Karl pulled out a check book. It was printed down-time, but in the up-time style and it was on the First National Bank of Grantville. He then took a gold inlaid fountain pen, also down-time made to an up-time design, and used it to fill out a check with several zeros in the amount line. It somewhat more than cleared the debt owed to the Abrabanel Banking house by the SFIC.
“And the rest?” Moses asked.
“A drawing account.”
“I’ll implement it today, Your Serene Highness.” It would take about two weeks for the check to reach Grantville and clear, but apparently Moses didn’t doubt that it would be good.
Liechtenstein House, Vienna
“You did what?” Gundaker’s face was as red as Moses’ had been, but it wasn’t from embarrassment. It was from anger.
“I bought twenty percent of the Sanderlin-Fortney Investment Company,” Karl repeated.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“I find myself wondering the same thing,” Maximilian said, rather more cautiously.
“No, Uncles. My mind is right where it ought to be. However, there is a real difference between a loan to one individual and the same amount loaned to many people. It is less the level of risk than the measurability of risk. Some of the debts will not be paid, some will be, with interest. This will average out to either a slight gain, or at worst a slight loss on the loans. If it turns out to be a loss, the interest in the many businesses will cover the loss over time. It’s actually much safer than, say, investing in armies. After all, armies sometimes lose the war.”
Grantville, July, 1635
“Judy has gone nuts,” Heather Mason told Els Engel.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Heather. To go nuts you have to start somewhere else,” Els told her. They were at the studio, recording a new record. “All you Barbies live in crazy.”
Heather stuck her tongue out at Els, then looked at the tray of foods in the green room and decided that she had better pass. She was having trouble keeping her weight down, especially since she could afford chocolate these days. “Fine. The still-crazy Judy the Younger Wendell wants me to get printing plates designed to print preferred stock certificates for a company called BarbieCo. In denominations of one pfennig, six pfennig, one groschen, twelve groschen, one reichsthaler and one mark denominations, no less. And one more, on which the amount is filled in when it’s issued. I’m supposed to decide what goes on which denomination. There’s a rough drawing of a building that’s supposed to go on the back, and some legalese.”
“So which Barbie goes where?” Els asked. “You ought to keep the really big one for yourself.”
“I was thinking about the puns. You know . . . the buck and the dough and the picture of Johnny Cash.”
“No.” Els shook her head. “Don’t try to make it look like a copy of American money, or people will think it’s a fake.”
“Hmm. Maybe,” Heather said as she continued to read through the documents. “Hey, wait a minute. BarbieCo is American Equipment Company. They renamed it by stockholder vote. This really is crazy.” She continued to read. They were going to issue lots of preferred stock. Sarah and Susan were still working out how much, but at least several million dollars worth, possibly a lot more. Heather was to contact their other investors, warn them, and offer to buy them out. AEC was pretty closely held. Aside from the Barbies and Karl, there were maybe twenty people who had stuck with the company.
And Judy admitted it was a really risky venture.
Heather looked up from the bundle. “Els, you don’t really need me for the rest of this record, do you?”
Els eyebrows shot up. “But you love . . .” She gave Heather a look, then said, “No. It’s okay, Heather. This is serious, isn’t it?”
The latest take of Els’ down-time Amideutch version of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” was playing over the speakers to get the levels right. It was for Robin of the CoC and they were doing it with Els as Marian, starting as a lone voice singing quietly as they marched along, then Rod Friedman who played their unit commander joining in, then more and more people, till they had an army of voices. Which took laying down tracks of the same singers several times. It was all about the CoC’s attack on the anti-Semites. And Heather felt a chill go down her spine that was only partly the music. “It could be, Els. It could be very, very serious.”
* * *
All the way to the Higgins Hotel, Heather Mason considered. By the summer of 1635 there was a large and growing contingent of top-flight artists in Grantville. They came to visit, and stayed for the suite of artistic tools that didn’t exist anywhere else on Earth . . . and wasn’t going to for the next twenty years at least. Digital cameras, computers with graphics software, computer-controlled cutting and shaping tools. And Heather knew a great many of them. It went with being Trommler Records, because it wasn’t just the records themselves. She was also in charge of the sleeves and album covers.