The Bootlegger’s Legacy (27 page)

Joe woke up about four in the morning ready to start his day. Early to bed, early to rise may not actually contribute to wisdom or wealth, but will have you up ready to go at a god-awful early hour in the morning. There was a small coffee pot in the room. He fixed some coffee and sat, just waiting for time to pass.

Around six Joe went down to the breakfast buffet area to see if they were open yet. They weren’t, but they did have coffee ready. Joe got an El Paso paper and some coffee and took a seat.

Later Mike found his table. “Sorry about last night. I tell you we have so much to talk about with our new church. And Sam is so excited. She was talking to a graphic designer yesterday and the guy has come up with what she says is the neatest logo for the church. Man, I can’t wait to get back and get that started. Anyway, time just got away from me, and I guess you went to bed early. I came down here about nine and the bartender said you’d gone to your room some time before. I can sure understand that, I was tired too. Well, we can go see Emerson in a little while, find out what he’s thinking and then head home.”

Mike seemed a little wound up—it was irritating.

They chatted over coffee and some toast about nothing. They were losing the ability to talk to each other—no doubt this would be the last field trip for the boys.

By the time they got everything packed into the car and checked out, it was time to head to Emerson’s office. Neither Mike nor Joe had any idea what might happen. Joe was starting to question whether it was wise to meet Emerson without an attorney present, but he kept his mouth shut.

Like all trips in Las Cruces, it didn’t take long. They parked in front of Emerson’s office. There was no one at the front desk. Joe hoped Emerson hadn’t eliminated her as a witness or something.

“Hello.” Joe called in a loud voice toward the back room.

In a while Emerson came out of his office and, without any mention of there being no one at the front desk, asked them to come on back. Once seated, Emerson began.

“Let me tell you what we’re talking about. There are nine buildings in total, four of them here in Las Cruces, one in El Paso, and four in Oklahoma City. I estimate that the buildings in Las Cruces and El Paso are worth maybe $3.2 million with mortgages of about $2 million, or a net value of $1.2 million. The four buildings in Oklahoma City are worth just about $1.2 million with no mortgages. All of the buildings and the debt are in the name of the development company.”

He paused to let the information sink in.

“As I said yesterday, your father told me that I would someday own half of this business if I would help him maintain it and watch over it for him. You can say there’s nothing in writing and no way to prove that—and you’d be right—but I’m telling you that’s what he said. We can fight forever over ownership in court. You’d probably win, but you don’t know that for sure. I have lots of documentation supporting my claim that I own BDD. I’ve managed these properties for more than thirty-five years, I’ve filed all of the corporate papers, I’ve signed all of the tax returns, I’ve borrowed money as the owner of BDD—it goes on and on. What you have are some old stock certificates that may or may not be valid. I can say in court that your father assured me that he had destroyed those certificates years ago when he gave me the company—might be a lie, but I could say it.”

Mike and Joe waited for the bottom line.

“I don’t want to go to court. It would take forever and I’m old and tired. That goddamn Bates would make my remaining years pure hell, just for the pleasure of it. Here’s what I propose. Obviously, the net value of the real estate in Oklahoma City and the net value of the real estate in Las Cruces and El Paso are about the same. You take Oklahoma City, and I keep Las Cruces and El Paso. You are immediately worth 1.2 million dollars—no lawsuit, no legal fees, and you avoid the possibility that you come away with nothing. Deal is done. You’re not completely happy, I’m not completely happy, but we get on with our lives without dealing with a bunch of dickhead lawyers. What do you think?”

Mike stared at Jim Emerson as if he were some kind of strange creature. To say that this wasn’t what Mike had been expecting would be a colossal understatement. My god, he’d be a millionaire.

“Well, Mr. Emerson, I’m not sure what to think. Can you give Joe and me a little time so we can talk this over?” This was all about stalling. Mike was confused and needed to talk to Joe.

“Of course. There’s an office just next door that’s vacant. Why don’t you and Joe step in there and I’ll just wait here.”

“Thanks.” Joe and Mike went into the adjoining office.

“Okay financial guy, should I do that or not?” Perfect, now Joe was financial guy—soon he would be the fucking chauffeur.

“Mike, how the hell would I know? What he did was give us two figures that are equal to each other. It is meaningless until you know the properties and how much income they produce, where they are, and whether they could be sold quickly as-is. Not to mention whether or not those values are even accurate. Also how do we know these are all of the properties? He’s just telling us what he wants us to know—he could be lying. The only way we can know what’s really involved is to do the research, hire the lawyers to do legal searches. You know, shit like that. Plus, do you want to cut a deal with this guy? You can’t trust him. If you take it through the courts and you win, you know you have good title—here you won’t know much of anything for sure.”

“Okay, I hear you Joe. There’s risk doing it this way, but there’s risk going to court, too. I thought he made good points about his claim to ownership being about as valid as those old certificates. Even if I win it could take years to settle. I could waste a fortune in legal costs and lose! A fortune I do not have!”

“Yep. There’s risk no matter what. If you want to consider this ‘cut to the chase’ approach, we need to decide the minimum of information you need to know about the properties and then, maybe, you can make a more informed decision. Keep in mind you’re accepting just what he’s showing us—we’ll have no idea if there are other assets that should be included.”

“I get it. Do you know what the information on these properties would be?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Okay.”

They went back into Emerson’s office. He was still sitting at the conference table.

“I think we can make a deal, Mr. Emerson. But there are things I’ll need to see before I can agree. We’ll keep it to a minimum and, if the data confirms what you’ve said, we can make this happen.”

Emerson smiled for the first time since they’d met. It wasn’t pleasant. “Very good, what do you need?”

Joe took over and started writing out a list of what he’d need to see on each property. Appraisal reports, tenant listings with terms of leases, income statements, tax statements, any environmental reports, copies of mortgages, and a few other items. Emerson took it all in stride. “I can have all of this gathered and available to you in a couple of hours—it’s all information we already have.”

They agreed to come back in two hours and once again use the office next door.

“I guess we don’t go back to Oklahoma City tonight. Let’s head back to the hotel so I can change the flight and call Sam. Well, what do you think Joe?”

“Still not comfortable with Emerson, but I understand your reasoning about pursuing this kind of deal. Now I just need to see if those numbers he gave us hold up.”

They drove back to the hotel a little slower than necessary. Joe and Mike were each lost in their private thoughts. Mike quickly checked them back into their old rooms, then went off to make phone calls. Joe went to his room and for some reason decided to take a shower. He needed to be on alert for anything that would indicate Mike should not do this deal—because if he didn’t find something, he was sure Mike was going to agree to trade the properties for the stock certificates.

Before his shower he called Lucille. She didn’t answer, but that didn’t surprise him. He left a message that he wouldn’t be back in the office tomorrow as he had thought, but probably would be a couple of days after that—although nothing was certain yet. She knew where he was staying and there hadn’t been a message, so either she hadn’t been in the office since he left or there was nothing he needed to know. Not very comforting either way.

They were back in Emerson’s office in a couple of hours. The woman in the front office had returned. She showed them back to the spare office, where they found large stacks of newly arrived files. She said that if they needed anything at all to let her know. She seemed friendlier now.

Joe started through the files. He found some columnar pads in a desk drawer and began making a schedule of the properties and what files and information he had on each. This was going to take a while. Mike stepped out of the office several times, then said he was going for a walk. Joe thought it was better than him hovering around, watching.

The information on each property was well organized and Joe quickly started compiling data. He worked through the afternoon and only took a couple of bathroom and water breaks. Mike was in and out, and mostly just in the way. At one point Joe suggested that Mike should go find some place to get some sandwiches or something and bring them back. Mike checked with the woman in the front. She didn’t want anything, but she suggested a small deli behind the building across the street and recommended the turkey on rye.

Somewhere around six Joe declared that he was done. “We need to go over this data and then talk to Emerson—have you seen him?”

Mike was exhausted from just hanging around all day. “Nope, I haven’t seen him since we came back hours ago. Just a minute, let me check with Jane.”

“Jane?”

“Yeah, that’s the lady out front—she’s really very nice.” Mike left, then returned. “Well, she says he didn’t come back after this morning, but he called and told her that he would like to meet with us in the morning. I told her okay, and to let Mr. Emerson know we’re done with the files. Was that right?”

“Yeah, all I need are my spreadsheets and notes for us to discuss it, so if you want we can go back to the hotel and talk about this stuff.”

They left, saying good night to Jane, who no doubt had been waiting for them to leave so she could lock up. They headed back to the hotel.

They went to Mike’s room so he could check for messages, then decided they would stay there to go over the work Joe had done. Joe said he just had to have a drink first and that he’d be back in just a minute, then returned with a gin and tonic.

Joe pulled out his stuff. “First, I would say what Emerson told us was basically true as far as the values of the properties. That’s based on fairly current appraisals on some of them, and calculations of cash flow on others. Regarding the Oklahoma City properties it’s also based on my own knowledge, because I’m familiar with two of the buildings. One is a first class office building on Classen Boulevard. I know about it because a few of my clients have offices there, and I estimated it to be worth about $950,000 or so. The other building that I know about is also on Classen—it’s Triples.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No. The building is owned by BDD and leased to Triples. That building is worth maybe $350,000—could be more depending on the land value and the cost of tearing down Triples. The value right now, leased to Triples, is in the $350,000 range.”

Joe looked at another sheet of notes.

“So that’s the $1.3 million value in those two buildings. The other buildings are on Second Street off of downtown. That’s an area that used to be known as Deep Deuce and it was a mostly black part of downtown. That was mentioned in your dad’s letter. Obviously, there must be some connection there with your father’s past, but at this point the buildings are vacant and in poor condition. Plus, there may not be much value in the land. I said it basically had no value, or could have a small negative value based on having to pay taxes and insurance on an abandoned building. So the $1.2 million seems right.”

Joe turned to his last set of notes.

“Regarding the buildings in Cruces and the one in El Paso, there were current appraisals on each of those buildings along with copies of the mortgages. And what Emerson said is true. The value is right at $3.2 million with debt of $2 million, for a net value of $1.2 million. I looked through every file and found nothing on any of the properties that would indicate that was anything materially wrong with the information. I ran an analysis of cash flow and it supported the assumptions of value contained in the appraisal reports. Bottom line, Mike, Emerson gave us the accurate information.”

Joe took a big chug from his drink. “Let me give you my advice before you ask. Take the deal.”

“That’s it, just take the deal?”

“Yeah.”

“You can do better than that—
why
should I take the deal?”

“Well, mostly because you want to. But also because it’s probably the quickest and simplest way to resolve what could be an ugly, drawn out fight with someone I still don’t think you want to get into a scrap with.”

“I don’t completely agree with your reasons, but I agree with your conclusion—that’s what I’m going to do, take the deal. I want to figure out a way for you to get half, okay?”

“No, not okay. I’ve already told you, no. If it was going to be millions in cash, then fine, give me a pile, but this is real estate. You don’t need it complicated with different owners. This is your legacy from your dad—just take it and get on with your life.”

“We’re not through talking about this.”

“Yes, we are. Now, I’m going to leave you alone so you can call your wife. Also, I’m exhausted once again—this getting old crap is not fun—so I am going to go rest. See you tomorrow.”