Chapter 412: Inking A Bike Deal

“We don’t have a business anymore,” the woman sitting next to me said on the verge of tears.

I put my hand on her arm and said, “You just might, if you will hear me out.”

Now they are all ears.

I found that their shipment had enough parts to build two thousand bikes sat in the warehouse they were renting. Another was due today or tomorrow. Some digging got me the details for the people they paid to rent the warehouse. I connected to my implant to feed that data to the AI to give me the real owners and who to call.

I can’t believe that this doesn’t filter up to an elite family.

A quick email to Paula got a boiler-plate contract sent to the company that owned the warehouses, and I made a call.

“Roland, David Jones. You should have gotten my offer for one of your warehouses where the occupant’s failure to pay their rental agreement for three months. How does that deal look to you?” I asked him.

He put me on hold to get some others on the line.

Aaron, his in-house business attorney, asked, “Before we entertain any negotiations, can you tell me who wrote this sales contract? I have some concerns given the brevity but ironclad wording.”

“Oh, that would be one of my best friends named Paula. She recently turned eighteen but passed the bar exams in the lower forty-eight states before starting high school. There should have been a press release from her law school now that she is old enough for them to brag about educating a prodigy, who is a female no less,” I explained. “I can call her to join the conference if you like.”

I bet you don’t want her on the line since you must know who she is.

The CFO was what I expected, a seasoned accountant that worked his way up from being a poor black kid handling boxes.

Right to the point, he said, “You’ve gotten some information regarding this property which was not made public. Can you enlighten me, please?”

“That is easy. I happen to be having lunch with five gorgeous women engineers who previously rented the warehouse. Their CFO decided his paycheck was more important than paying the bills, which ensured he got paid. Though that happened to be pure coincidence,” I told him. “I happened to overhear about their business challenges when trying to find out how to get my three-year-old daughter one of their bikes in her favorite color. She’s mad that I didn’t bring her on my trip as I promised her I would try to do more since she is big enough now. Did you know that these women have been sharing a small two-bedroom apartment because they have only paid themselves enough to cover the basics while trying to grow their business? Now their latest shipment of parts is in the warehouse in question. So, this is purely a self-serving venture. I need one of their bikes in purple, yellow, and pink. I can’t bring her one and not have one for my brother and sister. Per their reseller, that means I have to pre-pay for one thousand in each color to have them change out their paint system. I must have the bikes by tomorrow when I go home, so I’m trying to help them with their problems so that I get myself out of the doghouse.”

“An intriguing story, but why would you go to all this trouble. There are dozens of companies making the same product,” someone who hadn’t introduced themselves asked.

“Because for each one they sell, they send one to inner-city schools, shelters, daycares, and youth centers caring for the children that are most in need,” I explained. “All those finished bikes in your warehouse? They were given to a child to sell that didn’t want to see them thrown into a scrapyard. He is the one that insisted that they give one to charity with each bike sold. Now that child and his family got screwed by the CFO too.”

That caused some discussion as they didn’t know about that at all. The women didn’t seem to agree with my assessment entirely, but it was still what the boy and his family were doing.

“We want to be sure we understand what you are offering. This contract pays double the rent owed. It then pre-pays the first ten years of a fifty-year lease on the warehouse. Our only responsibility is for standard structure maintenance. If we agree to these terms and sign the contract, you will have the entire amount wire-transferred immediately,” the attorney asked.

I joked, “Got it in one.”

“David,” Aaron said. “I prefer to sign multi-million-dollar contracts face to face. Where are you having lunch with these businesswomen?”

I told him and then asked how many would be coming with him? I could get a table moved over for them.

You can think what you want, but you will find that I can do it.

The waiter got the manager for me, and I explained what I needed.

“David, it would be our pleasure to add more to your party. I will have someone get it done right now,” he told me.

“You recently turned eighteen, and they treat you like you own this place. Not like your daddy owns it, but you personally,” one of the women commented. “We’re not dumb blondes, even if we have bleached out our hair in the past. What game are you playing? Are you trying to get into our panties? I’m not saying that it isn’t working, only that I want to know your angle.”

I had to laugh, causing Desi to stir a bit. She looked around, trying to figure out whose dick she was pushing down against, where she was, and what was going on.

“Your five hours isn’t up yet, Desi,” I told her as I rubbed her back. “Go back to sleep.”

She settled right back down, kissed me on the cheek, reached down between her legs, adjusted my dick a bit, shifted to get comfortable where she wanted it, said, “Ok. G’night.” and went back to sleep.

“If all I wanted were to get in someone’s panties, Desi would let me after she put some on,” I teased. “It wouldn’t take much for her to get it if she wants it, instead of separated from her by my clothes.”

That made the woman next to me reach over to pull up Desi’s short dress to look for herself.

She told the others, “He’s not full of shit. She is going commando. A tug on the leg of his shorts would let her slide him inside her. I didn’t see him do it, but there are two cloth napkins between her and him keeping his shorts from getting wet.”

“I think you were asking about the restaurant. I have no clue if I own it or not, but if I don’t, I’m sure I’ve met whoever does. You picked it. I’ve never been here before, and how could I have ever planned for you to show up where I was trying to figure out how to get my kid one of your bikes in purple?” I answered the original question. “Could it be that they happen to memorize the faces of people they want to be sure to treat very well?”

“Or it could be that a girl who tricked you into taking her back to your hotel room to rob you years ago has your picture taped up to her locker because you helped her when you had no reason to do so,” the women setting the table they moved over next to ours. “Somebody keeps sending her updated picture of you. We can’t miss seeing it every day.”

Another added, “Oh, you do own the place, but that doesn’t mean shit in this city. We would treat you like anyone else if that were the case.”

“So, what do you want with us?” one of the women that hadn’t said anything wanted to know.

“I already told you. I want one of your bikes in purple, pink, and yellow. If our guests are the type of people I expect, by the time we finish lunch, we will have your warehouse back, so you can get to your inventory,” I explained. “Then I’m going to do what you told the family. I’m going to buy one thousand of each color. Five hundred of each color will go to the kids in need, the other five hundred to the family on the National Mall to sell, less those I need to take home with me. Get them set up with a full range of colors, and you should be able to get a bigger apartment in no time. I watched people going past them and little kids playing on the bike. Their parents wanted to buy it, but that was the only one they had. If my daughter saw it, she would want me to buy that one. If she couldn’t have that one, we wouldn’t buy one. Some people helped me, and then I came into some money when someone I met a few times died. I want three bikes. If that means I have to buy three thousand of them and get you back your inventory to do it, then I will. Before you even ask, all I want in return is the three bikes. It is that simple.”

They discussed it, and our guests arrived right as our food came out.

“Hi, I’m David,” I said as I stood up with an arm under Desi’s butt to shake their hands. “Order yourselves some lunch. I think I can get the check for a few more.”

The others that joined us hadn’t even gotten their salads before the warehouse was a done deal. I then wired the funds for the three-thousand bike order to the women. The women went off to tell the boy and his family the good news and that they needed to have plenty of bikes on hand to sell on the spot. They would ensure that someone would be checking on them throughout the day, each day, to be sure he had plenty of bikes ready to sell. They made the family a much better deal to sell the bikes at a lower price and still make more money than before. What made the warehouse people feel good about making the deal was that the company would update their website with the location where each donated bike was sent and do their best to get pictures from those places to put that group’s name on the list.

The family and these women may not have always been how they are now, but they still need help.

Through my implant, I made some arrangements. As expected, a quick search turned up thirty-one condos, apartment buildings, and houses. I had a small house six blocks from the National Mall with three bedrooms and two baths. The place came fully furnished, but the only people that had been in it since I got it last fall were the cleaning staff.

Near Lincoln Park, off Ninth Street and Capitol Avenue, l had a four-thousand square foot, six-bedroom, five-bath townhouse. The previous owners never once set foot in it. Some camera stitching from videos and pictures of the five women’s two-bedroom apartment showed that they didn’t have much other than clothes and personal items that belonged to them. Everything else came with the furnished apartment. They were also two months behind in rent.

The women were going to meet me near the townhouse in a few hours to “update” me on the status of getting my three bikes for the kids.

Damn, I need a fourth for Gabriella and more for Becky’s kids. That will make things easier.

The warehouse people were finishing up lunch when one of the women in their group asked another, “Is that Desi Thompson in his lap?”

“Can’t be. Desi’s a great kid, from what I hear, but special needs. She doesn’t even hug her parents often. I know she dislikes boys and men, in general,” the other woman said.

Reme They were saying that as Desi’s mom walked by.

She stopped and listened before saying, “It is Desi in his lap. Remember my praising that random boy that somehow got her to settle down almost instantly. It was him. She went to hug him and fell asleep in his lap. I’m pretty sure that she stalked him here after seeing him out at the mall earlier. She is so content in his arms that we didn’t want to wake her.”

“He’s still a man, and she’s a fifteen-year-old girl. Aren’t you worried about him molesting her?” one of the men at the table asked.

Desi’s mom replied, “No. If she hadn’t crashed from all the energy drinks, David would be having to keep Desi from trying to rape him. After his calming her down kept us from institutionalizing her, I’m not sure I would care if they had sex. She’s on birth control and doesn’t have a care in the world right now. He may be the only man in the world that she will ever want to have sex with her.”

The CEO for the warehouse people did offer to pick up the tab, but I told him, “Don’t worry about it. I invited you down to join me for lunch.”

They aren’t going to complain about a free lunch.

Desi’s parents finished their lunch only to find that it got comped. They left a good tip before coming over to try to wake Desi.

She came around enough to ask me, “Can I hang out with you today? I have my medicines in my backpack. I even have a change of clothes. You can’t get your daughter’s bike until tomorrow anyway. My mom and dad took the day off to bring me here, and they need to go home to have sex all afternoon because I won’t be there if you let me hang out with you. I can sleepover, too, if you say it is ok.”

Her dad said, “Up to you, David. You can keep her as long as you like. I know I won’t have problems chasing my wife around the house this afternoon. She is only thirty-two, and we want to have more children now that Desi can go to some places independently without problems. Her phone always stays connected to one of four external battery packs in her backpack. She can call us and we can track her location. You are the only person we know we can trust to take good care of her for as long as you can stand to have her around.”

“I planned to go home tomorrow, so you want me to take her with me?” I asked, joking a bit.

Her mom said, “When do you want us to bring her medicines by?”

“I’m not joking, actually,” I replied.

“Neither am I,” Desi’s mom told me. “She’s out of school for the summer, her only friends are shallow, and I would rather her have sex with you non-stop than her spend another summer at home binge-watching five things at once while playing video games. We only let her have all those energy shots because it keeps her from getting fat in the summer. I checked the cameras, and she hasn’t slept in a week, except the few times on the toilet.”