Worthy Opponents(54)

“I don’t know. Marcy and I called every commercial realtor in the city this morning. There’s one possibility in Soho on lower Broadway. There’s nothing uptown right now. And downtown is more expensive, it’s in higher demand. Given who our customers are, we’ll be better off uptown. They’ve been coming downtown for years. Maybe it’s time we make things easier for them, and it will bring a flock of new customers.”

“How much do you think we’ll have to borrow?” she asked Paul.

“It depends on what we find. But it’ll cost us a lot.”

“Can we afford it?”

“We’ll have to. If we open our online shopping soon, and broaden our client base with a new location, then we can. In a way, this location has been holding us back.”

“We have an appointment to see the location on Broadway this afternoon,” Marcy told her. “I’ll go with you.”

When they went to see it, it was brutally ugly, in need of repairs, poorly located, too small, and shockingly expensive.

Mike called her when she got back to the office. Sounding discouraged, she told him about the temporary store they’d just seen and how bad it was, and how expensive.

“I called some people too,” Mike said. “It seems as though there’s nothing available right now. I only inquired about uptown.”

“We asked about both. Paul wants to put our building on the market. I hate to sell it. And it will be harder to sell now, except for some other purpose. He doesn’t think we have a choice.”

“You don’t.” Mike sounded sympathetic.

“I want to go over the numbers of your offer with you again,” she said somberly. She sounded as though she was walking to the guillotine, and he felt terrible about it.

“Don’t do that if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t, but I have no choice, do I? We’re going to have to buy an expensive building, and probably won’t get a lot for ours. Having a bunch of drug dealers shoot each other right in our store doesn’t exactly increase the value of the real estate. We have to be realistic if we want Brooke’s to survive,” she said. He could hear the sadness in her voice.

“Why don’t you take a few days and let the dust settle before we talk numbers again,” he said. “Keep looking at temporary locations. And I’ll see what turns up at my end. I’ll ask my father. Sometimes he knows about some interesting deals. Between the two of us we know all the big commercial real estate brokers. Something will turn up. Are you going to reopen downtown in the meantime?”

“I don’t know,” Spencer said, feeling lost. “They’re scraping the blood off the walls now.”

“How’s your arm?” he asked. He worried about her. Her life was so hard sometimes, with so much on her shoulders. It didn’t seem fair. She faced it so bravely and honorably. And he had a feeling she was about to do something she’d regret. He could tell that she was seriously considering the deal he had offered her, and he felt guilty about it now. She would lose all control of her store if she did that. But she had her back to the wall, with no better offers or options.

Zack asked him about it that night when they ate dinner together.

“What happened with that story about the drug war last night? You were very interested in it.”

“Two gangs of drug dealers got in a shooting war over a big shipment of heroin that came in. It all happened in front of that store I was thinking of investing in, the one that your sister likes so much. In fact, they broke into the store before it was all over, and five of them died there, and one of the cops.”

“Sounds ugly,” Zack said. “What happens in a case like that? Do they close the store? Would anyone still shop there?”

“Probably not. They won’t close but they have to move, which is an expensive proposition. They’re not too happy about it.”

“Yeah, I bet they’re not. Is there blood all over the place?” Mike nodded. “Are you still going to invest in it, or is it a bad investment now?” Zack was more interested in his father’s business than he had been before his year in Europe.

“I don’t know. I might. The owner turned my original offer down.”

“Why?” Zack looked puzzled.

“Because the terms of the deal were tough. They’d have to give up the controlling interest in the store, and the investors and I would control it.”

“That doesn’t sound very fair.” Zack looked surprised.

“It’s not, but that’s the way business is sometimes. When people want something or need money badly, they pay a high price for it.”

“And you take advantage of it,” Zack said, and his father didn’t answer for a minute.

“I guess we do.”

“That’s why I don’t like business. It’s not nice.” Zack put it so simply, but it was true. “Do you think they’ll take your deal now?” Zack asked him.

“They might have to. I think they’re considering it. It’s a big decision for them.”

“Sucks for them. First a bunch of drug dealers kill each other in their store, and then they lose control of their business. They must be pretty miserable.” Mike realized that Zack had summed it up perfectly. And that some of Spencer’s misery was due to him.