I smiled at him. “So, we do this for real. What happens if we grow this company to $1 billion in assets? You guys are splitting 10 %, or $100 million. That makes you each worth $25 million. Are you in?”
Suddenly it was my old friend sweating. “Sweet Jesus!” he muttered.
Jake Junior smiled broadly. “I’ll start doing the paperwork!”
John muttered, “Unbelievable!” and then he put a hand on young Jake’s arm. “Okay, start your paperwork, but until we do this, I am still legally Carl’s lawyer, and so are you. This violates about a zillion ethics rules if we don’t get a third party to vet the paperwork.”
“Agreed,” said Jake Senior.
Missy solved the problem. “I know some guys who know some guys. I’ll get somebody from New York to review it all, an outside source.” The others all agreed with this, and we broke apart. In the meantime, we would continue going as we had been, and the others would start making their plans for coming up with the buy-in.
In the meantime, something interesting happened. I was contacted by the State Department! It seemed that the Bahamian government wanted to give me an award or a plaque or something for helping their police catch that gang of robbers. They wanted me to come down to Washington to receive the award. I told them I’d let them know.
They had contacted me through John, who I had listed as my contact back when I was talking to Assistant Superintendant Javier. He asked me what I was going to do.
“Ignore it, I think. I have zero interest in going to Washington,” I told him.
He gave me a disappointed look and shook his head. “Don’t be silly. If you ever want to go back to the Bahamas and not be persona non grata, you go down to D.C. and make nice. You should know better than that!”
“John, this is all blown way out of proportion to what really happened.”
“So what? You go down, you make nice, you come home. Everybody is happy. Take Marilyn. Smile. Do I have to do all your thinking for you?”
I just rolled my eyes. “Yes, Dad, I’ll behave.”
I called back the under-under-under-assistant who had called me and arranged a date to come down the next week. Then I called my wife. She was kind of excited about it, and hung up on me and called Tessa. Tessa and Tusker would watch Charlie for a night, and we would go down and spend a night in Washington. I wasn’t all that thrilled by the concept. Washington was built in the middle of a malarial swamp following a tug-of-war between Maryland and Virginia; Virginia won, and the capital was carved out of Maryland. It would be very warm and humid the day we stayed.
Taylor got us a suite at the Hay-Adams Hotel, very nice and swanky in an old school sort of way. We drove down on a Tuesday morning, and met the Bahamian Ambassador and a State Department flunky Tuesday afternoon. There were some kind words said, a few photographs taken, and then we left with our plaque. Afterwards, I took Marilyn to dinner and chased her around the bedroom afterwards. Wednesday, we slept late and then came home to rescue our friends from our son.
Then it was back to work for me. It turned out that by the time the papers were drawn up, reviewed by everybody, reviewed by a Wall Street lawyer, and people coughed up the cash, it would be at least three months, and this was considered moving swiftly. In the meantime, we would keep going the way we had been. Meanwhile, the Buckman Group’s first client/investment called me.
It was Tusker. He and Tessa asked me to come over to their shop about a month after I had seen their new location. Only it wasn’t theirs yet. They were still at their old site, and were looking rather grim.
After the usual greetings, I asked, “So, what’s up? How’s the move going? Did you ever figure out some better financing?”
Tusker looked like he was sucking a lemon, and Tessa answered dejectedly, “I don’t think it can happen.”
“What! Why not?”
“We can’t get any financing! Even the commercial banks won’t loan to us!”
That surprised me. “Okay, truth time. Are you missing payments? Have they said your business isn’t big enough to handle the payments? They must have a reason.”
Tusker loudly protested, “Hey, we make all the payments on time! We always have!”
I just waved him down. “Hey, great, but it’s a question that has to be asked. So it’s not your credit rating then?” Both of them shook their heads. “So what is it? You can’t make the payments on a new loan?”
“No, that works out, too. It’s us; we have no assets other than the business. Everyone wants loan guarantees or for us to sign our house off as a guarantee. We don’t have a house! We wanted to invest in the business first,” cried Tessa.
I rubbed my face for a second. I had run across this before, way back when. Typical banker behavior. My friends were doing everything they were supposed to, but it still wasn’t enough.
“Well, nothing new, I suppose. There’s an old statement about bankers — the only time they’ll be happy to lend you the money is when you have enough money not to need it. Which bank had the best deal?”
“Maryland National.”
I nodded. Maryland National was a decent sized business bank; they would grow to become much larger, but for Tusker and Tessa, it was a good bet. “Give me a few days to sort this out. Give me a copy of their latest proposal, and tell Andrea not to let it slip away. I’ll have some answers in a day or two.”
Tusker still looked unhappy, but Tessa began to look hopeful. I took the paperwork home and called Jake Senior. He wasn’t in, but his secretary took a message. Jake called me back about half an hour later. The call arrived while Marilyn was napping in her chair, and I was on the floor chasing Charlie around as he crawled across the living room. This was a new thing he had just learned, and he thought locomotion was just the cat’s ass!
When the phone rang, Marilyn snorted and looked around. I stood up and said, “It’s your turn to chase him around. He’s faster than me.”
“What makes you so special? He’s faster than me, too!”
I laughed at that and picked up the phone. “Buckman Child Experiment Laboratory. Do you have a child you’d like us to experiment with?”
Jake laughed on the other end of the line. “Too late, he’s already a lost cause. You called?”
There was a crash from the other end of the room, where Charlie managed to get into something. His mother hopped up to set it right, and I sat down to talk to Jake. “Yeah, I’ve got some business for the Buckman Group. I’ve got a friend that I’ve been helping over the years, just giving him some advice on building a business and all, no money or anything. Anyway, he needs to expand his business, and the banks are giving him some grief. I need to figure out how to help him. Can I come over to see you?”
“Today’s shot, but how about tomorrow morning?”
“Sure, 9:30?” I asked.
“Make it 10:30. You have any paperwork on him?” Jake asked.
“I’ll bring what I have. I’ll see you then.” I hung up. I didn’t know how, yet, but I knew we could sort this out. I turned around to smile at Marilyn. She was busy chasing Charlie down again, as he headed towards the coffee table. Fun times were starting!
The next morning I met with Jake at his office and went over Tusk Cycle’s operation and current problems. He agreed with me that Maryland National would be a much better fit than Clifton Trust. He also understood when I said that Maryland National wanted them to tie their non-existent home in with the loan. “My problem is that these guys are doing everything we say they should be doing to get ahead. They’re saving, investing in a business, they’ve both been to college. They are living in a crappy little apartment and putting all their money into the business, with a three year old living on a cot in the dining room. There has to be a way to help them.”