After hanging up the phone, a slightly obese middle-aged manager with receding hair walked out and looked around.
Dio, who was standing across the street, waved at him, and the two walked separately and met in an alley.
“Ah, it’s you from back then, sorry, I have to be cautious in this line of work, so …”
“Don’t worry, I’m not a policeman, and I’m not here to snoop around the ‘cheap’ gold you mentioned. I just want to know if you have any goods on you right now, or are you just a middleman?”
Dio was trying to assure this manager, although he was probably used to this kind of illegal transaction. And Dio was confident enough if something arose, he could protect himself.
“How much do you want?” The manager asked cautiously.
Dio thought for a while, “Same as the last time, $100,000 worth of gold if the price is right, I may buy it again from you.”
Encountering Dio was actually very beneficial for the manager called William. He might become a prospective customer in the future judging from his last purchase, followed by his current offer, so he couldn’t afford to be too greedy here.
William said brimming with confidence, “Don’t worry about that, you can ask anyone around here, I’m pretty famous around these parts, I’m sure we can get along, how about $45 per gram?”
Dio laughed and walked off.
This fat pig was obviously playing him for a fool. $45 per gram was indeed much cheaper than the normal gold with the price of $52 these days, but it was far from the word ‘cheap.’ Will once told him that the average price of illegal gold was at most one-third of its normal price, of course excluding the fees for the middleman later.
But it was easy to get, but counterfeiting the certificate was rather tricky, so earning half the price of the normal gold was actually more than he could ask for, sometimes the price might be even lower because the risk of being snitched to the police always existed if either the seller or the customer was caught, no one would take this risk if they weren’t accustomed to illegal goods.
Dio was convinced this fat pig named William must be keeping a batch of illegal goods which obviously he couldn’t sell through regular means. Otherwise he would not bother to offer Dio these ‘cheap gold.’ He better off counterfeited the certificates for the gold and sold it to other jewelers to make more money.
Buying this kind of goods carried great risk. Yet this guy offers such a high price, so why bother to stay there? Dio thought.
“Wait, wait, wait, don’t be too hasty, I don’t mind negotiating about the price.”
William quickly stopped Dio before he left.
Just as Dio thought, William had an accomplice who supplied him the illegal goods. But the police have been cautious for a while. William had to lay low for a while and sold normal gold instead, but because Dio suddenly purchased a crazy amount of gold at once, he couldn’t help but handed his business card.
The actual price William got from his supplier was even cheaper, about 40% of normal gold’s price, $20 per gram, he bought 500,000 grams of illegal goods with all the money he got!
According to the teaching of Marxism, 50% profit was worth taking a risk for; 100% profit was worth violating the norms for; 300% profit was worth violating the laws for, it even worth risking one’s life for.
Since he has calculated the profit he will make exceeded 100%, he didn’t care about risking his safety.
“Come on, it was illegal gold, right? What’s with that price?” Dio was trying to bargain.
William’s face changed slightly, and then he smiled confidently: “I think $40 is a good price, it’s 20% cheaper than the gold on the market today!”
Dio ignored it and added, “If I guarantee that this gold will not be able to be retracted to you. You don’t need to worry about anything else right? Then do me a favor and lower the price. “
William froze, “What kind of guarantee do you have?”
If the gold he sold has completely ‘disappeared,’ half of his worries were gone, all he needed to do was just pray so that his ‘client’ will not be caught by the police.
“I, myself, is the guarantee.”
William smiled silently, “Hey, my friend, that’s not funny even as a joke, well, I’ll lower it, especially for you $38, I can’t go any lower!”
Dio was still dissatisfied. He thought for a moment and said, “I think $30 per gram sounds pretty fair considering you don’t need to worry about your gold being retraced to you, besides I’ll take all the risk even if I get caught. “
William immediately shook his head quickly and said, “No, no, no! for your information, I can’t sell the goods for $30. I’m doing this business to earn more money, not to lose more money, and your guarantee is not very credible. Besides, I have many customers. And I don’t have to sell all my gold to you. “
William’s words made sense, but Dio couldn’t push too hard since he didn’t really know about William.
“Well, maybe we can trade once, and build a mutual trust onwards.”
After some bargaining, Dio made his first deal with William.
$35 per gram, with a total purchase of 3000 grams gold!
Because William was still wary of Dio, he fetched the gold alone by himself meanwhile Dio was waiting at the alley.
Not long after, William brought a black suitcase contained thirty-one hundred grams of gold bars packed neatly in it.
After a careful inspection by both parties, they were delighted and completed the transaction in William’s car with some of William’s men guarding them in case something happened.
Just by this transaction alone, William has made a profit for nearly $50,000. At this rate, he’ll soon earn double his capital, and the most important thing, he could make so much money in such a short time. His experience in business was a notch above Dio.
Of course, it’s not like Dio suffered loss financially. He got that much money by merely serving 3 dishes anyway, so it was worth it!
“Glad to have a business with you if you still need this ‘cheap’ gold gimme a call.”
After the transaction was completed, William offered a handshake.
Dio gently shook his hand and complained, “They are not ‘cheap’ at all, and if there really is another time, I’m looking forward for a discount.”
“If you can really guarantee that the ‘goods’ is not retraceable to me, I think there will be more opportunities for cooperation between us, and naturally i will have no problem giving more discounts.
“Well, I believe time will eventually tell I was saying the truth, hopefully, this transaction will not cause me any trouble.”
After standing casually, Dio drove away.