Black Buck(71)

“When you’re right, you’re right, Tracy. And you? You’re always right,” I said, paraphrasing Spaceballs.

“Truest thing you’ve said all day.”

Barry’s office was twice the size of Rhett’s but had half the shit. Floor-to-ceiling windows revealed the Hudson River and a crystal-clear view of the Statue of Liberty, which Barry prayed and masturbated to every morning. There was a plain oval table surrounded by padded chairs; a wall adorned with six long shelves holding trophies, books, and sports jerseys, which served as the backdrop for the daily videos he recorded; and some other random crap he said added to the ironic, postmodern, prehistoric ambiance he was looking for.

“My man,” he said, rising up from the table, giving me a dap that reverberated off the windows. White guys always love to give overzealous daps.

“What’d you think?”

“I think Sandra Stork was legit creaming her underwear. Was it me, or did she keep crossing and uncrossing her legs to prevent her sweet juice from dripping onto the floor?”

I took a seat across from his shrine. An autographed football encased in glass from the last Giants’ Super Bowl win stared at me. Even though it’d be hard to tell from his typical outfit—a solid-colored T-shirt, faded jeans, and sneakers—Barry Dee was filthy rich, but not rich enough to buy the Giants, which was his life’s aspiration.

“Yeah, I did see that. I also got her number afterward.”

He jumped across the table and punched me in the chest, lifting the front of my chair inches off the ground. “You fucking salty dog, Buck! But what happened to Katrina?”

“Who?” I asked, grating my knuckles across my forehead. “I don’t remember any Katrina.”

“That fucking smokeshow you brought to Beauty & Essex the other night.”

“Oh,” I said, shaking my head. “That was Natalia, the bottle girl from Avenue.”

He spread his palms across the table. “Okay, well, what happened with Natalia the bottle girl? Or Veronica the Brazilian model? Or Naomi the Japanese lawyer? Or—”

“Alright.” I put my hands up. “I get it. You know I can’t sleep alone.”

“It’s called Ambien, Xanax, and some cough syrup mixed with Sprite,” he said. “Shit will knock out an eight-hundred-pound gorilla. But, alright, enough of the bullshit. Did you look over those portfolios?”

My head was pounding, and my hands started to shake. I slid them below the table. “Yeah,” I said, flipping through the companies on my phone. “They were all dogshit, man. Straight dogshit.”

“You need to stop thinking every startup actually needs to make money in order to be valuable. That’s old-school, kid. Gotta think about the Instagrams of the world. The companies that are legit worth billions of dollars not because of any real value but because of the cool factor. Like that winner you picked when I first brought you on. You saw the cool factor in pork-free pork for Muslim millennials who want to eat BLTs without being, um, what’s the word?”

“Haram.”

“Yeah, without being haram. We made like five mil on that, and you took home a couple hundred thousand for yourself. So keep thinking outside the box and stay open-minded.”

“Alright. Anything else? I gotta head to Sumwun for a bit and I’m beat.”

“Yeah, one thing. This company we just acquired, something to do with funding hip-hop videos with a roster of tried-and-true sponsors—you know, like Hennessy, Beats, and whichever company makes those heavy-duty metal dog collars. They need an SDR. You know anyone?”

I went through my mental Rolodex. “No, not right now. But I’m sure I can find one.”

“Yeah, do that,” he said. He pulled down the blinds and sat down in a padded gray chair that faced the Statue of Liberty. “But think outside the box. This company is going to be the future of partnering with rappers, and we need someone strong in the position.”

“Sure,” I said, rising to my feet, steadying myself. “I’ll find someone.”



* * *





“Where to, sir?” Chauncey asked, jumping out and opening the back door.

“Chauncey,” I said, rubbing my forehead as I entered the car. “Please, man. Don’t get up and open the door for me like I’m one of these white tech millionaires. The only reason I agreed to you driving me around is because I like you.”

“Okay, sir,” he said, looking at me in the rearview mirror. “I like you too, sir.”

“Good.” I pulled out my little vial and went to town on a few lines of medicine. “Now, I just need to get you to call me Buck instead of sir.”

He laughed. “Baby steps, sir. So, where to?”

I leaned my head back and dripped Visine into my eyes. “Sumwun, please.”

We headed up Tenth Avenue and turned right onto Thirty-Fourth Street. The Sumwun I was headed to was different than the Sumwun of six months ago. Eddie was an AE, Charlie had become a sales manager, Marissa had replaced Charlie as SDR manager, the Duchess had quit to work for her pops, Frodo was still an SDR, and I, of course, had been promoted to AE. But since I closed such a huge deal, I skipped the normal sales hierarchy and became an enterprise AE, which meant Clyde, now VP of sales, was my direct manager.