Trillionaire Boys' Club: The Connector Page 2

  “It’s a phone,” Jenna says.

  “What were you guys talking about?” Corey asks me. “You looked like you were arguing.”

  “Jenna was just being a bitch.”

  Jenna looks up. “Corey, you knew we had a guest lecturer in E.T. today, right?”

  “I’m not in your E.T. class.”

  “Oh,” Jenna says. “Forgot.”

  “But yes. I knew.”

  I turn to Corey. “How did you know if you aren’t even in the class?”

  “It came in the digest email.” Corey reads my semi-annoyed expression and adds, “What?”

  “Never mind,” I say.

  He smiles. “Pretty cool, though.”

  “What’s cool?”

  “Nathan Turner.”

  This triggers Jenna, who now appears to be on LiveLyfe, checking her messages. She says loudly, “WHO. IS. NATHAN. TURNER?”

  “Why didn’t I know about this?” I ask. I’m supposed to be on the ball. Jenna’s the screw-up. She can’t even empty the garbage can in our room when it fills up. I have to do it every time. Once I decided not to empty it until Jenna caved, but the can overfilled and spilled all over. We were cutting a semicircular swath through filth every time we opened the door. The idea that I didn’t know something this apparently vital (judging by Corey’s indication that it’s “cool” to have Mr. Turner as a guest speaker) is unforgivable. How will I have time to research him?

  “Maybe you should read the digest,” Corey says.

  “I read it.”

  “Maybe you should pay attention, then,” Jenna says, then adds, “bitch” for no reason.

  “Look him up, Alex,” Corey says. “He’s right up your alley. Super smart guy.”

  “How do you know about him?”

  “Dulles,” Corey says, meaning his roommate. “It’s sort of an idol situation. If there were entrepreneur playing cards, Dulles would collect them.”

  “Nathan Turner is an entrepreneur?”

  Corey nods. “And a half. Dulles gave me an earful after reading the digest. He made this little education site, blew it up, then sold it to a bigger education site. Parlayed it into over a billion dollar net worth with a bunch of partnerships and investments after that.”

  “Does he need a trophy wife?” Jenna says.

  She looks the part. Chestnut hair, naturally tan skin, angelic face. Jenna’s attitude, not her appearance, keeps her from getting dates. She’s so intense about her passions — mostly physical, some intellectual — that she threatens the insecure. But I’ve heard guys talking when she’s not around, and more than once I’ve heard things like She’s hot enough to melt steel.

  Right now, though, Jenna couldn’t look more bored. “You guys want to get a coffee or something?”

  I say, “So we’re giving up on class entirely, then?”

  Jenna shrugs.

  Corey keeps right on going. “But here’s what you’d appreciate most, Alex. Nathan Turner is a superconnector.”

  “The stuff used in microchips,” Jenna says.

  “That’s a superconductor. I said ‘superconnector.’”

  Jenna sighs, apparently wanting to trade this conversation for coffee. She resumes checking her phone.

  “And?” I say.

  “He only made $100 million or so on his own.”

  “Pussy,” Jenna interrupts.

  “But the rest, he made by making deals. By connecting people.” A pause. Corey’s eyebrows rise. “You get me?”

  I do, and I’m suddenly willing to blow off Econ if it gives me time to look up details on Nathan Turner. My parents both had their own businesses, and their perspectives made them skeptical of my attending college, instead of being insistent upon it like most of my friends’ parents. The way they saw it, true educations are forged in a real-world testing ground, not in classrooms.

  I’ve always argued that college isn’t about learning; it’s about experience and (drumroll, please) making connections. My parents thought I’d sit with my hands folded and listen to my professors. Not even close. Dad made me take Krav Maga growing up, so I could defend myself. Mom insisted that I never be rescued when I got myself into tough situations as a teen, so I would build the fortitude to negotiate my way out of a bind.

  They trained me to be as tough as I was bold, so I argued that if they supported my decision, I’d bother every guest lecturer, every politician, and every connected professor here until I’d built something of my own. Book learning — which I also happen to excel at — is icing on the cake.

  “Maybe you can get a job with him,” Corey says. “God knows I’d kill for one.”

  I don’t reply, but if I had Corey’s skill set I’d stop bitching and start banging down the doors of every worthy company I could find. I’m wired to chase what I want. Corey, like most people, isn’t. But he’s a natural at sales, far more than I’ll ever be. If Corey and I were one person — my gutsy drive, his charisma — we’d be unstoppable.

  I pull out my own phone and search — but before finding Nathan Turner’s Wikipedia page, Forage turns up some images to head the search results.

  He’s young, not old like I expected. Mid- to late twenties, thirty at most.

  Dark brown hair, like mine. In all the pictures, it’s almost carelessly styled, as if he barely cares enough to run his hands through it, yet sculpted it anyway.

  Square but not boxy jaw, brushed with stubble.

  Full lips.

  And eyes of the softest cornflower blue.

  Instead of going to his Wikipedia page as planned, I click to see more images. According to what Forage is finding online, Nathan Turner works and plays hard. There are photos of him surfing, rock climbing in Yosemite. Many photos of him on a boat — always the same boat, always somewhere with crystal blue water, always with a different stunningly beautiful woman by his side.

  I flip, and I flip.

  Jenna peers over my shoulder just as I stop on a photo of Turner fresh from the surf, a tiny white wave licking his ankles, surfboard under one arm. His wetsuit is peeled to the waist, displaying a tan chest defined enough to count every striation in his eight-pack.

  Jenna slugs me in the back of the shoulder. I jump. My thumb jitters on the screen and scrolls the photo sideways to the next one. Another close-up of the superconnecter’s face, pale blue eyes staring right into me.

  “Stop looking at porn,” Jenna says, “and let’s get a cappuccino.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  NATHAN

  GEOFFREY IS ACROSS FROM ME in the limo, dressed immaculately but clearly like the assistant he is, hair slicked down with a precision part, tablet in hand.

  “How far is it?” I ask.

  Geoffrey taps to the GPS.

  “Five minutes.” I can see the app’s screen, and it actually says four, not five. But Geoffrey knows how obnoxious I find it when people use precise numbers about things that are inherently imprecise. Round up and save the pretense, is my philosophy. The man knows me well.

  “We’re early,” I say

  “We can’t park at the building. We have to park a few blocks away and walk.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “A lot of colleges are that way.”

  “What about the old teachers in wheelchairs? Do they have to park and walk?”

  Geoffrey turns to his tablet. I wonder if he’s planning to look up “teachers-in-wheelchairs ratio” among the school’s vital stats.

  “Maybe Charles can drop us off.”

  I shake my head. “Never mind.”

  I’m in a terrible state of mind for speaking to a class of kids about bright, shining futures. My meeting with Wilcox was almost 24 hours ago now, but I still can’t shake the grimy feeling left by our obnoxious encounter. Probably because I’ve made my decision about using Plan B instead (which is better anyway, from a branding standpoint), and that means I’ve accepted the old guard prejudices as immutable things, not something I can persuade my way through. That both
insults and annoys me.

  Geezers like Wilcox hate me because I made my first billion decades earlier than they did, and they hate my friends for making more, in their twenties or thirties, than they’ll ever make. I’d rather have used my usual strengths to bond with the world’s Wilcoxes, but instead we’ll have to twist their arms. Same result, but this way leaves a sour taste in my throat.

  “I’m sure it’s no problem, Nathan.” He’s already looked something up, reading from his tablet. “They have retractable street barriers, like they do around government buildings in DC. I’ll ask to have them lowered.”

  “I said it’s fine. I’ll walk.” I exhale. “I need to clear my head anyway.”

  Geoffrey hands me the tablet, opened to a PowerPoint slide. “Do you want to look this over?”

  I look down. He’s prepared a presentation for me.

  “You’re fired,” I say, flipping through.

  “I thought you’d appreciate me making some bullet points to cover.”

  I hand it back. “I’m doing Celeste a favor. She wants me talking to a bunch of bright-eyed kids, she can take what I’m willing to give.”

  Geoffrey sets the tablet aside. He doesn’t quite watch me, nor resume work.

  “What?” I say.

  “I’m holding my tongue so you don’t fire me again.”

  “Just fucking say what’s on your mind.” Geoffrey annoys me plenty, but that’s what I overpay him to do. I went through a cadre of potential assistants before finally finding him. The applicants were spectacularly qualified, so I sifted them on my own unbusinesslike terms. My criteria were simple: whoever cried was out, and that was most of them, both genders.

  “You could have said no,” he says.

  Technically, it’s true. Celeste is one of three or four women I’m currently fucking. I’ve lost count, though I’m sure Geoffrey has a list. But those relationships are complicated. Each of the women is a connection, and all of them know exactly what we’re doing.

  I don’t do romance; neither do women like Celeste. I don’t have time to answer email, so I sure as hell don’t have time for flowers and champagne unless something else is also being negotiated. Sex is a commodity exchanged.

  Sure, when Celeste asked me to speak at her alma mater, I could have said no. But she’s a media buyer — and while I don’t need media, many of my wealthy friends do. If I can introduce a top-tier media buyer to someone in need, I ratchet up a notch. That means keeping Celeste happy — by dick or by favors. Either way is an hour of my time.

  “The New Guard needs a connection like Celeste more than the Old Guard do. That makes her front shelf.” Front shelf is my shorthand for the type of person who’s highest on the importance scale. Excellent tailors and barbers, for instance, tend to be back shelf: making introductions helps my network, but only a little because such merchants aren’t scarce. But media buyers at the top of their game? I need to keep assets like that front and center — because the New Guard all need them, and nobody knows anyone who can refer one.

  Except me, of course.

  “Of course you’d agree to do it, Nathan,” Geoffrey says, nodding. “I’m just saying that you always have the option of saying No. You’re choosing to say Yes, no matter the reason.”

  I’m annoyed enough to challenge Geoffrey, but this is actually something I’ve trained him to remind me of. So after a moment spent adjusting my attitude, I nod.

  “So stop being a bitch,” he says. “You want this, because forming the Syndicate matters more than anything else.”

  The car stops. Charles lets the engine idle, then exits and circles around to open my door.

  “You’re fired,” I say. “For real this time.”

  Geoffrey opens his own door, exiting as I do. I look at him over the limo’s polished black roof. He hasn’t moved his eyes from the tablet.

  “It’s that way, Nathan,” he says, pointing.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ALEX

  JENNA GETS HER CAPPUCCINO, GOES back to the room early, and leaves me with Corey. She says she wants to go for a run. That’s probably half of it. Jenna jokes about having the sex drive of a chimp in heat, and I’m not entirely convinced she’s kidding. That girl is always running back to the room when she knows I won’t be there. Today she made her announcement just after I said that I’d have lunch out. Maybe she’s going to run. But before or after, I’m thinking she wants the place to herself. For … stuff.

  I point out that she’s going to miss E.T., unless she skips a shower afterward.

  She shrugs, not caring. Jenna’s smart — honors, like me. But unlike me, she figures college is something to get through. She knows it all, so why bother going to class?

  I hang with Corey for as long as we have — just an hour in this case, because he actually attends most of his classes. He tells me about Nathan Turner and how his ambition, as described by Dulles, reminded him of mine.

  When starting Learn.it, Nathan needed a custom content management system to make his website work. The quote for what he needed was a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Nathan had like fifty bucks to his name. But he introduced the developers to the perfect designers they didn’t realize they needed, and in the months before working on Nathan’s site, they formed a company that landed a deal worth $1.1 million for the state government — without even needing to submit a proposal, because Nathan knew someone on the state committee, too. Somehow, Nathan’s site had been built on credit. He paid the developers six months post-launch, after Learn.it had already blown up.

  “That’s not on his Wikipedia page,” I say, turning Corey’s laptop screen so he can see.

  Corey looks at the laptop, closes the top, and slips it into his backpack. Then he says, “I guess nobody really knows that story, then. But it’s true.”

  “How could you possibly know?” I say, laughing.

  “Hey. I know people, too.”

  “What do you have next?”

  “Calculus.”

  I make a pssht sound. “Like you’re ever going to need calculus in sales. Blow it off. Come with me to E.T. instead.”

  “Wish I could.” His eyes watch mine for an extra second, as if he’s making sure I understand that he means it: that he honestly does wish he could.

  “So do it. Jenna’s not coming, and I hate being alone.” I grab his hands theatrically, playing damsel in distress.

  Rather than playing along, Corey pulls away, his expression hard to read. “The prof takes attendance. Miss too many and he knocks your grade. I need all the points I can get in calc.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Tell it to my prof.”

  I pout. “Well, poo. I’m disappointed. I need you, Corey. I need you by my side.”

  Corey seems uncomfortable — the opposite of what I’m going for. I don’t know what’s got into him lately. We used to be the three musketeers, but ever since winter break there’s been this weird vibe in our little group.

  I go for serious, sticking a pen behind my ear and pushing my long chestnut hair back. “Okay. Come on. Think logically. You’re a business major. We all know you’ll be selling million-dollar products as easy as Cafeteria Maggie sells pie. What makes the most sense? Going to calc, the stupid math requirement that you barely need to pass, or going to see someone who might actually hire you someday?”

  Corey laughs.

  “Why is that funny?”

  “You just want someone to hear your little jokes during the presentation.”

  “True. But so is the rest.”

  “I’m not going to end up working for Nathan Turner.”

  The but-of-course, why-are-you-being-so-ridiculous way he says it annoys me. I snap out of our repartee and throw Corey my don’t-fuck-with-me face.

  “The way you just accept things is obnoxious, Corey. If you’d just go for what you want, who knows? Maybe you’d actually get it.”

  Corey rolls his eyes. He slings the backpack over one shoulder, then the other.
>
  “Don’t just walk out on me.”

  “I need to get to class.”

  “I’m serious, Corey. You’re crazy good at talking to people. You have natural charisma. Everyone loves you.”

  For some reason, this makes Corey blush and mumble — the opposite of the confident poise I’m attempting to praise him for.

  “If you’d just take a chance for once, maybe you’d end up pleasantly surprised.”

  Corey nods. “Yes. Or I could look like an asshole.”

  “I’m not saying you should come with me, then walk up to Nathan and hand him your resumé. I’m just saying that—”

  Corey cuts me off with a cursory goodbye hug. “I need to go. See you later.”

  And he’s gone.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ALEX

  I SPEND THE NEXT HOUR researching Nathan Turner. As I do, I realize I’m building some sort of an avatar for him inside my mind.

  Nudged by some of the things Corey said, I started looking into the early days of his business. He really did start with nothing. In most cases, when people talk about a rich person “starting with nothing,” they mean “nothing but a great idea about something to build and sell.” That’s not true for Turner, at least not according to everything I’ve found. He didn’t even have an idea. He just saw that other people had ideas, then showed each of those people what the other person had that was worth paying attention to. He worked behind the scenes even before Learn.it, acting like a sidekick — or, more skeptically, a scavenger who never made the kill, but was always there afterward to share in the spoils. A broker, not a creator. And even when he became one, he remained a broker at heart.

  I start to imagine Nathan as a prospector, searching for gold. But he never dug anything up. Instead, he got miners paying him to show them where the riches were.

  I can’t help but admire his approach. It really is alchemy, proof that you don’t even need capital to make it. You only need a brain. You need to see connections where others don’t. You need to make friends — genuine friends, not fake friends — then see hidden gems within them that they themselves don’t know are there. Like Corey. He doesn’t see his gifts, but I do. Nathan turned this same ability into over a billion dollars.