17
THE BILLIONAIRE
past. To some degree he understood what the professor had been talking
about. He could make an effort to find some good moments in his past, and
maybe they really would have a positive effect. But the whole problem with
this was that the life he’d lived didn’t seem pleasant to him now. It seemed
uninteresting, and even pointless.
Heitzman recalled how he’d gotten married, on the advice of his father,
to the daughter of a billionaire who’d added to their empire’s wealth. The
marriage didn’t bring him any satisfaction: his wife turned out to be infer-
tile, and after ten years of married life, she died of a drug overdose. Then he
married a famous young model. She played the role of a wife passionately in
love with her husband, but after a mere six months of married life, Heitz-
man’s Security staff presented him with photos of his wife cavorting with
her former lover. He didn’t even talk to her about it. He just told Security to
arrange it so he’d never have to lay eyes on her again. And so he had no
memories of her.
As he reminisced, Heitzman came to the period when he’d begun working
for his father’s empire, and he couldn’t identify a single pleasant moment
where he felt like stopping to take in some positive emotions.
There was only one pleasant moment: when he proved to his father that
they didn’t need to be the sole owner of the monetary fund. The other in-
vestors who were contributing their own capital to the fund and who wanted
to increase that capital would expend their own mental energy on increasing
the overall capital of the fund. And that meant those investors were working
for them, for the Heitzmans.
His father thought this over for several days, then one day at dinner, this
father who was so stingy with his praise, said:
“I agree to your proposal regarding the fund, Johnny. It’s correct. Good
for you. Give some thought to what other directions we should be heading
in. It’s time for you to take the helm.”
For several days John Heitzman felt exhilarated. And as a result he was
able to make several more decisions that increased the financial empire’s
profit. Even so, he didn’t experience any particular joy.
