Middle Men Page #2

The only problem was that he started

performing unnecessary surgeries

to ensure a steady supply

of canine barbiturates.

That pretty much ended

Wayne's career as a veterinarian.

- Good to see you, man.

- Yeah.

Do we have any, like, hook-up or like,

what's the gack situation?

Dealer's coming over tonight.

Now, I found out

a friend of mine in LA

who owned a night club was sick

and he couldn't work.

Apparently his family needed my help.

- Is he all right?

- Yeah, but he can't work for a while.

Susan called. She wanted to know

if you'd go out to LA for a few weeks,

help straighten out his business.

I spoke to a lawyer out there,

a guy named Jerry Haggerty.

He says the place could be

a real gold mine, baby,

but if you don't get out there soon,

that's it.

They're gonna lose everything.

I'm talking the lot.

I didn't want to leave my family

in Houston. We were happy.

Like everybody else,

we were mortgaged to the hilt,

had credit card debt and were constantly

struggling to make ends meet.

Not a great place to be with a family.

Besides, babe...

you're good at fixing messes.

Thanks, honey.

She was right. If I had one talent,

it was fixing problems, problems nobody

thought could be fixed.

I first learned I had this talent...

...several years ago, while I was

working for one of my dad's buddies

in the construction business.

This guy's name was Louie La La.

He was the leg-breaker

for a local crime boss.

Louie just loved what he did.

If he had a choice between being

President of the United States

and breaking somebody's legs...

- All right.

- ...guess what job he'd pick?

Let's go knee cap this Irish f***

and get something to eat.

- Knee cap?

- Yeah.

Take a bat, couple of good hits,

the guy wises up real quick.

I wonder if you were to just,

you know, talk to the guy

and find out what happened.

He wouldn't not pay you, right?

I think maybe if you were

to just speak to the guy...

Kid!

- I am done speaking to this prick.

- I'm sorry.

I know you just wanna

get your money, right?

That's all you want,

is just get the money?

Yeah.

Hurry up, before I change my mind.

- I'm sorry?

- You got two minutes to get my money.

After that, somebody's

getting his knees broke.

He should have been a cowboy

or something. He's more suited.

So now I go inside the bar

and I meet this guy, Morgan.

He was scared and with good reason.

All right, I got problems, too.

You know?

Last couple of projects I built, I...

I got jammed up, you know?

So I had to go to Louie

which is the last f***in' thing

I wanted to do, you know?

And now I'm waiting to go

to the f***in' hospital. Why?

Because I owe? I mean, it's not

like I cheated or I stole or anything.

Just stop, all right, for a second?

Do me a favor.

Just let's focus on why we're here.

I mean, obviously when

you borrowed this money,

you had to have had a plan on how

you were gonna pay it back, right?

Let's just figure out what went wrong

and maybe I can get you out of this. OK?

Talk to me.

All right, if I...

if I had a building permit,

I could get the work

and pay him by the end of the day.

And how's that?

I could borrow money in a few seconds

if I had a building permit.

- Don't have a f***ing building permit.

- A building permit?

Yeah. I need a f***ing building permit.

Not this time. Batter up.

Hey, hold on, Louie.

Now, you got friends downtown, right?

I got friends all over the place.

OK, well, this guy says if he

can just get a building permit

he'll have your money

by the end of the day.

He wants me to do what?

What do I look like, a permiteer?

Look, do we want to get the money

or do we want to break this guy's legs?

I say we get the money, you know?

I'm in a quandary.

I learned that day you can

negotiate your way out of anything.

You just had to find

some common ground.

This is how you learn.

So I was on my way to

Los Angeles to help my friend,

a choice I made out

of financial necessity,

and one that would set in motion a chain

of events I never could have imagined.

Now about the same time...

...Buck had to get a job

in LA to help pay the rent.

Buck may have suffered

through the day,

but at night,

he and Wayne came alive

and began working on their master plan

to take over the world.

I am listening to you.

I am listening. I am listening.

What good is the Internet for

if it's not entertaining?

You know, there's nothing new.

There's... there's no variety.

I wanna see some hot porn.

What I'm seeing over here is boring.

What I'm seeing over here

is redundant.

What I'm seeing over here

is bullshit.

What's your f***ing point? Just...

My point is we take some

pictures from a magazine

we scan them, we upload them

and we make a little money.

This has a lot of potential

for you getting really rich.

- Are you making fun of me?

- Let me get this straight.

- You go to the website...

- Are you making fun of me?

No, no, no.

You start your thing, right?

You finish, you clean yourself off,

you go to the filing cabinet,

take out your checkbook,

- write your check.

- No, it's like a subscription.

- Like a subscription to a magazine.

- Oh, really?

People do that all the time.

They send in checks.

Or go to the bank

and get a money order?

Call in their credit cards.

Who the f*** is gonna give you

their credit card?

- I don't know.

- Punch in the numbers?

- Why are you being so negative?!

- I'm not being negative!

There is no program for that.

People do it with magazines

all the time.

You swipe your credit card

in the f***ing computer?

No, you dial it in. It's zeros and ones.

- Why are you being so negative?

- There is no program for this.

You punch in your numbers

on the f***ing credit...

What's wrong with that?

What are you doing?

- Do not interrupt me for 1 5 minutes.

- OK.

Being a rocket scientist

had its advantages.

Within 1 5 minutes,

Buck had written the program

that is the standard today

for any online credit card transaction.

A technology that Visa, MasterCard

and Amazon had yet to develop.

So I hooked a buzzer up.

Every time we make a sale,

the buzzer will go off.

- How much you wanna charge for it?

- Ten dollars.

Why don't you make it $9.99?

Psychologically,

it makes people feel better.

OK.

So three or four days go by,

not a single buzzer.

My guess is they almost forgot

they even bothered to do this.

And then...

Did I just hear right?

Yeah, we just made $9.99.

At 4:
1 5 in the morning?

Oh, God, the guy's gotta be

a pervert just like you.

You don't know that. This guy

could be on the East Coast

or in Europe somewhere,

where it's night.

This guy could be anywhere.

This is the World Wide Web, dumbass.

You're not f***ing

with that thing, are you?

No, man. Those are subscribers.

We're getting rich.

Great.

How much are we up to?

Sir, I will be with you in a minute.

We passed the $2,000 mark

about a half hour ago.

- That's f***ing amazing.

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