Chapter 476: Dinner With A Friend

She wants to go to Urasawa in Beverly Hills, then that is where we are going.

“I would like to make a reservation for two this evening,” I said to whoever answered the phone at Urasawa. “Could you be so kind as to ask Urasawa-Sama if he could squeeze in David Jones and a guest this evening? I’m sure he won’t have a problem with making room for us.”

“Yeah, sure. I need a laugh,” the woman on the phone said.

A man came to the phone in a few minutes and said, “Jones-San, It would be my pleasure to have you this evening. I shall ensure you and your guest have a table when you arrive.”

“Thank you, Urasawa-Sama,” I told him.

To Trudy, I said, “We need to get a change of clothes. Your favorite color is still sky blue, right?”

We found something to look well dressed for dinner and then headed to where we met our plane. When we arrived at the plane, Trudy had no choice but to be stripped to panties, dressed in an underlayer, and then a sky-blue pressure suit. I put on my pressure suit while she was still trying to figure out what had happened. They helped her get in the rear seat as I connected myself up in the front. We had three hours before our reservation.

Once in the air, we were soon on approach to land on the outskirts of Hollywood. The plane was in stealth mode when we touched down in an area where people wouldn’t see us. I shouldn’t have been surprised to find a Bugatti La Voiture Noire waiting for us.

“I flew. You’re driving,” I said as we got to the car after storing our flight suits and changing into the clothes we bought to wear to dinner. “Driving on a track or open road is nothing. LA and Hollywood’s traffic is said to be a bitch.”

Trudy didn’t seem to mind as she whipped in and out of traffic to get us to Beverly Wilshire to park right out front in the waiting spot. We had thirty minutes until our reservation, so Trudy and I window shopped. She didn’t see anything she was interested in for her, but we did go into Tiffany & Co. Trudy and saw a necklace with a pendant and matching earrings she wanted for her mom’s birthday.

“How may I?” started one of the men there in a condescending tone.

I cut him off and said, “You may not, but that pretty young lady sitting in the back doing her homework can help us.”

He gave me a nasty look, but someone went to the office door and told someone she had a guest. The person who said it was infuriated and bordered on going postal.

Soon, a pretty fourteen-year-old girl came out wearing a pair of shorts and a dress shirt.

“Uh, hello?” she asked when she walked up to us.

“Hi, My name is David, and this is my friend Trudy,” I said, introducing myself.

She smiled, shook our hands, and introduced herself, “Jessie. Do I know you?”

“No, but we have properly introduced ourselves,” I joked. “Trudy has her eyes set on something for her mom’s birthday. We have dinner reservations in twenty minutes, and I’m not in the mood to do snooty. You’re too young to work here, but you know how to get Trudy what she wants, package it up, and let me pay for it.”

“I don’t want to know how you knew I was in back doing homework or that I know more about everything here than everyone except my dad. What are you interested in?” Jessie asked.

Trudy told her, and Jessie got a very odd look on her face.

“You said your name is David, right? It wouldn’t be David Jones, would it,” asked Jessie.

“It is,” I told her.

She said she would be right back.

All the salespeople, and two guards, got immensely interested in Trudy and me when Jessie brought out something from the office.

“This isn’t the same as what you requested, Trudy, but it is a much better option,” Jessie explained. “Per the insurance appraisal, it is worth six point nine million dollars. If we were to sell it, you would look at ten million and change plus sales tax to walk out the door. That is if we could sell it.”

“Why would you show me something you can’t sell us and tell me it is better than the few thousand dollar one I wanted?” Trudy asked, sounding just short of going off on Jessie.

Jessie did take a few steps back, and the guards moved twice that many towards us.

When Jessie recovered, she said, “Because it is part of the David Jones collection. Tiffany and Co. received a large sum of money to store it here. We got it a few years back with a note saying to hold it and some other pieces in the vault should a David Jones come here looking for custom pieces. It is yours to take if he can verify his ID and both of his credit cards clear a one-dollar verification charge.”

I did the dog and pony verification. It was all for show anyway, and Jessie knew it.

“As I already know, you are too young to work here, but if you did, what commission would you make off that necklace?” I asked Jessie.

Now that made her laugh!

“If I could sell something this expensive, I would blow away my sales goals and get five percent. That would be somewhere around five-hundred-thousand before taxes,” Jessie said with a smart-assed smile.

“Math is not my highest skill, but based on filing single, even if you are dependent, nine-hundred-thirty-three-thousand-twenty-five dollars would cover all the taxes for you to have five-hundred-thousand dollars in take-home commission. Can I send something to that printer?” I asked.

When she nodded, I had her put her details into the screen on my phone and then hit print. In the time it took her to package the necklace, pendant, and earrings up, the printer started spitting things out.

“The first three pages are your receipts for the pre-paid income and FICA taxes against the nine-hundred-thirty-three-thousand-twenty-five dollars,” I explained as I handed her dad a copy of the paperwork. “After that, you have the details on your high-yield investment account for the five-hundred-thousand dollars. By the time you turn eighteen, you will not need to worry about attending any college of your choice, living in an apartment near campus, and an economy car just off a two-year lease. Ok, you can afford a new car, but it will likely get dinged up and damaged on campus. Finally, you have the information on the monthly stipend of five hundred dollars until you hit eighteen, then it goes up to a thousand a month until you are twenty-five. It has all the information regarding how to request and justify needed expenses, such as college, school tuition, uniforms, a new laptop, and other reasonable costs. So, you know, this isn’t accessible to your parents or anyone else, other than me, if the need arises. Rest assured, anyone who tries to scam you out of this money will not be happy with the consequences.”

I left her standing there with her mouth hanging open and was about to walk out when I turned around and walked back over.

I took out five hundred dollars, gave it to her, and said, “That is for this month. Getting the debit card for your monthly allowance takes time to set up and get delivered. Thanks for helping us out today, Jessie. It has been a pleasure.”

Trudy went over and let Jessie give her a hug instead of me to keep things from getting weird.

I can smell Jessie’s wet pussy from here, and she isn’t wearing a bra to support her a-cups.

We ensured we had a “receipt” for the jewelry to prevent anyone from the store or cronies from trying to pull something.

The manager noted that we picked up jewelry they had been holding for me. There was no charge, but it proved I picked it up.

While waiting for them to take us to our seats at Urasawa, Trudy asked, “Why in the world did you do that for Jessie? You know she would have fucked you right there in the middle of the store without you doing anything but asking her if she wanted you to pop her cherry.”

“From some information I learned when we walked into the store, Jessie’s dad is one of the guys working in the back repairing expensive watches and broken jewelry. He is also a single father raising Jessie all on his own. They don’t have any family to go to for help, so it is just them. For whatever reason, the private school asked Jessi to go there and gave her a full scholarship. She and her father live a two-hour drive away. Their apartment isn’t in the safest parts of LA for a young girl to go home alone. Jessie’s dad takes her in each morning, and she returns after school to wait for him to get off work. Much of the time, she cleans the display cases, dusts, and cares for the bathroom. She wasn’t being arrogant or bragging when she said she knows more about everything they sell in that store because she does. It pisses off the salespeople,” I told her.

“That doesn’t explain why you did it,” Trudy said.

“True,” I replied. “I did it because I already planned on paying Jessie a cash commission on whatever you bought today to give her a little money of her own. The manager, or her dad, would have to complete the transaction, but they aren’t eligible for sales commissions. No one would care if I gave Jessie a few hundred dollars under the table. I expect we would spend two or three thousand dollars, not get something worth ten-million-dollars retail. When I heard the head salesperson start salivating at the thought of a ten-million-dollar sale, I decided I would turn their crank a bit. Jessie is a wonderful girl with excellent grades but would never be the valedictorian, even if she had the top GPA. She isn’t some star’s daughter. Just by going to that school, she would never get a scholarship anywhere anyway. People would never believe anyone that went to her school lacked the resources to pay for college. The annual tuition is just under twenty-five thousand dollars a year. Harvard is under thirty-thousand a year. Plus, Jessie and her father have been shit on by people all their lives. Now her dad can stop putting over half of each paycheck into a college fund for her. They can get a better apartment. I made sure I paid her estimated income taxes because at least one of the others working there will call the IRS and CA Taxing authority to report her coming into a lot of money.”

Trudy said, “I can see that. Some did seem the petty type.”

“Then I guess it is beneficial for Jessie that her account is at my bank on that little island. The IRS and Treasury departments know better than to try to get the money from that bank, not that they would have any reason to do so. When Jessie gets her money each month, estimated taxes get paid on the interest accrued that month. I could have just put five hundred grand in an account at my bank and had them issue her a debit card. None of the people in that store would have ever known, but what fun is in that?”

“Jones-San,” Mr. Urasawa said, greeting us personally with a bow.

I bowed back and said, “Urasawa-Sama. I’m glad you were able to squeeze us in tonight. You look busy.”

“It is my honor to welcome someone I know who appreciates Japanese cuisine. You could have flown to Japan instead,” he told me in Japanese.

I replied, “I’m not sure Hinata would let me leave this time.”

He leaned in to whisper, “It gave me great pleasure to tell that couple they would have to wait.”

“Who are these children that allow them to jump ahead of us? We have a reservation,” the woman demanded to know loudly.

I went over next to the lady and said, “The Bugatti La Voiture Noire that woke your husband’s dead dick is mine. Someone bought it for me to drive over here from the airport. I haven’t even driven it yet. My friend and I flew in for dinner but are returning home afterward. Someone will take it to sit around for me to revisit California next. I flew here, so my friend did the honors. My name is David.”

“I’m going to pay for their meal, too,” I told Mr. Urasawa’s assistant manager. “Seems the least we could do since we bumped them back to their original reservation time in an hour.”

We hadn’t been seated long when a group guided in a blindfolded girl. Those with her were well-dressed, but her, not so much. Her dress was pretty and looked great on her. It wasn’t Ball-Cart or Red Spot, but it was from one of the mall stores in a lower-middle-class part of town outside of LA.

“You’re cancer has been in remission for five years today. Happy Birthday. We are sorry your grandfather passed before he could bring you here. It was one of the last things he requested before he died,” one of the grey-haired, wrinkled men with her said.

One of the women said, “We miss your grandfather. He was a wonderful man and a skilled leader. Sadly, the board didn’t choose his replacement well. They agreed to pay for your celebratory meal here and that of your parents but changed their minds as we drove you here. I am so sorry. We can’t join you either. It sucks.”

That explains all the empty seats.

I went to Urasawa to quickly explain my plans. He was on board with it.

I took a black credit card from my wallet with Trudy’s name on it. I gave it to her and said, “Go get her something to wear, but you have to hurry. I’ll get her parents.”

They weren’t far.

“Hi, I’m David. My friend just kidnapped your daughter with one of those black credit cards that magically make the biggest assholes around here become angels ready to grant your every wish,” I told them. “They should be back soon. It will probably be the fastest shopping trip for a teenage girl on Rodeo drive. Your daughter may have had a lot of rough years in her life, but she has one of those perfect bodies for off-the-rack shopping. Mr. Urasawa said he would wait for her to return before beginning tonight’s meal. We are going inside to have an appetizer and something to drink while we wait. I need to ask you about your father’s company.”

The mother, Tate, hissed, “Not much left of it after the board got their way when he died. It was mine, and they took it out from under me.”

“That is some of what I want to talk about, but first, the group that brought your daughter in, are they worth a shit?” I asked.

“Yes and no,” Tate said. “They used to be, but that was many years ago. My father had them train their replacements and the kids coming out of college. When he died, the board threatened to file for bankruptcy if any of them retired. That would wipe out their entire retirement. Some have been there since before my father bought the company. When my father died, they put in one of their drones to take his place and told me I had no rights or claims to the company. The only reason my daughter was even brought here for dinner tonight is that the entire board signed a contract that they would resign if it didn’t happen. Lawyers for the company tried to weasel out of it and couldn’t find any loopholes. My company is now worthless, with a group of sixty-five or older employees remaining. Over the last five years, their trainees got fired or quit when they didn’t get any raises and had to pay outrageous prices for below-par medical care. With the company under fifty employees now, they don’t offer benefits anymore.”

“Is the company worth saving, or would you take a buyout offer if one was available? What will happen if all those who remain there were to retire and walk away from their pensions?” I asked.

Her husband said, “Those miserable bastards on the board would start having horrible days for years. Tate’s father picked his workers well when he bought the company. As Tate mentioned, those who brought Laura here for her cancer remission celebration and a sweet sixteen dinner were sharp as tacks when younger. My father-in-law gave each one of them a specific task. Only they knew all the details of their part of the supply and manufacturing processes. Each had to memorize everything because they never wrote any of it down. The board thought they were cute with the contract they got my father-in-law to sign. They are morons. If those who remain decide to retire or quit outright, the company will fail in days. All those on the board had to mortgage themselves to the hilt to buy themselves the contract they wanted. That money is in escrow to settle all debts if the company fails.”

Tate added, “The company isn’t anything special, and plenty of competitors are doing practically the same thing. Dad’s way of doing things added that little bit of extra value to the products that made people buy ours over others. I own forty-nine percent of the company’s stock, but the contract took away my voting rights in exchange for two hundred dollars per share from the escrow account if the company failed or went bankrupt. I have the option to sell back my stock to the business but at only one-hundred-fifty dollars a share. They’ve offered as high as one-eighty per share.”