From his splendid office on the fiftieth floor, Wilson had a view like few others. Looking east, the azure blue Atlantic stretched to eternity beyond the beaches; to the north, to Boca and Fort Lauderdale and even further, the shoreline was packed with clusters of beautiful high-rises, some owned by Tidal Breeze, but not nearly enough.
The view was always there, though Wilson had little time for it. He lived and played hard, and when he wasn’t playing he was working many hours a day with each hour jam-packed with meetings and ideas and schemes to build and develop even more. In his plush, private conference room next to his office he sat at the end of a table covered with papers, plats, and drawings. To his right was Donnie Armano, the VP in charge of Panther Cay. To his left was Pete Riddle, a lawyer from the firm that Dud built, Nash & Cortez.
J. Dudley Nash was just as ambitious as Wilson and wanted to build the biggest law firm in Florida. They golfed and fished together and had once tried to buy the Miami Dolphins, but Wilson’s debt-heavy balance sheet had, oddly, frightened the other NFL owners. As the law firm grew and added offices, Dud’s hourly rate also increased impressively. Wilson chirped when it hit $1,000 but Dud said he was worth that and more. Wilson continued to chirp, and two years later when Dud whispered that he was the first lawyer in town to bill at $2,000 an hour, Wilson said, “Okay, you win. Send me a junior partner.”
Pete Riddle was Dud’s replacement. He was saying, “We’re in discovery and not much is happening right now. The judge is expected to give us a schedule any day now.”
“What about settlement?” Wilson asked. “Surely we can buy off this old woman. Hell, she’s never had a dime.”
“Her lawyer says no.”
“And he’s one of those environmental pricks?”
“Right. He knows the quickest way to protect the island is to win the title dispute. And he says his client will not settle under any circumstances.”
“There’s always a way to settle. Offer half a million.”
“Okay, if that’s what you want.”
“And we’re still on solid ground with the case, the title dispute?”
“Nothing has changed, nothing can change. The plaintiff herself, Miss Jackson, wrote in her own book that she left the island in 1955 and she was the last person there. Everyone else was dead. We’ve searched high and low and found no official record that anyone has lived there since 1955.”
“And her book is admissible in court?”
“That’s up to the judge, but there’s no way to exclude it. And, Miss Jackson has to testify because there’s no one else to support her claim of ownership.”
“When’s the trial?”
“Who knows? My best guess is early spring.”
“And there’s no jury right, just a bench trial?”
“That’s correct.”
“Any clout with the judge?”
“Maybe.” Pete looked at Donnie Armano, who took the handoff and said, “We’re still digging around and might have found something. Judge Salazar has a son in Jacksonville, married with two kids, her only grandkids at the moment. Got a daughter in Pensacola. The son owns a little company that builds cheap government houses and apartments. He does okay but he ain’t getting rich by any means. We can approach him one of two ways, straight-up or behind the back. Straight-up we go through a shell company and get the kid some nicer houses in better parts of town, make sure he’s busy and getting paid. We’ll eventually dangle the carrot, let him know that he might strike gold in the boom on Panther Cay. Or, we can get him a big contract for subsidized apartments, riches galore, but first he has to bribe a federal inspector.”
Wilson wasn’t bothered by either plan. “Let’s start off by giving the boy some business and see how it goes, nothing out of line, nothing to arouse suspicions. God knows we have enough companies to hide behind.”
“Sixty at last count,” Pete said with a grin.
“And I can think of three in the Jacksonville area. Get him sucked in for now and let’s see how it goes. As usual, I’d like to keep the Feds out of it.”
“Please do,” Pete said.
“What about the rest of her family? The judge?”
“Single, divorced a long time ago. Sort of estranged from the daughter in Pensacola, all wrapped up in the two grandkids.”
“How about previous rulings in title cases?”
“We’ve found only one, a few years back. Nothing helpful. She’s been on the bench for six years so there’s not much of a record.”
“Okay,” Wilson said, sticking his pen in a pocket, his way of saying enough of this. “We’ll review it again next week.”
October was Mercer’s favorite month on the island. The suffocating summer heat was gone, as were the tourists, though they seldom got in the way. The beach, ten miles long and rarely crowded, was even more deserted. She loved the long slow walks in the cool mornings. She missed Thomas, but not that much.
