I tilted my head and frowned. “Tell me more.”
“Tripp…isn’t a good person. He was a facilitator. But he was arrested on narcotics charges and has been in Pontiac for the past eight years.”
“Let me see if I’m getting the picture,” I said. “Tripp was your pimp and contact, paid your fees to the outfit. Some kind of sweetheart deal on rent?”
She looked down and nodded. “For services rendered.”
“Hngh. He gets a dime, I’m guessing, and goes away, and you have a chance to alter your life. So you do. You change up your business, but not your location. Only now he’s out of the clink, and he wants something from you.”
“I couldn’t change location without raising my prices beyond what my customers could have afforded. Sunflower would never have gotten off the ground.” She grimaced. “H-he says I owe him for the time. Back pay.” She glanced up quickly. “In more than one sense.”
I had to work to keep myself from growling audibly. I was almost sure I did not like Tripp.
“So,” I said, “tell me about the suit.”
“There’s a clause in our contract that he says makes him my partner. He’s demanding repayment from all the ‘profits’ the company made—and he’s also calling all the money we donated for the kids who couldn’t pay our profits.”
“Seems like utter crap to me,” I said.
She grimaced. “I had enough to pay an attorney to look at the contract. She said he had a case.”
“What’s he saying you owe him?” I asked.
“About a quarter of a million,” she said. She shook her head. “We are a subsistence business. There is no way we can pay him that, even if we really did owe it to him. Representation in Chicago courts is expensive—far more than our business makes. It can cost a lot of money to pay for lawyers, depositions, expert testimony—and there have been cases with less merit than this one that have been decided on his side.”
“And fighting it costs all kinds of money. Which you don’t have.”
“Exactly,” she said. “And even if we fought him and won, it could cost us Sunflower. And he knows it. But if we don’t fight him, the only option is to close up Sunflower entirely.” She took a deep breath. “Mister Dresden, on the streets they say that if you need help, you call the police, or the EMTs, or an insurance agent. But when you need a miracle…the only one to call is you.”
Oh, hell. That old thing again.
“Things have been so hard lately,” she said. Tears were now in her eyes. “So frightening. With the terrorist attack and the chemical weapons. I’ve been everywhere, looking for someone to help us. There are no resources available in the wake of the attack. Everyone—and I do mean everyone—is already at the limit.” She folded her hands in her lap and looked down. “That’s why I came to you. I need a miracle.”
I blew out a breath.
Hell’s Bells. At least it was catchy. Maybe I could put it on a business card. “Okay,” I said.
She looked up, her eyes wide, something barely like hope in them.
“I don’t like bullies,” I said. I picked up my pencil and a note-pad. “Let me get some more information from you, and I’ll see what I can do.”
Chapter Three
If you have a problem, go right at it.
I looked up Tripp Gregory.
He was well off for a guy who had been in jail for a couple of Presidents. He owned a home in Lakeview, and when I pulled up to it a pair of young women who were apparently dressed to go dancing at the beach were just leaving.