Cash Out by Greg Bardsley

Author:Greg Bardsley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Humour
ISBN: 9780062127716
Publisher: HarperPerennial
Published: 2012-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

Seven

This much I know . . .

David Duncan is in his $3 million home on Jackson Street, near Broderick–Pacific Heights. He’s in the office, tapping on his laptop, a glass of ’92 Colgin cabernet sauvignon from the Herb Lamb Vineyard on the desk, Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” pulsing low, adding to his glow. The wife is already asleep, and the au pair is upstairs handling the bedtime ritual with the kids. David hates dealing with the kids at night.

He’s looking at the stocks.

In a day, his portfolio has appreciated by $270,000.

Google.

Salesforce.com.

Genentech.

VMware.

And then all those inside deals he engineered as a partner with Knowland, Hill, and Davis. Deals to fund an elite crop of start-ups, most of which have gone public and amassed extreme fortunes on the wings of the second tech bubble in a decade.

As a partner at the firm, and as a shrewd private investor, David Duncan boasts a portfolio north of $79 million. But he wants more. Much more.

Hell, he’s only forty-one. By forty-five, he wants his own jet, with his own pilots, and not some Citation X piece of shit, but a Gulfstream 5. He wants homes in Kauai, New York City, Paris, London, and of course his hometown outside Hartford, Connecticut. By the time he’s fifty, he wants to be able to establish trust funds for his great-great grandchildren. He wants to be on the Fortune list—a list of the smartest winners of the Internet era. He wants everyone to know he’s winning, and that he’s winning more than they are.

He wants at least half a billion.

FlowBid has made a big difference. Since the IPO, the stock has increased fourteen times its original share price. If everything holds together a few more months, Knowland, Hill, and Davis will be allowed to start selling its FlowBid shares on the open market—portal to millions of investors who are, once again, frothy—and could walk away with more than $1.3 billion.

As long as Stephen Fitzroy can keep it together.

As long as those stupid downsized geeks don’t make it worse.

Which is why David Duncan picks up his cell and dials his guy at the corporate intelligence and security firm, Stanislau. Tony, or Anthony. The compact, muscular bald guy who kind of gives him the creeps. The guy who’s supposed to be keeping the geeks in check, keeping them from recruiting more people—people like Fitzroy’s speechwriter.

He rings Tony’s phone.

Hears something at the front of the house. Knocking?

Gets Tony’s voice mail, again. Shit, where is he?

He gets up, walks toward the front of the house, squints through the glass door.

Two tall men in dark clothes are standing at his porch. At their feet, balled into the fetal position, is Tony, his problem solver.

Getting Baldy out of my trunk the second time is harder. Probably because his clothes are soaking, his body vibrating. Or maybe because my own hands are shaking so hard.

Rod ends up doing most of the lifting and pulling.

“You okay, Danny?”

“Yeah.” I scan the street—no one. “You sure this makes sense?”

Larry watches from the sidewalk.

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