A soaked poodle named Biscuit shook himself dry all over my merchant's phone.
It was the middle of a video call, and the camera went to static and fur.
"Sorry, sorry," Tamsin said, wiping the screen on her apron. "Okay. I need the renewal. Dario says I'm eligible."
I hadn't told her she was eligible. Dario had.
Tamsin ran three mobile dog-grooming vans out of a rented bay behind a carpet store. Pink vans, a cartoon schnauzer on the side, a waitlist that ran three weeks deep. Forty-one days earlier I'd funded her $45,000 at a 1.39 factor. Payback of $62,550, $389 every business day. I made $4,500 on it and felt fine about it, because her deposits ran about $58,000 a month and she was buying the third van, not patching a hole.
Dario was the rep at the funder. Big laugh, bigger watch, a man who ended every call with "let's get paper moving." He'd called me at 8:15 that morning.
"Your groomer's at day forty-one," he said. "We'll renew her at seventy. Same factor plus three. And I'll pay you ten points."
Ten points on $70,000 is $7,000. My rent was $2,900 and due Friday. I want to be honest about how long I stared at that number, because it was a while.
Then I did the math I'm supposed to do.
She'd paid about $11,300 so far. The renewal would pay off the roughly $51,000 she still owed, so out of a $70,000 "advance" she'd see about $19,000 in cash. In exchange, her payback would jump to $99,400, and her daily pull would go from $389 to $570. That's almost $12,000 a month coming out of a business that cleared maybe $14,000 after payroll and gas.
"What's the nineteen for?" I asked her.
"Van two needs a transmission. Sixty-eight hundred."
"So you need seven thousand dollars."
"Dario said if I'm renewing anyway, I should take it all."
Biscuit started barking at something only Biscuit could see. Tamsin turned on the dryer, and I had to raise my voice over it.
"Don't renew. Put the transmission on a card, or let me find you a small one, eight thousand, on its own. You'll hate the payment for three months and then you'll be fine."
"Dario said that's the dumb way to do it."
"Dario gets paid on the seventy."
"So do you," she said.
It was a fair shot. I told her the truth: I'd make $7,000 on the renewal and maybe $800 on the small one, and I was still telling her to take the small one. She was quiet for a second, the dryer roaring, and then she said okay. Send the small one.
I called Dario back and told him we were passing.
He laughed, but the laugh was shorter. "Buddy. If you don't submit her, somebody will."
"Nobody else knows her balance."
"I do," he said.
At 7:52 the next morning, Tamsin texted me a screenshot. A DocuSign envelope from Dario's funder. Renewal: $70,000. Factor 1.42. Under it, her message:
"Dario called me direct. Said you were out of the office and they could do it without a broker. He said the broker was the one slowing down my money. I already signed. Sorry."
I wasn't out of the office. I was at my desk with her small deal half-built in another tab.
I opened the contract she'd sent me. No broker fee line, so she'd assumed she saved my ten points. She hadn't. Same factor Dario had quoted me. The $7,000 just stayed on his side of the table now.
I called him. He picked up on the first ring, cheerful.
"You went around me," I said.
"I went around a problem," he said. "She wanted the money. You wanted to be her dad. Let's get paper moving."
He hung up before I could.
For five weeks I didn't hear from either of them. Tamsin's pink vans were still on the road; I'd see one at a red light now and then, cartoon schnauzer grinning, and look away like an ex.
Then, on a Tuesday, Dario called me.
"Your groomer bounced four days running," he said. "She parked van three. She won't pick up for us." A pause, and the big laugh came back, a little thinner. "She'll pick up for you. You've got the relationship. I'll give you five points if you get her on the phone."
I looked at her number on my screen, then at the half-built small deal still sitting in my drafts, saved under the name Transmission.
"Sorry," I said. "I'm out of the office."