Page 33 of Meet Jon, the Billionaire

“Talk to you?” Stanley sputtered. “Have you heard the news about Acme?”

“I just heard on the news that the stock has rebounded—”

“That was before the latest quarterly earnings report was released. Acme took a major hit.”

“They did?”

“I’m sending you the link—”my phone dinged “—read it and weep.”

I opened the link, and my eyes widened with disbelief. “How is this possible? Acme Bread has a huge market share.”

“Their latest offering, the Salmon and Lox toaster pastry, didn’t go over well anywhere but in Sweden.”

“Wait, Salmon and Lox? I vaguely remember seeing something about that, but I thought it was a joke.”

“It was no joke. They seriously pushed it, and hard.”

“Whoever thought that putting fish in a toaster was a good idea?” I grimaced.

“You aren’t kidding. Look at the online reviews. People are talking about having to hire a professional cleaning crew to come in and eliminate the smell of scorched salmon from their domiciles.”

“I don’t understand how it can all go so wrong with just one bad product… Coke weathered the storm of new Coke. McDonald’s got over the Arch Deluxe debacle…”

“Well, the company went all-in on advertising costs, promotional samples, and a celebrity endorsement from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.”

“Good lord.” I stared at the figures on the screen in shock. “This is… the investors are hemorrhaging money. It could take years to bounce back from this kind of screw-up.”

“Nice job on the recon, Tiger. You should have known this was coming.”

“Their latest quarterlies were skyrocketing when I made my move on them… they must have been keeping this all hush-hush so as not to panic investors. Fuck. FUCK!”

“Calm down, Jonny boy,” Stanley said. “All is not lost. Yes, you screwed up, but we still have a chance to turn this around.”

“How’s that?”

“You’re still in the running on the bidding war for that sweet, sweet corner lock in the Village, right?”

My blood ran cold. I didn’t want to answer, but I knew that I had to.

“Well? Are you still in the running or not?”

Damn it, Stan, if you’d called me one day later…

“Yeah. Yeah, we’re still in the running.”

“Fantastic. Best news I’ve heard all night.”

“Stan,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Are you sure we even NEED the corner lot? I mean, Acme has weathered a lot of storms in the past. It will be profitable again, someday.”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” Stanly growled. “What do you mean, we don’t need the corner lot? Of course we need the fucking corner lot! Location, location, location, baby, and that’s the best fucking location you could possibly ask for. It’s like opening up a chocolate factory outside of a fat camp.”

“Damn, Stan, when we were young YOU were a little bit chubby—”

“I know, so it gives me the right to make fun of other fat people.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works…”

“Never mind all of that. Listen, we HAVE to get our hands on that corner lot. We NEED it. I don’t know if you have any favors, you can call in from anyone at city hall, but now is the time.”

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