Okay, you know what? I worked in a mall a few years ago, and we had a rather sizable earthquake. Within an hour, a formal memo was sent around to the various stores giving us a general status of the building, whether or not we'd remain open, numbers to call if we had questions/problems, and an overall "we don't have everything figured out yet, but we're working on it and will update you as soon as we can." The people in charge were busy as hell trying to make sure the building was going to stay standing and there wasn't any major damage, and were still able to print up a memo, pass it around, and give us what information they could. In the wake of a freaking earthquake.
With that in mind, I find it impossible to believe that the remaining owner of this company, or someone who can reasonably speak on his behalf, can't take -- or find -- the time to produce a short, concise statement to let us all know what's going on. Even if some things are up in the air, just say so. Tell us what's up in the air, tell us what isn't, tell us when we're getting paid...give us some reason to believe someone's at the wheel who gives a damn about us. There's no excuse for the radio silence from the powers that be for the last week, especially when there is a huge, huge group of confused, unhappy, and unpaid authors who want answers.