LITMIR.BIZ

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McMillans. Brilliance is their specialty.”

      “A chain?”

      “Brothers,” Robyn explained. “They’ve got a string of places. Some of them are just brewpubs, some are pub hotels, or even spas. But they pick up these quirky themes—one of the places is a decommissioned jail, and they converted the old county work farm. Oh, and then there’s Suds n’ Celluloid. It shows old movies. You kick back on sofas and old chairs and waiters bring you beer and food.”

      “Now, that’s what I call civilization,” Thea commented. “They’d clean up in L.A.”

      Robyn grinned. “Sorry, they’re pretty much a Portland-only gig. When everything you touch turns to gold, you don’t have to go far. I should be so lucky,” she trailed off.

      “Business tough?” Thea asked sympathetically, after they’d ordered.

      Robyn moved her water glass around. “It’s going well, just not fast enough. It’s always hard the first couple of years, I knew that getting into it. I’m hanging in there.” She squared her shoulders and rearranged the cutlery.

      “You know, if you needed a loan—” Thea began.

      “Yeah, I know,” Robyn said and gave her hand a brief squeeze. “I don’t want to go there, though. I’m already asking enough of you by hauling you up here on zero notice. You walked away from your job.”

      “My McJob,” Thea pointed out. “I’ll find a new one.”

      “Even so.”

      “Robyn, you were there for me, remember? There’s no way I can ever pay you back for that.”

      “That’s what friends do.”

      “Exactly,” Thea said. “You have to go. You’ve been talking about going to Australia someday for as long as I’ve known you. Besides, you need time to yourself, time to recharge. Just think, in a week you’ll be flying off to do just that.”

      “What about you? When do you recharge?”

      Thea grinned as the waitress brought their beer. “Shoot, I’ve spent the last eight years recharging. I’m powered up, now.”

      “Yeah, I buy that.” Robyn raised her glass. “To being powered up.”

      “To being powered up,” Thea echoed, and the ring of their toast echoed out. A moment later, Thea blinked. “Wow, that is some seriously wonderful beer,” she said. “Maybe that’s what you need to do, set up a microbrewery in your dance studio. Robyn’s Tango Ale. Just like the McMillans.”

      “Honey, there’s nobody like the McMillans. They’re a force unto themselves.”

      BRADY AND MICHAEL STOOD on the threadbare carpeting and looked around the Odeon Theater. The seats had been upholstered in plush red velvet some seventy-odd years before. Now the worn fabric was faded to a rusty dun color, mottled with stains. Overhead arched a trompe l’oeil ceiling, bordered by gold-leafed carvings. The stale air smelled faintly of cigarette smoke.

      Michael scanned the rows. “Don’t really want to think about what’s on those seats.”

      “Given that the last movie they showed here was Horny Coeds Going Wild, that’s probably smart.”

      “They all come out, first thing,” Michael decided.

      “Probably smart, too.”

      “It’s a great space. The question is, how do we turn this into a brewpub?”

      Brady began to amble down the aisle. “Same way we did with the jail and the Lincoln School. Think outside the box. The two floors above here will be the hotel. This is the common area. We add a bar at the back, take out a lot of the seats and put in tables. Leave in the box seats.”

      “And what, show movies here, too?” Michael followed Brady to the stage.

      “Naw. We’re already doing that at Suds n’ Celluloid. We need to do something else with this.”

      “Such as what, idea man?”

      Brady boosted himself up onto the chest-high wood platform. “I dunno.” He stood staring around, hands in his pockets. “We’ll figure it out.”

      “It’d be nice to figure it out before we pop a couple million buying and renovating it,” Michael said dryly.

      “Yep.” He could see it, Brady thought, even through the shabbiness. It had been built in the heyday of the thirties movie palaces, with the sweeping curves of gilded wood, the opulent carvings, the private boxes that rose along the walls. High overhead soared the crenellated wood arch that framed the stage. Heavy gold velvet curtains, now falling apart under their own weight, hid the wings. He could see it cleaned and painted and polished, hear the laughter and the buzz of conversation as the tables of diners held their beers and looked up at…

      What?

      “We’ll figure it out,” he said again.

      At the sound of a throat clearing, they both looked up to see the seller’s agent standing at the top of one of the aisles. “Have you gentlemen seen everything you wanted to see?” she asked, making a show of checking her watch. She had better things to do at eight o’clock on a Friday night than show real estate, her posture clearly telegraphed.

      Brady and Michael glanced at each other and nodded. “Yeah, I think so,” Michael said. They started back up the aisle.

      Outside, the air was warm in the last light of a summer evening. “Where are you parked?” Brady asked.

      “By the Cascade Brewery,” Michael said, naming their flagship brewpub on the other side of the downtown.

      “Me too.” They ambled along to turn onto Front Street. “We’ve got a great entry area,” Brady said. “Classic old-time theater. We keep that the same. Maybe have someone in the ticket booth to take people’s names.”

      “Stuck out there in the middle of that coved entry area? Is that going to be practical?”

      Brady shrugged. “We find a way to make it practical. It’s like the Lincoln School, we keep as much of the vibe as we can. Make up sheets that look like movie posters advertising the specials and seasonal beers, mix ’em in with pulp movie posters, sheets pushing whatever the entertainment is.”

      “Yeah, whatever the entertainment is,” Michael echoed with a sidelong glance at him.

      “You can’t push creative brilliance,” Brady said mildly.

      Michael laughed. “I’ll remember that. Lindsay keeps telling me we’re nuts.”

      “The woman’s going to be giving birth to your kid for the third time—”

      “Kids,” Michael interjected. “Twins, remember?”

      “Kids. And she says we’re nuts?”

      “She says the hormones make her forget what labor’s like.”

      Brady snorted. “It’d take a lot more than hormones for me.”

      “You’re right about the property, though, it is a great property. Not that it shouldn’t be, for that price.”

      “Hell, we convert the levels above the hotel floors to lofts and offices, we can probably make most of the mortgage off the rents.”

      “Possibly.”

      Brady shook his head pityingly. “You’re a pessimist, Michael.”

      “And you’re way too much of an optimist.”

      “One of my many fine qualities.”

      “It’ll cost to renovate the office space, too, you know,” Michael reminded him. “We won’t get to it right away and there’s no way we’ll rent them all.”

      “That’s

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