Flux - 19. Chapter 19

June 24, 2002

Somewhere over Nebraska

Matt

I’d just finished reading through the materials on the proposed buyout of Anders-Hayes, then set the papers down and waited for Will to finish doing the same thing. Stef had given us both copies, and had let us read them before explaining them. Will closed his binder just a few minutes after I did. I’d spent a lot of time looking at the valuation models, which he probably didn’t, but it must have taken him longer to grasp all the business jargon.

“What do you think?” Stef asked us.

“I think the valuation details look generous, at least from what I can tell,” I said. We both looked at Will.

“I like that they’re planning to keep it as a stand-alone business, and that the employees will probably get to keep their jobs,” he said. I felt a little guilty for just focusing on the numbers.

“You both make good points, and hopefully now you can see why we operate our investment business as a team,” Stef said smoothly, offering me an escape hatch so I didn’t feel like such a mercenary capitalist.

“What do you think?” Will asked Stef. That was really the key. The deal looked good to me, but if Stef, and to a lesser degree Brad, said it was a go, I’d follow their recommendation.

“I think it is a generous offer, and I am inclined to vote for it,” Stef said. His shares, combined with Brad’s, would make the sale a reality whether we liked it or not, but I appreciated how he was taking the time to make sure we understood it.

“Then so will I,” I said, more of a pledge.

“Me too,” Will agreed.

“The payout on this should be substantial,” Stef said. “Each of you should get approximately $15 million.”

“Wow,” I said. That kind of freaked me out. I’d never been poor, because my parents were wealthy, and when they’d cut me off temporarily, I’d started getting a massive allowance from Robbie. I could put my hands on half a million dollars easily, if I needed to. But having $15 million in cash, my own money, was a whole different thing. Compared to Wade, who was worth over half a billion dollars, it was chump change, but for me, it was a lot. A hell of a lot. I looked over at Will, who wasn’t fazed by it at all. I knew that when he’d filed for emancipation, he’d had a couple of trusts worth $6 million dollars, but that was just stuff from his grandmother. That didn’t even take into account money he’d gotten, or would get, from Stef and his father. This must seem like a drop in the bucket to him too.

“Gives you more options in Chicago,” Will joked. “Shit, you could buy a whole building.”

“I could,” I said, thinking about what he said. I’d pretty much decided to rent a place, but this did give me more choices.

“Have you thought about where you want to live?” Stef asked me.

“Oh yeah,” I said, smiling at him. “I’m thinking Boystown.” Will started laughing, and Stef smiled indulgently.

“That is certainly an option,” he said, getting all businesslike on us. “There are others.”

“Seriously?” Will asked, shaking his head. “You’re saying this?” He started laughing again.

“I thought it would be pleasant to bring you along,” Stef said, pretending to be irritated with him.

“Alright,” Will said. “What’s better than Boystown? I have to hear this.”

Stef ignored him and focused on me. “The University of Chicago’s MBA program is located primarily in Hyde Park, but some classes are offered downtown, near the Loop. The company that I think you should intern for is located in the Loop as well. So if you lived in or near the Loop, you would have a much shorter commute.”

Will stopped laughing, as we considered that. Living in California for four years, it was impossible not to relish the possibility of not having to fight traffic to get to work and school. “That’s a pretty good point,” I said, more to Will than to Stef.

Will nodded. “Alright. You made your case. So what’s the plan?”

“I thought that we would look at a condominium or two in the Loop, and possibly along Michigan Avenue,” Stef said.

“I don’t know about Michigan Avenue,” I said to Stef a bit apprehensively. “I don’t think I want to live around a bunch of old people, or a bunch of snobs.”

“Let us keep an open mind,” Stef said, chiding me. “Then we have a couple of options in Boystown.”

Will looked at his watch and adjusted the time from the Pacific to Central time zone. I did the same thing. Stef didn’t bother, because he was wearing a sleek Ulysse Nardin watch that showed dual time zones. “Let’s go see those last, so we can hit up a bar when we’re done,” Will said.

“You are not in charge,” Stef said. “Besides, I will want to freshen up before we go out.”

“Where are we staying?” I asked him.

“I thought we could stay at the condo near Northwestern,” he said.

“That only has two bedrooms,” Will said.

“It has a couch in the main room,” Stef pointed out.

“I’ve got the guest bedroom,” Will said. “You can always just sleep with me,” he said, winking at me.

“Dude, I look like this,” I said, acting all conceited. “I’ll have a place to sleep.” We were all in good moods, and I was having a blast, laughing my ass off with these guys.

As the plane approached Chicago, we got serious again, and I looked out the windows of the plane at this city that would be my home for at least a couple of years. It was magnificent, with the beautiful lakefront and the huge buildings, so massive and so dense that they looked like a man-made mountain. The plane banked gently and landed at Meigs Field, providing us with a beautiful view of Buckingham Fountain and Grant Park on the final approach. Stef got out of the plane first, followed by Will and me. We both stopped on the top steps and looked at this incredible and vibrant city, so beautiful in these warm summer months. “This place is the bomb,” Will said.

“No shit,” I agreed. We scrambled down the steps and got into the limo with Stef.

The flight time of almost five hours, combined with a time change of two hours, pretty much blew this day up. I looked at my watch and saw that it was 4:00. “Already pretty late,” I noted.

“It is a problem when traveling east,” Stef said. “We are meeting a realtor tomorrow at a place in the Loop,” he announced.

“Sounds good,” I said. “What are we doing now?”

“We are going to visit a building in Boystown,” he said.

“Cool,” Will said, making me chuckle. “Which building?”

“The same one we visited last time we were here,” Stef said.

“The building with the J-Bar in it?” he asked.

“Yes,” Stef said.

“What are we doing there?” I asked.

“Max owned the building there, the one with the bar in it,” Stef said.

“Owned?” Will asked.

“The owner of the bar wanted to make substantial changes, and that would require some contributions from Max. He did not want to be in business, owning part of a bar, and was quite frankly looking for a way out of it. So I bought it from him,” Stef said.

“How much did you pay?” I asked.

“One point five million,” Stef said. “It was generous, more than it was worth, but it will still turn out to be a good investment.”

“You just wanted to come out here to see Romey again,” Will said. “He’s the guy that owns the bar. And he’s pretty hot.”

“Not anymore,” Stef said. “He ran into financial problems, and had to sell it. The new owner is a man named Joshua Karpinsky.”

“So what does he want from you?” I asked.

“He wants me to spend $250,000 renovating the bar, redesigning it to make it profitable. He does not think it will be profitable as it was originally designed.” Stef pulled out a business plan and handed it to me. “He wanted me to finance the build out, in exchange for a long-term lease.”

I scanned the proposal. “This is a crap deal. You take all the risk, and he gets all the reward.”

Stef smiled. “That is exactly how he initially presented it, and you are correct. I have explained that to him.”

“What did he say?”

“First he attempted to posture, suggesting that he would find space elsewhere, and that he would let the J-Bar slip into bankruptcy,” Stef said. “I told him that presented no major problem as far as I was concerned. If he pays the rent, the lease will stay in force. If he does not, he will be evicted. And if he is evicted, we can find someone else to take over.”

“Did he buy out the other guy?” Will asked.

“He did. He bought out Romey for a steal. Romey would have been wiser to contact me when this happened, but he did not,” Stef said.

“So what happened after you told him you were holding all the cards?” Will asked.

“He offered me a joint venture proposal,” Stef said, and handed me a different business plan.

I scanned this one just as quickly. “This one is better, but you’re putting up all the cash, and you only own a third of the bar.” I passed it over to Will, just as I had the last one, so he could look at it.

“You are correct again,” Stef said. “So I made him a counter-proposal. I told him I would inject $250,000 into the bar, and that I would reduce the rent by 20% for the next two years. In exchange, I own 60% of the bar, and he owns 40%.”

“That seems fair,” I agreed.

“He did not think so,” Stef said. “That was two months ago. He has reconsidered.”

“He couldn’t get anyone else to front him the money,” I said, laughing.

“He could not,” Stef said.

“Doesn’t it bother you to go into business with a guy like that, who tried to totally screw you over on the first deal?” Will asked. “Doesn’t seem like he has that win-win spirit you’re always giving Dad shit about.”

Stef frowned at Will, because he was no happier having his own arguments thrown back at him than JP was. “He is young, and inexperienced. Hopefully this will be a learning moment for him.”

“How young?” I asked.

“He is twenty-eight years old,” Stef said. “Prior to this, he managed a successful bar in Denver, but wanted to move back home. He did that last year, and has been managing a different bar here in Chicago.”

“So he’s going to bail on the people he just started working for?” Will asked. “What if he does that to us?” He would be brutal as an interviewer.

“Why do you not ask him yourself?” Stef asked.

“I’ll do that,” Will said.

The limo pulled off Lake Shore Drive and turned west on Fullerton. When we got to Halsted, it turned right, and went a short distance to the building Stef owned. It was a pretty cool building, and looked to be about three stories tall. The limo pulled off to a side street, more of an alley, and drove up to an entrance with an awning that was marked “VIP”. Stef got out first, followed by Will, then by me.

I followed them into this building that looked like a carcass of what it must have looked like before. There were still a few tables and chairs scattered around, but they were pretty crappy. The good ones must have already been sold off. It was the same everywhere we looked, with pieces of the place missing, and the remnants looking pretty worthless. The impression I got was one of dilapidation, of a club that had been looted then left to die. It was a sad, lonely, and depressing place. “Sure doesn’t look like it did last time we were here,” Will said

“There is no music,” Stef said.

“And there are no hot guys,” Will said with a smirk.

“Dude, seriously?” I asked, pretending to be offended. “I’m hot.” We started laughing, but that was cut short when someone else came into the room.

“Welcome to Spartacus,” a deep voice said from behind us. I turned around and found myself looking at a very handsome guy. He was wearing a white polo shirt and khakis. His muscles bulged the band of his polo out, and his skin was dark, probably from tanning, and it made the contrast with his light shirt really pronounced and sexy. I couldn’t stop looking at his arms, covered with smooth skin, and an occasional bulging vein that added interest. I moved my gaze up to his face, which was stunningly handsome. He had black hair, and thick black eyebrows, but the coolest thing was the way his whole face seemed to smoothly slope down to his chin, including his nose, which was straight and thin, and seemed to point there too. The visual path from his nose to his chin was interrupted by his lips, but they were thin, as if they were trying not to detract from the overall effect. Our eyes met, brown eyes that bore into mine. This dude even had sexy ears. “There are hot guys here now,” Will whispered in my ear, making me chuckle.

“Matt Carrswold,” I said, holding out my hand. He smiled, flashing his perfect white teeth at me.

“Josh Karpinsky,” he said. His hand gripped mine firmly, but it was hard to miss the electricity that seemed to flow between us.

“I am Stefan Schluter, and this is my other grandson, Will,” Stef said.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Schluter,” he said, pouring on the charm for Stef. “You’re one of my heroes. Even if this deal doesn’t work out, it was worth it just to meet you.”

“You must call me Stefan,” he said firmly, ignoring the other flattery.

“And it’s nice to meet you too,” he said to Will. When Josh had first walked up to us, Will’s eyes had all but bulged out of his head at this hot guy, probably like mine did. But now he had his act together, and shook Josh’s hand in a businesslike manner.

With the pleasantries over, we all refocused on the bar, looking around at it. “Spartacus?” Stef asked.

“That’s what I plan to call the new club,” he said confidently. “It needs an image change to go with its remodel.” His voice had that gruff and abrupt manner that Tony had, a style of speaking I’d call Midwest masculine, but with a distinct Chicago flair.

“Why Spartacus?” I asked.

“I like the movie ‘Gladiator’,” he said. “It seemed to fit.”

“Dude, I love that movie,” I said. “You should see me in my Halloween gladiator costume.”

“I should,” he said, raising his right eyebrow in a sexy way. I was so going to fuck this dude.

“I did not know that the movie ‘Gladiator’ was based on Spartacus,” Stef observed.

“The stories are kind of the same, so it seemed to work,” Josh said.

“Actually, Spartacus was one of the inspirations for the movie,” Will said.

“What are you, some kind of kid genius?” Josh asked him, impressed. But he’d used the word kid, and that annoyed Will.

“I’m smart,” he said. “Even for a kid,” he added sarcastically.

Josh realized he’d pissed Will off, and tried gamely to recover. “How’d you know that?”

“Because I own part of the production company that made that movie,” he said flatly.

“Cool,” Josh said. It was actually funny to see Will knock some of the cockiness out of him.

“You want us to invest $250,000 into this place,” Will stated. “What kind of experience do you have running a bar?”

Josh told us how he’d worked in clubs or restaurants since he was a teenager. Once he turned twenty-one, he started bartending, and then when he graduated from college, he worked managing various bars. He told us about this club he worked at in Denver, and touted how great he’d done. Then he spun out the deal on how he wanted to come back to Chicago, so he did. His whole story was of a guy who knew what he wanted, and went out and got it.

“You’ve been managing this other place for a year, and now you’re going to bail on them to do this project?” Will asked.

“I want to be my own boss, and own the place where I work,” he said, looking at Will boldly. “That’s been my dream.”

“So you going to get this place rolling, then bail and go somewhere else where you get a bigger piece of the deal?” he asked. Stef and I just stood back and watched him.

“No, I’ll just stay here and gradually buy you guys out,” he said.

“What’s with all those business plans? It’s like you were trying to screw us over, and finally had to settle for something fair.” Will was relentless; even worse than Brad.

He swallowed hard, the first time I think I’d seen him off his game. “I’m new to this. And if something is worth having, it’s worth asking for.”

“That is true,” Stef said, intervening, and saving him from Will’s grilling. “Tell us what you plan to do.”

Josh’s face lit up. “This place was a 1980’s gay bar,” he said. “We’re going to bring it into the new millennium.”

Will rolled his eyes at Josh’s dramatic language. “How?”

“First, we’re going to get rid of the restaurant, and expand the bar,” he said. “It never really made much money, and it was just a distraction. Plus it’s taking up too much space. We’re a club, and that’s what we’re going to be. Not a restaurant, a club.”

“Makes sense,” Will said. “Food sucked anyway.”

“Yes it did,” Josh said, grinning. “But the good thing about it is that we have the kitchen, so we can do appetizers and finger food.” He led us through the main floor, showing us how he’d expand the dance floor; provide more tables and seating, and amp up the sound system. “Lighting is key. The lighting in here sucks. We’re going to change that.”

“Lighting?” Stef asked.

“We’re going to put a stage right here, so we can have live bands, drag shows, or other entertainment. We need lights to change the mood. More than just a strobe or disco ball,” Josh said, gesturing up at the big mirror ball that no one had bothered to pillage.

“I can see that, even though I liked the disco ball,” Stef said.

He led us out the back door, where there was a nice deck, all but shielded by the other buildings around it. “To make the neighbors happier, we’ll keep the music here lower, and make it sort of a retreat people can go to so they can get some fresh air.”

“Pretty cool,” I said.

He led us to the stairs. “This used to be the VIP area.”

“You’re getting rid of it?” Will asked. “That was my favorite part.”

“When did you see this area?” Stef asked.

“I just looked at it last time I was here,” Will said sheepishly. None of us believed him. Josh led us up to where there were still several rooms, a warren of places people could go to fuck.

“Just looked?” I asked Will. “Right.”

“Whatever,” he said, cracking me up.

“This is going to be gutted,” Josh said. “We’re going to put another bar up here, one where it will be quieter, but guys can still look through these windows and see what’s going on.”

“So no more hookup spots?” I asked, raising my eyebrow to flirt.

“This area back here will be darker, more intimate,” he said, gesturing to the place behind the bar. “We won’t ask too many questions about what people are doing back there.”

“Sounds pretty slick,” I said. When we went back downstairs, I noticed a door off to the side, in between the bar and the deck. “What’s that?”

“That leads to an elevator,” he said. We walked over and opened it up, and found a freight elevator. “It goes down to the basement, and up to the top of the building.”

“What’s up there?” Will asked.

“I think it’s an apartment. I think that’s where Bruno lived when he ran this place,” Josh said. I smiled and got in it. The rest of them followed me on there. It had a lot of room. There were three buttons, so I pushed the top one. It made a lot of noise, as the old motor powered the platform up to what was technically the third level. The main bar area took up two stories, with its high ceiling, then there was the other area, where the VIP lounge used to be, that was technically on the second floor.

The elevator stopped and the doors opened to a small lobby. There was a door, but it wasn’t locked. We walked inside and found an apartment that was pretty nasty. It looked like it had been decorated in 1976, and never updated. The carpeting was worn out and smelled moldy, and there was the residual smell of cigarettes in the air. The harvest gold appliances probably didn’t even work. “When I first met Bruno, he wore disco clothes,” Stef said. “He was living his life in the past. Evidently he never thought to update his apartment.”

“Did you know this was here?” Will asked.

“I did not,” Stef said. We walked around, letting the smells assault our nose, and discovered that it had its own set of stairs as well. They were small and cramped, but they were enclosed. We looked beyond the crappy décor, and I noted the high ceilings, and thought they were pretty cool.

“Cool,” I said, my mind whirling with possibilities. We went back downstairs.

“I’ve put together some budgets on the build-out, and I’ve got a projected income statement for the next year, if you’re interested in seeing those,” he said.

“I think those will be very enlightening,” Stef said. “I like what I am hearing, so it will be nice to see numbers that validate your plans.”

“Would you like to do that over dinner?” he asked. “I’m not sure if you guys are up for it, but I was thinking that after dinner, we could check out some of the competition.”

“I am not sure I am up for a late night,” Stef said dubiously. “I think I will have to pass on both dinner, and your night on the town.”

“I’m up for it,” Will said. He looked at Josh, just daring him with his eyes to give Will shit about being too young to go out, but Josh was smart enough to say nothing.

“I could get a beer or two,” I said. “We need to change first.”

“I have a plan,” Stef said. “Give me your proformas, and your budget, and I will review them this evening. We can talk about them tomorrow sometime. We can get dinner, and then go back to our condo to give these two a chance to change. They can meet you later.”

“That works out well, since the clubs won’t pick up until after eleven anyway. At least,” Josh said.

“You sure you don’t want to go?” I asked Stef.

“I am sure. If I change my mind between now and when you leave, I will accompany you.”

“Sounds good,” Josh said. We exchanged cell phone numbers with him, shook hands, then got into the limo for our drive up to the condo.

“What do you think?” Stef asked us.

Will looked at me, but I nodded, telling him to go first. “The dude is cocky, but it sounds like a good plan. If he doesn’t pull it off, we’ve made the place better anyway, for the next tenant.”

“He wants to win, to make this work,” I told Stef. I could see the competitive streak in him, and could feel it in his whole body. “I think he will.”

Stef nodded. “Thank you both. I share your assessment. Assuming these numbers make sense, and I am sure they will, I think we have a deal.” We all smiled, happy that our day wasn’t wasted. “And you did a very nice job, asking him questions,” he said to Will.

“Thanks,” Will said, smiling shyly.

Stef patted his knee, and then continued to delineate our plans. “Tomorrow morning, we have an appointment with a realtor, so you two must be functioning.”

“You can cancel it,” I said. Both of them stared at me, as if I had suddenly lost my mind.

“What?” Will asked. “Why?”

“I already found my apartment,” I said. They looked at me strangely, and then Will smiled.

“The place above the bar?” he asked.

“The place above the bar,” I confirmed.

“I am not sure,” Stef said dubiously.

“It has a lot of potential,” I said. “Gut it, clear out everything, fix the elevator, and it could really be awesome.”

“Dude, living over a gay club,” Will said, shaking his head. “Make sure you build in at least two bedrooms. I’m coming to visit all the time.” We laughed at that.

“I think your plan has merit,” Stef said. “I am concerned about one thing, though.”

“What?” I asked, wondering what his objection would be.

“If you are trying to study, I think it would be distracting to be above a club like that. Not only would it be distracting, but it would most likely be noisy as well.”

“I can see that,” Will chimed in. “I’m not sure I could work if I had dance music blasting in my room.”

“Sound insulation,” I said, proposing that as a solution. “As long as it’s muted, I’ll be fine.”

“So to go to the club, all you would need to do is ride the elevator down,” Stef said.

“And if you meet a hot dude, all you have to do is ride the elevator up with him,” Will said, cracking me up.

“It’s your building,” I told Stef. “Are you OK with it?”

Stef thought about it. “On one condition.”

“What?”

“You let me help you build it out,” he said, smiling.

“Awesome! I was hoping you’d want to help, but I know you’re busy,” I said.

“Dude, you are so lucky,” Will added. “You should see how well my house in Hawaii turned out. That was all Stef.”

“It was not all me,” Stef said with fake modesty.

“I’ve never seen your house in Hawaii,” I said, and felt sad about that. We’d been estranged for so long, that whole thing had happened and I hadn’t been part of it.

“How about if we solve that problem after the fourth of July,” Will suggested.

“That may work,” I said, smiling at him.

We stopped and had a nice dinner, chatting about the club and the apartment, and then got in the limo for the drive up to the north side. We got to the condo and carried our luggage up, not that we had much. It really was a beautiful place, with views of the lake and the city. “If you ever need a quiet place to escape to, this condo will be available,” Stef said.

“Thanks,” I said. I could see myself doing that. If I had a lot of studying to do, or just needed a break, this would be a nice peaceful place to visit. Or if I wanted to take someone home, and I wanted a more romantic environment, one away from the circus that would be the club, I thought, smiling inwardly.

“Come on,” Will said. “We can share the guest room.”

“Since I am not going out, one of you may use my bathroom to get ready,” Stef said, offering us an option to make getting ready easier. Will grabbed his stuff and went over there, while I took a shower and got ready in the guest bathroom. I took some pains with my appearance, so it took me 45 minutes to get ready. I still beat Will.

He met me in the great room, where we modeled for Stef. We were dressed similarly, with club clothes, including tight fitting shirts, but with blazers over them so we wouldn’t look like circuit boys if we were just walking around town. “You look hot,” I told Will, and he did.

“So do you,” he replied.

“I have to agree with both of you,” Stef said. “I will see you back here later on. Do not get into trouble.”

“Yes, sir,” Will said.

“You got a fake ID?” I asked him, as soon as we were in the elevator and it was whisking us down to the ground level.

“Yep. A good one,” he said, pulling it out and showing it to me. I tried to find something that looked wrong, but he was right: It was good.

“Well done,” I said. I’d had fake IDs too, but none of mine were that good. We hopped in the waiting limo and headed back down to Boystown to meet Josh.

“Josh wants you,” Will said.

“Well yeah,” I said. “Why wouldn’t he?” That cracked us both up.

“I can take the limo back later. Don’t worry about me. I’m not going to cock block you.”

“It will be fine,” I said. I wasn’t really worried about that. “Besides, you may meet someone.”

“We’ll see,” he said dubiously.

“Are you and Zach exclusive?”

“Not really,” he said, and then shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. He’s the only person I really want to be with.” And that saddened me, because as much as I’d loved Wade, I’d never really felt that way.