Emma saw him through the glass and immediately set down the coffee pot. He entered without waiting to be invited, paused near the door, and looked at the customers as though they were trespassing in a private office. "Mrs. Carter," he called. "Still refusing to accept reality?" Lorraine wiped her hands and came from behind the counter, keeping her voice even because she had customers in the room.
"We're paying what we owe," she said. Victor opened a folder. "Not anymore. The property has been sold, and the new owner intends to redevelop the entire block." Emma stepped closer. "You said we had until the end of the month."
"Plans change," Victor answered. He placed a document on the counter and pushed a pen across it. "Sign this surrender agreement, and I'll offer you five thousand dollars to relocate. The offer expires when I walk out of this room."
Lorraine looked at the signature line as though it belonged to a foreign language. "Five thousand dollars? We can't even rent another commercial space for that." Victor's face remained impassive.
"That's not my problem." Behind him, Mr. Jenkins folded his newspaper carefully, while a nurse at the counter stopped eating.
"You don't get to change the deadline because you feel like it," Emma said. Victor turned toward her with the smallest possible smile. "Young lady, your mother signed a lease. She is running a business that has outlived its commercial usefulness. You would do her a favor by encouraging her to take the money."
Noah entered from the sidewalk while Victor was speaking. He had come to return an umbrella Emma had left in his taxi, and the scene inside stopped him at the threshold. Victor's associates stood near the door, their presence calculated to make the crowded restaurant feel small. Noah recognized the developer immediately from the due-diligence photographs and several uncomfortable conference calls, but he gave no sign of knowing him.
"What's going on?" Noah asked. Victor looked him up and down, noting the taxi visible outside. "This doesn't concern you, driver." Noah placed Emma's umbrella beside the register. "Then you shouldn't mind explaining it."
The answer earned a few soft murmurs from the customers. Victor's expression tightened, but he maintained the practiced ease of someone accustomed to purchasing the last word. "And who exactly are you?" he asked. Noah looked at the surrender agreement without touching it. "Someone who knows a bad deal when he sees one."
Victor laughed once, harshly. "Listen carefully. This street belongs to people who understand business, not people who drive strangers around for tips." Emma stepped beside Noah. "You don't get to speak to him like that." Victor barely acknowledged her.
"You should be worrying about your own future," he said to Emma. Turning back to Noah, he added, "Keep driving, friend, before you find yourself out of a job." Noah felt an old, familiar temptation to end the exchange by telling the man exactly whom he was insulting. But the idea repelled him, because Emma and Lorraine had been standing there without that protection for weeks.