Wylie and his family sat in the first row.
He turned and saw Jacobie Bradford III seated near the back, legs crossed and head down, thumbing away at his phone.
“Corporate swine, back row,” Belle whispered in Wylie’s ear.
He set his hand on the soft spot behind her knee and squeezed firmly. “Now now.”
The mayor called the meeting to order and got straight to old business. He recapped the previous month’s discussion of adding three waste-collection bins along Minaret, near the creek. All voted in favor.
Then they talked about the rash of bicycle thefts in town. Coming on the heels of so much ski and board thievery last season, the stealing of bikes was a real problem. The good news was that two suspects had been sighted by two separate witnesses on different nights, cutting bike locks with bolt cutters, putting bikes in the trunk of a car and then driving off. The perps were described as males, both bearded and wearing ski caps, somewhere between twenty and forty years old. Their car was an older model, and one of the witnesses had photographed the plates with her cell phone and turned the pictures over to the Mammoth PD. Just as with the skis and boards last season, these thieves knew an expensive bike from a cheap one. The mayor’s own son had lost a two-thousand-dollar Cannondale road bike Sunday night, left unlocked and pinched right off his front porch. The council voted unanimously to up the reward to two thousand dollars.
“Now, on to new business,” said the mayor. He was a restaurant owner and had long been a Mammoth ski team booster. Wylie did wonder if a sidewalk vending permit for food and beverage might go against a restaurateur-mayor’s grain. The mayor summarized the guidelines for sidewalk vending permits, took a long moment to study the posters, then asked Steen for input.
Steen went to the podium and nodded politely to the council and the full house. He pulled a sheet of paper, folded lengthwise, from his pocket, then began reading. “Thank you, friends and neighbors, for being here tonight. The Little Red Pastry Shed is in keeping with the town of Mammoth Lakes because it is handsome and well made. It will offer top-quality artisanal pastries and gourmet coffees at good value to both locals and guests. The shed provides its own power by generator and solar panels, which you cannot see in the pictures, but they are located...”
Wylie listened, but his mind was back on Madman, third run of the second day, the most difficult because of the falling darkness. Still, somehow he’d been allowed into that privileged place where his body was working almost on its own and his thoughts were able to skip ahead just enough that nothing on the run could surprise him, nothing could even come at him in any real hurry, although this was his fastest and tightest run of all. The final schuss had left him wired by adrenaline but utterly at peace.
“...and it is my dream to move the pastry shed from location to location in town as a moveable feast, so that everyone will get a chance to buy our wonderful pastries and coffee.”
“How many times have you done business from the shed without a permit?” asked the mayor.
“On July the fourth and three times after. For a total of four days.”
“Is it profitable?”
“Not greatly, but yes. In those four days of operation, we made approximately four hundred dollars. This is revenue enough to cover our rent at Let It Bean for five days.”
“Not bad.”
“Of course, we have the cost of time and materials to build the shed. And we do need a new roof at home, which will be very expensive.”
Wylie flinched at Steen’s admission of family financial troubles.
“Why did you proceed without a permit?” asked another councilperson. He was a real estate agent, whom Wylie recognized from his picture in the local listings, but he’d never met the man. Wylie realized now that the photo was probably two decades old. His nameplate read HOWARD DEETZ.
Steen nodded contritely. “I... didn’t know if the shed would earn us even one dollar. And the application is expensive. For us.”
The councilpersons shrugged, traded glances back and forth, and sat back in odd unison. “Open to public input now,” said the mayor. “The mike is open.”
Steen headed for his seat and Jacobie made his way to the podium. Wylie saw that Jacobie was not dressed for Gargantua Coffee, but for fly-fishing. The cleats of his wading boots clicked on the floor. Wylie had heard from a friend at the Troutfitter that Jacobie had paid in advance for one hundred half days of guided fishing over the rest of the summer and fall. At full retail, the bill would come to approximately $25,000, not including tips. Jacobie’s face was absurdly tan and his long-billed cap sat at a cheerful uplifted angle. His caped, vented, multipocketed shirt was a pumpkin color, and his sleeves were rolled and buttoned up.
Jacobie introduced himself and stated his position as the Gargantua Coffee regional manager. He said he’d grown up in the Bay Area but loved the Eastern Sierra and aspired to own property here so he could visit often. In fact, he was now actively looking for a home to purchase. He joked about how the locals had kept fly-fishing a secret from him for so long, and said he was making up for lost time. He stated that he actually felt like a local when his road bike had been stolen the previous week. He had ridden it to work at Gargantua, locked it up behind the shop, and when he’d come out ten hours later, the bike was gone. He made a show of looking at the pictures of the Little Red Pastry Shed, then cleared his throat.
“I contested Mr. Mikkelsen’s permit application because my company’s toughest competition in Mammoth Lakes is his very wonderful Let It Bean. I make no secret of this. From our point of view, this Little Red Pastry Shed is an extension of the Let It Bean place of business. Now, as you all know, according to Mammoth Lakes code, sidewalk vending is restricted to special city-sanctioned events. No full-time permit exists. With good reason. Mammoth Lakes is the jewel of the Sierras because it has strict but fair codes with regard to nonadjacent sidewalk and out-of-doors vending that does not coincide with city-approved events. That’s a mouthful. But it’s really pretty simple. No such permit exists. And we want Let It Bean to play by the same rules we do.”
Belle stood before Wylie could stop her. “You hypocrite! You’ve been trying to run us out of business for almost a year now! Now you won’t even let us fight back!”
The mayor fumbled around for his gavel and finally gave it a good three raps on the tabletop. “You are out of order, Belle.”
“Damn right I am.” She dropped back into her chair and sat glaring at Jacobie.
He looked at her with his eyebrows raised and his hands open. “There’s no such permit. You don’t expect the town council to invent one for you. Do you?”
“Give them some kind of permit!” someone called from the back.
“There’s no permit to give!” someone else replied.
The mayor slapped his gavel and ordered the citizens to come to the podium or be quiet. “Jacobie? Is that all?” Jacobie thanked the council and started back to his seat. The mayor solicited comments from the council, but all declined, apparently having decided. There was a brief off-mike exchange, and the nodding of heads. Howard moved to take a vote and someone seconded. Four no votes were cast against the mayor’s aye, and the matter was settled. “Sorry, Steen,” he said. “Too bad. Okay, we’ve got Mammoth Park dog-waste stations to talk about now.”