Julio looked at Ivan and grinned. “Ivan, this guy was all over Dr. Dre’s last album. You’re not gonna get any more blown up than that.”

Ivan said, “Your cousin’s not blown up, and he’s on Dr. Dre’s albums more than any of them. He’s like the other half of the Neptunes. What’s Pharrell’s partner’s name?”

“Umm…Hugo.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. It took you a minute. But the Neptunes would do well out here, too.” Ivan said, “I don’t see San Diego as a hard-core rap town like L.A. is. I see it more as a crossover town.”

Julio agreed with him. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“So I have to focus more on the people that I can get here who are less pricey and who fit the demographics of a crossover. Because if you’re talking about fifty thousand dollars and whatnot, then we don’t need a party, we need a concert.”

Julio nodded. “That’s big.” He had never really talked to Ivan about business before. He knew that his neighbor did accounting work, but talking about the hard cash of party promotion was different. He was growing new respect for Ivan now.

He joked and said, “See, that new haircut fits you already, man. You sound like a man who’s ready to go after the world.”

Ivan responded with a smile, “Yeah…I am.” And he wasn’t joking.

WHEN HE SETTLED in for bed that night, Ivan couldn’t get Lucina’s ideas out of his head. What was the common impulse that forced the rich to spend? And how did the rich become wealthy in the first place?

“Sound investments that make them long money is the only thing they’re interested in,” he answered in the darkness of his bedroom. He was in bed with the sheets up and the lights off.

He told himself, “The rich find or create profitable assets that make them money, and then they keep more money than they spend. It’s that damn simple. These are things I already know.”

So, how do I make that knowledge work for us? he mused.

Ivan thought about it for another few minutes before he hopped out of bed to write his thoughts down on paper.

He walked back out into his living room, clicked on the lights, and leaned over his coffee table with several sheets of blank white copy paper and a black pen. He wrote the words “Balance Sheet” at the top, drew a large rectangle up and down the page, and split it down the middle with a straight line. At the top of the left side he wrote the word “Assets.” At the top right he wrote “Liabilities.” Then he began to list the liabilities that cost him money on the right, and he listed the assets that made him money on the left.