Then he came back out into the cold and asked one question. "How much?"
Giselle looked at him for a beat, then turned to Adrian and repeated the question in a voice pitched for the group, as though the question itself was the punchline to something. "$1,000," she said, with a full waiver of any harm and liability and a relocation clause requiring Caleb to vacate the structure within 18 months should the broader redevelopment project receive formal approval and break ground.
Caleb agreed without negotiating. He signed the contract at a folding table that someone had set up near the gate with the wind cutting across the lot and the attorney watching over his shoulder. When the handshake was done and Caleb had the key in his jacket pocket, Giselle said to Adrian, just loudly enough for Caleb to hear, that she was noting in the file the sale of a derelict garage to a very optimistic man. There was quiet laughter. The group walked back to their vehicles.
Caleb stood at the gate for a moment, then turned back toward the building and walked the length of the exterior one more time before heading to his car. He stopped near the side door for exactly 2 seconds, looked through the gap in the warped frame at something in the far interior corner, something beneath a large blue tarp, something that rose from the floor nearly to the ceiling, and then he walked to his car and drove away.
He came back the next morning at 6:00. He came with a heavy flashlight, a pry bar, a set of hand tools, and his spiral notebook. He did not start with the structure. He started with the tarps.
There were eight of them in varying sizes, layered and tied with rope and coated with years of dust and the residue of a building that had been sealed and forgotten. He pulled the first one back slowly. The way you open something you are fairly certain is valuable, but cannot afford to be wrong about. Underneath was a car. He pulled the second tarp, another car.
He worked through all eight in just under 30 minutes. Each one a variation of the same revelation.
Eight automobiles arranged in two rough rows. Every one of them covered and left in a building that Harmon Capital's team had walked into, looked around, and classified as an empty demolition target without ever once looking past the tarps that covered the most significant contents of the space. He stood in the middle of those eight cars with his flashlight moving slowly from one to the next and said nothing out loud.
The first car he cleared enough dust from to read the badge, a 1967 Ford Mustang Fastback. The body had surface rust on the quarters and roof. The paint was peeling in wide strips, but the chrome trim was all present. The glass was intact, and when he opened the driver's door and looked at the odometer, the reading confirmed the car had not moved in decades. He checked the VIN plate, original stampings.
He opened the hood, a V8 block, fully present, no visible catastrophic damage, cylinder head covers intact. He wrote four numbers in his notebook and closed the hood gently.