Chapter 283: Moving Friends

What is this place? It looks like a medieval castle built in the nineteen seventies.

Risa was excitedly waiting for me to arrive. She rushed me into an office filled with grumpy older men that looked bothered that we were taking up their time.

Being cordial, they all stood and shook my hand.

“Nice to meet you, gentleman. My name is Darren. Risa requested I see if I could assist her,” I explained.

Four of the men’s expressions showed they dismissed me as another kid too young for their time. One, who happened to be the main one behind the desk, had a pretty good idea why I was here. For clarification, I showed him my black ID badge to solidify my identity. One of the four other men realized what it meant from the look of surprise, followed by going pale in fear.

I took the offered chair and asked, “So how can I help?”

One of the four, who didn’t have a clue who I was, started by saying, “Well, you stop wasting our time would be a great help, though that has proven unattainable. We don’t do business with children. I don’t care if you think you have the money.”

“Ok. If that is how you feel, I will find what Risa needs from you elsewhere,” I told him as I stood up and offered my arm to Risa as I headed toward the door.

We made it two steps from the office when the man behind the desk clued Mr. Mouth in on exactly who he just told to buzz off. Before we got to the front doors, the five men were rushing toward us to stop us.

I should have asked Risa before I told them, “I’m sorry, gentlemen. I don’t believe Risa’s wishes to do business with stubborn men who discount a person’s worthiness by their age and gender. I do appreciate you taking time out of our busy day to humor us.”

No matter what they said, as they pleaded for another chance, I kept walking. Risa waited until they went back into their offices until she laid into me for not going with the flow so she could buy the property she wanted from that bank.

“Risa,” I told her as I sat on a bench and pulled her onto my lap. “My three heiress girlfriends would neuter me if I allowed you to deal with men like that. They looked at you like you were a dumb, uneducated little girl with no clue about anything to do with money. Those men would screw you over anywhere they thought they could get away with it. You would be paying so many bullshit charges to get whatever it is they have that you want. What is it you want from them?”

She looked down until she could dry her tears before saying, “I found a house with sixty single bedrooms, ten large suites, plus guest rooms on the main level. The sixty bedrooms have a bathroom shared between each pair, but that gives us twenty-eight more bathrooms than I have where we live now. If I want, I can pay an extra ten percent to get the furniture included. The best part is that the previous owners made a deal with the staff that they and their families could live on the grounds where they have their children tutored and eat the meals with them as part of their family. A small stipend covered incidentals not covered by the family that lived there. Clothes, personal care products, and most other things they would typically need money to get themselves came from the house budgets.”

She was upset now that she couldn’t get it because they were the people she had to go through.

“You asked for my help. Give me a few minutes to reach out to some people I know and see what they can find out,” I told her.

Ok. What Molly can find out. It sounds like a sweet deal for Risa’s needs, and that seems that something may be way off.

I got a text back from Molly in less than ten minutes.

“You’re glad that you let me reach out to some people. Molly got back to me with a lot of things you didn’t know about that place, and those bankers wouldn’t ever tell you,” I told her as I hugged her.

It was horrible information on that properly. Well, for those five investment bankers, at least. Someone fed those men some false rumors about a major Internet retailer and two international corporations in a bidding war over property centered two miles from the property Risa wanted to buy. No specific names were in the rumors, and the prices per square kilometer were rising daily. According to the gossip, whoever won the bid needed housing within walking distance. They preferred it furnished and staffed to handle meals, laundry, dry cleaning, and similar tasks the people residing there wouldn’t have time to do themselves. All five men jumped at the chance to make some quick millions. They bought up every house, estate, and any building they could use to handle the new company’s needs. The rumor turned out to have a large amount of truth about the bidding war. It just happened to be in an entirely different part of the world in a community with the same name and similar-looking buildings.

It sucks to be them.

Molly’s following text continued to tell me how these men managed to get the estate property Risa wanted, but they paid many times over market value to convince the family living there to sell. It was only after the deal closed that they found out about having the wrong country. Now they were trying to dump the property at an inflated price to cover their asses.

What they didn’t know, but Molly found out readily, from the local engineering records, was that the property was in disrepair. It has structural issues that required large sections demolished down to the improper foundation, at least where any foundation still existed. It was a money pit, but Molly had already gotten things moving. We needed to go back to the men, give them a thousand Euros, sign the paperwork, and take the estate’s deed.

“We have to go back to those arrogant assholes, but this time we have the high ground, and they will grovel with you to accept the contract they had all signed. If you agree to the sales contract terms, you sign, and the property is yours. They will sign the deed over to you. My contact assured me that lady lawyers are waiting to represent you with any changes you feel you need. The lawyer fees are part of the closing costs these men are paying out of their own pockets,” I told Risa.

Her face lit up with a huge smile. She pulled me back toward the men’s offices.

On the way, Molly said Risa needed to play hardball with these men. Drone captured images showed the furniture was below anything that Ikea would even smash the pieces into dust to make their products. Molly found an invoice showing that the men had furnished the place with the cheapest made furnishings to get people in there. The expected lifetime of the furniture was between three and six months of light use. Kids playing on it brought that down to under a month. Risa needed to grind the men through broken glass.

Risa does know the ins and outs of deals.

After re-reading the entire contract, she got a red pen off the desk to go through to strike out words, lines, and whole paragraphs of boilerplate bullshit. Molly asked how it was going, and I told her Risa was chewing up their contract to get rid of things that only benefitted these five men. She told me to look down at the bottom right side of each page. I would know if it was her contract or some other crap. I saw it was one of the boilerplate contracts used to screw everyone but these four men.

“Come on, Risa. These men are wasting our time. They have the contract my contact sent them, but instead, they did a bait and switch,” I told her loud enough for the lawyer’s interest to perk up enough to come to investigate matters. “My contact’s paperwork wouldn’t need any modification to the wording to ensure all parties receive fair treatment from this deal.”

I thanked the lawyers for their time, but one told me they expected such shit from these men. They only needed to have it captured and documented for the men’s meeting right after our business concluded. Risa would have the correct paperwork the men already signed. Risa looked at Molly’s contract as the men began to sweat.

They don’t have a clue that my killing that virus is improving her vision quickly, even if she must still wear thick glasses to see.

One of the pages in an addendum contained the invoices for the furnishings purchased for the house. I admit that I’m ignorant of what furniture costs, but I know that a twin mattress set doesn’t sell for twenty Euros. A bedroom set, bed frame, dresser, and nightstands at Ikea cost more than seventy-nine Euros.

Risa got out her phone and searched for the company that sold the crap furniture. If Risa came from an average family, she wouldn’t have known that the name belonging to one of many of those tied to an elite family who specialized in selling this type of crap furniture. Specifically, furniture made from one-hundred-percent recycled materials. Unfortunately, those materials are barely a grade above Styrofoam food containers, tampon applicators, plastic bands around boxes, wood from used mouse traps, and even balsa wood scraps from things like model rocket fins.

Even better, this company was above board and honest. They made props in large quantities that would hold up for the duration of filming movies and TV shows. What these men bought specifically disintegrated on a strong impact. The costs per item were so low that production companies bought truckloads at a time so they could shoot and reshoot action scenes. The mattresses came from a sister company that ensured that they could take a good pounding, specifically those from porn stars, but weren’t good for much else. No one could sleep on them.

Risa was mad now, “You still don’t get it. I’m not one of your braindead children or grandchildren. You weren’t expecting me to find out that every piece of furniture at this location consists of cheap, disposable movie props. I see this addendum came from your business and was not part of the main contract. Have I mentioned that I’m not stupid like you assumed because I’m a teenaged female? You were very precise in your wording, to which I commend you. I read here that you provide above-average quality furniture and premium quality mattresses with six hundred thread count sheets. The bathrooms have exclusive spa-quality luxurious Egyptian Cotton towels. Your invoices show otherwise. Towels produced for low-priced, discount retailers that you purchased from a store in Egypt aren’t Egyptian Cotton. I know for a fact that the sheets you bought are not single ply. They are from multi-ply yarns consisting of one thin cotton thread and five larger diameter plastic threads rejected by quality control in Asian sweatshops. Since you agreed to this supplement by signing the contract, I will make some arrangements before signing.

Risa was in the zone now. What she wanted was becoming a reality. Out in the hallway, Risa made a few calls and then came in to tell us we should take a coffee break. She was waiting for something to be delivered. Ten minutes later, six men and two women carried in pieces of furniture, linens, area rugs, and towels.

One of the women seemed to be in charge and said, “Based on our conversation, I have brought in samples of our available products which exactly meet the given specifications and moderate cost requirements. If you place and pay the entire amount today, by wire transfer, for delivery first thing in the morning, in the quantities required, I will lower our profit margins and provide you with our highest quality of each item at the same price I’ve quoted here. As agreed, my delivery staff shall collect all existing furniture and deliver it to this address unless the recipient makes other arrangements. Any additional costs will are charged to the recipient in advance.”

Using the place in my head, I confirmed a significant difference in the wood’s quality used in the furniture. The difference in even the drawers for the dressers was noticeable. One had low-quality wood sides and back with cheap plastic hardware. Their higher-quality drawer had hard-wood with the hardware mostly made from metal.

Risa asked the furniture woman if she minded waiting in the conference room next door.

A lawyer went to make copies of the invoice to put into the multiple stacks of papers for Risa to sign. The men in the room looked very pale now. Once she signed every spot on each pile of documents, the lawyers provided her a “deed” to the estate. That is when one lawyer who had left earlier now came in with the saleswoman and a very grumpy government employee who looked like he rarely smiled. Today he had a huge smile.

He waited his turn since the lawyer required each of the five men to enter bank account information for the wire transfers to cover the entire price of the invoice for furniture. She then had them each authorize a transfer of one hundred thousand Euros, each, into the escrow account in Risa’s name for the structural repairs. The lawyer was in the process of having the men pay to cover all meals for Risa, her siblings, the forty orphan children, and guests for today and tomorrow, but the man with the big smile asked her to wait for that until he finished his business.

Odd, but the lawyer didn’t question doing as he requested without looking at Risa for confirmation.

“Being investment bankers, you are well aware that before selling any property, you must settle all debts against the property before the sale can proceed,” he said as his smile now showed perfectly straight, blindingly white teeth. “According to tax records and liens filed with the court against said property, you each own two hundred, eight-three-thousand, sixteen hundred three Euros in sales taxes against your original purchase of said property, which you never paid. There are now seventy-nine thousand Euros in interest and another one-hundred-ten thousand Euros in fines. As the sales contract notes, you also agreed to cover all closing costs related to the sale, including the sales taxes on the furniture you just purchased. That adds another one hundred sixty-nine thousand Euros.”

His phone ringing made him pause the amount each owed to answer it.

“My boss requires that I collect the forty-three thousand Euros for unpaid utilities, eight-thousand Euros for fuel oil, and eighty-two-thousand for outstanding water and sewer repairs owed by the previous owners. In your urgency to acquire the property, it appears to have agreed to cover any not yet invoiced debts from before the closing,” the man said with a wide smile.

The looks on these men’s faces tell me they fucked themselves, way beyond just screwing the pooch with a bad investment.

One of the other lawyers worked feverously with a calculator to compute some figures, get them onto paper, and then make copies. She handed each man a personalized page.

“The accounts you previously provided seem a bit short on funds. By signing the provided agreements, you are granting access to each of the listed accounts to satisfy the debts with the available funds. The second page is a loan agreement using one-half of the tax appraised value for the listed assets as collateral. Your current lack of available funds to pay your recurring debt temporarily reduced your credit-worthiness scores to zero, which is why the lender agreed to loan only against half the appraised value of each asset. From real estate records and the current market, the lender expects to be able to recoup their funds should you default or be late on two consecutive payments. As I am using your own company’s loan documents, so I expect that you already knew all the fine print. I do have some good news. The lender has agreed that your standard thirty-five percent interest rate on all the loans you fund will be a bit unmanageable given your current lack of available cash on hand. After some discussion, twenty-nine-point-nine percent was a more reasonable initial interest rate. They did agree that they would increase it to your default rate of forty-five percent, retroactively applied to the original loan balance, should you make three late payments or miss one payment anytime during the ten years of the loan. I only need to have your physical signatures as a second confirmation you agree to the terms. According to the sale contract that you signed, you each agreed to accept all loan terms from the lenders offering the lowest interest rate based on your credit-worthiness at the time of the loan origination. I presented the best loan offer unless you have available funds located out of the country or wish to negotiate terms with another party in the next fifteen minutes.”

Yes. Truly and utterly fucked.

One of the men did call someone. I was probably the only other person in the room who spoke the language used. I heard whoever this man asked for money telling him it wasn’t worth the effort to send someone to break the man’s arms and legs for not paying on time. The man here was desperate and even offered to give two of his virgin daughters, or sons, as property to let him have the loan. If he defaulted, the person on the phone could have all his daughters to use as he wished.

Whoever the man he called knew the man in here wouldn’t have called unless something huge was going on and asked, “There isn’t by chance a thin, muscular girl there that hasn’t said a single word the entire time is there?”