a lot happier." He has not seen Eisenberg since August; he barely avoided running into him at an art store, and they ducked each other at a recent chili cook-off. "I have no desire to see him," says Pannell. "I'd accept an apology, but I'm sure he doesn't think one is necessary."
