In between business trips with Harvey we would usually be back in the office in Montvale, New Jersey. Harvey was strategically placed in the corner office on the second floor. He would usually sit at his desk facing away from the door and whomever would wander into his office. He had set up three monitors behind his desk to watch the market and would often have detailed conversations with people while only occasionally looking up at them. His door was rarely closed and anyone could and often would just walk in and talk to Harvey. He enjoyed the company and as long as you understood that he was going to be trading while talking to you then he never seemed to mind visitors. If the market got crazy he would graciously excuse himself and tell the person that he needed to concentrate for a little while.
I walked into Harvey’s office to show him an ad I was working on for Investor’s Business Daily. As usual he felt it was to subtle and he made some changes. I told him that it wasn’t going to fly with Linda Lerner, All-Tech’s general counsel, a brilliant and feisty woman with an incredible knowledge of the brokerage industry. “Fuck her,” was his usual response when I brought up her forthcoming rejection of the ad. On this particular Friday in August Harvey had far more important things on his mind and he quickly tossed the ad on his desk demonstrating once again that he had the attention span of a Tic-Tac and said, “Let’s go”, as he got up and headed for the office door. “Where are we going,” I asked as if it mattered since I was already right behind him. “I have to pick something up”, he responded as he headed down the stairs and out into the bright sunlight and a scorching August heatwave in northern New Jersey. He had borrowed a little red pick-up truck that belonged to one of the staff at his estate.
He drove to a house in Saddle River, a cozy affluent community and onetime home of former President Richard Nixon. A woman in her sixties was in the garage as we drove into the driveway. Harvey said hello and told me to take an end of what could only be described as one of the ugliest couches I’ve ever seen. It was shiny dark gold cloth with images of the Liberty Bell and script from the Declaration of Independence superimposed all over it. We loaded it on the truck sideways across the truck bed. Harvey had of course brought no rope or cords. That is why I was there. To hold it. He haggled with the woman on the pre-agreed upon price and as usual got his way. When he got in the truck he handed me a two foot wide by one foot high American Eagle made of pennies and dimes glued together and mounted on a wooden oval plaque. “I paid five bucks for this,” he said proudly. “There’s at least twenty dollars worth of coins on this thing”, he went on justifying his ridiculous purchase. “I got the couch for fifty bucks and she threw in a lamp for free,” he continued. “Great”, I said. “Where are you going to put all of this crap”? “In the office,” he responded as if I should have known that he would bring junk a homeless person wouldn’t sleep on to our tastefully decorated corporate office. “Mark Shefts was going to crap a cow when he see this junk,” I thought.
The couch started sliding the second we pulled out of the driveway. I was holding one corner with my outstretched arm as Harvey drove and held the other end as we drove back to the office. On the way he told me that he had agreed upon a price of a hundred dollars but told the woman he only had fifty on him knowing that she was moving that day and had to get rid of the couch. She was a recent widow he told me. I told him that he was going to hell and now he had the furniture to go with him. He just laughed as we stopped in Shop-Rite because Pepsi was on sale and he had coupons.
Harvey came up to the register with ten cases of Pepsi and his coupon. The coupon was only good for two cases. Harvey immediately began negotiating with the pimple-faced teenager behind the register who was clearly getting very nervous as Harvey attacked relentlessly with dialogue not fit for the young and innocent. A manager overheard the commotion and came over to assist. Harvey told him that he fed the homeless and he needed ten cases of Pepsi. Not only did he get the ten cases the manager scanned his employee card and Harvey got another twenty percent off. He was in his glory.
When we got back to the office it was already after hours so the place was empty when we brought in the furniture and set it up in the waiting room. After seeing the lamp the couch is now the second ugliest piece of furnitue I’ve ever seen. We hanged the eagle coin plaque above the couch which rounded out the room as a total disatser and completely inappropriate for the office. Harvey of course loved it. I couldn’t wait until Monday when people saw it. It looked like the dark waiting room of a 1930’s politician with bad taste and a lust for Asian prostitutes. It was hideous.
Wisdom of the EDGE 