Unlike sunny Los Angeles and rain-soaked Seattle, New York was still deep in the coldest stretch of the year.
Winter days were short.
By the time Simon reached the East Coast and made it from JFK to the Fifth Avenue apartment, darkness had already fallen.
Janet was not the only one in the apartment. Sophia Fache had arrived from Europe yesterday.
Simon was still working, but Janet and many people around them were busy preparing for the wedding in early March.
The wedding location was confirmed for Melbourne, and the guest list had been drafted. The Johnston family had even arranged several charter planes for it.
Sophia had come to New York for the wedding dress. Gucci's design team had started drafting plans as soon as Simon and Janet confirmed the date, and the housekeeper had flown over specifically to discuss production details with Janet in person.
Last night, Janet had dragged Sophia into talking about dress designs until well past midnight, yet Simon still woke early the next morning.
He fumbled for his watch and checked the time. On the East Coast it was only 6:50 a.m.
The woman in his arms sensed him move. Still half-asleep, she wriggled closer, clinging tighter, even opening her mouth to give his shoulder a lazy bite before going still again.
Feeling Janet's clinginess, Simon abandoned the idea of getting up and closed his eyes again.
Winter really was the perfect season for stealing a little extra rest.
When he woke again it was around nine, and Janet was no longer beside him.
After getting dressed and washing up, Simon pulled open the bedroom curtains. A bleak Central Park lay under that soft winter sunlight, pale and weak, as if it too were shining only out of obligation.
At least it was clear.
Downstairs, Janet and Sophia had just finished preparing breakfast. When she saw Simon, Janet leaned in and kissed him. "I was just saying I should go wake you up."
Simon wrapped an arm around her, murmured good morning, greeted Sophia as well, and sat at the table.
Sophia set the food down and placed several newspapers beside Simon before sitting. As they ate, she talked about Gucci again. Fashion Week in February was almost here, and she was not idle these days. She would be flying back to Europe tomorrow.
After breakfast, Sophia headed to Gucci's U.S. office. Simon and Janet had no work scheduled today. Like two people hibernating, they stayed curled up in the apartment, savoring their private little world.
"I already told them to start preparing," Janet chattered on, hugging a thick binder stuffed with wedding planning materials, flipping pages as she spoke. "That day, around our venue at Yarra Valley Park, they're going to build a maze out of flower walls. All kinds of flowers. It'll be gorgeous…"
In a sitting room on the second floor of the duplex, Janet talked and talked to Simon.
Watching her cheeks flush pink as she went on, Simon smiled. "Don't women usually get cold feet before a wedding? You don't seem to have any reaction at all."
Janet leaned into him affectionately. "Only women who aren't sure they've found the right man get pre-wedding panic. I don't."
Simon kissed her smooth cheek. Not satisfied, he pulled her in closer.
Janet responded naturally.
They tangled for a moment, and very quickly it became not exactly fit for children.
They stayed wrapped up in each other all day. Sophia did not come back that night to disturb them. Monday arrived, and they had to return to work.
On Saturday morning, Sela Ward had not understood what Simon meant when he mentioned Saddam's speech at the Arab Cooperation Council member states meeting. But Cersei Capital's New York team, using that news along with recent movements in Europe and America, had already begun positioning early in the oil futures market.
With the hedge fund industry booming over the past two years, Cersei Capital was far from the only one watching oil futures.
However, regarding Saddam's statement, many hedge funds believed international oil prices would rise in the near term. Cersei Capital, on the other hand, was betting on a drop.
In Simon's memory, Saddam had been signaling a "non-cooperative" stance toward the West since last year. Coupled with the fact that the Bush family, deeply tied to oil giants, now held power in the U.S., Western oil interests had finally decided to move against Iraq.
But the first step was not war. It was targeting Iraq's domestic economy, already battered and fragile after a decade-long Iran-Iraq war.
Iraq's economy depended heavily on oil. The best way to hurt it was to push down global oil prices.
So in the coming months, countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, closely tied to Western oil interests, would ramp up production sharply to suppress oil prices. That was also the most direct trigger for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
In the original timeline, in just a few months before the Kuwait War, global crude prices plunged from nineteen dollars at the start of 1990 to thirteen, a drop of over thirty percent.
After the Kuwait War broke out, crude shot up from that thirteen-dollar bottom to forty dollars, a rise of more than two hundred percent.
Then the Gulf War began. Just when most oil speculators thought prices would keep climbing, the war ended with crushing speed. Oil quickly fell back below twenty. Even the Western countries that launched the war had not expected that outcome.
In a little over half a year, oil prices' repeated violent surges and collapses made countless crude futures traders either rich overnight or completely ruined.
It could be said that without a reincarnator's advantage of foreknowledge, even if Simon could roughly predict what was coming, he would not dare to put down too heavy a bet in such turbulence.
Otherwise, a single wrong call could turn hefty profits into losses.
Like the Quantum Fund in the original timeline. Soros was unstoppable across Asia, yet because he misjudged Russia's economic situation, the next year he suffered a single loss exceeding three billion dollars.
And the reason Cersei Capital accepted North American domestic money this time was also to minimize human variables as much as possible, while using that exchange of interests to obtain useful insider information.
Simon stayed in New York until Wednesday.
For two consecutive nights, he attended fundraising cocktail parties hosted by Cersei Capital. Funding for Cersei Fund Management was already in place. These two events were mainly for Apollo Management under Leon Black and BlackRock Asset Management under Laurence Fink.
Apollo Management had already set its sights on the bond assets of Columbia Savings and Loan, which was being auctioned off and liquidated after being taken over by the federal government. Their first planned raise was one billion dollars. In truth, one billion would not be enough, so in the vulture investing operations that followed, Apollo's investment team would also cooperate with other Wall Street financial giants.
On one hand, that reduced risk. On the other, it helped dissolve Wall Street's hostility toward Cersei Capital, while also building Cersei Capital's relationship network on Wall Street.
Most Wall Street giants existed in a state of competing and cooperating at the same time.
The main reason Drexel Securities, once arrogant beyond belief, collapsed into bankruptcy within just a few months after its crisis began was that Drexel had no friends on Wall Street.
For the past decade, with more than eighty billion dollars in junk bond issuances, Drexel had eaten alone, refusing to share even a sliver of the rich underwriting fees with other firms. So when Drexel fell into crisis in the second half of last year and begged its peers for help, not a single one extended a hand.
Compared to Apollo Management's first one-billion-dollar fundraising plan, the scale Cersei Capital intended to raise for BlackRock Asset Management was equal to BlackRock's existing pool, reaching three billion dollars.
The difference was mainly due to the different risk profiles of their businesses.
Apollo's leveraged buyouts, equity investments, and vulture investing could suffer catastrophic losses with a single misstep. By contrast, BlackRock's investments in equities, bonds, and fixed-income products were much lower risk. Of course, returns were lower too, meaning scale was the real advantage.
In the midst of the rush, time arrived at the last day of January.
Simon would be flying back to Los Angeles in the afternoon, so he spent the entire morning at Daenerys Entertainment's New York branch in Greenwich.
The spring TV season had quietly begun. Although the annual television upfronts were in May, from the start of the year, production companies began scouting projects for the next season.
Daenerys Television, led by Robert Iger, produced ten shows last year. Four were reality programs Simon had personally spearheaded, three were drama series taken over from New World Entertainment, and three were brand-new series launched last year.
At present, Daenerys Television's main revenue still came from the four reality shows like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Of last year's three new series, the networks had renewed only one so far. And among the three older series, one had already been cut again after the fall season due to weak ratings.
And among the four reality shows, the CBS-broadcast The Beverly Housewives had run into problems.
Truly phenomenon-level reality shows were never easy to produce. In Simon's memory, reality shows that became household names, whether in the 1990s or in the new century, were only a handful. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and Survivor belonged in that tier. Big Brother was slightly below, but even in these two years, nothing more popular than those three had appeared.
However, in the original timeline, The Beverly Housewives, which belonged on basic cable, did not have that kind of luck.
Now that it had been placed on a broadcast network, its ratings were already the weakest compared to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Survivor, and Big Brother.
Back then, CBS had launched two reality shows at the same time. Their ratings were even worse, yet they could still limp along, which meant CBS was not as dependent on The Beverly Housewives.
So before the second season had even finished airing, CBS tried again to push down the price for renewing the show for a third season.
In a conference room at the New York branch, Simon listened to Robert Iger's report, tapped his fingers on the table for a moment, and said, "In that case, we end the partnership with CBS."
Robert Iger looked surprised. "Simon, even if they cut the price another twenty percent, we'd still be profitable. There's no need to cancel."
Simon swept his gaze over the other television executives in the room, waved them out, then said to Iger, "Bob, with The Beverly Housewives, my original plan was to build it into a full Housewives franchise."
Iger nodded. "I know. You mentioned it before. But Simon, that's not realistic. The big four networks aren't going to give us enough time slots to run an entire franchise of reality shows."
"Which is why we need to find a separate platform for the franchise."
Iger knew about the huge overseas capital Cersei had stockpiled. He tested the waters. "Simon, are you planning to acquire a network?"
"Not yet," Simon shook his head. "Bob, there are some things I still can't tell you. But if everything goes smoothly, we'll have our own network in the second half of the year. It won't be on the scale of the big four, but it'll be more than enough to house the Housewives franchise. And using the franchise, we can shape our network into a branded women's channel."
Having spent his career in television, Iger quickly understood what Simon meant.
He sifted through his memory of the major media groups and tested a guess. "USA?"
USA, like the future CW, AMC, and MTV, was a national basic cable network in the United States.
Unlike broadcast networks, basic cable channels were still cable in nature, but different from premium cable. Basic cable did not charge viewers directly. Instead, it received revenue share from cable operators along with some advertising income.
Right now, USA Network was jointly owned by Paramount Communications and MCA, each holding fifty percent.
Although in the new century USA would be completely overshadowed by networks like CW, AMC, and MTV, and compared to AMC with phenomenon hits like The Walking Dead or CW with DC superhero dramas, USA's programming would look unremarkable, in this era, with the combined backing of Paramount Communications and MCA, USA stood out among the newly rising basic cable networks in both popularity and scale.
Seeing Iger had guessed it, Simon did not deny it. He smiled and nodded, then reminded him, "Keep this confidential."
"Of course."
Iger agreed, wisely not pressing further, though his mind could not help turning over Simon's next target. MCA, or Paramount Communications?
MCA seemed easier.
Paramount Communications, with Martin Davis, had held on until the previous head died before finally taking control. He would not let go lightly.
Because of the original contract, the only way to reclaim The Beverly Housewives was for CBS to give it up voluntarily. The two of them discussed it for a bit more, then Simon handed Iger a folder. "I took some time to review the materials on the scripted series projects the company is scouting. I picked two out. Make sure we get them. The rest, decide as you see fit."
Iger accepted the folder and opened it. The first thing he saw was a sitcom packet, with the title printed across the cover.
Seinfeld.
Seinfeld, a 1990s sitcom whose popularity rivaled Friends. Overseas it was not as big as Friends, but in North America it was enormously beloved. In the original timeline, its finale even set a record audience of more than seventy million viewers.
Simon had seen the project materials back in Los Angeles. This trip to New York had another purpose as well: to make sure Iger locked this project down.
As for the other one, it was simply sand Simon habitually tossed in out of old reflex. Success or failure did not matter. If anything, failure would be better.