The Recycling System: From Scrap Collector to Billionaire

Chapter 11: A Bit of an Eyeful

Two days blew by in a blur, and Jake hadn't had a single moment to breathe. With opening day bearing down on him, the to-do list never seemed to shrink.

He finally exhaled, staring down at the business license in his hands, then climbed up on a stool to hang it on the wall behind the counter.

"Jake, give me one more day and I'll have that AC unit fully installed, I swear!" Tyler wiped sweat from his forehead, breathing hard.

"No worries, take your time. I already checked, we're opening the day after tomorrow." Jake pulled a folded stack of cash from his pocket and counted out three hundred dollars. "Here, for all your hard work these last couple days. Take the crew out for a good dinner tonight. I've got somewhere to be, so I won't make it."

"This... man, I can't take this..." Tyler rubbed his hands together, hesitating. Two days of work hardly seemed worth this much.

"Just take it, I'm telling you to. Get everyone something decent to eat tonight, my treat."

Tyler finally gave in, folding the cash away carefully.

"Alright, boys, let's push through tonight, Jake's buying us barbecue!" Tyler called out to the crew.

The energy in the room picked up instantly. They'd all clocked the exchange between Jake and Tyler, and everyone understood a cut of that cash was headed their way too.

Jake didn't much care how they split it up. Over the last few days he'd gotten a decent read on Tyler, lazy and idle most days, sure, but genuinely loyal underneath it, which explained why he had this many guys willing to follow him around.

Jake wasn't interested in micromanaging any of that. He just handed the reins to Tyler and let him sort it out.

The renovation had come together fast thanks to Tyler's crew. Rough around the edges as they were, most of them had worked construction jobs at some point, so basic renovation work was second nature.

A few of the original counters in the shop had been damaged, but Jake had quietly used a handful of points to repair them good as new.

The shop itself, just over 850 square feet, felt like a solid size. Fresh paint covered the walls, a bit of greenery hung as accents, and a couple of Tyler's guys were down on their knees scrubbing the tile floor inch by inch with steel wool. One more day, and the whole place would be spotless.

Jake had carved out a section of the floor specifically for secondhand large appliances, and set aside a counter for himself, once the shop opened, he figured he could expand the business model a bit.

He could even take on repair jobs other shops turned away, since with the system behind him, there wasn't much that couldn't be fixed given enough points. That alone could turn into a whole second revenue stream.

Glass display counters lined the walls, lighting flickering softly overhead, everything intact and ready. The only problem was the cabinets sat completely empty, not a single phone in sight.

Jake was about to fix that.

"Buddy! Where are you?! It's getting late, get over here! This is a seven-hundred-grand deal we're talking about!!" The second Jake picked up, Old Pete's voice roared through the speaker.

"I hear you, Pete. I'll grab a cab and head over now. It's barely dark out and you're already yelling about a seven-hundred-grand deal, quit exaggerating." Jake said, mildly annoyed.

"Just hurry, I already got here and ordered two cases of beer. I'm bored out of my mind sitting here alone!"

"Good grief, pace yourself! I'm not carrying your drunk butt home tonight!"

The caller was, of course, Old Pete from the scrapyard. Ever since their first real deal together, Pete had upgraded from calling him "kid" to "Boss Jake" without missing a beat.

Especially after Jake promised him a $600 commission if he could talk his friend's price down below $30 a unit on those burned-out iPhones, after that, Pete had gotten noticeably more motivated.

"Alright, everyone keep at it, it's getting late, we can finish up tomorrow. Just lock up when you head out. I've got something to handle tonight, so I won't be joining you guys for dinner!" Jake called out to the crew and jogged out the door.

He flagged down a cab.

"Spectrum Lounge, please."

"You got it, boss! Heard that place is stacked with pretty girls..."

"Girls? Nah, I'm a scrap collector, I don't go scavenging for that." Jake laughed.

"Oh yeah? Ha, funny you say that, I do a little scavenging myself, specialize in secondhand young wives, the younger the better." The driver kept rambling on and on, practically halfway through pitching Jake a nearby massage parlor before Jake finally cut him off.

He wasn't headed to the bar to pick up women tonight, though. He had a client to meet and not Pete himself, but the friend Pete had mentioned.

That friend had sunk money into a shipment of iPhones, only for the delivery truck to flip on the interstate and torch the entire load, seven hundred of the newest model iPhones, gone up in flames. That was the "seven-hundred-grand deal" Pete kept yelling about.

The recovery crew had gotten there fast enough that not everything turned to ash, but the vast majority of the units were burned beyond any hope of reselling whole, parts salvage was really the only realistic option left.

A handful of buyers had trickled in over the weeks, but the process was slow and tedious, and with hundreds of units sitting there, the guy had basically given up trying to move them fast. Even at thirty or forty-five bucks a unit, seven hundred phones added up to nearly thirty thousand dollars sitting dead in his inventory. Manually stripping that many units for parts could take years.

For Jake, though, this wasn't remotely a problem. His system could clear that entire backlog for a fraction of the cost, and points were the only currency it needed.

Right now he was still sitting on well over a thousand points, plenty to get started, at least for this first batch.

The buyer, from what Pete had let slip, was something of a local heavyweight, rumored ties to less-than-legal business, with a hand in half the nightlife venues across Fairview. Jake didn't know the specifics and honestly didn't care. Reputation and backstory meant nothing to him as long as the deal made sense.

The only reason he was even setting foot in a place like this tonight was for that meeting, otherwise, this wasn't exactly his scene.

The cab pulled up outside the club, and a couple of hostesses in impossibly short skirts trotted over on heels to open his door, which caught him a little off guard. Long legs, tiny skirts, good lord, have some decency, Jake thought, even as his eyes lingered a beat too long anyway. Easy on the eyes, though. Not gonna lie.

He never imagined he'd end up somewhere like this. Jake let out a self-deprecating laugh, the old version of himself wouldn't have dared walk through these doors, mostly because he could never have afforded to.

But then again, he reminded himself, puffing his chest out a little as he strode inside, he wasn't that guy anymore. He had the system now.