The Money Makers

by Harry Bingham

  Zack was satisfied. Today was the day. He was dis­ appointed that Gillingham hadn’t cut his own throat. Many addicts only need a single touch of the ancient poison for all their addictive passion to come flooding unstoppably back. Not so with Gillingham. Zack had eagerly watched the developing contest, and came to have increasing respect for the older man. Gillingham was not only the most brilliant mind he had come across in Weinstein Lukes, he was a tough and persistent fighter too. It was a shame he had to go.

  Zack left the loo and rode the lift upstairs. He bit into his croissant and walked to his desk. His route took him past Gillingham’s office, and Zack walked in.

  ‘Morning.’

  ‘Morning, Zack,’ said Gillingham waving a tax book.

  ‘I had a great idea at my AA meeting last night. Great place to think. Want to hear it?’

  ‘Sure. Here’s your juice.’

  ‘OK. Our Hong Kong tax scam is great but restrictive, right? It only really works for property companies and that sort of thing. To make real money out of the idea, we need something that every Tom, Dick and Harry can get his hands on. Preferably something where we don’t need to spend ages tailoring the deal to the client, where we just have a standard product that we flog over the counter. With me?’

  ‘Uh-huh. You’re describing the Holy Grail, right? What every tax scammer in the world dreams of at night?’

  ‘You got it.’ Hal grinned. He liked working with Zack. Zack didn’t have the originality to make it really big-time in the world of tax, the way he had. But the young man was brilliant with detail, quick on the uptake and very hard-working. He was a nice guy too. What a team! He swigged his orange juice. He felt zestful this morning and the juice slid down like nectar. Lovely stuff. He finished the bottle and continued talking. ‘And to sell this miracle product, we don’t want to create a whole sales team just for the job, we want to use a sales team which the bank already has. Right? And what could be better than our derivatives sales team?’

  Derivatives sound flash, but they’re not too complex. If you think, say, that the Hong Kong dollar is going to rise against the yen, you could do one of two things. You could buy some Hong Kong dollars and watch them rise. Or you could make a bet that the Hong Kong dollar will rise. If you’re right, you might double your money. If you’re wrong, you lose your money. Compared with buying Hong Kong dollars, you’re taking a bigger risk, but the rewards are bigger too. It sounds scary, but it’s a scary world. Everybody does it. The bank which looks after your savings does it.

  ‘You want to use our derivatives sales force to sell a tax dodge?’ Zack wasn’t questioning Hal’s wisdom. He was almost breathless with admiration.

  ‘You got it. And what’s the dodge, you ask? Simple. It’s our old friend the Hong Kong property tax scam, but with an extra twist to make it work for the whole range of derivatives.’

  Hal talked on. It was complex, technical stuff, which even Zack was hard-pressed to follow. But he got there in the end and he was astounded. Gillingham was right. This was the Holy Grail indeed. And the real glory of it was that, on initial inspection, the idea looked like it would work right across East Asia. Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, maybe even further afield too. What a concept!

  They talked some more, until Gillingham started to fret. He should be feeling great, but he felt terrible. Addiction bit him harder than it had gnawed any time these last few difficult months. He felt ill. He felt drunk, for heaven’s sake. What was wrong with him?

  ‘Want me to get you some more juice?’ asked Zack. ‘Hey, that’d be grand. You’re a pal.’

  Gillingham looked gratefully after Zack, as his poisoner went to get more poison.

  5

  Mr Evans, proprietor of Brynmawr Furnishings, looked dubious.

  ‘If you ask me, the Aspertons deserve their reputation for quality. They’ve never let me down and I haven’t seen anything to make me change my mind.’

  ‘That’s the point, isn’t it?’ said George. ‘You don’t see anything. But ask yourself this. Why are the prices as little as half of what you would expect? Eh? The Aspertons have never been cut-price merchants before now, have they?’

  True. But it’s a straight copy of your stuff . Can’t tell it apart.’

  ‘Oh, there’s a difference alright. I’ll show you. You have to admire the way they’ve done it. If we wanted to get into that end of the market ourselves, we could learn a lot from them.’

  George escorted the reluctant Mr Evans to the revamped Gissings showroom.

  ‘We’ll see about that. To be perfectly frank, after I’d seen the Aspertons’ prices I almost placed my order then and there. It was only because you acted decently over the peeling varnish fiasco that I - hello! Am I seeing double?’

  George laughed at his visitor’s reaction. ‘Eye-catching, isn’t it?’

  It was like seeing double. An aisle ran down the centre of the former museum, ending at the foot of a broad velvet curtain. The Bright and Beautiful range was displayed on the left, the Asperton Brilliants on the right. For every Gissings item, the matching Asperton twin stood in the same place opposite. The effect was remarkable, but it only emphasised that the two ranges were virtually indistinguishable. Indistinguishable, except for one thing. The Asperton range was half the price of the other.

  ‘Eye-catching, I’ll say,’ said Evans. ‘I normally only see that kind of thing after a few too many pints.’

  ‘Their stuff certainly looks like ours. That’s the point.

  They want the cachet we’ve built up, which we consider a compliment. But if you look closely at their products, you find everything is second-rate. See here, look at this paintwork.’

  George took a cigarette lighter from his pocket, held it close to the brightly painted surface of an Asperton office desk, and lit the flame. After eight seconds the paint began to bubble and crack.

  ‘Now that just won’t happen with ours. Look at this.’

  George held the lighter up against the identical Gissings product, and counted slowly to fifteen. He switched the lighter off. They’d done a hundred tests. On ninety-seven of those, the Gissings paint had lasted more than fifteen seconds. In none of them had the paint lasted more than twenty-five.

  ‘They’ve used cheap paint which only just squeaks through the safety rules. And you can bet that it’ll be chipping off before the year’s out. That’s why we always pay the extra for quality. But let me give you another example.’

  George went to an Asperton cupboard and unscrewed the screws from the hinge. The screws were five eighths of an inch long. He repeated the experiment with a Gissings cupboard. The screws were a full inch long.

  ‘The difference may look trivial, but believe me, the difference is between hinges which last a few months and ones that last for ever. We’ve never even thought about cutting the length of the screw to save money, but their range is all about cutting comers. Or look at their hinge compared to ours. Ours is strong. You’d never be able to distort it.’ George twisted it around in his thick fingers to make the point, then picked up the lighter Asperton hinge for contrast. ‘This tinny little thing will buckle the first time you put any weight on it. Fine for the showroom, terrible for life.’

  George moved further along. He stopped at an Asperton chair, whose back legs had split from the seat.

  ‘I’d ask you, to guess what’s wrong with this chair, except I’ve already given the game away. How come the legs split off? Answer: I made the mistake of leaning back when I sat down.’

  This was true, although he omitted to mention that he had had Darren on his lap at the time, and Darren had had Dave on his lap, and all three of them had been bouncing up and down and laughing.

  ‘Why did it break? I’ll tell you. They haven’t jointed the join properly, so all you need to do is tip back, and if you’re any weight at all’ - George patted his stomach - ‘you’ll end up on the floor. Compare that with our construction . ..’ and George began to talk his guest through the
elements of good chair design.

  George continued his patter. Evans was absorbed. In reality, the Asperton products were a bit worse than the Gissings stuff, but the difference wasn’t huge. The way George told it though, the Asperton Brilliants were just waiting to fall apart.

  ‘What I don’t understand is why the Aspertons would do this,’ said Evans after a while. ‘They’ve got a good name in the market. Why would they ruin it by selling rubbish?’

  ‘Ha! The million dollar question. Let me ask you this:

  have you heard the rumour about the Aspertons floating on the stockmarket?’

  The rumour had been circulating for as long as anyone could remember, but Aspertons was still a hundred percent family-owned firm.

  ‘That old chestnut. Sure I’ve heard it.’

  ‘Well, ask yourself this. If you were getting ready to go to the stockmarket, not today perhaps, but in a year or so, what would you do?’

  Evans looked blank.

  ‘I’ll tell you what you’d do. You’d bump up your profits as high as you could first. Then when you come to sell your shares, you get a great price, because people only bother to read your last set of accounts. And when profits hit the wall the year after, you don’t give a damn, because you’ve sold out and it’s some other poor sod who’ll pay the price.’

  Evans nodded sagely, looking as though he’d seen right through the Aspertons all along. George reeled him in further.

  ‘The Aspertons have built up a reputation for quality over the last twenty years or more. Now they’re cashing it in, to sell a range of nice-looking but trashy furniture. People wonder about the price, but think the stuff must be OK because of where it comes from. So sales go up. Profits go up. The Aspertons sell out. A year later, a load of dissatisfied customers are taking their business elsewhere or trying to get their money back. Profits are up the spout, and the company’s reputation will take years to recover. But Mike and Eileen Asperton are in the Bahamas enjoying their well-earned rest, and they couldn’t give a damn. Like I say, you’ve got to admire them.

  ‘What I don’t like so much is what they do to our business in the meantime. Or,’ added George as a seeming afterthought, ‘more to the point what they do to your business. If you start selling shoddy furniture to your customers, you’re going to get the blame, no matter where the fault really lies.’

  Evans was persuaded. It was time for the grand finale.

  ‘Now, if you’re interested in ordering more of our Bright and Beautiful range, we’d be happy to help you with whatever you want. We’ll give priority to your order, so don’t worry about delivery times.’ This was an easy promise to make. Gissings was still running well under capacity. ‘But since you’re here, let me show you something really special.’

  George walked to the curtain at the end of the showroom and pulled a cord. The curtains drew back and there, shimmering beneath halogen spotlights, stood a suite of superb designer furniture, glowing in a dozen lustrous colours. Panelling enlivened every empty surface, and every detail was picked out with a dab of vivid colour. Venetian reds were burnished with details of palest terracotta. Dutch blues were picked out in highlights of primrose yellow. Compared with the cheap and cheerful furniture they had just examined, this was a whole new dimension of quality.

  ‘Welcome to Gissings Select,’ said George.

  The appearance of sophistication was, in fact, some­ what justified. George and Sally Dummett had spent two long days going through a huge stack of interior design magazines. They looked at every feature and every advert. They were looking for something to copy as ruthlessly as the Aspertons had copied their own range. Every possible target they assessed according to a strict set of criteria, but all their criteria boiled down to three things. Could they build it fast? Could they build it cheap? Would it sell?

  Eventually, they found what they were looking for. A famous New York designer had brought out a range of furniture in a palette of gorgeous but subtle colours. The basic furniture shells were remarkably close to the existing Gissings ranges. A few extra details were needed, of course: some fancy handles, a few bits of panelling. But it hadn’t taken much. Most of the work had been put into getting the colours just right, but Sally Dummett was in her element, and she’d done a great job.

  And that was it. The Gissings Select range was born. As George had promised, they slapped twenty percent on to the price, then thought better of it and added twenty-five.

  Next, George turned to the showroom. He had it repainted, recarpeted and relit. Marketing literature was developed and printed. And finally, when everything was ready, the expanded sales team was permitted to call their clients to break the news of Gissings Select.

  The overt purpose of the calls was to promote the new range of furniture. But as soon as the conversation loosened up, another theme became evident. Have you heard what the Aspertons are up to? Selling shoddy goods to make way for a stockmarket flotation. Tut, tut, tut. Oh, no. Don’t worry about Gissings. Our sales are on the increase, if anything. No, it’s the buyers we’re worried about. Poor souls, buying cheap rubbish from the Aspertons in good faith, then looking bad when it falls apart. No way for them to behave, is it?

  Soon the rumours about the Aspertons overtook anything that had been said by Gissings. Andrew Walters was told in confidence by a client that the Aspertons had already set their flotation date. Somebody else swore they’d seen a team of merchant bankers leaving the company. Yet another person said he’d heard that the Aspertons were facing an unprecedented level of returns on their Brilliants range. And the Gissings people just listened and agreed and passed the stories on to their next caller.

  Mr Evans was only the latest in a long line of clients who had walked with George around the showroom and watched disapprovingly as he revealed every flaw in the Asperton products. And at the end of every tour, the velvet curtain was drawn back to reveal the Gissings Select range, glowing and beautiful. George pointed out the highlights, but it was a soft sell. The furniture made the sale.

  Like many before him, Mr Evans didn’t leave before giving George a good-sized order for the Bright and Beautiful range and an even larger order for the Gissings Select. Gissings made a seven percent profit margin or thereabouts on the Bright and Beautiful. On the Gissings Select, the margin was closer to fifteen.

  George walked Mr Evans back to his car for the long journey back to Wales. Mr Evans was still clucking with disapproval of the Aspertons, as George nodded in agreement. It was another triumph for Gissings and another step back from the brink of disaster. But George wasn’t happy. He was miserable.

  To his surprise, he didn’t miss Kiki. He thought of her often, but with fondness rather than love. He hoped she was happy and hoped to hear from her again.

  No. There were two reasons for his misery. The first and biggest was Val. She was still surly with him and he found himself missing his time with her more than he had ever missed anything or anyone. In George’s playboy years, he had pursued pleasure in the places that pleasure was meant to be found. He had moved from ski slope to yacht marina, using his father’s money as his passport, doggedly conforming to the standards of his class. Then, when he had been living with Val, all that had dropped away. They had worked hard and enjoyed it. They had relaxed together and really relaxed. They had made love-unflashy, unpretentious, unathletic love - and it had satisfied them both. She wasn’t beautiful, but neither was George and anyway, he liked the way she looked.

  Val was George’s soulmate, and in his infatuation with the otherworldly Kiki, George had been too slow to see it. He had tried talking to Val, but got nowhere and soon stopped trying. She carried out her secretarial duties punctiliously, but refused to speak to him except on matters of business, and no longer acted as the company’s brain and memory, as she had done before. The second reason for George’s misery was simple. Most people at Gissings thought he had saved the com­pany a second time and were ecstatic. But George wasn’t conned. The firm had a breath
ing space, no more. It was still head over heels in debt, and it still had a big rich competitor who wanted it dead. The Aspertons had failed with their first attempt. If they tried again, they would probably succeed. And what that would mean was almost too awful to spell out.

  No Val. No Kiki. No Gissings. No money. No job. Nothing.

  6

  Zack closed Mazowiecki’s door behind him. This was an American bank and her door was never closed, but Zack closed it.

  ‘Amy-Lou. Can I have a word?’

  ‘Sure. What’s up?’

  Zack sighed and ran his hands right back through his untidy black hair. He frowned with what was meant to be concern, but looked like a scowl.

  ‘Amy, I hate having to say this, but maybe you can advise me what to do. I think Hal Gillingham is drunk.’

  ‘Drunk? On alcohol? Oh Zack, I hope not.’

  Zack didn’t know it, and it wasn’t widely known inside the bank, but Amy-Lou Mazowiecki and Hal Gillingham had had an affair with each other long years ago, before his divorce, before his addiction had overwhelmed him. They still had tenderness for each other, indeed Amy-Lou loved him still. But time had changed that love into something more like the love of a mother. She felt protective and fond.

  ‘Christ, I hope I’m wrong. I haven’t seen him drink or anything like that. But you know, he hasn’t really been on form for ages, and this isn’t the first time I’ve wondered.’