The Stars Shine Down (9 page)

Lara turned to the architect. “I have a question for you.” She looked down at the plans spread out on the table and pointed to the southwest corner of the drawing. “What if we built a setback here, eliminated this little area and let the coffee shop stay? Could the building still be put up?”

The architect studied the plan. “I suppose so. I could slope that side of the building and counterbalance it on the other side. Of course, it would look better if we didn’t have to do that…”

“But it
could
work,” Lara pressed.

“Yes.”

Keller said, “Lara, I told you we can force him out of there.”

Lara shook her head. “We’ve bought up the rest of the block, haven’t we?”

Keller nodded. “You bet. You’re the proud owner of a clothing store, a tailor shop, a stationery store, a drugstore, a bakery, a…”

“All right,” Lara said. “The tenants of the new high rise are going to have a coffee shop to drop in on. And so do we. Haley stays.”

On her father’s birthday Lara said to Keller, “Howard, I want you to do me a favor.”

“Sure.”

“I want you to go to Scotland for me.”

“Are we going to build something in Scotland?”

“We’re going to buy a castle.”

He stood there, listening.

“There’s a place in the Highlands called Loch Morlich. It’s on the road to Glenmore near Aviemore. There are castles all around there. Buy one.”

“Kind of a summer home?”

“I don’t plan to live in it. I want to bury my father in the grounds.”

Keller said, slowly, “You want me to buy a castle in Scotland to bury your father in?”

“That’s right. I haven’t time to go over myself. You’re the only one I can trust to do it. My father is in the Greenwood Cemetery at Glace Bay.”

It was the first real insight Keller ever had into Lara’s feelings about her family.

“You must have loved your father very much.”

“Will you do it for me?”

“Certainly.”

“After he’s buried, arrange for a caretaker to tend the grave.”

Three weeks later Keller returned from Scotland and said, “It’s all taken care of. You own a castle. Your father’s resting in the grounds. It’s a beautiful place near the hills and with a small lake close by. You’ll love it. When are you going over?”

Lara looked up in surprise. “Me? I’m not,” she said.

I
n 1984 Lara Cameron decided that the time had come to conquer New York. When she told Keller her plan, he was appalled.

“I don’t like the idea,” he said flatly. “You don’t know New York. Neither do I. It’s a different city, Lara. We…”

“That’s what they told me when I came from Glace Bay to Chicago,” Lara pointed out. “Buildings are the same whether you put them up in Glace Bay, Chicago, New York, or Tokyo. We all play by the same rules.”

“But you’re doing so great here,” Keller protested. “What is it you want?”

“I told you.
More.
I want my name up on the New York skyline. I’m going to build a Cameron Plaza there, and a Cameron Center. And one day, Howard, I’m going to build the tallest skyscraper in the world.
That’s
what I want. Cameron Enterprises is moving to New York.”

New York was in the middle of a building boom, and it was peopled by real estate giants—the Zeckendorfs, Harry Helmsley, Donald Trump, the Urises, and the Rudins.

“We’re going to join the club,” Lara told Keller.

They checked into the Regency and began to explore the city. Lara could not get over the size and dynamics of the bustling metropolis. It was a canyon of skyscrapers, with rivers of cars running through it.

“It makes Chicago look like Glace Bay!” Lara said. She could not wait to get started.

“The first thing we’re going to do is assemble a team. We’ll find the best real estate lawyer in New York. Then a great management team. Find out who Rudin uses. See if you can lure them away.”

“Right.”

Lara said, “Here’s a list of buildings I like the looks of. Find out who the architects are. I want to meet with them.”

Keller was beginning to feel Lara’s excitement. “I’ll open up a line of credit with the banks. With the assets we have in Chicago, that won’t be any problem. I’ll make contacts with some savings and loan companies and some real estate brokers.”

“Fine.”

“Lara, before we start to get involved in all this, don’t you think you should decide what your next project is going to be?”

Lara looked up and asked innocently, “Didn’t I tell you? We’re going to buy Manhattan Central Hospital.”

Several days earlier Lara had gone to a hairdresser on Madison Avenue. While she was having her hair done, she had overheard a conversation in the next booth.

“We’re going to miss you, Mrs. Walker.”

“Same here, Darlene. How long have I been coming here?”

“Almost fifteen years.”

“Time certainly flies, doesn’t it? I’m going to miss New York.”

“When will you be leaving?”

“Right away. We just got the closing notice this morning. Imagine—a hospital like Manhattan Central closing down because they’ve run out of cash. I’ve been supervisor there for almost twenty years, and they send me a memo telling me I’m through! You’d think they’d have the decency to do it in person, wouldn’t you? What’s the world coming to?”

Lara was now listening intently.

“I haven’t seen anything about the closing in the papers.”

“No. They’re keeping it quiet. They want to break the news to the employees first.”

Her beautician was in the middle of blow-drying Lara’s hair. Lara started to get up.

“I’m not through yet, Miss Cameron.”

“Never mind,” Lara said, “I’m in a hurry.”

Manhattan Central Hospital was a dilapidated, ugly-looking building located on the East Side, and it took up an entire block. Lara stared at it for a long time, and what she was seeing in her mind was a majestic new skyscraper with chic retail stores on the ground floor and luxury condominiums on the upper floors.

Lara walked into the hospital and asked the name of the corporation that owned it. She was sent to the offices of a Roger Burnham on Wall Street.

“What can I do for you, Miss Cameron?”

“I hear that Manhattan Central Hospital is for sale.”

He looked at her in surprise. “Where did you hear that?”

“Is it true?”

He hedged. “It might be.”

“I might be interested in buying it,” Lara said. “What’s your price?”

“Look, lady…I don’t know you from Adam. You can’t walk in off the street and expect me to discuss a ninety-million-dollar deal with you. I…”

“Ninety million?” Lara had a feeling it was high, but she wanted that site. It would be an exciting beginning. “Is that what we’re talking about?”

“We’re not talking about anything.”

Lara handed Roger Burnham a hundred-dollar bill.

“What’s this for?”

“That’s for a forty-eight-hour option. All I’m asking is forty-eight hours. You weren’t ready to announce that it was for sale anyway. What can you lose? If I meet your asking price, you’ve got what you wanted.”

“I don’t know anything about you.”

“Call the Mercantile Bank in Chicago. Ask for Bob Vance. He’s the president.”

He stared at her for a long moment, shook his head, and muttered something with the word “crazies” in it.

He looked up the telephone number himself. Lara sat there while his secretary got Bob Vance for him.

“Mr. Vance? This is Roger Burnham in New York. I have a Miss…” He looked up at her.

“Lara Cameron.”

“Lara Cameron here. She’s interested in buying a property of ours here, and she says that you know her.”

He sat there listening.

“She is…? I see…Really…? No, I wasn’t aware of that…Right…Right.” After a long time he said, “Thank you very much.”

He replaced the receiver and stared at Lara. “You seem to have made quite an impression in Chicago.”

“I intend to make quite an impression in New York.”

Burnham looked at the hundred-dollar bill. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Buy yourself some Cuban cigars. Do I have the option if I meet your price?”

He sat there, studying her. “It’s a little unorthodox…but yes. I’ll give you forty-eight hours.”

“We have to move fast on this,” Lara had told Keller. “We have forty-eight hours to line up our financing.”

“Do you have any figures on it?”

“Ball park. Ninety million for the property, and I estimate another two hundred million to demolish the hospital and put up the building.”

Keller was staring at her. “That’s two hundred and ninety million dollars.”

“You were always quick with figures,” Lara said.

He ignored it. “Lara, where’s that kind of money coming from?”

“We’ll borrow it,” Lara said. “Between my collateral in Chicago and the new property, it shouldn’t be any problem.”

“It’s a big risk. A hundred things could go wrong. You’ll be gambling everything you have on…”

“That’s what makes it exciting,” Lara said, “the gamble. And winning.”

Getting financing for a building in New York was even simpler than in Chicago. Mayor Koch had instituted a tax program called the 421-A, and under it a developer replacing a functionally obsolete building could claim tax exemptions, with the first two years tax-free.

When the banks and savings and loan companies checked on Lara Cameron’s credit, they were more than eager to do business with her.

Before forty-eight hours had passed, Lara walked into Burnham’s office and handed him a check for three million dollars.

“This is a down payment on the deal,” Lara said. “I’m meeting your asking price. By the way, you can keep the hundred dollars.”

During the next six months Keller worked with banks on financing, and Lara worked with architects on planning.

Everything was proceeding smoothly. The architects and builders and marketing people were on schedule. Work was to begin on the demolition of the hospital and the construction of the new building in April.

Lara was restless. At six o’clock every morning she was at the construction site watching the new building going up. She felt frustrated because at this stage the building belonged to the workmen. There was nothing for her to do. She was used to more action. She liked to have a half a dozen projects going at once.

"Why don’t we look around for another deal?” Lara asked Keller.

“Because you’re up to your ears in this one. If you even breathe hard, this whole thing is going to collapse. Do you know you’ve leveraged every penny you have to put this building up? If anything goes wrong…”

“Nothing is going to go wrong.” She was watching his expression. “What’s bothering you?”

“The deal you made with the savings and loan company…”

“What about it? We got our financing, didn’t we?”

“I don’t like the completion date clause. If the building’s
not finished by March fifteenth, they’ll take it over, and you stand to lose everything you have.”

Lara thought of the building she had put up in Glace Bay and how her friends had pitched in and finished it for her. But this was different.

“Don’t worry,” she told Keller. “The building will be finished. Are you sure we can’t look around for another project?”

Lara was talking to the marketing people.

“The downstairs retail stores are already signed up,” the marketing manager told Lara. “And more than half the condominiums have been taken. We estimate we’ll have sold three fourths of them before the building is finished, and the rest of them shortly after.”

“I want them
all
sold before the building is completed,” Lara said. “Step up the advertising.”

“Very well.”

Keller came into the office. “I have to hand it to you, Lara. You were right. The building’s on schedule.”

“This is going to be a money machine.”

On January 15, sixty days before the date of completion, the huge girders and walls were finished, and the workers were already installing the electrical wiring and plumbing lines.

Lara stood there watching the men working on the girders high above. One of the workmen stopped to pull out a pack of cigarettes, and as he did so, a wrench slipped from his hand and fell to the ground far below. Lara watched in disbelief as the wrench came hurtling down toward her. She leaped out of the way, her heart pounding. The workman was looking down. He waved a “sorry.”

Grim-faced, Lara got into the construction elevator and took it to the level where the workman was. Ignoring the
dizzying empty space below, she walked across the scaffolding to the man.

“Did you drop that wrench?”

“Yeah, sorry.”

She slapped him hard across the face. “You’re fired. Now get off my building.”

“Hey,” he said, “it was an accident. I…”

“Get out of here.”

The man glared at her for a moment, then walked away and took the elevator down.

Lara took a deep breath to control herself. The other workers were watching her.

“Get back to work,” she ordered.

Lara was having lunch with Sam Gosden, the New York attorney who handled her contracts for her.

“I hear everything’s going very well,” Gosden said.

Lara smiled. “Better than very well. We’re only a few weeks away from completion.”

“Can I make an admission?”

“Yes, but be careful not to incriminate yourself.”

He laughed. “I was betting that you couldn’t do it.”

“Really? Why?”

“Real estate development on the level where you’re operating is a man’s game. The only women who should be in real estate are the little old blue-haired ladies who sell coops.”

“So you were betting against me,” Lara said.

Sam Gosden smiled. “Yeah.”

Lara leaned forward. “Sam…”

“Yes?”

“No one on my team bets against me. You’re fired.”

He sat there openmouthed as Lara got up and walked out of the restaurant.

On the following Monday morning, as Lara drove toward the building site, she sensed that something was wrong. And suddenly she realized what it was. It was the silence. There were no sounds of hammers or drills. When Lara arrived at the construction site, she stared in disbelief. The workmen were collecting their equipment and leaving. The foreman was packing up his things. Lara hurried up to him.

“What’s going on?” Lara demanded. “It’s only seven o’clock.”

“I’m pulling the men.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s been a complaint, Miss Cameron.”

“What kind of complaint?”

“Did you slap one of the workmen?”

“What?” She had forgotten. “Yes. He deserved it. I fired him.”

“Did the city give you a license to go around slapping the people who work for you?”

“Wait a minute,” Lara said. “It wasn’t like that. He dropped a wrench. It almost killed me. I suppose I lost my temper. I’m sorry, but I don’t want him back here.”

“He won’t be coming back here,” the foreman said. “None of us will.”

Lara stared at him. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“My union doesn’t think it’s a joke,” the foreman told her. “They gave us orders to walk. We’re walking.”

“You have a contract.”

“You broke it,” the foreman told her. “If you have any complaints, take it up with the union.”

He started to walk away.

“Wait a minute. I said I’m sorry. I’ll tell you what. I…I’m willing to apologize to the man, and he can have his job back.”

“Miss Cameron, I don’t think you get the picture. He doesn’t want his job back. We’ve all got other jobs waiting for us. This is a busy city. And I’ll tell you something else, lady. We’re too goddamn busy to let our bosses slap us around.”

Lara stood there watching him walk away. It was her worst nightmare.

Lara hurried back to the office to tell the news to Keller.

Before she could speak, he said, “I heard. I’ve been on the phone talking to the union.”

“What did they say?” Lara asked eagerly.

“They’re going to hold a hearing next month.”

Lara’s face filled with dismay. “Next month! We’ve got less than two months to finish the building.”

“I told them that.”

“And what did they say?”

“That it’s not their problem.”

Lara sank onto the couch. “Oh, my God. What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe we could persuade the bank to…” She saw the look on his face. “I guess not.” Lara suddenly brightened. “I know. We’ll hire another construction crew and…”

“Lara, there isn’t a union worker who will touch that building.”