OCTOBER 8, 2023 -As the waitress cleared our lunch plates I checked the time. “Jesus!” I said to Cliff. “My plane leaves the gate in 39 minutes!”
If the table hadn’t been bolted down, we would have knocked it over. On our way out Cliff slapped a 10 and a 20 down on the counter next to the cash register, but we fled the joint like a couple of diners who hadn’t paid. Our getaway to Newark’s Liberty Airport broke every traffic law known to humankind except for stopping at some of the traffic lights. The notable thing about Cliff’s mad-dash driving was that he did it without the aid of the police light that used to be affixed to the top of his dashboard[1].
When we reached the terminal, I hit the ground running, snatched a boarding pass off the kiosk, raced through security in record time, re-enacted the Olympic 100-meter dash down the concourse, and reached the plane just as the attendants were closing the door.
As I buckled myself, I pondered the mad rush of the preceding 39 minutes—juxtaposed to nearly 18 years of what often felt like crawling backward while blindfolded. With UB now under control and the spigot to Alex shut off, Mother could now have her half of the inheritance—before she died. But would she?
In the weeks that followed UB’s acceptance into assisted living—with Queequeg—I first had to get a handle on UB’s finances: what and where his resources were, exactly; his current and prospective expenses; what kind of supplemental health insurance and long-term care insurance he might have; and so on. I’d been through a similar drill with Mother, and though her situation had been far easier to gauge and manage, it wasn’t a matter of flipping a switch labeled “auto-pilot.” In UB’s case, the challenge was far greater.
In the background, of course, were the Rutherford properties and all the issues associated with them: locating leases and rent rolls; determining the status of insurance; rounding up funds for upcoming quarterly taxes; identifying other expenses; taking inventory of maintenance issues; and ultimately, outlining a development and disposition plan that would optimize value.
As a flight attendant recited the perfunctory information and directives while we taxied to the runway, I recalled Tom Sullivan’s troubling statement a couple of days before as Cliff had led us on a tour of the warehouse properties. “The ground this all sits on is highly desirable,” Tom had said, “but no developer is going to touch this property without taking into account the cost of clearing it, and we don’t know what environmental issues are lurking both above and in the ground. When all costs are taken into account, it could be that this property isn’t worth $100.” He was talking as a lawyer, and lawyers are trained and paid to identify risks and anticipate worst case scenarios.
But then there was Ed Nilsson, who’d driven all the way down from Marblehead, Massachusetts to look at the properties about which he’d heard so much since we’d met quite by accident years before[2]. Ed liked what he saw structurally and was confident that a superb pitcher of lemonade could be made out of what appeared on the surface to be a sack of lemons. But Ed was talking as the restoration architect that he was, and architects are trained and paid to identify opportunities and build best case scenarios.
Based on my own experience as real estate banker and lawyer, I knew that the future of the Rutherford properties lay somewhere between Tom’s worst case scenario and Ed’s best case scenario. It would take another six years to narrow down “somewhere.”
The trip that was now winding up with my flight back to Minnesota had been eventful, but apart from checking on UB and Queequeg in their new quarters and at the early seating in the dining room, my focus had not been on UB. My time had been devoted to conferring in earnest with Cliff, assessing the properties and to help with the immediate work ahead, meeting over a dozen people who could help—electricians, roofers, leasing agents, landscapers, maintenance people. Each was an acquaintance of Cliff. Together he and I had listed priorities, starting with remediation efforts necessary to increase property income as quickly as possible. The income, in turn, would be allocated to cleanup and planning costs—trash removal, potential environmental remediation, survey costs, legal and architectural fees associated with preparation of concept drawings and preliminary borough approval of a redevelopment plan for all the parcels.
I also met with Tom to map out a comprehensive plan to transition legal control of everything from UB.[3]
Of all my encounters of the previous few days, however, the most memorable was with Jimmy Rizzo.
A couple of years later, Cliff would call me to say he’d underestimated Jimmy.
“Hi, Cliff,” I said.
“What’s happenin’?”
“Work.”
“I just had to call you. Jimmy Rizzo’s mother died . . .”
“Sorry to hear that. I’ll have to send him a card.”
“He’d appreciate that. I just got back from the funeral, and Eric, I’m tellin’ you, I always knew Jimmy was important, but I had no idea how important.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know how at big Catholic funerals there can be a fairly serious motorcade from the church to the cemetery?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, this was something I’ve never seen before. They had every entrance and exit on miles of freeway blocked off! I kid you not. The motorcade had to be miles long, and there were more cops out than after 9-11. I swear to God, I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean, Jimmy Rizzo is one serious guy to have that kind of pull.”
“I know this much,” I said. “You wouldn’t see that in Minnesota.”
Cliff laughed. “And ya know sumthin’? You don’t see that kind of thing in Jersey every day either.”
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
[1] Even under the most relaxed of circumstances, Cliff was always an aggressive driver. But rarely were his circumstances “relaxed.” For years he had an actual police light aboard his black SUV. He never used the light when I was a passenger, but he told me about the occasions when he had deployed it. One case was to reach his daughter’s graduation ceremony before the official handing out diplomas got to the “W’s.” Cliff said he’d been in a critical client meeting, and when it ended, he had to cover a 20-minute distance (at 65 mph) in half that time. With the flashing red light he made it. He also told me that one year in early October the sheriff of a neighboring county running for re-election called Cliff preemptively and told him to refrain from using “the light” until the November election was over.
[2] Much more about that story later in this story.
[3] Armed with the power of attorney, we achieved control largely via establishment of an irrevocable trust and transfer of all of UB’s assets and interests to that entity. The main effect was to close out all avenues for UB to send any money to Alex—having already made the object of UB’s infatuation a millionaire and then some, according to the total of the Western Union receipts that I found.
