’em a fish, they eat one meal. Give ’em a pole, they can catch fish the rest of their lives. If I put the money toward the loan, I wouldn’t have any money left. But,” he held up his index finger for dramatic effect, “but if I buy a truck, then I can use the profits from our little business venture to pay off the entire loan and at the same time build a business empire.”
“Empire?”
“I’m not thinking one truck here. Think Ryder. Think U-Haul, Penske. Think big, Skip. People are more mobile than ever, and they have more stuff than ever. Stuff, buddy. Stuff. They need trucks to haul that stuff.” He stood up, stretched his six-foot, lanky frame, pulled his baggy green shorts up around his bare waist, and walked barefoot down to the girls’ patio. I could see him showing them how to get maximum heat without stinking up the meat with charcoal lighter. Four years of culinary college had paid off. He could pick up girls by dispensing barbecue advice. The phone chirped. I checked the number. Emily.
“Em. How goes it?”
“Whatcha doin’ for dinner? Want to grab a pizza?”
I looked down toward the girls’ patio. James was laughing, drinking one of their green labels, and they seemed to be amused at something he’d said. “Sure. I think my roommate has plans.”
“Oh, so I’m runner up?”
“No. Just an observation. Sure, let’s get a pizza. I want to run a business idea by you.”
“Me?”
Her, indeed. Emily’s dad owns a construction business in Carol City. Carol City Construction. He’s built some of the most palatial homes in the Miami area, and runs a very successful company. When Em graduated from the University of Miami with a computer engineering degree, she was offered about a zillion jobs, with salaries approaching $150,000. But she went to work for Dad and figured out how to make the main guy in her life another gazillion dollars. If anyone knew good business, she did.“You.”
“What about Jaystone?”
“I’m not quitting. Jaystone Security is still paying the bills.”
“Barely. You know you could always work construction, Skip. Dad could put you on at about a dozen sites right now.” Dad didn’t realize I couldn’t drive a nail even if I had a sledgehammer. And furthermore, he didn’t like me a whole lot. It wasn’t necessarily that I was dating his daughter or that I had a crummy job. It was more about not dating his daughter seriously. And I’m not sure he knew that was by her choosing. Em liked different guys. She liked to flirt, to party, to have her little affairs. She’d been that way since she went away to some hot-shit private school as a junior in high school and we’d broken up. But she still liked to get together with me and just get comfortable. And sometimes it was very, very comfortable.
“James has an idea-”
“Oh, Jesus.” I could picture her shaking that pretty little head, her short hair bouncing around that kissable face. “He’s always got ideas. You’re not buying into something with him are you?”
“Em, let’s go get a pizza. We can talk when my minutes aren’t on the line, okay?” Cell phone minutes, just like money, meant nothing to her. It’s the problem with rich people. They don’t think about how tough it can be on the others, trying to keep up. Every now and then I’ve got to bring her up short.
“I’ll be by in half an hour.”
“Dutch treat, Em. There haven’t been a lot of sales this month.”
“Then I hope to hell this business venture pans out, Skip. If it doesn’t, you might just starve to death.”
Did I mention that besides being rich, she has this sarcastic streak a mile long? Still, when she’s comfortable, she’s very comfortable.
Half an hour later to the minute she picked me up in the T-Bird convertible, the tan top already down and the red paint job waxed to a blinding shine. If I have to rely on a woman for my ride, I’m glad it’s a classy ride.
CHAPTER THREE
P AULIE’S HAS THIS GREAT CRUST that’s crisp and thin and has enough flavor to make you wish they’d just forget about the toppings. Seriously. Sometimes we just get a twelve-inch without anything and eat the crust.
Em ordered a fourteen-inch mushroom and Italian sausage with a pitcher of beer to wash it down, and we sat out on the faded wooden deck under a cheap umbrella, the sun cooking everything that wasn’t covered.
“So what is this big venture?”
“Promise me you won’t laugh?”
“No.”
“No, you won’t laugh?”
“No, I won’t promise you. Skip, that’s one reason I keep seeing you. You make me laugh.”
She laughed.
I read one time that if you can get a girl to laugh, you can get her into bed. I’m always afraid that they’ll laugh while we’re in bed.
“I’ll tell you anyway. James wants to go into the hauling business.”
“The what?”
“Hauling business.”
She was silent for a moment while she rolled that idea around in her head. “Well, he’s had to haul his ass out of a lot jams and he’s always been pretty successful.”
“He bought this box truck, and-”
“A box truck?”
“A box truck.”
“Like a U-Haul?”
“Yeah. Sort of. It’s this fourteen-foot aluminum box on the back of a cab. And you can haul just about anything.”
A smile played on her face.
“You’re gonna laugh.”
“No. Actually, it’s not a bad idea. For a sideline. And you could use the extra income.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. But James is thinking more than a sideline. He wants to have an entire fleet. He says people have too much stuff and they always want to move it.”
“Or store it.”
“Huh?”
“Skip, there’s this lady, Jackie Fuentes, and she’s got a ton of stuff she needs to store. You could haul it for her.”
There it was. We hadn’t handed out the first business card, and we already had a customer. This was going to be easier than I thought.
She sipped her beer and crossed those awesome tanned legs of hers. Her shorts rode up another couple of inches. I started to wonder if we were going to get comfortable tonight.
“She lives near the causeway off Indian Creek Village. Dad built her house about five years ago. God, Skip, it’s this huge mansion.”
Em’s dad lives in a 10,000-square-foot home in a gated community called Silver Bay, so when Em’s impressed with the size of a house, it must be awesome. And Daddy’s little princess lives in a condo that looks out over Biscayne Bay and South Beach from twenty stories up, so she’s not doing so bad herself.
“Her husband is involved in financing. I think he’s like a venture capitalist. He arranges high-interest loans to fund new businesses. And apparently he arranges extramarital affairs, because Jackie caught him with a little blond and threw him out of the house.”
In my relatively short life, I have always found it hard to fathom people who live that kind of life. And even with Emily, my own little rich bitch, I have to bite everything off in very small chunks. Christ, the apartment James and I live in isn’t 600 square feet, and our combined income is about $30,000 a year. Ten thousand square foot homes on fancy islands and high-finance engineers just don’t register.
“Eugene?”
