“With what money, Nick? You don’t have two nickels to rub together, and I know no bank loaned you this much.”
I struggled not to clench my fists. “I found an old retirement account that I forgot I had and cashed it in.”
“So you’re lying to me now? Is that how you want to play this?”
“Don’t worry about the money. I got it covered. I’ll just have to massage the budget to incorporate some higher-end finishes.”
“You can’t massage blood out of a turnip, Nick.”
“That doesn’t make fucking sense.”
Steven stuffed his comps back into his portfolio and stomped to the door. “Whatever you say. When you’re ready for a reality check, let me know.”
I listened as he descended the stairs and slammed the front door.
“Shit!” I groaned, leaning over with my hands on my knees. I needed cash. At least another ten grand on top of the hundred I’d already borrowed. I’d known that before Steven had showed up with his paperwork. I’d even known how to get the money. That was the bad news.
Steven might be able to loan me the money if I asked after he had a chance to cool off, but I couldn’t do it. After my business tanked, I’d lived with him and his partner, Tod, for over a year. Steven had been cool with it, but I knew what a strain having me around had put on his relationship. Tod and I didn’t exactly get along. No, I’d sponged off Steven enough for one lifetime. And Damey didn’t have any extra cash. Both his house and the bar were mortgaged to the hilt. My parents? They were retired and living on a fixed income. No way. I’d have to borrow and find a way to tack it onto my existing loan.
“Uh, Nick?” Sasha stood in the doorway wearing his black coffee-shop clothes. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. Got off early. You okay?”
I stood up and tilted my head to the side until my neck popped. “Sorry about that.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
“Who me?” I scoffed. “No. I don’t know.”
“I’m here and willing to listen.”
He seemed so damn earnest standing there with those big eyes. Sweet. Like beneath the hard life and the bad mother still existed a pure soul. It made my chest hurt.
What? Am I a fucking poet all of a sudden?
“How much did you hear?” I asked.
“All of it, I think. You’re in financial trouble, aren’t you?”
“You could say that.”
Sasha straightened his shoulders. “Okay. How can I help?”
A humorless chuckle escaped me. This homeless guy wanted to help me out of my financial quagmire? How cute.
“Don’t give me that look.” Sasha glared. “I might be poor and in a shitty situation myself, but I’m not stupid. I see how you dance around the subject of money every time anyone brings it up. If you won’t tell your brothers where you got the money to buy this house, I’m sure it came from a shady place. And hell, I know all about shady places. I also suspect you’re in over your head. So if you ever decide you want help getting out of this situation from someone who isn’t going to judge, from the one person who actually believes in this project besides you, let me know.” He pivoted to leave.
“Hold up,” I said before he made it to the door.
Sasha turned, eyebrows raised expectantly. Unless he was secretly sitting on a fortune and dying to invest it in a business that had failed once already, he wouldn’t be much help, but I did appreciate the fact that he was the only person who wasn’t lecturing me on my stupidity for taking this project on.
“Sorry. I don’t mean to be a dick. I’m just . . . stressed.”
Sasha gave a small nod.
I hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since I’d gotten into this mess. I might be able to get more cash, but paying it back would be another story, and my anxieties were about more than my credit score. My insides twisted at the idea of having to go ask for additional cash.
“Fine, you wanna help? Why don’t you get changed and take a ride with me? I gotta go see someone, and you can keep me company on the drive.” It was probably a stupid idea to bring him with, but there was something about having Sasha around that settled me. I’d just leave him in the truck while I ran inside.
“I can do that.”
Sasha headed to his room, and I shot Damien a quick text letting him know I was running out for a while, and I’d leave him a key in the mailbox.
A few minutes later, Sasha and I climbed into my truck, and I turned north. I popped a stick of cinnamon gum in my mouth and outlined what I needed to do.
“So, I’m gonna need a minimum ten grand, fifteen if I want to do the house up right. I should be able to tack it onto my existing loan. What do you think of this? I’ll upgrade the master bath from my original plan. Put in a jetted tub. Maybe custom tile work too. We could even echo the tilework in the downstairs bath. I know a guy who’ll give me a good price.”
“Sounds good.”
“Kitchens and bathrooms sell houses, so I’ll have to add a few embellishments to the kitchen as well. Maybe a really cool backsplash. I could buy standard cabinets and add some sleek hardware and molding to make them appear custom.”
“There’s a stack of old tin ceiling tiles up in the attic that used to be in the kitchen. Maybe you could paint them silver and use them for a backsplash. It would look good, and wouldn’t cost you anything except a can of spray paint.”
Sasha watched the city go by through a beat-up pair of aviators. I could ask him how he knew the tin ceiling used to be in the kitchen, but the mysterious little shit would probably clam up again.
“Good idea. Keep ’em coming. I need to make as much money on this house as possible. The interest on my loan is ridiculous, and I hope to clear enough profit at the end to secure financing from a reputable lender for my next project.”
We turned off Interstate 43 into a neighborhood run down with age and neglect. The beauty of the mature trees contrasted with the boarded-up and condemned buildings. Some had For Lease signs on them. Others looked like the owners must have given up and turned them over to the crackheads long ago. The area was safe enough during the day, but it wasn’t a place you wanted to hang around after dark unless you were a local.
Past the railroad tracks, I pulled the truck into the weedy parking lot of a brick building with windows of blackened glass and bars.
“What is this place?” Sasha asked.
“Diamond’s Gym. Owned by Frank Diamond. He’s both the unofficial mayor of this neighborhood and a guy you never want to end up on the bad side of.”
“So which of his sides are you on right now?”
“I always stay on his good side. Frank currently holds the under-the-table mortgage on our house.”
Sasha’s eyes widened, and he looked like he wanted to say something, but I opened my door and said, “Stay here and lock the doors. I’ll be back in a bit.”
I hopped out and headed for the building. Halfway across the lot, Sasha jogged up to my side.
“Thought I told you to stay in the truck.”
“And I thought I told you that I’m used to dealing with shady people. No matter how big you are, you shouldn’t have to do this yourself. This guy some kind of a mobster?”
I shrugged. “Something like that.”
Sasha visibly winced as we stepped through the door. The cavernous room smelled like sweat and stale cigar smoke—the state public-smoking ban didn’t apply a guy like Frank, especially in his own place. Fluorescent lights hung on chains over the regulation-size boxing ring, shining down a greenish glow on sparring fighters below. Around the periphery of the large room were various workout stations with punching bags, free weights, and dubiously maintained cardio machines.
A thin African American woman sauntered up with a bored scowl on her face. “Here to box?”
I shook my head. “Not today. Need to see Frank. He around?”
“He’s busy.”
It was the standard answer. Whether Frank was in the middle of someth
ing or not, those who wanted an audience with him would have to wait. “Can you tell him Nick Cooper is here to see him when he’s free? I don’t mind waiting.”
She sniffed and walked off, presumably to pass on the message. I touched Sasha’s shoulder and led him beside the middle ring where two welterweights were going at each other, their coach shouting abuse from the ropes.
“Have a seat,” I said, sinking down onto an uncomfortable metal chair. “It may be a while.”
“You’re a boxer?”
I shook my head. “I train in martial arts, just for fitness though. Did a few amateur competitions when I was younger, but after my last concussion, the doc told me I should stop if I didn’t want to risk ending up with a scrambled brain. It was through the fights that I met Frank.”
“Do you work out here?”
“Nah, this place is a dump. I have a membership over at Roufusport.”
Sasha glanced at the lumps of my biceps. “It’s working for you. I took you for a football player or something.”
“I’m not really into playing team sports. I was one of those rambunctious kids who had too much energy and was always getting under my parents’ feet, so my mom tried to enroll me in Little League and soccer. But I hated having to rely on other teammates all the time. I’m pretty competitive and wanted to be in control over whether I was going to win or not. So, one of the coaches recommended martial arts, both as a solo activity and one that would teach me some patience. Thank god Mom enrolled me when she did, otherwise I’d have probably turned into a juvenile delinquent.”
“Martial arts, huh?”
“Yeah. Started in a youth jiujitsu program and progressed up the ranks.”
In front of us, the coach began waving his arms and shouting, “Above the belt, Lipowski! He wants to father kids someday!”
“What about you?” I asked. “Play any sports in school?”
“No sports. I spent most of my after-school time either with the school band or in my friend Justin’s garage pretending we were rock stars.”
I leaned in toward him to block out the screaming coach. Maybe if I got Sasha talking, it would take my mind off having to go to Frank with my tail between my legs. “Tell me about your music.”
He hitched his leg up on the chair and turned to face me, and the commotion of the gym faded. “What do you want to know?”
“You were in a band. You guys break up or something?”
He sighed. “Yeah, something like that. Long story.”
I looked around the gym. “We have time. Frank loves to ice people out. Makes him feel like a big man.”
“Okay . . . well . . . my friend Justin and I started playing together when we were in junior high. We both played guitar, and while I was the better singer, Justin was the one with most of the writing talent.”
“Thought you said you just did covers.”
He shrugged. “When we played college bars we did a lot of covers. People like music they already know and can sing along to. We’d sprinkle in some of our own stuff now and then, and always managed to sell a few demo CDs at our shows.”
“So then what?”
Sasha ran his palms over his lightly bearded face and groaned. “I don’t know. I guess it’s the same story a lot of failed bands have. We started to get a little success around town. That combined with the pressure of college and everything else got to us, and Justin just couldn’t handle it.”
“Your friend Justin from high school? You were still performing with him?”
“Yeah. When college came around, his parents insisted he go to Marquette for engineering—you know, something practical. The only thing I ever wanted to do was perform. There were better schools out there for music, but I followed Justin anyway. I thought I needed him. People always saw me as the front man because I sang and took the lead on stage, but it was always Justin’s band. He chose and arranged the music, wrote the original songs, booked our gigs.”
“Kind of like Keith Richards is the leader of the Stones even though Mick’s the front man.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Sounds like a lot of responsibility for a young guy. Engineering’s no cakewalk. What’d he do? Quit the band?”
Sasha’s brow creased as if the memories were still too raw. “It was the end of junior year. I’d gotten a call from the hospital telling me my grandfather had died. Heart attack. And I needed a ride over there, so I went to Justin’s place to see if he’d take me. I found him on the floor of his bathroom with a needle in his arm.”
“Fuck . . .”
“He was alive and everything, but completely useless. I was so angry and sad and just fucking numb. I couldn’t deal with him. So I took his car keys and left. The next day when I brought the car back, we got into it. I mean, he’d been around my deadbeat mom almost as much as I had. He’d been there the night I came home to find her naked on the floor and foaming at the mouth. If anything would turn a person into a teetotaler, that should have done it. But he gave me all these excuses about the pressure he was under with school and the band, and how he only needed something to help him relax.”
“Most people who need to relax take a trip to the beach; they don’t turn to intravenous drugs.”
“No shit. I knew he drank and smoked weed now and then, but if he didn’t do it around me, I didn’t care. But heroin? I told him I couldn’t be anywhere near that.”
“He refused to get clean?”
Sasha got a sheepish look on his face. “Don’t know. I didn’t stick around to find out. The only real parent I ever had had died, and my loser mother was already carting off everything of any value in the house to the pawn shop. I had a partial scholarship, but most of my tuition and expenses were still being paid for by my zayde before he died. I couldn’t focus on Justin and whatever bullshit he was trying to feed me. All I could think about was that I needed money and quick. The dorms were gonna be closing soon, and I refused to go back to the house with my mom and her loser friends there. So I asked Justin for my share of the band profits. We’d been saving for a year to buy studio time to record an album, so there should’ve been over ten grand in the account. Maybe I was so emotionally fried from all the shit with him and my zayde dying, but it took me a few minutes to catch on to the nonsense coming out of Justin’s mouth. The money was gone.”
“Let me guess . . . the drugs?”
“Probably. I don’t know. Looking back on it, he must have been using for a while. But I was so used to following Justin’s lead. I trusted him with the band’s bank accounts. I should have realized something was up when bars that we’d always played at in the past didn’t want us anymore. It got to where I hardly ever saw Justin outside practice. When I’d ask him to hang out, he’d give me excuses about how he was too busy studying and stuff. He’d lost weight and seemed tired, so I figured he was just stressed out. His program was tough, so I didn’t question it. I suppose a good friend should have.”
“His issues were not your fault, man.”
“Not the drugs. I know that, but god, I’m such an asshole.”
I stiffened. “Why are you the asshole?”
“Shouldn’t a real friend stick around and try to help? Even someone as far gone as my mother deserves help if she wants it, but I wasn’t thinking that way at the time. What if I could have done something for him?”
Without thinking, I reached out to clutch his shoulder, just a brief touch meant to reassure a friend, but it made my chest tighten unexpectedly. I tried not to think about that as I drew my hand away. “You were in no position to do anything for him. Sometimes when life turns to shit, we have to pick and choose our battles based on immediate need. I’d say figuring out a place to live and how to take care of yourself was your priority.”
He scoffed out a humorless laugh. “And look what a bang-up job I’ve done with that.”
I opened my mouth to argue, to tell him that he was doing the best he could, and he shouldn’t be so hard on himself, but just then the woma
n called out, “Cooper. Frank’ll see you now.”
I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans as I stood. “Stay here.”
Again, he ignored me and started to follow.
“Seriously, Sash,” I said, putting out a hand to stop him. I dropped my voice low. “These are not the kind of people I want to bring you around. It’s not safe.”
“No, Nick. I told you. I’ve had it with letting my people down. If this guy is that bad, you need someone in your corner. Let it be me.”
“Can you all deal with your lovers’ quarrel later?” the woman asked. “People working around here don’t have time to waste waiting on you.”
“Whatever,” I muttered, addressing them both. I needed to convince Frank to loan me more money without spooking him into calling in the loan early. Rumors about what happened once a person got on his bad side were scary, but surely they were inflated. He was a business man, not the boogey man. Still, maybe bringing Sasha in would be helpful. Another witness couldn’t hurt.
As we followed the woman back to Frank’s office, I whispered to Sasha, “Don’t say anything. I’ll do the talking.”
This wasn’t like any gym I’d ever been in. The vibe of the place was all kinds of ominous.
I followed Nick down a dim hall and into a smoke-filled office. My throat tickled with the smoke, and I suppressed the urge to cough. The room was lined with trophy displays and framed photos of different boxers, some autographed. I didn’t know enough about boxing to be impressed.
Nick must’ve thought I was a whiny ass. I hadn’t meant to go so maudlin on him with all that Justin crap, but it had been a spectacularly bad day. And it hadn’t helped any to go into a building filled with such disturbing emotional energy. I had to keep pinching my thigh to keep myself on the chair. Luckily, the violent tone was more of a need for physical exertion, and not born from anger. I didn’t think I could handle that today.
I’d told Nick I’d gotten off work early, but the truth was, after the meager lunch rush, my boss, Bill, had called me into his office to “talk.” That’s never a good sign, but when he closed the door, I’d known it was serious.
Surreal Estate Page 6
