Celebrity Investment System

Chapter 2

Jay didn't move. He leaned against the brick wall, ignoring the cold. "Why do you do it? You have the physical build of a professional swimmer and the vocal cords of a lead singer. Why are you picking up trash for a man like Finn Turner?"

Leo froze. His grip on the vacuum handle tightened. "How do you know my voice?"

"I don't just hear voices, Leo. I hear potential," Jay said. He stepped closer, into the light of the streetlamp. "I saw you looking at the ballroom. You don't want to be in there cleaning the floors. You want to be on that stage. But someone told you that you weren't good enough. Or maybe a contract went bad. Or maybe you just ran out of money and gave up."

The annoyance on Leo’s face vanished, replaced by a flicker of fear. "Who are you? Are you a cop? A debt collector?"

"I’m an investor," Jay said.

Leo laughed, a bitter, dry sound. "An investor? Look at you. You’re soaked. You’re bleeding. You look like you don't have a penny to your name."

"I don't," Jay admitted freely. "Right now, I have exactly zero dollars. I am the most bankrupt man in this city. But I have something much more valuable than cash. I have the System."

"The system?"

"The ability to turn a nobody into a god," Jay said. His voice was calm, but it held a terrifying amount of certainty. "I spent ten years building the stars you see on TV. I built the people inside that ballroom. And tonight, they took everything from me because they were afraid of what I could do."

Leo looked Jay up and down. He should have walked away. He should have called security. But there was something in Jay’s eyes—a cold, calculating fire—that stopped him.

"What do you want?" Leo asked.

"I want to make a deposit," Jay said. "I’m going to invest my time, my knowledge, and my last bit of energy into you. I’m going to take that voice of yours and I’m going to make it the only thing people want to hear. I’m going to take that face and put it on every screen from New York to Tokyo."

Leo stared at him, stunned. "You're crazy."

"In six months," Jay continued, stepping even closer until he was inches from the janitor, "you won't be cleaning this floor. You’ll be owning it. You’ll be the guest of honor. Finn Turner will be the one trying to get your attention."

The rain pounded harder. A black limousine pulled out of the Astoria's driveway, splashing them both with dirty water as it sped away. Inside, Jay could see a famous actor laughing.

Leo looked at the disappearing limo, then back at Jay. The hunger Jay had seen earlier was now visible, raw and painful.

"Why me?" Leo whispered. "You don't even know if I can sing."

"I know you can," Jay said. "I know everything about you just by looking at you. You’re a ‘Zero-Value’ asset to the world, Leo. Just like I am. But that’s the best time to buy. When the price is at the bottom, the only way to go is up."

Jay reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, crumpled business card. It was his old Zenith Group card. He took his waterproof pen and crossed out the name "Zenith Group" with a thick, black line. On the back, he wrote a time and an address—a cheap 24-hour diner three blocks away.

"I don't have a fancy office anymore," Jay said. "I don't have a staff. I don't have a marketing budget. All I have is the Ledger. If you show up at this diner at 2:00 AM, we begin. If you don't, you can go back to your three jobs and your four hours of sleep."

Jay handed him the card. Leo took it with a trembling hand.

"What's the catch?" Leo asked. "What do you get out of this?"

Jay’s expression didn't change. He looked at the Grand Astoria one last time. He thought of Finn Turner’s sneer. He thought of his frozen bank account. He thought of the decade of his life they had tried to erase.

"I get my revenge," Jay said. "And I get fifty percent of your soul."

Jay turned and walked away into the darkness, his silhouette disappearing into the grey curtain of rain. He didn't look back. He didn't need to. He knew exactly how many seconds it would take for Leo to look at that card. He knew exactly how much Leo hated his life.

Behind him, Leo stood alone on the sidewalk, the wet business card clutched in his hand. He looked at the grand ballroom, then at the trash bags, then at the direction Jay had gone.

Jay reached the end of the block. He opened his Ledger to the page marked LEO. He checked his watch.

3... 2... 1...

A muffled sound broke through the noise of the rain. It was a song. Leo had started to hum. It was a low, vibrating melody that carried through the damp air—a voice that had been silenced for too long, finally testing its strength.

Jay smiled. It wasn't a kind smile. It was the smile of a man who had just placed a winning bet.

He closed the notebook. The first investment was made.

But as Jay turned the corner, he didn't see the black SUV parked across the street. He didn't see the man in the driver's seat watching him through binoculars. And he didn't see the man pick up a radio and say:

"He’s contacted a new subject. Should we liquidate the asset now, or wait for the system to reveal itself?"

The voice on the other end of the radio was cold and familiar.

"Let him build it," Finn Turner’s voice crackled through the speaker. "I want Jay to think he’s winning. I want him to put everything he has into that boy. And when the prize is ripe... we’ll take that, too."

Jay walked on, unaware that the game had already become much more dangerous than he imagined. He had a system to build a star, but his enemies had a system to destroy a man.