All Hat by Brad Smith

cluster of buildings, a gas station, and the remains of the old train depot. Even the tracks were gone—pulled up a few years earlier and sold off for scrap. Rockwood—the Rock to his friends—motioned for Sonny to pull over when they arrived.
    â€œThis is what I was telling you about,” he said. “Homer Parr’s farm runs right up to the edge of the village. Now this is all zoned hamlet, which means residential building permits are a snap. Rubber stamp. This is the interesting part: the zoning runs the length of the concession—the whole of Parr’s farm. Shit, he could sever as many lots as he wanted, make a fortune, if he knew about it.”
    â€œWhy doesn’t he know?” Sonny asked.
    â€œNobody knows. These villages were laid out 150 years ago, when the railroad went through. Back then, nobody knew whether a place like this would end up with a hundred people or a hundred thousand. So they’d designate anywhere from fifty acres to five thousand as being hamlet. Somebody would write it down in a dusty book somewhere, and that’d be it. I came across one like this north of Toronto—paid for my place in St. Barts.”
    Sonny had a cigar in his hand, and he used it to point at the bush lot, which separated the “town” from the country. “You’re telling me I won’t need rezoning.”
    â€œNot for Parr’s farm,” the Rock said. “And you already own the co-op on the other side of the concession. It’s zoned commercial, which is perfect for you. After that, it’s just a matter of persuading the board to let the whole concession go.”
    â€œAnd you know these people?”
    â€œI deal with them all the time.”
    â€œAnd they can be had?”
    â€œI didn’t say that.”
    Sonny smiled. “No, you wouldn’t—because if that were true, I wouldn’t need you. Right?”
    â€œI didn’t say that either.”
    It was afternoon when they got to the Augustine farm. The sale was half over. Not that it mattered—Sonny wasn’t interested in rocking chairs or antique crockery or hay balers or suckling calves. The only reason Sonny was there was the acreage.
    He parked the BMW along the side road, and the two of them walked in. Sonny, as was his custom when dealing with the local farmers, was dressed the part, wearing jeans and a duck canvas jacket, a ball cap with a seed company logo on his head, work boots.
    He and the Rock walked up the lane, stopped to give the house a look. It was a handsome two-story brick with leaded glass windows and a porch across the front and along one side; once Sonny owned it, he would have it torn down. They wandered over to the barns. There was a trailer there, owned by the auctioneer, where Sonny acquired a cardboard placard with a number to be used in the bidding. The woman who gave him the number told him that the farm would be on the block within the hour.
    Sonny was leaning against a sugar maple in the yard when he was approached by a man with a bushy gray beard, wearing a plaid mackinaw and rubber boots caked with shit.
    â€œYou’re Stanton?” the man asked.
    Sonny smiled at the gruff manner. “I guess I am.”
    The man in the mackinaw obviously didn’t know Sonny, but he’d already decided that Sonny was a stand-up guy. And it had nothing to do with Sonny’s appearance, or his manner, or his reputation. It had everything to do with his money. It was a wonderful thing, Sonny thought; he’d recommend it to anyone who could swing it. Money can make an ugly woman presentable, a fat man thin, a moron a wit. And rumor had it that it made the world go round.
    â€œThey tell me you’re gonna take on the wheat board,” the man was saying.
    â€œIsn’t it about time somebody did?” Sonny asked.
    â€œAnybody can say it.”
    â€œYou’re a farmer?” Sonny asked.
    â€œMy whole life.”
    â€œSo