Maxine

by SUE FINEMAN

  Who was he kidding? She wouldn’t wait for him forever.

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  Late Saturday afternoon a courier delivered a package from Marge with a note that she’d found more real estate files in one of the empty offices. She said she’d go through those files on Wednesday afternoon, when Mr. Holcomb was playing golf.

  Cara took the package into the study and spread the contents on the desk. Marge had obviously spent several hours compiling the information. She’d also typed a summary sheet on each property. There were a dozen properties on the list, all in San Francisco and Oakland. Three were homes, and one of those was scheduled for renovation.

  “I can’t believe he didn’t tell me about this,” she said to herself.

  “About what?”

  Cara looked up to see Gerry standing by the library door. “Did you know the estate owns several pieces of real estate?”

  “No. I didn’t see any real estate on the list of assets.”

  “Four office buildings, three homes, two parcels of land, a small hotel, and two apartment buildings, all in San Francisco or Oakland. And this property, of course.”

  Dropping into the chair beside the desk, Gerry said, “I wonder if this is part of that corporation I couldn’t find any information on. RASH.”

  Glancing at the papers on the desk, Cara asked, “Do I own the corporation or a part of it?”

  “You own it all, Cara.”

  “Would you check with Bart Cantrell on Monday? Get a copy of the financial records on that corporation and see if he has any separate records on the real estate. Nick and I can check out the property next week. He’s climbing the walls sitting around all day, and I don’t know anything about buildings. According to Ron Holcomb’s notes, two of the properties are scheduled for renovation—an apartment building and a single family home. We’ll check those out first.”

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  Angelo cut Cara’s hair and Nick’s, but he spent most of the weekend with Teresa, as Cara expected. She loved it. The shy looks Angelo and Teresa shared gave the staff something to talk about besides her and Nick.

  After Cara’s driver dropped Angelo off at the airport Monday morning, he drove her and Nick to one of the properties on the list, the apartment building that was scheduled for renovation. Cara was reading the file instead of paying attention to where they were going. When the car stopped and Nick said, “This is it, Cara,” she looked up to see a cluster of apartment buildings with broken windows, trash strewn around outside, graffiti sprayed on the buildings and surrounding fence, and a dirty little girl in a torn dress standing beside the car. “Oh, my God! I own this?”

  “Everything but the kid,” said Nick. “Stay in the car. I’ll check it out.”

  “Not without me.” Guilt consumed her as she stepped out of the car. She should have gotten involved the day she finished college. Even though she didn’t have legal control until recently, maybe she could have done something to prevent this.

  Nick squatted down in front of the little girl and spoke to her for a few minutes, until he coaxed a little smile from her. She must have been about four years old, but her eyes looked older. He stood and took the little girl’s hand. “Cara, this is Laurie. She’s going to take us to her mother.”

  “Mama says we gotsta move, but we don’t gots nowhere to go,” said the little girl.

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” said Cara.

  The bodyguard walked up to them and very quietly said, “Miss Andrews, I strongly suggest you get back in the car.”

  Cara glanced around to see three women standing by the corner of the nearest building, arms crossed defiantly. “Do you live in this building?” Cara asked them.

  “Why you wanta know?” asked one woman.

  Nick muttered, “I sure as hell hope you brought Maxine along.”

  As the women approached her, Cara reached out to shake their hands and introduce herself.

  “You the owner?” asked one woman.

  Cara was embarrassed to say, “Yes, but I just found out today. Has it always been this run down?”

  “Long as I been here it has,” said another woman, and the others nodded.

  Comments flung at her like arrows, most angry remarks about rich people throwing them out of their homes.

  “I don’t understand,” said Cara. “Don’t you want the buildings renovated? Don’t you want to live in better conditions?”

  “It doesn’t work that way,” said Nick. “Once a building is renovated, the rents always go up.”

  “That’s right,” said one of the women.

  Another woman said, “That’s what they did with the buildings over on the next street. They fixed ’em all up nice and pretty and all them people was homeless. Now you’re gonna do the same thing to us.”

  “That’s not my intention,” Cara said gently. “Would you show us around, please?”

  Most of the apartment doors stood open, the tenants gone. Trash littered the rooms and the hallways, graffiti decorated the walls, and the stench was overwhelming. “What’s that smell?” she asked Nick.

  “Mold, vomit, piss, rotten food, you name it,” he said quietly. “I grew up in a building like this. The plumbing didn’t work half the time, holes in the walls, rats, mice, cockroaches. It’s the stench of poverty.”

  “Dear God,” she whispered. Thank God Nick got out when he had. She threaded her arm through his and held on tight.

  They walked into one empty apartment and Nick pushed on a dark spot on the wall. His hand went through it. He pulled off the wallboard around it and sneezed. “The plumbing has probably been leaking for years. The walls are filled with mold.” He pointed to the kitchen, where something had chewed through the corner of a cabinet. “Rats and mice.”

  Eviction notices were stapled to doors. These people were supposed to have been out last week. Cara turned to Nick. “Why can’t they renovate one building at a time and then move people back in?”

  He shrugged. “Ask the architect and the contractor.”

  She turned to walk back to the car. Nick called, “Hey, where are you going?”

  “To call the architect and the contractor,” she called over her shoulder.

  Cara sat in the back seat of the Bentley and called the architect and contractor listed in the file. She insisted they meet her and Nick at the buildings at two o’clock. As she flipped through the records from the other files, she noticed Ron Holcomb planned to use the same architect and contractor for the other renovation, and the light came on in her muddle brain. She quickly made two other calls, the first to Gerry. “I need to know who Ron Holcomb plays golf with and what kind of work they do.”

  “Why?”

  “Just a hunch. Can you check with Paul and call me right back?”

  “Sure.”

  Her second call was to Marge. “Marge, I need to know if there were other buildings that Ron bought and renovated and then sold.”

  “I assume there were. There are boxes of real estate files in the back room.”

  “Would you go look at them right now and then call me back, please? I want to know the architect and contractor he used on those projects, and the real estate agent who handled the deals. I want to know if it was the same three people on every project.”

  “I’ll do it right now.”

  Carrying her cell phone, Cara walked with her guard back to the buildings, where Nick stood talking with the women and three little kids. “The architect and contractor will meet us here at two. Nick, that gives us nearly three hours to review these other records, maybe drive by another building or two.”

  Nick nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

  Cara smiled at the women and shook their hands again. “Thank you for being so gracious. We’ll see you later.” She leaned down and smiled at Laurie. “Bye, sweetie.”

  With a shy smile, the little girl whispered, “Bye.”

  Nick settled in the backseat of the Bentley with Cara, feeling useful for the first time since he’d been shot. The doctor said h
e couldn’t drive or do any physical work yet, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t check things out for Cara. Someone was making money buying run-down buildings, renovating them, and selling them, but the profit didn’t go to the Andrews estate. If anything, the estate lost money. And Ron Holcomb was right smack dab in the middle of it.

  Cara’s cell phone rang. She listened for a minute and scribbled notes, then disconnected. “Just as I thought. Ron Holcomb plays golf with three people every Wednesday afternoon. Apparently they’re not just friends, they’re business partners. One is the real estate agent who brokers the deals on these buildings, one is the architect who designs the renovations, and the other is the contractor who does the work.”

  She wrote the corporation name on the page, the letters stacked below one another. Then she wrote names out from the initials.

  R—Calvin Richards—architect

  A—Mark Anderson—contractor

  S—Jasper Solomon—real estate broker

  H—Ronald Holcomb—money

  Nick glanced at the page and whistled. “Well, no wonder our old buddy Ron Holcomb plays golf with these guys every week.”

  “Do you think a jury would convict me if I shot the man?” she said calmly.

  He chuckled, knowing she didn’t mean it. “Better have Marge remove all the files on this corporation before Ronnie Boy spirits them away. Have them sent to your house. Gerry can help me go through them.”

  Cara’s cell phone rang again. This time it was Marge. Her quick look at the old files confirmed that the same people were involved in other transactions and renovations. “Marge, I want you to do something for me when Mr. Holcomb leaves for lunch. I want you to box up all the files on the RASH Corporation. I’ll call the estate and have someone come and pick them up.”

  “You want all of them?”

  “Everything you can find. I don’t want to give him a chance to make any changes or hide anything. I want the ones from his office and the ones you found stored in the back room. I want everything. If he gives you any grief over it, tell him to call me.”

  “Yes, all right.”

  Cara called Mr. Pettibone to arrange for someone to pick up the files and then leaned back and sighed.

  Nick knew she’d seen more than she was prepared to see at the apartments, but those were the people who would benefit from the charities she wanted to set up. He rubbed her leg. “It’s not easy to see people living like that, is it?”

  “God, no. How many families are still there?”

  “Six. One is a sick old woman who belongs in a nursing home. One is an alcoholic mother of three neglected kids who belong in a foster home. One is working part time, and you met the other three.”

  “Do they work?”

  “No, they’re on welfare, but that’ll stop if they get booted out. You need an address to get welfare. They’re all on the list for public housing, but that takes time.”

  Nick leaned his head back, suddenly very tired.

  Cara’s eyebrows knit with worry. “Are you all right? Do you want to go home?”

  “Nah, I’m okay, just tired. Let’s go get some lunch.”

  On the way to the restaurant, Cara talked to Nick about the RASH Corporation. “I know less than nothing about construction and renovation, Nick. I know you haven’t completely recovered yet, but—”

  “Will you quit beating around the bush and spit it out.”

  “Will you take over RASH for me? I want to put them out of business, but I can’t just close them down. The assets have to be inspected and sold or fixed or something.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Why not? Being in charge of the corporation would give him the clout he needed to get the business in order. He’d have to inspect the properties and decide how to handle things one property at a time. The apartments needed a whole lot of work, and he had no idea about the other buildings RASH owned. With any luck, he could stop the money drain, maybe get some of Cara’s investment back.

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  Mark Anderson showed up at two with a smelly cigar and a scowl on his face, muttering, “I don’t have time for this shit.”

  “In that case, you’re fired,” said Nick. “Whatever projects you have going for the RASH Corporation or the Andrews Estate end today. Right, Maxine?”

  She lifted her chin and her eyes sparkled. “That’s right.”

  Anderson snapped, “I don’t work for you, I work for Ron Holcomb.”

  “But Ron Holcomb works for me,” said Cara. “Perhaps I didn’t make it clear who I was when I called. My name is Cara Andrews, and the Andrews estate belongs to me.” She paused long enough for that to sink in, and then added, “Including RASH.”

  If the cigar hadn’t been stuck to his lip, it would have fallen out of his mouth. The man apologized so quickly he stumbled over his own words.

  Cara motioned to Nick. “This is Nick Donatelli. He’s the new President of RASH. You will work for him or you won’t work for us at all. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Nick winked and she smiled. And then the architect, Cal Richards, appeared. He smiled and offered his hand. “Miss Andrews, how nice to meet you at last. Ron has told me about you taking a more active role in the management of the estate.”

  Nick rolled his eyes and Cara almost laughed. Richards had apparently spoken with Ron.

  Nick reached for the plans. “Tell me in general terms what you have planned for this site.”

  Richards handed over the plans, which Nick tucked under his arm. “We’ll level the old buildings and start over. Three buildings of luxury condos, as Ron requested.”

  “Why in the hell would you put luxury anything in this area?” asked Nick.

  “This neighborhood is turning around. It’s close enough to town to attract young professionals, and we believe the condos will sell quite well.”

  “Oh, yeah? Is that what you did on the other street?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are they all sold?”

  “Well, not yet, but Jasper thinks they will when we get this project finished.”

  “Like hell,” muttered Nick. “You’d have to renovate six blocks and even then it’s iffy. What’s wrong with renovating the current buildings for low income?”

  “But there’s no profit in that.”

  “There’s no profit in condos if you can’t sell them.”

  Cal Richards shut his mouth.

  Nick held up the plans. “I’ll take these home and study them and get back to you. Do you have a business card?”

  Both men handed over their cards, and Nick tucked them in his shirt pocket. “I’ll be in touch tomorrow or the next day, and at that time I’ll expect a list of all the work you’re currently doing, and all the work you’ve previously done for RASH. All projects are on hold until I see what you’re doing.”

  The two men exchanged glances and left quietly. Cara stared at Nick. She had a whole new respect for his business capabilities. He’d put those men in their place and taken charge as if he’d done it a hundred times. “Well, it looks like I hired the right man.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “President?”

  “Nick, without you I wouldn’t have any idea what to do with RASH.”

  Nick didn’t mind the work and Cara needed someone she could trust to get things under control. President. He smiled to himself. He’d never been president of anything, but work had always been an important part of his life. He needed to accomplish something. Watching a building go up, seeing a plan take shape and turn into someone’s home made him proud. This time he couldn’t do the work himself, but he knew what had to be done, and the first thing was to take the four founders of RASH out of the picture.

  He knew Cara didn’t give him the job out of guilt or to pay him back for helping her when she needed it. Construction was his business. He usually worked on homes, but he’d worked on several office complexes, too, and he knew his business. He also knew what it was like to live in a dumpy apartment. When he finished, those
apartments would be safe and kid-friendly.

  The structure on these buildings looked sound. If the foundations weren’t damaged, they could rip out the interior walls, exterminate, clean out the mold, and rebuild the inside. It was a good spot for low income housing, with a bus stop right out front.

  Nick walked Cara back to the Bentley and slid into the backseat. “Cara, what would you think of bringing Al up to look at those buildings, see if he could help work up a new design?”

  “Sure, okay. Bring him up here.” She put her head on his shoulder. “You’re the boss.”

  He rested his head on her soft curls and closed his eyes. “We make a good team.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  The driver asked if they still wanted him to take them to the other building scheduled for renovation, the single family home. “If it isn’t too far out of the way, maybe we could just drive by,” said Nick. He was too tired to inspect another building today.

  Minutes later, the driver said, “The address is up here on the right. Do you want me to stop?”

  “Nah, just drive slow.” Nick read the house numbers. “Looks like that blue one on the side of the hill.” He saw a movement in an upstairs window. “Hey, there’s somebody there. I thought that was a vacant house.”

  “Apparently not,” said Cara. “Forget it for now. It’ll keep for another day.”

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  Lance stared out the window. That was Cara’s Bentley, and they were pointing at the house. “Ian,” he called. “Does Cara know where you live?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then why in the hell is she driving by, staring at the house?”

  “I assume the estate owns the property, but why would she care? She doesn’t know anything about business.”

  “Good question,” muttered Lance.

  “I’ll call Ron and see what’s up,” said Ian.

  Lance was sure Ron hadn’t bothered to tell Cara that Ian and Jane were living in a house she owned.

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