no titles or deeds existed. Chino Grande did not exist in any legal sense. Ed was staring fixedly at the pen resting at a slant on his desk.
“Are they still selling over there?” he asked Warren over the phone.
“Well, they’d better not be selling five-acre parcels.”
“I guess I’m wondering, what did you tell them?”
“We’ll get this fixed. They’ll have to get a subdivision approved, but that shouldn’t take long. Talley’s on it. He’s got the heat on Japan, not on us.”
“Where is Ross in all this?”
“Ross doesn’t want to hear a word about it.”
“Did he say it was a subdivision or not?”
“If Ross needs a subdivision approved, he’ll get a subdivision approved. Who do you think got us that letter from Goldwater?”
They hung up. They had close relations with the Real Estate Department. Chino Meadows had been approved in a single day, without anyone even viewing the property. At that point, no one but Ross had actually seen the land at Chino Grande. Ed thought of Talley in his double-knit shirt, of Ross in his white belt, and he told himself that none of this could be very serious. It didn’t seem serious until he went through the ledger and began paying the bills for that month.
In the large stack of checks prepared for his authorization each month, there would always be one made out for $200 to one of Warren’s corporations—Camelback Mortgage, WR Investments, Pacific West Realty—there were several. The checks were prepared by the office manager, Warren’s ex-mistress Donna Stevens, who entered the payments into the Consolidated ledger as broker’s fees. Donna Stevens had set up the ledger herself before Ed had even started at Consolidated, and she had inserted a separate card as a reminder each month to write the check. The recipient companies, rotated by her like specials on a menu, were all controlled by Warren, who had Donna, an officer in all these companies, cash the checks and then deliver the money to him in an envelope. In the business world in Phoenix, it was expected that you would get into a little trouble from time to time, that you would need a favor—that was how business worked, through favors. You would need to approach the men in charge of water rights in Prescott, for example, or the men at the Energy Department who installed gas lines, or the men at the Forest Service who could grant you an easement or a rezoning if you suddenly needed more land. You would buy them a case of Scotch, or take them for a round of golf. People who didn’t smile at this kind of arrangement had no sense of lightness, no sense of humor—they didn’t even quite understand that these things went on. Warren didn’t have to explain this to Ed. Ed could see right away that saying anything about the checks would only make him look hapless.
The $200 payment had started out as “money well spent,” in Warren’s words—bonuses for the salesmen, charitable donations, campaign contributions. But after a few months in the business—the monthly check always for the same amount—Ed knew enough to know that this particular $200 was in fact not casual but a regular payment to the real estate commissioner, J. Fred Talley, who got the same payment from every land company in Arizona. He made almost $10,000 a month in this way. It had seemed a little ugly to Ed, primitive, but it had also seemed like a formality, a gesture of obeisance, like getting your real estate license. He was playing the game basically straight, straighter than almost anyone else, and it was only now, with the first complaints about Chino Grande arriving from Japan, that he saw the monthly payments as something more serious. He saw that from any objective point of view they would simply look like bribes.
He put the checks in a rubber band and then he put his pen in its holder, his papers in a neat stack on the side of his desk. Then he picked up the duffel bag in which he kept his tennis clothes—if you left
“Are they still selling over there?” he asked Warren over the phone.
“Well, they’d better not be selling five-acre parcels.”
“I guess I’m wondering, what did you tell them?”
“We’ll get this fixed. They’ll have to get a subdivision approved, but that shouldn’t take long. Talley’s on it. He’s got the heat on Japan, not on us.”
“Where is Ross in all this?”
“Ross doesn’t want to hear a word about it.”
“Did he say it was a subdivision or not?”
“If Ross needs a subdivision approved, he’ll get a subdivision approved. Who do you think got us that letter from Goldwater?”
They hung up. They had close relations with the Real Estate Department. Chino Meadows had been approved in a single day, without anyone even viewing the property. At that point, no one but Ross had actually seen the land at Chino Grande. Ed thought of Talley in his double-knit shirt, of Ross in his white belt, and he told himself that none of this could be very serious. It didn’t seem serious until he went through the ledger and began paying the bills for that month.
In the large stack of checks prepared for his authorization each month, there would always be one made out for $200 to one of Warren’s corporations—Camelback Mortgage, WR Investments, Pacific West Realty—there were several. The checks were prepared by the office manager, Warren’s ex-mistress Donna Stevens, who entered the payments into the Consolidated ledger as broker’s fees. Donna Stevens had set up the ledger herself before Ed had even started at Consolidated, and she had inserted a separate card as a reminder each month to write the check. The recipient companies, rotated by her like specials on a menu, were all controlled by Warren, who had Donna, an officer in all these companies, cash the checks and then deliver the money to him in an envelope. In the business world in Phoenix, it was expected that you would get into a little trouble from time to time, that you would need a favor—that was how business worked, through favors. You would need to approach the men in charge of water rights in Prescott, for example, or the men at the Energy Department who installed gas lines, or the men at the Forest Service who could grant you an easement or a rezoning if you suddenly needed more land. You would buy them a case of Scotch, or take them for a round of golf. People who didn’t smile at this kind of arrangement had no sense of lightness, no sense of humor—they didn’t even quite understand that these things went on. Warren didn’t have to explain this to Ed. Ed could see right away that saying anything about the checks would only make him look hapless.
The $200 payment had started out as “money well spent,” in Warren’s words—bonuses for the salesmen, charitable donations, campaign contributions. But after a few months in the business—the monthly check always for the same amount—Ed knew enough to know that this particular $200 was in fact not casual but a regular payment to the real estate commissioner, J. Fred Talley, who got the same payment from every land company in Arizona. He made almost $10,000 a month in this way. It had seemed a little ugly to Ed, primitive, but it had also seemed like a formality, a gesture of obeisance, like getting your real estate license. He was playing the game basically straight, straighter than almost anyone else, and it was only now, with the first complaints about Chino Grande arriving from Japan, that he saw the monthly payments as something more serious. He saw that from any objective point of view they would simply look like bribes.
He put the checks in a rubber band and then he put his pen in its holder, his papers in a neat stack on the side of his desk. Then he picked up the duffel bag in which he kept his tennis clothes—if you left
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