CHAPTER THREE
HAMPTON
“BIGGER AND BETTER,” I SAY.
Mateo is quiet beside me. I’m mildly annoyed. He’s a loudmouth and braggart in a casual setting, but a yogi in business. That’s how he seems now, as we tour the Billings & Pile building. I half expect him to climb onto the abandoned equipment, cross his legs, and start chanting.
His lack of reply feels like a judgment.
“Come on, Mateo,” I say, my voice echoing through the empty building. “Look at this place. It’s massive and ugly to the untrained eye. Sitting here empty, it’s a blight. The city would tear it down if they could, and free up two blocks of prime real estate.”
“Well …” Mateo says.
“Prime for Williamsville, I mean.”
He grunts.
“But they can’t tear it down because it’s on the historical register. What are they going to do, put a museum in here? I can buy it for a song.”
Mateo runs a finger along the brick wall. It comes away black. Some bit of machine scrap rattles far in the distance. I can’t see what it is; the only light in here comes through the row of windows high on the walls. Probably a rat.
“It’s a shithole,” Mateo assesses.
“It’s cosmetic. I’ve already had an engineer check it out. The structure is sound; with a small amount of rewiring, it’ll support plenty of power. This is a paint and wallpaper job.”
“The city will never let you buy it. A factory downtown?”
“It already was a factory, Mateo.”
“Yes, in the days of Dickens.”
I shake my head. “We’re not smelting iron. We’re making shirts and pants. There won’t be smoke coming out of the chimneys, and I can brighten it up easily enough. It’s all framing. At the main entrance, we drywall a section off and put an Expendable Chic retail location. Or hell, call it an ‘outlet,’ and lower the prices a little. People travel for hours to shop at their favorite outlets. Cleaned up, this place could be adorable. The kind of shit small-town rubes eat up.”
“Did you just say ‘rubes’?”
“Tell me you don’t see the potential, Mateo. I dare you. Because I’ve seen you buy plenty of dumps way worse than this place for PEZA locations.”
“Those are little spaces big enough to hold a pizza oven, and a snack shop next door. You want to buy a two-block factory.”
“For a song,” I repeat.
“You’ll still have to pay American wages. And they’ll probably unionize. I’m telling you, the numbers don’t work. And making me come all the way out here hasn’t changed my mind.”
I consider pushing back. He’s acting put-upon, but after we’re done in Williamsville, my pilot is taking us to the ridiculous mountain Mateo wants to buy for his rock climbing retreat-or-whatever — at which point, I’ll have to suffer through his pitch about buying something massive and filthy. We made a bargain: he goes with me if I go with him. This way, we both end up bored and thinking the other is a fool.
We bicker about the finances of running this plant versus the PR benefits of having an “all-American” line. Mateo doesn’t see things my way, and I don’t see his.
“You’re acting like an impetuous little shit. You’re growing so fast it’s making you dumb.”
“Bigger and better,” I repeat.
Like last time, Mateo just gives me a look.
Pfft. Screw what he thinks. I know my company and what it needs.
I move away from Mateo, the toes of my mini-boots kicking trash before walking over it, giving rats a chance to flee the piles before I’m on top of them. The shadows aren’t deep, so closer I can see them fine. There’s a lot of crap piled up in here. Hulks of ancient equipment, rusted into dust. Mountains of what appear to be rodent-shredded blankets, meant for God knows what. Entire boxes of bolts and machine parts that have mildewed with age, spilling their contents into dusty huddles. The air is stagnant and hot. It reeks. The only circulation comes from the high windows, but half are broken — testament to the strong throwing arms of local kids, I imagine.
I love how much the Billings & Pile building is a dump. Behind the skin of filth is a fine brick building that could be magnificent. Buying this place is win-win. I get my American Pride sticker, and Williamsville gets … well, I’m sure they’ll get something. And this little armpit can use the help.
We hear a sound. I think something bigger than a rat is scampering around in the scrap metal — a feral cat, a wild dog, a damn bear for all I know — but it’s only Carlo, the realtor who listed the building.
“You guys still alive in here?” he calls, coming through the open side door.
“Yeah,” I say.
He’s squinting into the dark from the doorway. “Where are you?”
“Over here. Next to the—” I look at the machine corpse beside me. It’s unrecognizable. “—cotton gin.”
Carlo tiptoes his way through the space, homing in on my voice. Carlo is a true salesman, in every small-town sense of the word. He asked us about our families, about where we were from. Small talk to grease the deal. His dark brown hair is sensibly parted. He has a little gut behind his tucked-in shirt and a permanent smile. I keep expecting him to pull a shoot from a field of wheat and stick it between his teeth.
Carlo comes up beside me, dodging a pile of scrap that threatens to impale him. He puts his hands on his hips and looks at the machine beside me.
“That’s a baler,” he says. “Like a trash compactor. Anything in here you want to keep? It’s yours, y’know. There’s a garage on Main, called Lloyd’s, that does machine repair on the side. I imagine you could use a baler for your operation.”
I give the baler another glance. Its front looks like a mouth that’s eaten something tragic. The idea of dragging the shit heap down to “good old Lloyd” on the corner for a tune-up makes me sad.
“So,” Carlo says, “you like what you see? Have any questions? Where’d your buddy get to, anyway?”
I turn to look, then see a Mateo-shaped silhouette heading toward the door. “Oh, he’s—”
I swing my arm around to point, but something catches it. There’s a tugging sensation and then my arm swings too far, almost overbalancing me.
“Aww, look at that,” Carlo says.
I’m already looking. A rusty protrusion on the baler snagged the cuff of my blazer when I turned to point, and now my $1500 coat’s sleeve is hanging open like a peeled banana.
“God dammit.”
Carlo hesitates a second before replying. I’m certain he’s mentally objecting to my use of the Lord’s name in vain. Fucking people around here.
“I guess you shouldn’t have worn that nice jacket in here,” he says.
Mateo is at the door. He’s either putting on his own jacket, which he left outside, or is holding it up to mock me. It was a little chilly outside when we arrived, but warm in the building. Mateo told me to take my blazer off and lay it on the hood of Carlo’s car with his. I said I wasn’t putting something this fine on Carlo’s shitbox. And now look where we are.
“Well, that’s a shame. But it’s warming up already, so I think you’ll be okay without a coat. Fix it when you get back.”
Except that that won’t work because our next stop is a mountain. It’ll be cold up there for sure, and neither of us packed bags. My choices are to freeze on the next leg of our trip or look like a hobo.
“I need to have it fixed now,” I say.
“Well, if you want it patched up right away, we have a tailor here in town.”
“Thanks, but I’m sure—”
“No, it’s really good. Just had my slacks taken in.” His thumbs find his belt, indicating his prodigious waistline. “Lost some weight on Atkins.”
Mateo has come to us, his jacket over his forearm like a waiter’s towel. He looks amused, as though this flight to Williamsville has made him the happiest man on the planet.
“That sounds like a good idea, Hampton. Before you start wheeling and dealing on this fine building, you should take your coat to the tailor.”
I eye him. My jaw works.
Carlo is already leading the way out. “Come on. I’ll show you. It’s up on Spruce, and it’s called The Perfect Fit.”