“But this thing is gaining a little steam,” Jim says. “And not just with folks like Jelly and Bill.” From his other back pocket he pulls a letter-size piece of paper folded in thirds. He holds it out for Jay. “This has been making the rounds since before the election. Might have come out of Acton’s campaign, or more likely something Wolcott had her people send out.”
It’s a flyer, printed on a mimeograph machine, the kind that used to reside in every school and church office in the country, making loads of smudged copies. There is probably one collecting dust in a back room at the Pleasantville community center right now, and it occurs to Jay that the author of this flyer must have known that too, as this leaflet was clearly designed to appear as if it originated within the community, as if a group of concerned citizens were reaching out to their own. The words are in black and white, but fuzzy around the edges. There are exclamation points going all the way down the page, starting with the heading across the top.
WHO IS REALLY LOOKING OUT FOR THE CITIZEN
OF PLEASANTVILLE!
BEFORE YOU CAST YOUR VOTE!
DEMAND AN ANSWER FROM AXEL HATHORNE
ABOUT HIS SUPPORT FOR THE
BUFFALO BAYOU DEVELOPMENT PROJECT!
AND
WHAT IT MEANS FOR OUR FUTURE!
THIS COUDL BE THE MOST IMPORTANT VOTE IN
PLEASANTVILLE’S FUTRE!
“What’s the Buffalo Bayou Development Project?” Jay asks.
“It’s another stab at the River Walk thing, turning the banks of Buffalo Bayou into a city showcase, with restaurants and shops, boat rides up and down the bayou.” Jay cringes at the memory of his own boat ride on Buffalo Bayou fifteen years ago, the late-night leap to save a drowning woman, an act of chivalry that nearly got him killed. But he doesn’t know how a development deal miles up the bayou would affect the neighborhood of Pleasantville.
“Who knows?” Jim continues. “But folks are skittish. They told us the freeway would modernize things.” He’s speaking of 610, the Loop that circles the city’s center. “But that only boxed us in on all sides, all these plants and factories moving to the area, in our backyard. Who knows if ProFerma would have set up shop here without the highway being built? Development in this city is like a cancer, spread every which way, eating everything in its path. They start talking hotels, restaurants, tourist pulls, all up and down the bayou and out to the Ship Channel, and who’s to say they won’t tear right through the back side of Pleasantville? The bayou’s not even a mile from us.” He stares into his glass. “We should never have let those factories in, should have laid down in the streets against it, like we did with the freeway. We should have fought it.”
“And you asked Axel about it, the bayou thing?”
“Yes, we did, at the candidate forum last weekend.”
“And?”
“And,” Jim says, sighing, “I hate to say, but he sounded like the rest of them, like any other politician coming out to court our vote. The flyer’s got folks jumpy, worried, like maybe Axe isn’t telling everything, not until the runoff.”
“You really think that of him?”
“Not before this,” Jim says, tapping the flyer with his index finger. “We all want this lawsuit wrapped up before our property values go down any further, Jelly and them too. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Jay, why you’re vulnerable in this thing. There’s some out there want to settle and then sell and get out of Pleasantville for good. It ain’t me, but Jelly and them are putting real pressure on the rest of us to reach a resolution sooner rather than later. Apparently, this Aguilar thinks he can walk us for ten million right now.”
Jay does the math in his head, frowning to himself.
“What’s Bill Rodriguez going to do with thirteen thousand dollars ten, twenty years from now when his kid’s asthma turns into something worse?” For Jay, it’s always about the kids, the main ones who suffer from our choices long after we’re gone. Any deal that doesn’t look two generations ahead is useless. It might put a Cadillac in the driveway, but it won’t secure a future.
“More like sixteen thousand,” Jim says. He’s done his own math too.
“How’s that?”
“Aguilar says he’ll drop his commission to twenty percent.”
“Who is this guy?”
“Jelly knows him. They went to UT together.”
A 20 percent commission on a ten-million-dollar settlement, that’s a cool two million. And Ricardo Aguilar is making a grab for it. It’s against the rules of the Texas State Bar Association to proposition another lawyer’s clients, but Aguilar could always say it was Jelly who reached out first, which as far as Jay knows is exactly how it went down. “We’ve been wanting to get Axel alone on this issue,” Jim says. “Without Sam and the young fellow, Neal. But Axe is running for mayor of Houston, not Pleasantville, and he’s all over the place these days. And then this thing with the girl happened, and, well, it just got lost.”
Jay folds the flyer, tucking it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
“I appreciate you sharing this with me.”
“Like I said, I like you, Jay.” He picks up his drink, finishing it off. “But Jelly’s already circulating a petition, getting signatures on the issue of seeking new counsel. There’s only so much I can do to slow this down.”
He looks at Jay under the harsh white lights of the club.
It’s Jay, he suggests, who will have to save his own ass.
“My next scheduled sit-down with ProFerma’s lead counsel isn’t for another month,” Jay says. “I can move that up, go at them more aggressively.” Jim nods, liking the sound of that. “They’ve been dicking around with the numbers, excuse my language. But I have an evidentiary strategy in mind, some cards I was holding until we got closer on the numbers.” Jay is bluffing a little, just to make clear he isn’t sleeping on the job. What he doesn’t need right now is a rumor about a development deal making his clients skittish and apt to take less than they deserve. “You let the word get back that I’m on this thing, and that no one should be too fooled by flashy promises. A lot of times these guys say they’ll take a lower commission fee, and then jack it up to forty percent when there’s a trial.”