Urban Renewal Read Free Page B

all playing, add another few hundred horses at the wheels—and some other little tricks. This thing has to go in snow, and deal with these Third World excuses for streets around here, too.
    “With all-wheel drive, eighteen-by-eights were as bigas we could go. They’re run-flats—but not to save weight, although they do. They’re so we can keep moving even if someone manages to put a round in one. The fuel cell holds fifty of av-gas—there’s no way to get to that, either.”
    “Redundant all around?”
    “Yeah. Just followed the computer model you made. Even with all the carbon fiber, just keeping this sucker’s weight under seven grand wasn’t easy.”
    “You’re not going to—?”
    “My house? Come on, bro. We’re only about five minutes away from the pickup.”
    “Eight, then?”
    “Eight-fifteen. And the bitch will
still
tell me I’m late.”

    AS THE SHARK CAR slid to the curb, a woman with long, straight midnight hair stepped out of a doorway. She was wearing a red beret and an ankle-length black alligator coat over three-inch spike heels in the same shade as her beret.
    The back door to the car hissed as it slowly opened. The woman stepped in as confidently as a movie star into a waiting limousine. If sitting next to a behemoth bothered her, she gave no sign.
    “Cross” was all she said.
    “So Long.”
    “My husband told you I had this plan?”
    “That’s
all
he said.”
    “There is money to invest, yes? From the … different properties.”
    “No, there isn’t. I’m not paper-hanging those deeds.”
    “I do not understand.”
    “Liens, mortgages, equity loans, cash-out re-fi deals … You know
exactly
what I mean, So Long. Nothing gets put against any property we own.”
    “Okay. But, still, there
is
investment money someplace, yes?”
    “Some,” Cross said cautiously. “Depends on how things are going, any given week.”
    “Okay, then,” the woman said, as if an agreement had already been reached. “Plenty of houses for sale now. Foreclosures all over the city. Most of the time, trashed. People giving up home, angry at the bank, they take everything. Then the others move in. Squatters, gangs, crack dealers.”
    “Uh-huh,” Cross half-grunted as he lit a cigarette.
    “I don’t have smoking in my house.”
    “This isn’t your house, So Long.”
    “You do not like me still, yes, Cross?”
    “You’re not my business.”
    “My husband, he
is
your business.”
    “I’m not a marriage counselor,” Cross answered, taking another drag of his cigarette.
    “Not about marriage, about money.”
    “What else would you want to talk to me about?”
    “Sure. I see. I know this. About you. Not from what my husband says
—he
says nothing. But you not change. Not ever, right?”
    “Right.” Cross took the third hit off his cigarette and snapped it out through the lowered front-seat window, just behind Buddha’s left shoulder.
    “I have this,” So Long said, taking a thin sheaf of papers from inside her coat. “Five properties. Same block. Same side of street. Vacant lot between, so three one side, two the other. All like I say before.”
    “But …?”
    “The rest of the block, people
staying
. They own their houses. Take a long time to do that. Own them, no mortgage. So they are not moving. But always frightened. Things happen, but police never come.”
    “And …?”
    “Total price, all five houses, four hundred and seventy-five thousand.
Asking
price. On market for long time. Price keep dropping. All MLS.”
    “What’s this ‘MLS’?”
    “Multiple Listing Service. So
any
broker that is licensed, if he finds a buyer, he splits the commission with the one who has the first listing. See, we don’t want any
one
broker to have what they call ‘exclusive’ on the properties. That looks bad. So we want different brokers for each place, but they’ll all be ones we … know, okay?”
    “
That’s
your big investment?”
    “All houses
very
solid. Gray stone,