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One Hundred Grand
2009
“So you see, Mr. Kostan,” Ryder England was wrapping up his pitch, “it’ll only take a small investment of venture capital—a hundred thousand—and I’ll be able to get the project off the ground.” He shifted nervously. He’d been an awkward and gawky young man when he was turned, comfortable only in the company of his beloved machines, and he would remain so, unchangeably immortal. Years might add a veneer of ease, but underneath, nothing changed.
Josef regarded him steadily, tapping his heavy gold Montblanc pen against the old-fashioned leather blotter on his desk. He didn’t often listen to investment pitches, these days, at least not for such low dollar proposals. He’d almost have felt more comfortable if Ryder had asked for a million dollars, or five, than such a small amount. But then again, Ryder was a valued, and trusted, employee, and he felt he should do him the courtesy of hearing him out. “Are you sure,” he asked, “that you have the costs worked out correctly? You built in a margin for unexpected overruns?”
“I had your chief accountant vet everything. She was a little surprised, but she said we’d been very thorough.”
“And she doubtless billed the time to me.” When Ryder sputtered in denial, Josef waved a hand in dismissal of the issue. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure I owe you that much in overtime, anyway.” He looked down at the prospectus before him, flipping through it to check a figure or two.
Ryder wisely kept his mouth shut. He’d laid out the facts, noted his awareness of the potential pitfalls as well as the anticipated profits. Now all he had to do was wait for Josef’s decision.
Finally, his boss cleared his throat. “Tell me something,” he said. “With your level of access, you could have borrowed a hundred grand from a Kostan Industries account, and replaced it if you were successful, without me ever knowing. So why go through all this, if you’re so confident your idea will pan out?”
Ryder shrugged, his crooked smile giving his face a certain gawky charm. “It wouldn’t occur to me that anyone could steal successfully from you, Mr. Kostan. Even such a small amount.”
“A hundred grand wasn’t always such a small amount, England.”
1955
“One hundred thousand dollars? That’s it?”
“It’s nothing to sneer at, son.” John Whitley’s shrewd, ugly face creased into a frown. At 41, he was past youth, but still young to have made such a name for himself. “If you’re serious about making a life with my Sarah, the least you can do to prove you’re as well fixed as you say is come up with the $100,000 to invest in this deal. Of course, if the pot’s too rich for your blood…” He trailed off, but his implication was clear. He wasn’t about to trust his beloved daughter to some hustler. She deserved better, whether she understood it or not.
Josef pondered briefly which accounts he’d need to shuffle. He could pull a checkbook out of the inner breast pocket of his jacket and write a check, but he knew that wouldn’t impress Whitley. Any fool, or any faker, could write a worthless check. Besides, some of his accounts were still under a previous name, and he’d have to transfer funds into the “Charles Fitzgerald” section of his portfolio. Josef glanced at the Cartier tank watch on his wrist.
“I suppose you’ll need a few days to pull it together.” Whitley’s tone made it clear that he didn’t believe Josef had the funds.
“No, it’s not that. The banks are already closed, and I’d prefer to give you a cashier’s check on a transaction that size. Unless you want cash in hand?”
“Cashier’s check is fine.” Whitley betrayed nothing but cordial confidence, but Josef could almost smell the underlying mistrust. The businessman wanted, badly, to rid himself of his daughter’s suitor, and what better way than proving him to be the poser Whitley had always suspected him of being? There were dozens of more malleable young men within his own company, men Whitley could control and shape, who were more worthy of Sarah.
“I have an early meeting, but I’ll have the check messengered over by ten.”
“If I don’t see it by noon, I’ll assume you’ve lost interest in the deal,” he replied, leaving, “and my daughter” unspoken.
Josef returned him a wolfish smile. “I won’t lose interest.” He straightened the navy blue striped tie he was wearing this afternoon with his gray suit. If Whitley thought he was going to be scared away from Sarah by a sum like $100,000, he was much mistaken. Josef Kostan—sometimes known as Charles Fitzgerald—was not going to be out of Sarah Whitley’s life anytime soon.
1930
Inez del Sol rose slowly, a handful of rich black earth crumbling moistly in her fingers, and looked out over the vineyard that had been her life. “This land has been in my family for over two hundred years, Mr. Fitzgerald. I would never consider selling it, if I could see any way to survive without doing so.”
Josef Fitzgerald nodded in understanding. “Las Perditas is a very fine vineyard. And I have a longer knowledge of such things than might appear.”
Inez let the last of the soil drop, and dusted her hands before smoothing back a few strands of prematurely graying hair. “But you are, forgive my saying, so young. Perhaps there are vintners in your family, then?”
He thought back briefly on the rolling hectares of grapes he had owned along the Rhone, before it had all vanished under the blight of phylloxera in the 1870’s. That had been almost the end of his European holdings, and he supposed after spending the bulk of his time in the New World for the past 150 years, it was sensible to put down roots, like these sturdy grapevines, into the California soil.
“My blood has known this work for centuries,” he said. And it was true. Some of his earliest investments had been in wine. He had reckoned, correctly, that there would always be demand.
Even if, to his sharp eye, it was evident that the property had been let slide for some time. The equipment in the winery was old, out of date, and the roof in dire need of repair. Señora del Sol had not tried to gloss over the faults, nor had she sought to conceal them from him. Her regret at the circumstances was genuine, and her passion for the land, sincere. “I was most impressed with your cellars,” he commented.
That brought a smile to a face lined with fatigue. “The result of generations of work,” she said simply. “I fear I am the last.”
“You have no husband? No children?”
Inez shook her head. “My husband died in the Great War. And with Prohibition—my time has been spent running the vineyard, trying to stay afloat. I had hopes for repeal, but with this latest catastrophe, even all my efforts couldn’t save me. It will take money, to go back into full production, and to deal with distribution. With the banks in such a state…it’s hopeless.” She looked again at the neat rows of vines, stretching almost out of sight in the late afternoon. “They tried to tell me, sell my grapes for the table, or burn the vines and cultivate something useful, like carrots or cabbage. But this land—it was made for grapes, for wine grapes.” She gestured. “From these vines, we produce a fine cabernet, as complex as anything out of France. And there, on that slope, the merlot grapes. There is nothing to touch it in the valley.”
Josef watched her quiet pride, wheels turning in his head. Las Perditas would make a good investment; while he didn’t expect Prohibition to end in the immediate future, he knew it couldn’t last forever. But he had no intention of saddling himself with the day-to-day maintenance of such an operation. “Señora del Sol, I have a proposition,” he said. “I’ll pay you $100,000 for a half interest in the vineyard and the winery. I believe it’s a fair price.”
Inez stopped and looked at him, stunned. “When Carlos was alive, he would have scorned such an offer,” she said slowly. “But the world moves on and times change. You know you could buy Las Perditas outright, for that amount?”
The light on the vines was dying, the day sinking into twilight, and somehow the fading light of Inez del Sol’s face echoed it.
“I could,” he said, “but where would be the point in taking the land without its heart? Las Perditas would be lost, indeed, without you.”
Inez blinked. “You are gallant, Mr. Fitzgerald. One does not expect courtesy from a businessman in these dark days.”
Josef shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers, and looked down at the soil under his feet. “You give me too much credit, Señora.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not.” She gave him a smile, and put out her hand. “We will be partners, yes?” As she looked into Josef’s warm, brown eyes, she could feel the iron band of despair that had constricted her chest for so long begin to loosen. With $100,000—and a partner—the roof of the winery could be repaired, the equipment updated. But she withdrew her hand before it touched her new partner’s, and exclaimed, “But what am I thinking? This occasion must be marked with more than a handshake! I have a bottle—the last vintage my Carlos saw before he went off to France—and I would be honored if you would share it, Mr. Fitzgerald.”
Josef smiled. “It would be a privilege to share—a drink—with you, Señora del Sol.”
1873
Alexander Fitzgerald leaned over the railing of the riverboat, watching the black water of the Mississippi sliding by into the darkness as they beat their way upstream. Even with his enhanced night vision, the riverbanks were scarcely visible save as a slight deepening of the black in the distance. He fussed a bit with his attire, making sure the dark ruby stickpin in its simple gold setting was floating correctly on his black silk cravat.
He was unsurprised to hear the froufrou of satin skirts over the steady lub-lub beat of the paddle wheel, and turned to see the slender, stunning brunette approach, a parasol more suited to a bright afternoon than the cloudy evening poised over one shoulder of her deep scarlet dress. She smiled at him coquettishly.
“Miss Duvall,” he said, “charming as ever.”
“Josef,” she replied with an airy pout, “must you be so formal? And us such old, good friends and all.”
“I question your definition of ‘good friends,’ but if you insist, Coraline. I would, however, appreciate it if you made some effort to remember my current name.”
“Alexander?” she said, twirling her parasol. “But that’s so unlike you. Unless you’re sighing for new worlds to conquer?”
“Perhaps I am.”
“I know you said you were going West, but Josef—Alexander—how tedious that will be. I always find frontiers so very…lacking.”
“Lacking in rich men ready to fall at your feet? I expect so.” He looked out, where a raft with a bright lantern bobbed alongside for a few moments, then passed on downstream. “Coraline, don’t you think this persona would be a little better suited to, say, Savannah about twenty years ago?”
Coraline’s laugh was low and sultry, the type of sound that would tighten a man’s skin with need. Even though he knew better, Josef could not help but be affected. “Why, Alexander,” she said, with the slightest emphasis on the name, “don’t you know that delicious little Southern belle is le dernier cri right now? I’ve heard mortal girls who’ve never been south of New Jersey, putting on the most convincing moonlight and magnolias accents. And when you throw in just a soupcon of French intonation, it’s almost irresistible.”
“Almost.”
“You know, if I didn’t know better, I should be quite cross with you.”
Josef inhaled deeply, enjoying the rich scent of the river and the night. “Coraline, how about if you just tell me what it is you want from me this time? We can both get back on the hunt that much quicker.”
Coraline seemed to be regarding him thoughtfully, her dark brown eyes enigmatic. Finally, she reached a decision. “You do take all the fun out of things, Jo—Alexander, but all right. I find myself temporarily embarrassed. Financially.”
Josef had to admit he found this shocking. When he’d met her, ten years earlier, she’d seemed wealthy, even by his standards. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Oh, don’t be so dense, Josef. My holdings in New Orleans were wiped out with this filthy war, and France, well, France is in upheaval right now. The stupid Prussians and all. I can’t get to my ancestral properties, let alone realize any income from them.”
“You do seem to have had some bad luck.”
She glared at him for a moment, before remembering she wanted a favor, and continued, “Anyway, New Orleans has gotten so dull, these last few years, and it’s time for me to find a new home. I was thinking about Chicago.”
Josef knew he’d end up giving her the money, one way or another. The question was, “How much do you need, Coraline.”
“Enough to set me up well in society. I think a hundred thousand would do nicely.”
“I said need, not want. That’s a medium-sized fortune.” Not that he couldn’t afford it, he told himself.
Coraline moved in closer, and twined her fingers in the lapel of his black frock coat, looking up at him winsomely. Up close, her perfume of attar of roses almost overcame the faint smell of decay that only another vampire would detect. “Now, Josef, you know I’m used to moving in the right circles. All the blue bloods, as it were.”
He covered her hand with his, as much to capture it as to return the unwanted caress. “I don’t think there’s much old money in Chicago, Coraline.”
“You know what I mean. It’s not my fault I made a few bad investments.”
“A slow horse is not an investment, it’s a gamble. And so are you.”
She moved closer, white teeth gleaming in the darkness. “I have—never—failed to return on an investment.”
On one of the lower decks, a man started singing a slow, sad song about his burdens in life, the melody echoing off the surface of the river. Josef sighed, knowing he would probably never see his money again. “We’ll be in Saint Louis by tomorrow night. I’ll have my banker give you a letter of credit.”
Coraline smiled in triumph, and pressed closer against him. “That’s so very sweet of you, Alexander. You are going to allow me to thank you, aren’t you?”
He felt his arm going around her almost involuntarily, but there was steel in his eyes as he smiled back. “Not this time, sweetheart,” he said, “but I’ll be in touch.”
2009
Memories were all well and good. Some investments paid off, others tanked. That was the way of finance, Josef knew. Meanwhile, Ryder was sitting there, looking at him with a hopeful face. “One question, England. I know you’re not alone in this. So who’s your partner—or is it partners—in computer crime?”
Ryder’s face fell. He had wanted to hold out that bit of information. “Partners,” he admitted. “Logan Griffin, and Samantha Wesley.”
Josef rolled his eyes. “Logan, I’m acquainted with. Who’s the other one?” He looked sharply at Ryder. Vampires don’t blush, but he suspected that had it been a possibility, he’d be seeing it now.
“She’s, uh, she’s a friend of Beth Turner’s.”
“A mortal?”
“Well—she’s really great with the technical stuff.”
Josef shook his head. “You three together…be careful with her. Mortal girls and business don’t mix well.”
Ryder looked abashed for a moment, then jerked his head up. “Wait a minute. Does that mean?”
“It means you’re in business, Ryder. And in debt to me for a hundred grand.”
After Ryder left, eager to get on his cell phone and share the good news, Josef sat back. A king’s ransom, a big investment, small change. As Inez had said to him all those years ago, the world moves on. Sometimes in increments of a hundred thousand.
The End
Concluding A/N: So, the relative value of the dollar means that $100,000 was worth approximately:
$807,500 in 1955
$1.3 million in 1930
$1.8 million in 1873
