“Bankrupt?”
“Yeah.” Shepard emptied his bourbon and I poured some more in the glass. I offered ice and he shook his head. “The way it worked was the Estate Management people would see the land, really high-powered stuff, contact people, closers, free trips to Florida, the whole bag. The buyer would put a deposit on the land and would also sign a contract for the kind of house he wanted. We had about six models to choose from. He’d put a deposit on the house as well, and that deposit would go into an escrow account.”
“What happened to the land deposit?”
“Went to Estate Management.”
“Okay, and who controlled the house escrow?”
Shepard said, “Me.”
“And when Estate Management pulled out, and you were stuck with a lot of money invested and no backing, you dipped into the escrow.”
“Yeah, I used it all. I had to. When Estate Management folded, the town held up on the building permits. All there was was the building sites staked off. We hadn’t brought the utilities in yet. You know, water, sewage, that kind of thing.”
I nodded.
“Well, the town said, nobody gets a permit to build anything until the utilities are in. They really screwed me. I mean, I guess they had to. Things smelled awful funny when Estate went bankrupt. A lot of money disappeared, all those land deposits, and a lot of people started wondering about what happened. It smelled awful bad. But I was humped. I had all my capital tied up in the goddamned land and the only way I was going to get it back was to build the houses and sell them. But I couldn’t do that because I couldn’t get a permit until I put in the utilities. And I couldn’t put in the utilities because I didn’t have any money. And nobody wanted to finance the thing. Banks only want to give you money when you can prove you don’t need it, you know that. And they really didn’t want to have anything to do with Promised Land, because by now the story was all around financial circles and the IRS and the SEC and the Mass attorney general’s office and the FCC and a bunch of other people were starting to investigate Estate Management, and a group of people who’d bought land were suing Estate Management. So I scooped the escrow money. I was stuck. It was that or close up shop and start looking for work without enough money to have my resume typed. I’m forty-five years old.”
“Yeah, I know. Let me guess the next thing that happened. The group that was suing Estate Management also decided to get its house deposit back.”
Shepard nodded.
“And of course, since you’d used it to start bringing in utilities, you couldn’t give it back.”
He kept nodding as I talked.
“So you found Powers someplace and he lent you the dough. What was the interest rate? Three percent a week?”
“Three and a half.”
“And, of course, payment on the principal.”
Shepard nodded some more.
“And you couldn’t make it.”
Nod.
“And Hawk beat you up.”
“Yeah. Actually he didn’t do it himself. He had two guys do it, and he, like, supervised.”
“Hawk’s moving up. Executive level. He was always a comer.”
“He said he just does the killing now, the sweaty work he delegates.”
“And so here we are.”
“Yeah,” Shepard said. He leaned his head against the window. “The thing is, Powers’ money bailed me out. I was coming back. The only money I owe is Powers and I can’t pay. It’s like—I’m so close and the only way to win is to lose.”
Chapter 18
Shepard looked at me expectantly when he was through telling me his sins.
“What do you want,” I said, “absolution? Say two Our Fathers and three Hail Marys and make a good act of contrition? Confession may be good for the soul but it’s not going to help your body any if we can’t figure a way out.”
“What could I do,” he said. “I was in a corner, I had to crib on the escrow money. Estate Management got off with four or five million bucks. Was I supposed to watch it all go down the pipe? Everything I’ve been working for? Everything I am?”
“Someday we can talk about just what the hell you were working for, and maybe even what you are. Not now. How hot is Powers breathing on your neck?”
“We’ve got a meeting set up for tomorrow.”
“Where?”
“At Hawk’s room in the Holiday Inn.”
“Okay, I’ll go with you.”
