nerves, because now there could be no more excuses. He hadn’t tried to court a woman properly in years, and the idea terrified him, more than a little bit.
Twenty-Four
“Really?” Ghost’s eyes lit up with immediate interest when Carter explained the Cooks’ situation to him the next morning. “I had no idea.” He took a meditative sip of his coffee and nodded, gaze shifting toward his VP.
Walsh was sitting on top of a table, legs dangling off the edge, cigarette dangling off his lip as he dug for his lighter in his cut pocket. “I don’t know,” he said, cig bobbing. He paused to light it, and then exhaled a plume of smoke, the notch between his brows the only outward sign of his doubt. “Things are very comfortable right now – we’ve got enough legit money to get us through until the Main Street shops are up and running and pulling in income. We could stretch it.” He didn’t sound like he thought that was the best idea, though. “You could buy it personally,” he told Ghost.
Ghost shook his head. “I don’t wanna take out another personal loan right now.”
Carter sipped his own coffee and tried to keep his frustration from mounting. He’d never had a look at the club’s financials, and expected he never would. The numbers were for Walsh and Ghost to know, and they were all given details on an as-needed basis. The club never bought anything as a club without the hearty consent of its members. But moments like these left Carter feeling like a kid asking his parents for an allowance.
Ghost made a face. “Marshall and Marie are good people. Club fans,” he added, to which Walsh nodded. “Owning that place would put that whole block in club hands.”
Belatedly, a dark thought occurred. “You would just charge them rent, right?” Carter asked. “They wouldn’t have to do anything else, would they?” That would be Marshall Cook’s decision to accept or refuse, but the club had a way of backing people into corners.
Ghost’s gaze shifted to him, and narrowed, like he could read his thoughts. “What kinda businessman do you think I am?”
Carter thought it best not to answer.
“But if that old shit Pearson is being difficult,” Ghost said, looking back toward Walsh, “I say we soften him up before we make an offer. If we make an offer.”
Carter withheld a groan: intimidating landlords wasn’t exactly the sort of headline you wanted circulating on the business pages.
But Ghost grinned and said, “Maybe we don’t buy it outright. I think I’ve got a better idea.”
~*~
For years, the upstairs of Bell Bar had been nothing but storage, its dusty corners crammed with old, broken furniture, and decades’ worth of old receipts and files, some in cabinets, some in faded stacks tied together with string. In the process of cleaning it out, they’d found WWII newspaper clippings, and several antique mantels that had fetched a pretty penny at the auction house. Now, this many weeks into renovation, the space was totally cleared out, stripped down, and rewired. Ghost paced across the new plywood subfloor and surveyed the progress, already able to envision dark wall paneling, gleaming marble counters, and cozy tables lit with flickering tea lights.
The plan was to turn the second floor into a fancy little niche restaurant, full of Old World charm and soft music; the sort of place where the wait staff wore waistcoats and black ties.
Downstairs, he could hear the whine and rhythm of work being done, but was alone here for the moment, peering out of the new glass in the window that Reese and Tenny had leaped out of when they caught Jimmy Connors trying to vandalize the place. He frowned to himself: the sooner they found out what was going on there, the better.
Sunlight glinted off bright metal, and he watched a black Jag pull up to the curb. Bruce got out, and went around to let out his boss.
The crisp strike of leather-soled shoes on the stairs announced Ian’s arrival before he stepped through the doorway and into view. Despite the ever-warming weather, he wore a topcoat and a pair of leather gloves; didn’t want to risk touching anything dirty at a construction site, Ghost figured with an internal eye roll.
Bruce followed, silent and hulking as ever, and took up a post just inside the door, where he could monitor the stairs.
Ian strolled across the subfloor with practiced elegance, surveying the exposed pipes and wires, the stacks of materials over against