This choice: Flip to another part of the book • Go Back...Chapter #22Chapter One: A Screwy Business Plan by: Seuzz   The book falls open to pages that are cut much smaller than the other pages. They are yellowed and stiff, and the print type is very large. It reminds you of something, but not until you put the page to your nose and take a sniff do you place it: the odor takes you back instantly to late elementary school and early middle school, and the young adult books you used to gobble down. Your eye falls onto the first sentence: Yikes! You don't remember language like that showing up any of the books you read when you were eleven!
Chapter One
A Sinister Business Plan
"This is the screwiest goddamn proposal I've ever read," Franklin Voss rumbled. He tossed the thick stack of bound material into the middle of his highly polished desk and glared at the two men seated on the nearby leather sofa. Ned Pickett, his chief financial officer, smirked while Jerry Bonderberg, his vice-president of acquisitions, fiddled nervously with a pen.
"The thing is, Franklin," Jerry said, "they're only looking for a little seed money. It's a small investment with many intriguing side benefits." He spoke quickly: it was his habit to talk in a rush when he felt nervous.
Voss snorted and took another gulp from his coffee mug. "If they're looking for seed money they should go talk to one of those red suspender guys on the Street'"
"They can't go to bank, Franklin," Jerry objected.
"'and if I was looking for a little casino action I'd toss some bucks over to Coffman in Legit."
"I'm not talking about return on investment, Franklin," Jerry continued. "That's Ned's bailiwick, and if Ned says there's insufficient upside on the risk then we all know there's insufficient upside on the risk." He glanced over at Pickett, who scratched his nose complacently and smiled to himself. "I'm talking about synergies between operations. We have a great opportunity here to get in on the ground floor of some exciting new techniques with obvious applications to some of our other ventures. Did you look at the presentation on their surgical results?"
Voss suppressed a rumble in his stomach. "I was having lunch," he muttered.
"Yeah, it's pretty gruesome stuff," Jerry agreed. "But if you just look at the before and after pictures." He leaned forward to leaf through the discarded report. "They can take anyone, just about anyone' Wait, it'll be in this folder'"
He clumsily grabbed at a white manila packet, and a stack of slick glossy photographs slid onto the floor. Voss and Pickett exchanged exasperated glances as Jerry, dropping to his knees, scooped them up and kept jabbering.
"They can take two guys, not related in any way, and they, and they ..." He pressed his hands together, the palm of one against the back of the other. "And they can fix them up to look like a third, totally unrelated person. A real person too, you know, so close that, that'"
"We already have guys who can do that kind of work," Voss rumbled. "For a lot cheaper too. I'm not financing a hospital."
"But not as good, but not as good!" Jerry insisted. "They don't just change faces, they make copies of people. Plus they've also made huge strides in muscle enhancement, skin grafting, stem cell therapy'"
"What does that have to do with us," Pickett interrupted. "We're not financing a hospital."
"You don't have to!" Jerry exclaimed, turning red. "They've already got the goddamn hospital!" He caught himself. "Sorry, I'm sorry. My point is that they've already done all the spadework. Hell, they've got the thing built, wired, and ready for business. All we have to do is give them a little money to carry them through the initial operations'so to speak'and we can leverage it into a controlling interest. We can bring them into our own web of operations. You're right, you're right'" He interrupted Voss's interruption. "We have guys who can do surgeries. But not with this kind of skill, depth, or flexibility. Here, look at this."
He set out five glossies. "This man here is their chief surgeon, the theoretician who invented all their techniques," he said, pointing to the first glossy. "He's not part of the proposal, by the way," he added sharply. "Strictly a front man." He then pointed to the second and third glossies. "This is the head of their recovery unit, and this is their chief orderly, in portraits taken ... um, um, um ... nine months ago, I think. And these'" He pointed to the fourth and fifth photos with a flourish "'are those same two men, the recovery chief and orderly, in portraits taken just last month!"
Voss looked at the first and fourth and fifth portraits carefully. "It's the same goddamn man. Same goddamn photo, too."
"No it isn't, no it isn't!" Jerry grinned. "I met all three in the same room at the same time. Peas in a pod. You can't tell the difference. Thanks to those surgeries, they all look exactly alike."
Voss sighed and pulled his ear.
"Think about what Ralston at Confidence could do with this," Jerry continued. "Or Bankey and Hoarwell."
Voss glanced up. "How long does it take to do these surgeries?"
"Enough to pull off a full substitution? They estimate about six months. Of course, that includes the research and training'"
"Bankey and Hoarwell don't spend that kind of time on a job."
"But they might make time if they knew they had these kinds of possibilities."
Voss pulled on his lip. "Have you talked to them? Bankey or Ralston, I mean."
Jerry shook his head. "Ned ran his numbers so quick'meaning no offense, Ned," he said in a placating tone to his opposite, "that I couldn't put together a full report in time."
Voss peered at Pickett, who was still smirking. "As a standalone operation, what would you think of these Luxe boys?"
"Like you said, Franklin, it's the screwiest goddamn proposal we've ever gotten," the financial officer replied. "Each job requires a big outlay for a relatively small return, while running huge and easily foreseeable risks."
"Their infrastructure is already in place," Jerry said. "All they need is money to cover six months to test and refine their business concept."
"Their business concept is screwy," Pickett objected. "They're talking about using teenagers!"
"We know it's screwy," Jerry said. "I haven't said it isn't! I think it's the goddamn screwiest thing too! But if we finance them we can get 51% of their operation'"
"So it's a capital investment," Voss said, "just so we and they are clear on that."
"Of course it is, Franklin," Jerry said. "We're not a bank. We get 51% of their operations, name a board of directors, and then we start hooking them up with Ralston and with Bankey and Hoarwell. Maybe UPGO, too.
Voss chewed on his nail, then tapped the proposal. "I don't like being in business with lunatics, no matter how high-tech the asylum they're running."
"That's why we take control, bring them into our web," Jerry explained. "We get 51%, access to all their tech, their surgeons, the research. Take it out of the legitimate market. And then they just become the support staff for our operations. We design the jobs, provide the agents, run the show."
"Are they so hard up they'd sell control for six months' financing?" Pickett asked skeptically.
Jerry started fiddling with his pen again. "Probably not," he admitted.
Voss took a deep breath and slapped his hand on the table. "Talk to Ralston and the others you think might be interested in these guys and their, uh, their techniques. If they're intrigued, tell these Luxe boys that for what they're asking we'll finance a proof-of-concept project." He jabbed a finger at Jerry. "But Ralston has to ride shotgun with them on it."
"Mike won't want to suspend his jobs for six months," Pickett objected.
"He will unless his 36% of Confidence can magically start outvoting our 55%," Voss snarled. "You also tell these Luxe boys that the financing comes with a one-year option letting us load in at 51%. Ned'll give you the number we'd be offering for that stake. Where are they squatting now?"
"They've just opened their facility in Bayport."
"Bayport?" Voss's laugh was a bark. "What the hell is in Bayport?"
"What the hell is in Bayport?" Pickett echoed.
"It's the new East Hampton," Jerry said. He looked between them. "That's what Vanity Fair says."
Voss and Pickett looked at each other and then back at Jerry. "You read Vanity Fair?" Voss asked incredulously.
* * * * *
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