Different Circles

“Well,” said Nick, “the sale will be conducted in United States dollars to be deposited by Jake’s lender into a Colombian escrow account in Bogota. The official inspection of the aircraft will be performed by American inspectors. Señor Gomez, you will pay for the inspection itself, Jake, you will pay for the travel expenses, lodging, and transportation of the inspection team from the United States to Bogota. Assuming the inspection is satisfactory, we will enter a forty-five-day escrow, during which either party may withdraw from the deal without penalty. Señor Gomez will continue to pay for maintenance and storage of the asset until the close of escrow and will continue to pay for storage after closing until one of Jake’s agents takes possession of the aircraft, as long as that does not take longer than sixty days from closing.”

Eddie nodded thoughtfully as he heard this. “Sounds reasonable enough to me,” he said.

“Me too,” Jake agreed.

“Of course,” said Jill, “this is just the very basics of the agreement. There are some other details involved—things like funding transfer procedures, use of the aircraft during the escrow period, unanticipated delays caused by weather or political upheaval. Should we discuss those things now?”

“Uh ... no,” Eddie said. “Not unless Jake wants to.”

Everyone looked at Jake. He looked at Jill. “Jill, is there anything in this agreement you and Nick have come up with that should concern me?”

“Other than the fact that you are spending a huge amount of money on a depreciating asset, no,” she said.

“Well, all right then,” Jake said. “I guess I’m happy.”

“We have a deal then?” Eddie asked.

“Assuming I get a good report from Travis, and assuming that the vampiros and the loan sharks and the international trade people keep their noses reasonably out of it, yes. We have a deal.”

They shook hands on it. Eddie then turned to Nick. “Oh, and by the way, I’ll need you to take fifty thousand dollars off of the agreed upon price.”

Nick looked at him sharply. “Fifty thousand dollars, jefe? For what reason?”

Eddie shrugged. “Jake and I made a wager playing darts. He won.”

Nick’s eyes widened almost comically. “You lost fifty thousand dollars playing darts, jefe? Darts?!”

“It’s only money,” Eddie said. “And he won fair and square.”

“You gambled fifty thousand dollars on a game of darts?” Jill asked Jake angrily as soon as their limousine pulled away from the airport services office.

“I won,” Jake said defensively.

“That’s not the point!” she said. “You might have lost!”

“I didn’t think so at the time I made the bet,” he replied. “I did get a little nervous when we got to game five though. It turned out he was a much better thrower than I gave him credit for. But I pulled it out at the end. Sank the final shot right in the double ten for the win.” He smiled a little, miming the act of throwing a dart. And then something occurred to him. “Hey, that rhymes.”

“Jake!” Jill said, quite exasperated now.

“All right, all right,” Jake said. “I promise I will not gamble with Colombian drug lords anymore. Are you happy?”

“Not really,” she said.

“Good,” he said, then turned to Travis. “Now then. What did you discover in your examination?”

“The maintenance records are perfect,” the mechanic said. “Every scheduled maintenance has been done on time and in the correct manner using the correct parts. There is, of course, the possibility that the records were faked—I have heard that such fraud happens in second and third world countries from time to time—but I did randomly check several of the replacement parts that were logged and had Samuel read off the part numbers from the logs. They matched in every case, which suggests that the records are accurate.”

“So ... the plane looks good then?”

“It looks very good,” he said. “Lovingly cared for, in fact. Of course, the official inspection that will be required by the bank before approval of your loan will be much more thorough than my preliminary look, but I’ve been working on these planes for three years now. I am confident it will check out.”

“That’s good to hear,” Jake said happily.

“Yes, just wonderful,” Jill said sourly.

“Come on, Jill,” Jake said, giving her a little shoulder shove. “Quit being such a downer. This is a happy moment for me. I’m buying a dream here and it looks like the deal is going to go down.”

“That’s why it’s such a downer. You still have to come up with the nine hundred thousand dollar down payment. Have you forgotten about that?”

“No, I haven’t forgotten about it,” he said. “I told you this already. I agreed to play at the Tsunami Sound Festival in September. They’re paying me a million-two for that gig. After taxes and Paulie’s cut are taken out, that will go a long way toward covering the down.”

“But the down payment will be due at the start of escrow,” Jill said. “That could potentially be in as little as thirty days from now. You won’t be getting the money from Music Alive until after you complete your performance obligations.”