Good Faith by Jane Smiley Read Free Book Online Page B

county was my own buffet. Wheeling and dealing would, I thought, get me any dish on the table, if I wanted it enough. Any dish on the table but Salt Key Farm.
    Gordon went on. “What he said to me was, he wanted to list it for five million and then after the relatives had seen it and maybe tried to buy it, he would sell it to me for our agreed-upon price, which is high enough as it is. They want to move to Florida. I’m telling you, Jake Thorpe didn’t look good and Dolores Thorpe looked worse. She came to size me up too, in that toney polite way that covers everything up.”
    “How much?”
    “Two and a half million.”
    Back in ’82, nobody I knew, including Gordon, had ever even heard of pricing a house at two and a half million. Now it was my turn to raise my eyebrows. This did not seem like Gordon’s sort of money.
    “So,” he continued, “I guess you’re the listing agent. You go out there and do the paperwork for the sale and put together the pictures, and we’ll put in on the market like the guy said and see what happens.”
    “I feel like I’m a little out of my depth, Gordon.”
    “Well, son, that means it’s time to swim!” He laughed, but I could see he was a little intimidated too, probably by the seller’s idiosyncratic motives as much as by the size of the deal. Phase Four of Glamorgan Close had a better feel to it—simple, straightforward housing for local citizens so that they could enjoy, or at least get on with, their lives. Nothing eccentric that could somehow backfire. Gordon put his hands in his pants pockets and cocked his head. “Here’s the question I ask myself. Why did he really call me? Why would he think I’m the only guy around who can afford it? My specialty is buy it cheap. I’ve never spent any time with the guy. Our social circles not only don’t intersect, they don’t even recognize each other.” He shook his head. “Now, there’s two sayings. Both of them are true. One is, ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.’ That’s what Betty says. The other is, ‘If it seems too good to be true, then it is.’ That’s what Felicity says. I mean, you can tell this shook me up a little, because I never ask their advice, do I? So, what the hell. He’s an old man and maybe he’s a little addled.”
    He handed me Jacob Thorpe’s card. I looked at it and put it in my pocket. Why not? I thought. I said, “When do they want to relinquish possession?”
    “October first.”
    “Six months?”
    “Well, they got a lot of stuff to move out of there.” He looked at me and grinned. “And he wants to be around for the scandal with the relatives.”
    “What if some unrelated buyer shows up and actually wants to pay five million for it?”
    “I looked up the tax assessment. It was assessed in ’sixty-five at seven hundred and fifteen thousand. It’s never been on the market. The market is going up now that interest rates are down a little. You put together a purchase agreement that’s good for six months. If anyone shows an interest, we’ll put up the money and close the deal. Here’s my opinion. The value of the place is completely in the eyes of the beholder. If some guy beholds it and wants to pay me five million dollars for a property that I can get for two and a half, I say take it!” He threw back his head and laughed at the absurdity of the idea.
    I said, “People sell property for all kinds of reasons. But what if you have to come up with the money? Have you talked to Bart?” Bart was a vice president at Portsmouth Savings and Loan, the biggest and best-financed S and L in our neighborhood. I’d had good luck with him over the years; I liked him and he liked me. If I had well-qualified buyers, I sent them to him, but he and Gordon, though they had a good business relationship, didn’t mix very well. Gordon thought Bart was too short and Bart thought Gordon was too “New York.”
    “Not yet. I thought you could do that, just a preliminary chat. I mean,