Family Trust

by Kathy Wang

  “I don’t understand,” Erika said.

  She sat across from him in a black jersey dress and mink-trimmed coat, an effortlessly chic look Fred knew from considerable experience had taken significant effort. Now that they were here, surrounded by ramshackle, he realized he should have warned her in advance about the lounge. He often forgot how inexperienced Erika actually was with the society she pretended to inhabit. The first international flight she’d ever flown was when she moved to the United States from Budapest; now she sat wide-eyed, fur collar pulled tight around her neck, as she observed their surroundings in horror.

  “You said this was going to be a first-class trip,” Erika said. As she spoke her eyes continued to rove, settling briefly on an unattended janitorial cart by the coffee machines. “How can everyone here be in first class?”

  Had he really said those precise words? “We are,” he reassured. “Business.”

  Erika gave him a hard look. “Business? So there is not a first?”

  “Well, not anymore, not on a lot of planes. They’ve eliminated first on a lot of routes. On ours, there still might be that, ah, class—but we’re in business, which by any standard is a top luxury experience. The tickets alone cost $8,000. Each.”

  This was true in the most theoretical sense, though Fred had used miles to upgrade his own and to purchase Erika’s. He had cursed Leland Wang a thousand times when he made the booking, for being such a cheap bastard. Aside from Leland himself, only employees with dire health restrictions documented with at least two pieces of (signed) supporting evidence from accredited health professionals were qualified to fly business for corporate travel, and Fred hadn’t yet stooped to begging the favor of Uncle Phillip. Thus not only did he fly economy when traveling for work, but it was usually on cut-rate fares, which meant an arduous number of plane hours was required to cobble together the miles for free flights. This trip had cleaned him out; he only had forty-eight miles left in his American Pacific account.

  “In business, you still lie flat to sleep,” he continued. With Erika, it was important to be authoritative. “You have the same fluffy pillows and unlimited champagne, and the only difference is the toiletries. You brought all your own creams and lotions, anyway.” The process of whittling down her favorites into a quart-size bag had taken Erika the better part of an hour, though he hadn’t complained. There was no way Fred was going to check baggage only to have his prized Loro Piana Traveller Jacket thieved by some enterprising Indonesian customs official.

  Though Erika appeared to accept this explanation, her mood once again soured when it came time for lunch. She threw a brief glare at the misshapen rows of crackers and skeletal grape bunches, before announcing she would seek alternatives elsewhere. “I will not risk food poisoning before air travel,” she declared, as if this was a long-standing policy of hers. Fred knew she expected him to follow, but he thought it unreasonable to expect him to cart their bags through the food court, where the tables were even more cramped. Instead, he fixed himself a plate with some of the less aggressively tinted cheeses and whole pieces of fruit. This would save him at least $15 compared to a food court meal, which he could mentally apply toward a charger if necessary.

  Once aboard the plane, he was secretly relieved to find ample space in the overhead bin. Erika had wanted to line up early, to ensure it, but at the last minute he’d made her wait in the general seating area instead, far away from the front. He was four levels removed from the top status on American Pacific (Agate Class, which allowed one free piece of checked baggage); he didn’t want to spend the first twenty minutes of boarding penned behind dilapidated red ropes while first-class fliers and million-milers strutted past, delighting in their avoided eye contact. “See?” he said. “Plenty of space.”

  Erika ignored him. She had set down her tote on the window seat and was making her way to the bathroom, toiletry kit in hand. Fred already dreaded what would surely be complaints regarding the service—since this was American Pacific, the flight attendants were either preemptively hostile or undergoing the slow inertia of death. Across from them on the aisle sat a tall man speaking on his phone in what sounded like French. He was fat in the way only Europeans seemed to be, with the heft concentrated around the torso, like an oversize bear. He wore a starched shirt and smelled strongly of cologne.

  As the flight hours passed, Fred eyed their neighbor. Like him, he hadn’t slept straightaway but had eaten dinner and now looked to be in the middle of a movie. Could he also be going to the Founders’ Retreat? Since his had been a pity invite, nearly anyone else he encountered represented a networking possibility. The man had the right girth for an investor, and Europeans in Silicon Valley always were a little dressier.

  Fred had never before been seated next to any combination of either attractive or important on a plane, a fate he felt was long overdue. The man belched and stood, and Fred prepared to lob a greeting. But after a quick stretch, the man placed his headphones back on and settled into his seat.

  When Fred woke, they were already in Hong Kong and the plane was taxiing to the gate. Next to him Erika sat facing directly ahead wearing large black sunglasses; he couldn’t see if she was awake or sleeping, and she made no response to his movements. His neck ached and his breath was stale. By the time he had retrieved his and Erika’s bags from the overhead bin, the Frenchman was gone.

  * * *

  “A few months ago, Reagan Kwon calls me,” Jack said. “You remember Reagan from school, right?”

  They were eating breakfast at Maison, the in-house French restaurant at the Dorchester Hotel in Hong Kong. The space was far more majestic than Fred’s modest “Superior” lodgings, which had been the lowest tier available at booking—while his cramped room featured pastel chintz wallpaper and faced the fire escape of the office building next door (the so-called Hong Kong city views), here they were surrounded by floor-to-ceiling glass windows, and the tables were separated by an extravagant distance. It was a rare clear morning where the pollution had been washed away by the rains the night before, and the beauty of the Kowloon Peaks was set in high contrast by the brash golden panels of the restaurant’s interior.

  More than ten years had passed since Fred had last seen Jack, at the HBS reunion. In the natural light of Hong Kong, Fred could see how Jack’s face had puddled and softened since then, his hair beginning to thin in the same half-moon pattern as his famous father’s. His dress sense hadn’t changed—a perk of being a billionaire—and he was clad in loose jeans and a dingy light blue sweatshirt, an item he had clearly been wearing all week and to bed.

  “I knew Reagan,” Fred said. “But not well. He was a year above us, so we didn’t share any classes, remember?”

  “Oh. Right. I forgot he was in a different year. That’s weird, I feel like we hung out all the time.”

  “Yeah you did,” Fred said, without further explanation. He tapped his foot restlessly out of sight under the table. He wondered what it was like to be Jack and have the beautiful and glamorous clamor for your acquaintance. How kind did he believe the world to be?

  “Reagan, he’s living in Bangkok now,” Jack continued. “Well not living living. He technically has a place, but he’s gone most of the time. His family is in Thailand half the year, though, so.

  Anyway, one afternoon Reagan calls and says he’s got a new project he wants to work on, and right away I know I’m interested. Because between you and me, my job isn’t the most exciting. Yeah, the numbers are big, but since I’m managing the family business full-time now, I’m pretty constrained in terms of risk. If anything goes wrong at Hu Land and Investment, it’s me who has to deal with the fallout. Not to mention all the aunties and cousins who are then immediately on my butt. Who wants to deal with that? So naturally I’m dying to know what Reagan has planned, but with him everything has to have this big buildup, where he strings you along until there’s this dramatic unveiling at the end. And we’re chatting for what feels like forever, until eventually he asks if I
’ve heard of this huge new development fund the Thais are launching. Of course, I say. It’s all over the financial news here, supposedly a crazy amount, multiple billions, all to make Bangkok the technology hub of Asia. ‘Silicon Valley of the East!’ or whatever. The rest of Asia is booming, everyone’s getting rich, and they don’t want to be left behind, plowing rice and giving tuk tuk rides. And then Reagan finally lets the bomb drop, that he’s getting some of that money to manage. Most of it.”

  Jack picked up a piece of toast. “Isn’t that amazing?” He crammed the food into his mouth.

  As Jack slathered marmalade onto another slice of bread, Fred took a moment to contemplate the spectacularly unfair nature of the universe. “Why would the Thai government give their money to Reagan?” he finally asked. “Last I heard, he was trying to be a movie producer in LA.” There had been at least two attempts Fred knew of, a reboot of a cult Korean horror starring a beautiful but untalented actress, which had flopped, and another about World War II pilots that appeared destined to soon meet a similar fate. Reagan had been rumored to have been dating the actress from the former at the time of shooting, with gossip of a twenty-five-carat canary diamond gifted for her twenty-fifth birthday; she had since moved on to a minor sheikh.

  “You know how these things work.” Jack turned up his palm and gestured toward the window, as if to say, Asia. “Reagan is insanely connected. As is his family. Did you ever meet Regina? His sister?”

  “Her name is Regina? Regina and Reagan? Jesus.”

  Jack laughed. “She’s a fruit. When you first meet her, you think she’s one of those girls you see lined up outside clubs in Hong Kong, all tight dresses and little Chanel bags. Tons of makeup, basic plastic surgery with the huge eyes and skinny nose. The gold-digger look, not that you could even kiss Regina without showing her an ATM receipt. But Reagan’s parents, they’ve been on Regina to do something with her life. She finally finished her master’s in art history at Yale, which is kind of ridiculous, since when does she care about art? Or, for that matter, history? She probably did it because she went to some Art Basel party and thought it was fun, but anyway, she got her degree, and now her parents can say she went to an Ivy League school. They expected her to get a job at one of the auction houses after, but you know what she did instead? Opened a luxury candy shop! What’s a luxury candy shop, you ask? Nobody really knows, but we all go to the opening to show support, more for Reagan, really. When we arrive, we learn that not only do there exist organic lollipops, but they cost $12. That’s US dollars! I mean, come on . . . and Regina is dressed like Katy Perry in that music video, wearing a bra made out of cotton candy and these slutty hot shorts with edible buttons all over them. She gets herself photographed a bunch of times—I don’t, of course; my parents would kill me—and I guess that’s the last straw for Mom and Dad. The next month, the Sugar Suite is on temporary hiatus and Regina’s somehow Thailand’s new secretary of education. Meanwhile, all of us are asking, has Regina ever even read a book? I don’t even know if she can write. That’s the kind of pull Reagan’s family has.”

  Fred tried to conceal his admiration. “I’m sure yours could do the same for you.”

  “Maybe once upon a time, but these days? People are going to actual jail for that, in Hong Kong. I’m not going to prison! I’m a father now. And I’d rather be behind the scenes anyway, you know how my family is. It’s more than enough to participate in some fun projects here and there, which is why I like to keep in touch with people like Reagan.” He coughed. “So, back to the Thais. Right now I heard they’re looking at around $6 billion. But Reagan says they’ll do the full round once they settle a few open budgetary items, and he expects the total to settle at just around $45 billion. The money they’re allotting him, apparently the Thais want it all earmarked for technology investment. Some of it is internal, the sort of stuff China is doing—they all want their own Apples and Teslas and Amazons, though to be honest that’s a pipe dream, since even China can’t always pull it off, and they have a zillion times more money and really excellent corporate espionage. I think the Thais understand that, though, because they want most of it invested in Silicon Valley. Have some markers at a few companies they can hopefully get great returns from, and maybe one day rip off and copy for themselves. The Valley side is where you’d come in. I’d be helping out on the Hong Kong/mainland end, and you’d be on the ground in the US sourcing deals. What do you think?”

  Fred felt as if he’d just finished a glass of beer on a hot day and was licking away the last bits of foam. The numbers were outrageous. Six billion? Forty-five? Lion Capital was a mere $300 million. “Hmm.” He stretched his arms. “Sounds like sovereign wealth.” When he was younger he had thought the idea of investing money for the government sounded cool, but he had since learned it was compensated the same way as corporate venture capital: shittily.

  “The money’s technically sovereign, but it’s being managed like private sector. The Thais are committed to paying for the best talent. No good investor is going to work for them unless there’s long-term capital incentive, at least that’s what Reagan says they’re thinking, and I can’t imagine he’d be involved otherwise. They’re even letting him choose the name for the fund. He told me he wants to call it Opus.”

  While his heart gave a merry cheer at the words long-term capital incentive, Fred fought to keep his face level. “What made you two think of me? There’s a lot of Asia guys in the Valley.” Releasing the words with disdain, so Jack would know exactly how to regard his potential competition.

  “Actually”—Jack looked uncomfortable—“it was Reagan who brought it up. Once he said your name, of course I knew it was a perfect idea, but at the time you and I hadn’t spoken for so long. I didn’t even know where you were living! Charlene was always the great connector, you know, she used to send out those emails. . . . Once you guys split, I didn’t get my Fred Huang holiday updates anymore.”

  Fred had forgotten about those emails. Somewhat illogically he cursed Charlene for not continuing to keep their friends up-to-date on his developments. Who knew how many opportunities had been lost, left uncharted due to her pettiness? “But I just said that I don’t really know Reagan. I didn’t even think he knew who I was.”

  “I know, that’s what I kind of thought, but then, when Reagan brought it up. . . .” Jack shrugged. “I thought, well, you guys must have gotten to know each other somewhere. Plus Reagan, he’s got this crazy index in his brain; he knows everyone and what they’re doing and what they’ve done. He’s always talking people up, collecting the latest news, trading a little here, whispering some there. You know what we call him in our poker group? Asia Facebook, because if you tell him a rumor, it’s sure to spread to all of mainland by the next morning!” He cackled.

  Very interesting. Reagan may have heard of him through mutual industry friends; Fred considered the idea that he’d been overly harsh in his assessment of the relative prestige of Lion Capital. Its parent was one of the most famous technology companies in Asia, and he was second-in-command in the office and really the brainpower of the entire operation . . . but he should be modest with Jack; he liked that sort of thing. “Reagan doesn’t know anyone else in Silicon Valley?” he fished. “There’s probably a hundred guys he could call with better pedigrees than me.”

  “Aw, come on. You’re way too humble. He probably knew you better than you thought. Aren’t you excited? Working with Reagan is a real head trip, you’ll see. A fun kind. Party party party.”

  Fred forced a smile. Inside, his stomach churned. Now that he knew the details of the Opus job, he was hit with abrupt panic over how many others—with his exact same credentials or better—might want it too. How many dissatisfied Harvard Business School graduates with excellent finance backgrounds existed out there? How many men who felt the same as he, entitled to important and moneyed careers, just a lucky turn away from becoming real men of means? Even narrowing it down to merely the Asians—as this looked to be one of t
he few instances where a last name of Huang might actually be considered an asset on the résumé—didn’t provide particular comfort. Dissatisfied, highly educated Asian men in Fred’s age group had become almost a sort of cliché. He observed them each weekend: as they meticulously tended to lawns to maintain home values; at the grocery store, as they steered Teslas into remote parking spots without cars on either side; in the evenings for poker, as they debated endlessly over the merits of expensive whiskeys. Fred was certain these enemies dotted plentifully throughout Jack’s and Reagan’s orbits, just one or two relationship layers removed.

  And that wasn’t even counting the women! Asian women like Charlene, with their Stanford degrees and high metabolisms and cunning hearts, who toyed with jet-black hair and had the unfair advantage of looking hot in a cocktail dress, at least from the back. Sure, Reagan and Jack wanted him now, for reasons he still didn’t fully comprehend—but what about later, when word got around?

  He wouldn’t miss the golden ring this time. He’d sat out on enough in the past decade, plodding along in dutiful impotence while everyone else took risks and got rich. No longer would he serve as some banal paragon of the model minority, banished to an existence of mediocre achievement. His person now was a significant upgrade, a leaner, more aggressive Fred Huang. A man who went after what he wanted, who took what he deserved.

  A man of significance!