"How many structural floors has Rhodes Point reported as completed for its recent construction draws?"
Harold considered whether he could answer even that. Finally he said that the most recent certification described the structural frame as substantially complete through level fourteen. He had been uneasy about the speed of the draw requests, and his credit officers had asked for supporting material more than once. The project was behind on several contractor payments, but Julian continued reporting strong progress to investors.
"You sound worried," I said.
"A lender gets worried when the photographs become more beautiful than the schedule. But worry isn't proof. That's why we have inspection rights."
I asked whether he had used them lately. Harold said his team relied partly on reports supplied by a consultant approved under the loan documents, but the agreements gave him authority to commission an independent inspection when justified. I told him I had a professional concern about the visible construction progress and intended to record it from public property. He did not ask for details until I could give him observable facts.
Before dawn the following morning, I parked across the street from Rhodes Point. The tower rose above the dark storefronts, its glass lower floors reflecting streetlights and its unfinished upper levels wrapped in safety netting. Julian's photograph covered part of the perimeter fence, and the gold BUILT BETTER slogan shone beneath a temporary floodlight. The construction gate was closed, and a single security guard stood in a booth near the access road.
I stayed on the public sidewalk. I was not a site employee, had no permission to enter the project, and had no intention of creating a separate legal problem by trespassing. The angle wasn't perfect, but from the opposite side of the avenue I could see the slab edges on the east elevation and the framework above them. I took photographs from several positions and compared them with a publicly displayed rendering showing the intended floor layout.
One gray band, then another. I counted slowly, accounting for the double-height lobby and the service mezzanine that a careless observer might mistake for an extra floor. The completed structural decks rose through level eleven. Above them was formwork for the next deck and exposed steel that had not yet been covered with concrete.
I walked farther down the block to check the west side. The framing geometry agreed with my first observation, and the temporary hoist stopped below the height suggested by the latest progress photographs circulated in the investor presentation. The tower crane stood motionless, its upper structure streaked with rainwater, although an idle crane alone would prove little about an entire construction schedule. The staging yard lacked the volume of material I would expect if three additional decks had recently been completed.
I wrote everything in my pocket notebook. Date, time, weather, location, photographs, visible slab edges, and the limits of what could be seen from the street. I wrote that I had counted eleven apparently completed structural levels, not that Julian had committed fraud. That was a conclusion for people with contracts, access to inspections, and evidence beyond a public sidewalk.
I called Harold from the truck. He listened without interrupting while I described what I could see and what I could not. When I finished, he asked whether I had entered the site, and I said no. Then he said he would instruct his own independent engineer to exercise the lender's contractual inspection rights and verify the reported progress against certified draw requests.