Page 45 of Swan Song

Eddie hasn’t mentioned the skinny-dipping or the party in general to Addison because, frankly, Eddie feels a bit ashamed that he was part of it. He remembers Rachel McMann taking videos of them on the dance floor; he should have insisted that Rachel delete them. Grace would no doubt tell Eddie he’s being paranoid; everyone they know was at the party, including Ed Kapenash, the chief of police! Grace views their invitation as a badge of honor. Eddie overheard Grace talking about the party with their daughter, Allegra, on Sunday afternoon. “We didn’t get home until five in the morning and I was missing a shoe! Yes, I’m serious!” Grace sounded delighted with herself.

Bull answers the door looking fresh and clean-shaven with a hearty “G’day!” He leads Eddie and Addison upstairs to the kitchen, which smells richly of coffee. On the counter is a colorful fruit salad and a platter of morning buns from Wicked Island Bakery.

“Help yourself to breakfast, gentlemen,” Bull says. “Would anyone like a coffee?”

“I’d love one,” Addison says. “Black, please.”

“Eddie?”

Eddie normally takes his coffee very light and very sweet—Grace teases him that it’s more dessert than coffee—but he senses this will telegraph fussiness. “Yes, please,” he says. “Black.” He loads up a white café plate with a generous scoop of the fruit salad—it includes ripe mangoes and huge, juicy blackberries—and a cinnamony, buttery morning bun.

“Please eat!” Bull says, though Bull takes nothing and Addison pats his midsection and says, “One morning bun would negate the PR I had this morning on the Peloton.”

“Ah! I did a ride with Cody this morning,” Bull says. “Leslee thinks I have a crush on him.”

“You do you, Boo,” Addison says, and they both laugh and Eddie holds his plate of food feeling like an idiot because he isn’t in on the Pelo-speak and why is he the only one eating? He’s failed some sort of test by showing his working-class background—when food is offered, Eddie eats. This is clearly one of those instances where the food is a prop. The buns and the elite fruit salad are here so Bull can check the box marked breakfast meeting, but neither he nor Addison actually eats because they both know better.

They head down to Bull’s study. Addison points to the shelf of Patrick O’Brian novels. “He’s a terrific author.”

Eddie, who hasn’t read a book for pleasure since his Encyclopedia Brown days, shoves the entire morning bun in his mouth.

“Ah, yeah?” Bull says. “Wouldn’t know. Those were here when we moved in.”

Bull sits behind his desk; Addison and Eddie take the leather chairs. In the car, they agreed that Addison should be the one to pitch.

“We can buy the three lots for nine million,” Addison says. “Then, through the relationships Eddie and I have with local design-and-build firms, we can create three unique and dazzling estates for about four million apiece, and when they’re finished we’ll list them at fifteen million apiece, for a profit of approximately twenty-four million.”

“Fifteen million seems low for a waterfront property,” Bull says. “After all, I paid twenty-two million for this place.”

Well, Bull, Eddie thinks, you overpaid. The house had been sitting on the market since November of 2019 for a reason. Rising harbor aside, the place just isn’t worth twenty-two mil. The bones are old, there has been no structural work done since the eighties, and it isn’t winterized; once temperatures start to drop, the house will have to be drained and put into hibernation mode until next spring. There’s no pool and no proper guesthouse, only the garage with the apartment above. The sellers were two adult children who’d inherited the house and wanted nothing to do with the island. They were content to wait until they got their price; they seemed confident someone would offer the full amount, though Eddie begged them to lower their asking price to twenty or, even better, nineteen. But they were right in the end. Eddie couldn’t believe it when Addison said he had a couple not only willing but eager to pay as long as they could close in thirty days and enjoy the house for the summer.

The wife loved the party room, Addison said. Had to have it.

Eddie says, “You bought the most fascinating property on the island.”

“Classier than One Ocean Avenue,” Addison chimes in. “Statelier than Seventy-Five Main Street.”

Neither of these things is true, but Eddie watches Bull nod in satisfied agreement.

“We’re calculating at fifteen million to be safe,” Eddie says. “We may list at twenty.”

“And you’re positive construction costs won’t run over?” Bull says.

“Our relationships with the contractors are rock solid,” Addison says. “That’s where we add value. We’ll get the fairest bids, and the projects will be done on time.”

Addison sounds confident but Eddie knows that every construction project on this island runs over in both money and time. The wrong custom tile is ordered for one of the seven bathrooms; the light fixtures have a six-month lead time; the automatic pool cover breaks; the only guy who does granite countertops on the island is notoriously impossible to get hold of. Eddie emits a soft cinnamon burp; his heartburn is flaring up. Now that he’s back in the real estate development game, he supposes he’ll start popping cherry Tums again.

“So you’d like me to front the twenty-one million?” Bull says. “Why wouldn’t you go to a bank?”

One reason, which Eddie is not eager to disclose, is that after what happened nine years ago, no bank will lend to him. And Addison confided he’s not okay with taking on twenty-one million in debt by himself. “It all comes down to timing,” Eddie says. “Banks take forever, and the paperwork for construction loans is byzantine. We’d like to move quickly on this. Close on the properties as soon as possible, break ground in early fall, finish by May first, and sell on May second, if not before.”

“Eddie and I have a long list of rental clients who will be bidding against one another to get their hands on these properties,” Addison says.

“Brilliant,” Bull says. “I love a gamble, and I’m not going to lie, fellas, I need a win. Gotta keep the wife happy. So I front the cash, you two work your magic, and we split the profit three ways.”

Addison clears his throat. “Is that what you envision? A third for each of us?”

“What else would we do?” Bull asks.

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