Tax Cut (17 page)

“Oh, um, nothing,” I said.
“I think I had too much to drink,” I lied. The truth was that I was disappointed. I was ready to be a sex kitten. Ready to take the initiative to get that kiss. More than ready. Borderline desperate was more like it. I wasn’t sure if I was doing something wrong or if he had lost interest.

“You only had two
beers,” Kris pointed out.

“I’m a lightweight,” I said.
“It’s just a small headache. I’ll be fine.”

“Do you want me to stop and pick up some
ibuprofen for you?” Kris asked.

I wondered why he had to be so considerate.
It made me like him even more. He was concerned enough about me that he offered to get me some medicine.

“No thanks
. I have some at home,” I said.

We arrived at my house, and again, he walked me to the door.
Kris looked down at this watch and noted it was later than he thought. He took off with a quick goodbye. The small amount of hope that had built up as he walked me to the door quickly drained from my body and I watched him drive away. No kiss. Not even a hug this time. I wondered what he was thinking. I wondered if I had scared him off.

Chapter 1
7

“How could you have done this?”
Marc asked.

“I didn’t do anything,
Marc.”

“You’ve single-handedly destroyed the entire
village.”

“I had nothing to do with the fire, and it hardly destroyed the
village.”

A tear fell from
Marc’s eye. “This isn’t what I bargained for. I want out.”

“You already know the consequence of that.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I guess the boss wasn’t pleased with the fact that the condemnation of the beach club was going to take so long.
”

“That doesn’t make any sense.
We could have gotten the ordinance done in a month from now.”

“Yeah, well, there was the ordinance, and then there wa
s the possibility of ending up in court for an unknown amount of time. The boss don’t like to wait.”

“You think you’re not going to have to wait?
Gino, be reasonable. The owners of all those homes are going to wait for insurance money. That can take months. They may want to rebuild. You can’t keep burning down their houses!”

“Again, I didn’t burn down anything.
The order didn’t come from me and I didn’t light the match. All that insurance paperwork, all that waiting. Those people will be happy to take a nice, reasonable offer from Righetti Brothers. Then they don’t have to worry about dealing with the catastrophe. They can take our money, go buy themselves another lovely property that’s already built. Then we’ll deal with the insurance company. It’s a win-win.”

Marc
’s face was hardened with rage. “This isn’t a win-win! This is devastating! How is the village going to manage? We can’t collect tax revenue like this. How are we going to pay for all that infrastructure?”

“Don’t worry,
Marc, old boy. We’ll be taking care of it all.”

“That’s it
. I’m done. I want out. I’ll resign from the board.”

“Oh,
Marc. I wouldn’t make any drastic decisions if I were you. What did you say your daughter’s name was? Oh, yeah, Karen. All tucked away nice and cozy at NYU. You want me to make a call and see what she’s doing right now?”

“Please, no, please don’t.”

“We told you before, Marc…you do what we say and we won’t harm a beautiful red hair on that girl’s head. We’re paying you on top of all that; you should be happy.”

“I told you before, I don’t want the money. I just want my family to be left alone.”

“Do what we say and you’re family will be just fine, Marc. Just fine.” Gino slapped Marc’s cheeks between his hands and left the room. Marc collapsed into a chair, clearly distraught, and wept uncontrollably.

* * *

The week consisted of staff meeting after staff meeting. Efforts were being put forth to handle the endless debris the fire had left behind. The emergency divisions of the village were taxed to their limits, having had to respond to flare-ups all week long. Marc came to a number of staff meetings. He was terribly disturbed about the fire. The mean, heartless man that I had come to know had turned into a blubbering bundle of nerves.

During one of the meetings, Bryce voiced his concern about being able to collect the taxes
on the properties that had become uninhabitable due to the fire. The fire forced people out of their businesses and homes. The business owners no longer had an income. While they awaited insurance payouts, they would be attempting to make ends meet. Some residents forced out of their homes had to pay rental expenses as well as their mortgages. Tough times called for tough measures. Paying taxes on an uninhabitable properties would be the least of people’s concerns. He explained there would soon be a trickle effect. The village could be in serious financial trouble if people didn’t or couldn’t pay their taxes. There would be a revenue shortage. The village didn’t have enough in the reserve for uncollected taxes nor in surplus to account for the lost tax revenue on the beachfront properties.

Marc
scratched his head and looked like he was about to cry. He said the last thing he wanted to do was layoffs to make up for a tax deficit. He asked the employees to offer their suggestions. Dingo suggested that they get a developer involved. There were laws about something called “redevelopment” in New Jersey. If an area was considered “blighted,” the area could be declared as “an area in need of redevelopment.” He explained there would be opportunities to get the fire-stricken areas back on their feet through this process. While I didn’t understand the whole concept, having no experience with redevelopment, it seemed like a plausible idea.

Apparently, there were incentives.
The village could do a “PILOT” or payment in lieu of taxes. It was like a tax abatement. The incentive for a developer to clean up and rebuild the area would be a significant decrease in taxes. The incentive for the village would be that the village would be getting some revenue instead of not being able to collect taxes at all on a property that might sit vacant for a very long time. The current owners could be their own developers.

I decided Dingo
might have been smarter than I had given him credit for. He was still piggish, but he must have been the pig that built his house with bricks instead of straw.

Marc liked Dingo’s idea too. He told me to change the upcoming board meeting agenda
. The Bond and Condemnation ordinances were taken off and appointments for attorneys and consultants who were experts in redevelopment were scheduled for approval. I hustled out of the meeting and back to my office to take care of changes to the upcoming agenda. Bonnie greeted me as I walked in the door.

“What are you doing this weekend?” Bonnie asked me.

“Nothing at all. Why?”

Dingo
had gone back to his office after the staff meeting as well and overheard us talking. “Well, if you ladies have nothing to do this weekend, you are more than welcome to come on my boat,” he said as he approached us.

“It’s a little cold for boating, isn’t it?” I asked Dingo.

“Nah, it’s not too cold,” he said as his eyes wandered down to Bonnie’s chest. “The weather’s been nice. Come in your little bikinis, and I’ll take care of the food and the drinks.”

Bonnie reached over, grabbed Dingo’s chin and lifted it up. “My eyes are up here, Dingo,” she said.

I thought I would die laughing, but I choked it back. It was a good thing that Bonnie was easygoing and wasn’t offended. She would have had herself a nice sexual harassment suit. I guessed she knew that, and that was why she didn’t care how she spoke to Dingo. He was her boss, but I presumed he couldn’t say anything to her about the chin lifting, knowing darn well where his eyes were situated.

Bonnie continued, “Now
, Dingo, it’s much too cold to wear a bathing suit, and I don’t think my husband Jayce would like that too much.”

“There’s a cabin on the boat
; you could stay inside. Bring your husband along. The more the merrier.”

We waited for Dingo to leave, then Bonnie rolled her eyes.

“He probably wants me to bring Jayce so he can do some swinging.”

I made a face. “I’m repulsed,” I said.

“Anyway, forget about Dingo the Dog. I have front row tickets to a Devil’s game. Jayce got them from work. The hospital has season passes and they give them out to the doctors. Any interest in going? You can bring Kris along.”

“I’m not so sure he’ll go.”

“And why not?”

“Well, I tried to be a kitten as you suggested, but it backfired.
Not only did he not kiss me, he left my house on Monday night without so much as a handshake.”

“Call him and ask him anyway.”

“I will certainly call him and ask, but I’m in even if he doesn’t want to go. I love hockey.”

“It’s a date then.
I’ll pick you up on Saturday. The game starts at seven. Let’s plan on five, so that we can beat traffic and have time to eat at the Acela Club when we get there. I have a parking pass too.”

“Ok
ay, I’ll let you know about Kris.”

I went right back to my desk and picked up the phone to dial Kris.
He answered his cell on the first ring.

“Hi
, beautiful,” he said.

I blushed.
I asked him to go to the game with me and he accepted the invite without hesitation. I had that outcome pegged wrong. He, too, was a hockey fan. I hadn’t known we had that in common. I smiled excitedly and I hoped so badly that Saturday night would be my night to move things along with him.

* * *

Kris arrived at my house a little before five o’clock, and we waited for Bonnie to pick us up. We heard a knock at the door, and I opened it to find a short man wearing a suit and chauffeur’s cap. I looked at Kris, confused, then I looked back at the man.

“Miss Chelsey?” t
he man said in an accent I didn’t recognize.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Your limo awaits.”

“Limo?”

Again, I looked at Kris, confused. He shrugged. I leaned forward to get a view of my driveway and, sure enough, there was a black, super-stretch limousine waiting for us. I locked up the house and we headed over the limo. When the driver opened the door, I saw Bonnie inside with a glass of champagne in her hand. She was dressed to the nines and while we were in jeans and team attire.

I looked at Kris and said, “I think we are underdressed.”

“I guess so,” he said, looking past me at Bonnie.

“Oh
, geez, get in the fricking car already,” Bonnie yelled. “The two of you act like you’ve never seen a limo before.”

“The two of us also act like we’ve never seen someone so dressed up to go to a hockey game before…because we haven’t!” I joked.

“I had to go to a fundraiser this afternoon and I didn’t have time to change,” Bonnie said.

“You don’t do anything low-key, do you, Bonnie?” I asked her. “This limo could probably fit sixteen people.”

“You know me. I like my limos like I like my men…long and hard.”

“Oh
, lord,” I said as I rolled my eyes. Kris laughed.

“Where’s Jayce?” I asked.

“Oh, you know Jayce. He’s caught up in surgery. He’ll meet us there. He didn’t want me to drive, so he ordered this limo for us.”

“Nice!” Kris said.

We arrived at the Prudential Center with plenty of time to spare before the game. The limo driver dropped us off at the entrance to the arena. We handed our tickets to the person stationed at the door, bought a program, then took the elevators up to the Acela Club. Bonnie had made reservations for us.

I ordered the outrageously priced, twenty-two
-dollar hamburger. Kris had the same. Bonnie ordered the beef tenderloin entrée, which cost even more. Jayce texted Bonnie, saying he had left the hospital and was on his way. He’d probably get there in time for part of the first period.

As we sat eating our meals, I noticed that
Winifred entered the restaurant. I cringed. Paparazzo entered after her, then placed his arm around her as the host escorted them to their table.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” I said to Bonnie.

Bonnie glanced over her shoulder and saw John and
Winifred. “It looks like their relationship is out in the open now.”

Winifred
was wearing skin-tight hip-hugger jeans tucked into black boots that ended above her knee with a bustier-type top, partially covered with a black shrug sweater.

“The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas called
; they want their costume back,” Bonnie said with a smirk. She turned back and looked again as Winifred took her seat. Her jeans slid below her hips, revealing a hot-pink thong. Bonnie looked back at Kris and said, “So tell me, do old ladies bearing whale tails turn you on?” Kris didn’t know what to say. He shook his head as his cheeks flushed pink.

We briefly explained to Kris that the scantily clad sixty-something and her date were
our bosses. Five minutes later, Winifred and John were joined by Gino Righetti and another man that I hadn’t seen before.

“Interesting.
Check that out, Bonnie,” I said.

Bonnie turned again to see Gino and the unknown man. The unknown man was tall and large.
He had very dark skin and eyes. He had a large frame and a muscular build with a handsome, chiseled face. He was well over six feet tall.

“Do you know who that other man is?” I asked Bonnie. “He looks familiar. He reminds me of someone.”

Bonnie turned her head to get a better look. “If I’m not mistaken, he’s been in the municipal building, handing in a tax payment.”

“I guess he’s a resident of Coral B
each?”

Kris spoke up.
“I know him; he’s a customer of mine at Bratz.”

“Who is he?”
I asked.