The sub-contractor said apologetically, "You always get some mud when you pour concrete, Mr. Boyma. There's always some spillage."
"Yeah," said Boyma. "You got spillage, and you got leakage, and what you mostly got is slippage. What kind of fairy tale you going to tell me today?"
The prime contractor coughed. "We haven't made up any of the slippage," he admitted.
"No? And maybe you slipped back a little more?"
"Well, there's the holidays coming up, Mr. Boyma, and it's hard to get full crews every day—"
"I want a date!" Boyma roared.
The prime contractor said hastily, "February first. You can start moving people in February first, I promise."
"February first. When we started selling, you know what we promised? We promised they could spend Christmas in their own home. You know how many units we sold last week? We sold one. And we got three cancellations. That means for the week we got two less sold than we started out with. Where's Fennerman?"
"He's waiting for you in the car, Mr. Boyma," said one of the two young men who followed him wherever he went. He turned and picked his way delicately through the turned wet soil, pausing to glance out toward the Pacific. You couldn't see much from here, of course. Even less after the other buildings went in, which would not be | until these first ones were fully sold. But from the penthouse apartment, complete with private elevator and private entrance to the private underground garage, you would see the Pacific, right over the buildings that would come in later. That was the one Boyma had reserved for himself—at least for the next couple of years, until he was ready to retire to that great mobster's heaven in Palm Springs, where you didn't have to worry about those unpleasant statistics of street crime and violence that were turning Los Angeles into another Detroit.
Melvin Boyma had come up the hard way, starting with a union local, expanding into women and drugs. As soon as he had a stake he put it into the growth industry of the time, which was porno films. Then the stake became really big and he didn't have to bother with that sort of thing any more. He was in investments. Some of the investments involved bookmaking. Some were called "shylocking" by the L.A.P.D. But his accountants had convinced him that, with the money market going crazy, it was almost as profitable to put his capital into legitimate business. Semi- legit, anyway. He still kept a turf of his own in downtown L.A., but it had been a long time since he had taken care of any of that business in person. As an elder statesman of the underworld he didn't need to.
Of course, as an elder statesman of the underworld he was exposed to a certain amount of police harassment from time to time, like this grand jury indictment. But that did not weigh very heavily on him. That was what you paid lawyers for, and Boyma paid his very well.
The last few steps to the car were uphill, and Boyma was puffing as he squeezed into the car where his lawyer was sitting. "Cigarette," he said, and the lawyer held out a pack. The jogging suit had no pockets, because that was the way jogging suits were made, but Boyma never found that an inconvenience. He retained other people to be his pockets, not only for money and cigarettes but for whatever else one might have a sudden need for. "How come these people can get out of their contracts, Fennerman?" he demanded.
"State law, Mr. Boyma. Non-performance on our part."
Boyma grunted and leaned back against the cushions, unzipping his jacket. The tailored jogging suit fit him well, but not kindly. At best he looked like a well-designed pearl gray beachball, and when he sat down the barrel of fat that had once been muscle rearranged itself in ways no tailor could deal with. "You talk about non-performance," he said, "those turkeys I got working for me got a patent on it. Can I sue?"
"You can certainly sue, Mr. Boyma, but I wouldn't recommend it. It's very doubtful that you can recover damages unless you can show negligence on their part; that's state law, too." He cleared his throat. "What I wanted to talk to you about is the grand jury indictment. The D.A.'s moving for speedy trial."
"So? So stall it, Fennerman!"
The lawyer raised his eyes to heaven. "Sometimes I think you expect miracles from me."
Boyma didn't answer. It was, after all, true. Money could buy all kinds of miracles; it was what you acquired money for.
There is a valley in Iceland with shallow bluffs on either side. It is where two tectonic plates come together. The bluff on the west is the farthest extension of the North American plate, the bluff on the east, of the Eurasian. Iceland sits atop the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where the sea floor is spreading. The island is slowly being torn apart.
Wednesday, December 9th. 7/:00AM.
Danny Deere's telephone room was the assembly line of his real-estate operation. It held eight steel desks, each of them surrounded on three sides by acoustic tile partitions.
All eight members of the phone squad lived with one eye over their shoulders, watching for Danny's inspection tours. Sometimes there was only one a day, sometimes six or seven. They never knew when he would materialize behind them, reaching over to thumb through the stacks of cards, calls made on one side, calls waiting on the other.
Today was a good day for the phone squad, because Danny was in a hurry. He walked quickly down one row and up the other, and spot-checked only one phone solicitor, the newest, hired because he spoke fluent Arabic. Unfortunately the son of a bitch didn't know anything about real estate. "Piss poor," Danny snarled, throwing the cards back on the desk. "I think I made a mistake with you, Mahmoud."
The man glowered sulkily at him out of eyes that, Danny was offended to see, had been enhanced with shadow. "These prices are so high, Mr. Deere!"
"No, they're not. They're investments for the future, and don't you fucking forget it. Whatever they pay, it'll be worth more in sixty days!" Or would be, anyway, unless Danny's plans worked out. But that had nothing to do with Mahmoud or the other soldiers of the phone squad. When it was time for the signals to change Danny would change them. He said severely, "You got a great list there, all sheiks and all. Fat and dumb, right off the plane; they don't know shit about values unless you tell them. You got one more week, Mahmoud. Keep an eye on him," he barked to the woman whose desk was at the end of the line and was nominally in charge of the others. Not that anyone was ever in charge of anything in Danny Deere Enterprises but Danny.
He left her to do the rest of the reaming out. That was what he paid for her, and besides he was running late. Not late late, because the appointment was one he intended to be late for in the first place, but late enough so that it was time to pay his other call first.
Deere House was a two-story frame building on Sunset Boulevard. To the right of the dividing stairwell was the storefront labeled Danny Deere Estate Agent, with its desks for the licensed brokers who worked for him, its walls of estate photographs and development plans. To the left was another storefront. This one was marked Danny Deere Travel—Please Go Away. Next to it was the smallest office, the one that held his shopping newspaper and what was left of his unsuccessful attempt at a public relations firm and talent agency.