C ARL ICAHN IS A FINANCIER who lives in the Indian Creek Village area. According to what I’ve found on the Internet, this man supposedly has had more financial encounters than most rich people. He proposed a hostile takeover of TWA and tried to take over Marvel Comics. I mean, Spiderman’s home turf? Come on. He owned the Sands in Vegas and a billion other companies. When we were driving by the mansions on the private island, James pointed out a palatial estate that he thought was Icahn’s. I’m not sure how he knew, but I think he’d seen pictures.
I was thinking about Icahn as we drove back into Bal Harbor following Rick Fuentes’ directions. I asked James what these people did for a living. Here were condos. Hundreds, maybe thousands of condos that started at maybe $800,000 and went up to four or five million. What the hell did all these people do?
I knew what Icahn did. He played with other people’s money.
“You want to know what these people do?”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
“I can tell you, but you won’t like the answer.”
“Humor me, James.”
“They make a lot of money.”
Shit. As usual, James was semiuseless.
“It’s eBay mentality, Skip.”
“What’s that, James?” When he’s being an asshole you have to call him on it. This time it didn’t faze him.
“It’s the mentality of stuff, Skip. It’s the reason we have a Chevy truck.”
“I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.”
“It’s the reason we’re going to be able to afford one of these two-million-dollar condos in a couple of years. Listen, bro, people are into stuff. I told you this before. They buy tons and tons of crap on eBay. They collect junk. Books, cars, antiques, memorabilia, stuff they’ll never use. Stuff that has no earthly value to them. Stuff, Skip. Stuff, and more stuff.”
“What does that have to do with the price of a condo?”
“If you have stuff they want to buy, you can get rich. Norman Branon lives in Indian Creek Village. He owns four car dealerships in Florida and three in Colorado. Acura, Audi, Bentley, BMW, Porsche, and,” he drew a deep breath, “Cadillac. People buy his stuff, pardner. Lots and lots and lots of his stuff.”
“And that’s why Norman is living in Indian Creek.”
“And why we live in a one-bedroom piece of crap in Carol City. This guy gets rich off of stuff. Hell, Skip, he used to own the Philadelphia Eagles.”
“And we don’t have this stuff.”
“Never will. Don’t even want it.” He paused. “Well, I still think I’m going to buy a Cadillac. But we can haul all this stuff. We’ll get a bigger truck next time and haul Mr. Branon’s Cadillac wherever he wants.”
“So if you don’t have stuff, you learn how to leverage everyone else’s stuff?”
“I should have the business degree.” He watched the street signs carefully and finally jerked the truck to the right, following a winding road. “Skip, you lack vision. With you it’s all nuts and bolts. I like that, don’t get me wrong. Someone has to sound the alarm once in a while, right or wrong. Someone has to ask about the fiscal responsibility of a certain project. But-” he braked for what looked like a low-riding, racing-yellow Maserati that came popping out of a side street, “but someone has to have the ideas. If we can’t afford stuff that people will buy, we’ll haul and store people’s stuff. The guy who started Waste Management started with one truck, Skip. He hauled people’s stuff. He’s now worth about a gazillion dollars.”
“Body parts, James. Who would have thought that body parts would be part of people’s stuff?”
He didn’t say anything. We’d been avoiding the subject for a while. It was weird enough to have the finger riding in the rear of the truck, but the class ring made it even stranger. And I was feeling a lot of guilt about not calling Em. She had arranged the job and probably should be aware of what had happened.
“It’s through those gates.” James pointed at a guardhouse to the right. There was another side business. The security companies that guard people’s stuff. The problem with my company was that in my assigned territory, Carol City, no one had stuff worth guarding. I needed to be selling security systems in Bal Harbor or Indian Creek Village. Someone was making a fortune right here.
The guard called ahead and got approval. He handed James a small map and pointed out the condo about an eighth of a mile back. “Mr. Fuentes informed me you were delivering some mail to this address. We’ll expect to see you back at the gate within, let’s say, half an hour?”
James bristled. “That depends on Mr. Fuentes.”
The elderly, uniformed guard stared at him under the shiny bill of his blue cap. “Half an hour, sir. If it’s longer, please ask Mr. Fuentes to call the guardhouse.”
We pulled away. “Mr. Fuentes-half an hour. Fucker practically threatened us.”
“Just protecting people’s stuff, James.”
He was silent and sullen. We pulled up in front of a pale stucco and brick building and parked in a guest-only spot.
“Well, pardner, who’s going to carry the mail?”
It was a moonless night, bright lights bouncing off the water on the shore side of the towering structure. I could only imagine what it looked like from thirty stories up.
James opened the sliding truck door and I picked up the box with most of the mail, the opened manila envelope with the severed digit lying on top. I shuddered.
“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night…”
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s just get this over with.” I never would have done this by myself. There’s courage in a crowd, even if the crowd is only two.