Free FrostLine by Justin Scott Page A

client.
    When I’m good, I’m good, and it worked. They were suddenly so happy that they were terrified someone else would buy the land out from under them before the weekend, and actually sped up from New York after work that night to give me a binder. I drove immediately up Morris Mountain, despite the late hour, to press the check personally into Butler’s calloused palm.
    Dicky wasn’t there. Mr. Butler stood in the doorway, with the TV blaring behind him.
    â€œCongratulations. I got a binder on that property we discussed.”
    â€œChanged my mind. I’m not selling.”
    â€œBut you said you need money.”
    â€œLet’s see how we do with the false arrest suit.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œWarned you, Ben. I don’t sell land.”
    â€œMr. Butler, I gave my word to customers.”
    â€œHow do you know they aren’t fronting for King?”
    â€œI beg pardon.”
    â€œMaybe King’s paying them to steal my land.”
    â€œIn two acre chunks?” I retorted angrily. “At building lot prices? It’ll take him ten years and when he’s done you’ll be the richest man in Newbury.”
    Mr. Butler shot back a reminder that while maybe nuts, he wasn’t stupid: “At forty thousand an acre it would cost him less than five million bucks. He’s got five million bucks, Ben. He’ll just keep chopping away until I’m gone.”
    â€œMr. Butler, I swear, these are ordinary people, a couple of lawyers who want to build a weekend house.”
    â€œ Lawyers ? Lawyers working for Henry King.” He slammed the door in my face, and turned up the TV.

Chapter 6
    Spring came and lingered, warm and remarkably dry—a sensual spring that early on obliterated all memory of winter. It should have been a wonderful spring to fall in love, and had I had my wits about me I’d have abandoned the past to do so.
    Summer got better, though not at first.
    Despite our best efforts to warn the voters that Steve LaFrance stood for the supreme rights of the greedy, Vicky trailed in the first selectman primary. She had everything going for her, a solid record of hard work, rock-ribbed honesty, and her cheery good looks. But Steve enjoyed the free backing of the radio and TV talkers who had learned that the appearance of a sense of humor could convince a worried electorate that cutting education, withholding food and shelter from helpless children, and bulldozing environmental protections wasn’t really short-sighted, mean-spirited and corrupt.
    Then one day Vicky asked me to drive her to Hartford, the state capital, where she had lunch with a fellow of high estate in Connecticut’s Department of Transportation. Lord knows exactly what transpired in Le Bistro: suffice it to say wine had flowed and she slept with her head on my lap all the way home.
    Soon after, yellow machines repaved Main Street and the shoulders of Route 7 for miles in both directions with asphalt as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Caravans of minivans set out for the Danbury Mall and within four days every man, woman and child in town owned Rollerblades.
    Wrist sprains and road rash abounded, and old Doctor Greenan was considering returning to Yale to brush up on fractures. But the voters were happy and Vicky, who conducted the rest of her campaign on tiny wheels, locked Steve LaFrance back in his Liquor Locker, where he could listen to talk-media to his heart’s content. As Aunt Connie put it, “Thank God for our school children, not to mention Victoria’s ambition to get elected Governor of Connecticut.”
    More good news was a very satisfying, hard-earned commission for selling the Yankee Drover Inn: hard earned, because the seller was a jerk and the buyers were pleasant, but still shrewd: satisfying, because they would run a friendly joint a short crawl from my front door. The sale more than made up for my (perverse?) refusal to list ugly