Obvious in hindsight, p.6
Obvious in Hindsight, page 6
“What if the opposition were eliminated? Or at least far less vocal?” Nick asks.
Jenkins leans back, then shrugs. “If you can deliver everyone or get them to just shut up, it’s a different story. Maybe this works. Maybe. But if Steve doesn’t either sign on, or at least stop complaining about this? There’s nothing we can do. It lives or dies with him.”
The meeting over, Jenkins excuses himself. They wait until he exits the cafeteria. Nick unwisely downs the rest of his coffee—the last sip always produces the most reflux—but he’s in a fog from the time difference and needs the caffeine.
Nick asks, “What are the chances of getting DeFrancesco on board?”
Jimmy thinks for a moment. “You could offer to build a solid gold statue of him in front of the Hollywood Bowl. He’ll still say no, but he might be polite about it.”
Nick sighs. He knew this was coming, but that doesn’t mean he has to feel good about it.
***
Nick knows better than to rent a car in Los Angeles (unless that car can fly), but he can’t resist the image of driving down Santa Monica Boulevard in a convertible, sunglasses on, top down, surf music blaring.
His phone rings. Lucien. His fourteen-year-old son. Who almost never calls. At best, Nick gets a text reply once every few days, plus the occasional two-minute conversation when they’re together every other weekend. Which is still more contact than he has with his nineteen-year-old libertarian daughter.
Nick hits the green button as fast as he possibly can. “Hi!”
“Hey, Dad.”
“How’s it going? How was school? What’d you have for lunch?”
“Fine, fine, tangerines.”
“Just tangerines?”
“You know how bad the food is. That’s why I asked you and Mom to get me a note from Dr. Kaufman saying I can bring in my own lunch.” Nick was fine with the lunch workaround, even proud of his kid for finding the loophole, but his ex-wife was adamant they hold the line.
“Don’t they have, like, sandwiches? Or a salad bar?” For sixty thousand a year, they’d better.
“It’s all disgusting.”
“What classes did you have today?” Nick asks, realizing the cafeteria conversation isn’t going to get any better. “Is that Arabic teacher still giving you a hard time about your handwriting?”
“Always. It’s so annoying. When will I ever need to write Arabic by hand?”
“Or anything by hand.”
“Exactly!! You get it. So can you do something about it? You know, fix it. Like you do for everyone else?”
Nick’s ex hadn’t forbidden him from solving the Arabic problem—and Nick certainly wasn’t going to ask for permission. But as he’s about to lay out what they can do about it, another call comes through. Nick’s instinct is to send it to voicemail. Keep talking to his son. But it’s Susan. And if he doesn’t answer, she’ll call back again and again until he does.
Nick sighs. “Hey, buddy? I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to take this call. Can I call you back later?” Nick knows his call will go to voicemail and never be returned.
Nick doesn’t wait for a reply as he punches the end-and-accept icon.
“Hey, Susan. I’m on my way to your place right now. Should be there in like fifteen minutes.” Nick glances down at the GPS on his phone. “Maybe more like forty-five.”
“I need you right now. I have the board on the other line. I’ll connect you.”
“Wait, what? The whole board?” Nick has dealt with presidents, heads of state, mob bosses, union leaders, academics, reporters, gadflies, and everything in between. He’s met the Pope and the Dalai Lama. But as someone who didn’t grow up around money and spent the first half of his career making government and political campaign salaries, talking to a room full of billionaires still produces anxiety. Especially when he can’t see their faces.
“Okay. Nick, you’ve got everyone. Everyone, you’ve got Nick.” Nick puts the car into autonomous mode so he can concentrate.
No one bothers with a polite greeting. “Nick, I know you’re the political professional here and, of course, I completely defer to your expertise,” says a board member whose voice Nick does not recognize. “But I have to say, we have some real concerns about the strategy. And while I don’t have your political résumé, I have cohosted three different fundraising events for Chuck Schumer, so I clearly know my way around the block.”
Here we go, Nick thinks.
“Look, guys, this is a big idea,” Nick tells them. “Which means a big campaign. When you invested in FlightDeck, you knew it wasn’t going to be easy. But you also knew that the toughest fights are the ones that produce the biggest returns. You want non-linear gains? Politics is a non-linear business.”
“But Nick, there’s been a lot of bad press already,” another board member pipes up. “We were under the impression that the bills in all three cities would be well on their way by now. Our projections for the launch and expansion are based on that. Instead, the bills seem to be stuck, and we keep getting attacked by the opponents. People are saying rude things about us on Twitter. Even on Mastodon. Not just about Susan or you. About us. Someone on my security team even said that the Audubon Society might protest my annual ayahuasca retreat. This is the opposite of what we expected.”
“They wouldn’t do that, Nick, would they?” Susan interrupts.
“You don’t mess with another man’s ayahuasca,” says someone else.
Nick has given up even trying to sort out who’s who. “They can, and…honestly? They probably will.” Nick’s blood pressure rises as he anticipates the coming counterattack. “I’m just a political hack. What do I know about finance or technology? Nothing. But aren’t you guys the ones who like to move fast and break things? Aren’t you the great disrupters? Doesn’t this come with the territory?”
“Well yes, but…” says someone, maybe the first guy again.
“Just to be clear, this is going to get worse before it gets better. A lot worse. Protests outside your homes, maybe even your beach homes. Weirdos in bird costumes showing up at your kid’s birthday party.”
“Ayahuasca disruptions,” board member three helpfully offers.
“Exactly. But this is also exactly what you signed up for, and it’s why you hired us.”
“We…we get that,” says yet another unfamiliar voice, probably some new board member who’s worried about being judged for not having said anything on the call yet. “But this is not an auspicious beginning. We expected something…you know… Faster. Cheaper. Better… Different.”
“Everyone wants things to be easy. But that’s not how politics works. This is a rough business. They always try to knock you down in the first round. Strangle the baby in the crib. You gotta get back up. You think these guys are tough? Wait until Detroit comes at you.”
“So what do we do?” Susan jumps in, sounding very pleased that Nick is more than holding his own.
“You? Nothing. Do absolutely nothing. Don’t talk to the press. Don’t give speeches. Don’t tweet. Stay under the radar. All of you. I’m coming back from a meeting at City Hall right now and it’s clear that our problem isn’t a lack of attention.”
“Then what is it?” a board member asks, cutting in.
“We need to turn our enemies into friends. Or, assuming that’s not feasible, we need to make them so fucking toxic, their opposition actually helps us. That’s doable. There’s always something. But it’s not an approach any of you should be associated with. So the less we discuss this, the better. For everyone.”
While sparring with a gaggle of billionaires is not Nick’s idea of a fun afternoon, the fact that they all suddenly have nothing to say feels gratifying.
The feeling doubles down when a text comes in from Susan.
“Well done. You handled those men—oh and one woman—really well. And they’re not easy to handle. Trust me, I know.”
And then a second text: “Carol agrees.”
Chapter Eight
Austin, TX
City Hall
Lisa uses a red light to steal a quick glance at Google Maps as she drives from her boutique hotel on South Congress Avenue across the bridge to City Hall. The roads are big, but somehow still confusing, and the GPS is slow to give instructions. So Lisa has to rely on her gut more than she would like. She’s relieved when she sees Austin’s very modern, very angular limestone City Hall pop up in the distance.
She doesn’t want to be late. It’s her first major solo meeting of the campaign. She’s meeting with Hal Taylor, Deputy Mayor to Austin Mayor Don Pearce. Deputy Mayor Taylor’s purview includes issues like zoning and aviation, so he’s the guy for flying cars.
Lisa pulls into the parking garage next door, glad to find she’s running a few minutes early. She hopes the meeting doesn’t go on too long—it’s her first time in Austin. The weather is great—sunny and mid-sixties—and the place gives off some cool college-town vibes. She’d like to explore a bit before Nick lands and they meet with some of Pearce’s donors to see how they can grease the wheels.
But that will all be later.
Taylor’s office is surprisingly large and well-appointed for a civil servant. Lots of photos of him and famous Texans like George W. Bush, Michael Dell, Jerry Jones, and Roger Clemens. Even more signed UT football helmets and a Texas Tech basketball ensconced in a glass case, signed by Bobby Knight. Everything is shiny and well-displayed, which tells her a lot about the kind of man he is.
Preoccupied with appearance.
Taylor, a heavyset yet handsome man in his fifties with a mop of brown hair, barely acknowledges her when she comes in. As Lisa ticks off all of the benefits of Austin legalizing flying cars, he’s on his phone for most of it, hunting and pecking keys. At one point, a sound emerges and Lisa thinks he’s watching TikTok videos.
“Hal,” Lisa says, trying to salvage the meeting, “a lot of people like the mayor. In fact, based on our data, most people in Austin here love him. He polls well in the suburbs too, even does okay in the panhandle and a few parts of East Texas. But as soon as you run statewide next year for AG, we both know that’s all going to change. The Republicans are going to paint your candidate as a typical Austin liberal who’s totally out of touch with the rest of Texas. You need to get out ahead of that. And I think I have a way.”
Taylor smiles, though more ruefully than anything else, and doesn’t look up from his phone. “You’re talking about politics. I do substance. Why are you bothering me with this?”
“Because you oversee zoning. And economic development. And aviation.”
“Yes, we’ve established that’s my portfolio. In the government, not political campaigns. Is there anything else I can do for you, Ms. Lim?” Taylor pushes his chair back from his desk and starts to rise.
“This is your one way to beat back the GOP attacks. Which are coming and will be rough. Really rough. And will set you back, regardless of your specific purview.”
Taylor sits back down, at least a little bit intrigued. “How so?”
“We already know how they’re going to come at you. Pearce is a disconnected liberal who hates business, hates jobs, and loves taxes. A mayor who prioritizes coastal progressive ideology, social justice, and critical race theory ahead of results for the people of Texas. Flying cars knocks out both of those arguments.”
Taylor doesn’t reply this time, but he raises an eyebrow, which Lisa takes as a sign to keep going.
“Pearce becomes the first mayor to legalize flying cars? Now you’re the mayor of the future. Someone who can see around the corner. Further innovation. Make things happen.”
“That says to me that we’re good on tech. Fine. Everyone knows that already. But none of that means we’re creating new jobs here in Austin.”
“You are if FlightDeck moves its headquarters to Austin as part of the deal.”
Taylor arches an eyebrow again. “They’d do that?”
“They want to show that it works. Just get it off the ground. Literally.” Taylor doesn’t laugh. Lisa isn’t sure if he even has a sense of humor. “So if you can beat New York and LA to the punch, there’s no reason they couldn’t move their lab and engineers and designers and operational team down here.” She pauses. “Of course, LA has the same offer on the table. Soon, New York will too.”
Lisa pegged him the second she walked into the room and he decided his phone was more important than this meeting. He’s not the type who wants to be told what to do—especially by a young Chinese-American woman from New York City.
Then he smirks, and Lisa doesn’t like the shape of it. “I’ll tell you what. Rather than sitting here debating, bring one of those flying cars here to Austin. We’ll take a ride out to my ranch in the hill country. See if it’s what you say. Get some nice pictures in the process. If it works out, I’ll take this to the mayor and make your case. If not, then we’ll both know just how real your technology is.” With that, he pushes his chair back again, stands up, and excuses himself to head to another meeting. Probably so he can scroll through TikTok some more.
As Lisa takes the stairs to the street two at a time, she knows she needs to talk to Nick—fast. If they can call Taylor on his bluff and prove the car works, then Taylor may have no choice but to push hard to get the mayor on board and push the legislation through. And once the genie is out of the bottle, it never goes back in. If Austin starts allowing flying cars, within a few years, every city in the nation will too. Global domination is a few years behind that.
And if anyone was going to approve this thing fast, it’d be Texas, where “regulation” is a four-letter word.
There’s a snarl of traffic at the mouth of the parking garage. Lisa doesn’t want to have this conversation in public—there are too many City Hall employees milling around, and she doesn’t know who works for whom. Plus, she still isn’t sure how to get to her hotel, despite having just driven the exact route (in reverse) twenty-seven minutes ago. So she hops in a cab idling outside on West 2nd Street. She’ll come back for the car later.
Lisa normally avoids regular cabs because too often they’re dirty, they’re slow, and their pricing system is so convoluted and opaque, the driver can basically charge whatever he wants. This taxi is no different. As the driver smokes a cigarette out the window and charges her $35 to drive three quarters of a mile, she thinks, Fuck these guys. They’re slow and lazy and arrogant. They rip people off. Their business deserves to die. We’re going to pass this fucking bill. Everywhere.
As soon as Lisa gets to her room, she FaceTimes Nick. When he answers, he’s in the back seat of a car. It looks like a hostage video.
“Hey,” she says. “What time does your flight land? We have a few items related to the campaign to discuss. Maybe we can grab a drink before our dinner with Pearce’s major donors?”
“Oh. Right.” He pauses for a second. “I can’t make it to Austin tonight. Something came up.”
Lisa waits for him to offer more information, but he doesn’t. She racks her brain trying to figure out what he means. If it were a client emergency, she’d probably already know about it—or he’d at least tell her. He’s not married at the moment, so there’s no spouse he has to answer to. It’s too early for spring break. Maybe one of his kids is sick?
But Nick once went on a six-day, all-expenses-paid junket to Singapore with half the casino industry while his son was having his tonsils removed.
Lisa starts to ask what’s wrong, but then sees the opportunity and takes a big swing. “Since you seem pretty busy, what if I start running the FlightDeck campaign on my own? I’d still check in with you, but I feel like it’s time. I’m ready.”
It doesn’t seem like Nick is even listening. He replies with a vague “Uh huh.”
Lisa takes that as a yes. “Great! Thank you! I’ll send you a daily update. Seven a.m. Every morning. And obviously, we can talk strategy any time you want.”
Now Nick hears her. “Wait. What? I wasn’t paying attention. Sorry. Tell me again what you were saying?”
“That I’d like to take over the campaign and run it on my own since you seem pretty busy.”
“Oh. No. I’m not comfortable with that. At least not yet. Maybe the next one.”
He clicks off without saying goodbye. Lisa falls back into her chair, regretting that she wasted $35 on the cab ride here and will waste more on the ride back, just to get the car and end up back at square one.
Chapter Nine
Brooklyn, NY
Turgenev Nightclub
Nick’s Uber pulls up in front of Turgenev, the infamous Russian nightclub located in the heart of Brighton Beach. The club is Eastern Bloc chic: From a distance, it’s all crystal, red carpeting, and copious gold leaf, not unlike most casinos in Atlantic City. Look a little closer, and it’s all flimsy and crumbling. Which works perfectly. The décor brings the locals in and gives them the illusion of luxury, and it keeps people from Manhattan out. For Nick, while his childhood corner of Maspeth in Northeast Queens has a decidedly different vibe than Brighton Beach, and while Nick’s barely-break-even-in-a-good-year, small-drugstore-owning parents were very different from Viktor, the every-borough-against-Manhattan comradery still prevails.
When Nick walks inside the currently-empty nightclub, he finds Viktor Velonova standing by the front door to greet him. Viktor—silver-maned, barrel-chested, yellow fingers and teeth—is known to readers of the Daily News as the taxi medallion king of Brooklyn, though it’s really just one piece of his empire. He also owns three nightclubs, six optical shops, eleven pharmacies, a renewable energy crypto mining outfit, and a mid-size chain of physical therapy centers on Staten Island. Under his tutelage, a couple of those PTs have become the highest-grossing Medicare fraudsters outside of South Florida.
