Chapter 4- getting to know Lisa the Loan Shark a little better!

Chapter 4

Same day, same year, but back in California, thank heavens:

         The phone was ringing when I walked in the door.  I checked the caller i.d.  Private, private.  Okay.  Could be a client. I forwarded calls when I was out doing collections. I grabbed it.  Clients rarely left messages.  “Lisa’s Loans” I said, making my voice soft and high.  I would sound young, like a receptionist.  Everyone knew that the receptionist was a powerful gate keeper, but she had to play powerless.

         Society oozed from her voice.  “I would like to speak to Lisa.”  Not please, just the command, expressed as a wish.  Or the wish, expressed as a command.  “Certainly.  One moment please.  Can I tell her who’s calling?”

         A pause.  This was standard.  Time to think up a name.  “Catherine.” 

         “Certainly, ma’am.”  Resisting the urge to say with exaggerated emphasis, “Catherine.”

         I put the putative Catherine on hold, and went and washed my hands.  In my business, you had to play a careful game.  The potential client would be nervous, desperate maybe.  You had to treat her with enough respect to snare her, but emphasize her plight enough to keep her desperate.  Putting her on hold was a fine art.  Just the right amount of time, not too much, not too little.

         “This is Lisa,” I said in my normal, crisp voice. 

         I waited through the standard two second silence.  I loved this moment.  Catherine was thinking up an opening.  All the ideas she would have had before she made the call would no doubt have fled as soon as I answered as myself, and she was likely reconstructing the fabulous tale that she would tell.  I never, ever helped the client out at this juncture.  I forced each one to suffer the humiliation of borrowing from a loan shark to the fullest.  I waited for her story, without a prompt. 

         Realizing I was going to force her to make the first move, Catherine took an audible breath.  “Lisa, I’m calling to arrange a loan.”  There.  She’d done it.  The rest would be easy.

         Not so fast.  “Indeed.  For yourself?”  Trust me, this was necessary.  I didn’t make loans through go-betweens, real or imaginary. 

         I could hear her swallow.  “Yes.”

         “Did you have an amount in mind?”

         “Oh, yes,” she rushed.  “I was thinking, one, one fifty.  Something like that.”  Relief was in her voice.  She’d said it all.

         “I see.  And how soon did you need this money?”  One hundred and fifty thousand was within my range right now.  Anything more, though, was a little dicey.  Especially since Mike had not made his payment.  Once his arm was set, though, I am sure he’d come through.  I assumed he had major medical, and doctor bills weren’t going to eat into my recovery.  Though the break had been accidental, and I really had just been going for the knife, hoping to prevent being a witness to suicide, still, it was fortuitous.  He would never again think to delay my payment.

         “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” I said.  I pinched myself, hard, to punish myself for letting my mind wander during a client intake.  But the client wouldn’t know.  She would just suffer through having to tell me, again, how urgently, how desperately she needed the money.  If she hadn’t sounded desperate when she’d said it the first time, she would now.  She would hear my request for repetition as a form of mockery.  You need it when???

         “By Tuesday,” she whispered.  Today was Thursday.  That was plenty of time for me. 

         “And for how long will you be needing this money?”  I specialized in the short term.  If you wanted long term, go get a mortgage. 

         Which is the perfect time for a brief explanation.  I wasn’t deliberately cruel.  Or, actually, I was, but it was for everyone’s good.  Almost no one came to Lisa’s Loans for money for an operation for their child, or chemo for their mother.  And in the rare cases where they did, their approach was entirely different.  They were forthright, up front, willing to beg, and I immediately put them at ease.  And I charged them less, and lent the money for a longer time.  It was my Mitzvah.  And they always paid on time.

         No, most of my work was the result of imprudent behavior on someone’s part.  In the distant days of easy mortgage money, when banks were lending to anyone with a deed and a pulse, it was the rare bird that couldn’t pull some money out of her house.  California real estate was only going to go up, up, up, and banks were happy to lend up to 110% of the value of the home.  In two months, that loan would be fully collateralized, and by then they would have sold the loan, through a package of securities, to some grandmother invested in mutual funds. 

         So when someone of means came to me, it meant that their spouse, or their business partner, or their boss, could not find out about this loan.  It had to be “our little secret.”  And therein lay my leverage.

         Now, of course, times had changed, and houses needed waterwings and innertubes to stay afloat.

         I had to make sure my client understood the depth of her debt to me, and the power I would have over her.  So, this little dance, this cat-plays-with-her-prey game, was a vital part of the psychological capturing of the client. 

         “Six weeks,” she said.  “I can pay you back in six weeks.”

         I was quiet for a moment, then punched some numbers into my calculator.  “Six weeks?  That’s a long-term loan.  Any collateral to post?” 

         “I have some jewelry.  Good jewelry.”

         “Why don’t you pawn it instead, then.  I can give you the name of a high end private placement service, and they can work with you at a better rate than I can give you.”

         “Don’t you take jewelry?”

         “Nope.  Too hard to evaluate.  I take stock certificates, bonds, deeds of trust, paper goods only.”  I didn’t mention installing a cash box in a casino.  It wasn’t relevant.

         The client was quiet.  Too quiet.  She was holding back, and that wasn’t good.  I would give her another thirty seconds to reflect on what else she could give me to hold.  Finally, she broke.  “It’s certified.  It’s easily worth two fifty.  I promise.”

         “What is?”

         “I have a diamond.  It’s my-- my most prized possession.  I could post it.  Could you at least take a look?”

         A diamond?  Worth that kind of money?  I knew absolutely nothing about jewels, or about certificates, but I had never heard of a diamond worth that much.  Besides, even if it was, “It has to be worth twice that to be collateral.  If you failed to repay, and I had to sell it, I would never get full value. “ 

         “It’s worth far more than that, I promise.  Please?”  Whew.  She was at the begging stage.  But a diamond?  I had to admit, I was intrigued.  I would have to bring in a consultant, to make sure I wasn’t being fooled. 

         “My rate is twenty percent.  You can have full payment in six weeks, or two partials, three and three, for eighteen percent.   And I would have to take a look at that diamond.  When can we meet?”

         “I could come to see you now.  Where are you located?”

         “No, now would not suit.  Shall we say six, this evening?”  Let’s see if she had to hide the transaction from her hubby, if she had one.  At six, she would be either making dinner or getting dressed to go out. 

         “Fine,” she said.  I had guessed wrong.  Oh well.  I would have to tell John that dinner would be late.  “I can see you then.” 

I gave her the address of the small office I used, above the local Starbucks, for client meetings.  I would have to get cracking if I was going to have a jeweler eyeball the rock before making the deal.  “Bring the stone.”