IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE service, virtually everyone who’d attended went over to the rec eption hall. I
was introduced to so many people, my head spun. Several other Palm Island proprietors came by to console Gary.
One thing they all had in common, Mona pointed out to me, was that they’d each already sold their business to
Arnold Marks.
A man named Steve Charpentier, who owned an outdoor recreation store on the far side of Palm Island, lamented
that he was still waiting for someone to make him an offer on his business. He’d bought the property cheaply seven
years ago, hoping to capitalize on the area’s biggest growth market: tourism.
Steve, a lean man whose age was hard to judge, said, “I wish this rich LA businessman needed a building on the
other side of town too. I’d sell in a heartbeat. As it is, I’ll probably have to go back to practicing law to make a
living.”
I looked at him. “You’re an attorney?”
“I practiced in California for twenty-two years. Just got to be too much.
I was riding my motorcycle up here and realized this is the place to be. I moved before the latest rush. Now I try to
hide the fact that I’m a Californian from the locals,” he admitted to me. “They don’t like the way the new residents
have changed their culture and raised the cost of living so high.”
It might be a good time to get some info from a different source, I decided. I asked, “Why do you think the
real-estate developer isn’t interested in the other side of town?”
Steve leaned in close to me, like he had a secret. “I have friends on some
of the tribal lands outside of town. They’ve been talking for years about putting in a casino. Now somehow they
have funding for it. I wonder if someone from California is bankrolling the casino, and this developer is trying to get
a hotel and resort in place so that anyone coming from the direction of Bozeman would find it a perfect place to
stay.”
I asked the obvious layman’s question. “Why not build on land between this town and the reservation? Gotta be
cheaper and a lot easier than the way he’s been picking apart Palm Island.”
“That’s what you’d think. But most of the land between here and the tribal lands is owned by the state or federal
government. They’d restrict any kind of building like that. The fact that Palm Island is already incorporated as its
own town and has a set of bylaws that s eparates it from the county administration means that anyone who tried to
build something here would only have to deal with the town. The way he’s buying up property, he already has
enough votes to run this place. These guys throw around money because they believe money solves all problems. I
don’t think they understand how people think in places like this. I don’t think they can comprehend that locals get
attached to local traditions and businesses.”
“Have you met this LA developer, Arnold Marks?”
Steve let out a laugh. “I’ve met plenty of Los Angeles real-estate developers before. I haven’t met Marks personally,
but this guy can’t be that different from the rest of them. I know exactly what he’d be like. Flashy, arrogant, and
dismissive. Almost like a pageant parent but without the cute kid.”
I had a laugh at that one. Steve should’ve been a cop. He’d nailed Arnold Marks without ever even meeting him.
And he’d made the whole situation a little clearer for me.
I needed to make some phone calls. I looked for an exit from the crowded rec eption hall. As I headed for the door, I
noticed Rob Trilling sitting alone with the pretty young woman from the service. Trilling was eating one of Mona’s
sandwiches while the young woman seemed to be passionately discussing something.
I knew it was none of my business, but it still bothered me.