Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Insane money for 1975. For my plans, it was a grain of sand that had to be placed very carefully.
I sat in my little room—the same ten square meters with the leaking faucet—and spread papers across the table. Piles of sheets had already been filled, crossed out, and fed to an ancient shredder, but I kept thinking through every step. Again and again. Until my eyes burned and my fingers cramped from writing.
To build something meaningful, you needed structure. Legal, transparent, with the right documents and the right people.
Before buying patents and stocks, before building a business, I needed a foundation. And in 1970s America, a foundation meant lawyers. Good lawyers. And not only lawyers. Competent people in every field.
This wasn't the internet age, where documents were signed electronically and locked forever in databases. Here, everything could be forged: seals, signatures, entire biographies. People knew how to lie well, and the hyenas of big business would happily feast on the bones of a promising newcomer. They'd eat you and not even choke. I'd seen it in my world. Here, everything was even harsher.
So before making a move, I needed to create the momentum for that move.
Hmm.
The thought stuck.
I stood up, stretched until my spine cracked, and dropped to the floor. Started doing push-ups. When the brain stalls, you need to get the blood moving.
One. Two. Three.
I needed information. Reliable information. Creating my own intelligence network right now would be stupid and practically impossible. Too little money, too little time, too few people I could trust. And my experience in that field was exactly jack and shit.
Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.
But there was another way. Find the right specialists. People who already knew how to dig. Use them as the basis for a system. Hire several firms. Give them different assignments. Compare the results.
Twenty-five. Twenty-six.
Cross-checking. Yes. Intelligence work 101: never trust a single source. If three independent agencies give you the same information, it's probably true. If they disagree, dig deeper.
Thirty-two. Thirty-three.
First, find reliable private detectives. Through them, find reliable lawyers. At the same time, seed rumors in the right places. Build a reputation. Not my personal one—the reputation of a company that didn't exist yet. Let the market learn in advance that a new player was coming, and that player was hiring promising people.
Forty. Forty-one.
And hire promising newcomers. Young, hungry, not yet ruined by the system. People the big firms didn't notice, or used as workhorses. Give them a chance, and they'd be loyal like dogs.
Fifty.
Once everything was properly set up—the legal structure, bank accounts, a team of specialists—I could move on to the real plan. I just had to spend the money wisely. The main idea would require a lot of shekels.
Ten more push-ups.
I got up. Wiped my face with a towel. Looked at the mountain of destroyed papers.
Enough planning.
Time to act.
***
The first rule I came up with for myself was simple: never search personally.
A man who walks around the city asking questions gets remembered. People see him, describe him, trace him. A man who hires other people to ask questions is invisible. He is only a voice on the telephone, a name on a check, a shadow behind intermediaries.
Besides, you need to understand clearly where you're useful and where you're a complete zero.
I was a former writer. Not an intelligence officer, not a businessman, not a lawyer. My superpower was knowledge of the future and the ability to arrange words into sentences. Everything else was terra incognita.
And that was fine.
It was much more profitable to find people who had eaten a dog in their field than to pretend to be God knows what and step on the most basic rake imaginable. Overconfidence is a graveyard for amateurs. I'd seen plenty like that in my time: start-up founders who thought they were smarter than lawyers, accountants, and marketers combined. Most of them went broke in the first month.
The problem was finding truly competent people.
Especially when you were nobody. No reputation, no connections, no recommendations. Just money. And in this city, money attracted not only professionals, but every breed of asshole known to man.
Private detectives. Investigators. That was who could become my eyes and ears.
New York had more of them than stray dogs. The Yellow Pages had three columns of tiny print just for the letter A. Hundreds of firms, hundreds of names. The ads promised "complete confidentiality," "professional approach," "twenty years of police experience."
The ads lied.
A lot.
Every second "professional" was a former cop kicked off the force for drinking or taking bribes. Every third was a small-time crook with a license, making a living photographing unfaithful husbands and wives with wandering legs. Every fourth was an informant, leaking information to the mob or the feds.
But somewhere in that swamp, there had to be real specialists. People who knew how to dig quietly and deeply. People who kept their mouths shut not out of fear, but out of professional pride.
Question was: how do you find a needle in a haystack?
Simple.
I'd hire the haystack and make it point to the needle.
I chose Goldstein & Partners almost at random.
Not the first on the list. Too obvious. Not the last. That was where trash usually settled. Middle of the alphabet, middle district, middle price in the ad. Perfect starting point.
The office was on the third floor of a shabby building on Lexington Avenue. The elevator didn't work, so I had to climb the stairs while breathing in the smell of cat piss. On the second-floor landing, some drunk was asleep, curled up by the radiator. I stepped over him and kept going.
A frosted-glass door. Gold letters, peeling at the edges:
GOLDSTEIN & PARTNERSPRIVATE INVESTIGATIONSCONFIDENTIALITY GUARANTEED
As it turned out, there were no partners.
There was a secretary: dyed blonde, around forty, tired eyes, cigarette between her teeth. She looked up from Cosmopolitan and gave me the kind of attention normally reserved for a stain on the wall.
"Do you have an appointment?"
"No."
"Mr. Goldstein is busy."
"I'll wait."
She shrugged and returned to her magazine.
I sat on a sagging couch against the wall and began waiting.
The office was small, smoky, and smelled of disappointment and cheap coffee. On the walls hung yellowed newspaper clippings in frames, a few certificates, and a photograph of a younger Goldstein in police uniform shaking hands with some politician. A long time ago, judging by the wide ties and sideburns.
Forty minutes later, the secretary finally deigned to pick up the internal phone.
"Sam, you've got a client here. Won't leave."
A pause.
She looked at me.
"How should I introduce you?"
"Smith. John Smith."
Not even a twitch of the eyebrow. She was used to names like that.
"Some Smith… Yeah, been waiting almost an hour… Fine."
She hung up.
"Mr. Goldstein will see you. Second door on the left."
Goldstein himself turned out to be an elderly Jewish man of about sixty, with sad eyes and a nose that had clearly been broken more than once. Large, heavy, balding, with thick gray eyebrows. On the desk in front of him lay a mess of papers, an ashtray full of cigarette butts, and a silver-framed photo of a woman with two children.
He pointed to the chair across from him.
"Sit down, Mr. Smith."
I sat.
"Coffee?"
"No, thank you."
"Smart. Coffee here is complete shit."
He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach.
"So. What can I do for you?"
I decided not to circle around the subject.
"I need information. On detective agencies."
A pause.
He looked at me with fresh interest. His gaze sharpened, became more attentive.
"I'm sorry?"
"You heard me correctly. I need to know who in this city is actually good at your profession."
"You want to hire a detective," he said slowly, as if tasting the words, "to investigate other detectives?"
"Exactly."
He snorted, reached for a cigarette, lit it, and blew smoke toward the ceiling.
"Curious. Very curious, Mr. Smith. Thirty years in this business, and that's the first time I've heard such a request."
"There's a first time for everything."
"That there is." He took another drag. "May I ask why?"
"I'll have a lot of work. Different kinds. Delicate. I need to know who to give it to. Who works clean. Who keeps his mouth shut. Who specializes in what."
"And why not simply hire one agency? Mine, for example?"
I allowed myself a faint smile.
"Mr. Goldstein, you are first on my list. But not the only one. I intend to give the same assignment to several other offices. Compare the results. See who digs up what, and who keeps quiet about whom."
He stared at me for several seconds.
Then he burst out laughing. Loud, genuine, from the belly.
"Ha! Intelligence basics!" He shook his head. "Are you paranoid, Mr. Smith?"
"I'm a cautious man."
"Cautious men usually don't stick their noses into the business of detective agencies. That can be… dangerous."
"Is that a threat, Mr. Goldstein?"
"God forbid." He raised both hands. "Friendly advice. Some of my colleagues, let's say, dislike having people poke around their affairs. Especially the ones with something to hide."
"That's exactly why I need your report."
"To know who to avoid?"
"To know who I can work with, and who I should walk ten miles around."
He stubbed out his cigarette and studied me for a long moment.
"Mr. Smith, I like you. I don't know who you are or what you do, and frankly, I don't want to know. But you think like a professional. Rare thing among clients."
"How much?"
"Depends on the scope."
He pulled a notebook from his desk drawer and clicked a pen.
"How many agencies are you interested in?"
"Twenty."
He whistled.
"Twenty is serious. That's not flipping through the Yellow Pages and gathering rumors. That's digging deep. Reputation, methods, connections, weak points, financial state, who works for whom…"
"That is exactly what I need."
"A week's work. Maybe a week and a half."
He scribbled something in the notebook.
"Twelve hundred."
"One thousand. And one week."
He smiled.
"You bargain?"
"Always."
"Good habit."
A pause.
"Eleven hundred. Half up front."
I took out my wallet, counted five hundred and fifty dollars, and placed the bills on the desk.
"Deal. How do I get the report?"
"In person. Here. In a week. Let's say Thursday, same time."
"And if you aren't here?"
"Mr. Smith," he said with a smile, "I'm always here. You see, I don't have another life."
I stood.
"One more question."
"Yes?"
"Will you include yourself in the report?"
He froze with the cigarette halfway to his mouth.
Then he laughed.
"You don't miss, do you, Mr. Smith?" He shook his head. "No. I won't include myself. But you can ask the others about me. I'm sure they'll tell you many interesting things."
"That's what I'm counting on."
Goldstein was random, yes. A trial run. My first contact with the industry. But the other four I picked from his report, which I received a week later.
Brennan, because Goldstein wrote about him with poorly hidden envy.
Marco, because he mentioned him in passing, almost as if he didn't want to draw attention.
Stern, because she was the only woman Goldstein spoke of with respect.
Whitmore, because Goldstein openly despised him, which meant the man worked in a completely different segment of the market.
I visited each of them under a new name.
Johnson. Brown. Williams. Davis.
American classics.
Brennan Investigations had a strict office on Fifth Avenue and a staff full of former military intelligence men. The owner was a lean Irishman with military posture and an ice-cold stare. He asked a lot of questions before agreeing. Named a price one and a half times higher than Goldstein's.
I didn't haggle.
Marco & Sons was a family business in Little Italy. Three generations of detectives, connections in the police, but, as they emphasized very carefully, not in the mafia. On principle. The elder Marco, a seventy-year-old patriarch with gray mustaches, accepted the job silently. Just nodded and named the price.
Rebecca Stern was the only woman on my list. A former investigative journalist who'd gone into private work after a corruption exposé at City Hall turned into a scandal. Her office on the West Side was tiny and buried under papers and newspaper clippings. She listened to me, squinting.
"Why do you need this, Mr. Davis?"
"Business."
"What kind of business needs dossiers on twenty detective agencies?"
"My business."
She looked at me for a long time. Then nodded.
"Two weeks. Thirteen hundred. And I don't work for criminals, so if you're planning anything illegal…"
"Nothing illegal. Only information."
"Information is power, Mr. Davis. I hope you understand what you're doing."
I nodded and left.
Only outside did I allow myself a mental smirk.
So much pathos.
Information is power. Deep, meaningful, with a light touch of threat. Coming from a woman who made her living digging through other people's dirty laundry for money.
Detectives were strange people. They rummaged through secrets, traded in other people's private lives, peeked through windows, and still somehow acted like they were something special.
Information is power.
No shit.
And here I thought the sky was blue.
But seriously, information was just a commodity. One that the same dear Rebecca sold for thirteen hundred dollars a report.
Though maybe that was professional deformation. When every day you saw the underside of human nature—affairs, lies, betrayals—you eventually started feeling special. Like the one person who knew the truth while everyone else lived in illusions.
Fine.
Let them amuse themselves.
I needed their work, not their philosophy.
The fifth was Charles Whitmore & Associates, a respectable Midtown firm that mostly served corporate clients. Whitmore himself, a polished gentleman in a three-piece suit, looked down on me at first. But when I placed the cash advance on his desk, his attitude warmed very quickly.
Money flowed away like water.
Five firms, five advances. Almost three thousand dollars. And that was only the beginning.
But I couldn't rush. Every dollar spent now on reconnaissance could save thousands later.
Or save a life.
***
While the detectives dug into one another, all I could do was wait.
I hate waiting.
It's like an itch under the skin you can't scratch.
Especially since I'd taken leave from work. If I hadn't, I could at least have listened to Hanson's accusatory speeches. Lately, by the way, he had started calling me in much more often. Apparently, he enjoyed watching me agree with every complaint. Nod, apologize, promise to improve, and never argue. Not a word against him. Total surrender.
For him, it seemed to be a drug.
He even gave me a bonus.
Twenty dollars.
For "exemplary attitude toward criticism."
I laughed out loud when I saw the wording.
To avoid going insane, I switched my attention to the team.
Sarge and his boys weren't sitting idle either. Every day meant training. Ranges, shooting galleries, abandoned warehouses. It ate a lot of money, but I didn't complain. I watched them work and understood that every cent was justified.
Sarge ran them without mercy. Coordination in pairs, threes, full unit. Room clearing. Evacuation under fire. Covering retreat. They moved more and more smoothly, understanding each other without words, the way only people who'd gone through hell together could.
"Not bad," I told Sarge after another training session. "Very not bad."
He only snorted.
"Not bad is when nobody gets wounded. We're not even up to decent yet."
"When will it be good?"
"When we can pull you out of any shit alive. Right now, that's not guaranteed."
Honesty.
I valued that.
But I was afraid to imagine what kind of shit he had in mind if their current skills weren't enough.
***
Two weeks later, I had the list.
Twenty agencies, sorted into neat categories: strengths, weaknesses, prices, reputation, who was connected to whom, who could be trusted, and who needed to be avoided like the plague.
I spent three days comparing and cross-checking the results.
Goldstein wrote one thing about Brennan. Brennan wrote something completely different about Goldstein. Rebecca Stern tore Marco & Sons to pieces, and they hinted in return that she had a drinking problem. Whitmore spoke with contempt about everyone except himself.
But when I laid the reports over one another, the truth began to show through.
If three independent sources said the same thing, it was a fact. If two contradicted the third, it meant I had to dig deeper.
Out of the five firms I'd used for verification, only three fully justified my trust. Whitmore was useless. His report was superficial, full of snobbery, and almost empty of specifics. Apparently, he was used to working with corporations that paid for pretty folders, not information. Money thrown away.
Goldstein was honest, but limited. A decent detective, nothing more. He earned his fee, and for that, thanks.
But Brennan, Stern, and Marco, each in their own way, delivered gold.
By the end of the third day, I had the full picture. Twenty agencies, laid out in front of me: strengths, weaknesses, rates, reputation, skeletons in closets. Who was connected to whom, who owed favors, who ratted to whom.
Three of the twenty were former federal agents with close ties to the FBI. Not even former, really. More like "retired." They took private jobs, but leaked information to old colleagues. Any client for them was a potential subject of investigation.
Dangerous.
Trash pile.
Four worked for the mafia. Directly or through intermediaries. One turned out to be a pocket firm for the Genovese family; that matched in all three reports. The Cohen brothers laundered money through fake investigations. Two more were simple informants, selling information to whoever paid more.
Even more dangerous.
Don't go near them.
Six were simply incompetent. They stayed afloat by following unfaithful spouses and doing minor corporate snooping. No resources, no brains, no principles. Useful only as distractions: give them a false job to muddy the waters.
Reserve option. Last resort.
That left seven.
The ones worth serious consideration.
Goldstein made the list mostly as an advance payment of trust. An old cynic who had seen too much and lost faith in everything except money. Former homicide detective. Left private policing after refusing to look the other way on corruption in his precinct. Honest, yes. Reliable, yes. But his ceiling was low. Good for routine work: find a person, verify an address, collect a basic dossier. Nothing more complex.
Patrick Brennan, former military intelligence, had served in Korea and Vietnam. His firm specialized in corporate espionage and counterintelligence. Eight people on staff, all with military or police backgrounds. Expensive—three times more than the others—but clean. His report was a work of art: structured, detailed, with appendices and cross-references. A man who wrote reports like that wouldn't half-ass the job.
Marco & Sons was a family clan. Three generations of detectives. They knew every alley, every bartender, every bum under every bridge. They didn't work for the mafia on principle. Old feud. Their report was handwritten, with coffee stains in the margins. But the information inside deserved close attention. You couldn't find that kind of thing in documents. You only got it on the street, from the right people.
Rebecca Stern was a loner and a paranoid. Former journalist. Left the Times after her investigation was buried. Her report came in two copies: one typed and official, the other handwritten, marked burn after reading. Perfect for finding people and working with documents.
The remaining three from the seven were narrow specialists: a forensic expert, a former Secret Service agent, and a retired prosecutor who consulted on the side.
I looked at my notes and understood one thing.
The money hadn't been wasted.
Not all five verification firms had proved useful, but that was also information. Now I knew who could be trusted with complex tasks, who could handle simple ones, and who should be used only as decoys.
The next two weeks, I was constantly on the move.
Sarge hired two guys from the ones we had rejected during the first recruitment round. Not fighters. Too nervous, too talkative. But for courier work, they were perfect.
They went to agencies, introduced themselves as assistants to a businessman, paid advances, handed out assignments.
Each agency got its own.
Brennan Investigations received the job of finding information on New York law firms. Specialization: corporate law, holding structures, patents. Reputation, rates, connections.
Marco & Sons got a different assignment. Real estate. Office buildings in Manhattan. Who owned them, who managed them, where there were tenant problems, where good terms could be negotiated.
Rebecca Stern received the most delicate task.
Finding people.
I made a list of fifteen positions. Lawyers, economists, managers, bankers. Not stars. Stars were too expensive for me, and I didn't need them anyway. Stars were spoiled, temperamental, used to a certain level.
I needed different people.
The ones who had been pushed out of big firms. The ones who had fought with management. The ones who turned out to be too smart or too honest for corporate games. Professionals who were now unemployed or surviving on odd jobs, grinding their teeth at the whole world.
Or ordinary newcomers nobody cared about yet.
Why did I need them now? Why these people exactly?
It would seem more logical to develop technology faster, look for engineers, scientists, inventors. Grab patents while they were cheap. Not collect offended economists and disgraced lawyers.
Simple.
Because I was a realist.
My knowledge of the future was good, of course. I knew what would change the world. I knew which technologies would explode. But between knowing something and making money from it, there was a chasm.
I couldn't write contracts. I didn't understand tax law. I didn't know how to structure a deal so I didn't get skinned alive. Calculating profits and costs, finding the best markets and clients, squeezing the maximum out of a technology—all of that required skills I did not have.
I needed people who knew how to do it.
And who would work for me, not for themselves.
Loyal professionals.
Where do you get them?
I couldn't overpay; I'd run out of money. Intimidation wasn't my method, and I didn't have the resources anyway. That left one option: find people to whom I could give something they wanted more than money.
A second chance.
A chance to prove they were worth something.
Revenge.
And for that, I needed to know what each of them wanted.
I spoke with Stern over the phone.
"Find them?" she asked. Her voice was smoky and tired. "Just find them?"
"Find them. Gather information. Addresses, place of work, finances, family, debts."
"Standard package. What else?"
"Dreams."
A pause.
"What?"
"What they want. Not what they say they want, but what they actually want. One wants to get back into the big game. Another wants revenge on his old boss. A third wants to win back his girl. I need to know which button to press."
She was silent for a moment.
Then:
"You won't get that from documents."
"I know. That's why I'm paying you, not Goldstein."
She snorted.
"Three thousand. Half up front."
"Deal."
***
Brennan's report arrived ten days later.
Forty pages of dense text. Fifteen firms. Partners, associates, big cases, failures, rates, rumors.
I read all night. Made notes. Reread.
The big firms were eliminated immediately. Too expensive, too many questions. They worked with corporations whose names everyone knew. They didn't need a new client with unclear money and no reputation.
Small offices were the opposite. Too few resources, too few connections, too few competent specialists.
I needed the golden middle. A firm big enough to solve complex problems, and hungry enough not to ask unnecessary questions.
Hoffman, Reynolds & Co.
Founded in sixty-two. Twelve partners, thirty associates. Corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, patent disputes. Clients: mid-sized businesses, a few start-ups, a couple of family trusts. And they were going through hard times. Lost two major clients last year. One senior partner left for a competitor and took his team with him. The office had moved from Park Avenue to Madison.
Hungry.
Ambitious.
They wouldn't look down too hard.
The next stages of the plan required me to appear in person. Which meant I needed to look presentable.
I drove around to a dozen tailors before finding what I needed: a dark gray suit, almost black, three pieces—jacket, vest, trousers. Wide lapels, slightly broadened shoulders, loose trousers down to the heel, creases pressed to perfection. A dark burgundy shirt with a long, sharp collar. A black wide tie with the faintest sheen. Heavy shoes with thick soles, matte leather. A black briefcase with silver clasps. Solid. Weighty.
Almost a thousand bucks.
But the quality wasn't the crap they mass-produced in my time. This was handmade work, real wool, seams that would outlive their owner. Though… hopefully not outlive him.
The haircut required attention too. A barber on Lexington, an old American with shaking hands and a perfect eye, turned my mouse nest into something acceptable. Hair combed back, temples trimmed short, a little pomade for shine.
After that, the mirror reflected a man the big uncles could talk to. Maybe not as an equal. Not always. But they wouldn't brush him off like a beggar anymore. At least they would listen.
The office of Hoffman, Reynolds & Co. occupied half a floor in a building that had seen better days. The marble in the lobby had dulled, the elevator creaked, but the office itself was arranged with luxury and no visible sign of decline. Pretty secretary, people hurrying somewhere, coffee that was actually decent.
The firm was on a diet, but still keeping its face.
Martin Hoffman, senior partner, received me in his office. Oak panels, framed Harvard and Yale diplomas, a view of the street. Everything in its proper place. The man himself looked about sixty: gray temples, soft almost fatherly handshake, friendly face, warm smile. Only the eyes spoiled the impression. Sly, sharp, counting every cent before you even opened your mouth.
My intuition screamed: relax, let things run on their own, and he'll skin you alive.
Well, I suppose that was the essence of lawyers.
"Mr. Miller." He gestured to the chair opposite him. "A pleasure to meet you. How can I help?"
"The pleasure is mine, Mr. Hoffman. I've heard a great deal about your excellent legal skills. But I think we can skip the pleasantries and get to the point. I want to create a company."
"Young men are always in a hurry these days. What kind of company?"
"A holding structure. For managing investments and intellectual property."
He tilted his head slightly. His gaze turned thoughtful.
"Interesting. Tell me more."
For the next hour, I talked. About plans to buy patents, without saying which ones. About wanting to invest in technology, without naming anything. About the need to protect assets from outside risks. It all came out too vague, but I suppose there was no easy way to explain what I needed.
Hoffman listened. Nodded. Made notes with a gold Parker pen. And asked questions that made me feel like a student at an exam after spending the whole night before it on games or a girl. Or, in the best-case scenario, games with a girl, but definitely not studying.
"Do you plan direct ownership or through a trust?"
I thought for a second.
"Direct."
He raised an eyebrow in surprise.
"Are you sure? A trust provides confidentiality. Your name would not appear in public registries."
"That's exactly why I want direct ownership."
A pause.
He looked at me, waiting for an explanation.
"Mr. Hoffman, I want everyone to know who owns the company. My name, my address, my face. Public and transparent."
"That is… unusual. Most clients seek the opposite."
"Most clients are hiding from the IRS or former wives." I allowed myself a faint smile. "I have different logic. Publicity is protection. The more transparent the company is, and the more visible the man running it, the fewer problems there will be in the future. Any attack, any enemy, becomes too obvious."
I had thought about this decision for a long time. Weighed risks, calculated options. In the end, I understood that this was the safest path. If all my enemies knew information that could be found with a snap of the fingers, it would be easier for me to plan against surprises. When you're visible, any attempt to harm you automatically becomes noticeable.
True, there was a very real chance of ruining everything right at the start. If big players noticed me now, while I was still weak…
But if that happened, nothing would probably save me anyway. Not transparency. Not conspiracy.
We played with what we had.
"That sounds strange to old ears, but there is certainly logic in it. If something happens to you, everyone will know who benefits. It's hard to remove a man when his name is in plain sight."
He leaned back in his chair and studied me for a long time with new interest.
"Do you have reason to fear for your safety, Mr. Miller?"
"Not yet. But I plan to play big. And in big games, there are always people who don't like where you stand."
He drummed his fingers on the desk.
"You know, in thirty years of practice, I've heard many reasons to avoid publicity. But you are the first person who wants to use it as life insurance."
"Then I'm original."
"That you are."
He made a note in the pad.
"Very well. Direct ownership. What next? Do you plan to bring in partners?"
"Possibly. In the future."
"Then build the mechanism now. Different classes of shares: voting and non-voting. You keep control, partners receive dividends. Changing it later will be expensive and unpleasant."
I hadn't even thought of that.
Damn.
"Yes. Include that."
"Jurisdiction?"
"Excuse me?"
"Where to register the parent company. Delaware offers flexible law, a private director registry, fast courts. Nevada has no corporate tax, but its reputation is… specific. New York is convenient for work, but taxes are higher and bureaucracy heavier."
"Delaware," I said, remembering that in my time almost every major corporation registered there.
"A reasonable choice."
Another note.
"Directors and officers insurance?"
"What is that?"
"If the company is sued, the personal assets of leadership are protected. At the start, you can manage without it. But once turnover grows, it becomes mandatory."
"For now, without it."
"Protection against hostile takeover?"
I blinked.
"Is that relevant for a company starting from zero?"
He allowed himself a faint smile.
"Not now. But if you truly plan to grow, it is better to lay the mechanisms in advance. Staggered board of directors, limits on concentration of shares, similar restrictions."
My head was spinning. I had come in with a simple idea: register a company. And here were layers, structures, mechanisms I had barely even heard of. Thinking how many holes I would have left if I'd tried to do this myself made a cold wave run through me.
I looked into those clever eyes for a couple of seconds and decided to be honest.
"Mr. Hoffman," I said. "I'm not a lawyer. Tell me directly what I need for the structure to be reliable. I don't care how much it costs. I want everything so perfect that no one can nitpick a damn thing. I want lawyers to have an orgasm from looking at my papers, and anyone who thinks of suing me to experience existential horror."
He looked at me with something close to approval.
Then he thought hard. Drummed his fingers on the table. Calculated something in his head. Finally, he nodded, as if he had reached a decision.
"You know, Mr. Miller," he said slowly, "in thirty years of practice, I have heard many requests. But yours…" He allowed himself the smallest smile. "Yours I like. Very well. Listen carefully."
For the next twenty minutes, he drew a structure on a sheet of paper.
A parent company in Delaware. The umbrella. Under it, subsidiaries: patents, investments, manufacturing, research, real estate. Clear separation between them.
"If one gets dragged into a lawsuit, the others remain protected. Separate legal entities, separate accounts, separate reporting."
"Logical."
"You own the parent company directly. Your name is in the registry. Just as you wanted: everything transparent."
He finished the diagram and turned the sheet toward me.
"Questions?"
"Taxes?"
"There are optimization methods. Offshore elements, transfer pricing…"
"No."
He stopped.
"Excuse me?"
"No schemes. I want to pay everything. Down to the last cent."
A long pause.
He looked at me like a man who had just watched someone refuse a free meal.
"Mr. Miller… you understand that legal optimization is not tax evasion? It is the taxpayer's legal right."
"I understand. And I refuse."
"Why?"
"Because 'legal optimization' today becomes a 'tax scandal' tomorrow. Laws change. Interpretations change. Journalists love stories like that. I don't want to wake up one day and see a headline: Aegis Avoids Taxes Through Offshore Structures."
I let that sit for a moment.
"Besides, the tax authorities of this country will be much more willing to support a company like that when the time comes. A lot of questions become easier. A lot of our requests carry more weight. That's already worth something."
"Aegis?" Hoffman rolled the word around thoughtfully. "Aegis… something like protection?"
"Yes, exactly. Our technologies will protect people. From what, doesn't matter. Cold, heat, boredom."
He tasted the word again.
"Solid. So full transparency? No offshore structures, no schemes?"
"Exactly. Let any audit come in—IRS, journalists, federal agents—and cry because there's nothing to find."
He was silent for a while. Then slowly nodded.
"You know, Mr. Miller… That is more expensive in taxes. But easier to manage. And, yes, you are right, safer for a long game."
A pause.
"In thirty years of practice, I've only heard of one client who did something similar."
"Who?"
"Rockefeller Jr. In fifty-two."
Not bad company. I'd say it was someone worth measuring yourself against.
"But here, Mr. Miller, we reach a rather delicate point. This is precisely why I initially suggested a trust." Hoffman folded his hands on the desk. His gaze became harder. "For a clean company, you need solid explanations for the origin of funds. Allow me to be blunt. You are a young man who comes in without recommendations. You talk about serious matters. But you do not name the source of your money…"
A pause.
"In such circumstances, it is difficult to speak about legality."
I had been waiting for this.
From the beginning, I'd understood where this would lead. True, because of my decision to step into the light this way, there would probably be blood. A lot of blood. But I would have some time. Those who wanted to find Lucky would get some useful hooks now, but first they had to understand where to look.
And that meant time.
My time.
"Betting."
Silence.
"Betting?"
"Sports. Legal."
I took a folder from my briefcase.
"Bookmaker receipts, bank statements, tax declarations. Every dollar documented."
I was glad for my own paranoia. Without paper, you were shit. So I had collected everything with manic persistence. Every receipt, every statement, every stamp. So that instead of being shit, I could at least become a bug.
He went through the papers slowly. Frowned. Lifted his eyes.
"An impressive streak."
"Luck."
"Several times in a row?"
"I understand statistics. But luck doesn't last forever. That's why I want to invest the money into something real."
He closed the folder.
"Mr. Miller, at first I thought you were one of those people who arrive with suitcases of cash and vague explanations. But these documents change a great deal."
A pause.
He tapped the folder with his fingers.
"This inspires confidence. I'll be honest, I expected we would have to play this in the dark. But with a foundation like this, your requests become entirely realistic."
He fell into thought again. Looked at the folder, then at me. Calculating. Weighing.
"I told you. Transparency in everything."
"Very well."
He straightened in his chair. Decision made.
"What exactly do you want?"
"The structure you described. Parent company, six subsidiaries with room for expansion. A thought-out legal system for defense and, if necessary, attack. And most likely, bank accounts in different banks. For diversification, not concealment. Properly connected to the company, of course."
"Entirely doable."
He rubbed his ring thoughtfully.
"But it will require a great deal of our time and yours. It will also require significant money. Not only for our lawyers, but for government institutions, which, naturally, will not issue the necessary permits out of kindness."
"And one last thing. I need a person from your firm on a permanent basis. My matters only. Full confidentiality. And, of course, reasonable assistance from a specialist as experienced as you when necessary."
"That will require a retainer."
"How much?"
"Five thousand a month. Plus hourly fees for major projects."
If I hadn't spent all this time learning to keep a straight face, I'm afraid I would have started swearing.
And I would have sworn very dirty.
Sixty thousand a year. Expensive. Damn expensive. But this conversation had shown me I didn't know far too much. How many holes would I have left if I had tried to do this myself?
"Four and a half, and I agree."
He smiled.
"Deal."
Bitch.
I'd undersold myself. He would have taken four if I'd negotiated properly.
"Who would you prefer from our people?"
"Your choice. But young. Hungry. Someone who will want to grow with the client."
"Alan Burke. Third year with the firm. Smart, quick to grasp things."
"Excellent."
He stood and offered his hand.
"Welcome to Hoffman, Reynolds & Co., Mr. Miller."
I shook his hand, not yet suspecting what circles of hell the lawyers would drag me through over the next few weeks.
The next few days turned into a marathon of meetings, phone calls, and paperwork. We hadn't even started preparing the registration documents yet. We were only discussing the foundation of the future company.
And even that hurt.
Alan Burke turned out to be a skinny twenty-seven-year-old with a nervous tic; the corner of his mouth twitched whenever he thought. He spoke fast and wrote even faster. In the first two hours, he buried me under questions I had no answers to: reporting format, audit frequency, board structure, dividend policy.
"Mr. Miller, you need to decide on…"
"Mr. Miller, what about…"
"Mr. Miller, don't forget…"
By the end of the first week, I understood one thing: creating a company was like building a house where every nail required a separate permit, notarized, approved by three agencies, and filed in the correct folder.
But some parts actually pleased me.
Hoffman spent two days building a system that protected me from the worst nightmare of any sole owner: having to share control.
"You said you want to bring people in," he explained, moving a pencil across the diagram. "But you don't want to lose control. Correct?"
"Correct."
"Then listen. We issue two classes of shares. Class A: voting shares, with decision-making rights. They belong only to you. They cannot be sold, cannot be pledged as collateral, and can only be inherited by direct descendants. Class B: non-voting shares, with dividend rights only."
"So I can give someone a share of the profits, but not a voice in management?"
"Exactly. He receives, say, five percent of net profit. Good money, if the company grows. But you make the decisions. Where to invest, whom to hire, what to buy—all of that remains yours."
"And if the person leaves?"
Hoffman smiled, the smile of a man who had saved the best card for last.
"This is the interesting part. Class B shares are issued with a buyback condition. If an employee resigns, violates the contract, or dies without heirs, the company is obligated to buy back his shares at nominal value plus accrued dividends."
"So he can't sell his stake to someone outside?"
"He cannot. The company has the right of first refusal. In practice, that means you. If he wants to leave, fine. But he takes his share with him in money, not in stock."
I looked at the diagram.
Beautiful.
Elegant, even.
People received motivation. Real money tied to the company's success. But control stayed with me. And if someone decided to jump ship or, worse, run to a competitor, he left with a severance package, not a piece of my empire.
"Is this legal?"
"Absolutely. It's called vesting with a buyback provision. Many family companies use similar mechanisms. The Rockefellers, the Du Ponts, the Fords. They all have something like it."
Then we settled on the initial subsidiaries.
Aegis Patents, for intellectual property. Patents, licenses, copyrights. Everything that could be invented, designed, or bought from the person who invented it.
Aegis Ventures, for investments. Stakes in companies, stocks, bonds. Anything that produced money without requiring my daily involvement.
Aegis Properties, for real estate. Empty for now, but it would be needed soon. Offices, warehouses, maybe employee housing. Land was the only asset that didn't truly depreciate.
Aegis Manufacturing, for production. Equipment and technology for creating finished products would sit there. A good link with Patents and Properties: premises, patents, production.
Aegis Labs, the research arm. Refinement, drawings, proper schematics. The place where the smart people would work and calculate everything.
And the last one: Aegis Security.
Six subsidiaries, each a separate legal entity. If Patents got hit with a lawsuit over some patent dispute, Ventures and Properties would remain untouched. Classic move, but it worked.
Later, I would add more. But launching these six would eat almost all my finances: hiring specialists, renting premises, buying equipment, licenses. And if my idea with the first patents didn't fire, the whole company could be declared bankrupt right away.
Sink or swim.
My hands often trembled when I thought about it. But I had crawled too far into this particular ass to back out now.
As for Aegis Security, that one had started as a spontaneous thought. I needed my own people for protection. That was all.
But when I began calculating what could be done through such a structure, I couldn't deny myself.
A security company was a legal way to purchase weapons and equipment. A license gave the right to buy things ordinary citizens couldn't easily access. Body armor, communications equipment, specialized gear. Officially. Documented. No questions.
And then it got more interesting.
Over time, such a structure could be reformatted. Training of high-level personnel. Contracts for protecting critical facilities. Work in hot zones, if necessary. From security guards to full-fledged military contractors was one step.
A long, tedious step, but a possible one.
For now, it was too much. Too early, too loud. But the foundation was worth laying.
For the future.
Although launching that thing was very, very painful.
"A security agency?" Hoffman raised an eyebrow. "Why do you need your own?"
We were sitting in his office. Outside the windows, it was getting dark; the conversation had dragged on. Cold coffee stood on the desk, our third cups of the day.
"I need people," I explained. "Reliable people. To guard the office, accompany shipments, provide security at meetings."
"Hire a contractor. Pinkerton, Burns. Established companies."
"Other people. Other reporting. Other connections." I shook my head. "Today they work for me. Tomorrow a competitor offers more, and they tell him everything they saw in my office."
He was silent for a moment, thinking.
"You want to keep security inside the structure."
"Exactly."
"That is… complicated." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Licensing, insurance, inspections. In this country, private security is a strictly regulated business. A great deal of paperwork."
"I know."
"It is expensive. License, personnel training, liability insurance. Fifteen thousand just to launch. Plus annual renewals, inspections, department reporting."
"I have the money."
He leaned back in his chair and studied me for a long time, trying to understand.
"Mr. Miller, allow me to ask directly." Hoffman folded his hands on the desk. "Is someone threatening you? Or is something happening that I do not see or understand?"
I shook my head.
"Not yet."
"Then explain it to an old lawyer." He tapped the folder with my documents. "You are not thinking like a businessman. You are making decisions that will create serious losses for a newcomer. Full tax transparency means losing millions in the long term. Your own security means enormous costs at the start. A complex corporate structure of six companies, when most people begin with one."
He held the pause.
"I may be just a lawyer, but I see what you are doing. You are creating a foundation almost no company has at the start. I'm not arguing. It is excellent. Reliable. Thorough."
His gaze hardened.
"But it can collapse easily if your first brick fails. Your first product. Your first deal. One failure, and this beautiful structure falls under its own weight. Because maintaining it is expensive."
I listened in silence.
He was right.
Completely right.
"So why these complications?" Hoffman continued. "Why not wait until the company is stronger? Start simpler. Cheaper. When the money comes in, then build something global."
I was silent for a moment, choosing my words.
Tell him I knew in advance which technologies would work? That wasn't even true. I could still screw up spectacularly because of this goddamn Marvel world. Maybe just tell him I was a psychopath. That was probably closer to the truth.
"Mr. Hoffman," I finally said, "I plan to grow. Fast. Very fast. And fast growth attracts attention. Competitors, envious people, random predators. Sooner or later, someone will decide it is easier to take what I built than build their own."
I let that sit.
"And I want to be ready before it happens. Not after. When you're being hit, it's too late to learn how to fight."
Hoffman nodded slowly, but the question was still there in his eyes.
"As for my business model," I continued. "Why I'm so sure the company will take off… forgive me, but that is a corporate secret. I will only say one thing: I have several ideas that I'm confident will bring good money. Very good money."
"I understand."
He didn't push. An experienced lawyer knows when to stop.
"Very well. Let's return to Security."
He picked up his pen again and made a note.
"So you want your people to be yours. Not from an agency that will sell information to a competitor tomorrow for the right price. Not temporary employees who don't care about your business. Your own people. With contracts, salaries, loyalty."
"Exactly. People who understand that their well-being depends on mine."
He nodded slowly.
"All right. It's troublesome, but possible. Aegis Security as a subsidiary of Aegis Enterprises. New York State license for security services. I'll give you the contact of an attorney who specializes in these matters."
He pulled out a card holder and selected one.
"Sam Wilson. Former police officer, now a lawyer. Knows every detail of licensing security structures."
"How long?"
"Two or three months. Background check for the director, mandatory. Clean record, no criminal convictions, not even minor ones. Exams for guards. A mountain of paperwork for the licensing department."
"The director is Jacob Cole. Former Marine. Three tours in Vietnam. Perfect service record. Honorably discharged."
Hoffman made a note.
"A Marine is good. Very good. He should pass without trouble. As long as he has no debts or psychiatric diagnoses, they'll approve him."
"How much total?"
He calculated on a sheet of paper, writing the figures in neat handwriting.
"State license, three thousand. Liability insurance, five a year minimum. Legal support for the process, another two. Training and certification of personnel depends on quantity; count three hundred per person. Weapons permits, if you plan armed security, are a separate matter. More expensive and slower. Total launch cost: fifteen to twenty thousand. Not counting salaries."
Expensive.
Damn expensive.
But having my own people was priceless.
"We do it."
If you think the other companies were easier, you're wrong.
Manufacturing required registration with the Department of Labor, safety reporting, coordination with the fire department. Labs required research licenses if we planned to work with chemicals or biomaterials. And so on, and so forth.
Each company meant a separate packet of documents as thick as a finger.
Alan Burke made a twelve-page checklist. I read it in the evening, lying on the couch in my apartment, and felt my brain slowly melting.
Articles of incorporation. Bylaws. Minutes of the founders' meeting. One founder—me—but the minutes were still required. Tax registration, federal and state. Bank accounts, separate for each company. Seals: order them, register them, insure them. Insurance: general liability, professional liability, property, directors and officers. Licenses, depending on activity. Permits from local authorities. Approvals from…
The list went on.
And on.
And on.
The following weeks turned into a blurred smear of meetings, lines, and notary offices.
The notary on Lexington Avenue, a fat bastard with a cigar and a habit of making people wait, certified every signature for five dollars. Twenty signatures per document, seven companies, a pile of additional papers. I counted in my head while he slowly stamped everything, and I wanted to bite his nose off.
But I restrained myself.
Saved that fantasy for later, when I had the strength.
The company registration department in Albany worked like a clock.
A completely broken clock.
You sent in a packet of documents and waited two weeks. The answer came back: one signature missing on page seventeen. You added it, sent the packet again, waited another two weeks. A new answer came back: now a seal was missing on page twenty-three.
"That's normal," Alan reassured me when I came to him again with murder in my eyes. "Bureaucracy. Everyone goes through it."
"How much longer?"
"Three weeks. Maybe four."
I cursed.
Out loud.
Alan didn't even blink. He was used to it.
Banks were a separate circle of hell.
To open a corporate account, you needed incorporation documents, which weren't ready yet; a tax number, issued only after registration; a recommendation from another bank, which I didn't have; and personal appearance, mandatory.
I visited five banks before I found a manager willing to work with a "developing structure."
Mrs. Collins from First National was a woman around fifty with a poodle haircut and a stare that could freeze you to the floor. She flipped through my papers for twenty minutes. Asked questions. Checked the bookmaker receipts twice.
"Young man," she finally said, "I will open these accounts for you. But if even one check bounces due to insufficient funds, I will personally make sure you are blacklisted by every respectable bank in New York."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good. Sign here. And here. And here."
I signed.
My hand went numb by page ten.
By the end of the second month, I had a stack of folders knee-high, seven corporate accounts, fourteen seals—two per company, primary and spare—and a nervous tic in my left eye.
But the companies were registered.
All seven of them.
I sat in my little room, the same ten square meters with the leaking faucet, and looked at the papers spread across the table.
Certificate of incorporation for Aegis Enterprises. Bylaws. Bank statements. Contract with Hoffman, Reynolds & Co.
The structure was clean.
Transparent.
Absolutely legal.
Any inspection would find not a single stain. Everything documented, everything explainable, everything by the book. Money from betting? Here were the receipts. Registration? Here were the documents. Ownership structure? Here was the scheme approved by lawyers with Harvard diplomas.
Clean as it got.
I leaned back in my chair and allowed myself to smile.
Two months of hell. Endless lines, stupid clerks, that bastard notary with his fucking cigar who made people wait half an hour simply because he was screwing his secretary. Sleepless nights over documents. Calls to departments where you and your lawyer were told to go fuck yourselves for sport.
But I made it through.
And what I felt now was incomparable pleasure. Euphoria rolled over me in waves. I wanted to do something completely idiotic, like hire a man to shit under the notary's door. Or order a cake with the words THE REGISTRATION DEPARTMENT IS FULL OF SODOMITES, because in this time that still counted as an insult.
But I restrained myself.
Instead, I stood, took out the cezve and a jar of freshly ground coffee. Real Arabic coffee, bought from a shop on Mulberry Street. I poured in a generous spoonful, added water, and set it on the stove.
The cezve hissed. The smell spread through the room, thick, with a slight bitterness. I poured the coffee into a cup, sat back at the table, and raised it while looking at the documents laid out before me.
"To the first step," I said aloud to the empty room.
The coffee was hot, strong, and damn delicious.
The report from Marco & Sons arrived right on time, the final touch after the documentation was complete. A thick folder, handwritten from cover to cover. Old Anthony did not recognize typewriters as a legitimate invention.
Manhattan real estate. Office buildings. Who owned them, who managed them, where there were problems with tenants, where good terms could be negotiated.
Most options were eliminated immediately.
Too expensive. Owners too closely tied to the mafia. Building too run-down. Manager too talkative.
But one option fit my requirements perfectly.
A building on West Forty-Seventh. Former garment factory, converted into offices. Owner: a factory owner's widow living in Florida, not interested in the business. Manager: her nephew, young and greedy. Tenant problems: half the space vacant, the rest occupied by small offices that were always late with rent.
Perfect.
I called Alan Burke.
"Building on West Forty-Seventh. Can you find out more?"
He called back the next day.
"The owner is ready to lease the entire third floor. Long-term lease, five years with renewal option. Four hundred square meters, separate entrance, permission for remodeling."
"How much?"
"Three thousand a month. But I negotiated. Twenty-seven hundred if we pay six months up front."
Sixteen thousand a year.
Tolerable.
"Neighbors?"
"Fabric importer on the second floor, accounting office on the fourth. Quiet. Busy with their own affairs."
"We take it."
The move took a week.
Though "move" was a loud word. There was almost nothing to move: stacks of documents and a couple boxes of personal belongings.
We bought the furniture secondhand at the liquidation sale of a bankrupt law firm. Alan found the notice in a newspaper and bargained the price down almost by half. Stained oak desks, leather chairs, filing cabinets with heavy handles. Excellent quality, the kind you couldn't buy new for reasonable money. Saved almost two thousand.
The renovation was cosmetic. Walls painted neutral gray, wiring replaced, new locks installed. A small front office for a secretary. My office in the far corner, with a window facing the courtyard, away from the street noise. A conference room in the middle. The rest remained open space for future employees.
Sarge personally checked every window, every door, every corner.
"Fire escape into the courtyard," he reported, running a finger over the floor plan. "Back exit through the basement, leads into the alley. Roof access is open. You can leave through the neighboring building."
"You think we'll need it?"
"Better to have it and not need it than the other way around."
I nodded.
Correct words.
When the sign went up, I almost shed a tear, but somehow held it together.
A brass plate at the entrance to the third floor, polished to a shine. On it, the emblem: a shield with raised edges and the word AEGIS in large letters. Beneath the shield, in smaller type: Enterprises Inc.
Simple.
Strict.
Solid.
Sarge and I stood in the hallway, looking at the plaque. He was silent, but I saw the way he looked at it. The look of a man who liked what he was seeing.
"What do you think?" I asked.
He was quiet for a moment.
Then he nodded.
"I think, sir, that I am very proud to have witnessed this."
A pause.
"And to be part of it."
I smiled.
"We haven't done anything yet, Sarge. We just hung a sign."
"The sign is the beginning, sir." He straightened as if on a parade ground. "And the beginning is the most important part. Because without it, there is no continuation."