Chapter 17: Our Next Conquest

Needless to say, Sandy and Mr. Strauss and the Candelotti family enjoyed the very best meal Lana and Lennie had created yet, as part of our celebration. Dan and I continued perfecting our credentials for our college applications, along with exploring possible directions of study.

To that end, we sought out Lennie’s dad for his input for medical / biological / psychological fields, Sandy for law and politics, Hank Strauss on Finance, and even Joe Candelotti, who we learned was a “turnaround specialist.” Joe had gone into several floundering businesses and set them on the right track to being profitable. I could easily see Dan was getting very excited from these talks, so I took him to see L & L.

“Dan has a request for you two. Dan?”

“I want Hank and Joe to come over, again, together, so we can have a deep discussion with them about business. Can I beg you to make an Italian dinner for the four of us on one of the next few nights? Joe is obviously Italian, and Hank is an Italian Jew, so planning should be easy. We could finish with gelato, maybe?”

“You’ll invite them and then tell us the day?”

“Of course and thank you!”

Naturally, the men were enthusiastic. And we four sat down two nights later to another exquisite meal.

I can only describe the post-meal discussion as watching a tennis match. Hank would lob a story over the net, Joe would recognize what Hank saw and smash the thing back, gleefully. Dan’s head was swiveling left and right between them, while taking notes as fast as he could. They each were seeing different sides of the same rotten cores, where Hank talked about sneaky ways to fudge the books, and Joe talked about managers’ misdeeds and malingering, and blame shifting.

I decided it was my turn to speak. “Guys, I have an idea. You two have complementary skills. I urge you to try working together on the same troubled company for a couple of days. Joe can identify areas being mismanaged, and that helps Hank drill down directly into where the books are most likely being fiddled. If I’m right, and you can repeat the results elsewhere, you can partner together and take over the world! And I want 5% of the corporation.”

Three pairs of male eyes were fixed on me. Then Dan said, “Do you see why I love her so?” Hank and Joe shook hands, then they shook my hand. Hank said, “You’re in, E, at 5%. If this takes off, you’re bumped to 10%. Right, Joe?”

“Hell, I’d give her 10% right now. This is genius, Hank. And Dan, if you ever let E go, you’re the stupidest man I’ve ever met. And trust me, I meet a lot of morons in my line of work.”

After they left, Dan stared at me. And stared. I said, “What?”

“E, beloved, get ready to be worshiped. I am going to worship you until my tongue falls off. And then I’m going to make sweet sweet love to you as long as Danielito cooperates.”

And so he did!