The largest Check ever Written [ Excludes Electronic Transfer ]

The largest Check ever Written [ Excludes Electronic Transfer ]

fiction
edward w pritchard

My degree was in Art History when I graduated from college and I had a difficult time finding a job. Finally, after several long months, and volumes of advice from those around me, I landed a job with a start-up company as straight commission salesman.

The Company had come up with some interesting uses for laser technologies, and since there was the usual desperate need for cash, pre-IPO, some New York venture capitalists had been consulted, and they insisted that the founder steer the company to focus on it's price scan technologies for cans at supermarkets rather than the founder's original business plan, which called for the taking of an exact copy of Great Works of Art to be stored at a central location.

The Company founder decided to follow the advice of those he hired to advise him, but in a small defiance had hired me, the only salesman on a draw/commission schedule to develop the art scan market.

I had been on board three months and was struggling to find sales. My girlfriend, who I was getting serious with, was wanting me to get a real job, even if it meant going out of my field.

Today, was Wednesday, and I had a meeting with a director of a small museum in Youngstown, Ohio. I had cold called the museum last week by phone, and I had been referred to one of the directors, who had an interest in the copying of works of art. The lady had agreed to meet with me when I called her, but not at the museum, but closer to her home at the food court, of an aging Mall half-way between my office and Youngstown.

I arrived a few minutes early at the food court and grabbed a seat and was reviewing my notes for the presentation when I noticed an attractive older woman who I surmised was her coming out of a bookstore near the food court. Although dressed casually, the woman seemed a little too sophisticated for Ohio, and my intuition suggested that she was my appointment and I rose, walked to her, and introduced myself.

To break the ice I asked her what book she had bought at the bookstore and she shyly showed me an Art Book on Vermeer, which by luck was my favorite painter, and it turned out to be hers also. We talked passionately for about 10 minutes about the fraud Vermeer's, and the still life's, and she was easy for me to talk to and it was not until our food came that I decided to get down to business.

Eventually, I tried to steer the conversation to my presentation and after about a minute, she kindly interrupted me, and asked if I knew who she was. Thrown off, i stammered a little about her being a director at the museum and that sort of thing.

She didn't talk but while I went on she pulled out an expensive checkbook binder and began to write.

I got nervous, and kept talking and repeating myself, until she said
" relax, you got the sale"

And then she said in a matter of fact way, continuing to write mechanically, that although she went by another name, she was originally, a "-----". one of the richest families in Northeastern Ohio, and she said had had her New York and Swiss advisers check out our company, and she knew that if the IPO went forward, as is, the technology to laser copy, great works of Art, that our founder had developed would be shelved for several years, because of pressure to grow the top line post IPO. She said, for over twenty years, it was her dream that all the major works of Art in the major museums of the world be copied, for protection and backed-up against destruction from any means.

With that she handed me the card of a major New York Investment boutique, and a check with the New York investment boutique's name, my companies name, and my name. The check was for one billion dollars. Once I agreed personally, to stay involved with the project, and to call the New York bankers, to proceed, she then ask if I minded if she stay out of the details of the project, because she disliked the day to day managing of business affairs. I started to stammer again, but she said she had to leave and in deference, let me pay for her check, $3.88 for a chickpeas sandwich, with potato soup.

That was over a year ago, and to date, is my biggest sale.