At that, the foreman nodded. “I hadn’t considered that,” he admitted. “It just seems to me that a man in your position could drive.”
“A man in my position could drive,” he agreed gently, “or even be driven, but this one chooses to walk.”
With that out of the way, the foreman got down to business. “We’ve got a couple problems.”
“Is there ever a time when we don’t have a couple problems?” Simon asked, with a groan.
“Well, when it comes to these old buildings, you know that they tend to spring leaks and to open up all kinds of grizzly problems.”
Simon frowned, turned, and looked at him. “What do you mean bygrizzly?”
“Well, this one is not too bad,” the foreman confirmed. “I’ve had a couple that were pretty rough but none of your jobs.”
“Well, let’s keep it that way.” Simon shook his head. “How long have you worked for me now?”
“Two years, I think, or close to that anyway.”
“Well, no shortage of work up ahead either,” he added.
“Did you ever get that building? Are you still after that one you’ve had your eye on for quite a while?”
“No, the realtor still wants too much for it.”
“You know the market has been going up steadily, right?”
“Sure, it has,” Simon noted. “But it needs to rebalance itself when what they’re asking for one is what I’d be willing to pay for two.”
“The trouble is, they’re all about location, location, location,” he quoted.
“Yeah, but somebody will still have the money to turn that location into a moneymaker,” he muttered. “And too often these are just crap.”
The foreman laughed. “You’ve made money,” he stated. “That’s what the realtor thinks. How many have you bought from her now?”
“Probably too many,” Simon admitted. “I might have to set up a new real estate deal with somebody else and make it look like there’s competition sniffing around.”
“Then she’ll just come back at you and tell you there’s even more interest.”
“Maybe,” he noted, “but that building is falling down, so we’d have to drop it and start fresh.”
“You’ve only done that about twice that I can recall,” the foreman noted, considering the clipboard in his hand. “But if you want to build a third one from the beginning, you need to pick that location pretty carefully.”
“I know. That’s why I was thinking about buying all four buildings, then at least, if we support and rebuild one of the middle ones, we might as well be fixing up the ones on the other side at the same time.”
“That’d be a big job.” The foreman pushed back his hard hat, as he studied Simon with interest.
“We’re talking a couple years anyway.”
“Even the best of jobs end up being a couple years.”
“I’m not sure that it isn’t bigger than I want to take on right now.” Simon reached up and gently massaged his temple.
“Still not sleeping well?”
“It seems like I haven’t slept well in six months,” he said, with a laugh.
“You could go to a doctor and get something.”
He immediately shook his head. “I’d rather do anything but that.”