Chapter 7: Marking Time

Friday, November 3, 2028...

It has been almost five weeks since I ate breakfast at Milton’s, and in a week or two the check for my lottery winnings should be ready for pickup. Time’s passed quickly and I was able to make a lot of progress in many areas. Unfortunately, I had to dip into my investments, and my net worth is becoming rather low. As a result, almost everything I want to do is on hold, waiting for more money.

At the moment, I’m at home preparing for next week’s meeting with Victor Charles on the eighth. He and his associate, who I haven’t met, will be my defense team when one of my targets decides to file a lawsuit against The Rattler. Last week, Victor called and asked me to prepare a detailed account of what I have done, and what has happened to me since submitting my ticket to the Lottery Office. He said it could be sort of a diary in which I documented everything I could remember about what took place. I should focus on all of my business activities and any personal activities that affected my business activities, and include what I could remember of my conversations, and why I made the decisions that I’ve made. That is going to take a while.

Vic said he didn’t want me saving this diary to my computer’s hard disk because someone might get a court order to search my home for certain types of incriminating evidence in the future. I’m not a computer whiz, but evidently, some computer files can be retained forever on a hard disk, and can even be recovered if deleted. He suggested that I never put any information that might be potentially incriminating on paper or on any memory device that remains in my home or on my business’s premises.

He suggested that I go to Target and buy a dozen of the small flash drives like the Sandisk 128-GB drives, which I can get for less than ten dollars each. All I need to do is plug one into my computer’s USB connector and save my work to the flash drive instead of my computer hard disk. He also told me to change Word’s backup location to my flash drive before I start working. When I finish this diary, I am to give the flash drive to him and he will keep it in his office’s safe. It seems like a reasonable thing to do. After all, that is what I am paying him to do, namely to protect me from legal problems.

Vic told me that if I did anything business related on my personal computer, I’m to save all of my work and correspondence to a flash drive from now on. He told me I need to be more aware of computer security in the future, and he could suggest a few people to help me with my ignorance.

So far, I’ve written everything I can think of in the diary up to the time I had breakfast at Milton’s. My next major event was my meeting with Bill Nobel.

Monday, November 6,
2028...

My meeting with Bill to discuss setting up businesses went well, but nothing spectacular. He asked me a series of questions to get the information necessary to register my businesses with California and I answered them. We discussed how I would use my investment and management company, which I decided to name The Simmons Investment and Management Company.

Bill said that my structure and plans for SIMC indicated that I should make it a corporation and The Rattler should be a Limited Liability Company.

Tuesday, November 7, 2028...

Around the third week of October, most of the out-of-town reporters had gone home. By the first of November, there was only be the occasional reporter at the house when I drove by, and I suspected they were local reporters. If I moved back in, a simple No Comment should be enough to get them to give up and leave, if not I could move out again. Although, I may have to threaten one of two of the more persistent reporters with being arrested by the police for trespassing if they kept coming on my property and annoying me.

I was finally able to move back into my home this morning. I had driven past my house several times in the past week, and hadn’t seen any reporters out front. I decided that if I didn’t see any by late Monday afternoon, I’d move back in. I was very happy to be back in my home again. I think it missed me. I know I missed it.

Wednesday, November 8, 2028...

Bill Nobel came through by finding me a good business consultant - James (Jim) Conway who owns and manages Conway Consulting. I met with Jim this morning here at my home. After I explained The Rattler’s purpose, he was a big help with ideas for setting up The Rattler, and he pointed out a number of things I had not considered.

Jim asked me if I had considered who I wanted to advertise in The Rattler. I told him that I was planning to fund The Rattler personally for right now, but advertising was still under consideration. I told him about how the webpages I visited were very slow to respond, apparently because of ads, and that annoyed me. I wanted the webpage to popup on my reader’s screens fast, so they could start reading immediately. I didn’t want them to have to sit there for thirty seconds or more waiting for an ad to load; especially when my readers probably weren’t interested in the product, anyway.

Jim explained one advantage of including advertisements in The Rattler that had not occurred to me. He said I should accept ads from advertisers who advertised in the media outlets I target. He said readers often associate the product with where they see the advertisement. The big companies don’t like to be viewed by their customers as supporting an unethical, immoral, dishonest bad guy, as it can be bad for their bottom line. Therefore, if The Rattler’s articles gained sufficient attention and reader support, then with me painting the media outlets as the bad guys, my advertisers may become uncomfortable advertising in the media outlets I target. I could afford to lose the advertisers, but that may not be true of the media outlets. I changed my mind about displaying advertisements in The Rattler when I considered the leverage I might have over the companies that advertise in my paper. However, I’m not going to include ads that don’t load and display quickly. Perhaps my webpage designer will have a solution.

Monday, December 4, 2028...

Bill called this morning to let me know I am now the registered owner of two companies: a corporation and an LLC. He told me he had talked with Jim and they think I should create a couple of additional companies; the effort is still in the early discussion stage. Bob and Bill think I should invest in real estate; but, there is too much going on right now to pursue that line of business. Maybe when The Rattler and other two newspapers are up and running, I could work on the other companies I want to start. However, I did decide I would need two more newspapers in the near future.

The business structure Steve, Karen, and I created in the past week for SIMC, The Rattler, and the two future newspapers is rather unusual. Steve and Karen were concerned about The Rattler’s staff in the event that a court order kept us from publishing articles. After a few thought provoking meetings the three of us came up with the idea of SIMC hiring the people we needed to run The Rattler as SIMC’s direct employees and we would do that for the other two newspapers as well. That will help us even out our manpower level in the area of researchers, writers, and editors. That was the first step in developing a plan for a collaborative effort between the three newspapers. The plan is still in its infancy and the business structure is evolving.

When we started looking for additional efficient ways to staff and run the three newspapers we would eventually have, I decided that the two new newspapers should appear to be owned and operated by someone other than myself. Steve, Karen, and I have a preliminary agreement on how that will work. My initial plan was I will provide the funding and Steve and Karen will set up the two newspapers. I would be the actual owner while Steve and Karen publicly appeared to be the owners. Basically, I wanted to hide the fact that all three newspapers were owned by one person.

When I presented that plan to Steve and Karen, Karen reminded me that I had to declare my ownership of the two new newspapers to the state and that information would be available to the public. I tossed that plan and the three of us agreed that I should give both Steve and Karen long-term, no-interest personal loans to start their businesses. Steve, Karen, and I, as the future owners and Presidents of the three papers, are structuring things so we can support each other and protect our overall operation from a lawsuit. I think of our business structure as a legal subterfuge.

SIMC will rent office space to all three newspapers and the newspapers will contract with SIMC for the staff and other services SIMC will provide; such as research, writing, and support for their computers, webpages, and networks. The three of us will decide who we want to target and we’ll contract with SIMC to research and write exposés and specific articles on the target’s owners and specific employees. I – as the owner, CEO, and President of SIMC – will task my staff with distributing the work to specific employees. SIMC will deliver the target’s exposés and other articles to the owner of the respective paper. Each newspaper will own the Server on which its webpage is to be hosted, and will contract with SIMC for computer, webpage, and network support. SIMC will bill the respective newspaper for its staff’s time, travel expenses, web and network support, etc.

If one of our targets sues one of our papers, they might be able to shut down one paper, but the other two will continue to operate and print their supporting articles. In order to shut down all three newspapers, the target will have to initiate separate lawsuits, which can get very expensive, very quickly.

In a normal newspaper, the person who writes an article gets the byline that identifies them as the writer. Steve, Karen, and I have been toying with the idea of creating a fictitious staff for our newspapers and giving them the byline for the articles we publish. Our targets will have a difficult time serving a subpoena on a nonexistent person to get them to testify. That will also protect our writers from any retribution that our targets might attempt. In fact, if I create a fifth privately owned company to do the research and writing, then that company’s owner will distribute the work assignments without consulting with us. That would give us a degree of deniability as to who wrote the articles we print. We could truthfully say in court that we don’t know who wrote the articles, and we could be very uncooperative in assisting our target with locating the individuals who actually wrote the articles.

Once I find a lawyer, I will have to run this structure past him to ensure that it is legal and provides us with the protection we want. The one thing about our current structure that may cause us a problem is SIMC employees preparing the exposés and other articles. If the lawyer agrees that my owning a newspaper and SIMC might be a problem, I will definitely have to create a fifth company to do the research and writing effort. The rest of the support can be provided by SIMC. Now that I think of it, all of the companies other than SIMC should use post office boxes as their mailing addresses, so the relationship between the businesses will not be obvious by them all having the same street address. I will have to think about telephones; perhaps we should use answering services.

Hmm ... maybe I should sell The Rattler to someone. My owning both The Rattler and SIMC creates the link that might create the problems. Trying to separate the five companies makes things rather complex, especially if their offices are collocated at the same place. We will need to reassess this and do any restructuring that may be needed before we engage our first target.

Wednesday, December 12, 2028...

I had my first meeting with Jan Moore, the owner of Moore Realty this morning.

Last week, while I had been hiding out in motels and hotels, I considered the advice Bob Thompson had given me about needing a new level of security for my personal safety. The very fact that I was hiding out to avoid the media instead of living in my home proved Bob’s advice was correct. If I had been living in a large home with a fenced perimeter, adequate security, and someone to run any errands that were necessary, I could have stayed in my home and the media representatives could not have harassed me. Well, they could have telephoned me, but they would not have been able to pound on my front door and assault me on my property.

I went to the Zillow website and did a search on McMansion sized homes. I had the start of a plan for locating SIMC’s offices on the property I’d buy for my home. I was hoping to find a property that had a house large enough for myself and any live-in staff that I might employ that also had outbuildings that could be used as the headquarters of the businesses.

The homes I looked at on-line didn’t seem suitable for what I needed. Many of them had facilities for horses and putting greens; neither of which interested me. Although I did like the swimming pools that resembled a pond with a waterfall. One of them even included a water slide built into what appeared to be a natural rock formation. From what I could see, the houses would be okay as a home, but not for my business activities. The way things are going, an outbuilding or two would be okay as a temporary office facility while I build a dedicated headquarters’ building.

I had called Bob last week and talked with him about what I might need in a house and property. He helped me in two ways. He helped clarify what I would need in a home and office space, and he put me in touch with a good independent realtor, Jan, who ran a one-person operation with the help of a good answering service. I arrived at her office a few minutes early Wednesday morning and when we were finally settled in her office, I explained what I wanted to buy and had to discuss my financial status with her.

I quickly learned Jan was a shark, a Great White. She was nice enough as a person, but once she started looking to find me a new home, she was totally focused and all business. I started thinking of her as a Great White, for as she worked, I kept getting this image of a shark sliding through the water as it closed in on its prey, my future house. I had a feeling that when it came to negotiating a price, she would be out to attain the lowest possible sale price.

At first, that attitude seemed odd to me, for as the sale price went down, so did her commission. Then I applied some logic and did the math. If the house sold for three million, she would make around ninety thousand assuming she hadn’t listed the property. For every hundred thousand she saved me, she would lose three thousand; so if she saved me two hundred thousand, she would lose six thousand. That seemed like bad business to me. Then I realized that I will want someone like her as my agent for future real estate transactions. I would have to talk with her about my using her for my real estate purchases, when I got around to starting that line of business. Then there are the people I refer to her. For each referral, she will earn far more money than the small loss she will take on this sale by getting me the best price possible. The potential snowball effect could be an enormous annual income for her; especially if she was that way with all her customers, which I suspect she was. I liked that concept for doing business: Give up a little now to make a lot in the future.

For my needs, Jan located seven homes in the area that might be suitable. We spent about four days touring the homes, and exploring the land and outbuildings that went with the property. For planning purposes, I had settled on a live-in staff of two people: a bodyguard and a butler/housekeeper. If I had an out-of-town visitor, I might need a guest bedroom or two, so I set five bedrooms as a minimum. I think I may need a much larger staff, but they didn’t have to live on the property.

By the end of the five days, I had winnowed the possibilities down to two homes, but neither property had an outbuilding that would be suitable for use as my business empire’s temporary headquarters. Both properties had open land on which I could build a small office building and both properties had the appropriate zoning code that would allow me to build a small commercial building on a private residential property. The maximum size limit of the building allowed by the local building code would permit a building larger than I would need. I told Jan that I would probably buy one of the two properties, but wanted to defer that decision until after my lottery winnings were in my bank account. I think getting that much money didn’t seem real to me, so I didn’t want to make the commitment to spend over fifteen million dollars on a house until I actually had the money to pay for it. That was a lot more than the three million I originally considered spending for a new house, but the property was worth it.

Friday, December 15, 2028...

Bill put out feelers to his contacts to find The Rattler a good law firm for when the outlets we targeted brought legal action against us. Yes, I believed it was a case of when, not if. Victor Charles was the sole-owner of Charles & Associates, Attorneys-at-Law. C&A’s primary field of interest was bringing Invasion of Privacy lawsuits against anyone who invaded their clients’ privacy, and the firm’s clientele included a number of the big names in the field of entertainment.

Once we were seated in Vic’s office and we had exchanged the usual introduction pleasantries, Vic said, “What can I do for you, Carl?”

“Bill Nobel advised me to place you under retainer before I describe my legal needs, Vic. What’s the usual process to have you as my lawyer for the duration of this meeting?”

After signing a few papers and giving Vic a check, I continued, “What I am looking for, Vic, is a law firm to defend me from an Invasion of Privacy lawsuit. I know I am not your typical client, but Bill felt you might be very interested in defending me when I get sued.”

“Before you go on, Carl, let me get this straight. You aren’t being sued, but you expect to be sued.”

“Yes, that’s right.

“You see, Vic, several media outlets have recently invaded my privacy. From what I learned, filing an Invasion of Privacy lawsuit against them would most likely be a useless and expensive waste of my time and money. Instead, I plan to start an on-line newspaper that is dedicated to exposing the personal lives of the owners and certain employees of the media outlets that invade my and other peoples’ privacy. It will be sort of a tit-for-tat situation, Vic. I wrote the draft of an editorial policy defining that the articles are being published as a service to the public. Lately, I am starting to think our articles will actually be a public service.”

After explaining the circumstances surrounding the media invading my privacy to Vic, I provided him with an explanation of how I planned to engage these low-life outlets and how I would slant my news articles so they would appear to be a public service.

“Now that is an innovative approach, Carl. I have had many clients that wanted to lash out at the reporters and papers that invaded their privacy, but none of them has ever considered your approach. I have to admit that I am interested, but it is still not the type of case my firm normally takes on. We are the ones normally filing the lawsuits, not defending against them. It is a different mindset.”

“I know that, Vic. My difficulty is that the only law firms with any real experience in defending a media outlet from this type of lawsuit are currently on retainer to the media outlets that will be filing lawsuits against me. Bill thought you might like to give your normal opponents a taste of their own medicine by using their defense strategies against them. As far as mindset goes, they will be accustomed to defending against a lawsuit, so being the plaintiff will be difficult for them, also. I think there are a couple of additional reasons why you might want to take me on as a client.