Capítulo 123: Chapter 123: The Westeros Tower
Whether Lehman Brothers followed suit or not, it ultimately did not have a significant impact on Simon's operations in the stock index futures market. Noah Scott's special trip from Chicago to mend fences was something Simon couldn't just ignore.
In this country, if Simon wanted to advance further, it was impossible to sever ties with investment banks. While he still wouldn't trust Noah Scott and Lehman Brothers completely, compared to other silent investment banks, the information Noah had just shared showed genuine sincerity.
After dinner, Simon and Janet parted ways with Noah Scott and returned to the Plaza Hotel, where it was just past eight in the evening.
In the Presidential Suite at the top of the Plaza Hotel.
Janet hung their coats and came to the study, where Simon was already seated by the window with his usual hardcover notebook. Leaning on the back of the sofa, she asked, "Simon, what are you planning to do?"
Simon, holding his 16k handmade notebook, absentmindedly filled in musical notes with a pencil.
Madonna's new album, a dance genre titled "You Can Dance," was releasing next month, and Simon had already contributed a song that matched the album's style. However, the song he was currently writing was intended as the ending theme for "Pulp Fiction."
Despite Noah Scott's warning about his exposure in the futures market, Simon found himself with no real means to prevent the imminent public revelation.
Hearing Janet's question, Simon turned to her with a resigned smile, "There's nothing I can do. Simon Westeros is about to become famous again."
Janet smiled, moved around the sofa, and sat next to him. The two were in front of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Central Park, which was shrouded in darkness, lit only by the bright lights of buildings along its edges.
Holding his arm and watching him fill out the musical score, Janet spoke after a moment, "Actually, being exposed isn't necessarily bad, you haven't done anything illegal."
Simon shook his head, "A nineteen-year-old making over a billion dollars in just a few months isn't considered illegal?"
Janet leaned in and kissed his cheek, then changed the subject, "What did you think about those houses we saw today?"
Trying to shake off his feelings of powerlessness, Simon engaged with her topic, "None of them were particularly appealing."
Janet seemed a bit hopeful, "I thought the duplex on 68th Street was quite nice. It's a three-story layout with over 1200 square meters facing Central Park. The price of $15 million is a bit high, but it's a property on Fifth Avenue—it's bound to appreciate in value. Even if you don't like the Baroque style inside, we can always renovate."
Recalling the luxurious Fifth Avenue apartment they had seen that day, Simon smiled at Janet's metric measurements and said, "Call the real estate agent tomorrow, we'll buy that one."
Such a property adjacent to Central Park in the Upper East Side would easily cost over a hundred million dollars in Simon's previous era.
$15 million seemed quite reasonable to Simon.
Of course, in 1987, $15 million was definitely a premium price, especially given the recent stock market crash, which was sure to cause a direct plunge in real estate prices. Simon remembered that just two years later, the famous Empire State Building was sold for only $42 million.
Seeing Simon agree, Janet's face showed a moment of hesitation, "If you don't like it, we can keep looking."
"Let's buy it," Simon reassured her with a kiss on her cheek, "I don't really like any of the properties in Manhattan that much. Since we're buying, at least one of us should be happy with it."
Janet blinked several times, "What kind of house do you actually like?"
"You know, modern, minimalist, and on the highest floor. I want to stand at the window and have every other building beneath me," Simon said, suddenly inspired. He turned a page in his notebook, took up his pencil, and began sketching quickly as he spoke, "Something like this."
Janet leaned in curiously, waiting patiently before a structure that appeared to be made of glass and steel emerged on the paper.
The building was cone-shaped overall, but the top few floors jutted out onto a platform. Then, Simon labeled a letter at the side, initially looking like 'A' but quickly changing it to 'W'.
'W', clearly stood for 'Westeros'.
The Westeros Tower.
Simon's drawing skills, evident from his storyboard sketches for "Run Lola Run," allowed a striking building to appear on paper within minutes, one that would tower over Manhattan, surpassing even the Empire State Building.
After Simon finished, Janet grabbed the notebook, blinking at the top platform, "What's this?"
"A helipad," Simon explained.
"And," Janet paused before asking, "how tall
will it be?"
"If I don't want to see the Empire State Building from my bedroom, it should be over 500 meters," Simon estimated.
Janet briefly fantasized about living in a top-floor apartment of a building over 500 meters tall, then looked back at Simon, "Can this really be built?"
"If I could make over a billion dollars in just over five months, then building a skyscraper is certainly feasible," Simon said, pondering a moment before adding, "We could start planning now and perhaps begin construction in three years. Such a building, including the cost of land and all other expenses, should cost about $500 million. Of course, the interior facilities and future maintenance will also be very costly. But as long as it can be built, even spending a billion dollars would be worth it."
Janet, still a bit stunned, handed the notebook back to Simon, snuggling against his arm like a kitten, "You rascal, I want to move in right now."
Simon detailed the letter 'W' with his pencil, glad he hadn't completed the 'A'; otherwise, 'Avengers Tower' might have slipped through. The Avengers Tower from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as he recalled, was about the same height as the Empire State Building. However, since he was building, Simon had no intention of following the usual path.
After a few more strokes, and hearing Janet's comment, he pointed to the part above the helipad, "By then, the top ten floors will all be for the Westeros family."
"Uh-huh," Janet nodded several times, "I'll take your last name in the future."
Simon chuckled and nuzzled her head, teasing, "Just for a big house, huh? That's not very principled."
"Ha," Janet laughed, then pointed to the part below the platform, "What about these?"
"If it's the Westeros Tower," Simon stated, "the floors below should naturally house the headquarters of Westeros Company. Of course, it'll need detailed planning, and that's a job for professionals."
Janet then asked, "Where do you plan to build this building?"
Simon pointed to the right side of the window, "The corner over there would be nice. If not Fifth Avenue, then we could move a bit further east, next to Madison Avenue. That way, we'd still have Central Park at our feet."
After some more quiet discussion, Janet returned to the present, "So, rascal, are we still buying the house?"
"Of course, where else would we live?" Simon nodded, "Let's go with the one you mentioned. The plans for the tower on the drawing will take years to prepare and build. Maybe by the time we move in, it will be seven or eight years later. We'll definitely be coming to New York often, we can't go seven or eight years without a place to stay here."
"I'll try to negotiate the price down; I think we could get it for $12 million. With the stock market crash, property prices are bound to plummet. $15 million was the pre-crash price," Janet said, then added, "Rascal, once the tower in the drawing is built, do you plan to move to New York?"
"Wherever we want to live. Once we have our private jet, even flying from New York to Los Angeles for work every day wouldn't be a problem."
Janet playfully slapped Simon, "I don't want to go through all that."
Simon replied, "Then I'll go to work every day, and you can be a housewife."
Janet immediately shook her head, "No way, I'm not being a housewife."
Simon nodded without any conviction, "Okay, you do whatever you want."
After chatting for a while longer, Janet picked up the sketch again, "Rascal, honestly, I still find it a bit unbelievable."
"Just watch me build it," Simon said, then added, "But we'll need to work hard to make money now."
"Who just said that making over a billion dollars at 19 was already quite illegal?"
Simon pondered for a moment, "Now that many people know about it, there's no need to hide it anymore. Maybe, this should be seen as a good thing."
Before this, Simon often instinctively tried to keep his actions unobtrusive. Although the results often turned out to be quite conspicuous, he never gave up on this perhaps somewhat self-deceptive method of operation.
Now, if the operations on the futures market were exposed, any surprising actions Simon took next would probably not seem so shocking.
After all, a billion dollars was still a significant amount in this era.
Forbes magazine had only started compiling the global rich list a few years ago. According to this year's latest list, the wealthiest were still the oil families from the Middle East, and families with fortunes over $10 billion amounted to only three. The fourth-ranked media dynasty, the New
house family, had wealth sliding down to $8.7 billion, and the threshold for the top ten richest globally was also only $5.4 billion.
Even after all taxes, Simon was now capable of breaking into the top 100 of Forbes' global rich list.
In 1987, with the global population officially surpassing 5 billion, Simon, as one of the wealthiest 100 people among those 5 billion, could see that he was definitely among the very top of the pyramid.
Within just a year, an 18-year-old had catapulted into the list of the world's 100 wealthiest individuals. If the outside world accepted this status, then whatever extraordinary things Simon did next would probably not seem too outlandish.
After staying in New York for one more day, Simon returned to Los Angeles, while Janet stayed in New York to continue dealing with the house.
On October 30th, the day Simon returned to Los Angeles, "Final Destination's" first week's box office was already in, bringing in $18.16 million in seven days. Both internally at Fox and among external media, it was generally predicted that the movie's final North American box office would surpass $60 million.
Although it couldn't compare with "Run Lola Run" and "The Butterfly Effect," within a year, two top ten and one top fifteen box office hits in North America solidified Simon's reputation as a blockbuster filmmaker.
During his few days in New York, Simon also took some time to complete the screenplay for "Basic Instinct," which he handed over to Jonathan Friedman upon returning to Los Angeles, instructing his agent and Amy to negotiate with Fox for a new film.
With three consecutive successful films, Simon naturally sought to secure more benefits this time.
Meanwhile, Noah Scott, after his personal visit, kept in touch with Simon, who continued to receive updates about Wall Street related to him.
By November, although somewhat anticipated, the unfolding events still caught Simon off guard.
The catalyst came from Lehman Brothers, involving Soros, whom Simon had been keeping an eye on.
As Quantum Fund's futures broker, Lehman Brothers faced a lawsuit from Soros after a substantial loss due to premature leak of information during the October 22nd sell-off, which also implicated Simon in the process.
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