By her own admission, Nancy hadn’t had many good relationships with men over the years, and I just wanted her to feel safe and secure after having to go it alone for so long. Sure, her sister had helped, but Dorothy had her own family and kids to keep her busy as well. I knew Wade wanted to do right by his sister-in-law, but I was in a position to help and I wasn’t shy about poaching some help for our farm.
“Don’t worry. I intend on getting some labor out of you and Lisa in the process. You can drive a tractor, right? And please, call me Bryan.”
“Okay, Bryan, and yes, you know I can drive a tractor. Or a dozer. Or a motorgrader. Or even a tractor trailer rig if called upon, even though I lack my commercial license.”
“Hmmm, that’s a relief,” I popped back, faking a wipe at my brow. “I was worried slaving away in the garden was all I could get out of this deal. Come on, let’s load some boxes!”
Lisa joined her mother in a slight chuckle as we quickly formed an assembly line to ferry the little family’s stack of boxes to the door, down the stairs, and neatly stacked in the bed of Mike’s big truck. Even with the steady rain, which had swept back in the night before, we were safe under the awning and with Mike’s bedcover, the boxes stayed dry as well.
Within thirty minutes, we had the last of the suitcases stacked on the tailgate and I slid them into the remaining space before slamming the door shut. I stayed downstairs as Nancy and Lisa made one last walk-though before coming out to join me on the concrete walkway under the overhang. When Nancy had taken me around the apartment, I’d had my phone out, snapping closeup pictures of the entire space. The furniture was old but well-cared for, and I’d made sure to highlight the gleam in the white metal of the stove and the refrigerator. Clearly, Nancy and Lisa had spent way more time cleaning up than we’d taken loading their boxes.
“Thank you so much for this,” Nancy repeated. “Getting that many boxes out to your farm would have taken at least two and maybe three trips in my little hatchback.” She paused, then swallowed before continuing. “Plus, you know, I wouldn’t feel especially safe. That Marky and his boys are complete ass monkeys.”
“Mom! Your language,” Lisa chided, but I could tell she shared the sentiment.
“Don’t ‘Mom’ me, young lady,” Nancy retorted, a Mona Lisa smile on her face. “Sometimes you just have to call them what they are.”
“You know, we could just drop the keys in the lockbox and roll on out of here,” I said, but I didn’t mean it. After my conversations the day before, I knew I was going to go see this manager and her son. Whether Nancy did or not was purely optional.
“No, I can’t. That apartment is spotless, and it is the end of the month on Monday. I am getting my deposit back,” Nancy announced, her chin just slightly stuck out in a resolute pose.
“Fair enough. Grab your car and I’ll meet you at the office.”
“Bryan, you don’t have to do this,” Nancy protested. “It was enough that you offered me a place to stay and then helped me haul our stuff. No sense for you to get involved in my mess.”
“But I am involved. Both as your lawyer, and as your friend. We are friends, aren’t we?”
“Bryan, I can’t afford a lawyer,” Nancy hissed. “And yes, you are my friend, but I’m just going to drop off these keys and give my notice.”
“Don’t worry.” I raised a placating hand and gave her a reassuring smile. “My rates are surprisingly reasonable, and quite flexible. I do accept labor, after all. Now, did you have a written lease for the apartment? And has the term expired?”
“Yes and yes. Well, the lease was month-to-month, and all I have to do is turn over the keys to Susan and that’s it.”
“Well, I’ll follow you two over to the office, but I suggest Lisa stay outside. In fact, I would suggest Lisa stay in Mike’s truck while we’re inside.” When the two ladies gave me mirrored looks of confusion, I had to hide my smile. They really were mother and daughter. “That truck is high enough off the ground, so anyone walking beside it can’t really see who’s sitting in that back row. If you guys are that worried about this Marky character and his friends, then I’d prefer Lisa stay out of sight.”
Nancy let out a puff of breath, but nodded in agreement. From the way Nancy and Lisa were acting, I began to wonder if there was more to the story than the young hooligans merely making catcalls at the mother and daughter. Hopefully, I would find out when I had Nancy away from Lisa in the next few minutes.
We made the short drive to the office building quickly and Lisa jumped into the back seat without any qualms. Nancy said something to her, too soft for me to overhear, and I paused before shutting the door to add my own two cents.
“Lisa, just stay there. Nobody should know this truck, or realize you’re inside. Just stay low and don’t call attention to yourself. Your mom and I will be out shortly, okay?”
“Okay, Mr. Bryan. Just watch out for my mom.”
“You got it,” I agreed without hesitation.
As we walked side-by-side along the concrete path, Nancy asked the question I expected, so I told her.
“Watch out for me, huh? Sometimes that girl makes me wonder who is the mother and who is the child.”
“So I gathered. Before we go inside, I have to ask you. Has the harassment gone past whistles and rude comments? Has Marky or any of his ass monkey buddies laid hands on you?”
Nancy hesitated, and I waited, not saying a word as our boots splashed through the stream of water sluicing across the concrete. I felt a flash of rising anger at what her hesitation foretold.
“Just one time. It was this past Thursday, and we were coming home after I picked up Lisa from LaTosha’s house. That’s Lisa friend, and her mom let’s Lisa stay there until I get off work to come pick her up,” Nancy explained nervously.
“And…” I prompted her, and Nancy paused, almost missing a step.
“Marky and three of his homeboys were sitting on the stairs, like they were waiting for me to get back to the apartment. I don’t know the other boys, but they’re just like Marky. In their late teens or early twenties, and don’t have any jobs as far as I can tell. They just hang out here in the complex drinking beer and talking loud, trying to look like gangstas, I guess.”
“What did they do, Nancy?”
Nancy swallowed again, looking away before answering.
“All four of them were sprawled out on the treads of the stairs, looking like they were sitting in their living rooms on the sofa. They started talking their nonsense as soon as Lisa and I stepped around the corner into the stairwell. I…I didn’t see them there until it was too late, and I wanted to just turn around and leave, but they jumped up so quick.”
Nancy paused again, and I felt my anger rise even more, and ice began to flow through my veins.
“Did they put their hands on you or Lisa?”
“When I turned, I told Lisa to run, but they were so fast. Marky got his arm around my neck, not choking me but like a horse collar, and two of his buddies ran after Lisa and grabbed her arms, dragging her back.”
It was my turn to swallow convulsively, but in suppressed anger, not fear. I didn’t want this nice lady to see my emotion. She was fragile in so many ways, and I didn’t want to spook her.
“What happened next?”
“Well, I was hollering to beat the band while this was going on and the downstairs neighbor, Mr. Susek, came to the door and he began shouting, too. Said he’d heard what Marky and his boys had been saying, and that he’d already called the cops. Marky tried to act tough, but I knew Mr. Susek wasn’t bluffing.” She lowered her voice then before continuing. “I was pretty sure he had a pistol in the hand I couldn’t see on the other side of his door.”
“Guess I owe that man a beer or something,” I muttered before turning back to Nancy. “Was that the end of it then?”
“Just about. One of the city cops came by about ten minutes after Marky and his crew cleared out, and I made a statement and said I wanted to f
ile charges. The officer was very sympathetic, but he said since we hadn’t been hurt and given the current state of things, he really couldn’t justify arresting the four of them on just my word.”
I muttered vile curses under my breath as Nancy continued her story.
“Plus, they just don’t have the beds at the county jail. Mr. Susek hadn’t seen them grabbing us, just the loud talk, and I knew even if I got those boys arrested, they’d be even worse when they got out, and the officer said they would most likely be immediately released due to the overcrowding.”
I continued grumbling under my breath at this, but I knew she was probably right. Sadly, the best thing was to get Nancy and Lisa out of the line of fire for these young males. They weren’t boys, though. In my book, no one over the age of eighteen should be called that, and many should have crossed the line into manhood by the time they were fifteen. No, Marky and his posse weren’t boys, but they weren’t men either, at least not in my book. So, I considered them young males, for lack of a better, more pejorative term.
My thoughts on discipline and corporal punishment, maybe the reintroduction of the stocks, came to a crashing halt as we stepped through the street entrance to the apartments’ office. The office was set up in what was obviously a converted apartment unit, with the walls removed from at least one of the bedrooms to form an open office off of the wide reception area decorated with a pair of sofas arranged in a conversation-pit style around a low coffee table and a scattering of chairs around the periphery.
That was when I got my first glimpse of Susan Slocumb, and her son Marky. It was still early in the day, but Susan looked like she’d just rolled out of bed, with her hair a twisted tangle of curlers under a kerchief and dressed in what looked like a ratty housecoat as best I could see from her seated figure behind the desk.
In contrast, Marky looked like he hadn’t gone to bed from the night before, or at least, he was still wearing the same wrinkled, food-stained clothes. Straining the seams of a Houston Rockets jersey for a player I didn’t recognize, Marky was wearing saggy, black knee-length shorts and matching high-top sneakers. A ghost of whiskers, matched by his patchy acne, disfigured his round, fleshy cheeks, and I couldn’t make out his eyes under the brim of the frayed red ballcap covering his head. Sprawled out on the sofa, it was hard to estimate his height, but I placed him at about six feet and well over three hundred pounds. All in all, he resembled a nasty, fantasy movie troll as dreamed up by Hollywood.
As Marky rolled to his feet like a beaching whale, Nancy and I approached the woman seated at the desk, the computer monitor partially concealing her features until we were right on top of her. Up close, she looked as sloppy as her son, and I could make out the familial resemblance. The sour stink of body odor assailed my nostrils at this range, and I tried not to inhale too deeply.
“Good morning, Mrs. Slocumb,” Nancy said politely. “Just dropping by to turn in my keys. How long do you think it will take to get my deposit refunded?”
Susan Slocumb snorted, giving Nancy a glare with beady, bloodshot eyes.
“Putting the cart before the horse, aren’t you, Miss Priss?” Susan Slocumb hissed, her belligerence evident as the vitriol rolled off her words. “You expect to get your security deposit back after you called the law on my boy? I figure you can get your deposit back when it’s a cold day in hell. Now get out of here before I ask my son to perform his duty as security and remove you and your boyfriend.”
I was aware of Marky’s movement behind me, so I took a step sideways to keep an eye on both Slocumbs while I made an exaggerated show of withdrawing one of my business cards from my front pocket. I dropped the card on the woman’s messy desk, fearing the small cardboard square might become immediately lost under the mass of papers.
“My name is Bryan Hardin, Mrs. Slocumb, and I am not Ms. Prentiss’s boyfriend. I’m her lawyer. My card has all my information on it, if you can find it.”
As Susan’s nicotine-stained fingers closed around my business card, I forged ahead. “Just so I’m clear, you are going to deny the refund of Ms. Prentiss’s security deposit in retaliation, and you plan to use your son, one Marcus Avery Slocumb, as security to remove her, and me, from the premises? Did I get that correct?”
Mrs. Slocumb recoiled a bit from my words, but she recovered and plastered an insincere smile across her bloated features as she replied. She might have wondered how I knew her son’s full name, but I didn’t volunteer the information, so she went into damage control mode.
“Well, sugar, I don’t know where you might get that idea. I just meant that there’s no way this woman could have cleaned up her apartment enough to meet our standards here at the Stafford Arms. She doesn’t just get it back, you know?”
“I do know. That’s why I took pictures of the apartment before we left. Over a hundred photographs, in fact. I was very thorough, as was Ms. Prentiss. As to your second statement, are you saying your son, one Marcus Avery Slocumb, is being employed by you as security on behalf of the Stafford Arms?”
“What are you talking about? I’m the manager here, and I have final say over what goes on in my apartments!” Susan let her tattered dignity slip as she all but shrieked, and I could see Marky take a step forward.
“Ma’am, you are an employee, not the owner. In fact, the owner is one Kelly Bond Ward, of Jacksonville, Florida, correct?”
Susan Slocumb pinned me with a glare that would have done credit to a basilisk before she shifted gears once again. I’d done my homework, and I’d tracked down the owner yesterday. Mrs. Ward wasn’t at her listed address when I’d tried to reach her, but a quick call to an investigator I used got me her cell number. I’d spent nearly twenty minutes in conversation with the feisty real estate owner, and even though Nancy had withheld some of the details from me regarding the level of misconduct, I’d made a few educated guesses that’d turned out to be correct.
“Why, aren’t you the clever one, Mr. Lawyer. Are you poking this one? That how she’s paying her bill? She’s a pretty little thing, which is why my boy took such an interest. But that’s not going to do you much good, is it? That biddy’s stuck in Florida, and she can’t do anything about what’s going on here.”
“Actually, that’s not quite true. She’s been concerned over your failure to respond to her requests for information, and she has taken steps.” I glanced down at my watch, then took another look over at Marky, who was glowering at me with naked hatred on his face.
“Son, I’d take it down a notch,” I warned, keeping my voice intentionally neutral. I didn’t see any video recorders set up in the room, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if the premises wasn’t under security surveillance. “I’m here not only representing Ms. Prentiss, but also Mrs. Ward. And by the way, only the owner can hire security, and she specifically said she hadn’t previously authorized any onsite security. That, of course, has now changed.”
As if on cue, I heard a truck pull up outside the front door. In fact, I’d timed my little spiel to coincide with nine-thirty, which was when the crew from Pine Tree Management was scheduled to arrive.
I recalled my discussion with the owner the day before. During our conversation, Mrs. Ward, call me Kelly she’d insisted, laughed mirthlessly once I’d mentioned the growing unrest in the big cities here in Texas but that the small towns seemed to be hanging in there.
“Jacksonville is pretty much nothing but protest marches and riots, Bryan. With the unprecedented flooding we received back when all this mess started, large parts of the city are uninhabitable. City services have been interrupted and the highway robbers keep hitting the grocery trucks. We’ve got the National Guard out in force and the governor has declared all of Florida under a State of Emergency, which the president has endorsed as well.”
“Oh, good grief,” I remembered muttering under my breath. I’d heard the sudden sea rise in the Atlantic had flooded certain areas, but I hadn’t known it was this severe. Houston dominated the local news, but the flood
ing along the coastal mainland hadn’t been as bad in the Gulf as apparently occurred on the Atlantic side. All triggered by unspecified seismic disturbances along the North Atlantic ridge, according to the tame scientists trotted out by the government. Again, with the news media throttled down, bad news took time to spread.
That thought brought me back to the present, and I gifted Susan Slocumb with my best smile before glancing over at Nancy.
“Mrs. Ward has decided she no longer requires your services, Mrs. Slocumb. As a result, she has hired new management to take over this property, and I think that was their vehicle just arriving. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Here, let me,” I leaned forward as I spoke, and hit the speaker button on the desk phone before quickly dialing the number I’d memorized this morning before I left home. I heard the distinctive voice of the property owner when the phone was picked up on the other end.
“This is Kelly, go.”
Susan Slocumb seemed to sag in on herself, but she decided to take the bull by its horns. Good luck with that, I thought, and I decided we were done here. Not my monkeys, not my circus. As I took a step back, I saw Marky drop his balled fist, telegraphing his preparation to take a swing.
“Touch me or Ms. Prentiss, kid, and you’ll end up getting carried out of here,” I said forcefully, spearing the obese male with my glare. “You' are starting to make me fearful for my life. You know what that means?”
“What? That you’re chickenshit?”
“No. That means I am justified, under the law, to take what actions are necessary to ensure my safety. Self-defense. That’s what the grand jury called it the last time I had that feeling.”
“Huh?”
“It means he killed the last three men that gave him shit, Marky,” Nancy helpfully explained.
I held the door for Nancy as she stepped back out into the rain, and I saw the two Pine Tree Management personnel approaching from the right where they’d parked their truck. After enduring the stale body odor stench inside, the scent of wet pine outdoors seemed a welcome relief, and I could tell from the deep gulp of air that Nancy must have felt the same.
Rockfall Page 27
