One of Us Is Wrong

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“When you invest in a shopping center,” Karen told me, “you don’t look at the shopping center. It’s not a shopping center, it’s an investment, and what you look at is the people running the investment. Leopold Associates has an excellent history in this area. Did you read the backgrounder?”

“I’ll go take a look at the place, just for fun,” I said, because of course I had not read the backgrounder and didn’t want to admit it. Karen Platt is my accountant, and she is absolutely serious; when she sends you a backgrounder, pages and pages of computer printout complete with charts and graphs and references to annual statements, she expects you to read it.

Well, I can’t read backgrounders. On the show I could never read the plot summaries, the character descriptions. Just tell me what I say and what the other guy says, and I’ll figure out the details for myself. That system worked pretty well on the show, so why shouldn’t it work now, when the question was whether or not to invest two hundred forty-two thousand for three points in this shopping center in Woodland Hills? “I’ll just wander by the place,” I said. “Sit behind the wheel, kick the tires.”

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