Revenge of the Emerging Market
James O. Born
“He’s just another New Yorker not the damn Queen of England,” Dale said, shaking his head at his partner’s frantic effort to bring out a shine on the brass banister that separated the five stairs up to the landing.
“Dale, haven’t you learned anything through our association? All New Yorkers think they’re royalty. What he sees is what he’ll think of us. If we look rich he’ll think we’re rich.” Randy Hubbard directed his attention to a smudge on the bay window that looked across the intracoastal then out over the Atlantic Ocean. He smiled thinking that the exorbitant rent he’d paid the stuck-up Philadelphia-based landlord was worth it. For Fort Lauderdale it probably wasn’t even that bad. It didn’t matter, he’d move out after two months and declare bankruptcy. No one would collect a dime. Not the landlord, not the investors, not even the Goddamn phone company. This would be sweet, just like the last time. Then, next time, maybe he could do it for real. If there was enough money in it.
Dale followed along like a shadow as Randy shined and polished every surface in the office. It made him nervous the way Dale was sticking closer than he normally did and sometimes the squat little man could be a close talker.
Dale finally said, “How much you gonna ask for?”
Randy turned, his eyes scanning for something to step around and put some distance between him and his chubby little business partner. He wondered if Dale would be worth the trouble without his securities license. Randy finally said, “We’ll get five, six hundred K today then hit him for another six hundred on the real estate end.”
“You really think he’ll go for both?”
Randy was back polishing the window. “You think he’ll be satisfied with just one fortune when we offer him two? I’m tellin’ you Dale, this fish is easy. It’s that tall Mick from Boston who’s coming in on Friday that’ll be a challenge. We’ll have a few drinks with lunch, that’ll soften him up. If it weren’t for the liquor them, Irish would rule the business world. They’re a fierce bunch.” He backed away from the window to survey his efforts. It looked like a clear force field form a Star Wars movie. Randy could even see a person on the deck of an open fishermen not far off shore from the public beach.
He bumped into his partner. “Goddamn, Dale, why are you underfoot today? Give me some space.”
“Sorry,” mumbled the shorter man as he opened the gap between them but kept pace as Randy hustled through the quiet office. Their first business venture had been a bust-out computer parts firm. Randy had opened the company and convinced a dumbass construction worker with some cash from pot sales to invest eight grand in the start up. He even told the idiot that he could be president of the company. They got paid to set up a patsy in case anything went wrong. What a great country. Dale lined up credit using a shaky Dunn and Bradstreet report that showed the construction guy as a former Xerox executive. The dipshit couldn’t even spell Xerox. They used the credit lines to order computers and parts from every company that accepted their bullshit, which was basically everyone. Then they undercut the competition on bids to other corporations as well as the military. Since they didn’t intend to pay for the parts it was all profit anyway. And good profit. Once the bills for the parts came due they simply shut down their grungy little office in the cheap part of Ft. Lauderdale, west of I-95 and said they had failed in the computer business. No harm, no foul. Just a bunch of debts that the corporation owed. They didn’t intend to resurrect that little company. And the president still laid drywall up in Palm Beach County. Beautiful.
Randy knew some of the parts suppliers were pissed and had made noise about going to the cops but there was nothing they could do to him. Dale had worried about his series 63 securities license but in the end no one cared. It was the price of doing business in a place as wild as South Florida.
This endeavor they had now was bigger, bolder and potentially a lot more profitable. They’d used the profit from the last scam to finance this one. They had moved past small, anonymous offices and mail drops. Now they had the look of a respectable business. And Randy had learned that looks were more important that anything around here.
They had five separate rooms in their corporate empire. The entry, the main room, the trading pit, which was really four desks with phones and the two offices, which each man claimed. Randy’s was on the intracoastal side with a view as spectacular as the main room’s of the 17th Street Causeway to the south. They had seen the Goodyear Blimp rise from its hangar to the north in Pompano Beach twice in the six days they had rented the space. Randy wished they could stay here. This was the kind of place that oozed respectability and was so far removed from his normal existence that he sometimes forgot how to act. Like telling Dale, he’d “Whip his ass” if he didn’t line up dependable people for the trading pit. He had to watch that shit. He also realized that, based on the rent and the deposit, the landlord knew they weren’t on the level and planned on getting his money up front. He’d claim ignorance if anyone ever came by to ask about the company that stayed for less than two months. A lot of people did business that way around here. As long as you showed the cash up front you could claim you were going to be a tenant for the next fifty years and no one would blink. That was why the east coast of Florida from Miami to Boca Raton was the fraud capitol of the western world. Randy was just happy to be part of it.
