Chapter 85: A Way to Make Money
"The floor has two separate office suites," the realtor said, gesturing toward the far end of the corridor. "The other one's been vacant for a while. This space here is all yours to work with."
Simon was standing in a tenth-floor commercial suite in the stretch between Los Angeles and Burbank — close enough to the Buy More to be convenient, close enough to UCLA to be useful when the acceptance letters came back.
The suite was just under five thousand square feet. Top floor. Corner position with windows on two sides. The listing price, with taxes and fees, came to approximately a million dollars.
He could afford it. The question was whether buying outright left enough working capital for the buildout he was planning.
Cole, the realtor, had the practiced patience of someone who recognized a motivated buyer and was letting the space do the work.
"If the full amount is a timing issue," Cole said, "we can work with a deposit and an intent-to-purchase agreement. You secure the space, finalize over a defined period."
"What's the deposit?"
"A hundred thousand holds it. The remainder due within twelve months, plus accrued interest. Standard arrangement."
Simon looked at the windows. The city spread south toward downtown, the freeway interchange visible in the middle distance, the San Gabriel Mountains running along the eastern horizon.
"And if I miss the deadline?"
"Deposit is non-refundable. But given comparable properties in this corridor, I wouldn't expect you to need much time." Cole smiled with the particular warmth of someone creating urgency. "This suite has generated significant interest. I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't mention that."
Simon knew it was a sales technique. He also knew he wanted the space.
He was about to say so when the elevator opened.
Four people came out — three men and a woman, moving with the focused energy of people in the middle of something. They turned toward the other suite at the far end of the floor, the vacant one, talking in low rapid voices.
Simon watched them for a moment.
He recognized them.
Not personally — he'd never met any of them. But he knew the configuration. The specific combination of skills and backgrounds those four people represented, and what they were doing in a commercial office building in Los Angeles. The fifth member of their group wasn't here yet, which meant whatever they were building had only just started.
"The neighbors," Cole said.
"Good neighbors," Simon said, more to himself than to Cole. "Okay." He turned back to the realtor. "Get your paperwork ready. I'm signing today."
Cole's professional composure brightened. "I'll call the office."
"And I'll call my attorney."
The attorney Simon used was a downtown LA firm — two hundred dollars an hour, which was the kind of rate that meant the work was actually done properly rather than the rate that meant someone was hoping you wouldn't read the fine print.
She reviewed the purchase contract in forty minutes, identified two provisions worth negotiating, and the resulting agreement was signed by early afternoon.
One hundred thousand in deposit. Eight hundred and ninety thousand in remainder, due within twelve months. Interest accruing at the standard commercial rate.
Simon drove home.
He was on his laptop within the hour, working through the setup for what came next — accounts, entities, the framework of a legitimate business that could hold assets, receive payments, and provide cover for the kind of operational work he was planning — when a video appeared in his YouTube feed.
He watched it.
The CEO of Pierce Aeronautics was at a press conference, visibly agitated, reading from a prepared statement about a theft. A competing company's operatives — alleged — had stolen the proprietary design files for Pierce's next-generation regional aircraft. The company's servers had been penetrated, backups deleted, the engineering team's years of work effectively vanished.
Simon watched the CEO's face. Watched the specific quality of indignation that came from someone who had done something wrong and was performing victimhood.
The Intersect gave him nothing directly useful, but his own memory did.
He'd seen this before — in a different context, a different version of his life — as the first episode of a show called Leverage. The Pierce story was the inciting incident. The real villain was Pierce himself. What had been stolen was the design for a plane Pierce knew was defective, that would have killed people, that a competitor had discovered was defective, and that Pierce was now framing the competitor for stealing rather than confronting the liability.
The team that would eventually expose this — five people, four of whom he'd just seen walking off an elevator on the tenth floor of a commercial building in Burbank — was going to run a con that sent Pierce's company's stock into freefall.
The stock that was going to fall was in Pierce's company.
The stock that was going to rise, indirectly, was in the competitor — Bering Aeronautics — whose CEO was a man Simon recognized from another context entirely, a man named Dubenich, who was going to make a considerable amount of money before the situation resolved.
Bering's stock was currently depressed because of the theft allegation.
The allegation was false.
When the truth came out — and the team on the tenth floor was going to make sure the truth came out — Bering's stock would recover. Pierce's would not.
Simon pulled up Bering Aeronautics' current market position, looked at the share price, and did some arithmetic.
Then he shut the laptop, put on his jacket, and drove to a financial district brokerage he'd identified the previous week for exactly this kind of situation.
The brokerage's reception area had the particular confidence of a firm that handled significant transactions and was comfortable with the weight of that.
The account manager assigned to Simon was a woman named Daisy — early thirties, efficient, the particular professional quality of someone who had heard most things and was difficult to surprise.
She was slightly surprised by Simon.
"I don't need any recommendations," Simon said. "I know exactly what I want to do. Short Pierce Aeronautics. And I want a leverage agreement."
Daisy looked at him. Looked at the documents he'd placed on her desk — the account opening paperwork, the certified funds transfer for three million dollars drawn from two different accounts. Looked at him again.
"Mr. Lewis," she said carefully. "You're certain about this?"
"Completely," Simon said. "You don't need to know my reasoning. Whatever happens — gain or loss — your commission is the same. I'm not asking you to recommend it, just to execute it."
She processed this for a moment. Then: "As a new client, the maximum leverage we can offer is three to one. Your three million serves as the collateral. We provide the additional capital up to nine million total exposure."
"That works," Simon said. "Let's sign it."
"You understand the risk parameters? If Pierce's stock moves against you—"
"I understand the parameters," Simon said. "I'm comfortable with the position."
Daisy pulled the agreement from her drawer.
"Then let's get started," she said.
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