She looked at him and snapped, “You’re just getting started. I’ve been doing this for years. And I must be honest with you, Ivan. I am running out of patience with all of these small events, and I am losing my passion to continue doing this.”

Ivan said, “Well, let your money work in some other avenues, then. I’m getting involved in real estate now. You could ride that horse with me. And what about my website? You told me you wanted to help bring in ad revenue for that. But you and your girls have sold, what, four or five party ads in three months? And I was giving you thirty-something percent on that.”

Lucina responded, “I’ve noticed you spend far too much time concerned about your website now.”

“I thought you said you liked my website,” he argued. “Were you lying to me about it?”

“No, I do like it. But if you were to spend half the time preparing parties that you spend preparing your website, then we could make a lot more money together.”

Ivan had to stop and think about that. His IDPromotions.com website was a long-run game, where the parties had made him much more money in the short run. Nevertheless, smart money people were long-run people. And they were asking more about his website than his party promotions. Even Jeffrey Morefield was more interested in the website. But Ivan decided not to rub that in his partner’s face. He realized that Lucina was still a valuable asset to him. So he needed to manage some of her legitimate concerns.

He said, “All right, I got a guy now who can link us up with music performers and producers from Dr. Dre’s camp in L.A. Now, I haven’t done any business with him yet, but if we can invite, like, Busta Rhymes, Eve, Xzibit, and people like that as our special guests for twenty-thousand-dollar budgets, and charge twenty-five dollars a head, plus VIP at the door, with a capacity of two thousand and up, we could make, what, thirty, forty thousand a night?”

He continued, “But we don’t need any outside investors for that. And if you really wanna work your way up to the concert level like you say you do, then we’re gonna have to learn how to create, manage, and finance the bigger parties for ourselves. So, again, I don’t know what you spend your money on, but if you want me to move back into the bigger party game, then you have to be willing to put up your own ten or twelve thousand for half the risk.”

Lucina calmed down and nodded, agreeing to it. She told him, “I also know A and R reps who could get us access to plenty of entertainers.”