Beach Town (6 page)

He chuckled. “She's used to it. What kind of business proposition are we talking about?”

“I should probably introduce myself. My name is Greer Hennessy.”

“From Los Angeles. You're driving a rented Kia, and you've rented out the entire motel for, what, six weeks?”

“Who told you that?” Greer asked, stunned.

“My aunt. Ginny Buckalew.”

“Wait. Ginny is your aunt? The same Ginny that owns the motel?”

“Co-owns it,” he said. “With me.”

“I should have known,” Greer said. “Did Ginny also tell you why I'm here?”

“Something about a movie you supposedly want to film here in Cypress Key?”

“Not supposedly. We definitely want to film here. Your town has everything we need. It's quaint and picturesque, it has that Old Florida, pre-Disney look that's impossible to find anymore. I know, because I just spent two days driving the Panhandle.”

“There's lots of other places in Florida,” Thibadeaux pointed out. “It's a big state. We got nothing but beaches and coastline. Have you seen Sarasota? Or Naples? How about Vero Beach, over on the east coast?”

“Are you trying to sell me on someplace else?” Greer asked, puzzled. “Look, I know we didn't exactly get off on the right foot this morning, but personalities aside, this film is the real deal. It's a big-budget, major motion picture with a director whose last movie was nominated for an Oscar.”

He wasn't jumping up and down. Yet.

“We're talking about a six-week shoot,” she continued, “most of it done right here in Cypress Key. It's a huge win for your town. In terms of local motels, restaurants, bars, and jobs, it's at least a million dollars in revenue.”

“Interesting,” he said, picking up a catalog and leafing through it. He looked anything but interested in her proposal.

But she had to keep trying.

“My director is flying in Monday, and he's bringing the male lead in the movie,” Greer said. “And that's another reason I need to see you. The crew and most of the cast will stay at the Silver Sands and the other motels in town, if we need them, but we'll need to lease a couple private residences for the director and the principal actors.”

He looked up. “What sort of residences?”

“High-end, luxury homes,” Greer said. “The director needs at least four bedrooms, and as many baths, and a swimming pool.”

“I think I could find something like that,” Thibadeaux said. “We've got three properties for sale, out in Bluewater Bay. Spec houses. I'd have to see if the developer would be interested in a short-term lease.”

“For the male lead, we'll need six bedrooms, and a pool. And a private basketball court.”

“You're kidding.”

“Unfortunately, I'm not. It's apparently in his contract.”

“Who is this guy? George Clooney?”

“I'm not at liberty to say. But security is going to be an issue for him. His fans are totally rabid. I'm assuming this Bluewater Bay place is gated—with guards?”

Thibadeaux laughed. “Yeah, there's a gate, of sorts. And the developer built a guardhouse but, as far as I know, the gates have never been operational, and there sure as hell has never been anything like a security guard over there. You gotta understand something, Miss Hennessy. This isn't Miami. People here don't even lock their doors, let alone live behind a fence.”

“How nice for them,” Greer snapped. She was starting to lose her patience. The guy was doing everything he could to talk her out of using his town for the movie shoot.

“Look, Mr. Thibadeaux—”

“It's Eb.”

“Okay. Eb. I've driven all over Cypress Key. I've looked at your business district, and the houses here, and I hope you'll forgive me for saying so, but it seems to me that this is sort of an economically disadvantaged community. You've got a charming Main Street, but more than half the old buildings are vacant. And the rest of the town isn't much better. There's a beautiful white sand beach on the Gulf, but the Silver Sands is the only motel where people can stay there, and even you would have to admit it's not exactly the Ritz. But once the movie is out and people see how charming your town is, tourism is going to pick up. Businesses will follow. I've seen it time and again. This movie will be a boon to your community.”

“A boon.” Thibadeaux set aside the catalog.

“Exactly.”

His gray eyes stared her down. “And who guarantees that?”

“Guarantees? We'll have legally executed documents for all the locations we use for the shoot, if that's what you mean. Our production company will lease the motel and whatever private residences we need for the cast and crew. For a production this size, we'll be hiring locals—short term, it's true, but we'll need drivers, caterers, electricians, laborers to help build sets, security guards. And extras, of course.”

“Of course,” he said mockingly.

That did it for Greer. “What the hell is with you?” she demanded. “Most towns, if they were offered a big-budget production like this, they'd jump at the chance. But you act like I'm trying to put up a toxic waste dump or something. You've done everything but tell me to take my movie and get the hell out of Dodge.”

He leaned across the desk. “Miss Hennessy?”

“Greer.”

“Right. Greer, do you know anything about the history of Cypress Key? Have any idea why we are, as you say, an economically disadvantaged community?”

“Not really.”

The chair squeaked loudly as he sat back. Eb Thibadeaux seemed to fill the chair—and the room, come to think of it. He was a shade north of six feet tall, not matinee idol handsome but undeniably intriguing, with the scholarly look of a professor—a professor who spent a lot of time outside.

“You mentioned a toxic waste dump, and I know you were joking, but that's essentially what we had here for the past sixty years. Only they didn't call it that. They called it the Cypress Key Paper Plant.”

“A paper mill? Here? I haven't seen anything that looks like that,” Greer said.

“That's because the Peninsula Paper Company, which owned and operated the Cypress Key plant, stopped operating here more than a decade ago. But for fifty years before that, three shifts a day, 364 days a year—they closed Christmas Day—that plant manufactured cardboard boxes. Six hundred jobs, that's what that plant meant.”

“I'm sensing an unhappy ending,” Greer said quietly.

“You could call it that. All those years, the foul-smelling smoke that poured out of there? Environmentalists called it pollution. Locals, like my dad, said it was the smell of money.”

Thibadeaux swiveled around in his chair and, with his finger, stabbed at a point on the large map pinned to the wall behind his desk.

“The plant was right here. Its discharge pipes emptied directly into Horseshoe Creek.” He dragged his fingertip a few inches to the right. “Two miles downstream, that creek flows into Choklawassee Bay.”

He swiveled back around until he was facing Greer. “Ever hear of Choklawassee oysters?”

“I'm from California. But no, I never have.”

“They used to be famous. When my dad was a kid, oysters from Choklawassee Bay were just as famous as Apalachicola's. Chocky oysters, that's what they were called, were shipped up and down the Eastern seaboard, to the finest restaurants around. But it wasn't just oysters that came out of the bay. Blue crabs, stone crabs, scallops … we had one of the finest fisheries on the central Gulf Coast of the state, right outside this old boathouse.”

“Until?” Greer asked.

“Until we didn't. Until the catches got smaller and smaller, and somebody from the Feds finally thought to test the water quality of Choklawassee and immediately closed the bay for any kind of commercial fishing.”

“Why didn't they just make the paper plant clean up its act?” she asked.

“Because at the time, back in the nineties, the Peninsula Paper Company owned more land in Florida than the State of Florida owned in Florida. They also owned enough politicians to keep the environmentalists off their backs,” Eb said matter-of-factly. “For a while, anyway. Eventually the EPA came in and mandated all kinds of pollution abatement regulations. And at that point, ten years ago, Peninsula decided it was just cheaper to shutter the plant.”

“And?”

“And nothing,” Thibadeaux said. “More than four hundred folks lost their jobs. Peninsula abandoned the plant, and five years ago it burned to the ground. Arson, the state fire marshal said. Doesn't matter. We're a small town. You can imagine the hit to the economy. Commercial fishing was already all but dead. Families moved off, went on welfare. Those shops you saw on Main Street—the hardware store, the ice cream parlor, the diner, the shoe store—they all died a slow death.”

“But you're still here,” Greer pointed out. “You don't seem to have done so badly for yourself.”

“Oh yeah,” he said easily. “I'm what passes for a land baron in Cypress Key. I own half the Silver Sands, which as you saw, is a total gold mine. And the Hometown Market.”

“And this boathouse?”

“Left to me by my grandfather and worth millions and millions, as you can see by the thriving business we do here,” Thibadeaux said. “I'm probably the biggest thousandaire in town.”

He opened the desk drawer, took out a paper napkin, and used it to polish his glasses. Which left Greer an opening for her last pitch.

“None of what you've just told me explains why you don't want us to make a movie here. We can help this town. So why are you so opposed to this project?”

“Opposed? I never said I was opposed. I just expressed a degree of healthy realism.”

“More like pessimism,” Greer said.

“Whatever. You're not the first rodeo to come to town, you know. Two years ago, some high-tech outfit came in, sniffed around, and made a lot of noise about opening a customer service call center here. They promised to hire one hundred fifty people for twenty-three dollars an hour. Hell, I would have applied for a job paying that. The county offered them two million dollars' worth of tax incentives, the governor helicoptered in for a photo op. And then nothing. I heard they ended up building in New Jersey. The year before that, it was Chinese investors, saying they were gonna start clam farming and build a high-tech cannery. Three years later? Turns out it was all a scam.”

He peered at Greer over the rim of his glasses. “So you'll have to excuse me if I don't jump for joy at the news that an unnamed director with an unnamed star might make a ‘major motion picture' right here in sleepy little Cypress Key.”

Greer nodded slowly. “Okay. I get it. You've been burned before. You don't know me from Adam, and it's true, right now I can't give you a lot of information about the project. But how about this?”

She pulled the film company's checkbook from her pocketbook, wrote out a check for ten thousand dollars, and placed it on the desktop. “I've left the payee blank. This is the amount we're paying to lease your motel. Call the bank, see if the funds are there. The director's name is Bryce Levy. You can Google him. I can give you his production assistant's phone number in L.A. and you can talk to him.”

Thibadeaux glanced down at the check and shrugged. “Money talks, Miss Hennessy.”

 

7

“I'm so glad we speak the same language,” Greer said, giving him her best close-the-deal smile. “Now that you understand I'm not some fly-by-night huckster, let's discuss the Cypress Key Casino.”

Thibadeaux frowned. “The old casino on the pier? What would you want with that?”

“There's a crucial scene in the film that would take place there,” Greer said. “I've been specifically looking for just the right location and architecture, and that casino is it. Nothing else I've scouted even comes close. I know it's closed currently, and it looks like it's about to fall to pieces, which is perfect for our story line, because the script calls for it to be destroyed in an explosion. What's the story there? Who do I need to contact?”

“You're looking at him,” Eb said.

“You own the casino too?”

“The city is the current leaseholder. I'm the mayor.”

“Great,” Greer said. “I love one-stop shopping. How much would the city take to lease it and then blow it up for the film?”

“Nothing.”

She blinked. “You're not going to charge us to use the casino?”

“It's not for rent,” he said.

“Why not? It's just sitting there empty. I think I can probably get the director to authorize, say, one thousand dollars a day for the filming? I'm not certain how long the scenes will take, but from the treatment I've read, at least five, six days.”

“The casino is not for rent,” he repeated. “It might look like a candidate for the scrap heap to you, but to us it's a local landmark.”

“Okay,” she said slowly, her mind racing. He was in the real estate business, and he was used to negotiating. She had to have the casino. “Two thousand a day. And I'll talk to my people about some up-front money to outright buy the building, demo it, and then haul it off. If it's a public safety concern, I can assure you we'll be hiring the best special effects professionals in the business. This could be a win-win for everybody.”

“Sorry,” Thibadeaux said, as he stood. “It's not a money thing.” He gestured toward the door. “Do you want to go see those houses now? I'll have to pick up a key at my office.”

“Wait. That's it? Just, no? Because you're the mayor and you said so?”

“Pretty much,” he said cheerfully. He held the office door open for her and brought a key ring from his pockets. “I probably ought to lock up before we leave. Not that there's anything here worth stealing.”