The Deal (2 page)

We met one day for lunch at Nello, a chic Madison Avenue Northern Italian haunt that serves up fifty-dollar plates of pasta and serious people watching. By the time I left, I had been offered the position, either because I was a longtime client’s son or because I just showed that much promise. I like to think it was a little of both, but I’ll never know for sure. Either way, it didn’t take long for me to understand what it meant to be in my new universe.

For the first month all I was allowed to do was walk around New York City with a pad and a pen. I wasn’t to speak on the phone or mention anything regarding real estate to any of Tommy’s clients. Both were grounds for dismissal. My job for thirty days was to walk through commercial properties from dawn to dusk and get to know each one as though it was a person, each address simply a name. Since it was pre-9/11, it was a lot easier to freely roam buildings back then. So I was to take notes on everything from the current state of the lobby to the functionality of the elevators, the carpeting in all of the shared hallways, as well as the cleanliness of the shared-floor restrooms. I was to take notes on each particular property’s tenant roster, climate control, security situation, loading dock capacity. I was to get to know everything about each building’s personality, its tendencies and quirks. I wasn’t allowed, for that month, to mention or even think about deals or money. I was to spend every waking second for those thirty days learning about my product. Most important, I was told to be diligent about my notes. Tommy took a copy of them each night to scour.

I made quick work of winning Tommy over. He loved the records I kept. He said they indicated to him that I inherently knew exactly what to be looking for, which made sense since I had grown up around the profession’s complexities and jargon. My father had taught me well. Tommy would test me. He’d give me the building, and I’d tell him everything from the property’s nickname, if it had one, to the year it was built. I would comment on renovations that were happening along with whom the owner was and who handled the leasing. Each night, between my lavish partying and a couple hours of sleep, I would study my notes until I knew each fact cold. Tommy seldom stumped me. I was determined, and he knew it.

Soon I was referred to as a full-fledged member of the team, and I was out drumming up business. Tommy had two younger associates, Jake Donald and Perry York. Each was three years my senior and had been with Tommy since they graduated from college, which if you took into account business school, made them both about five years ahead of me in terms of seniority. The original plan among the three was to never bring anyone else on board. Fortunately for me, their client roster and customers’ demands became too great, and they were left with no choice. I was in the right place at the right time. Depending, that is, on how you look at it.

Jake was raised in northern New Jersey and attended Rutgers University. A bit on the heavy side, he was a whiz at drumming up business. Because of his love for the finer things from top-shelf drugs to courtside seats, passions we both shared, he was the ideal team member for keeping clients happy until all hours of the night. He loved Hugo Boss suits and a manicure, he lived for Sunday football in Central Park with his friends and dinner at The Old Homestead Steakhouse, a meatpacking district staple turning out colossal slabs of beef and lobsters the size of small children. We were very much alike and took to each other as people destined for certain friendship often do.

Perry was raised in the City. She was five foot six with lustrous, long brown hair and fairway green eyes. She had a terrific body, something that surprised me once I learned she had a two-year-old child. A stickler for detail, Perry was the team member who
never left a stone unturned. She loved to get a deal done. She would extrapolate leases until late into the night. She checked and double-checked the work of the attorneys. She liked to play devil’s advocate in discussions and force everyone to see all sides of a deal. She was delicate and smart, deliberate and cunning, with just the right dose of “bitch.” In short she was great for the team. When it came to deal making, she was always prepared. Tommy loved her for this. As for me, I probably would have tried to sleep with her so it was a good thing she was married. From day one I admired Perry, and we, too, became the best of friends. Perhaps it was because we were so different, not just in our lifestyles but in our approach for getting results. Maybe I helped Perry feel young again. At the time she was only twenty-six so I know that seems silly, but she had been married for three years and had a child. A boy named Max. As she put it, she had jumped into adulthood “overnight.”

I was a perfect complement for the group. As I learned a little while after joining them, Tommy had already started to fade into the background of the team’s day-to-day happenings, something, frankly, he had earned. He was successful on a level beyond most forty-three-year-old men. He could afford to play puppet master and have strong, well-armed foot soldiers who worked to further both his name as well as his bank account. He had personally trained Perry and Jake while raising a family and positioning himself politically within the industry and firm. He was owed a time to handpick his clients and close the deals. He taught Perry and Jake everything they knew. They were two of the best in the business. Their work situation seemed enviable but they would both tell you, just as I am, the timing of my arrival couldn’t have been better.

Their own success was beginning to suffocate them. More deals were streaming in than there was time for. They needed new blood. Once they accepted that I was more than competent, and as hungry as they were, we were one happy family. This just made us stronger. We enjoyed the long hours we spent together whether at Il Mulino for dinner with clients, or the Rainbow Room for lunch to discuss strategy, it didn’t matter. We had an expense account larger than most Americans’ salaries. The money was mind-blowing.

My first monster deal came six months into my second year. It was a client I found, a prominent financial institution. Jake and Perry both helped me put the deal together. Two hundred thousand square feet in a mid-town property. The rent averaged $55.00 per square foot over a fifteen-year lease. As far as how a commission works, it’s simple. You take the average yearly rate for the term of the lease, which is usually somewhere between three and fifteen years, and multiply this by a percentage for each year of the lease. For a long-term lease this percentage usually begins around 5
percent for the first couple of years and works its way down—you get the idea. Once the aggregate number has been devised by adding up the fees taken for each year, 40 percent goes to PCBL and our team splits the rest. Anyway, for the aforementioned deal,
taking into account that according to the lease the yearly rent accumulated by 3 percent annually, the average yearly rent was around thirteen million dollars. To be precise, PCBL’s commission was $5,651,479.00 with our team getting a $3,390,088.38 share. Tommy got the largest cut of any deal we made. For this one he and I split 60 percent of our team’s share, since it was my client. Jake and Perry each got 20 percent. One deal and I walked away with a little over 1.1 million dollars. Now granted, not every deal made is of this size, but just like that I was wealthy. Not wealthy because my family was wealthy, but wealthy because I was wealthy. I had more money by far than any of my friends, guys who were doing pretty fucking well. In year two I made almost $2.3 million. I gambled in Monte Carlo for vacation and had a VIP table at any club in
Manhattan. Life was good. My thirst for success was insatiable.

Like I said, I was terribly wealthy. I understand now I was far from rich.

Chapter 4

By 6:20
a.m
. I had settled into my office, a mix of a sophistication and technological advancement. PCBL is not one for being stingy so our headquarters are state of the art. All of the molding, as well as the doors and furniture, are mahogany. There is a lot of glass and the floors are lined with plush, hunter green carpeting. The walls are a light shade of cream and are accented with black-and-white stills of the Manhattan skyline as seen through the lenses of award-winning photographers. Color in the space is primarily supplied through fresh, strategically placed eclectic floral arrangements that are changed out every third day. It is the kind of space that could be confused for a prestigious law firm.

The office is completely wireless, aside from the actual telephone on each desk being plugged into the wall. Everything is heat sensor activated from the light switches to the climate control; rooms actually adjust their temperature based on occupancy. Flat-panel monitors are the norm, and each office is furnished with a desktop as well as a compatible laptop, God forbid someone should be caught without access to the e-world.

“Awesome party, man.”

Jake, always in early like me, had walked into my office. He’d been in D.C. the previous day, and we hadn’t yet recapped. I was sitting at my desk looking at my morning schedule. I looked up.

“You think?”

“Don’t be an idiot. You know it was tremendous.”

He sat down in one of the chairs facing my desk. He started
flipping a quarter in his hand as he spoke to me. Jake always had
a quarter with him. When he was fifteen on some ski trip in Vermont, he got separated from his group or something. I don’t really know the details, but he insists having a quarter to make a phone call saved his life. Anyway, now he always has one with him.

“And I must say kudos on having Carolyn invite Alan Lansing. How the fuck did you know he’d be in town?”

Carolyn is my assistant and she’s second to none. She’s a native New Yorker, a hard worker, and a woman who, as much as she hates to admit it, always wanted more. She’ll tell you she’s content as she goes about her business, but there’s a reason she plays every New York State Lottery under the sun whether it’s daily, weekly, one of those scratch offs, whatever. As for Alan Lansing, he’s the CEO of ARAMAX Pharmaceutical, and a potential client. He splits his time between Los Angeles and New York.

“I have my sources.”

“You fucking devil. Hey, how about that girl who showed up with Brian? I’ve seen her in all these ads lately. What’s her name? Ellen...Eileen...”

“Elena.”

“Eeellleennnnaa,” he repeated, letting the name roll from his tongue slowly. “Definitely Scandinavian or Czech. Is he fucking her?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Why not?”

“You’d have to ask him.”

“How are you so sure?”

“Because after the party she spent the night at my place.”

We both laughed. Jake grabbed his love handles.

“Maybe if I lost some of this weight I could have some sort of a sex life too. I mean face it, I may not have your body, but I definitely have a better personality than you.”

“Let me guess, all the girls want to be your best friend.”

“Fuck you. Hey, let’s talk LANG and SKILES.”

Just like that, as was the case most mornings, we went through each of the deals we were working on together. At 6:45
a.m.
we called down to the deli for coffee and bagels. It was a normal morning. Normal, that is, until 7:10
a.m
. when the phone rang. This was the phone call that would eventually turn my life upside down.

I hit the speaker button.

“Jonah Gray.”

“Jonah, Andreu.”

“Andreu?” I probed further.

“Wow. I guess it has been a long time.”

Then the voice hit me.

“Andreu!” I exclaimed. “Andreu fucking Zhamovsky, you ghost! How the hell are you?”

“I’m well, Jonah. I’m well.”

“What’s it been, two, three years?”

“Something like that.”

Andreu Zhamovsky, son of Alexander and Galina Zhamovsky. Back in the days of Communist Russia, Alexander was a key player in the country’s natural reserves ministry. “Post-enlightenment,” as I like to call it, he was awarded the largest ownership interest in, and control of, Prevkos, which today is one of the world’s most vital natural gas corporations. As I tell you this, Prevkos sits somewhere around number two hundred on the list of the world’s five hundred largest companies. The organization controls over 50 percent of the country’s gas reserves and produces about 90 percent of all Russian gas. The firm’s primary exploration fields are located in the Nadym-Pur-Taz region of western Siberia. It is the largest vertically integrated natural gas company in all of Russia, engaged in everything from geological exploration to natural gas production and transportation. Prevkos is one of the most influential corporations traded on the Russia Trading System, Russia’s equivalent of our big board, the New York Stock Exchange, and, subsidiaries included, it employs over three hundred thousand people. Needless to say, the Zhamovsky family is one loaded clan.

During the 1970s, amid growing talks and realization of one day privatizing business, many potentially well-to-do Russian businessmen were sent all over the world for classified, politically motivated seminars. The simple goal of these seminars was well-defined: to learn what it takes to stand alone in industry without government intervention or direction. One of these secret seminars was held in New York City. My father, considered an expert in Western business practices, was a speaker at that seminar. That’s where my father and the Zhamovskys first met.

My father and the Zhamovskys kept in touch over the years, becoming close friends. Every summer, even after my mother died, they would meet my father and me in the south of France for a vacation. That is how Andreu, only six weeks my junior, and I became friends. We would write letters a couple of times a year, and as we got older we’d phone each other from time to time. When my father and I were traveling in Europe or Asia, Andreu and I would do our best to get together. But as the years went on, we started to lose touch. Not because we wanted to, but because each of us became so focused on the respective directions of our lives. Lives which were literally continents apart.

I never really got all the details, but Alexander Zhamovsky tragically died in 1998. From what I understand he was mugged and murdered late one night in a Russian subway station, a mode of transportation I always found odd for him considering his wealth. Anyway, Andreu has been key in running Prevkos ever since.