Miranda's War

by Foster, Howard;

  “Here I am. I feel like Disraeli did when he became PM. I’ve made it to the top of the greasy pole. I don’t know if they’ll like the next chapter. But I must always look upwards, right?”

  Then her colleagues filed in and took their seats around her. They did not exude enthusiasm. And when she glanced ahead into the public seating area, she knew why. All the Selectmen were there, scattered around. Did they actually think she wouldn’t notice them? Bayard Cahill, silver-haired and always a sharp observer, had a notepad in one hand and a smartphone in the other. Even the town counsel was there in the back row.

  “The Commission shall come to order,” she said and realized those were the exact words Karl had used at the beginning of each meeting.

  “Item one on the agenda is my proposal to negotiate a purchase and sale agreement with New England Properties for the Pierce Estate.”

  “We haven’t had an appraisal,” said Nate. “How do we know it’s only worth 14.5?”

  He glanced at Bayard.

  “It’s a good point, Commissioner,” Miranda said, knowing the market value was no more than $13 million from her obsessive perusal of sales records. They all knew $14.5 million was a superb offer that would not be matched. The town meeting had just endorsed the transaction. This was petty obstructionism and formalism.

  “I agree. We should have it appraised,” she said without hesitation, hoping it would cease.

  “That means you can’t do any more negotiating with Mr. Zenni until we get it.”

  They all agreed.

  “With all due respect, Madam Chairman, I think I speak for the Commission in saying you shouldn’t have met with Mr. Zenni without the Board’s approval,” he added in a snippy tone. “That came through loud and clear at town meeting. The people want us to work cooperatively.”

  “Here, here,” Bayard interjected from the audience, and all of her colleagues indicated their agreement.

  Nate than moved to have the town counsel prepare a term sheet that would bind her in negotiations when they had the appraisal. She wanted to resist, to make it clear she had just won the overwhelming vote of the town to go forward. But these were perfectly reasonable, though annoying, measures. Everyone was now watching everything she did. She was Chairman in name only. They had sapped all the adventure out of this enterprise. They moved on to the next agenda items, trivial by comparison, and adjourned forty-five minutes later having accomplished nothing significant.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The next morning she called Anthony Zenni and told him what had happened.

  “When will you have the appraisal?”

  “A week or so. You know more about that process than I do. But then I’ll be back knocking on your door.”

  “Why don’t you come for lunch tomorrow? I’ve got some questions about how this project might play out. And I don’t mean the price. There are a lot of other details.”

  “I know that. Our lawyer is putting together a term sheet. And if I know him, it will be lengthy. Lawyers are all afraid of brevity.”

  He insisted they have lunch, and she agreed knowing she was not supposed to see him. She could not resist the urge to beat them at their own game of supervision. This time she parked at a garage two blocks from his building and wore a headscarf on her way in. There was another session of small talk in his magnificent office. When lunchtime drew near he suggested they go to a little French restaurant a few blocks away.

  “I said I wanted to avoid being noticed. There are some Lincoln people working around here. And my husband’s lawyer is in this building.”

  “Which firm?”

  “Adams & Threlkeld.”

  “I know several partners there. What’s his name?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  She didn’t trust him.

  “I know you love French food and wine.”

  “I do.”

  “This place is off the beaten path, over on Charles Street, and it’s not very popular. I found it one night just taking a walk around Beacon Hill.”

  “Do they deliver?”

  “You of all people should realize French food can’t be consumed out of Styrofoam containers. I might as well send a kid down to Starbucks to buy us wraps.”

  “Alright, but we go in separate cabs. Give me the address. I’ll meet you there.”

  They met at Le Floufe, a cute little bistro next to a shoe-repair a mile from his office. He’d been there twice, both times with his teenage daughter who had returned from a semester in Paris. It was a most un-Boston restaurant and notches below the sort of place he would take a client to.

  Miranda looked around the nondescript establishment and, seeing nothing of note, checked the wine list. There were two names she respected from the Loire Valley. It was overall above average.

  “Why here?” she asked.

  “I want to share a chocolate soufflé with you.”

  They sat at an intimate table with fresh flowers and he ordered their dessert. He’d discreetly scanned the small dining room for familiar faces. There were none.

  “Now, if I ply you with some fine wine, will you loosen up on section 3(a)?” he asked.

  She laughed.

  “Which one did you have in mind?”

  He pulled out his black half glasses and read the list very carefully.

  “Oh come on, don’t study it. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “OK, how about a Bordeaux 2009?” he said awkwardly, revealing a superficial knowledge of French wines.

  “Why don’t you let me order the wine? And when you open that corporate office at the Pierce Estate in Lincoln, you’re going to need a sommelier—at least if you want to host the caliber of executives I expect.”

  The waiter came, took their orders and she asked if they could order wine by the glass.

  “No bottle?” he asked.

  “No, not today.”

  She ordered a glass of the priciest French wine on the list.

  They lifted their wineglasses and made a toast to “Lincoln’s town meeting.”

  “How do you find the wine?” he asked after she’d had a few seconds to judge it.

  “Grotesquely over-acidic but one does what one must do.”

  He was, once again, charmed, as if she were his arbiter of taste, a position she was accustomed to having with unsophisticated rich men like Archer.

  “I want to tell you I was at the town meeting,” he said.

  “I didn’t see you.”

  “As a non-resident, I thought it best to hide out in one of the spillover rooms.”

  “You could have watched online.”

  “I wanted to see it, to see how the town reacted to you.”

  “And did you like what you saw?”

  “You wowed them, though I thought you were toast after Karl Anderson’s opening. The movie turned it all around. Fantastic propaganda.”

  “I knew all along the town was ready to move on.”

  “You know the people at a gut level and Karl admitted it. I’ve actually been through my share of municipal zoning fights, and I’ve never seen anything like that. I’d like to have you on my side.”

  He leaned across the table toward her and she felt his hand on her thigh. She pulled away.

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Why not? It’s genuine. And it’s not about the deal.”

  “I almost wish I could let it happen. You would …”

  She wanted to tell him he was her romantic type but of course, that wasn’t what he was after. It was all about the property. He was after concessions of some kind. The conversation moved awkwardly on to mutual acquaintances at Longwood, at Marblehead, from the Social Register. He dropped names like she dropped emails.

  He mentioned Elise Kenrick, who had been instrumental in the investigation of the missing diamond earrings at Longwood. Elise had told the House Committee that Jane Pierson had been on the Wang Center Board with Miranda and was part of the faction that ousted her after she tr
ied to fire the CEO. That established a motive for the theft of Jane’s $80,000 diamond earrings. And once the motive was established, Miranda had a lot of explaining to do.

  “Did you know she’s a manic-depressive?”

  “I didn’t,” he said.

  “And a long history with Xanax and Prozac.”

  “I’ve always found her to be tactless, especially when the heat is on.”

  She nodded and wondered where he was going, what he knew.

  “Arnold, what do you think of him?” he asked about Elise’s new husband.

  “Made his first fortune investing with Mort Zuckerman, and lost it in the tech bubble.”

  “Mort has no use for him.”

  “You know Zuckerman?”

  He nodded.

  “We’ve made a couple of fortunes together, a true gambler.”

  “I’d like to talk to him about what I’m doing. He might know how to monetize my ideas.”

  “You could talk to me about that.”

  “I already have, and you responded. Now I want to talk to him.”

  “I could make that happen.”

  He leaned back and sipped his wine. She waited for him to elaborate but he was waiting for her, so she began. “We’re getting an appraisal.”

  “Which will come in at 13.2,” he said.

  “Why are you overpaying?”

  “I’m not. I’m buying more than the property.”

  “What else comes with it?”

  “I can’t tell you my long-term plans, Miranda. We make a deal. The town can put in all the protections it wants to preserve it. But what I do with it after that is my business. And I am a businessman. That property is going to make me a lot more than $14 million in the next ten years.”

  “I don’t see how. You can’t demolish the mansion and build luxury condos.”

  “I think you’re talking out of school. I want to see that term sheet. And you want my $14 million very badly. You practically brought on World War III to get here. And now that you won that war, you’re not turning back.”

  “It’s 14.5.”

  “You’ve got the point five. Now what have I got?”

  His voice was deep and silky, appealing enough that she said as little as possible so he could guide the conversation.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Ann Cronin-Reynolds had done what the Governor and his political people had asked. She was running TV and radio spots attacking Rokeby, and one of the lines of attack was his support for snob zoning. She had a double-digit lead in every poll of the small primary electorate. As far as she was concerned it was over. Rokeby wasn’t even campaigning outside of small events in very big houses. Such was not the formula for victory. She glided through the final weekend at a reasonable pace of appearances at shopping malls. The people mostly knew her and were happy to shake her hand. Hundreds of men wanted to be photographed with her, which she took to be a good sign. Young women were still asking for her autograph, reporters showed up often outside her headquarters, which was busy with volunteers. They all wanted to talk strategy for the general election in November. She maintained a coy, faux-humble posture about anything post-primary while thinking about it practically non-stop.

  Yet she was privately concerned about the big early voting numbers from those six snob-zoning towns. Four thousand people had already voted in the Republican primary there and only seven hundred in Framingham, which was five times the size. The rest of the district was also sleeping up to election day. Her model showed her beating him in every other community by two or three to one. He had something bubbling in those six towns—and that was it. She and her pollster could not see any way those towns could overcome her lead in the other twenty-seven unless turnout in the twenty-seven were severely depressed, as if there were no contest at all.

  “You could go into Lincoln, right into Miranda Dalton’s hometown and tell people there is no zoning bill—it’s not even coming up for a vote,” said Bill, the whiz-kid aide.

  “And then they start questioning me, well is it introduced? And I say yes, but nothing happens until we hold hearings, and there are no hearings scheduled. And they say that’s coming. And I say no it’s not. And they say you can’t guarantee that. And I say don’t worry, I’ll stop it. And then word gets out to the rest of the district that I’m taking a stand in favor of the 1%. And I’m finished in the general. No thank you.”

  “I’m scared, Ann. These are big numbers from these towns.”

  “I’ve won four elections and never had much luck with early voting, and I’m not planning on it this time. Move on.”

  “Get out our vote on Tuesday,” he said softly.

  “I know.”

  “Then do it, and stop talking about their vote.”

  Bill went over his get-out-the-vote operation, the lists of names on his computer and the hundred people each captain was supposed to get to vote. On a computer screen, it was doable. But this was his first campaign, and from what he could see, the entire thing was like a Facebook page. Hundreds of people united by their affection for Ann Cronin-Reynolds. But there was no plan for actually getting them to vote, to get involved, to give money. There was no debate with Rokeby. He’d never actually talked to a Rokeby voter. That was the problem he faced. It was an invisible opposition, giving them no real target to attack, no gaffes to exploit. It was just those people out there in those quiet towns that the campaign basically ignored. Bill preferred that electorate to his at the moment. Those people had a reason to vote.

  But Stephen preferred Cronin-Reynolds’s electorate to his. He campaigned from 7:00 to 9:00 each night at small cocktail parties, collected checks, discussed the markets and moved on. There were no real questions. He gave no interviews, and made no appearances outside his towns. He no longer believed Miranda’s turnout model would work. There was just no real evidence this was a Congressional campaign.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Miranda had her term sheet from town counsel. All aesthetic changes had to be approved by the Commission, the width of the access road, barely enough for one car, could not be changed, only twenty cars per day could access the property, and New England Properties had to agree to binding arbitration over any dispute.

  “I can’t agree to these terms,” Zenni said, as they sat in the conversation nook of his office after lunch. “You didn’t tell me this was coming. Binding arbitration. Who’s the arbiter?”

  “There’s room for negotiation, Tony. I’m the Chairman.”

  “How much room have you got? They’re dictating these terms because they want to tank the deal. It’s retribution for beating them.”

  “I can see that, Tony. I’ve committed a grave sin by winning a big public fight. Lincoln doesn’t want it to happen again. Ever. So I’m going to just negotiate the best deal that I can and let the Commission take it or leave it.”

  “What if your colleagues and the town counsel say no?”

  “They won’t. Because deep in their timid souls they want the $14.5 million and want to use it to buy that land on Route 2. They know we made a mistake in downzoning that land. They want Lincoln preserved as much as possible. They know someone has to lead this battle and that someone is me. But they won’t ever say this in public unless they are forced, which they were.”

  “If you make a purchase and sale agreement with me and the Commission won’t sign it, I’ll never deal with you again. Nobody will buy that property.”

  “I went all the way out there for this deal, and for what? So my colleagues can kill it and get rid of me? This was crazy.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like this, and I’ve been doing difficult real estate deals for thirty years.”

  She wanted to cry and confide much more in him. But instead she walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows and looked down at the beautiful harbor.

  “The more things change, the more we need to hang on to our past. That harbor was filthy when I first moved to Boston. Now the whole area is green and cle
an. The expressway is gone. But then we’ve got all these nouveau Tinkertoy skyscrapers.”

  “I built some of them.”

  “I know. Capitalism can be ugly, Tony. It needs to be managed. And Lincoln and capitalism just don’t mix. They don’t want you to make any real money on this deal. Academics think profit is crass, and sometimes I have to admit they’re right.”

  “The professors think money should be inherited, not made,” he added and laughed.

  “My husband’s grandfather was apparently the crassest capitalist you can imagine. He sold cannonballs to the government during the Spanish-American War at a huge profit. The Dalton fortune was doubled by a war profiteer. And the original fortune was made by one Cyrus Dalton, who killed hundreds of Penobscot Indians and took their land in Bristol County. We don’t talk about that in our house. Archer would prefer the boys not even know. They’re supposed to have an enlightened noblesse oblige attitude, which translates into this superior anti-capitalist sneering at people like you.”

  “But they want my $14 million.”

  “Sort of. You see what I’m going through to close this deal.”

  “Will they let me convert the estate into six luxury condos like I did at the Fisher Estate in Brookline? Of course not. I could triple my money in two years if they did. So I’ll start with this corporate events venue. If I rent it out enough times a season, it’ll pay for itself. But there’s no real money in this deal unless they let me convert it to residential or office condos, which I’m betting they’ll do in a few years.”

  “They won’t. The word ‘luxury’ rubs everyone the wrong way. It’s like acrylic.”

  “So I won’t use that word. I’ll call it historic living in historic Lincoln and use an eighteenth-century Tudor theme. But I’ll get it done.”

  “And now that I know your plan I’m supposed to tell my fellow commissioners.”

  “If you do, the deal’s off.”

  “Why did you tell me?”

  “Because we’re kindred spirits. I respect what you’re doing. And if you’re still there in a few years, you might talk some sense into them just like you are right now.”