“Alright, y’all,” Flo said, putting her shoes on before standing.“We still have dinner to get through.I doubt it will be all that busy, but you never know.”
“Pfft,” Hazel said.“We ain’t been busy on a Tuesday night since I don’t even know when.”
“Good thing,” Walter stood and stretched before picking up his coffee mug.“With Timmy out, it’ll make it easy on the kitchen.”
“I need to skedaddle,” Jamie said as he looked at his watch.“I gotta go meet with Glenn Brown.”
All the staff looked at each other, then got on with what they were doing.“Don’t let him keep you there all day, honey; he can be a talker,” Hazel said as she marched back to the counter.“I’ll polish up this flatware.”
“I got the sugar caddies,” Minnie said as she hurriedly started collecting them on a tray so she could fill them, not that there were many that needed filling.
“I’ll be back.”Jamie closed the front glass door.Why was it that everyone got so quiet when I said I needed to meet Mr.Brown?
* * * * *
“Come in, Jamie.”GlennBrown shook Jamie’s hand.“It’s okay if I just call you Jamie, isn’t it?”
“Yes, of course, Mr.Brown.”
“If I’m calling you Jamie, you can call me Glenn.”He smiled as he motioned Jamie to have a seat at a small round table in his office.
“You said that there were several things that we needed to go over,” Jamie said.
“Well...yes.”Glenn pushed his glasses further up his nose.Jamie had since figured out he did that when he was nervous.“There are quite a few things, Jamie.Things that I doubt you have any knowledge of.”
“Why do I get the impression this is going to be bad news?”Jamie shook his head, wondering if he’d opened his mouth too early for the staff.Will I have to close the diner down?That was his first thought.
“It’s quite the opposite.”Glenn pulled out the blue bound bundle of pages and a manila file folder that was quite fat.“To start off with, you are the sole owner of the diner and all the property that goes with it.”
“Okay, but that’s just the diner and the small two car garage in the back, right?”
“Um...no.”Glenn pushed his glasses back.“In fact, that property is three city blocks long, and a bit.All on the access road to the highway.On that property stands the diesel truck garage, the truck wash, the A & J paint and body works, the used tire store, and the Goodies store.In fact, it runs along Victory Drive access, from the tire store, the diner, and all the way back past the body works shop.All in all, that’s about ten acres.Some of it developed but most of it not.”
Jamie sat back in his chair, mouth open.“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Be rest assured, I am not.”Glenn sat back.He had propped his elbows on the arm of the chair, his two forefingers creating an arch.“The truck garage has a ninety-nine-year lease as well as the truck wash.The body shop also has the same lease.Only the used tire store has a ten-year lease.Solan was afraid that it would be condemned for a new road by the city, and he was almost right.The city planners moved it up another five miles.”
“I don’t even know what to say.”Jame leaned forward, resting his arms on the table.“How did they acquire so much land?”
Glenn smiled.“When your grandparents took over the diner, then bought the diner outright, Mr.Hathaway, who really had no real inclination of the future, as both your grandparents did way back then.So, they made him a deal to buy it all lock, stock, and barrel and then sat on it.”
“But...what about the garage and everything else?”Jamie was so confused.
Glenn laughed.“That grandfather of yours would have made Wall Street tremble in their thousand-dollar shoes!He brokered each and every one of them a deal that if they built their own buildings, he’d give them that long lease and a percentage off the rent for the first ten years.If they went under, he got to keep the building and re-lease it.”
Jamie had to smile.“That sounds exactly like what Papaw would do.”Jamie laughed.“Don’t tell me: they never spent a dime of that money, did they?”
“As far as I know, no.”Glenn smiled at Jamie.“You will have to take that up with Adrian Jackson down at Planters Credit Union.I do have a fairly good idea where some of it is.”Glenn handed him a manila folder full of papers that had been stuck in the file folder.“Just present these documents when you go over to Planters.”
Jamie looked at the pile of papers, then asked, “Where’s the money then?”Jamie couldn’t wait to hear this next part.
“There’s a financial planner up in Atlanta.”Glenn leaned forward a bit.“Every heard of Payton Manley?”
“Of course I have.”Jamie thought for a moment.“He comes into the restaurant I work for in Atlanta.It’s nothing for him to drop five hundred or more on a dinner.”Jamie tilted his head.“He played pro-ball in the NFL till he got injured.Played for Alabama before that.He’s the financial planner?”
“He is indeed, and a bit of a wizard at it from what I hear.”Glenn leaned back in his chair.“He won’t take on any new clients until they have at least five million to invest these days.”He let out a chuckle.“I have a feeling that Mr.Solan raked him over the coals pretty good before he’d let him have a dime too.”
“Oh, holy shit!”
