Lara let nothing stand in her way. She was becoming an irresistible force, and there was no stopping her. She was a perfectionist. She knew what she wanted and insisted on getting it.
At first some of the workmen tried to take advantage of her. They had never worked for a woman before, and the idea amused them. They were in for a shock. When Lara caught one of the foremen pencil-whipping—signing off for work that had not been done—she called him in front of the crew and fired him. She was at the building site every morning. The crew would arrive at six o’clock and find Lara already there, waiting for them. There was rampant sexism. The men would wait until Lara was in earshot and exchange lewd jokes.
“Did you hear about the talking pussy at the farm? It fell in love with a cock and…”
“So the little girl said, ‘Can you get pregnant swallowing a man’s seed?’ And her mama said, ‘No. From that, darling, you get jewelry…’ ”
There were some overt gestures. Occasionally one of the workmen passing Lara would “accidentally” brush his arm across her breasts or press against her bottom.
“Oops, sorry.”
“No problem,” Lara said. “Pick up your check and get out of here.”
Their amusement eventually began to change to respect.
One day, when Lara was driving along Kedzie Avenue with Howard Keller, she came to a block filled with small shops. She stopped the car.
“This block is being wasted,” Lara said. “There should be a high rise here. These little shops can’t bring much of an income.”
“Yeah, but the problem is, you’d have to persuade every one of these tenants to sell out,” Keller said. “Some of them may not want to.”
“We can buy them out,” Lara declared.
“Lara, if even one tenant refuses to sell, you could be stuck for a bundle. You’ll have bought a lot of little shops you don’t want and you won’t be able to put up your building. And if the tenants get wind that a big high rise is going up here, they’ll hold you up.”
“We won’t let them know what we’re doing,” Lara said. She was beginning to get excited. “We’ll have different people approach the owners of the shops.”
“I’ve been through this before,” Keller warned. “If word leaks out, they’re going to gouge you for every penny they can get.”
“Then we’ll have to be careful. Let’s get an option on the property.”
The block on Kedzie Avenue consisted of more than a dozen small stores and shops. There was a bakery, a hardware store, a barbershop, a clothing store, a butcher, a tailor, a drugstore, a stationery store, a coffee shop, and a variety of other businesses.
“Don’t forget the risk,” Keller warned Lara. “If there’s one holdout, you’ve lost all the money you’ve put in to buy those businesses.”
“Don’t worry,” Lara said. “I’ll handle it.”
A week later a stranger walked into the two-chair barbershop. The barber was reading a magazine. As the door opened, he looked up and nodded. “Can I help you, sir? Haircut?”
The stranger smiled. “No,” he said. “I just arrived in town. I had a barbershop in New Jersey, but my wife wanted to move here to be near her mother. I’m looking for a shop I can buy.”
“This is the only barbershop in the neighborhood,” the barber said. “It’s not for sale.”
The stranger smiled. “When you come right down to it, everything’s for sale, isn’t it? At the right price, of course. What’s this shop worth—about fifty, sixty thousand dollars?”
“Something like that,” the barber admitted.
“I really am anxious to have my own shop again. I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you seventy-five thousand dollars for this place.”
“No, I couldn’t think of selling it.”
“A hundred.”
“Really, mister, I don’t…”
“And you can take all the equipment with you.”
The barber was staring at him. “You’ll give me a hundred thousand and let me take the barber chairs and the rest of the equipment?”
“That’s right. I have my own equipment.”
“Can I think about it? I’ll have to talk to my wife.”