Chapter 2: My House?

The next morning I arose as usual bright and early at six. Sleeping longer than that was almost impossible as the apartment I rented had walls that seemed to be made of cheap cardboard. My alarm every morning was the two secretaries living in the unit with a common wall with my bedroom. Inevitably they would begin the day with a loud argument over whose turn it was to take the dog out or whose evening it was to cook supper. I figured they must enjoy quarrelling for I was sure they could do either task in half the time they spent jawing about it.

Both women had acted friendly and interested when I made the mistake of helping them move in, but I quickly lost interest after the first week of wake-up calls. At first I even tried pounding on the walls to try to quiet them down but that only seemed to add fuel to their fire. Their response was a start another argument. One said, "You see, now you've gone and woken up that nice neighbor man," and on and on and on, ad nauseum. I could see it was another good reason to buy the house.

Thinking back on it I couldn't say when I decided to buy the house, rather than simply taking and selling all of the furnishings. I did know that it didn't take me long, once I had the idea to accept it as my original intent all along. The first thing I did before leaving the house was to call the moving company and cancel the packers and the move. The manager wasn't happy as he had put off another customer and reassigned three of his best packers to my job. I ended up paying the daily rate for the three packers.

I walked into the bank only moments after it opened and took the elevator to the second floor office of Bob Elliott. I dropped the bid sheets into one basket on his secretary's desk and put the contracts for the completed jobs into another. Meg wasn't at her desk and I noticed Bob in his office already shuffling papers. I knocked on the glass besides the door and Bob motioned me to enter.

Bob didn't even let me get inside the door before he asked, "What's going on with you? This will be two conversations we've had in less than a week. Usually I just get some tersely worded message from you scrawled on a bid sheet."

After barely pausing to catch his breath Bob continued, "If it's about that house on Bell Whistle, just do it as a favor to me, okay? One of the directors wants that house sold with a minimum of fuss. He's afraid that an empty house on that street will signal a decline in his property values. As much as ordered me to give it my highest priority. So whatever you bid on that one, go ahead and get to work on it first thing because you won the bid."

Bob hadn't given me an opening to say anything so I raised my eyebrows at him as I plopped down in the overstuffed chair in front of his desk. Bob looked nervous as I stared at him, without saying anything. Finally he asked, "You think I don't know the way you work, don't you? I shouldn't tell you this but your bids on houses you want are always 10 to 20% below your competitors. On those you don't want to touch your bid is 20 to 30% higher than your nearest competitor. I'm just letting you know that your bid on Bell Whistle will win no matter how high it is because I haven't let anyone else bid on it. I want a bang up job done and I want it done fast."

I was learning more than I expected by keeping my mouth shut but I couldn't let that pass me by. "Speaking of Bell Whistle, how much will that property list for?"

"Why, you going to start selling real estate now?" Bob laughed as what he must have thought was a hilarious joke on me.

I gave him two beats of a laugh and then said, "No, just answer my question. I might have a deal for you that will get your head off of the director's chopping block."

"Are you serious? You know someone who wants to buy that old place? It's in a quiet area, I'll give you that." Bob began to rustle the papers around on his desk. As he searched he said, "I just had it here minutes ago. It's really a steal. We bought it back on the courthouse steps for the amount owed. Normally I would have it appraised, but if you know someone who wants it now, I'll let it go for what we've got in it. That will be..." He hesitated as he located the paper and whistled, "Well, I don't know what your bid on the property was but add that to $148,000 and that's the price."

I asked, "What about financing?"

Sensing a sale Bob answered, "We don't normally finance our own OREO."

Seeing my puzzled look Bob explained, "OREO is a bank term for 'other real estate owned', in other words property we have taken back."

Seeing the sale slip away Bob said, "I think an exception can be made for this property, seeing how a director wants it sold ASAP. We can do 90% financing on OREO at prime plus 1%, which would be 4.25%. I might be able to get that down to 4.0% fixed if we could close within a week."

I put the palms of my hands down on his desk and said, "Okay, here's the deal. I've decided I need to get out of that small apartment and have been looking for a nice quiet place for the weekend. How about I take it as is, with no clean out? I'll give you $48,000 down, you eat the closing costs and finance the balance at 4.0% fixed. I'll close as soon as you have the paperwork drawn up."

Bob looked surprised as he remarked, "Well, I didn't know you were going to be the buyer. Maybe I should look at this Bell Whistle property again, huh?" He laughed and said, "Tell you what. You pay for the owner's title policy and you've got a deal. Oh and one other thing. If you buy this property you can't park that crappy pick-up truck you drive out front. If you do, I'll never hear the end of it from the director."

I stood up and said, "Call me when you've got the papers drawn up. Oh, I left the new bid sheets in your basket. I didn't see Meg at her desk so I'll get out of the little hair you have left."

Bob scowled. Evidently I had found a touchy subject. He responded, "Very funny. Meg called in sick today. I hope it's not morning sickness like I think. I told her she shouldn't get pregnant until after things improve but like most women she never listens to anything I say."

I laughed and waved as I was half out the door. I drove down three blocks to the small grill where my main subs hang out waiting for the morning's jobs. Hector and Jorge both enjoyed the free breakfast and normally managed to come up with enough good men for whatever jobs I needed done that day. They also worked for my competitors but they always filled my jobs first, mainly because I paid better that anyone else.

Angelo greeted me as I entered the small diner. I waved and walked back to the back corner where Hector and Jorge waited at my usual morning table.

"Hey boss, you late this morning. Me and Jorge were just about to go looking for something else to do. We gotta get those guys busy or they'll be off screwing their old ladies or getting wasted. You got anything new for us today?"

"Nothing new but we still got the two jobs from yesterday. How about finishing them up? I should have some new jobs Monday morning bright and early. From what I've seen, there should be six or eight of them. Think you get enough men to work eight jobs at the same time?"

Jorge sat silent. He wasn't much of a talker. Hector seemed to always speak for both of them even though they ran their crews separately. Hector gave a half-laugh and said, "Sure we can. My men ain't got no other work to do. Some are even talking about going back to Mexico. I doubt they will though 'cause there ain't no work to do down there either."

I was distracted, still thinking about Bell Whistle so I was curt when I said, "Well, line them up then. I doubt there will be much else going on. It seems like this is going to get worse before it gets better."

Hector nodded, "Okay, we gonna' go ahead and leave. We done ate; left you the tab though."

I didn't respond. Their breakfast was one of the few business expenses that I had other than labor, dumpsters and a few odds and ends. Angelo's younger sister Maria waited for Jorge and Hector to leave before she strutted over to take my order. For some reason Maria didn't take to either one of my subs. Maria was a classic dark haired Mediterranean woman. She was less than five foot tall with a pretty face marred by a large Roman nose. That large nose might have put men off if not for her other two much larger features, the largest pair of breasts I have seen on a woman of her size. I smiled as I thought that the only thing larger than her breasts was her ego.

She also didn't mind talking my ear off if given half a chance. She started as soon as she neared my table. "You're running late this morning. What's the matter? You have a long night last night or something?"

I laughed and said, "Something like that."

I figured if she thought I was getting something somewhere else she might let up on me. Before she could say anything else I said, "Bring me some black coffee and my usual breakfast."

Maria rolled her eyes and said, "Angelo started on your order as soon as you came in the door. If everybody was as predictable as you Angelo wouldn't even need me out here taking orders. You really out with someone else last night?"

I laughed. I was having fun so I said, "I never said I was out anywhere. I just said I had a long night last night. You don't have to go out to have fun."

Maria put her hands on her hips and said, "So..."

About that time Angelo shouted, "Maria, leave the poor man alone. His breakfast's ready and you've got others waiting."

Maria stomped off, returning with my coffee and breakfast which she almost slammed down on the table.

Angelo walked over after I was half finished with my breakfast. He sat down across from me in the booth and said, "You really shouldn't tease her like that. She's really a nice girl and I don't just say that 'cause she's my sister."

"Angelo, I know she's nice. She's your sister. It's just that there's no spark there and I can't get her to understand that by talking nice to her."

"Yeah, I know Joe. It's just she's got it in her mind to settle you down. She sees you here all alone all the time. I think it's more the challenge than anything else."

I laughed. Angelo said, "It's not funny. I've got to listen to her whine all day now."

I dropped a twenty on the table as I rose and said, "Sorry Angelo, I've got to scoot. I've got a busy morning. I'll try to be more sociable from now on."

Afterwards, I headed over to Bell Whistle to sort through stuff in the basement. I wanted to repack the stuff, hoping I could reuse some of the boxes already there. I was hoping I might get lucky and find that some of the items in the basement were valuable enough to help recoup some of my down payment. I also wanted to explore the rest of the rooms, snoop through drawers and check out the attic. The whole place could use a good airing out. I could probably move in next week. My apartment had come furnished, such as it was, and there was nothing much to move.

I drove on through to the back waving to Elise who was back out sunbathing. I walked back around front up the driveway to say hello to my new neighbor.

As soon as I rounded the hedge separating the yards she asked, "I see you parked in the back. Expecting company?"

"Good morning Elise. No, I was told it would be best if I kept my truck parked in the back."

Elise laughed. I could only imagine the crinkled look of her face as she laughed as the chaise lounger was turned away from me taking full measure of the morning sun. Then she sat up, sprightly swiveled around and came right to the point. "So what did the bank say when you told them about the furniture?"

"They told me to go ahead and clean it out anyway."

Elise shook her head and said, "You're kidding, right?"

"Nope, that's exactly what they said."

Elise lay back down, closed her eyes and muttered, "And we wonder why all of the banks are having so much trouble." Opening her eyes and peering at me she asked, "You aren't really going to throw any of those things out, are you?"

I answered her question with one of my own, "Would you be upset having a real working man as a neighbor?"

Elise again sat up on her lounger and gave me a wicked grin as she said, "Sounds like you think I'm some kind of a snob. I'll have you know that I worked hard for a living up until we retired. Hell, most of the people on this block were working people at one time or another."

Then shifting thoughts faster than I cleaned out houses she said, "You know, you're smarter than you look. I bet you got it for a song. It couldn't have had much of a mortgage on it. So what are you going to do today?"

I chuckled and said, "You know, you would have made a good detective. If I talk to you much longer, you'll know more about my business than I do."

That didn't seem to faze Elise in the least so I continued, "Actually, I decided to look the place over better. There was quite a mess in the basement, full of junk. Most of it I'll have to sort through later. Some of the furniture down there looks to be older than the stuff upstairs."

Elise thought a moment and then replied, "Irma never threw anything away. She wanted all of the stuff in each room to at least be from the same period. As she bought stuff she would store it in the basement until she had enough to complete a room. The she would have Chad swap the stuff out and he would move the items she replaced to the basement. After he moved stuff she would sometimes buy another piece that would give her an even better grouping and poor Chad would have to swap things out again. I heard him complain about his aching back more times than I can remember. I never thought about the stuff down there. Depending on your taste you might want to use some of it rather than what's upstairs. Or you could sell it and probably get enough to pay off your mortgage."

I was surprised and said, "I did look at it closely but I thought that the stuff in the basement was probably damaged some way. I mean, the books and stuff down there just seem to be piled at random and there doesn't seem to be any care given to the way the furniture is stacked."

Elise slowly moved up from the lounger as she said, "No, I know Irma would never go down in the basement and I know Chad was tired of moving those things up and down so he may have been a little haphazard in what he did down there but I doubt you'll find anything damaged. Irma would have given Chad endless grief if she even had a hint he wasn't being careful with her collection. That's why it makes no sense at all to me that she left all of that stuff behind."

I shrugged and said, "Well, there's a lot of things I don't understand but I guess I'd better get to work. Oh, by the way, do you know if they had a cat?"

Elise pursed her lips and tersely said, "No they didn't, but that snotty brat of their servants did."

Elise laughed at the evident surprise on my face as I watched her express her obvious disdain. She explained, "The servants doted on their daughter and yet from the few times I saw her she treated them almost as if she was ashamed of them. Her cat, Mr. Whiskers, I believe his name was, picked up on her attitude and treated everyone in the house with that same contempt, as if he was the real master of the house. I never understood it but Irma loved that cat and treated him as if he was her own. That's why it really surprised me when Irma discharged the servants and then less than a month later decided to move. I'm sure the cat went with the servants. Besides if the cat was still there, he would be dead by now with no food and no water. And the place would stink to high heaven with no one to clean his cat box for the last six weeks."