Chapter 27

The meeting with Homer in the diner was over a lot sooner than Cal had expected. He walked out of the front door of the diner and took notice of the pleasant summer weather, as the days were slipping toward August. Cal decided to walk the long way around back to his office and that would put him there right on time for the afternoon appointment with his client.

“It was a good idea to call Mildred Watkins before meeting with Homer,” he told himself.

Indeed it was, for Cal knew that Tanaka’s waiver would have been Jack Ross’ private license to print money. Homer was Jack’s soldier, so playing straight would have meant climbing over a wall of Homer’s sandbags. Homer would have imposed one delay after another to let the lease deal fall apart so the waiver could find its way back onto the table. With Mildred on board the Council expected a presentation of the lease proposal, so Homer wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret.

“Homer will come around, but he’s in a box, so he’ll get out of it what he can. Ross will show up, too, at the last moment and cut his losses.”

Cal felt good.

“This project is getting closer by the minute. We just have to stay on top of it and not let it get out of our grasp.”

Of course, the access road still loomed, but George said that he had that worked out. Cal chose to take what George said at face value. It always seemed to work. Besides, he’d find out later that afternoon.

Cal had nearly forgotten Homer’s ‘I told you so’ as Roxie’s name came up. Homer referred to Roxie as Cal’s ‘girlfriend’, which, of course wasn’t true. Cal asked himself why he hadn’t set Homer straight on that point.

“Well, it’s none of his business, that’s why. Besides, we were there to talk about the Annex, not my supposed romances. I didn’t want to get side-tracked.”

Cal thought that was a good answer. It made a lot of sense. That satisfied feeling he expected at having resolved an outstanding question just wasn’t there—and he knew why.

In fact, he had been all ready to set Homer straight about his non-relationship with his almost one-time date, but the words had stuck in his throat. After all, Roxie had run off with some Country and Western gypsy trucker while she could have just waited for his most reasonable explanation. It was rejection, and it bit into him.

“Why should I be second choice? Roxie had her chance. She’ll have to live with it, because I know that I can.”

That was the way a man would handle it and he’d just done so. He hadn’t expected it to feel good—and it didn’t. But, it was handled. Besides, the access road was on his plate for the afternoon and that was too important to allow distractions.

Cal looked up and found that he’d arrived at the entrance of his office building. He opened the door and mounted the stairway. He had a few client appointments and he needed some time to put the finishing touches on the will he was drawing up for one of his appointments from the prior week.

Most important, he had to get his agreement with Mr. Tanaka on paper.

“It’s just a nice idea until someone signs it,” he reminded himself.

He decided to have the County’s legal firm write the actual lease. Homer would control whatever the City’s law firm worked on, which would have provided him another delaying opportunity.

“They’ll have their noses out of joint, but this is the way I’m going to do it.”

Indeed, he reasoned, that as the County official who had negotiated the deal, he would have standing to use the County’s law firm.

As he finished climbing the stairs and opened the door to the anteroom of his office he saw Delores sitting at her desk.

“Coffee?” she asked.

Cal shook his head.

“Clear the decks,” he told her. “I’ll have something important for you later today.”

“You mean the Johnson will?”

“I’ll finish that first and give it to you to type up. After that, something a lot bigger,” he answered.

“What could be...” she started to ask.

“It looks like the Midco deal is finally becoming a reality.”

Cal put the finishing touches on the Johnson Will just in time to give it to Delores for final typing as his first appointment arrived. Cal ushered them in to his inner office. It was a husband and wife who owned a dairy farm in the northern part of the County. They wanted to convert it from a proprietorship to a corporation.

It was a routine matter. Most of the twenty-minute appointment time was taken up with a conversation over whether they should hire an accountant to help them with their books. Cal escorted them through the outer office and to the door.

“Your next appointment called and cancelled while you were busy. It was Clem Hopkins,” Delores said as Cal’s clients disappeared down the stairs.

“Half-hour’s notice?” Cal asked. “If I was a doctor I could charge him, anyway.”

“You could send him a bill, but he’d never pay it,” Delores answered.

“I’m not that sorry about it. It was another DUI. There seems to more of them all the time and I’m getting tired of defending them.”

“Well, they’re the cases with the biggest fees. They sure help pay the bills,” Delores said. “Anyway, Clem said that he couldn’t afford the fee. He said he knew what it was going to be from the DUI he had two years ago.”

“He’s mistaken,” Cal said. “The fee has gone up from two years ago.”

“He told me to tell you that he was just going to plead guilty and see what the judge gives him.”

“He’ll be back,” Cal replied. “The judge won’t want to accept the plea with him representing himself. He’ll adjourn and tell him to think it over and get a lawyer before he comes back to court.”

Delores took a deep breath and then rolled her eyes. Cal knew that look. It meant that Delores thought that he needed a piece of her mind.

“I glad that you’re so sure about it,” she said.

“I’ve been through it before, Delores. I know...”

“And when Clem does come back we’ll be chasing him for a year to collect the fee. You might want to think about devoting some of the energy you spend on politics to your practice.”

“I can’t do anything about the Clem Hopkins case,” Cal pleaded.

“It’s not just this case,” Delores argued back. “You’re almost glad when a client cancels. It gives you more time to work on your Annex Project. You’re going into your office and work on it right now.”

“Right you are,” Cal said. “And, look—last time I checked, the bills are all paid. I’m making a living...”

“It could be a lot better living,” Delores butt in.

“And the payroll is being met,” Cal finished, putting extra oomph in the last part on purpose.

Delores paused for a second, but Cal could still see the fire in her eyes.

“If you ask me...”

“I’m not, but you’re going to tell me anyway,” Cal interrupted.

“If you ask me, this practice could be doing better—a lot better. Cal, you’re the best lawyer in town, but you have to put some effort into bringing in more clients. Instead, you’re beating your brains out on some project that hardly anyone cares about, for no pay and a lot of headaches.”

Cal sat in the chair next to Delores’ desk. He scratched his head. He cupped his hands together and sank his face into them.

“I suppose you’re right,” he confessed, “but I can’t stop. In this little town people come in one after the other with cases I’ve seen before too many times. If Clem doesn’t come back with his DUI case, someone else will come in with one of their own. Maybe it will be an eviction or a will. It won’t matter—they’re all the same. Sometimes I almost forget the names.”

“They come to you because they know that you’ll do it right,” Delores said as Cal took a breath.

“But the Annex Project isn’t like that. It’s different and exciting—and it’s new all the time. And, it’s big; it means so much to this town, even if no one knows it right now.”

“Then, you want to make a name for yourself?” Delores asked.

“No,” Cal answered, “once it was that—but not now. Like I said, it’s because this will be a big thing for a lot of people who live here. One good thing after so many years of bad. It’s what couldn’t be done, but is gonna be done just the same—even with guys like Homer Barlow and Jack Ross lurking in every dark corner.”

Cal stopped speaking and the office was silent. He surprised himself by his little speech. Had he planned it out, he might have expected to feel angry, or self-righteous, or perhaps defiant. It was none of that.

Delores was brushing a tear from her eye.

“Sorry, Delores, I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said.

“I didn’t know you felt like that,” she answered.

“I don’t think that I did, either,” Cal said. “But I’ve said it now and it all makes a lot of sense to me.”

Delores was looking at him. Cal thought that she was going to say something, but she didn’t for some time.

“Well, go in your office and work on your project,” she said at last. “Bring it to me when you’re done and I’ll make sure that it looks just right.”

“Thanks, Delores,” Cal said and began to make his way to his inner office.

“You don’t need to thank me,” she said. “Typing’s my job.”

Cal stopped in the door way of his private office and turned around.

“I didn’t mean ‘thanks for the typing’,” he said. “I meant thanks for the rest of it.”

It was five minutes before four in the afternoon. Cal picked up his phone and called George Lambe’s office.

“Let George know that I’ll be fifteen minutes late for our meeting today, please,” he told the secretary on the other end of the line.

He picked up a set of papers written in longhand and walked them out to Delores’ desk in the outer office.

“I’m not sure whether Mr. Tanaka is in New York or back at the corporate offices in Tokyo,” he told her. “So, I’ll send one set to each. Prepare a courier envelope for both places. Here are the addresses.”

Delores nodded.

“My meeting with George shouldn’t go too long. When it’s over I’ll come right back to the office, proof them and then we’ll pack them up and take them to the courier. You’ll probably be a little late going home, but not too bad.”

“No problem, Cal,” Delores said. “Do you want me to use County stationery or yours?”

“Use County letterhead for the cover letter and plain white for the memorandum. Sign me as Chairman of the Economic Development Committee of the County Legislature.”

“Sounds very official,” Delores answered. “You’re usually a lot less formal.”

“We’re coming down to the wire,” Cal answered. “No margin for error.”

Cal picked up the pile of papers and took them to the copier.

“I’ll take these to the meeting with George for talking points. Maybe we can get a head start on getting the official lease written.”

Cal set the draft back on Delores’ desk and went back to his inner office to put on his suit jacket and slid the copy into his briefcase.

“I’ll be back as soon as the meeting is over,” he promised as he closed the door behind him.

As he closed the door to his building behind him Cal looked at his watch.

“I hate being late to meetings,” he reminded himself.

He picked up his pace. It would be quicker to walk the block-and-a-half to the County Building than to get his car out of the lot and then find another parking space when he got there. As he walked he did a mental review of the meeting agenda.

Of course, it was George’s meeting to go over his idea for the access road. Cal had news on that item, too, after Mr. Tanaka agreed to divert his utility upgrade budget to contributing toward building the new road. Cal knew it would be a big help, but he knew that any proposal for a new road project through Miller’s Marsh would have its own set of problems.

Cal was thinking about all that as he realized he was passing through the main door of the County Building. He walked by the bank of elevators and headed for the stairway. He wondered if it was really faster to use the stairs. Maybe it wasn’t, he thought, but at least he was in motion—and it couldn’t have been any slower. At the second floor landing he met Larry Chapman.