She was looking very carefully at her program. Yeah. Malcolm said quietly. She is. Everything continued building like that slowly, solidly, one real thing at a time until the Thursday evening in October, 6 weeks after the game, when everything that had been building quietly came to a head with a speed that neither of them anticipated.
It started with a phone call. Not from Viven, from a man named Garrett Cole, who was a senior partner at Meridian Capital Group, one of the largest commercial real estate investment firms on the East Coast. Malcolm had dealt with Meridian before. They had approached him twice about larger contracts, and twice he'd politely declined because their projects involved displacing residents rather than serving them, and that wasn't the kind of work Carter Construction did. Cole called at 6:00 in the evening.
Jaden was at the kitchen table doing homework. Malcolm took the call in the back hallway. "Mr. Carter," Cole said pleasantly. "I'll get right to it." Meridian is moving forward on the harbor district development.
12 blocks, 1500 units, projected value of 800 million at completion. We want Carter Construction for the build management role. Malcolm was quiet for a moment. The Harbor District, he knew it. He'd driven through it 50 times.
He knew who lived there. What happens to the current residents? He asked. Relocation assistance packages standard protocol. How many families?
A brief pause. Approximately 300 units currently occupied. Relocation would be phased over 18 months. 300 families. Malcolm did that math fast and didn't like any of the numbers.
What's the compensation offer for Carter Construction? He asked. Because he needed to know the full picture before he said anything. Cole named a number. Malcolm's hand tightened on the phone.
It was a number that would change the trajectory of his company permanently. It was a number that would mean Jaden's college was never a question. That the business was never vulnerable to a bad quarter. That everything Malcolm had been building with his hands and his nerve for 15 years suddenly had a ceiling so high he'd never have to worry about the floor again. He said, "I'll call you back by end of week."
He hung up, stood in the hallway, looked at the wall, then he called Viven. She picked up on the second ring. "Malcolm, are you in the office?" "Just leaving. What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong. I need to think something through out loud. And you're the person I want to think it through with." A pause, then quietly, "I'll come to you." She was at his door 45 minutes later, he let her in.