Lenny pressed on. The brochure showed the latest fashions in caskets: metal caskets in pink and blue with matching satin lining, walnut caskets lined in white satin, and even some Greek sarcophagus-looking numbers. They all had model names, like cars: Peaceful Rest, Solitude, Heavenly Gates.
“Is there one called Hand Basket?” I asked.
“Hand Basket?”
“As in ‘Go to hell in a hand basket’?”
He didn't even blink.
“Look at this. Look at this.”
He took out two pens and began writing—upside down so I could read what he wrote—dollar numbers next to each casket. It's a trick used by presenters to keep your attention while they write. So far Lenny had shown me his mastery of the Inevitable Growth Curve, and now the magic Upside-Down Writing Trick. Somewhere in his pitch, if I could wait long enough, Lenny would surely reduce the entire world to a four-cell matrix.
Granted, Lenny struggled a little in writing the upside-down numbers, switching back and forth between red and black pens. He wrote two shaky but legible numbers by each casket.
“The red number is the price typically charged by the funeral home,” he said finally. Those numbers ranged anywhere from just under $1,000 to several thousand dollars.
“The black number is the cost to the funeral home.” Those numbers were all in the hundreds of dollars, some in the low hundreds.
“The margins these guys get are unconscionable. Markups of thirteen, fourteen times cost. They get away with it because nobody feels like shopping around. Everybody thinks funerals have to cost thousands and thousands of dollars. But they don't.”
If no one felt like shopping around, I wondered what that meant for his business.
“What margins are you taking?” I asked.
“Good margins, but not rip-offs like many funeral homes. That's the opportunity. We can beat the funeral home prices and still make a tidy profit.”
“So this is a price-cutter's business. You're competing on price.”
He reached out again and flipped back a few pages.
“Price, convenience, and information. It's the Information Age, and information is what sells on the Internet. We give you the information you need about the product in the quiet of your home. We'll do the price comparison shopping for you in every major city, eventually every city and town. Federal regulations require funeral homes to quote prices over the phone. You don't have to go in person. So we can call them all up and compare what they charge.”
He paused. “Sometimes they try to refuse, make it tough, imply you really have to drop by. Those are the sneaky ones I love to get. I used to blast them on the phone, ream ‘em. Now I play along, let them refuse. Then I write the FTC and send a copy of the letter to the home. Afterwards, I call up and blast them, only now they got me and the FTC together, kind of a one-two punch, you know?”
Nice business practice. Obviously, something about the funeral industry had gotten under Lenny's skin.
“Pretty compelling, right?” he asked.
One of the regulars at the next table smiled as he rose to leave, carefully folding the business section of The Merc and cradling it under his arm. “Very compelling, kid, can I invest?” He winked at me as he walked into the sunshine, offering what was probably the only bite Lenny had gotten on the fundraising trail.
“How do you know people want to make these decisions on the Internet?” I asked.
Lenny beamed. Here comes the Internet pitch, I realized just a second too late. He gathered himself and once again reached over and flipped several pages in the “Presentation to Randy Komisar” binder.
“The Internet changes everything. Why drive to the bookstore to buy a book when you can order it from your couch and receive it FedEx the next day? Why buy airline tickets from your local travel agency when you can take control of your schedule and pricing on-line and accept your e-ticket at the gate? Why buy milk from the local market when you can check off a box on your screen and have it delivered by noon?”
Lenny's rendition of the future made me feel like a prisoner in my own home. “Do you have a graph of Internet profits?” I asked.
Lenny glared at me.
It was a joke. Few Internet companies are willing to discuss profits, let alone produce them. No one knows what a piece of the Internet is really worth, or which economic models will ultimately produce profits, but everyone's betting their patch is rich bottom land, and they're willing to place their bets before anyone has shown they can grow much of anything on it. The market will eventually sort it all out, but the land grab is on.
“You don't get it, do you?” Lenny said. “Let me explain.”
With that he launched into yet another rehearsed speech. Obviously he had developed micro pitch modules, and now I was getting the one on the current economics of the Internet, or the lack of them, and why the really smart companies were building brand and staking out territory, at the expense of profits. He said he'd never invest in a company that expected to make a profit in the near future on the Internet. Soon as they make a profit, they've fallen behind. It's growth or profits, etc., etc., etc. I wondered whether there could ever be enough day traders to keep these leaky boats afloat.
While Lenny blasted on, I imagined myself standing outside the Konditorei, looking in through the picture window to see the Pitchman wind up for another inning and wondering how the other guy, me, managed to sit so still as the ball came toward him. My secret was counting my breaths —in, out, in, out—as I planned my escape.
His idea was intriguing in some ways, but it was mostly just another plan for flogging merchandise on the Internet, and esoteric merchandise at that. It wasn't his intensity that irritated me. I expect that in people who found companies. They have to be a little irrational, passionate beyond analysis. If they don't believe in the face of doubt, they'll never make it. But Lenny was operating on automatic pilot set all the way to frantic. I'd have to tell Frank that Lenny and I talked but we never really connected. Frank would have to come to his own conclusions.
A cell phone rang. It wasn't mine—I don't own one. Lenny paused midsentence. For future reference, here was one way to interrupt his relentless pitch. It rang again. He opened his briefcase on the table, snatched out his phone, and snapped it open. “Lenny here,” he said, as he strode out the door without a word to me.
Rudeness is as good an excuse as any for an exit. I pulled my jacket off the back of my chair with one last look at Lenny's open briefcase. It revealed a stack of files, an assortment of pens, a family picture stuck on with a paper clip, an economy-size bottle of Pepto-Bismol, and some kind of homemade sandwich—tuna salad?—oozing around the edge of the plastic wrapper. Well, I thought, somebody loves him enough to make a sandwich. Or, maybe he's brown-bagging to save money.
I told Connie I would be back later. She promised to hold my regular table. We both watched Lenny as he sat at one of the tables just outside the open door. Still oblivious to the possibility that someone might overhear, he argued and pleaded into the phone. “Wait! You didn't accept, did you? You said … six months. No, one more month … we made a commitment.”
“Sounds like trouble,” Connie said to me.
“Sounds like someone is bailing out,” I said.
“No, no, it's too important,” Lenny yelped. “Remember what we said after my dad's funeral.”
“Aha!” Connie said. “Someone did die. I knew it!”
“No, not a hundred,” Lenny argued. “Komisar's only number twenty-six.”
“Well,” Connie said. “twenty-six? You've moved up. You deserve a better table.”
“No, he loves it,” Lenny said. “I can see … he's in … Frank … fund it.”
“I get it,” Connie said. “You're rushing home to get your checkbook, right?”
Now I rolled my eyes.
“Listen … one more month. Just a month … please. Please. Give me …” He was still talking, but, to my surprise, his voice had downshifted, so we couldn't hear him, even as we both strained toward the door. He slumped, wordless, as though the wind had been knocked out of him.