Kitabı oku: «The Stars Shine Down»
SIDNEY SHELDON
THE STARS SHINE DOWN
Dedication
This one is for Morton Janklow,A Man for All Seasons
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Part Two
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Part Three
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Part Four
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Acknowledgements
Books By Sidney Sheldon
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Epigraph
The stars shine down
And watch us live
Our little lives
And weep for us.
MONET NODLEHS
Part One
Chapter One
Thursday, September 10, 1992 8:00 p.m.
The 727 was lost in a sea of cumulus clouds that tossed the plane around like a giant silver feather. The pilot’s worried voice came over the speaker.
‘Is your seat belt fastened, Miss Cameron?’
There was no response.
‘Miss Cameron … Miss Cameron …’
She was shaken out of a deep reverie. ‘Yes.’ Her thoughts had been drifting to happier times, happier places.
‘Are you all right? We should be out of this storm soon.’
‘I’m fine, Roger.’
Maybe we’ll get lucky and crash, Lara Cameron thought. It would be a fitting end. Somewhere, somehow, it had all gone wrong. It’s the Fates, Lara thought. You can’t fight the Fates. In the past year her life had spun wildly out of control. She was in danger of losing everything. At least nothing else can go wrong, she thought wryly. There is nothing else.
The door of the cockpit opened and the pilot came into the cabin. He paused for a moment to admire his passenger. The woman was beautiful, with shiny black hair swept up in a crown, a flawless complexion, intelligent eyes, cat-grey. She had changed clothes after they had taken off from Reno, and she was wearing a white, off-the-shoulder Scaasi evening gown that accented a slender, seductive figure. Around her throat was a diamond and ruby necklace. How can she look so damn calm with her world collapsing around her? he wondered. The newspapers had been mercilessly attacking her for the past month.
‘Is the phone working yet, Roger?’
‘I’m afraid not, Miss Cameron. There’s a lot of interference because of the storm. We’re going to be about an hour late getting into La Guardia. I’m sorry.’
I’m going to be late for my birthday party, Lara thought. Everyone is going to be there. Two hundred guests, including the Vice President of the United States, the Governor of New York, the Mayor, Hollywood celebrities, famous athletes, and financiers from half a dozen countries. She had approved the guest list herself.
She could visualize the Grand Ballroom of the Cameron Plaza, where the party was being held. Baccarat crystal chandeliers would hang from the ceiling, prisms of light reflecting a dazzling diamond-like brilliance. There would be place settings for two hundred guests, at twenty tables. The finest linens, china, silver and stemware would adorn each place setting, and in the centre of each table would be a floral display of white orchids mixed with white freesias.
Bar service would have been set up at both ends of the large reception hall outside. In the middle of the hall would be a long buffet with an ice carving of a swan, and surrounding it, Beluga caviar, gravlax, shrimps, lobster and crab, while buckets of champagne were being iced. A ten-tier birthday cake would be in the kitchen waiting. Waiters, maître d’s and security guards would all be in position by now.
In the ballroom, a society orchestra would be on the bandstand, ready to tempt the guests to dance the night away in celebration of her fortieth birthday. Everything would be in readiness.
The dinner was going to be delicious. She had chosen the menu herself. Foie gras to begin with, followed by a cream of mushroom soup under a delicate crust, fillets of John Dory, and then the main course: Lamb with rosemary and pommes soufflées with French beans and a mesclun salad with hazelnut oil. Cheese and grapes would be next, followed by the birthday cake and coffee.
It was going to be a spectacular party. She would hold her head high, and face her guests as though nothing were wrong. She was Lara Cameron.
When the private jet finally landed at La Guardia, it was an hour and a half late.
Lara turned to the pilot. ‘We’ll be flying back to Reno later tonight, Roger.’
‘I’ll be here, Miss Cameron.’
Her limousine and driver were waiting for her at the ramp.
‘I was getting worried about you, Miss Cameron.’
‘We ran into some weather, Max. Let’s get to the Plaza as fast as possible.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Lara reached for the car phone and dialled Jerry Townsend’s number. He had made all the arrangements for the party. Lara wanted to make sure that her guests were being looked after. There was no answer. He’s probably in the ballroom, Lara thought.
‘Hurry, Max.’
‘Yes, Miss Cameron.’
The sight of the huge Cameron Plaza Hotel never failed to give Lara a glow of satisfaction at what she had created, but on this evening, she was in too much of a hurry to think about it. Everyone would be waiting for her in the Grand Ballroom.
She pushed through the revolving door and hurried across the large spectacular lobby. Carlos, the assistant manager, saw her and came running to her side.
‘Miss Cameron …’
‘Later,’ Lara said. She kept walking. She reached the closed door of the Grand Ballroom and stopped to take a deep breath. I’m ready to face them, Lara thought. She flung open the door, a smile on her face, and stopped in shock. The room was in total darkness. Were they planning some kind of surprise? She reached for the switch behind the door and flicked it up. The huge room was flooded with incandescent light. There was no one there. Not one single person. Lara stood there, stunned.
What in the world could have happened to two hundred guests? The invitations had read eight o’clock. It was now almost ten o’clock. How could that many people disappear into thin air? It was eerie. She looked around the enormous empty ballroom and shivered. Last year, at her birthday party, this same room had been filled with her friends, filled with music and laughter. She remembered that day so well …
Chapter Two
One year earlier, Lara Cameron’s appointment schedule for the day had been routine.
September 10, 1991
| 5:00 a.m. | Workout with trainer |
| 7:00 a.m. | Appearance on ‘Good Morning America’ |
| 7:45 a.m. | Meeting with Japanese bankers |
| 9:30 a.m. | Jerry Townsend |
| 10:30 a.m. | Executive Planning Committee |
| 11:00 a.m. | Faxes, overseas calls, mail |
| 11:30 a.m. | Construction meeting |
| 12:30 p.m. | S & L meeting |
| 1:00 p.m. | Lunch – Fortune Magazine Interview – Hugh Thompson |
| 2:30 p.m. | Metropolitan Union bankers |
| 4:00 p.m. | Zoning Commission |
| 5:00 p.m. | Meeting with Mayor – Gracie Mansion |
| 6:15 p.m. | Architects meeting |
| 6:30 p.m. | Housing Commission |
| 7:30 p.m. | Cocktails with Dallas Investment Group |
| 8:00 p.m. | Birthday party at Grand Ballroom – Cameron Plaza |
She had been in her workout clothes impatiently waiting when Ken, her trainer, arrived.
‘You’re late.’
‘Sorry, Miss Cameron. My alarm didn’t go off and …’
‘I have a busy day. Let’s get started.’
‘Right.’
They did stretches for half an hour and then switched to energetic aerobics.
She’s got the body of a twenty-one year old, Ken thought. I’d sure love to get that into my bed. He enjoyed coming here every morning just to look at her, to be near her. People constantly asked him what Lara Cameron was like. He would answer, ‘The lady’s a ten.’
Lara went through the strenuous routine easily, but her mind was not on it this morning.
When the session was finally over, Ken said, ‘I’m going to watch you on “Good Morning America”.’
‘What?’ For a moment Lara had forgotten about it. She had been thinking about the meeting with the Japanese bankers.
‘See you tomorrow, Miss Cameron.’
‘Don’t be late again, Ken.’
Lara showered and changed and had breakfast alone on the terrace of the penthouse, a breakfast of grapefruit, cereal, and green tea. When she had finished, she went into her study.
Lara buzzed her secretary. ‘I’ll do the overseas calls from the office,’ Lara said. ‘I have to be at ABC at seven. Have Max bring the car around.’
The segment on ‘Good Morning America’ went well. Joan Lunden did the interview and was gracious, as always.
‘The last time you were on this programme,’ Joan Lunden said, ‘you had just broken ground for the tallest skyscraper in the world. That was almost four years ago.’
Lara nodded. ‘That’s right. Cameron Towers will be finished next year.’
‘How does it feel to be in your position – to have accomplished all the incredible things you’ve done, and to still be so young and beautiful? You’re a role model for so many women.’
‘You’re very flattering,’ Lara laughed. ‘I don’t have time to think about myself as a role model. I’m much too busy.’
‘You’re one of the most successful real estate developers in a business that’s usually considered a man’s domain. How do you operate? How do you decide, for instance, where to put up a building?’
‘I don’t choose the site,’ Lara said. ‘The site chooses me. I’ll be driving along and I’ll pass a vacant field – but that’s not what I see. I see a beautiful office building or a lovely apartment building filled with people living comfortably in a nice atmosphere. I dream.’
‘And you make those dreams come true. We’ll be right back after this commercial.’
The Japanese bankers were due at 7:45. They had arrived from Tokyo the evening before and Lara had arranged the meeting at that early morning hour so that they would still be jetlagged after their twelve hour and ten minute flight. When they had protested, Lara had said, ‘I’m so sorry, gentlemen, but I’m afraid it’s the only time I have. I’m leaving for South America immediately after our meeting.’
And they had reluctantly agreed. There were four of them, diminutive and polite, with minds as sharp as the edges of Samurai swords. In an earlier decade, the financial community had wildly underestimated the Japanese. It no longer made that mistake.
The meeting was held at Cameron Center on Sixth Avenue. The men were there to invest a hundred million dollars in a new hotel complex Lara was developing. They were ushered into the large conference room. Each of the men carried a gift. Lara thanked them and in turn gave each of them a gift. She had instructed her secretary to make certain the presents were wrapped in plain brown or grey paper. White, to the Japanese, represented death, and gaudy wrapping paper was unacceptable.
Lara’s assistant, Tricia, brought in tea for the Japanese and coffee for Lara. The Japanese would have preferred coffee, but they were too polite to say so. When they had finished their tea, Lara made sure their cups were replenished.
Howard Keller, Lara’s associate, came into the room. He was in his fifties, pale and thin, with sandy hair, wearing a rumpled suit, and managing to look as though he had just got out of bed. Lara made the introductions. Keller passed around copies of the investment proposal.
‘As you can see, gentlemen,’ Lara said, ‘we already have a first mortgage commitment. The complex will contain seven hundred and twenty guest units, approximately thirty thousand square feet of meeting space, and a one-thousand car parking garage …’
Lara’s voice was charged with energy. The Japanese bankers were studying the investment proposal, fighting to stay awake.
The meeting was over in less than two hours and it was a complete success. Lara had learned long ago that it was easier to make a hundred-million-dollar deal than it was to try to borrow fifty thousand dollars.
As soon as the Japanese delegation left, Lara had her meeting with Jerry Townsend. The tall, hyper, ex-Hollywood publicity man was in charge of public relations for Cameron Enterprises.
‘That was a great interview on “Good Morning America” this morning. I’ve been getting a lot of calls.’
‘What about Forbes?’
‘All set. People has you on the cover next week. Did you see the New Yorker article on you? Wasn’t it great?’
Lara walked over to her desk. ‘Not bad.’
‘The Fortune interview is set for this afternoon.’
‘I changed it.’
He looked surprised. ‘Why?’
‘I’m having their reporter here for lunch.’
‘Soften him up a little?’
Lara pressed down the intercom button. ‘Come in, Kathy.’
A disembodied voice said, ‘Yes, Miss Cameron.’
Lara Cameron looked up. ‘That’s all, Jerry. I want you and your staff to concentrate on Cameron Towers.’
‘We’re already doing …’
‘Let’s do more. I want it written about in every newspaper and magazine there is. For God’s sake, it’s going to be the tallest building in the world. In the world! I want people talking about it. By the time we open, I want people to be begging to get into those apartments and shops.’
Jerry Townsend got to his feet. ‘Right.’
Kathy, Lara’s executive assistant, came into the office. She was an attractive, neatly dressed black woman in her early thirties.
‘Did you find out what he likes to eat?’
‘The man’s a gourmet. He likes French food. I called Le Cirque and asked Sirio to cater a lunch here for two.’
‘Good. We’ll eat in my private dining room.’
‘Do you know how long the interview will take? You have a two thirty with the Metropolitan bankers downtown.’
‘Push it to three o’clock, and have them come here.’
Kathy made a note. ‘Do you want me to read you your messages?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘The Children’s Foundation wants you to be their guest of honour on the twenty-eighth.’
‘No. Tell them I’m flattered. Send them a cheque.’
‘Your meeting has been arranged in Tulsa for Tuesday at …’
‘Cancel it.’
‘You’re invited to a luncheon next Friday for a Manhattan Women’s Group.’
‘No. If they’re asking for money, send them a cheque.’
‘The Coalition for Literacy would like you to speak at a luncheon on the fourth.’
‘See if we can work it out.’
‘There’s an invitation to be guest of honour at a fund-raiser for muscular dystrophy, but there’s a conflict in dates. You’ll be in San Francisco.’
‘Send them a cheque.’
‘The Srbs are giving a dinner party next Saturday.’
‘I’ll try to make that,’ Lara said. Kristian and Deborah Srb were amusing, and good friends, and she enjoyed being with them.
‘Kathy, how many of me do you see?’
‘What?’
‘Take a good look.’
Kathy looked at her. ‘One of you, Miss Cameron.’
‘That’s right. There’s only one of me. How did you expect me to meet with the bankers from Metropolitan at two thirty today, the Zoning Commission at four, then meet with the mayor at five, the architects at six fifteen, the housing commission at six thirty, have a cocktail party at seven thirty and my birthday dinner at eight? The next time you make up a schedule, try using your brain.’
‘I’m sorry. You wanted me to …’
‘I wanted you to think. I don’t need stupid people around me. Reschedule the appointments with the architects and the housing commission.’
‘Right,’ Kathy said stiffly.
‘How’s the baby?’
The question caught the secretary by surprise. ‘David? He’s … he’s fine.’
‘He must be getting big by now.’
‘He’s almost two.’
‘Have you thought about a school for him?’
‘Not yet. It’s too early to …’
‘You’re wrong. If you want to get him into a decent school in New York, you start before he’s born.’
Lara made a note on a desk pad. ‘I know the principal at Dalton. I’ll arrange to have David registered there.’
‘I … thank you.’
Lara did not bother to look up. ‘That’s all.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Kathy walked out of the office not knowing whether to love her boss or hate her. When Kathy had first come to work at Cameron Enterprises, she had been warned about Lara Cameron. ‘The Iron Butterfly is a bitch on wheels,’ she had been told. ‘Her secretaries don’t figure their employment there by the calendar – they use stopwatches. She’ll eat you alive.’
Kathy remembered her first interview with her. She had seen pictures of Lara Cameron in half a dozen magazines, but none of them had done her justice. In person, the woman was breathtakingly beautiful.
Lara Cameron had been reading Kathy’s résumé. She looked up and said, ‘Sit down, Kathy.’ Her voice was husky and vibrant. There was an energy about her that was almost overpowering.
‘This is quite a résumé.’
‘Thank you.’
‘How much of it is real?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Most of the ones that come across my desk are fiction. Are you good at what you do?’
‘I’m very good at what I do, Miss Cameron.’
‘Two of my secretaries just quit. Everything’s snowballing around here. Can you handle pressure?’
‘I think so.’
‘This isn’t a guessing contest. Can you handle pressure or can’t you?’
At that moment Kathy was not sure she wanted the job. ‘Yes, I can.’
‘Good. You’re on a one-week trial. You’ll have to sign a form saying that at no time will you discuss me or your work here at Cameron Enterprises. That means no interviews, no books, nothing. Everything that happens here is confidential.’
‘I understand.’
‘Fine.’
That was how it had begun five years earlier. During that time Kathy had learned to love, hate, admire and despise her boss. In the beginning Kathy’s husband had asked, ‘What is the legend like?’
It was a difficult question. ‘She’s larger than life,’ Kathy had said. ‘She’s drop-dead beautiful. She works harder than anyone I’ve ever known. God only knows when she sleeps. She’s a perfectionist, so she makes everyone around her miserable. In her own way, she’s a genius. She can be petty and vengeful and incredibly generous.’
Her husband had smiled. ‘In other words, she’s a woman.’
Kathy had looked at him and said, unsmiling, ‘I don’t know what she is. Sometimes she scares me.’
‘Come on, honey, you’re exaggerating.’
‘No. I honestly believe that if someone stood in Lara Cameron’s way … she would kill.’
When Lara finished with the faxes and overseas calls, she buzzed Charlie Hunter, the ambitious young man in charge of accounting. ‘Come in, Charlie.’
‘Yes, Miss Cameron.’
A minute later, he entered her office.
‘Yes, Miss Cameron?’
‘I read the interview you gave in the New York Times this morning,’ Lara said.
He brightened. ‘I haven’t seen it yet. How was it?’
‘You talked about Cameron Enterprises and about some of the problems we’re having.’
He frowned. ‘Well, you know, that reporter fellow probably misquoted some of my …’
‘You’re fired.’
‘What? Why? I …’
‘When you were hired, you signed a paper agreeing not to give any interviews. I’ll expect you out of here this morning.’
‘I … you can’t do that. Who would take my place?’
‘I’ve already arranged that,’ Lara told him.
The luncheon was almost over. The Fortune reporter, Hugh Thompson, was an intense, intellectual-looking man with sharp brown eyes behind black horn-rimmed glasses.
‘It was a great lunch,’ he said. ‘All my favourite dishes. Thanks.’
‘I’m glad you enjoyed it.’
‘You really didn’t have to go to all that trouble for me.’
‘No trouble at all,’ Lara smiled. ‘My father always told me that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach.’
‘And you wanted to get to my heart before we started the interview?’
Lara smiled. ‘Exactly.’
‘How much trouble is your company really in?’
Lara’s smile faded. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Come on. You can’t keep a thing like that quiet. The word on the street is that some of your properties are on the verge of collapse because of the principal payments due on your junk bonds. You’ve done a lot of leveraging, and with the market down, Cameron Enterprises has to be pretty over-extended.’
Lara laughed. ‘Is that what the street says? Believe me, Mr Thompson, you’d be wise not to listen to silly rumours. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll send you a copy of my financials to set the record straight. Fair enough?’
‘Fair enough. By the way, I didn’t see your husband at the opening of the new hotel.’
Lara sighed. ‘Philip wanted so much to be there, but unfortunately he had to be away on a concert tour.’
‘I went to one of his recitals once about three years ago. He’s brilliant. You have been married a year now, haven’t you?’
‘Yes – the happiest year of my life. I’m a very lucky woman. I travel a lot, and so does Philip, but when I’m away from him, I can listen to his recordings wherever I am.’
Thompson smiled. ‘And he can see your buildings wherever he is.’
Lara laughed. ‘You flatter me.’
‘It’s pretty true, isn’t it? You’ve put up buildings all over this fair country of ours. You own apartment buildings, office buildings, a hotel chain … How do you do it?’
She smiled. ‘With mirrors.’
‘You’re a puzzle.’
‘Am I? Why?’
‘At this moment, you’re arguably the most successful builder in New York. Your name is plastered on half the real estate in this town. You’re putting up the world’s tallest skyscraper. Your competitors call you the Iron Butterfly. You’ve made it big in a business traditionally dominated by men.’
‘Does that bother you, Mr Thompson?’
‘No. What bothers me, Miss Cameron, is that I can’t figure out who you are. When I ask two people about you, I get three opinions. Everyone grants that you’re a brilliant businesswoman. I mean … you didn’t fall off a hay wagon and become a success. I know a lot about construction crews – they’re a rough, tough bunch of men. How does a woman like you keep them in line?’
She smiled. ‘There are no women like me. Seriously, I simply hire the best people for the job, and I pay them well.’
Too simplistic, Thompson thought. Much too simplistic. The real story is what she’s not telling me. He decided to change the direction of the interview.
‘Every magazine on the stands has written about how successful you are. I’d like to do a more personal story. There’s been very little printed about your background.’
‘I’m very proud of my background.’
‘Good. Let’s talk about that. How did you get started in the real estate business?’
Lara smiled and he could see that her smile was genuine. She suddenly looked like a little girl.
‘Genes.’
‘Your genes?’
‘My father’s.’ She pointed to a portrait on a wall behind her. It showed a handsome-looking man with a leonine head of silver hair. ‘That’s my father – James Hugh Cameron.’ Her voice was soft. ‘He’s responsible for my success. I’m an only child. My mother died when I was very young, and my father brought me up. My family left Scotland a long time ago, Mr Thompson, and emigrated to Nova Scotia – New Scotland, Glace Bay.’
‘Glace Bay?’
‘It’s a fishing village in the north-east part of Cape Breton, on the Atlantic shore. It was named by early French explorers. It means ice bay. More coffee?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘My grandfather owned a great deal of land in Scotland and my father acquired more. He was a very wealthy man. We still have our castle there near Loch Morlich. When I was eight years old, I had my own horse, my dresses were bought in London, we lived in an enormous house with a lot of servants. It was a fairytale life for a little girl.’ Her voice was alive with echoes of long-ago memories.
‘We would go ice skating in the winter, and watch hockey games, and go swimming at Big Glace Bay Lake in the summer. And there were dances at the Forum and the Venetian Gardens.’
The reporter was busily making notes.
‘My father put up buildings in Edmonton, and Calgary, and Ontario. Real estate was like a game to him, and he loved it. When I was very young, he taught me the game, and I learned to love it, too.’
Her voice was filled with passion. ‘You must understand something, Mr Thompson. What I do has nothing to do with the money or the bricks and steel that make a building. It’s the people who matter. I’m able to give them a comfortable place to work or to live, a place where they can raise families and have decent lives. That’s what was important to my father, and it became important to me.’
Hugh Thompson looked up. ‘Do you remember your first real estate venture?’
Lara leaned forward. ‘Of course. On my eighteenth birthday, my father asked me what I would like as a gift. A lot of newcomers were arriving in Glace Bay and it was getting crowded. I felt the town needed more places for them to live. I told my father I wanted to build a small apartment house. He gave me the money as a present, but two years later, I was able to pay him back. Then I borrowed money from a bank to put up a second building. By the time I was twenty-one, I owned three buildings, and they were all successful.’
‘Your father must have been very proud of you.’
There was that warm smile again. ‘He was. He named me Lara. It’s an old Scottish name that comes from the Latin. It means “well known” or “famous”. From the time I was a little girl, my father always told me I would be famous one day.’ Her smile faded. ‘He died of a heart attack, much too young.’ She paused. ‘I go to Scotland to visit his grave every year. I … I found it very difficult to stay on in the house without him. I decided to move to Chicago. I had an idea for small boutique hotels, and I persuaded a banker there to finance me. The hotels were a success.’ She shrugged. ‘And the rest, as the cliché goes, is history. I suppose that a psychiatrist would say that I haven’t created this empire just for myself. In a way, it’s a tribute to my father. James Cameron was the most wonderful man I’ve ever known.’
‘You must have loved him a lot.’
‘I did. And he loved me a lot.’ A smile touched her lips. ‘I’ve heard that on the day I was born, my father bought every man in Glace Bay a drink.’
‘So, really,’ Thompson said, ‘everything started in Glace Bay.’
‘That’s right,’ Lara said softly, ‘everything started in Glace Bay. That’s where it all began, almost forty years ago …’
Chapter Three
Glace Bay, Nova Scotia September 10, 1952
James Cameron was in a whorehouse, drunk, the night his daughter and son were born. He was in bed, sandwiched between the Scandinavian twins, when Kirstie, the madam of the brothel, pounded on the door.
‘James!’ she called out. She pushed open the door and walked in.
‘Och, ye auld hen!’ James yelled out indignantly. ‘Can’t a mon have any privacy even here?’
‘Sorry to interrupt your pleasure, James. It’s about your wife.’
‘Fuck my wife,’ Cameron roared.
‘You did,’ Kirstie retorted, ‘and she’s having your baby.’
‘So? Let her have it. That’s what you women are guid for, nae?’
‘The doctor just called. He’s been trying desperately to find you. Your wife is bad off. You’d better hurry.’
James Cameron sat up and slid to the edge of the bed, bleary-eyed, trying to clear his head. ‘Damned woman. She niver leaves me in peace.’ He looked up at the madam. ‘All right, I’ll go.’ He glanced at the naked girls in the bed. ‘But I’ll nae pay for these two.’
‘Never mind that now. You’d just better get back to the boarding house.’ She turned to the girls. ‘You two come along with me.’
James Cameron was a once-handsome man whose face reflected fulfilled sins. He appeared to be in his early fifties. He was thirty years old and the manager of one of the boarding houses owned by Sean MacAllister, the town banker. For the past five years, James Cameron and his wife Peggy had divided the chores: Peggy did the cleaning and cooking for the two dozen boarders, and James did the drinking. Every Friday it was his responsibility to collect the rents from the four other boarding houses in Glace Bay owned by MacAllister. It was another reason, if he needed one, to go out and get drunk.
James Cameron was a bitter man, who revelled in his bitterness. He was a failure, and he was convinced that everyone else was to blame. Over the years he had come to enjoy his failure. It made him feel like a martyr. When James was a year old, his family had emigrated to Glace Bay from Scotland with nothing but the few possessions they could carry, and they had struggled to survive. His father had put James to work in the coal mines when the boy was fourteen. James had suffered a slight back injury in a mining accident when he was sixteen, and had promptly quit the mine. One year later his parents were killed in a train disaster. So it was that James Cameron had decided that he was not responsible for his adversity – it was the Fates that were against him. But he had two great assets: He was extraordinarily handsome and, when he wished to, he could be charming. One weekend in Sydney, a town near Glace Bay, he met an impressionable young American girl named Peggy Maxwell, who was there on vacation with her family. She was not attractive, but the Maxwells were very wealthy, and James Cameron was very poor. He swept Peggy Maxwell off her feet, and against the advice of her father, she married him.
‘I’m giving Peggy a dowry of five thousand dollars,’ her father told James. ‘The money will give you a chance to make something of yourself. You can invest it in real estate, and in five years it will double. I’ll help you.’
But James was not interested in waiting five years. Without consulting anyone, he invested the money in a wildcat oil venture with a friend, and sixty days later, he was broke. His father-in-law, furious, refused to help him any further. ‘You’re a fool, James, and I will not throw good money after bad.’
The marriage that was going to be James Cameron’s salvation turned out to be a disaster, for he now had a wife to support, and no job.
It was Sean MacAllister who had come to his rescue. The town banker was a man in his mid fifties, a stumpy, pompous man, a pound short of being obese, given to wearing vests adorned with a heavy gold watch chain. He had come to Glace Bay twenty years earlier, and had immediately seen the possibilities there. Miners and lumbermen were pouring into the town, and were unable to find adequate housing. MacAllister could have financed homes for them, but he had a better plan. He decided it would be cheaper to herd the men together in boarding houses. Within two years, he had built a hotel and five boarding houses, and they were always full.
Finding managers was a difficult task because the work was exhausting. The manager’s job was to keep all the rooms rented, supervise the cooking, handle the meals, and see that the premises were kept reasonably clean. As far as salaries were concerned, Sean MacAllister was not a man to throw away his money.
The manager of one of his boarding houses had just quit, and MacAllister decided that James Cameron was a likely candidate. Cameron had borrowed small amounts of money from the bank from time to time, and payment on a loan was overdue. MacAllister sent for the young man.
‘I have a job for you,’ MacAllister said.
‘You have?’
‘You’re in luck. I have a splendid position that’s just opened up.’
‘Working at the bank, is it?’ James Cameron asked. The idea of working in a bank appealed to him. Where there was a lot of money, there was always a possibility of having some stick to one’s fingers.
‘Not at the bank,’ MacAllister told him. ‘You’re a very personable young man, James, and I think you would be very good at dealing with people. I’d like you to run my boarding house on Cablehead Avenue.’
‘A boarding house, you say?’ There was contempt in the young man’s voice.
‘You need a roof over your head,’ MacAllister pointed out. ‘You and your wife will have free room and board, and a small salary.’
‘How sma’?’
‘I’ll be generous with you. James. Twenty-five dollars a week.’
‘Twenty-fi …?’
‘Take it or leave it. I have others waiting.’
In the end, James Cameron had no choice. ‘I’ll tak’ it.’
‘Good. By the way, every Friday I’ll also expect you to collect the rents from my other boarding houses, and deliver the money to me on Saturday.’
When James Cameron broke the news to Peggy, she was dismayed. ‘We don’t know anything about running a boarding house, James.’
‘We’ll learn. We’ll share the work.’
And she had believed him. ‘All right. We’ll manage,’ she said.
And, in their own fashion, they had managed.
Over the years, several opportunities had come along for James Cameron to get better jobs, employment that would give him dignity and more money, but he was enjoying his failure too much to leave it.
‘Why bother?’ he would grumble. ‘When Fate’s agin you, naething guid can happen.’
And on this September night, he thought to himself, they won’t even let me enjoy my whores in peace. Goddamn my wife.
When he stepped out of Madame Kirstie’s establishment, a chilly September wind was blowing.
I’d best fortify myself for the troubles aheid, James Cameron decided. He stopped in at the Ancient Mariner.
One hour later, he wandered toward the boarding house in New Aberdeen, the poorest section of Glace Bay.
When he finally arrived, half a dozen boarders were anxiously waiting for him.
‘The doctor is in wi’ Peggy,’ one of the men said. ‘You’d better hurry, mon.’
James staggered into the tiny, dreary back bedroom he and his wife shared. From another room, he could hear the whimpering of a newborn baby. Peggy lay on the bed, motionless. Dr Patrick Duncan was leaning over her. He turned as he heard James enter.
‘Wa’s goin’ on here?’ James asked.
The doctor straightened up and looked at James with distaste. ‘You should have had your wife come to see me,’ he said.
‘And throw guid money away? She’s only havin’ a baby. Wa’s the big …?’
‘Peggy’s dead. I did everything I could. She had twins. I couldn’t save the boy.’
‘Oh, Jesus,’ James Cameron whimpered. ‘It’s the Fates agin.’
‘What?’
‘The Fates. They’ve always been agin me. Now they’ve taine my bairn frae me. I dinna …’
A nurse walked in, carrying a tiny baby wrapped in a blanket. ‘This is your daughter, Mr Cameron.’
‘A daughter? Wha’ the hell will I dae wi’ a daughter?’ His speech was becoming more slurred.
‘You disgust me, mon,’ Dr Duncan said.
The nurse turned to James. ‘I’ll stay until tomorrow, and show you how to take care of her.’
James Cameron looked at the tiny wrinkled bundle in the blanket and thought, hopefully: Maybe she’ll die, too.
For the first three weeks, no one was sure whether the baby would live or not. A wetnurse came in to tend to her. And finally, the day came when the doctor was able to say, ‘Your daughter is going to live.’
And he looked at James Cameron and said under his breath, ‘God have mercy on the poor child.’
The wetnurse said, ‘Mr Cameron, you must give the child a name.’
‘I dinna care wha’ the hell ye call it. Ye gie her a name.’
‘Why don’t we name her Lara? That’s such a pretty …’
‘Suit your bloody self.’
And so she was christened Lara.
There was no one in Lara’s life to care for her or nurture her. The boarding house was filled with men too busy with their own lives to pay attention to the baby. The only woman around was Bertha, the huge Swede who was hired to do the cooking and handle the chores.
James Cameron was determined to have nothing to do with his daughter. The damned Fates had betrayed him once again by letting her live. At night he would sit in the living room with his bottle of whiskey and complain. ‘The bairn murdered my wife and my son.’
‘You shouldn’t say that, James.’
‘Weel, it’s sae. My son would hae grown up to be a big strapping mon. He would hae been smart and rich, and taine good care of his father in his auld age.’
And the boarders let him ramble on.
James Cameron tried several times to get in touch with Maxwell, his father-in-law, hoping he would take the child off his hands, but the old man had disappeared. It would be just my luck the auld fool’s daid, he thought.
Glace Bay was a town of transients who moved in and out of the boarding houses. They came from France and China and the Ukraine. They were Italian and Irish and Greek, carpenters and tailors and plumbers and shoemakers. They swarmed into lower Main Street, Bell Street, North Street and Water Street, near the waterfront area. They came to work the mines and cut timber and fish the seas. Glace Bay was a frontier town, primitive and rugged. The weather was an abomination. The winters were harsh with heavy snowfalls that lasted until April, and because of the heavy ice in the harbour, even April and May were cold and windy, and from July to October it rained.
There were eighteen boarding houses in town, some of them accommodating as many as seventy-two guests. At the boarding house managed by James Cameron, there were twenty-four boarders, most of them Scotsmen.
Lara was hungry for affection, without knowing what the hunger was. She had no toys or dolls to cherish nor any playmates. She had no one except her father. She made childish little gifts for him, desperate to please him, but he either ignored or ridiculed them.
When Lara was five years old, she overheard her father say to one of the boarders, ‘The wrong child died, ye ken. My son is the one who should hae lived.’
That night Lara cried herself to sleep. She loved her father so much. And she hated him so much.
When Lara was six, she resembled a Keane painting, enormous eyes in a pale, thin face. That year, a new boarder moved in. His name was Mungo McSween, and he was a huge bear of a man. He felt an instant affection for the little girl.
‘What’s your name, wee lassie?’
‘Lara.’
‘Ah. ’Tis a braw name for a braw bairn. Dae ye gan to school, then?’
‘School? No.’
‘And why not?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Weel, we maun find out.’
And he went to find James Cameron. ‘I’m tauld your bairn does nae gae to school.’
‘And why should she? She’s only a girl. She dinna need nae school.’
‘You’re wrong, mon. She maun have an education. She maun be gien a chance in life.’
‘Forget it,’ James said. ‘It wad be a waste.’
But McSween was insistent, and finally, to shut him up, James Cameron agreed. It would keep the brat out of his sight for a few hours.
Lara was terrified by the idea of going to school. She had lived in a world of adults all her short life, and had had almost no contact with other children.
The following Monday, Big Bertha dropped her off at St Anne’s Grammar School, and Lara was taken to the principal’s office.
‘This is Lara Cameron.’
The principal, Mrs Cummings, was a middle-aged grey-haired widow with three children of her own. She studied the shabbily dressed little girl standing before her. ‘Lara. What a pretty name,’ she said smiling. ‘How old are you, dear?’
‘Six.’ She was fighting back tears.
The child is terrified, Mrs Cummings thought. ‘Well, we’re very glad to have you here, Lara. You’ll have a good time, and you’re going to learn a lot.’
‘I can’t stay,’ Lara blurted out.
‘Oh? Why not?’
‘My papa misses me too much.’ She was fiercely determined not to cry.
‘Well, we’ll only keep you here for a few hours a day.’
Lara allowed herself to be taken into a classroom filled with children, and she was shown to a seat near the back of the room.
Miss Terkel, the teacher, was busily writing letters on a blackboard.
‘A is for apple,’ she said. ‘B is for boy. Does anyone know what C is for?’
A tiny hand was raised. ‘Candy.’
‘Very good! And D?’
‘Dog.’
‘And E?’
‘Eat.’
‘Excellent. Can anyone think of a word beginning with F?’
Lara spoke up. ‘Fuck.’
Lara was the youngest one in her class, but it seemed to Miss Terkel that in many ways she was the oldest. There was a disquieting maturity about her.
‘She’s a small adult, waiting to grow taller,’ her teacher told Mrs Cummings.
The first day at lunch, the other children took out their colourful little lunch pails and pulled out apples and cookies, and sandwiches wrapped in wax paper.
No one had thought to pack a lunch for Lara.
‘Where is your lunch, Lara?’ Miss Terkel asked.
‘I’m not hungry,’ Lara said stubbornly. ‘I had a big breakfast.’
Most of the girls at school were nicely dressed in clean skirts and blouses. Lara had outgrown her few faded plaid dresses and threadbare blouses. She had gone to her father.
‘I need some clothes for school,’ Lara said.
‘Dae ye now? Weel, I’m nae made of money. Get yourself something frae the Salvation Army Citadel.’
‘That’s charity, Papa.’
And her father had slapped her hard across the face.
The children at school were familiar with games Lara had never even heard of. The girls had dolls and toys, and some of them were willing to share them with Lara, but she was painfully aware that nothing belonged to her. And there was something more. Over the next few years, Lara got a glimpse of a different world, a world where children had mothers and fathers who gave them presents and birthday parties and loved them and held them and kissed them. And for the first time, Lara began to realize how much was missing in her life. It only made her feel lonelier.
The boarding house was a different kind of school. It was an international microcosm. Lara learned to tell where the boarders came from by their names. Mac was from Scotland … Hodder and Pyke were from Newfoundland … Chiasson and Aucoin were from France … Dudash and Kosick from Poland. The boarders were lumbermen, fishermen, miners and tradesmen. They would gather in the large dining room in the morning for breakfast and in the evening for supper, and their talk was fascinating to Lara. Each group seemed to have its own mysterious language.
There were thousands of lumbermen in Nova Scotia, scattered around the peninsula. The lumbermen at the boarding house smelled of sawdust and burnt bark, and they spoke of arcane things like chippers and edging and trim.
‘We should get out almost two hundred million board feet this year,’ one of them announced at supper.
‘How can feet be bored?’ Lara asked.
There was a roar of laughter. ‘Child, board foot is a piece of lumber a foot square by an inch thick. When you grow up and get married, if you want to build a five-room, all wood house, it will take twelve thousand board feet.’
‘I’m not going to get married,’ Lara swore.
The fishermen were another breed. They returned to the boarding house stinking of the sea, and they talked about the new experiment of growing oysters on the Bras d’Or lake, and bragged to one another of their catches of cod and herring and mackerel and haddock.
But the boarders who fascinated Lara the most were the miners. There were 3,500 miners in Cape Breton, working the collieries at Lingan and Prince and Phalen. Lara loved the names of the mines. There was the Jubilee and the Last Chance and the Black Diamond and the Lucky Lady.
She was fascinated by their discussion of the day’s work.
‘What’s this I hear about Mike?’
‘It’s true. The poor bastard was travelling inbye in a man-rake, and a box jumped the track and crushed his leg. The sonofabitch of a foreman said it was Mike’s fault for not gettin’ out of the way fast enough, and he’s having his lamp stopped.’
Lara was baffled. ‘What does that mean?’
One of the miners explained. ‘It means Mike was on his way to work – going inbye – in a man-rake – that’s a car that takes you down to your working level. A box – that’s a coal train – jumped the track and hit him.’
‘And stopped his lamp?’ Lara asked.
The miner laughed. ‘When you’ve had your lamp stopped, it means you’ve been suspended.’
When Lara was fifteen, she entered St Michael’s High School. She was gangly and awkward, with long legs, stringy black hair, and intelligent grey eyes still too large for her pale, thin face. No one quite knew how she was going to turn out. She was on the verge of womanhood, and her looks were in a stage of metamorphosis. She could have become ugly or beautiful.
To James Cameron, his daughter was ugly. ‘Ye hae best marry the first mon fool enough to ask ye,’ he told her. ‘Ye’ll nae hae the looks to make a guid bargain.’
Lara stood there, saying nothing.
‘And tell the poor mon nae to expect a dowry frae me.’
Mungo McSween had walked into the room. He stood there listening, furious.
‘That’s all, girl,’ James Cameron said. ‘Gae back to the kitchen.’
Lara fled.
‘Why dae ye dae that to yeer daughter?’ McSween demanded.
James Cameron looked up, his eyes bleary. ‘Nane of your business.’
‘You’re drunk.’
‘Aye. And what else is there? If it isn’t women, it’s the whiskey, isn’t it?’
McSween went into the kitchen where Lara was washing dishes at the sink. Her eyes were hot with tears. McSween put his arms around her. ‘Niver ye mind, lassie,’ he said. ‘He dinna mean it.’
‘He hates me.’
‘Nae, he doesna.’
‘He’s never given me one kind word. Never once. Never!’
There was nothing McSween could say.
In the summer, the tourists would arrive at Glace Bay. They came in their expensive cars, wearing beautiful clothes, and shopped along Castle Street and dined at the Cedar House and at Jasper’s, and they visited Ingonish Beach and Cape Smoky and the Bird Islands. They were superior beings from another world, and Lara envied them and longed to escape with them when they left at the end of summer. But how?
Lara had heard stories about Grandfather Maxwell.
‘The auld bastard tried to keep me frae marryin’ his precious daughter,’ James Cameron would complain to any of the boarders who would listen. ‘He was filthy rich, but do ye think he wad gie me aught? Nae. But I took guid care of his Peggy, anyway …’
And Lara would fantasize that one day her grandfather would come to take her away to glamorous cities she had read about: London and Rome and Paris. And I’ll have beautiful clothes to wear. Hundreds of dresses and new shoes.
But as the months and the years went by, and there was no word, Lara finally came to realize that she would never see her grandfather. She was doomed to spend the rest of her life in Glace Bay.
Chapter Four
There were myriad activities for a teenager growing up in Glace Bay: There were football games and hockey games, skating rinks and bowling, and in the summer, swimming and fishing. Carl’s Drug Store was the popular after-school hangout. There were two movie theatres, and for dancing, the Venetian Gardens.
Lara had no chance to enjoy any of those things. She rose at five every morning to help Bertha prepare breakfast for the boarders, and make up the beds before she left for school. In the afternoon, she would hurry home to begin preparing supper. She helped Bertha serve, and after supper, Lara cleared the table and washed and dried the dishes.
The boarding house served some favourite Scottish dishes: Howtowdie and hairst bree, cabbieclaw and skirlie. Black Bun was a favourite, a spicy mixture encased in a shortpaste jacket made from half a pound of flour.
The conversation of the Scotsmen at supper made the Highlands of Scotland come alive for Lara. Her ancestors had come from the Highlands, and the stories about them gave Lara the only sense of belonging that she had. The boarders talked of the Great Glen containing Lochs Ness, Lochy, and Linnhe, and of the rugged islands off the coast.
There was a battered piano in the sitting room, and sometimes at night, after supper, half a dozen boarders would gather around and sing the songs of home: ‘Annie Laurie’, and ‘Comin’ Through the Rye’, and ‘The Hills of Home’, and ‘The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomon”.
Once a year there was a parade in town, and all the Scotsmen in Glace Bay would proudly put on their kilts or tartans and march through the streets to the loud, raucous accompaniment of bagpipes.
‘Why do the men wear skirts?’ Lara asked Mungo McSween.
He frowned. ‘It’s nae a skirt, lass. It’s a kilt. Our ancestors invented it long ago. I’ the Highlands, a plaid covered a mon’s body agin the bitter cold, but kept his legs free sae he could race across the heather and peat and escape his enemies. And at night, if he was in the open, the great length of the cloth was both bed and tent for him.’
The names of the Scottish places were poetry to Lara. There was Breadalbane, Glenfinnan and Kilbride, Kilninver and Kilmichael. Lara learned that ‘kil’ referred to a monk’s cell of medieval times. If a name began with ‘inver’ or ‘aber’, it meant the village was at the mouth of a stream. If it began with ‘strath’, it was in a valley. ‘Bad’ meant the village was in a grove.
There were fierce arguments every night at the supper table. The Scotsmen argued about everything. Their ancestors had belonged to proud clans and they were still fiercely protective of their history.
‘The House of Bruce produced cowards. They lay down for the English like grovelling dogs.’
‘You dinna ken wha’ you’re talking aboot, as usual, Ian. It was the great Bruce himself who stood up to the English. It was the House of Stuart that grovelled.’
‘Och, you’re a fool, and your clan comes from a long line of fools.’
The argument would grow more heated.
‘You ken wha’ Scotland needed? Mair leaders like Robert the Second. Now, there was a great mon. He sired twenty-one bairns.’
‘Aye, and half of them were bastards!’
And another argument would start.
Lara could not believe that they were fighting over events that had happened more than six hundred years earlier.
Mungo McSween said to Lara, ‘Dinna let it bother ye, lassie. A Scotsman wi’ start a fight in an empty house.’
It was a poem by Sir Walter Scott that set Lara’s imagination on fire.
Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best;
And save his good broadsword he weapons had none,
He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone.
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war.
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.
And the glorious poem went on to tell how Lochinvar risked his life to rescue his beloved, who was being forced to marry another man.
So daring in love, and so dauntless in war, Have ye e’er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?
Some day, Lara thought, a handsome Lochinvar will come and rescue me.
One day Lara was working in the kitchen, when she came across an advertisement in a magazine, and her breath caught in her throat. It showed a tall, handsome man, blond, elegantly dressed in tails and white tie. He had blue eyes and a warm smile, and he looked every inch a prince. That’s what my Lochinvar will look like, Lara thought. He’s out there somewhere, looking for me. He’ll come and rescue me from here. I’ll be at the sink washing dishes and he’ll come up behind me, put his arms around me, and whisper, ‘Can I help you?’ And I’ll turn and look into his eyes. And I’ll say, ‘Do you dry dishes?’
Bertha’s voice said, ‘Do I what?’
Lara whirled around. Bertha was standing behind her. Lara had not realized she had spoken aloud.
‘Nothing,’ Lara blushed.
To Lara, the most fascinating dinner conversations revolved around the stories of the notorious Highland Clearances. She had heard them told over and over but could never get enough of it.
‘Tell me again,’ she would ask. And Mungo McSween was eager to oblige …
‘Weel, it began in the year 1792 and it went on for more than sixty years. At first they called it Bliadhna nan Caorach – The Year of the Sheep. The landowners in the Highlands had decided that their land would be more profitable with sheep than with tenant farmers, so they brought flocks of sheep into the Highlands, and found that they could survive the cold winters. That was when the clearances began.
‘The cry became, “Mo thruaighe ort a thir, tha’n caoraich mhor a’ teachd!” Woe to thee, oh land, the Great Sheep is coming. First there were a hundred sheep, then a thousand, then ten thousand. It was a bloody invasion.
‘The lairds saw riches beyond their dreams, but they maun get rid of the tenants first, who worked their wee patches of land. They had little enough to begin with, God knows. They lived in sma’ stone houses with na chimneys and na windows. But the lairds forced them out.’
The young girl was wide-eyed. ‘How?’
‘The government regiments were ordered to attack the villages and evict the tenants. The soldiers wad come to a little village and gie the tenants six hours to remove their cattle and furniture and get oot. They maun leave their crops behind. Then the soldiers burned their huts to the ground. More than a quarter of a million men, women and children were forced frae their holdings and driven to the shores of the sea.’
‘But how could they drive them from their own land?’
‘Ah, they niver owned the land, you see. They had the use of an acre or two frae a laird, but it was niver theirs. They paid a fee in goods or labour in order to till the land and grow some tatties and raise a few cattle.’
‘What happened if the people wouldn’t move?’ Lara asked breathlessly.
‘The old folk that didn’t get out in time were burned in their huts. The government was ruthless. Och, it was a terrible time. The people had naething to eat. Cholera struck, and diseases spread like wildfire.’
‘How awful,’ Lara said.
‘Aye, lassie. Our people lived on tatties and bread and porridge, when they could git it. But there’s one thing the government could nae take away frae the Highlanders – their pride. They fought back as best they could. For days after the burning was over, the homeless people remained in the glen, trying to salvage what they could from the ruins. They put canvas over their heids for protection agin the night rain. My great-great-grandfather and my great-great-grandmother were there and suffered through it all. It’s part of our history, and it’s been burned into our very souls.’
Lara could visualize the thousands of desperate, forlorn people robbed of everything they possessed, stunned by what had happened to them. She could hear the crying of the mourners, and the screams of the terrified children.
‘What finally happened to the people?’ Lara asked.
‘They left for other lands on ships that were death traps. The crowded passengers died of fever or frae dysentery. Sometimes, the ships would hit storms that delayed them for weeks, so they ran out of food. Only the strong were still alive when the ships landed in Canada. But once they landed here, they were able to hae somethin’ they niver had before.’
‘Their own land,’ Lara said.
‘That’s right, lass.’
Some day, Lara thought fiercely, I will have my own land, and no one – no one – will ever take it away from me.
On an evening in early July, James Cameron was in bed with one of the whores at Kirstie’s Bawdy House, when he suffered a heart attack. He was quite drunk, and when he suddenly toppled over, his playmate assumed he had simply fallen asleep.
‘Oh, no, you don’t! I have other customers waitin’ for me. Wake up, James! Wake up!’
He was gasping for breath and clutching his chest.
‘For Gude’s sake,’ he moaned, ‘git me a doctor.’
An ambulance took him to the little hospital on Quarry Street. Dr Duncan sent for Lara. She walked into the hospital, her heart pounding. Duncan was waiting for her.
‘What happened?’ Lara asked urgently. ‘Is my father dead?’
‘No, Lara, but I’m afraid he’s had a heart attack.’
She stood there, frozen. ‘Is he … is he going to live?’
‘I don’t know. We’re doing everything we can for him.’
‘Can I see him?’
‘It would be better if you came back in the morning, lass.’
She walked home, numb with fear. Please don’t let him die, God. He’s all I have.
When Lara reached the boarding house, Bertha was waiting for her. ‘What happened?’
Lara told her.
‘Oh, God!’ Bertha said. ‘And today is Friday.’
‘What?’
‘Friday. The day the rents have to be collected. If I know Sean MacAllister, he’ll use this as an excuse to throw us all out into the streets.’
At least a dozen times in the past when James Cameron had been too drunk to handle it himself, he had sent Lara around to collect the rents from the other boarding houses that Sean MacAllister owned. Lara had given the money to her father, and the next day he had taken it to the banker.
‘What are we going to do?’ Bertha moaned.
And suddenly Lara knew what had to be done.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll take care of it.’
In the middle of supper that evening Lara said, ‘Gentlemen, would you listen to me, please?’ The conversations stopped. They were all watching her. ‘My father has had a … a little dizzy spell. He’s in the hospital. They want to keep him under observation for a bit. So, until he comes back, I’ll be collecting the rents. After supper, I’ll wait for you in the parlour.’
‘Is he going to be all right?’ one of the boarders asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ Lara said with a forced smile. ‘It’s nothing serious.’
After supper the men came into the parlour and handed Lara their week’s rent.
‘I hope your father recovers soon, child …’
‘If there’s anything I can do, let me know …’
‘You’re a braw lassie to do this for your father …’
‘What about the other boarding houses?’ Bertha asked Lara. ‘He has to collect from four more.’
‘I know,’ Lara said. ‘If you’ll take care of the dishes, I’ll go collect the rents.’
Bertha looked at her dubiously. ‘I wish you luck.’
It was easier than Lara had expected. Most of the boarders were sympathetic, and happy to help out the young girl.
Early the following morning, Lara took the rent envelopes and went to see Sean MacAllister. The banker was seated in his office when Lara walked in.
‘My secretary said you wanted to see me.’
‘Yes, sir.’
MacAllister studied the scrawny, unkempt girl standing before him. ‘You’re James Cameron’s daughter, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Sarah.’
‘Lara.’
‘Sorry to hear about your father,’ MacAllister said. There was no sympathy in his voice. ‘I’ll have to make other arrangements, of course, now that your father’s too ill to carry out his job. I …’
‘Oh, no, sir!’ Lara said quickly. ‘He asked me to handle it for him.’
‘You?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’m afraid that won’t …’
Lara put the envelopes on his desk. ‘Here are this week’s rents.’
MacAllister looked at her, surprised. ‘All of them?’
She nodded.
‘And you collected them?’
‘Yes, sir. And I’ll do it every week until Papa gets better.’
‘I see.’ He opened the envelopes and carefully counted the money. Lara watched him enter the amount in a large green ledger.
For some time now, MacAllister had intended to replace James Cameron because of his drunkenness and erratic performance, and now he saw his opportunity to get rid of the family.
He was sure that the young girl in front of him would not be able to carry out her father’s duties, but at the same time, he realized what the town’s reaction would be if he threw James Cameron and his daughter out of the boarding house into the street. He made his decision.
‘I’ll try you for one month,’ he said. ‘At the end of that time, we’ll see where we stand.’
‘Thank you, Mr MacAllister. Thank you very much.’
‘Wait.’ He handed Lara twenty-five dollars. ‘This is yours.’
Lara held the money in her hand, and it was like a taste of freedom. It was the first time she had ever been paid for what she had done.
From the bank, Lara went to the hospital. Dr Duncan was just coming out of her father’s room. Lara felt a sudden sense of panic. ‘He isn’t …?’
‘No … no … he’s going to be all right, Lara.’ He hesitated. ‘When I say “all right”, I mean he is not going to die … not yet, at least … but he is going to have to stay in bed for a few weeks. He’ll need someone to take care of him.’
‘I’ll take care of him,’ Lara said.
He looked at her and said, softly, ‘Your father doesn’t know it, my dear, but he’s a very lucky man.’
‘May I go in and see him now?’
‘Yes.’
Lara walked into her father’s room and stood there staring at him. James Cameron lay in bed, looking pale and helpless, and he suddenly seemed very old. Lara was engulfed by a wave of tenderness. She was finally going to be able to do something for her father, something that would make him appreciate her and love her. She approached the bed.
‘Papa …’
He looked up and muttered, ‘What the bluidy hell are you doin’ here? You’ve work to dae at the boardin’ house.’
Lara froze. ‘I … I know, Papa. I just wanted to tell you that I saw Mr MacAllister. I told him I would collect the rents until you got better and …’
‘Ye collect the rents? Dinna make me laugh.’ He was shaken with a sudden spasm. When he spoke again, his voice was weak. ‘It’s the Fates,’ he moaned. ‘I’m gang to be thrown oot into the streets.’
He was not even thinking about what would happen to her. Lara stood there looking at him for a long time. Then she turned and walked out.
James Cameron was brought home three days later, and put to bed.
‘You’re not to get out of bed for the next couple of weeks,’ Dr Duncan told him. ‘I’ll come back and check on you in a day or two.’
‘I canna stay in bed,’ James Cameron protested. ‘I’m a busy mon. I have a lot to dae.’
The doctor looked at him and said, quietly, ‘You have a choice. You can either stay in bed and live, or get up and die.’
MacAllister’s boarders were, at first, delighted to see the innocent young girl come around to collect their rents. But when the novelty wore off, they had a myriad of excuses:
‘I was sick this week, and I had medical bills …’
‘My son sends me money every week, but the mail’s been delayed …’
‘I had to buy some equipment …’
‘I’ll have the money for you next week for sure …’
But the young girl was fighting for her life. She listened politely and said, ‘I’m so sorry, but Mr MacAllister says that the money is due today, and if you don’t have it, you’ll have to vacate immediately.’
And somehow, they all managed to come up with the money.
Lara was inflexible.
‘It was easier dealing with your father,’ one of the boarders grumbled. ‘He was always willing to wait a few days.’
But, in the end, they had to admire the young girl’s spunk.
If Lara had thought that her father’s illness would bring him closer to her, she was sadly mistaken. Lara tried to anticipate his every need, but the more solicitous she was, the more badly he behaved.
She brought him fresh flowers every day, and little treats.
‘For Gude’s sakes!’ he cried. ‘Stop hoverin’ aboote. Hae ye nae work to dae?’
‘I just thought you’d like …’
‘Oot!’ He turned his face to the wall.
I hate him, Lara thought. I hate him.
At the end of the month, when Lara walked into Sean MacAllister’s office with the envelopes filled with rent money, and he had finished counting it, he said, ‘I don’t mind admitting, young lady, that you’ve been quite a surprise to me. You’ve done better than your father.’
The words were thrilling. ‘Thank you.’
‘As a matter of fact, this is the first month that everybody has paid on time in full.’
‘Then my father and I can stay on at the boarding house?’ Lara asked eagerly.
MacAllister studied her a moment. ‘I suppose so. You must love your father very much.’
‘I’ll see you next Saturday, Mr MacAllister.’
Chapter Five
At seventeen, the spindly, gaunt little girl had grown into a woman. Her face bore the imprint of her Scottish forebears. The gleaming skin, the arched, fine eyebrows, the thundercloud grey eyes, the stormy black hair. And in addition, there was a strain of melancholy that seemed to hover around her, the bleed-through of a people’s tragic history. It was hard to look away from Lara Cameron’s face.
Most of the boarders were without women, except for the companions they paid for at Madame Kirstie’s and some of the other houses of prostitution, and the beautiful young girl was a natural target for them. One of the men would corner her in the kitchen or in his bedroom when she was cleaning it and say, ‘Why don’t you be nice to me, Lara? I could do a lot for you.’
Or, ‘You don’t have a boy friend, do you? Let me show you what a man is like.’
Or, ‘How would you like to go to Kansas City? I’m leaving next week and I’d be glad to take you with me.’
After one or another of the boarders had tried to persuade Lara to go to bed with him, she would walk into the small room where her father lay helpless, and say, ‘You were wrong, Father. All the men want me.’ And she would walk out, leaving him staring after her.
James Cameron died on an early morning in spring, and Lara buried him at the Greenwood Cemetery in the Passiondale area. The only other person at the funeral was Bertha. There were no tears.
A new boarder moved in, an American named Bill Rogers. He was in his seventies, bald and fat, an affable man who liked to talk. After supper, he would sit and chat with Lara. ‘You’re too damned pretty to be stuck in a hick town like this,’ he advised her. ‘You should go to Chicago or New York. Big time.’
‘I will one day,’ Lara said.
‘You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Do you know what you want to do with it?’
‘I want to own things.’
‘Ah, pretty clothes and …’
‘No. Land. I want to own land. My father never owned anything. He had to live off other people’s favours all his life.’
Bill Rogers’ face lit up. ‘Real estate was the business I was in.’
‘Really?’
‘I had buildings all over the Midwest. I even had a chain of hotels once.’ His tone was wistful.
‘What happened?’
He shrugged. ‘I got greedy. Lost it all. But it was sure fun while it lasted.’
After that they talked about real estate almost every night.
‘The first rule in real estate,’ Rogers told her, ‘is OPM. Never forget that.’
‘What’s OPM?’
‘Other people’s money. What makes real estate a great business is that the government lets you take deductions on interest and depreciation while your assets keep growing. The three most important things in real estate are location, location and location. A beautiful building up on a hill is a waste of time. An ugly building downtown will make you rich.’
Rogers taught Lara about mortgages and refinancing and the use of bank loans. Lara listened and learned and remembered. She was like a sponge, eagerly soaking up every bit of information.
The most meaningful thing Rogers said to her was, ‘You know, Glace Bay has a big housing shortage. It’s a great opportunity for someone. If I were twenty years younger …’
From that moment on, Lara looked at Glace Bay with different eyes, visualizing office buildings and homes on vacant lots. It was exciting and it was frustrating. Her dreams were there, but she had no money to carry them out.
The day Bill Rogers left town he said, ‘Remember – other people’s money. Good luck, kid.’
A week later, Charles Cohn moved into the boarding house. He was a small man in his sixties, neat and trim, and well dressed. He sat at the supper table with the other boarders, but said very little. He seemed cocooned in his own private world.
He watched Lara as she worked around the boarding house, smiling, never complaining.
‘How long do you plan to stay with us?’ Lara asked Cohn.
‘I’m not sure. It could be a week or a month or two …’
Charles Cohn was a puzzle to Lara. He did not fit in with the other boarders at all. She tried to imagine what he did. He was certainly not a miner or a fisherman, and he did not look like a merchant. He seemed superior to the other boarders, better educated. He told Lara that he had tried to get into the one hotel in town, but that it was full. Lara noticed that at meal times he ate almost nothing.
‘If you have a little fruit,’ he would say, apologetically, ‘or some vegetables …’
‘Are you on some special kind of diet?’ Lara asked.
‘In a way. I eat only kosher food, and I’m afraid Glace Bay doesn’t have any.’
The next evening, when Charles Cohn sat down to supper, a plate of lamb chops was placed in front of him. He looked up at Lara in surprise. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t eat this,’ he said. ‘I thought I explained …’
Lara smiled, ‘You did. This is kosher.’
‘What?’
‘I found a kosher meat market in Sydney. The shochet there sold me this. Enjoy it. Your rent includes two meals a day. Tomorrow you’re having a steak.’
From that time on, whenever Lara had a free moment, Cohn made it a point to talk to her, to draw her out. He was impressed by her quick intelligence and her independent spirit.
One day Charles Cohn confided to Lara what he was doing in Glace Bay. ‘I’m an executive with Continental Supplies.’ It was a famous national chain. ‘I’m here to find a location for our new store.’
‘That’s exciting,’ Lara said. I knew he was in Glace Bay for some important reason. ’You’re going to put up a building?’
‘No. We’ll find someone else to do that. We just lease our buildings.’
At three o’clock in the morning, Lara awakened out of a sound sleep and sat up in bed, her heart pounding wildly. Had it been a dream? No. Her mind was racing. She was too excited to go back to sleep.
When Charles Cohn came out of his room for breakfast, Lara was waiting for him.
‘Mr Cohn … I know a great place,’ she blurted out.
He stared at her, puzzled. ‘What?’
‘For the location you’re looking for.’
‘Oh? Where?’
Lara evaded the question. ‘Let me ask you something. If I owned a location that you liked, and if I put up a building on it, would you agree to lease it from me for five years?’
He shook his head. ‘That’s a rather hypothetical question, isn’t it?’
‘Would you?’ Lara persisted.
‘Lara, what do you know about putting up a building?’
‘I wouldn’t be putting it up,’ she said. ‘I’d hire an architect and a good construction firm to do that.’
Charles Cohn was watching her closely. ‘I see. And where is this wonderful piece of land?’
‘I’ll show it to you,’ Lara said. ‘Believe me, you’re going to love it. It’s perfect.’
After breakfast, Lara took Charles Cohn downtown. At the corner of Main and Commercial Streets in the centre of Glace Bay was a vacant square block. It was a site Cohn had examined two days earlier.
‘This is the location I had in mind,’ Lara said.
Cohn stood there, pretending to study it. ‘You have an ahf – a nose. It’s a very good location.’
He had already made discreet inquiries and learned that the property was owned by a banker, Sean MacAllister. Cohn’s assignment was to locate a site, arrange for someone to construct the building, and then lease it from them. It would not matter to the company who put up the building so long as its specifications were met.
Cohn was studying Lara. She’s too young, he thought. It’s a foolish idea. And yet … ‘I found a kosher meat market in Sydney … Tomorrow you’re having a steak.’ She had such compassion.
Lara was saying, excitedly, ‘If I could acquire this land and put up a building to meet your specifications, would you give me a five-year lease?’
He paused, and then said slowly, ‘No, Lara. It would have to be a ten-year lease.’
That afternoon, Lara went to see Sean MacAllister. He looked up in surprise as she walked into his office.
‘You’re a few days early, Lara. Today’s only Wednesday.’
‘I know. I want to ask a favour, Mr MacAllister.’
Sean MacAllister sat there, watching her. She has really turned into a beautiful-looking girl. Not a girl, a woman. He could see the swell of her breasts against the cotton blouse she was wearing.
‘Sit down, my dear. What can I do for you?’
Lara was too excited to sit. ‘I want to take a loan.’
It took him by surprise. ‘What?’
‘I’d like to borrow some money.’
He smiled indulgently. ‘I don’t see why not. If you need a new dress or something, I’ll be happy to advance …’
‘I want to borrow two hundred thousand dollars.’
MacAllister’s smile died. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’
‘No, sir.’ Lara leaned forward and said earnestly, ‘There’s a piece of land I want to buy to put up a building. I have an important tenant who’s willing to give me a ten-year lease. That will guarantee the cost of the land and the building.’
MacAllister was studying her, frowning. ‘Have you discussed this with the owner of the land?’
‘I’m discussing it with him now,’ Lara said.
It took a moment for it to sink in. ‘Wait a minute. Are you telling me that this is land that I own?’
‘Yes. It’s the lot on the corner of Main and Commercial Streets.’
‘You came here to borrow money from me to buy my land?’
‘That lot is worth no more than twenty thousand dollars. I checked. I’m offering you thirty. You’ll make a profit of ten thousand dollars on the land plus interest on the two hundred thousand dollars you’re going to loan me to put up the building.’
MacAllister shook his head. ‘You’re asking me to loan you two hundred thousand dollars with no security. It’s out of the question.’
Lara leaned forward. ‘There is security. You’ll hold the mortgage on the building and the land, and I’ve already got the tenant. You can’t lose.’
MacAllister sat there studying her, turning her proposal over in his mind. He smiled, ‘You know,’ he said, ‘you have a lot of nerve. But I could never explain a loan like that to my board of directors.’
‘You have no board of directors,’ Lara told him.
The smile turned to a grin. ‘True.’
Lara leaned forward and he could see her breasts touching the edge of his desk.
‘If you say yes, Mr MacAllister, you’ll never regret it. I promise.’
He could not take his eyes off her breasts. ‘You’re not a bit like your father, are you?’
‘No, sir.’ Nothing, like him, Lara thought fiercely.
‘Supposing, for the sake of argument,’ MacAllister said carefully, ‘that I was interested. Who is this tenant of yours?’
‘His name is Charles Cohn. He’s an executive with Continental Supplies.’
‘The chain store?’
‘Yes.’
MacAllister was suddenly very interested.
Lara went on. ‘They want to have a big store built here to supply the miners and lumbermen with equipment.’
To MacAllister, it had the smell of instant success.
‘Where did you meet this man?’ he asked casually.
‘He’s staying at the boarding house.’
‘I see. Let me think about it, Lara. We’ll discuss it again tomorrow.’
Lara was almost trembling with excitement. ‘Thank you, Mr MacAllister. You won’t be sorry.’
He smiled. ‘No, I don’t think I will be.’
That afternoon, Sean MacAllister went to the boarding house to meet Charles Cohn.
‘I just dropped by to welcome you to Glace Bay,’ MacAllister said. ‘I’m Sean MacAllister. I own the bank here. I heard you were in town. But you shouldn’t be staying at my boarding house, you should be staying at my hotel. It’s much more comfortable.’
‘It was full,’ Mr Cohn explained.
‘That’s because we didn’t know who you were.’
Mr Cohn said pleasantly, ‘Who am I?’
Sean MacAllister smiled. ‘We don’t have to play games, Mr Cohn. Word gets around. I understand that you’re interested in leasing a building to be put up on a property I own.’
‘What property would that be?’
‘The lot at Main and Commercial. It’s a great location, isn’t it? I don’t think we’ll have any problem making a deal.’
‘I already have a deal with someone.’
Sean MacAllister laughed. ‘Lara? She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she? Why don’t you come down to the bank with me and we’ll draw up a contract?’
‘I don’t think you understand, Mr MacAllister. I said I already have a deal.’
‘I don’t think you understand, Mr Cohn. Lara doesn’t own that land. I do.’
‘She’s trying to buy it from you, isn’t she?’
‘Yes. I don’t have to sell it to her.’
‘And I don’t have to use that lot. I’ve seen three other lots that will do just as nicely. Thanks for dropping by.’
Sean MacAllister looked at him for a long moment. ‘You mean … you’re serious?’
‘Very. I never go into a deal that’s not kosher, and I never break my word.’
‘But Lara doesn’t know anything about building. She …’
‘She plans to find people who do. Naturally, we’ll have final approval.’
The banker was thoughtful. ‘Do I understand that Continental Supplies is willing to sign a ten-year lease?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘I see. Well, under the circumstances, I … let me think about it.’
When Lara arrived at the boarding house, Charles Cohn told her about his conversation with the banker.
Lara was upset. ‘You mean Mr MacAllister went behind my back and …?’
‘Don’t worry,’ Cohn assured her, ‘he’ll make the deal with you.’
‘Do you really think so?’
‘He’s a banker. He’s in business to make a profit.’
‘What about you? Why are you doing this for me?’ Lara asked.
He had asked himself the same question. Because you’re achingly young, he thought. Because you don’t belong in this town. Because I wish I had a daughter like you.
But he said none of those things.
‘I have nothing to lose, Lara. I found some other locations that would serve just as well. If you can acquire this land, I’d like to do this for you. It doesn’t matter to my company who I deal with. If you get your loan, and I approve your builder, we’re in business.’
A feeling of elation swept over Lara. ‘I … I don’t know how to thank you. I’ll go to see Mr MacAllister and …’
‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ Cohn advised her. ‘Let him come to you.’
She looked worried. ‘But what if he doesn’t …?’
Cohn smiled, ‘He will.’
He handed her a printed lease. ‘Here’s the ten-year lease we discussed. It’s contingent, you understand, on your meeting all our requirements for the building.’ He handed her a set of blueprints. ‘These are our specifications.’
Lara spent the night studying the pages of drawings and instructions.
The following morning, Sean MacAllister telephoned Lara.
‘Can you come down to see me, Lara?’
Her heart was pounding. ‘I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’
He was waiting for her.
‘I’ve been thinking about our conversation,’ MacAllister said. ‘I would need a written agreement for a ten-year lease from Mr Cohn.’
‘I already have it,’ Lara said. She opened her bag and took out the contract.
Sean MacAllister examined it carefully, ‘It seems to be in order.’
‘Then we have a deal?’ Lara asked. She was holding her breath.
MacAllister shook his head. ‘No.’
‘But I thought …’
His fingers were drumming restlessly on his desk. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m really in no hurry to sell that lot, Lara. The longer I hold on to it, the more valuable it will become.’
She looked at him blankly. ‘But you …’
‘Your request is completely unorthodox. You’ve had no experience. I would need a very special reason to make this loan to you.’
‘I don’t under … what kind of reason?’
‘Let’s say … a little bonus. Tell me, Lara, have you ever had a lover?’
The question caught her completely off-guard.
‘I … no.’ She could feel the deal slipping away from her. ‘What does that have …?’
MacAllister leaned forward. ‘I’m going to be frank with you, Lara. I find you very attractive. I’d like to go to bed with you. Quid pro quo. That means …’
‘I know what it means.’ Her face had turned to stone.
‘Look at it this way. This is your chance to make something of yourself, isn’t it? To own something, to be somebody. To prove to yourself that you’re not like your father.’
Lara’s mind was spinning.
‘You’ll probably never have another chance like this again, Lara. Perhaps you’d like some time to think it over, and …’
‘No.’ Her voice sounded hollow in her own ears, ‘I can give you my answer now.’ She pressed her arms tightly against her sides to stop her body from trembling. Her whole future, her very life, hung on her next words.
‘I’ll go to bed with you.’
Grinning, MacAllister rose and moved toward her, his fat arms outstretched.
‘Not now,’ Lara said. ‘After I see the contract.’
The following day, Sean MacAllister handed Lara a contract for the bank loan.
‘It’s a very simple contract, my dear. It’s a ten-year, two-hundred-thousand-dollar loan at eight per cent.’ He gave her a pen. ‘You can just sign here on the last page.’
‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to read it first,’ Lara said. She looked at her watch, ‘But I don’t have time now. May I take it with me? I’ll bring it back tomorrow.’
Sean MacAllister shrugged. ‘Very well.’ He lowered his voice. ‘About our little date. Next Saturday I have to go into Halifax. I thought we might go there together.’
Lara looked at his leering smile and felt sick to her stomach. ‘All right.’ It was a whisper.
‘Good. You sign the contract and bring it back and we’re in business.’ He was thoughtful for a moment. ‘You’re going to need a good builder. Are you familiar with the Nova Scotia Construction Company?’
Lara’s face lit up. ‘Yes. I know their foreman, Buzz Steele.’
He had put up some of the biggest buildings in Glace Bay.
‘Good. It’s a fine outfit. I would recommend them.’
‘I’ll talk to Buzz tomorrow.’
That evening Lara showed the contract to Charles Cohn. She did not dare tell him about the private deal she had made with MacAllister. She was too ashamed. Cohn read the contract carefully, and when he finished, he handed it back to Lara. ‘I would advise you not to sign this.’
She was dismayed. ‘Why?’
‘There’s a clause in there that stipulates that the building must be completed by December 31st, or title reverts to the bank. In other words, the building will belong to MacAllister, and my company will become his tenant. You forfeit the deal and are still obligated to repay the loan with interest. Ask him to change that.’
MacAllister’s words rang in Lara’s ears. I’m really in no hurry to sell that lot. The longer I hold on to it the more valuable it will become.
Lara shook her head. ‘He won’t.’
‘Then you’re taking a big gamble, Lara. You could wind up with nothing, and a debt of two hundred thousand dollars plus interest.’
‘But if I bring the building in on time …’
‘That’s a big “if”. When you put up a building, you’re at the mercy of a lot of other people. You’d be surprised at the number of things that can go wrong.’
‘There’s a very good construction company in Sydney. They’ve put up a lot of buildings around here. I know the foreman. I’ll talk to him. If he says he can have the building up in time, I want to go ahead.’
It was the desperate eagerness in Lara’s voice that made him put aside his doubts. ‘All right,’ he finally said, ‘talk to him.’
Lara found Buzz Steele walking the girders of a five-storey building he was erecting in Sydney. Steele was a grizzled, weather-beaten man in his forties. He greeted Lara warmly. ‘This is a nice surprise,’ he said. ‘How did they let a pretty girl like you get out of Glace Bay?’
‘I sneaked out,’ Lara told him. ‘I have a job for you, Mr Steele.’
He smiled. ‘You do? What are we building – a doll’s house?’
‘No.’ She pulled out the blueprints Charles Cohn had given her. ‘This is the building.’
Buzz Steele studied it a moment. He looked up, surprised. ‘This is a pretty big job. What does it have to do with you?’
‘I put the deal together,’ Lara said proudly. ‘I’m going to own the building.’
Steele whistled softly. ‘Well, good for you, honey.’
‘There are two catches.’
‘Oh?’
‘The building has to be finished by December 31st or it reverts to the bank, and it can’t cost more than $170,000.’
‘December 31st is just ten months away.’
‘I know. Can it be done?’
Steele looked at the blueprints again. Lara watched him silently calculating.
Finally he spoke. ‘It can be finished by December 31st if you give us the green light now.’
‘Then you’ve got a deal.’
It was all Lara could do not to shout out loud. I’ve done it, she thought. I’ve done it!
They shook hands. ‘You’re the prettiest boss I’ve ever had,’ Buzz Steele said.
‘Thank you. How soon can you get started?’
‘Tell you what. I’ll go into Glace Bay tomorrow to look over the lot. I’m going to give you a building you’ll be proud of.’
When Lara left, she felt that she had wings.
Lara returned to Glace Bay and told Charles Cohn the news.
‘Are you sure this company is reliable, Lara?’
‘I know it is,’ Lara assured him. ‘They’ve put up buildings here and in Sydney, and Halifax and …’
Her enthusiasm was contagious.
Cohn smiled. ‘Well, then, it looks like we’re in business.’
‘It does, doesn’t it?’ Lara beamed. And then she remembered the deal she had made with Sean MacAllister, and her smile faded. Next Saturday I have to go into Halifax. I thought we might go there together. Saturday was only two days away.
Lara signed the contracts the following morning. As Sean MacAllister watched her leave the office, he was very pleased with himself. He had no intention of letting her have the new building. And he almost laughed aloud at her naïvété. He would loan her the money, but he would really be loaning it to himself. He thought about making love to that wonderful young body, and he began to get an erection.
Lara had been to Halifax only twice. Compared to Glace Bay, it was a bustling town, full of pedestrians and automobiles, and shops crammed with merchandise. Sean MacAllister drove Lara to a motel on the outskirts of town. He pulled into the parking lot and patted her on the knee. ‘You wait here while I register for us, honey.’
Lara sat in the car, waiting, panicky. I’m selling myself, she thought. Like a whore. But it’s all I’ve got to sell, and at least he thinks I’m worth two hundred thousand dollars. My father never saw two hundred thousand dollars in his life. He was always too …
The car door opened and MacAllister was standing there, grinning. ‘All set. Let’s go.’
Lara suddenly found it hard to breathe. Her heart was pounding so hard she thought it was going to fly out of her chest. I’m having a heart attack, she thought.
‘Lara …’ He was looking at her strangely. ‘Are you all right?’
No. I’m dying. They’ll take me to the hospital and I’ll die there. A virgin. ‘I’m fine,’ she said.
Slowly she got out of the car and followed MacAllister into a drab cabin with a bed, two chairs, a battered dressing table, and a tiny bathroom.
She was caught up in a nightmare.
‘So this is your first time, eh?’ MacAllister said.
She thought of the boys at school who had fondled her and kissed her breasts and tried to put their hands between her legs. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Well, you mustn’t be nervous. Sex is the most natural thing in the world.’
Lara watched as MacAllister began to strip off his clothes. His body was pudgy.
‘Get undressed,’ MacAllister ordered.
Slowly, Lara took off her blouse and skirt and shoes. She was wearing a brassière and panties.
MacAllister looked at her figure and walked over to her. ‘You’re beautiful, you know that, baby?’
She could feel his male hardness pressing against her body. MacAllister kissed her on the lips and she felt disgust.
‘Get the rest of your clothes off,’ he said urgently. He walked over to the bed and stripped off his shorts. His penis was hard and red.
That will never fit inside me, Lara thought. It will kill me.
‘Hurry up.’
Slowly Lara took off her brassière and stepped out of her panties.
‘My God,’ he said, ‘you’re fantastic. Come over here.’
Lara walked over to the bed and sat down. MacAllister squeezed her breasts hard and she cried aloud with the pain.
‘That felt good, didn’t it? It’s time you had yourself a man.’ MacAllister pushed her down on her back and spread her legs.
Lara was suddenly panicky. ‘I’m not wearing anything,’ she said. ‘I mean … I could get pregnant.’
‘Don’t worry,’ MacAllister promised her, ‘I won’t come inside you.’
An instant later, Lara felt him pushing inside her, hurting her.
‘Wait!’ she cried, ‘I …’
MacAllister was past the waiting. He rammed himself into her and the pain was excruciating. He was pounding into her body now, harder and harder, and Lara put her hand to her mouth to keep from screaming. It will be over in a minute, she thought, and I’ll own a building. And I can put up a second building. And another …
The pain was becoming unbearable.
‘Move your ass,’ MacAllister cried. ‘Don’t just lay there. Move it!’
She tried to move, but it was impossible. She was in too much pain.
Suddenly, MacAllister gave a gasp and Lara felt his body jerk. He let out a satisfied sigh and lay limp against her.
She was horrified. ‘You said you wouldn’t …’
He lifted himself up on his elbows and said earnestly, ‘Darling, I couldn’t help it, you’re just so beautiful. But don’t worry. If you get pregnant, I know a doctor who’ll take care of you.’
Lara turned her face away so he could not see her revulsion. She limped into the bathroom, sore and bleeding. She stood in the shower, letting the warm water wash over her body, and she thought, It’s over with. I’ve done it. I own the land. I’m going to be rich.
Now all she had to do was get dressed and go back to Glace Bay and get her building started.
She walked out of the bathroom and Sean MacAllister said, ‘That was so good, we’re going to do it again.’
Chapter Six
Charles Cohn had inspected five buildings erected by the Nova Scotia Construction Company.
‘They’re a first rate outfit,’ he had told Lara. ‘You shouldn’t have any problem with them.’
Now, Lara, Charles Cohn, and Buzz Steele were inspecting the new site.
‘It’s perfect,’ Buzz Steele said. ‘The measurements come to 43,560 square feet. That will give you the twenty-thousand-square-foot building you want.’
Charles Cohn asked, ‘Can you have the building finished by December 31st?’ He was determined to protect Lara.
‘Sooner,’ Steele said. ‘I can promise it to you by Christmas Eve.’
Lara was beaming. ‘How soon can you get started?’
‘I’ll have my crew here by the middle of next week. Do I have the go-ahead?’
Cohn looked at Lara and nodded.
‘You have the go-ahead,’ Lara said happily.
Watching the new building going up was the most exciting thing Lara had ever experienced. She was there every day. ‘I want to learn,’ she told Charles Cohn. ‘This is just the beginning for me. Before I’m through, I’m going to put up a hundred buildings.’
Cohn wondered whether Lara really knew what she was getting into.
The first men to set foot on the project site were members of the survey team. They established the legal geometric borders of the property and drove hubs into the ground at each corner, every hub painted with a fluorescent colour for easy identification. The survey work was finished in two days, and early the following morning, heavy earth-moving equipment – a truck-mounted Caterpillar front-end loader – arrived at the site.
Lara was there, waiting. ‘What happens now?’ she asked Buzz Steele.
‘We clear and grub.’
Lara looked at him. ‘What does that mean?’
‘The Caterpillar is gonna dig up tree stumps and do some rough grading.’
The next piece of equipment that came in was a backhoe to dig the trenches for foundations, utility conduits, and drainage piping.
By now, the boarders at the house had all heard what was happening, and it became the main topic of conversation at breakfast and supper. They were all cheering for Lara.
‘What happens next?’ they would ask.
She was becoming an expert. ‘This morning, they put the underground piping in place. Tomorrow they start to put in the wood and concrete formwork, so they can wire-tie the steel bars into the skeletal gridiron.’ She grinned. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’
Pouring the concrete was the next step, and when the concrete foundation was cured, large truckloads of lumber rolled in, and crews of carpenters began to assemble the wooden frames. The noise was horrendous, but to Lara it was music. The place was filled with the sounds of rhythmic hammers and whining power saws. After two weeks, the wall panels, punctuated with window and door openings, were stood upright as if the building had suddenly been inflated.
To passers-by, the building was a maze of wood and steel, but to Lara it was something else. It was her dream come to life. Every morning and every evening, she went downtown and stared at what was being built. I own this, Lara thought. This belongs to me.
After the episode with MacAllister, Lara had been terrified that she might become pregnant. The thought of it made her sick to her stomach. When her period came, she was weak with relief. Now all I have to worry about is my building.
She continued to collect the rents for Sean MacAllister because she needed a place to live, but she had to steel herself to go into his office and face him.
‘We had a good time in Halifax, didn’t we, honey? Why don’t we do it again?’
‘I’m busy with my building,’ Lara said firmly.
The level of activity began to heighten as the sheet metal crews, roofers and carpenters worked simultaneously, the number of men, materials, and trucks tripling.
Charles Cohn had left Glace Bay, but he telephoned Lara once a week.
‘How is the building going?’ he had asked the last time he called.
‘Great!’ Lara said enthusiastically.
‘Is it on schedule?’
‘It’s ahead of schedule.’
‘That’s wonderful. I can tell you now that I wasn’t really sure you could do it.’
‘But you gave me a chance, anyway. Thank you, Charles.’
‘One good turn deserves another. Remember, if it hadn’t been for you, I might have starved to death.’
From time to time, Sean MacAllister would join Lara at the building site.
‘It’s coming along just fine, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Lara said.
MacAllister seemed genuinely pleased. Lara thought: Mr Cohn was wrong about him. He’s not trying to take advantage of me.
By the end of November, the building was progressing rapidly. The windows and doors were in place, and the exterior walls were set. The structure was ready to accept the network of nerves and arteries.
On Monday, the first week of December, work on the building began to slow down. Lara went to the site one morning and there were only two men there, and they seemed to be doing very little.
‘Where’s the rest of the crew today?’ Lara asked.
‘They’re on another job,’ one of the men explained. ‘They’ll be here tomorrow.’
The following day no one was there.
Lara took a bus into Halifax to see Buzz Steele. ‘What’s happening?’ Lara asked. ‘The work has stopped.’
‘Nothing to worry about,’ Steele assured her. ‘We ran into a little snag on another job and I had to pull my men off temporarily.’
‘When will they be coming back to work?’
‘Next week. We’ll be on schedule.’
‘Buzz, you know how much this means to me.’
‘Sure, Lara.’
‘If the building’s not completed on time, I lose it. I lose everything.’
‘Don’t worry, kid. I won’t let that happen.’
When Lara left, she had a feeling of unease.
The following week, the workmen still had not appeared. She went into Halifax again to see Steele.
‘I’m sorry,’ the secretary said, ‘Mr Steele is not in.’
‘I must talk to him. When will he be back?’
‘He’s out of town on a job. I don’t know when he’ll be back.’
Lara felt the first stirrings of panic. ‘This is very important,’ Lara insisted. ‘He’s putting up a building for me. It has to be finished in three weeks.’
‘I wouldn’t worry, Miss Cameron. If Mr Steele said it will be finished, it will be finished.’
‘But nothing’s happening,’ Lara cried. ‘No one’s working on it.’
‘Would you like to talk to Mr Ericksen, his assistant?’
‘Yes, please.’
Ericksen was a giant of a man, broad shouldered and amiable. He radiated reassurance.
‘I know why you’re here,’ he said, ‘but Buzz told me to assure you that you have nothing to worry about. We’ve been held back a little on your project because of some problems on a couple of big construction jobs we’re handling, but your building is only three weeks away from completion.’
‘There’s still so much to do …’
‘Not to worry. We’ll have a crew out there first thing Monday morning.’
‘Thank you,’ Lara said, relieved. ‘I’m sorry to have bothered you, but I’m a little nervous. This means a great deal to me.’
‘No problem,’ Ericksen smiled. ‘You just go home and relax. You’re in good hands.’
On Monday morning there was not a single workman at the site. Lara was frantic. She telephoned Charles Cohn.
‘The men have stopped working,’ she told him, ‘and I can’t find out why. They keep making promises and breaking them.’
‘What’s the name of the company – Nova Scotia Construction?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I’ll call you back,’ Cohn said.
Two hours later, Charles Cohn telephoned. ‘Who recommended the Nova Scotia Construction Company to you?’
She thought back. ‘Sean MacAllister.’
‘I’m not surprised. He owns the company, Lara.’
Lara felt suddenly faint. ‘And he’s stopping the men from finishing it on time …?’
‘I’m afraid it looks that way.’
‘Oh, my God.’
‘He’s a nahash tzefa – a poisonous snake.’
He was too kind to say that he had warned her. All he managed was, ‘Maybe … maybe something will turn up.’
He admired the young girl’s spirit and ambition, and he despised Sean MacAllister. But he was helpless. There was nothing he could do.
Lara lay awake all night thinking about her folly. The building she had put up would belong now to Sean MacAllister, and she would be left with a staggering debt which she would spend the rest of her life working to repay. The thought of how MacAllister might exact payment made her shudder. Finally, at dawn, exhausted from crying, she fell asleep.
When Lara awakened, she went to see Sean MacAllister.
‘Good morning, my dear. You’re looking lovely today.’
Lara came right to the point. ‘I need an extension. The building won’t be ready by the thirty-first.’
MacAllister sat back in his chair and frowned. ‘Really? That’s bad news, Lara.’
‘I need another month.’
MacAllister sighed. ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. Oh dear, no. You signed a contract. A deal is a deal.’
‘But …’
‘I’m sorry, Lara. On the thirty-first, the property reverts to the bank.’
When the boarders at the house heard what was happening, they were furious.
‘That sonofabitch!’ one of them cried. ‘He can’t do this to you.’
‘He’s done it,’ Lara said, despairingly. ‘It’s over.’
‘Are we going to let him get away with this?’
‘Hell, no. What have you got left – three weeks?’
Lara shook her head, ‘Less. Two and a half weeks.’
The man turned to the others. ‘Let’s go down and take a look at that building.’
‘What good will …?’
‘We’ll see.’
Soon, half a dozen boarders were standing at the building site, carefully inspecting it.
‘The plumbing hasn’t been put in,’ one of the men said.
‘Nor the electricity.’
They stood there, shivering in the freezing December wind, discussing what still remained to be done.
One of the men turned to Lara. ‘Your banker’s a tricky fellow. He’s had the building almost finished so that he wouldn’t have much to do when your contract was up.’ He turned to the others. ‘I would say that this could be finished in two and a half weeks.’
There was a chorus of agreement.
Lara was bewildered. ‘You don’t understand. The workmen won’t come.’
‘Look, lassie, in your boarding house you’ve got plumbers and carpenters and electricians, and we’ve got lots of friends in town who can handle the rest.’
‘I don’t have any money to pay you,’ Lara said. ‘Mr MacAllister won’t give me …’
‘It will be our Christmas gift to you.’
What happened after that was incredible. Word quickly spread around Glace Bay of what was happening. Construction workers on other buildings came to take a look at Lara’s property. Half of them were there because they liked Lara, and the other half because they had had dealings with Sean MacAllister and hated him.
‘Let’s fix the bastard,’ they said.
They dropped by to lend a hand after work, working past midnight and on Saturdays and Sundays, and the sound of construction began again, filling the air with a joyful noise. Beating the deadline became a challenge, and the building was soon swarming with carpenters and electricians and plumbers, all eager to pitch in. When Sean MacAllister heard what was happening, he rushed over to the site.
He stood there, stunned. ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded. ‘Those aren’t my workmen.’
‘They’re mine,’ Lara said defiantly. ‘There’s nothing in the contract that says I can’t use my own men.’
‘Well, I …’MacAllister sputtered. ‘That building had better be up to specifications.’
‘It will be,’ Lara assured him.
The day before New Year’s Eve, the building was completed. It stood proud against the sky, solid and strong, and it was the most beautiful thing Lara had ever seen. She stood there staring at it, dazed.
‘It’s all yours,’ one of the workmen said proudly. ‘Are we going to have a party or what?’
That night, it seemed that the whole town of Glace Bay celebrated Lara Cameron’s first building.
It was the beginning.
There was no stopping Lara after that. Her mind was brimming with ideas.
‘Your new employees are going to need places to live in Glace Bay,’ she told Charles Cohn. ‘I’d like to build houses for them. Are you interested?’
He nodded. ‘I’m very interested.’
Lara went to see a banker in Sydney and borrowed enough money on her building to finance the new project.
When the houses were finished, Lara said to Charles Cohn, ‘Do you know what else this town needs, Charles? Cabins to accommodate the summer tourists who come here to fish. I know a wonderful place near the Bay where I could build …’
Charles Cohn became Lara’s unofficial financial advisor, and during the next three years, Lara built an office building, half a dozen sea-shore cottages, and a shopping mall. The banks in Sydney and Halifax were happy to loan her money.
Two years later, when Lara sold out her real estate holdings, she had a certified cheque for three million dollars. She was twenty-one years old.
The following day, she said goodbye to Glace Bay and left for Chicago.
Chapter Seven
Chicago was a revelation. Halifax had been the largest city Lara had ever seen, but it was like a hamlet compared to the giant of the Midwest. Chicago was a loud and noisy city, bustling and energetic, and everyone seemed to be hurrying to some important destination.
Lara checked into Stevens Hotel. She took one look at the smartly dressed women walking through the lobby and became self-conscious about the clothes she was wearing. Glace Bay, yes, Lara thought. Chicago, no. The following morning, Lara went into action. She visited Kane’s and Ultimo for designer dresses, Joseph’s for shoes, Saks Fifth Avenue and Marshall Field’s for lingerie, Trabert and Hoeffer for jewellery, and Ware for a mink coat. And every time she bought something, she heard her father’s voice saying, ‘I’m nae made of money. Get yourself something frae the Salvation Army Citadel.’ Before her shopping spree was over, the closets in her hotel suite were filled with beautiful clothes.
Lara’s next move was to look in the yellow pages of the telephone book under real estate brokers. She selected the one that had the largest advertisement, Parker & Associates. Lara telephoned and asked to speak to Mr Parker.
‘May I tell him who’s calling?’
‘Lara Cameron.’
A moment later, a voice said, ‘Bruce Parker speaking. How can I help you?’
‘I’m looking for a location where I can put up a beautiful new hotel,’ Lara said.
The voice at the other end of the phone grew warmer. ‘Well, we’re experts at that, Mrs Cameron.’
‘Miss Cameron.’
‘Right. Did you have any particular area in mind?’
‘No. To tell you the truth, I’m not really familiar with Chicago.’
‘That’s no problem. I’m sure we can line up some very interesting properties for you. Just to give me an idea of what we’re looking for, how much equity do you have?’
Lara said proudly, ‘Three million dollars.’
There was a long silence. ‘Three million dollars?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you want to build a beautiful new hotel?’
‘Yes.’
Another silence.
‘Were you interested in building or acquiring something in the inner city area, Miss Cameron?’
‘Of course not,’ Lara said. ‘What I have in mind is exactly the opposite. I want to build an exclusive boutique hotel in a nice area that …’
‘With an equity of three million dollars?’ Parker chuckled. ‘I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to help you.’
‘Thank you,’ Lara said. She replaced the receiver. She had obviously called the wrong broker.
She went back to the yellow pages again and made half a dozen more calls. By the end of the afternoon, Lara was forced to face reality. None of the brokers was interested in trying to find a prime location where she could build a hotel with a down payment of three million dollars. They had offered Lara a variety of suggestions, and they had all come down to the same thing: A cheap hotel in an inner city area.
Never, Lara thought. I’ll go back to Glace Bay first.
She had dreamed for months about the hotel she wanted to build and in her mind it was already a reality – beautiful, vivid, three-dimensional. Her plan was to turn a hotel into a real home away from home. It would have mostly suites, and each suite would have a living room and a library with a fireplace in each room, and be furnished with comfortable couches, easy chairs and a grand piano. There would be two large bedrooms and an outside terrace running the length of the apartment. There would be a jacuzzi and a mini-bar. Lara knew exactly what she wanted. The question was how she was going to get it.
Lara walked into a print shop on Lake Street. ‘I would like to have a hundred business cards printed up, please.’
‘Certainly. And how will the cards read?’
‘Miss Lara Cameron, and at the bottom, Real Estate Developer.’
‘Yes, Miss Cameron. I can have them for you in two days.’
‘No. I would like them this afternoon, please.’
The next step was to get acquainted with the city.
Lara walked along Michigan Avenue and State Street and La Salle, strolled along Lake Shore Drive and wandered through Lincoln Park with its zoo and golf course and lagoon. She visited the Merchandise Mart, and went to Kroch-Brentano’s and bought books about Chicago. She read about the famous who had made Chicago their home: Carl Sandburg, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, Saul Bellow. She read about the pioneer families of Chicago; the John Bairds and Gaylord Donnelleys, the Marshall Fields and Potter Palmers and Walgreens, and she passed by their homes on Lake Shore Drive and their huge estates in suburban Lake Forest. Lara visited the southside and she felt at home there because of all the ethnic groups: Swedes, Poles, Irish, Lithuanians. It reminded her of Glace Bay.
She took to the streets again, looking at buildings with ‘For Sale’ signs, and she went to see the listed brokers. ‘What’s the price of that building?’
‘Eighty million dollars …’
‘Sixty million dollars …’
‘A hundred million dollars …’
Her three million dollars was becoming more and more insignificant. Lara sat in her hotel room considering her options. She could either go to one of the slum sections of the city and put up a little hotel there, or she could return home. Neither choice appealed to her.
I’ve too much at stake to give up now, Lara thought.
The following morning, Lara stopped in at a bank on La Salle Street. She walked up to a clerk behind the counter. ‘I would like to speak to your vice president, please.’
She handed the clerk her card.
Five minutes later, she was in the office of Tom Peterson, a flaccid, middle-aged man, with a nervous tic. He was studying her card.
‘What can I do for you, Miss Cameron?’
‘I’m planning to put up a hotel in Chicago. I’ll need to borrow some money.’
He gave her a genial smile. ‘That’s what we’re here for. What kind of hotel were you planning to build?’
‘A beautiful boutique hotel in a nice area.’
‘Sounds interesting.’
‘I have to tell you,’ Lara said, ‘that I only have three million dollars to put down, and …’
He smiled. ‘No problem.’
She felt a thrill of excitement. ‘Really?’
‘Three million can go a long way if you know what to do with it.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I have another appointment now. I wonder if we could get together for dinner tonight and talk about this.’
‘Certainly,’ Lara said. ‘That would be fine.’
‘Where are you staying?’
‘At the Palmer House.’
‘Why don’t I pick you up at eight?’
Lara got to her feet. ‘Thank you so much. I can’t tell you how good you make me feel. Frankly, I was beginning to get discouraged.’
‘No need,’ he said. ‘I’m going to take good care of you.’
At eight o’clock, Tom Peterson picked up Lara and took her to Henrici’s for dinner. When they were seated, he said, ‘You know, I’m glad that you came to me. We can do a lot for each other.’
‘We can?’
‘Yes. There’s a lot of ass around this town, but none of it as beautiful as yours, honey. You can open a luxury whorehouse and cater to an exclusive …’
Lara froze. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘If you can get half a dozen girls together we …’
Lara was gone.
The following day, Lara visited three more banks. When she explained her plans to the manager of the first, he said, ‘I’m going to give you the best advice you’ll ever get: Forget it. Real estate development is a man’s game. There’s no place for women in it.’
‘And why is that?’ Lara asked tonelessly.
‘Because you’d be dealing with a bunch of macho roughnecks. They’d eat you alive.’
‘They didn’t eat me alive in Glace Bay,’ Lara said.
He leaned forward. ‘I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Chicago is not Glace Bay.’
At the next bank, the manager said to her, ‘We’ll be glad to help you out, Miss Cameron. Of course, what you have in mind is out of the question. What I would suggest is to let us handle your money and invest it …’
Lara was out of his office before he finished his sentence.
At the third bank, Lara was ushered into the office of Bob Vance, a pleasant-looking, grey-haired man who looked exactly as the president of a bank should look. In the office with him was a pale, thin, sandy-haired man in his early thirties, wearing a rumpled suit, and looking completely out of place.
‘This is Howard Keller, Miss Cameron, one of our vice presidents.’
‘How do you do?’
‘What can I do for you this morning?’ Bob Vance asked.
‘I’m interested in building a hotel in Chicago,’ Lara said, ‘and I’m looking for finance.’
Bob Vance smiled. ‘You’ve come to the right place. Do you have a location in mind?’
‘I know the general area I want. Near the loop, not too far from Michigan Avenue …’
‘Excellent.’
Lara told him about her boutique hotel idea.
‘That sounds interesting,’ Vance said. ‘And how much equity do you have?’
‘Three million dollars. I want to borrow the rest.’
There was a thoughtful pause. ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you. Your problem is that you have big ideas and a small purse. Now, if you would like us to invest your money for you …’
‘No, thank you,’ Lara said. ‘Thanks for your time. Good afternoon, gentlemen.’ She turned and left the office, fuming. In Glace Bay three million dollars was a fortune. Here, people seemed to think it was nothing.
As Lara reached the street, a voice said, ‘Miss Cameron!’
Lara turned. It was the man she had been introduced to – Howard Keller. ‘Yes?’
‘I’d like to talk to you,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we could have a cup of coffee.’
Lara stiffened. Was everyone in Chicago a sex maniac?
‘There’s a good coffee shop just around the corner.’
Lara shrugged. ‘All right.’
When they had ordered, Howard Keller said, ‘If you don’t mind my butting in, I’d like to give you some advice.’
Lara was watching him, wary. ‘Go ahead.’
‘In the first place, you’re going about this all wrong.’
‘You don’t think my idea will work?’ she asked stiffly.
‘On the contrary. I think a boutique hotel is a really great idea.’
She was surprised. ‘Then why …?’
‘Chicago could use a hotel like that, but I don’t think you should build it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I would suggest that, instead, you find an old hotel in a good location and remodel it. There are a lot of rundown hotels that can be bought at a low figure. Your three million dollars would be enough equity for a down payment. Then you could borrow enough from a bank to refurbish it and turn it into your boutique hotel.’
Lara sat there thinking. He was right. It was a better approach.
‘Another thing, no bank is going to be interested in financing you unless you come in with a solid architect and builder. They’ll want to see a complete package.’
Lara thought about Buzz Steele. ‘I understand. Do you know a good architect and builder?’
Howard Keller smiled. ‘Quite a few.’
‘Thanks for your advice,’ Lara said. ‘If I find the right site, could I come back and talk to you about it?’
‘Any time. Good luck.’
Lara was waiting for him to say something like, ‘Why don’t we talk it over at my apartment?’ Instead, all Howard Keller said was, ‘Would you care for more coffee, Miss Cameron?’
Lara roamed the downtown streets again, but this time she was looking for something different. A few blocks from Michigan Avenue, on Delaware, Lara passed a pre-war, rundown transient hotel. A sign outside said, ‘Cong essi nal Hotel.’ Lara started to pass it, then suddenly stopped. She took a closer look. The brick façade was so dirty that it was difficult to tell what its original colour had been. It was eight storeys high. Lara turned and entered the hotel lobby. The interior was even worse than the exterior. A clerk dressed in jeans and a torn sweater was pushing a derelict out of the door. The front desk looked more like a ticket window than a reception area. At one end of the lobby was a staircase leading to what once were meeting rooms, now turned into rented offices. On the mezzanine, Lara could see a travel agency, a theatre ticket service, and an employment agency.
The clerk returned to the front desk. ‘You wanna room?’
‘No. I wanted to know …’ She was interrupted by a heavily made-up young woman in a tight-fitting skirt. ‘Give me a key, Mike.’ There was an elderly man at her side.
The clerk handed her a key.
Lara watched the two of them head for the elevator.
‘What can I do for you?’ the clerk asked.
‘I’m interested in this hotel,’ Lara said. ‘Is it for sale?’
‘I guess everything’s for sale. Is your father in the real estate business?’
‘No,’ Lara said, ‘I am.’
He looked at her in surprise. ‘Oh. Well, the one you want to talk to is one of the Diamond brothers. They own a chain of these dumps.’
‘Where would I find them?’ Lara asked.
The clerk gave her an address on State Street.
‘Would you mind if I looked around?’
He shrugged. ‘Help yourself.’ He grinned. ‘Who knows, you might wind up being my boss.’
Not if I can help it, Lara thought.
She walked around the lobby, examining it closely. There were old marble columns lining the entrance. On a hunch, Lara pulled up an edge of the dirty, worn carpet. Underneath was a dull marble floor. She walked up to the mezzanine. The mustard-coloured wallpaper was peeling. She pulled away an edge of it and underneath was the same marble. Lara was becoming more and more excited. The handrail of the staircase was painted black. Lara turned to make sure that the room clerk was not watching and took out her key from Stevens Hotel and scratched away some of the paint. She found what she was hoping for, a solid brass railing. She approached the elevators that were painted with the same black paint, scratched a bit away and found more brass.
Lara walked back to the clerk, trying to conceal her excitement. ‘I wonder if I might look at one of the rooms.’
He shrugged. ‘No skin off my nose.’ He handed her a key. ‘Four-ten.’
‘Thank you.’
Lara got in the elevator. It was slow and antiquated. I’ll have it redone, Lara thought. And I’ll put a mural inside.
In her mind, she was already beginning to decorate the hotel.
Room four-ten looked a disaster, but the possibilities were immediately evident. It was a surprisingly large room with antiquated facilities and tasteless furniture. Lara’s heart began to beat faster. It’s perfect, she thought.
She walked downstairs. The stairway was old and had a musty smell. The carpets were worn, but underneath she found the same marble.
Lara returned the key to the desk clerk.
‘Did you see what you wanted?’
‘Yes,’ Lara said. ‘Thank you.’
He grinned at her. ‘You really going to buy this joint?’
‘Yes,’ Lara said. ‘I’m really going to buy this joint.’
‘Cool,’ he said.
The elevator door opened and the young hooker and her elderly john emerged. She handed the key and some money to the clerk. ‘Thanks, Mike.’
‘Have a nice day,’ Mike called. He turned to Lara. ‘Are you coming back?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Lara assured him, ‘I’m coming back.’
Lara’s next stop was at the City Hall of Records. She asked to see the records on the property that she was interested in. For a fee of ten dollars, she was handed a file on the Congressional Hotel. It had been sold to the Diamond brothers five years earlier for six million dollars.
The office of the Diamond brothers was in an old building on a corner in State Street. An oriental receptionist in a tight red skirt greeted Lara as she walked in.
‘Can I help you?’
‘I’d like to see Mr Diamond.’
‘Which one?’
‘Either of them.’
‘I’ll give you John.’
She picked up the phone and spoke into it. ‘There’s a lady here to see you, John.’ She listened a moment then looked up at Lara. ‘What’s it about?’
‘I want to buy one of his hotels.’
She spoke into the mouthpiece again. ‘She says she wants to buy one of your hotels. Right.’ She replaced the receiver. ‘Go right in.’
John Diamond was a huge man, middle-aged and hairy, and he had the pushed-in face of a man who had once played a lot of football. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and smoking a large cigar. He looked up as Lara entered his office.
‘My secretary said you wanted to buy one of my buildings.’ He studied her a moment. ‘You don’t look old enough to vote.’
‘Oh, I’m old enough to vote,’ Lara assured him. ‘I’m also old enough to buy one of your buildings.’
‘Yeah? Which one?’
‘The Cong essi nal Hotel.’
‘The what?’
‘That’s what the sign says. I assume it means “Congressional”.’
‘Oh. Yeah.’
‘Is it for sale?’
He shook his head. ‘Gee, I don’t know. That’s one of our big money-makers. I’m not sure we could let it go.’
‘You have let it go,’ Lara said.
‘Huh?’
‘It’s in terrible shape. The place is falling apart.’
‘Yeah? Then what the hell do you want with it?’
‘I’d like to buy it and fix it up a little. Of course, it would have to be delivered to me vacant.’
‘That’s no problem. Our tenants are on a week-to-week basis.’
‘How many rooms does the hotel have?’
‘A hundred and twenty-five. The gross building area is a hundred thousand square feet.’
Too many rooms, Lara thought. But if I combine them to create suites, I would end up with sixty to seventy-five keys. It could work.
It was time to discuss price.
‘If I decided to buy the building, how much would you want for it?’
Diamond said, ‘If I decided to sell the building, I’d want ten million dollars, a six million cash down payment …’
Lara shook her head, ‘I’ll offer …’
‘… period. No negotiating.’
Lara sat there, mentally figuring the cost of renovation. It would be approximately eighty dollars per square foot, or eight million dollars, plus furniture, fixtures and equipment.
Lara’s mind was furiously calculating. She was sure she could get a bank to finance the loan. The problem was that she needed six million dollars in equity, and she only had three million. Diamond was asking too much for the hotel, but she wanted it. She wanted it more than anything she had ever wanted in her life.
‘I’ll make you a deal,’ Lara said.
He was listening. ‘Yeah?’
‘I’ll give you your asking price …’
He smiled. ‘So far so good.’
‘And I’ll give you a down payment of three million in cash.’
He shook his head. ‘Can’t do it. I’ve got to have six million in cash up front.’
‘You’ll have it.’
‘Yeah? Where’s the other three coming from?’
‘From you.’
‘What?’
‘You’re going to give me a second mortgage for three million.’
‘You want to borrow money from me to buy my building?’
It was the same thing Sean MacAllister had asked her in Glace Bay.
‘Look at it this way,’ Lara said. ‘You’re really borrowing the money from yourself. You’ll own the building until I pay it off. There’s no way you can lose.’
He thought about it and grinned. ‘Lady, you just bought yourself a hotel.’
Howard Keller’s office in the bank was a cubicle with his name on the door. When Lara walked in, he looked more rumpled than ever.
‘Back so soon?’
‘You told me to come and see you when I found a hotel. I found one.’
Keller leaned back in his chair. ‘Tell me about it.’
‘I found an old hotel called the Congressional. It’s on Delaware. It’s a few blocks from Michigan Avenue. It’s rundown and seedy, and I want to buy it and turn it into the best hotel in Chicago.’
‘Tell me the deal.’
Lara told him.
Keller sat there, thinking. ‘Let’s run it past Bob Vance.’
Bob Vance listened and made some notes. ‘It might be possible,’ he said, ‘but …’ He looked at Lara. ‘Have you ever run a hotel before, Miss Cameron?’
Lara thought about all the years of running the boarding house in Glace Bay, making the beds, scrubbing the floors and doing the laundry and the dishes, trying to please the different personalities, and keep the peace.
‘I ran a boarding house full of miners and lumbermen. A hotel will be a cinch.’
Howard Keller said, ‘I’d like to take a look at the property, Bob.’
Lara’s enthusiasm was irresistible. Howard Keller watched Lara’s face as they walked through the seedy hotel rooms, and he saw them through her eyes.
‘This will be a beautiful suite with a sauna,’ Lara said excitedly. ‘The fireplace will be here, and the grand piano in that corner.’ She began to pace back and forth. ‘When affluent travellers come to Chicago, they stay at the best hotels, but they’re all the same – cold rooms without any character. If we can offer them something like this, even though it may cost a little more, there’s no doubt about which they’ll choose. This will really be a home away from home.’
‘I’m impressed,’ Howard Keller said.
Lara turned to him eagerly. ‘Do you think the bank will loan me the money?’
‘Let’s find out.’
Thirty minutes later, Howard Keller was in conference with Vance.
‘What do you think about it?’ Vance asked.
‘I think the lady’s on to something. I like her idea about a boutique hotel.’
‘So do I. The only problem is that she’s so young and inexperienced. It’s a gamble.’ They spent the next half hour discussing costs and projected earnings.
‘I think we should go ahead with it,’ Keller finally said. ‘We can’t lose.’ He grinned. ‘If worse comes to worst, you and I can move into the hotel.’
Howard Keller telephoned Lara at the Stevens Hotel. ‘The bank has just approved your loan.’
Lara let out a shriek. ‘Do you mean it? That’s wonderful! Oh, thank you, thank you!’
‘We have a few things to talk about,’ Howard Keller said. ‘Are you free for dinner this evening?’
‘Yes.’
‘Fine. I’ll pick you up at seven thirty.’
They had dinner at the Imperial House. Lara was so excited that she barely touched her food.
‘I can’t tell you how thrilled I am,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be the most beautiful hotel in Chicago.’
‘Easy,’ Keller warned, ‘there’s a long way to go.’ He hesitated. ‘May I be frank with you, Miss Cameron?’
‘Lara.’
‘Lara. You’re a dark horse. You have no track record.’
‘In Glace Bay …’
‘This isn’t Glace Bay. To mix metaphors, it’s a different ballpark.’
‘Then why is the bank doing this?’ Lara asked.
‘Don’t get me wrong. We’re not a charitable organization. The worst thing that can happen is that the bank will break even. But I have a feeling about you. I believe you’re going to make it. I think there could be a big upside. You don’t intend to stop with this one hotel, do you?’
‘Of course not,’ Lara said.
‘I didn’t think so. What I want to say is that when we make a loan, we don’t usually get personally involved in the project. But in this case, I’d like to give you whatever help you might need.’
And Howard Keller intended to get personally involved with her. He had been attracted to Lara from the moment he had seen her. He was captivated by her enthusiasm and determination. She was a beautiful woman-child. He wanted desperately to impress her. Maybe, Keller thought, one day I’ll tell her how close I came to being famous …
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