“But you’ve also lost control of your company,” countered Tusker.
I shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. It all depends on how much money they put up in the first place, and how much of your company you had to give away to get the money. A lot of those big companies, the owner still has the biggest amount of shares, but maybe not even half the shares. He still controls it, though.”
“And you want to do this to a bike repair shop?”
I waved my hands at him. “Hey, I’m just talking about how it’s done. Theoretically, yes, it could be done. Realistically? Nobody’s going to put a motorcycle dealership on the stock market.” They looked a little relieved at that.
I turned to face Marilyn. “Maybe I can figure out a way to become a venture capitalist? I’ve got the money. After we get back from vacation, I think I’ll look into that.”
“Wait, you’re serious about loaning money out, like a bank?” asked Tessa. “You have enough money to do that!?”
I turned towards her. “Yeah, actually, I do, at least at a small level.”
“Whoa!” she commented slowly.
“I’m still the same jackass I was when I came in here, Tessa,” I told her.
“Yeah, but… whoa!”
“You mean, you actually have enough money to loan us to expand?” asked Tusker.
I needed to tread carefully here. “Yes, I do. That doesn’t mean I would be any easier to work with than a bank, though. If I do something like that, it would have to be as a business, not as a friend. That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t be friends, but you have to do that as a business, right?”
“Wow! I just never thought about that!”
“Well, start working on that updated business plan. At that point you can start talking to your bank and see what they have to say. We might all just be sitting here whistling Dixie for all I know. Maybe it won’t be so bad.” I shrugged. I’d have to talk to Jake Eisenstein and his namesake tax lawyer about something like this, in any case.
We started talking about Bucky and his latest adventures, and about our plans for a new house and moving into the townhouse. We also finished off the beers in the fridge. Eventually Bucky got fussy and needed to go to bed (which was set up in a corner of their living room), and we bundled up Charlie. As he saw us to the door, Tusked tapped me on the shoulder and asked, out of hearing of the women, “Were you serious about being able to loan money to businesses?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I could do that. I need to talk to my accounting people but it could happen. Listen, I’m serious, too. If I do that, that part has to be business. I won’t be as much of an asshole about it as a banker would be, but it has to be business, you know?”
Monday Marilyn and I split up. I was sick and tired of her complaining about cars, so I had her follow me over to the local Toyota dealership and turned her loose. Then I kissed my family good-bye and left to meet with Andrea and look for property. Most real estate people don’t want to deal with raw property; since they work on commission they make more money selling a house than just the land it’s sitting on. Still, she had made a commission on the apartment, and I think she had me pegged as a trust fund baby she could squeeze some future work out of. I wasn’t averse to that. If she did a good job, she’d be the first one I’d call in the future.
The requirements I had laid out were relatively simple, and I figured she’d be able to match something up. I wanted about twenty acres, maybe more, in a rural setting, but not ridiculously far from civilization. Maybe an old farm property, but I was flexible. I wanted something near to a main road, and not mountainous, although there really aren’t any mountains in Baltimore County. I just didn’t want to need four wheel drive to go home in the winter, which had been a necessity in New York.
We met behind John’s office again, and I parked my car and switched to hers. Andrea must have been fairly successful since she drove around in a Caddy. Look successful and you’ll be successful, I suppose. We quickly got on the Harrisburg Expressway and headed north. It was about fifteen minutes later that we got off the highway at Mount Carmel Road. “When we talked it didn’t sound to me like you were looking for one of the old horse properties in the Hunt or Oregon Valley areas, and the farm properties in the Cockeysville area are starting to get expensive, as developers snatch them up for new home construction.”
“I’ve heard that was happening.” Actually, I had seen it, before. The entire corridor would become a giant subdivision for increasingly expensive homes. No thank you! “That won’t cut it with my wife. She’s going to want some acreage outside of town, not in a subdivision.”
She nodded. “I understand. There’s still quite a bit of available property in northern Baltimore County, especially if you head over to the west side, near Carroll County.”
“Sounds good to me. Were you saying earlier that some of the old money places in the Hunt Valley and Oregon Valley areas are for sale?” You would see some of these places as you drove along the Expressway. Huge rambling horsey places with corrals and fences and ludicrously expensive thoroughbreds. Old money! Did you know the official state sport of Maryland is jousting? This is where you would go to joust!
Andrea laughed. “Anything is for sale if the price is right, but I think the right price might involve the gross national product of a small country to afford them. Certainly not in the budget you gave me!”
“I’m just looking to build a nice house, not a castle.”
We drove west on Mount Carmel Road about ten or fifteen minutes. Then she turned right and drove a hundred yards up a side road, and then parked. “This is the first place I wanted you to see,” she announced.
“Where are we? Are we still on Mount Carmel Road or is this Lower Beckleysville Road in Carroll County?” I asked.
“We’re still in Baltimore County, just, anyway. It turns into Lower Beckleysville just a bit further on. It’s the Hereford school district. What do you think?”
Well, Andrea earned her commission right then and there. We ended up looking at two more places, one more in Carroll County and one back in Baltimore County, but this was the one. It was a bit over 25 acres on the north side of Mount Carmel Road, with about two thirds being an abandoned farm field and the other third a wooded area that had never been cleared. It was on the side of a hill with a very shallow slope, so that it rose at most about fifty feet from Mount Carmel Road to the northern edge of the property. It would be nothing to grade a flat area in the center to put a house and yard, sited to look down onto the road. We were very close to the Carroll County line, maybe a couple of stone’s throws away, and closer to Hampstead than to Hereford, but Mount Carmel Road/Lower Beckleysville Road is a major road and was maintained well. After looking at the next two sites, we drove back to this one and I walked the property.
I was sure Andrea could count her commission check as she saw me walking the site and planning things. This was the place, and I told her so. I memorized the location, and we went back to Timonium. I would drive Marilyn out here Tuesday.
Well, no we wouldn’t. As I suspected she would, Marilyn found a nice new Toyota at the dealership, a brand new Tercel, just like her old one. I was to go with her tomorrow to buy it. We also had a message from the Lincoln dealership that the Town Car was ready to pick up. The check must have cleared. (That wasn’t the message, we were told the ‘dealer prep’ was finished, but really, everyone knew better.) When I asked Marilyn about the Tercel, she got very excited and told me all about it, and gave me a blow-by-blow description of her day.