When Pauline died, her will specified that the money she made from the sale of their other building, the one on Vanderbilt Street, go to Isabel. But the will didn’t mention the building on Fifth Avenue. Isabel said that when José and Pauline spoke of that building, they said they “gave it back to the city.” In reality, José owned it at the time of his death. Because he hadn’t written a will, it went to his siblings. Isabel told Kirchner that José had two brothers and five sisters, all in their seventies and eighties. Six of them lived in and around Pola de Allande. One lived in Barcelona.

To get the building of his dreams, Kirchner would have to negotiate with seven different people and navigate his way in a foreign country, in a foreign language, through two sets of real-estate and inheritance laws. Any rational person would have walked away. But, Kirchner says, “I had way too much invested at that point.”

Kirchner decided that there was at least a little good news. All the siblings were still alive. And with the possibility of a foreclosure staring at them, there was pressure to force them to the table. If they didn’t act fast, they’d make no money off the house at all.

The first thing he did was cancel his trip to Spain. He could just see the family sitting there, eyeing the eager American who flew across an ocean to meet them; anyone who threw money around like that was just asking to have his pocket picked. Then he started to think of what would make it easy for the family to say yes. What if he could guarantee them a painless closing, in which he’d deal with all the bureaucratic nightmares and any unseen tax and land-transfer headaches? “My thing was, ‘I’ll deliver it to you on a platter. Don’t even lift a finger,’ ” Kirchner says.

He made a lowball offer of $290,000—about a third of what the building might sell for on the open market. Since the city was owed $240,000 in taxes and liens, that would leave José’s seven brothers and sisters $50,000, or about $7,000 each. He told all this to Fabien, who told it to Isabel in Spanish, who in turn told José’s seven brothers and sisters in Spain. The family seemed responsive.

With just $20,000 in the bank and a modest freelance income, how was Kirchner going to afford a $290,000 building—plus untold thousands more for renovation? The idea was to scrape together $29,000 for a 10 percent deposit (he’d get the extra $9,000 from friends or family), then get a construction loan against future rental income from the store and one of the apartments to float him enough cash for the renovations. Once the building was done and reappraised at market rate, he could refinance the loan and use the rental income to pay the mortgage. Rents on Fifth Avenue were exploding; any lender would recognize that.

His lawyers, meanwhile, told him he was out of his mind. What if the renovation costs spiraled out of control? What if the title search revealed a problem that prevented the sale? What if the family backed out at the last minute? “I would go through my savings just to get to the point where they’re gonna say, ‘Thanks so much for setting this all up. We’re gonna go with someone else.’ ”

Which is almost exactly what happened. A week or so after reaching an oral agreement with the family, Kirchner got a call from their lawyer in Spain. “You’re not going to believe this,” she said. His offer was being declined by María, a daughter of one of José’s sisters. It got worse. María was coming to Brooklyn in a week to sell the place—maybe to him, maybe to someone else. He reached María on the phone. She spoke English in an elegant Spanish accent; her tone was aloof and knowing.

“David, thank you so much for bringing this to the attention of my family,” she said. “But I think we can do better. I’m coming to Brooklyn, and I’ve heard you have the keys. I’d like to meet you and deal with this on my own.”

María lived in Barcelona. She was well educated and had a good job. The family saw her as a leader. And she smelled a rat.

Kirchner booked a flight to Spain immediately. The new plan, if you could call it that, was to surprise the family, show them pictures of the place and how shabby it was, hold up the bunny artifact with the postcard, and make them believe in the kismet that Kirchner believed in. He recognized the potential for disaster—“The fear was that they’d sense panic,” he says—but he was desperate.